Cherry Radford's Blog, page 2

ONE-TO-ONES, I'VE HAD A FEW...

One-to-ones, I've had a few, but then again... who can resist the chances to "pitch your work to industry gate keepers!" in a writing festival package? Although you might wish you had resisted, after a weekend of looking at your watch through interesting talks so that you leave them in time (factoring in a nervous pee) for your appointments, and letting other potentially instructive sessions flow past you while you sit there in post-one-to-one bewilderment. 

Perhaps I just made bad choices, but I never got much out of literary speed-dating. I have no issue with agents that just didn't like what I was doing - even the one whose way of imparting this was to spend 10 minutes arguing that a principal ballet dancer wouldn't travel standard class in a train. I also forgive the two agents (in the same afternoon) that used half of my allocated time to go for a pee. But the one that was so full of praise and excitement that I looked over my shoulder to see if they were speaking to someone else, asked for the full manuscript, and then never replied to any emails...

It's a tricky pairing: the agent is keen for good festival feedback, doesn't want any awkwardness, and would like to give constructive feedback - if she can remember enough about your sub (and control her bladder). But the author with a finished novel may not be too receptive to drastic suggestions made after a possibly cursory look at a small sample, and, let's face it, really just wants to be asked for a full MS. 

It's probably better to have these meetings at an early, more pliable stage of your novel. Or hone your manuscript with a writing group and a good literary consultancy, then do carefully crafted online subs to the RIGHT agents and publishers.

Exactly two years on (and still not having heard from the ecstatic agent), I'm pinch-myself happy to be a signed author with the wonderful Urbane Publications. I can now be one of those smug so-and-so’s who can go to a writing festival without any need to miss anything – my eight years of running the one-to-one gauntlet are over!

TWITTERHOLICS ATWONYMOUS: ARE YOU ADDICTED TO TWITTER?

Apparently Twitter is harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol. As a non-smoking teetotaller, I wouldn't know, but Jesus Twesus, am I using up my addiction allowance on it.

Six years ago I was dragged onto it by my first publisher, with my book cover’s sassy salsa dancer as a profile but a Twitter name that sounds like furniture polish. I dithered - until I realised that Twitter could feed me flamenco and ballet news, lighthouses, Sorolla paintings and so on. Then something else happened: I started to meet some wonderful tweeps - in fact, friendship with a Twitter amigo inspired my new novel.

Great, but far too often these days I'm off down that bloody Twitter hole having Adtwentures in Twonderland when I should be elsewhere. Am I addicted? Are you? Let's take a test.


1.TWIVIALITY
How often do you tweet complete drivel? Anything to get your atwention fix.

Almost Daily Score 2
Sometimes Score 1
Never Score 0

Examples from @CherryRad:
'Sandwich choices on plane: ham and cheese, bacon and cheese  #Queasyjet'
'Have decided that people with that iPhone whistling ring tone are complete [anchor emoji] kers'
'Aaaaa-TCHOOO!’


2. INATWENTIVENESS
How often are you on Twitter when loved ones are with you in the room or needing you elsewhere?

Almost Daily Score 4
Sometimes Score 2
Never Score 0

Example from @CherryRad:
I’ve left a teenager waiting to be picked up at a freezing station while I finished a gripping twonversation - but I did then send him an exquisitely emojied tweet to tell him I was on my way.


3. TWIMEWASTING
How often does time on Twitter stop you finishing a chapter, going for a run etc.

Almost Daily Score 4
Sometimes Score 2
Never Score 0

Example from @CherryRad:
Too often there’s an extra hour in bed while I catch up with Twitter. This morning for example, instead of getting on with a blog post - so I changed topic and decided to shame myself on here.


ARE YOU A TWITTERHOLIC?
Score 0-3/10: No. You have admirable control / dodgy internet access
Score 4-6/10: Tweetering on the brink of addiction. Careful.
Score 7-10/10: Twitterholic. Have a tword with yourself.

Where are you? I’m at 6. Phew.

Ah. But I just did a Google search and found a long list of signs of Twitterholicism - including: You still think adding "Tw" to words is clever. #Twuck.

WHEN CAN I READ YOUR NOVELS, MUM?

My sons have recently asked when they can read my novels. For years I'd say 'when you're older' and re-check that copies were out of reach - but the boys are now eighteen and twenty-three. We've moved, and the novels are on the bookshelf these days. OK, they might not think of looking there, but they could have downloaded one for less than a bus ticket. Why do they need my permission? They seldom want it for anything else.

I don't expect them to read my women's fiction; I've got girlfriends who haven't, it's alright. I'm just intrigued by their hesitation. Possible reasons for it:

1. It's ew to read Mum writing about romantic stuff (likely)
2. I've told them that they'll see traces of themselves in the young characters (but hopefully be amused/chuffed)
3. They resent the time I spent writing the damn things

I can't rule out the last one. How do you combine the selflessness of motherhood with the selfish drive to get down that story in your head? The need to be positive for them, with the need to be in touch with your insecurities for the sake of your writing? It hasn't been easy. Nor for many fathers either, I imagine.

It's Mother's Day, and I never feel I really deserve it. But the boys seem to have turned out OK - and usually bring authorial-quality chocolate.

HOW TO MEET THE IDEA FOR YOUR NEXT NOVEL

I'm off to see a ballet superstar perform - with the anxiety of an ex-alcoholic before a hen night. You see, I used to have an obsession with ballet. OK, ballet men. Straight, gay, macho hispanic, sensitive blonde, hyper bendy redhead, shorty with enormous jumps - all of them really. That ravishing fusion of athleticism and art, of virility and gentleness... Covent Garden was a pricey place to be fixated - but it was ultimately worth it: I got the idea for my first novel (MEN DANCING) there, and had great fun writing (and researching) it.

Eight years and three books on, I'm anxiously waiting to meet an idea for my next one. It'll happen. I know it. Don't I? Uff. WHEN?! The search is beginning to feel like my forcedly cheerful years without a boyfriend - in which pals arranged a series of dire blind dates (e.g. to a guy with the surname Tree, I ask you) and told me to get out more. I'm currently on a series of dates with background reading books, and getting out to lots of windy locations. Getting closer and enjoying myself, but heaven help me, I recently found myself singing along to Michael Buble’s I Just Haven’t Met You Yet.

In the past I've been fired up by a Spanish musical genre, empathy for a childless friend, a city, a group of Twittermates, even an Edwardian navigational aid... Jeez, I'd happily fall in love with a post box, if it could inspire me to stop sitting around sharing Facebook videos of piano-playing cats and start opening my writing notebook.

But I've got a date with my old flame BalletMan, and who knows, sitting on the train, just when I'm not looking for it, an idea might tap me on the shoulder. I'll keep you posted.

LinkedIn: One hook up too many?

Tapping on my mobile half asleep one night, I must have hooked up with LinkedIn. The next day, I couldn't believe I'd given in to this smug monster, and quickly reached for a Morning After Unsubscribe. But the trouble is that you have to log on to bog off, SlinkIn to SlinkOut, kiss before leaving - and I couldn't remember my bloody password.

So years passed, with daily Linkvitations in my Inbox reminding me not to wander onto the internet while under the influence of Ovaltine. I fervently hoped it would all somehow go away.

But something’s happened: I’ve now got a Proper Publishing Deal, and need to be on everything. Including LinkedIn, which, Google promises me, will increase my Search Engine Rankings. Since I don't know my current ones - or what the hell these actually are - this will be difficult to prove. It's also supposed to increase my connections - but I can do that on Twitter, with more fun and less waffle. To be honest, at the moment I'm only really after a few more readers for my new blog - and the hopefully swift and simple pacification of scores of unanswered Linked friends.

So after a few hours LockedIn, what can I tell you? Well, it's blue, which is nice. Easier to navigate than Goodreads - but then so is the Strait of Magellan. And... well, nothing really, all the same faces, and the people who I wish were on Twitter aren't in here either. Hackles started to rise with the profile page, which, despite the encouragements (‘Cherry, your Summary is looking good!’) insists on boxing your life into its own peculiar linxpectations. For example, apparently I don't live in Eastbourne but in 'Holywell, E. Sussex' - which is great, but basically just a section of the beach. As for my living in two countries – even though surely this is relevant professionally – no way was this allowed. But the true horror is the ENDORSING. Visiting pages of people I know and hoping to encourage, I'm soon going: 'WTF? When was she ever a Fiction Writer? He's a Director there? My arse...' Then I see that somebody has endorsed me for Short Stories - something she can't possibly vouch for unless she's had secret and ill-advised access to my 'Cherry - Junior Sch.' box file. Or maybe this is actually her suggestion, after trying one of my novels. Who knows what people are trying to say on here? Or what they do when they're off it. There are some great posts (presumably also available elsewhere), but it mostly feels a bit pushy and shouty. I know, I know, I'll give it a little longer – and please, tell me I’m wrong - but at the moment it feels like one hook up too many.

WRITING UNDER THE INFLUENCE... OF FLAMENCO

OLÉ! Flamenco Festival time again at Sadler's Wells Theatre. Seven years ago I was so astounded with it all that I went straight off to Granada to do a flamenco course and start a novel. I was writing real-time, being the character (well, within reason); it was crazy, but one hell of a buzz.

Back home I continued dance classes, and flamenco took over my iPod and car. I was (and still am) entranced by the complex rhythms, the excruciating beauty of those exotic chords, the sensuality of it all. It wasn't just the music; I was taking on flamenco's live-in-the-moment ways, where the only things to worry about were being fuera de compás (out of time) or being told no me dice nada (you're not saying anything). I wrote flamenco: vaguely knowing where the story would go, but letting the characters do what the joder they liked with it - as long as they kept to pace.

Years passed, the book came out. I promoted it on a bilingual radio show in Madrid alongside a well-known flamenco guitarist, got invited to performances, started another novel with a flamenco guitarist in it...

If my head hadn't been so stuck up my flamenco culo, I might have noticed that my tinpot publisher wasn't responding and hadn't paid me any royalties. None at all. It turned out that they were quietly going bust. (Future blog post: My Miserably Potholed Path to Publication).

But Flamenco Baby is still available, for hispanophiles who want to 'gobble it up like a good plate of pulpo' (Amazon review). It's even for sale at the wonderful Sadler's Wells Flamenco Festival, where it was conceived – OLÉ!

THE ALLURE OF THE LIGHTHOUSE: NIGHT-LIGHT, FORTRESS AND PHALLUS

Who doesn’t like lighthouses? I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t at least half-smile when I tell them there’s one in my new novel. Well, there are three in it actually, but I try to filter the glare of my pharophilia – even if my calendar, lamp, paperweight, drink mats, book shelves, and move to near Beachy Head give friends an idea of what’s going on here.

So what is it about lighthouses? I mean, it’s not just me, is it. I don’t think it’s the lighthouse’s popularity as a symbol of spiritual, physical and moral guidance, however much it delights me that my GP surgery is called The Lighthouse Practice. I get nearer to the answer when I watch the Beachy Head lighthouse flash out into the night; part of the attraction must be the childish love of a night-light.

Then you have to admire their permanence. They’re built like fortresses, unbelievably resistant to the horrors nature throws at them. On a tour in Jersey’s Corbière lighthouse I’ve jotted down ‘You can’t forget the sea, not for a moment. It resents the impudence of this impervious concrete structure.’ With few exceptions – notably the Eddystone lighthouse, now in its fourth edition – the sea has to put up with them.

So, comforting night-light and fortress – but I can get these from the Eastbourne seafront’s illuminations and Martello towers, without the same intake of breath. What else is it about lighthouses? The architecture, of course. Glistening white, candy-striped, tall or short: they are beautiful. Even the cliff-top Belle Tout, a grey squat little lighthouse only its mother could love, but stunning from a distance – and inside. Inside! How we all want to go inside. Imagine the cosy minimalist living, the view from the top! (In Part Two I’ll tell you where you can do this).

But architecture: why don’t I view the local statue of the Duke of Devonshire, or even the glorious Pier, with the same primitive adoration? Let’s take a look at a lighthouse. Hm. Remind you of anything? Particularly one with a couple of outbuildings round its base. Let’s face this head on: lighthouses are phallic. Are you with me on this? I hope so, because I’ve got my protagonist’s ex-husband visiting her converted lighthouse and saying ‘God, I didn’t realise you live in the actual shaft of this thing!’ – but now see there’s not a single lewd lighthouse comment on Google. Ah, unless you count the academics discussing the lighthouse theme in Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse – even though she herself skirted the issue with ‘I meant nothing by the lighthouse, but trusted that people would make it the deposit for their own emotions.’ They quickly move on to explain that the phallus-lighthouse represents the father’s authority in the traditional family.

There’s certainly no getting away from the masculinity of lighthouses and the profession; despite the famous story of Grace Darling, the lighthouse keeper’s daughter who heroically saved lives after a shipwreck in 1838, female keepers are vanishingly rare – and usually just taking over after the death of a lighthouse keeper husband.

Perhaps this manliness is part of the nostalgia: we picture the practical but gentlemanly lighthouse keeper on his watch, looking out from his lantern room, painstakingly ensuring (it was quite a palaver) that the light is always shone. A dependable man, mindful of the safety of unknown souls on passing ships. ‘A lighthouse doesn’t do anything,’ comments a modest keeper in Tony Parker’s book Lighthouse, ‘it’s just there if you need it.’ Since 1998, when the last of the UK’s lighthouses became automated, the keepers are sadly no longer needed. But mariners still need lighthouses, dotted round perilous parts of our coastline, as a visual back-up to satellite navigation. As beautiful symbols of humanity, strength, dependability and fatherhood – so do we.

A TRIP TO THE FLAMENCO UNIVERSITY

‘Calle de Béjar – Be, e, jota, a, e-re,' I say again to the taxi driver. I offer to show him the little street that disappears off the edge of my laminated tourist map of Madrid, but he gives me one of those dismissive behind-the-head waves you see flamenco singers do at the end of their song. It’s not a good start to the afternoon.

I have of course factored in some taxi tonterías, and will still arrive ten minutes early - in fact, my entire trip to the world’s first University of Flamenco has a built-in flamenco flexibility factor. This comes from three years of flamenco friendships in Madrid, in which many a frantic WhatsApp about logistics has been answered with a maddening ‘Cherry, tranqui’ (calm down). I sit in the taxi reminding myself that things usually work out, but after guitarist friend Josemi Carmona (former member of New Flamenco group Ketama) has mistakenly given me a contact who interviewed me rather than the other way round, building work has delayed the opening (and my return flight), and other friends say they’ve never heard of it, the place is beginning to take on an Oz-like emerald hue.

But here it is: a four-story building tucked away in a pleasant old barrio, its ground floor frontage a reassuring magenta and ochre. Far from hiding behind a screen, or away in a top floor office like my London music college director, Pedro Ojesto – Royal Conservatory-trained pianist, flamenco-jazz performer, composer, founder of a respected music college and now Director of UFlamenco – is waiting for me in reception. He looks the part, somehow combining the calm eloquence of an academic with the passion and long seventies-style (now silver) hair of a seasoned flamenco – and is extremely likeable. With apologies for the still ongoing adjustments to the building, he enthusiastically shows us round music rooms, a cool-blue mirrored dancing studio with a wall of natural light, the recording studio where Josemi will be overseeing Music Production, and the ground floor’s performance space for the tablaos – the dancer-musician groups that are the heart of flamenco.

The side by side teaching of dancers and musicians is one of the innovations of UFlamenco, he explains. Although both the under-graduates and higher course students will be separated into Music or Dance strands, they will have subjects like Musical Language, History of Flamenco and Combo-Tablao group work together. Furthermore, they offer lessons on any instrument, with musicians like phenomenal jazz-flamenco double-bassist Javier Colina (whose concert we were all attending that night) at hand. With the mix of talent, one can imagine some exciting groups forming here and going on to delight international audiences in the future.

We are now sitting in a classroom for my interview, having been joined by Pepe Habichuela – a master of flamenco guitar, and current patriarch of a five-generation flamenco dynasty, who has just received a prestigious award from the USA’s Berklee College of Music. He’s smiley and amusing - and Josemi’s Dad - but having just been to one of his concerts it feels somewhat surreal to be assailing the gran maestro with my clunky Spanish. Pepe Habichuela oversees the guitar and rhythm section teaching, gives Masterclasses and helps to organise the groups. He says he wants the centre to give flamenco the recognition it deserves, and that it will attract students from all over the world. Also with us is Antonio Suarez Salazar (‘Guadiana’), a sought-after cantaor (flamenco singer) – particularly in collaboration with dancers – who supervises the teaching of singing and melodic instruments. Like Pepe Habichuela, he has an illustrious flamenco heritage and learnt his craft the traditional way. UFlamenco’s music students will have the traditional ‘father-son’ type of teaching from maestros, while also receiving more notational-based instruction as directed by Pedro Ojesto – who has published the first book explaining flamenco to music students.

Antonio Canales, a renowned international performer now in his fifties, is in charge of the dance training. He can’t be with us, but via email I’ve learnt about the care with which he chooses his performer-teachers, and how flamenco dancers trained alongside musicians will be more complete artists.

Before we watched a dance class, I talked to a couple of the students. Diego, a 34-year old qualified guitar teacher from Argentina who is on the higher course, says he’s here to perfect his art and take it to a level that wouldn’t be possible in his own country. He supports himself by helping with teaching in the ‘Taranta’ – the junior flamenco school run by UFlamenco. Maryanka, a 34-year old former lighting designer, came from New Zealand four years ago to study flamenco in Madrid. She has now started UFlamenco’s Grado Professional LOE (degree course), while working as a part-time English language assistant. They both comment on the approachability of all the staff, and the inspiration of their teachers.

We watched Maryanka’s dance class, taught by Pol Vaquero no less, and although there is already an easy teacher-student rapport, I’m struck by the intensity of the concentration. I recall Antonio Canales saying how the students ‘must want to devote their life to this marvellous art’ – and feel a ludicrous pang of jealousy. I listen to flamenco, take classes and just that morning finished the first draft of a second novel including flamenco; I am devoted! Just a lousy dancer. But back in Reception I ask Pedro Ojesto the question I’ve wanted to ask all afternoon… and yes, they will be doing Summer courses…

For photographs with this article, see http://www.cherryradford.co.uk/#/blog...

For more information about UFlamenco, visit http://uflamenco.com/

For more information about FLAMENCO BABY, visit http://www.cherryradford.co.uk/#/book...

(Article also published in Flamenco News and Dance Today, London, February 2015)

DANCE FICTION: LET’S START A SHELF

Dance Fiction: what a great idea. There should be a shelf in every Waterstones. Maybe, in some bookshop somewhere, there is one – but it’ll be in the Teens and Children’s section; Dance Fiction seems to be a genre we are supposed to grow out of. Kids can choose classics like Noel Streatfield’s Ballet Shoes, or something more contemporary such as Veronica Bennett’s Fish Feet (a 15-year-old chap with a football-ballet dilemma, wonderful stuff) – but grown-ups usually have to wander over to Biography. Please bombard me with indignant recommendations, but the only dance novels I’ve enjoyed are Adele Geras’ Hester’s Story and Sarah Bird’s The Flamenco Academy – unless I count the process of writing my own humble offerings.

I can’t quite believe I’m writing this. As an 11-year-old wooden giraffe of a girl at the back of the Grade Three ballet class, it didn’t look likely that I’d ever have the tiniest part in the dance world. That was okay, I was going to be an author; the school had even sent one of my stories to Pony Magazine. Then I grew up – a further six inches in fact, and not only was it getting even harder to control my lolloping limbs, but I couldn’t think what to write about anymore. I switched to music. Ten years later I was a piano teacher at the Royal Ballet Lower School of all places – I couldn’t believe my luck. But after a few years I grew restless, played keyboards in a couple of bands, and then took the more drastic step of leaping over to science. Another ten years, and I was a post-doctoral vision scientist. Still restless. Dancing obviously wasn’t going to happen, but I was still hoping I’d come up with an idea for a novel.

Then one night, coming home after a Carlos Acosta performance at Covent Garden, that idea came. After a few months I was writing Men Dancing – the adventures of a weary scientist who, after a chance meeting in a train, becomes obsessed with a male ballet dancer who is ‘a ravishing fusion of athleticism and art, virility and gentleness.’ It’s a dance-themed novel about a balletomane who starts to feel like her whole life is a complex dance with the men and boys in her life. A literary consultant’s verdict was ‘Great, but nobody wants to read about a male ballet dancer. Write a different book’ – so I was delighted when a publisher disagreed and took me on.

For my second novel, I wanted to explore the dilemma of the single woman with a ticking body clock, but needed a stimulus to shake this woman out of her doldrums. Once again, dance came to my rescue: the Sadlers’ Wells Flamenco Festival convinced me that, if there’s an art that can come whirling in and make a difference to your life, it’s flamenco. In the story, my character’s best friend tries to cheer her up after a heartbreak by taking her to the London Flamenco Festival, and then books lessons for her to learn ‘how to rotate [her] wrists and work the fingers like the opening and closing of a flower; raise [her] arms like the wings of an eagle taking flight; use [her] toes and heels to make rhythms and patterns on the floor, always a tierra, into the earth.’ Flamenco Baby is dance-inspired rather than dance-themed; the dance – and the music and character of flamenco – acting as a catalyst and then playing a supporting role and companion on her journey. (It has certainly become more than a companion to me. You can read about ‘How I turned flamenco’ on www.cherryradford.co.uk).

I’m now often asked if I’m a dancer. This delights me of course, but it’s odd that people seem to think that only a dancer could write my novels – even though both are written from a non-dancer’s point of view. Writers’ online forums suggest that dance scenes are often a challenge, mainly due to a worry over describing steps or simply not knowing what it feels like to dance. I’ve never found it any harder than writing about anything else, as the same rules apply: you watch (a lot), you respond, and then – within the context of what is happening with your characters – you describe. You don’t need to be a professional dancer to do that, any more than you need to be a sexologist to describe a love scene; what matters is the human communication, and more than a minimal description of steps or body parts gets in the way of that.

That’s not to say that I haven’t undertaken a lot of research. There were bank-breaking ballet-a-week seasons at the Royal Opera House, company classes, backstage tours, dancer’s biographies and salsa lessons for Men Dancing; a rack of CDs, numerous live performances, an intensive flamenco course in Granada (exactly as taken by the protagonist), guitar lessons and (Spanish) interviews for Flamenco Baby. But as with all research – whether it’s flamenco, Asperger’s Syndrome or lighthouses – I think you have to let most of it just sink into your subconscious. My novels are read by a wide range of women (and a few men), so I never assume my readers have any more than an open mind about dance.

My current work-in-progress is more about music and language than dance, but I’m sure I’ll return to it for inspiration – or rather, as has happened so far, it will return to me. Until there are more of us incorporating dance into our fiction – rather than murder or parallel universes – you’ll find me in General, under R.

(Published in Dance Today, London, October 2014)

MOTHERS' DAY - DO I DESERVE IT?

Mother’s Day. Do I deserve it? Both my novels take a long, challenging look at the issue of mothering.

FLAMENCO BABY follows Yolande, a single musician deafened by her body clock after yet another romantic rejection. During the course of the book she looks at most of the options… Here she is after her gay best friend Jeremy has just declined to be a sperm donor:


Love and sex. Or rather love, sex and trust: was there any hope of finding one man who could offer all three? On the evidence so far, no.

But I’ll be seeing Jeremy later, I told myself, and he might still change his mind… I busied myself tidying up the living room, practised a tricky accompaniment.

Then they came, and I was glad to be distracted by Olivia’s grinning chubby face as she played The Entertainer; Romilly’s wilfully wacky take on the Grade One piano pieces; chatty Alison, who used to come in a tartan school pinafore dress but was now my height and considerably better made-up. Then there was Michael – already producing a beautiful tone on the flute, an intelligent boy with a dry sense of humour. Sensitive. The sort of child we could have if…

Love, sex, trust and… children: an even taller order. In fact, I didn’t know anybody who seemed to have achieved all of these – or not with anybody I considered worth having them with. That was the problem; nobody was ever going to match up to Jeremy. He’d spoilt me, set a standard, queered my pitch – ha-ha – literally.

Perhaps I’d have to separate the factors. Love and trust with Jeremy, intermittently sharing him with a man; sex with whoever was healthy, attractive and available for it; and a baby with… well, whoever was healthy, attractive and available for it. Possibly the same man, initially. What did they call it on that website? Natural insemination by the donor.

I should have been leaving for the rehearsal, but I was back in the second bedroom, the computer helping to conjure the father of the room’s future occupant. I clicked on the sperm donor website I’d saved in my favourites – under a discreet ‘sd’, as if keeping it a secret even from myself. But up came a message: The traffic limit for the site you are attempting to access is exceeded. There were obviously bloody thousands of us; you’d think there’d recently been a war, there was such a dearth of Mr Rights.


And here she is considering dishonourable solutions to her dilemma:


I pulled it from my pocket. ‘It’s [ex-boyfriend] David. Helen must have called him. I’d love to see you. Lunch soon? Please call. Four kisses.’

‘That’s kind of him,’ Jeremy said. ‘Perhaps you should.’

‘Should what?’ I snapped the phone shut. ‘Although, actually… it’s not a bad idea. I’m off the pill now…’

‘What? That would be horrendously deceitful, I can’t believe you—’

‘He’s been horrendously deceitful—’

‘My God, you can’t really be thinking of becoming a sperm bandit.’

‘A what?’

‘Sperm bandit. That’s what they call women who trick men into fatherhood.’

‘Really?’ I grinned, seeing an image of myself pulling at David’s clothes with a scarf over my mouth. ‘I’m joking, you idiot!’

‘Hm. Just leave this baby thing for a few months and concentrate on getting healthy, learning flamenco, feeling good about yourself. Then you’ll be able to think straight and make some decisions. Okay?’

I read out my reply to David. ‘Thank you. Will call and have lunch in…’ How long is it going to take me to get my head together, d’you think?’

‘Working full-time at it? Well let’s see… three months? April. Spring. A fully-fledged flamenco bailora by then, dando la verdad, as they say. Giving the truth. Sounds about right, doesn’t it?’


Meanwhile back in MEN DANCING, Rosie has moments of feeling she has two more children than she should have had; many things in her life have come easily to her, but motherhood isn’t one of them. I can relate to this. The baby stage – hopeless with the paraphernalia (once trapped my finger in the pram for a full fifteen minutes). The toddler stage – Jesus. Only survived by spending every possible moment within the sticky but reassuring walls of soft-play gyms. Primary school age – conversation, books, music, football… at last, the motherhood I’d dreamed about. But by then I had a second child, who – although now delightful at 15 – has Asperger’s Syndrome and Attention Deficit; we had a chequered and often painful first ten years. The adolescent stage – I never discuss work-in-progress! But if you read Men Dancing you’ll form an opinion as to my success there. I’m hoping to redeem myself with the young adult period.

Meanwhile I’ll leave you with this not completely fictional excerpt in which Rosie takes her Aspie son to his second dance class:


His shoulders were going up: not a good sign.

‘That’s Charles,’ he said loudly.

Oh dear. The same height as Kenny, meaning he’d be two years older and therefore about four years ahead in social skills. Charles walked past with a gracious nod and sat down to change into his dancing shoes.

‘I want those,’ Kenny said.

‘Please may I have. Of course we’ll buy you some, once we know you’re...’ Once we know you’re not going to get kicked out. Because otherwise they’ll hurt me every time I open your wardrobe – just like the taekwondo outfit, Arties overall and Dolphins swimming cap do.

The teacher arrived with her register and cash box. She was vast; do these ballroom dancing teachers so miss competing, when they get older, that they eat themselves into elegant battleships? But fat and jolly she was not. She took my four pounds without a word and left me wondering whether I was supposed to watch the class, in case Kenny became difficult, or wait in the cramped reception area – where pictures of her and her protégées encouraged you to question whether you were wasting her time.

I took a seat just outside the door. Kenny was talking at the black-girl-with-wet-hands, who smiled briefly and moved away. Battleship was demonstrating the steps, her thickly muscular legs improbably supported by dainty high-heeled feet. They were asked to pair up. In my salsa class the out-numbered men are immediately grabbed like musical chairs, but for these pre-teen girls this potential new partner, a real boy for heaven’s sake, seemed to be surrounded by a negative force field.

There was music now – a passionate Latin number that could have been a tango. A couple of older girls arrived early for the next class and pushed the door open wider.

‘A new boy – look.’

The other girl nudged her out of the way. ‘Oh yes.’ She watched for a while. ‘Charles doesn’t look too happy.’

So I wondered whether Kenny had latched on to Charles and bored him to bits. Or taken offence at a misread facial expression and stuck his leg out. Either way, distraction of the class star would be a heinous and probably unforgivable crime.

The girls sat down to share a bag of crisps so I took up their position. But I couldn’t see Kenny; either he was on the far side of the room or he’d been told to sit down.

So I went back to my chair and texted one of the most talented male dancers in the country. Then sat daydreaming about him teaching my oddball son to dance salsa... with one of his sister’s sunny-natured daughters. That’s it; she and her children would be over from Cuba and staying with him in his flat, in the spare room. He’d move the sofa over to make space and put on a Cuban CD, show Kenny how to lead his niece put his shoulders down and look like a man...

‘Kenny’s Mum?’ She turned on her heel before I could answer.

Shit. I was tempted to say no, we’re leaving, fuck-you. After all, it wasn’t school; I didn’t have to listen to her. But I followed her into the studio, where other parents, I now noticed, had been sitting on chairs watching.

‘I just need to catch Charles’ mother,’ she said, sailing over to her.

‘Did you have a good time?’ I asked a spinning Kenny.

‘A good time? It’s good time, good timing, time to be good...’ I nodded and looked away. He was on overdrive; there was no chance of getting anything sensible out of him.

She’d floated back.‘Have you ever done any of this kind of dancing yourself?’

‘No, I er…’

‘You’re going to have to learn.’

Ah. Here we go. Like Taekwondo. I’m going to have to be here at every lesson, a sort of Dance Learning Support Assistant, and if I can’t she won’t have Kenny in the class.

‘Or Kenny could come for one-to-one.’

Aha. Like the swimming teacher. At a monstrous price but that’s what Disability Living Allowance is for. But Kenny would want to dance with a little girl, not a battleship.

‘Or maybe both, because it’s early days I know... but I’m looking at Blackpool.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The Junior Dance Festival. Probably with Keisha.’

And I thought, male dancers: a rarity. Musical chairs. Probably any boy that can be sow’s-eared into it will do. ‘He’s only had two lessons. Don’t you think it’s a bit soon to tell? And... my husband did tell you, about Kenny...?’

‘Yes, but if he wants to do it... Show Mummy your waltz Kenny.’ She patted his shoulders firmly. ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do on these,’

I nodded.

She pressed the button of the music player and counted him in. He took hold of her and waltzed her round the room as if she were Cinderella.