Let's Dance by Frances Fyfield

cleanliness inpoor clothes, he kept his room anonymous and he did not cry in the night. Derek, a resident for six months now, had adored him. George did unheard-of things; he ran a self-serviced car, often up on bricks (someone must have given him that car: Serena had given him that car); he had somewhere to go every day, from where he returned, refreshed and fulfilled; he fried mushrooms which he collected himself because he knew how; and last week he made a pie, for nothing, out of blackberries. That made him rich and, in the hinterland of people with nothing to lose and no idea of what they stood to gain, enormously enviable. George had a secret. George was happy. That was something that had to be fixed. People liked George: that would have to be fixed, too. Derek, small and sweet, skinny little runt with a handsome face, everybody’s gofer, with just enough sense not to turn tricks in public loos in a small town like this, admired the stockiness of George and the muscles on his arms, fancied himself in love. All George wanted was to keep his bum clean, but he had been flattered and loved the easy flow of words and jokes. Derek had made him laugh.
    â€˜There was a bit of a fight in here, dinner time,’ said the man who had greeted him and watched, hungrily, as he peeled potatoes.
    â€˜Oh dear,’ said George, not inviting further particulars. There were often squabbles. It was dangerous to be a one-eyed man in the country of the blind, perilous to be in possession of his own particular source of peace. He knew he had to watch it.
    He should never have talked to Derek. Have let Derek take him to the old furniture place to sell stuff, as if he was a fellow thief. Have let Derek find out, from his own, unguarded, tongue, what there was to envy.
    â€˜W e’ve lost the letters,’ Serena said next morning.
    â€˜George took them,’ said Isabel for the tenth time.
    â€˜I want them back.’
    â€˜You can’t have them back. Never mind, you’ve written some more.’
    Which she had. Two, three letters a day. Or pieces of paper stuck into envelopes that bore addresses Isabel could not read and doubted if any postman could, either. Isabel was not going to point this out. Letters were therapy and Serena was entitled to whatever secret life she wished to lead behind those scratched glasses.
    â€˜I want to go to town
now.’
    â€˜Come on, then.’
    â€˜I’m driving, aren’t I?’
    â€˜No, Mummy, you know you can’t. Be a good girl.’
    It horrified Isabel the way she had so quickly got into the habit of talking to her mother as if her mother were a child. It seemed to rob them both of dignity. Mother was a petulant child this morning. Isabel had been craving a child of her own for the last few years, her body had been crying out for such a burden, but not a child like this.
    Isabel’s car, which Serena loved and envied, to theextent that Isabel locked it out of sight in the ramshackle garage, was the vital link between town and home. There had been three or four fairly successful forays to the shops: today they would try the market. Isabel had grown accustomed to the rutted track, knew how to avoid the worst of the holes without dipping over into the fields, even enjoyed the challenge. There was nothing between this small, powerful bullet of movement and the sky, nothing at the end of the track but the church and the graveyard, the farm and the cottage and then five miles more to civilization. A party, Isabel thought again, suddenly longing for company. She shivered slightly. However many times she had visited her mother here, she had never done more than nod at the neighbours. Makers of hay and tillers of the earth, nothing in common with either of her parents. She shivered again. How exclusive they had been.
    â€˜Are you warm enough, Mum?’
    â€˜What?’
    Of course she was warm enough. Serena wore an ancient fur coat, a hat suitable for a