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Da n c i n gL e s s o n sa novel by Ol i v e S e n i o rPREVIEW

Copyright © 2011 Olive SeniorThis edition copyright © 2011 Cormorant Books Inc.This is a first edition.Reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders and securepermission for copyright material appearing in this book. The publisherwould be grateful to be informed of any errors or omissions and referred tothe proper copyright holder. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means,without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence fromThe Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright).For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.caor call toll free 1.800.893.5777.The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Councilfor the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program.We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canadathrough the Canada Book Fund (cbf) for our publishing activities,and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media DevelopmentCorporation, an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Culture, and theOntario Book Publishing Tax Credit Program.“YOUR RED WAGON”Words by Don Raye, Music by Gene De Paul and Richard M Jones.Copyright (c)1940, 1946, 1963 by MCA Music,a division of MCA INC. New York, NY.library and archives canada cataloguing in publicationSenior, OliveDancing lessons / Olive Senior.isbn 978-1-77086-047-61. Title.ps8587.e552d36 2011 c813’.54 c2011-904032-8PREVIEWCover art and design: Angel Guerra/ArchetypeInterior text design: Tannice Goddard, Soul Oasis NetworkingPrinter: Marquis Imprimeur Inc.Printed and bound in Canada.FSC LOGO TO COMEThis book is printed on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper.Cormorant Books Inc.215 Spadina Avenue, Studio 230, Toronto, Ontario, Canada m5t 2c7www.cormorantbooks.com

The ladies, in particular, ought to dance with a sort ofamiable circumspection and a becoming grace, which,indeed, add to their charms, and heighten their attractions.Gentlemen ought always to be attentive to theirpartners, and they should all of them move in unisonin every step and attitude.— charles durang,The Ball-Room Bijou, and Art of Dancing …with Rules for Polite Behaviour, 18–PREVIEW

To Earl Senior and Fay Harrison,who were there from the start.PREVIEW

1how was i to know he had a bad heart? All I wanted wasto dance one more time in my life. I heard the music playingin his room that was right across from mine and somethingcame over me, a joyous feeling that I had had in my life onlyonce before, so I went over and asked him to dance. What’s sowrong with that? It’s true he had just moved in and we hadn’tbeen properly introduced. But I didn’t “drag him around andassault him and cause him to freak out and have an attack,”as Matron told Celia in this overly dramatic mimsey-mamseyway of hers, all hands and eyebrows and jangling earrings andshoulders working.She believed it, of course. Not that she said anything, inthat lawyer-ish way of hers. Nothing showing on her face. Isat there like a schoolgirl in Matron’s most uncomfortablechair trying to look comfortable. My arms and legs crossed. Ididn’t say a word. I never do. One thing I’ve learnt in life is tohold my tongue. Which is why She knows nothing. Though Ohow I cringe every time that scene pops up before my eyes, themost embarrassing moment of my life, a moment — I mightadd — totally and absolutely out of character. I truly, trulydo not know what made me do it, me, the shyest person on• 1PREVIEW

2 • Olive Seniorearth. But how will they know that, since I have no intentionof confessing?It was madness! But once that raucous music bouncedthrough his open door across the hallway and snaked into mine,my shoulders started to twist, my hips started to shake, my feetstarted to beat a staccato across the polished mahogany floor.“Come, come,” I remember saying to him, arms outstretchedas I belted out the words that came back to me afterall those years:If you wanna go crazy and act the clownBe the laughing stock all over townThat’s YOUR RED WAGON …I certainly didn’t drag him around, as Matron claims,though I did try on one of my spins to clasp his hands in mine.But I could see he was an unwilling partner and I continued todance and sing by myself:That’s YOUR RED WAGONSo just keep dragging YOUR RED WAGON along …until braps! The music swooped to a sudden stop and Ifound myself standing in this strange man’s room, with himlooking as frightened as a little brown mouse and me hot andred as a pomegranate. He gaped at me, his mouth opening andclosing, but what he said I do not know, for I fled to my roomand slammed the door. O my Lord!Maybe I did frighten him, for he’s built on the compactside and I’m a bit taller, but Matron doesn’t have to makeme out to be such a clodhopping giant. To be honest, I am aPREVIEW

Dancing Lessons • 3teeny bit bigger than I was before I came here, for I’ve beeneating and eating ever since. Am I going to turn down goodfood prepared and served by someone else at exactly the sametime every day? I spend my day waiting for my meals. I don’tunderstand all these people here complaining and picking atwhat they are served, but I ignore them and wipe my plateclean. Let them skin up their noses all they want, especiallythose three who share a table with me.We sit at these little round tables with lovely china and reallinen napkins that remind me of the only thing that was niceabout my childhood. It’s like heaven to me. But of course Idon’t let them know that, those three Pancake Sisters FromHell. Names of Ruby, Babe, and Birdie, if you can believe it.They are not really sisters, but have been friends all their lives.Killed off their husbands I’m sure so they could end up heretogether at Ellesmere Lodge gossiping and betting on the racesand drinking martinis and playing bridge. They are as alikeas gungo peas in a pod. They look like dried gungo peas too,their skin yellow and speckled with brown splotches all overand their hair pulled off their foreheads and puffed up anddyed this wishy-washy brownish blond like their skin so thattheir heads look round like pancakes flat on the plate beforethe maple syrup.It’s funny, I had never had pancakes before, but it was thevery first breakfast that was served to me here at EllesmereLodge. I gazed down at my plate that morning and was sostruck by the resemblance I nearly died laughing inside. I couldtell they noticed the little smile on my face, for they couldn’ttake their eyes off me. I’m good at taking in everything, evenPREVIEW

4 • Olive Seniorwhen I have my head down. But I just kept on eating andignoring them. Who are they fooling anyway, thinking they’reso elegant and aristocratic, always on about Daddy and Schooland Sister-This and Sister-That as if they are still seven yearsold, not ten times that (at least!), but let’s not bother withthem. It’s She I am concerned about. She is now so thin sheis almost at vanishing point, and if she vanished, what wouldI do? I poke that thought down every time it comes to thesurface for I don’t even know where the others are anymore,Junior and Lise. I know Shirley is in a cemetery in Brooklyn I’llnever see. Never a word from the others. The odd Christmasor birthday card. A hundred-dollar bill enclosed. She is theonly one who cares. Well, not cares really, I don’t think shecares, but she shames easily and so she wouldn’t want anyoneto know I’m living on the street, would she?2not living on the street exactly, but I would have been perfectlyhappy staying down there in the country with the oldwooden house collapsing around me, battered and torn apartby the hurricane. It’s what I’m used to, isn’t it? Hardship.Hardship and lies. A pummelling from life every way I turn. O,I’m nicely set up here, everyone would say, Ellesmere Lodge,ha! The Best Retirement Home in the city, in the whole ofJamaica, in the British West Indies, the World! Though fromthe way Matron treats some of us, well, one of us exactly,you’d think we were in boarding school. It’s certainly the mostPREVIEW

6 • Olive Seniorwith one of the girls who works here. Or even Winston, themiserable gardener, who will take the fancy box of soap orthe perfume for his daughter, he says, though everyone knowsit’s for some young girl he is chasing. But what do I care,if he doesn’t tell about my picking the Bombay mangoes offMatron’s very own tree. She only claims it’s hers because it isby her little cottage, which is on the Ellesmere Lodge grounds.I think she talks to those mangoes at night they grow so fatand beautiful and inviting! For what else does she have to doonce she has finished terrorizing us (well, one of us). Winstontells her anyway, the old goat, to save his skin, but by thattime I’ve ripened them in brown paper inside the shoeboxat the top of my clothes cupboard and they are well and trulyeaten. Vanished evidence. It does pay to say nothing. Evenwhen caught in a stickup.I nearly died laughing inside at the scene played out laterright by the mango tree. Me and Matron. The mango caughtmy eye and she caught me! I admit I was lurking, but whatright had she to be going into her cottage at that hour of theday when she is supposed to be at work? There I was, gazingup at the shiny ripe mango right at the top of the tree. A redgoldsun that waved at me as I went for my morning walk. Itpulled my feet in that direction. I picked up the crook-stickthat was conveniently lying there on the ground and was positioningit properly in relation to the mango when a bansheewail sliced the morning and a fury in acid colours barged intomy angle of vision.“Mrs. Sam-phire!”The stick could have been a snake, I dropped it so fast. MyPREVIEW

Dancing Lessons • 7heart fell clear to my foot-bottom but I kept my head; I stoodup straight and looked innocently around as if searching fora lost sheep. To buy myself time. This couldn’t be me, caughtin the act.“Mrs. Samphire … ask you …” I was forced to focus onMatron, who was now waving her arms around and screwingup her face. “… leave my mangoes alone.” Orange-colouredsandals (bronze metallic toenails!) came to a halt inchesaway from my own feet, which had suddenly attracted myscrutiny. I hoped I looked contrite. Matron paused then, as ifshe expected me to say something, but I didn’t. Such a longpause took the wind out of the sleeves of her caftan and shefinished rather lamely, dropping her hands to her side. “Andstop. Asking Winston. Think I don’t know. What’s going on.”Long pause until she managed to fill her sails again and waveher finger at me, but I could tell she was trapped betweenannoyance and the consciousness that when all was said anddone, I was still a Resident. With a capital R, for that’s howthe rest of them acted. She ended rather sulkily: “My privatespace. No right. Out of bounds. Must I put up a sign?”I shook my head then; this was easy: No.“Ne-ver,” she said, heaving her not very extensive chest andholding her head high in a facsimile of indignation. “Ne-verhas another Re-sident intruded in this manner.”No, I wanted to say, the other Residents never get up offtheir bony asses.I’m not sure Matron has the stomach for fighting, really;she gazed at me some more, huffed and puffed, then turned onher heels and took off like a rainbow streak.PREVIEW

8 • Olive SeniorAs soon as her back was turned, I took up the stick andtouched the mango, which fell right into my outstretchedhand. I secured it in my pocket and I continued on my walk,practically killing myself with suppressed laughter as I ran myhand over the smooth skin of the fruit and anticipated theforthcoming feast. Ha, I thought, this one will be blamed onWinston for sure. She won’t believe I could be so bold. Andserve him right, too, for having the cheek to accept bribes andnot keep his mouth shut.Still, a little worm of anxiety is eating at me, for I know Ishouldn’t be taking chances with Matron, my situation hereis still shaky. I will vow to get into no more trouble and do asShe commands.Once a week, when the manicurist and the hairdressercome here to Ellesmere Lodge (not the facety one, this one ismuch more humble or else she wouldn’t be bothering to comeand shampoo a bunch of old people, would she), She paysfor me to have “treatments,” they call it. Just like the others.Torments, I say, but I go, just as I go to the doctor who isthe other person who gives “treatments,” unwillingly, for Iknow what She is trying to do. The hairdresser — Morveen,if you please — is like a little overdressed schoolgirl in hertiny skirt, chunky-heel sandals, and skinny top, with blondhighlights in her hair and at least six earrings in each ear.As she eases me down in the chair to shampoo my hairwhile this other little one — Kyisha — is getting ready tomess around with my toes, she, this Morveen, says, “Relax,Mrs. Samphire, you are much too tense, Miss. Relax andenjoy yourself.”PREVIEW