‘There’s not much point, far as I can see,’ said Joan Cake, ‘keeping on going to these things. With someone who can’t dance, that is.’
‘You enjoy yourself,’ said Henry.
‘I’d enjoy myself more if I could dance with my husband.’
‘You enjoy the outings.’
‘It’s not the same.
‘I couldn’t get my feet to dance, no matter what.’ Henry sighed.
He and Joan sat together on the late bus home, their bodies rolling slightly, used to the journey. They were splattered with rain. From the hem and neck of Joan’s mackintosh sprouted frills of pink net. Her hair, piled up in meringue-like curls, was covered with a transparent plastic hat. Her mouth was down.
‘I don’t like to remind you,’ she said with a small sniff, ‘but when you’ve been champion at something, once, you don’t like to have to retire before you’re ready. You don’t like to have retirement forced upon you.’
‘You dance with plenty of others,’ pointed out her husband. ‘You’re never wanting for partners.’
He took her arm, as the bus drew up at the stop. He liked to think the descent from the bus might deflect her train of thought.
‘Not the same as having someone you can always rely on,’ retorted Joan, stepping recklessly into a puddle and soaking the toes that pudged through the straps of her golden sandals. ‘The last waltz, this evening. There was no one to do the last waltz with me, was there?’
‘I knew that’s what was getting you down.’ Henry was sympathetic. ‘Still, you had a lovely foxtrot, just before, you said.’
Home, glittering mackintoshes hung side by side in the narrow hall, Joan smoothed the skirt of her bulbous pink dress.
‘Only three months till the Christmas Ball,’ she said. ‘That should be a big do, if it’s anything like last year.’
‘Certain to be,’ agreed Henry, dread in his heart.
Joan straightened herself, punching the rhinestones on her bosom.
‘If we never went to anther dance, it wouldn’t make a mite of a difference to you,’ she shouted. ‘I shall have to think about a new dress.’ She knew the last suggestion, at least, would provoke her mild husband: he hated the very idea of anything new in the way of dresses.
‘That one’s very nice,’ he said, sadly scanning the mass of pink. ‘It’s always been my favourite.’
‘Huh! Not for a Christmas party.’
She paused, suddenly feeling all the despair of being wasted: all afternoon setting her hair, ironing her dress, doing her face, and for what? For a disappointing evening dancing with dull old men, and now this late-night confrontation with a husband who did not know the meaning of the word appreciation.
‘I wish you could try,’ she said.
Henry coughed. He longed to go to bed. After a dance, this was always a long ordeal, what with the ungluing of the false eyelashes, and the stuffing of tissue paper between each layer of the pink net. He tried to be patient.
‘There are some things a person can’t bring himself to do,’ he said. ‘But I do try in other ways, don’t I? To make up?’
Joan laughed nastily.
‘Lots of things you think I want. Bringing in the coal – I’d bring in the coal. Beating the doormat – I’d beat the doormat. Clearing out the bird – I’d … None of the things I really want. All I want is just the one thing. I’ll put the kettle on.’ She turned and stomped off down the passage to the kitchen.
Confused by the outburst, Henry followed Joan, watched from the door while she slammed mugs down on the table. The rhinestones on her bodice glittered at him like a swarm of angry red eyes, as she pirouetted to the fridge for milk and foxtrotted towards the sugar.
‘One day, perhaps, you’ll give some serious thought to what I’m saying.’
‘Oh, I will,’ said Henry, and the great mercy was that as his wife cha-cha’d towards the kettle, an idea came to him.
On the walls of the studio Fred Astaire danced with Ginger Rogers: huge, blown-up photographs, a little muzzy, for the cameras of those days were not quite up to the speed of their twirling. Henry stood in the middle of the bare floor marvelling at the sight of them. His hand closed more tightly on the small paper bag that held his lunch. He listened to the thirties music that oozed from a small grille high up in one of the walls. He half-closed his eyes, felt himself spinning as fluently as Fred Astaire … Wonderful. Joan, light in his arms, smiling up at him.
When Henry looked down, eyes fully open, he saw he had raised one leg, slightly, but had not moved an inch. Fearful that he should be caught in so foolish a position in the middle of the floor, he hastened to a chair at the side of the room and took out his sandwich. A moment later Madame Lucille entered. Madame Lucille was well into her sixties, but you could see at once she had been a famous dancer in her time – the bouncy walk that set the muscles of her calves twinkling up and down.
She made an impressive entrance for Henry alone, coming right up to him before she spoke. She had white-blonde hair and powdered wrinkles. Her multi-coloured dress clung everywhere.
‘Mr Cake?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr Cake.’
‘No trouble.’
Madame Lucille’s eyes jumped with great disdain to Henry’s sandwich.
‘Have you come here for your lunch, Mr Cake? Or to learn how to dance?’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. You see, it’s my lunch hour. I thought a quick bite …’
‘I’m afraid we cannot entertain eating and drinking in the studios, Mr Cake, though I’ll close my eyes to it this once.’
‘Thank you.’
He slid the sandwich into the pocket of his mackintosh, and laid the mackintosh on the chair.
‘You’ll have to make your appointments after work. On your way home. I’m open till seven.’
‘I’m not sure I could work that in –’
‘It’s up to you. Now, shall we begin?’
Madame Lucille offered Mr Cake her hand, led him into the centre of the studio.
‘What stage is it you’re at, Mr Cake? As a dancer?’
‘Oh, quite a beginner, I should say.’
‘Then we shall start at the beginning.’
Henry felt a freezing sensation in his legs. The flesh of his hand that Madame Lucille clasped in her warm little fingers had turned entirely to bone. Anything to put off the moment when she would urge him to move …
‘But my wife, she’s a champion,’ he said. ‘She won cups all over the Midlands before we married.’
‘My. Did she?’
‘That’s the trouble, really, with her being the champion. I didn’t think it would be, but it turned out to be.’
‘So you’re here secretly – a few lessons – to surprise her?’
‘How did you know?’
Madame Lucille smiled. ‘Thirty years of secret plotting husbands, Mr Cake. I can tell the look in their eyes. I’m the heroine of many confidences. I’ve sent so many on their waltzing way, happy. Thirty years.’
‘Oh.’ Henry inwardly marvelled, already happier at the prospect that he might be added to her list of successes.
‘Right. So, let’s get down to it, shall we? We begin like this. By relaxing.’ Her fingers loosened a little on his hand. ‘What I’m going to do is to ask you to shut your eyes, to hold up your head, as if you were sniffing something nice, like spring in the air, and then let yourself feel the blood flowing right down through your body and into your feet.’
And just how does blood flow through bone, Henry wondered. He watched as Madame Lucille, close beside him, shut her eyes and sniffed. She seemed to be all puffed up, somehow, in a way that he could not imagine he would be able to imitate. She opened her eyes and looked at his feet. He felt his toes wince in the privacy of his shoes.
‘So many beginners are frightened of their feet, Mr Cake. The first thing to learn is: they’re nothing to be afraid of. You must learn to feel they’re a part of you, at one with you. Not things you take off, like shoes.’
Madame Lucille had put into words something that Henry had suffered all the years of his marriage to Joan: fear of his feet. Now that the words had been said out loud he gave a small sigh of relief. The merest trace of courage quickened his stiff-boned body. He should have sought Madame Lucille’s help years ago …
‘Now, on with the dance,’ she was saying. ‘I think we’ll start with the waltz.’
‘My wife loves a waltz,’ said Henry. ‘The Blue Danube.’
That’s a fast waltz, Mr Cake. Lesson eight or nine, depending on progress. If you can be just a little bit patient…’
She took his hand again, and pointed her toe.
‘Still raining?’ asked Joan, when Henry arrived home.
‘Pouring.’
‘I haven’t been out, what with my hair.’
She patted the rollers. Henry had never been quite able to accustom himself to the sight of his wife in rollers, but knowing they were necessary to the dazzling pyramid she concocted for nights out, it was a feeling he kept to himself.
‘Anything untoward?’
Henry gave a small inward jump. Surely his face betrayed no trace of guilt?
‘That’s a funny word, for you.’
‘I heard it on the radio. It appealed to me. You know I like to adopt new words. You know what I am for extending my vocabulary.’
Henry laughed.
‘I love your sense of self-education,’ he said.
‘It’s you who should have more sense of self-education. In some areas, I mean. The arts. Who cares about gas?’ All their married life, Joan had scorned Henry’s job with the Gas Board. ‘There are some things any man who calls himself a man should know how to do.’
Henry sighed. ‘Come on, Joan.’
‘I’ve pressed your suit,’ she said, lips pursed.
‘What for?’
‘Tonight.’
‘What’s happening tonight?’
‘The do up at the Winter Gardens. Live band.’
‘But I thought there was nothing else on this week?’
‘Maybe it slipped my mind to tell you.’ She paused. ‘I could always go on my own, of course, if you didn’t fancy coming.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Henry snorted. She had never made such an outrageous suggestion before in her life.
‘I dare say I’d be all right. I wouldn’t mind.’
‘Well, I would. Letting my wife out alone at a glittering function.’
‘My age, I don’t suppose I’d be fighting off the rapists.’ She watched her husband stiffen. ‘It’s all over by midnight.’
‘There’s no question of it.’
‘It’s quite inhibiting, sometimes, knowing you’re there all the evening just watching.’
‘But I don’t watch with disapproval, do I? I’m happy to see you enjoying yourself. You know that.’
‘You’re always watching. I can feel your eyes right through my back.’
‘I’m sorry. There’s not much else I can do. Not much I have in common with dancing people … They all go there just to dance.’ Something in his voice diverted Joan’s attack.
‘I’ll take the entrance money out of the housekeeping if you like,’ she said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, love,’ said Henry. ‘I have the money.’
Some hours later Joan came downstairs in a foaming mass of lime tulle.
‘You must be mad, thinking I’d let you out alone looking like that,’ said Henry. Joan flipped his cheek with her lime glove.
‘Sometimes, you know, I dream you’re Henry Cake Astaire. Off we go, and when we get there you whirl me round all evening, keeping up the compliments in my ear!’
‘Ah,’ replied Henry, the bony feeling stiffening his limbs again. ‘I’ve filled the log basket, laid the breakfast.’
In Joan’s eyes he saw a sneer that pierced his heart. ‘Come on, Fred,’ she said.
To Henry, one dance hall was much like another. Each glittering function, as he had learned to call it, was identical in its crowd of elderly, over-dressed dancers dizzying their way about the floor to the old tunes of a tired band. He failed to see the glamour that enchanted his wife. Her eyes, as usual on arrival, swept about the place with an anticipation out of all proportion to the occasion, so thought Henry, privately. He suggested a drink.
‘I haven’t come here to drink,’ snapped Joan.
‘No need to look so frantic,’ returned Henry.
Two nights out running and he found his normal reserves of understanding severely tried.
‘I’m not looking frantic! And I wish you’d sit down somewhere, Henry. Nowhere near the dance floor.’
Her eyes swerved from her husband to a middle-aged man with crinkly hair who was approaching.
‘What did I tell you?’ said Henry. ‘Here’s Romeo.’
‘May I have the pleasure?’ the man asked Joan, for all the world as if Henry did not exist.
‘Why, Jock,’ smiled Joan warmly, ‘I do believe we meet again.’
Henry watched them glide away, merge with the dancers, sway easily together, their feet in perfect harmony. He watched the crinkle-haired man, Jock, look down on his wife’s careful curls, and smile. He remembered Madame Lucille’s words at the end of that first, difficult lesson. He was plainly not a born dancer, she said. But with a lot of practice, maybe …
Henry took her advice and changed to longer lessons after work. At first, his progress was definitely slow. But in the fifth week he felt for the first time some small sense of achievement, when Madame Lucille accorded him her first praise.
‘There’s really a breakthrough, this evening, Mr Cake,’ she said. ‘We’re really getting somewhere, now, don’t you feel?’
‘How about one more turn?’ She fluttered her lashes.
‘No. Really. I must be getting back. My wife’ll be wondering.’
‘Of course. Well, there’s Thursday to look forward to, isn’t there? I thought we might try a quickstep, Thursday. I think we should try to race ahead a little if you’re going to be ready for the Christmas Ball.’
The Christmas Ball. Just seven weeks to go, the evening Henry had planned for his surprise. He hurried home, noticing with alarm the time. It went so quickly, dancing.
He arrived almost an hour late, somewhat flustered. At first, it didn’t seem as if Joan had noticed.
‘Do you know what a sissoo is?’ she asked.
‘No. Why? Should I?’ He wondered if it was a guilty man.
‘It’s a valuable Indian timber tree.’
‘Is it really? That’s most interesting.’
Joan dug a fierce needle into a froth of chiffon, a pink that hurt Henry’s eyes.
‘I learned that today. Some magazine. I like to pick things up.’
‘That’s good.’ Henry sighed. He could see the way things were going.
‘I like to try, you see. To extend my accomplishments. Which is more than can be said for some of us.’ She paused, took a pin from her mouth, leaned across the table, crushing the silk. ‘And why are we so late tonight, Henry Cake?’
Henry glanced at the clock on the wall to give himself time.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘The traffic. Terrible jams.’
‘Forty-five minutes to be precise. Am I to believe there have been traffic jams every Tuesday and Thursday for the last five weeks, Henry?’
‘Very curious, I must say – ’
‘Very curious indeed. Very curious, too, that you’re such a bad liar. If you’d been more clever you wouldn’t have met her on such regular nights. You’d have jumbled them up – ’
‘Met who?’
‘Whoever she is. I don’t know.’
Joan dug her needle more fiercely into the material. Henry heard himself laughing.
‘You mean, you think I’m meeting a woman, having an association, just because of a few traffic jams? Oh, Joan. Oh, love. Would I ever? Have I ever looked at another woman?’
‘Not as far as I know.’ Joan sniffed, almost convinced. ‘But it’s never too late. All I’m saying is, you’ve had your head in the clouds these last weeks. Your mind seems to have been elsewhere. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘You’re daft,’ said Henry, his heart racing.
‘Maybe,’ said Joan. ‘But I’m not a fool. After all these years, I know when there’s something up with you.’
The awkward encounter that evening alerted Henry’s sense of urgency. Joan’s suspicions, once aroused, would be hard to quell. It was imperative Henry should take extra care in the future, so that he would not be forced to spoil his surprise in self-defence.
For several lessons he made sure he left punctually, despite Madame Lucille’s pleading with him to do a few more turns ‘on the house’, and arrived home in time. Joan made no further mention of his imaginary girlfriend. But then came the evening of the second breakthrough: Henry mastered the reverse turn in the fast waltz. In his excitement, he twirled Madame Lucille round the studio till she was quite out of breath.
‘Beautiful dancing,’ she declared, when eventually he stopped and they stood, with arms about one another still, panting. Henry glanced at the clock. Ten minutes late.
‘Madame Lucille. I must rush.’ He made to leave her, but she clung to him.
‘No need to go on calling me Madame Lucille, is there, Mr Cake? After so many lessons? After all, all I want is that your wife should be happy with your dancing, isn’t it – Henry?’
Quite violently, Henry wrenched her hands from his shoulders, and fled the studio. But he was out of luck. His slight lateness did not go unobserved.
‘It’s which one of us?’ asked Joan, in greeting. ‘That’s what I want to know. Which one of us is it to be? Her, the trollop, or me? It’s up to you. The choice is yours. Give one of us satisfaction, stop mucking about with us both. That’s all I ask.’
‘What’s all this?’ said Henry.
‘Such innocence! The game’s up now, that’s what. You can’t draw wool over my eyes any longer. I know when I’ve been made a fool of, and I know when the time’s come to put a stop to it.’
‘Let me explain – ’
‘You explained last time. The traffic. I almost believed you.’
‘It wasn’t the traffic this time. But I’m not having an association, I promise.’ He looked at her face. ‘I have to admit, there are reasons I’ve been late. But they’re reasons that will benefit you in the end. Can you believe that? It’s the truth, I promise.’
‘Huh, I don’t know what to believe, I’m sure.’ The edge had gone from her anger. ‘There’s never been any of this secrecy business before. Double bluff, most likely. Still, if that’s how you want it, that’s fine with me. Because I’ve made my decision.’ She paused, pursed her lips. Henry dared not ask her the question. ‘Nothing lofty, mind,’ she said at last. ‘Just, things will be a little different. I’ll go my way and you’ll go yours. I shan’t worry any more if you’re kept late by traffic jams. You mustn’t worry if I join my partner for a cigarette after we’ve had a dance.’
Henry sighed, nodded silently. With any luck, before all that sort of gallivanting came to anything, it would be the Christmas Ball, his chance, and dancing together happily ever after.
‘How long till the Christmas Ball?’ he asked.
Joan snorted. ‘You can’t butter me up like that! I know you’re not interested. Three weeks. There’s bound to be a lot of Charlestons, always a favourite at Christmas.’
Henry turned away, dejected. He had not reckoned on the Charlestons. Another hurdle … More overtime, more difficulties. But he would manage it somehow.
And he did. In three weeks he had mastered the art of the Charleston, much to Madame Lucille’s surprise, and his own. His rendering was a little cautious, but foot-perfect. With confidence, Madame Lucille assured him, he would become more flamboyant, twirling his hands and giving little flicks of the head, just as she did.
On the afternoon of the Ball, Henry had his last lesson. For the first time in his working life, he had taken an afternoon off. (It was easier to lie to the Gas Board, he discovered, than to his wife.) It was also the last lesson of his course, and he felt quite sad. He had enjoyed the lessons. Judging by Madame Lucille’s farewell, the feeling had been mutual.
‘Not much potential, Henry, when you started,’ she said, ‘but you’ve come on surprisingly. Your wife will never believe her eyes. I wish you luck tonight. You’re one of my successes.’
‘Well, thank you for everything, Madame Lucille.’ His hands were trapped in her small warm fingers. The Charleston still played through the grille.
‘There are some pupils, my dear Henry, that stand out in the mind … years and years. If ever you want a little course in revision, I’d be only too delighted, on the house …’ She gave him a peck on the cheek, and they parted.
On his way home Henry had not known the thrill of such anticipation for many years. In fact, he felt quite dizzy, a little peculiar. His legs ached from all the Charlestoning, his heart was thumping. Not wanting Joan to observe anything unusual in his appearance, he decided to slip into the pub at the end of their street, and have a single medicinal brandy. He needed strength, courage, calm.
The pub was crowded, it took a long time to be served. Then Henry drank slowly so that the brandy’s effects would be beneficial rather than inebriating. What with one thing and another he found that, to his dismay, it was past seven by the time he left. Still, they weren’t due to catch the bus till seven-thirty. Henry hurried down the street, knowing Joan would be fretting, waiting for him to do up her hooks and eyes.
Home, he found the house empty. No sign of Joan. A note on the kitchen table.
I’ve gone on early, it said. Please don’t follow me, I want to go to this Ball alone. Seeing as how things have been this past few weeks, I’m sure you’ll understand. P.S. All the same, don’t worry.
Henry crumpled on to a chair at the table, sunk his head to his hands.
It took him a few moments to make his decision. He changed quickly, ran for the bus, arrived at the dance hall soon after eight. It was already crowded, the ceiling strung with balloons, Christmas trees in the corner. All very pretty, the perfect setting to put his plan into action … But the beneficial effects of the brandy had worn off. His heart reverberated all through his body. His courage had quite gone.
Henry soon caught sight of Joan. She was waltzing with the crinkle-haired Jock, laughing. Henry decided to waylay her when the dance was over, and ask her for the next one. But when the music stopped, and she walked with Jock unknowingly towards her husband, something in her face made Henry abandon his plan. He hid behind a pillar, watching as they made their way to the bar.
Henry remained hidden, dodging from pillar to pillar, most of the evening. His eyes scarcely left his wife, dazzling as ever in some new dress of gold sequins. The strange thing was, although she was rarely off the floor, she did not seem to be entertaining her usual amount of partners. In fact, dance after dance, she stuck with Jock. It was no doubt he was a very good dancer, though Henry could see little charm in the red puffiness of his face and the greasy gleam of his crinkled hair. Still, it was the dance, not the man, that Joan went for, as she always said.
The first Charleston added to Henry’s distress. His toes leapt in his shoes – what he would have given to show Joan how he could do it! – while he watched her and Jock, flushed and laughing and winking, as they kicked up their heels. When the music came to an end, Jock took a handkerchief from his pocket. Joan snatched it from him and with a sort of secret smile – or so it looked to Henry from his distant viewpoint – dabbed his sweating neck. Henry could bear no more. He left.
He sat in the silent empty kitchen brooding for many hours. It was almost three when Joan returned. She came bouncing in, humming, snapping on lights, and was none too pleased to see Henry.
‘What on earth?’ she said. ‘There was no need to wait up for me.’
She took off her coat. Henry observed that the expanse of chest above the gold sequins had a bruised, flushed look. And there was something strange about her face – her mouth. It was pale as first thing in the morning. The carefully painted plum red had quite gone. He made no comment, rose from his chair stiffly.
‘Lovely dress,’ he said. ‘Nice evening?’
‘Very pleasant, thank you. Someone said they saw you. I said they must have been mistaken.’
‘Quite. Got the last bus, did you?’
Joan looked at him. ‘No. Missed it. Got a lift.’
‘Oh, good. Wouldn’t like to think of you so late, walking
‘I was all right, don’t worry. I can look after myself. Now I’ve broken the ice I can do it again. You won’t need to come any more. All it needed was to break the ice.’
She pranced over to the stove, began to make tea. The gold sequins twinkled conspiratorially in the harsh electric light. Henry would have done anything on earth to have been able to have seen through their eyes, tonight: to know what she had been doing, just how her evening had passed. He gripped the back of a chair, spoke softly.
‘Joanie, if I was to say … What if I was to say I could dance?’
Joan laughed. She did not bother to turn round.
‘Huh! I’d say that was a good one. I’d say I’d believe that when I saw it. After all these years of stubbornness.’
‘Well, I’m saying it,’ went on Henry. ‘I can dance.’
Joan turned to the table with two mugs of tea.
‘It was quite easy, breaking the ice, when it came to it,’ she said again, as if she had not heard him.
‘Would you like me to prove it to you? That what I’m saying is true?’
Joan sat down. ‘You do what you like, one way or the other.’
Henry left the room, went to the sitting-room, and put a record on their old gramophone. ‘The Very Thought of You.’ Back in the kitchen, the sound was very thin.
‘There,’ said Henry. ‘Well, would you care to dance?’
‘What’s all this?’ Joan wrinkled her nose. ‘Be a bit silly, here in the kitchen, wouldn’t it?’
‘If my plans had worked out, and you hadn’t wanted to be alone, we would have been dancing together at the Christmas Ball.’
‘Likely story! So who’s been teaching you to dance?’
‘Come on. Give it a try.’
Joan stood, half reluctant, half intrigued. She stood with hands at her side, grasping bunches of sequins on her skirt.
‘Not much room in here, is there? –’
‘The heater’s off in the front room.’
‘ – For you to show your paces.’
They were suddenly shy of each other.
‘You could make allowances,’ said Henry. He stepped towards her, nervous. Held her stiff arms. He waited for a bar or two, counting under his breath. Then they began to waltz, moving cautiously round the kitchen table.
‘How’m I doing?’ he asked after a while.
‘Amazing.’ Though Joan’s feet responded naturally to the rhythm, her voice was flat. ‘I would never have believed it.’
Henry laughed, tightening his grip on her golden waist.
‘Thought I’d surprise you. I’ll tell you all about it, one day. Those traffic jams.’ More confident now, he twirled his wife more firmly. ‘Dance with anyone special tonight, did you?’
‘No. Well, the usuals.’
‘Jock included?’
‘One or two with him.’
‘He’s a lovely dancer, Jock. Brought you home, did he?’
‘He lives this way,’ said Joan.
‘The very thought of you,’ murmured the singer, making Joan shut her eyes with a small wince of pain that Henry did not see. Then the music changed to a quickstep. Henry was all delight.
‘Hey! I can do this too, you know. I can do all sorts.’
But Joan was pulling away from him.
‘Come on, Henry. That’s enough. Tea’s getting cold.’
‘Just a minute more. I’m beginning to get the feel of it. Come on, Joanie, be a sport.’ She ceased to struggle against him. They moved round the kitchen table once more. ‘Tell me, honestly – am I any good as a dancer?’
‘You’re a lovely dancer.’
In his exuberance, Henry did not notice that Joan’s voice was weary, and that her dancing, for all its accuracy, was uninspired, automatic. Turns out, though, it isn’t just the dancing that counts. Not just the dancing,’ she sighed.
Henry, his head pressed excitingly close to her myriad curls, could not be sure what she said.
‘What’s that?’
‘I said you’re a lovely dancer, Henry. A lovely dancer.’
‘Just think … years ahead. What you’ve always wanted. Me to dance with. How about that?’
With unbounded happiness, Henry twirled even faster, undaunted by the surprising heaviness of his wife in his arms. He tripped slightly in a reverse turn, but no matter. They both recovered together, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, whirling through timeless space between kitchen table and stove.
‘How about that, indeed,’ answered Joan, seeing a grey dawn through the window.
Despite this sudden dancing, she was feeling the cold. She hoped to goodness Henry would soon be finished with his quickstepping, and let her have her cup of tea.
