I haven’t seen her walk without her sticks in ages. Months.
But she doesn’t stumble. She doesn’t fall. She leads Dad to a capsule of space in the midst of the crowd.
They dance.
Iris dances the same way she does everything else. Every part of her gets involved; her hips, her neck, her hands, her head, her face. Especially her face, which shines as though someone has turned on all her lights.
I stand at the edge of the crowd, an onlooker. I am back at the end-of-term school disco. I was an onlooker there too, horribly aware of myself, a collection of limbs that were too long and too awkward. A collection of thoughts, all of them rigid with embarrassment at how foolish I must appear.
I study the enormous high-ceilinged room. Wine racks run the length and breadth of the walls, bulging with bottles, dusty and cobwebbed. There are a few tables and chairs scattered about the room, but nobody sits at them. Everybody, it seems, is dancing.
Now, Iris moves towards the band, bending to speak into the ear of the pianist, who nods and stands, shuffles to the side so that Iris can take her place on the piano stool. She mouths something to the other musicians, and they rearrange themselves at their instruments, watch for Iris’s signal.
Iris used to play a lot. Until the MS wormed its way into her fingers.
Now she flexes these same fingers and starts to play Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five’. Which happens to be Dad’s favourite piece of music if you discount Frank Sinatra.
Already I can see the familiar tune having an effect on Dad. It’s like an old friend, tapping him on the shoulder, asking him if he’d like to dance.
He would. He does. Not an Iris-style dance, all arms and legs and wildness. This one is demure. A barely-there dance. More like a swaying-to-the-music type of dance. He clicks his fingers to the beat and his timing is perfect.
I only go to the bar because there is a free high stool. I will look less conspicuous sitting down. Behind the counter stands a short, stocky woman in a tuxedo and dickie bow, holding a champagne flute up to the light, frowning, then rubbing at whatever has displeased her with a piece of muslin and much elbow grease.
I like her already.
I have barely settled myself on the stool when the woman hands me a – now gleaming – glass filled with champagne.
‘Merci,’ I say.
When I ask her how much I owe her, she glares at me and says, ‘We do not accept money here.’ She returns to her vigorous inspection of the glassware.
‘Come on you,’ says Iris, materialising in front of me. She grabs my hand. ‘You’re pulled.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The band wants us to do an Irish dance,’ she says, nodding towards the four musicians. The double bass player, now tuning a violin tucked under her chin, looks at me with great expectation.
My mouth runs dry. ‘Not … Riverdance?’ I whisper.
‘Fuck that shit,’ says Iris. ‘They can play a reel, so I said we’d do the “Walls of Limerick”.’
‘But I don’t know that.’
‘’Course you do,’ Iris tells me, taking my hand and hauling me from my refuge at the bar.
‘No really, it’s true, I—’
‘It’s easy,’ says Iris. ‘I’ll show you.’
‘But …’ Iris furrows a path through the crowd, pulling me along behind her. ‘But I don’t dance,’ I say, trying to weasel my hand out of her grip. ‘I can’t.’
‘How do you know you can’t if you don’t?’ Iris says.
This seems like a reasonable question and one I don’t have sufficient time to answer given our abrupt arrival at the centre of the floor. Everybody is staring at us. And I don’t mean that nobody is staring, but I just feel like they are. No. Everybody is genuinely, really and truly, staring at us.
Iris points into the crowd, and Lucas and Isabelle appear beside us as if by magic, meekly allowing Iris to arrange them into our square of four. Iris lifts my hand and nods at Lucas, who does the same with Isabelle’s. Now Iris shows us how to do the one, two, threes, the ins, the outs, where to take your partner’s hand, how to hold it, when to twirl.
Yes.
There is twirling.
In front of strangers.
The band begins to play a reel and it sounds wonderful, as if they’ve been practising this piece of music for years and years, hoping that Iris would show up some day. Waiting for her.
Iris arranges us upright, backs ramrod straight, our right toes affixed to the ground in a strict point. I get a sudden urge to laugh, which sometimes happens when I’m under extreme pressure.
Iris counts us in.
We begin dancing.
Dancing might be overstating it. I am jumping up and down on the spot as my erstwhile companions – worry and concentration – jostle for position while jabbing me with pointed sticks and laughing their heads off.
Worry is winning. Worry drowns out the sound of the music. Worry about everything. Like injury for example, both to myself and others.
Concentration catches up, wrestles worry to the ground. I concentrate on the sequence of the steps, the position I’m supposed to be in. On not falling over my feet. Or falling over anyone else’s feet. Or stepping on someone’s foot. Isabelle is wearing open-toed sandals. That would smart.
The clatter of my shoes on the floor, my feet a blur of one-two-threes, firstly on the spot, then advancing towards Lucas and Isabelle, retiring, advancing, retiring. We do that twice. Or maybe ten times. It’s hard to keep track.
Iris takes my hand and leads off to the left, more one-two-threes, then back so we’re facing Isabelle and Lucas again before we head off to the right, repeat and return.
Iris is the only one of us who is not mouthing one-two-three under her breath.
But despite the various impediments – my silent concentration on the fancy footwork and trying not to pant with exertion, keeping up with the beat of the music and doing my best not to inflict injury on my fellow dancers – it appears that I am moving in time to music.
I am dancing.
Now, Iris and I are facing a different couple. I have no idea where Isabelle and Lucas are. I glance around. Everywhere, people have arranged themselves into foursomes and are dancing the ‘Walls of Limerick’. Craning their necks to look at us if they think they’re not doing it properly.
The insistent beat of the music fills me like a glass until it is overflowing and spilling around me. Thoughts explode in my mind like fireworks. Mostly I think about Iris. How happy she looks, how present she is in this moment that she has conjured in her effortless way. Iris shouts dance and everybody dances. Even Dad. Even the surly barmaid is one-two-three-ing behind the counter.
I suppose some people might call it charisma. But it’s more than that, I think. It’s … vitality. There’s something vital about Iris Armstrong. As if the world is turning because she has told it to.
Now I’m dancing with a bald, angular man sporting a twirly moustache.
Now I’m dancing with a stooped, elderly woman dripping in pearls.
Now I’m dancing with Isabelle and not even worrying about her bare toes.
I can’t believe I used to wonder why people enjoy dancing so much.
The room throbs with the heave and stamp of dancers, the music rolling through me like a child rolls down a grassy hill. Gaining momentum and shouting with the sheer pleasure of it.
Back in the centre of the floor, I meet Iris again, who arranges our arms so they’re interlocked. We twirl, first on the spot, then moving around the floor, the crowd parting to let us through, my skirt fanning around my bare legs, the colours merging together so that I am a blur of colours, a spinning top.
Iris releases me and I spin away from her. I am unspooling, like thread. My arms are outstretched and my face is tilted up and my eyes are closed, none of which is best practice when it comes to conventional Irish dancing, I am certain.
Here I am, spinning, and my head is spinning and the room is spinning
and the world is spinning and it is glorious, this spinning sensation.
I think I laugh out loud.
I think my eyes are closed.
I am dancing with my eyes closed.
It is only when the music stops that I become aware of myself again. Of the exertion of my breath, the thump of my heart, the dense, sweet smell of the crowd, clapping now, for Iris. And the musicians.
But mostly for Iris. You can see it in their faces. The reflection of light in their eyes. They’re not exactly sure what’s happened.
But I know. I’ve seen it before. Many times.
Iris Armstrong has happened.
Now, there is a lull as people collect themselves, catch their breath. I check on Dad, who is dancing with a gentleman, of around the same vintage as him. They are waltzing without the benefit of music, which looks as strange as it sounds, although there is a curious grace to their slow, deliberate movements. All straight backs and rigid arms and high heads.
The man wears a fedora. Carries it off magnificently. A triangle of folded handkerchief pokes out of the breast pocket of his suit. The handkerchief matches the band around the fedora. I have an idea my mother would approve of this attention to detail.
I ask Lucas where the ladies’ is and he points to a passageway at the back of the room. I walk towards it; my feet curiously unsteady now that I have stopped dancing.
The bathroom is a large, ornate affair, with brass taps and tropical plants and massive prints of nudes on the walls, and tall, thin candles flickering, beads of wax running down their sides like children coming down a slide.
While of course I worry about candles in an unsupervised area, the light that they throw does something to my face in the gilt-edged mirror over the basin.
I don’t look like Terry Shepherd from number fifty-five.
I look like someone else. Like I could be someone else.
I smile. And not my usual small, not-quite-a-smile smile. No, it’s sort of luxurious, this smile. A deluxe version. Seriously, that’s what I’m doing when the phone rings. I’m smiling at myself in a mirror.
I jump when the phone rings. I bang my elbow off the edge of the windowsill. The pain is sharp, instant. Like a bucket of cold water emptied over my head. Just as well really because when I pick my phone out of my handbag and look at the screen, I see that the caller is Brendan. I clear my throat, take a breath.
‘Brendan!’ I say. ‘Hello!’ I say.
‘Terry? Is that you? I can only make out the inside of your ear,’ Brendan begins.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Look at the screen,’ he says.
I move the phone away from my ear, look at the screen, which is now filled with Brendan’s face, staring right at me.
‘Brendan,’ I say again. ‘There you are.’
‘What?’
‘I just … I mean, it’s lovely to see you.’ This is not true. Not at all. The sudden appearance of Brendan’s face on my phone screen feels like an accusation. Guilt crawls along my skin. I think it’s because Brendan looks tired. Wrung out. Like a used-up J-cloth. ‘Are you okay?’ I ask.
‘I’m … I thought you would have phoned me today,’ he says.
‘I am going to phone you,’ I say. ‘I mean, I was going to phone you. Just … later on you know?’
‘It’s already ten o’clock,’ he says.
‘Really?’ How has it gotten so late?
‘I suppose time must fly when you’re having fun,’ Brendan says. His voice is small. Faraway. I feel terrible, I really do.
‘Sorry Brendan, I honestly didn’t realise it was that late. Is that ten o’clock in Ireland or—’
‘Yes. Of course in Ireland,’ he shouts. Then he says, ‘Sorry, it’s been a rotten day.’
‘Oh no, what happened?’ My first thought is that if something happened to the girls it will be my fault for not being there and for having such a great time tonight.
‘Well, first of all, Kurt Glass postponed our meeting this morning from eight o’clock to ten o’clock. With barely any notice.’
I can’t believe I’d forgotten all about the meeting.
‘As if my time is worthless. As if I don’t have enough to be—’
‘So you had the meeting at ten?’ I say, sitting on the edge of a claw-foot porcelain bathtub.
‘What? Yes! Ten! And it was over by five past.’
He folds his arms across his chest, his mouth set in a thin, straight line.
‘Terry?’ he says, leaning towards the screen. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Yes, yes, go on. I’m listening.’
‘Well, apparently five minutes is all you need to tell a senior manager with nearly thirty years of experience and company loyalty that his nearly thirty years of experience and loyalty may be superfluous to requirements.’ He glares at me, but I know it’s not me he’s angry with. I almost lift my fingers to the screen to touch his face. Soothe him.
‘Oh Brendan,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Yes, well, that bit took about three and a half minutes. The remaining minute and a half was earmarked for informing me of the upcoming interview they have kindly arranged for me, to demonstrate to them how my nearly thirty years of experience and company loyalty can be of value in the new narrative of the company. It’s not a bloody novel. That’s what I should have said to him.’
My bum is going numb against the cold, thin ledge of the bath. I shift a little. ‘So, what does that mean exactly. You have to … interview for your own job?’
‘Yes! I just told you! Have you been listening to me at all?’
‘Yes, of course I have. Sorry, you just … caught me unawares.’
I smile an apologetic smile at the screen. Brendan’s eyes are sweeping around the screen, settling in the bottom left-hand corner.
‘Is that a … bidet?’ he says.
‘Pardon?’
‘There. On your right. No, your right. Yes. There. Is it?’
‘Oh. Yes. It is,’ I say slowly. ‘So look, we should …’
‘Are you in a bathroom?’
‘Actually, I am.’
‘Why on earth did you answer the phone?’
‘I thought it might be important.’
‘It is important.’
‘Exactly. That’s why I answered it. Ouch!’
‘What?’
‘Sorry, it’s just … I’ve been sitting on the edge of the bath and my bum’s gone numb.’
‘Terry, I could lose my job.’
I pick a towel off the rack, fold it between my bottom and the hard ledge. I look at him. I look at his familiar face, layered with anger and worry. I shake my head. ‘You hate that job.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘What is the point then?’
‘Well, there’s the small matter of my monthly salary. Which, you might remember, pays inconsequential things like the mortgage. And the bills. And the food. And the—’
‘The mortgage will be paid up in another year,’ I interrupt. ‘And the girls are gone now, more or less. We don’t need as much money as we used to.’
‘Yes, but we still need money.’
‘Are they offering redundancy?’
‘Of course they are.’
‘Well then. We can live off that for a while. And I can get a job.’
He snorts. ‘Doing what?’
‘I don’t know. I could be a carer or something. I could look after people.’
‘You need qualifications for that.’
‘Then I’ll get qualifications.’
Brendan bows his head, pushes his hand through his hair. I notice, for the first time, that it is thinning at the top and those thinning strands fill me with a fierce kind of sadness.
When he looks up, there is a beaten quality to his face. A sad resignation. ‘You think I’m going to lose my job, don’t you?’
‘No. I’m just saying, if you do, it won’t be the end of the world.’
He’s looking at me now. Rea
lly looking. ‘You look … different,’ he says. ‘Is that a new dress?’
I look down at myself. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Well, it’s a skirt and top. But yes. I bought them in London.’
‘They’re …’ He casts around for a word. Then he says, ‘Nice.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And your hair,’ he says. ‘It’s … different.’
‘It’s just not tied up.’
‘Oh. Right.’
I stand up. ‘I should go,’ I tell him. ‘I need to check on Dad.’
‘Where are you?’ There is something plaintive in his tone.
‘I’m in a wine cellar actually. It turns into a jazz club on a full moon.’
‘I didn’t know you liked jazz,’ he says.
‘Neither did I. And there just happens to be a full moon tonight. Isn’t that a piece of good luck?’
Brendan sighs. ‘How’s Iris?’
‘She’s great,’ I say.
‘And what about the … you know … the Zurich thing?’
‘It’s scheduled for the day after tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure she won’t go through with it.’
‘I knew she wouldn’t,’ says Brendan.
‘Aren’t you glad?’ I say. There is a sharp edge to my voice, but Brendan doesn’t notice.
‘Of course I’m glad. It’s just … the timing of this escapade hasn’t been the best. With Anna’s finals and Kate’s play opening. And the bloody Canadians.’
I feel a low, dense heat building inside me. I have a feeling it might be resentment. ‘Well, I’m sorry that you and the girls have been so discommoded. With my escapade.’
‘Ah Terry, don’t be like that. It’s just … it’s been weird, these past few days.’
‘Weird?’
‘Not weird exactly. Just, strange, I suppose. The house feels strange. When you’re not in it.’
He can’t bring himself to say that he misses me. Although it’s not really me he misses. It’s the house with me in it. Dinners made, his shirts ironed, floors washed, silver polished.
Yes, I am someone who polishes silver. What on earth was I thinking?
I make a solemn vow, in the bathroom of a French wine cellar that turns into a jazz club on a full-moon night, never to polish silver again.
Ever.
‘Well, good luck with your interview,’ I say.
Rules of the Road Page 24