The Downfall Of A Bellydancer

2. The Turn Coat

Chapter Two

The Turn Coat

Use your exits well; sometimes it is all you have.

Lochgilphead is not the sort of place that attracts visitors; in fact, there are usually only two reasons why anyone visits Lochgilphead – to spend time with relatives and gloat, or because they were offered a job, and didn’t investigate before they accepted. Lochgilphead has a Co-op, a newsagent’s, a couple of coffee shops, several pubs, and Rodger’s bookshop called The Read and be Thankful.

A name inspired by The Rest and be Thankful, a remote place at the end of a remote road through Glen Croe in Scotland; a place where, in the past, travellers on horseback or in a carriage would stop and look at the view to- ‘rest and be thankful’; and a place where we stayed in a campervan on our first night together and truly did, at times, rest and be thankful...

This morning, however, I was feeling uneasy. It had been two weeks since Rodger’s cryptic hint comments and he had been unusually quiet. He said that he was engrossed in the shed preparations, which I found hard to believe. I mean the shed had arrived in a flat pack, and was whisked up as quickly as a three-man tent by him, Shifty (his new best pal) and Sheryl’s husband Steven. But Rodger was obsessed and now suddenly he had better things to do and all of it in the shed.

The new, quiet, Rodger had me stumped I had no idea what to do next except make another coffee and stir it. I watched Rodger walk into the kitchen with a grunt and little eye contact. I slid an espresso his way.

“Rodger,” I said. “Lumpy reckons I should try Zumba.”

He pulled a croissant from the fridge and placed it in the microwave. “Why would he say that?”

“He says folk are bored and that’s why they don’t come anymore.”

“Profound for a janitor,” he said, searching for a plate.

“Mavis says that folk are bored of my classes.” I looked at him for a moment, in his usual shed attire. “Are you?” I asked. “Bored with me...my...dancing?”

“What?” He was now scraping small flecks of butter onto his croissant. A few months ago it would have been a slab of the stuff and at least two croissants; now it seems he’s watching his waistline along with having a new secret life in the shed.

“The Gala day, you’re not interested like you used to be, it’s like you don’t care.”

He looked at me with a sigh. “Is ten years not enough?” And, before I could answer or offer him some homemade jam for the croissant, he was off into the garden with a throwaway comment: “Shifty’s visiting later.”

I stood at the kitchen window and looked into the garden. Puss slipped out of the cat flap and followed her hero. I stared at Rodger’s back as he bent to pat her; she looked up and purred, and then followed as he disappeared behind the hydrangeas by the shed. And I wondered how long it had been since he had let me kiss his back, his neck or any other part of his body, for that matter.

After two more espressos and a flapjack laughingly called delicious, I headed out to the post office. I wanted to see Mavis to ask her why she hadn’t been to the last couple of classes since her flippant remark about my pyramid and of course I wanted some sympathy.

Mavis was my first student, my first pal when I moved here, and nothing gets past her. She was the one who told everyone how fabulous belly dancing was; she advertised, she talked and she proclaimed. Not only in the Stables coffee shop where they turn a blind eye to her slipping whisky in her coffee, but in her newly acquired post office job. Of course that job is perfect for her; working behind the post office counter means she can find out anything and everything. She could actually make the Fyne News sellable with her knowledge of the town.

I dumped my sss returns on the counter and started to tell Mavis about how my Rodger wasn’t like my Rodger anymore and how ‘between you and me’ I was worried.

Mavis looked at me over the counter. “I’m working,” she said, “and it’s hardly between you and me in the post office, is it?” Mavis has one of those faces that could do with a little waxing, and lipstick that never quite obeys the line of her lips. And that day, I noticed that her lips were highlighted by fine beads of perspiration. I wondered what was up.

“But there’s no one here,” I said, gesturing to the shop that was empty apart from a solitary pensioner staring at the envelope selection. Mavis sighed.

“Rodger says it is his artistic temperament, which is funny because he hasn’t painted since his Flower of Scotland Exhibition. And he has started flouncing – I thought that was my role!” Mavis looked over the top of her glasses. “Is that what you call it?”

And then I began to tell her about his latest episode. “It was particularly brutal,” I said, “as it was more Puss’s fault than mine, although Rodger didn’t see it that way.” Puss had used the scrunched-up plans for the shed as cat litter. Apparently it was easier for Puss to catapult into the log pile and foot-pedal rough paper into some sort of pliable cat litter material, than saunter through a large cat flap and use the recently weeded garden. For some reason, Rodger seemed to think it was my fault, with a ‘you put her up to it’ sermon.

“It’s like he is trying to pick a fight,” I said, “over anything.”

“Hmmm”

“Why would he do that?”

Mavis said nothing; her gold-ringed fingers were flashing across the computerised till with irritating speed. She could, at times, be annoyingly absorbed. I’ve seen her serve four customers, down a coffee and a roll and sausages all at the same time. “If he just saw me dance again, then I’m sure things would pick up,” I said to her.

“You should try Zumba,” she said, while shuffling a few papers.

I stared at her. “Zumba? Me try Zumba? Why?” I wanted to tell her how much I hated Zumba I wanted to shout Zumba makes me want to spit, but I didn’t, Mavis thought the teacher was a wonderful human being.

“Zumba,” said Mavis, “is the new yoga, and everyone is doing it.”

What she means by everyone, is everyone from my class!

“Zumba is a poor imitation of dance,” I said, and was just about to explain why when Imogen,“Zumba is a poor imitation of dance,” I said, and was just about to explain why when Imogen, (formerly known as Imogene) walked in.

Imogen, Lochgilphead’s resident calligrapher has ditched calligraphy for Zumba, and now teaches. And to celebrate her new artistic direction she had changed her name, (apparently it looked better on posters).

The pensioner looked up from the envelope section, as Imogen picked up the Glasgow Herald and walked over to the counter to pay for it; like it was the height of intelligence to read the Glasgow Herald. I was just about to make some sarcastic reference about being a Record woman myself when I heard the Stick Insect, as I liked to call her, say to Mavis, “are you going to Zumba this week because I could do with another for the troupe? We're going to start filming!”

“Mavis,” I said, ignoring the reference to filming – it was probably just a mobile upload for YouTube. “You go to Zumba?”

Mavis said nothing, but stared at her till.

“You go to Zumba?”

“Absolutely,” said Imogen. “My Mavis is a star.”

I looked from Imogen’s pristine pert eyebrows to Mavis, the beaded sweat on her upper lip now almost dripping. How could she?

My Mavis had gone to the other side with not one ounce of shame. She was no longer my Mavis… she was now a star for the opposition. If she had gone to Russian classes or joined a gym, I would understand; if she had dropped me for mountain climbing or rowing a boat, I could live with that. But her leaving me for Zumba, the very reason my own classes were dying… How could she?

Mavis looked red and flustered.

“Zumba won’t work your bits and pieces,” I muttered. “And you won’t be able to cough freely when you are old…”

Mavis said nothing but I caught a look between her and the ‘wonderful human being’.

“I mean we all want to age with ...reassurance,” I said.

Mavis leant forward, “No one wants to hear about coughing when you’re old,” she said.

“I do,” said the pensioner, clutching a packet of cost cutter envelopes. She turned to a woman entering the shop with a questioning look. “What I’d give for a decent laugh with no ...worries.”

The younger woman looked back, confused. “I only came in for a top up.”

Mavis told me to move away from the counter, “Please don’t start with your belly dance cure-all speech,” she said. “It’s bad enough in your class. It is one of the reasons why I left. You talk too much about things no one wants to hear...You’re just too blunt for your own good.”

I looked at the pensioner, who had now moved onto the Scottish section and was turning a Scotland the Brave mug in her hand like she had never seen one before, I decided to leave, or should I say retreat; then Imogen stopped me. She fluttered her false nails across the top of my arm like we were best buddies.

“Dance is not all about the pelvis,” she said. “Ask Mavis.”