Fiona Harper - The Summer We Danced

With that, Miss Mimi crumbled. ‘Very well, then,’ she said, sighing. ‘Thank you, Philippa.’

I nodded and made a mental note that I was going to get Miss Mimi to use the shortened form of my name if it killed me. Now Mum was gone, nobody called me Philippa any more.

I resumed my discussions with the woman from the electric company and five minutes later everything was sorted. I rubbed my face with my hands and let out a weary breath.

The organiser inside me wanted to keep going at the office, to conquer this mountain of paper and plant a tiny little Union Jack in it, but my inner sloth was whispering—very sensibly, I might add—that I’d already been here for hours and it was cold and damp, and my inner gannet was chiming in and adding that I’d be much better off going to find something to eat, preferably involving bread and melted cheese.

After a moment or two of dithering, the argument went the way it usually did. I stood up in a purposeful manner and heaved my handbag over my shoulder. ‘Right. I’m taking you down to the Doves for a latte and a panini. No arguments.’

Miss Mimi opened her mouth to object, but I held up a hand. It seemed I was getting a handle on this ‘being feisty’ thing. ‘I said “no arguments”.’

Maybe the whole episode had worn Miss Mimi out more than I’d realised, because she didn’t even try to talk me round. Instead she said, ‘Well, that sounds lovely, cherie. I’d rather have a coffee and a sandwich, if you don’t mind, though.’

I headed for the door and started down the corridor, hiding a smile. ‘I don’t mind at all.’

However, after a couple of seconds I realised it was very quiet in the damp, dark corridor and noticed Miss Mimi hadn’t followed me. I hitched my bag up on my shoulder and retraced my steps.

I found her back in the office, looking rather pale. She had one hand braced against a bookcase, the other pressed to her chest. I dropped my bag and ran over. ‘Miss Mimi! Are you okay?’

She flapped a hand, tried on a smile which didn’t stick, but said nothing. She seemed to be having trouble drawing enough breath. ‘I-it’s fine,’ she eventually managed. ‘I get a little bit of vertigo now and then. It was all that bending over and standing up again looking for the bill … It just made me a little dizzy.’

I faltered, not sure if I should go and help her walk or not. Miss Mimi had never liked to make a fuss, not unless she’d planned and stage-managed the whole thing for her own benefit, of course. I ended up compromising by going and helping her with her coat, then leaving a hand under her elbow as we made our way outside.

‘You’re sure you’re okay?’ I asked again as Miss Mimi locked up the hall.

‘Right as rain!’ she replied, giving me a dazzling smile and pulling herself up straight, proving that a dancer’s posture never left her, not even in a crisis. ‘Stop looking at me like that! I told you … I’m fine.’

The grey tinge to her skin told me otherwise. ‘I really think it might be a good idea to see a doctor. I could take you into Swanham, to A&E, if you’d like …?’

Miss Mimi gave me the kind of sweet smile she used on truculent children who refused to point their toes properly when instructed. ‘Now, don’t go on, Philippa … Let’s have that coffee and if I’m still feeling peaky after I’ve had some food I’ll think about it. Besides, I’ve got something I want to discuss with you.’

‘You have?’

‘I have,’ she said, and tucked her arm through mine as she steered me down the narrow pavement in the direction of the pub. ‘I’ve been thinking that I don’t need to put an ad in the Swanham Times for a new administrator, because I’ve already found the perfect person—you!’

I did a double take. ‘Me?’

‘Why not? You did a marvellous job this morning. It’d only be part time, mind. What do you think?’

I blinked, trying to process this sudden twist in the conversation. ‘I think I’d be very interested,’ I said. Now Christmas was over, the supermarket was cutting my shifts and I’d been looking for something else to bring more cash in. Ed’s maintenance covered the basics but not much else.

More than that, despite the frustration, it felt good to be needed, and even better to be doing something I knew I was good at—organising things, creating order out of chaos.

‘I don’t have much experience of working in an office, though.’

Miss Mimi batted my response away with one large flap of her false eyelashes. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Anyway, let’s go and discuss it over one of those latte thingies …’

It was only when I got home later that afternoon that I realised she’d neatly sidestepped the issue of going to the doctor’s.

I arrived promptly at the dance school after lunch the following Monday. Miss Mimi and I had agreed that there was no time like the present. For the first time in … well, as long as I could remember … I was actually, truly excited about the day’s work ahead of me.

My part-time job at the supermarket certainly didn’t push those buttons and working alongside Ed had been all about what Ed needed and what was good for the band, rather than a fulfilling career for me. Not that Ed had been selfish about it, demanding anything horrendous of me, and I’d been more than happy to help him reach his dreams. It hadn’t been until he’d moved on, however, that I’d realised there was a big, dark hole where my personal aspirations should have been.

I knew Miss Mimi’s School of Dancing wasn’t big business. I knew I wasn’t going to become a millionaire working there or win any Nobel prizes, but that didn’t bother me in the slightest. I’d be helping someone I cared about, doing something I was good at. I finally had a sense of purpose and it felt marvellous.

When I arrived at the hall I was relieved to see all the lights on and the temperature was warm enough that I automatically shrugged my coat off. Miss Mimi was rosy-cheeked and happily working out a routine for the Monday evening jazz class. (Was it really safe for someone her age to be kicking that high?) There was no hint of the frailness that had hung around her on Saturday. I could almost believe I’d imagined it.

I made my way down the corridor to the office. Once inside, I closed the door behind me and leant against it. I smiled as I looked around. Right, I thought. Where do I start?

My thoughts turned to the red electricity bill. Surely, the best thing to tackle first was the finances. Who knew what other payments might have been overlooked? And I needed to get an idea of how much money came in and out, so I could suggest a budget for any future big payments.

I hunted in one of the bookshelves, where I remembered seeing some handwritten accounts ledgers, and started to flick through them. They were thoroughly kept in a neat hand. Not Miss Mimi’s extravagant loops, that was for sure, and it didn’t look like Sherri’s enthusiastic round, squat writing either, which meant these must have been Dinah’s work. My theory was confirmed when I discovered I couldn’t find any books for the last two tax years, which was when Miss Mimi had said Dinah had moved to Portugal.

I put them back on the shelf and carried on my search. Surely, Miss Mimi had to have some kind of financial records since her full-time administrator had quit?

Ten minutes later I found what I was looking for. It wasn’t a proper accounts ledger, but a handful of large, hardback notebooks. Each page was labelled with a year and a month and then there was a list of fees that had come in and payments that had gone out, but I couldn’t find any corresponding bank statements. I guessed that looking for profit and loss statements or balance sheets would probably be a waste of time.