Such Visitors by Angela Huth Page A

‘But I do try in other ways, don’t I? To make up?’
    Joan laughed nastily.
    â€˜Lots of things you think I want. Bringing in the coal – I’d bring in the coal. Beating the doormat – I’d beat the doormat. Clearing out the bird – I’d … None of the things I really want. All I want is just the one thing. I’ll put the kettle on.’ She turned and stomped off down the passage to the kitchen.
    Confused by the outburst, Henry followed Joan, watched from the door while she slammed mugs down on the table. The rhinestones on her bodice glittered at him like a swarm of angry red eyes, as she pirouetted to the fridge for milk and foxtrotted towards the sugar.
    â€˜One day, perhaps, you’ll give some serious thought to what I’m saying.’
    â€˜Oh, I will,’ said Henry, and the great mercy was that as his wife cha-cha’d towards the kettle, an idea came to him.
    On the walls of the studio Fred Astaire danced with Ginger Rogers: huge, blown-up photographs, a little muzzy, for the cameras of those days were not quite up to the speed of their twirling. Henry stood in the middle of the bare floor marvelling at the sight of them. His hand closed more tightly on the small paper bag that held his lunch. He listened to the thirties music that oozed from a small grille high up in one of the walls. He half-closed his eyes, felt himself spinning as fluently as Fred Astaire … Wonderful. Joan, light in his arms, smiling up at him.
    When Henry looked down, eyes fully open, he saw he had raised one leg, slightly, but had not moved an inch. Fearful that he should be caught in so foolish a position in the middle of the floor, he hastened to a chair at the side of the room and took out his sandwich. A moment later Madame Lucille entered. Madame Lucille was well into her sixties, but you could see at once she had been a famous dancer in her time – the bouncy walk that set the muscles of her calves twinkling up and down.
    She made an impressive entrance for Henry alone, coming right up to him before she spoke. She had white-blonde hair and powdered wrinkles. Her multi-coloured dress clung everywhere.
    â€˜Mr Cake?’
    â€˜That’s right.’
    â€˜I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr Cake.’
    â€˜No trouble.’
    Madame Lucille’s eyes jumped with great disdain to Henry’s sandwich.
    â€˜Have you come here for your
lunch,
Mr Cake? Or to learn how to dance?’
    â€˜Oh, I’m so sorry. You see, it’s my lunch hour. I thought a quick bite …’
    â€˜I’m afraid we cannot entertain eating and drinking in the studios, Mr Cake, though I’ll close my eyes to it this once.’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    He slid the sandwich into the pocket of his mackintosh, and laid the mackintosh on the chair.
    â€˜You’ll have to make your appointments after work. On your way home. I’m open till seven.’
    â€˜I’m not sure I could work that in –’
    â€˜It’s up to you. Now, shall we begin?’
    Madame Lucille offered Mr Cake her hand, led him into the centre of the studio.
    â€˜What stage is it you’re at, Mr Cake? As a dancer?’
    â€˜Oh, quite a beginner, I should say.’
    â€˜Then we shall start at the beginning.’
    Henry felt a freezing sensation in his legs. The flesh of his hand that Madame Lucille clasped in her warm little fingers had turned entirely to bone. Anything to put off the moment when she would urge him to move …
    â€˜But my wife, she’s a champion,’ he said. ‘She won cups all over the Midlands before we married.’
    â€˜My. Did she?’
    â€˜That’s the trouble, really, with her being the champion. I didn’t think it would be, but it turned out to be.’
    â€˜So you’re here secretly – a few lessons – to surprise her?’
    â€˜How did you know?’
    Madame Lucille smiled. ‘Thirty