Read Online There Should Be More Dancing by Rosalie Ham - Free Book Online Page A

out from behind his computer. ‘What seems to be the problem with your feet?’
    â€˜They’re getting old,’ Margery snapped, settling herself on the podiatrist’s chair. ‘Up we go,’ she said and pressed the button. The chair rose with a faint hum. She indicated the stool near her feet. ‘You sit there, Blaze.’
    Regular monthly appointments meant Margery’s feet were in relatively good condition, so Blaine trimmed her nails, checked her corn, scraped some skin off her bunion and suggested she get slip-on shoes ‘since you’re pretty much past bending down to look after your feet’. He pressed the button to lower the chair, dropped his nail clippers into the steriliser and said, ‘You also need to get orthotic support insoles to stabilise your gait and help prevent falls.’
    â€˜Glen never made me get them.’
    Blaine removed his yellow gloves and chucked them in the bin, already puffed with discarded disposable gloves. ‘I can see that.’
    â€˜How much do they cost?’
    â€˜Four hundred dollars. They last a lifetime.’
    â€˜I’ve just had my eightieth birthday party.’
    Blaine picked up his little vacuum cleaner. ‘We don’t want you to fall again, do we? Especially with that very nasty wound on your shin –’
    â€˜If I fall again it’ll be because of the footpaths, not because of me.’
    â€˜With orthotics, you won’t need to spend money on monthly appointments – you could leave it for six months, even longer.’
    â€˜But I’ve got a regular appointment every month,’ Margery said.
    â€˜Well, now you can spend the money you save on sturdy shoes instead.’ He turned the vacuum cleaner on and started running it over the carpet beneath the chair.
    Just thinking about those lovely monthly foot massages made the follicles on Margery’s arms rise, and she felt bereft knowing she’d never experience Glen’s warm, assured grasp, that sleepy, caressed feeling again. But at least there was Angela, her fingers pressing into Margery’s scalp as she lathered the shampoo, the comb slicing across her scalp, the nuzzling noise when she poked the cotton balls into her ears and the release on her scalp when Angela took the rollers out. She walked home despondent, her eyes on the footpath, her handbags hanging limply from her arm.
    At home, she drank a cup of tea and took her tablets, then poured herself a nip of cooking sherry and turned on the television. The six-thirty shows always made her feel much better. Other people’s battles with their obesity, brutal landlords or children kidnapped by angry fathers gave Margery licence to impart wisdom: ‘All he has to do is stop eating rubbish . . . Why don’t they just find somewhere else to live . . . If she hadn’t married the wrong man in the first place, silly girl . . .’

Because it was the Saturday after pension day, Margery set off at 9 again, this time for her usual ten o’clock appointment at the hairdresser. Every fortnight she had a wash, blue-tint and set. At her front gate she found Kevin perched on his flimsy racing pushbike, watching the excavator dig a hole. Saturday was his riding day, and at about 9 o’clock Kevin – dressed in his anatomically fitted lycra tri-suit, high-visibility vest, Lance Armstrong signature helmet and carbon-soled, caliper-buckled bike shoes – rode to the café opposite the Brunswick Touring Bicycle Club clubrooms.
    â€˜A cellar,’ Margery said, pointing to the excavator.
    Kevin smoothed his lustrous moustache with his finger and thumb. ‘Nar, it’ll be a hot spa, Mrs B. That’s their culture. They’ll build a house around it, you’ll find.’ He lowered his anti-pollution mask over his face and rode away.
    â€˜It’s a cellar,’ Margery said.
    Angela was combing her hair, dividing it into neat, pale-blue slices