There Should Be More Dancing (29 page)

That was a blow. I had used those very words to accuse someone else of ruining Morris's life by planting drugs in his suitcase.

I also understood then that the entire world, everyone on earth, knew truths that I had chosen not to believe.

‘Have you got a hankie?' the constable said.

‘Of course I have,' I said, reaching up into my sleeve.

He ran his hand over his short hair. ‘Whatever the problem
was
way back then, at
this
point we can't just leave her sitting on the street. She's frail and thin enough to blow away.'

‘There's no wind.'

He had no comeback for that, by gum, so while he was regrouping I complained about the helicopter. ‘The police helicopter woke me last night, and it flies over at least three times a day – it's very, very loud. Louder than the others.'

‘I'll mention it next time I see the “copter copper”,' he said.

While I had him where I wanted him I also complained about Tyson stealing my water. You could see the look of weariness wash over his face. He said it was a matter for the water police, and went and got the floozy. He sat her at the table with me and left. Just left us there.

‘Thanks, love,' said Flossy, and she sipped the tea he'd left on the table.

The rage I felt for that woman at that moment, sitting there, calmly drinking my tea . . . I could taste the hate for everyone boiling up into my mouth, like acid reflux after too much cabbage.

As he closed the front door I said, ‘If I throw myself from a tall building, sonny, you can tell my family they drove me to it.'

I got up the next morning, it was Monday, and my muscles were sore from being tense. I didn't sleep a wink, just lay awake all night stewing, going over things, remembering. All those Christmas parties they had at the pub. All those years, and I never knew. All that time.

It's galling, that's what it is, like my first breakfast at Gold Street when Joye gave me a bowl of cereal and I found mouse droppings peeping at me from the milk and sugar at the bottom. They cackled about that for two years. ‘Can't take a joke, eh?' they said.

What I imagined my life to have been was totally shattered, but things just seemed to go on as usual for everyone else.

Anita breezed in the next day as if everything was normal.

At this point I'll confess something, Cecily. You see, as it turns out, Morris has an illegitimate child. Of course, everyone knew except me. That Sunday afternoon I acquired an illegitimate stepdaughter and two illegitimate grandchildren. Pud said it doesn't make any
difference these days if you're illegitimate, and Walter showed me a photo from his wallet of the poor child. Ruby was pleased to have another ‘cousin', and Pud was pleased to have Ruby as a cousin too. On the back of the photo Morris has written ‘May, 2004', so May could be her name, but then it could also be her date of birth. In the photo she's about five, though you can't tell with Asian-looking kiddies. She's a pretty little thing. In the past I've been accused of being racist, so I actually put the photo on the telly next to Pud – how can I be racist?

Anyrate, my new stepdaughter arrived and took over again, stripped the beds, put the washing machine on, swept and mopped the floor and sat on the back step while she had a smoke and a cup of tea. So I gave her a piece of my mind. I told her she was getting paid for sitting on a step doing nothing. ‘It's my day off,' she said. ‘I'm just here to stop the bloodshed.'

I reminded her that she was illegitimate because her mother committed adultery with my husband.

‘Fair statement,' she said. ‘But I'm not to blame, am I?'

Then Florence piped up and said, ‘You never wanted Lance anyway. I've made mistakes, but
I
don't pretend to be perfect. And anyway, we haven't got a home because your husband blew it up.'

She swears it was Lance, not Bill, who struck the match.

Anita sighed and went to my linen press. She dug out a set of sheets at the bottom of the pile. ‘Not those ones,' I said.

Lance's words rang in my ears; ‘I thought I'd find a pearl when I cracked your shell, Margery, but all I found was the oyster.'

You see, when I found out I was pregnant with Judith, I packed and got ready to leave again, but he came home from the pub earlier
than usual. At the time I was doing one last load of washing. I just happened to be poking the clothes down into the copper, so I had the copper stick in my hand when he came in and, well, his nose got broken.

I made it clear I'd done my duty. No more children. So I got the sewing machine out.

Anita was just standing there in the bathroom, by the linen press, holding the sheets up with her head to the side, two little creases between her eyes, like Lance looked when he pored over the form guide, his little transistor squeaking away beside him.

Florence cleared her throat and brushed something from her lap, and I watched Anita's face change as it dawned on her that she was holding two double-bed sheets sewn together up the middle. I've told you my reasons for keeping Lance on the other side of the bed, but I wasn't going to explain why I sewed the sheets up the middle to those two, looking at me as if my head was melting.

If the truth be known, I never liked sexual intercourse. Once I got over how just plain rude the act was it seemed like a ludicrous thing to do.

Marriage wasn't like
Mrs. Miniver
at all, Cecily. Mrs Miniver couldn't have been the woman she was without a noble man like Walter Pidgeon. He came from New Brunswick in America, and of course Lance brought me home to Brunswick to live, but Lance certainly wasn't Walter Pidgeon. He wasn't any sort of Lancelot either.

Anyrate, as soon as Judith got married and moved out Lance took his ashtray and his oxygen apparatus and moved into the second bedroom. I took the sewn-up sheets off, and put them at the bottom of the linen press and moved into the middle of the bed.

~

So now I'm here. For one more hour I stayed in that house that was never actually mine, with my husband's mistress, but try as I might I couldn't reconcile harbouring her. As the mother of the rightful blood offspring of Lance's loins, and since Morris has sent word that Lance said, ‘No child of mine's mother should be upset in any way,' she'll probably inherit the whole place until she dies. I don't care. I've had enough. For the last time I admired my lovely doorknobs and Walter's trophies reflecting the warped little house I've lived in for sixty years. Sixty years living a lie. I said goodbye to my life's work, my cross-stitching, and told Florence I was going.

‘Hang on,' she said, ‘I'll get me cardie and go with you.'

Pat always had to be part of everything as well.

In the six days that Margery and Florence lived together, Anita dropped in every day. While she dressed Margery's wound she'd attempt to solve any conflicts the two old ladies were having, then make sure they had an evening meal organised. She'd also search her mother's room, inspect the little basket under the seat of her wheelie frame and check her pockets for cigarettes or, more specifically, matches. On Tuesday, Anita breezed down the passage carrying groceries and cans of Home Brand light beer, Ruby trailing her, spearing her cardboard sword into invisible assailants. Florence was alone in the house, sitting in Lance's chair, the radio blaring, her red stilettos tapping on the cross-stitched mat –
You gain nothing by removing the laughing lunatic from the empty theatre except to deny him his happiness –
an opened stubbie in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

‘How are ya, love?' her mother said.

Little Ruby turned the television down.

Anita said, ‘Where did you get that cigarette and how did you light it?'

Florence looked at the cigarette in her hand as if she'd never seen it before.

‘I suppose it was the same person who gave you that stubbie?' Anita said.

Mystified, Florence replied, ‘I suppose it was.'

Anita went into the kitchen, dumped the shopping bags on the table then stood in the doorway, glaring down at her mother. ‘Where's Margery?'

Florence looked around the room and peered down the passage. Then she stared past Anita into the cupboard-sized kitchen and said, ‘Not in there, is she?'

Anita maintained her gaze, looking steadily into her mother's large blue eyes. ‘Can't see her.'

‘Tried the toilet?'

Ruby said she'd check and skipped out the back door. Anita packed the beer, eggs and milk into the empty fridge. ‘Have you discussed the evening meal?'

‘Who with?' Florence said, glancing at the empty chair next to her.

Ruby came back in and declared that Margery was not in the toilet. ‘She's not in the car either, Mum,' she added, and they both stared accusingly at Florence.

Florence said, ‘Get us another beer, wouldya, love?'

Anita took her mother's empty beer bottle then snatched her cigarette and dropped it down the neck. ‘Ruby, check the park.'

Ruby ran to check the park, her pirate cape flapping behind her.

Anita searched all five rooms of the tiny, single-fronted workers' cottage. Then she checked the shed and the car boot. She went through Mrs Parsons' shed to her house, tried the front and back door and peered in all her windows. On her way back she popped her head over Tony's back fence, but no one was about so she went
across the road and banged on Tyson's door. From somewhere deep in the dark, fungusy interior, someone called, ‘Fuck off,' so she took a deep breath and went next door to Kevin's place.

Kevin answered the door eating corn kernels from a tin. He was wearing a knee-length, green reflector jumpsuit and one bicycle shoe because the other ankle was still in plaster. The plaster featured one signature – his own. He smiled broadly at Anita and said, ‘I think I've placed you now.'

‘Seen Margery?'

‘She's lived over the road for sixty years,' he said and winked.

Anita sighed. ‘Have you seen Margery
today
?'

‘I rode past her on my way home from work. She was at the tram stop on Sydney Road, city-bound, in her hat and coat. I called out, but she was deep in conversation with herself.' He scooped another spoonful of corn into his mouth.

Anita turned to go back across the road and Kevin said, ‘I know where I've seen you. At the pub, years ago. And there's something else, something you don't know, but everyone else does.' Anita was gone, gliding back over to Margery's house on her two fine, tea-coloured legs.

‘Do you know who your father is?' Kevin called, but she ignored him.

Florence saw them marching down the passage towards her again.

She raised one finger, ‘About that beer . . .' but Anita went straight past her to the fridge. Florence was pleased when she took a can of beer out, confused when she held it tantalisingly in front of her. ‘Flossy, try to remember. Think! When Margery left, where did she say she was going?'

Florence's eyebrows moved together and she bit her bottom lip. ‘Margery,' she said, knowing she knew her but failing to conjure a memory that would show her exactly who Margery was.

‘Your flatmate,' Ruby said.

‘The old woman?'

‘Yes,' said Anita, and Ruby added, ‘You're no spring chicken yourself, Nan.'

Anita nudged her daughter. Florence creased her eyebrows together again, focussed on the couch opposite, trying to remember. She folded and unfolded her thin, alcoholic legs, then said brightly, ‘To see a friend?'

Ruby said, ‘She hasn't got any friends, besides us.'

‘It's not a guessing game, Flossy. She's lost.' Anita leaned down, took her mother's chin in her hand and looked deeply into her eyes. ‘Did Judith come today?'

‘I would have remembered if
she'd
been here.'

Anita let her mother take the can of beer from her hand. ‘So Margery hasn't gone with Judith?'

Florence said, ‘Na,' looped her thin finger under the pull tab and ripped it from the can. Ruby fetched the mobile phone from her mother's basket and handed it to her.

‘She said she was going to her sister's.'