Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [41]
‘You’ll see Ted later. We’re invited to a party. Architecture students. One of them does a bit of stand-up so some of the comedians should be there. And where there are comedians, Half-man-half-badger is usually to be found!’
‘I’m not so sure about the party,’ Ashling said cautiously. ‘Especially if it’s students.’
‘We’ll see,’ Joy said easily – too easily. Ashling flicked her a nervous glance. ‘I can’t believe I’m putting make-up on again. It seems only like minutes since I took it off,’ Joy said, curving on lipstick without the aid of a mirror, then turning her lips inwards, blotting them against each other with a panache that Ashling envied. ‘Don’t forget the camera.’
As they hit the streets, Ashling looked for the homeless boy, but he and his orange blanket were nowhere to be seen.
*
‘Single women and homosexuals.’ Joy summed up the fifty-strong crowd in one hawk-eyed sweep. ‘A dead loss but as we’re here we might as well get drunk. How much expenses have we?’
‘Expenses?’
Joy shook her head and sighed.
There was an hour’s class before the club began. The instructor, who introduced himself as ‘Alberto, from Cuba,’ was a fairly nondescript-looking man. Until he started to dance. Sinuous and lithe, graceful and sure, he was suddenly beautiful. Strutting, pointing, swivelling on the ball of his foot, he demonstrated the steps they’d be attempting.
‘The state of your man,’ Joy complained crossly.
‘Ssshhh!’
Ashling loved to dance. Despite her lack of waist she had a great sense of rhythm, so when the joyous, sunshiny trumpet music started again and Alberto instructed, ‘Everyone, join me,’ she needed no second bidding.
The steps were basic enough. It was the panache with which you did them that mattered, Ashling realized, mesmerized by Alberto’s lubricated hips.
Most of the class were lumpish and clumsy – Joy in particular from lack of sleep and a hangover – and Alberto seemed genuinely distressed by how atrocious everyone was. Ashling, however, picked up the moves smoothly.
‘Wasn’t this a fantastic idea?’ she declared to Joy, her eyes shining.
‘Feck off.’
‘Smile for the camera! And look as if you’re dancing.’
Joy did a couple of club-footed steps while Ashling snapped, then Joy took over the camera.
‘Try and photo some men for the article,’ Ashling hissed at her.
After the class, the club began properly. Experienced salsa and merengue dancers began to flood in, the women in short, flared skirts and high T-bar shoes, the faces of the men impassive as casually, expertly they twirled and manoeuvred women to the loud upbeat rhythms.
‘I can’t believe this is Ireland,’ Ashling said to Joy. ‘Irish men! Dancing! And not just the twelve-pints-of-Guinness shuffle, either.’
‘Real men don’t dance,’ Joy was keen to leave.
‘These ones do.’
Salsa was very much a contact sport. Ashling homed in on one couple. They danced right up close, as if their bodies had been velcroed together. Below the waist their limbs were a blur, but above the waist they barely moved. Groin to groin, chest to chest, his left hand held her right one above their heads, the soft skin of their inner arms joined along the full length. His right hand was firmly on the small of her back. All the while their feet perfectly performed the complicated steps, the man gazed into the woman’s eyes. Their heads remained still.
Ashling had never seen anything so erotic in all her life. A bud of yearning yawned open within her and it felt like pain. Stirred by a nameless need, she watched the dancers, her mouth bitter-sweet with longing. But for what? The hard, sweet heat of a man’s body?
Perhaps…
Jolting her from her introspection, a man asked Ashling to dance. He was short and going bald.
‘I’ve only had one lesson,’ she offered, hoping to get out of it.
But he assured her he wouldn’t do anything too complicated – and then they were off! It was like driving a car, Ashling decided. One minute you’re static, the next you’re moving smoothly, all because of