The Ballroom Class Read online

  When she could be bothered. It had got harder and harder lately.

  Angelica propped the broom against the ancient radiator. That was another thing the old Angelica wouldn’t have believed – that the desire to dance might eventually leave her, and it would have nothing to do with her bad neck. It was her heart that seemed to have lost its bounce, not her stiff knees. And Angelica hated going through the motions. She sighed, and told herself that the only thing worse than having a chequered past was not having a past at all.

  Then she closed her eyes, hummed the first bars of ‘Let’s Face the Music and Dance’, and began to quickstep smoothly around the hall, her feet moving with a swift sure grace, her arms poised weightlessly, one on an imaginary shoulder, the other held high in the air as her head leaned elegantly first to the left, then swayed, as she paused, suspended like a feather in the air, to the right.

  And though Angelica started, in her imagination, with Bernard, by the second verse Tony, as always, had cut in and her steps took on a sleeker line.

  1

  ‘. . . Seventeen, we agreed when I went back to work that Ross would get the kids bathed and in their pyjamas by the time I got home, so we could both put them to bed, but nine times out of ten, they’re still running around, which I think is unfair because it means I end up having to take charge and be the mean shouty parent, even before I’ve got my coat off. Eighteen, he never ever cleans the bath. I know that seems petty, but it means I have to clean it before I can get in, and I’m knackered most evenings. Nineteen, he makes me feel like his mother, or his sister, but definitely not his wife.’

  Silence.

  Katie looked up from her notebook. That last one might have been a bit much. ‘Though his legs aren’t bad for a man who doesn’t go to the gym,’ she conceded.

  Ross and the marriage guidance counsellor were slumped in their chairs, not responding, and she felt an unwelcome flicker of frustration, the sort she got when her team weren’t on the ball at work. Katie hated herself for feeling it, but then again, if she stopped feeling annoyed at Ross’s chronic passivity, she’d start feeling mortified about being here in the first place.

  Before she could rein it back in, she heard her own voice snap, ‘Look, we’re here to get things thrashed out, aren’t we? You told us to write a list of the things that weren’t working, didn’t you?’

  ‘A list,’ muttered Ross. ‘Not a bloody novel.’

  Peter, the counsellor, shook himself. ‘Well, yes, it’s good to get everything out in the open. But now let’s have your positive list about what makes you happy in your marriage.’

  Katie turned the page, and swallowed. ‘One, Ross is a great dad. Two, we’ve got a nice house. Three . . .’ She turned the notebook nearer her so Ross couldn’t see she’d only managed to put three things on her list. He’d gazed at her with his puppy-dog eyes when she’d said he was a great dad – which, to be fair, he was – and he might as well have stabbed her. She wished he would sometimes. Anything but the wishy-washy predictability that was turning their marriage into a bickering brother–sister arrangement.

  Katie Parkinson didn’t know what made her happy in her marriage any more. She’d worked hard to get everything she thought she needed for a contented life – decent, faithful, good-looking man, three-bed house with off-road parking, job within a shortish drive of said nice house, two beautiful children – and everyone seemed to be happy except her. She’d pinned her hopes on the therapist diagnosing what exactly was wrong, then fixing it (or confirming it was unfixable), but so far, all he’d done was nod annoyingly while the pair of them squirmed.

  Ross looked over at her. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Three,’ she went on, playing her final card, ‘we have two wonderful children. They make me happy.’

  He nodded his agreement, eager as ever to please.

  He reminds me of a spaniel, thought Katie, wishing he still reminded her of a bloke. A floppy-eared, soppy, chocolate spaniel with big feet.

  ‘We do,’ he was saying to Peter. ‘Jack’s just two and Hannah’s four, and they’re both wonderful kids. Bright, friendly, really loving and happy.’

  ‘Which he’s implying I don’t notice, because I’m working full-time, but I do,’ said Katie, unable to resist. Stop being such a cow. ‘Um, four,’ she improvised quickly, to compensate, ‘Ross has done a lovely job on the garden. We’re thinking of getting a conservatory if I get promoted this year. I mean, there are some advantages to those anti-socially long hours I work in a planning department, Ross – I do know about building work applications!’

  She meant it as a joke, but it came out more barbed than she intended.

  Ross and Peter didn’t smile. Now she slumped into the hard plastic chair.

  There are no problems, only solutions, Katie told herself. It had always been her mantra at work. For the first time in years, she was starting to wonder if it might not be entirely true.

  ‘Ross?’ said Peter, turning his kind face towards her husband. ‘Why don’t you read your list? Why not start with the positives this time?’

  Ross shot Katie a dark-eyed look and got out a sheaf of paper. ‘OK. We’ve made the best out of a tricky situation, considering – when the kids were born we did the sums and childcare was going to cost more than I was earning.’ He looked up at Peter. ‘I’m a graphic designer. I work on contract, and I was doing pretty well, but, you know how much daycare costs these days. Katie’s job had better prospects and she earns twice what I did . . .’

  When you could be bothered to go out and get contracts, thought Katie, though this time she managed to stop herself saying it.

  ‘. . . so it made sense for me to stop at home. I think it takes a strong marriage to cope with a role-reversal like that, but it’s working out. Well, as far as I’m concerned, anyway,’ he added, with a resentful shrug. ‘And the kids seem happy.’

  ‘No, it’s not working, Ross! Why else would we be here?’ protested Katie. Ross was such an ostrich. ‘It might be working for the children, but it’s not working for us. You can’t just ignore the fact that we only talk about the school run or what bills need paying! And as for . . .’

  She brought herself up short. Maybe they should save their dead sex life for round two.

  ‘Finished?’ Ross looked annoyed.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Carry on, Ross,’ said Peter, as if he was used to that kind of impotent squabbling. ‘It’s good to get all this out into the open.’

  How does he put up with it, wondered Katie. Much less find positive things to say?

  ‘Secondly, I feel lucky to be married to such an intelligent, successful woman. I’m very proud of Katie, and what she’s achieved. I know there aren’t many female town planners, and she’s done really well. Her job gives us a good quality of life, and I appreciate that.’

  Ross sounded so calm and reasonable. Katie bubbled inside with resentment; Peter would be getting a totally unrealistic view of their life, but the more she protested, the more bitter she looked. And she hated this dirty laundry-airing.

  ‘Three, we used to have fun together, and I know we still can, when we make the effort. Four, Hannah and Jack are both healthy and happy, and it’s great for them that they’ve got one of us with them at home.’ Ross looked up from his notes. ‘They want to see you before they go to bed, Katie, but your overtime’s so unpredictable. How am I meant to give them a routine about Mummy and bed if it changes every day?’

  ‘Oh, right, so that’s why there’s no routine in the house,’ spat Katie. Ross really knew how to push her guilt buttons. ‘It’s my fault for being a working mother.’

  Ross glared at her and his mouth went into a thin petulant line. ‘They do have a routine. My routine. It’s just your life that doesn’t have one.’

  ‘But if you’re so proud of what I’ve achieved at work, why can’t you see how tough it is for me to do all that and get home by seven? Especially in an office full of blokes just looking for an excuse to accuse me o
f slacking?’

  ‘Focus on the list,’ Peter reminded them.

  It wasn’t as though she wanted to work overtime. Once she was out of the office, even a ten-minute traffic hold-up felt as if she was being cheated out of precious time at home with Jack and Hannah.

  But Ross was talking again, and hitting on the sorest spot of all.

  ‘Five, we’ve got enough money, so I wish Katie would stop chasing promotion after promotion and just take some time to enjoy what we’ve got.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re not the one looking at the credit-card statements every month!’ she interrupted, unable to let Peter think that was the case. ‘We don’t have enough money! You’re so short-term about everything – if we want the kids to go to uni, we have to start saving now. Besides, you know I can’t not go for promotions. It’s not as easy as—’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Ross flashed back. ‘Anyone would think you didn’t want to come home of an evening.’

  ‘Well, maybe I don’t, when the place is such a pigsty and the kids are running wild,’ she snapped.

  ‘They’re playing! They’re children!’

  ‘Can we get back to your list, Ross?’

  ‘Six, Katie has the most beautiful mouth of any woman I’ve ever seen.’ Ross put the paper down. ‘Or she did. Before she started bloody yelling at me all the time.’

  Katie was about to respond, more out of guilt than dead desire, that Ross too had lovely brown eyes, or used to, before he started looking like a kicked dog all day, but she shut her beautiful mouth like a trap and glared at him instead.

  ‘Well, there are some very positive things there,’ said Peter soothingly. ‘I think it’s helpful for you to listen to each other, rather than go round in circles, as a lot of couples do when there’s conflict.’

  Katie nodded. That was exactly how she and Ross argued these days: round and round on their own little train-set tracks of resentment, never crossing or getting anywhere.

  ‘OK, good,’ said Peter. ‘Shall we . . . ?’

  Ross waved his papers. ‘Don’t you want my negatives list?’

  ‘Um.’ Peter glanced nervously between the two of them. ‘Do you think it would be helpful?’

  Ross held up his list. It had just one thing written on it in his sprawling designer’s capitals. Capitals that Katie knew she used to find so charmingly creative.

  What was that awful truism? It was the thing that first attracted you that ends up driving you mad?

  ‘We’ve stopped trying. Katie has decided it’s over, and when Katie decides something, that’s it.’

  ‘You’re being childish,’ she protested, still stinging from the stab of remorse his handwriting had given her. ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

  ‘Only because you’re trying to audit our relationship! I know what you’re doing, Katie, you want someone else to assess us, just like you’d assess some . . . derelict building!’ Ross looked furious and pathetic at the same time. ‘You want someone else to tell you if we should just knock our marriage down! Well, that’s not the way it works!’

  ‘Isn’t it? You won’t listen to anything I say about making things better . . .’

  ‘That’s because it feels like you’re the only one capable of making a decision about my life, and yet you’re not prepared to try to—’

  ‘Shut up, the pair of you!’ roared Peter, then looked stricken. ‘Sorry. Sorry. Let’s calm down, shall we?’

  Katie shook her head in frustration. Her hair swung back into its neat honey-blonde bob, cut every six weeks on the dot – but only because the salon was right next to the council offices. Couldn’t Ross see how hard she was trying? Forget leaving work early, it had taken all her energy just to find a babysitter, and she wasn’t sure she really trusted Gemma Roberts longer than two hours.

  Peter rubbed his beard. He was a beard and cosy jumper kind of counsellor. Kind eyes, and real ale. And steely home truths wrapped in warm smiles. ‘It strikes me, as an observer, that the only positive things you can find to say about your marriage, Katie, involve your house. Is that fair? That your house is what makes you happy?’

  Ross looked at her, ready to be wounded.

  She took a deep breath. The best thing was to be honest about their squabbly mornings and deathly nights. Maybe Peter would be able to decide straight away that they should just cut their losses and split up. That would save everyone time and tears. Knock it down, like Ross said, to save the painful falling apart.

  But even as Katie thought about Ross moving out, her family breaking up, her dreams for their perfect life broken, and their seven years together wasted, a lead weight of misery plummeted in her stomach.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, recklessly. ‘My house does make me happy. I feel as if I pay all the bills, give out all the discipline, work all the hours, and have none of the fun . . .’

  Peter moved in swiftly. ‘And how do you feel about your house, Ross?’

  ‘It’s our home,’ he replied. ‘Where we’ve brought up the children.’

  ‘So you’re more of a homebody than Katie?’

  ‘No,’ Katie interrupted. ‘No, no, no. It’s not like I’m not a homemaker! I love being at home – I just don’t get the chance any more!’

  Peter fiddled with his glasses. Katie had already noticed he fiddled with something before making a casually devastating observation. She braced herself.

  I don’t like who I’ve become, she thought. Neither does Ross. But what choice do I have? Someone had to go back to work to pay the bills, and if we were living on Ross’s income, we’d never . . .

  She put that upsetting image out of her mind. Not only was Ross’s salary insufficient, he had a lack of ambition that was getting less attractive by the day, and even less idea, apparently, of how much two kids cost. He got the fun of playing with them, teaching them, while she got the shouty, tired end of parenting. It was turning her into someone she didn’t know.

  ‘Marriage isn’t marked out of ten,’ Peter said mildly. ‘I’m not going to sit here and award you both points for who’s the best spouse, you know.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ Katie felt got at. She always felt got at these days, one way or another.

  Peter smiled. ‘I’m going to help you talk through the issues that you have between you, encourage you to listen, and hopefully that’ll help you put them right.’

  ‘And how long will that take?’

  He shrugged. ‘As long as it takes. It’s not a quick fix, you know. We recommend six sessions, to give you some focus, but it might take a few more. If you can’t fit them in weekly, then we’ll try fortnightly. But you’ve taken the hardest step just by coming here. Don’t you feel that?’

  Katie felt her frustration tighten like a coil. ‘But surely you’ll know after a few sessions what we should do?’

  ‘Katie, it’s not up to me to decide. It’s your marriage. But . . .’ Again, the glasses. ‘The point of coming here is to learn to listen to each other again, and to be honest about what you’re feeling. It’s not unusual – I see lots of parents who’ve just stopped making time to be a couple. And if you want to be good parents, which you obviously both do, then there’s nothing wrong in investing time in your own relationship, outside of the family. You need to spend some time on your own.’

  ‘Not much chance of that,’ snorted Ross. ‘Unless I start taking her lunch to work?’

  Peter ignored his petulance with an ease Katie wished he could teach her. ‘Did you ever have a hobby you took up together? A sport, maybe?’

  Katie and Ross looked each other in the eye, properly, for the first time since they’d sat down, and she noticed how tired his face was. She always used to describe Ross to people as ‘boyish’: chestnut-brown hair that spiked up naturally, large brown eyes with long lashes, a sharp nose that he rubbed unconsciously with his left hand when he was nervous. Ross was wiry, with olive skin that was unexpectedly soft, and Katie used to think, adoringly: when he gets to thirty-three he’ll look like that for
the rest of his life.

  He was thirty-six now, and didn’t look boyish any more; he looked slightly crazy. He obviously hadn’t had time to shave that morning, and the lines around his mouth were tight with the stress of talking about their marriage. Ross, she knew now, was a denial specialist. He preferred to say nothing and hope she’d guess.

  That wasn’t Katie’s way. Katie was a discusser, a debater, but more and more, she found herself swallowing her questions, knowing she’d get nowhere in the quagmire of Ross’s silent emotions, and instead she tried to organise them out of their rut. Which was how they were here.

  ‘We used to play a bit of badminton, before Hannah came along,’ he admitted. ‘We stopped when Katie got pregnant and . . .’ The faint glimmer of a smile twitched at the corner of his lips. ‘We were pretty good, weren’t we?’

  ‘You let me win,’ Katie reminded him.

  The smile vanished. ‘Only until you got better than me.’ He looked at Peter. ‘Katie’s very competitive. She has to win.’

  ‘Great!’ said Peter hurriedly. ‘Well, I’d recommend you try something new together. Something neither of you have done before, that you can commit an hour or so a week to. Use that time to work together, help each other, let go of the daily stresses, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ she said, reluctantly.

  ‘Great! Now, for next week, I’d like you to tell me – separately – about how you met, and what first attracted you to each other.’

  What’s the bloody point, thought Katie, as they got up and said their goodbyes. We’re not those people any more.

  It seemed like a hundred years ago, but it was only seven years since Katie Rogers met Ross Parkinson in a crowded pub in Manchester. She’d got her first town-planning job and was living in a tiny flat in Castlefield; he worked in a design studio round the corner from the pub. Their first conversation, about nothing much, felt to Katie like meeting someone she’d known as a child; though they seemed so different on the outside, on the inside there were little connections that drew them together like magnets – connections that were about taste and touch and look, not logic. Ross had the right boy-smell, the right arty glasses, a shy way of pushing back his fringe – then long and floppy – that twanged some forgotten teenage crush, a sense of humour that made her quiver when he arched his eyebrow, tentatively sharing a joke with her that he didn’t think other people would get. There was always something else, something extra that made her feel suddenly she was completed, and that she completed Ross. Something even super-analytical Katie couldn’t define.