‘I suppose you’ve only got the one,’ sighed Lauren.
‘Well, yes,’ said Angelica, ‘usually.’
Bridget was thrilled to end her auction early and get the ring back, but even so, she was determined to keep Christmas – and her new emergency plans – under control. ‘No going overboard with gifts this year,’ she said to Frank, over supper one night. Lauren was out with Chris, ‘practising’ at Kian’s. ‘Not after . . . what happened.’
‘There’s nothing I need anyway, love,’ Frank replied, as if she’d made an eminently sensible suggestion. ‘Apart from a new pair of dancing shoes. We’re tackling the quickstep again next year – I want to get my footwork back up to speed.’ He winked. ‘You don’t know what you started.’
Bridget did know what she’d started all right. It was Frank who’d made the extra lesson with Angelica to brush up their waltz technique. Originally, Angelica had wanted them to demonstrate the foxtrot at the gala night, with Lauren and Chris doing the waltz on their own, but Frank had refused, before Angelica had even got the words out.
‘No,’ he said, firmly. ‘Lauren’ll be a bag of nerves if it’s just her up there, everyone watching, specially with that great flatfoot, Chris, hauling her about. Much better if we do it with her, eh, Bridget? Make it a family affair!’
Angelica had caught the protective glance that flickered between them. Lauren might be giving Chris another chance, but he was obviously only back on probation, as far as Frank was concerned. She made a mental note to give Chris an extra private lesson herself. Or get Bridget to. ‘What a good idea!’ she said.
‘Perfect,’ said Bridget, and glanced up at her husband. He wasn’t just holding himself upright for the waltz these days. His stoop seemed to have vanished altogether.
He looks even better now than he did when we were jiving, not waltzing, she thought, happily.
35
The night of the Gala Evening was cold but clear, and the inky December sky twinkled with pin-sharp stars, as if in tribute to the spangled circle skirts and freshly cleaned suits parading into the Memorial Hall, to the pulse-quickening sound of the big-band numbers blaring through the windows.
Before the doors opened to the public, Angelica stood inside the Hall and savoured the last few quiet moments, on her own while the band were getting changed. She felt as if she had one foot in her past, and the other foot firmly in the present. She didn’t want to look into the future. She was just going to concentrate on enjoying tonight as she’d never allowed herself to before. Finally, after years and years of changing and struggling, she was happy to be herself, dancing with whoever asked, appreciating the efforts of her students, letting the music flow through her.
You can’t really go back in time, thought Angelica, running her eyes over the old friezes and dancing ladies. She stepped in a slow waltz across the spotless floor, under the tickertape of the mirrorball. That’s why it was so important to tie up those loose ends while you can. Tonight, she thought. I’ll tie them up tonight.
Her scarlet lips curved in a smile as she admired what she, Katie and Bridget had put together in record time. Even in its heyday, the Hall hadn’t known a night like this one: instead of orange squash, chilled champagne bubbled in flutes on trays in the vestibule, and tiny silver balls hung from the rafters, like a constellation around the huge mirrorball that revolved slowly over the polished floor.
The tickets – printed on stiff card and gold-edged, to Angelica’s specifications – requested ‘dressing up’ from all attendees, and as the guests began to arrive, she realised she had unlocked an unexpected passion for glamour in the town. There wasn’t a ballgown left in any attic, department store or charity shop in the area, fake tan sold out in Boots, and the hairdressers were booked solid for the whole day with women requesting ‘big dos’. With so much coverage in the paper, every local grandee was there, eager to be seen posing for the cameras, alongside the regulars from the social dance night. Skirts were so huge that there was barely room for more than five women to freshen up their lipstick in the echoing loos at any one time.
The dancing got underway at 7.30 sharp, after a nervous but moving speech from Bridget about how important it was to protect the beautiful things in the town, and none of the dance class was short of partners. It was Baxter who’d hit on the idea of selling dance cards for the ladies to fill up, with Angelica charging a restoration donation per dance, already she’d raised enough to get the boiler fixed properly.
The class display was due to take place at 9.30 p.m., in the interval – ‘to give everyone a chance to get their breath back’, explained Angelica, and from the flushed faces filling the dancefloor at 9.25 p.m., it hadn’t come a moment too soon.
‘Everyone ready?’ asked Angelica, as her tense pupils stood outside in the hallway, ready for their big entrances like chicks behind a mother hen. The band was playing ‘Moonlight Serenade’, and when it came to a close, it would be time for them to start.
She tried to keep her voice light, but she could see the goosebumps on Lauren’s pale arms, and Katie’s shallow breaths making her new green dress rise and fall. They were all nervous. Even Baxter kept fiddling with his hair, smoothing it back with his hand until it gleamed like a penguin’s head.
Angelica knew the metallic nerves they’d be feeling; it didn’t matter whether you were stepping out in the Tower Ballroom or your own front room, when other people were watching, everything was different. Already her subconscious was measuring out the verses, counting down the choruses left.
‘I know it’s not the time for big speeches,’ she said, over the muted trumpets crooning inside the Hall, ‘but I want you all to know that you’ve made me very proud already, even before you go out there. You’re going to be wonderful. I wish I could dance with you all tonight, and I hope you’ll make room for me on your cards.’
‘Don’t!’ said Lauren, wiping at her eye with the back of one hand and waving the other frantically. ‘You’ll make me smudge my mascara!’
‘Yeah, don’t,’ said Trina, whose extensive eyeliner collection had seen her in charge of make-up. ‘It took me ages to do.’
Trina and Chloe were dancing a cha-cha together, ‘seeing as how we’ve done without men so far anyway’. Sensibly, they’d applied the Latin theme more to their hairstyles than to the traditionally skimpy wisps of sequins: Chloe’s hair was frizzed into a blonde afro of curls, stuck with gold flowers, while Trina’s short dark crop was gelled into what her niece optimistically called ‘the elfin look’. They both had more glitter glued to their cheekbones than the cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but had stuck to simple tiered skirts beneath.
‘Don’t think about anything else other than the music,’ Angelica went on, looking around the group. ‘Just let it flow into your head, and your feet will do the rest! Enjoy having that floor to yourselves for once – and remember to smile!’
Automatically, everyone’s lips curved into the ballroom-dancing rictus, just as the music slowed to a close in the Hall.
‘It’s finishing,’ said Katie, her voice disappearing in a little upward gasp and Lauren turned pale underneath her liberally applied tan.
Angelica began to bustle, to take their minds off it. ‘Now, then, who’s first? It’s Trina and Chloe, isn’t it, for “Lady Marmalade”?’ She began lining them up in pairs. ‘And then Baxter and Peggy, for your wonderful foxtrot, and then all my Armstrongs for the waltz, and then the lovely big finish . . .’
She turned to Katie and Ross and smiled. ‘You two are going to steal the show. Ready?’
Ross squeezed Katie’s hand and answered for both of them. ‘Can’t wait.’
Angelica stepped out onto the stage and took the microphone. It was an old-fashioned flat one, like a carpet beater, and as she looked out from behind it into a sea of black and white suits, mingled with shimmering sugared-almond frocks, time seemed to shiver in front of her. The flushed faces lifted up to her, pink with effort and pleasure, didn’t look moder
n, and with the vintage curled hair, and red lipstick on every woman’s mouth, it could have been a black and white photo come to life, as if the old ghostly dancers of the Hall had slipped back amongst the living, unable to resist a live band and a party atmosphere.
A ripple of applause greeted her appearance and she had to flap her hands to make it stop.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she said, her voice ringing confidently through the Hall. ‘It gives me more honour than I can possibly express, to present to you tonight, the Angelica Andrews School of Dance!’
She stepped back as the band swung into the irresistible swagger of ‘Lady Marmalade’, and Trina and Chloe sashayed on to the floor, taking it in scrupulous turn to dance the lead, as they twirled in almost perfect time. Trina and Chloe could have spent their lives on a Vegas stage, not in a Midlands tax office, as they tossed their hair like showgirls, strutting and posing and flicking out their hips, until the whole room was clapping along with them.
No sooner had they run through their routine than the music changed into ‘Night and Day’ and Baxter and Peggy strode out on to the floor, their joined hands held high so Peggy’s floating chiffon sleeves could catch the air and trail elegantly behind her.
Peggy still looked like a pepperpot, thought Katie, peering through the doors, but a beautifully self-assured pepperpot in a midnight-blue dress glittering with thousands of hand-stitched stones that must have come from her old dancing wardrobe.
Bridget was watching too, but she wasn’t seeing Peggy the old lady any more. She’d had a conversation with Peggy, just before they went on, which left her unable to see anything other than Peggy the young dancer of sixty years ago, when she was still a teenager.
They had been putting the final touches to their make-up in the ladies’ loos, or rather, Lauren had been fussing about affectionately, adding ‘a little something’ to Bridget’s basic mascara and blush. Bridget was busy trying to tone the results down so Frank wouldn’t have a heart attack.
‘You’re very lucky to have a daughter,’ Peggy had said, when Lauren had dashed off, and Bridget was surprised by the wobble in her voice.
‘I am,’ she agreed. ‘Especially after two lads. Lauren’s always been my baby girl.’ She dabbed at her lipstick. ‘You and Baxter have sons, don’t you?’
‘We do. Graeme and Ray.’ Peggy pressed her lips together. ‘But I had a little girl too.’
Bridget turned slowly from the mirror. She’d never heard anything about a daughter before, and Baxter was more forthcoming about his sons (and their sporting achievements) than Peggy was. In fact, this was more conversation than she’d ever had with quiet Peggy. She got the feeling that she had to get something off her chest. People often got things off their chest with her, usually at parents’ meetings.
‘Really?’ she said, gently. ‘Did you lose her?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’ Peggy stared at her stout reflection, as if she was trying to find the young girl in her own lined face. ‘I fell pregnant for the first time when I was only young myself, younger than your Lauren. Baxter had gone off to do his National Service, you see – we weren’t even engaged. My father didn’t trust him, thought he was too much of a fly-by-night with his dancing and that.’ She smiled sadly, showing her little teeth. ‘Which he was in those days, I won’t deny it. My mum was furious when she found out, called me every name under the sun. She wouldn’t let me tell Baxter. He wasn’t due back from Germany for a year, and she said she didn’t want me tied down so young. I don’t even think she told my dad, she just sent me off to her sister’s in Wales, saying I had rheumatic fever and needed the air.’
She made nervous nibbling gestures with her lips, as if it felt strange to be talking about something she’d kept silently in her head so long.
Bridget felt terribly responsible for the secret Peggy was offering her. Obviously she had no one else to tell, but for some peculiar reason, she felt she had to let it out, now. ‘And you had a little girl?’
She nodded, hard. ‘Beautiful little thing, with his dark hair and eyes like a pussycat. They had her adopted. I wasn’t allowed to write to Baxter but I told him anyway, as soon as he came back, I mean, how could I not? But it was too late. My mother said it would be cruel to try and find our baby, now she had parents who loved her. And sometimes I think Baxter only married me because I was so sad, and it was his responsibility. I wasn’t his only girlfriend, I know that.’
‘Peggy, no!’ Bridget exclaimed. ‘No, I’m sure he didn’t!’
Peggy shrugged, as if she didn’t care now either way. ‘I’ve never stopped thinking about her. I loved the two boys, but we never had a girl. I wanted one very badly. I did meet up with the mother once, you see, after my own mother died, and I could make some enquiries, like, but I could tell she loved my little girl like her own. We could have had her back then, but it would have been a cruelty to take her away. A cruelty.’
She looked up at Bridget, and her small eyes were wet beneath the shimmery shadow. ‘Sorry, dear. It’s been bringing it all back, you know, coming along to dancing here. Especially tonight. It reminds me of what this place was like when Baxter and I first met. Anyway . . .’ She plucked a tissue from up the sleeve of her ballroom-dancing dress, and patted her nose with it. ‘Here we are. Still together.’
‘Still together,’ agreed Bridget, because she couldn’t think what else to say.
Then as they left the bathrooms, she saw Angelica sail across the floor with the Mayor, making him seem like Gene Kelly, and the quick spark of pride that lit up Peggy’s face told Bridget what Peggy hadn’t quite brought herself to confess.
Angelica was their little girl. So that was why Peggy and Baxter, the two experienced dancers, had come along to a beginners’ class. Did Angelica know? Would Peggy tell her? Did she need to?
Bridget thought of Lauren and the wordless bond they had, and shivered inside with an emotion she couldn’t put her finger on.
She watched Peggy now, sailing around the empty space with Baxter, their feet seeming to float above the floor. They put the rest of the class to shame, really, with their lightness of touch. Peggy was good, and had years of practice, but Baxter really had a tremendous natural gift. Someone who danced that well couldn’t help but attract the ladies, she thought, but he must have loved Peggy to have stayed for so long, she thought. Maybe he missed his daughter too. Maybe staying together, with their secret, kept their daughter alive to them. Maybe dancing did.
What difference would it make now, after nearly sixty years?
‘Are you ready, love?’ Frank whispered in her ear.
Bridget jumped. ‘Yes!’ she said, turning round.
Lauren stood behind her, her willowy body encased in the poppy-red sequins and floating tulle of Angelica’s longest gown. It had been almost floor-length on Angelica, but the feathered hem hovered around Lauren’s shins. Lauren didn’t mind that. ‘Something less for Chris to trip over,’ as she pointed out. ‘Plus, you can see my new shoes better.’
‘How are you feeling, Chris?’ asked Bridget in a whisper.
Chris looked extremely handsome, but quite some way beyond nervous in his black tie. He cast an anxious glance towards Frank, looming behind him.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Be glad when it’s over.’
‘You just concentrate,’ Frank said, ominously.
‘We know, Dad. Just keep it simple,’ said Lauren, serenely. ‘We’re going to take it slowly. Right, Chris?’
Chris nodded, and, with a final swallow, he took her hand, seeing Angelica’s cue from the stage.
She’s grown up so much in the last few months, thought Bridget with a burst of pride. And she looks lovelier in that ballgown than she ever did in those bridal shops. Besides which, red sequins made Lauren’s blue eyes sparkle far more than those blank white dresses. And she could wear them any Friday she wanted.
Angelica’s voice was cutting through the applause as Baxter and Peggy swept off the floor.
‘And n
ow, dancing the waltz, Frank and Bridget Armstrong, and Christopher Markham and Lauren Armstrong!’
The band struck up the lilting introduction to one of Bridget’s favourite songs – ‘True Love’ from High Society – and they set off, not needing to speak.
Bridget gazed up at Frank as they began their basic pattern, moving as one, their close hold never breaking as they floated around the space. She didn’t see the banks of watching faces, because her eyes were fixed on the familiar face in front of her, her husband holding her steady, leading her firmly and standing up ram-rod straight. A simple, easy smile acknowledged the many times they’d played this as one of ‘their songs’.
His attention was divided, though, between her, and Lauren, trying not to tread on Chris’s toes, on the other side of the room.
Lauren was doing all right, Bridget could tell, but Chris wasn’t letting her turn with the same confidence that Frank did. Their circles were small and cramped, instead of the generous arcs that they were making.
It wasn’t Chris’s fault, thought Bridget. It would come. It was all down to practice.
‘Go on,’ she said to Frank, with an understanding nod. ‘I know you’re dying to do a father’s excuse me.’
And so Frank tapped Chris on the shoulder, just in time to catch Chris mutter, ‘. . . more beautiful than anyone else here,’ and he warmed a little towards the lad.
Then, as Lauren’s face lit up, he took his daughter in his arms, as proudly as he would have done on her wedding day and they began to waltz. Frank swung her round in a head-spinning series of open turns that made the feathers of her hem float up in a leisurely cloud.
In the distance, beneath the noise of the band, Lauren could hear the ripple of admiring applause as their tall figures sailed down the centre of the floor, as if they were Astaire and Rogers, dancing on a Hollywood cloud of dreams.