MEN DANCING

by Cherry Radford

‘But is very late, maybe is not safe.’ He handed me an envelope with a ten pound note on top.

  ‘What? No.’

  ‘For lesson and for taxi.’

  I put the note on the piano. ‘My fault for being late. I’m not taking money for the cab.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes, you take it!’

  ‘No, I don’t take it!’ I said, but he was holding my two wrists in his big hand and shoving the note into the side pocket of my bag. It had become a bit of a wrestling match.

  ‘Oh Rosi,’ he said, suddenly taking my bag off my shoulder and putting it back on the floor. ‘You know, is problem for me when you are cross – I just want to kiss you,’ he said, quickly drawing me to him. And then his tongue was in my mouth.

  I pulled back. ‘Um, shall I see if the cab is here?’ I managed, worried he’d be able to feel the pounding in my chest.

  ‘He ring bell,’ he said, his hand running down the side of my body.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked, trapping his hand against my hip in case it strayed any further.

  ‘Why?’ he asked, laughing. ‘I like you Rosi. I always like you. Even in train.’ I was speechless. Probably grinning from ear to ear like an idiot. ‘We can cancel taxi,’ he whispered. ‘You can sleep here in spare room if you like.’

  I wanted to clarify: did he mean, sleep in the spare room, or sleep here with the spare room as an option? Just for the record. ‘Thanks, but I can’t. See you Monday.’ I kissed him on both cheeks, and then, not being able to resist his perplexed expression, quickly on the mouth, and went outside in to the cool night air.

  The taxi hurtled towards London Bridge. Too fast: I needed to time to think, to calm down. He liked me. And it seemed like he... wanted me. Imagine. But I couldn’t be just another woman he’d had. And that was all I could be, I told myself: I couldn’t give up my life to looking after him like Jessie did, and he would never choose someone my age to be the mother of his future family. An affair would hurt, destroy me, finish the lessons. It was more important to stay in his life; perhaps develop, through music, something like the closeness he had with his favourite ballerinas. And meanwhile... well, there were the daydreams.

  18.

  ‘Call me.’

  It was seven on a Saturday morning: he knew I’d be in bed with Jez. Perhaps that was the point. There would have to be words about this, but I thought I better do as he asked before he texted again.

  ‘What the...?’ mumbled Jez.

  ‘Lisa – friend at work.’

  ‘Your new ballet friend.’

  ‘Yeah – something wrong, she wants me to call her.’

  I got up and took my mobile out on to the decking. It was a calm, blue-sky day, perfect for the beach weekend in West Wittering that Kenny was going to have with Grandpa and Jan. Seb had decided to stay at school for the weekend. I would have liked to sprawl out with my book about the dancer Li Cunxin, but somebody from the BBC series on the National Gardens Scheme was going to have a look at our garden the following Friday, so I was going to have a weekend of being gardener’s mate.

  ‘Rosie. I’m sorry – I just wanted to hear your voice.’

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked. I stepped onto the wet grass and went over to the bench.

  ‘Were you in bed?’

  I ignored this. ‘I’m in the garden. It’s a beautiful –’

  ‘Have you...’

  ‘Oh come on, please.’

  ‘I’m sorry...’

  ‘Have you found somewhere for us yet?’

  ‘Maybe. I’m still working on it.’ There was a pause. ‘But listen. We’ve booked to go to Brazil on the fifth of August for three weeks. I’ve decided I’m going to tell Ana then. It’ll be easier for her, with family around.’

  My heart jumped a beat.

  ‘Rosie?’

  ‘Tell her...?’

  ‘That I’m leaving. I don’t think she’ll be surprised... I’ve got to tell you, this Same Time Next Year, Same Time Next Week – it’s not enough for me.’

  Kenny was padding over the lawn towards me with a puzzled look on his face.

  ‘No... Look I’m really sorry, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you on Monday okay?’ I cut him off. Just as I heard Jez calling Kenny to come and have his cereal, so I could have called him right back. But I didn’t; I was too stunned. I was breaking up a family. Or perhaps he would be leaving her anyway; I desperately needed to know. I pressed the button to call him, but shut the phone before it rang.

  ***

  ‘No! The ginger lilies. Don’t tell me you still don’t know which they are.’

  I pointed the hose at a clump of luscious leaves. ‘They’re cannas. I don’t understand. You’re a scientist for God’s sake, why can’t you remember the names of any of the plants? Have you looked up the wild flowers in the wood yet? People are going to ask what they are at the open day.’

  I’d tried, but there were just too many that looked alike. As with the canna things and the Cretan pots. He took the hose from me, even though surely anybody could do watering – it’s only fake rain for heaven’s sake.

  ‘You’re just not interested, that’s why.’

  ‘How can you say that? How could I not be interested, surrounded in all this,’ I said, indicating the whole garden with a sweep of my arm. ‘I just don’t have a scientific approach to it, that’s all. While, oddly, you do.’

  ‘What are you on about?’ He looked impatient, wanting to get on.

  ‘Well, you’re so ultra-organised, obsessive about it.

  I just enjoy it, the look and the feel of the plants.’

  ‘You think I don’t? How do you think I created all this? But you can’t get plants to thrive on just telling them you love them, you have to get the practicalities right.’

  I folded my arms, watched him set up the spray wave, go back to planting some leafy baby plants in front of the bamboos. It felt like a personal criticism, and strangely aligned with Ricardo’s concerns. Is this how people saw me: all ideas and romantic notions but no substance? A questionnaire queen scientist, a mother who can’t cook, a wife who’s never around, a lover who can’t commit. I could feel my throat tightening.

  ‘Shall I trim these bamboo stalks?’ I asked.

  ‘No!’ he said quickly, but then smiled with the forced patience he used for Kenny. ‘But I tell you what, you can edit my NGS introduction blurb about the garden. You’ll be great at that.’ He led me to his studio and opened the computer file, gave me an encouraging pat on the back and left me to it.

  It looked fine. I’d always thought Jez couldn’t write for toffee: he claimed to be unable to compose letters of objection to a threatened housing development, couldn’t even fill in the parent comments on the annual review of Kenny’s Statement of Special Educational Needs. But suddenly he was both funny and lyrical; all I had to do was correct some typos and grammar.

  I looked around the room. What was it like to be Jez? His guitar was propped up against the desk, rather than on its stand: had he played it recently? I couldn’t remember when I’d last heard him. On his drawing desk there was a cartoon of Kenny, sketches of Fernanda the tree fern, a strikingly beautiful crayon drawing of his favourite border. No sign of any work in progress for the kids’ book about computers that was supposed to be having intermittent jolly cartoons in the near future.

  Garden design books and volumes about tropical plants had proliferated along the shelf, shoving the art and reference books in to the corner of the room. On the desk, a pile of yellow National Garden Scheme booklets and laminated signs. A drawing by Kenny of a knight watering a plant, presumably how he saw his Daddy.

  Photos of the boys were equal in number, but those of Kenny were all fairly recent, while Seb’s were not recognisably him: a comically grumpy baby who could have been either of them, a toothy prep school boy holding a cup, the posturing centre-stage Galileo in the same We Will Rock You picture that I’d thrown at Seb. No record o
f the now long-faced, shaved brow, spike-haired youth. And as for me, well, unless you counted my essential presence behind the baby, there was only one: curled and unframed, sent by his sister Kate after her fortieth birthday party.

  I saved the file and printed it out ready for inspection. I could see Jez on his knees at the end of the garden, so I clicked on the Outlook icon. Numerous tedious emails about the Cretan pots. I looked out of the window: yes, Jez was still working away at the back border. A concerned email from Kate, in which she offered advice and encouragement about Seb’s behaviour. Although, with two charming and diligent teenage daughters, she was clearly no authority. Good, though, that Jez had been discussing Seb with her. And an email from Sarah Hilliard. Another Sarah. Who the fuck was she? Jez was stretching, drinking from his water bottle. I clicked on the email.

  Jez – Friday 13th is fine. We’ll be with you at about 12. As I said, don’t worry about the garden not being at its best, I know it’s very early for tropicals. I think you’d be great for the programme, and from what I hear, the garden will be perfect for it too. If there’s any problem, call me. Look forward to seeing you on Friday. Sarah x.

  Wednesday. So he’d known for three days – since the day we went to the bank – that the BBC programme was a near certainty, but hadn’t told me. Presumably they’d met at Elizabeth’s when he went there earlier in the week for lunch. Or perhaps the week before, while I was at the conference. I looked in Sent: no emails to Sarah. To either Sarah. He must have replied by phone.

  Sarahs. They were always complete bitches: the white pony-tailed one in Form One who’d excluded me from her gang; the green-eyed Irish one who’d cribbed my essay at uni; the stepmother who, since cremating my father, had burnt me out of her memory. And now I had two more to deal with. But Sarah Hilliard: it rang a bell...

  ‘Done it?’

  I jumped. ‘Yes,’ I said, quickly exiting from the emails and pointing at the print out.

  Great for the programme. Yes. Probably twenty years younger than the usual NGS garden owner, tanned with sun-bleached tousled hair, and looking rather appealing in his boyish shorts and singlet. Presumably he’d brought out his charm: a winning mixture of grinning creative energy tempered with moments of witty self-effacement.

  ‘So what exactly happens when the BBC come?’ I asked.

  ‘I dunno. They meet you, make sure you can string words together, get the feel of the garden.’

  ‘Who’s they?’ I tried again, with a fluttering feeling in my stomach.

  ‘The presenter and an assistant I think.’

  ‘Who’s the presenter?’ I persisted.

  ‘The presenter? Sarah Hilliard. Did that garden makeover programme we used to like,’ he said, smiling. ‘Come on, it’s going to put me off lunch if I talk about it. Thought we’d go and pick up a Thai take-away. What d’you fancy?’ he asked, prodding an earthy finger on the menu he’d pulled out of a drawer. We chose and he rang the order through. I volunteered to go and fetch it while he kept on working, but he wanted to come with me, and, as usual, insisted on driving.

  I sat in the car and tried not to cry. The best I could come up with was that he hadn’t told me about meeting her because he didn’t want to tell me about the programme until it was absolutely certain. But it didn’t really make sense. There was something going on or at least in the air. Christ – with both Sarahs? What was the matter with him? I knew we were drifting apart, but there was still this heavy freight of memories, hope that it still might work; we’d always been so sure that it would. How was I ever going to let go of that? I couldn’t hold back; I was strangled by the effort and started crying. I looked out of the window as he listed the afternoon’s tasks. He only noticed when we were parked.

  ‘Hey, what’s the matter?’

  It wasn’t just dewy eyes; I was sobbing and doing that awful hiccup thing. Snot everywhere. I was running through my brain trying to come up with something. For once I was glad of his irritating habit of putting thoughts and words into my head.

  ‘Look, don’t worry. It’s not the end of the world if we don’t get on the programme. And I’m sorry if I’ve been losing it with you, not letting you help. When we get back I’ll turn over a new leaf – a whole new shrub – and we’ll finish it together, okay?’ I nodded, wiping my nose on a McDonald’s napkin from the glove compartment. ‘And... we can do some finishing together tonight too can’t we? No kids – so anywhere in the house we like!’ He slid his hand up my thigh.

  ‘People can see!’ I said, pushing him away, but the crying had left me brittle and sensitised, and I knew already that I’d be hoping Ricardo wouldn’t ask me about Saturday night when I called him on Monday.

  19.

  ‘He’s lost his scholarship.’ He read out the letter, barely audible above my fellow travellers’ discussion of their offspring’s university plans. But I caught the gist of it: insufficient commitment to drama, poor academic performance, failure and cheating at the school exams, a third suspension.

  ‘Three suspensions?’ I queried.

  ‘Well they aren’t going to have got it wrong are they? He must have got suspended again. Meaning we’re about to get the pleasure of his company in the near future. Ah – there’s another letter here, hang on... Yup. Suspended for the cheating... bla bla... pick him up this evening, back on Thursday. Well that’s fucking great isn’t it? Why can’t they just stick him in solitary confinement or something? I’ve got so much to do – I’m being hounded about that damn computer book, loads of orders to deal with, got to pick up Kenny, want to get on with the garden – I haven’t got time to fetch him and take him back on Thursday evening. I’m not doing both trips, Rosie. Which are you going to do, tonight or Thursday?’

  The piano lessons or the wine bar again with Ricardo: I was going to have to choose. And I was horrified with myself: it was Ali. It was a worryingly backward step, but I justified it to myself by thinking that I couldn’t mess Ali around again after being so late last time.

  ‘I’ll take him back, come home early on Thursday.’

  ‘Try not to be too late tonight either – we should tell him together.’

  ‘Shall I cancel the lessons?’

  ‘No. Just don’t hang around.’

  We asked each other how we were going to afford the full fees in September. Not for the first time, of course, as we’d seen this coming. But the reality of it was grim: no holidays; I might have to take on an extra clinic day and catch up with research at the weekend; and trips to the ballet – and the garden centre, I had to remind him – would have to be severely cut down. I cursed Seb heavily. And, silently, Jez as well, because it looked like the suffering would be mostly mine.

  ***

  Ricardo was in theatre. I could have told him about Thursday at lunchtime but I was cowardly and texted him instead.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Boardroom, practising. Really sorry about Thurs.’

  ‘See you there.’

  I was brushing up the Bach Prelude and Fugue. The F minor one: Seb used to say he liked the rhythmical Prelude but the Fugue went round and round and up its own bum.

  Ricardo came into the room and stood behind me. ‘You play so beautifully Rosie. I must remember to bring in my clarinet – you could do the piano for me. Hey... maybe we could play in the staff concert.’

  ‘D’you really think that’s a good idea?’ I said, picturing Damian nodding in the audience.

  ‘Why not? People all over the hospital get together to practise for it, nobody will think anything. It gives us a good excuse to be together here at lunchtimes. And anyway, by October...’ He put his arms around me and pressed his warm cheek against mine.

  ‘How am I supposed to resist you when you’re walking around in these pyjamas?’ I said, reaching behind me and inadvertently putting my hand on his crotch. ‘Oops – see what I mean? That’s going to be my excuse when the House Governor walks in.’ I slid my hand under the thin blue material and ran my fingers over
his warm back. And then his mobile rang.

  ‘The ward. But...’ He looked down at his trousers and grinned like a schoolboy. ‘I’ll have to wait a few minutes. Play it again, cure me.’

  ***

  I decided I’d try and keep the lessons to the agreed forty-five minutes: Ali shouldn’t be allowed to extend his to an hour and a quarter, just because that’s the length of his ballet class. I stood in front of the door and thought of Ricardo’s cheek pressed against mine: he was loving and lovable. Thought of his arms and how warm and safe I felt in them. Maybe we could be together, if I had the courage to admit that Jez and I were moving away from each other. And once I had my feelings about Ali fully under control.

  ‘Oh Rosi, I’m so, so sorry,’ he said, before I’d even closed the door.

  ‘Hi Rosie!’ Jessie called out from the kitchen. ‘Come on Ali, bring her through.’

  ‘I don’t know how I did it...’ Ali was saying as he took my arm and led me through to the living room.

  ‘Did what?’ I looked at the piano; it seemed to be still in one piece.

  ‘He’s beating himself up about leaving the book at the Opera House,’ Jessie said, coming into the room. ‘I was going to, but there’s no need when he makes such a good job of it himself. Caff or decaff tonight?’

  ‘Er... decaff please,’ I said. ‘I’ve got another copy at home – I could send it if you like.’ I tried not to laugh at his still crestfallen face.

  ‘No... I can get it tomorrow, I know where is.’

  ‘Well, that’s okay then, isn’t it?’ I said, patting him on the shoulder like I would Kenny. But then I realised I was going to have to give a lesson without it – the sort of thing a real teacher could easily do. ‘Actually, caff please Jessie,’ I called out to the kitchen. And hopefully more of these biscuits, I thought, as I stuffed another into my mouth; I felt like I was about to give a performance.

  Ali was still standing there with his arms folded, wistfully looking over at the piano; I started to wonder if I was going to feel more like an entertainer at a grumpy child’s party. ‘Oh come on Ali – it’s good in a way, we can do some things I’ve been meaning to get round to. It’ll be fun,’ I said, still desperately trying to get a plan in my mind. ‘Oops.’ Two biscuits had slid off my plate.