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THE LIGHT WAS IN BETWEEN afternoon and evening with the sun dipping low and the street outside the community centre a busy stream of smelly cars on a street too narrow for them, full of people on their way home from work. Veronica looked at the blurred faces and supposed they were in a hurry to get home for their tea. She wanted her tea, she was starving and hoped it would be fish fingers and chips because that was her favourite quick dinner. She was always starving when class finished; hopefully Mummy would have thought to pack her a couple of biscuits to chomp during the walk home. There was no sign of her she saw, casting about and spying Gabe sitting on the steps by himself. He was still in his T-shirt and shorts with a jacket thrown on overtop. He'd swapped his dance shoes for trainers.
‘Hello,’ she said, plonking down next to him whether he wanted her to or not. ‘I’m waiting for my mum. She’s late.’
‘Hello.’ His voice was quiet and unlike the boys in her class at school who all tried to talk over the top of one another. ‘Me too and my mum’s late because she had an appointment at the hairdressers. She’s going to an important dinner with my dad tonight and says she has to look her best for it.’
‘She’s very pretty, your mum. She wears lovely clothes.’ A surge of loyalty swelled up. ‘So’s my mum, pretty I mean.’
Gabe looked unsure of what he was supposed to say and Veronica decided to risk the question that burned every time she saw him, now they were on their own. ‘Did your mum make you come to ballet? Because mine did.’
His hair was too long and fell into his eyes as he looked at her quizzically swiping it away with a practised hand. ‘No, I wanted to come. I love to dance.’ His eyes flashed, daring her to say something.
‘Oh!’ was all Veronica could come up with.
‘The boys at school make fun of me about it.’ He kicked at the concrete step upon which a solitary cigarette butt had been left to smoulder down to its tip.
Veronica wondered if Megan’s mum had dropped it there. She eyed Gabe. Being on the outside was something she could understand. ‘It’s only because they don’t understand. There’s nothing wrong with a boy doing ballet.’ And she meant it, she’d gotten used to having him in class.
‘Male ballet dancers are athletes as much as those that compete at the Olympic Games but the boys at school say I’m a poof.’ He kicked the butt off the step.
‘Well, I don’t think you’re a poof.’
‘Thanks.’
‘What school do you go to?’
‘St Trinian’s; it’s a boy’s school. My dad went there.’
‘I go to Abernathy Bridge. Maybe the kids would be nicer if you were at a school for boys and girls because the boys leave me alone at school but the girls can be mean. Not in a name calling way but in a not letting you be part of their group way.’
‘I don’t think my parents would let me.’
They were silent for a moment, both lost in thoughts of how unfair parents could be.
‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ Veronica spoke up first.
‘No, it’s just me. I’d like a brother.’
‘Well, I’ve got a sister and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I think you’re lucky. My sister, Abigail, she gets her own way because she’s the baby and she’s always following me about at home when I want to be on my own. She takes my things too without asking. She’s very annoying.’
Gabe didn’t voice that he thought it would be nice to have a shadow around his echoing big house. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be being the sole focus of his parents’ attention, either. He felt the weight of their expectations for him keenly, even at eight years old.
‘Why didn’t you want to come to ballet?’ he asked instead.
‘I don’t know.’ Veronica shrugged. ‘I suppose I didn’t think I’d be any good at it because there’s not many things I am good at. I wanted to go to Brownies or maybe learn piano.’
‘Why can’t you do them as well as ballet?’
‘We don’t have enough money,’ Veronica said bluntly, recalling an argument her parents had had two nights ago which had culminated in her dad slamming the front door and not coming home until she and Abi were in bed. She’d pretended to be asleep when he peeked in on her and when he closed her door, she could still smell beer and something else. Something sweet and cloying. ‘My Dad’s not working he got made redundant.’
Gabe looked at her, his brown eyes showing surprise. ‘My dad’s a surgeon and he’s hardly ever home. I’m good at rugby but I don’t like it much. It doesn’t stop Toby Wright and his gang picking on me though.’ He turned his brown eyes on her then. ‘You’re the best in our class, my mum says. She used to dance like Miss Laverne but she stopped when she had me. She says you’re a natural.’
‘Truly?’ Veronica felt warm inside at the thought of the beautiful creature in the Zara-Lee outfits thinking she stood out. What’s your surname?’
‘Darby-Hazleton.’
‘Gosh that’s a lot to say.’
Gabe nodded and opened his school bag to produce a lunchbox inside which was a lonely Penguin biscuit. Veronica loved Penguin biscuits and her mouth filled with water as she watched him tear it open.
‘Do you want a bite?’ He waved the chocolate biscuit in her direction and she took it gratefully trying not to take too big a bite out of it. She handed it back and let the chocolate melt on her tongue.
‘Are you glad your mum made you come here now?’ Gabe asked flicking his head in the direction of the building behind them before polishing off what was left of the bar.
‘Yes. I count down the days between lessons. There’s nowhere else I want to be.’
‘Me too.’
They smiled at each other and there was a connection in that instant. It was in the unspoken understanding passing between them. Inside the ugly sixties brick building behind them was a reprieve. It came twice a week in the form of Miss Laverne’s ballet class and it was a time in which it didn’t matter if Veronica’s mum and dad fought or if Gabe’s dad was never around, because they got to forget and be the people they sensed they were supposed to be. The music spoke to their bodies in a way it didn’t to the others and it was wonderful. The stuff of magic. They’d found a kindred spirit in each other.
‘Would you like to come to my house one day after class for tea?’ Gabe blurted out, hope plastered on his face.
‘I’d like that.’ She would. Gabe’s world would be very different to hers and she’d like to see it for herself. Glancing past him she saw her mum puffing up the street with Princess Abigail reclining in her pushchair. She looked harassed and Veronica didn’t hold out much hope of their being biscuits tucked away anywhere on her person. A tooting jolted them both and they looked to the shiny red car that had slid in alongside the kerb. His mum, Mrs Darby-Hazleton, as shiny as her car, was gesturing impatiently at Gabe. He got to his feet, picking up his school bag which he slung over his shoulder. ‘I’ll see you on Thursday and I’ll ask my mum about tea.’
‘See you Thursday,’ Veronica echoed, watching him skip down the steps and clamber into the passenger seat. She was aware of the concrete, cold beneath the skirt of her uniform which was getting too short for her. She’d asked for a new one but Mum had said she’d let the hem down. He gave her a wave and she waved back watching the sleek red car merge into the traffic. There was a stirring within in her she didn’t understand. It would only be as an adult she’d recognise what the feelings bubbling up in her that long-ago afternoon were.