have I been shopping.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘You’ve really been and done the shopping thing this time?’
She squeezes his arm. ‘Just you wait and see.’
They are prone to little exchanges of inane conversation like this, where Fraser feels as if he’s in that programme, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, but just can’t think of any good lines.
He lights a cigarette for want of something better to do.
‘So … do you wanna see then?’ says Karen, after Fraser clearly hasn’t taken the hint.
‘Yeah, why not, go on then.’
She moves to the side of the street and opens up one of the plastic bags, which is pink and has the word FREED written on it. Fraser’s hands go clammy, his throat goes suddenly dry. It’s a shoebox and inside the box is a pair of leather dance shoes with a strap across and a square heel. The leather looks soft – he can smell it – and, even with his untrained eye, he can tell they cost a fortune.
Karen holds them up proudly, like a cat making an offering: ‘I just thought, do you know what? Bugger it. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it properly. I’m telling you, this dance thing is like a whole new world of retail opportunity!’
Thank you, Lord, they’re not for me.
‘Do you like them? The lady in the shop said they were the same as professionals wear.’
Fraser isn’t really au fait with dance shoes or what there is to like about them, so says the first thing that comes into his head: ‘They’ve got a very nice heel.’
Her face lights up.
‘Really? Do you think so?’
‘God, yeah, totally, a really, really good heel. Really good heel.’ Jesus. I hope you can see me, Olivia Jenkins, he thinks, and I hope you’re happy.
Fraser has seen adverts on Sky TV for salsa classes – in fact, he’s done a broadcast for one before; something about multicultural London – and they are always held in a dimly lit, buzzy bar, throbbing with Latino beats and unfeasibly attractive people: taut-bottomed men wearing cumberbunds and raven-haired beauties, that sort of thing. Not this one. This one is held in a mirrored studio, four flights of stairs above a shop selling bridal wear, and is complete with sprung floor and ballet barres around the edges – so bright, it makes you squint when you come in from the outside. Fraser may as well be naked, he feels so exposed, and wishes he’d done a bit more research than googling Salsa Classes in London and booking the first that came up.
To make matters worse, they’re early, so have to hang around whilst everyone arrives.
‘Gosh, this is very proper, isn’t it?’ whispers Karen excitedly as she takes off her trainers and gets changed into her new, professional shoes. ‘Takes me right back to dancing classes when I was little.’
Fraser feels a bit sick.
‘You didn’t tell me you’d done dance classes.’
‘Didn’t I? Oh, yeah. Distinction in Advanced Modern, me. Intermediate Ballet, gold medal three years running at the Hull Festival, I’ll have you know. I was going to audition for ballet school at one point before these buggers grew …’ She turns around and pushes her boobs together and Fraser has a flash of hope, once more, that maybe he is already a little bit in love with Karen after all.
It seems to take forever for everyone to arrive. Karen goes straight to the front where she starts chatting to a tall man in small, round glasses, whilst Fraser loiters at the back, feeling like a twelve-year-old at an adults’ party. He dares to look at himself in the mirror and regrets it. He looks ridiculous, like a youth offender brought in for ‘dance therapy’. He had no clue what to wear, so went for general fitness attire and is wearing shiny tracksuit bottoms, his running trainers and a FILA T-shirt bought in about 1991 which is too big for him and smells of his bedroom floor.
Everyone else is wearing normal, fashionable clothing, or professional dancewear. In particular, there’s a woman next to him who looks as if she’s pirouetted straight in from the set of Fame.
He smooths down his hair in a vague attempt to make himself look more presentable and sees Karen smile warmly then wink at him through the mirror. She seems to be getting on famously with the tall man in glasses. This is something Fraser greatly admires in Karen: her ability to be sociable and chirpy at all times – it’s why she makes such a good barmaid. Fraser has always found that hard, even more so these days. They are quite high up here and for some reason, as he looks out of the window, over the treetops thick with blossom, the evening spring sunshine glinting through the branches, he has a brief rush of something he remembers as happiness. Or hope. Is it hope? He closes his eyes, feels the warmth of the sun on his eyelids. He can do this. He can. He will do it for Liv.
‘OK, if you’re ready, shout, “SALSAAA!”’
Fraser nearly jumps out of his skin. Suddenly there is really loud music and a man at the front wearing a headset and wiggling his hips in a way that looks unnatural, not to mention painful.
‘SALSA!’ everyone shouts back, including Karen. How the hell does she know when to shout salsa?
‘Are we HAPPY?’ yells the man again – obviously the teacher or coach or instructor – what did they call them in the World of Dance? Fraser has no idea. The man’s gyrating his hips and shouting into the no-hands microphone that comes around the front of his face and reminds Fraser of the head-brace Norm used to have to wear at night when they were kids because his front teeth stuck out.
There’s a weak, affirmative dribble from the group.
‘Not GOOD ENOUGH!!!’ he tries again. ‘I said are you HAPPYYYYYY!!!?’
‘YES!’ everyone shouts, much louder this time.
Fraser remembers something Mia always tells him: ‘Fake it till you make it.’
Still, he can’t quite bring himself to shout ‘Yes’ back.
The instructor’s name is Calvin. He has a glorious Afro like a lion’s mane, a disgustingly toned body, which he is showing off to full effect in a tight, white vest, and buttocks that – as Liv would say – ‘you could crack a nut with’. Fraser could well hate his guts, were he not also in possession of the sunniest, most disarming smile he’s ever seen.
Calvin’s beauty, decides Fraser, is the sort that transcends a lifetime’s sexual orientation and he wonders if he might actually fancy him, just a tiny bit.
‘OK, hands up people if this is your first time today.’
His accent is hard to place – transatlantic mixed with something Latino: Brazilian perhaps, or Columbian. Whatever it is, it’s very, very cool.
Fraser puts his hand up, along with Karen, and is relieved to see at least ten other people out of the class of twenty or so doing the same.
‘Cosmic. Awesome. Right then, guys, well, we’re not going to worry, yeah?’ says Calvin, and Fraser can’t help but nod and smile. This man is like the sermon-giver of salsa. ‘We’re not going to cry, or let aaaanything get us down. We are going to salsa ourselves happy, OK?’ He flashes another amazing smile and lets out a laugh that sounds like pure sunshine. Again, Fraser feels the sides of his lips turn up – amazingly beyond his control.
‘I said, OK?’ He cups his ear, still shaking his hips, and this time Fraser manages at least to say the word ‘OK’.
‘Good. Awesome, my friends. THIS is what I like to hear.’
Five minutes in, any hopes Fraser had of possessing some untapped talent for salsa are dashed when it becomes clear he has no natural ability whatsoever. He is an appalling dancer – so appalling, it’s even