Dancing in the Dark

by Maureen Lee

  When Bel was told she laughed. “Of course you’re old, girl. We all grow old if we don’t die young. The thing is to get the best you can out of life till it’s time to draw your last breath. Let’s do something dead exciting this weekend, like drive to Blackpool. Or how about London for a change?” She was fearless in the car and would have driven as far as the moon if there’d been a road.

  “Oh, Bel,” Flo said shakily, always grateful for her friend’s unfailing cheerfulness and good humour. “I’m ever so glad I went to Birkenhead that morning and met you.”

  Bel squeezed her hand affectionately. The too, girl. At least one good thing came out of that business with Tommy O’Mara, eh?”

  “Where did we go wrong, Flo?” Sally cried. She asked Flo the same question every time they met.

  Flo always gave the same reply. “Don’t ask me, luv.”

  Ten years before, Grace, Keith and their two sons had upped roots and gone to live in Australia. Sally and Jock only occasionally received a letter from their daughter, and Grace ignored their pleas to come and visit. Jock was becoming surlier in his old age, Sally more and more unhappy. One of these days, she said bitterly, she was convinced she would die of a broken heart.

  “I could easily have done the same when me little boy was taken,” Flo said. She thought of Bel with her three husbands and three lost babies. In her opinion, Sally was giving up far too easily. “You and Jock have still got each other, as well as your health and strength. You should go out more, go on holiday. It’s never too late to have a good time.”

  “It is for some people. You’re different, Flo. You’re made of iron. You keep smiling no matter what.”

  Flo couldn’t remember when she’d last seen her sister smile. It was impossible to connect this listless, elderly woman with the happy, brown-haired girl from Burnett Street.

  Sally went on, “I remember when we were at school, everyone used to remark on me sister with the lovely smile.”

  “Why don’t you come to the pictures with me and Bel one night?” Flo urged. “Or round to William Square one Sunday when Charmian usually pops down for a sherry and a natter.”

  “What’s the use?”

  Grace didn’t bother to cross the world to be with her father when her mother died. Sally’s heart gave up one night when she was asleep in bed, but perhaps it really had broken.

  Bel went with Flo to the funeral on a dreary day in March. It was windy, dry, sunless. Grey clouds chased each other across a paler grey sky. Jock held up remarkably well throughout the Requiem Mass. When Flo had gone to see him, he said that he intended moving to Aberdeen to live with his brother, and she could tell that he was looking forward to returning to the city of his birth. It was as if he and Sally had dragged each other down in their misery, frozen in their grief, unable to come to terms with the loss of Ian, and Grace’s indifference. Flo had expected that Sally’s death would be the last straw for Jock; instead, it seemed to have released him from a state of perpetual mourning.

  It was obvious that Martha, stiff with self-importance, was relishing her role of Being in Charge. Jock, a bit put out, said that she’d taken over the funeral arrangements, had ordered the coffin, the flowers, seen the priest. In the cemetery, in the wind, beneath the racing clouds, Flo saw the gleam in her sister’s eyes behind the thick-lensed glasses that she remembered well, as if this was a military operation and she’d like to tell everyone where to stand.

  When the coffin was lowered into the grave, Jock suddenly put up his hand to shield his eyes and Martha poked him sharply in the ribs. It wasn’t done for a man to cry, not even at his wife’s funeral. That gesture put paid to the vague thoughts Flo had had of exchanging a few polite words with her sister.

  The Camerons were there, Norman handsome and scowling but, oh, Kate had changed so much, her lovely hair chopped short, her once slim figure swollen and shapeless. There was a battered look on her anxious face, no bruises, bumps or scars, but the same look some of Flo’s ladies had, which told of a hard life with many crosses to bear. Yet her eyes remained bright, as if she retained a hope that things would get better one day—or perhaps the light in her eyes was for her children, who would have made any mother proud. Millicent, whom Flo had last glimpsed in the hospital, only a few days’ old, had grown into a graceful, slender young woman, with none of her mother’s vulnerability apparent in her lovely, strong-willed face. She was with her husband, as was Trudy, whose wedding had been only a few weeks before.

  Trudy was pretty, but she lacked her sister’s grace and air of determination. However, it was the son, Declan, who took Flo’s breath away. A slight, delicate lad of ten, it could have been her own little boy she was staring at across the open grave. The Clancys might well be pale-skinned, pale-haired and thin-boned, but they had powerful genes that thrust their way forcefully through each generation. There was no sign of Albert Colquitt in Kate, no indication that Norman Cameron was the father of these three fragile, will o”-the-wisp children. There was another girl, Flo knew, Alison, who had something wrong with her and was in a home in Skem.

  “Aren’t we going for refreshments?” Bel was disappointed when the mourners turned to leave and Flo made her way towards the gold Cortina.

  “I’m not prepared to eat a bite that’s been prepared by our Martha,” Flo snapped. “And don’t look at me like that, Bel Eddison, because there’s not a chance in hell I’ll tell you why. If you’re hungry, we’ll stop at a pub. I wouldn’t mind a good stiff drink meself Sally had gone, to become a memory like Mam and Dad, Mr Fritz and Hugh. Each time someone close to her died, it was as if a chapter in her life had come to an end.

  One day, Flo too would die and the book would close for ever. She sighed. She definitely needed that drink.

  September, 1996

  Flo pressed her fingers against her throbbing temples, but the pressure seemed only to emphasise the nagging pain.

  She knew she should have been to the doctor long ago with these awful headaches but, as she said to Bel, “If there’s summat seriously wrong, I’d sooner not know.”

  There were times when the pain became unbearable, and all she wanted to do was scream: it felt as if an iron band was being screwed tighter and tighter around her scalp. A glass of sherry made it worse, two glasses made it better, and with three she felt so lightheaded that the pain disappeared. Getting drunk seemed preferable to having her head cut open and someone poking around inside, turning her into a vegetable. Peter, the nice young lad from next door who reminded her so much of Mr Fritz, got rid of the bottles for her because she felt too embarrassed to put them out for the binmen.

  A concerned Bel had persuaded her to have her eyes tested, but the optician said she had excellent sight for a woman of her age, though he prescribed glasses for reading.

  Main, Flo remembered, had been terrified of letting a doctor near her with a knife. The girls used to get upset, worried that she’d die. But Mam had only been in her forties. Flo was seventy-six, nobody’s wife, nobody’s daughter, with no children to care if she lived or died.

  Bel would miss her terribly, Charmian less so, what with a husband, two kids and three grandchildren to look after since Minola had gone back to school. Tom O’Mara didn’t need her so much now that he was married with a family, two lovely little girls, though he still came to William Square regularly, at least once a week, often bearing food from the Chinese takeaway around the corner and a bottle of wine. She never asked how he made the money he was so obviously flush with. After years spent living on his wits, involved in ventures that were barely this side of legal, he was now something to do with a club that he adamantly refused to talk about.

  Flo suspected she was probably the only person on earth who knew the real Tom O’Mara, the man who loved and fussed over her tenderly, and brought her little presents. Outside the four walls of her flat, she’d like to bet that Tom was an entirely different person—even his wife and children might not know how soft and gentle he could be. Bel, who couldn
’t stand him, had to concede it was decent of him to put Nancy in a posh nursing-home in Southport when her mind went haywire and she could remember nothing since the war.

  Music filled the basement flat, reaching every nook and corner, wrapping around her like a magic blanket woven from the dearest of memories. And shadows from the lamp Tom had brought from abroad passed slowly over the walls, the figures lifesize. When Flo felt especially dizzy, the figures seemed real, alive. He had brought the record, too, not long ago. “Close your eyes,” he said teasingly, when he came in. “I’ve got you a prezzie, a surprise.”

  So Flo had closed her eyes, and suddenly the strains of “Dancing in the Dark” came from the speakers at each end of the room. Her eyes had snapped open and for several seconds she felt muddled. She’d told no one that this was the tune she and Tommy had danced to in the Mystery more than half a century ago. “What made you buy that, luv?” she asked querulously.

  “You’ve been humming it nonstop for months. I thought you’d like to hear it sung by an expert. That’s Bing Crosby, that is, the one who sings ‘White Christmas.’ ‘

  “I know who Bing Crosby is. It’s lovely, Tom. Ta very much.”

  At first she didn’t play the record much, scared of raking up the painful past, but lately, as her head got worse and she couldn’t read, not even with her new glasses, she played it more and more often. It was soothing, better than a book, to remember her own romantic affair, more passionate and tragic than anything she’d ever read. She saw herself dancing under the trees with her lost lover, making love, whispering what was to be their final goodbye.

  Bel had told her she should exercise more, not sit like a lump in front of the telly getting sozzled every day. “I ride for miles every morning on me bike in the bathroom,” she hooted loudly, through her ghastly new dentures, which were much too big and made her look like an elderly Esther Rantzen.

  “I’m seventy-six, Bel,” Flo said indignantly. “I’m entitled to be a sozzled lump at my age.” What would she have done without Bel? Without Charmian and Tom, Mr Fritz, Sally, even Hugh, her son, for a while? She’d been lucky to have so many people to love and love her back.

  “What time is it?” She looked at the clock. Just gone six.

  But was that night or morning? What month was it?

  What year? It was frightening when she couldn’t remember things, when she forgot to go to bed, forgot to eat, forgot to watch one of her favourite programmes on the telly. Once she’d nearly gone out in her nightie. One of these days she’d forget who she was. It wasn’t that she was losing her mind like Nancy. She smiled. No, the trouble was, she was either in terrible pain or as drunk as a lord.

  She went over to the window and lifted the curtain, but still couldn’t tell if it was dawn or dusk. A thick mist hung in the air, suspended a few feet from the pavement.

  There were noises in the square, but there always were, no matter what the time; a car drove away, she could hear people talking, someone walked past and she could see less of them than usual because their knees were shrouded in mist. She heard the clink of milk bottles. It must be morning, which meant she’d been sitting up all night.

  The record, which she’d played countless times, came to an end yet again. Oddly, the ensuing silence felt louder than the music. It was a buzz, as if she was surrounded by a million bees. As she listened to the silence, Flo’s mind drained of everything and became completely blank. She sat on the chest in front of the window and wondered what was she doing in this strange room full of shadows.

  There was too much furniture, too many ornaments, too many flowers. She didn’t like it. A memory returned, crawling like a worm into her head: she lived in Burnett Street with Mam and Dad.

  “But what am I doing here?” she asked of the strange room and the shadowy figures passing overhead. There was no answer. Had she been visiting someone? Whose house was this?

  “Is anyone there?” Still no answer. Flo pressed her hands together distractedly, trying to make up her mind what was the best thing to do. Get away from this place, obviously, go home. Even better, go into work early, get on with the pressing left over from yesterday. It would give Mr Fritz a nice surprise when he came in.

  She saw a coat hanging behind the door that looked faintly familiar. She put it on and went outside. A man was running towards her dressed in a funny red outfit, just like Father Christmas. “Mr Fritz!” She smiled.

  The man reached her. “It’s Peter Maxwell, Flo, from next door. I’ve been for a run. But what are you doing out so early, luv? It’s awful damp. You’ll get a chill.”

  “I’ve got to go somewhere,” she said vaguely.

  “Would you like me to come with you?” The man was looking at her worriedly.

  “No, ta,” she told him pleasantly.

  She set off into the wet mist at a fast pace, along Upper Parliament Street and into Smithdown Road, passing closed shops and empty shops, new buildings and old, Clement Street and Mulliner Street, names that seemed familiar, though she couldn’t remember why. She looked for the dress shop, which had that lovely lilac frock in the window—she’d seen it only yesterday and intended to buy it. Later, in the dinner hour, she might well come back and get it. But she couldn’t see the shop anywhere.

  The fog didn’t help—perhaps that was why no trams were running—she could scarcely see across the road.

  Worse, when she turned into Gainsborough Road, there was no sign of the laundry. A brick building stood in the place where the old wooden shed should be, a clinic, with notices in the window advertising a playgroup, ante-natal classes, a mother-and-toddler group.

  “Oh, Lord!” Flo groaned. The fog seemed to have entered her head. It lifted briefly when she read the notices and wondered how she had got to Gainsborough Road. Why was her heart racing? Why did her legs feel so weak? She didn’t realise she’d walked for miles with the energy of a young girl. The fog drifted in again, smothering the pain and everything that was real.

  “I’ll go and see Mam and Dad.” She made her way towards Burnett Street. The fog in her head cleared for a second when she stood outside the three terraced properties at the end of the street and remembered that they’d been built on the spot where the Clancys’ and two neighbouring houses used to be. She stood for a moment, staring up at the tiled roofs, the small windows. The door of the middle house opened and a man in a donkey jacket and greasy overalls came out.

  “Are you after something, missus?” he demanded irritably, when he found an elderly woman standing virtually on his doorstep.

  “I used to live here,” said Flo.

  “You couldn’t have.” He scowled. The and the missus were the first to move in when the place was built forty years ago.”

  The fog had descended again, enveloping her brain.

  “There used to be a bay window and steps up to the door.”

  She put a trembling hand to her forehead. “Did it get bombed? Is that what happened?”

  “Look, luv,” the man’s gruff voice became kind, “you seem a bit confused, like. Would you like to come inside and me missus’ll make you a cup of tea, then take you home? You live round here, do you?”

  “I thought I lived here.” Flo wanted to cry. She said fretfully, “Is the Mystery still there?”

  “Of course it is, luv, but this isn’t a good time to go walking in the park.”

  But Flo was already on her way, nineteen years old, with a red ribbon in her hair, about to meet Tommy O’Mara outside the gates for the first time. She felt as if she was walking towards her destiny, and that afterwards nothing would be the same again.

  He wasn’t there. He was probably inside waiting under one of the trees, which were shrouded in a veil of mist.

  The wet grass quickly soaked through her shoes as she made her way towards them. A whiff of reality returned when she noticed the road leading from gate to gate, and the sports arena glimmering palely through the haze, things that hadn’t been there before.

  It wa
s 1996, not 1939. “Flo Clancy,” she breathed, “you’re making a right fool of yourself this morning.”

  She’d better catch the bus home while she had the sense to do it. But she hadn’t brought a handbag, she had no money. She wept aloud. “I feel too weary to walk all that way back.”

  She plodded back towards the gates. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take the red ribbon out of her hair. It must look dead stupid on an ould woman. She blinked when she found there was no ribbon there. Martha must have snatched it off before she left the house.

  Poor Martha! Flo had never before had such a feeling of sympathy for the sister who’d never had much happiness in her life, if any. “It’s time to forgive and forget, luv.”

  Sally must have said that a hundred times over the years.

  “I’ll go and see her tomorrer,” Flo vowed. “I’ll take her a bunch of flowers.” At that moment, she couldn’t precisely remember where Martha lived, but it would come.

  The fog inside her head kept lifting and falling, she kept drifting backwards and forwards in time, and the present was becoming confused with the past. She was leaving through the gates when she heard a shout. “Flo!”

  Flo turned. Her face melted into a smile, the dimples deepened in her wrinkled face, she could feel the brightness shining from her eyes as she watched Tommy O’Mara emerge from the white mist that swirled and floated in and around the Mystery and come towards her.

  She stood stock-still, waiting for him, waiting for him to take her in his arms.

  She waved. Oh, he was a divil of a man, with his swaggering walk, a red hanky tied carelessly around his neck, an old tweed cap perched jauntily on the back of his brown curls. She had never stopped loving him. She never would.

  “Flo, girl,” he called again.

  “Tommy!” Flo held out her arms to welcome her handsome lover, who had never told a lie, had meant everything he’d said, who would have married her one day if he hadn’t gone down with the Thetis. They would have lived happily ever after with their child. Then, from somewhere within the hazy clouds, she heard the orchestra of her dream a lifetime ago, playing “Dancing in the Dark”. Her tired old body was swaying, this way and that, to the music that swelled and quivered in the smoky, dew-spangled morning.