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 21st 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
