Across the Room

Fenna was already dancing when Gethin and I arrived at the hall six weeks after the anniversary. I stopped in the doorway long enough for someone behind me to ask whether I meant to go in.

“Sorry. Yes.”

I moved aside. Gethin paid for our tickets while I watched her turn beneath the new curtains, her yellow scarf lifted by the motion. The curtains were a dull green in daylight and much warmer under the lamps. I had seen the sample, offered my opinion and been outvoted. They looked better than I had expected.

The hall committee had invited both clubs back to see what the fundraiser had bought. Nobody had advertised a reconciliation. There was tea, dancing and a display of receipts by the entrance for anyone who felt an evening was improved by studying costs.

I took Gethin’s hand and went past the receipts.

“You may look later,” he said.

“I’ve already seen them.”

“Naturally.”

We found chairs near the window. The new curtain brushed my shoulder as I sat; it was heavier than the old fabric and smelt faintly of the packaging it had come in. Beside it, the noticeboard held an untidy overlap of public invitations, including a Sunday card whose starting time had been corrected in blue pen.

Six weeks had not made me indifferent to a crooked notice. I straightened the one nearest my elbow, then sat down before I began on the others.

Gethin noticed. He said nothing, which was a kindness; he had stopped making my every small decision into evidence of progress.

Fenna came over at the end of the tune.

“Those curtains make it warmer,” she said.

“They do.”

“You wanted the thinner ones.”

“I did.”

She smiled. There were still pleasures available in proving me wrong.

“Hello, Gethin.”

“Hello. Good evening so far?”

“I’ve danced twice. I intend to make it three.”

She looked at me, then held out a hand.

I went with her.

· · ·Scene break

We knew each other’s habits too well to need much discussion. Fenna liked a little more space on the first turn than I did, then closed it as the tune settled. I let her lead.

“You’re doing next Friday’s first shift?” she asked.

“Until eight. With the treasurer.”

“He’ll talk about coins.”

“I’ll talk about paper. It’ll be a marvellous evening.”

She laughed. She had done only two full welcome shifts since the anniversary, and both had been her choice. The new rota had blank spaces, crossings-out and one enthusiastic member whose welcome lasted so long that a queue formed. People had complained. People had also come back.

The first optional partner change had happened a fortnight earlier. Fenna had announced three times that nobody needed to move. Half the room changed, a few stayed, and one man left early for reasons we did not know. I had wanted to ask him in the car park, then realised he had not promised to supply a verdict on our experiment.

The committee would decide what to do next. I had handed over the notices, the printing contacts and the last set of minutes. When an envelope arrived with a wrong date, the bookings member corrected it himself and told me afterwards. I spent a disgraceful minute wishing he had needed to ask.

“We might try it earlier next time,” Fenna said now. “The change. People were already settled by the interval.”

“That could work.”

“You needn’t sound so restrained.”

“I’m practising having only one opinion per dance.”

“Use it wisely.”

I grinned. We turned past the window. Gethin sat with the Friday friend who had invited him to lunch. They were talking, her hands moving with a story, his head bent towards her.

Fenna followed my glance.

“I saw him here last Friday,” she said.

“Yes. He came with me.”

“I know. I spoke to him.”

I had not known that. I had been dancing at the time, or talking, or simply attending to my own part of the room.

“How was it?”

“I asked whether he wanted tea. He wanted tea.”

I laughed, then saw that she had meant something else too.

“You don’t need to give me a report,” I said.

“No. I don’t.”

We danced through the next phrase without talking. I felt how much of our friendship remained in things neither of us had to explain: the pace at which she wanted to turn, the lifted eyebrow when the recording skipped, the way she steadied us after I stepped on the hem of my dress.

“I still don’t like what he did,” she said.

“I know.”

“I can see he’s trying. I don’t know what to do with both.”

“You don’t have to do it tonight.”

She looked at me. “Neither do you.”

I let that correction reach me. Even my patience could be a polite way of waiting for her to arrive where I wanted her.

“All right,” I said.

At the end she squeezed my hand and went to ask someone else for the next dance. I returned to my chair carrying a good ten minutes that needed no further meaning.

· · ·Scene break

Gethin’s friend had gone to fetch water. He held out my cardigan, which had slipped from the chair.

“Good dance?”

“Yes.”

“You looked happy.”

I took the cardigan. “I was.”

He glanced towards the woman arranging the next recording. It was the Friday music organiser, who had declined his invitation at the anniversary because she’d promised the dance elsewhere. She was free now, talking to the hall volunteer beside the speakers.

“I’d like to ask her,” he said.

“Then ask.”

“I know. I’m telling you so I can’t spend another tune deciding she’s busy.”

I could have gone over first. I knew how to ask whether someone intended to dance without appearing to arrange anything. He knew I could do it too.

He stood before either of us offered.

I watched him cross the room. He waited until she had finished speaking, then asked. She glanced at the floor, nodded and left the recording to the volunteer.

Their first turn was awkward. They had danced together often years ago, but familiarity had not preserved itself in a cupboard waiting to be collected. He laughed at something she said; she corrected his hold, and they started again.

They were two people having a dance. I enjoyed it more for the things it couldn’t prove.

At the refreshment table Red Shoes stood with a cup in each hand.

“One’s spare,” she told me. “Tea, if you want it.”

“Thank you.”

She handed it over. The cup was sturdy enough to grip without folding, a small improvement I chose not to turn into a joke about who had inspected what.

“You’re coming Sunday?” she asked.

“This week, yes. Not next.”

“I’m away next. My sister’s visiting. She says she’ll come here if I insist on dancing, but she says it in a way that suggests she won’t enjoy it.”

“You could believe her.”

“I probably shall. Annoying, though. I wanted both.”

I smiled into my tea. “Yes.”

The Sunday music man joined us. He greeted me by name and asked whether I wanted the next quick tune. There was a slight stiffness in the asking; I could remember his grin at the hatch and the phrase I had carried home afterwards. He had not become a close friend, and I did not have to pretend he was.

“I’d like that,” I said.

We danced. He talked about the recording, I told him which part I liked, and neither of us mentioned where I usually spent Friday. An ordinary conversation could be an effort. I was willing to make this one with him.

When I returned, Gethin sat with a cup balanced on his knee.

“How was yours?” I asked.

“She still leads the turns early. I’d forgotten.”

“Did you tell her?”

“No. I tried keeping up.”

He smiled, pleased and a little tired. I sat beside him and let my knee rest against his.

“I used to think if I came back I’d have to know whether I was welcome,” he said. “As though the whole room would give one answer.”

“Very convenient. You could enter it on a form.”

“I would have preferred a favourable one.”

“I know.”

He took my hand. “I’m glad I asked her.”

I turned my palm against his, holding him back. He had wanted the dance enough to risk the answer, and now he was allowed to enjoy it without deciding what it meant for every year he had been away.

· · ·Scene break

We left before the last tune because we wanted to walk home. At the door Fenna was talking to the hall volunteer about the curtains. I waited until she finished.

“Tuesday?” I asked. “If you still want the walk.”

“Six. I’ll ring if work keeps me.”

“All right.”

She looked at Gethin. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Fenna.”

There was no hug, no invitation to have supper together, no remark proving that I had been right to want him. I kissed her cheek, took my coat and went.

Outside, the air was cold enough to make us walk quickly at first. Gethin put an arm round me when the pavement widened, and I tucked my hand into the crook of his elbow.

“Yours?” he asked.

“Yes.”

We had stayed at each other’s homes often enough now to keep spare things there. He still asked. Sometimes one of us wanted a night alone, and we had survived saying so without turning it into a prediction.

At the corner he stopped to fasten his coat. I helped with a button caught in the lining. He watched me do it.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. I like your face when something annoys you.”

“You have ample opportunity.”

“I intend to.”

I caught the lapels and kissed him there on the pavement. His arms came round me. For a moment I could feel the hall’s music in the way we stood, close and a little off balance, trusting that the other would adjust.

“Come home,” I said.

He came with me.