"Dance" A short stoy by James Cox

DANCE

It plays the song, the radio does,
And as it plays she sings along.
She learnt the words when she was young,


The song came on the radio and slammed the breaks on her day.
Her Pavlovian response was to squeeze shut her eyes and smile.
Without consent her body began to sway and her arms extended around the space where he no longer was.
If he were to fall out the sky at that moment, Jim would have slotted perfectly into the gap between her cheek and flattened palms just as he had done all those years ago.
The snare played a sassy shower. A trumpet blew a glassy melody.
She was twenty years old and at the Corn exchange home guard dance.
Jim was a taut 23 year old cutting a fine figure in his de-mob suit, with his thick tanned wrists and perfect nose.
He lead her to the shiny wooden floor with little more than a smile and they stayed there until the MC raised the lights.
When she opened her eyes she was 78, and wearing every year.
She wiped away the swell of a tear.
“You old fool,” she said aloud.
“This is a dedication,” read the announcer, “from Jim to Matilda. He says thanks for the memories and being you, even when I was barely me.”
The music played on and a nasal crooner with a geometric voice began to sing.
For a moment the tune was drowned out by applause as Jim span her into his arms and kissed her.
The claps were from the swathes of well wishers at their wedding, sealing their whirlwind affair after just months of courtship.
The man they hired to sing with the band that day wasn’t quite as good as the guy on the record – she had never cared for singers’ names – but the instruments played just about as close as the recording.
When they slow danced chest to breast, she could hear Jim whispering each word to her.
Each face that swirled into view over his shoulder, the beaming bridesmaid, her teary mother, vanished into insignificance at that moment and she wished she could trade the elation for privacy.
But still he whispered and still they danced, under the parasol of that song.
Matilda caught herself wearing a grin and shook it away.
“Old fool,” she repeated and filled the kettle.
She turned to kill the wireless but caught sight of the cracked, matt photograph on the shelf. The one of her and Jim suspending their boy between them as he shrieked with laughter.
Harry fell asleep much faster when Jim sang to him.
She would listen through the door and would hum along with the melody.
Without that sassy shower of snare and slippery trumpet melody the words were raw and aching.
When Jim’s volume tapered off she knew Harry had fallen asleep and knew it was time to creep off into the front room.
“It’s funny,” she thought looking at that photograph “how something as simple as a song can crop up so often.”
The photo was bleached from years of being on display and the colour had faded, apart from the flash of Harry’s red wellingtons and Jim’s navy suit.
He loved that suit.
He even looked dapper in that stubborn, double breasted suit when they buried him in it.
He laid perfectly still looking calm and grey.
The song played over a poorly amplified sound system and the snare was lost to the sniffles from the chapel.
Harry didn’t blink, not once during the service.
She stood beside Jim and said goodbye, kissed her finger tips lowered them onto his perfect nose.
She mouthed the last few lines of the song and prayed he would do the same. But of course he refused. It was the first time she had cried that he had not come to her.
The song finished and she found herself sitting at the table in her yellow kitchen staring at her thin hands.
She wondered how many times she would hear that song between now and her own death.
“Wasn’t that lovely,” said the announcer “Something nice and breezy to start the show, now for something all together more serious…”