No Dancing Allowed

Last night I did a new etching. I’d been sitting at my kitchen table leafing through a book of Edward Hopper paintings, my fingers through the handle of a coffee mug, the remnants of the paper spread out around me. The light faded and I plugged in a lamp, opened my sketchbook to a new page and drew the pub at the end of my street. The green one. With the mosaic tiled floor and unmatched tables and chairs. The smooth dark wood and tea light candles on the tables. You must remember it. It’s still the same, well no, it’s less busy. A new one has opened up across the road.



I drew a man, sitting on a stool at the bar, reading. And before I knew it he was wearing your jeans and those old brown moccasins that you’ve walked in so long you kind of step over the sides. Your Saturday shoes. I imagined walking into that bar and seeing you there like that, waiting for me.

You were resting your elbows on the newspaper, one hand holding back the hair off your forehead. And you were sitting on the stool just like you do, a bit too far away from the counter with your heels up on the crossbars and your knees wide apart. You had your pint glass perfectly positioned so that you didn’t even have to look up to reach for it.

I drew the hair around your ear and the watch on your wrist, and then I touched you on the shoulder to say hello. It’s so long since I’ve seen you. You looked up and smiled, stood too quickly. The newspaper slid off the bar onto the floor and we both bent to pick it up. “Sorry, “ I said. You kissed me hurriedly on each cheek and asked me what I’d like to drink. You leaned over the bar to order, folding your newspaper at the same time. Wrapping it up on itself, rolling and folding, and then stuffing it into the outer pocket of your bag. I hated that you’re so rough with things like that. You used to fold the page corners of my books and bend their covers. Now, when I pick them out of the bookshelf, I know that you’ve read them.

I had my coat in my hand. You took it from me without asking and hung it on the hook next to yours.

Of course, neither of us knew where to begin. I smiled. “How are you?” I asked. And you smiled. Your finger went round and round a knot in the wood of the bar. I remembered you tracing on my skin and held onto the edges of my chair with both hands.

I hatched in the wallpaper and the rest of the floor, added flowers in a vase, an ashtray further along the bar. I told you about my new job and going diving in Egypt, asked about your dog and what your friends were doing. I gave you back a cufflink I’d found in an old handbag and I reminded you of the wedding we’d been at when you wore it. Your suit had been too hot and my dress had been too tight.

Then in the corner of the bar, I drew a girl, dancing; a glass of red wine in one out flung hand. I gave her long, straight hair falling around her face. She was looking at her shoes, one heel lifted off the floor. We stopped talking to watch. I drew the barman waving at her to sit down. There’s no dancing allowed in there. They’ve even got a sign behind the bar saying so, can you believe? We never got dancing right did we? I hated the spectacle of our mismatching, banging into one another, stepping on your toes. This bar was our neutral ground. You did not ask and I did not decline.

I put my pencil down and rolled it backwards and forwards beneath the palm of my hand. Clickety, click, clickety click. I looked at you sitting there alone at the bar, in your black roll-neck jumper, with the empty stool beside you and I started to cry. I pictured all the empty spaces I’d made when I left – the passenger seat in your car, the left hand-side of the bed, the second toothbrush holder above the basin. And of course I wasn’t crying for you, I was crying for me.

I said, “I miss you. I miss you”, and because I didn’t want to look at you, I hung my head and the tears dropped onto my skirt. I know what you would say. You’d remind me that I was the one who left you. And that you’ve moved on. That you’re seeing someone else now. I know, I know. I put my hands up over my face. And you’d say wasn’t I so much happier now; didn’t I remember how I’d always been crying. “But I’m still crying, “ I said out loud, laughed and leaned back in my chair. I made myself a cup of tea and stood drinking it at the window. Outside the wind had picked up and I could see the silhouettes of the trees shaking against the pink night sky. I opened the window to hear them better.

When I turned back there was the drawing, with time slowed right down, the moment turning like a coin on the bar, and me waiting to see which way it would fall. I turned the pencil round and with the eraser made a small round bald patch on the back of your head. And then to finish, on the left hand side, I added her hand pressed against the glass on the outside of the door, pushing it inwards. I gave her long fingers, with careful nails.

I traced it all upside down onto the waxed metal plate, scratched out the lines with a fine pointed pick. I filled the large white tub with acid and dropped it in, holding the corners with my rubber gloves. After it was washed and dry I rolled thick black ink into the folds of your clothes and the shadows between your fingers. Then I laid the plate face up on the press, draped the soft wet paper on top, and turned the crank of the handle to push it through. When I peeled back the paper, there you were sitting in the pub at the end of my street, reading, a coin on the bar and two coats on adjacent hooks.


This story won the TimeOut Short Story Competition 2006