There Should Be More Dancing by Rosalie Ham Read Free Book Online

cardigan. ‘Mum,’ she said, but the shoulders didn’t turn, her mother just kept washing dishes, stacking plates neatly on the draining board. Then there was her mother’s lap, a wooden frame holding her at bay, a haven that was out-of-bounds, an exclusive place only for cloth and thread, needles and scissors, yet Judith’s scalp crawled deliciously as she remembered the feel of a brush pulling through her hair, the bristles scraping across her scalp. She felt a comb slice down the back of her head, the tug of her mother’s firm hands parting and plaiting. ‘Now go and tie your ribbons for school.’
    Judith moved the cursor to iPhoto and looked at images of Pudding’s happy, loving and carefully photographed life. As she sat back to eat her rice crackers, she felt reassured.
    Margery rinsed her cup under the tap, left it to drain on the sink and sat in her chair with her cross-stitch. By the time Mrs Parsons’ blind went up, she had come to terms with Charmaine’s visit and felt calmer, so she set out for next door. On her front path, just beneath the letterbox, were her glasses. One lens was cracked and lay in three neat triangles in the rim. Next door, in the bright morning sunshine the excavator roared, Mrs Bist’s carefully painted walls splintering under its iron tracks. Margery stepped cautiously towards Mrs Parsons’ place and pushed the squeaky little gate open. She made her way down the side of the house to the back door, knocked, called ‘Yoo-hoo,’ and let herself into her neighbour’s kitchen. Mrs Parsons waited in her rocking chair near the wood stove, though there had been no fire in the grate since electric heaters started appearing in summer sales catalogues in the 1950s. Only the winter before, Cheryl had replaced her two-bar electric wall heater with an upright electric oil heater on wheels. Mrs Parsons also used it to dry her rinsed cottontails and wool stockings of an evening.
    Margery sat down opposite her neighbour. From the wireless, a soprano with a warm, lyrical voice sang,
    Shepherd, the meadows are in bloom.
    You should graze your flock on this side ,
    Sing baïlèro lèrô.
    Shepherd, the water divides us and I can’t cross it,
    Sing baïlèro lèrô.
    â€˜Good morning, how are you today, Mrs Parsons?’ Mrs Parsons said she was as well as could be expected, thank you. Margery reached down and lifted Mrs Parsons’ right foot, rocking the old lady’s chair back. She tied her neighbour’s lace, gently lowered her stiff leg and, as she picked up Mrs Parsons’ left foot, apologised again, ‘Sorry about the argument yesterday.’ Again, Mrs Parsons said, ‘Never mind.’
    â€˜Mrs Bist’s house has gone.’
    â€˜Is that what all the noise is?’
    â€˜It was a perfectly good house.’ Margery stood up, smoothed her skirt and, as she did every morning, asked, ‘Are you alright then, Mrs Parsons?’ and, as always, Mrs Parsons replied, ‘Yes, thank you. You’re very kind.’
    â€˜You didn’t get a bossy lass called Charmaine bothering you?’
    â€˜Not today.’
    At her gate, Margery paused to take in the vast space above the pile of splintered weatherboards, twisted iron, smashed window frames and blackened chimney bricks where Mrs Bist’s house had stood, just an hour ago. The excavator sat bludgeoning its way through the back shed, the arms of Mrs Bist’s Hills Hoist poking out from under its tracks. Feeling threatened by the destruction of certaintiesshe had known for sixty years, Margery went inside her little house, snibbed her screen door and pulled shut the front door. She tried to close the back porch door, but it wouldn’t go past a bulge where the sunken stumps had buckled a floorboard, so she closed and bolted the kitchen door instead. While the kettle boiled again, she sticky-taped her glasses together, gluing the