class members. ‘The older one? That’s Dolly. She and Miss Mimi have been friends since they were chorus girls together in the West End. She moved to Elmhurst after her husband died.’
I watched the older woman with interest. Dolly couldn’t have looked more different from Miss Mimi if she’d tried. While Mimi was still petite and slim, Dolly had hardened and thickened with age, until she looked remarkably like that actress—Hattie what’s-her-name—who’d starred in the Carry On films.
‘You don’t want to get on the wrong side of her,’ Donna warned. ‘Her bite is definitely every bit as scary as her bark.’
I leaned over a little to catch a look at the woman who was tapping away beside Dolly, almost in her shadow. Donna followed her gaze. ‘Ruth,’ she said. ‘Been coming about a year, but I can’t tell you any more than that. She hardly ever opens her mouth.’
I took a good look at the woman. She was blonde, about mid-forties, and her make-up and hair was done very nicely, her clothes neat and very precise. She was tall and very slim and her arms hung off her rounded-in shoulders like sleeves from a coat hanger. With every move she made, she seemed to be apologising for taking up space.
She couldn’t be more different from the perky twenty-something blonde standing next to her, who looked as if she was ready to jump up and do a solo, given half the chance.
‘That’s Amanda. Don’t mind her. She makes a lot of noise, likes to blow her own trumpet, but she’s basically harmless. So that’s us …’ Donna said matter-of-factly, then turned as someone slipped in the door and headed for the chairs at the back. ‘Tell a lie,’ she added. ‘It seems we have a latecomer …’
I had half an eye on Donna and half an eye on the combination of shuffle hops and ball changes with a ‘break’ (whatever that was) that Miss Mimi was teaching us. However, when the latecomer finished putting on her tap shoes and stood up, my mouth dropped open.
Was that … was it really? No! It couldn’t be!
Nancy?
Nancy Mears—my partner in crime from twenty years ago at Miss Mimi’s! I wondered if I’d got it wrong, if it was really her, but when she joined in with Dolly and Ruth, spotting her turns perfectly, I knew I hadn’t been mistaken.
Oh, my goodness!
I tried to catch her eye as she took her turn and walked up the long edge of the hall to start again in the opposite corner, but she didn’t glance in my direction.
‘Come on, Philippa!’ Miss Mimi said with a chuckle, and I realised I was standing alone in the corner and that Donna and Victoria had already shot off across the floor without me. I forgot all about Nancy and charged after them.
I had no chance to catch up with her through the rest of the class, either, because the pace picked up and the steps got more complicated. It took every brain cell I had to even try and make it look as if I was keeping up.
There was even one moment when Miss Mimi yelled, ‘Time steps!’ and the whole class moved as one synchronous unit, looking amazing, and I was just left standing in my place, looking gormless with my mouth hanging open.
Donna, who I was quickly becoming dependent on, came over and tried to break it down for me. I managed the shuffle hop at the beginning, but kept ending up on the wrong leg. I was just about to ask her where I was messing up, but there was a flicker above our heads, then without warning the lights went off and we were all left standing in the middle of the hall in pitch darkness.
‘Everybody stay where they are!’ Miss Mimi called out, reminding me of how she’d shepherded the three- and four-year-olds around in the Babies ballet class. ‘I expect it’s just a bulb that’s gone.’
Donna squinted up at the ceiling in the darkness. ‘I think it might be more than that … I mean, all the lights are out.’
‘And the music’s gone off,’ Amanda added.
I made my way gingerly to where I thought I’d left my bag and patted around on the plastic chairs until I found it, then I pulled my phone out and turned on the torch facility. Once I’d illuminated the small area where we’d left our belongings, Donna and Amanda did the same.
‘What do you think it is?’ Victoria asked in her soft voice. ‘A power cut?’
‘Hang on,’ Donna said and stood on a chair so she could peer through one of the windows that looked on to the street. ‘It’s definitely not a power cut. The street lights are on.’
‘Probably the fuse, Mimi,’ Dolly shouted as Donna, Amanda and I headed back to the rest of the group. ‘Where’s yer box, girl?’
‘Oh, pfff,’ Mimi said, and without actually being able to see her properly, I knew she’d just made an expansive hand gesture. ‘Who needs electricity, anyway? Our feet are rhythm enough and I’m sure there are some candles backstage from the Christmas show a few years ago. We can dance away in the candlelight until the moon rises.’ She sighed. ‘Ah, that reminds me of a night I spent in Paris once …’
‘The fuse box might be better?’ I said quickly. Not only did I remember how cluttered it had used to get behind the little stage at the far end of the hall, but I knew from helping to arrange many of Ed’s gigs over the years that if something happened to any of them during their candlelight dance—God forbid Dolly or Mimi fell over and broke a hip—Mimi better have pretty good public liability insurance. ‘Do you know where it is?’
Miss Mimi, however, quickly swiped Amanda’s phone and headed towards the stage area. Dolly shook her head and marched up to Donna, Amanda and I. ‘Can one of you girls shine your thingamajig this way?’ she asked, pointing towards the door which led to a row of small rooms that nestled behind the stage area.
‘I can,’ I said.
Donna moved to go with me but then stopped. ‘I’d come with you, but I think someone with a light better stay here and keep an eye on our fearless leader,’ she said, nodding in the direction of the stage, where Mimi was trying to part the thick brown velvet curtains and not having much luck in the murky light.
I nodded and followed Dolly through the door into a short narrow corridor. To the left there was a door that led to the storage area behind the stage, to the right a small kitchen and at the end of the corridor there was Miss Mimi’s office. I knew that because the laminated sign stuck to it with Blu-Tack said so in large curly letters, and from the profusion of ballet shoes and dancing figures round the edges, I suspected it had the same designer as the posters out in the vestibule.
‘What’s that up there?’ Dolly asked, peering into the darkness. I pointed my phone so the light shone where the walls, painted in a rather sickly shade of pale green, met the ceiling. Sure enough, amongst the ceiling stains and peeling paint there was something that looked like a fuse box. ‘You any good with those things?’ Dolly asked, eyeing it up suspiciously.
‘Not bad,’ I said, putting my hands on my hips. That was the good thing about having a husband who didn’t give a hoot about DIY; if I’d wanted anything done around our flat I’d really had to Do It Myself. I allowed myself a small moment of
