Page 42 of Dancing Fools and All That Jazz
Ruby shakes her head and instead asks Ingrida to show her the dance step she missed.
I watch them attempt the new step in the limited space next to our cases, smiling as other passengers crane their necks to watch Ruby copying Ingrida’s développékick.
I still feel a bit rough – the motion of the train is worse when you are standing – so I perch on my case, sipping my water as I contemplate if I have ever had such a bad fall out as Monica and Ruby. The only ones I can recall were with my sister, Rashmi. Before I moved in with Jay, we had many heated arguments.
‘You never help around the house,’ she would shout at me.
‘I am at work all day.’
‘And you never lift a hand to cook or clear up…’
‘You are being ridiculous. I am in a responsible clinical job, attending to patients. All you do all day is feed and change your babies.’
She then screamed at the top of her voice, ‘You are nothing but a spoilt brat and you never do anything for anyone other than yourself.’
Ma came to break it up, but I was so furious, I could not help but say, ‘And you are nothing but ungrateful. You have clearly forgotten it was only down to my support for you that you were able to flee from your dreadful marriage and move back home, and now we all have to put up with the noise and the mess.’
It is a relief to be living with Jay away from it all. I will not make the same mistakes as Rashmi.
As we approach London, Ruby, who has had two further tins of gin and tonic, leans in to both Ingrida and me. ‘You know you’re both very lucky. You with Neil,’ – she lifts her can to Ingrida – ‘and you with Jay.’ She lifts it to me. ‘Maybe I should settle down? And well, I think Max’s probably the one…’
Ingrida clasps her hands together and says, ‘This is wonderful, Ruby.’ And they chink tins as I raise my empty bottle of water.
We all say, ‘To Max, Neil and Jay.’
Ingrida adds, ‘And true love.’
We giggle as we disembark the train and go to meetup outside the M&S food store outside Euston Station.
The air is cool and fresh, and I feel better to be outside on solid ground. As we set off for St Pancras station, Fay in the lead, I get another shiver of excitement. Despite everything that has happened, we are on our way to Paris.
11
Monica
It is late evening by the time we arrive at our hotel, the only one Fay could find that had vacancies for our number. I look up at the grimy name, barely legible, above the entrance; the Charbon Hotel. The cold, grey concrete exterior could not look any less inviting.
‘What a dive.’ I hear Ruby announce as Fay marches to the desk with Vince’s card to check us in and we crowd into the small foyer.
‘What does it mean, Charbon?’ Bonnie asks Ingrida.
‘I think it is name like carbon. It mean coal or smut…’
‘Frigging brilliant. The Smut Hotel.’ Ruby shakes her head.
‘First impressions are not good and it is such a terribly long way from theGare du NordStation.’ Asha also shakes her head, adding, ‘How long will it take us to get to the theatre tomorrow? I dread to think.’
‘I do not feel as if I am in Paris.’ Ingrida sighs.
‘Me neither,’ Asha adds. ‘This is not at all how I pictured it.’
No one wants to sit on the grubby green plastic seats in the cramped entrance way, so we clump together next to our cases and wait.
After several minutes, Fay starts to raise her voice.
‘No really, this will not do. Is there anyone here who can speak English?Avez vous receptioniste avec parlay beaucoup de Englais?’
Ingrida – who, as it turns out, speaks fluent French and was brilliant getting us taxis at the station – crosses to assist Fay. The young man on duty converses with her before shrugging and handing her a single key.
