We got back to the hotel, and after the central heating had warmed up our faces, Elsie and I got ready for the dance just like we used to. We held clothes up to choose, and lent each other jewellery, and did everything we could to make a space between ourselves and the conversation on the beach. When we closed the bedroom door, Jack was waiting for us on the landing.
‘I thought we’d go down together,’ he said, and offered his arm. ‘Ladies should never enter a ballroom unaccompanied.’
I put my arm through his, and the three of us slipped into the room with the music and a glitter ball, back into a world so far in the past, we had almost forgotten it existed.
There is a certain magic about a dance floor, even if no one is dancing. Perhaps it’s the smell of polished wood, or the beat of an orchestra, or perhaps it’s the remembrance of dances past. The memory of circling a room in shoes that pinched our toes but made us happy. Listening to music that wrapped itself around buried thoughts and made us feel less alone.
‘There’s a food table,’ said Elsie. ‘And free drinks. We never had that at the town hall.’
I looked over to where Miss Ambrose was supervising a tray of egg sandwiches. They were crustless, because sometimes in life, it’s better to anticipate problems and address them head-on, rather than wait for them to appear. Next to the sandwiches and Miss Ambrose, and shrouded in the darkness of a corner, Ronnie Butler stood with his hands behind his back, watching the rest of the room walk past.
‘Why now?’ Jack said, his words under cover of the music. ‘Why risk a lifetime of hiding to come back now?’
I stood beneath a spotlight. I was certain Ronnie could see me, but I’d reached a point where it didn’t seem to matter any more. I lost him occasionally, as the room began to fill with people and couples made their way to the dance floor, but he was always there, behind the crowd. Staring across the years.
‘It must have been that young man saving him from being mugged. He hid away for all those years, and then out of the blue, he was on the front page of all the newspapers,’ I said. ‘He must have been afraid someone would recognise him for who he really was, and the past would catch up with him. So he thought he’d catch up with us first.’
‘I think that’s what you call a grave mistake,’ said Jack.
We found a seat at the other side of the room and watched with plates of sandwiches on our knees as the world circled by in tangos and waltzes.
‘I remember all the steps,’ said Elsie. ‘Do you remember them, Florence?’
I did. It was strange how some things are never forgotten. Even though my feet had walked tens of thousands of miles, pulling me through the last eighty-odd years of my life. Even though they had become slower and more measured, and they faltered as time passed by, my feet hadn’t ever forgotten who I used to be. Even if my mind sometimes did.
There were people I didn’t recognise on the dance floor, strangers from other hotels who had jumped ship for an evening, locals who came just for the dancing, and mixed amongst them were all the residents of Cherry Tree, waltzing their way back to a life once lived. Handy Simon was in the thick of it, promenading and side-by-siding like a natural. Men were in short supply as it was, let alone young men, and no sooner had he finished one dance than he was being whisked away by someone else for the next.
‘Are you not dancing, Florence?’ Miss Ambrose crouched beside us. She always believed getting on the same level as other people was important, although in reality, it just gave everyone else a panoramic view of her cleavage.
‘I’d take you round the dance floor, but I’m afraid those days are long gone.’ Jack tapped his stick very gently on the floor.
‘I could always recruit Billy bloody Elliott over there.’ Miss Ambrose nodded at Handy Simon. ‘It looks as though he’s finally found something he enjoys doing.’
‘I’m fine as I am, thank you.’ I held on to the plate of egg sandwiches. ‘It’s important in life to know when to sit a dance out.’
Elsie was looking at me. I could tell by the angle of her head, although I refused to turn round. When Miss Ambrose had disappeared to crouch in front of someone else, and Jack had gone to refill his plate, she whispered in my ear.
‘Will you dance with me, Florence? For old times’ sake? For all we know, this may be our very last chance.’
As she spoke, the little man on the stage waved his baton at the cassette player, and the first few bars of a song drifted into the room.
‘See!’ said Elsie. ‘It’s Al Bowlly. It’s fate. Just one more dance, Florence. One more foxtrot.’
We hadn’t danced together since Beryl died. We lost each other somehow after that, and things were never the same. I danced with other people, of course, but it wasn’t like dancing with Elsie. Now we were together again, it felt as though the orchestra had only paused for a moment before starting the next song. As though the whole of the rest of our lives had been spirited away.
Her shoulders felt more frail. I could feel the bones of her, pressing into flesh, and she was lighter, less sturdy. The slightest breeze could have stolen her away. But as we danced, these things seemed to become less important. She was familiar. Constant. She was Elsie. The person she had always been.
We shuffled around the floor, rather than danced. I’m not sure if it was Elsie or if it was me, but perhaps neither of us moved with the same amount of certainty. Elsie sang as she danced, and I sang, too.
I’ll be remembering you, whatever else I do,
Midnight, with the stars and you.
Because sometimes, you need to sing and dance. Even if you are eighty-four. Even if your bones push into your flesh, and the slightest breeze could steal you away.
The other dancers seemed to move back, and when Al Bowlly’s voice finally drifted into the distance, Elsie and I were standing alone in the middle of the floor. I could see Miss Bissell and Miss Ambrose staring at us; Handy Simon, too. And Jack, who had risen from his seat and was looking right into my eyes. I didn’t care. I didn’t care how strange it might look that two women were dancing together, and I didn’t care that we sang as we danced. I was about to tell everyone who was passing judgement on us how very much I didn’t care, when the double doors opened at the bottom of the room, and a woman stood in front of us looking confused and dishevelled, and ever so slightly bewildered.
It was Mrs Honeyman.