The Chatsfield Short Romances 11-15

Chapter Four

I hug myself. ‘I can’t. I don’t know how.’

His hand remains stretched out to me. ‘Can you walk?’

I nod.

He gives a little shrug. ‘Then that is all you need to know.’ When I don’t respond, he adds. ‘Tango is merely walking with a partner to the music.’

I glance over to the dance floor. Sure, what’s happening there doesn’t look like the version of the tango I’d seen at the ballroom studio when Gareth and I had gone for our trio of lessons in preparation for the wedding. The couples are close together, and while there are no roses between teeth or dramatic head or arm gestures, there are still patterns and small turns, little flicks and pauses that everyone seems to know by instinct. It looks a lot harder than walking to me.

He reaches out and his fingers slide across mine, then he grips my hand. He doesn’t pull, just leaves it there, like a question waiting for an answer. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says, reading my mind again. ‘You are a dancer, you will pick it up. And there are no steps to learn. This kind of tango is improvised, and it is my job as the man to lead and yours as the woman to follow.’

Right there I have another good reason to chicken out. ‘I’m not in a very man-trusting kind of mood at the moment,’ I tell him. I trusted one man with the rest of my life and look what he did with it.

I see that almost hidden glimmer of amusement again, but behind it there is something in his expression that tells me, despite his soft words and calm manner, that my would-be partner is just as stubborn as I.

‘The lead is not a command, but an invitation. All you have to do is accept it, surrender to the music, and forget about everything else for a while.’

My ears prick up. That, at least, sounds appealing.

My hand is still in his, warm and encased. I realise I don’t want to let go.

I slide off the stool, watching my feet, then meet his gaze when I have my balance. There is no look of triumph in his eyes, as Gareth would have given me—he always was a bit too competitive for his own good. Instead this man just leads me away from the shadows at the edges of the room and to the fringes of the softly lit dance floor.

My heart begins to pound inside my ribcage as he pulls me close. I’m not sure if it’s nervousness at not knowing the dance or because it feels strange, and maybe just a little thrilling, to be in the arms of a man who isn’t Gareth.

Like the other couples on the floor, our upper bodies are close. His right hand is firm on back, resting at the bottom of my left shoulder blade, and my left arm rests snugly on top of his, my hand on his shoulder. He clasps my other hand and I find my forehead rests naturally against his cheek. He smells wonderful, of sharp citrus and clean cotton.

‘What’s your name?’ I whisper. If we’re going to be this close, I really ought to know his name.

‘Cristian,’ he replies simply.

‘I’m Sophie,’ I say, even though he doesn’t ask.

We begin to move. I have no idea what I’m doing, but somehow I don’t trip us both up. We keep going like that for a while. We’re so close it’s hard to look down at my feet. And he’s right: while I’m busy concentrating on not causing a five-couple pile-up, I haven’t room to think of anything else. It’s delicious. I wonder if I can take him home and hide him in my wardrobe, get him out so I can tango down my landing when things get too much.

‘Sophie?’ he says huskily.

I hesitate, putting us off-balance momentarily. ‘What? Am I doing it wrong?’

‘No…’ he says, and I can hear the humour in his voice. ‘But you are not yet doing it completely right.’

‘Give a girl a chance,’ I mutter under my breath. ‘I’ve only been learning for five minutes.’

This time his laugh is audible. ‘I like it when you speak that way,’ he says into my ear. ‘It shows you have natural fire. Much better than the wet dishrag I met at the bar. And tango is all about emotion—about passion.’

I want to bristle at the dishrag comment, but I can’t really argue with the truth. We carry on dancing in silence for another minute. Somehow I know he’s going to carry on with what he had started to say, that I just need to be patient.

We reach a point where he turns me around him. It’s very clever. I don’t even know it’s coming, but somehow, the way he places his feet, the way he blocks his leg with mine, make the next step clear. He does it again. But this time the movement is larger, more sweeping, and then at the end we both seem to grow taller, hover on the balls of our feet. The moment stretches way longer than feels comfortable, and I move before he does. He tuts softly in my ear.

‘Do not be afraid of these moments,’ he tells me. ‘They are necessary, time to feel the music, work out what it is telling you to do next. You cannot rush them. They reflect how it is in life… There are moments of great complexity and busyness, great drama and emotion. We need the pause after such times, and it is the same with tango.’

I nod, even though I’m not quite sure what he means. The skin of his cheek feels both rough and smooth against my forehead. I feel just the hint of stubble at his jaw. I used to get annoyed at Gareth when he didn’t shave, telling him I didn’t need sandpapering when we were that close, but somehow I like the feel of it right now.

I concentrate on not wrenching the lead away from him, even when the moments of stillness stretch on forever. I concentrate on trying to work out what’s coming next. Now we’ve been dancing a while, my feet are recognising the patterns. I want to be more than a lump that he’s dragging round the floor. For some reason it’s important I am a good partner.

‘You are thinking too much,’ he mumbles as he turns me once again, and then he steps across and blocks my raised foot with his own, uses his weight to send me in an unexpected direction. Suddenly, I feel as lost and off-balance as I did when we first started. I look down to try and work where his feet are going.

‘Ciera los ojos,’ he says. I don’t understand the words but the tone is a command.

‘I don’t underst—’

‘Close your eyes,’ he repeats, just as plainly. I know this is not a request. Nor is it an invitation. I keep my eyes wide open and glare at him. He stares back at me. Neither of us back down. I feel a flash of anger, although I don’t know where it has come from or why. It changes the way I move, and Cristian somehow knows this and changes his steps accordingly. Suddenly, this is more than arms and legs and torsos moving in unison. It becomes something primal. Something I am more than a little bit scared of.

I turn my head away, refusing to look at him, but my act of contrariness becomes part of the dance too. Or is it a conversation our bodies are having while our mouths are closed? I really can’t tell.

‘We call it entregar,’ he says. ‘It means to surrender. It is what a good follower in tango must do.’ His voice grows softer. ‘You almost have it, Sophie… Close your eyes.’

This time I do it. Not because I have been told to. Not in a fit of pique. But because I want to. I have seen the couples around me, even the silver-haired pair, lost in a place where the outside world doesn’t exist any more. I want that too. I want it so badly it’s like an ache deep inside me.

As we carry on I see what he means. Without my eyes I have no choice but to listen to what his body is telling mine. My whole frame becomes hungry to hear from him. He uses his weight, his legs, even the fingertips resting so, so lightly on my back. I feel the way he wants me to move and I just go with it. And he’s right—I’m not a lifeless puppet being directed. I am part of it and it makes me feel alive in a way I just can’t describe.

The feelings I’ve been stuffing down all week, those I’ve been too scared to let out come spilling out. There are moments of anger and moments of sadness. Times when I want to howl and times when I want to punch and scratch, yet the dance contains it all. Each emotion follows the next, working its way out from deep inside me, through my torso, my arms, my legs, even through my fingertips, and there they are exorcised. Set free, like doves that fly off never to return. I feel that Cristian knows me now. Knows all my secrets, for he has felt them reverberate through me and into him as we have moved as one body.

We dance on and on, from song to song. I can’t let go. I don’t want to. I feel as if I was meant to do this, to learn this dance, and that I was meant to do it with him. Something hot and warm slices through me, a wish that we’d met in a different time or a different place. It’s both surprising and terrifying.

Finally we come to a stop. I realise the music is dying away. We stand there not moving. I can tell his eyes are closed too, but I don’t know how. A strange energy pulses around us. With a reluctant sigh, he pulls away. I feel cold air rush in where his body just was and I open my eyes.

The way he’s looking at me makes me want to cry. It’s the way I always imagined Gareth would look when he turned to watch me walking down the aisle.

‘You are a quick learner,’ he tells me, and I can hear a slight tremor in his voice.

‘Thank you.’ I want to walk back into his hold again, lay my head on his cheek and just keep on dancing, but the band are packing up. Apart from a handful of people picking up their belongings from the tables at the edges, that the room is empty. Even Mel and Vikki are gone.

He’s still holding my right hand. A hum starts in the air between us. I realise that I want to kiss him. Not only that, but I think he wants to kiss me. I almost close my eyes and sway towards him. Instead, I snatch my hand from his and clasp it to my body, protecting myself.

‘I need to go,’ I mumble. I look towards the door. ‘My friends…’

‘Sophie?’

I turn my head away. I can’t stand that look in his eyes. ‘Don’t.’

He speaks anyway. ‘I would like to see you again.’

I nod. I know he does. I want it too.

I also know that it would be the stupidest thing in the world. No way am I ready to even notice another man yet, let alone date one. Inside me something starts to weep.

I weaken and look at him. All my pain and confusion must be written on my face, because his eyes grow bleak and then he tilts his head, as if he understands.

‘Dinner,’ he says, ‘is all I am asking for.’

I nod. And then I shake my head. I’m so confused.

He takes my hand, our one remaining point of contact, and raises it to his lips. They feel soft and firm as he kisses the back of my hand. He closes his eyes momentarily as he does so and it makes me want to run my fingers through his hair.

And then we are severed. He steps back.

‘I will wait for you in the lobby at eight o’clock tomorrow evening,’ he says and I feel my breath hitch. ‘It is up to you whether you choose to meet me or not.’ And then he turns and walks away, leaving me alone on the empty dance floor as a hotel employee flicks the overhead lights on one by one.

Chapter Five

‘Good luck!’ Vikki says with a giggle.

‘Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do!’ Mel adds.

They both wave me goodbye as the lift doors slice closed, cutting us off from each other. I breathe out and lean against the back of the lift as it begins to descend, but then I panic. I launch myself at the old-fashioned panel of round push-buttons and press a number, any number, as long as it’s lower than the floor I’ve just come from and higher than the one for the hotel lobby.

When the doors ding open a few seconds later I spill out of the confined space, almost knocking into an elderly couple. ‘Sorry!’ I yell, as they walk into the lift, tutting.

I stumble along the corridor, feeling safer when the lift doors are out of sight. And then I stop. I look down at my smart but not too sexy shift dress, at my black suede kitten heels.

What am I doing? Am I insane?

Maybe, I think, nodding to myself.

I’m considering going on date a mere eight days after being jilted very publicly and painfully at the altar. Clearly something is not as it should be with my mental health.

Of course, Mel and Vikki think it’s wonderful. I discovered when I got back up to the suite last night that they’d deliberately left me alone down there with Cristian, and were quite disappointed when I turned up at the door a little after one, alone.

‘You should do it!’ Mel had said, grinning.

‘Do him you mean,’ Vikki chimed in.

I’d ignored them and gone to my room and got ready for bed, ignoring their schoolgirl whisperings beyond the bedroom door. That hadn’t been the end of it, though. They’d continued in the morning, and all the way through a shopping trip to Selfridges. Hence the dress and shoes. They’d wanted me to go with something more…obvious. I’d refused. But I had bought something. Everything in my suitcase reminds me of Gareth.

‘A rebound fling will be good for you,’ Mel had said in one of her calmer moments. ‘And what better revenge on Grimy Gareth than sleeping with another man on what should have been your honeymoon!’

I turn and trudge wearily back to the lifts, press the up button and lean my head against the cool brushed metal of the door surround while I wait for it to arrive. Although my two wayward bridesmaids have said they’ll make themselves scarce for the evening, they won’t have left the suite yet. I’ll just tell them I can’t do it, that we’ll do something else this evening. I’ll need to give Gareth’s credit a card a thorough workout to make them drop the subject, though.

The lift arrives. It’s empty, thankfully. I stand in the middle, not touching anything as it starts to travel upwards and I close my eyes.

I picture him in the lobby. Waiting.

I know what that’s like, to be suspended between hope and disappointment. I know how it feels to wade through seconds thick as treacle. I know the moment when the tiny flicker of brightness inside reaches its expiry date and coughs out.

I reach out and punch another button. The one marked ‘G’.

I shake my head and call myself a fool.

As stupid as this is, I can’t leave him there. Another indicator that maybe Gareth and I weren’t as compatible as I’d thought.

And while I’m not going to pin Cristian down to the dinner table and have hot steamy sex with him in front of a restaurant full of shocked customers, thinking of Gareth makes me realise that having dinner with a nice man who actually wants to spend time in my company isn’t such a horrible idea after all. Maybe it’ll be good for me.

The decision comes to rest inside me. For the first time in more than a week—apart from those timeless moments on the dance floor last night—I felt a sense of peace.

The lift doors whoosh open mere moments later. He’s there, standing near the bottom of the stairs, slightly turned away from me. As the doors slide closed again behind me, cutting off my escape route, he turns and smiles.

I feel something warm and jittery inside. The memory of the music from last night washes over me, so clear I can almost believe it’s playing from secret speakers in a pot plant nearby. I remember how warm and solid he felt against me, how I let go of everything and just trusted him. How I hadn’t been either sad or afraid. Would it be wrong to dance with him now…just dance our way out of the lobby and down the road, through the parks of London and out of the city, in a tango that would never end?

Clearly, the insanity thing is getting worse.

I smile back at him. A tiny nerve in the corner of my cheek spoils the effect.

He doesn’t seem to notice, though, and his smile grows wider, brighter. I realise he is much more handsome than I first gave him credit for.

‘You came,’ he says.

‘I did,’ I reply, and leave it at that. I can’t even explain my presence here to myself.

He holds out his hand and I look at it, a silky feeling of déjà vu creeping over me. I don’t hesitate this time, though. I don’t argue and try to escape. Instead I slide my fingers past his until we are joined, and then we walk out of the revolving door into the soft golden light of a London summer’s evening.

Chapter Six

We eat dinner in a little Italian restaurant tucked down a side street in Kensington. The decor is dated, the space a little cramped, but the staff are welcoming and knowledgeable and my linguine gambari is amazing.

I look across the table at my companion and realise he is a rare sort of man. Cristian is not like Gareth. He is not interested in impressing me with the price tag of a luxurious meal; he merely wants me to enjoy the good food and even better wine. We talk easily. I find myself smiling, laughing even. It feels strange—alien—but good.

‘So,’ I say as I try and scoop up the last of my spicy tomato sauce with my remaining prawn, ‘where are you off to next after London? France? Italy? Australia?’

He puts his fork down and looks at me. ‘I am going home.’

I nod. Somehow I understand this is significant. Not the fact that he’s going back to Argentina, but that this trip is different. ‘When?’ I ask, then busy myself with arranging my cutlery on my empty plate.

‘Tomorrow.’

I look up quickly, see the regret in his eyes. I wonder if he experienced the same stab of cold I did at his reply.

‘I’ve been raising the finance to buy back the vineyard my family once owned. I’m going back to Mendoza to finalise the deal.’

I leave my knife and fork alone, look up and smile softly at him. ‘That’s marvellous. I mean, I know that I don’t know you…not really…but somehow I can tell you’re going to make amazing wines.’

I see the smile in his eyes. I want to smile back, grin so wide it feels as if my mouth can’t stretch enough to accommodate it, but I don’t. I look at the half empty wine bottle on the table between us. ‘What’s the name of your vineyard?’

‘Why?’

I shrug. ‘Because I want to look out for it. Maybe I’ll find a bottle of your wine one day and I will think of you.’ My words have made me sad, even though I know that is all the future connection I could ever hope to have with this man.

‘Then I hope you will enjoy it.’ His voice is as rich and warm as the Shiraz we’ve just drunk. I can feel him looking steadily at me. ‘But it will be a long time, and it will take a lot of dedication and hard work before that moment arrives.’

My face stays tilted down, but my eyes look up. ‘You won’t be coming back to London again?’

‘I will come to visit Tomas and Felicity at some point in the future, but I will not be in London as frequently as before, no.’

He smiles again, but this time it is tinged with sadness. Neither of us say anything for a while and then he breathes in sharply, as if being woken from a dream, and looks into my eyes. ‘I wish I could stay longer.’

His words tug at something deep inside me.

‘I do too,’ I reply, even though I know how insane this is.

He reaches out across the table and laces his fingers between mine. We both stare at our intertwined hands. It feels as if we’ve just made an important statement. I want to cry, but at the same time warmth rushes through me, making me feel giddy.

Cristian looks at the large clock on the far wall of the restaurant, above the bar, and then back at me. ‘We have tonight.’

I nod. We do. A perfect bubble of time.

We begin to talk again. It is as if we were back on the dance floor. Our conversation was going along one way, but we have paused, taken a turn, and now it heads off in a new, brighter direction. We discuss music and film, food and wine, politics and religion. Finally, a surly waitress slaps a dessert menu down on the table and coughs.

We are the last people left in the restaurant. Cristian and I look at each other, as if sharing a secret, then we smile and shake our heads. It’s only as he pulls away to reach for his wallet that I notice we’ve been holding hands the whole time.

Oh, Lord, I think, as we break eye contact so he can pay the bill. What am I doing? I really don’t know. All I know is that I’ve been feeling so empty, so sucked dry by life, that now this oasis moment is here I can’t stop drinking of it.

We leave the restaurant. It’s late. People are spilling out of the pubs and heading to the clubs. All week I’ve found the city nights warm and dusty, but now the light breeze tickles the hairs on my arms and the bright lights make the humid evening seem full of possibilities.

We walk without talking, making our way slowly through the bodies lining the streets. We haven’t touched again since we let go of each other at the restaurant, but I still feel as if we’re connected.

I forget. Just forget.

I forget the trauma that has brought me here, the events that have led me to this night, to this man. I just enjoy the strength of his silent presence as he walks next to me through the crowds. He was my first proper dance partner, and I still have that sense that we’re a unit of two amongst all the other bodies, communicating wordlessly, always in synch. I let out a deep and lengthy sigh. It feels as if I’d been holding it in ever since I stepped into my wedding dress last week.

My phone buzzes in my bag and I absent-mindedly take it out, a slight smile curving my lips. But when I see who the message is from I stop smiling. In fact, I stop altogether.

Cristian has walked on a few steps, not noticing. Someone bumps into the back of me. Suddenly all the heat and claustrophobia and noise of the city at night comes rushing back in.

We need to talk. G x

I close my eyes, hoping the mirage of a text will have disappeared again when I open them, but it doesn’t.

Now? Seriously? After all this time with nothing?

This is when Gareth finally decides to man up enough to contact me, when I have found one moment—one brief moment—to forget what he did to me? And with a text too! Not even a phone call! Really, he ought to be outside my hotel room on his knees, begging me for forgiveness.

And that careless little kiss at the end of the message…

I feel as if I could burst into flames on the spot, as if I could turn and punch one of these faceless people jostling round me, just because they have the nerve to be here when he is not.

‘Sophie? Are you okay?’

Cristian’s voice is warm and full of concern, pulling me back from the brink. I shake myself and look up. He rests his hand lightly on my shoulder. His eyes are questioning. They dart momentarily towards my phone and then back to my face. I breathe in and tuck it quickly back in my bag.

I want to believe this man cares, I realise, but I really don’t know him. And I’ve already proved that I’m too trusting, that I don’t scratch far enough below the surface in men to see what’s really there.

‘I’m tired,’ I say, and I’m telling the truth. ‘I think it’s time we went back to the hotel.’

Chapter Seven

We walk in silence. I don’t look at Cristian. I’m too scared to. On the dance floor I agreed to trust him completely, and I fear he can now tell I have reneged on the deal. My brain tells me I’ve done the sensible thing, while my heart yells ‘Traitor!’.

But when we’re safely inside the revolving door of The Chatsfield, preparing to go our different ways, I realise he has been my one bright moment in the week from hell. Maybe I’m weak, but I don’t want to let go of that yet. I don’t want to go back to the darkness that pulls itself over me like a blanket, thick and suffocating.