THE VALENTINE’S DAY DANCE 

By Richard Banks

When Mrs Miller returned home from the PTA meeting at Middleton High with news of their latest fundraising event her son, Nigel, was thrice smitten by the unmitigated awfulness of it all. He had never been to a dance before, and didn’t know the latest moves, although, knowing his mother, felt sure she would want to include the waltzes and foxtrots that his parents sometimes practised at home. Either way he couldn’t do it and didn’t want to. Secondly, it involved dancing with a girl and being in an all boys class he didn’t know any girls, and they didn’t know him and had never shown any sign of wanting to. And, thirdly, his name was Nigel which was a social embarrassment that precluded him from any activity, even with the boys, that could be regarded as cool, or even normal.

         His horror at the impending disaster was compounded by his mother’s next revelation that it was to be a Saint Valentine’s Day dance for the year tens and that he was to ask Ethel to be his partner. The consequences for himself rested like a heavy yoke about his shoulders. Ethel was even more of an outcast than himself. Not that this was entirely her fault. After all no one called Ethel could possibly be expected to take their place as a normal person in the 21^st century. If she had been an Isabel she could have called herself Issie or Bel, but Ethel lent itself to nothing more than Eth or Hel. The hopelessness of her predicament told clearly in her heavily freckled face which seldom registered an expression more animated than sad resignation. Not being a member of the after-school clubs favoured by the other girls she had reluctantly settled for the stamp club where she had been sat next to Nigel in the hope, if not the expectation, that their outsider status might provide the common ground for an unlikely friendship. It was, of course, no coincidence that the teacher in charge of the stamp club and Mrs Miller were as one in this endeavour. As PTA committee members of long standing they knew each other well and although Ethel’s mother, Mrs Bailey, was at first unknown to them they wasted no time in making her acquaintance and drawing her into the social experiment that, if unsuccessful, would at least save the two young people from the embarrassment of not having a ‘date’ for the dance.

         Whether this reasoning was ever communicated to Nigel is unlikely. Mrs Miller had decided long ago that her son was blind, but mostly deaf, to the good advice she felt well able to provide. Her approach to parenthood was therefore to tell him what he must do and the sanctions that would apply if he didn’t. And, when the sanctions were raised to a two week grounding, the non-payment of his pocket money and the cancellation of his subscription to ‘Goth City Weekly’ Nigel accepted that the asking of Ethel to the dance could not be avoided. However, he thought, she might say no and, if she did, no one could say that he didn’t try, and the unimaginable awfulness of being her date would never happen. He therefore endeavoured to ask her in such a way that a refusal would almost certainly be the outcome.

         A half hour into stamp club during which time they had not exchanged a single word he summoned up his courage to ask: “I suppose you won’t be wanting to go to the dance with me?” Ethel’s face convulsed into a horrified grimace, and a deep intake of breath was followed by an audible groan.

         Although she had not yet responded with the single word needed to put an end to his mother’s plan Nigel felt certain that his stratagem was about to have the desired effect. He was preparing himself to say, “oh, all right then” when Ethel with no expression of pleasure or enthusiasm replied, “yes.”

         “Yes,” repeated Nigel, his voice somewhat louder than he intended.

         “Yes,” she confirmed, her gaze firmly set on the textbook image of a penny black from which the solemn, unamused face of Queen Victoria stared back at her.

         As no further words were spoken, Nigel was completely unable to process what had happened. Had he misheard her, or was this a nightmare from which he would soon be waking? He stabbed his fingernails into the back of his hand and winced with pain, but when the awakening didn’t happen was forced to accept the awful truth that he was awake and she had definitely said, “yes.”

          As he was later to learn, Ethel had been given an ultimatum by her mother that if she did not say yes to Nigel she would be escorted to the dance by her brother, two years younger than herself and, in her opinion, the worst brother that any long-suffering sister had ever had to endure. Forced to choose between Nigel or Bertie there could be only one winner and, as Nigel was no more repulsive than the other boys in her year, she reluctantly accepted her fate. In doing so she extracted a single concession from her mother which was that she should not be made to wear a party dress, preferring instead to choose something from her existing wardrobe.

         Mrs Bailey sighed but managed not to groan. Unlike Mrs Miller she did not demand ‘unconditional surrender’ and, as negotiated settlements went, this one was as good as she was likely to get. Indeed, Ethel’s declared intention of walking to the school hall instead of being conveyed there in a limousine had the unlooked for benefit of reducing the cost of the evening to the twenty-pound note her father would be giving her for refreshments at the non-alcohol bar.

         No doubt Nigel’s father would have been equally approving of such cost-cutting measures but not being required to busy himself in the arrangements for the dance accepted, without protest, the financial disadvantage that went with his non-involvement. Besides, he was thinking of buying a new set of golf clubs and from past experience knew that for such expenditure to go unopposed it was necessary to dispense a little largess in the direction of his wife, or her latest project. As for Nigel, he would have to grin and bear it. Life was never free from obligation and there would be far worse than this to come.

         Not having access to his father’s thoughts, and therefore not being consoled by them, Nigel continued to find much to be dissatisfied with. Had his date with Ethel been in the dark interior of the Roxy Cinema he might have got away without them being seen together but for it to take place at a dance in full view of everyone in his year was the modern-day equivalent of being put in the stocks and pelted with gunge. Not only that but he was being forced to give up some of his precious Saturday time to be fitted out for a monkey suit that was on no ones list of cool. His only consolation was that he would be conveyed to school in an American limousine often featured in Goth City Weekly.

         Determined to make the most of this one and only pleasure he directed Bert, the chauffeur, to drive him three times around the town before yielding to his demand that they should actually arrive. Having by then confided his predicament to Bert and received the advice that he should go to the bar and get rat-arsed, Nigel found himself delivered to the front entrance of the school where he pushed through the swing doors into the admin /reception area. Taking a deep breath and wishing it was all over he proceeded a few metres down one of the adjoining corridors to the locked door of the caretaker’s office where they had arranged to meet.

         Being at least five minutes late and finding her not there he debated with himself whether he was pleased by her non-appearance or humiliated at the prospect of being stood-up. He had resolved to wait five minutes more and return home, when the nearby door of the girls’ toilet opened and a green-faced entity, dressed head to foot in black, marched assertively into the corridor. In one unblinking stare he took in the entire vista, before focusing on the face and head: the wild hair, the black eye shadow, the long eyelash extensions and the Edge motifs on both her earlobes. Something wonderful, verging on the miraculous, had happened and the object of his veneration was now halted in front of him and about to speak. He observed the parting of her lips and the stirring of her dark green tongue over which her words, no doubt prophetic and heroic, were about to flow.

         “Close your mouth, Nige, it’s me, Eth.”

         “No, no, you’re Elvira Edge, Protector of Goth City and the Kingdom of the Seven Shadows. Why didn’t you tell me this when we were at Stamp Club? How come I didn’t realise; I must have been blind. You’re the hottest babe in the universe. Wow! I’ve had every copy of Goth City Weekly since the second generation metamorphosis, I’ve seen you stop earthquakes, do battle with Zombie hoards and out-magic the wicked witch of the North. Is there anything you can’t do?”

         “Well now, - what about making a surprisingly nice boy green? How do you fancy being Lord Vortigern of the Emerald Hinterland? There’s still some green roll-on in my bag. Would you like me to give it a try? There should be more than enough left to green-up your face, and if you get rid of that silly tie and unbutton your shirt a few inches there may also be enough to do the same to your neck and chest. This is getting to feel like a real date. What say you?”

         “Take me to the Edge, Elvira! Make me yours, all yours!”   

 

  Copyright Richard Banks