Belly Dancing for Beginners

by Liz Byrski

  ‘It’s great that you’re here,’ Gayle said, handing her a glass of wine. “There’s some leftover pizza – can I warm it up for you?’

  Marissa shook her head. ‘I’m fine, thanks. Cheers, everyone – looks as though you’ve all done a great job with the moving.’

  Oliver extended his hand. ‘We haven’t met but I’m Oliver,’ he said. ‘Can you tango?’

  Marissa grinned and glanced at Frank, who was poised awkwardly on the arm of the sofa. ‘I can but –’

  ‘Splendid. Put the music on again, Gayle,’ Oliver cut in.

  ‘Another time maybe, Oliver,’ she said, ‘not this evening. This is just a flying visit, I’m not stopping.’

  ‘You have to come and see how lovely the bedroom looks,’ Gayle said, and she led Marissa off upstairs.

  ‘I think I’ll call it a day,’ Frank said, collecting up his tools.

  ‘It’s early,’ Oliver said. ‘The night is young.’

  ‘You don’t have to leave just because Marissa’s come,’ Sonya whispered. ‘Have another drink.’

  He put up his hand to stop her. ‘I’ve had enough, thanks, Sonya. I want to get off early tomorrow, be in Yallingup before lunch. Good to meet you, Oliver, happy to tango with you anytime.’ He felt ridiculous. His pleasure in the camaraderie of the day and the relaxed, boozy evening had been destroyed by Marissa’s unexpected arrival. If there were one person in the world he’d rather not have seen him dancing with another bloke, especially that particular move in the tango, it was Marissa. Oliver helped him carry his tools out to the car and as they came back up the path, Frank saw Gayle through the kitchen window stuffing pizza boxes into a rubbish bag.

  ‘Just came to say goodnight,’ he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.

  She turned and hugged him. ‘Thank you, Frank, for everything.’

  ‘Even the tango?’

  ‘Most especially the tango. And, Frank, about Marissa –’

  He held up his hand. ‘A lost cause, Gayle, I know that.’

  ‘Don’t be so quick to write it off.’

  He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I know when I’m beaten,’ he said, ‘and I’m dealing with it.’

  ‘Are you really?’

  ‘Sure!’ He smiled. ‘Off on holiday tomorrow. I’ll see you when I get back.’

  Walking to the car he paused briefly alongside the Harley, running his hand over the black leather seat.

  ‘Have you ever ridden one?’

  He jumped and swung round. Marissa was standing right behind him.

  ‘Years ago,’ he said. ‘But not a Harley. Goodnight, Marissa.’

  ‘You shouldn’t drive, Frank,’ she said. ‘You’ve had a lot to drink.’

  He bowed slightly. ‘You’re right, your honour, but I’m going to drive anyway.’

  ‘That’s pretty stupid. I thought you had better judgement.’

  He fished his keys out of his pocket. ‘Judgement? Me? No, Marissa, I have lousy judgement. You of all people should know that.’

  ‘Frank, leave the car here. I’ll run you home. I’ve got a second helmet.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You’re way over the limit.’

  ‘Story of my life.’

  ‘Why don’t you cut the cliches,’ she said, unlocking the top box behind the pillion and taking out a second helmet. ‘Just lock your car and put the helmet on.’

  Frank hesitated and then flicked the remote control to lock his vehicle.

  ‘How long since you rode pillion?’ Marissa asked.

  ‘Decades, and never on a Harley.’

  ‘Okay, well, it’s the same thing. Nice and loose, like a sack of potatoes, but try to remember that Harleys don’t like sharp corners. Don’t start anticipating the turns.’

  It was quiet for a Saturday night, and as they reached the top of the hill ahead of them, the booze bus was waiting. Marissa slowed and followed the traffic officer’s direction into the left hand lane and they sat, engine idling, waiting for their turn. Frank’s embarrassment grew. He’d be on his way for a urine sample by now if she hadn’t persuaded him not to drive. He felt awkward sitting behind her on the bike, and the delay made it worse. She already thought him crass and insensitive, and tonight’s little performance would have convinced her that he was stupid and drank too much as well. This Good Samaritan business of getting him home must be really pissing her off.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, getting off the Harley outside his house and removing his helmet. ‘You saved me from a very embarrassing incident.’

  Marissa switched off the engine. ‘Can we talk?’

  He shrugged. ‘Here? Now?’

  ‘You could ask me in,’ she said, taking off her helmet. ‘If it’s not too late.’

  Gayle turned off the lights and stood listening to the unfamiliar night-time silence of her new home.

  ‘It’s very different, very much cosier,’ Trisha had said that afternoon as she unpacked crockery. ‘I can see that it’s much more you than the old house ever was.’ She’d hugged Gayle as she hurried off to go to a family dinner with Graham. ‘I really admire you, Gayle. I thought you’d be stuck in that house and that marriage forever. Now look at you starting again, a new woman with a new life.’

  Starting again, becoming a single woman at this time of life, would have its challenges, but all Gayle could feel now was a sense of joyful anticipation. She remembered the night of the first belly dancing class, the sudden and surprising sense of competence, and the feeling of her body loosening and extending, feelings that had strengthened each time she danced.

  She went upstairs in the darkness and looked down onto the street below, where Frank’s car stood. She wondered what was happening right now between him and Marissa, who had disappeared as suddenly as she had arrived. And then she wondered about Sonya and Oliver, whose cars were also lined up on the street after sharing a taxi home, and she smiled to herself at the thought of Oliver, the anxious, cautious man whom she’d known for so long now shedding skins and actually developing some sex appeal. Gayle closed the blinds in the bedroom, slipped out of her jeans and T-shirt and wandered into the bathroom, wondering, rather wistfully, about Sonya, and what she really felt about Oliver and whether she realised that he was so obviously in love with her.

  Getting out of the taxi, Sonya leaned back inside and kissed Oliver on the cheek. “night, Oliver. Thanks for all you did. And, by the way, that tango? Better than power tools, I reckon.’

  He grasped her hand and kissed it. ‘Thank you, Sonya, for grabbing me by the throat and shaking me into doing something about myself.’

  She let herself in, dropped her bag on the floor, walked through to the bathroom and switched on the light. ‘Grabbed by the throat – it makes you sound so powerful,’ she said to her reflection in the mirror. ‘So how come you’re the only one who hasn’t changed? Letting your family see who you are for once is such a drop in the ocean compared to what’s happening around you. And, anyway, what good did it do?’

  She thought about Marissa and Frank and wondered what they were doing right now, and about the new Oliver, astonishing them with his humour and the tango. And she thought about Gayle, who had gained so much strength and revealed so much wisdom, and she wondered what Gayle really thought about Oliver, and whether she realised that he was so obviously in love with her.

  Oliver stood in his front garden and stared up at the stars. He picked out the Southern Cross and Orion, which were the only two constellations he knew, and breathed in the honeysuckle-scented night air. He wondered what had caused the unease between Frank and Marissa. Gayle and Sonya obviously hadn’t told him the full story. He thought about himself and how thrilling it was to tangle with the shifting demands and messages of head, heart and gut, instead of responding just to his head. And alone in the front garden he clasped an imaginary partner and for the second time that night executed a slow and sensuous promenade finishing with a lunge at the front door.

  TWENT
Y-SEVEN

  Marissa paced small nervous circles around the lounge room while Frank made a big deal of boiling the kettle and clattering cups and saucers in the kitchen. Why had she done this? Why was she here? She held a hand out in front of her and was amazed to see that it was absolutely still, for she felt as though every part of her were trembling. Staring at the closed front door she momentarily contemplated slipping quietly out and away into the night.

  Frank masked his own discomfort by searching for herbal tea. ‘I’ve got green or chamomile,’ he called, ‘both, amazingly, still within their use-by date.’

  ‘Chamomile, please,’ she said, overcoming that sudden urge to flee. But what next? ‘Can we talk?’ she’d said, but talk about what? About the fact that his message had touched a nerve so raw it sent her crazy? Can we talk? A line from a soap opera, the line before the commercial break that made sure you wouldn’t change channels. Can we talk? Not an invitation to a chat about the cricket or the weather, but a question charged with meaning: about us, about what happened, about why I’m a nut case, about why I treated you like shit, about why this could never work.

  ‘There you are,’ Frank said, ‘you probably need to leave the tea bag in for a bit.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, taking it from him. ‘Are you drinking coffee at this time of night?’

  He nodded, switching on a couple of table lamps and turning off the harsh central light. ‘I need it, and it’s things other than caffeine that keep me awake. Sit down, Marissa.’

  She sat awkwardly at one end of the sofa and they looked at each other in silence; a silence charged with embarrassment and anxiety.

  ‘This is a nice place,’ she said. ‘First time I’ve been here.’

  He managed a smile but his face looked crushed. It was a look she’d seen only once before, at the hospital, when she’d told him to leave.

  ‘I want to apologise for the way I treated you at –’ she began.

  ‘No apology necessary,’ he cut in. ‘My fault, I was way out of line and –’

  ‘And about what I did –’

  ‘Marissa –’

  She held up her hand. ‘You have to let me say some things without interrupting.’

  He nodded and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. ‘Sorry, go on.’

  ‘I said I wasn’t grateful to you; well, that’s not true. I just couldn’t say so at the time.’ She paused and dropped her head, closing her eyes and then inhaling deeply. ‘You and I . . . I felt we understood each other. I thought I understood about Vietnam, about how it must have been for you. After all, I’ve read about it, the things you’d have been through, the things you saw and probably still see. I suppose I felt I understood but, of course, I don’t. I can’t. Only someone who’s been there can know what it was like then and how it affects you now, and only you know what triggers it for you. Am I right?’

  ‘Exactly right.’

  ‘But it’s different for you. You see, I felt you understood that I . . . well, that I was also haunted by something, and I lost sight of the fact that while you recognised trauma you had no idea what my demons were, while I could tread carefully around areas that would obviously be hard for you. You had absolutely no signposts. Anything you said, anything you did, had the potential to blow up in your face.’

  Frank nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘That’s right, that’s how it felt. I was being so careful and then . . .’ His voice trailed away.

  ‘And then you left your message. Just once, you stopped walking on eggshells and it did blow up in your face.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Marissa, I’m so sorry . . . I didn’t want . . .’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, please don’t apologise.’ Her hands were shaking now, very obviously shaking, and her teeth were starting to chatter just like they had that night. ‘Let me go on, I didn’t mean to tell you this now but . . .’

  Frank got up to move towards her but she held up her hand. ‘Don’t! Please don’t touch me.’

  He dropped back into his chair.

  ‘I told you I was worried about going to Port Hedland. I was on a tightrope, and part of me thought going back there might settle something. I needed to make something happen to either get to the end of the tightrope or fall off. So I went back to the house where I . . . where we stayed, the people I was travelling with. I’d had this on-off thing with that guy I told you about.’

  ‘Blue?’

  ‘Yes. He was strange, a real macho bloke, and sex to him was like a way to constantly keep proving himself. He was young, younger than me, and perhaps that explains some of it, but he didn’t seem to have any sense of how anyone else might feel. And he was really only interested in me when he couldn’t pull anyone new. So I was over it, and waiting to get away, trying to make up my mind where to go next.’ She paused again; talking about it was making it hard to breathe.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go on?’ Frank asked.

  ‘Then there was a party,’ she said, ignoring him. ‘A lot of people around, people from the pub, the backpackers’ hostel, from god knows where else. Lots of booze, hash, LSD – probably other stuff too, I don’t know. Well, you can imagine how it was: music, noise, smoke, people groping each other . . . I’d had a few drinks more than usual and Blue rolled a joint. He had a lot of good quality hash, really strong. I couldn’t handle it, and I thought this roll-up was just leaf, but I think he’d souped it up. Anyway, you must know how it is, a few draws and everything begins to feel soft and floaty and . . . sort of safe, as though the world’s backed off to a safe distance. And then he started to get very affectionate, which was unlike him – he couldn’t really relate to women other than through sex. So I was in this dopey state and he was stroking my face, kissing me and then he said he’d had enough of the party.’

  Her breath was coming in short bursts now, and she struggled to slow it down. Frank was looking at her but she could no longer look at him, and she stared down at the floor, twisting her hands together in an effort to stop them shaking.

  ‘So, he said, “I just want to be with you, Marissa. I love you, I really love you.” Any other time I think I would have laughed at him but the drink and the dope . . . it was all so seductive, and although I’d felt it was all over between us, in a way I was still connected to him because of how we’d met and what all that meant. We were out in the garden, everyone was out there drinking and dancing, it was a lovely warm night and I was really stoned and it suddenly all seemed quite romantic. Anyway, he said, “Let’s get away from the others and go to bed.” We went inside and were heading for the room he was sharing with a couple of other guys and then he said, “I’ll just get us a couple of beers, you go on in, I’ll be there in a minute.” So . . . so, I went into the bedroom and I didn’t put the light on, just pulled off my gear and got into bed. And then someone switched the lights on.

  ‘At first I didn’t realise what was happening, but then they were on me, dragging off the bedclothes, holding me down, one of them’s unzipping his fly and they’re cheering him, egging him on, and I started yelling, but the music was so loud. I tried to kick him off but they were holding my legs . . . and he . . . he . . . he . . . climbs on top of me and he’s yelling out, “Come on, line up, who’s next . . . ?”’ She stopped, unable to repeat the words.

  ‘And then the door opens and there’s Blue standing there in the doorway, and I think, thank god, thank god he’s going to stop them, and I yelled for Blue to help me, to stop them, but he just stood there watching . . . And then he climbed on the bed and hit me across the face and put his hand over my mouth and held me down . . . and . . . and they all . . . they all . . .’ The tears were pouring down her face now, and her throat was burning. ‘And Blue, him too . . .’ She was gasping for breath, she could feel them closing in on her again, feel the hands gripping her, holding her down, smell the sweat and the booze, feel Blue’s hand over her mouth, her teeth biting into his flesh and the salty taste of blood and sweat.

  ‘He set me
up,’ she finally cried, ‘he told me he loved me, then set me up . . .’ Violent tremors racked her body, and she gulped for air and began to tear at her inner wrists with her nails, scoring red weals onto her skin.

  Frank moved to sit beside her but she recoiled, drawing back into the corner of the sofa, turning her face away from him. He paused and waited before reaching out to put his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘It’s okay, Marissa,’ he said softly, ‘it’s okay. It’s over now, it’s over.’ He slid his arm very slowly around her shoulders and drew her to him, and then he was holding her, rocking her very gently.

  ‘He set me up,’ she said again. ‘He told me he loved me, he planned it all . . . he set me up and he . . . they . . . all of them raped me.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Brian walked around the house checking every room. The removalists had collected Gayle’s things a few days earlier but she didn’t seem to have taken much. The house was up for sale and he was trying to do a deal with the buyer over the remains of the furnishings. Now it was clear that Gayle was not coming back, he just wanted it sold as soon as possible.

  Once his initial anger and disbelief had passed he’d spent a few days simply feeling winded, as though the breath had been knocked out of him, and then he’d started to feel hurt, to see himself as a victim of his own good nature. All he’d tried to do for the best had been ignored or misunderstood. But Brian’s essentially self-serving emotions had always enabled him to make over events in a way that reflected well on him, and they did not let him down now.

  It didn’t take him long to decide that this new situation suited him, that it was what he wanted and that he had so frequently chosen loyalty and responsibility to his family over his own desires. He was to be a single man; a single man with a classy bachelor pad in Manly; a member of a prestigious golf club, and an even more prestigious wine club; a single man running his own small marketing consultancy with an elite clientele. He didn’t waste time wondering about living alone. It seemed entirely reasonable to expect that he would be able to take his pick of female company – social, sexual, whatever. There was never any shortage of women on the lookout for cashed-up men to give them a good time.