Dancing Backwards Read Online Free Page A

Dancing Backwards
Book: Dancing Backwards Read Online Free
Author: Salley Vickers
Tags: Fiction
Pages:
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that either.

3
    The first time Des saw Mrs Hetherington she was sitting a little way off so that he couldn’t see her hands. Des liked to see the hands because this gave him valuable information. Nail polish or no nail polish, rocks or no rocks. You could gather quite a lot from such clues. She attracted notice because she had that air of being a little apart, with her attention not on the room and the other passengers, as was the case with most of the single women who came for tea, but directed only at the sea.
    ‘Any idea who she is?’ he asked Boris. ‘The skinny one in the corner over there.’
    Boris was Ukrainian, one of the many Eastern Europeans who had been joining the staff of the shipping lines in droves. They were unpopular among their colleagues. Having acquired stamina under regimes founded by Stalin, they were willing to work longer hours than those raised on more easygoing political systems. There was a general feeling that if the redundancies which were threatened struck, they would take advantage.
    Boris adjusted one of the immaculate white gloves worn by the waiters serving tea. ‘Mrs Hetherington, Deck Twelve, singleoccupancy. I think she is not with anyone. But your guess is as good as mine.’
    The Eastern Europeans’ command of English idiom, which they appeared to pick up with demonic cleverness, was another ground for complaint, particularly with the British staff who were naturally suspicious of any ability with other languages.
    Des, however, was Italian, at least on his father’s side.
    ‘She dance?’
    Boris raised bored aristocratic eyebrows. Long ago, his family had owned serfs, and vast tracts of woodland where wolves had loped. In the family annals it was alleged that on nights when the moon was full an ancestor of Boris’s had loped alongside the wolves.
    Des made his way over to the thin woman’s table and noted that she already had a pot of tea. ‘Can I ask the waiter to get you anything to eat, Mrs Hetherington? A pastry maybe? Some sandwiches?’
    ‘You know my name!’ She had flushed.
    ‘It is our business to get to know our guests, madam.’
    ‘Of course.’ She looked bothered. ‘I don’t think I want to eat anything, thanks. I seem to have done nothing but eat since I came on board.’
    ‘You can afford to. You are so slim.’ Plenty of rocks and no wedding band but a big diamond on the ring finger of the left hand.
    ‘I came to watch the dancing.’
    ‘But you are looking at the sea.’
    She seemed to like this approach better. ‘Until there is dancing I would rather look at the sea than at cake.’
    ‘You dance?’ No nail polish either.
    ‘No.’
    ‘But you like to watch it?’
    ‘My steward wanted me to.’
    ‘Your steward?’ The guy must be a smooth worker if she had formed a crush on him already.
    ‘I offended him so I’m being polite and following his suggestion, you see.’
    ‘I see,’ Des said. Maybe the woman was a little touched. ‘Well, enjoy yourself with the sea, Mrs Hetherington. There’s plenty of it.’
    Five days a week the ship’s band played for the tea dance in the King Edward Lounge hosted by pair of professional dancers, Marie and George, whose photographs (George in tails, Marie in glittering-bodiced costumes, winning prizes in competitions as far apart as Eastbourne and Barcelona) were available for sale at the rostrum. The pair had been hired by the Caroline to give presentation dances at the regular evening balls and to run the five-times-a-week dance lessons (‘11 to 12 noon in the Tudor Room, bring suitable shoes’). The tea dances allowed a further opportunity for passengers to try out the steps they had learned at the classes. In order to accommodate the large numbers of single female passengers additional male dance hosts were employed.
    Des had begun to learn to dance at the age of six at Miss Butler’s Dance School. His mother, at the age of not quite fifteen, had visited southern Italy with a school coach party.
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