The Stillness the Dancing

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘God! I’ve missed you, Chris.’

  ‘H … Have you?’

  ‘Well, haven’t you? Missed me, I mean?’

  ‘Yeah, course.’ Chris stepped aside to let a tall and tutting lady grouse into the shop. Of course she’d bloody missed him, but she didn’t have the words for what she was feeling—a whole churning tangle of mixed and snarled emotions which had knocked her off-balance, left her floundering.

  Martin ran a hand across her buttock. ‘Sure you still want that coffee?’

  ‘Y … Yes, please.’ She had to play for time. She knew he wanted to get her into bed. Well, yeah, she’d like that, too, but she wasn’t meant to want it. It wasn’t on the agenda. She had planned to say she was tired, absolutely whacked, in fact, and if he didn’t mind, she’d go straight on to her Grandma’s, see him later. Then in a day or two, she would explain that things had changed, fundamental things like …

  Things had changed again, though—back the other way. And she wasn’t tired—well, pooped after the long flight, obviously, but sort of fizzing underneath it, so she didn’t know what she wanted or where to go and what to do or …

  ‘Would the Rank Zerox representative from Kansas, please report to Airport Information.’

  ‘Will Mr Albert Hamburg meeting Mr Stein from Delhi kindly go at once to …’

  God! Those announcements drove her mad. It was impossible to think straight when every word she said was interrupted by some disembodied voice chasing Mr This or That. The place was so damned crowded. Half the world seemed to have flown in just this morning and half of those again seemed to be making for the shop. She dodged aside as a woman with a pushchair scraped it against her leg, ducked the other way to avoid the smoke-trail of a seven-foot Nigerian and his pipe.

  ‘Would Dr Aziz Al-Saga of Saudi Finance please contact …’

  ‘Let’s sit down,’ she mouthed against the boom.

  Martin stumped towards the café with the cases, found a table. ‘You stay here with the luggage, Chris, and I’ll get the coffees. Want a bun or something?’

  ‘No … yes … You choose.’ She couldn’t think of buns when her whole settled plan had burst apart, her future changed, Martin changed. It was tiny things which had knocked her back—his long lean bony hands with their chewed and broken nails, the patch on his jeans which said ‘Einstein’s kid brother’, the fact he was wearing ropy old jeans at all, hadn’t bothered to dress up. All the blokes in California now seemed so damned prissy in comparison—sort of scrubbed and sanitised as if someone had put them through a carwash, then dolled them up in button-downs and blazers, tanned them on a sun-bed, doused them with cologne—at least the types her father knew. She had never had a chance to meet the proles. Martin was pale and smelt of Martin, and one shoelace in his trainers was Martin was pale and smelt of Martin, and one shoelace in his trainers was a piece of hairy string, and he didn’t wear gold rings or After-Sun Skin Smoother, and he had actually cried—well, almost—for no other reason than the fact he had her back again. It was Frenchmen who cried, swoony Gallic lovers in white trousers and red sports cars, not trainee litho operators who still lived with their mums in Wandsworth and bit their nails. In California, she had made him out a chauvinist—boring, boorish, unromantic—and there he was, contradicting her, losing his place in the queue because he couldn’t keep his eyes off her, bumping into people as he turned back again, again, drinking her up, devouring her, while all the other earthbound guzzlers grabbed their coffees and their buns.

  And even back at their table, he still kept kissing her and touching her, feeding her bits of doughnut, sugaring her coffee. Had he ever done those things before? She could hardly remember, was totally confused. She had stayed a week longer in the States, just seven extra days, planned to stay a lifetime. The plan had broken down, in fact, but she had started off the week breaking the ties with Martin in her mind, told herself he was immature and scruffy and that if her father didn’t like him, then best forget him altogether, make a brave new start.

  Okay, so he was scruffy—okay, so her Dad preferred accountants and attorneys, but what did she do about these new sloppy inconvenient feelings which had knocked her for six, blasted everything apart?

  ‘Will Mrs Lois Hampton of Ontario …’

  The booming voice collided with the wails of a jet-lagged child. Chris blocked her ears against them both. If only there were an announcement for her, a voice from On High telling her what to do. She stared up at the brown plastic ceiling, down again at the orange plastic table. Nothing. Only Martin’s grubby hand. She could have lost that hand for ever, lost his magic finger which knew exactly what to do and where to go. It was probing the doughnut now, scooping out the jam.

  ‘D’you realise, Chris, I didn’t recognise you at first—just for a split second when I saw you standing with your cases in that hat.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ She licked the jammy finger he was holding to her lips. ‘I … I’m just the same.’

  ‘No, you’re not. Your hair’s a different colour. Sort of two-tone.’

  Chris removed the hat, patted her hair as if to make sure it was still there. ‘Don’t you like it?’

  Martin shook his head.

  ‘You ought to. It cost nearly sixty dollars.’

  ‘Christ! I could have bought an underwater torch for that, one of those halogen ones with …’

  ‘No, you couldn’t. Bunny paid. She took me to her hairdresser. He said I had good bone structure.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Claude. Don’t worry. He’s the … other way. They mostly are at hairdressers.’

  Martin pushed his plate away, kidnapped her foot between his trainers, rubbed knees. ‘I wasn’t late, you know. You didn’t think that, did you? I got here at the crack of dawn, hung around for hours, but I was busting for a pee and I’d just dashed off to the gents when you must have actually showed up. I could have kicked myself. I wanted to be the first. I was the first, for God’s sake. The place was half-deserted when I got here.’

  Chris swallowed the last morsel of her sugary Chelsea bun. Martin hated getting up early, loathed hanging around in crowded stuffy places. She wanted to thank him, tell him how she’d missed his finger, but a waitress was standing by the table, a middle-aged fatty in a maroon striped apron and a boater saying ‘Welcome to Heathrow’. Martin didn’t care, leaned across and kissed the sugar from her lips.

  ‘Shall we make a move now?’

  Chris drained her already empty cup. Supposing he smelt those other men on her, started asking questions? Supposing she were pregnant? No, she mustn’t start on that again. Bunny had assured her that it was utterly unlikely and she had promised to stop worrying about it. All the same, Martin might sense that some other sucker’s sperm had been inside her, when his own was always strictly banned. ‘Just … five minutes more,’ she pleaded. ‘My … er … legs still feel all funny. I got cramp in them on the plane.’

  He stroked them under the table. ‘I‘ll sort them out. God, Chris, I can hardly believe you’re here! When you phoned to say you were staying longer, I was so angry I …’

  ‘Angry? But you d … didn’t say. You didn’t even …’

  ‘How could I, with the pips going and my parents listening in and you sounding so damned chuffed about a still longer separation?’

  ‘I … I wasn’t, Martin. I asked you if you minded.’

  ‘Yeah—and then rushed on to tell me you’d already changed your ticket before I had time to even answer. When you’d put the phone down, I dashed straight off on my bike—drove for bloody miles. It was pissing down with rain and I got soaked to the skin. I even blamed you for the weather—thought of you lolling in the sun, living it up with some American creep.’

  Chris went on drinking non-existent coffee so that he couldn’t see her face. She had been lolling in the sun, living it up with … And supposing he found out that she’d been planning to stay longer still, never return at all? She had only changed her mind because
of another man, a louse—returned home not for Martin, but to run away from Al. Al had come after Derwent (who had turned out like the hairdressers). He was old—thirty-two—and they had done it in a proper bed with a proper contraceptive (which Al had called a rubber), in a snazzy sort of ranch house where she’d had spent the night after elaborate lies to Bunny about a girl she had met whose parents were visiting England in the summer and wanted her to meet them. She hadn’t slept at all. Alan was married. She hadn’t realised until they had gone upstairs and she had seen his wife’s photo on the chest of drawers—a tall and scraggy blonde holding a small girl by the hand who had Al’s own eyes and mouth.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, when he saw where she was looking. ‘They’re away till the end of the week—gone to stay with my mother-in-law.’

  ‘I … I see.’ Chris was still staring at the child. She looked four or five, the same age as Dean, but painfully plain with lank brown pigtails and a gap in her front teeth. She’d had crappy plaits like that herself, felt sorry for the kid. She turned her back, slumped against the bureau. Bloody hypocrite. How could she be sorry and then go right ahead and have it away with the brat’s own father? That was Bunny’s rôle. Bunny had already sneaked into the bedroom, was lying naked on the counterpane with Neil on top of her, Dean sobbing in a corner. She kicked them all out again, bagged the bed herself, tried to concentrate on an article she’d read in American Cosmopolitan called ‘Help Yourself To Ecstasy In Bed’. It might have been okay if Al had bucked up and got a move on, but he was obviously a soap and water freak, and even when he had showered and washed his hair in the en-suite blue-dream bathroom, he still stayed glued to the basin, scrubbing his nails and swilling out his mouth like a twin-sponsored commercial for Listerine and Lifebuoy. By the time he had climbed on top of her, smelling like a drugstore and so sterilised she was surprised he used his prick and not forceps and a scalpel, she felt nothing but exhaustion mixed with guilt. And although she kept her eyes shut, she could still see the gap-teeth and the pigtails, so she lay anaesthetised, a dumb and lumpen patient, while he pulled his rubber glove on, then made his incision, opened her up. And in the morning, after he’d performed a second op, he brought her up her breakfast on a tray—Sugar Ricicles in his daughter’s Snoopy bowl.

  ‘Had a good time?’ asked Bunny, when she slunk in, pale, at noon.

  ‘Yeah, great.’

  That evening, she told them she was sorry but she would have to go back to England after all. Yeah, she realised she’d only just changed her ticket to stay on, but she was worried about her grandmother who was on her own and feeling pretty low. She had phoned Bea already (who was on top of the world, in fact—full of some retreat thing she had only just returned from), checked that she could stay with her while her mother was away. She loathed the whole stupid business of counting men like trophies (number four), wanted to be a kid again, safe and small with Grandma, sharing her bed with no one but a teddy.

  Except she had changed her mind (again) before she had even stepped on the plane. Her father had seen her off, left Dean and Bunny in the airport cafeteria, steered her towards the departure gate, carrying the koala bear and all the other presents he had showered her with himself. He had stopped at the barrier, drawn her into his arms—not a rushed embarrassed hug because people were watching, or a rationed one because his wife and son were waiting, but a real slow-motion embrace with all the stops out.

  She was the one who had cried then, really sobbed, realised she was running away, and that America didn’t have to mean jerks like Al and Gerry and becoming a bed-hop and a slut, but her father and excitement and a whole new way of life. She had hardly thought of Martin, just wished Al had been single or Derwent heterosexual, or she herself less ridiculously adolescent so that she didn’t change her mind and mood with every passing guy.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ Neil was murmuring, stroking her hair as none of the others had.

  She put her bag down. ‘Look, I needn’t go. I can change my ticket back again. Please. I don’t even want to leave now. I’ve made a mistake, I know I have.’

  Neil had gone very quiet and steely, told her he couldn’t upset important clients by continually swapping tickets which they had been decent enough to provide in the first place and that she was quite old enough to stick to a decision once she had made it. She couldn’t bear the farewells ruined, the last memory of her father an angry scathing one, so she had forced herself to think of all the awful things about America—the sixteen-ounce steaks oozing blood, Al’s taste in bathroom fittings, rush-hour on the freeways, Bunny’s furs.

  ‘Enjoy your flight!’ Neil called, as he walked away.

  She had enjoyed it, actually—being treated as a jet-setter and using her last remaining dollars to buy American martinis and refusing to think about problems like what she said to Martin and how she got a job. Martin remained a problem until she was squeezed half to death against his grotty sweater and suddenly realised that she had been wrong (and blind) again and that his hug was more important even than her father’s. Neil was a stranger still. Despite the caddying, the outings, she still didn’t know her father—maybe never would. His future lay with Dean, not her, perhaps with another (ultra-gorgeous) daughter who would displace her in a year or two. They had had their time together—twelve whole years which she had simply taken for granted, then three weeks as a bonus, and a week on top of that. That was it.

  She didn’t regret the trip. She was truly thrilled she had seen him, had bought back the excitment with her like another exotic present, duty-free. Martin had brought her nothing—no gifts or flowers or bears—just himself and all that choked emotion. Even now, he had both his hands in hers, was gazing at her with a mixture of greed and wonder like a dog in a butcher’s shop. Okay, so it was sloppy, but what was wrong with that? She had been just a body to men like Al and Gerry, a bit on the side. To Martin she was life and future. She had to make this moment last, hold on to it, not puncture it or let it fade or tarnish.

  ‘Hey, Martin, let’s find a bar, order some champagne.’

  ‘Who’s paying, chump? You’re in Hounslow now, not Hollywood.’

  ‘Well, wine, whisky—anything.’

  ‘It’s only half past nine, Chris. The bars aren’t open yet. And even if they were, it’s hardly going to mix with all that coffee.’

  ‘Let’s have breakfast, then—a proper one. Not here, but in that other swish restaurant in Departures—eggs and bacon and sausage and …’

  ‘We’ve got eggs and bacon and sausage at home.’

  ‘Oh, Martin, you don’t understand. I want to do something.’

  ‘What d’you mean? You’ve just had a whole month’s holiday and an eleven-hour flight on a Jumbo jet. Isn’t that enough?’

  She giggled. ‘How about London Zoo? Breakfast with the chimpanzees.’

  ‘I hate zoos.’ He kissed her again, laid his hand on the inside of her thigh.

  ‘Tell you what, then …’ She broke the kiss, seized the hand. ‘Let’s whizz off to the coast and you can take me down on my first sea dive.’

  ‘You’ll ruin your new hairdo. Sixty bucks down the drain.’

  ‘No, I mean it, Martin. I’m not joking. I really want to dive. I’ve been telling Dean about it and …’

  ‘Are you mad?’ Martin tugged irritably at his jeans. ‘The sea’s colder now than at any time of the year, and you’re out of practice and jet-lagged and … Anyway, I thought you were scared of tackling the sea.’

  ‘I was. Not now, though. I feel absolutely great—not scared of anything at all. I could go hang-gliding or parachuting or shin up Everest or …’

  ‘You’re high, Chris. I’d never take you down like that. You’d forget half of what you’ve learnt.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Martin, don’t be such a spoilsport. You’ve begged me often enough.’

  ‘That was in the summer, though, or at least the spring. And on a proper club dive with all the crowd and …’

  ‘I
don’t want that lot, thanks. I’d rather be alone with you—just you and me and the whole sea to ourselves.’

  ‘You’re crazy, girl.’

  ‘I’m not. Look, I might never feel the same again. I chickened out all summer and …’

  ‘That’s the trouble. Supposing you panicked? You ought to go down in the very best conditions, when there’s no wind and the sea’s warmed up and with someone who isn’t your boyfriend, so you stay—well, you know, cool and detached and …’

  ‘I will stay cool, honestly I will, but I want it to be you, Martin, not just one of the others. Oh, please. Not today—I know that’s mad, and we’d never even get there by the time we’ve ditched these cases and collected all our gear and stuff, but how about next weekend? I’ll go on a refresher course beforehand—brush up all I’ve learnt. I could go to Putney baths one evening and Walton another and …’

  ‘And supposing it’s blowing a gale?’

  ‘All right, that kills it then, but the weather’s not too bad at the moment, is it? They told us on the plane that you’ve been having quite a mild spell.’

  ‘It can change any day, you know that. We had snow just two weeks ago and force-ten winds and …’

  ‘Right, the sooner we go the better—especially while my Mum’s away. She’d only worry, otherwise. You know what she’s like.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I told you. On the island with that bloke.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. Not your mother.’

  ‘It’s not like that, Martin. She’s working.’

  ‘Nice work.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’ Chris banged her cup down. ‘Okay, okay. Let’s go back to Wandsworth and watch ‘‘Coronation Street’’.’

  ‘I just can’t understand you, Chris. I come to meet you after a whole four weeks away and we’ve hardly had a chance to catch our breath, let alone catch up with news and things, when you suddenly want to dash down to the coast and do your first sea dive in the very worst conditions, when anyone else would be knackered and dead beat, gasping for home and bed. I mean, you’ve never even been that keen before. What’s up with you?’