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

the balcony.
    ‘May I have this dance?’ she asked in a low, sweet voice.
    I have no means of knowing whether or not I blushed, but I swallowed my confusion and followed her onto the floor.
    Everything about her was wrong, the neat clothes, the madonna-like face, that beautifully modulated voice, and yet when I took her in my arms my heart started to pound, my stomach contracted, the inside of my mouth went dry.
    That two members of the opposite sex can strike sparks from each other from the first meeting, without even a word being spoken, is a common enough phenomenon, and frequently such passion has nothing to do with love in the usual sense of the word. Something inexplicable happens and two people come together inexorably.
    To hold her in my arms, even lightly, was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. They were playing an old early thirties number, recently revived, Put Your Head on my Shoulder . She did just that, one hand up around the back of my neck, dancing as intimately as it was possible to get.
    From the beginning, then, there was an inevitability to it all. When the dance ended, she allowed her hand to stay in mine as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I can’t even recall asking her to have a coffee with me. I believe we just went.
    We sat at a balcony table, drank coffee, smoked cigarettes, watched the dancing below and talked, heads together in a low, intimate way, like lovers who, having been long parted, had much to tell each other. And that, I recall at a distance of time, was the strangest thing of all, for it was as if I had always known her, in spite of the fact that in the end I never really knew her at all.
    I cannot remember when we exchanged names for, in retrospect, she was Helen from that very first moment, but I do know that I talked of myself as I had never talked to anyone other than Jake. The Army, my writing, teaching, future hopes and past disappointments. Of herself, she had strangely little to say, or nothing of a very revealing nature, although this, too, only became apparent later. I remember her saying that she was private secretary to a solicitor in the town, no more than that.
    We danced again after a while, September Song , the world a blue mist, the glass ball in the ceiling casting great, rippling waves across us and once, and this was the only time she did such a thing publicly, she pulled down my head and kissed me, the mouth soft and warm, opening like a flower, a kiss like no other I had ever had before.
    And then it was over and we were outside, walking together through a light drizzle, beneath her umbrella. I had asked to take her home, but she, naming a suburb four or five miles on the far side of town, had insisted firmly that I take her only as far as the tram stop on the main road.
    We walked slowly along the wet pavement, pausing occasionally to kiss. I asked her to go out with me one evening. The cinema or just a walk, perhaps? Anything. She shook her head firmly. It just wasn’t possible. She was too busy with prior commitments.
    The frustration was terrible and explains, I suppose, what followed. We were standing on the corner of a small, dark alley. I grabbed her elbow rather roughly and pushed her into the shadows. Then I crushed her to me and kissed her hard, forcing her head back.
    She broke away from me, slightly breathless, shaking a little as she reached up to touch my face. ‘No, Oliver, not now. Not this way. There’s no need.’
    A remark which naturally made not the slightest sense to me and I grabbed her again, caressing her right breast clumsily.
    I got a good old fashioned slap in the face that sent me back across the alley. She moved into the circle of light cast by a gas lamp and paused to rearrange herself, her face pale yet calm as she glanced once towards me before walking away.
    The immediate feeling was one of panic, sheer blind panic at the thought of losing her. I acted in a purely reflex way, running after her