Dancing on a motor bike

 

‘I don’t dance ‘you declare on our first date. There is a non-negotiable firmness in your tone mitigated by the admission ‘If I did it would be dad dancing ‘. I accept this stipulation. Hardly a deal breaker since most women prefer to dance solo with free style abandon on the dance floor.

 Aunty internet played match maker for us on a dating site. Despite emails, texts, and facetime, this first meeting was essentially a blind date. In the ensuing exchange of back stories I begin to realise that your smart winter coat is a sartorial feint , in fact you are  an ex- biker , ex- rocker , so belong to that genus of men not known for their willingness to shed leathers don tails and whisk their partner off in a quick step. Yet I got things wrong too,  my assumption that your hair must be coarse as a nail brush, but later found it to be so soft that other women’s fingers itched to smooth in contrast to their husbands’ bald pates. 

And 3 years later , at our wedding reception , I do not force you to shuffle awkwardly to a power ballad, understanding that to do so would be as cruel as forcing my long rusted voice to sing in public. 

You have always been tight lipped about your buccaneering past. I generally receive edited highlights. And over time as we have learned to fully relax in each other’s company, me with no make -up on and you flat out on the sofa , in the course of casual chat , memories  slip come out.  At such times ,  I hold my tongue and breath in case my words spook your recollections like shy ghosts .

One such was the revelation that your parents were champion ball room dancers. Pride blooms in your voice when you explain they were taught by that doyenne of the dance world Peggy Spencer.

 A strange little boy you must have been, on the one hand living for sport: cricket, football…  yet able to sit absorbed as your parents practiced a fox trot or samba in the rehearsal rooms above the Starlight Ballroom Whitstable. Accompanying them also to competitions. Deploying your talent for detail to scrutinise the opposition and weighed up your parent’s chances.

It wasn’t the aesthetics you admired, although as a young boy no doubt you savoured the confection of young women with fit young bodies sparingly wrapped in lame and lace.  But it was the theory of the dancing that fascinated you, where a heel misplaced, or a toe lead forgotten would mean docked points or disqualification. In its way as complex and rule driven as sport you enjoyed.   

One question bubbles up inside me adamant as a belch, but my ‘Did you dance too?’  is quashed with a firm shake of the head. Of course, all of this might have been a tall tale, or at the least an exaggeration. But as the clocks go back and evening closes the day at 5 pm , that first year together ,  I insist on us watching ‘Strictly’ ,  for  sequins and sparkle to  light up a glum November evening, a ritual that predates your arrival and you concede with a sighed  ‘ If I must’ .

Whist I admire costumes, reward these novice dancers with ‘Oh that was good.’ You prick my positivity with a shake of the head ‘No heel leads and her ‘Flecklerl’ was off balance ‘. Your criticism corroborated by the judges particularly the camp one with the acid queen tongue.

‘How do you remember this? ‘You shrug, ‘it’s maths, each dance it seems has a formula with calculable steps. And Maths is one of your talents.  Now every Saturday contestants receive a running commentary that irritates like a blow fly.

Valentine’s meal further revelations unfurl. Observing fellow dinners in track suit bottoms and fleeces we pool are reminiscences of parents and their lost world of dinner-dances in swish, sprung ballrooms. Where fine frocks and smart suits were taken for granted. And whilst grandmother and I scoffed ‘Dairy Milk’ whilst watching Ironside, you being 8 years older, would often attend these galas. I am confused by the contradiction. In your teens you were a leather and jeans clad rocker accessorised with blood and cuts from bundles on Herne Bay Sea front. It seems you have a split sartorial style. In your wardrobe biker leathers sat comfortable beside bespoke suits and stacks.  And even today you will shed oily jeans to don slacks, shirt, and signature Crombie.  

And as you pass our waitress the plates to stack you recall your grandmother who from force of habit, despite her glam frock, would begin to clear the tables before the dancing. ‘She was a character’ you chuckle, and as if I have slipped you scopolamine you volunteer ‘when I was big enough, I sometimes danced with her’.

I take a sip of my G and T to give space to process this next contradiction that teeters towards a lie what seems like a lie.  Manage a faux casual ‘How lovely’, that you scarcely hear, in your time travel back to that world, ‘and partnered mum too when dad got tired ‘.

You are clearly being generous with memories tonight,  your mellow mood emboldens me to ask the questions I had kept on my mind’s back burner  , ‘ Could you teach me?’ my heart rate quickens as if I

Your slate grey eyes barely suppress a smirk. Your rejection is firm and final. I have too much pride to wheedle or pester. I think we both recall other failed enterprises, when I was befuddled by bridge, confused by chess, my ineptitude testing your patience as you sighed and repeated the rules yet again. Mindful that an ex-wife was a professional go-go dancer in the 70s, so I take my dancing to the spare room out of sight of comparisons.   

I had known for somewhile that you had hankered after one last blast on a motor bike whilst you are still physically able. Your mockery of middle-aged men squeezing paunches into leathers like overstuffed sausages smacked of envy. In car parks you lingered over bikes in ranks, damming Harleys as ‘heaps of shit ‘but rewarding other makes with a sotto voce ‘that’s nice’ before walking on with a sigh.

‘You shouldn’t leave me alone ‘you declare as I lug the weekly shop in. At the sight of the motorcycle on your laptop, my mood switches from the scratch of irritation at having to bear the shopping in, to stomach drop dread.  Accomplished at covering my feelings, I smile and drop compliments on the thing. Inside regard it as a threat, like a single blond about to move in next door. In fairness, you are adamant that you will only buy if I ride pillion. I don’t know which is worse the fear of you riding off without me in into your old world of leather clad biker chicks or me forcing my 60 year old body onto the back of a bike , greeting each outing with terror, because I have inherited my grandmother’s talent for believing danger smirks round every bend in life.

Despite being alike in so many ways, this bike seems to represent the fault lines of our differences. I know many wives let middle aged husbands have their head by raiding pension pots for a gleaming ‘Indian ‘ they could never afford as young men , but for you ,  biking was never a cheap means of transportation until cars could be afforded .  Biking was a way of life for you , a tribe you belonged to who loved heavy rock, were hard drinking, and lived by their own rules.  

As a girl I was never fearless. I couldn’t even brave roller skates. In adolescence did not follow the rest of the convent girls who had leather clad lads in their sniper sights. I preferred the local public-school boys with their fey ‘Brideshead’ looks.

True since you entered my life, I have faithfully followed you onto aircraft to destinations that made my middle-class friends draw breath and shake their heads at. And it has been a hoot. But I wonder if this bike is my limit. If I push myself to do this, it will be to please you like some bizarre threesome. And if I confess, I have reached the limits of my courage, I know how it will play out. You will put the thing up for sale and then allow me to talk you into keeping it for yourself with a ‘ Well if you are sure ‘ flung over your shoulder as you roar off down the road.  

Despite my encouragement to ‘treat yourself ‘you remain adamant. Before the financial transaction takes place, you construct in the living room a makeshift bike seat compromised of the sofa’s arm affixed to a chair that apes a motorcycle seat and pillion.  I am bidden to swing my leg over ‘Do you feel safe?’, ‘Is it comfortable?’.  Nodding, I keep to myself doubts that I am stationary and not belting along at 70 miles an hour. Nevertheless, you see this as a green light to buy.

During the intervening weeks before the bike arrives a parade of delivery men make their way to our door. Biking it seems has its own paraphernalia. Like a reluctant knight I am kitted out with armour plated leather jacket whose weight winds when I first try on. My head used to baring nothing heavier than a fascinator droops under the helmet’s heft. 

The motorcycle has a retro 1950s glamour.  A black beauty with shinny chrome finish, that makes gentlemen of a certain age stop, stare and sigh. You fire it up and it dragon roars. First weeks you ride out alone. After a break of 30 years there is much for you to remember. Not just the handling of the bike but mapping in your mind the booby traps of potholes and drain covers that can cause a bike to buck. Each ride is an adventure that in the telling has your eyes gleaming with mischief. And after each de-brief a ‘not long now and it will be safe for you to come out. My inner coward hides behind a breezy ‘Oh good’. But as the weeks grow and no invitation is issued, my fear begins to stand down. 

Your ‘Coming out then?’ ambushes me. Chaos of panic in my head, until I strike a bargain with myself  ‘I will do it just the once ‘ It is however not as simple as hopping on and breezing off like in the movies . I am thoroughly briefed as if doing a tandem parachute jump. Above all I must not cling around your waist. Apparently, it feels like a boa constrictor. My notions of romantically hugging my fella as we race along, are impractical. I may place my hands lightly either side of your waist, however most balance is achieved by leaning back against the ‘sissy bar’ a name appropriate to my state of mind.  I am advised to tap you on the shoulder if I lose my nerve.

As you pull away, after years of motoring, I feel naked without a seat belt. Despite our sedate pace, the wind seems to take hold of my helmet and rattle my head like a nut.  You repeatedly chuck ‘Ok so far?’ over your shoulder. ‘I yell ‘Yes’ back’.  Finding I cannot conduct a conversation and keep my balance simultaneously. Buses and HGVs pass like dinosaurs. The first sharp bend flags up a key instruction you omitted. As I lean away from the curve, I do not know that you struggle to keep the bike up right ‘Lean in ‘you shout. ‘Not likely’ I resolve praying there are no more bends. But encountering less acute curves, I incline my body very gingerly and am rewarded with a ‘Better’.

But there is a point on a lonely country road where my fear is taken by the wind. I peer over hedge rows at secret cottages I never knew existed; look across the fields to spot the sea winking in the distance and suddenly understand the sheer bloody fun of it all.

Pulling up at the house, you turn the key, look back at me ‘well?’  I answer with the enthusiasm of Toad of Toad Hall.  Your eyes bare a rare combination of praise and admiration as you pay me what I later learn is the ultimate compliment to a pillion rider ‘I didn’t even now you where there’.

Over the next months, I learn to properly pillion. Machine and ourselves become one as we tilt at corners. Elevated in my ‘queen’ seat, I am a second pair of eyes reading the road for anti-bikers who pull out in front. Learn to brace by leaning back, use my legs much like riding a skittish horse.  Adjust my seat at shunts. Traffic jams are no longer a frustration, as we slalom past stationary cars, audacity ushering us to the head of a traffic light queue or a hot day’s bottle neck into Margate.  Doing a ton plus up the motorway, we grin in cahoots in the wing mirrors. And on that secluded country lane, I remove my hands from your waist and stretch my arms out like wings ‘copying Jack Nickolson’ in Easy Rider’. Then you follow with first one arm then two and as the bike is on autopilot.

Then it dawns on me that this is our own private dance.  And we have quite a repertoire. Different from friends who shift through ‘their song’. Same friends who disapprove of such reckless behaviour at my age. But ours is not a shuffle. At times it is a wild quick step with a whoop at every turn. A mad waltz past stationary traffic. Or a free style across the high weald, where the view is laid out like a Persian carpet. And pulled up at railways crossings, you switch off the bike’s throaty growl. Settle back against me in slow dance intimacy.