The crowd is restless, milling around with no music to dance to. There are a dozen curious eyes on her, on us. I can feel the pinpricks of them digging into my spine. My palms are sweating in sympathy for Priya, and even as I have the thought, I can feel my own knees shake.
But I want to be brave. To be a new version of myself. And if the little girl can do it, so can I.
“Fuck it,” I swear – and clamber up beside her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Angus
I watch Priya lift the fiddle with bated breath. Lila has her hands over her mouth. Ewan has folded his arms with a smug grin.
The first tug of the bow produces a sound like a fox in heat.
Lila’s hands creep over her eyes. “Oh, no, baby, no.”
Even from here, I can see Priya crumble. Then Rowan is there, hugging her shoulders, saying something in her ear. She crouches, pointing at Priya’s face, then hers.
Only the two of us, I imagine her saying.We’re the only ones here.
Rowan nods at the band, and they strike up again.
This time, when Priya joins in, the note comes out clear as a still pool in Spring. Another trickles afterwards, and soon the trickle becomes a stream.
The caller steps up to his microphone. “And we’re back in action. A round of applause for our newest member, please! Now, I know some of you have been waiting for this one. Time for ‘The Gay Gordons’. Find yourself a partner!”
I step out of the stream of dancers. There’s only one person I want as my partner, and she is on the stage.
Priya has been swept away by the music. She’s smiling, her whole body vibrating with joy. Rowan, no longer needed, edgestowards the corner of the stage. Even as she reaches it, Priya’s eyes snap open, pleading.
Rowan stops.
I feel for her, up there with nothing to do. The toe of her boot starts tapping to the beat.
For the second time in a week, I find myself walking towards a stage. Part of me is screaming that I need to stop. That I should not, under any circumstances, jump up and take that woman’s hands.
I promised myself I’d never do this again. And she doesn’t want me anyway. Rowan wants to be friends.
But my head and my heart are tearing two separate ways.
I want this. I want her.
“Care to dance?”
For a second, I wonder: will she say yes? Or will she reject me in front of all of these people? Then a light sparks in those forget-me-not eyes.
She doesn’t say anything, but my skin lights where her fingers curl around mine.
“Followers on the right, leaders on the left. Hold your partner by both hands, and, leader, take your partner’s right hand to her shoulder. No, Johny. Don’t start spinning Eustace yet. Wait for the music to start.”
We crane our necks to find a sweet old couple in the corner, ignoring the caller’s instructions and spinning around like their own whirlpool, hooting with laughter.
“Thank the lord the rest of you are a mite better at following instructions. Alright, lads. A three, a two, a one.”
Madness reigns from the first bar. We’re supposed to walk forward four steps, which is safe enough, but then everyone has to turn on the spot, swapping our hands, and walk backwards, which is where the eruptions begins, as half the room can’t figure out how to swap hands, while the other forget they’re meant tobe going backwards, and collide with the couple next to them. It’s hardly easier on stage, where we’re desperately trying not to get in the band’s way and keep coming perilously close to the edge.
But it’s worth it for the sight of Rowan almost crying with laughter, and the feeling of her body in mine, and how close I get to hold her.
Everything else falls away: the room, the crowd, Lila and Ewan below us, Priya beside us, the stress of the farm, the pain of my legs, my Da, my Ma, the echoes of them dancing in our kitchen, my grief and anger and everything in between. Layer by layer, they unfurl, until I’m left with only this: Rowan in my arms, the drumbeat of the music pushing us on.
