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

glass triangles to the frame, and secured them with the ends of a blue bandaid. Then she flicked on her wireless. Andy Williams was just finishing ‘Moon River’ and the announcer on Magic Radio Best Tunes of All Time told her it was ten fifteen.
    She tipped the still-warm pot of tea down the gully trap, took two slices of bread from the freezer and popped them into the toaster. While they toasted she warmed the pot again with boiling water, tipped it out, put two teaspoons of tea in, filled it with boiling water and covered the pot with a cross-stitched cosy. She opened the side doors of her little toaster, turned the bread and got the butter, marmalade, plate, knife and tea strainer organised. She took the toast from the toaster, propped it in a steeple to cool, turned the toaster off, put the strainer over her cup, turned the pot three times, poured her tea then carefully buttered her toast, making sure the butter went all the way to the crusts. She spread the marmalade sparingly and sat enjoying her breakfast while Rod Stewart sang ‘Maggie May’ and the excavator next door shovelled Mrs Bist’s house into the dump bin, fine dust raining down from her vibrating ceiling. Then Margery removed her slippers and went back to bed until Tuesday morning.

From her bed Margery could see her new neighbours, Tony and Miriana, standing on the razed block next door, Miriana’s burnt-orange belly protruding from the gap between her small singlet and tracksuit pants. ‘ Tsk , just look at them,’ Margery scoffed. ‘They spray a suntan from a can these days, so everyone’s the colour of a raw saveloy. And he’s got hair like an echidna.’
    Tony wandered to the middle of the street, mobile phone to his ear, watching down to the corner, waiting for something. ‘He’s probably waiting for some thunderous machine to rattle my house all day.’
    Over at Tyson’s, the curtains billowed through the smashed front windows. Next door, Kevin’s dark, leafy house was, as usual, quiet.
    â€˜Well, I’d better get up now, Cecily. I’ll have a shower, though I only just had one Sunday for my birthday party.’ She reached for her dressing gown. Nat King Cole sang ‘Rambling Rose’ while she ate her tea and toast. In the bathroom she undressed, hanging her gown and nightie on the back of the door, then carefully coveredwhat was left of her set with a shower cap. She removed an old shampoo bottle from the bottom of the bath, took hold of the shower taps and swung her right leg in, and was alarmed when she found she wasn’t able to gain purchase. She started to slide, clinging to the taps, sinking. Her crotch came to rest on the edge of the bath, stabilising her temporarily, but her left leg lost its faint hold on the floor and she sank to lie along the edge of the bath, clinging on with her knees like a caterpillar to a stem. Then her left knee lost its hold and she rolled into the bath, tearing the bandaid from the wound on her shin. Water from the cold tap shot from the rose and, feeling her twisted arms being dragged from their sockets, Margery let go of the taps and flipped over like a sausage in hot water.
    She lay in the bottom of the bath, gasping under the cold downpour, the clean water gushing down the plug hole, her water bill rising second by second. She ripped the shower curtain down, the plastic rings pinging onto the ceiling and bouncing to the floor, and she pulled it up over her head. She was still there, shivering under the torturous roar of water, when she heard someone calling, ‘Yoo-hoo! Anyone home?’ Then the water stopped and the shower curtain pulled back. Margery looked up into the painted face of a pantomime actress. The woman looking down at her had startling blue eyes edged with black kohl in a pale face rimmed with wild, letterbox-red hair. The actress turned the taps off.
    â€˜I’m Anita, your new carer.’
    â€˜You