Strictly Love, page 18
As the music pounded out, the lights flashed on and off, and no doubt in order to create atmosphere, strobe lighting was introduced in between bouts of dry ice.
‘Just as well I'm not epileptic,’ shouted Mark through the attempts of some thrash metal band, whom he recalled Gemma was keen on. That might earn him some brownie points.
‘Me too,’ said Emily. ‘God, I feel old.’
The music wound down and the lights came up for the serious business of the evening, namely the awards ceremony. Being of the MySpace, Facebook, anything goes generation, the organisers of the Krank Up the Volume Awards didn't go for anything as establishment as tables, so the punters had to stand cradling their beer while they cheered wildly to each new award.
The award for best new talent inevitably went to Emily's clients.
‘It's all right, we can go after this,’ said Emily. ‘I'll just go and get my coat.’
As they left, Mark paused to stare at a woman who was sitting in a darkened corner. He made as if to go over to speak to her, but as he moved forward the woman got up and left.
‘Who's that? Someone you know?’ Emily asked.
‘I thought it was the useless receptionist who's just left us in the lurch, but I can't think why she'd be here,’ said Mark. ‘It's so dark in here. I must have been wrong.’
‘Is it important?’ asked Emily. Mark seemed a bit agitated.
‘No, not really. If it was Kerry I only wanted to let her know how much she's dumped us in it,’ he said. ‘It doesn't matter. Come on, let's get home.’
‘I can't believe we're really here.’ Katie kept having to pinch herself as Emily drove up the driveway of the Hillcrest Hotel. It wasn't on much of a hill, but being in the middle of the New Forest it was surrounded by trees. They had driven through a picturesque little village to get here, with village green, stocks, and a pretty bridge overlooking a stream. To complete the picture-postcard scene there had been two New Forest ponies grazing by the side of the stream. Even if there was to be no dancing, Katie felt like she'd come to paradise. Every mile that she put between herself and her family – particularly Charlie – she had felt a lessening of burden and responsibility. True, she had been absolutely frantic up until the moment she'd left, packing and repacking the boys’ kit for camp, but, to her surprise, once she'd waved them off (and after wiping away the surreptitious tears that they absolutely must not see) and gone home to pack her own stuff, she'd felt none of the guilt she'd been expecting. Just a lightening of the load.
It was the same when Charlie got back early to help with Molly. To her amazement he had even insisted that she hop in the bath while he put Molly to bed. He had been tender, kind, conciliatory – the way he had been early on in their relationship. It was a long time since he'd behaved like that towards her, but it was reassuring. Perhaps all they both needed was for Katie to get out more, and not sit at home brooding on nonexistent problems.
‘What time are the boys going to get here?’ Katie asked Emily. She wasn't at all sure how she felt about Rob coming along. A girly weekend away with Emily was one thing – and the way she had presented the weekend to Charlie, not quite having the nerve to mention that Rob was going to be there too. But a weekend where there was the possibility of dancing with Rob, spending proper time with him – well, that complicated things. Part of the attraction of coming away had been a continuation of the fantasy of dancing lessons – but Rob and Charlie meeting had made her realise how potentially dangerous the fantasy could be. It was time she stopped fantasising and started sorting out her problems. Rob being here might not be such a good way to do that.
‘I don't know,’ said Emily. ‘I think Mark was rather hoping to get out of it, but Rob wouldn't let him.’
‘I bet he's only coming because of you,’ teased Katie as they made their way to the reception desk.
‘He did say something along those lines,’ said Emily.
The place was buzzing, with people checking in, tripping over each other's luggage, and the odd shriek of recognition as friends caught up with one another. The age range was vast, from people in their twenties to a dapper elderly couple who could have been in their eighties. There was a lot of excited chatter about the appearance of the Strictly Come Dancing couple, but despite hearing a giggly plump twenty-something blonde girl claiming she'd spotted them in the driveway, Katie couldn't see any evidence of anyone famous.
As she and Emily waited patiently in the queue for their rooms, the sounds of a waltz wafted from the elegant ballroom to the left of the reception area. Katie peered round the corner. Already there were couples dancing. Many of the women were wearing elegant floaty dresses. They looked like swans, or brightly coloured peacocks. She thought of the little black number she'd shoved in her suitcase at the last minute and wondered whether she was going to end up feeling like mutton dressed as lamb. At least she had lost weight enough for her to be able to wear a dress she hadn't worn since before Molly was born. Katie had been overcome with an absurd sense of pride when she'd realised she could fit into it again and had gone out and bought some new gold sandals and some make-up to celebrate.
The receptionist gave them the keys to their rooms, next to each other on the second floor. Katie and Emily were thrilled to discover they had been upgraded to adjacent large sweeping rooms with fantastic views of the grounds.
Music was still wafting from the ballroom and Katie's feet were starting to tap.
‘Do you fancy a drink first, or would you like to dance?’ she asked.
Emily pulled a face.
‘Drink, no contest. Just look at them! They all look like they should be on Strictly Come Dancing. I'd feel too much of a prat,’ said Emily firmly. ‘I'm going to text Mark and see where the boys are, then sit here with my glass of wine until they arrive.’
‘Spoilsport,’ said Katie, making her way towards the dance floor. She stood a little uncertainly for a moment, but within minutes someone had asked her to dance. He was tall, dark, debonair, handsome. Nothing like Rob or Charlie, and he danced beautifully. She floated around the room with him, feeling that perhaps she too could be a swan. She never felt as confident anywhere else as she did on a dance floor. Katie shut her eyes and let herself drift into the music. Her troubles seemed so very far away. Her real life seemed the fantasy now. It was going to be a great weekend.
Chapter Twenty
‘Do you think you might have had enough of dancing yet?’ Mark enquired in a panting gasp, as he and Emily completed a set of the quickstep, at which he felt he was even worse than the waltz. He and Rob had arrived much later than the girls the previous evening, as neither of them had been able to get away from work that early, and though Rob had managed to strut his stuff on the dance floor till quite late, Mark had happily escaped with Emily for a quiet drink in the bar area. Of Katie there had not been much sign till the dancing had finished around 1 a.m., but she had emerged eventually, flushed and beaming. Rob seemed put out that she hadn't been dancing with him, but then again, Rob had wasted no time in finding the prettiest women in the room to dance with. He also appeared to have got over his anger with Katie, and today they were mucking about like they used to, sitting close together at breakfast and teasing each other mercilessly about who was the better dancer. They looked natural together in a way that Katie never did with Charlie, Emily thought. Katie never complained about Charlie or said she had problems, but she had been rather down of late, and, not for the first time, Emily wondered if everything in her friend's marriage was okay.
The morning session had involved either basic training in the waltz and quickstep, which Emily and Mark had opted for, or lessons in salsa and rumba, which had been Katie and Rob's choice.
‘I think I might just have,’ said Emily, in response to Mark's question. She came to a halt. ‘Shall we go and see if Katie and Rob have finished and get some lunch?’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Mark. Holding hands, they walked towards the room where they had last seen Rob and Katie, from whence the sounds of Latin music were drifting. They watched in awe for several minutes as Rob and Katie, along with everyone else in the room, seemingly executed the perfect cha cha cha. Katie and Rob seemed to move in perfect sinuous motion together. They looked almost made for each other, Emily mused.
‘Now that's what I call synchronicity,’ said Emily in admiration as Katie and Rob came up to them. ‘I am never ever going to be able to do that.’
‘Ah well, you can't all be as gifted as us,’ said Rob. ‘Though of course, in our case, Katie would get nowhere without my talent. It's men who are in charge on the dance floor, don't you know?’
‘Oh do shut up,’ said Katie. ‘I had to correct your salsa steps, remember? You were dancing Cuban style and we were supposed to be doing Colombian.’
‘We're going for lunch now,’ said Mark, breaking up the squabble. ‘What about you?’
‘Sounds good,’ said Katie, ‘but I want to be quick because there's another Latin workshop this afternoon. I think they're going to be teaching the merengue and I've never done that before.’
‘And I have to perfect my snake hips for this evening,’ said Rob. ‘Just to make sure I am indeed the sexiest man on the floor.’
‘In your dreams,’ laughed Katie.
‘You two are gluttons for punishment,’ said Emily. ‘I think Mark and I are just going to go for a wander into the village this afternoon. I'm up for dancing this evening, but I think my feet have had enough for now.’
After lunch Katie and Rob disappeared back to the ballroom, and Mark and Emily set off down the drive.
It was a bright sunny day, and by the time they reached the village they were both parched.
‘Fancy a drink?’ asked Mark.
‘Sounds great,’ said Emily, and they made their way into the quaint little pub that stood by the bridge.
They sat in the afternoon sun drinking shandies, watching children feeding the ducks, and chatting about everything under the sun. It was so easy to talk to Emily, Mark thought. He'd never found it easy to talk to Sam. Not really. There were always undercurrents he didn't understand, and he had the knack of offending her in ways he found unfathomable. Emily, on the other hand, was much easier, more straightforward. And she seemed to be prepared to listen to him getting on his favourite hobby horse, of too much government interference in everyday life.
‘If only politicians could just trust people to get on with it,’ he said, idly chucking bits of bread at the ducks, ‘I'm sure we'd all be much happier.’
‘You're probably right,’ said Emily. ‘To be honest, I haven't given it that much thought before.’
‘Really? Haven't you noticed the creeping bureaucratisation of petty-minded jobsworths?’ he said. ‘Surely in your line of work you must be getting ever more regulated and bound by stupid directives from Brussels. I know it's true in my business.’
‘I guess,’ said Emily. ‘Actually, you're making me feel quite ashamed. I've been so caught up in the crap that is my work, I haven't really paid much attention to current affairs. Maybe I should.’
‘Why do you stay?’ Mark asked suddenly. ‘You don't seem to be very happy in your work.’
Emily pulled a face.
‘I'm not really,’ she said. ‘But it's hard. My company may prey on human misery, but they do pay well. And since my dad died, my mam needs all the financial help she can get. I live such a long way away from her, I can't do much else but help with money. I couldn't do that so easily if I changed jobs.’
‘I sense a “but” there,’ said Mark.
‘I can't help but wonder what my dad would have thought,’ admitted Emily. ‘I think he'd be disappointed in me. I know I am.’
‘What?’
‘Disappointed in me,’ she said. ‘I had so many ideals and I feel I've betrayed them all.’
‘Don't be,’ said Mark, taking her hand. ‘We all lose sight of our ideals from time to time. It's never too late to do something different.’
‘True,’ said Emily with a smile, and she sipped her drink and stared into the river. And as he watched her flicking back her dark sleek bob, Mark realised with a jolt that he was falling headlong in love with her.
He hadn't felt that combination of excitement, passion and tenderness in years. And it seemed miraculous to him that he should feel it now. When Sam left, he'd thought love would never find him again, and yet here he was, sitting by a river in the sunshine with the woman he now knew he loved. It was as if Emily had obliterated the pain that Sam had caused. Life really did move on.
‘You look – stunning.’
For once Rob was almost speechless. He'd spent all day dancing, if not with Katie, in close proximity to her, and for most of it she'd been looking sweaty in loose-fitting baggy grey sweat pants and an oversized T-shirt. But she and Emily had emerged transformed from their rooms after hours doing whatever it was that women did to turn themselves into beauties. Katie was wearing a simple black strappy dress which accentuated her curves, and her fair hair was piled in her high curls on her head. Her dress was set off by a gold silk shawl and she wore a topaz locket and earrings. ‘I almost didn't recognise you. Have you lost weight?’
‘Why, thank you kindly, sir,’ said Katie, performing a mock curtsey. ‘Emily did my hair. I'd have made a right hash of it on my own.’
‘You look lovely too, of course,’ said Rob, feeling it was only polite to compliment Emily, who was wearing a sparkly red dress and whose black bob looked particularly sleek and sexy tonight.
‘Thanks,’ said Emily. ‘Are we ready to go?’
The evening's entertainment consisted first of a three-course dinner and plenty of wine. Rob enjoyed the meal and teasing Emily and Mark about their lack of dancing ability, but he was itching to get on the dance floor and dance with this new, improved Katie. He couldn't take his eyes off her. It was perhaps time to admit to himself that he really was taken with her.
She's married. Rob shoved down the nagging voice in his head that pointed out the obvious. She had a husband. She had three kids. He shouldn't really be going there. But watching her laugh at something Emily had said, he badly wanted to.
Eventually the music started up and the crowd roared their approval as the Strictly Come Dancing couple did some exhibition dances. Then it was time to hit the dance floor with a vengeance. At first things felt rather stiff and formal, as the band started with a couple of waltzes. Katie was being most elusive. ‘I'll dance with you later,’ she kept saying. ‘I'm promised to other people.’
‘Which other people?’ Rob growled at her.
‘Never you mind,’ Katie said vaguely and giggled.
‘Are you drunk?’ Rob asked. He'd never seen her this vivacious.
‘I might be,’ said Katie, getting up from the table and promptly falling over. ‘But I'm still not going to dance with you – yet.’ She got up, winked at him mischievously and disappeared into the crowd.
Emily and Mark hobbled their way around the room in fits of laughter – after dancing with Emily himself, Rob wasn't at all surprised. Soon, though, the music changed and Rob found himself tangoing around the room with a variety of different women before taking part in a hilarious and chaotic merengue. At this point Emily and Mark dived out, making their excuses, which left Rob alone on the dance floor in desperate pursuit of Katie.
Eventually he pinned her down and extracted a promise of a dance so long as it was a salsa. After two more foxtrots, in which Rob's chosen partners both managed to step on his toes, the music switched to Latin once more and he grabbed Katie from where she was taking a break in the corner.
‘Come on,’ he said, grabbing her by the hand. ‘I am going to dance with the loveliest lady in the room, even if it kills me.’
‘I bet you say that to all the girls,’ said Katie.
‘No, I don't,’ Rob replied, pulling her closer to him. He felt her freeze just the tiniest bit and relaxed his grip. He didn't want to push her away, not now he'd finally got her.
Katie didn't say anything as she danced with Rob. She just let herself float away on a sea of soft music, flashing lights and sparkly dresses. She was vaguely aware that she had had too much to drink, and that her initial instinct of avoiding Rob for the evening had probably been the right one. But it felt so right to be dancing a salsa with him. He was such a good dancer, he made her feel like she was someone else, not the Katie the world saw – mum of three and downtrodden wife – but Katie as she saw herself: the ugly duckling turned into a swan. However little confidence she lacked in her real life, once she was on the dance floor, Katie knew she became someone else entirely, someone gorgeous and sexy and vitally alive. Rob brought all that out in her. Was it so wrong for her to hold on to that bubble of fantasy and keep it for a little while, even if she knew it couldn't last? It was as though she were on a honeymoon from her real life.
As if in a dream, Katie was aware that the music had softened, the lights had dimmed, and Rob was facing her for a rumba. He looked nervous, and suddenly so was she. They'd been practising this all afternoon, but it had been different in the afternoon, when they were dressed in their scraggiest clothes. Hard to feel sexy about someone when their T-shirt was covered in sweat. Not so when they were standing before you in a dinner jacket. The sexiest dance ever invented. Should she be doing this? Vaguely, somewhere, Katie knew the answer was no, but she wasn't quite ready for the bubble to burst. God. No wonder Baby fell for Johnny in Dirty Dancing. Who wouldn't be seduced by this dance?
‘Are you up for this?’ Rob asked as he pulled away from her and started counting the beat.
‘If you are?’
Oh God. Katie swallowed slightly as she realised the song they were dancing to was Body Talk.
Rob was singing softly in her ear that he was searching for lust, and breath, and life, as he snaked up close and back. Quick, quick, slow. Quick, quick, slow, they danced to an exquisite beat. To begin with they barely touched, except to take each other's hands for the occasional turn.
