Page 12 of Clara's Secret Garden
How amazing to be their age, grabbing life with glee andembracing everything the world has to offer them. And how sad when your youthfulhopes and dreams come to nothing. But Bertie and Luke are much braver than Iwas as a youngster. Hopefully, they won’t let fear get in the way of achieving theirpotential...
*****
Up until a year or so ago, I was living away from home andtraining to be a dance teacher, egged on by Gran who never seemed to doubt thatit would be the perfect career for me. Dad had left me some money and I knewthat’s what he wanted for me as well – he knew how passionate I was about dance– although it took a long time for me to pluck up the courage to send in theapplication.
I’d studied dance for two years at a local vocationalcollege straight from school and I’d loved the whole experience. I was amongpeople who shared my passion and – dancing every day – I grew in confidence andwas fitter than I’d ever been, and that’s when I took a job working part-timeat the doggy day care centre.
When I left college with my qualifications, however, I wasunsure what to do next. So when my boss at the doggy day care company asked meif I’d like to work there full-time while I made up my mind, I said yes. I endedup staying there for three years, during which time we were coping with Dadbeing ill and eventually losing him.
I was twenty-four by the time I finally got my act togetherand – with Gran’s encouragement – applied to study for a diploma in danceteaching.
I tried to get into a college close to home so that I couldcommute daily, but that didn’t work out, so I eventually accepted an offer of aplace at a college on the south coast. It wasn’t too far from Surrey, but itmeant I had to rent a room down there during the week and travel back home atweekends.
I didn’t want to leave Bertie, but Lois convinced me thathe’d be perfectly fine and that I was worrying unduly. Even Gran said I had togo because dance was my future. And at first, it was fine.
But then something terrifying happened that made me realisemy place was in Sunnybrook. Even now, I can’t think of that day without experiencinga feeling of gut-wrenching horror.
It made me realise how much Bertie needed me.
So I gave up the course and went home...
*****
With Bertie and Luke nicely occupied, timing each othercycling, I brave the wilderness that is Gran’s garden.
The Latin dance music is continuing to pump its sunshinebeat from the cottage next door in a track I know well. ‘Mucha Muchacha’. And withno one around to watch (next door’s windows are hidden by the dividing fenceand a large hawthorn tree), my body starts moving naturally in time, doing ahip-swaying merengue (pronounced ‘merengay’), past the weed-filled flower bedsand over to the disaster that is Gran’s vegetable plot.
My love of dancing began when I was little.
A while after we lost Mum, Dad took me along to danceclasses. He was hoping, I think, to bring his shy little daughter out of hershell a bit, although I resisted strongly at first. But I found I had a naturalaptitude for moving in time to the music and I liked the way dancing made mefeel. Looking back, I can see that dancing was the perfect way for me toexpress my emotions and expel some of the anger and grief I’d been bottling upinside since Mum died.
I made up my mind that I was going to be a dancer when Igrew up.
But adolescence intervened, plumping out my hips and thighs,and making me even more shy and awkward. A more confident, strong-minded personthan me would have ignored the sly grins and nudges at school and at danceclass, and brushed off the ‘Clara Chubface’ nickname. But I hated mychubbiness. I knew I must look ridiculous, lumbering about on the floor like ababy elephant.
So I stopped going to the classes and I danced alone in myroom instead.
Dad and Gran tried to persuade me to carry on – Gran,especially, seemed really anxious I should continue with the classes; she kepttelling me it was obvious I had a natural talent for dance and I shouldn’twaste it. She got quite tearful at one stage and said I reminded her ofsomeone, which I didn’t really understand. (When I asked her about it later,she brushed it off and said she didn’t remember saying it.) It was only muchlater, when I was thinking of what to do as a career, that I finally went backto dancing. But ever since my dreams of becoming a dance teacher came to such anabrupt end, I haven’t danced at all.
So it’s a bit of a surprise to find myself doing themerengue in Gran’s garden, where anyone could look over the fence and see me!
It occurs to me that maybe it’s Rory’s unexpected reappearancein my life that’s put this spring in my step today. I glance at my watch. He’sdue here soon and my heart flips over at the thought. But I tell myself to stopit.
Rory is a friend. That’s all.
So don’t get any silly ideas!
Down on my knees with a garden fork and a trowel, I get downto the business of weeding the first veggie bed in its wooden frame. My bedtimereading last night was one of Gran’s encyclopaedic gardening books and before Idropped off (the tombstone of a book bashing me on the nose), I managed to readup about peas, courgettes and spinach. I also looked at lots of photos of them,so now I sort of know what’s a plant and what’s a weed. Ithink. (AlthoughI have to say, it pains me to dig upanyplant that has beautifullilac-coloured flowers, weed or no weed...)
I pause for a moment, glancing over at the swathe ofwildflowers Gran planted along the side of the cottage, beneath one of thekitchen windows. She loves all the different butterflies and the hum of thepollinators visiting the colourful mix of flowers, although I remember beingquite freaked out when I was little, whenever a bee managed to bumble its wayinto the kitchen. Gran was always calmness itself, though. She always knows theright things to say to make me feel better...
I close my eyes tightly for a moment, grief rising up. Theworst times now are when she’s sleeping and I can’t talk to her. And she sleepsa lot.
Please let her be awake and feeling better when I go inlater.
I attack the weeds with more ferocity than they probablydeserve for a while, then I sit back on my heels to take a breath, my eye alightingagain on the abundant wildflower display.
I’m more familiar with the names of wildflowers because Dadwould always point them out whenever we were walking in the countryside. Here,Gran has bright red poppies swaying in the breeze, mingled with oxeye daisiesand pretty blue cornflowers. I noticed yesterday that a handful of thistles hadsprouted up amongst them, though, and I make a mental note to dig them up whenI’ve finished weeding the raised beds.
