The much anticipated Return

I felt excited at the thought of seeing it again. Forty years after that magical time in my childhood. Was it really that special – was I really that good at it? I think it was and I think I was. But forty years is a long time – I can’t remember what I did last week sometimes.

I gazed out of the window and let my mind drift…..”Oh Louise is such a talented dancer” Mrs Grierson, the very thin and wrinkly dance teacher would tell my mother. “We will see her on the ‘big stage’ sometime in the future. That I know” and as she pronounced the word ‘know’ her thin lips pursed into a tiny round shape and the sound of the ‘w’ at the end of it seemed to go on for ever! I would look up at my mother for a sign of pride in her dancing daughter but it wasn’t there. “Ok then Louise, time to get home and put the sausages on”. And off we would go. As we walked out of the door of the concert hall, I looked back at the big building and the other girls streaming out of it, laughing and chatting. “See you Mary” I called out to one of them, a small and delicate girl who lived not far from me. “See you on Saturday Louise for rehearsals”.

There were three of us vying for the main dance part in our ‘production’. It was a mystery as to who would get it as Mrs Grierson would tell all of us how amazing we were at dancing and deserved the lead role. A part of me hoped I didn’t get picked as the stage looked so big and I felt so small. I had never taken part in a production before. Looking from the back of the stage to the red coloured seats of the audience, I was sure that hundreds of people could fit into the rows to watch us and this made me feel very scared.

I needn’t have worried – I didn’t get the part. I was a bit disappointed but no one else in the family gave a hoot really. My Dad kept saying “Who would put some dancing thing on the same time as the soccer”. My Mum, the ever loyal wife reassured him with “It’s alright love, it’s only just over an hour, so we’ll be home by half time”.

This trip came about by chance really. One of my work colleagues, I discovered, was from the same district in England that I had lived in as a child. She had just come back from being over there on holidays and was leaning on my desk, photos in hand, telling me about what she had done, every single day of the trip! I was actually starting to get a little bit bored with her regaling about the train journeys, lunches, dinners, and every movie she had seen, but I almost nodded off when she was going into great detail about each family member and who was related to whom. Completely lost in the pecking order of the siblings, my ears pricked up at the mention of the old Grenville Town Hall. “Did you say the Grenville Town Hall?” I enquired sitting up now.

Apparently it was being torn down to make way for a much more modern and contemporary complex. A ‘state of the art’ building that was going to put the village of Worthington on the world map and make it and the surrounding villages a fortune!  Before hearing this news I couldn’t make my mind up about whether to go back to England again to visit relatives or holiday in another part of the world completely. I had never been back to Worthington since I left as a girl, as the remaining family of mine now lived on the other side of the country so that’s where we always went. But I wanted to see, for the last time, something that I had known and loved as a child. I wanted to see the big old building, and the solid wooden doors that opened to reveal the huge dark polished floor of the stage, wrapped around in what looked like a golden fringed nskirt falling to the ground below. I wanted to rub my hands on the velvet curtains and look at the matching seats that gave entertainment and joy to hundreds of people.  

“Did you go to the Town Hall?” I asked my work colleague. “No.

We weren’t that interested. It was in the local paper I picked up. It just said ‘town hall to go’ and I remembered you telling me once about you dancing there as a girl”. And with that she wandered off.

So here we were starting out on the journey, my journey really. Robert was going for my sake. He said “Well you’ve talked so much about it love that I knew it meant a great deal to you to see the ‘Grand Old Lady” before she’s torn down”.

“Now have we got everything? Check as I list the things Robert - paperwork for the hire car, passports, wallet, phone, cash, indigestion and headache tablets. Oh yes and your tablets?” “Yes for the umpteenth time Louise. Let’s just get out of the house before we miss the flight”. “Oh all right. I’m just being thorough” I told him slightly annoyed at his tone. Yes I know you are” answered Robert kindly although he was actually thinking that he couldn’t wait to be on the plane, earphones on and watching a good movie!

Once seated in the plane they could both breathe a sigh of relief and relax. It had taken an effort to get this trip organised. Firstly Robert had been quite unwell and after a great many tests and doctor’s visits he had been diagnosed with Angina. Anyway he was able to take this time off and celebrate Louise’s 50^th birthday by revisiting what had been an important part of her childhood. He knew that Louise could well have made a name for herself in dancing – that’s what she told him……a great many times over the years! He wasn’t too shabby himself at dancing, so they put on a good display when together on the dance floor.

The flight itself was smooth and uneventful. Of course getting off the plane you always felt and looked a bit rough. Bed hair, bad breath and for some, dare I say it, mainly men, body odour! The worst parts though were always, going through Customs, waiting in never ending queues and feeling like you just needed a decent cuppa after drinking the dark, cold liquid they called ‘tea’ on the flight.  

Being pushed and shoved out of the way was something that annoyed Louise immensely “Do you mind” she growled at a rather large man pulling his suitcase through the crowds of people as if it was a balloon on a string and not a suitcase to match the width and bulk of its owner! “That was my foot” she called after him, but he was already rushing towards the door to wait in line for a taxi to take him back home.

The taxi ride to the hotel was a long and arduous trip, the silence in the car only broken by the driver honking his horn at the cars of others thinking they could get to their destinations quicker by cutting in and over taking in a dangerous fashion. You could hear the sound of ambulances and police cars every now and then but as they both relaxed into their seat with the post flight tiredness, the sounds became muffled.

The hotel they were staying at was clean and comfortable. They liked the convenience of being able to walk to cafes and restaurants and of course Louise loved the variety of the shops. Whenever she went on holidays she always took an empty smaller suitcase and made sure it was jam packed by the time they left. The final task of their stay for Robert was to push down on the case and get the zip to go around – without getting any material caught in the zip or it breaking. A trip they went on a few years earlier to Singapore ended in disaster when one of the handmade silk blouses Louise had splurged out on for a wedding at a later date, got caught in the zip. By the time it was extracted from it, soft threads of silk were blowing gently from the rest of the blouse and a lumpy mound had formed where it had been pulled from but to add to her dismay, when Robert had finally yanked the material out, the teeth of the zip had parted ways and there was no going back! There was a mad scramble to discard bits of luggage from their main suitcase to make way for the new clothes Louise had bought. Robert had to part with a couple of prized possessions, including his old leather loafers that he wore everywhere, even home on the flight if Louise had let him. “You don’t need these disgusting old things Robert” she told him crossly, still very angry about the blouse she had paid a fortune for.

The next day when they had finally risen after a terrible night of tossing and turning, getting up to make tea, seeing what was on television at 2am in the morning and trying desperately to drift off to sleep, they were finally ready to pick up the hire car and get on the road for the long drive ahead. Of course it was a ‘rigmarole’ picking the car up. “Does anyone know what they are doing any more?” Robert complained, the lack of sleep affecting his ‘nice genes’ already! “I mean, how difficult is it to have the paperwork ready for us to sign when we organised it about four weeks ago – I mean…” he trailed off. “Oh well never mind that now Robert. Let’s grab some sandwiches from this coffee shop, a good strong coffee and be on our way”. Louise was feeling excited now at the prospect of seeing ‘the Grand Old Dame’ as Robert put it.

At least driving in England there was plenty to see. It seemed like there was a village every five minutes! ‘It’s like chalk and cheese driving here compared to the vastness of Australia’ he thought.  Louise was doing a very good job of keeping Robert awake with all of her chatter.“Oh look at that quaint cottage. Have you ever seen flowers like those? I can’t believe how gorgeous this village is” were just a few of the exclamations and delighted tones that came from Louise. She forgot in between visits just how lovely the countryside was. Robert was enjoying the sights too but as time wore on so did his weariness and after quite a few ‘ooh’s and aahh’s’ his delight was in knowing that he only had half an hour of driving to go!

“Just up the road now love” he told Louise, rubbing his eyes and winding the window down a bit more to let the exhilarating chilled air in. They were driving through Worthington and it looked as if there had been a time warp. Nothing seemed to have changed to Louise. “Oh look Robert, there’s my school. And the Post Office is still here. See that little shop next to it? That’s where we would get our sweets after dancing but only if Mum was in a good mood. Ooh I can’t believe the hairdressers are still here”. Louise had her head on a swivel – looking from one building to the other and marvelling that nothing much had changed since she was a girl. “Where would the dance hall be then?” asked Robert eager now to stop the car and stretch his legs. “Well it should be just up this main street and to the left somewhere. They drove towards the end of the street and turned left. “That can’t be it. I’ll keep going for a bit”. Around in a very big circle they drove and then back onto the main road. “That must be it” uttered Robert; by now desperate to find the blasted town hall and have a rest and a coffee before it was time to drive back. As Robert took off once more he angrily declared “I’m going to ask this man when we get next to him. I’m sick of this”. Louise knew better than to say anything even though she was tempted to tell Robert that he was definitely mistaken about the brown brick building on the corner. That was not the town hall! But she didn’t.

“Excuse me mate, where’s the town hall?” “Right there on the corner” the young man answered, pointing to the dark coloured brick hall. “Is this the only one there is? asked Robert and looked at Louise to see what she was thinking. “It’s much smaller than I remember” was what she was thinking! And “I can’t believe it’s so tiny”. “Oh well out we get. Let’s see what it’s like inside”

 mumbled Robert, slowly extricating his weary body from the driver’s seat.

“I think these doors must be different ones – I remember them being solid wooden doors, not these lightweight things” said Louise inspecting them as she turned the handle to go inside. As they ventured in a frail looking man caught them off guard and asked if they needed any help. They were having trouble adjusting from the light of day outside to the darkness of the foyer. “No thank you, we’ve just come to have a look at where I used to do my dancing as a girl. Is that ok?” Louise asked the beaky little man with the dark blue beanie on his head and a cane walking stick in his right hand that he tapped on the threadbare and dirty carpet with each step he took. “Ok then. Straight through there” and with that he lifted the stick high above his head as if directly them not to the dance hall but to heaven itself.

Once their eyes had adjusted to the lack of light they could see the rows of seats in front of them and down further to the stage. “Not many rows. I used to count hundreds of seats when I was here as a girl”. “Well you were only young so maybe you couldn’t count very well” laughed Robert, but Louise wasn’t listening. She had walked past the few rows of seats, with their threadbare material and scratched arms and up on to the stage. The curtains were still red and velvet but some of them were ripped at the bottom – they looked shabby to say the least. “I always thought this stage was huge but it looks….well…tiny really” remarked Louise walking from one side of the dirty dark floor to the other. I remember the brightness and energy of this room – lights on, girls laughing and chattering, excited at the thought of dancing in front of our family and friends. She stood in the middle of the floor and surveyed the whole room, so different from what her memories led her to believe. She was so disappointed and felt ‘let down’ but not sure who by. Dust floated down from the windows on shafts of sunlight that had smuggled their way through the breaks and cracks. The walls obviously hadn’t been painted for many years and were faded and dull, patterned by light brown water stains. Louise plonked herself down on the floor and a couple of tears rolled down her cheeks. “What’s wrong love?” Robert asked her on seeing her melancholy and sad face. “We’re here aren’t we? We made it. You’ve gotten to see where you danced as a girl and that is what you wanted. Now dry your eyes, and not on those old red curtains or you might bring the house down”. And Robert laughed uproariously at his own bad joke! “That’s the girl. Now come over here and we’ll have one last twirl around the floor before we leave. He called for the orchestra to fire up. They danced around on the dusty and age ravaged floorboards. Robert humming the tune and Louise smiling as she closed her eyes and imagined she was on ‘the big stage’ as the fusty old Mrs Grierson had once said she would be.