Ice Dancing Episode 15

Ihad known Annie for years. It had been such a relief when she first moved to the village. She wasn’t like my old school friends, or the farmer’s wives I had mixed with until that point.

Born and brought up in Dundee, she was bolder and brasher and she swore quite a lot, although when you got to know her better, you found out that this was mostly a front, because she was very kind and generous underneath it all.

But she certainly couldn’t talk about farming and although she obviously loved her kids they weren’t the be-all and end-all of her existence.

Sandy didn’t really approve at first, but he got used to her eventually and he liked Tim well enough. Tim was much quieter. I don’t suppose he could get a word in edgeways most of the time.

Good mates

Annie’s son David was about the same age as Fiona, so we had gone to the Toddler Group together and that was a relief too because when we first joined, it was a fairly po-faced organisation with rotas for everything from making the tea to putting out the toys.

Annie surprised them all by bringing in a bottle of wine to celebrate my birthday, but most of the other mums joined in readily enough, and after that the whole atmosphere eased up a bit.

We had been good mates ever since, and it was natural that we should sit together at Charlie’s party.

The music was provided by a duo who looked as though they had started out when Adam – or Charlie – was a boy. They were called Two’s a Crowd which I always thought was rather an odd name for a twosome.

There was a smooth singer in a dinner suit, his hair slicked back with too much gel, and a smaller, balder musician who never really came out from behind one of those big keyboards that can reproduce any musical instrument known to man. It was so loud that you could hardly tell what they were playing. It practically knocked you back against the wall.

“Why do they do it?” asked Sandy, when he and Tim came back from the bar with our gins and a couple of beers for themselves. “Can’t hear a word anybody’s saying.”

Every time the music started up again, we were deafened. You could feel the rhythm hammering through your body and it put a real dampener on conversation.

There seemed no point in trying to talk over the din; all you could do was mouth at each other.

So we drank quite a lot, instead. It gave us something to do and the drinks were cheap. Maybe that was why they did it. Maybe they got a cut of the bar.

Then we sat and swivelled our heads round to watch the rest of the guests.

It takes a village

Betty seemed to have been very indiscriminate in issuing invitations to the party and half the village was there. But this is a small community and Charlie was on nodding terms with most of them.

There was Ella Dunlop, eighty if she was a day, wearing a pretty floral two piece with white daisies on a blue and green background, large golden earrings and a green and gold necklace to match.

She was dancing every dance with Johnnie Fraser who had lived by himself in the sheltered houses down by the park, ever since his wife died ten years before.

They made a touching and dapper couple and they danced well together, never putting a foot wrong.

At the other end of the age range, there was a group of girls, cousins of the family, Annie told me.

They were like a flock of exotic birds with their long legs and their constant twittering. They were dressed in tiny shorts and fluttery skirts.

Everyone watched them dance, because they looked so pretty, so full of energy that you couldn’t take your eyes off them.

They knew it and even when they left the hall, just to go to the loo, they flew off together and then they all came back and swooped down to sit at the same table and drank fluorescent sticky drinks with enthusiasm.

“You look really nice tonight,” said

Annie, eyeing me critically. “Love the dress. But what else have you done to yourself ?”

“Fiona did my make-up.”

“Well you should tell her to show you how she does it. It suits you.”

“Maybe I will. Sandy didn’t notice though.”

“Oh well. Husbands don’t, do they?” “I suppose not.”

I sometimes thought I could have gone out wearing a feed sack and Sandy wouldn’t have noticed. Or perhaps he would have approved.

Half an hour later, we were joined at our table by a couple called Les and Mandy who lived in the new houses that had been built in a field at the back of Annie and Tim’s place.

Mandy had the most beautiful hair I have ever seen, long and corn coloured. It seemed to have a life of its own, and you could see why she couldn’t bring herself to have it cut.

Extra invitations

Les, on the other hand, was completely bald. They had a little girl, Lindsay, and her hair was exactly the same colour as her mother’s, so you could tell it was natural.

We were quite surprised to see them at the party, and I think they were amazed to be asked.

They had only lived in the village for a year or two, but Betty – with last minute pangs of guilt about leaving people out – had gone around issuing extra invitations.

“We thought we’d better show face,” said Mandy. “It was so nice of her to ask us. And unexpected.”

They were like a flock of exotic birds, with their long legs and constant twittering, dressed in tiny shorts and fluttery skirts

More tomorrow.

Ice Dancing by Catherine Czerkawska, Dyrock Publishing, £9.99 and Kindle E-reader from £2.99. For more of her books, including The Posy Ring and A Proper Person To Be Detained, see saraband.net.

By Catherine Czerkawska