‘Now, we can either rehearse in costume or do a quick run-through before we change,’ Marissa said when they arrived at the hall. There was more than an hour before the first performance but both Sonya and Gayle were tense and distracted.
‘Let’s just run through it as we are,’ Sonya said. ‘We’ll have plenty of time to change before the real thing.’
As soon as she had agreed to it, Marissa knew it was a mistake. The combination of the music and the costumes might have lifted their spirits, shifted their focus from their own problems onto the dance itself. And it wasn’t just them. Her sense of responsibility, the feeling that everything was going to fall into a very big hole, overhung her own performance. She put them through their paces a second time, watching now from the front rather than leading, and her heart sank even further.
‘Look,’ she said going back on the stage, ‘this dance is all about female sexuality. You need to be connected to that part of yourselves, and to be responding to the music and the meaning. What’s happening in your head, what you’re feeling about yourselves, is crucial. I know you’ve both got other stuff going on and it’s hard, but you just have to put that aside for the next couple of hours.’
Gayle ran her hands through her hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to concentrate. It all seemed so much easier when we were rehearsing at home.’
‘It’s not any harder here,’ Marissa replied. ‘Not if you give it your full attention, think yourself into the meaning. It’s all about what you put into it.’
Sonya pulled a face. ‘I keep thinking my mother’s going to show up,’ she said. ‘Walk through that door and demand that I stop behaving badly and go home like a good girl. It’s really unnerving.’
Marissa sighed. ‘I know how it feels,’ she said, and there was an edge to her voice, ‘having to perform when you really don’t feel like it, when you’ve got other things on your mind. But you’ve done harder things than this. Concentrate, give it all you’ve got. You both know what dancing’s done for you – particularly you, Gayle. Find that for yourself now, and find it for all those other women who are going to turn up and who might just need it as much as you did. And you, Sonya, stop looking guilty. Loosen up, have fun, and get those movements flowing again.’
Sonya nodded and started to circle her shoulders. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘let’s give it another go.’
Marissa shook her head. ‘No more time. Save it for the performance. We need to unpack the gear and get changed and made up. We’re at work now so get your acts together and let those women see what you can do.’
Silently they unpacked and shook out their costumes.
‘I look like a spaniel in this hairpiece,’ Sonya said, pulling a long face as she pinned on the fall of red hair and fixed it with a gold sequinned headpiece.
‘Bloodhound, more like,’ Marissa said, hooking a floating veil to one side of her skirt. ‘If your mother does turn up, all she’ll see is a bloodhound in sequins.’
They were laughing now, all three of them, genuinely laughing together.
‘You are such a hard woman, Marissa,’ Sonya said, ‘utterly brutal.’
‘Brutal is good,’ Gayle said, her body loosening up in response to the laughter. ‘We need it. She’s been pussyfooting around us all day.’
‘Well, there’s more brutality where that came from,’ Marissa said, as some of her anxiety began to dissipate.
By the time the community centre organisers arrived, the mood had changed to nervous anticipation and the tension built as the audience began to trickle in through the doors. Soon the rows of seats were filled and more chairs were being pulled out from the stacks at the back of the hall until it was standing room only. They waited behind the screens at the side of the stage, tense and poised for the start.
‘Okay,’ Marissa whispered, ‘any minute now, when you hear that drumbeat and see me move, we’re on, and we give it all we’ve got.’
The lights went down and the drumbeat commenced in eight-four time, then a fast and spirited chiftitelli began and they started. Marissa was in her element now, doing what she did best and knowing that on this crucial night her own performance had the power to make or break the others. There was a rustle of delight in the audience as they swept onto the small stage in a burst of brilliant colour. Marissa sensed that it infected Gayle and Sonya, lifting them out of their distractions and into the spirit of the dance. In her peripheral vision Gayle was a shimmering siren in lavender and purple, and on the other side Sonya circled perfectly, curving her back, using her arms with unusual grace, the gold and green of her costume sparkling and flashing in the lights.
They were in the swing of it now and she could feel their energy mounting as the pace of the dance increased and they circled and shimmied in figures of eight, mirroring each other’s movements. Effortlessly they moved into the next two dances, adjusting to a slower, more sensuous pace and rhythm and then, in the final dance, on to the more demanding moves, the bolder steps and the fast, complex sequences, until, breathless with effort, eyes shining, they ended with a flourish and to rapturous applause.
‘I did have a terrible fit of nerves at the start,’ Gayle admitted later. ‘I was so scared I thought I might faint, but it was about the dancing, not about all the other stuff. By that time it was only the dancing that mattered.’
‘Well, you were great,’ Marissa said. ‘I’m so proud of you both.’
‘Obviously we respond to flagellation,’ Sonya laughed. ‘I’m exhausted – it must be the nervous energy.’
‘Even a brief performance is more exhausting than hours of rehearsal,’ Marissa answered, ‘so you’ll need to learn to pace yourselves, rest whenever you can, try to stay cool and not get too distracted by other things. It’s a big ask, I know, but if you don’t, you’ll burn out really fast. What about that audience, though – so many women, and didn’t they love it?’
Sonya grinned. ‘They really did, I couldn’t believe it. They were raring to go.’
Gayle unpinned her headdress and rolled it into her bag. ‘I really only understood tonight why you wanted us, as beginners, to come with you. When I spoke to the women afterwards they were surprised and quite motivated when I told them I’d only been dancing a few months.’
‘Exactly,’ Marissa said. ‘And tonight you didn’t dance like beginners anyway. Keep that up and we’ll have them hammering down the doors to get in. Gayle, remember to keep working on those shoulders and, Sonya –’
‘I know, I know, the jerky bits. I’ll get there eventually.’
Despite the confident and successful start, though, it turned out to be a difficult week. The nervous tension of the performances and of being watched in the classes took a greater toll on Gayle and Sonya than either had expected. After that first night they had difficulty maintaining the pace and became uncharacteristically moody. Marissa, who was both irritated by and anxious about them, found herself overcompensating, trying to motivate them with humour and encouragement, which drained her own energy. They needed to work better as a team, just as they had at that first performance.
‘Perhaps we could have a bit of a strategy meeting,’ she suggested on the day they were due to leave Kalgoorlie. ‘It’s three hours before we have to go to the airport, so it’s a good chance to talk about how we can improve the way we work together.’
Sonya pushed her muesli bowl aside and got up to fetch more coffee. ‘I hope I’ll be able to put on a better show once we’re away from here. I still feel really tense.’
Gayle nodded. ‘I know. I’m feeling a bit wobbly myself. I hadn’t reckoned on it being so exhausting.’
Marissa gritted her teeth. ‘You’re not going to pull out, are you?’
‘No way. It’s just taking me a while to adjust, and I suppose to get over the shock of what Frank told you on the phone about Brian going after him. Even I’m amazed he’d behave like that, and I feel so guilty about poor Frank – after all, it’s nothing to do with him.’
‘Frank’s fine, he’s a policeman,’ Marissa said. ‘They’re used to that sort of thing.’
‘Just the same –’
‘Marissa’s right,’ Sonya cut in. ‘Frank’ll have forgotten it by now, but I can understand how you feel. Has Brian called again this morning?’
‘Yes, but he’s calmer now. He’s gone from wild and threatening through cold anger and now we’re in hurt little boy stage.’
‘How long since you left him behind to do anything of your own?’ Marissa asked.
‘How long? Well, never really. Angie and I went away on our own sometimes, but only when he was going to be away too. Other than that, I’ve always been there.’
Marissa raised her eyebrows. ‘No wonder he’s freaking out now. By the way, Sonya, was that your sister at the back of the hall last night?’
‘Huh! I doubt it,’ Sonya said. ‘Alannah, maybe, she came to a couple of classes, but not last night. And there’s no way Tessa would come.’
‘I think she was there,’ Gayle said. ‘I meant to mention it yesterday evening but I forgot. It looked like her.’
Sonya shook her head. ‘It couldn’t have been. My sister watch me belly dance? Not in a million years.’
‘Okay,’ Marissa said. ‘Next stop Albany. We have an hour and a half to wait in Perth for the Albany flight. Don’t decide to pop home, either of you.’
‘I bet Frank’ll be there to meet us,’ Sonya said with a grin. ‘Nice man, a lot like Normie Rowe.’
‘But taller,’ Gayle said with a smile, ‘and pretty cute.’
‘Especially when he sings “It’s Not Easy”.’
‘Don’t start that again,’ Marissa said, laughing.
‘What have you got against Normie?’ Gayle asked. ‘I used to think he was gorgeous.’
‘Nothing at all,’ Marissa said. ‘In fact, I used to have a bit of a thing for him myself. But it’s not like that with Frank. And anyway, I don’t do relationships.’
‘Ha! I know that line,’ Sonya said. ‘I’ve used it myself quite a lot, usually just before leaping into some terrible liaison with a totally inappropriate man.’
‘Not me,’ Marissa said. ‘The last time was so long ago I can’t remember it, other than as the point at which I decided that celibacy was my new career. Now, let’s think Albany. It’ll be coldish, but the bed and breakfast place looks nice. Strategy? Anything we want to change?’
Sonya leaned forward and patted her arm. ‘It’s okay, Marissa, we’re not stupid. We know it was team building we needed, not strategy, and we’ve just done it.’
‘Really?’ Marissa said, startled. ‘Was that it?’
Gayle nodded.
‘So team building is about getting a rise out of the team leader?’
‘Of course it is,’ Sonya said, rolling her eyes. ‘Trust me – I’m a bureaucrat, I know about these things.’