Dancing Backwards

by Salley Vickers

  ‘Can you eat just anywhere, then?’ Valerie Garson pursued. Les had been advising their friends in Liss that the Alexandria was the most superior of the several dining possibilities.

  The captain explained that if she fancied a change, then there were several other first-rate venues. He also explained, to anyone who cared to listen, what ‘first-rate’ meant while Vi, who knew this already, affected interest.

  ‘Still, it’s nice to dress up once in a while,’ Valerie Garson said, looking doubtful.

  ‘She’s packed for Bloody Britain. Different fancy dress for every night. Nearly broke the bank!’ Les announced. He had ordered a bottle of one of the cheaper champagnes.

  Martha said, ‘Oh dear, I’ve only brought one long dress. Do you think it matters?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Vi, impatient with all this fuss. ‘If I have to dress up each night I shall certainly not bother to dine here.’

  After dinner, Les became expansive and invited everyone who cared for a postprandial nip to join him at the bar. The captain asked Vi if he could show her round the ship.

  ‘There’s a champion little show on at the theatre tonight. Kiss Me Kate. It’s a company from Exeter. Kath had a cousin, a second cousin, to be precise, in Exeter.’

  Vi excused herself with a fictitious headache and went out on deck. A lopsided luminous moon had risen and was laying out across the black water long ribbons of fragile fraying silver. Waves slapped arhythmically against the steel flanks of the ship as she powered purposefully on into the heart of the Atlantic. The air, infused with the moon’s chill silver, wrapped itself freshly and sweetly around her face.

  She stood, absorbing the subtle shades and distinctive smells of the sea. What a peculiar thing she had done. And for what would very likely turn out to be a wild-goose chase. Crossing over to the kingdom of night, time seemed suddenly to gather with new possibility. Out of the darkness a strange sense of well-being descended on her, a feeling that things might turn out all right after all.

  SECOND DAY

  To know the ropes: on a square-rigged ship there were many miles of rigging. It took an experienced seaman to know the ropes.

  2

  Before going to bed, Vi pushed open the heavy glass door which divided the cabin from the balcony. It took an effort, she wasn’t strong, and a wind was getting up and the door was designed to spring back against any influx of weather. Finally she managed to wedge it open with one of the metal balcony chairs, so that her night could be spent as close as possible to the sea, being rocked in its strong grip like the baby in the old nursery rhyme.

  When she was a child, her mother had told her that long ago there had been a pirate in the family, whose career had ended dramatically when he was hanged for treason on the high seas. Her mother had died when Vi was not quite ten. As with many of the best storytellers, the boundaries of her mother’s reality were, Vi now suspected, blurred. But whether or not it was the legacy of piratical blood in her veins, the sea was comforting to her.

  When she woke next morning, the ocean which had beaten all night in her mind had dissolved into the sound of the steady irregular thrashing of water on the ship’s sides. She slid from under the heavy counterpane, which she’d kept over her against the cold, and went barefoot out on to the wooden deck of the balcony.

  The sky was not quite fully alight. Splashes of crimson and orange shivered on the shot-satin water. A solitary white bird made a graceful arc above her head against the olive and rose-dragged sky. She stood in her nightdress, flexing her bare toes on the cold wood, the breeze wrapping the thin cotton close round her body, looking out to the faint line where the deceiving eye suggests that sea meets sky. Before her the ocean stretched, calmly offering nothing but its own vast, limitless, unapolo-getic being.

  A kind of frenzy had set in when Vi, washed and dressed, went down to breakfast a little later. Cereals of all kinds, were available: Corn Flakes, Branflakes, Rice Krispies, Shredded Wheat, Weetabix, Cocopops, Fru-grains, muesli, together with stewed prunes, pears, apricots, green figs, sliced cheeses, ham, salami, smoked salmon, as well as bacon, sausage, black pudding, kippers, haddock, eggs cooked to order, mushrooms, tomatoes, pancakes, porridge, waffles and every conceivable variety of bread, muffins and toast. Besides these were jams, honey, marmalade, Marmite and peanut butter (with a prominent health and safety warning about possible allergies). Lest this were not enough, there were plates of fresh pineapple, cantaloupe, watermelon, grapefruit and piles of apples, pears, oranges, grapes, strawberries, blueberries, mango, kiwi fruit, guava, passion fruit and bunches of bananas.

  Although the food was continually being replenished by teams of attentive waiting staff (and no passenger was left from 5 a.m., ‘Dawn snack’, till midnight, ‘Bedtime cookies and cocoa’, for more than fifteen minutes without ready supplies) a fever of impatience had overtaken the line of passengers as Vi queued for a bowl of muesli.

  Even more consternation was being stirred up over the question of the tables. Those with sea views were sought after hotly. A bagging system was in operation: books and cardigans had been left to establish possession. This strategy, however, was not proof against the more experienced voyagers, who were willing to brazen it out and remove these colonising tokens in order to stake out their own claims. Those who had been on past cruises, and knew the score, took the precaution of leaving one party on guard while others foraged for food.

  The single were at a disadvantage here. Vi, hesitating with her tray, was hailed by Ken on his way to the hot food counter.

  ‘We were wondering where you’d got to. Come and join us. Jen’s over there by the window.’

  Vi found Jen sitting at one of the prime locations which commanded an unobstructed view of the sea. To Vi’s surprise, Jen was leafing through a book about the Russian Revolution but it turned out the book belonged to Ken. ‘He only reads non-fiction,’ she explained. ‘Loves his history. I like novels myself. Where are you sitting?’

  ‘Ken said to join you here.’ Vi was ready to beat a retreat.

  ‘No, I mean where are you in the evening? We’re way down in the Beatrix. It’s not bad, though I didn’t much like what they did with my sea bream.’

  ‘I’m in the Alexandria,’ said Vi, a little reluctantly in case it seemed like showing off.

  But Jen was only impressed. ‘That must have cost an arm and a leg. Still, you can’t take it with you. That’s what we said. What are the others on the table like?’

  ‘There’s a retired sea captain. He used to work on this line.’

  Jen divulged that some people at their table had had a death in the family. ‘It cast a bit of a pall on things to be honest. You have to feel for them, of course, but Ken’s going to try to get us moved.’

  Ken returned with two plates on which he had piled, as if against a coming famine, bacon, black pudding, sausages, mushrooms, tomato and fried potatoes. ‘You not having any?’ he asked Vi. ‘Go on, we’ll keep your place.’

  ‘Really. I never eat cooked breakfast.’

  ‘That’s why you’re so slim,’ said Jen, amicably. ‘I’m a greedy pig, me. Can’t resist food. I had a twenty-two-inch waist when I met Ken.’

  ‘Too skinny by half,’ said Ken. He speared a sausage and examined it as if to ensure it had no plans to acquire a waist. ‘Not you, though,’ he added quickly to Vi. ‘Suits you. She,’ he nodded at Jen, ‘was a bag of bones before I took her in hand.’

  Jen pulled a face at her husband and asked Vi what her plans were. Having no ‘plans’, Vi, who didn’t want to appear standoffish, said she thought she might explore the ship. Then, unequal to spinning out any longer a bowl of muesli and a cup of coffee, she said goodbye to the Morrisons. As she walked away, she heard Ken urging Jen to another helping of bacon. ‘Go on,’ he was saying, ‘you know you’ll regret it later if you don’t.’

  Vi went out on deck, which had been colonised by those pursuing health programmes. Elderly joggers, in shorts or track-suits, sporting base
ball caps and bedecked with iPods, pounding the boards to the throbbing engines, swerved perilously around troops of speed walkers who, in turn, were being frustrated by strolling passengers whose only aim was to enjoy the traditional health-giving properties of the sea air. Others had given themselves up to indolence and were sitting reading or lying, well-oiled against the sun, on the wooden loungers which lined the perimeter of the deck.

  Vi shaded her eyes against the sun spangling the water with dancing points of silver and wondered how the silver of sunlight differed from the silver of the moon, and then if it really differed at all. Probably not, she decided. She strolled on round to where a small group of smokers, defiantly outfacing the disciples of health, had gathered. Above the mint green foaming train of the ship, gulls cruised the breeze, as if released by some airy conjurer’s legerdemain.

  Enjoying aimlessness, she wandered round towards the ship’s bows and ran into Captain Ryle.

  ‘Look,’ said the captain, seizing her arm. ‘Over there. Look, look, porpoises.’

  He passed her a pair of heavy binoculars and, adjusting the focus, her eyes caught up with the line of lithe, gun-metal hoops, leaping through the water which rocked slightly under her gaze. She followed the school until it was lost to the eye, and then, tilting up the binoculars, explored the horizon.

  ‘Did you see them? They’re lucky, porpoises,’ said Captain Ryle. ‘Sailors say so, anyhow.’ Too well-mannered to betray this openly, he was impatient for the return of his binoculars.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Vi, handing the glasses back. She had rather wanted to continue examining the self-renewing horizon.

  ‘These were a present from Kath on our Ruby Wedding,’ the captain said, restoring the binoculars to the safety of his own neck. ‘I never go to sea without them. Care for a coffee?’

  Vi, who didn’t at all want coffee, said she would love one and wondered how she was going to manage Captain Ryle. It was apparent he had taken a shine to her.

  They sat in the Queen Bess Bar, on seats designed to resemble lifebuoys, while the captain recounted how he had begun his seafaring career on the ferry to the Isle of Wight and had graduated from this to channel crossings before getting his real break, a berth as second mate on the Queen Elizabeth. ‘Now she’s a ship and a half, the Queen Liz. Ever been on her?’

  Vi regretted that she hadn’t.

  ‘Too late now. They let her go. Turned her into some flipping hotel. Makes you want to weep.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ She could see that sympathy was called for. But sympathy, that comes so readily to some, can be hard work. Vi decided it was time for Bunbury.

  Vi had learned about Bunbury from Edwin. The original Bunbury, the fictional fiction, employed as an alibi in Wilde’s most famous play, was, Edwin had taught her, a concept capable of being recruited.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said after they had drunk one cup of coffee and she sensed that the offer of a second was imminent, ‘but I have some work I must do.’

  ‘Work?’ The captain’s good-hearted face betrayed puzzlement.

  ‘Yes. I’m a poet.’ With luck that would put the lid on any further questioning.

  ‘A poet?’ said the captain. Had she confided that she was a belly dancer he could hardly have looked more ill at ease.

  ‘I don’t generally mention it, because people can be nervous of poets.’ Guessing she could rely on his chivalry, she went on, ‘so if you wouldn’t mind keeping it to yourself?’

  As she had hoped, flattery—not a bad strategy if it is only employed for self-preservation—did the trick.

  ‘Of course, dear lady. Our little secret. Kath liked poetry. She was the clever one. Over my head, I’m afraid, except for the one about the tall ship and the star to steer her by. Kath read that to me sometimes.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Vi, ‘people seem to like it. But on the whole, poetry is not most people’s cup of tea.’

  Which is true, she thought, making her way back to the privacy of her cabin. She wondered if Kath really read poetry or if that was the captain’s own form of Bunburying. The dead, how ever much missed, could, as she knew, be usefully pressed into service.

  Back at her cabin, she found Renato energetically shaking out the gold counterpane. ‘Mrs Hetherington, please, I can go away now and come back later.’

  ‘No, Renato, it’s OK, you go on.’ He had switched off the TV but she had caught the picture. ‘You were watching dancing?’

  ‘It is our own dancers on the ship. The TV programme which is relayed to your room, you see. They give demonstrations. Every day in the King Edward Lounge is a tea dance. You go?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t dance, Renato.’

  ‘You dance well. Nice figure. Not like some ladies.’ Renato held his hands wide and giggled. ‘Forgive me I speak like this to you, Mrs Hetherington.’

  ‘Nobody minds a compliment, Renato.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I am delighted you think I might be able to dance. But I’m afraid you’re wrong.’

  ‘Oh yes. You dance well.’ Renato began to spray the desk with a vile-smelling cleanser.

  ‘Renato, would you mind, only my eyes…’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘The cleaner you’re using. I’m sorry, but it is making my eyes sting.’

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs Hetherington, but I must clean the cabin.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just dust it or wipe it over with a damp cloth?’

  Renato looked opaque. He left the room stinking to high heaven and to escape the fumes Vi went outside on to the balcony.

  And there was the sea, reminding her that nothing that happens matters much in the great sum of things. And yet, she thought, how can we help minding?

  She walked back into the cabin. On the zealously cleansed desk, Renato had stacked her books in neat piles. Beside them he had placed, in a parallel pile, her notebooks. She had not opened the notebooks in years. Goodness knows what had induced her to bring them. Except, of course, she did know. Edwin.

  What would it be like seeing Edwin again after all these years? Was she excited? Scared? She wasn’t sure. She had set out on something stronger than a whim. It was an impulse, but with an attendant caution that had led to her making the crossing by sea. But for what? Time, she supposed. Time to consider. Time for reflection. Although you would think she had had all the time in the world for that.

  She tried to recall when she and Edwin had last met—but the years had evaporated to a mist. Had they even said goodbye? She wasn’t sure of that either.

  3

  The first time Des saw Mrs Hetherington she was sitting a little way off so that he couldn’t see her hands. Des liked to see the hands because this gave him valuable information. Nail polish or no nail polish, rocks or no rocks. You could gather quite a lot from such clues. She attracted notice because she had that air of being a little apart, with her attention not on the room and the other passengers, as was the case with most of the single women who came for tea, but directed only at the sea.

  ‘Any idea who she is?’ he asked Boris. ‘The skinny one in the corner over there.’

  Boris was Ukrainian, one of the many Eastern Europeans who had been joining the staff of the shipping lines in droves. They were unpopular among their colleagues. Having acquired stamina under regimes founded by Stalin, they were willing to work longer hours than those raised on more easygoing political systems. There was a general feeling that if the redundancies which were threatened struck, they would take advantage.

  Boris adjusted one of the immaculate white gloves worn by the waiters serving tea. ‘Mrs Hetherington, Deck Twelve, single occupancy. I think she is not with anyone. But your guess is as good as mine.’

  The Eastern Europeans’ command of English idiom, which they appeared to pick up with demonic cleverness, was another ground for complaint, particularly with the British staff who were naturally suspicious of any ability with other languages.

  Des, however, was Italian, at least on his
father’s side.

  ‘She dance?’

  Boris raised bored aristocratic eyebrows. Long ago, his family had owned serfs, and vast tracts of woodland where wolves had loped. In the family annals it was alleged that on nights when the moon was full an ancestor of Boris’s had loped alongside the wolves.

  Des made his way over to the thin woman’s table and noted that she already had a pot of tea. ‘Can I ask the waiter to get you anything to eat, Mrs Hetherington? A pastry maybe? Some sandwiches?’

  ‘You know my name!’ She had flushed.

  ‘It is our business to get to know our guests, madam.’

  ‘Of course.’ She looked bothered. ‘I don’t think I want to eat anything, thanks. I seem to have done nothing but eat since I came on board.’

  ‘You can afford to. You are so slim.’ Plenty of rocks and no wedding band but a big diamond on the ring finger of the left hand.

  ‘I came to watch the dancing.’

  ‘But you are looking at the sea.’

  She seemed to like this approach better. ‘Until there is dancing I would rather look at the sea than at cake.’

  ‘You dance?’ No nail polish either.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you like to watch it?’

  ‘My steward wanted me to.’

  ‘Your steward?’ The guy must be a smooth worker if she had formed a crush on him already.

  ‘I offended him so I’m being polite and following his suggestion, you see.’

  ‘I see,’ Des said. Maybe the woman was a little touched. ‘Well, enjoy yourself with the sea, Mrs Hetherington. There’s plenty of it.’

  Five days a week the ship’s band played for the tea dance in the King Edward Lounge hosted by pair of professional dancers, Marie and George, whose photographs (George in tails, Marie in glittering-bodiced costumes, winning prizes in competitions as far apart as Eastbourne and Barcelona) were available for sale at the rostrum. The pair had been hired by the Caroline to give presentation dances at the regular evening balls and to run the five-times-a-week dance lessons (‘11 to 12 noon in the Tudor Room, bring suitable shoes’). The tea dances allowed a further opportunity for passengers to try out the steps they had learned at the classes. In order to accommodate the large numbers of single female passengers additional male dance hosts were employed.