Two weeks have flown by. My Svetlina, the dancing shadow? A triumph! Every audience we played to joining in with the title music to “Tales of The Unexpected” A throbbing mass of people waving their arms and singing along. “Doo Doo Doo do do do Doo Doo Doo do do do Do Do. No need to fret about my appearance, I am a dancing shadow, just wiggle and dance, wiggle and dance. I have never been in such good shape.
The kids are ok, I ring them every night. Of course they ask when I will be coming home, to which I can only reply soon. Daughter tells me that Husband has worn out his Bill Withers album, playing “ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone” into the early hours, which induced a pang and a gulp. Son is secretly quite proud of his Mom. Granddad told him that lots of people used to run away with the circus when he was a lad; Grandma had gone off several times during the past few years but never with a circus so it was a first for the family.
Guido and Stephanie are over the moon with the success of the show. Ivanka, formerly Ivan the heavily bearded Transvestite Cossack, has gone down a storm, bar one night when he wore inappropriate underwear during his mini skirted Cossack dance. Bob and Jean, between cruises, have unfortunately fallen out, Jean’s head momentarily turned by the fleet-footed Scottish sword dancer Willie Watson. The two males of the ménage a trios exchanging places, Bob proving to be a rather dangerous sword dancer and Willie providing an unusual interpretation of a Viennese waltz with several leg cross overs and bended knees when a simple point of the toe would have done. There! you see, I am even beginning to sound like a dancer with all this technical talk, anyway Guido and Stephanie were so enamoured by the way the tour was progressing that they added extra dates and extra acts. Chief among them Sweaty Pauline the Palm reader, her favoured sobriquet - Sweet Pauline, suffering from a misplaced vowel in the programme, and “Khan the Astrologer of Doom”, no encouraging forecasts with this one. The two were to fill in between the dance acts. Plucking people from the audience, Pauline builds em up and fills them hope, thirty minutes later Khan knocks then flat with a swish of his cloak and an astrological projection that leaves them wondering if they will make the end of the show. Guido and Stephanie swiftly taking the stage with a fiery Salsa to reassure everyone that all is well and that despite Khan’s forecast, the dance lives on.
I’ve never mixed with mystics before, the closest I’ve come? A roomful of faux wizards and witches at a Harry Potter theme party. With our merry troupe expanding and rooms at a premium I was required to share with Pauline; Khan striking an instant rapport with Ivanka, the pair agreeing to hunker down together until more rooms were available.
I had not shared a room with another person since my student days, Pauline was not that sweaty and neither was she that mystical. She snored and looked a little liverish in the morning and she couldn’t predict what holiday camp we would be staying in the following night. We talked a little, late at night, while battling to dispel the highs of the evening’s performance in an effort to attain sleep. I explained that I was temporarily running away from a life of football, I was missing my family but could not go back to what had gone before. Pauline, glistening with an evening of satisfied customers, turned on the light,
“Show us your hands love”
I sat up on the side of the bed and presented my hands,
“Colour’s Ok, shape wise I’d put you as Spatulate with a hint of fire, your Mercury mount is well developed and Venus mount suitably fleshy.”
And so she went on: this line does this, this line does that, islands on my life line, tridents on my heart line, whorls on my finger tips and an apex on my Luna mount, finally consulting a crumpled chart to declare my best suited role in life to be a Dragon slayer
“It’s an old chart!”
Pauline, declared as she returned to her bed.
“Sorry Pauline, its just…. Oh I don’t know, thanks for the reading it has really helped and I promise to fully appreciate my fleshy Venus mount, but I think I am going to sleep now”
I turned off the light, Pauline snored, and I toyed with the idea of Palmistry in football; coaches picking teams by examining hands rather than assessing fitness and ball skills. Obviously a Goalkeeper must have hands, preferably big ones at that. A line of intuition would be a desirable trait on the palm of the aspiring keeper to predict opposition attacking moves. Any sign of the Girdle of Venus, a marker of sensitivity and inner turmoil, then keeping is not for him, if the ball goes in the net, you have to move on. A definitive moniker for the defender is a high set apex on the Jupiter mount that suggests a stickler for correctness, while prospective midfielders should display a loop of serious intent in the whorls below the middle finger. Strikers should not display a line of fate. The tip of the middle finger should be flexible, denoting a gambler, which is just what you want around the box. Substitutes should have a fork leaving the line of fate around the Luna Mount signifying patience, and the manager should have a Mount of Jupiter to die for.
What have I done? Twenty minutes pontificating about the merits of footballer’s hands when I have pledged my short term existence to the world of dance. Is my life missing a soupcon of the dreaded football?
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