Flaw Show

 

 

My Strictly Come Dancing fixation always mystified Martin.

'You can't even dance,' he'd sneer, missing the point, when he called for me Saturday nights and found me either prodding at the video or entreating him to 'just hang on for the last five minutes.'

'You'd struggle with keyhole surgery,' I mocked his logic, 'but never miss Holby City!'

'Engine's running, Vanessa' - he'd stomp down to his car, tapping out a tattoo on the steering wheel while I programmed the vid, locked up my flat and trotted after him for another joyous evening.

Mart was not a listener, his idea of high culture was quiz night at an Ember Inn, and the only music that moved him was the songs he could burp. Thus, a gushing account of how since I was a little girl I've adored watching dancers, how the energy, precision and grace of choreography captivate me, was hardly going to rivet him. So dance remained a covert, almost guilty passion.

The manoeuvres and lifts of which the double-jointed human body is capable are magic to me. There are so many variations on a routine; on how one can tell a story so expressively through a non-verbal medium. I'm a sheer sucker too for films of the Dirty Dancing and Strictly Ballroom ilk - those ugly duckling yarns where a girl attains professional hoofer status during the course of an 80s power ballad. (Don't worry, by the way, this isn't one - I won't be leaping into the splits or one of those gravity-flouting lifts by the final paragraph.)

I did enrol for lessons, though. Martin was right - I really couldn't dance - so when neon pink 'Ballroom for Beginners' posters began to splash the community centre, I thought 'Why not?' and exhumed my leggings.

And tried to forget the last time I'd danced in the community centre, at a twenty-first birthday bash - not mine, I was only seventeen, soused on two Babychams and zealous to impress Justin Armstrong with my killer disco 'moves.' Except the Grease Megamix came to grief and I tumbled on my arse (which was leggings-clad then too - I've always had stunning taste in fashion) at the feet of said Justin.

Justin was twenty-one - thus A Man - had eyes the colour of Terry's All Gold and seemed to be idolised by most breathing post-pubescent females. He knew this but didn't act on it, exuding an 'I'm superior to you all and humouring you with my presence' vibe. The look he dealt me as I heaved myself off the floor, laughing casually as though of course I'd meant to fall over, made my innards shrivel.


So I did wince a bit when venturing on to that bum-bruising wood seven years on for my first lesson.

The class numbered a good fifty, from teens to tea dancers, singular and in couples - clearly inspired by the 'camp dross' Mart disparaged me for watching of a Saturday. Naturally he derided the idea of joining me, so I was paired with the similarly antisocially-partnered Conrad Herrington.

Circa my age, stocky, with rather stern eyebrows, Con seemed at the outset another Mart: as humourless about learning steps as my boyfriend was about never wishing to do so. This'll be fun, I thought. But Con's reserve was borne only from shyness; he was a perfectionist, yes, but that's no shortcoming. As our rhumbas blossomed from week to week we bonded, over a shared passion for the Rat Pack - and an extraordinary coincidence.

'Only got another four more classes,' he forewarned me courteously one week as Ivan, the instructor, drilled us through a Ronan Keating slowie, 'then I'll be in America for a fortnight. Going to a wedding.'

'Hey, and me! Whereabouts is yours?'

'Philadelphia.'

'No way! Your bride and groom aren't Ashley and Lauryn, by any chance?'

Even as I sniggered at the absurdity of my question, Con goggled. 'How did you know?' And any semblance of 'rhythm' deserted us both.

To cut a long and rhumba-punctuated story short, his other half, Jay, was a friend of my cousin Ashley; they'd sustained contact though Ash emigrated to the States when his work relocated him four years ago. He was marrying a Philadelphia girl, Lauryn, in what promised to be a lavish August ceremony.

'Jay's a groomsman' Con told me, discreetly, as Ivan was getting waspish. 'Never met Ash myself, but Jay told him I play piano and he's asked me to provide a bit of background music for the drinks reception. He wants a little jazz, bit of Sinatra. I'm nervous, to tell you the truth.'

'It sounds smashing. Didn't know you were a musician, though.'

'Not full-time, alas, but I do the odd recital. Got one next Sunday afternoon, as it happens. Birmingham Conservatoire.'

'I'm impressed. Any tickets going?'

'Quite a few actually.' He chuckled modestly. 'Interested?'

'Absolutely.'

'Conrad - Vanessa - concentrate,' barked Ivan.



I took my mom to the Conservatoire in lieu of the now departed Martin. He'd predictably transferred his scorn from my love of Strictly to the relish I'd developed for floating across a floor, rapt in music.

'Still persisting with your prancing practice?' He seemed proud of his wry alliteration, but I'd had enough.

'Just getting in training for our wedding dance,' I provoked, second guessing his panicky reaction. Oh, sure enough, I was chucked within days.

My heart survived unbroken. I was twenty-four. Plenty more fish, and all that.

Anyway, this recital had to be the most refined event I'd ever been to. Ladies wore brooches on their twinsets; gin and tonic dominated the bar orders.

Mom, entranced by Conrad, was elated I was now unencumbered of measly Martin - 'He dragged you down, our Ness' - and mingling in more cultured company. She was on a mission now - quite undaunted by the presence of Conrad's boyfriend Jay on the front row.

'That could be a phase. Same as George Michael with those toilets. I'm not convinced he just hasn't met the right girl yet. All that salsa-ing up close to you should show him what he's been missing.'

'Who - George Michael?'

'Don't be daft, sweetheart.' Like she wasn't!

I did feel honoured to call Con a mate, though, as his fingers alternately caressed and sprinted across those keys. Mom nudged me, fluttered her own fingers and shaped her mouth into an 'Ooh' of admiration, as though Con's digit dexterity was another boon to our 'relationship.' She was sort of right, though: his inborn sense of rhythm and intent passion were what made him such an effortless dance partner.

I cringed for him when a woman with ratty black hair and a cagoule shambled in unforgivably late as though she'd only just realised the bar was empty.

The Conservatoire exit door was set to the side of the stage, such as it was, so to enter entailed crossing behind the performing Conrad. The latecomer fleetingly paused by him with a squiffy grin, like we were at a singsong in a saloon; I half expected her to give him a thumbs-up and a request.

She then deposited herself at the front and started chuntering indiscreetly to Jay in the middle of Come Fly With Me. Poor Jay had to shush her, she desisted yapping - but a subsequent volley of snores confirmed she'd nodded off. Jay elbowed her, she wobbled to life thinking the show was at an end and clapped raucously in the wrong place.

'I wish you wouldn't get yourself into these states, Mom,' I heard Conrad murmur as he chaperoned her off to be sick in the interval.


'Pity you can't choose your relatives, eh,' Con rolled his eyes later in the bar. I'd bought him a congratulatory wine, and our mothers were haltingly befriending - his looking Herman Munster-green on a stool and being administered mineral water by mine. 'Anyway, come and meet Jay.'

Con was so sweet and proud as he introduced us - as though we were his two favourite people - and I blessed Ivan's ballroom class for uniting us.

My friend's 'phase' had very hypnotic eyes. Intense, chocolate dark - and they flickered with interest as we shook hands. Then his exceptionally handsome face ripped into a massive smile.

'Last time I saw you,' he laughed softly, 'you were going A over T at your Ashley's birthday party! Con tells me you're a bit more rhythmic nowadays, though!'

My brain flashed through its gallery of 'people I've met in my life.' His hair was longer; he'd gained a couple of piercings; the hatefully cool air from seven years ago struck my more mature, perceptive self as mere shyness. Jay (a name I'd assumed was an abbreviation of Jason) was a friend of my cousin Ashley - at whose twenty-first I'd muffed Grease Lightning in front of...'Justin Armstrong!'

OK, now I understood why no girls ever stood a chance with him.


© Leigh Rowley, 2007



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