Ask Me to Dance

by Sylvia Colley

  When I was very little, someone took my hand and led me to see the baby lying in his crib. My brother, Duncan. He lay with his face on one side, eyes tight shut, far away, peaceful, and I loved him.

  ‘Shh,’ someone said. ‘You’ll wake the baby.’ And for days after that, so I’ve been told, I went around with my finger over my lips saying, ‘Shh! Baba cries.’ Instinctively, I knew then that by loving the baby, by caring for the baby, I could become part of the baby and then Mother would not forget me. Mother would love me too. Why did I always feel that I had to please to be loved? Because that way I would survive? By loving, by pleasing: then I became substantial. Had I not loved and pleased I would have faded into the outer edges of people’s consciousness and disappeared. I was always terrified of disappearing, of being unseen. Being unseen is worse than being alone.

  Mother seemed to notice me when I was clever and pretty, loved me when I sang and danced, because I was more pretty and clever than the other children.

  ‘Ask me to dance, Mummy.’

  Mother was proud of me then and arranged rather grand birthday parties, and I would have a new dress and dance and sing.

  Once, I had a birthday party – perhaps I was six or seven – and Granny made me a very special taffeta dress, all orange and shiny. I loved it but hated being fitted for it; couldn’t keep still.

  Lots of people I didn’t know were invited and Mother hired a hall, and an old lady, wearing a hat with a feather in it, played the piano and I danced, and sang in front of all the guests ‘I’ll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time’. I wasn’t shy or afraid then but spun about the polished floor in black patent shoes and the orange taffeta dress, while solemn-faced mothers and their children watched. They seemed disapproving, somehow. Was I too precocious? But Mother looked proud.

  At another party, still with children and mothers I didn’t know, for I only had two friends, Margaret Cousins and Pamela Riddle, I won a game of musical chairs. Then a thin, pale, bony girl with a mousy fringe, who continually hung on to her mother’s arm, whined and cried because she wanted to have my mystery present wrapped in red crepe paper with its suggestion of Christmas surprises. I couldn’t believe it when, without warning, Mother took the present out of my hands and gave it to the snivelling child instead. I can still remember my humiliation – the humiliation of the very public revelation that Mother did not stick up for me, was more bothered about the other girl, who was loved by her own mother, and my shame was followed by blind fury. How at that moment I hated the stupid, snivelling child whose mother so openly adored her; this stupid child’s mother loved her for all the world to see. I snatched back the present, the prize that was rightfully mine and then Mother took hold of me in front of all of them, saying, ‘You’re a very naughty girl,’ and dragged me off to my bedroom. Then, locking the door behind me, she left me to my fury and misery.

  I knelt by the bed, sobbing and hating Mother because, although I could not have put words to it, I understood that her image as a gracious hostess was more important than justice for me. And I had to pay her back. I would not be outdone. I would make her sorry. And so I found a pack of playing cards and spread them all over the floor, all over my bed, the chair, on top of the chest of drawer. It seemed then a terrifyingly naughty thing to do. But that would teach Mother not to favour other children before me. I sat on the edge of the bed, swinging my legs defiantly.

  Mother remembered me after a while and I was so happy to hear her footsteps that I forgot the cards.

  ‘Are you sorry?’ she called through the door.

  No answer.

  ‘Are you going to be good now?’

  No answer.

  She opened the door, saw the cards spread over the room, slammed the door and shouted, ‘You can come out when you have picked all those up.’

  Memories. I sat up suddenly, remembering, always remembering my life was only memories, and leaned against the iron bedstead and the room moved like water as the shadows from the trees outside swayed to and fro in front of the sun. There was no ashtray, of course, so I would have to use the top of my face-cream jar. Smoking was probably forbidden here; people in monasteries don’t need props like tobacco. These people have found their way to peace and fulfilment without treats. But if God wanted me, He would have to find me; He would have to take the trouble. It was up to Him. I thought, I’ve been naive to have so much faith. But not any more. Oh no! I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. If God was there, then He could find me. Nothing I could do.

  There was that midday silence, the silence of loneliness. I was not used to silence and wished I had brought a radio with me. The cuckoo had stopped. His moment was short-lived. It was the same with butterflies who were born and then died in the same day. I had often noticed how active they were and then how suddenly still, how they fluttered quiveringly and frantically one minute and then rested so quietly the next. They never knew they were being watched, but I had watched them as in pairs they copulated on the wing, and I knew that, in a sense, their acts of loving were their death throes, for shortly afterwards they would die. Opposites. Love and hate, life and death, light and dark. Fleur had loved butterflies. We had spent hours together, butterfly-spotting, yet only once had she seen a blue butterfly. Strangely, I have seen them quite often since. They seemed to be returning to the gardens once again, but when Fleur was searching we had to go to the Dorset coast and the Sussex Downs. And just once we saw one! There it was, suddenly, a touch of pure blue as we followed it hovering through the long summer grasses. We had been so excited.

  One of my childish obsessions had been wanting to fly like a butterfly or a bird. For hours at a time I would stand on the dining-room table, trying desperately hard to fly off it. I would work my arms frantically and, when I was dizzy with the effort, would leap into the air, arms flapping madly, but although the floor seemed such a long way down, I always hit it just too soon for lift-off. Only once, for an ecstatic moment, did I think I had succeeded, and it happened to be when I was demonstrating to Duncan. Then I really did, just for a moment, seem to hover, seemed to fly. ‘I flew! I flew! I really flew, Duncan! Did you see me? Did you see me fly?’

  Duncan seemed unusually impressed and decided to fly himself, but he jumped too high and too far without any care, and fell onto a chair and broke his nose. There was blood everywhere and an awful rumpus. And I was blamed. Nobody actually said so, but I perceived their cold eyes and their concern for my bleeding brother.

  The Angelus rang three or four times, as if calling. Was I supposed to do something? I didn’t mind staying where I was, provided I could sleep, but to be awake and do nothing, that was intolerable. What would Dan and Fleur have to say? I always thought: only Dan and Fleur can make it right. Fleur would say what she always said when things got tricky. For instance, if I was trying to unravel an impossibly knotted piece of her knitting or trying to nurture a throbbing baby bird, then Fleur would say, ‘Don’t give up, Mum. You won’t give up, will you?’

  Once when I was in the kitchen crying over a TV news item about foster child who was literally dragged away from the only parents she knew, Fleur, all of five years old, stamped into the kitchen and, standing feet apart and hands on hips, as was her habit, shouted derogatively, ‘Well, don’t just stand there crying. Do something!’

  And so I did. I wrote, like thousands of others, to the Home Office and got a reply, which assured me that there were going to be changes to the law that would prevent such a thing happening again. I wouldn’t have written that letter if it hadn’t been for Fleur. Daniel, in contrast, would say nothing, but would just be there watching, quiet and resolute. I could feel his support, although, like his dad, he didn’t say much. I didn’t need the photos to remember Dan with his pale, thoughtful face and Fleur, the green-eyed pixie, with soft brown freckles on her nose.

  I didn’t cry. I sat up in the bed and wondered if I’d loved them enough. Whether I’d ever been capable of love, if I even knew what love was. What is love, a
ctually? But I knew why I was in this place. In truth, I had died when they died. Only you couldn’t tell. Nobody knew, for the shell still hung on the tree and you couldn’t know it was split and that the kernel, the life force, had disappeared. Gone. Died. You couldn’t see the shell was empty.

  Chapter 4

  I must have been dreaming, because a persistent knocking at a door brought me back to the room, the place. I stumbled to open the door, black spots spinning before my eyes and my heart pounding. A monk stood outside. His young face was red and blotched with spots and his head completely shaven. He stood tall and thin and gazed down at me with a straight back.

  ‘It’s lunch, ‘he said. ‘Lunch is at twelve-thirty.’

  ‘Oh! What’s the time then?’

  ‘You’re late. It’s nearly twenty to. Everyone’s waiting.’ He looked down at me crossly, as if waiting for me to say something.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t know. Can you show me where to go, please? I don’t know where to go.’

  I didn’t want any lunch; I looked at the spots oozing round his neck and felt sick. He probably picked them. Disgusting. I prayed he would not be anywhere near me.

  I asked if I had time to wash my hands. I wanted to tidy my hair and put on some make-up. Vanity? I wanted to look as well as possible; it gave me confidence, helped me to be cheerful. Helped me to be ‘frightfully jolly’ as my grandmother would say. Besides, it was a kind of duty. I believe everyone should try to look as good as possible, to hide the world’s ugliness, the world’s brutality. Grey people only contribute to life’s greyness, do nothing to wipe the smile off the face of the satanic tiger. But there was no time, the brother said, for we were already late and so I followed the spotty ‘Buddhist’ monk as he led the way back across the lawn to the house.

  Once in the lobby, I followed him through the door, from which the little monk had appeared earlier, and into a gloomy corridor. A little way down a shaft of light, falling across the wooden floor, indicated an open door.

  I asked him ‘In here?’ in as interested tone as I could manage, but my voice echoed sharp as a knife. He nodded and I went in behind him.

  Everything was silent. The monks were standing behind their chairs, waiting. The young monk pointed to an empty place at one of the long tables.

  I said, ‘Thank you,’ before realising I wasn’t supposed to speak. I thought they seemed a bit disturbed and I was embarrassed and relieved to be able to lower my head for grace. ‘For what we are about to receive may we give thanks and praise always. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.’

  There were no answering ‘Amens’, simply a scraping of chairs as they all sat. For one moment, I thought the monk to my left, a large, flabby, red-faced man, was courteously waiting for me to sit first, and I smiled warmly, gratefully, but he was only waiting because I had caught the leg of my chair in his habit and he looked at me with impatience as I wrestled with the chair legs.

  Once seated, everyone waited in silence as a good-looking monk, dark-haired, of middle age, stepped onto a rostrum in the far corner of the room and began to read, but no one appeared to be listening. Three other monks gathered by a serving hatch and almost at once hands, from the kitchen, passed through bowls and I caught sight of the little monk,who had shown me to my room peering, grinning, from the other side of the hatch. I was sure he was grinning at me so I looked away.

  There were three tables forming a rectangle, and at the table opposite I was surprised by a man, not a monk, sitting at the end. He was wearing a blue polo shirt under a tweed jacket. He looked perfectly at home; everything about him told me he was not a visitor. There was something reassuring about him and I wanted to know more, but when he looked across with a half-smile of welcome I turned my head away, suddenly shy, and focused on the top table, assuming that the stately looking monk sitting in the middle must be the abbot, Father Godfrey. He was served first by the young monk who had come to fetch me. The bowls contained a thick brown soup, rather cold, and this was followed by fish, yellow and curled up at the edges, accompanied by mashed potato and pale, watery sprouts. They all ate with fierce concentration, looking neither to left nor right. While they waited for the empty plates to be removed, to be replaced by stewed apples and custard, the monks simply stared into space. It was as if I didn’t exist.

  I had fiddled with the fish but left the sprouts and potato and shook my head when the spotty monk offered me the pudding. There were bowls of fruit on the tables, oranges and apples, and I took an apple when the disgruntled monk beside me pushed a bowl in my direction.

  When everyone had finished eating and the plates were cleared, the stately monk rose and left the room, then all the others filed out, top table first, just like school. I hesitated, but the monk who had offered me the fruit nodded when I looked questioningly at him and so I followed in line. It was the same important ritual, the same important order, as when I lined up for communion. Everyone must be in his right place or else the whole edifice of doctrine would apparently collapse.

  As they exited, the monks hurried towards the entrance-hall door and disappeared, while the man who had smiled at me walked down the corridor past the kitchen in the opposite direction, and so I found myself retracing my steps alone.

  Chapter 5

  Normally, after lunch Guy Harwood went for a walk. He liked a walk, and the ancient wood, not more than ten minutes away, was his favourite, for it had, probably centuries ago, been planted with beech and oaks which now were great trees spreading their branches across the well-worn tracks.

  His self-contained flat was at the far end of the Abbey, away from the others, which pleased him, for he preferred to be alone. The flat consisted of his small surgery and then, through a series of adjoining doors, his sitting room, the bedroom and bathroom. He had been given permission to give it all a coat of paint, pale grey, and he had brought a few personal bits: his chair, piano and books.

  Now he sat at the piano and without much thought began to play by heart a Mozart minuet. The woman looked nervous, ill at ease, he thought. Not really surprising – the only woman among men! She hadn’t eaten properly, perhaps that was why she was so slim. Looked as if a breath of air could blow her over. She wasn’t beautiful, but he had to admit that for him there was something lovely about her. So pale. Chestnut hair bundled up with loose bits hanging down her neck. He had had a long chat with Tom about her, so he knew the situation. Wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to do, however. Tom had said he hoped the break away somewhere peaceful would help; he wanted to try that before resorting to anti-depressants. But she was stubborn, apparently. Well, he would definitely have to find an occasion to meet her. What would happen after that? He didn’t know. He could help build her confidence, perhaps?

  All he knew was he didn’t want any serious involvement and he could detect in himself the warning signs. But no. Not after Elizabeth.

  He had met her and Tom when they, all three, were training together at Barts, had become great friends and all gone to Bristol General as junior doctors, where they met up in pubs after shifts, gave each other lifts to and from their digs, went to parties, the cinema and discussed endlessly the pros and cons of life as junior doctors.

  Then Tom met Di, and he and Elizabeth saw less of him and were, in a way, thrown together. Elizabeth was petite with a fuzz of naturally curly brown hair and, like him, she wore glasses. When their friendship developed into something more intimate, they used to joke, ‘You’re steaming up my glasses!’

  He thought they would never be apart. But could not decide how they would be together either. Kissing was OK, but he couldn’t do the sex bit. Too afraid. He’d masturbate alone after being with her, imagining her all the time, her plumpish thighs, her breasts.

  He supposed he should have known. Yet when she told him that evening in the restaurant, one of their favourite places, that she had met somebody who made her feel a woman, where the chemistry was good, he was stunned into a shaking silence. Too
k him years to get over it.

  All the time Tom remained a good friend, as did Di, whom he married shortly after Guy’s break-up with Elizabeth. Guy saw a lot of them, especially as he and Tom became partners in the same practice. And he was looking forward, after this sabbatical, to working alongside Tom again. He would leave here when the rest moved to Wiltdown, staying, of course, to help with the move.

  In the meantime, he should walk, not think about Rose Gregory, despite the fact that there was something about her that he was drawn to. But no! Never again. He shut the lid of the piano, took out a handkerchief and cleaned his glasses, sat for a moment, thinking, and then left for his walk.

  Chapter 6

  When I re-entered the hall, the monk I assumed to be the abbot was waiting for me. He smiled politely but wearily.

  ‘Mrs Gregory.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here to welcome you on arrival; I was saying Matins.’

  ‘Oh! Not to worry. I was well looked after.’ I wanted to look ‘frightfully jolly’. ‘I think I was early, anyway.’ It was me trying to put him at his ease! ‘I wasn’t quite sure how long the journey would take. It was quicker than I expected.’

  ‘No trouble. No trouble.’ And he tried to copy my cheerfulness. ‘But I’m afraid we have to keep rather strict times here. Everyone gets very thrown out if we go astray in that department.’