First written: June 13, 2009
This morning, the unprecedented happened Chez Bolton. We had a
lie-in. I'm married, you understand, to a man who thinks the lark a
rather sluggish bird, feels cheated if he misses a sunrise and is
on first name terms with the milkman; who just plain can't sleep.
Today, it was nearly 8am when the dulcet tones of our son in the
bathroom dragged us from the depths of Lethe's spring.
I put it down to the frenzied exercise of the night
before. And before you jump to the obvious, please see previous
post on same subject. No, I'm talking about modern jive, a craze
that's sweeping southern England faster than swine flu. Suddenly,
church halls and primary schools throughout the Home Counties are
inundated with the middle-aged, middle classes, attempting to
master the shoulder sweep, the sway and the hip weave.
It's spicy stuff, modern jive: highly flirtatious, deeply
suggestive and involving prolonged contact with unfamiliar
bodies. It's going down very well in the Chilterns.
After two sessions, our class has self-divided into two groups:
the stay-with-your-own-partners and the swappers. Variety is the
spice, Mr B and I agree, and so we're getting to know some of our
neighbours rather better than we once expected. Name me a man in my
street and I can tell you his exact height, the extent of muscle
definition on his shoulders and whether he knows the difference
between a woman's waist and her hip.
Just one complaint, though. To a man, my new
dancing partners are just not firm enough. The hand in mine feels
limp, the feet could go in any direction, the movement is vague,
uncertain. I find myself taking charge.
'Ladies, you have to let the men lead,' calls Patrick from the
stage, and he's always looking directly at me. I try to be
submissive. I fail. Patrick takes me by the hand and does all the
movements out of order so I have no choice but to follow him. He is
very firm; it all becomes blissfully easy. I think I might be
developing a crush on Patrick.
I'm sorry, but there really is something wonderfully sensuous
about dancing with a man who knows what he's about. It just seems
so rare in Britain to meet a man who not only knows how to move
himself around a dance floor, but can actually move you too.
But I tell you something, if men knew how erotically charged a good
dance can be, they'd all be taking modern jive classes. And
sod the Saturday morning football and rugby; they'd be signing
their sons up for ballet class.
I've been trying hard to capture this sensual
possibility in my latest book. Just before things get really
nasty, hero Harry drives Evi up to a high Tor in the Lancashire
Pennines. It's early November, late at night, and they watch
fireworks exploding across the moors. Then they dance, to
Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark on the car stereo. Harry and Evi
know they cannot get involved with each other. This one dance might
be the only moment of closeness they ever know.
So hard, to capture the erotic possibilities of dancing with a
new partner for the first time. Try interchanging song lyrics with
snatches of dialogue and copyright laws jump up and bite you.
Talking about rhythm and movement seems straight out of Mills and
Boon. In the end I just had to write about the heat from Harry's
neck against Evi's face, his hand, ice-cold in hers and the wind
that can't seem to decide whether to join in the dance or hurl them
both off the edge of the world.
Of course, She Who Believes The Red Pen Is Mightier Than The
Sword may well decide it doesn't work but I'll always have the
picture in my head to console me: Harry and Evi, dancing amongst
the fireworks on the crest of the moor, falling in love.
I've finished book three. (Probably) It still has to be
read and approved by a whole army of husbands, agents, editors,
sales and publicity people but at least I know it's ready for that.
It is as good as I can make it. The Blood Harvest. Published in
2010. (Fingers crossed)