by Sue Watson
I was amazed that Tony knew me so well and I nodded. ‘Yes, and I want to dance. I want to dance for my dad and achieve stuff he couldn’t. But I know my limitations... and I don’t want to fail.’
‘Oh limitations and failure she’s talking now... wow calm down, love, you’re on fire.’ He made a loud sizzling noise and everyone turned round.
I couldn’t help but laugh through my embarrassment. ‘Just because I’m not flaunting it around and going on about winning and sex all the time doesn’t mean I don’t have fire and...’
‘There you go, a bit of anger gets you going doesn’t it... you came alive for a minute then. Stop being so scared. So... you might fail, but you might fly too.’
He patted my knee; ‘You work it girl... and bring it to Blackpool Winter Gardens.’
‘Tony, I know how big the Blackpool competitions are, I’ve been there.’’
‘Yeah, they are huge. But we can start next year with a dance display, then work up to a competition the year after.’
‘Mmmm.’ I wasn’t sure. ‘They are international competitions and brutal, involving virtually full-time training. It’s okay for you, but I’ve got others to consider – my daughter’s travelling round the world and I’ve got a mother to visit and... oh yes and I have to keep my job because my trust fund alone won’t keep me in designer dance dresses.’
‘Yeah my trust fund’s a bit meagre too – which is why I’m Tony Griffiths working in a dress shop by day – but by night I’m “Tony Hernandez, Dance Diva”.’
‘That’s funny – my dad worked in a gentleman’s outfitters, always said he’d give it up one day and start a dancing school.’
‘Me too! Teaching this class is just the beginning for me, one day I’m going to kill Tony Griffiths, bury him under the patio and be Tony Hernandez full time. I’ll be teaching at the “The Tony Hernandez School of Dance”,’ he wrote it in the air with his fingers. ‘Like your Dad, I just do the day job to supplement the dancing, but one day that’ll change.’
‘Well, Dad never made it I’m afraid... fate had other plans.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame... what happened?’
I shook my head.
‘It’s okay,’ he said, finishing his drink, ‘just don’t let your parents’ lives decide yours. My dad was a big butch lorry driver and look at me? God only knows where I come from, but my parents always let me be me – may they rest in peace. My mum used to say, “Life is to be lived, not regretted. And I’m determined to live mine dancing”.’
‘I envy you your ambition...’
‘It’s not exclusive to me, Lola, you’re allowed some too, you know.’
‘Yes, but I don’t have the money or the training to open a dance school. As for the competitions, once you start, you just end up on the road all the time... it’s a half-life.’
‘And working in a supermarket all day and going home and worrying about your daughter who’s on the other side of the world isn’t a half life?’
I was offended, I’d known him six weeks and though I felt close to Tony I was hurt to think he thought of me this way and felt he could openly criticise me; ‘Tony, you don’t know me. You don’t know anything about my life, and yes you might get off on “telling it like it is” and letting people know what you think, but sometimes people don’t want your opinion. I’m fed up of people telling me I’m not living the “right” life, that I’m not going anywhere. It’s enough with my mother and my daughter telling me I’m a failure and now you’re telling me I need ambition and... and a... shag!’ I’d said this quite loudly, with some passion and caused a slight ripple around the snug in the King’s Head, but all the hurt I’d felt after Sophie’s comments had been bottled up until that moment. Then I started to cry.
‘I’m sorry, it’s just that everyone’s criticising me and I thought you were my friend. I thought you understood that I feel battered and bruised and... I can’t take much more,’ I said between sobs.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said gently, ‘but just because I’m gay it doesn’t mean I get it. I sometimes find women as weird as straight men do. Tell me what I don’t understand.’
‘Look, I love dancing, I live for it. Since I started your classes my life has really changed, I can’t wait to train and I spend my days at work just thinking about dancing, it’s all about the dancing... and everything else is about the waiting.’
He nodded, encouraging me to continue.
‘I do have ambition and I do want a better, bigger life but so did my parents once but it never happened for them. You’re right – I am scared of pushing too hard because I’m scared of falling flat on my face and sometimes life’s bigger than we expect and things happen and people let you down or leave you and...
‘So tell me,’ he said gently, ‘tell me about your parents.’
‘I don’t know why my parents’ dream failed, but I’m scared if I chase the same dream I’ll fail too,’ I said, going on to tell him how despite wanting it so badly, Dad had never got to Spain. I explained about finding the letter and how it seemed there was a problem in their marriage but I didn’t know what it was.
I’d obviously been too young to understand what was happening and after Dad left us, we just got on with it. The world was a different place then, and Mum was heartbroken but never talked about it, so we just fought on, struggling for money, in a permanent state of shock in our insular little world with no outside help.
I’d been so lonely during those years. As a teenager I had friends at school but couldn’t commit to nights out or really let myself go because I was always worried about Mum. I hated leaving her and at the same time didn’t feel I could invite my friends round because our house was Mum’s sanctuary, where she’d cut herself off from the world. As for boyfriends I had only Cameron during those teen years and when he smashed my schoolgirl heart I almost gave up on loving anyone again. But I was young, and still had a little hope so when I met a handsome, twenty-four-year-old musician at a bus stop I was ripe for the picking. John was bohemian, he didn’t live by rules and he seemed to know all about the world. He smoked roll-ups, wore his hair long, his leather jacket loose and for a few months with him I felt like a rock chick.
So when John said he had an uncle in Melbourne and a dream to live in Australia, I offered to go with him. I had nothing to keep me here except my mum, who was too wrapped up in herself to care, and John and I talked long into the night about leaving the cold and the memories behind. We’d been together about eight months when I fell pregnant, I was surprised but not too worried. We’d already committed to a future together and this would just cement our lives further, but when I told him, the look on his face told me everything I needed to know... he rolled another ciggie and asked me how much I’d need to ‘get rid of it’. From that moment I started a different journey – one I’d be taking alone. He went off to Australia and I stayed behind, I never heard from him again. I have never once regretted my decision to have my daughter, but John left me with a mistrust of men.
Over the years I’d had the odd fling, but I’d been wary after John and scared stiff of being let down again. It’s not unusual for a young person to have their heart broken a few times before finding ‘the right one’, but I’d always imagined I’d find a partner and live happily ever after. Until my thirties I held out for it – but now I was tired of waiting.
Sharing my life story with Tony in a wine bar full of people wasn’t easy, and I was trying hard not to burst into tears again.
‘And in the past few weeks as I’ve started to dance I’ve realised that there’s a little bit of me that sparkles, and isn’t quite so world-weary and battered as the rest of me. When I get on that dance floor, that little part of me grows and I’m stronger, more confident, in charge of my body... my life too, I suppose. It’s so empowering and I know now I don’t need a man to change my life – I just need courage, like the Lion in Wizard of Oz.’
‘Yes... that’s exactly it. I know just what you mean, I feel
like the real “me” is the one on that dance floor.’ He smiled, ‘But if you’re the lion, can I be Dorothy? We did that play at school and I was born to play Dorothy, but those tyrants made me play the tin man... the tin man!?’
‘I guess we all have our disappointments in life,’ I tried to laugh, but my nose was running and my eyes were streaming. ‘I’m sorry, but telling you all that stuff was like a detox,’ I sighed.
Tony gave me a handkerchief.
I took it gratefully and wiped my nose. ‘Is it scented?’ I asked through my tears.
‘Yes... spring lavender, sweetie.’
‘Who in the twenty-first century even has a handkerchief... let alone a lavender one?’
‘I do. Now can you just move away a little, your saltwater tears are dripping on my Armani jacket.’ I looked up through mucus and tears and he was smiling. ‘I’m only joking... not about you leaning on me – about it being Armani. It’s Primani and the last thing it needs is you blubbing all over it, you crazy bitch.’
I laughed, and touched his arm; ‘Thanks for listening, Tony.’
‘Thanks for letting me. I know I can be a bit of a prickly old queen, but I can see you’ve been through it and it explains a lot. But don’t forget, Lola, you’re a big, strong woman.’
‘Less of the big...’ I laughed.
‘A big strong woman who’s discovering what she wants,’ he widened his arms out to stress the hugeness and I wafted him with his hankie.
‘Some people watch the dancing on TV and think “Ooh I want to dance like that – I’m going to find a class – I can see myself in that glittery frock.” Ballroom magpies, love – they just see the glint and head straight for it, but there’s no substance, no willingness to put the hours in. You know because of your mum and dad that dancing isn’t all about the sequins, it’s about blood, sweat and tears... and a few sequins if you’re lucky. But you know all that and you’re determined, and whatever you might say about not being ambitious, there’s fire in your eyes, babe.’
I was touched by his observation.
‘Now, I know it won’t be easy, but let’s seriously think about dancing at Blackpool, focussing on that goal will give us both something to aim for and train for... it will be our Copacabana.’
‘Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl,’ I smiled.
‘Yes... and he was called Tony... oh we were meant to be you and me. Oh...’
‘What?’
‘I just remembered what happened at the end... it was tragic, she was very, very old and kept hanging around the dance floor.’
‘Yes – and he was dead, because he kept saying how old she was,’ I warned and we both laughed loudly then quietly hummed the song together.
Tony was right, I had found what I was looking for, but it would be good for me to focus on a goal now. I had, for so long lived in fear of heading into the light and here he was a knight in shining armour offering me his hand. He was holding it out to me, a goal, something to aim for, something to achieve – no excuses, no ‘tomorrows’, we start now. I was me and though I could learn from the past and be inspired by my parents – it wasn’t my future.
I felt a surge of excitement and fear pulse through me. ‘I think I might just consider competing,’ I said, biting my lip, ‘after all, I’ve got a great partner. I can almost taste those sequins.’
‘Babe, you have the very best partner, and you were born with sequins running through your veins, I don’t know how you kept off that dance floor all these years.’
‘Yeah, life just got in the way. But now might just be my time. And the more I think about it the more I want to do everything my parents didn’t... for them.’
‘That’s good Lola, but you have to do it for yourself as well. You have to free yourself, love, I’ve had some traumatic love affairs where I thought I’d die when they dumped me – but I always had the dance. It’s a refuge in a cruel world and it sounds like there’s some painful memories tied up in there, so use them – channel your feelings, take hold of them. I sometimes think you’re pushing them away – embrace them and dance through.’
What he was saying made sense and I felt a light go on somewhere inside me.
‘Oh listen to me going on, I suppose I’m just worried you’ll do what my other partners have done, train and go through hell only to give up halfway through.’
‘I won’t. I can’t give this up, I’m doing it for my dad but also for me.’
‘Yeah. I think we should celebrate that. Do you want another white wine or shall we go all out and have a couple of pink ladies?’
I nodded and off he went to the bar for the next round, and after much laughter and several more pink ladies, he bundled me into a taxi home. I look back on that night as being pivotal in my commitment to making dance my future, and filling my life with sequins again. It was meant to be and my life had been leading up to being back on that dance floor. I was elated, tipsy, giggly... and just a little bit scared.
8
CHRISTMAS WISHES AND ONLINE KISSES
It was almost Christmas and as Sophie would be in Bangkok I was contemplating my options. 1) A Christmas with my mother and her friends at Wisteria Lodge where a pantomime involving all residents and their families would be taking place? 2) A day with Tony at his sister Rita’s house, followed by an evening on Grindr selecting Tony’s next shag? Or 3) A day home alone with some good DVDs, whatever I wanted on the telly, a nice dinner and the ‘Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special.’ It was a tough one and I came to the conclusion that home alone was the winner.
And it was surrounded by fairly lights, my tree twinkling in the corner and a small turkey crown roasting in the oven that Cameron Jackson, my first love suddenly came back into my life. I don’t mean he was actually in my living room, but he requested my friendship on Facebook. I had no idea he was even on Facebook, I wasn’t a regular user and had only joined because it was another portal to Sophie, so receiving a request from him on Christmas day was wonderful. It felt like... well, Christmas!
I immediately found his page but couldn’t see anything until I’d accepted his friend request. When the photos and comments suddenly flooded the screen, I was overcome with emotion. It was so weird seeing someone I’d known almost thirty years ago, and through the slightly greying hair and the leaner, more lined face, I recognised the schoolboy I’d once loved. It was also weird to think how people’s lives go on once they’ve left ours. It seemed like his life had been full-on – even his most recent posts gave a sense of a life very much being lived. There were pictures of him doing charity runs and at parties, shots of him smiling in sunglasses from foreign beaches and just seeing him again made my heart flutter a little. I looked closely at some of the blurry photos to see if there was a wife, but it was hard to tell, no one was tagged. Then I remembered the relationship status at the top left side of the page, and to my relief there was nothing that said ‘married’ or ‘in a relationship’. I imagined he would probably be in a relationship of some sort, but today wasn’t the day to see him in a clinch with a pretty wife. To see ‘married’ as his status when I was all alone on Christmas Day might have put me off my chocolate covered brazils. I scrolled through his page, hungry for information, for any indication of where he worked, what he was like… who he was sleeping with? I gazed closely at smiling summer photos of him with a football and a younger man (his son?) on a beach. There were palm trees, so it was obviously somewhere far away and exotic... definitely nowhere I’d ever been. I scrolled down anxiously taking it all in. Cameron in sunglasses leaning out of a car, in a sunny pub garden with his brother, standing proudly behind a smoky barbecue with a pint in his hand... several smiley kids in the forefront of the photo.
Then my heart plummeted even further when I spotted a recent photo of him with an attractive young blonde. They were stood by a Christmas tree, he had his arm around her and she was positively twinkling, who could blame her? He still looked good. I put my glasses on I could see he’d tagged her, so I
did what any self-respecting Facebook stalker would do and clicked straight to her page. Sadly as I was met with a disappointing blank because I wasn’t a FB friend and couldn’t see her details. I had the only detail I needed though, her name. Holly Jackson... his wife. Great. Like everyone else I’d known, Cameron had moved on with his life and was settled with a perfect partner, a handful of kids, family holidays, friends, barbecues and bottles of wine all summer. I suppose I’d just assumed as he’d requested my friendship on Christmas Day he must be messing about on Facebook and therefore alone. But he just wanted to add me to his list of friends and show off about his holidays and his family and his lovely big life. It was only a ‘friend’ request, I told myself, checking my tiny turkey crown, opening a bottle of wine and taking a big slurp. I didn’t want to chase after someone out of my league and get embroiled in some online thing that might lead to more heartache – he wouldn’t fancy me now. He’d loved the younger me, someone who was a bit more lively, fresh-faced with no wrinkles or strands of grey – someone quite different – a girl from another planet.
Seeing Cameron’s happy ever after was quite a dampener and gave me doubts about myself that even the ‘Strictly Christmas Special’ couldn’t quite eradicate. And before going to bed I couldn’t resist checking Facebook again – and as the screen flickered to life I could see a red sign over the private message logo. I gasped slightly and my heart fluttered a little as I opened up the message and saw it was from him. It was like reaching back through the past, touching something that had once meant so much to me, and I felt quite overwhelmed as I read his words.
Hi, it’s you Laura isn’t it? I saw your photo you haven’t changed, you’re still as good-looking as you were at school!
I flushed slightly – and it wasn’t the wine or the menopause. He was still as cheeky and flirty as ever then – even if he was married. I sat down with the laptop on my knee and replied.