Fiction A short story by Elizabeth Noble

The key to dancing – and life – is to act as if no one is watching

The fridge magnet had been at eye level, but it had been there for so long it was easy to ignore. A bit like her. One of an accidental collection. Helen had tried to keep the refrigerator clear of them, but she’d failed comprehensively.

Once upon a time they’d magnetised the minutiae of family life – the dozens of notes about school trips and dental appointments. Now life was quieter and simpler and just the magnets remained. A resin stein Doug had brought back from the Oktoberfest, a plastic photo frame with a shot of the kids at the beach, a declaration, gifted by their friend Gareth, that the Welsh made better lovers – the fridge still faithfully told the story of their ordinary lives. This particular one, old enough that she had no recollection of where it had come from, advised the reader, in neon pink script, to: “Dance Like No One Is Watching.”

It had caught her eye recently, and she’d been thinking about it ever since. And trying to recall when she’d last danced, whether anyone was watching or not.

She’d always loved to dance. She remembered now just how much. It was almost a muscle memory. Arms stretched above her head, eyes closed, hips loose, forward on her toes, lost in music – any music would do – and in movement. Completely carefree, and utterly, simply happy. She’d dance anywhere. She’d met Doug out dancing. At their wedding, he had twirled her for hours in her twinkling dress.

And then, a different life had begun, and there’d been less dancing. Fewer nights out, and almost no abandoning yourself. It was a good life, a happy one. But she hadn’t danced. Their girls had danced. Ballet, in blush pink leotards and tulle skirts. Tap classes, and then street dance, and routines practised endlessly at giggly sleepovers. She’d gone from dancing to watching, and she’d hardly noticed it happening.

Now her daughter Susie wore trainers when she went out dancing. She called it boogying. Whether she was wearing a frothy party dress or one of those tiny strapless tops she wore with low-slung jeans, all the better to show eight inches of toned, tanned midriff, she always insisted on flat, comfortable shoes. At the 21st birthday they’d held for her in the garden last summer, her friends had put Abba’s Dancing Queen on at full blast and held her aloft. Helen had watched from the back, and a shadow of sadness passed briefly across the joyfulness of the night.

She didn’t drink any more, either. Hardly ever. Alcohol disagreed with her now, in middle age. More than two drinks and she paid a heavy price all the next day – a throbbing head and a queasy stomach. And she reasoned she needed more than two drinks before she could dance. Especially like no one was watching. She’d seen a video, on Facebook, of herself dancing at a friend’s 50th. She looked stilted and awkward and wrong. Now when friends tried to drag her towards the dance floor, she would bat them away, making light of her refusal, claiming she was heading to the loo, or the bar.

The cruise had been Doug’s idea – to celebrate his early retirement from the bank. They’d never been on one before. She’d been anxious at first, worried about seasickness, and boredom, and fellow passengers in close proximity and, truthfully, about Doug in close proximity for 12 days. They hadn’t been on their own for that long since the kids. Since she’d last really danced. The anxiety flirted with excitement when she’d packed her suitcase. There were to be parties most nights, and she laid out dresses pulled from the dark recesses of her wardrobe, where she was almost surprised to realise sequins and lace panels and diamanté still hid. Even more surprisingly, they still fit. Parties, she realised, full of strangers you would probably never see again.

They felt young on the ship. Doug joked that they’d brought down the average age by a decade. It wasn’t a family friendly liner, the kind with water slides and zip wires. More the silver surfer kind. It wasn’t at all boring, it turned out, to have an empty day. It was freeing. They watched films in the afternoon, and slept through breakfast, and talked and talked as they walked the decks. Not just about the kids.

On the fourth night, Doug kissed her until she felt like a teenager under the stars on deck, and then they found the nightclub, following the familiar sound of Abba. Doug was walking towards her now, unfamiliar and handsome in a dinner suit, making the endearing physical joke about the ship lurching from side to side that he’d been making ever since they’d boarded, which it didn’t, and holding two martini glasses as though they were about to spill, which they weren’t. Around him, an unselfconscious, joyous middle-aged conga that would make her girls roll their eyes, was in full flow under the flashing lights and the disco ball.

She spoke close to his ear, so he would hear. “Reminds me of that magnet on the fridge.” She didn’t expect him to know what she was talking about.

“Dance Like No One Is Watching?”

She was surprised. Doug didn’t spend much time with the fridge. She raised an eyebrow.

“I got that for you. That’s the girl I fell in love with. That’s why I fell in love with her, I think. She danced exactly like that.”

She looked at his beloved face. Sipped the cocktail and put her glass down on the table. Stood up and stretched out her hand to take his.

“I think, maybe, she still can.”

Elizabeth Noble’s new novel, The Family Holiday (Michael Joseph, £7.99), is out now. See Express Bookshop on page 77.