DAY 31
Dance like no one is watching
“But should you be doing this, Poll? I mean, are you well enough?”
“What are you talking about, I’m totally fine!” Polly was already dancing along to the music as people got changed, pulling off jumpers to reveal tight leggings and vests. Annie hugged herself—she was wearing so many layers it was impossible to tell whether she was a woman, a man or the Honey Monster.
“This is going to be a nightmare,” George said, chugging down Diet Coke. He had dark shadows under his eyes and an underlying reek of vodka was emanating from his pores. “I bloody hate this kind of hippie stuff. When I’m not off my tits at least.”
For once Annie agreed with him. Hugging strangers and rubbing up against them was probably fine when you were on drugs, but not when it was 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning and you were stone-cold sober. Fear gripped her. She was doing her best to avoid eye contact, pretend it wasn’t going to happen, but at some point in the next few minutes the contact dance class was going to start, and she would have to touch people, let them put their hands on her waist—if they could find it—and her legs and arms and maybe even her face and...oh, God. She grabbed his arm. “I can’t do this. I just—I really can’t. I can’t dance, I hate people touching me and I just really, really can’t do it. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say sorry to me, I’m in the same boat.” He raked his fingers over his exhausted face. “I hate dancing sober. I hate wearing tight clothes. I hate smiling.”
The other attendees were all glowing with health, smiling earnestly at each other, greeting the teacher with hugs. Annie was backed into the corner as far as she could go. A pulse of horror was beating in her stomach. “Oh, God. I can’t.”
“Why didn’t I actually join a gym instead of pretending?” George moaned, sucking in his abs. “I thought the bloody gays were fit and buff. This lot are just so...healthy.”
Polly came twirling over. Although she was thin, she was not healthy. You could see it in her fragile hair under her headscarf, her jutting bones and tired skin. She was already panting and they hadn’t even started. Annie and George exchanged a quick look. “This is going to be great. You guys will join in, won’t you?”
“Of course!” trilled Annie.
“Can’t wait!” George smiled, giving a thumbs-up. When Polly turned around he grimaced at Annie. “Come on. We’ll get through this somehow, and earn ourselves like a million good friend and brother points. In?”
“In,” Annie said reluctantly, thinking that it was nice to have an ally, even if it was from an unexpected source.
* * *
“And now grasp your partner by the arms...look deep into their eyes!” Annie was currently partnered with a middle-aged man, all noxious breath and flowing gray hair.
“It helps if you really open up to it, Anna.”
“It’s Annie.” And who made him king of the contact class?
“And pushhhh...” sang the teacher, a willowy redhead called Talia, who looked as if her spandex had been spray-painted onto her slender limbs.
Bad-breath Man shoved hard at Annie. “You’re meant to push back,” he said helpfully.
“I am pushing,” Annie gasped.
“Wow. You really need to work on your quads, Anna. I could suggest a great gym...”
“And chaaange partners!”
“Bye!” Annie scarpered before the inevitable high five. She did not high-five. It was a matter of principle. George grabbed her, wide-eyed. “Help. I just had to put my head between a woman’s legs. I haven’t done that since I was born.”
They looked over to Polly, who was spinning, her turquoise scarf fluttering like a banner, cannoning into people. She was breathing hard, and Annie suspected she couldn’t see very well. “Is she okay?” she said to George.
“Dunno. She’s in total denial about this sight thing. Come with me.” They danced over. “Hey, Poll, how about resting for a few songs?”
“I don’t need to...rest,” she panted.
“No, but you’re showing the rest of us up. Give me and Annie time to connect with people, eh?”
“Fine,” she said, sitting down quite quickly on a nearby chair. She put her hand on her back, face twisted in pain. “Just for you.”
“Stick with me,” George muttered to Annie. “We’ll just pretend we’re doing it.”
And so, for the next fifty minutes, they spun and grunted and rolled on the floor and flung their arms out embracing the energy of the universe. Annie got hotter and hotter in her multiple layers, until she could feel sweat rolling down her back under her bra. George was unnervingly close, the stubble of his chin sometimes scraping her, the sound of his breath wheezing in her ear. How long was it since she’d been this close to another person? Not since Mike, surely. She kept her eyes firmly on the floor, the dented yoga mats with their faint smell of sweat, and tried to count the seconds, like when enduring a painful and undignified medical procedure. Which was something she had plenty of experience at. Eventually, it was over. She removed her head from under George’s armpit, which smelled like someone had spilled a whole Glade PlugIn in it. “I think...it’s finished,” she said, hardly able to believe it.
“Is it?” George sounded broken.
“Hiii!” Polly came over. She looked tired but happy, dark circles on her pale face. “That was amazing. I just wish I’d done it years ago. I felt so...connected.”
To Annie it had felt like being on a crowded tube, pressed up in someone’s crotch, for a full hour. Only with everyone staring at you and aggressively smiling a lot. “It was...an experience,” she tried.
George was more honest. “Jesus Christ, Poll. You better be actually dying, because I am never, never doing that again. I’m going to need years of therapy to get over this.”
Polly waved her hand. Taking offense was one of the many things she’d decided she didn’t have time for, along with worrying about her calorie intake, queuing and trying to look cool. She slung a cardigan over her thin shoulders; Annie noticed how her hands shook. But her voice was bright. “I might go with some of these guys for a hemp smoothie, fancy it?”
George and Annie clashed eyes. “I’ve got to work,” she said quickly.
“On the weekend?”
“Um, it’s Wednesday, Poll.”
“Is it? Oh, well, it’s all the same to me these days. What about you, bro?”
“I have a big audition...possibly.”
“What for?”
“Um, I don’t know,” George vamped. “Agent forgot to tell me, ha-ha.”
“Okay.” Polly waved a hand. “See you guys soon?”
“Tomorrow. Remember?”
“Of course I remember. Duh, I’ve still got some of my faculties. See you then.”
As she left, Annie looked at George again, and the two of them burst out laughing. “Dear God,” she said. “I’ve had general anesthetics that were more enjoyable than that class.”
“Let’s never go again. Even if she begs. Pact?”
“Pact,” she agreed. “Do you really have an audition?”
“Ha, no. The way things are going, I couldn’t even get picked for a police lineup. Unless someone’s casting for the role of ‘battered husband.’”
Annie fell silent. She suspected there was more behind his black eye—now almost healed—than he was saying, but was afraid to ask.
He slung his man-bag over his shoulder and pushed his hands into his gilet pockets. “Bye, Annie. See you tomorrow for yet more ridiculous antics with my sister.” And he leaned over and kissed her cheek. Annie blushed. She would never have even spoken to someone like George—so grouchy, so opinionated—in her life, if not for Polly and all this madness. Unless he rang up to complain about his council tax. And yet here she was, on a weekday morning, giggly and glowing, with an hour left before she had to be at work. Time to buy a latte somewhere, and maybe a croissant, and sit for a while in the spring sun. She thought of the city spread out before her, and she thought of Sharon and Jeff and Fee all cooped up in that smelly little office in Lewisham, and she heaved a deep sigh of something that might have been close to contentment.