The pub was loud with a country song, although it wasn’t one Nancy recognized. She was late, havering right up until the last second about whether or not she would go.
Wearing her daughter’s clothes did nothing for her confidence. Not only did she feel a fraud—“mutton dressed as lamb,” as her mother would say, her voice heavy with censure—but the boots had pinched her toes even on the short walk from the pub car park and the jeans’ waistband had created a small but unattractive bulge beneath her white T-shirt where it dug into her flesh.
Pull yourself together, she admonished herself, straightening her shoulders and taking a deep breath as she spotted Lindy in the crowded space, standing with a group of women by the bar. She was clutching a bottle of lager, dressed in outrageous denim shorts, a tasseled leather waistcoat over a white-cotton vest and the alligator-skin cowboy boots she’d told Nancy she’d bought in Denver thirty years ago. She looked amazing, about twenty-five, with a large Stetson clamped over her long blonde hair.
“Woo-hoo, Nance! Thought you’d chickened out!” Lindy shrieked, throwing her arms round her friend. Nancy had met Lindy at the school gates, picking up their grandchildren—Toby was in Hope’s class—and a friendship had developed, fueled by Lindy’s voracious appetite for any form of culture. Cinema, literature, music, theater, dance, you name it, Lindy would buy tickets.
Nancy handed her a birthday present. It was a silver bangle with a small turquoise in the center that she’d found in a little shop in the Lanes.
“Darling, you’re so kind. I didn’t want everyone spending money on me,” Lindy was saying, bending to put the wrapped box and card into a large bag at her feet. “I’ll open it later—it’s too crazy in here.” She stood up again. “Now, who do you know?”
Monica, Jessy, Alison, Rosanne, Suzie and Precious were introduced and two more whose names she didn’t catch. The only one Nancy had met before was Alison, an old friend of Lindy’s from college. They had all gone to see a Terence Davies film, The Deep Blue Sea, which had been playing at the Duke of York’s in Brighton. Nancy remembered being carried away by the soundtrack, a heartrending Samuel Barber violin concerto, but Alison had seemed reserved, hard to talk to.
The women were pretty well oiled already so Nancy had some catching up to do. But she was relieved to see that Lindy’s guests were wearing a mish-mash of outfits—just two with hats, three with authentic boots. Only Lindy really looked the part . . . and some.
“What will you have?” Rosanne, Lindy’s teacher at the art class she attended in Lewes, asked Nancy.
She settled for a Budweiser, preferring wine but not wanting to get drunk. She was driving home.
*
“Okay, girls . . . listen up! I’m Jim Bowdry and I’m your host for the evening.”
The tall man dressed as a cowboy waved their birthday group over to a cordoned-off area on the opposite side of the pub, which had a small, black-painted plywood stage built against the end wall, supporting speakers, a stereo deck and a set of drums pushed into the far corner. An open laptop currently balanced on one of the speakers. Nancy was relieved the dancing was about to start, preventing the need for any more small talk. She was on her second beer and was beginning to feel mellow. The women, it turned out, were a good crew, unpretentious and lively—even Alison had thawed with a drink inside her.
“Right.” Jim stood in front of them adjusting his mic, which was attached to a headset buried beneath his worn silver-white Stetson. “Who’s done this before?”
Only four hands went up, one of them Lindy’s, and Jim grinned. “So many line-dancing virgins . . . Ooh dear, it’s going to be a long night.” Which remark was greeted with drunken laughter. “Don’t worry about getting it right. We’re just here to have some fun. And remember the old Japanese proverb: ‘We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.’”
It was clear this was well-rehearsed patter, but the proverb—if it was indeed a proverb and not something Jim had made up for the occasion—tickled Nancy and she couldn’t help laughing as she caught his eye.
Lindy, standing next to Nancy as they formed two lines, whispered, “Hmm, like the look of our friend. That outfit makes him all macho, as if he’s just about to wrestle a steer to the ground or whatever cowboys do.” The wink she shot Nancy was positively lascivious. “Know what I mean?”
Nancy grinned, but she felt slightly out of her depth. It was literally decades since she’d had such an exchange about a man. Yet she did like the look of Jim. He was probably around her age, above six feet tall, his thick, iron gray hair—with a pronounced widow’s peak—tied back in a short ponytail. His dark eyebrows were set over bright blue eyes, which seemed permanently amused, a strong, slightly crooked nose and well-defined lips. He reminded her of a more rugged, less effete, version of the actor Terence Stamp.
“We’re going to start with some basic moves,” Jim was saying. “I’ll demonstrate first, then talk you through it. It’s not rocket science, we’ll have a routine going in no time.”
Nancy thought that was unlikely, faced with ten or so tipsy women in their sixties, most of whom had never performed a line dance in their lives, but she was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’d done this before; he should know.
“First, the grapevine, very simple . . .” He stood for a moment, facing them, his thumbs hooked into his jeans pockets, moving to the country song playing on the sound system. “Step to the right, left foot behind, step out, feet together and tap.” He moved slowly, did it again to the left, still slowly, his body graceful and fluid. “Now you try.”
The group, with varying degrees of commitment, performed the move.
“Great! Now a bit quicker . . . to the right, left behind, right foot, tap. Step to the left . . .”
Jim beat time to the music on his thigh and counted them in as they followed his lead. After a while he added other steps, turns, jumps, scuffs and taps, “Back, back, back, back, now turn it out to the left, step to the right, grapevine . . .” changing the song on the laptop to suit dances with exotic names such as the Electric Slide, Bootscoot Boogie and Tush Push, which spoke for itself. He stood with his back to them, guiding them, calling out the steps into the mic, his lean frame swaying provocatively.
It was hot in the small space, the air close, music high volume, the rest of the pub filled to bursting with the Saturday-night throng. Nancy could feel the perspiration damp on her face, but she was loving every minute of the dancing.
“Oops!” Lindy, giggling and flailing in her shorts and boots, collided with Nancy, which prompted Precious, on Nancy’s right, to crash into her, domino-style.
Jim turned to see what was happening. “Need some help?” he asked Nancy, coming to stand between her and Lindy. With his hand on her arm, his body close, he began to coax her back into the steps. “Jump . . . feet together, heel, toe, tap . . . You’re good,” he said, his words suddenly sounding so intimate in that crowded room. She didn’t dare look at him.
“Bloody left and right . . . never could tell the difference. You’re going too fast!” Lindy gasped, flapping her arms as she headed in the wrong direction again and crashed into Jim and Nancy. Jim, laughing, held her up and again his eyes met Nancy’s over Lindy’s head. Nancy felt an unfamiliar bubble of pure joy as she laughed with him.
“All right for you, teacher’s pet.” Lindy pulled a face at Nancy as Jim stepped to the front again and turned his back. “Luurve his butt in those jeans,” she went on, too loudly, only inches from his ear. Nancy cringed as Jim turned, a wry grin on his face, and began instructing them in the Macarena, a less hectic dance that mostly involved arms and hips.
*
“That was so much fun.” Lindy, still breathless, was propped up on a high stool, her Stetson lying on the bar in front of her, her bare tanned legs looking enviably taut and muscled—Lindy worked out like most people breathed. Alison and Nancy were the only ones left now: it was after midnight and the others had gone home when the dancing finished. Jim was over by the stage, putting away his mic, removing his hat, brushing back the hairs that had strayed from his ponytail, wiping the sweat from his face with a red spotted hanky. He had slowed the tempo of the music now, and Kris Kristofferson was singing “Sunday Morning Coming Down.”
“Jim’s going to join us for a drink.” Lindy’s eyes were fixed lewdly on their host as he walked toward them, mouthing the chorus to himself.
“Mind if I nip out for a smoke?” he said, as he joined the group. “Won’t be long.”
“What will you have to drink?” Alison asked.
“Oh, er, Heineken would be great. Thanks.” He disappeared into the night, delving into his shirt pocket for his cigarettes as he went, his boots ringing loudly on the wooden floor in the near empty room. Nancy was disappointed. She hated smoking.
“He is mine,” Lindy intoned drunkenly, shimmying her hips as she watched him go. “He is so totally mine.”
Alison rolled her eyes. “Leave him alone, Lindy.”
“Why should I? He doesn’t have a ring on his finger and he definitely likes me.” She giggled. “But, then, what’s not to like?”
“I’ve had such a great time,” Nancy said, quickly changing the subject. “I haven’t danced in ages.”
“Me neither,” Alison said. “I thought it was brilliant.”
And Nancy thought she looked unusually flushed and happy. Alison was an educational psychologist, a small, intense woman who, Nancy felt, seldom relaxed. Her husband, Nick, had died in his forties from some heart problem and she had never remarried.
When Jim returned, bringing with him cold air and the trail of tobacco smoke, Lindy pulled an empty bar stool close. “Here, sit down and talk to me.”
Jim politely accepted, inching the stool a bit further back before settling. He picked up his beer and took a long, thirsty drink. Nancy thought he seemed a little nervous of Lindy’s flirtatiousness, but he must surely be used to it in his line of work.
“So you enjoyed your birthday?” he asked her. He had a gravelly voice—probably from all that smoking, Nancy decided—with the undertone of amusement she’d noticed earlier.
“I just adored it, darling,” Lindy replied, laying a proprietorial hand on his arm, “even if I can’t tell my right from my left.”
“You did well . . . You all did, considering most of you hadn’t tried it before.”
“Ha! Don’t think so. I was rubbish.” Lindy reached out and drew Nancy to her side, wrapping her arm round her waist. “Now, Nancy here, she’s a natural.”
Jim glanced at her and smiled.
“It’s easy if you follow everyone else,” Nancy said, then looked quickly away as she felt the heat rising to her cheeks. She hoped he wasn’t still gazing at her. But when she turned back his blue eyes were fixed on her face. Stupid bloody woman, Nancy berated herself silently. The first man to look at you properly in years and you have to go and blush.
“I found it quite hard to keep up, though,” Alison was saying, and Nancy sighed with relief as Jim’s attention was diverted. “If I lost my concentration for a second it all fell apart.”
“It’s just practice,” he said. “Once you get used to the steps your feet do them automatically.”
“Mine don’t.” Lindy wiggled her boots in the air, showing off her legs but wobbling dangerously, clutching the bar for support.
“Do you do a lot of these evenings?” Nancy asked Jim, interrupting Lindy deliberately. The booze was really getting to her friend—she was blinking in the slow, inebriated way of all good drunks, fading fast, her speech more and more slurred.
“Nope, not many. I’m mainly a singer. Country music.”
“A singer?” Lindy twitched back to life, nearly knocking over her bottle of beer. “Wow, I luurve singers. Are you published . . . no, that’s not right . . . recorded?” She laughed. “You know what I mean.”
Jim smiled. “Yeah, have been. But not for a while now.”
“Wow,” Lindy said again, the single syllable drawn out to its maximum capacity. She gave him a playful shove. “Go on, then, give us a song.”
“Haven’t got my guitar.”
“Shouldn’t stop you. Come on, pleeease. One teensy tiny little song, just for me? Sing a Johnny Cash or something. It’s my birthday! You can’t deny a birthday girl her wish.” She batted her thick black lashes at him. “That would be sooo mean.”
Jim shifted awkwardly on his stool. “I’d love to, but it’d be rubbish without my guitar.”
Lindy blinked at him, her expression darkening. “Oh, don’t go all precious on me, darling.” Her tone was suddenly imperious as she made the effort to haul herself upright. “I hired your services. If we want you to sing, isn’t it all part of the package?” She stared at Jim as if waiting for him to burst into song.
Nancy froze and glanced quickly at Alison, whose eyes were wide with dismay. This was a side to Lindy—obviously drink-fueled—Nancy hadn’t witnessed before.
Jim just raised his eyebrows. “Why don’t you come to my next gig, Lindy? Then you can hear me at my best.” The accompanying smile was so winning that Lindy’s expression relaxed.
“Yeah . . . yeah, might do that,” she said.
“I think it’s time to get you home.” Alison moved purposefully to Lindy’s side and took her arm, which her friend immediately shook off.
“Noooo! It’s way too early! It’s my birthday, for God’s sake. I’m going to . . . stay up all bloody night.” And with that, Lindy slid gracefully off her stool and landed in a heap on the pub floor, her bare limbs concertinaed beneath her.
*
Jim helped Alison get Lindy into her car. They had persuaded her to drink some water and the barman had made her a strong coffee, which she’d immediately thrown up—luckily making it to the Ladies first. She was still barely conscious.
“You don’t think we should take her to A & E, do you?” Alison asked them, after they’d loaded Lindy into the front seat. “I’ve never seen her this bad before, even at college.” Her small face was pinched with concern.
Nancy looked at Jim, thinking maybe he had more experience of this sort of problem, but he shrugged. “Not sure that’d help.”
“Won’t she just sleep it off?” Nancy suggested. They were standing beside Alison’s blue Mondeo in the semidarkness of the empty pub car park, the night air bitingly cold after the warmth of the bar. She glanced through the window at their sleeping friend, whose head was slumped on her chest, blonde hair trailing across her face, hands hidden in the sleeves of her leather jacket.
“But what if she vomits in her sleep and chokes?” Alison asked.
“She’s got a point,” Jim said.
“What will A & E do, though? Won’t she just lie on a trolley for four hours and then be sent home?”
“Well, I don’t feel comfortable leaving her alone. I’ll take her home with me.” Alison frowned. “You hear the most awful stories . . .”
Nancy remembered Lindy saying that Alison was a major worrier, her life a perpetual series of what-ifs. “Do you want me to come too?” she offered, and was relieved when Alison shook her head.
“Thanks, I can manage.” She sighed. “It was a really good evening. Sorry if Lindy was a bit rude,” she said to Jim.
Jim held his hands up. “Just the drink talking.”
Nancy and Jim watched Alison drive away. Then Jim bent to pick up his black backpack from the tarmac. “How are you getting home?” he asked.
“I’ve got the car. That’s mine.” Nancy pointed to her Golf, sitting in glorious isolation at the far edge of the car park.
“You okay to drive?”
“Fine. I only had a couple of beers.” She shivered in the April cold, drawing Louise’s thin suede jacket tighter round her body. Her feet hurt in her daughter’s boots. “Can I drop you somewhere?”
Jim hesitated. “Uh, no . . . Thanks, but I’ll walk, night air will do me good. It’s not far.”
Nancy was relieved. She felt suddenly shy and awkward with the handsome man beside her in the darkness. She wanted to say something clever or funny, something that would renew the bond she’d felt with him earlier in the evening, but her mind was a blank. “If you’re sure . . .”
He nodded, hefting his bag onto his shoulders. But they seemed frozen to the spot.
“Listen, it was great to meet you,” Nancy said, holding out her hand. “You made it a really fun night.”
He smiled, taking her cold hand in his large warm one, his handshake firm. “Thanks. Great to meet you too, Nancy.”
As she caught his eye, Nancy had a strange feeling that the world was slowing down, as if Jim’s gaze had placed her in the calm eye of a storm. A police car speeding down the road, blue lights flashing, siren blaring, jerked her back to reality and their hands dropped.
“I’m doing a gig next Saturday—not here, it’s a club up near the station. If your friend was serious about hearing me sing . . .” Jim dug a card out of the back pocket of his jeans and passed it to her. “It’s all on here. If she calls me, I can arrange comps.”
Nancy took the card, which she glanced at but couldn’t read in the darkness without her specs. “Thanks.”
“Not sure if country music is your thing.” He shot her a questioning look. But she didn’t reply. She was cold and tired, overwrought by the evening and the look that had just passed between her and the stranger. She was finding it hard to know what she thought about anything at that precise moment. Was the card specifically for Lindy? Or was she included in the invitation? They seemed to be standing unnaturally close for people who had barely met and Nancy moved back slightly, almost as if she needed to get some perspective.
“I love all music,” she said eventually. She was surprised to hear the passion in her statement. Not because it wasn’t true, but because she had felt the need to share it with Jim.
It elicited a smile. “Yeah, me too.”
There was a pause. “Bye, then,” she said, turning toward her car.
Once inside it, she fired up the engine, eager for some warmth, but she didn’t drive away immediately, wanting Jim to have a chance to get away, thus avoiding the awkwardness of passing him on the pavement, maybe having to wave, or at least having to decide whether or not to do so. She didn’t want to see him again tonight. He had exhausted her.