Dancing Solo

Clouds have rolled in from the Southern Sea cooling the air and fading out the dramatic coastline. Although it was only just moving into Australia's autumn it was colder than he had anticipated. Or perhaps he was getting nervous? But he hadn't come all this way, from the other end of the world, to avoid the meeting at the last moment. Sonia's reaction might be one of fear, of course, fear that he had come to make a scene though surely after twenty-five years she would guess that it was a friendly visit, an acknowledgement that he had long ago come to terms with her flight and the anguish it had caused him. 'In the area and couldn't possibly pass by without calling in!' or 'How could I be so near and not see you and your good husband, see how you're getting on? Here for only a few hours. How about letting me take you both out to lunch somewhere?'

The last town had almost succeeded in diverting him from his mission. Something like an ex-servicemen's club advertised a Dinner Dance that very evening but he had been uncertain how his own very distinctive solo dancing might be received by the Australians crowding the floor with their partners. He had found Australians to be friendly and warm but he wondered whether his partner-less dancing, an amalgam of many dance styles, would be seen as too unusual, too alien, even odd enough to be thought dangerous as his tubby figure weaved alone around the dance floor, sliding between the couples, possibly rising to an almost balletic display should the tempo and the music allow him to reach that level.

The road now curved and rose and dropped and curled again. Cars passing in the opposite direction had their lights full-on though it was midday. The sea fret must be thicker further down the road.

The reasons for the visit were now vague and muddled. He knew it was to finally bury that love that had dogged him all his life, blighted him all his life, to tell the truth. He could only think of Sonia as she was the day she left, at two and twenty, perfect from top to toe, straight black silk hair and that long nose, those almost violet eyes and the slim, wide lips that had, at first, always carried a smile. That's how he thought of her, regularly thought of her despite the passage of time. Oh, those violet eyes.

Since the day that he'd bought the airline tickets he had reluctantly come to accept that she was now nearer fifty than twenty, that her hair may be, must be, shot with grey and even a little frizzy with the passing years; the fierce Australian sun will have wrinkled that superb skin; her body will have thickened, arms a little fleshy and legs now to be hidden by trousers. People get more jowly, too, at this age and the nose seems to thicken. He looked momentarily in the rear mirror at himself. No, she will be older but as beautiful as when they met and married. Well, sort of married. As good as married.

The letter was in his breast pocket, folded as he'd found it all those years ago (or yesterday as his retro-vision maintains). It's not just his visual memory that opens the folded sheet and runs over the awful purple inked words, for the emotion unfolds again as it always does, swelling in his throat. And the words need no rereading, either. He recalls word for word, including that little zigzag of a deletion, that first reading.

'Steven, I know this will hurt you. (What on earth?) I am sure we both have known this was going to happen soon (What? What?). I can't share, can't bear, that torturing of yourself with your guilty feelings, can't stand you sitting bolt upright in the middle of the night and groaning and grimacing; can't bear to see you rocking forward in your chair and screwing up your eyes and swearing, that awful obscene swearing at yourself (I'm sorry! I'm sorry!). It is ridiculous that you should pain yourself in this way (Oh God!). We all have a catalogue of regrets at our actions and omissions, we all make foolish comments, hurt someone's feelings, offend and belittle by accident or on purpose, take the wrong path. But each of these memories is a raw wound in you; you pick at them again and again and bleed afresh. This needless, senseless guilt is draining you of any future, of a future for both of us. I can't stand it any more. I'm going away with someone I've met, nobody you know (The bastard! I'll kill the bastard!). I'm glad we never married nor had a child as this would have made the process of leaving you even more difficult. I was happy for most of the first year but two years is all I can stand. I know this is going to add to your problems. I hope you will seek help and I hope you will eventually find peace in yourself, find a tranquil life. With love (honestly), Sonia'.

So, why was the letter next to his heart here in Australia, twenty or more years since? What exactly was he intending to do with it? Nothing, of course. Not unless something unexpected, something extraordinary were to to occur that would warrant producing it. Which was unlikely, nothing he could imagine. And any laying out of the page before her, flattening it out with the edge of his hand, to show her the purple words would certainly give rise later to those same bitter regrets and self-denunciations that had regularly flooded his mind, shouted in his ear, ever since he could hardly remember when, all now under control, sort of, thanks mainly, entirely (let's be accurate) to the transcendental activity of dancing, the wonder of it, the geometry, the pleasure of the rhythm and the timing, the cerebral organisation of movements, the muscular and skeletal effort of The Dance. Not for the first time he said aloud to himself, 'Thank you, my good neighbour Marjorie, for the suggestion'. And let me tell you Marjorie, you'll never know what strength it took to make those first steps at the first dance class nor the exhilaration at the end of the lesson in knowing I could overcome my shyness, my awkwardness.

Subsequently, there was the joy of discovering not just his talent for working out the mathematics of the steps and their geometry but his ability to adapt waltz and quickstep and charleston to the boring pop-junk music his friends boringly jigged to in their boring tribal dances. He was particularly proud of his remarkable, much admired solo version of the Tango.

He took tap-dancing lessons at the City-Lit and often successfully incorporated these exciting steps into whatever blared from the bandstand or the record-player. Then, he was at his very best, in throwaway style, thumbs in his red braces, two-tone shoes clattering and clicking, eyes on some far away point (relying on acute peripheral vision to take the gaps between the more static, jig-jog couples).

'The trouble is', said friend Vera, 'I can never dance with you, only ever as a spectator somewhere on the floor as you pass by. And if you insist on inventing these solo spectacles how about combining the Cossack Squat with, say, the Whirling Dervish?'.

'Tempting, Vera. Ill give it some thought', he'd replied.

And dancing had done the trick, that physical effort, that intense focus on the movements, draining away that awful need to revisit those endless scenes of embarrassment, of deep regret, of guilt that had tortured him so much. Well, banished for most of the time, anyway. He had to admit that now and again an obscenity tore from his throat when he caught sight of that mirror of shameful memory held before him by a grinning baboon. And the solitary motoring over all these miles had inevitably provided moments of reflection that, yes, unhappily, had him shouting, swearing at himself though nothing, nothing, nothing on the scale of the past.

A sign on the road indicated a View Point and he swung into the red dust road that ended in a tarmac car park occupied by two other vehicles. Another notice pointed to a narrow path between grey-green bushes leading to a platform on a high cliff ledge. A notice here warned of the dangers of being too near the edge of the crumbling cliff face. Below, the grey sea surged and seethed over low-lying rocks, it funnelled, foaming, up narrow inlets. Spray hung in the air. Beyond these immediate spectacles the landscape and seascape vanished into the thick mist. The occupants of the other cars were nowhere to be seen. He returned to his car and sat and drank from a fruit-juice bottle.

Solo-dancing required the kind of space usually unavailable at parties. It was only in the wider arena that he came into his own when he choreographed his gliding and turning and swivelling and snappy stepping (always including sudden, dramatic freeze frames) to cover the whole area of the floor. These performances brought more acclaim than annoyance from those thronging the dance floor. Even so, he needed to carefully judge when an accommodating crowd had had enough. And then had come the Rodeo.

Four years ago, near that French town high in the Ardeche, his car had been overtaken by a fleet of deafening Harley-Davidsons. In the town itself half the population wore stetsons, jeans and cowboy boots; on the edge of the town reared a gigantic tent and next to it a sandy battlefield ringed by heavy fencing that contained three large, puzzled, indolent steers. Horses were tethered nearby; stalls around sold Americana. In the tent during the mornings and afternoons Steven had found moustachioed ranch hands preparing the town's inhabitants in Line Dancing for the evening performances to a live Country and Western Band. Wonderful! A piece of cake! Here was solo dancing within a phalanx of other dancers alongside another and another competitive phalanx, all sharing in the various pieces of choreography that you stepped into and out of as you wished, led by anyone prepared to initiate a simple or complex format of steps. Perfect! By the time the big last Saturday night had arrived Steven had moved from being 'Long Lay' to 'Le Roi'. By that time of the final celebratory night a huge number had assimilated several of Steven's exciting inventions and the tent had moved gloriously and thrillingly, this way and that, in an atmosphere of absolute joy.

The next morning he had drifted onwards suffused with happiness to spend, as invited, a week with Sonia's elder sister Dorothy who had kept in touch with him, offering a sympathetic ear without ever divulging her thoughts of where blame should lie, without, indeed, ever saying anything about where and with whom Sonia now lived. On Dorothy's sideboard, tucked between a dozen pieces of paper and leaflets, was a flyer telling of the attractions of the small motel, The Opal, owned and run by Sonia and David Wells in a small holiday town on the Southern coast of Australia. You couldn't get much further away than that.

Midday and Mid-April and out-of-season. The town, a tree-lined ribbon of small hotels, motels and homes, of two or three restaurants and a sprinkling of shops. A lighthouse blinked in the dull day on a hill and a sign pointed to a harbour and a marina. Few people were about. Steven found he was the only visitor to the small Information Office. The woman behind the counter phoned the Western Gate Motel where rooms were vacant and a hundred metres beyond The Opal. 'No worries getting accommodation this time of the year and in the middle of the week', she told him. He said, 'The Opal sounded a nice place, too'.

'It is. Nice people', she smiled. 'I'll stick with the other one', he said. There was a mirror on the wall for no obvious purpose. He looked at himself while he pocketed the booking form. He saw the retreating hairline, the grey creeping in at the temples, the creased skin about his eyes and mouth, the slight double chin and something of a hunched shoulder look. Not that he had lost all his appeal, surely? There was, wasn't there​, an attractive way in which he gave a smile and a little flick of the eyebrows? His slight tubbiness, very slight tubbiness, had mostly seemed to be no bar to the eyes of one or two ladies in the recent past. And he could, given the chance, move eloquently on his dancer's feet to signal alluring physical and masculine qualities.

He drove slowly and looked up at The Opal Motel as he passed. He realised that he had held his breath; he could feel his heart thumping. In his room he sat thinking. He could easily drive on. But you don't come this far for nothing. And he could wait a day or so. Time to decide on those crucial opening words. 'I know this is a bit of a shock but I really couldn't be passing by without'. He could see the face, heavier now, with vertical creases above the wide lips and the start of bags beneath the violet eyes but, as ever, beautiful, certainly still beautiful enough to rock him back on his heels, he knew. He would hold his hand out to be taken by her slightly, lightly speckled hand.

'Steven! How wonderful to see you!'. Surely she wouldn't have put on too much weight in her middle years? She was always so proud of her slim, athletic body. And Australian life is all outdoors and healthy and the food superb. She'll look quite marvellous, without a doubt, lightly tanned and fit and bright eyed. He would stroll down the road and pass the motel. He would wear the broad brimmed Australian hat, bought in Sydney, tipped well down to keep the sun (what sun?!) out of his eyes. The dark glasses would give him the confidence to dreamily turn an unconcerned face towards the glass double-doors marked Reception, to casually peruse the line of windows and doors of the units, an idle stroller with nothing better to do.

Within fifty strides of The Opal he made the decision to knock. How ridiculous to be so timid! The door handle to the Reception area clicked and creaked loudly; he moved towards the counter which would be a useful support for he was now feeling shakey and he braced himself for Sonia's entrance through the inner door.

When she swept in she was as he had last seen her. She hadn't changed, not in any respect, still only twenty-two with that perfect skin more tanned than of old giving those same perfectly even teeth a whiter look in that same bewitching smile from that same wide mouth. The violet eyes glittered as they had first glittered for him when she was twenty. This was the Sonia against whom all other women were measured, this was the form that still invaded his dreams and in them eluded his embrace or, even more cruelly, looked into his eyes and said, 'We are still together. What shall we do tomorrow, Steven?'. Her name that could unlock tears at any time was the name that unlocked his bank account and his computer files. She said, 'Hi!' and then, 'Are you OK?' with a strong Australian accent. He breathed very deeply and prepared himself to say 'yes' but instead managed only a nod and attempted a return smile. He said in a weak voice that required a preliminary clearing of the throat, 'Just passing. Thought I would call in'. Sonia said, 'We have rooms if you'd like to see them' and he nodded. She turned round to open a glass cabinet and collect two keys. She was as slim as ever and she was wearing her long, black, silky hair drawn back in a ponytail. Beneath the counter was a short skirt below which were two tanned, slim, athletic limbs. She showed him both kinds of rooms. He again cleared his throat and said, 'I'm booked in elsewhere but I'd like to change. Come here tomorrow. If that's possible. The room is fine'. Sonia smiled and said, 'All and every room is available! The season's finished. The weekend might see a few visitors but right now you'd be the only resident. I should close, but'

Back in Reception she said, 'You're English, of course! The accent' and he said, 'The leaflet says a Sonia and David Wells run the motel. Can that?'. The woman of his dreams shook her lovely head, 'My Mom and Dad. But Mom died eighteen months ago. Just Dad runs this place. I'm looking after it while he takes a break. I should close it for a few weeks, but. It's just out of season and a good time for him to get away'. Then she said, 'You sure you're OK?'. Steven tried an easy smile. 'Just very tired. Long day driving'. At the door he stopped and turned to ask. 'How. Perhaps I shouldn't' ask. What happened to your mother?'.

'Pneumonia. Pretty quick. Out of the blue'. He cleared his throat of another tricky encumbrance and said, 'I'm sorry to hear that. It must have been a blow, a shock to you. I'm very sorry'.

The girl gave a smile, 'Well, thank you. We're over all that now'.

The grey late afternoon sky made the Western Gate motel room even gloomier. He sat deflated on the bed. The risky adventure with an unpredictable outcome had become a pointless journey. Those many good things he'd seen on his circuitous journey to The Opal Motel, things that were to have been a bonus to the main purpose, now seemed trivial, worthless, unrewarding for all the effort and money spent. He hadn't unpacked. He thought about leaving and making his way towards Sydney. He could stay the night and use the whole of the next day for the drive and find the next plane home to London. On the other hand he could pay for the room with an excuse and go and spend the night at The Opal. For what purpose? For no clear reason. Except that he would tread the carpet Sonia trod, sit himself in a chair that Sonia had sat in, walk the path around the garden that Sonia had walked as she tended the narrow flower beds. He would breath that same sea air, he would look up at the same gum trees that she had stared at from her motel windows. After that he would drive the long drive back to Sydney. He now felt physically smaller than he'd felt this morning. That missed lunch was not replaced by any appetite for dinner. He'd pay this motel for the inconvenience and transfer at once for the one night in The Opal.

The new Sonia suggested that when he was unpacked he should sit in the breakfast room, a large windowed room that overlooked the front and where a coffee machine was at his use. There he could recover from his long journey (he had doubled the distance at her query). She appeared with a small plate of biscuits and gave him the old Sonia smile that dizzied him. From the window and to the side of the motel he saw the old Sonia washing down a small car, saw again the long, lithe legs beneath the new short skirt; those were the same sharp, efficient movements he remembered as the ponytail bobbed and twitched. A sense of recovery seeped through him; he felt like a patient waking to the benefits of the overnight medication. He felt he had been miraculously presented with something not easy to define. He had a family here, alone with his wife-daughter, sharing the home. The wife-daughter was obliged to wifely tend to certain of his wants - it was the nature of a motel's contract - and so far, clearly, no onerous duty to judge by the sweet smile and the easy talking.

He reasoned on, dreamed on. The cleaning ladies had long gone and Sonia would have to be in the motel for himself and any other guest arriving. A possibly delightful evening stretched ahead if other visitors chose the Western Gate. If he used his charm properly he could hear Sonia saying. 'Well, why not?' to a suggestion that he brought back food from a restaurant for the evening meal that they might share, don't you think?, what do you say? to dispel the boredom of a solitary evening? Boring to be eating all by oneself, don't you think? All on me, of course! I must insist! You provide the salt and pepper. Is it a deal? Do say yes. It would cheer me up no end'. All said in a bright and carefree manner devoid of any pleading tones that would have tinged the proposal with dangerous carmine colours.

He felt himself to be in a dream. The red wine had much to do with that. The food had been wonderful. Sonia was animated, talkative, even a little giggly. She worked for an international hotel chain in Melbourne, their central administrative office. It was time, though, to spread her wings. Steven hoped she would not talk about her parents lest the wife-daughter relationship crumbled. But Sonia was more interested in talking about transferring to London and how and where she might stay and what she might do for a living if the hotel chain didn't offer her a transferred job. Did Steven have any advice?

The obvious and thrilling and mad possibilities flowing into his imagination washed away that mazey state. He recognised that a large part of his brain was juggling icily with several strategies. Regrettably his name was in the register and, anyway, this innocent Sonia would give Dear Daddy his name, naturally, and she would fall back amazed at the transformation in her father's face and reel at the words, the incomprehensible words. 'Him! Here! Steven Morely here? While you were by yourself? What did he say? What was he here for? Did he hurt you? Do anything? Invited you to stay with him in London!', words like that tumbling out in a fury. Some such reaction would in itself be a small revenge.

He picked his way carefully through the minefield, stumbling at the first few steps. 'I would be only too happy, Sonia, sorry, Lisa, Lisa of course, for you to have my spare room. Be delighted, in fact, (and here a pretty dismissive couldn't care less shrug) but I think you'd be better off with a lady friend of mine who would be equally delighted, I know, to house you. If she can't manage, then my spare room is yours. I really do mean it. Only too happy. Not a problem, or if you'll allow, no worries. Let's wait till I get back to London and can explore what's best for you. Give me your office e-mail address. I really do mean it'.

'That's so nice of you!' and there was Sonia's smile again across all those dreaming years, 'I really appreciate that, Steven! Let's finish this bottle, then I'll make you some real coffee. Wow! You've made my mind up for me. I was only half-hearted about the plan to go to England. But now!' and she gave a roaring laugh that owed much to the red wine, a laugh that was never Sonia's. She said, 'I'm damn glad I didn't shut the motel!' She leaned forward, adding, 'Right! You're not to think of yourself as the usual guest here. Special favour to you, Steven. You can use the family hot tub with me, out in the back garden. Let's forget the coffee and go for a glass of wine, eh? How about it? Skinny dipping with a glass of wine in a hot bubbling pool on a chill night? Great way to finish the evening. How about it? Are you up for it, Steven? I've been so damned bored these last eight days!'.

Sonia moved about the rooms switching off the motel lights and locking doors. A red neon 'Closed' replaced the green 'Vacancies'. She vanished and reappeared carrying towels and waving plastic beakers and a bottle of white wine coated in condensation. 'Great way to start the night, I should have said, Steven!'. Lisa's Sonia had derailed him. The moonlight had changed her looks, the way her slim mouth opened in a black gash of a guffaw, the eyes blanked out by shadow; the wine had roughened her voice, hardened the words. 'Have one of these, Steve. Do you good'. She swigged down a small pill. 'Come on, it's perfectly OK, believe me'. She had slid into the small bubbling pool and round to his side holding two beakers of wine. 'One of Dad's very best. Getting on for a hundred dollars! He'd be furious! Aren't I a naughty girl? Believe me, I am! Now, tell me, what is it that attracts me to older men, Steven? You tell me. Be as frank as you like!' and another cackle accompanied by a playful slap on his shoulder. The sea fret had long vanished in a cool but gentle breeze and the blue-black sky glittered in unfamiliar patterns.

A deep melancholy had seeped into him. He had woken in the night and gone to the window and stared at the three-quarter moon. He'd looked back at the dark head and the black hair strewn on the dark pillow. After a while he had gathered his things together and left cash on the reception counter. He'd crept out of the front door. The car backed itself down the slope without its engine on, out onto the empty road. There was a promise of an imminent dawn on a distant horizon.

Yet another View Point arrived and he glided to a halt in the parking area. Only the white froth on the breakers and on the churning sea in the dark chasms below could be seen from the jutting platform of rock. The roar and hiss and the sucking sounds filled out the picture. To his left the sky suddenly began to lighten making things around him more visible. He stood with his dancing feet on the edge of the rock. After another few minutes he took out Sonia's letter and tore it into small pieces and flung them into the air where the fierce breeze rising up the cliff face lifted them high above his head and drove them whirling and flickering back into the shrubs and bushes behind him. He turned to watch and thought they looked like a small flock of birds in that fidgety state that inhabits them before agreeing to join in the migration to another land.