Belly Dancing for Beginners

by Liz Byrski

  Frank nodded, tracing patterns in the condensation on the beer bottle.

  ‘Would you like a glass for that?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘So what about you, hon?’ Sonya asked quietly.

  He shook his head again, swallowing down the great wave of self-pity that her sympathetic tone had triggered. ‘Not the best,’ he said. ‘I mean, I’m used to seeing a lot worse than that, but I’m . . . I guess I’m not used to caring.’

  ‘And you care quite a lot, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah! Yeah, I do, a helluva lot. More than I realised. Not that it’s going to do me much good now, I suspect.’

  ‘Hey, come on,’ Sonya said. ‘It’s early days. She freaked out, you were the one who found her. She doesn’t know how she feels about that yet. You have to give it time.’

  Frank nodded. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Definitely. Look, Frank, none of us knows what Marissa’s demons actually are. She doesn’t give much away but until that night she had a lot riding on you. It was obvious in the way she talked about you, the way she looked for your calls even if she didn’t return them.’

  ‘Maybe. But I stuffed that up, and at the hospital . . .’

  ‘At the hospital she was in crisis. She needed a scapegoat and it’s hard luck it was you. I know you think it was your fault with some message you left –’

  ‘I’d had a few drinks, I was high on tying up the case . . . I was over the moon and I didn’t stop to think,’ Frank said, the words tumbling out of control. ‘All these months I’ve been so careful, both of us have, sort of feeling our way. We both knew the other was a mess, screwed up by things from the past, and then I go and blow it.’

  ‘So you’d had a few drinks and you didn’t leave the most appropriate message. And then at the pub you had a few more, but there’s no way you were drunk or crude or anything. I can’t imagine what you think you could have said to –’

  ‘I said I was in Geraldton and wanted to see her. I told her . . . I told her I loved her.’ He looked straight at Sonya, aware that his eyes were full of tears. ‘I love you, Marissa, that’s what I said. I love you.’

  There had been days in the past when Oliver had seen a semester, a week, a day – even a single lecture – stretching ahead of him as prolonged torture. Teaching, although he was apparently quite good at it, was the price he paid for the framework in which he could do his research and writing. Before each lecture and class he had always suffered from bursts of crippling performance anxiety, unable to sleep the night before a morning lecture, unable to eat lunch before an afternoon class. The fact that he knew many of his colleagues suffered the same anxiety did nothing to alleviate it.

  Now, as he parked in a shady corner of the university car park, he marvelled at his new enthusiasm for his work. Was it exercise, or therapy, or a combination of the two? Whatever it was, he rose earlier and went to bed later, he slept better and his daytime hours seemed more rewarding than they had for years. Students of whom he had despaired seemed to be responding to him better – somehow he was managing to challenge them, spark their curiosity, even laugh with them. So it seemed almost obscenely unfair that he should be enjoying this personal and professional rebirth while his dearest friend was tunnelling through the slough of despond.

  ‘Don’t be so silly, Oliver,’ Gayle had said when he mentioned this dilemma at their first breakfast on campus after many months. ‘It’s wonderful to see the change in you. In fact, it’s wonderful to see you, and to be back at work. And I’m not in the slough of despond. I won’t say it’s not difficult at the moment, especially Angie’s reaction, but, frankly, the relief of leaving Brian is enormous, and I’ve got my son back.’ She fished a package of photographs out of her bag, pulled two off the top and handed them to him. ‘Josh and Dan,’ she said. ‘And that’s the three of us together.’

  ‘He’s so like you,’ Oliver said, genuinely surprised. ‘And you all look so happy.’

  ‘I was. You can’t imagine what it was like to see him, to feel forgiven. I know forgiveness is supposed to be best for the forgiver, but I’ve got to say it’s pretty amazing to be on the receiving end.’

  Oliver smiled. ‘I’m sure. But what about Angie? Any sign of a truce?’

  Gayle shook her head and took back the photos. ‘Afraid not. She’s very angry, and very hurt, and of course she has every right to be. It’s a bit hard to see her canonising Brian, though. She’s grumbled about him as much as I have in the past. And now she’s even taking it out on Sonya for being a bad influence on me.’

  Oliver raised his eyebrows. ‘How extraordinary. You didn’t even know Sonya when . . . well, when you . . ..’

  ‘When I had the affair and got pregnant – no, of course not. There’s no logic to it. I guess she just needs to lash out and I know that I have to cop that, but it seems unfair on Sonya. Angie’s even asked for a transfer out of her section. Anyway, what about you? The dancing, the swimming – you look so much better.’

  Oliver smiled. ‘I’m ready to bore you with my new routine,’ he said. ‘Less caffeine, lots of raw food and less red wine.’

  ‘A little is supposed to be good for you.’

  ‘But almost two bottles over the course of an evening and resultant embarrassing phone calls are not,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I guess you heard – of course, you answered the phone.’ He was moved, quite suddenly, by the ease of their conversation and the feeling that their friendship now had a depth that it had previously lacked. ‘I haven’t been a good friend to you, Gayle,’ he said. ‘If I had, you’d have been able to talk like this before. I’m sorry. I was so much up my own bum. I seem to have spent my life trying to reach some higher plane of political correctness and being totally unaware of the dilemmas of the people I cared about.’

  She put her hand on his arm. ‘There were two of us, Oliver. Both cut off, both struggling. Perhaps that’s what drew us together, even though we couldn’t talk about it.’

  ‘And now?’ He wasn’t sure why he’d said it, or what he expected.

  ‘Now there’s still two of us and we’re still struggling, but we understand each other much better, and we can talk about it. That means a lot,’ she said. And to his enormous surprise she leaned across and kissed him on the check. ‘An awful lot, Oliver, really.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Marissa looked at her costumes spread across the spare bed. The trip had been hard on them, frequent packing and unpacking along with the usual wear and tear of dancing meant small rips, trimmings pulled from the fabric, broken fastenings that needed repairing and she needed to fix one for tonight’s class, the first one since she’d got back. She’d taken a risk closing them for twelve weeks and knew she might have lost people to other classes. Tonight she could well find herself staring at an empty room, having to start all over again drumming up business. All she could do was turn up and hope for the best.

  She threaded a very fine needle with a purple silk thread and began to repair the hem of her favourite skirt. She’d worn this costume the night she danced at Gayle’s house, more than a year ago. Gayle had changed so much in that time she was barely recognisable as the mousy, intimidated woman who had thought that no one would join in the dance.

  Marissa had never met Brian, but she had heard enough about him to piece together a picture. And while she understood why Gayle had chosen to stay with him, she couldn’t begin to imagine how she had survived it and remained such a rational and generous person. To Marissa, who felt she had boldly shaken off her past and taken control of her own life, it was incomprehensible.

  Pricking her finger she jumped and sucked quickly at the bulging spot of blood. Since that night at the hotel, tiny shocks sent her into a panic and it took a huge effort to pull herself back. She wondered if it would get better, fade away in time, if she would go back to normal, or at least as she had been before, able to control it, able to recognise small hurts, shocks, irritations for what they were without overreacting. She kept trying to qu
ash the memory of that night but it wouldn’t let her go.

  She ruffled up the fabric of the skirt and held it softly against her face. The smell was her own and the feel of it brought her back to what it meant to her to wear it, and the strength and congruence that she experienced when she danced. Leaning back against the wall, her feet up on her bed, she picked up the needle again. The tour had brought her a whole lot more than she had bargained for: offers to teach in different places, bookings for private functions, and she had completely sold out of the practice video and needed to order more. But the most important thing she had gained was friends. During those weeks of travel, so unlike the travel of her youth, she had learned something about friendship, with two women as different from her and from each other as she could ever have imagined.

  ‘We’ve got you in our clutches now, Marissa,’ Sonya had said the previous day. ‘No escape. Scary, isn’t it? You have friends who don’t just like you, they love you.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Gayle agreed. ‘More fool us. We pick a friend who can’t even make a decent cup of coffee and wants us to drink herbal tea. That’s a pretty rugged test of friendship.’

  So, that morning, Marissa had bought a plunger and some coffee. She hoped they would understand that doing it was a way of saying how she felt even if she couldn’t trust herself to say it with words.

  She drew her thread and started to stitch some sequins back onto the purple skirt. Tonight would be the first night she had danced since . . . there it was again. She’d missed the last night in Geraldton because they wouldn’t let her out of the hospital, and Sonya and Gayle had danced alone. She owed them a lot, them and Frank . . . but she’d ruined that, of course, and at the thought of it sadness overwhelmed her again, sadness and the uneasy feeling that what had begun that night in Geraldton was not complete, that there was more to come before she would be free of it.

  Sighing, she broke off her thread and shook out the skirt. Concentrate on tonight and what she’d do if no one turned up, concentrate on how to cope if people did turn up, because since Geraldton she felt as though she’d lost her nerve.

  The group of women waiting outside the hall let out a whoop of delight as Marissa rode up on the Harley, and by the time they were in the hall, the number had doubled. They clamoured around her, asking about the tour. Slowly, carefully, trying to stay calm, Marissa set up the CD player and got out her cash box and registration book.

  ‘We missed you,’ said a woman in her seventies who had started dancing with her four years earlier to keep herself on the go. ‘You’re not allowed to go away again, Marissa.’

  ‘No, and you missed Emma’s baby being born,’ said another. ‘A little girl, she’s called her Marissa, and Emma’s mum is making this tiny belly dancing costume. Emma’s bringing her round later to show you.’

  There seemed to be more women than there had been at any previous class, old faces and plenty of new ones. She was surrounded, and panic was creeping up on her, making it hard to breathe.

  ‘Hey, girls, give this dame some space,’ Sonya said, and Marissa swung round in relief. ‘Now, I’ll take the money and sign you up.’

  ‘And anyone who’s new can come and talk to me,’ Gayle said, drawing them to one side. ‘I’ll tell you about getting started.’

  They hadn’t told her they were coming but here they were in full costume, no leotards or T-shirts, the full thing: sequinned belts, headbands, made up to the nines as though for a performance. Sonya was even wearing the red hairpiece.

  Marissa breathed freely as the reassuring drumbeat began to relax her, then the sounds of the kanoun and the oud, on the haunting Eastern scale. Gayle was standing ready on one side, one arm raised high holding the corner of her veil, the other arm holding the opposite corner out at right angles. Sonya, fluffing up her emerald skirt, slipped into place on the other side.

  ‘Right,’ Marissa said, and her voice sounded strong and confident even to her own ears. ‘On four . . . one, two, three . . .’ Energy surged through her and she was back again in the rhythm and spirit of the dance, the magic that had sustained her so many times before.

  Brian’s foot was giving him hell. The night of the furniture smashing he was in his socks and had trodden on some glass. It seemed to be taking ages to heal. He was furious with himself for the damage he’d done that night, although he knew his anger was justified. He’d never seen Gayle like that before and he didn’t like what he saw.

  After she’d gone, and he’d got rid of the police, he’d sat out on the terrace in the darkness with another bottle of wine, staring at the television set bobbing around in the swimming pool. What a bloody waste, he thought, perfectly good television set, perfectly good windows, chairs, glasses. What a bloody waste, all of it. All those years and where had it got him? Here, alone, in the dark, surrounded by broken glass and a pool full of floating furniture. He had no idea how long he sat there, with his cut foot wrapped in a towel, but at some point he’d gone inside, been violently sick in the downstairs toilet and staggered up to bed, leaving everything as it was: doors open, lights on, spilt wine still dripping off the edge of the table.

  He woke just after nine with a blinding headache, his foot throbbing painfully. The towel was now stuck to his wound with dried blood and he had to soak it in the bath to loosen it. When he was finally able to see the damage, it was clear he needed stitches so his first job was a trip to the hospital, followed by a visit to Angie to try to repair some of the damage that Gayle had done by deciding to blab after all these years. His old optimism had returned: Gayle would certainly be back, if not today then in a few days, maybe even a month. The main thing was to sort out the mess in the house, get it valued and put it on the market. Things would go ahead as he’d planned, there would just be a minor delay and he could rise above that.

  Angie, who had taken a sickie, fell on him when he arrived. ‘Oh, Dad! Everything’s so awful. How could she do this? And your job . . .’ He steered her inside and sat her down on the couch.

  ‘It’s okay, Princess,’ he said awkwardly, stroking her hair. ‘Makes no difference, you know, never has, never will, makes no difference to you and me.’ Although moved by her distress he was still able to enjoy a certain degree of satisfaction at the fact that Gayle was obviously cast as the villain of the piece. The trouble was he had no idea how to handle Angie when she wouldn’t stop crying and wailing. In the end he had to tell her quite gruffly to pull herself together.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled into another handful of tissues. ‘But it’s all been such a shock . . . like my whole life has been based on a lie.’

  To his surprise, Brian managed to find some words that seemed to comfort her, although when he thought about it later he couldn’t for the life of him remember what he had said. Eventually she stopped crying, and he suggested she make some coffee. He sat on a stool in the kitchen and told her about his foot, and about the television and the chairs that were still floating in the pool. He almost got a laugh out of her then, and together they took their mugs out into the small courtyard that was decorated with bright blue flower pots filled with white geraniums.

  ‘Your mother’ll see sense very shortly,’ he said, stirring his coffee. ‘She’ll be back home, same as ever, and I’ve got big plans.’

  ‘I don’t know, Dad,’ Angie said, shaking her head. ‘I think she’s serious. I think you’re going to have to accept that she means what she says.’

  ‘I’m sure it sounded that way when she spoke to you but, remember, she’s never been on her own, never had to look after herself.’ He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. ‘Take it from me, Princess, it’s this dancing thing that’s ruined everything. Give it a bit of time, a week, maybe two, and she’ll be back.’

  Angie shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t care what she does. I don’t want to talk to her. How could she do that to you, Dad? And making it so that neither of you would tell me, that is just so wrong.’ The tears looked like starting again, and Brian once
more summoned his magic words, but managed not to mention that it was he who had been the architect of the deal that he and Gayle had struck. No point in scoring an own goal at this stage of the game.

  ‘So,’ Brian said eventually, ‘d’you like my new look?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ she said distractedly. ‘Yeah, it’s good, it suits you. Cool.’

  He smiled. ‘Thought I’d have a bit of a change.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Feels good. And the hair – you noticed the hair? Styled properly, like you kept telling me.’

  ‘Oh sure,’ she said. ‘Nice. Anyway, the most important thing now is to get started on looking for him. I’m applying for a transfer out of Sonya’s department – I certainly don’t want to work with her anymore. I’m taking annual leave while I wait for that to come through. It’ll give me heaps of time to get going on a search, but the first thing I need is his name and whatever else you can tell me.’

  Brian, confused and a tad disappointed that his makeover had not received more attention, finished his coffee and put his mug down on the table. ‘You’ve lost me,’ he said. ‘Who are we talking about now?’

  ‘My real father, of course.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘I need to know who he is, see if I can find him.’ She paused suddenly after seeing Brian’s face. ‘Oh, don’t be upset, Dad, you’re my dad, always will be, but I need to find my biological father.’

  ‘Why? What the –’

  ‘Mum wouldn’t help me. She wouldn’t tell me his name,’ Angie went on. ‘She said it was too soon, I needed to think about it. I don’t need her. You know who he is, don’t you? You’ll help me, I know I can rely on you.’

  The prospect of Angie wanting to make contact with her biological father had never occurred to Brian, and it was as shocking as the news that Gayle, albeit due to some temporary insanity, might want to leave him. His immediate reaction was to lie and say that he didn’t know the man’s name. Angie meant the world to him and was obviously still very upset. He didn’t want to make the situation worse, but at the same time there was no way he was going to do anything to help her find the bastard he’d spent the last twenty-seven years trying to forget.