The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [90]
“Not with your pipe,” said Faith, seizing it from his lips and taking it away while Charity busied herself with winding up the gramophone. “Now, hold me tighter for heaven’s sake.”
“Hm, I told you I wasn’t frightfully good at this sort of thing,” murmured the Major, discountenanced by the removal of his pipe. “Now let me get this straight...”
“Forward with your right foot!”
“Ah...”
“Dear God!”
“Sorry, I got mixed up.”
“You’d better let me lead. Now just listen to the rhythm and don’t bother to look at your feet...Oh, you’re perfectly hopeless!”
But the Major, although he was aware that music was being played, was at first deafened by the scraping of his own feet on the grimy floor of the ballroom and listened in vain for some sign which would tell him when to make his movements. He had started off with one softly yielding hand in his own horny palm and another resting like thistledown on his shoulder; but in no time at all he was being towed, pushed and dragged without ceremony this way and that, first by one twin, then by the other. For such slender, delicate creatures they were really amazingly strong: when Charity spilled a box of gramophone needles and dived under the piano to pick them up the Major involuntarily glimpsed the back of her smooth, firmly muscled thighs and (while fox-trotting swiftly forward to block this disturbing sight from Mr Norton’s avid gaze) found himself thinking that, physically at least, one could hardly still call her a child.
By now the Major was beginning to warm up and get the hang of things and did not need so much pulling and pushing. They changed the record to “By the Silver Sea” and while he had a rest the girls danced together most prettily, taking it in turns to be the man.
“The little darlings,” whispered Mr Norton hoarsely to the Major who had sat down beside him. “Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.”
The Major too was watching them with admiration as they spun round whirling their skirts and shaking their ankles in the air and doing all sorts of amusing and fanciful things without ever losing the rhythm or getting in each other’s way. With the exertion (the Major changed the needle and wound up the gramophone as quickly as he could, so that they would not stop this enjoyable display) they gradually became flushed and flirtatious. Their eyes sparkled. They flashed lingering smiles at the Major as they danced round. They licked their lips with delightful pink tongues and demurely lowered their lashes over moist, shining eyes. Dimples appeared in their cheeks and their teeth had never glistened more pearly white. “How perfectly charming they are,” thought the Major, “as they try out their attractions on me—though not in the least seriously—like young birds learning how to fly: the same attractions that one day they’ll use on the young men whose hearts they choose to break...How charming!” But a glance at Mr Norton’s puckered walnut face told him that the old rascal obviously considered that he was the target for the lingering smiles and licked lips and lowered lashes. He was returning the smiles with a roguish one of his own, a peeling back of the lips to exhibit unusually large yellow false teeth. The man was truly amazing. Really, one almost had to admire him for the tenacity with which he held on to the remnants of his youth.
Once more it was the Major’s turn. Dancing could really be quite enjoyable, he decided, and one girl melted into another so smoothly from one record to the next that he had trouble remembering which twin he was dancing with. It came as something of a shock when he realized that Mr Norton had fallen asleep on his chair (worn out by the sexual electricity in the air) and that the time was five o’clock and that he himself was exhausted.
“Just one more!” cried the twins, but the Major said no, he hadn’t realized the time, and picking up his pipe made for the door, ignoring their entreaties. It was only later, while he was thirstily drinking a cup of tea in the company of Miss Bagley and Miss Porteous, that he remembered the curious