Salley Vickers - Dancing Backwards

FOURTH ESTATE • London

for Rosie & Co. a birthday book

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

e e cummings

Cover Page

Title Page Dancing Backwards Salley Vickers FOURTH ESTATE • London

Dedication for Rosie & Co. a birthday book

Epigraph For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) it’s always ourselves we find in the sea e e cummings

First Day FIRST DAY Chock-a-Block: full to capacity or overloaded. If two blocks of a ship’s rigging are so tight together that they cannot be tightened further they are said to be chock-a-block.

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Second Day

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Third Day

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Fourth Day

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Fifth Day

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Sixth Day

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Comic Turn

Also by Salley Vickers

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chock-a-Block: full to capacity or overloaded. If two blocks of a ship’s rigging are so tight together that they cannot be tightened further they are said to be chock-a-block.

‘What on earth have I done?’ Violet Hetherington asked herself.

She was standing in one of several queues in the dock at Southampton. The queues, by now spilling out of the cattle shed marked ‘Departures’, to board the Queen Caroline were long and none were moving. ‘It’s best to get to the docks late,’ her friend Annie had advised. ‘If you get there too early you can grow roots hanging about.’ Annie, married to a diplomat and full of advice, was a seasoned traveller. But on this occasion her advice was mistaken.

After a while an announcement came through the loudspeakers: there had been a ‘breakdown in the computer system’. In the face of this setback the atmosphere among the waiting passengers darkened. Some attempted patience, some brave souls even tried to rise to jollity but for the most part the mood became rebellious. The world was going to the dogs and they had paid good money—many were inclined to feel through the nose—for this voyage. It might be their last chance for a bit of luxury. That they could not even be got aboard efficiently did not promise well for the rest of the voyage.

Vi’s own instinct was to turn tail. She felt in her bag for her phone and discovered that it was missing. This was a good deal more annoying than the length of the queues. It confirmed an uneasy sense that the whole idea of this voyage was one of her mistakes. She hated any form of group activity and here she was, thrown to the lions, and entirely of her own doing. And now there was the nuisance of the phone. Either she had left the wretched thing behind or she had lost it at some point on the journey to the port. She couldn’t ring the minicab company to check because the number—along with all her other numbers—was stored in her phone. The very error that her elder son Harry was always counselling her to avoid.

Behind her in the queue, stood an approachable-looking couple. ‘I’m sorry but, stupidly, I seem to have left my mobile behind. I couldn’t borrow yours to make one call, could I?’

Vi rang Harry on the obliging couple’s phone and left a message asking him to ask Kristina, her Polish cleaner, if she would check to see whether the phone had been left behind. If it was not in her flat then she was going to be in trouble, since she had no other means of finding the numbers she needed in New York. A large part of her thought, Good riddance! But this she did not confide to Harry. Harry had come to the view early in life that, if not older than his mother, he was a good deal more worldly wise. Daniel, her younger son, was more sympathetic to her foibles but that was because he shared them. Dan might easily forget to give Kristina the message at all.

The couple whose phone she had borrowed remarked that they had also arrived late expecting to avoid the crowds. ‘It was a breeze last time,’ the woman, a tall blonde with a ponytail and cowboy boots, recalled. ‘We walked straight on. I’m Jen, by the way. He’s Ken.’

She nodded towards her companion, a broad-shouldered man with a lot of reddish chest hair. ‘Ken and Jen Morrison,’ the man said. ‘We’re a double singing act.’

‘Really?’ Vi was impressed. ‘I’m Violet Hetherington. Vi.’

‘He’s just kidding. Don’t be daft.’ Jen whacked her husband with a copy of Elle .

‘We did think of doing a singing act when we first met, because of Van Morrison,’ Ken explained. A gold Star of David was visible beneath his shirt. ‘But her over there sings like a neutered cat.’

‘Charming,’ Jen said equably. ‘Look out, we’re on the move.’

The press of people moved urgently forward, although, as Ken remarked, the boat could hardly leave without them. Reaching the head of their queue at last, Vi parted from the helpful Morrisons and was ushered towards a window where she handed over her travel documents, credit card and submitted to a photograph for the security pass that acted on the cruise in place of money. As she prepared to go aboard, a man stepped forward with another camera.

‘Is this necessary?’ She detested having her photo taken.

‘Smile nicely,’ a young woman in uniform suggested.

‘But is it a requirement?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I do not want another photograph of myself unless it is a requirement for boarding the ship.’

‘Not a problem,’ said the girl. ‘It just makes a nice souvenir of your trip.’ She made the hint of an eyebrow gesture towards the photographer, who was not bad-looking and was booked for the whole of the world cruise. ‘Go right ahead, madam.’

A couple already wearing Queen Caroline sweatshirts had squeezed past and were now blocking the way as they posed, arms round each other’s waists. Vi waited while they pronounced ‘Sex’ for the photographer and everyone had laughed heartily and then, thank goodness, she was walking up what she supposed would once have been a gangplank but was now an arcade adorned with ugly pots of artificial plants.

The ship’s foyer resembled one of the not-so-grand hotels that have set their sights too high. There were panels of shining fake walnut, extravagant cascades of chandeliers, polished brass plating and carpets patterned in the style commonly found at airports. Vi followed the signs to the ‘Elevators’ which were lined floor to ceiling with mirrors and crammed with passengers who, bedraggled from early morning starts, luggage disposal and the incurable anxiety induced by travel arrangements, might have preferred to be spared the sight of their multiple reflections.

Squashed against the side of the lift by a party of voluble Germans, Vi felt claustrophobia mount along with the lift, which moved upward, stopping at each floor to release a tide of thankful prisoners. But, at last, at the twelfth floor, she stepped out to freedom.

And, thank heavens, her room had the balcony she had requested. She had been anxiously rehearsing what to say if it had not. Ignoring Annie’s suggestion that she wait for a last-minute deal, she had thrown caution to the winds and paid the highest price she could afford in order to be sure of the sea.

The cabin was fitted out in the same would-be-luxury hotel style. The bathroom taps were in the shape of gilded swans, the beaks acting, disconcertingly, as spouts. The bedroom was plain enough, with a double bed covered by a heavy gold counterpane, a desk and chair, a brown velour sofa and, on the wall, three pictures: a field of poppies, a still life of some seashells and a solemn-looking couple in what appeared to be Dutch national dress.