The Sleeping and the Dead

When they returned the party had begun. The hall doubled as a theatre and it was blacked out by heavy curtains and lit by coloured spots. Outside the sun was still shining. On the stage sat a DJ playing seventies music. The lines on his face were so deep that they seemed chiselled. It was hard to tell whether his head was bald or shaved. But he still seemed younger than the people standing awkwardly in the hall, juggling paper plates and plastic glasses. He put on a David Bowie. ‘Life on Mars’. It had always been one of Rosie’s favourites and she was itching to dance. If Joe had been there she’d have dragged him on to the floor to get things moving.

There’d been a bit of a queue at the door, where a fat woman stood behind a table doling out laminated name badges. She was short sighted and had to squint like a mole over the table to find the one she was looking for. Hannah had found her own. Hannah Meek. How bloody appropriate, Rosie had thought. The fat woman had stared at them, as if the name or her mother’s face should trigger a memory, but the effort had seemed too much for her because she just shook her head, smiled vaguely and let them walk on into the hall.

At first everything was as tedious and civilized as Rosie had expected it to be. She was introduced to old friends of her mother’s. She smiled a lot, was polite and dutiful. When she laughed she felt as if she were making too much noise. The people she met seemed frozen in middle age. It was impossible to imagine them being yelled at by a teacher in this hall, or sitting at small tables to take exams. They talked about their children, the iniquities of student fees and student loans, their homes and their foreign holidays. All the time the rhythm of the music nipped at her ankles and made her want to sway away from them back into the middle of the floor.

This is your music, she wanted to say. Doesn’t it take you back to how you were?

And sometimes she saw a woman or a man with dreamy eyes, who would look at her with a start, as if they were staring at themselves or a girl they fancied. But it didn’t last, and when someone did start the dancing it was a peculiar shuffle as if they all had arthritic knees or a broom handle strapped to their spines.

Then she looked up at the stage and saw the DJ, who must have been at least as old as her mother and the others in the room, but who didn’t seem it. He seemed to be laughing at them too. She moved through the dancers and hoisted herself on to the stage so her legs dangled over the edge. He didn’t look at her.

‘A bit young for this, aren’t you?’

‘I came with my mum.’

‘Who was she, then?’ Now he did turn to eye her up. ‘I might know her.’

‘Did you come to this school too?’ For some reason it seemed unlikely. He looked too different from the smartly dressed men and women. She thought he must be a refugee from the city.

‘No, not bright enough. I was at the secondary modern. But I used to hang around with some of them.’

‘Hannah Meek,’ she said. ‘That was what my mother was called then.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can see.’

‘Can you?’ She had seen the occasional photo of her mother as a young woman and saw no resemblance. Her mother was so reined in. Her features were small and sharp.

‘She was skinnier of course.’

She felt her face colour. Most people were skinnier than her. Hannah said she was over sensitive. ‘Carry on like that and you’ll end up like Melanie Gillespie.’ As if she wouldn’t have adored to be the same weight as Mel.

‘But you’re bonnier,’ the DJ said after some consideration. Rosie could have kissed him.

‘Can you recognize her?’ she said, falling into the joky, flirty voice she used with the older punters at the Prom. She didn’t have to shout. Someone had moaned about the music being too loud and he’d turned it down. He scanned the room but so briefly that she thought he wasn’t really bothered.

‘Can’t see much at all in this light,’ he said.

There was a bit of a scuffle at the door as Sally came in. She pushed her way through the blackout curtain and was silhouetted briefly against the light outside. The woman behind the table knew her and tried to offer her a badge but Sally ignored her. The DJ was watching the scene too, with the same detached amusement as when he’d been looking at the dancing.

‘That’s Sally Spence,’ Rosie said, wanting his attention again. ‘She’s my mum’s best mate. We’re staying at her hotel tonight.’

‘Oh, I know Sal very well. When you see her say Chris sends his love.’