“Shall I, shall I just for a moment go for you? Then you’ve no need to go out until later. It’s so wet.” Smiling benignly a tall well-built woman in her late fifties deftly clips leads onto an ancient drooling and slightly scabby Labrador and an excitable terrier bouncing up and down making the task somewhat of a challenge. He was leaving footprints and tiny scratches on her highly polished boots and making excitable little squeaking sounds. The woman, in an expensive coat that she hadn’t yet worked out how to pay for, soon pushed off into the dreary afternoon and became invisible. Grubby daffodils struggled to remain upright in the soggy ground and it was raining. Holding tight to the leads, Audrey looked at the flowers with some sympathy. She headed for the dilapidated summerhouse on the lower lawn and said to the dogs “once around and back will do you, won’t it boys”.

An hour or so later and two very, very old people are peering out of their gloomy hall window, anxious for their friend and for their precious puppies. “But where are they?” said one to the other, eye to watery, red rimmed eye. And then in unison they bellowed with surprising vigour, “Deirdre, go out and look for Audrey”. The marginally older of the two immediately thought the better of it and added just as loud, “No, no don’t go Deirdre. No need we’ll just wait until Audrey comes back”. “She’ll get lost again” he hissed a breathless breath at his wife. She smiled back nodding and marvelling as always at her dashing husband’s immense wisdom. She hadn’t really heard what he said, but noted fondly the remnants of Marmite toast crumbs settled comfortably in his stubble, and the way he clutched just slightly too tightly at her hand. Deirdre already in wellies, uncomfortably on the wrong feet, ambled up and looked on mildly confused and wondering what should happen next. Sharp eared she had heard her father and almost remembered getting lost once before. She wasn’t sure that she had liked it and seemed to remember buses being involved. “Right” she said making her own slightly relieved decision to remain. She used her wobbling parents in turn to steady herself as she struggled to pull off the wellies, which as well as being on the wrong feet were rather too tight.

Darkness was reaching in to softly remind them that the day was nearing it’s close. The three of them, the slightly worried parents and the 74 year old child, stayed at the window watching for Audrey to appear from the rising gloom. When the draft from the cracks in their ancient front door got a little too much, they edged away to move back to the toasty kitchen where the kettle had been whistling for quite some time. “There she is!” said Deirdre as they turned away from the grimy window. “Oh no it isn’t her” as she watched a woman she didn’t recognise walking away from the house. By the time her parents looked out of the window the woman, a neighbour who occasionally popped by for no particularly reason, had gone. The neighbour had a strange way of starting her sentences, getting flustered and then leaving midsentence. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if… ” And then she would turn away. It had happened several times of late.

“They’ve left some letters. Postman!” said Deirdre triumphant. It was a Sunday afternoon, but no one challenged her. Her parents couldn’t be sure that the letters weren’t leftover from yesterday. In Turzel House where simply getting a bite of lunch was an achievement, knowing if the post on the mat was today’s or some other day’s didn’t really matter. What did matter was if it was a Saturday but today was not Saturday, because Saturday had been yesterday.

Saturday was the most important day of the week for Turzel House because that was when the dancing was on the television. Saturday was when Deirdre could practise her Paso doble with online support, as Deidre regularly explained to her parents. That the television wasn’t really an online channel and that only one of the dances, if any, was likely to be a Paso doble didn’t really matter. It all depended on which bit of the boxset made it into the DVD player. Sometimes it was the same DVD for several months. For Stephen and Margaret the pleasure and the pride were always the same and for Deirdre as long as it was Saturday when she danced, not much else mattered.

Once she was in costume and had finished her warming up plies and tendus, Deirdre would declare with unquestionable authority, “I’m nearly ready to overload a video onto the InstaApp” and her parents impressed would nod, oblivious to what she was on about. The interweb completely baffles them but their clever and determined daughter had nailed it they were sure. At least she might have. Deirdre’s Paso doble improved week to week, they were certain. Watching her in the shining purple polyester dress she’d found in a jumble sale in 1972, prancing with feathers and ribbons tangled around her plump neck, they feel immense pride, mostly. Watching Deidre hop and wheel is as enjoyable to Stephen and Margaret as watching the dancers on television. They love the swirl of lavish sequined costumes, wild with colour and high heels skimming dangerously close to hems and ankles, yet rarely do the dancers misstep. Deirdre parades up and down, swirls her best, her heavy frame with arms outstretched follows an invisible partner. He’s a mysterious, raven haired and steely eyed Argentinian called Walter.