Dance Lessons Read online

  Once, a long time ago, back when she was just a kid, she used to play this mind game. Like, Cat used to imagine that one of the boyfriends would actually turn out to be her real dad. It used to go like this: They’d be in their flat, her and Mum, or in one of the boyfriend’s flats, and suddenly, Mum would call up to the living room or the kitchen to where Cat was watching the telly and Mum would say, “Catherine, babes, can you come in here a sec? We’ve got something to tell you.”

  And there they’d be, Mum and this guy, sitting there on the bed, sitting straight up, feet on the floor and arms folded, just dying to tell her their secret: “Catherine, Frank (or Trevor or Fawad or Richie or . . . well, whatever) is actually your father, your real father. We wanted to keep it a surprise.”

  Once, at a party in someone’s flat, a party down in Earls Court, one of Mum’s Irish friends told Cat that once, years and years ago, Mum had this boyfriend in Ireland. A boy she was in love with. Like, long before Mum ever moved here.

  Then last year, when Cat was fifteen, they actually went there, to Ireland, to that village called Gowna and her gran’s grotty little house in a tiny lane. And on the way there, they stayed at another house, a house with a really, really old woman named Kitty, which Mum said was really Cat’s name, the woman that Cat was named after and, therefore, was sort of her grand auntie. The old woman Kitty started crying when she saw Cat.

  Dublin was cool. For three nights, they stayed in that house in Dublin, and the woman Kitty made them hot chocolate and stuff. Each night, Cat fell asleep listening to Mum and her talking downstairs.

  After Dublin, they had to take a train then a bus to that awful little Gowna place, the place her mum grew up.

  Mum called it their summer holiday. Which was a laugh, when all the girls at Cat’s comprehensive were gone off to Spain or Lanzarotte, and here were Cat and Carmel Cawley stuck in that village where, when Cat went walking down to the corner shop, the woman kept gawking at her and saying, “Oh, you’re Carmel’s daughter? Home from England are ye? Really?”

  Mum’s brother, Cat’s uncle Tony, took them out on the lake in his rowing boat and Cat refused to wear sun cream and Mum got pissed off with her and anyway, the lake and the boat were boring. At night Mum and her brother went down the village to this little hotel, where they brought Cat along, ’cos Gran always went to bed early. Every night Mum and Uncle Tony got really rat-arsed trashed.

  Now Terrence turns the car into Charlemont Street. She steals another look across at him. Ugly sod. Oh, and there’s a little spot of blood where he must’ve nicked himself shaving. Good. Serve him bloody right.

  Then at last, he turns into Smith Street, the street with the Red Dragon Chinese restaurant and Miss Jarkowski’s dance studio, though the studio never has any sign outside, unless you count the handwritten one at the top of the stairs.

  “Um . . . this is fine,” Cat says. “Honest. I can walk the rest.” Because even though it’s a nice big car and everything, she can’t let the other girls, the other girls in the Saturday dance lessons, actually see Terrence.

  But he drives on like he hasn’t heard.

  And then, they’re parked outside the Red Dragon with the silver security shutters over the window that the Chinese man will come and pull up soon, rat-tat-tat, and they’ll start cooking their food that you can smell all the way upstairs in the dance studio.

  “Thanks. See you,” Cat says, clutching her backpack and one hand already on the car door handle.

  “Hey!” Terrence says, laughing. “Hey!” Then he clutches her shoulder, that big stupid hand on her new Hilfiger T-shirt. “Hey, you’re in a right hurry this morning, aren’t you?”

  “Miss Jarkowski’s dead pissed off when we’re late.”

  Then he lifts himself off the driver’s seat, like he’s going to scratch his arse or fart or something. Terrence takes a wallet from his back pocket and takes out twenty quid and hands it to her, just like that. “Just like your mother, aren’t you? You and Carmel?” Terrence winks at her. “Should’ve been twins. Love your nice gear and your makeup and all that. Go on, then. Buy yourself something after your class.”

  Oh, yeah. Must’ve been an extra big fight with Mum last night.

  “Oh, thanks,” Cat says, taking the twenty quid. And then she gives him a little smile. “Oh, when my Mum gets up, tell her I’ll ring her on my mobile. Bye!”

  She opens the car door and hurries across to the red door next to the Red Dragon and up the dark, narrow stairs to her Saturday morning lesson.

  Except for Miss Jarkowski herself, Cat Cawley is always the first one here on Saturdays mornings, the first girl to push in the door to the shadowy studio, no lights on yet, just the daylight from the front windows and the reflected light from the mirrored wall.

  This morning, Cat can hear Miss J is talking to someone on the office phone, and there’s the usual whiff of cigarettes through the shut office door. Some of the other girls said that Miss J actually lives there, that she sleeps on her office couch and the Chinese guys let her use their downstairs shower.

  Cat thumps across the dance floor to the two bamboo screens set in the corner where she sets her backpack on the chair, unzips it for her purple leggings and her tank top.

  Now Cat crosses the floor again. It’s still so cool, this big, silent room, watching her own reflection, her short, Goth-black hair with the fringe cut at an angle over her eyes. Miss Jarkowski never lets them switch on the laptop and the music. So Cat hums a song to herself and practices her dance moves in the mirror. It’s actually worth setting her alarm for and even having to listen to Terrence’s shit. Yeah, there’s absolutely nothing better than practicing her moves, all alone in the red mirrored room.

  Here, Cat can forget about the girls at school—how one day they sit beside her at lunchtime, then, on another day, they suddenly decide they hate her again. This year, it’s another new school ’cos her and Mum have moved into Terrence’s. Dancing, she never even thinks about those stupid cows. And she even forgets about Mum back home asleep in Terrence’s big bed. Mum who has quit her job again and been really kind of weird lately.

  22

  DANCE CLASS IS OVER and Cat is just crossing the floor to the studio door when Miss J shouts over all the girls’ chattering voices. “Um . . . Catherine,” Miss Jarkowski says. “Yes, you. Could you come into the office please?”

  Crap. So Mum’s Visa didn’t go through again. And now Miss J’s going to kick Cat Cawley out of class.

  Miss J’s office desk is always packed with papers and DVDs and stuff.

  “Catherine,” Miss Jarkowski says. Cat braces for the usual speech: like, how the dance studio’s not a charity, blah, blah.

  “Sit,” Miss J says, nodding at the blue office chair across the desk from where the teacher is standing and smoking. “Move all that stuff.” Cat takes a stack of printed flyers from the chair, sets them on the desk and sits. Then Miss J just stands there inside the window, her black bushy hair and her bony shoulders silhouetted by the open window. She points to this printed e-mail in front of her. “Catherine, there’s this show. I’d like you to audition for it; they’ve got two teenage girl parts open, and you know, I think you could get in. You’re really quite good. Though of course, you absolutely have to practice more.”

  Then Miss J goes on about other stuff. Cat watches her mouth moving, but the truth is that Cat can’t actually hear anymore, can’t hear the actual words. Because inside her head she’s repeating her dance teacher’s words to herself. A show. An audition. Miss J says I’m good.

  Then Miss J’s gawking straight at Cat, and Cat knows that she’s just asked her some question that Cat is supposed to answer. Miss J raises her dark eyebrows and goes, “The audition’s on Wednesday night, and I’ll go with you, of course. But if you got in, if you got one of the spots, then you’d have to actually be there, twice each week for practice.” Miss J taps the sheet of paper with a pen. “You must commit. No saying ‘yes’ when you actually don’t turn
up. You’d—have—to—commit.”

  Still Cat just sits there letting the words go plop-plop-plop through her head. She’s asking me to audition for a show, a real show. Good. She says I’m good.

  Miss J gets tired of waiting for Cat to say something. She hands Cat the piece of printed paper. “Look, have your mother take a look at this and then tell her to let me know, yes? Have her ring me by Monday morning, all right? Here. At the office. Or no, I’ll give you my mobile number.”

  Cat is on the tube, the Piccadilly line and standing just inside the door, her backpack over one shoulder. The guy next to her smells of fried onions.

  Mum hasn’t texted her back. Weird. Since Cat left the dance studio, since she ran out of Miss J’s office and down the stairs, Cat has rung Mum three times already. But Mum’s phone just keeps going to voice mail. She’s just got to tell Mum her news.

  Cat checks her mobile again. Come on Mum. Answer back.

  Terrence’s car is gone from outside the house. Fab. So now they’ll have the afternoon together, just her and Mum.

  Cat turns her key in the front door. “Mum! Mu-um! Hey, guess what? You’ll never guess!”

  Cat goes to their bedroom. There’s a radio playing. It’s Mum’s clock radio next to the bed. But there’s no Mum, just the duvet pulled back and Mum’s nightie there on the floor. Cat checks the en suite, then goes back up the corridor to the kitchen. “Hey! Mum! You here?”

  Terrence’s overflowing ashtray is still there on the kitchen table, his dirty coffee cup from this morning, the Daily Mail left open at the sports pages. There’s a smell of toast, fresh toast, so at least Mum’s had breakfast already.

  Wait. There’s someone downstairs, in Cat’s basement bedroom. Mum? No, Mum knows it really pisses her off if Mum just goes down there. Or Terrence? What if Terrence’s parked his car ’round the corner and he’s down there just nosing about in Cat’s stuff?

  Cat is halfway down the wrought-iron stairs to the basement. “Hel-lo?” She’s afraid now. What if it’s not Mum or Terrence, but someone who broke in through those street-level windows? “Mum, is that you?”

  Two more steps down, then she leans over the banister and there’s Mum standing there. Yeah, well, there’s a relief.

  Then Cat sees that Mum’s actually dragging things from her built-in, Cat’s tops, jackets, jeans, the empty hangers jangling.

  Cat rushes down the rest of the steps and across the room. “Mum! That’s my stuff! What are you doing with my stuff?”

  “Packing, Catherine,” Mum calls over her shoulder, as she pulls out more stuff. “Packing. What’s it look like I’m doing? We’ve only got about an hour ’til that wanker gets back here.”

  Then Mum turns around and she pushes the bundle of clothes at Cat. “Here, get these into a bag. I already rang my friend Sasha. We can stay with her for now.”

  It’s a bruise. There’s a big red bruise under Mum’s right eye.

  The words trudge through Cat’s mind: My mum’s got a big bruise on her face. So she fell downstairs or bumped into a door. Again.

  No, says the other voice inside Cat’s head. No. You silly twit. Someone hit her, someone hit my mum.

  Now Mum crosses to Cat’s dressing table, yanks open the top drawer and starts pulling out Cat’s knickers and thongs.

  “Mu-um!” Cat pleads, dumping her clothes on the bed to walk over and catch Mum’s elbow, to stop her pulling all her knicks out of the drawer. “Mum. We can’t move. Not again. ’Cos Miss Jarkowski said I might be able to get into a show, a real dance show. She says she’s got to talk to you.”

  Turning, Mum aims Cat’s knicks toward the bed but she misses, so they land, one by one, fluttering onto the brown carpet. “Catherine, just for once, just this once, you have to get a bloody move on. Or I’m gonna leave this stuff behind. Now just put all these in a bag.”

  Then, Carmel Cawley yanks open the second drawer and everything from the dressing table top—Cat’s eye pencils and lip gloss and CDs—go crashing.

  “Mu-um,” Cat pleads, feeling the tears in her throat, hard stinging tears and hearing how blubbery her voice sounds. “Aw, for Chrissake, Mum!”

  Then Carmel turns on her daughter. “What? What part of ‘getting a sodding move on’ don’t you understand?”

  “But Miss Jark—”

  Mum moves closer to Cat, her eyes really crazy now, until their noses are almost touching, mother and daughter. Mum’s been crying. Cat can tell. Mum touches the bruise. “And this, Catherine! What part of this do you not understand?”

  It blurts out before Cat can stop herself. “But . . . but Mum, Miss Jarkowski’s got this show and she actually wants me to audition!”

  “Christ, Catherine, I wish I never let you enroll in that dance place. I should never have let you talk me into those bloody dance lessons of yours.”

  23

  CAT STUDIES the back of the van driver’s head, his black, greasy hair over his shirt collar, his head barely topping the back of his driver’s seat.

  He was waiting at the train station for them, just standing there waving them over and pronouncing their name—Cawley—in his foreign accent and getting it all wrong. Her and Mum followed him to a white van with “Cripton Academy” written in curly letters along the side, beneath the van’s side windows.

  He put Mum and Cat’s suitcases in the back, and then he drove them along this road with all these trees and a roadside sign for a garden center. After the garden center, there were just more trees and then these really big houses like you’d see on telly or in a school history book.

  Now here they’re actually in the town—Cripton. Hey, here’s a High Street, which doesn’t seem that bad, really. The usual shops, lots of shops, a Tesco and a Sainbury’s and two pubs with black window shutters and flower boxes on the windowsills.

  Cat’s starving. Except for a Mars bar, which she bought while Mum was buying their train tickets at Victoria, she’s had nothing since this morning.

  All the way down here on the train from Victoria they haven’t spoken, her and Mum. And now they’re still not speaking as they’re being driven in this van to this boarding school called Cripton Academy, where they get a free flat ’cos Mum’s got this new job working in the school kitchen.

  The truth is that Cat’s gotten used to not talking. Actually, it’s been like this ever since they left Terrence’s place that Saturday, when they moved into Mum’s friend Sasha’s flat and slept on her living room couch. Cat hasn’t spoken to Mum since Mum made her ring and tell Miss Jarkowski that “thanks but no thanks,” that she can’t, after all, make that audition. No chance of an audition when your things are all stuffed in two suitcases—first in Mum’s friend Sasha’s flat, and now in the back of a school van. Not when your Mum’s all mopey and dead pissed off.

  The only good part has been that, when Cat came home early afternoon, arrived up the stairs to Sasha’s flat without her school backpack and without even pretending to have been at school that day, Mum didn’t even ask why Cat’s skipped school again. It was like Mum was suddenly blind, like, couldn’t even look across Sasha’s little kitchen and see her, a sixteen-year-old daughter standing there, all smelling of fags and with no homework and no backpack and her nose all runny from just taking the tube and then getting off at a random station, any station at all, and then just walking around that place, a different place every day, just walking around and looking in the cafés and shops or nicking a CD and then sitting in the park with her headphones on.

  On the train, Cat ate the rest of her Mars bar and kept her headphones on and just watched the backs of other people’s houses and offices. Actually, she’d stopped caring where they were going; didn’t care what this new place and Mum’s new job were going to be like.

  An hour and a half, the train journey was, which could’ve been worse. So now, for her dance class on Saturdays, Cat’s going to have to get up at about six o’clock, and she’s going to have to figure how to get from this academy place to the tr
ain station. Unless this poor sod driving this van can drive her there. Maybe he’s got to drive everybody everywhere.

  The Cripton High Street shops and buildings are gone. Now there’s two lanes of traffic and then a roundabout with signs for all these other towns and a big green sign for a shopping center.

  After the roundabout, the man takes this road with more big houses, some with ivy growing on their garden walls.

  Cat sneaks a look across at Mum, who has her elbow resting on the van’s window ledge, her chin set in her upturned hand.

  It’s been three weeks since they left Terrence’s place. Sasha’s place was cool, and Cat liked Sasha and Sasha’s partner, Joel. But the pullout couch in their living room was really wobbly. More than once, Cat overheard Sasha saying, “You should just go to the police, Carmel. You really should. Look, I’ll go with you. He can’t just get away with it, babes. He just can’t.”

  Did she? Mum, like, did she go to the police and tell them all about Terrence? Ugly wanker! Mum’s never said. Often, lying awake at night on that wobbly couch with the street lights all reflected and shiny on the ceiling above their couch, Cat imagined Terrence’s face on the telly news. She pictured him being taken away in a van, except that van was black and Terrence was handcuffed—big handcuffs with spiky edges. And there was a big Alsatian dog sniffing at Terrence’s arse.

  Mum’s bruise turned purple first, then yellow. Now, in the Cripton Academy van, you can still just see it, even though Mum’s started wearing lots and lots of makeup.

  The van driver changes gears, then slows to turn in between a set of stone pillars, one with a white sign with black letters, “Cripton Academy.”

  They drive down this avenue with speed bumps and lots of trees on each side. Cat ducks her head to see the buildings beyond the trees, at the end of these huge lawns.