by Nicola White
Father Philbin appeared at the marquee entrance and squinted across the gloom at them.
‘Are you not set up yet, lads? The band’s due for the sound check.’
Not waiting for an answer, he crossed the floor and disappeared into the side tent, where refreshments would be sold. Brendan and Davy quietened and started to connect their speakers and decks. The wall of the tent behind them lifted at the bottom and a thin man in a boiler suit and flat cap crawled through, holding a cable and plug board, which he handed to Brendan.
‘Good man!’ Davy called after him. From outside the tent came the wheeze and splutter of an engine cord being pulled. A low thrum started up, followed by a click, and the tent was cheered with light from the strings of coloured bulbs that hung across the space.
‘Hey, Ali – whirly light for you.’ Brendan had the light box working, kaleidoscope patterns pulsing across its square screen like fast-blooming flowers. An insistent beat burst from the speakers and Ali was on her feet. The bass was so loud she could feel it vibrate her kidneys. She shut her eyes and danced. She hadn’t felt this good since – she couldn’t remember. When the last bars faded away, the music seemed to drain through the floor.
She opened her eyes to find five men in matching jackets staring at her. One of them started to clap slowly.
‘You the floor-show?’ said another.
‘Just, ah, testing the boards.’ She stomped her heels in a little tattoo, looking down at her feet to hide her embarrassment.
The one who had clapped stepped forward. He had ink black hair in a style that could only be described as a pageboy. The oldest pageboy in the kingdom – close up he looked about fifty.
‘We’re the Corvettes’ he said with a smile and held out his hand to her. He couldn’t be prouder if he was saying ‘We’re Roxy Music.’
More wires and sockets were brought in for The Corvettes to do their sound check. Brendan and Davy were sorting out their record boxes, so Ali stood against a pillar and watched the band run through a few numbers. What they lacked in originality, The Corvettes made up for in versatility. They raced through versions of ‘Karma Chameleon’ and ‘The Hucklebuck’ before the singer produced a bodhrán and someone else got out a fiddle and they were whooping up a jig and a reel. Two of them never even moved the fags from their lips.
The man with pageboy whispered closely into the mike,
‘And this one is for the be-yootiful girl in the tight red trousers’, and they swung into ‘Three Times a Lady’ before deliberately fluffing it and breaking down into a tumble four bars in, the bass drum whacking alone into the empty tent like an amplified heart.
Some women came in carrying crates of teacups and an urn the size of a rubbish bin. Drink wasn’t allowed at the dance, which was why Davy was now pulling her outside – so they could get a pint in at the Red Rock Saloon before things got busy. Brendan left a cassette of party music playing, just to fill the space.
‘The machine plays both sides, so we’ve got 60 minutes and counting,’ he announced, gunning the accelerator in the van.
By those calculations, the tape ran out ten minutes before they made it back to the marquee. A dozen quite elderly people sat on the benches that lined the edge of the tent while two children practised their spinning on the empty boards.
Brendan hopped up on the stage, mumbling words of welcome and apology into the microphone, while shaking a twelve inch single from its sleeve.
‘Here’s one I know you’re going to like’. Bouncy electro-pop streamed out of the speakers.
Ali sat on the side of the stage. It was good to have a pseudo occupation, to pass the occasional record up to Davy for him to pass to Brendan, to put things back in the boxes in order. Around eleven, the marquee started to fill up in earnest, people drifting in, the men bowed by the weight of bottles in their jacket pockets, the girls carrying clinking shoulder bags. Ali noticed tight huddles where she could just glimpse something being added to the bottles of Fanta and Coke that everyone clutched.
Four girls drifted out into the middle of the floor and started to dance, smiling only at each other or down at their shoes, pretending not to be aware of the crowd that now ringed the hall, three or four deep as closing pubs swelled the numbers. Brendan turned up the music to rise over the sound of the talking. In response, people raised their voices, yelling conversations into their neighbour’s ears. Ali looked around to see who she recognised; she saw Roisín’s husband Colman, roaring drunk and hugging an equally red-faced buddy by the neck – Cathal, the arsehole with the foetus feet badge. Roisín would be home with the baby. More girls were dancing now, sedate little shimmies set against the wild gestures and stumbles of the roiling crowd ringing the floor. It was either going to be a brilliant night or a riot.
Davy hopped down from the stage and grabbed her wrist, pulling her out into the centre of the sparsely occupied floor. He was the first man up, and what he lacked in rhythm he made up in enthusiasm, twirling her about, playing various invisible instruments, winking at the other dancers. They danced for four songs, by which time the floor was packed. Brendan gave them a thumbs-up from the stage.
‘Want a soft drink?’ said Ali, ‘I’m parched.’
Davy signalled that he had another source of drink up by the decks, so she threaded her way to the refreshment tent on her own, squeezing her fingers into her pockets to find the fiver she’d stowed earlier.
Things were quieter in the side tent. Women poured tea and offered Club biscuits or packets of crisps from big tin boxes. As she stood in line for her lemonade Ali noticed Joan over to one side, standing with a couple of older women. After she bought her bottle, she wandered over, noticing as she drew close that Joan wasn’t doing any of the talking, was in fact smiling past the women’s heads at the blank wall of the tent, jiggling her head from side to side. The women eyed Ali with suspicion.
‘Alright?’ she called to Joan. Joan didn’t seem to hear, so she tapped her on the back. She swung round quick as a flash, something like fear widening her eyes then settling into pleasure as she recognised Ali.
‘Look at you – and that hair – you’ve mad style.’
‘I wouldn’t get looked at twice in Dublin, but here… anyway, how are you settling in at Ivor’s?’
‘Yea, yea, its good,’ said Joan, dismissing the question. Her eyes were raking the crowd behind Ali’s shoulder. ‘Is your aunt not coming?’
‘She’s a bit old for this, eh? Not much of a groover, Aunt Una.’
‘I need to talk to her. Sort things out.’
‘Tell me, I’ll pass it on.’
‘Nope,’ said Joan, and turned back to the whispering women. Ali wandered back into the main hall. She hoped it wasn’t her old job that Joan wanted to ask Una for. She thought they had gotten beyond all that.
Ali found a quiet spot by the marquee wall and took the combs out of her hair, shaking it down and raking it through with her fingers.
She looked up and saw Peggy Nolan standing alone in a big rosy dress at the edge of the light, watching the dancers. Her expression was as miserable as the pattern she was wearing was merry. Some people could make you feel guilty just by breathing. Perhaps she should go and talk to her. But as Ali moved forward she saw a hand reach out and touch Peggy’s shoulder from behind. Peggy looked round at the man on the end of the tapping hand, her dulled expression unchanging. But the man must have seem some form of consent in her eyes, because he guided her out into the swarm of dancers, an arm firmly around her middle. Ali moved to the little gap Peggy had vacated. Davy was close by on the floor, dancing slowly with a tall girl Ali hadn’t seen before – elegant, with dark sleepy eyes and high cheekbones, like a girl in a magazine. Davy was talking close into her ear, but the girl hardly seemed to listen, looked bored with him.
Ali squeezed her way back to the stage and asked Brendan to top up her lem
onade with the Bacardi she’d seen him buy at the Red Rock.
‘The lovely Valerie,’ Brendan said when she pointed to Davy’s dance partner. ‘And he’s still trying to get her back, poor sucker.’
So this was the girl he had built a house for. Ali found it hard to believe anyone would turn down Davy, even a girl who looked like that.
Then the Corvettes took to the stage and the marquee jumped and sweated to a ceilidh set. Davy re-appeared to persuade her up for the Walls of Limerick. She hadn’t ceilidh danced since she was thirteen and spent three unhappy weeks down in Irish college in Spiddal. They skipped and spun, passing under the facing couple’s steepled arms after each bout to meet a new pair to in and out with. Half way round the hall they ducked under and came face to face with Ivor Dempsey holding hands with a small busty girl who seemed to be unable to dance without holding her mouth open in a delighted silent scream.
‘Teresa, darlin’, ’ said Davy and kissed her hand as he sidestepped her away.
Ivor looked either furious or embarrassed as he offered his hand, it was hard to tell which. Ali was just plain embarrassed. Why had she acted like such a stuck-up tit yesterday? It had taken her until now to realise that he had, perhaps, been asking her out.
‘Howya?’
‘I’m grand, Ivor’ said Ali and gave his hand a little squeeze.
He stood still for a moment and looked at her. Everyone around them was spinning, and he belatedly caught her elbow and whirled her so hard that her feet lifted up from the ground.
He laughed and brought them to a sudden stop. Her head kept twirling, even as Davy danced her on to the next pair.
‘Lovely girl, that,’ said Ali.
‘Oh yea, Theresa’s a panic.’
‘Does she go out with Ivor?’
The steel-haired woman that Ali now faced grabbed her by the waist and whisked her around grimly, prompting another bout of dizziness. She hoped Davy would remember the question.
They came together again and held their hands high for the pair of women to pass under.
‘That big galoot? I doubt it.’
The jig squealed to an end, but most people stayed in their places for the next one to kick off. Ali dragged Davy away from the floor, needing air. They went out the front entrance of the tent where a man stamped the back of their hands with an indecipherable blotch.
Figures milled in the dark. You could see the street lights of the town away to the left, but here in the school grounds there were just a couple of floodlights over the playground, lighting empty tarmac beneath and making the surrounding darkness blacker. The marquee itself glowed dim yellow behind grimy canvas. Over to the right, a line of girls was queuing for the three portaloos. Men were pissing against the yard wall beyond that, legs spread for balance, chatting. The field across the road was full of cars and vans now where there were none earlier. Dozens of bicycles leaned in the ditch.
Ali took out a squashed packet of cigarettes and removed an oval cigarette.
‘That your idea of fresh air?’ asked Davy, but he left the nagging at that. They stood in silence watching people come and go, disappearing into the dark, or looming suddenly back into the glow of the marquee. Ali asked about the girl was that he’d been dancing with earlier. He pretended not to know which girl she was talking about.
‘Brendan said you used to go out with her.’
‘Brendan’s got a loose gob.’
‘C’mon Davy, tell.’
‘Nothin’ to tell. My own fault, that’s all. Got caught looking the other way. Nobody does that to her ladyship.’
‘God, she sounds a nightmare,’ said Ali. A man was shouting beyond the circle of light, up the road or in fields beyond. Hard to tell if it was serious or just tomfoolery.
‘What’s it to you?’ His voice was teasing.
In Dublin they had spent a lot of time together, out in the night air, with candles and moths and strange drinks. It was just the two of them – no Valeries, no tragedies. She wanted that feeling back.
‘Remember that night you made us Harvey Wallbangers?’
‘Ah, now,’ said Davy.
‘I can’t remember a thing after the second drink.’
‘That’s convenient,’ said Davy, and there was something hard in his voice, no teasing now.
Ali gave a weak laugh and stepped away from him, confused. A car drove past slowly and came to a stop just by the school building.
‘Back in a minute,’ said Davy, and went over to the car, leaning in the passenger window to talk. The queue to the portaloos was getting shorter, she might as well join it. She called out to Davy, to point out where she was heading, but he didn’t hear. The car engine was revving loudly, the smoke from the exhaust drifting up against the brightness of a broken brake light. Everyone drove wrecks around here. She took her place behind two girls. To one side of the queue, a metal stand held a spotlight that pointed right at the toilet doors, dazzling all who exited.
When Ali came out of the toilet, Joan was in the queue.
‘Joanie!’ said Ali, enfolding her in a hug.
‘Stop it, stop it.’ Joan pushed her off and glanced around to check who was looking at them.
‘I’m just being friendly.’
‘Well I’m tired. I should be in bed by now, you know.’
‘You’ve got to tell me one thing, though – honestly.’ Ali waved ahead the person behind Joan in the queue.
‘I don’t want to talk about that.’
‘No, no, not that. You’ve got to tell me, do you think I look like a freak?’
Joan said no, but Ali told her how everyone kept staring at her clothes. She was stroking Joan’s arm to get her to listen. Joan suddenly slapped her hand from her.
‘You know nothing about being looked at funny. You know nothing about nothing.’
‘Don’t be like that.’
Someone called Joan’s name then, and she pushed past Ali, swallowed up by the dark after a dozen strides. Ali looked around and noticed the women in the queue staring at her.
‘Is it the red trousers?’ she asked.
Inside the marquee, the band were taking a break, and Brendan was dancing on the stage behind his record decks, urging people to keep going. Too shy shy hush hush eye to eye, Too shy shy hush hush eye to eye. Ali waved and did a little imitation of his moves. Laughing, he held a hand up at the side of his face to block out the sight of her.
She decided not to drink any more. For one thing, she didn’t want to have to visit those loos again. Brendan put on a slow song, and she went up to sit on the edge of the stage, in front of him. All the couples who had been flinging their arms and legs about suddenly fell on each other as if delighted to have something to lean on. One couple stood stock still, French kissing studiously, like they were working their way into each other’s mouths. Ali’s view of the floor was blocked by some idiot standing right front of her. She tilted to one side before realising that the idiot was Ivor Dempsey and that he was holding a hand down towards her.
She met his eyes and slipped her hand into his, to see how it would feel to touch him again. Then she was on her feet and Ivor’s arm was around her, drawing her out into the middle of the shuffling dancers. She rested one hand on his shoulder. His shirt seemed such a thin barrier to the body beneath. He pulled her close and she moved her hand to the back of his neck. His hair touched her cheek. She felt him inhale, his nose just behind her ear, and she hoped there was something pleasant to smell there, not the reek of fags and booze. He smelt lovely, sharp. She was allowing herself to relax into it when there was a scraping shriek across the record and some manic Madness track kicked in, leaving the dancers as disorientated as if someone had flung a bucket of water on them. Ali looked up to the stage and saw that Brendan was grinning, looking straight at her.
She tried to guide Ivor to th
e back of the marquee, but he had seen.
‘They’re great jokers, your family’ he said, and his face was like granite. He put his hand against the curve of her spine and steered her towards the refreshment tent. She wasn’t sure if he was angry with her too, but they could have a sit down in the annex and maybe sort it out. But just where one tent led into another, Ivor drew aside a flap of canvas and pushed her out into the darkness. She stumbled over the muddy grass, his hand still pressing against her waistband. It was quiet behind the tent, though she was aware of huddled, possibly embracing, figures here and there in the shadows. She stopped walking and turned to face him, put her hand flat against his chest. She could feel the pump of his heart under her palm.
‘I don’t want to be rolling around in some ditch,’ she said. He put his hand out and rubbed his fingertips slowly across her lower lip.
‘Would a van do?’
A moment went by, and then she said yes.
They drove a mile or two out along the road, turned down a lane and parked. He collapsed the back of the bench seat so that it formed a kind of cushioned recline for them. He did it in so practised a way that Ali flickered with doubt, thinking of other girls in this same place. He brushed a hand over the surface and smiled at her.
Everybody thought she was a slut already. Even Davy. She didn’t want to try to remember what it was that Davy had been hinting at. She wanted to be only her body, not thoughts or memories. She took off her top and sat before Ivor in her bra. There was only one thing.
‘Do you have something?’
He smiled and patted his shirt pocket, then reached for the button of her trousers.
They wrestled each other out of their clothes, laughing and straining. The image of a smiling, approving Mary O’Shea came into her head and she pushed it away.
Sometime later she was on her hands and knees and he was covering her. There was a slick of sweat between his chest and her back. He reached a hand around to touch her, and pressed his teeth against her neck. Her body shook, her arms suddenly unable to support her. Ivor groaned and collapsed onto her.