Summer Flings and Dancing Dreams Read Online Free PDF

always laughing.
    I wondered if perhaps I should be more like my mother. Should I try to make a change, be more ambitious and grab life like my parents had when they were younger? Perhaps I should have worn shocking pink instead of safe pale blue for Sophie’s wedding? Should I have stood my ground and ordered vol-au-vents instead of some tuna truffle-dribbled nonsense no one would understand – let alone eat? Should I have applied for that Junior Manager’s job with special responsibilities in Perishables? Should I leave Bilton’s? Get a career? I’d always wanted to travel, but at forty four I wasn’t exactly a ‘trolley dolly’. Perhaps I should start a campaign to employ geriatric cabin crew? I could always try Virgin Airways, Richard Branson seemed kind and up for a laugh – always ready for a challenge. But was I really ready to try something new.
    Here I was for the millionth time feeling out of sorts, at odds with my life and work and wondering what the hell to do about it. I had gone over and over all the possibilities in my head since the day of Sophie’s wedding – and I still didn’t quite understand what I had done so wrong with my life that my own daughter wanted to escape from it.

    L ater that evening , I sipped my wine and watched the ‘Strictly’ Double Bill on TV and an actress I vaguely recognised from a soap being led onto the dance floor clad in sequins and sparkly heels. I wondered if my mum was watching – if so she’d be very confused, as I was sure this was another character who’d recently been killed off in a soap – not real life.
    I knew it was painful for Mum to talk about dancing and the life she’d had with my Dad, but not talking about what happened hadn’t helped her all these years. I was guilty too, because after we lost my dad I didn’t want to talk about the life we’d had before either. But perhaps I’d kept it that way not only for my own security, but Mum’s too.
    I tried not to think about that night. I’d been ten years old and Mum and Dad were smiling, at me, and each other and I had been so happy, contented, secure. Afterwards, I don’t recall ever feeling that safe, that complete again. I certainly never found it in a man.
    I ate another Revel and scolded myself for dwelling on the past, on stuff I couldn’t change. And the judging was about to start, there was no way I was dampening all that glitter with darkness, so I turned up the TV and lost myself in the show.
    I couldn’t get enough, watching the celebrities begin those first, faltering steps the swishing fabric and clicking heels on the dance floor were my therapy. As much as I didn’t want to dwell on the bad memories – there were great ones too and in those seconds of silent stillness before the music began I could feel it all again. I could almost taste the excitement and anticipation of that moment before my parents danced in a big competition. As a child I’d never realised how nervous Mum and Dad must have been because for me it was just another wonderful dancing adventure. All the preparation, the final sequins sewn on the dresses, the car filled with petrol and packed, the sandwiches in tin foil for the journey – expectation and probably a little fear sparkling in the air. Just like on the TV there was always a glitterball. I was transfixed by the one on the screen now, each facet a different dance, a single moment catching the light, illuminating all my memories as it spun.
    When the dancing stopped, Mum abandoned everything – including me. The music was turned off, there were no more competitions and something that had filled every crevice of our lives was instantly gone. Sometimes I’d find a sequin on the floor and I would keep it in a tiny box in my bedside table – each one a happy memory – hiding them from Mum. I didn’t want her to find a reminder of what we’d had and be hurt all over again.
    I’ll never forget that first ever episode of Strictly Come Dancing when