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The
Arrangement
Gerta
never made it to the morning class the next day. No one was
surprised. Jan felt that the day swimming at the beach had
done wonders for her tortured feet. The swelling had almost
gone. She felt invigorated by the day away from the dragon
lady. For some reason the Senora was being pleasant to almost
all of them this morning and not a few of them thought it
was because she thought they had all quit. It wouldn’t
have looked good for recruitment if a whole class quit at
once. Jan almost began to believe that she was dancing with
enough ‘compación’– at least the pain
had almost gone. She even managed to receive an encouraging
but fleeting smile from her dance instructor, a first. At
least now she was able to tackle the hard wooden dance floor
and give it the necessary abuse without her customary sense
of despair.
‘Better, si, this is better, now you have compación,’
Senora Dragon Lady declared.
The
small amount of praise eased the returning pain in her ankles.
The other girls came on, beating their hands together, tossing
their heads high in the air; the floor began to reverberate
to the sound of staccato gunfire. Such energy, such inspiration
this morning. Everyone could feel it. Today, at last, it
was coming together.
The temperature outside was 35šc and it wasn’t much
cooler inside, but it didn’t matter. The women knew
they had made the breakthrough and as class finally ended,
thirty minutes later than intended, they were shattered,
but satisfied. Hannah came over and gave her a hug.
‘You looked so happy, so in control. I wish I could
be like you.’
Jan looked at her and grinned. It felt good to hear this;
she hugged the small Danish women back and brushed her matted
hair from her face. ‘You will get there Hannah, you
will. I saw you, it’s coming, it really is.’
Hannah shook her head, still full of doubt but Jan took
her hand and they walked over to the water fountain together.
‘This is why we came Hannah. Just to get to this moment.
We still have miles to go.’
As Jan bent down to drink from the cool waterspout she noticed
a man in a grey suit and a day-old beard approaching the
Senora. Anthea had arrived from her dance session with Leon
and joined her at the fountain. She looked exhausted, drained
from the session. ‘Hi. God, Leon might be the most
sexy man in Christendom but he clearly has no inkling about
manners. He’s so rude Jan. I don’t know what he
is saying to the others but I just know it’s disgusting.
Who’s the man with the Senora?’
‘He just arrived. I have the feeling we’ve seen
him before.’
‘Looks like a private detective. Probably your husband
checking up on you.’
Jan smiled, swallowing the water and wiping her face. ‘I
can guarantee you that Leonard would rather swallow glass
than pay good money out to find me.’
Hannah turned away suddenly, not wanting anyone to look
at her. ‘He’s showing photographs. Hide me.’
Jan and Anthea looked at each other with surprise. ‘You’re
a runaway Hannah?’
Hannah said nothing, but stayed well hidden behind them
as Senora looked at the picture.
‘My name isn’t Hannah. My husband …I ran
away.’
Jan took her hand and squeezed it. ‘We all ran away.
You’re among friends here.’
She looked up at Anthea and asked. ‘What’s the
Senora doing?’
‘Shaking her head.’
Jan looked at Hannah. ‘Did you dye your hair? Bet your
blonde really.’
Hannah nodded. ‘I won’t go back.’
‘No one is going back Hannah.’ Anthea drawled.
‘Don’t panic. He’s leaving. Senora isn’t
stupid. This is how she makes her money, it all comes from
people like us.’
The Dragon Lady pushed the photograph out of her face and
walked without a glance in either direction into her small
office in the coolest part of the building. The man in the
grey suit shrugged, looked over the women watching him and
left. He seemed weary, as if he had been looking a long
time.
‘I’m going to get a drink,’ Anthea declared.
‘Come on Jan. You need something to eat. You’re
losing so much weight.’
‘I want to go to the market. It’s my fresh fruit
day.’
‘Oh God, don’t mentioned fruit diets. I did that
once. Lost pounds shitting all day, then I broke out in
boils. I can’t even look at a pineapple now without
throwing up.’
Jan smiled and grabbed her sun hat. Anthea trotted after
her. ‘By the way Frannie invited Leon over tonight.
He was telling her how much potential you have. He’s
coming over to give you a private lesson.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Yeah. You have to be in full costume an’ everything.
Frannie thinks you need ‘movement’ lessons.’
‘The only movement Leon wants is my hips Anthea. He
just wants to screw me. I’ve seen the way he looks
at me.’
‘Maybe, but he’s going to give you a lesson first.
It’s Leon, Jan. You tell people you were taught by
him they’ll have a lot of respect. He’s famous.’
Jan stopped to allow traffic to pass. She would have preferred
to have been consulted over this. Part of her was flattered,
Leon was special and learning from him would be useful.
She’d noticed his perfect sense of timing at the exhibition
dance he’d given when they first arrived. He seemed
to take an interest in her only a week ago, when he returned
from Sevilla. Had she really improved that much, or... of
course not. He just fancied her. It was flattering, of course,
but she was not fooled that this was anything to do with
her ability to dance. Jan shook her head. Frannie shouldn’t
have got involved.
‘He’s going to Madrid isn’t he?’
‘In six weeks, touring with the National Dance Company.
You won’t believe what they are paying him. Frannie
says that Pedro Almodovar is trying to get him for a film
he’s doing.’
‘So that won’t affect his ego then.’ Jan
remarked as they finally took their lives into their hands
and plunged across the busy road. ‘I suppose he is
beautiful. He’d just love to be a movie star. I bet
he thinks he already is.’
‘Some men are just too beautiful,’ Anthea declared,
catching up with her. ‘I’m soo glad I am not into
men anymore.’ She came to a halt outside a cake shop
and wouldn’t move. ‘God, I’d really like
one of those.’ She indicated a glazed pastry with chocolate
bits over it.’
‘Fruit is better for you,’ Jan reminded her, instinctively
knowing she was wasting her time.
‘I suppose. But hey, I can sweat it off this afternoon.’
Jan shook her head and walked away from the window. Anthea
reluctantly followed. ‘You are way too controlled Jan.
You need to loosen up a little, give in to life’s little
temptations.’
Jan just smiled. The market beckoned.
Joe found an air-conditioned bar and bought himself a cold
beer. He’d noticed that the instructor at the dance
school had paused when she looked at a particular photograph
he’d shown her. Something about this mousey slim woman
reminded her of someone, that was for sure. He looked at
the picture again and tried to think of what Jan would look
like in dance costume. He wondered if she’d cut or
dyed her hair. Certainly she wasn’t registered under
her married or maiden name. But that didn’t seem to
mean anything. She was here. He just knew it. No specific
reason but that momentary light in the Senora’s eyes
meant something.
His phone vibrated. He didn’t want to answer; he’d
let it ring a while. He looked up and saw that the ring
tone was annoying other drinkers in the bar. He answered.
‘Yeah?’
He listened. He didn’t like what he heard. He began
to doodle in his notebook and nod from time to time. London
was in a panic. No leads. It didn’t look good for his
woman here. They were expecting a lot from her. Seems the
husband had £2.5 million in life insurance and his
old man left his ten million-pound fortune to the dancing
widow as well. Now the insurance company was looking for
her. The Daily Mail was wondering if she was dead . Her
picture was all over the papers. The only known picture
of her was at some exhibition three years ago. Nothing to
look at. Bryan wanted her found quickly. He was authorised
to pay up to £100,000 for an exclusive. He disconnected.
He almost wished he wouldn’t find her now.
sam.north at port.ac.uk - to be continued?
© sam north 2004/5 - all rights reserved
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- The Rush of '72 here
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