The Downfall Of A Bellydancer

Prologue The time for realising your potential often slips by unnoticed. “My Rodger is building a shed,” I said, but no one was listening; no one even looked at me. They were all engrossed, hell-bent on trying to look like King Tut concubines. Except, of course, for Mavis – she was pulling faces in the mirror like a seventeen-year-old attempting his first shave. She had new false eyelashes and was under the impression that it would take years off a face that had been around the block and back again. Mavis is the oldest in the Sisterhood, my belly dancing troupe; who, along with the others, was trying on outfits for my latest Sisterhood extravagance, oblivious to the cold and me, their mentor. “Rodger is erecting something, and it’s not making me happy,” I shouted. That shut them up, all three of them. They stopped, looked up, and stared at me like I had taken my bra off and revealed three breasts. No one said anything; we all stared at each other until a finger cymbal rolled from the table and clanged onto the floor. Then it started, the jokes about erecting; just like I knew it would. My troupe has never needed any encouragement when it came to innuendos. My troupe – the Sisterhood – has entertained, and shimmied all over the Scottish Highlands with an earthiness that has been talked about in all the local papers. We were women of a certain age, who wore sequins over our curves and glittered up our wrinkles for all to see. Nothing stopped us, no poorly lit photograph in the local paper, or half-asleep pensioner snoring in the back of the row; we danced come rain, hail or shine. We were women proud of every curve, every shake and every step. Belly dancing is more than a dance, it is a celebration. It keeps things oiled, lubricated and ready for anything. It is better than any HRT or antidepressant and fabulous when one is… celibate. I mean, no woman is past her sell-by date in belly dancing, even Mavis and her fake eyelashes. And who better to teach, inform and mentor than the great Nefertiti herself – a woman made; no, designed to dance. As I often say to my girls, “Belly dancing oils the ovaries.” I inspire others, I can tell you! However, tonight I was beginning to wonder. The girls showed little interest and Lumpy the janitor was standing by the door leaning on his broom, with his usual ‘time to close up’ stance. “My Rodger has plans,” I said. “They are all laid out in my kitchen, and it has put the kibosh on my pyramid.” I stared at the blank faces; “the pyramid for meditating under.” I did detect a smirk from one or two faces and a ‘give it a rest’ from herself under the fake lashes. Mavis never had much time for meditations or pondering as she liked to call it, in fact none of the girls did. Mavis, along with Sheryl, was one of my most loyal, down to earth students; whose idea of ‘sorting things out’ was shopping, vodka and a good saucy joke, not necessarily in that order. And Mavis’s round apple-like body was a testament to such a philosophy, she often struggled with hip circles, but she never gave up. She thought hip twirling would attract a man. She even talked of visiting Egypt, which was, according to some dodgy ‘Over Fifties, Single and Still Shimmying’ website, full of men who just loved older women, and Mavis was truly tempted. “But don’t you think he is being selfish, ignoring my desires?” I said, with drama. “I mean, my Rodger, the man that made me the woman I am today, is actually planning to build a shed; a shed where I have sat, for years to ponder the goddess within.” “You’ve never used the pyramid,” Mavis muttered, while rolling her coin belt up into a tight ball. She was unmoved, as were the rest of them as they too began to shove their scarves into bags. The class was coming to an end, signalled by the janitor now in the room and pushing his broom about; Lumpy is a stickler for finishing on time. “Every man needs a shed,” he muttered, as he stopped to pump air freshener into the air. “Why shouldn’t your man?” Pearls of wisdom from a janitor whose broom cleaned the floor with as much effect as his lavender spray. And Lumpy didn’t stop there; he went on and on about a man and his castle, and how a drawbridge was more a man’s best friend than a dog. “Every man should be able to turn his back on the world,’ he said, “A man needs time to think, chew over the day, and put away his armour. He needs a moment to slide on his slippers; with no sharing of the paper, or the remote control.” No wonder Lumpy lives on his own, honestly. I was on the verge of making some sarcastic comment about his ‘inability to share a broom let alone push it’ when I looked around; they were all agreeing with him, my girls. One whiff of a free drink and you can’t see them for dust. I ask you, where is all the support, the comradeship? I’ll tell you – out the window as fast as Lumpy’s offer of a ‘quick drink’ in the Argyll. I left soon after that, and like all great artists sulked all the way home, refusing the after-class tradition of a ‘tonic with whatever is on special in the Argyll’. Instead, I went home, scrunched His Nib’s shed plans into a ball and tossed them onto the pile of logs drying by the fire. I had worked my underwire off for that troupe and no one seemed aware of it. For months we had been practicing dancing with canes. I thought it would instil a new dynamism into the trio. It could maybe even encourage past students to return. A cane dance means moving your hips with authority. A dancer twirls her cane around with military panache, with an attitude that declares ‘up yours’ to anyone who says belly dance is for wimps. The idea is to twirl one cane (or two like me, if you are a master) while dancing on your knees, performing back bends and even a little balancing on your head. I had the old folks at the Fyne Home spellbound and it took a full song before the usual ones fell asleep. The staff were so impressed that even after the accident with the tea trolley they asked me to come back. Rodger said that I hypnotised them with my cane twirling and I knew the group could do the same. I had planned a group dance with a solo for Sheryl in one verse, a duet for Kay and Mavis in another verse and me doing a final dynamic piece with two canes, but their lack of enthusiasm confused me. I finally gave Mavis the chance to perform at the front and she hardly batted an eye, let alone issued a, “Cheers, Neff. I can’t wait to do my bit for the Sisterhood.” “It’s our greatest extravagance yet,” I said. “A performance like no other we have done and I have just the right music.” No one said a word. I stood in my kitchen with only the drip of the kitchen tap to break the silence. “Bugger the lot of you” I shouted, and tossed my bag of costumes onto the table. A loud clatter followed as coin belts and zills spilled out onto the table and the floor. Puss, Rodger’s cat, looked up from her basket and meowed. “And you can wait as well!” I shouted. She meowed again and then got up and wrapped herself around my legs. It was a pathetic ploy to win me around, and it worked. Feeding her is usually Rodger’s job but as he was nowhere to be seen and Puss would not give up the ‘leg hugging,’ I gave in and opened a tin of cat food. Puss took one whiff and was off through the cat flap and into the night, while I was left clutching a half emptied can, with its mid-Atlantic fish aroma now filling the kitchen. My life, it seemed, was full of turncoats.