I Hope You Dance (9 page)

And is this any old ballroom dancers, or would it happen to be one in particular?

Too overwrought about whatever was going on between Dad and the creepy grandma, I barely noted that he was actually making conversation with me.

“She said it was bridge. Or Italian? And theatre group?”

“Yes, we've ended up in quite a few groups together. She's a lovely lady, Ruby. Very friendly. A good listener. Did she say what she wanted?”

How about your money, your body, your soul and preferably your hand in marriage, but if not, she'd settle for a wild affair?

“It wasn't important. Something about amateur dramatics.”

“Right. Well. I'd probably best give her a ring.”

“Won't you see her tomorrow?”

Dad thought about it. His hands twitched towards the phone.

“It really didn't sound urgent. Mum's in tonight. Why don't you sit in the garden and I'll bring you both out a glass of wine?”

He thought some more. “No, I think I'd best phone.”

I tried to earwig through the wall into his study, but couldn't make out the words. Was he deliberately keeping his voice down? How far had this gone? When had secrets and lies come to dwell in this house? How was I going to boot this man-stealer out of my parents' marriage?

Ana Luisa came round the following evening to see how my first proper day at Couture had gone.

“Ruth! You look even better than I remembered. I am an excellent hairstylist, if I do say so for myself. She must have taken one look at you and gained a new wrinkle when she saw how beautiful you are. Did she give you all the stinky, back-breaking jobs to make herself feel prettier than you? I bet you aced them all!”

“It was fine, really. I did some cleaning and sorting. But I spent the afternoon going through her filing cabinets. Her paperwork is a shambles, so there's lots of nice, regular admin work to do as well. She sold me two outfits at a discount for me to wear in the shop, so I guess I'm staying. It sort of works.”

“Not fun, though, working for a crow with a chip on her shoulder and a point to prove. I'll bet she is all power games and passive aggression. You stay smart and watch your back. Mr David told me about the orange puffa jacket. I think he is worried about you!”

“What?” I choked on my lemonade.

“Yes, I told him about your job, and the stinky failure, and how we transformed you into a butt-booting lady who booted Vanessa Jacobs right up her liposuctioned butt.”

“What… what did he say?” David was worried about me? David had
thought
about me?
Talked
about me?

“Oh, nothing much. You know Mr David.”

I did. I did know Mr David. And I wanted to crawl into the cupboard under the stairs when I considered he now knew Vanessa Jacobs, the woman he had chosen instead of me, said I stank of failure. Bury myself under the roll of carpet at the back when I realized he knew I had moved back in with my parents, despite all the times I swore I would get away as soon as I could, and was so desperate I allowed a virtual stranger to cut my hair and paint my face in order to grovel to Vanessa Jacobs for a job scrubbing floors in her shop.

I felt very, very grateful he hadn't seen me hiding in a miserable heap under his willow tree.

But now I thought about it… David could spot a harlequin ladybird at eighty paces. He would probably have noticed a grown woman sniffling in his own garden.

“Anyway, he is gone back to his grand job, saving the rainforest and protecting endangered species and rescuing kids from brain-rotting computer addiction with his amazing show. Oh, I will miss him. It is so quiet in the house when he is gone. It will be a long wait until Christmas.”

He'd gone? But I wasn't ready to decide if I wanted to see him or not. I hadn't had time to think about it enough. I wasn't sure if I was avoiding him yet. But he'd gone. And he knew I was here.
He
had avoided
me
.

Yes, it would be a long wait until Christmas.

 

Two weeks later, Maggie's school called again. Busy vacuuming the church hall, I nearly didn't hear the phone. For another three rings I stared at the number ID and wrestled with the urge to pretend I hadn't. Of course, Maggie might not be in trouble again. She could be ill, or hurt, or upset.

Or not.

I grabbed a chocolate brownie from the Oak Hill café and ate it in the school car park. Slowly. This time the head, Mr Hay, was less sympathetic.

“A smashed-up iPhone was found in one of the girls' toilet bowls, and Maggie has been accused of stealing it and putting it there. We're hoping she will tell us who it belongs to.”

“Is this true? You broke someone's phone and put it down the toilet?”

“Yes.” Maggie sat in the plastic chair beside mine, her posture erect, face blank. I watched the rapid thump of the pulse in her neck.

“Why?”

“She annoyed me. I lost my temper.”

Mr Hay leaned forward across his desk. “We have spoken about this several times, Maggie. Why didn't you talk to a teacher if someone was giving you a hard time?”

Maggie shrugged. “I didn't especially want a teacher – or my mother – to know about a picture going round school of me in my bra. For some reason, I also didn't want them to see it.”

I sucked in a sharp breath of horror.
What?

“You should have told us anyway.” Mr Hay kept his face impassive.

“You wouldn't have believed me.” Maggie scowled at the desk.

“You don't know that.”

“The phone belongs to Annabel Wordsworth.”

The head sat back. “That is a strong accusation, Maggie. Are you sure?”

Maggie looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Annabel is a prefect, gets straight A stars and is planning on playing netball in the Olympics.”

“Now, Maggie. That has nothing to do with it. School policy says that –”

“Oh yes, and she's the assistant head's daughter.”

“Are you going to question this girl?” I was seeing red. Sick with rage at the thought of a photograph of Maggie. She shouldn't have broken the phone, but right now I was mother lion fighting for her cub.

“I can assure you the situation will be dealt with appropriately, Ms Henderson. But that's not relevant here. Maggie stole an expensive item of property and wilfully destroyed it. That has serious consequences. If it was one of ninety-nine per cent of the other children in school sat here, I'd be calling the police.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Maggie flung her arms out, incredulous. “Poor, screwed-up Maggie, her dad's dead so we have to be extra nice to her in case she totally loses it or takes an overdose or something? She's all broken and doesn't know what she's doing? Don't give me special treatment, sir. And don't you dare pity me. Call the police and I'll tell them there were photos going around school for three days of girls in the changing rooms.”

Mr Hay took a deep breath. “Were you the one who tripped Annabel down the stairs?”

“Maggie!”

“No. Not intentionally. We were wrestling for the phone and she lost her balance.”

I resisted the urge to bury my head in my hands. I could see the headline in the
Southwell Bramley
newspaper:
Liverpool thug mugs star pupil, pushing her down stairs and shattering Olympic netball dream.

“I'm not going to call the police. This time. But if this sort of behaviour continues, I will have to think very carefully about whether or not Southwell Minster is the right school for you, Maggie. In the meantime, I want you and your mum to have a look at this. If you decide to sign up, we can leave it at that. Providing you are prepared to compensate Mrs Wordsworth for the phone.”

“How much?” My voice was a croak.

“Five-hundred and forty-nine pounds.”

I looked at Maggie. She pulled a face. “You can take it out of my pocket money.”

Maggie hadn't had pocket money in over a year. I would take it out of the precious pot called “new home, new life, sanity, independence, hope”.

 

I was not looking forward to showing Maggie the details of Mr Hay's flyer when she came home from school. Tensions were already at boiling point. This would not be easy.

The front door banged open. I straightened my shoulders, perched on the stairs, ready to intercept.

Maggie saw me and threw the look of withering contempt that is every fourteen-year-old girl's speciality. “Can I at least get out of this hideous uniform and have something to eat first?”

“Ten minutes.”

Twenty minutes later, we were sat at the kitchen table. Maggie was pretending to give all her attention to spreading a thick layer of chocolate spread on a piece of toast, but her shoulders hunched up in fear. She knew what the cost of replacing the phone meant. She knew how I would feel about the photograph.

“Did you know she'd taken this picture?”

“What?” Maggie screwed up her face, horrified. “You think I was posing for the cameras in the changing rooms?”

“No.” I sunk lower into my chair. “Of course not. I just don't know what to think, Maggie. I have a job now. I can't keep dropping everything to come and deal with this stuff. Not when I need to somehow find five hundred and fifty pounds on top of everything else.”

“Five hundred and forty-nine pounds.”

“Seriously?” I lost it then. All the stress and despair and anger bubbled up and out, and I couldn't control it any more. “Well, that one pound makes all the difference! We'll be all right then, won't we? It's all right that you smash up people's phones, and trip them down stairs, and bang their heads into lockers. Do you think I give a flying fig about the money, Maggie, compared to watching you try your hardest to mess this up even more than it already is? I know you hate me right now, that you blame me for the move and the new school and having to bore you with our lack of money or anything else, but honestly, Maggie, I am doing my best. I did not crash that car. I did not leave us with a mountain
of secret debt. I did not choose to be here either! So give us all a break and try and manage
one week
without making our situation a whole lot worse. I've got enough on my plate without dealing with all this.”

She tried desperately hard to stop a tear from spilling out onto her face. It made a black streak of cheap eyeliner as it rolled down. I clenched my fists in my lap, took a few steadying breaths, tried to rein myself back in.

“Why didn't you talk to me about what was going on? You know I would have taken it seriously.”

“And done what? Made it some massive thing? How do you think that would have gone for me? Don't you think I want to die already after this?”

Maggie's chin began to tremble. Her jaw clamped shut, and I watched my little girl fighting to hold herself together. I leaned forward slightly in my chair, desperate to pull her into my arms and offer her some sort of comfort, but she flinched away.

“I know this is really, really hard for you. I know your life feels rubbish right now. But things will get better, Maggie. Something else will happen, some new gossip, and the photo will be yesterday's news. The other kids will start to get to know you, and most of them will love you, because you are amazing, and kind, and so, so clever, and funny and cool. Now I'm working we can start to think about getting a new place to live, just us again, and make some plans for the future.”

“Have you finished?”

I stopped talking.

“I mean, is the lecture over? Can I go?”

“We need to talk about this leaflet from Mr Hay.”

“I've got homework to do. Can I look at it later?”

“I suppose so.”

She got up and moved to the door into the hall. “You know nothing about my life, how I feel or what I want. And I don't know what made you think I would like to live somewhere
just us
.”

The door banged shut behind her. I cleared away her plate and glass, screwed the lid back on the chocolate spread, cleaning the smears off the side of the jar. Putting it back in the cupboard, I then tucked the slices of bread that had spilled out back into Mum's homemade baguette bag and returned it to the pantry. I wiped the crumbs up off the table, and the chair where Maggie had been sitting, and flicked them into the bin, rinsing out the empty juice carton before dumping it into the recycling. I dried my eyes, wiped my nose and got on with preparing dinner.

I drove Maggie to school myself the next morning, determined to get the completed form that went with Mr Hay's leaflet handed in. Maggie was refusing to participate, but I was counting on finding a way to bribe her into changing her mind. Bribery. That wise and mature parenting technique.

Dropping her off discreetly in the furthest corner of the car park, I watched her scurry into the building, head down, shoulders up around her ears. My heart swelled up with so much pain, I couldn't help it: a tiny prayer slipped out before I could think.
Oh God, please do something. My girl needs a friend. One friend and all this becomes so much more bearable.

And I almost heard God reply:
What about you, Ruth? Don't you need a friend?

 

The following Friday was girls' night. This month we were at Emily's house in the centre of town. Ana Luisa walked with me. Emily's was not a dry house, and Ana Luisa carried an expensive-looking bottle of wine. She waved it off when I expressed my reservations about bringing a bag of party crisps and flavoured fizzy water.

“Pah – this is the cheapest wine in Mr Arnold's cellar. And the girls know I didn't pay for it myself. Mr David, he is so kind and generous. When I first came to the Big House he told me, ‘Ana Luisa, you are part of this family now. This is your home. And please drink some of that crusty old wine, because my father never will.' Mr Arnold, he is not so up the front. He pretends not to be
nice behind that gruff beard, but you cannot live with a man for two years and not know his heart. And look at how he raised his son alone after Mrs Carrington died. A world famous professor
and
a great dad? That is a rare type of man, to manage both things so well without a woman to partner with him.”

I remembered the understated kindness he had shown me when I was a child. “One time he brought back an ancient Babylonian abacus. It was four thousand years old. He handed it over with that little frown he does behind his beard and said he knew I would treasure it with the honour it deserved. I'd just finished joint last in the county ballroom championships and he managed to wipe away every one of my sisters' smirks in one sentence. He always made me feel proud of myself. That didn't happen very often when I was growing up.”

“This is Mr Arnold. He doesn't say much, but he makes it count.”

We walked a little further along the road into the town centre, passing my old primary school and the cottage where a whole community of garden gnomes had taken up residence.

“You should call in sometime, have a coffee with Mr Arnold. I'm sure he would love to see you and hear all your news. Not many people understand what it is like to lose the other half of you and be left looking after a child alone. Mr Arnold knows this.”