Dancing Lessons

by Olive Senior

  64

  I AM PLEASED TO see that Mr. Bridges has come back from his latest trip seeming like his old self, all confidence and smiles, his distracted air vanished. He’s gone over to his old house several times in the past week, to take an inventory, he says, of what work needs to be done. I’m a little disappointed that he doesn’t invite me to go along at some point, as I feel I could be useful, but I guess he knows what’s best. He has roped in a young relative, an architect, to help him. In any event, he has not invited me to go on any of his forays outside of Ellesmere Lodge, so this is nothing unusual. But he does report back to me when he returns.

  What an appalling recital his inventory is. What an awfully long time it will take to put things right, I’m thinking. My heart sinks. For Mr. Bridges is the kind of perfectionist, in his person and his home, who will do nothing until everything is arranged to his complete satisfaction.

  65

  MAYBE THE WORD HAS gotten to me, but last night after dinner, back in my room, I took an inventory of myself. I laughed at my foolishness when I was finished and vowed to tear the page out, but it’s still here and I think I’ll leave it to remind myself how silly I’ve become.

  My own personal inventory:

  Body: in quite good shape for a woman my age, I would say, especially one who has been so battered about by life. I’ve always had good posture, drummed into me by Aunt Zena. I hold myself straight, and while I’m not fashionably slim, I’ve got myself back down to what one might call nicely upholstered. Not too stuffed. Or, maybe pleasingly plump? It helps to be tall, for the weight is quite evenly distributed. I would say I’m well proportioned. So I wear clothes well. It helps to have such nice things too. I mean, I have big breasts and I do have a bit of a bottom. A belly, too, if I am perfectly honest, but it’s okay with the right clothes.

  Face: Well, there’s where I think I would score myself much higher now than I would have done in the past. Paying attention to my skin and hair does make a difference. My hair is thick, extremely coarse and curly, and I’ve always worn it pulled back from my head and tied in a knot. But a nicely shaped cut that frames my face has done wonders, as has a little straightening and the light henna that Morveen insisted that I try. The colour sits much better with my skin tone, she says, which she brightens up with foundation and highlighter.

  With all the gardening my skin has gone from the colour of putty back to sultana raisin. Some people might consider that too dark, but that’s their problem. Dark is now beautiful. Not that I would ever call myself beautiful, but I am saved by my high cheekbones, which give my broad face character. At least I think so now. Not too many wrinkles. Well, that’s a matter of opinion, but when I smile I do look quite nice. Even to myself. Note: Smile more!

  My eyes, which have always been a muddy brown colour, are beginning to look a bit washed out, but I think that’s just old age. The touch of blue shadow does help to bring them out, and they are a nice size and properly spaced, though when Morveen told me that I told her she was talking foolishness. How vain I’ve become. I only wear glasses for reading and close work, but I could do with a more fashionable pair. My hearing is okay, I think. Well, excellent, I’d say. If only some people knew!

  My nose, oh my nose, it is still too big and flat, I wish I had inherited my father’s, but I guess it goes with my face, which is rather large, and what the fashion magazines would call triangular shape. Too large, maybe. I don’t know, sometimes it looks just too big to me, with those cheekbones. It goes with the rest. Like my lips. Much too big, but Morveen has shown me how to reduce the effect with lipstick and lipliner, if you please. I haven’t paid this much attention to myself since Charles Samphire first started to gaze at me. But what he saw I will never know. I wonder what Mr. B sees?

  I can’t do much about the size of my hands and feet, but after the monthly attention from the manicurist, my hands and nails would be rated passable, even at elegant dinner parties, I would say.

  In addition, I tick off: I am intelligent, well-spoken, very well read, a good listener, willing to learn new things, know how to set and eat at a good table. Thank you, Aunt Zena. I could tackle the repair of a house or just about anything else if I had to, and I have all my own teeth, thanks to my mother, I think. Very healthy, with no scars visible unless I take off all my clothes. Must make a note to do so only when other people take off their glasses.

  66

  I HAVEN’T OPENED THIS notebook for such a long time. I don’t want to open my eyes ever but I promised her and I will I will maybe tomorrow.

  67

  WHO ARE WE TO question the will of the gods???? (William Shakespeare or maybe Sophocles.)

  68

  I’VE TOLD HER I really must go back home I can’t stay here one minute longer and she says she understands and she has promised and this time she really means it I think but says they have to finish the repairs first. I feel guilty because I know it’s going to cost a lot and I haven’t a red cent of my own. I tell her that she doesn’t have to do everything at once I just need one sound room to live in. She tells me not to worry it’s all being taken care of. I don’t know if I should believe her or not. These days I don’t know what to believe.

  69

  SHE DID SAY I could come and live with them in the meantime if I wanted to. They’d love to have me. Well, that’s a new one. Nearly two years too late. Thanks but no thanks. I’ve had enough of people.

  70

  WHAT I CAN’T STAND is everyone being so bloody cheerful with me. Even that bloody Matron. She keeps popping in, in her breezy little way. “And how are we today?” We???? God, I could strangle that woman.

  71

  LOTS OF VISITORS COME, at least the ones whose immune systems won’t be compromised by a sickroom. But I don’t want them here. I don’t want anyone. The only one I can stand is Ruby, who arrives in the afternoon wearing some outlandish outfit. I can hear her coming down the passage, signalled by the tinkling of ice cubes in her cocktail shaker of dry martini. In her other hand she bears a martini glass with two olives and a cigarette pack with her gold Ronson lighter pushed inside it and exactly two cigarettes, for since Babe’s death she has been good at rationing herself. She bangs on the door with the hand holding the shaker, enters, and uses her bony hip to push the door shut.

  Without saying anything, but smiling and waving the shaker, the diamonds surrounding her large sapphire ring almost blinding me, she totters grandly to the armchair where she lowers herself carefully. She puts her burdens down on the small side table and then crosses her legs at the knees, leaving me to wonder how on earth she manages that at her age. She pours herself a drink, dropping one of the olives back into the shaker for the second glass, and with glass in one hand, cigarette in the other, and one shoe dangling, she salutes me. And then, between sips and puffs, she talks non-stop about herself or whatever else she is interested in at the moment. None of this “and how are we today” foolishness.

  Sometimes she comes with Birdie and they spend their entire time arguing about the name of some girl they knew in school seventy years ago, totally ignoring me, which I like. Poor Birdie is getting so shaky she can’t always manage the stairs. This afternoon Ruby comes alone, a vision in silk capri pants with matching pink wedge-heeled mules, and a swirly chiffon top that would outdo any of Matron’s for colour and floatability. I don’t even bother to listen to Ruby, but I like to watch her, a beautiful, wind-battered macaw, and after her visit I always feel a little better.

  I’m actually sick, not pretending as some who know my circumstances might think, a bad flu that I seemed to have got over but which then knocked me down again with a touch of bronchitis thrown in. Now I sound like a macaw. Yet people would expect me to be feeling a lot worse, if only they knew.

  72

  Even though I was feeling physically okay, except for a little chestiness, I probably would never have gotten out of that bed, could easily have just given up and died, if I hadn’t had another visitor that same
day. It was Annie who serves in the dining room and brings my dinner up on a tray for me, so she wasn’t a real visitor as she does that every day.

  Annie usually lingers, and chatters a bit in a cheerful kind of way, as she goes about adjusting the drapes, checking my bathroom for clean towels, straightening out the room, and generally looking around to see that everything is right, even though it isn’t her job. She’s good that way. Annie is at least in her thirties, if her fifteen-year-old daughter is anything to go by, but she looks like a teenager herself with her smart little cane rows or intricate locks, tied back on the job, out and flashing once she’s changed into fashionable spandex street wear and headed for the bus stop, or waiting for her current taxi driver boyfriend. Annie has delicate features and a trim body that looks stylish even in the ugly green or pink uniform dresses. She is cheerful and cheeky, and often manages to coax a smile out of the most miserable, as if getting smiles all round was part of her duty. I could never understand how anyone with a life so hard could be so consistently cheerful. Three children and a bedridden grandmother to look after. No male help in sight. I guess it’s just a question of personality.

  I really like Annie, but during the time that I’ve been lying here, feeling miserable, I’ve been annoyed by her presence as I have been by everyone’s. So whenever she came I would close my eyes and ignore her. Never mind, she always had some sass on her lips before leaving, often along the lines of, “You’d better eat something today, Miss Sam, or you draw down to nutten. See if any of your nice clothes can fit you then. You might have to give them to me.” This was a laugh, as everything I owned would go twice around Annie. I imagined her rolling her eyes and chuckling as she closed the door. Even though I ignored her, Annie’s coming was something I looked forward to.

  But that evening I heard Annie’s soft opening of the door as usual. I shut my eyes and waited for her usual greeting. It never came. I could hear the sounds that told me she had come inside and was pulling up the small table and placing the tray on it, unrolling the napkin from the ring and flapping it open to tie around my neck—for she ignored my protests and insisted on the niceties. But apart from what sounded like a sniffle, not a sound came, and I wondered who it was if not Annie. So I opened my eyes just as she reached towards me with the napkin. I was startled to see such a different Annie from the one I was used to, for her face was puffy and her eyes were red and filled with tears. Our eyes locked as I opened mine and I was so shocked at her state that I spoke. I croaked out “Annie?” before she burst into tears.

  “Oh Miss Sam,” she wailed. “You up here. You don’t know what is happening out there in the world. You just don’t know.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but her agony actually made me sit up in the bed. When she continued to sob, I found myself swinging around to put my feet on the floor and patting a place on the bed beside me.

  “Annie, look,” I said. “Leave that.” For she had moved to take the covers off the dishes. “Sit down. Sit here and tell me about it. What is happening? What are you talking about?”

  She perched on the edge of the chair, but it took some time to get the story out of her. It was Cookie she said, Cookie’s grandson, Trevor, had been shot. By the police.

  “Shot dead, you mean?”

  “Yes’m. Him and three other youth. In a house over where they live. In Cumberland.”

  That name meant nothing to me, but I knew the boy, Trevor. A bright, tall young man who was going to a good high school, was on the athletics and the debating teams, and was the pride of his grandmother who was raising him as his mother lived abroad and had not been heard from in years.

  Cookie’s real name was Icilda Samms, as I discovered when I helped her to fill out a form, but she was called “Cookie” by everyone. She introduced herself that way, with pride, for she was undisputed mistress of catering at Ellesmere Lodge.

  Cookie’s forty or so years as a servant in other people’s kitchens had taken their toll, for she was overweight, bulbous in shape, and diabetic, her legs wormy with huge varicose veins, bunions peeping out of the men’s brown sandals she slopped around in, her round face constantly shiny from kitchen grease. Her snowy white hair under her cap was unstraightened and braided in fat, unfashionable little plaits. Every cent she earned went to keep Trevor and his two younger sisters. Cookie was the opposite of Annie, of a serious and unsmiling disposition, unless the subject was Trevor, when her face became transformed as the frowns creased upwards into smiles. Poor Cookie! The news of this young boy’s death was so shocking it pushed everything else from my mind.

  “But how? What were they doing?”

  “Nothing, Miss. They weren’t doing nothing.”

  Annie sounded defensive, and I realized why. I had automatically assumed that the boys had to be guilty. I was right, for her voice was rising. “Miss Sam, you know how the police stay aready. Them is murderer! Kill the poor boys them in cold blood!”

  “But what was Trevor doing there?” I asked, for I was still trying to sort this out in a rational kind of way. As far as I knew Trevor lived with his grandmother, but where that was in relation to the place where the killings took place I didn’t know, for I was not familiar with the city.

  “Is Trevor cousin live there, and some other boys. Trevor was visiting his cousin. Police say is bad man living there in the house, druggist, and that one of them shoot a policeman, but nutten nuh go so. Is pure young fellows. The house belong to one of them mother that abroad right now. In New York. She just gone last week to earn a little money to finish the tiling. And now this is what happen.”

  Yes, there we go again, I thought. The earthly paradise. That is also where Trevor’s mother was last heard from.

  “Miss Sam, they just surround the house on every side, with their M16 and then the one name Samson, the bad-man Inspector, just hail them up over the loudspeaker and tell them to come out.” Annie’s voice was passionate with conviction. “And everybody say they were coming out with their hands up when the police just rain bullets down on the house. Through the door, the windows, everywhere. Trevor and his cousin was on the front porch already with their hands in the air when they cut them down.”

  She stopped then, and I could feel my heart hammering as I tried to visualize the horror of the scene.

  “Now the police saying is the boys shoot first. Miss Sam, they go in afterwards and plant gun on them.”

  “When was this, Annie?”

  She paused to pluck another tissue from the bedside table to wipe her eyes.

  “Three days ago, mam. Matron said not to tell you. She going to vex with me. For she say right now your system can’t take anything more. I didn’t mean to cry, but I can’t stop for I thinking, suppose those children was any of mine? But I know how you stay, Miss Sam. You would want to know.”

  “You’re right, Annie. I’m okay now.” I tried to work my stiff mouth into a smile for her sake. “So where is Cookie now?”

  “She just finish up dinner so she must be gone home by now. Still have the little ones to look after.”

  “You mean, she didn’t take any time off?”

  “She take the one day off to go and identify Trevor body. That’s all she could do. Mrs. Spence say she should go but she don’t want to stop work for she say she would die if she just sit down and do nothing. They wouldn’t even let her talk to anybody in authority down there. Mr. Levy trying to help her find out what is what. But nobody not saying nothing. And what the police saying is pure pure lie. Everybody know it.”

  She paused for a bit of nose blowing and then seemed to get up some steam, for she waved her hands about and her voice rose higher. “Big big thing, you know, Miss Sam! People talking bout nothing else. How them gun down the poor black people pikni in cold blood. Nothing else on the news but that. Cookie all pon television and everything. When she did go down to view the body.”

  Despite the grimness of the story, Annie couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice at the
mention of television. She was even smiling a bit, as she replayed the scene. “Same way she leave here you know, Miss Sam, when them come tell her the news. The people from her yard come up in taxi for her for they never want to phone. Same way she on television in her uniform and apron and everything as she rush down there. Don’t even take time to tidy herself. Right on the seven o’clock news.”

  Then Annie turned serious again and wiped her eyes as the tears flowed afresh. “God know when they will release Trevor body for burial. Post-mortem and all them ting. You wonder why when everybody know what happen already. Is that really burning her up now. When she will ever get Trevor body to bury.”

  It was at the word body that I burst into tears.

  73

  WHO WAS I CRYING for then? Trevor? Cookie? Myself? I asked myself that question as I lay awake all night, turning it over and over in my mind, refusing to face up to the real reason. It was the first time I had cried, and it had taken me a long time to convince poor Annie that she could leave me, it wasn’t her fault, she hadn’t upset me, I was upset for Trevor and Cookie. Crying was good for me, as it was for her, for all of us. I told her this, over and over. Then I had to make her swear that she would say nothing to Matron before I could get her to leave. It was true, crying was good, for the next day it got me out of bed and on my feet, though I was still a bit shaky.

  But it wasn’t the crying that got me up the next morning. It was admitting to myself that I had been living a lie for so long, pretending I was this bona fide lady. Cushioned in this little cocoon my daughter had prepared for me. Buying into the notion that somehow I belonged here in this closed little world. That it was my birthright and the rest was all a mistake. For though I had kept saying I wanted to go back home, in truth the longer I stayed the more I was seduced by the ease of living in a place where people were there to meet my needs. Poor people. Like those I came from. The ones who couldn’t afford to take too much time off from work even when their children were killed. A place where comfort and safety could be bought by high walls and wired gates and floodlights and alarms and security systems.