Dancing in the Dark

by Maureen Lee

  “The little bugger kept us awake half the night laughing! I’ll be glad to be shut of him for a few hours, I really will.”

  A small boy burst into the kitchen and flung his arms around Flo’s legs. “Can we go to the Mystery? Can we play ball? Can I have a lolly? Can I walk and not sit in me pushchair?”

  Smiling, Flo loosened the arms around her legs and picked the child up. “You’re a weight, young man!”

  Tom O’Mara was over-active and inordinately precocious for a three-year-old. Even as a baby, he had hardly slept. He didn’t cry, but demanded attention with loud noises, which got louder and louder if he was ignored. As he grew older, he would rattle the bars of his cot and fling the bedding on the floor. Lately, he’d begun to sit up in bed in the early hours of the morning chanting nursery rhymes or singing, and now, apparently, laughing. He could already read a little, count up to a hundred and tell the time. Carmel said she’d never come across a child quite like him. “I feel like knocking bloody hell out of the little bugger, but you can’t very well hit a kid for being happy!”

  When relations between Carmel and her motherin-law broke down completely and Nancy was barred from Mulliner Street, Flo grasped the opportunity and offered to take her grandson out in the mornings.

  “Would you, Flo?” Carmel said gratefully. “Honest, I don’t know where Hugh found a friend like you. I wish you were me motherin-law, I really do.”

  It was June, not exactly hot, but quite warm. Flo played football with Tom until her limbs could no longer move.

  She lay on the grass and declared herself a goal post. “You can kick the ball at me, but don’t expect to have it kicked back. I’m worn out.”

  Tom sat on her stomach. He was a handsome little chap with the same devil-may-care expression on his face as his grandad. “Are you old?”

  “Is fifty-one old? I’m not sure.”

  “Dad’s old.”

  “No, he’s not, luv. He’s nineteen years younger than me.”

  “Mam says he’s old.”

  Things were not well with the O’Maras. In the evenings, after being stuck in the house all day with a child who would crack the patience of a saint, Carmel was anxious for a break, a bit of excitement. Hugh, who worked hard and was rarely home before seven, preferred to stay in and watch television. Flo had offered to babysit and did occasionally at weekends, but in the main the couple stayed put, much to Channel’s chagrin. She declared loudly and aggressively that she was bored out of her skull and might as well be married to an old-age pensioner.

  Flo couldn’t help but sympathise. Hugh was growing old before his time. He already had a stoop, his hair was thinning, his gentle face was that of a man weighed down by the cares of the world. He was unhappy. Flo could see it in his dead, green eyes. He didn’t seem to care when Carmel started going out alone. She was going clubbing, she announced. Hugh was welcome to come with her if he wanted, otherwise he would just have to like it or lump it.

  After the launderette had closed, Flo often went to Mulliner Street to sit with her son. She had never thought she would have the freedom to be alone with Hugh, Nancy out of the picture. Even so, she would have preferred the circumstances to be different. They didn’t talk much. He sat with his eyes fixed on the television, but she could tell he wasn’t really watching.

  “Do you see much of Kate nowadays?” he asked one night.

  “No, luv. I haven’t seen her in years.”

  “I wonder how she is.”

  She didn’t dare repeat the things Sally told her—Hugh was miserable enough. “She’s had another baby, a little girl called Trudy,” was all she said.

  Another night he said, “Why did you wait for me outside St Theresa’s that day, Flo? I’ve often wondered.”

  “I wanted to meet you. I knew your dad, remember?”

  “That’s right. What was he like? Mam never talked about him much, except that he died on that submarine.”

  “The Thetis. He was an ould divil, your dad. Full of himself, dead conceited. Women were after him like flies.” Perhaps she should have come up with a more positive, more flattering description, but at least she hadn’t told him his dad had lied through his teeth.

  Hugh allowed himself the glimmer of a smile. “Not like me.”

  “No, I’m pleased to say.” She didn’t like the way he always talked about the past, as if he’d given up on the future. Usually, Tom could be heard upstairs, where he’d been put to bed hours ago, making aeroplane or car noises, but Hugh seemed unaware of his delightful son and his attractive wife—who might be as common as muck but was basically a good girl, anxious to be a good wife. Carmel was only twenty-three: she needed a husband who did more than just bring home a regular wage.

  If only Hugh would take her out now and then, she’d be happy, but he didn’t seem to care.

  In the Mystery, Tom bounced several times on her stomach. “Strewth, luv,” Flo gasped. “Are you out to kill me?”

  “Can we go to your house for a cuppa tea?”

  “There isn’t time, Tom. It’d make me late for work.”

  Sometimes when it was raining she took him to William Square and read him books, which he adored. “I’ll get you an ice lolly, then take you back to your mam.”

  He gave her stomach a final, painful bounce. “Rightio, Flo.”

  When she returned the kitchen was still in a state. It was unlike Carmel not to tidy up—she usually kept the house spotless. Flo went into the living room and could hear voices upstairs, one a man’s. “Carmel,” she shouted.

  It was several minutes before Carmel came running down. She’d changed into a mini-skirted Crimplene frock. Her lipstick was smudged.

  Flo frowned. “Is Hugh home?”

  The girl looked at her boldly. “No.”

  “I see.”

  “I doubt if you do, Flo. If you were married to that drip Hugh O’Mara you might see then.”

  “It’s none of me business, is it, girl?” Flo considered herself the last person on earth entitled to criticise another woman’s morals, but her heart ached for her unhappy, lacklustre son.

  Tom had turned five and been at school only a matter of weeks when Carmel walked out for good. “She’s gone to live in Brighton with some chap she met in a club,”

  Hugh said wearily. “She said she would have taken Tom but her new feller doesn’t want to be landed with a kid.

  “Flo will look after him,” she said.”

  “I’ll be happy to.” It would never have come to this if I’d been allowed to keep me baby, Flo thought sadly.

  “There won’t be any need,” Hugh said, in his expressionless voice. “I’m moving back in with me mam. She’ll take care of Tom. She’s not seen much of him ‘cept when I took him round.’

  Flo turned away, her lips twisted bitterly. She supposed that that was the last she would see of her grandson, but on the day that the family moved to Clement Street to live with Nancy, Tom O’Mara burst into the launderette after school. He was everything his father had never been: untidy, uninhibited, full of beans. “Hiya, Flo,” he sang.

  “What are you doing here?” she gasped. He’d come half a mile out of his way to get there. She noticed he had a skull and crossbones drawn upside down on both knees.

  “Mrs O’Mara will be worried stiff wondering where you’ve got to.”

  “You mean me gran? Don’t like her. Me mam always said she was an ould cow. Can I have a cuppa tea, Flo?”

  He settled on a bench and allowed himself to be made a fuss of by Flo’s ladies.

  “How on earth could Carmel McNulty bring herself to walk out on such a little angel?”

  “He’s the spitting image of Hugh.”

  “He’s the spitting image of Carmel.”

  From then on, Tom never failed to turn up for a cup of tea after school. Nancy couldn’t control him and Flo didn’t even try.

  Mr Fritz was seventy-five, the same age as the century, and becoming frail. His limbs were swollen and twisted with
arthritis, and it was heartbreaking to see him struggle up and down the basement steps with his stick. Even worse, more important parts of his body had ceased to work. He and Flo went to the Isle of Man rarely nowadays, and then only to lie in each other’s arms.

  “I’m sorry, Flo,” he would say mournfully, “I’m like one of my old washing-machines. I need reconditioning.

  A new motor wouldn’t do me any harm.”

  “Don’t be silly, luv. I’m not exactly in tip-top condition meself,” Flo would answer. In fact, she was as fit as a fiddle and missed making love.

  Increasingly his family came over from Ireland to see him. Flo found it difficult to recognise the hard-eyed middle-aged men and women as the children she’d once played with, taken for walks and to the pictures. Their attitude towards her was unfriendly and suspicious. She sensed that they were worried she might have undue influence over the man with whom she’d shared a house for so long, a house that was now worth many thousands of pounds, added to which there were the six launderettes.

  All of a sudden, the little Fritzes seemed to regard their father’s welfare of great importance.

  “Harry would like me to live with him in Dublin,” Mr Fritz said, the night after Ben and Harry had been to stay for the weekend. “And I had a letter from Aileen the other day. She never married, you know, and she wants me to live with her!” He chuckled happily. “It’s nice to know my children want to look after me in my old age, don’t you think, Flo?”

  “Yes, luv,” Flo said warmly. She felt frightened, convinced that it was their inheritance his children were concerned with.

  “I told Harry that, if I went, I’d want nothing to do with Stella.” Flo went cold. He was actually considering Harry’s offer. “He said they hardly see her nowadays.

  She’s still on the same farm and the toilet facilities are barely civilised, which is why none of them go to visit.”

  It turned out he just wanted to spend a long holiday in Dublin, to get to know his children properly again. “I would never leave you, Flo,” he said. “Not for good.”

  While he was away, the launderettes could virtually run themselves, but for the second time in her life, Flo, was left in charge of Mr Fritz’s business. This time though, an agent would collect the money each day and bank it. Flo would be sent a cheque to pay the staff, with the power to hire and fire should the need arise. Herbie Smith, a reliable plumber, had promised to be on call in case any of the machines broke down.

  Harry came over from Ireland to fetch his father, and Flo longed to remind this cold, unpleasant man that he’d once had a crush on her. Mr Fritz made his painful way down the steps towards the taxi that would take them to the Irish boat. He gave Flo a chaste kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be back in three months. Keep an eye on upstairs for me.”

  “Of course, luv. I’ve done it before, haven’t I?” Flo had no idea why she should want to cry, but cry she did.

  “So you have, my dear Flo.” There were tears in his own rheumy eyes. “The day I came home from the camp and found you here will always remain one of my fondest memories, though not as precious as our weekends together.” He grasped both her hands in his. “You’ll write, won’t you? Has Harry given you the address in Dublin?”

  “I’ll write every week,” Flo vowed. Harry was looking at them darkly, as if all the family’s suspicions had been confirmed. “C’mon, Dad,” he said, making no attempt to keep the impatience out of his voice. Flo felt even more frightened for Mr Fritz, the man she had loved since she was thirteen, not romantically, not passionately, but as the dearest of friends. “I’ll miss you,” she sobbed. “The place won’t seem the same.”

  “It’s not for long, Flo. The three months will go by in a flash.”

  He’d been gone less than a fortnight when Flo heard noises coming from upstairs as if furniture was being moved around. She ran outside. The front door was open and two men were struggling down the steps with the big pine dresser from the kitchen. A removal van was parked further along the square.

  “What’s happening?” she cried.

  “We’re taking the good stuff to auction and leaving the rubbish behind,” she was told brusquely.

  Flo returned to the basement, knowing that her worst fears had been realised. Mr Fritz would never again live in William Square.

  Soon afterwards, a gang of workmen descended on the house. Each floor was being converted into a separate flat, and Flo feared for herself. She’d always insisted on paying rent, but it was a nominal sum. What if the little Fritzes put up the rent so that it was beyond her means?

  What if they threw her out? She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, where she might have to share a kitchen and lavatory with other tenants. Flo had grown used to her subterranean existence, where she happily ignored the real world. The years were marked for her not by the election of various governments, Labour or Conservatives, the Cuban crisis or the assassination of an American president, but by films and music, Gone with the Wind, Singing in the Rain, The Sound of Music: Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, the Beatles . . .

  “Mr Fritz would never throw you out!” Bel scoffed.

  “I’m not sure if he’s got much say in things any more,” said Flo.

  “You can always live with me.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Bel, but I couldn’t stand you bellowing down me ear all day long. And it’s not just the flat I’m worried about, what about me job?” Each week, she sent her rent, along with a little report: a woman had left and she’d had to take on someone new, a machine had needed servicing and she enclosed Herbie Smith’s bill. The address Harry had given her turned out to be a firm of accountants, and although she frequently enclosed a letter for Mr Fritz, there’d been no reply so far, and she wondered if her letters were being passed on.

  Four families moved in upstairs, but Flo heard nothing about her own situation. “Perhaps the little Fritzes are playing games with me,” she said to Bel. “Lulling me into a sense of false security, like.” She might come home one day to find the locks changed and her furniture dumped on the pavement.

  Bel made one of her famous faces. “Don’t talk daft.

  Y’know, what you need is to get away for a while, leave all your troubles behind. I’ve been thinking, why don’t we go on holiday? A woman at work is going to Spain for two whole weeks on a charter flight, I think it’s called.

  It’s ever so cheap and she said there’s still a few places left.”

  “Spain! I’ve never been abroad.”

  “Neither have I since I left the forces, but that’s no reason not to go now. We might cop a couple of fellers out there.”

  The small swimming pool shone like a dazzling sapphire in the light of the huge amber moon, and the navy sky was powdered lavishly with glittering stars. Less than fifty feet away, the waters of the Mediterranean shimmered and rustled softly and couples were clearly visible lying clasped in each other’s arms on the narrow strip of Costa Brava sand. Somewhere a guitarist was strumming a vaguely familiar tune, and people were still in the pool, although it was past midnight. There was laughter, voices, the clink of glasses from the outside bar.

  Flo, on the balcony of their room on the second floor of the hotel, refilled her glass from the jug of sangria and wondered if you could buy it in Liverpool. Wine was so cheap that she and Bel were convinced they would never be sober if they lived in Spain.

  They’d been lucky to get a room with a view like this.

  The guests on the other side of the building could see only more and more of the hotels that cluttered the entire length of coast.

  Someone opened a door by the pool and a blast of music filled the air: The Who, singing, “I can See For Miles . . . ” “Miles and miles and miles,” Flo sang, until the door closed and all she could hear was the guitarist again. Every night at the Old Tyme Dance while she was being led sedately around the floor to the strains of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”, or “Goodnight, Eileen”, she thought enviously of the youngster
s in the other ballroom leaping around madly to the sound of Dire Straits or ABBA.

  Bel hadn’t bothered to inform her that the group they were travelling with were old-age pensioners. Flo had been horrified when they got on the plane and she found herself surrounded by people with hearing aids and walking sticks and not a single head of hair in sight that wasn’t grey.

  To her further consternation, there were actually a few wolf-whistles—in this company, two women in their mid-fifties must seem like teenagers: Bel still managed to look incredibly glamorous, though her lovely red hair was in reality lovely grey hair that had required a tint for years.

  There were still five more days of the holiday to go, and Flo supposed she’d had quite a good time. During the day, they wandered round Lloret del Mar, admiring the palm trees and the sparkling blue sea. They bought little trinkets in the gift shops. She got Bel a pretty mosaic bracelet, and Bel bought her a set of three little brass plaques that had taken Flo’s fancy. Then they had found a bar that stocked every liqueur in existence and were sampling them one by one. Flo had sent cards to everyone she could think of, including Mr Fritz, though she had no faith that he would get it. Why had he never written as he’d promised? It was six months since he’d left William Square and she worried about him all the time. If she didn’t hear soon, she resolved to go over to Ireland in search of him, even though she didn’t have a proper address.

  Evenings, they went dancing. Flo wrinkled her nose: she hated being taken in a pair of gnarled, sunburnt arms for the Gay Gordons or the Military Two-step or, somewhat daringly, a rumba, played to a slow, plodding beat in case it overtaxed a few dicky hearts. Mr Fritz was old, but in her eyes he had always remained the same lovely little man with brown fuzzy hair and twinkling eyes she’d first met in the laundry. The other night one sly old bugger in fancy shorts had had the nerve to get fresh during the last waltz.

  “You’re no spring chicken yourself,” Bel snorted, when Flo complained.

  “I wouldn’t mind dancing with fellers me own age,” Flo said haughtily. Bel had taken up with Eddie Eddison, a widower in his seventies, who came from Maynard Street, though it seemed daft to come all the way to Spain to click with a feller who lived only two streets away in Liverpool.