Looking For the Possible Dance

by A. L. Kennedy

  Although Susan suggested it more than once, Margaret never did their test on her father. Somehow it didn’t seem right.

  But nobody else was immune. Even now, she hasn’t forgotten the technique. Margaret thanks Susan in her head, every time she looks for human beings. When she goes into rooms full of people she doesn’t know, it helps her to find out ones that she might like. It helps to ease her nerves and steady her gaze and it will work on anyone: Margaret Thatcher, Myra Hindley, Joseph Stalin, Charlie Manson, Nancy Reagan, Thora Hird. And on and on. She could look at film of the living and portraits of the dead and slowly mark every one of them. Yes or No.

  Margaret has often thought, if people tried to apply Susan’s test before they voted, what a difference there would be. She imagines that first morning, after the final result; the morning after that day when all the voters couldn’t help smiling as they walked into the polls.

  Sitting in a pastel blue lecture room in an English university, Margaret tried the test. Only three ladies passed it, and two men. One of the men introduced her to Colin. He told her Colin was Scottish, just like her.

  Colin passed the test. She told him that later and he laughed all night.

  Everybody was certain they’d end up in bed. The only two Scots on an English, English literature course; they ought to form a natural pair. After a while their relationship was assumed and then taken for granted and it must be admitted, they did match very well. Neither of them managed to dress quite like students. They bought second-hand clothes, of course, because new were expensive, but their choices were neither as threadbare nor as stylish as they should have been. There was a formality about them that some of their fellow students found off-putting. Even drunk or stoned, they retained a strange air of propriety. Colin in bars or at social gatherings resembled nothing so much as a thin, plain-clothes policeman or a skinny Mormon out on a spree. Eventually, someone christened him Elder McCoag.

  When people got used to him, it was alright. He could laugh in company and skin up in very public places, because he looked far too respectable to ever be rolling a joint. A Scottish upbringing had some good points.

  But still, he made Margaret nervous – the things he did. They were things you couldn’t get away with. Laws were being tightened round them: there were battles with the miners and then the travellers at Stonehenge. Things were being destroyed, very openly destroyed.

  Margaret and Colin graduated in the summer after Orwell’s year. They had marched a little, demonstrated, feeling irrelevant; they wanted to make their Woodstock, their Paris barricades, they wanted to believe they could make things alright. Whenever they walked at night, different policemen stopped them and England seemed more and more like a foreign country, even to itself. They began to feel in danger of arrest, of searching, of something undefined.

  And of course the drug thing was illegal, you could really be arrested for that; no need for paranoia. But that didn’t stop you. You still carried on. Not because you were freeing your head, all that hippy stuff; if anything it all made your head just a little bit tighter every time, but nobody wanted a free head, anyway. Colin and Margaret simply wanted peace. If you had some peace, now and then, you could manage and they had a chemical peace. Unnatural and therefore guaranteed.

  But even that peace could be alarming. That distance it seemed to slide between you and other things. The morning Margaret was woken by her radio alarm, its news broadcast leaking out into her sleep, she seemed to dream of a Brighton Hotel and an explosion. Somewhere in her mind, she heard someone say, ‘And Norman Tebbit is being pulled out of the rubble.’ And for that tiny moment, she felt very glad.

  It worried her later. The way she had just rolled over, still a little high, and been extremely happy about sudden death and injuries. A face she knew showing hurt, being under a building, trapped. Did liking that make her a terrorist?

  It worried her when she stood in crowds and heard herself yelling with them, ‘One more cut – Thatcher’s throat! One more cut – Thatcher’s throat!’ But she yelled it.

  She was even one of the first, on a rainy morning, to leave the shoving policemen, break the crowd and run across muddy grass in the wake of a prime-ministerial Rolls Royce.

  Nobody thought they would catch it, but all of them ran. Nobody knew what they would do if they did catch it, but all of them ran. What else was there to do? Stand still and do nothing? Or do something with no point? They did something pointless, they ran.

  They had decided they lived in a country where pointless gestures were all they had left to make. There was almost a nobility in that. Ahead, there was an impossible distance to cross – another huge, alarming, unnatural peace that grew out of irrelevance and defeat: dying, unemployment, embarrassing old age. And so they closed their eyes and they ran and danced: irrelevant and defeated. Their gestures were pointless, but glorious. Some days they really believed that. Glorious.

  Yet, when students of another generation danced in the streets with office workers until policemen came to clear them away, Margaret didn’t dance. When an elderly lady ceased to be at the head of her government and the crown was passed on to a middle-aged man, his top lip like a pink moustache, Margaret didn’t dance. Power could have passed to a high-voiced former soldier with a railway junction for a name, or a Welshman with the Tin Man’s dimpled nose; she wouldn’t have danced. She had become peaceful.

  She couldn’t dance across that distance, couldn’t dance away that deathly fucking peace. But still, she wanted to. Sometimes, like a rise of feeling beneath an antidepressant haze, she would find herself becoming desperate; looking for the possible dance, the step, the move to beat them all.

  While Margaret was a student, a first-year had stuck his head through a basement window, cut it almost entirely off, and a friend of a friend had thrown himself from the roof of the science block. Margaret noticed it was possible to die. Even at her age. She noticed despair.

  Then the closeness of sadness and dying affected her unpeacefully – it made her in a hurry to get things done.

  Margaret lost her virginity in the third week of the second term. To Colin. He took it away to wherever virginity goes.

  They undressed with due solemnity, ridiculous in the dark and cramped themselves into a Residency bed. Just before they started, Margaret put her wastepaper bucket out in the hall – the agreed sign. Do not disturb. There are two people in this room and they do not want to be disturbed.

  She had never been proud of a bucket before.

  Margaret couldn’t say why they had chosen then. Looking back, she is certain that it was the right thing to do. It seemed slightly unreal at the time, but not unpleasant and very much the right thing to do. She was in love with him.

  The morning before their night, they had their hair cut. They went in, made their appointment and had tea in a tea shop until it was due.

  ‘Why is it cream teas down here are so duff?’

  His lips were shiny with tea when he answered her. Shiny and slow and soft.

  ‘Same as everywhere else.’

  ‘No, English cream teas are supposed to be something special.’

  ‘Your father tell you that?’

  ‘Who cares who told me. They should be better.’

  ‘It’s Devon and Cornwall you go to for cream teas. This is nearly Birmingham. Who the fuck goes to Birmingham for a cream tea. Do you want a cream tea?’

  ‘No, not so near Birmingham, somebody told me they’re duff.’

  ‘Cheeky cow. I suppose we’ve got to go to Devon now.’

  The idea of them going somewhere together made them quiet for a while. It seemed so nice.

  In the hairdresser’s they smiled and looked daft until they were allowed to sit together. They circled each other’s eyes in their mirrors, in reflection, coolly face to face, tousled and a little unfamiliar, very still.

  Margaret’s hair was long, almost as long as it had been at the very first when she’d asked if her daddy would let her have it cut.
All the way there on the bus, he’d checked with her to see if she was sure. She could always change her mind.

  Inside, he’d sat in the corner of the salon, holding a magazine. He was the only man there, in a room full of women who combed and stroked Margaret’s hair and told her how sorry she’d be – look how lovely it was. Then they would glance at her father and he would make himself smile.

  ‘She says it’s too hot, this weather. Says it’s weighing on her brain. I can’t persuade her. And it isn’t practical for school. It does annoy her.’

  ‘Aw, but it’s so bonny.’

  ‘Don’t tell me that. I think it’s lovely. Don’t tell me.’

  Walking back with him, so much lighter, she felt slightly ashamed.

  ‘I could always grow it back again.’

  ‘Not if you don’t want to, hen. You do like it?’

  ‘Yes, I like it. It’s much better like this.’

  She’d only said the last bit for badness, but she kissed him to make it up. They took the park way home because Daddy liked the pigeons.

  This time, when Margaret’s hair was finished, Colin stood behind the little mirror they held to let her see the back. The back looked like the back of something – the way it always does – and then Colin kissed it which made it feel a little different, although it looked the same.

  ‘You seem younger.’

  He met her eye in the mirror and then looked away.

  ‘You seem even more respectable.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘Come on, Elder McCoag, I want to do something.’

  He met her eye again.

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘I’m going to pay my bill and then we’re going to do something. And I’m not telling you what, except that it isn’t that.’

  And again. Slowly.

  ‘Oh. Alright, then.’

  There was something about him, almost sad.

  ‘I love you. I love you.’

  And she squeezed his hand and he looked down into her face.

  She took him to the big record shop in town and spoke for a minute to the girl behind the desk, who seemed to find Margaret’s accent incomprehensible, but finally she giggled and swivelled away.

  And then Margaret gave Colin his piece of Shostakovich and didn’t even care if he liked it or not. It wouldn’t matter because everything was likeable today.

  Speakers at the back of the shop crept out with the beginning of the fourth Ballet Suite and Margaret and Colin walked round inside it, blinded with sound.

  ‘I was going to get her to play that thing from Witness. You know, where Harrison Ford dances with the woman up in the barn.’

  ‘Too corny.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. This is better.’

  ‘Yes it is.’

  The afternoon changed whatever had needed to change, before they would go to bed, do all the usual business and go to sleep.

  Their first night was quite loving, very slow, but a little grim. By the time they fell asleep it was still just a tiny bit nervous, still grim. Then at three o’clock in the morning a french horn started playing in the square outside. Lights snapped into the night on all four sides. Some windows opened. The horn playing wasn’t good. Whoever was there, in charge of the horn, had trouble keeping his lip and could only remember half a tune.

  More lights went on. Colin and Margaret waited while four complete Halls of Residence woke up angry. Around the horn and its player, the silence was very tense.

  Colin stuck his head out of the window.

  ‘Listen you fucking drunken English bastard. Play one more fucking note on your fucking horn and I’m gonny come down and disembowel you with it. From the inside out. And there’s three hundred people here listening who are gonny want to hear you scream. Bend over, I am on my fucking way.’

  The horn player lost his lip, somebody somewhere applauded and the lights scattered out again.

  By the time a security guard had arrived and was starting to quarter the square, there wasn’t a trace of music to be found and Colin and Margaret had come up from under the covers to get some air.

  ‘Do you think that’s me conforming to a national stereotype?’

  ‘Before or after the horn.’

  ‘Come here and say that.’

  ‘I have.’

  Their position was no longer grim. A certain distance had been crossed.

  Although she has knowledge of what came after it, of other less pleasant things, Margaret can’t remember that night sadly. Her first time will always seem good. She cannot repeat it, she is simply entirely contented with the way it was.

  Margaret went back to her daddy when her last summer holiday came. Her degree had arrived and the summer was restless. The streets smelt of stale canal water and she just felt very Scottish suddenly, so she went home for a while. Only for a while. Colin said he would miss her and phone her and see her very soon. Take care.

  A fortnight on, Margaret got a letter, neatly typed, to say Colin was in London, but would be back in no time at all. He would see her then. He felt they needed to talk. Bye, bye.

  A month later and Margaret had returned to their flat in England. She found there was nothing of Colin’s there. He had removed himself completely.

  She didn’t see him again for nearly three years: almost exactly the time she had taken to grow used to him not being there.

  ‘THERE ARE FEW things more satisfying than a compliment directed to one’s teeth.

  ‘“You’ve got nice teeth,” they say. Or even, perhaps, “You’ve always had nice teeth,” and at once you feel that unreasonable swell of pride. As if you’d somehow planted them and nourished them yourself, taken an active part in their growth. I don’t know about you – I’ve never lain awake at night and willed my teeth to grow. I can’t be praised for that, or anything like it. Maybe that’s a fault in me. My teeth are here, in spite of what I do, I don’t think about them. Not until somebody points them out.

  ‘I do have good teeth, though. I have very good teeth. Only a little weakness in the gums which can be remedied.

  ‘He’s a good dentist, this one. Not bad, in any case. But then, I would say that. He told me I’ve got good teeth. That’s such a lovely, simple thing to hear.

  ‘What do you think?’

  Margaret started slightly. She had been standing by the window, hardly listening to the man because his voice had seemed to need no one’s attention. Beyond the dentist’s initials, painted in black, the depth of the street unfurled in uneasy sunshine.

  ‘Not sure, eh?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t had that many dentists. To compare him with.’

  ‘Well, there you have a fault in your approach. I carry a constant standard within myself. I could only have seen one dentist in my life and yet I would be quite certain of his worth. I have standards, you see. I always pay attention to my pleasure and my pain. My happiness. It makes life very easy. I always know if I’m enjoying myself. Or not.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I knew you would.’ The man smiled precisely, with bright teeth. ‘My life has been extremely simple, throughout.’

  Down on the pavement, patches of water were sparking as they disappeared under heat. On the corner of one block, men were burrowing out the centre of a building. She could see right in.

  ‘You have to control your own life. You must. Think of the alternative. Hm? Work it out.’

  He moved to take a seat in the middle of the sofa and for the first time Margaret was aware she was alone with him. Since she’d arrived, she’d been alone with him.

  ‘Of course, there are complications. If, for example, I kill someone, that complicates my quality of life. And I have killed someone.’ She watched his hands as they moved above his lap, very neat. ‘Now, how am I supposed to deal with that? I have to make a decision. It’s just like anything else. I made a decision to kill the man, so I had to follow that through. Anticipate and follow through. Easy.’

  She
didn’t move. It seemed important that she didn’t interrupt him. She continued to watch the men in yellow helmets as they worked out pits below the level of the street; far below and hidden by walls laced up in scaffolding. Cars and people could pass, were passing, perhaps believing the building was still there. The walls looked like sandstone, but Margaret could see that behind the facing they were brick and behind the brick there was only air and clay yellow pits. She watched until her eyes began to hurt and breathed as quietly as she could.

  ‘Prisons are not pleasant places. No one sane would want to be inside one. So you must make arrangements to avoid them and that can be done. You avoid policemen and arrest. You have friends. But the fact of the killing can’t be denied. I mean the moral fact. Whoever else is punished, for whatever reasons, by whatever powers, I myself must be punished because I am a murderer. A lot of what I believe rests on things like that.

  ‘A problem. Solution? Easy. I punish myself.

  ‘I consider the true nature of my crime. The degree of pain and pleasure I created. My pleasure, his pain, although that need not always be the case. I note the current opinions on crime and punishment, the expressions of public disgust and I decide upon a sentence of eight years. Without remission, effective from the date of malefaction.

  ‘Hard to do. Hard to arrange. I can’t lock myself up. I must earn a living, eat, conduct my affairs, but somehow, I must also be imprisoned. It takes thought, but is quite simple in the end.

  ‘I remove my pleasure. Fearless and thorough, I take it all away.’

  Hearing the pause in his voice, Margaret glanced round, but the man wasn’t looking at her. He had leant back; wiry, grey hands smoothing the hair flat from his forehead, eyes and lips closed. He seemed to stretch, exhaled, then dropped his head forward a little to give her a smile and carry on. She met his eyes and found she could not understand them. They were like blue glass or pottery.

  ‘It was a hard thing to do, it was very hard. For eight years, I lived in this city, dreamed, worked, met men and women, spoke to them, saw and smelled things, spent my money, fucked and ate and ran in the rain and took no pleasure in anything. I promise you, I took no pleasure at all. That’s a very tiring thing to do. It makes you fit in places you don’t notice, it exercises elements inside you that you cannot recognise. I became a man in training and no one knew it.