State We're In (36 page)

‘She hit you?' There's a lump in my throat, the size of a continent. I fight the tears. I have no right to cry. He isn't.

‘No, not us, but she did smash things up. Dad's stuff at first. The books he'd left behind she tore and wrenched. She shredded his clothes with a kitchen knife. It was a futile gesture. He'd taken everything he really cared about. The clothes he left behind were the ones he no longer deemed fashionable enough to be seen in.' Dean shrugs and lets out a cold, sharp sound that is, I think, supposed to be a laugh. ‘Like his family, no longer needed. She ripped up his photos, and then when there was nothing more of his to break, she broke our stuff, her own stuff, herself. She'd scream and yell and rant and rave. We'd creep down the stairs after a tempestuous night and not know what to expect. She might have passed out in amongst the shards of plastic, glass and crockery; sometimes she was cut because she'd lain heavily on the broken bits. Other times she might have made it back to her bed or to the bathroom to be ill. Not that she always got there in time. I had to clean her vomit from the side of the bathtub, from sheets and the stairs. When she shat in her pants, I refused to touch her. I wouldn't let Zoe do it either. I left her stinking, went to school, told my teacher and they took us away that night.'

I think of the young boy, too small to be a man – let alone a hero – struggling to protect and support his sister. Dealing with the fact that he could no longer shield his mother from the world, forced to betray her to the authorities.

Dean is so still, a yellow butterfly lands on his shoulder. I can't take my eyes off it as the world seems to shrink to just the three of us on this bench, Dean, me and the tiger swallowtail. I think of my ham-fisted attempts as a child to catch butterflies in nets. With my parents, my siblings and I would run through the fields, making too much noise and commotion to have a hope of a successful hunt; I don't think my parents ever really wanted to go for the kill. Sunlight drips through my memories. It glistens on the paddling pool that we splashed in, it shines on the icing of our home-baked birthday cakes, and another light flickers there too: the candles, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, thirty-five, because yes, even last year my mum baked me a cake and my dad lit the candles. My childhood is all about songs and light, laughter and love. I hardly dare breathe.

‘The care homes were a disaster. I didn't help myself, I suppose.' Dean nibbled his thumbnail. I waited. ‘I'd learnt about breaking things too, by then. I smashed, burnt, wrote obscenities on the doors of the girls' bedrooms. Anything to release a bit of …'

‘Pain?'

Dean shrugs. ‘Anger.'

He's trusting me with so much here, but he can't quite trust me with a hint of weakness, not even weakness he might have felt when he was a child. ‘Did you ever run away?' I ask.

‘No. I might have, but there was always Zoe. She was of the mindset that we should just sit it out; that it would get better. Hey, and it did. Right?'

He turns to me, and for the first time since he started talking he looks into my eyes. He's changed during the conversation. I can no longer see the cocky seducer who can only promise a woman one thing – that he won't call. Now, I see the boy who has endured neglect beyond my imagination, one who has had to become resilient and self-sufficient to the point of being chilly and closed. But besides that, I can also see the guy who wants to help me to hold on to my dreams; the guy who has risked exposing his shameful, painful past so that I will value my illustrious, indulgent one.

‘Right. Zoe knew what she was talking about,' I agree, because I know that's what he needs me to do. Obviously things are better, but I wonder, can it ever be good enough after what they've been through? Will Dean ever stop feeling the lack of what he's missed as a child? His hands are still folded across his chest, but I force him to unclasp and I place his arm over my shoulder and slip my hand around his waist. Thirty minutes ago I thought my world was falling apart. I thought I'd never recover. I felt hideously sorry for myself. Now I see that I will recover. I might even become a better person, the way Dean has. Whatever. None of that matters right now; all that matters is Dean. And in this moment, like Alice biting the Eat Me cake, I become bigger. I grow up.

‘OK, my friend. It's been a rough day. There's only one thing we can do now.'

‘What's that?' Dean looks at me as though I have all the answers, and for a moment in time, I do.

‘Take me dancing.'

D
ean glances at his watch. It's just past seven p.m., a little early for dancing on Saturday night, but I know he'll pull something out of the bag. He won't let either of us down. This is a man who scrabbled his way out of his deprived childhood so that he could bungee-jump from the Altavilla Tower in Brazil; he's up to the challenge of finding us a club to strut our funky stuff.

As I predicted, he suddenly looks as though someone has lit a match behind his eyes. ‘Hey, I know, let's put your salsa lessons to good use. Let's go to a Latin club.'

‘What?'

‘A hot and heavy Latin club.'

This is not the moment for me to lose confidence. I grin and nod manically.

The downtown salsa club is everything I could have imagined. The polished parquet floor is scratched, tattooed with good times, and the room is dim, heavy red velvet drapes with generous gold tassels blocking out the daylight. However, the ambience is bright because of the frequent flashes of toned and tanned legs, balanced on spiky high heels. Glamorous women with big bottoms twirl impressively around the room with passion and finesse. Unpromising-looking guys in black T-shirts and jeans turn into gods in front of my eyes as they stamp, pout, throw, turn and rumble with their floral-clad partners. The place is throbbing, pulsing. It's alive.

‘It's sweaty out there on the dance floor.'

‘It is,' Dean agrees. He looks happier with the situation than I am.

‘Look at the way they move.' There is nothing discreet. The men are broad and big, the women sultry. The club is rammed with the type of people who live a full and out-there life.

I wonder what I should do, who I should be. Who am I now? Am I Jo the hopeless romantic? I know that Dean needed me to keep the faith back in the park. Having spent the last twenty-four hours claiming he thinks my ideas on relationships are ridiculous, it was clear he suddenly, desperately needed to believe in a world that was slightly better than the one he imagines we are in, or at least he needed me to continue to believe. And following his shocking but heartfelt confidence, I knew I had to appear to be OK. I rose to the challenge. But do I still believe? It seems unlikely, impossible even, in the light of the revelations about my mum and dad and the fact that Martin (aka my last chance) will now be legally married. However …

I look up. Unsurprisingly, Dean is already on the floor; he is not one to lose a moment. He's taken off his tie and jacket; no doubt he's carelessly flung them under a table or on the back of a seat. He's undone his top button and he's now already having the balsero explained to him by a gaggle of willing (exclusively female) volunteers. He looks magnificent. The lump the size of a continent that was stuck in my throat has not gone away; it swells. But it's no longer anything to do with sadness or pity; it's fed by admiration and – I might as well admit it to myself – a very deep longing. My stomach lurches. It's a good feeling. I ride the tide of emotion as it souses my entire body with feelings of anticipation and excitement. Suddenly, possibly for the first time, I know who I am.

I
am
Jo the romantic.

It's weird, but somehow a gay dad and an adulterous mum has confirmed rather than denied that for me. When I return to England, I'll hear more from both of them. I'll try to understand the choices they made, and I'll try to support them both, because however bizarre and misguided the situation seems, I am sure they thought they were doing the right thing. They thought they were doing the best for us kids, for each other. That's love. Messy, unpredictable love. Even hearing about Dean's brutal childhood hasn't taken away my belief in the happily-ever-after, because look at him. He's amazing. He's the most determined, positive, spirited, beautiful man I have ever met. And even if he doesn't believe in his happily-ever-after, I do. More than ever.

I eye the dance floor. It looks inviting. It looks overwhelming. Despite taking salsa lessons, I have never actually been to a salsa club. Ridiculous, I know. No one ever invited me and it has never crossed my mind to go alone. I rarely dance nowadays except at other people's weddings, but then I am, most often, very badly drunk and so I dance forlornly with two or three other single girls, not actually around our handbags but around our trampled self-esteem. I decide that I won't drink any more tonight. It seems insensitive after Dean's story. Besides, when I drink, details smudge and blur, and I already have a feeling that I want to remember every single second of this evening. Dean catches my eye, and without any more hesitation I run to him.

And so we dance. I twirl and turn, shake and shimmy. I dance hard and well. I allow the music to flow through me, take hold of me. I don't block it with concerns about whether I've mastered a step or how silly or sweaty I might look. I just dance. I let it all go. The club is hot and stuffy, which makes me feel younger than I normally feel, younger than I've felt before. I dance until my body is clammy, until my damp hair sticks to my neck, my make-up melts down my face. I feel a blister pop up on my toe, but still I don't stop; I just throw off my shoes. I want to be exhausted; I want my limbs to ache with satisfying exercise fatigue.

Dean is a complete natural at salsa, and whilst he doesn't technically know all the steps, he shakes his hips in an extremely effective way and moves his feet with enough style that before long there's a crowd of women vying for his attention, all desperately trying to bag a dance. He doesn't dance with any of them. He seems oblivious to their luscious dark locks flowing down their backs, their muscular legs that slide and glide and go on forever. He doesn't appear to notice their plunging necklines, heaving bosoms or brilliant smiles. All he notices is me. He doesn't take his eyes off me. I try to look away, but fail. I am conscious of him in the clearest, most absolute sense of the word. I am aware of every muscle in his body, as it stretches and contracts. I can see every pore on his skin, every hair that trembles. I feel him breathe. I feel him be. And under his gaze, I become my best self. Unselfconscious, I pulse to the tunes, thoughtless, careless. I find a place I rarely hit except when I am dreaming. I flick my hair and move my shoulders like a fun, happy person; someone with hopes and possibilities and a future. Confident, I am taller, thinner and my hair is possibly glossier. Other people dance around us. I am part of it, not an onlooker.

The night wears on. I remain at the epicentre of the dance floor and his focus. We occasionally pause in our dancing to drink some water, but once refreshed, we immediately return to the floor. We don't talk to one another much; we limit ourselves to swapping the odd silly comment or joke. There've been enough serious words exchanged for now.

‘Sit on that rhythm,' cries Dean. I laugh. The phrase is bonkers and almost other-worldly, but from his lips it is simply funny, as he intended.

‘I feel spaced out, drunk on the dancing,' I yell above the music.

‘Careful, you might lose control,' teases Dean. From his grin, I know he'd like me to.

‘Worse still, I might take it!' I laugh.

Dean laughs too. ‘Go hard or go home, Jo,' he encourages.

Instinctively I reach up and cradle his face in between my hands. I draw him to me and, without thinking about it, I kiss him full on the lips. It isn't a long and lingering kiss. It isn't necessarily a sexual kiss. It might just be a kiss between friends. It might. Good, very happy friends. It is a firm, warm and full kiss. I let him go before he drops me. Just in case. And then I start to twirl and turn and dance again.

‘That's so cool,' yells some guy who is dancing next to us. Dean has been chatting to this guy over the music from time to time tonight. I've seen them laughing together; I think Dean bought him a drink. He's huge and handsome. His ebony skin shines and his muscles bulge. He grabs my hand and whirls me around as though I'm a doll.

‘You sure have some moves,' he comments. ‘You're a great dancer.'

‘I think I love you,' I laugh. He takes it in the spirit I intended. Playful, not loaded. Tonight I don't have a whiff of cougar about me.

My new friend nods towards Dean. ‘He's sick, your man.' The phrase clearly means that he respects Dean rather than thinking Dean needs any medical attention. ‘Awesome guy. Lots of fun.'

‘He
is
fun. But he's not my man. He's just a friend,' I explain.

‘Oh come on, lady. Don't try lying to Rudie. I know these things. He's your man.' I stare at Rudie, amazed, and afraid that he's articulated what I've known but not wanted to admit. Dean
is
my man. Or at least he should be. Could be? The truth is, that all the while I was plotting to bring down Martin's wedding, I've been fighting fantasies of getting down with Dean. But he's dangerous, a path I've trodden so often before. He's too handsome to have learned to care or to stay; it shouldn't be that way but it so often is.

Suddenly Dean is at my side again. I'm aware of this even before I turn towards him, because tonight – despite dancing my heart out in the crowd – I've always known where he is. I've known if he is sitting, standing, dancing. I've known when he is drinking, or laughing, or still. Or looking at me. He's done that a lot.

‘Jo, I'm going to make a move.'

‘You are?' Momentarily I misunderstand and my first reaction is delight, then I realise that he means he's leaving. He has his jacket flung over his shoulder; his tie, shoved in his trouser pocket, trails down his leg. ‘I think my jet lag is finally kicking in.' My heart sinks. It's a good job the music is so loud or else people might hear it crashing to the floor.