Dancing Backwards Read Online Free PDF

name. Not that it was hers anyway. When all was said and done it belonged to Ted.
    Ted. How he would have enjoyed drinking tea in the King Edward Lounge. All the years they were married she had been aware, even when she pushed it to the back of her mind, that he longed for her to say something like ‘Let’s go on a cruise together’—or ‘Let’s sell up and go and live in Corfu’. Anything to show that she saw their life together as that of a couple.
    But you cannot make yourself a couple, or anything real, by willing it.
    Other members of the band had arrived and were unpacking their instruments. The sax player, a young man with a shaved head and a wealth of necklaces, was joshing the trumpeter and she could hear from his tone that the trumpeter was answering back with good-tempered banter. Maybe she was quite wrong and he was perfectly content with his lot. How could you ever know what it was to be another person? We are all such solipsists, she thought, trapped in the mesh of our own desires. And even these we hardly know and rarely understand.
    A slight, dark-skinned man, whose name she saw was Dino,now came across the floor and addressed her by name. He must have learned it from the waiter with the dangerous eyes. Well, she supposed they were only doing their job. This man’s eyes were a gentle brown. And there was something in his face, a trace of what…? A melancholy quality, not cruel anyway.
    ‘ One two three, one two three, it’s the all-time favourite’s all-time favourite, you’ve got it, ye-es the waltz! One two three, nice an’ easy now…’
    George’s voice, furred with an adult lifetime of Players untipped, propelled the would-be dancers round the floor. ‘Gentleman, steer those lovely legs before you, don’t trip over them for thinking what you’d like her to do with them! One two three, one two three, ladies, don’t forget what Ginger Rogers said, now, you have to do it backwards and on high heels! One two three, one two three, nice an’ easy, that’s the way…’
    ‘You’re called Dino then? Is that Italian?’ The woman Des was dancing with had an angrily curious face.
    ‘Nice an’ easy there, gentlemen, there we go.’
    Des produced his amiable smile. ‘That’s me, Mrs Rotherhyde.’
    ‘And one two three, ladies you’re doing swell, knocking those gentlemen into a cocked hat, if Marie will forgive me expressing my prejudice in favour of the fairer sex…’
    ‘Arsehole!’ Marie breathed into George’s ear as he danced by with a woman in red patent heels.
    Seeing they were reaching the edge of the area that passed for a dance-floor, Des whirled his partner expertly round and executed a neat double chassis.
    ‘Nice and easy does it, Mrs Rotherhyde. There you are, not many ladies could’ve followed me so well. There we go now.’ He couldn’t wait to get rid of her.
    ‘And bringing it on now to an end, ladies and gentlemen,thank your partners, please as we get ready for the next number the all-time favourite, ye-es, it’s the foxtrot.’
    ‘So you’re Italian?’ Mrs Rotherhyde, catching her breath, suggested again. She was trying to delay his passage to a new partner. Usually he felt sorry for them when they tried this on, but not this one. This one, he could tell, was dangerous.
    ‘You do look kind of dark.’
    Thanks, Mrs Rotherhyde. Slightly desperate now Des looked about for another partner. A woman came across the floor towards them.
    ‘Excuse me, were you wanting to dance…?’
    ‘I’m afraid I’m just leaving.’ It was the thin woman by the window apparently on her way out.
    ‘And taking your partners now for the foxtrot,’ George’s voice commanded.
    ‘Can I tempt you to a foxtrot, Mrs Hetherington?’
    ‘Oh he’s foxy, he is, that one!’ Mrs Rotherhyde’s mulberry lips glistened ominously.
    The other woman looked at him. Expecting her to turn him down, Des was taken aback when she said, ‘All right, if you like I’ll have a bash.’
    He could