The Ballroom Class (32 page)

Angelica knew the really exciting years of her life had started, and it was impossible to separate the dancing from Tony, and Tony from the dancing. They practised late into the night until her feet bled and her arms ached, then went back to his bedsit to rip off each other’s practice clothes and make love until they were exhausted. At weekends, they travelled up and down the country to get their professional ranking up. The battered Mini was swapped for a smarter Rover, as money came in from exhibition evenings and lessons, and then they were flying abroad to compete. Motels became hotels, and the rooms grew bigger for practising, and fighting, and making up, and the costumes got smaller and sometimes Angelica had to put body make-up on bruises, but afterwards she couldn’t tell if they’d got there in the practice, or the fighting or the making up. It hardly mattered; it was all the same.

The CD fell from Angelica’s dreamy grip and she shook herself, realising she was nearly asleep.

Victor Silvester, she thought, looking at the cover. Bernard would approve of that for Chris and Lauren. Something nice and traditional. Something the lady could dance with a massive skirt safely protecting her from any untoward interference from her partner.

She’d been fibbing a bit when she told Lauren she saw Chris as a tango man; what she actually meant was that with a back as stiff as that, tango was the best thing for him. Lauren, though, was perfect for the waltz. Most girls loved the waltz, imagining they were at some fairy-tale ball as they rose and fell, and the music swelled with all its romantic associations. Most of them never really grasped the calf-burning work that had to go on underneath that swan-like appearance, but Lauren had strong legs, and her height gave her an elegant line. Angelica could tell she loved the romance of it, the costume and performance.

Was that why Lauren was getting married, she wondered. For the costume and performance? She, out of all the class, was the only one who treated each dance like a chance to escape, a chance to be someone else. Angelica could see that, because she’d been just the same.

She tapped the CD case against her hand and smiled. Much cheaper, surely, to take up waltzing, where you could wear your big dress every week and change your partner when you grew out of him.

Or he grew out of you.

The smile slowly faded from Angelica’s face.

19

On Wednesday morning, Katie got up half an hour earlier, just in case one of the children tried to come into their bed and found only her there. It wasn’t hard – she’d barely slept anyway, turning things over and over in her head.

Ross had clearly had the same idea because when she went into the kitchen he was already up, sorting out laundry and making breakfast for the children at the same time. He didn’t respond to her attempts at starting conversation about fabulous birthday treats when they all got back, so she shouldered her bag with a heavy, self-hating heart and drove off to work, her whole body filled with fog.

The site meeting took far longer than it was meant to, because it was raining, and when she got back, she was soaked and irritable.

‘You’ve got messages,’ said Scott, the second she walked in. He waved a string of Post-it notes at her. Since she’d bawled him out about messing up her holiday allocation, he’d adopted a bolshie work-to-rule attitude that was bringing out the worst in both of them.

‘Can you read them to me, please?’ Katie dumped her bag on the desk and started searching the drawers for her super-strength Tylenol. She was dying for the loo, and her head ached from the constant arguments and counter-arguments running through it.

‘Phone Jan in HR about your
new
holiday allowance, phone Paul Bailey about the maintenance contract on the sports centre, your car’s been clamped in the car park because your permit ran out yesterday  . . .’

Katie swallowed two tablets with a mouthful of cold coffee and with a superhuman effort summoned up a beady look. ‘Scott, as my assistant  . . . you’re meant to keep an eye on things like parking permits.’

‘I’m a graduate trainee,’ said Scott, huffily. ‘Like we established, I don’t have to do personal stuff.’

‘
Like we established
, that’s not personal stuff. It’s a company car.’ Katie took a deep breath and gave Scott her scary, level glare, the one that reduced wolf-whistling builders to meek apology. ‘Someone must have called up here to tell you my car had been ticketed. Before it was clamped.’

He waved further notes. ‘Yeah, if you’d let me finish – can you ring security about your car, can you ring security about your car again, and can you phone home?’

He said ‘phone home’ in exactly the same way that Eddie Harding said ‘phone home’.

Katie counted to ten in her head, pretended to be looking at something important on her emails, then when she was sure she could speak without hissing, said, ‘Thank you, Scott. Leave me the messages and I’ll get right on to them.’

It was ten past five. God alone knew how she’d made it through that far. Anyone else would have taken a day off to rescue their marriage, she told herself. Instead Katie was almost ashamed of what a relief the rhythms of work had been. There’s no point, she told herself. No point until Ross gets back and we talk.

Scott was hovering by the door, looking as if he was hoping to sneak off home early. He can forget that, thought Katie, spikily.

‘What?’ she snapped.

‘There was a personal call.’

Her heart thumped. Ross. Surely.

‘Can you ring your friend Jo,’ he added, as he sloped out of the door.

Once he was out of sight, Katie slipped her shoes off under her desk and rubbed her eyes. Jo. She’d have to tell her what had happened with Ross, if he was planning to mooch around ‘thinking’ while Jo looked after Hannah, Jack, Rowan and Molly, trying to pretend nothing was wrong. Maybe she should call it off, keep the kids at home with her. It was typical of Ross to think that
her
friend wouldn’t mind going away with him, in these circumstances. Poor Jo.

The answering machine cut in at Jo’s end, and Katie frowned, then dialled her mobile. Answering machine again.

It would be something about the surprise, she thought. A present for Hannah or what Ross might like. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain. Or ballroom dancing. Katie was acutely aware of her diary commitments now. Probably something about a bloody dress. Well, it’s too late for that.

She pressed redial and got the answering machine again.

She can’t want to talk to me that much, she thought, turning back to the forty-three emails that had appeared while she’d left her desk.

It wasn’t a conversation she was looking forward to having in any case. It could wait another ten minutes.

Katie tried to leave the office as soon as she could, to get back home so she and Ross could at least start to talk before he went away, but it took her half an hour to despatch Scott’s letters, which were riddled with grammatical errors and worryingly casual promises about forthcoming service provisions.

Finally, when the cleaners arrived, she forced herself to drive home. Jo still wasn’t answering her phone, and Katie left a short message, just saying she and Ross wouldn’t be coming to the ballroom class that evening and could she apologise to Angelica.

The lights were on downstairs as she let herself in, and the sound of Girls Aloud and excited children’s voices twanged her tense mood.

For Christ’s sake, she grimaced, how can we talk about our future with that racket going on?

She reined in the thought at once. Don’t be mean, Katie, she told herself. Look on the bright side, the kids are still up. I can spend some time with Hannah before she goes!

It was even more important now to be good to the kids. They weren’t to blame for what was going on, and they mustn’t think they were.

But what came out of her mouth when she went into the kitchen and discovered some kind of small-scale flapjack factory, complete with sticky, syrupy spoons, loose oats covering the floor, chocolate and margarine everywhere, including Hannah’s hair, was, ‘For God’s sake, Ross! What’s going on? This is meant to be wind-down time! Why are you filling them with
sugar
?’

Katie hated herself as soon as she said it.

Ross gave her a broad, obviously fake smile, but his eyes were dark and warning. He turned down the CD player just a little bit. ‘Oh, we’re just having fun! With Molly and Rowan!’

Now Katie looked, Jo’s older daughter, Molly, was stirring up bowls along with Hannah while Rowan was sucking her fingers happily, squashed into the beanbag chair with Jack. Rowan and Jack didn’t look remotely sleepy, and had chocolatey mouths, while Hannah was in her element, standing on a stool, cooking and bossing in her dancing tutu. Katie already knew something was afoot: Hannah loved making cakes, and Ross only had to show her the scales to get her to behave.

‘We’re making cakes!’ Hannah announced.

‘I can see! They look delicious!’ said Katie automatically. ‘But it’s nearly bath-time, isn’t it?’

‘Daddy! Help me with the tin!’

‘Let me have a quick word with Mummy and I will, sweetie,’ said Ross as he pulled Katie to one side. ‘Where’ve you
been
?’ he muttered urgently.

‘Site meetings,’ said Katie. ‘Is something up with Jo? I got a message from her, but she wasn’t picking up her phone, so—’

‘Greg’s walked out.’ Ross shot a quick sideways glance at Molly, who had almost as good a nose for trouble as Hannah, but she was happily sticking her fingers in the syrup tin. ‘He turned up out of the blue this afternoon, said they “needed to talk”. She was in a total state, so I brought the girls round here, and Jo and Greg have been talking at home ever since.’

Katie’s mouth dropped open, then, thinking of Molly and Hannah’s sharp eyes, she closed it at once. Remorse swept through her at the unanswered messages. ‘Oh my God. Really? Greg – he’s
walked out
? I can’t believe that. Is there someone else?’

‘I don’t know.’ She felt an uncomfortable reprimand in Ross’s expression. ‘Jo didn’t really go into details. I think she’d prefer to talk to you about it. But I thought the best thing to do was to keep Molly and Rowan busy here so Greg and Jo could  . . . I don’t know. Do whatever it is they’re doing.’

Katie tried to process it, but couldn’t. It didn’t make sense. Greg – responsible, hard-working, family man Greg – walking out? On Jo? The beautiful, home-making mother of his kids? It couldn’t be right: their marriage was fantastic. There had to be a reason. Maybe Ross hadn’t understood it properly. Maybe Greg had to move them away for work, or something, and Jo had refused. Or there was a problem with the business. Something like that.

Damn, she thought, helplessly. Why didn’t I ring again? Why didn’t I have my phone on?

Because you were at work, she reminded herself, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

‘I’ve had the girls here most of the afternoon,’ Ross went on. ‘We’ve run out of everything else to do, so in the circumstances, flapjacks seemed like the only  . . .’

‘Forget it, I didn’t realise, I’m sorry.’ Katie squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them, as her mind began running, sorting the problem into boxes. If it had happened this afternoon, then Greg might have gone. Jo would need someone there. She was probably going to pieces. ‘Well, is he still there? Did she say what’s happening? I mean, I assume he’s packing his bags – he’ll have to be the one to move out, not her, with the kids.’ She pushed her hair behind her ears, trying to remember what you were meant to do in the event of a huge bust-up. ‘I mean, if he has decided it’s over, she’ll need to get the locks changed as soon as possible.’

‘I don’t know the ins and outs,’ said Ross. ‘But I don’t know if she’s up to thinking about locks at the moment.’ He glanced back into the kitchen and frowned. ‘Hannah? No! Put that down. Wait for Daddy to do that, OK?’

Katie reached into her bag and pulled out her mobile, which she’d had on silent driving home. She had twelve missed calls, and it was already buzzing again.

Jo Home.

‘Jo?’ asked Ross.

‘Yes. Hello!’ she said, keeping one eye on his reaction.

He didn’t say anything; he only pointed towards the sitting room and turned his attention back to the chaos in the kitchen.

‘Wow! Molly! Those are the
best
flapjacks I’ve
ever
seen!’ she heard him marvel in a voice that bore no trace of the anxiety he’d shown a second ago. He didn’t want to upset the children. It was sensitive, and kind. It was typical of Ross, she realised, suddenly.

As he carried on talking over the excited gabbling, a bitter sweet little wave of affection for him washed over Katie’s heavy heart. He was good at being a dad. ‘Are you going to let me taste one? No? Oh, please?’ The girls squealed with delight.

He’s kind, she thought, staring at his long back, bending over to cuddle Hannah so the T-shirt pulled out of his jeans. He’s gentle.

‘Katie?’ said Jo. She sounded far away.

‘Jo, I’ve just got back in, what’s happened?’ she gabbled into the phone. ‘Do you want me to come over?’

‘Um, yes, please.’ Jo’s voice was high, and hoarse, as if she was trying hard to sound normal after hours of talking and yelling. ‘Are the girls all right? Are they upset?’