Free Dancing Lessons by Olive Senior Page A

them.”
    Her eyes were filled with laughter as she looked at me, but I was busy trying to envision the scene, one that I had wanted to enact myself but lacked the courage to do.
    â€œHim get out of him car and him see the whole house lock up. Him don’t say a word, him try the front door with him key. Well, hear this now!” Millie was virtually crowing. “She nuh get the lock change?”
    She was laughing now till tears came to her eyes and she had to wipe them with her kerchief. I didn’t feel like laughing, I don’t know why. Millie didn’t notice, she was used to my silent ways.
    â€œWell, him start to batter the door and bawl out for her. For him walk right round the house but every door and window lock. So him come back round to the front door and start to kick it in.
    â€œBy this time, crowd gather you know. Nayga standing there on the street a watch the play. So she must be inside waiting till she have a big audience, for before the door yield, she throw open a window at the side and start off one big bawling. ‘Murder! Police! Wai-O him gwine kill me. Unno run for the constable for me. Do!’”
    Well, Millie said, nobody moved since everybody knew this was part of the sport. But Sam, who I know was always embarrassed by scenes, spoilt their entertainment. For he stopped kicking at the door, looked out at his audience and smiled broadly, shrugged his shoulders, picked up his things, threw them into the car, and drove off to cheers and waves.
    At the time I heard this story I’m ashamed to say I never crowed as I should have done; the only thing I took away was that he was free of that woman, free to come back to me. Already I was mentally planning how I would greet him, how I would not utter a word of reproach, how I would cook his favourite dishes, press his shirts the way he liked, cater to him in every way so he would never again leave me. How pathetic can one get? For the next minute my ears tuned into Millie again in time to hear that the quarrel was over another woman he was seeing. Now his car was parked over at her yard. I was so ashamed of my feelings I felt soiled, for I had truly thought when he left that I was done with him. But Sam was the kind who infiltrated, like birdshot pellets that could stay in your body forever, a foreign agent colonizing you. Causing you just enough pain to bring on a perpetually nagging awareness; too near to the heart to cauterize from consciousness.
    What on earth did Sam have that made us women ready to be such willing slaves? I don’t know, for after that initial contact I never did personally experience much outpouring of his charm. But I saw it work on other people. The way he had of making you feel as if you were the most important person in the world to him, for just that moment he had you in view. For just as long as it took him to extract what he wanted.
    In the middle of Millie’s recital and my own emotional merry-go-round, a dreadful thought came to me. Millie! Why hadn’t she fallen to his charms the same as everyone? Weren’t they two firesticks who had known each other much longer than he knew me? Why hadn’t sparks flown between them? Hadn’t they been thrown into close proximity over and over again in our house? Why wouldn’t he exercise his master’s prerogative as they all seemed to do?
    Was Millie wilful and independent enough to resist him? Why hadn’t he taken her as he seemed to have done many of the girls around? Or was it perhaps that he hadn’t? Is that why Millie was so scornful of him? Her attitude wasn’t natural, was it? I could feel the panic rising inside me until I trembled and I shook my head to force the thoughts down, for I knew I was treading on dangerous ground. Not Millie. I didn’t want to lose her, too. She was the only one I had to put steel into my resolve whenever I needed it. I forced myself back to that place where I trusted her. Trusted