Memoirs of a Dance Hall Romeo by Jack Higgins Read Free Book Online

word, which was obviously a favourite, and he rolled it sibilantly around his tongue, one hand on Aunt Alice’s shoulder, before continuing. ‘For you, my boy, the ideal never works out in reality. I do not say that a happy marriage vill not come, for you haff Jupiter in the House of Marriage, unt the Moon in goot aspect mit Venus.’
    I glanced helplessly at Aunt Alice. ‘But what’s it all supposed to mean?’
    ‘You tend to put them on a pedestal, mein young friend, that’s vot it means.’ He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Unt they always fall off. Sad, isn’t it?’
    He apparently found this funny and laughed uproariously. So did Aunt Alice, which seemed to be the signal for him to take her hand, kiss it passionately and click his heels.
    I withdrew, found an old trenchcoat in the hall cupboard in case of rain and let myself out of the front door, whistling cheerfully, for I didn’t believe a word of it, or, at least, not enough to let it spoil my evening.
    The Trocadero that Tuesday evening was everything Jake had promised. There was room to breathe, to move about the floor. I don’t suppose there could have been more than three hundred people in the place, which meant that it seemed half empty.
    Only one band was on duty, the Reds as it happened, and a great deal of serious ballroom dancing was going on when I came out of the cloakroom and looked down from the balcony. As usual, there were more females in evidence, yet the clientele seemed different. On the whole, a little older, more serious. The girls seemed to look my way more often, although that was perhaps imagination, or, quite simply, the new suit.
    As before, I needed to make an entrance, if only for my own private sake, to assure myself that I was in some way in control. I paused at the mirror at the top of the stairs for a final check. The drape suit with those trousers about half-a-yard wide made me look like a young Robert Mitchum, or so I fondly imagined. I hooded my eyes and stuck a cigarette in the corner of my mouth.
    When I turned, I was disconcerted to find myself the object of some amusement for a young woman who had just appeared from the cloakroom. She was hardly dressed for dancing, for she wore a suit of a kind of orange tweed with a rather prim skirt and neat brown brogues. The black hair, which was tied in a bun, framed a pale, oval face, dark eyes, very little lipstick.
    The smile would best be described as one of gentle amusement, not mockery, but I turned away in confusion and stumbled down the stairs.
    The older I get, the more convinced I am that time and chance have more of a hand in man’s affairs than is generally realized, especially where matters of import are concerned. Take that first meeting with Helen, for example, one of the most important of my life. It was a miracle that we ever got together at all.
    First, there was the circumstance that brought her out of the cloakroom at exactly the right moment to catch me naked, in a manner of speaking, in front of that mirror. I know now that it was my vulnerability that immediately attracted her. Yet for me, the shame of it was such that I could not have walked up to her and asked her to dance for a hundred pounds.
    In any case, she wasn’t the sort I was looking for at all. Far too prim and lady-like, and she was too old for me. She admitted, at a later stage, to twenty-eight, but I am sure now that she was older than that.
    So everything was against us, until the band leader announced that the next number would be a ladies’ choice, an event which only took place rarely and certainly not every night. Surprisingly few girls availed themselves of the opportunity, presumably for reasons of maidenly modesty. It was a great thing to be asked at all and most men waited, chatting with friends, with every evidence of unconcern.
    But if, as the Bible has it, few were chosen, I was one of them. I was aware of a tug at my arm and turned to find the woman in the orange tweed suit from