Dancer

by Colum McCann

  —You should stop that, said Monsieur.

  —Stop what?

  —Smoking, you asshole.

  —This? said Victor, and he puffed on the cigarette, blew a big cloud of smoke in the air.

  —Yes.

  —Oh what the hell, said Victor, I haven’t got my cough right yet.

  4

  LONDON, BRIGHTON • 1991

  Moderate rolling in of right foot on deep plié, severe on left. Mild right tibio talor and sub-talor, severe on left. Acute knocking of knee. Left lateral tipping of the hip. Arch in lower back, head dips forward. At the bottom of the plié the line is completely gone. Giveaway is the white knuckles on the barre. By twelfth plié he has overcome the pain. On examination, severe tension and contraction in left quadriceps, moderate in right. Acute fraying of the meniscus. Work in arnica to lessen inflammation. Cross fiber friction and twenty-minute effleurage at least. Lengthen quadriceps to allow bend. Rolling and broadening, hip extension, torso twist, scapula stretch etc. Bandage between rehearsal and performance. Figure-eight wrapping with cross on side to push left knee straight.

  * * *

  I had no idea who to tell. It was impossible to think of anyone who might understand. I had not made many friends since moving to Monsieur’s home in London. There had always been Tom, but now he was gone.

  It came out of the blue, like one of those winter showers that chills you to the bone. One day you’re content and the next day it is all swept from beneath your feet. I looked around but couldn’t recognize even the simplest items, the oven, the clock, the small porcelain vase Tom had bought for me. There was a note explaining his actions, but I could not bring myself to read beyond the first two lines. He seemed to be still present, as if I might turn around and find him sitting in his chair, reading a newspaper, yet another hole apparent in his socks. But he had taken his shoemaking equipment and a suitcase. For hours I cried. It was as if he had sent my whole life supperless to bed.

  When I was a schoolgirl in Voutenay I was called Petit oiseau. I was small and thin, and adults always remarked on my hooked nose. I used to sit and watch my mother cooking in the kitchen, where we both took refuge in the simplicity of recipes and food. But there was nobody to care for. Monsieur was away and not even the gardener was around.

  In the quarters Tom and I shared, he had kept a box near his side of the bed. Tom had been contemplating retirement and was making a final pair of shoes for Monsieur. For the presentation box he had used mahogany and nailed a brass plate on the front, although it had not yet been inscribed. I opened the box, took out the shoes and carefully snipped them apart with a pair of scissors. The satin cut easily and then I placed the pieces back in the box. I knew my senses were derailed but I hardly cared.

  Monsieur always kept money in the bottom drawer of his bedroom cupboard. He used it to give to visitors who had run out of cash and were in need of a taxi home. I left a slip of paper saying I was taking an advance on my salary. My hands were shaking. I phoned the usual number for a taxi, checked the house to make sure all the lights were out, the windows were shut tight, the appliances turned off. Soon a loud beeping sounded outside the house. I tucked Tom’s box under my arm, set the burglar alarm, and went out the front door.

  I recognized the driver, a young man who wore an earring and a goatee. He rolled down his window and said: Who’s the victim today then, eh?

  He was a little surprised when I opened the door and slid into the backseat alone, placed the mahogany box on the floor. I had often escorted Monsieur’s guests to their taxis but rarely took one myself. The driver tilted his rearview mirror, looked at me, and then turned in his seat and slid the glass panel open.

  —Covent Garden, I said.

  —You all right, love?

  From my handbag I took a handkerchief monogrammed with Monsieur’s initials. I dabbed at my eyes and told the driver I was fine, that I just needed to get to Covent Garden as soon as possible.

  —Right-y-o, love, he said. You sure you’re okay?

  It was not rudeness that caused me to switch seats so he could no longer see me in the mirror, but that I simply couldn’t bear the notion of the young driver watching me cry.

  He drove quickly but the journey seemed endless. It was summertime. On the street girls wore tiny skirts and young men sported tattoos. The taxi lurched from side to side. Drivers behind us tooted their horns, furious they had been cut off. A motorcycle driver even kicked the side panel of the door.

  By the time we got to Covent Garden the fare was in double digits.

  I had recovered sufficient composure to ask the driver to wait for me outside the shoe factory. He shrugged. I stepped out of the car and was about to go inside when the thought of seeing Tom made my legs wobble. I had not felt this way since my graduation dance in Paris years before. What had I become? I was sixty years old and had just ripped up my husband’s present to Monsieur. Surely, I thought, I was just suffering through a terrible dream.

  I heard the whoop of a siren and turned around to see a police car instructing the taxi to move on. The driver was gesturing at me. Everything was happening in far too much of a hurry. I walked quickly along the outside wall to Tom’s window and, without looking in, I left the box on the windowsill, turned around and climbed back in the taxi.

  —Brighton, I said to the driver.

  I could see the surprise on his face. Brighton? he said.

  Behind us the police car siren whooped a second time.

  —Brighton by the sea, I said.

  —You got to be kidding, love.

  He began driving slowly down the street.

  —I’ll take you to Victoria Station, you can get a train from there.

  I opened my handbag and passed forward one hundred and fifty pounds. The driver whistled and stroked his goatee. I added another fifty and he pulled the taxi over to the curb. I had never before spent so much money so needlessly.

  —You going for a little flutter then, love? asked the driver.

  —Please, I said in my sternest voice.

  He straightened up and got on his radio, talked to his dispatcher and within fifteen minutes we were on the main carriageway. I rolled down the window and, quite inexplicably, felt calm. The breeze drowned out the noise of a cricket match on the driver’s radio. It seemed that I had carelessly stepped into a day not meant for me and soon it would be over.

  In Brighton posters of Monsieur were tied to the lampposts all along the promenade.

  Monsieur looked young in the photograph. His hair was long and he had an impish grin on his face. I wanted to walk up to the poster and embrace him. A young lady on the promenade held a stapling gun and was readjusting a few of the posters that had slid down the posts. It was Monsieur’s final performance in England and there were rumors it might be his last.

  I had asked the driver to find a nice bed-and-breakfast facing the sea. He stopped outside an old Victorian house and kindly offered to go inside to inquire whether there was a vacancy. I was glad to see that not all young Englishmen had lost their manners. He came out smiling and, after he had taken my hand to guide me from the taxi, he offered to return some of the money.

  —You paid too much, dear.

  I surprised even myself when I shoved yet another twenty-pound note into his hand.

  —What I’ll do is I’ll buy the missus a nice dinner, he said.

  He beeped his horn as he left.

  It was certainly not his fault but I burst into tears.

  The room was elegant, with a picture window that looked out to the sea. Children were laughing and kicking in the surf and I could hear a distant brass band playing in one of the pavilions. Still I was reminded of Tom, even in the simplest of items: the twin beds, the ornate vase, the painting of the piers. I had no explanation as to what had happened. Tom had, over the years, been mildly unhappy at having to live in Monsieur’s house, but we had furnished our quarters to Tom’s liking and he had seemed to settle in. He was not perturbed by the f
ew occasions when I had traveled with Monsieur to other countries, nor even by the fact that I was sometimes called upon to look after Monsieur’s needs in Paris. Indeed, Tom said he liked the time alone, he could get his work done. And while it was true that we were perhaps not as intimate as other married couples, there had certainly never been a time when I had called into question our devotion to each other.

  I stood in the room. Perhaps the only word for my emotion was raw: I felt raw. I closed the curtains and lay down on the bed and, although it is not in my nature, I continued to weep aloud even while I heard other guests in the corridor.

  I awoke thinking not of Tom, but of Monsieur’s posters fluttering in the wind by the sea.

  Monsieur was not due to dance in The Moor’s Pavane until the following night. I thought about going to see him at his hotel but didn’t want to compound his problems with my own. In recent times I had been angered by what the newspapers were writing about him. He had an ingrown toenail and a problem with his knees, but the newspapers never wrote about that. At one show some members of the audience had asked for their money back when his leg muscles cramped. In Wembley the music had stopped in the middle and they said Monsieur had frozen, waiting for the orchestra, but there was none since the music was taped. In Glasgow there was nobody to meet him at the stage door and a photographer had taken a picture of Monsieur alone and dejected, when, of course, that wasn’t true to his spirit at all. Some of his steadfast admirers now refused to go to his performances, but his shows still sold out and the ovations were plentiful, even if the newspapers said they were addressed to the past. People liked to make sly comments behind Monsieur’s back but the truth is that he was as dignified as ever.

  The next morning I decided that, despite the circumstances, I would make the best of my day. I ordered breakfast in one of the seafront establishments. The waiter, a young man from Burgundy, made a strong café-crème especially for me. He whispered that the English may have helped win two world wars but they knew nothing of the coffee bean. I laughed and found myself doubling the tip. I felt strangely giddy when I thought about my rapidly disappearing money. Even so, I bought a sun hat and rented a deckchair, carried it to the strand, put the hat on in order to obscure my eyes.

  Late in the morning I noticed a young woman standing near the water’s edge. She was holding her skirt and dipping a toe in the surf. Her legs were long and beautiful. She went farther into the sea and stopped when the water reached to her thigh. Then she bent forward, whipped her long shining hair over her shoulder and soaked it briefly in the sea.

  Then, much to my surprise I caught sight of Monsieur standing near the young woman. The waves were rolling up to him. I wondered who she could possibly be. Emilio sat close by on the beach, cross-legged, watching the proceedings.

  I rose quickly to leave, but Emilio spied me and called my name. He stood up and his long ponytail swung. He greeted me with a kiss on either cheek and expressed his pleasure on seeing me in Brighton.

  —Oh, I just wanted to see Monsieur’s show, I said.

  —I’m glad someone wants to, replied Emilio.

  At that moment Monsieur spotted me and waved at me to join him. Emilio made a comment about the king summoning his courtiers and I had to smile a little. Emilio had resigned so many times from Monsieur’s service that he had even put another masseur on call to work on those days between resigning and being rehired.

  I bit my lip and went down to the water, where Monsieur was standing with the young lady.

  —Let me introduce you to Marguerite, he said.

  I realized then that she was one of Monsieur’s dancing partners. She pushed her sunglasses up onto her head and smiled. Her eyes were a beautiful blue. I thought how wonderful it must be for her, at such a young age, to dance with Monsieur in the twilight of his career, but then I felt a sudden surge of anger since Monsieur had not even inquired after the reason for my appearance in Brighton.

  —Odile will help solve your problem, I heard Monsieur say.

  —Oh no, said the young dancer. I’ll be able to arrange something.

  There were children playing by the sea, using their shoes to scoop up water for sandcastles and moats.

  —Odile wouldn’t mind, would you?

  Monsieur was staring at me. I mentioned that I had been distracted by the bright sunlight. He sighed and said the problem was quite simple. Marguerite, he explained, had invited some family members to the performance that evening. They were driving down from London. Her sister had an eighteen-month-old child and no-one to baby-sit.

  I nodded and said: I understand.

  —There, said Monsieur. Problem solved.

  I flushed but stammered that it would be my honor to help.

  —Six o’clock, said Monsieur.

  Years ago an uncle told me that if I were to be a little bird, it would always be the one with the broken wing. That evening I had prepared a meal for a table of twelve and, even though I say so myself, the food was exquisite. The only variation was for my uncle’s dish—I had laced it with spice and he spent the evening teary-eyed and coughing.

  I wished at that moment to lace Monsieur’s dish, to say something that would make him stand back and sputter. But he appeared sicker than usual. With his foot problems and other ailments, he was having difficulty walking, and the thought of him stepping onstage to dance, upset, was distressing.

  —I’d be delighted to help, I said.

  Monsieur nodded and hobbled away down the beach. The young dancer looked back over her shoulder, smiled, and mouthed her thanks. Monsieur whistled at Emilio, who rose and followed them.

  The water lapped at my toes and I felt a migraine coming on. Beyond the promenade I dipped into a café to order a glass of water for my tablets. Only moments later did I realize I had also ordered a slice of Battenberg cake, Tom’s favorite.

  I left the cake untouched and returned to my room.

  The sound of seagulls woke me and I saw on the bedside clock that it was almost six. I hurried to the hotel and pushed through the groups of admirers in the lobby waiting for Monsieur. I approached the front desk where, after a series of phone calls, I was directed to the penthouse floor.

  Obviously there had been a mistake because when I knocked gently on the door it was Monsieur’s voice I heard, loud and impatient, saying: What?

  Emilio opened the door and I glimpsed Monsieur on the massage table. Emilio was wearing thin rubber gloves. I noticed even from a distance that there were welts on Monsieur’s body and there was a little blood on the table’s paper sheet, near Monsieur’s feet. I stammered my apology, turned away, and the door closed quickly behind me.

  I heard Monsieur curse.

  —Lock the door! he shouted.

  Downstairs, I was redirected to the young dancer’s room. The child was sleeping, bottles of milk had been prepared, a change of clothes neatly laid out, and there was even a pram in the room so I could rock him back and forth if he woke. He was a beautiful little boy with thin wisps of dark hair.

  I bade good-bye to the family and settled in one of the easy chairs.

  I have always detested hotel rooms. I had no desire to watch television, nor to tune in the radio. I found myself thinking of Tom, how I had shredded the shoes and how he might feel when he opened the box. It was impossible to stop the tears. Feeling claustrophobic, I bundled the baby in a light blanket, put him in the pram and brought him downstairs in the elevator.

  It was still bright outside. Many young lovers were on the promenade and some clairvoyants had set up along the beachfront. A few people stopped and cooed at the baby in the pram, but when someone asked me the child’s name I realized that I didn’t know. I hurried along with my thoughts of Tom.

  I was convinced that there were no other women, although his old landlady still sent him Christmas cards. And there had been no alcohol involved. Maybe there was another explanation. I wished I had taken his letter with me and perhaps, I thought, my actions had been far too rash.


  Down the promenade I heard some loud swear words. When I looked I found myself just yards from a gang of young troublemakers leaning against the seafront wall. Their heads were shaved and they wore Union Jack suspenders and red boots up to their ankles.

  I considered turning the pram around and walking quickly back to the hotel but I feared they might see my panic and try to steal my handbag. I pushed the pram through but curiously they didn’t seem to pay much attention. A few stars were out now and the sea was darkening. The baby woke and began to cry. I tried to soothe him and by the time he fell asleep again the darkness had descended.

  I turned to see one of the young skinheads shimmying up a lamppost. He reached into his rear pocket and I caught the flash of a knife as he began to cut the poster of Monsieur down. He was shouting something terrible about homosexuals while his friends laughed and pushed each other around. My heart beat fast. I looked for the sort of people I’d seen earlier in the day—men in boating hats and middle-aged women in sandals—but there were none in sight. There was no way to take the baby carriage along the pebbled beach, and to get up to the town there were a number of steps I would be forced to climb.

  There was nothing else to do but walk back through. My legs trembled, my mouth felt dry, but I held my carriage erect and sang a nursery rhyme to the child.

  The skinheads parted a little to allow me a passage. But the one who had torn the poster was jumping up and down and pretending to wipe his backside with Monsieur’s image. I could hardly control myself. I felt my knees buckling. I pushed on until the pram got caught on a gap in the concrete and the wheel stuck. I wrenched the pram out from the crack but my feet tangled and I fell back on the ground, grazing my knee. The skinhead started laughing and dropped the torn poster near the wheel of the pram. I caught sight of half of Monsieur’s face, his ease, his happiness. I scrambled to rise as one of the troublemakers called me a particularly nasty name. I was trembling, yet I grabbed the torn poster and stuffed it in the pram beside the child.