‘Drugs,’ Fran said. ‘Make them say the strangest things.’
‘Why do they cover all their nice black clothes in flour?’ Jane asked.
‘God knows. So they’ll look old and dusty.’
‘Ha!’
‘I know what you mean. But we can’t be that old. Look at Liz.’
They looked at Liz, slow-dancing with one of her daughter’s friends, forming the only couple on a floor of solitary shamblers.
‘But she’s … she’s a floozy.’
‘I suppose so. But I don’t feel very old at all. I hope they play the Stones tonight.’
‘I would never want to be as young as this lot ever again.’ Jane blearily took them all in.
‘They’re probably older than you are now, some of them. What are you; twenty-six?’
Jane thought. ‘But what I’ve done has put me in a different age — a different generation. I’ve been married and I’ve had a kid. That makes me like all of this lot’s mother. At least in the eyes of the world. I’m responsible now, aren’t I?’
‘Right now you’re arseholed, pet. Worry about all that in the morning.’
Vince caught Andy’s eye from across the dry ice. His chin was propped on Liz’s shiny shoulder and Andy was glaring at them both from beneath his blue spotlight. Vince ignored him and went back to talking to Liz as ‘Aladdin Sane’ began. Another macabre slow dance.
‘Why didn’t Penny come out?’
‘She doesn’t go out much. I worry about that. She’s not like her mam at all.’
‘No.’
‘Vincent, pet.. .’
‘Yes?’
‘Penny told me about you being bent. I’m pleased you told her. It wouldn’t have been nice for her to get a crush on you. You did well to nip it in the bud.’
Vince frowned. ‘It just sort of came up in the conversation. There was no particular reason —’
‘You what?’ The louder part of the song had begun, breaking into their conversation.
‘I said, I just told her. Because I wanted to. Not because I thought she fancied me.’
‘Oh, but she does. I think we have very similar tastes, me and our Pen. You’re very nice.’
Out of the corner of his eye Vince noticed Andy stalking through the milling crowd, across the floor’s glowing squares, towards them.
Vince stepped away from Liz. ‘Well, thank you for that, and thank you for the dance.’
‘The pleasure was mine.’ Liz bowed just as Andy reached them.
‘Who’s this?’ he asked with a mocking leer.
‘This —’ Vince began, but Liz caught his arm and interrupted.
‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to leave you. Somebody’s just walked in.’
‘That was Penny’s mother,’ Vince explained as she shot across the floor to the bar.
‘I remember one school party. It was the first time I ever got pissed. We smuggled booze in under our coats.’ Jane was, by now, turning sentimental. ‘One lad had to get his stomach pumped. We took all the tinsel off the tree and wore it round our necks like them Hawaiian things, or Wonder Woman. Someone yanked the tree right over and there was hell on the next day.’
Jane’s voice dwindled away. Someone was striding towards their table. He was in blue jeans and a bright white shirt, open-necked. His skin was ruddy, healthy as a Red Indian’s.
And he was being intercepted by Liz, who appeared before him in a shower of gold. Together they seemed to abandon the idea of visiting tbe table and went off to the dance floor instead.
Jane watched her bus driver disappear. Her mouth fell open. She had forgotten all about nostalgia. ‘She’s done it again!’
Vince and Andy retreated to the sidelines. Vince was suddenly intent on getting drunk. When he placed his elbows on the table he could feel spilled beer soaking through the material, spreading up his arms.
‘Surely you can’t be jealous,’ he said. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Why did you leave me out there by myself?’
‘You like to dance and mope about by yourself.’
‘Occasionally it would be nice to have my boyfriend with me. So people can see.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Vince. She could be your mother.’
‘No, she couldn’t.’
Andy started fiddling with money for more drinks. ‘Can I get you anything?’
Vince looked for his own money. ‘Yes.’ He paused midrummage, looked up and smiled. Andy bent down for the expected kiss.
‘Andy… we were only dancing.’
The music was ghastly. But they were oblivious. A space had cleared for them in the smoke, as if they needed more room for their colour. They were very still, holding each other, barely dancing at all.
‘I came down after my shift finished. I finished early tonight.’
‘Did you?’
‘I wanted to find you.’
Liz nodded. ‘What’s your name? We only know you as our bus driver.’
‘Cliff.’
She nodded again, as if she knew already.
‘Yours is Liz, isn’t it? Elizabeth?’
‘Just Liz.’
They carried on dancing, dancing very slowly and wondering why they were dancing like this. And what it meant.
At the end of that song, on a low, rumbling, drawn-out note, Liz seemed to collect herself in and, Cinderella, tried to pull herself free. He smiled and drew her back, into the next song.
Incredibly, Liz was trembling.
I’ve made her tremble, thought the bus driver. What does this mean? And at their table Fran and Jane saw that they were dancing still and they wondered. What does that mean? Vince and Andy were drinking and keeping to themselves, casting only occasional glances at Penny’s mother and the spectacle she was making of herself. This was one of the few times that Vince wasn’t thinking, What does it mean?
Cliff the bus driver was, at that moment, thinking to himself. This woman has an erection.
Liz at last seemed to relax again. She steadied her weight against him and looked him in the eye. ‘There’s something you ought to know.’
The bus driver nodded tersely. ‘I know.’
‘That I’m a man?’
‘I’ve known for a while.’ He smiled at the confusion in Liz’s face, at the thought of the erection under that gold lame frock. ‘I’ve known that all along. But it is nice to be convinced, I must admit.’
Liz gripped him more tightly than she meant to. ‘Does it show? Does it really show?’
‘Nobody ever
