Last Dance

Last Dance

I found the video of your 18th birthday today.

Actually, I didn't "find" it exactly. I knew where it was all the time,
but I purposely closed my mind to it and have somehow managed to ignore
it lying there in the bottom drawer of my bedside cabinet for all these
months. I think I have heard it breathing though and felt its warmth -
so many lives captured on it, it must surely be alive itself.
Therefore, I'm convinced that sometimes I hear faint strains of music
and the laughter and voices of people long gone. So did this video
steal a tiny bit of your soul?

I know it has been waiting patiently, biding its time for this day,
knowing that eventually I would have to bring you back to life. Of
course, I was bound to.

On the rare occasion that I have needed to rummage through the contents
of that drawer and my fingers have inadvertently touched the video, my
finger-tips have been over-sensitive to its feel, tingling afterwards
as a reminder. The hard black plastic, so cold to the touch, dares me
to play it, to re-live a moment in time.

Now as I finger it, my hands tremble and a shudder shakes my shoulders,
scaring me slightly, chilling my soul. Did you walk over my grave just
then?

I know the contents of the video will show me my world that was. There
was a moment, you see, a split-second where everything changed
hideously and irreversibly and prior to that earth-shattering moment in
time I was a different person.

There will always be a before and after.

Yet I need to see you on this, your 19th birthday and dance with you
again.

I hesitate, but only briefly. Today the sun is shining, it fills every
room in my house with its warmth but I am cold because I am with you
again.

The party invades the quietness of my home. Those tunes that were
popular last Summer fill the air with a suddenness that startles me.
The images appear on screen and I feel sick from the terrible dread
that returns but cannot tear my eyes away from the screen. There they
all are. All of them. Laughing, dancing, singing.
So now we are dancing together - but only for fun. Auntie Val is all
smiles, so pleased the whole family is together. She and I spent ages
getting the hall ready, pinning up balloons and plastic banners proudly
displaying the words Happy Birthday in neon blue. She had hired a DJ
and everything.

"Top-notch he is" she had said, nudging me excitedly because he had
provided a small laser light show. The colours are bouncing everywhere,
turning my hair green and then red.

I feel wretched as I watch the scene before me. It was all for
nothing.

I am dancing with you still, and you have a smell about you. I remember
it now. That smell. It had not bothered me. I knew that in your misery
you had neglected yourself. I try to capture your gaze but you are
preoccupied, wistful even in the midst of all this merriment. Suddenly,
catching me unawares, you spin me round roughly, seeming angry, and I
almost topple over in my high-heels, as though I am drunk. I am a bit.
So are you. Very.

I see now, as I watch this, what I did not see then, what we all failed
to see.

So bleak is the expression in your eyes as they sweep wildly and
frequently across the room looking for her, scanning every face. Did
you really think she would walk in through the door? I was sorry for
you that she died. I am still sorry now. I wished then that I could
take your heart and hold it in the palm of my hand, safe and warm,
throbbing with life, and wring all the pain out of it and then give it
back to you so that you could love me.

I loved you.

"I need to breathe" you said and I didn't understand what you
meant.

Now I observe my obvious dismay as my grandfather comes and whisks me
away from you, dancing me round the room in a waltz as the DJ plays
Robbie Williams and the camera jumps round wildly and focuses mistily
on some people I cant remember being there at the time. They wave at
the camera, clapping hands in unison to the music.

In the background, I see you are leaving.

"I'll save the last dance for you," you had promised me earlier. Is
that what you meant? Your words torture me still.

"My beautiful grand-daughter," my grandfather's voice cries to the
room, as though introducing me for the first time, and the camera leaps
back to us, hoping for something worthwhile. I look dismayed because I
am centre-stage, which I hate, and I have never been beautiful. I look
self-conscious and embarrassed, moving awkwardly, stiffly because the
camera lens is still focussed on me. I feel such a fool.

Now it is unbearable to watch.

***

"Happy birthday to you" we all sing out of tune as Auntie Val, your
mother, carries in the cake, eighteen candles glowing and flickering
wildly in the dimmed light of the Hall. We all look round for you, our
voices trailing off in disappointment as we realise you are
missing.

"Where is he?" Auntie Val asks, exasperated.

Of course, sitting here now in my cosy living room, a lifetime away and
watching the drama unfold before me, I could tell her, but back then I
join in the search, calling out your name. A drunken commotion, albeit
a light-hearted and happy one, ensues.

I was the one who knew where you would be.

"Get him back in here, love" Auntie Val said, smiling for the last time
ever.

The tape has ended but the story has not.

Most nights I dream of you plunging into the blackness and falling,
heavy like a stone. I see you jerk to a halt, suspended in mid-air,
then wait for a second before your feet begin their frantic jig, your
legs kicking into nothingness, a grotesque last dance.

Happy Birthday.