The Stillness the Dancing

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘Do you know ‘‘Tinker Tailor’’?’ she asked him, turning away from the rest.

  ‘No, what is it?’

  ‘Well, let me see your cherry stones.’

  ‘What’s stones?’

  Bunny laughed. ‘Pits, sweetheart. ‘‘Stones’’ is the English word. Neil said it once and it really cracked me up. Imagine stones in cherries!’

  Dean laid the stones in front of Morna’s feet.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘We count like this. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief. Wow! You’ve got a lot. We’d better start again. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggarman … That’s it. You’re going to marry a beggarwoman.’

  ‘What’s a beggarwoman?’

  ‘A very poor lady who hasn’t got any home or food, so she has to sit out on the sidewalk and ask people for dimes.’

  Dean stared at her, disbelieving. ‘And what’s a tinker?’

  ‘Someone who mends pots and pans.’ Morna paused. The perils of translation. No one mended anything in America—not even marriages—just chucked away, bought new.

  Dean was making patterns with the stones. ‘I’m going to marry Chrissie, not a beggarwoman.’

  Bunny scooped him up. ‘Hush, sweetheart. Morna’s steak’s going cold. She can’t eat if you keep hassling her. Go play with Sausage.’

  Sausage was the dachshund, no longer puppy save in ways. He was fawning round the group, scrounging titbits from each overflowing plate. Morna was glad to give him half her steak. It was burnt outside, bloody inside. Since Chris had turned vegetarian, she felt uneasy eating meat herself. Chris was a clever propagandist. The intimate details of the abattoir at lunch could soon make you long for bread and cheese. She was surprised that Bunny’s group were not vegetarian too. Shouldn’t so much love spill over to sheep and cows?

  Bunny was clearing plates. ‘I suggest we save dessert for later and start our sharing now. Gee! It’s hot.’ She slipped off her kaftan, revealing a minuscule bikini in what looked like silver lurex string.

  ‘Why don’t we all get comfortable. Morna, honey, can I lend you something cooler?’

  ‘Er … no … I’m fine.’ She and Bunny were a different shape entirely. It would somehow seem obscene to be wearing Bunny’s clothes.

  ‘You brought your bikini, did you? We’ll be swimming later on, but put it on now if you prefer.’

  ‘No, really …’ Morna didn’t own a bikini, had dashed into a chain store the day before her flight, found nothing but boring one-piece costumes in schoolgirl navy, grabbed the last one in her size. She couldn’t wear it here when most of the girls were changing into gaudy frills and flounces, displaying acres of bare flesh. Even stripped off, they still looked exotic with their huge coloured sunglasses, their ankle chains and turbans. They all refilled their glasses before lounging over to the lawn, arranging themselves in a circle on the grass.

  Lee-Ann took Morna’s hand. ‘Don’t be nervous, sweetie. You’ll love it. I was real screwed-up before I joined the group. I’d been divorced three times and I was living on my own. Now that I’ve learnt to love, I love the world and everybody in it.’

  ‘Everybody?’

  ‘Yeah, including all my exes—and my first ex-mother-in-law. That took some doing!’ She laughed, revealing well-capped teeth. ‘It’ll happen to you, too, if you don’t resist it. Our theme today is Love. Bella’s been to a Making Love Workshop and she’s going to share it with us.’

  Morna tensed. Not sex again, she prayed. Orange bedspreads, frozen strawberries. She couldn’t bear to hear Bunny talking about letting go or total giving, when the reality had proved so sordid, sordid and debasing. How could she have been taken in like that—a smarmy stranger asking her the way when he already had a guide-book in his hands? She had lain awake the following night in a fret of shame and guilt, torn between remorse, disgust and pity; had accused herself for joining him—and equally for failing him. Two nights later she had dreamt about his daughter, a tiny child with haunted eyes and straight dark hair like Neil’s, howling for her father on the topmost storey of a huge white frozen skyscraper. She had woken trembling, leapt out of bed as if David Attwood were still sweating and snuffling beside her. She was in need of help, obviously, should have joined Bella on her course. She had seen those workshops advertised—five hundred dollars for one weekend and that didn’t include meals or accommodation.

  ‘It’s … er … some sort of Masters and Johnson set-up, is it?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Bella. ‘Much more spiritual than that. We’re all conditioned to think love means simply screwing. But there’s other sorts of love—love like Christ said—love thyself and love thy buddy. Jesus didn’t mention bed.’

  Nor did He charge for love, thought Morna—take money at the door when He preached and taught, add a service charge to the loaves and fishes. A hundred dollars for each Beatitude—special deal for the set of eight. Even His miracles came free. You would need top-rate Blue Shield cover for Californian miracles.

  ‘Ready, girls?’ Bunny was presiding—priestess in a bikini. She had switched off the waterfall, covered the barbecue, and was now sitting cross-legged in the circle, her wine glass at her side.

  ‘What we do first, Morna, is a Self-Esteem and Happiness Check to see how we’re making out. I call out the numbers from zero to ten and you put up your hand when I reach the number you feel you’re at. Zero means you’re suicidal and hate yourself, ten is cloud nine and you’re the greatest. Don’t worry if you’re low to start with. Lee-Ann was stuck on one for weeks and weeks, but last time she reached nine. Hush, Dean, I can’t talk now. Go watch Superman. No, you can’t bath Sausage, chickie, not now. I told you, Mommy’s busy. Okay, everyone?’

  The girls shuffled, fidgeted, finally settled down. A Boeing 747 ripped across the silence. Bunny waited till it had passed.

  ‘Zero,’ she said, in a softer and more solemn voice than usual. No one stirred.

  ‘One.’

  No hand went up.

  ‘Two.’

  Still no hand.

  ‘Three, four …’

  Morna bit her lip. Supposing there was some sort of built-in lie detector? If she didn’t put her hand up soon, she would land on cloud nine with all the rest.

  ‘Five.’

  Two hands went up, Morna’s just a fraction behind. Most of the others scored seven or eight, Bunny nine, only Bella ten.

  ‘That’s great. Only three fives and you’ll probably find you’re up at least two points by the time we’re through. Now, I’ll just explain to Morna about our meditation. What we try to do, honey, is get in touch with the good in ourselves, find our inner beauty. We just close our eyes and sit in silence and concentrate on all our skills and strong points, all the neat things we’ve ever done, all the … Be quiet, Dean. You know you mustn’t talk once we’ve got started. Yeah, you can have ice cream, but mind you shut the freezer. And take Sausage with you. He’s yapping.’

  The group seemed unaware of child or dog. They already had their eyes closed, palms spread upwards on their knees. Morna glanced around at the ring of faces, rapt, expectant.

  ‘Close your eyes, Morna, honey. It helps the concentration.’

  Morna didn’t want to close them. Once she turned inward, tried to find her inner beauty, she was scared it might rot beneath her scrutiny, or—worse—be simply absent. All the good she had done … But what about the bad? Her boringness in bed, her impatience and irritability with Bea, her jealousy of Bunny—worst of all, last Sunday night. To have got drunk like that, staggered through an evening in a dazed and queasy stupor, not known what she was doing, even risked a pregnancy. Someone like herself who had nothing to excuse her—no delinquent parent nor latchkey mum, no lack of principle nor neglected education. That flotation tank seemed to have had some strange effect on her, broken down her defences, made her less rigid, less responsible. She had welcomed it at the time, but now … She forced the memories down, tried t
o fix on something simple. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor. Someone should have updated it. Astronaut, gay libber, sales manager for frozen foods, blue-movie-watcher, pick-up …

  An insect was buzzing near her face. She wondered if it were the stinging kind, and if she were allowed to open her eyes to check. Perhaps she should try to see its inner beauty. She squinted through her eyelids. It was beautiful, with slender steel-blue wings, surprising scarlet eyes. Supposing Bunny’s friends were right and it was her own mocking, judging, overcritical mind which needed changing? She kept her eyes half open, stared at her outstretched leg. She had always regarded her figure as too plump. ‘Beautiful leg,’ she told it. ‘Voluptuous leg. Truly feminine, Rubenesque, lovable.’

  The leg looked better. Her mind returned to Sunday last. ‘Good encounter,’ she insisted. ‘Letting go, reaching out to someone new and different, losing inhibitions …’ She could smell vomit mixed with aftershave, see the tiny padded box with the contact lenses in it—two spare eyes swivelling round to watch her as she made her getaway. She closed her eyes again, jumped as the insect bit her leg.

  ‘That’s it, girls.’ Bunny’s voice intruding, still churchy and low-pitched.

  ‘Take your time to finish, then slowly bring your minds back to the present.’

  ‘Swollen leg, itching leg. Red lump on untanned flabby flesh. Ache in the back from sitting on the ground, grass stains on blue boring skirt. Indigestion. Guilt still.’

  ‘Beth, go get your guitar and we’ll have our chant.’ Bunny turned to Morna. ‘This works like a sort of mantra. Mantras are very powerful. Even doctors say they can lower the blood pressure and change the brain waves and all that stuff. We use them to help us relax and release the love in ourselves. It’s only four lines, so you’ll soon pick up the words. Okay, Beth?’

  Beth played a chord or two, then broke into a simple melody. All the girls joined in with a rhythmic chant, mainly on one note.

  ‘I love myself

  the good in me

  the good in you

  the whole world too.’

  ‘I love myself,’ they began again.

  Angie nudged Morna. ‘Join in, honey,’ she whispered. ‘It’s very simple.’

  ‘The good in me,’ Morna wavered, keeping both eyes and voice down. Supposing the neighbours were watching, or Neil and Chris returned from golf? She tried to shut her mind off, blank out the imbecilic words. They meant less and less, anyway, as they were endlessly repeated—round and round, round and round. At least it was warm and the wine was good. She felt herself relaxing, her voice rising and falling with the rest, the sun hot and numbing on her back—was almost sorry when the final chord sounded and the chant died away like the rumbling of a plane.

  Bunny’s voice seemed to come from some great distance. ‘Right, girls. Now we start the sharing.’ She leant across, touched Morna’s hand. ‘What we’re going to do, sweetie, is go round the group in turn and everyone tells us where she’s at. Okay? Bella, why don’t you start? And let’s say our names as a little gift to Morna, in case she’s having trouble sorting them out.’

  Bella rose, another of the fatties, but short and mousy-haired where Martha was dark and Junoesque. ‘I’m Bella and I’m real excited because I’ve just come back from a terrific workshop which I want to share with you later, but right now I’d like to say how thrilled I am to have Morna with us today.’

  Bella walked across to Morna, squatted down in front of her, reached out her arms. Morna felt herself pressed against hot and sticky flesh, a scratchy rhinestone brooch digging into her neck. Everyone was clapping.

  Lee-Ann waited for the applause to subside before scrambling to her feet. ‘I’m Lee-Ann and I’d like to share with you that on my way over here I saw a dead tree struck by lightning, with a new green shoot growing out of it, and I thought, ‘‘That’s me, I’m growing again. I’ve cut away the dead wood.’’’

  More applause. Angie next. ‘I’m Angie and I’m the greatest.’ (Laughter). ‘Last night, I cooked dinner for myself—a real good dinner with roses on the table and chilled wine, and I sat down, just little me at that whole great big table and I said, ‘‘Angie, you deserve this.’’ And I didn’t gobble or read a book or wallow in self-pity because I was all alone on Friday night. I relished every mouthful and sipped a brandy afterwards, and I saved you this—’ She held up a long-stemmed scarlet rose, turned to Morna. ‘I’d like to give it to you, Morna, as our guest today, to share my love with you.’

  ‘Th … Thank you,’ Morna mumbled, as her hand closed on thorns. It was her turn now, as she was sitting next to Angie and they were going clockwise round the circle. She struggled to her feet, feeling absurd, superfluous, with a rose stuck in her hand and nothing to say.

  ‘I’m Morna,’ she started. That at least was indisputable, but what did she say next? Everyone was looking at her, the circle of smiles like handcuffs. She longed to turn tail and bolt for home, but real home was half a world away, and lonely. At least these girls were friendly, had done everything they could to make her welcome. In one way, she yearned to share their simple-minded faith. They were like the retreatants, needing a faith and so creating one, in this case tailor-made, throwing out what didn’t fit—men, sin, guilt, the poor. It was a strictly local religion, would hardly fit Calcutta. You loved your fellow leisured woman, shared your T-bone and champagne with her, and let a non-existent deity take care of the lepers and the starving.

  Yet who was she to be so supercilious? All her agonising about the Third World’s poor had not actually alleviated one millionth of their problems. Her plate had been as loaded as the rest, her glass still three-quarters full beside her. She was leisured herself, a lotus-eater, swanning about on holiday while Ethiopians gasped for bread and water, Indians died in gutters. Neil was still partially subsidising her while she mocked his house and wife, abused the friendship offered her. It was true friendship, real concern. She could feel these women’s warmth, integrity, however much she winced at their jargon, criticised their crazy rituals. Did jargon really matter? She was a translator, so she could find her own equivalent, try and understand what they were saying beneath the catch phrases, find the kernel in the shell.

  Even now, they were trying to help, squeezing her hands, whispering suggestions, and she stood there silent, rigid, spurning what they offered because she was an intellectual snob, too damned superior to do anything but scoff.

  ‘I’m … er … not much good at loving,’ she stuttered at last.

  ‘Oh, but you are.’ Bella sprang up out of turn to hug her. ‘Everybody is. It’s a natural thing. Look at kids! It’s just blocked in you, that’s all. At the workshop, they told us there’s only one door to the heart, and it’s either shut or open. If you keep it shut with hate or bitterness, then you’re not free to love. But if you just turn the key, then you can embrace the whole wide world. You see, we can’t love again until we’ve cleared out all the shit—all that negative stuff we cling to—revenge, resentment, envy. We’ve gotta let it go and allow the new love in. People cried their eyes out at the workshop—you could have stuffed a mattress with all the wet and sodden Kleenexes. But they were tears of joy. Realising that they could heal themselves and love again.’

  ‘We’ve always been taught that love is rationed,’ Martha broke in, levering herself up on one plump and dimpled elbow. ‘That we can only love one or two people in our whole life—and always men, of course. If those relationships break down, then we think we have to live alone and loveless, or we start frantically searching for some new replacement guy. But we can love women, too—children, neighbours, everybody—the girl who waits table, the mechanic who fixes our car. They’re all people craving love like us. If we give it out, we receive it back, and the world becomes a loving space. But first we’ve gotta love ourselves. Morna, honey, do you think you love yourself enough?’

  ‘Well, I … er …’

  ‘What you’ve got to remember is you’re special to start with.’ Martha w
iped perspiration from her neck. ‘You won the sperm race, didn’t you? We all did. Just think—only one in four hundred million spermatozoa gets fertilised. The other three hundred and ninety-nine million poor suckers never made it here, but you did, Morna. That makes you a winner and don’t forget it. Tell you what …’ Martha turned back to the group. ‘Shall we tell Morna how we love her?’

  Everybody nodded, clapped.

  ‘Sit in the centre, honey, and just listen. We’re going to beam back at you all the good we see in you and how we relate to your inner beauty. We’ll all speak at once, but don’t you worry, you’ll get the message.’

  Morna was blushing before they had even started. If her friends back home could see her now, squatting on the grass in the centre of a circle as if they were playing some kid’s game, clutching a rose like some pampered prima donna …

  ‘Shut your eyes if you prefer,’ said Beth. ‘It makes your hearing sharper.’

  Morna shut them, more to block out the eager friendly faces, make-up running in the heat, grass stains on shorts, gigantic fleshy thighs, the babble of voices rising round her.

  ‘Morna, we love you for your gentleness.’

  ‘Morna, we love you for your love.’

  ‘Morna, we love you for your openness.’

  ‘Morna, we love you for your beauty.’

  ‘Morna, we love you for your …’

  She could hardly make out all the different voices, caught words and phrases here and there which she would never have applied to herself in a thousand years—not just beauty, openness, but courage, loyalty, selflessness. ‘Stop!’ she wanted to shout. ‘You’ve only met me two short hours. You know nothing at all about me. I could be a murderer, a pervert. If you really love me, let me out of this, close your eyes while I slip away, spend the rest of the day on my own with the paper and a stiff drink.’

  The voices had died down. Arms reaching out towards her now, fingers touching, hands squeezing. Someone was massaging her back, finding the exact spot where it ached, easing away the pain. Someone else was stroking her hair, gently, rhythmically as if she were a child. She had never been a child—not really—only a soul for God; had never been cuddled, petted, not since she started school. From the age of seven, the nuns had forced her into a mould, tried to stamp out childish weaknesses, substitute the Host for sherbet dabs or Crunchie bars, replace Noddy books with missals. When she cried for Bea at night, they had pointed out that God’s love was a Higher Thing than mother love, that evening prayers meant more than goodnight kisses. The nuns never kissed, never touched at all. Physical contact could be dangerous, even with a child. They had to guard against it—encase themselves in full-length black armour, all their vital organs caged in chain mail, helmets on their shaven heads, hearts blocked off with heavy metal crucifixes. They tried to arm their girls as fully—high necks, long sleeves, hearts and larynxes cut out, feet hobbled, hands tied down. St Margaret’s girls never ran or shouted, never crossed their legs, never touched each other, never drew attention to themselves. St Margaret’s girls were taught to bow to Reverend Mother, curtsey to the priest, submit to grown-ups’ judgment, kneel up straight in church, curb their appetites, never skimp their darning, be on constant guard against their bodies, punish them, deprive them, sleep without a pillow.