Ice Dancing Episode 27

“Hockey kit.” He shoved it in a cupboard. “I don’t even smell it any more but it’s never very fresh. You can only wash so much of it. The rest of it just simmers away, stinking. The gloves are the worst. You’d know about it if I opened the bag!”

“Why is there so much of it?” I asked, curiously. The bag seemed enormous.

“Padding. We wear a lot of padding. Shoulder, shin, elbow pads. Shorts. Other kinds of protection too.” His smile was full of mischief, suddenly. “I’ll show you some day, if you like!”

“We’ll have to come and see you play. It’s nice having a famous neighbour.”

“I’m not exactly that.”

“The local paper seems to think you are.” “That’s because I’m an ex NHL fish in a very small pond.”

“What’s NHL?”

He looked amazed at the depths of my ignorance. “National Hockey League.” “Oh.”

“You don’t know very much about the game, do you?”

“Almost nothing.”

“I’ll get you some tickets.”

“I don’t mind paying.”

“No, but Sandy might.”

“I don’t know the first thing about hockey. Do women go?”

“Honey, everyone goes. Little kids, babies, grannies. Even here everyone goes – out of those that do go, I mean.”

“I expect Fiona would enjoy it.” “She would. You too. It’s fast,” he said. “There’s nothing else like it. Playing… watching… Even at this level, it’s the best game in the world. Best thing in my life really, wherever I play. I love it. You’ll enjoy it too, Helen.”

I finished my wine. “I think I’ll have to get back to the farm,” I said, reluctantly. “Do you have to?”

“I think I should.”

The wine had gone to my head. Our eyes met and then we both looked away, faintly embarrassed all of a sudden. “Sandy’ll be coming to see where I am.” “You’d better go then.”

I was so out of practice with this. Was I fooling myself ? Was his apparent interest in me genuine? Or was he just being polite and a little flirtatious? Seeing just how far he could go. How far I might go.

“Do you want me to walk you back up the road?” he asked, courteous as ever.

“No. I’ll be fine. It’s only a few hundred yards.”

“But it’s dark.”

“I know it like the back of my hand, Joe.” Still, he saw me to the gate. At the bend in the road I turned back and saw him standing there, silhouetted against the light from the open door. He raised his hand and I waved back.

Sandy was still watching television with Jess asleep at his feet and Siggy curled up beside him.

“Hello, hen,” he said, eyes fixed on the screen. Did you mention the cottage to him?”

“Only in a roundabout way.”

“Oh well. It’s a start.”

On thin ice

I found myself at the ice rink the following Saturday afternoon. I was on taxi duty for Fiona and a couple of her friends; they had been planning this outing all week.

There were three of them: Fiona, Lizzie who lived in a converted farmhouse on the other side of the village and was mad about horses, and a girl from the new houses called Shona. Lizzie was very slender and pretty with long hair. She was always combing it out like a mermaid. Clever too.

Shona was one of the phone box crowd, a big, bony girl who wore very short skirts that showed off her knobbly knees. She looked, as my mother would have said, as if someone had cut her hair with a knife and fork.

She was, I thought with a great deal of sympathy, the plain friend; the one who would make Fiona look good. Lizzie didn’t need any help to look good. I liked Shona. She was always chatty, unlike some of the other kids who would just hang their heads and hunch their shoulders and say as little as possible. She had personality. I hoped that, like the ugly duckling, she would soon turn into a swan.

They piled into the car, all three of them in the back so that they could discuss the relative merits of passing males. I felt even more like a taxi driver than usual. Shona had swapped her usual short skirts for a pair of shorts and tights and yes, her bum did look big in them, but she was clearly hoping for the best and the benefits of Lycra. I was wearing my biggest, warmest sweater. It was always chilly in the rink.

Sometimes Annie would come but none of her kids liked skating, so I was usually on my own. I would take a book or a magazine and make frequent visits to the coffee machine or the loo to get warm. I didn’t skate these days. I had never been very good at it, even as a kid.

Embarrassing falls

When Fiona was little I had tried it again, because Sandy wouldn’t take her and she wanted to learn. But I had struggled around and fallen on my backside several times and hadn’t been able to get up, which was embarrassing. The stewards, who all looked about fourteen, had had to skate over and help me. Eventually we had paid for a course of lessons for Fiona, and she was a competent skater now, better than I had ever been.

The new rink was a cheerful place with a big ice pad. All the little girls wanted to do figure skating, so there were lots of classes. The teachers were always desperate for boys to join but there was only ever one boy for every dozen girls. The boys would learn to skate to the point where the teacher wanted them to do the elegant onelegged bit, and then they would turn all macho and go and play junior ice hockey.

The figure skaters were just finishing a practice session as we arrived, and a swarm of little girls rushed off, wearing pretty white skates, tan tights and bright bunchy skirts.

Fiona and her friends took their skates into the changing room, struggling to find space among the twittering infants, and I went out and bought myself a cup of coffee and found myself a seat.

I took out my book and prepared to read. But there were some skaters already on the ice and I watched them while I sipped at the bitter brown liquid.

More tomorrow.

She was, I thought with a great deal of sympathy, the plain friend; the one who would make Fiona look good

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