Page 76 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. IV #2

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“Don’t you look nice then, eh, boys?” says Lin- da. Susan could kill her.
— an aristocratic French château perhaps, or an Arabian harem.
At that moment Maureen Lovage descends
the staircase from her living quarters upstairs. She’s ample and blonde, and wears an off-the- shoulder aquamarine velvet frock with a plung- ing neckline. She tempers the angry appear- ance of her florid skin with frequent dumpings of her favourite lavender talcum powder. She attributes her skin colour and plumpness to overactive glands, never taking into account her passion for Guinness ale, her frequent tip- ple. She treats upholstery, cushions and carpets to the same talc treatment as her skin, “Just to freshen things up a bit.” Once powdered, her shoulders, and what can be seen of her sizeable breasts, appear to be covered in peach-like fuzz. She reminds Susan of icing-sugared Turk- ish delight, the pink variety.
“Let’s get a few things straight, shall we?” says Maureen brightly. “You lads, I want you in jack- ets. I don’t care if they’re school blazers, but I’ll not have pullovers or plain shirts. And ab- solutely no jeans, you’re not cowboys and this isn’t the Wild West. Girls, you’ll wear dresses, or a skirt and a nice blouse.”
“Now then you lot, don’t stand there gaping,” Maureen bellows. Susan can’t believe her voice, deep as a sergeant major’s. “Get yer coats off and get into that ballroom, we haven’t got all night!”
Two sets of French doors punctuate the fourth wall of the room. The doors used to lead to an overblown rose garden, but now they reveal
a long, wide ballroom, built onto the back of the old house. Sconces line this room too, but they’re modern; each light has a small, yellow shade. Four frosted-glass globes hang from the ceiling. They throw a harsh light that seems
Susan and the other dazed adolescents stum- ble over each other to deposit their coats on hooks that line the walls of a dim recess under the stairs. They follow Maureen into a high- ceilinged room ringed on three sides by old theatre seats covered in scarlet velvet with dark leather trim secured by brass-topped tacks. The tacks twinkle with reflected electric light from flame-shaped bulbs on candelabra sconces that protrude from velvet swirls of pink, paisley-patterned wallpaper. Susan’s nev- er seen a room like it. It reminds her of settings for some of the soppy romances she sometimes reads in her mother’s Woman’s Own magazine
to Susan more in keeping with a skating rink than a ballroom. The dance floor is made of blonde wood, the boards butted together so tightly that the floor appears seamless. In the glare from the polish Susan can hardly discern where one board ends and the next begins. She’s reminded of the frozen surface of Sefton Park pond.
Susan’s heart sinks. This is worse than school.
“Oh, yes, and you boys who intend to make this a habit, you’ll need proper dancing shoes — those of you who don’t have them already — black patent with leather soles. You can buy them at Simpson’s shoe shop on Lord Street.”