Love Is a Thief

by Claire Garber

  ‘From that big tin where you kept all the sweets?’

  ‘Exactly, and she would sit at the kitchen table, slowly peel back the wrapper of a KitKat and savour every single chocolatey mouthful while she gave her work a final, satisfying, read through.’

  ‘So KitKats take you to your safe place?’

  ‘Yes, I think KitKats take me to my safe place, although my consumption of them is not dependent on any challenging intellectual endeavour having been completed, just a general sense of neediness. Just yesterday, for example, I was feeling a bit needy because I’d seen a particularly distressed tramp near Trafalgar Square, and I’d thought to myself, “Lucky me, all I have to worry about is unpicking the mystery of love, its absence and effects, across generations and cultures; that tramp doesn’t even know where he’s going to sleep tonight, poor bastard.” So, as an emotional crutch, if you will, I went straight to WHSmith’s to buy myself a KitKat, and not a regular KitKat, the big-bar version. I’d gone heavy duty.’

  ‘Like the one you have in front of you now.’

  ‘It was an emotional time, Peter! Which is why I also bought a notebook because that tramp made me realise I need to be more grateful. So I bought a notebook and every single day I am going to write a list of all the things I am thankful for. It’s going to be like a daily emotional Thanks-giving until my neural pathways have re-established themselves as grateful ones.’

  It had happened again. The Peter-Parker-induced verbal diarrhoea where I go on and on and on discovering nothing new about Peter, just unearthing strange pockets of my own deranged mind, then showing them to him like a mental health ‘Show and Tell’. ‘So I bought a notebook, and a KitKat, and today I started to make my list, but if I’m honest one of the things I’m grateful for is the KitKat, and the notebook, and that I know where I’ll be sleeping tonight. Which definitely won’t be next to a teenage version of you, you giant sex pest,’ I chortled, then snorted, then went very quiet before muttering, ‘I probably should have just given the tramp some money, or a sandwich. That probably would have been more useful to a poor homeless man than me gorging myself on another bar of confectionery and writing down my thoughts and—’ Peter gently placed his hand over my mouth and held it there until he was sure I had stopped talking.

  ‘That was a lovely speech, Kate.’

  ‘I thought so. I’d practised it.’

  ‘Especially the sex-pest part.’

  ‘That was more of an ad lib. I was in the moment.’ I gulped down more coffee. Peter went back to looking out of the window.

  ‘Kate.’

  ‘Yes, Peter.’

  ‘I don’t want to bamboozle you with technical terminology or self-fulfilling labels, and I’m not judging you, but I think you should know, your KitKat eating, they’ve found a name for it. It’s called comfort eating.’ He handed me the last piece of the very food that was filling my void. ‘Hit the gym, Winters.’ He patted me on the head. ‘Enjoy the natural high of exercise. Run yourself to happiness, Kitkat, I mean Kate.’

  ‘You’re very annoying.’

  ‘But slightly more succinct than you. Now I’m afraid I have to go. My office prefers I shower and change before turning up.’ He gestured to his sweaty sports clothes and I tried not to stare at his partially naked body. I cursed Nike for their sparing use of fabric. ‘So enjoy your dance class and thanks for the KitKat.’ He was already halfway out of the door when he stopped and turned back. ‘You know, it really is good to see you again, Kate.’ He stared at me for a few seconds as if he was about to say something else, changed his mind, then, like a KitKat wrapper in the wind, or a tramp discovering a dry and unoccupied shelter, a half-naked Peter Parker ran off to start his smile-free day.

  magdalena—43 years old—owner & dance instructor at The Studio dance school

  What did I give up for love? Well, I definitely can’t be as much of a free spirit. That kind of living-in-the-moment attitude doesn’t sit comfortably in a relationship. In fact being changeable at all becomes more difficult when someone else’s feelings are involved. And we share our income and assets, which was not something I was previously used to doing. But the biggest thing I gave up for love is my country. I originally left Spain because I wanted to learn English. The opportunities for dancers were all in London so I came here. I planned to work for a couple of years then move home. But after 18 months I met Paul and we fell in love. I wanted to be around him so my move back to Spain got delayed, and delayed, and delayed. And Paul doesn’t speak Spanish, he’s practically allergic to the sunshine and he would struggle to find a job in Spain.

  I truly believe that love is serendipitous. Paul is my happy unplanned opportunity. But if there was no Paul and no love I would certainly have moved home and spent the rest of my life living in Spain.

  the studio | covent garden

  It was becoming difficult to do anything without an entourage. Federico had insisted on coming because of all the male dancers. Leah had insisted on coming because she said love might also have stolen dancing from her (and because of all the male dancers). Henry was there because he and Leah were a package deal. Jenny Sullivan had come with her husband to prove not only that they could dance, but that they could do it well, and they could do it while being in love. Only Jane was there under the legitimate reason of it being one of her Love-Stolen Dreams.

  The dance lessons had been organised by True Love, and thirty readers including Jane had been selected to join the LSD Dance Crew (Chad’s words). There didn’t appear to be any obvious pattern to why each of these women had stopped dancing. Neither was there a specific age when they started to disconnect. They weren’t even from the same demographic. The only consistent theme was that all the women had forgotten how good dancing made them feel, and this amnesia always accompanied the arrival of love—the love for another overshadowing the love of dance. They didn’t need to be mutually exclusive but it seemed that for some reason they were.

  ‘Good morning, people,’ Magdalena, the Penelope-Cruz-sized dance instructor said as she strode into the centre of the studio. ‘Hola, buenos días and thank you for coming ‘ere today.’ She curtseyed and clapped us. ‘Everyone who works and trains here at The Studio is passionate about dance. It is our life. And I’ve heard that you are also all passionate about dance. So already we have much in common.’ She smiled at the room. She wore a full-length Lycra leotard and looked Madonna-hot. ‘The purpose of today is for us to get to know each other, to get to know our partners and to get to know ourselves a little bit. So, pupils, please go and stand next to the dancer who holds the corresponding number to you. Say hello. Maybe give each other a little kiss. And I will be back in five minutes to start the class. Bienvenidos.’

  We all looked from the numbers in our hands to the numbers attached to the throng of male dancers. It was like a human lottery but with leg kicks. Jane had been given a number 7. I held a lucky number 5. As our allocated professional dancers approached, Federico tried to rip my number from my hand because No.5 (Edmundo) was a ridiculously handsome dark-haired Italian with a body that made me want to collapse on the floor and start weeping. Jane’s No.7 was called Julio and was a shy, slender dancer who blushed constantly while nervously looking at the floor. While we waited for Magdalena to return, Federico decided to interview the dancers to discover what love had stolen from them other than their body fat.

  ‘Well, goodness me,’ Federico sighed, ‘look at you two.’ He clapped his hands together doing a mini curtsey. ‘Pas de bourrée-ing your way through life, pirouetting past problems, grand jeté-ing across obstacles like modern-day Darcy Bussells but with penises.’ Federico beamed at them while Julio looked nervously at Edmundo. ‘I bet you love what you do. Do you? Do you love it? Do you? Do you?’ He was looking between the two of them like a crazy dog.

  ‘I am never happier than when I dance,’ whispered Julio.

  ‘I hear you, just about, but I hear you,’ Federico said, high-kicking his leg in the air and immediately
pulling a muscle. ‘But what I am wanting to know,’ Federico squeaked, leaning awkwardly against the wall, rubbing his right hip joint, ‘is about your journey. Did love ever get in the way of your Pursuit of Happiness and I don’t mean the Will Smith film, I mean dance, although that film does draw some parallels in terms of life’s emotional journey, and Will Smith is of course a very rhythmic mountain of a man, yes he is. So, Edmundo, is there anything you’ve given up for love?’

  ‘Non!’ he snapped, checking his luminous yellow Swatch watch and exhaling moodily.

  ‘What about you, Julio?’

  ‘He gives up everything for love,’ Edmundo growled, glaring at poor quivering Julio.

  ‘May I ask,’ Jane said quietly from the corner of the room, ‘how you managed to stay on track because I’ve always known I like dancing but it has slowly disappeared from my life, and I can’t seem to work out why?’

  I knew exactly why and it was bloody well James.

  ‘I fought for it,’ barked Edmundo. ‘I knew my dream and I fought and I trained hard every single day to get where I am. And I should be training now, not stuck in this lesson to pay the rent.’ He spat the words out like pips.

  ‘I was lucky,’ whispered Julio, blinking furiously. ‘I had a really supportive dance teacher at school. He saw something in me and went out of his way to give me the opportunities he never had. Without that guidance and support I don’t think I’d be where I am today.’ He pulled hard on his own hair.

  ‘And where is that exactly?’ Edmundo yelled at poor Julio. ‘Exactly nowhere, I think!’ he said, striding off to a different corner of the studio, muttering to himself in incomprehensible Italian. Julio stood head down chewing on his bottom lip. I looked between the two of them and cursed. I couldn’t believe I’d ended up with the bipolar, aggressive, shouty one.

  ‘So are we ready?’ said Magdalena, returning to the room. ‘Then everybody please stand by your partners.’

  the dance off

  We all took our positions ready to begin. Jenny Sullivan and her husband were just a few feet to my right. He was holding her in his arms and kissing her forehead while she gently nuzzled into his neck and giggled an annoying laugh. They were so perfect and happy it actually made my insides hurt. Edmundo on the other hand couldn’t even look me in the eyes. I’d been standing next to him for several minutes but he just kept huffing and puffing and staring continuously at the exit. And Jane’s whispering Julio wouldn’t look at her either. His eyes were fixed to the floor and I swear I could see tears streaming down his little face. And Jane couldn’t seem to look down from studying the ceiling. In fact it was as if the four of us had been given the task of avoiding direct eye contact at all costs, as if in the penultimate scene of an action movie and direct human eye contact was the detonator for the 700lb bomb buried in the ground below us.

  Julio tentatively stepped towards Jane and held out his hand.

  ‘It’s ridiculous really,’ Jane said, taking his hand, ‘but the only hand I’ve held in years is James’. James is my husband, although he’s not much of a hand-holder, more of a thigh-slapper. Well, now I’ve made him sound like he’s in a country and western band. He’s not. He’s a banker. Your hand feels different.’ She fell silent and they both looked at the floor, again. ‘You have lovely soft hands,’ she said, patting his hand reassuringly with her free hand. Then the music started and Julio spun Jane like a spinning top, whipping her into his arms. They were face-to-face, eyes to the floor.

  ‘Oh, goodness,’ Jane sighed.

  Then he spun her back the other way. Their bodies were pressed against each other; they moved across the floor in perfect unison, past Jenny Sullivan and Ken Doll, who were snogging the faces off each other, past the other dancers, past everyone, including me, and that’s when I realised I wasn’t dancing. I turned to Edmundo, who was glaring at me. He grabbed my hand and made my little finger click. Then he spun me violently outwards, expecting me to twirl back in. But I wasn’t prepared. My hands were sweaty from the stress. So I sort of lost my grip and spun off towards the mirrored wall, tripping and smacking hard against it. I tried again and managed a twirl, but then accidentally caught him in the chest with my elbow. The third incident was very Chicken and Egg. I think I tripped when I saw Peter walk in. Peter says I was already on the floor when he arrived. Whatever the truth Edmundo spun me outwards, I tripped over my own foot, landed hard on my back at the feet of Jenny Sullivan, cracking my head against the cold wooden floor. I came to to find Peter Parker’s warm hands cupping my face, his face inches above mine.

  ‘Honestly, don’t worry,’ he reassured the room. ‘She did this all the time when we were growing up.’ This was simply not true. ‘Her grandma used to send us to ballroom dancing and she didn’t get through a single class without collapsing on the floor.’ Maybe a bit true. ‘She was like a theatrical Italian footballer constantly vying for an undeserved penalty.’ The mostly homosexual room looked confused. ‘Obviously that was before her Olympic dancing career.’ Bastard.

  ‘Kate, you are going to have to sit the class out,’ Magdalena said, trying to help me up. ‘Can you make it to the chair?’

  ‘I’ll take her,’ Peter said, picking me up in his arms, carrying me to the side of the room and plonking me on a plastic chair. ‘You were ever so graceful out there, Kate Winters,’ he said as he got up to leave.

  ‘What are you doing here? And where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going back to work. I just came to bring you these,’ he said, throwing a box of anti-inflammatory painkillers at me. I stared at them in my lap.

  ‘Well, I can’t swallow tablets,’ I snapped like a petulant child as he walked back out of the doors of the studio not bothering to look back at me even once. He was like an unfinished sentence and we were still on …

  I continued to stare at the exit while the rest of the room carried on dancing, all of them ridiculously accomplished, and coordinated, and it felt a lot like they were just showing off. But no couple was more accomplished and showy-offy than Julio and Jane. They were doing the most extraordinary tango across the room: Julio executing every move with precision; Jane seeming to respond to him instinctively. She hit every beat perfectly. She connected to Julio. Julio connected to his own thoughts, finding release and freedom within dance. The music reached a crescendo and Jane spun for the final time into the arms of Julio, and there they stopped, both fighting to catch their breath. It took a moment for their alter egos to melt away, then they jumped away from each other like popping corn.

  ‘You are a very good dancer,’ Jane said, patting Julio on the back, then stepping back to a safe distance. ‘Well done you.’

  Julio shrugged and chewed on his fingernails. Magdalena watched them with a smile on her face. She walked over to a notice board and unpinned a couple of flyers, handing one to each of them.

  ‘The national Pro-Am is coming up. A professional dancer pairs up with an amateur. The prize money is substantial and the finals are shown on Dance UK. You two should think about entering. I think you’d have a real shot.’ Jane and Julio looked from Magdalena to each other before both very quickly looking to the floor. ‘Right, that’s it for today. Thank you all for coming, see you at the same time next week, and, Kate …’ she said, leading me away from the rest of the group. ‘Kate, we probably need to have a little talk …’

  That’s when she told me I probably shouldn’t come back next week but that she knew of a dance specialist called Mustafa who apparently dealt with people like me.

  ‘Why haven’t I been doing this my whole life?’ Jane asked as everyone started packing up and leaving the studio. ‘What am I doing baking gingerbread cookies when I could be here dancing a couple of times a week? How did I get so disengaged? It’s not like it would even take time away from James—he’s at the bloody tennis club!’

  ‘Does anyone know what the Tiramisu was going on between those two dancers?’ Federico asked. ‘The tension between them was like a tsunami. I saw
small villages and islands engulfed by it. I nearly drowned in it. And I am a strong swimmer, yes I am.’

  ‘They used to be a couple,’ Leah said, wiping something sticky off Henry’s hands, ‘but Julio always gets the part when they go up against each other in auditions. So he stopped auditioning so that he wouldn’t beat Edmundo, but then Edmundo stopped speaking to Julio because he doesn’t respect anyone who puts their relationship before their career. He thinks Julio is weak.’ Federico was blinking furiously as Leah spoke.

  ‘How do you know all of this, you mysterious fact-finder of the world of dance? How, I ask you, how?’

  ‘Because Henry wet himself during the class. I got talking to one of the dancers in the baby-changing room.’

  ‘That’s why we need a mother-fluffing baby, Kat-kins! I told you this! We need to buy a baby!’

  ‘I am going to enter that competition,’ Jane interrupted. ‘I am going to enter it and I am going to win it!’ She glared at the room.

  ‘So just to confirm,’ Federico continued, ‘Julio prioritised his feelings over his ambition to twirl? His career is on hold and he hasn’t got the guy?’

  ‘I think you should enter the competition, Jane,’ Leah said. ‘I think that’s exactly what you should do and I think I might start dancing too. My ex didn’t like dancing either. He would bounce around the room to Nirvana after a couple of Stellas but we never had a Frank-Sinatra-Ginger-Rogers moment. We never had that, so that’s a love-stolen dream, isn’t it?’

  ‘Love-stolen ice cream?’ Henry asked.

  ‘No, Mummy didn’t say that, did she? She said love-stolen dreams but, nice try, it was an admirable attempt to bring ice cream into the conversation—’ Henry burst out laughing ‘—and great that you are learning to play with the English language. Your father is more of a grunts and snorts kind of man.’