Should I go to the Dance?

 

I tracked it coming. I watched an animation of an aeroplane flying over Europe as it inched closer and closer to Heathrow, and I knew from the airport arrivals board information exactly when it landed.

That was now over two weeks ago, the day the youngun arrived back home, bringing with him the cold which he had picked up from Hong Kong. A cold which of course I later caught.

So my head is now full of feathers, and my voice, should I speak to the neighbour's cat from three doors down, is dry and husky; and really I should not go to the dance at all.

The decision should already have been taken, and yet, I still think I might be going. Even though my eyes are runny. I really don't want to let them down, though of course, I also don't want to pass my cold onto them.

Last night, I couldn't sleep as I pondered my options:

Should I go? Should I not go?

I began to make a list of why, apart from passing on the cold, I should not:

• One of the dancers (male) has the most awful BO. Truly awful. Worse he enjoys spinning me around really fast, which wraps his cloying odour around me like chains.
• One of the dancers (a wiry short female) grips my hand so painfully dragging me into the correct position.
• Two of the dancers (a couple) rarely smile. They have a most superior attitude (they know all the moves and I most certainly don't). They only ever smile wryly, whenever I go wrong (which is often).
• One of the dancers (male) told me I don't around spin around properly (he's right of course) but after he said that I became self-conscious of my twirls, and so any chance of ever getting into step has now vanished.
• One of the dancers (male) told me that I destroyed the look of the whole dance when he had called it from the stage. It seemed I had turned left (or was it right) when everybody else was doing the exact opposite.
• One of the dancers (female) is a match-maker, and tried to pair me off.

"But he's married," I protested.

"Oh, that doesn't matter," she said. “I’d like him settled with a good woman. You should see the way his face lights up whenever you come in.”

• One of the dancers (male) is religious and brings me tracts to read. I dutifully do so, before quickly handing them back, wondering how he would react if I were to give him something written by Richard Dawkins. I wouldn't of course. I know he wouldn't touch such paper, but oh it's so tempting!

"What star sign are you?" I once asked him, by way of making conversation upon hearing that it was his birthday.

"Oh, I don't believe in that!" he recoiled, as if I had just waved a blow-torch in front of his face and singed his eyebrows.

• And then there are the deaths.

Every week during the interval, no sooner have we sat down, with cups of tea in our hands, then our fleeting conversations is interrupted by the announcements:

"So and so has died. The funeral is at... Flowers are to be sent to... No flowers are to be sent, but donations can be sent to... The service will be at…"

I don't know these people, or perhaps I do.

I know so few names. Conversation is difficult when couples are 'improper' and you have to find your way through the 'hay'.

After the weekly death announcements have chilled the room, scything any chance of further conversation, the caller calls the next dance, and all quickly grab their numb partners as if grabbing onto the very sinews of life itself.

"Honour your partners all," the caller orders at the end of the dance, and obediently we do.

So what to do now? As I shiver and sneeze, and reach for another hanky. Should I go to the dance?

You can well understand my dilemma when such an enchanting evening lies before me.