Ken Lye’s short plays have been performed in Singapore at The Substation and Drama Centre Black Box, and his short stories have appeared in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and the upcoming Singapore at Home: Life Across Lines anthology. He completed his MA in Creative Writing in 2019, and is currently working on his first novel.
The Last Dance
Mabel purses her burgundy lips, sucking hard on the straw, though only ice cubes remain. If only she had not finished her second Long Island iced tea so quickly. Thirty-six years of marriage, and there Raymond is, gliding across the dancefloor of their favourite salsa club with another woman, their outstretched arms forming a perfect rectangle, while their feet jab and jive exuberantly to The Gipsy Kings’ “Djobi, Djoba.”
Other men in their sixties try to slow their decline with languid evening strolls, and unhurried breast-strokes up and down the pool, their manatee potbellies hanging underwater. Raymond, however, is thriving, every day either lifting weights at the community centre gym or conquering forty freestyle laps, each stroke a forceful thrust into the water, body flat and rigid as his grandson’s kickboard. From where she sits with their friends, Mabel can see the curve of thick muscle in his slightly flexed biceps, the canary yellow polo t-shirt straining across his broad chest, and the smooth crescent of his bum in the brown cotton trousers she bought him last week from Giordano.
Her hand, as wrinkly as crepe paper, falls to the small mound of soft flesh around her waist. Her girlfriends strip the fatty skin off the poultry on their husbands’ chicken rice (when they are allowed to have it at all). Mabel, however, feasts on beef steaks and pork chops with Raymond every Saturday evening when their three sons bring wives, boyfriend and children back from across Singapore to their apartment at Marine Parade. She only bought this sequinned silk dress a week ago, but already the garment feels chidingly snug. Perhaps less protein, more salad this weekend.
Raymond hooks one firm hand around the back of Mei Yun’s bare shoulders, and effortlessly guides his partner into a dip, her enviably slim body draped across his sturdy forearm, her neck exposed as if to receive a kiss or a vampire’s bite. His legs wide open in a victor’s stance, he holds the pose for a beat, then two, as if expecting wild applause. Mabel manages a polite smile.
Lily, pressing close against her, leans over on a wave of Chanel No 5, and brushes aside the mahogany curls embalmed in hairspray around Mabel’s right ear.
“You don’t mind if I ask him for the next dance, do you?”
“No, of course not,” Mabel replies. “He’s all yours.”
She continues to suck aggressively at the mangled straw. Lily, looking suspiciously reupholstered, swivels over to Serene on her other side, the two women’s bobbing heads close in jocund conversation, the rusty red rinse in their hair sparking in the undulating shower of disco lights. The three men at the end of the table are already on their third round of Carlsberg. She cannot quite hear what The Husbands are saying, no doubt more grumbling about some government policy or another, not that they would ever do anything about it except pontificate loudly in the company of other equally belligerent old men. (Did one of them really just say, “If I were Prime Minister…”?) Lily’s doctor husband, Patrick, is, as usual, holding court, gesticulating dramatically as if trying to win an argument by knocking his opponent over or poking him in the eye. They must be so relieved that they do not have to dance with their wives this evening. Just because they have been dragged to salsa classes by their better halves does not mean they have to like it. Or are any good at it. What men hate most, after all, is having to do anything in public that doesn’t allow them to show off.
She stabs at her phone with her index finger. She has only danced twice with Raymond tonight, the other three women taking turns as if her husband were a slice of black forest being passed back and forth. Is there time for another round? Maybe, but it is already eleven. She needs to be up at six for school, and still has a small stack of marking to power through before she can go to bed. Raymond, of course, will not even need to set his alarm. His latest job trying to sell insurance means he can wake up whenever he wants. How lovely.
Lily turns back to regale her with a meticulous account of her vacation to the French Alps: so cold my face couldn’t move. Mabel has to swallow back the obvious joke. Her eyes remain locked on Lily’s in the half-light, hands folded neatly on her lap as if posing for a Renaissance painting. Underneath their table, however, Mabel’s manicured feet, nails hard candy shells, tap-tap-tap restlessly on the linoleum flooring as the band starts up her favourite song.
Just ask one of the other men to dance, Raymond argues each time they fight on the drive home. They are our friends, they won’t be so rude as to say no. (Raymond certainly never does.) Mabel gives him the same reply every time: you’re a man, you won’t understand. She does not know what they taught at Raffles or Nanyang or any of those fancy schools that her friends went to, but she was raised a good convent girl.
Then again, Sister Dolores had never heard the call of Enrique Iglesias’ “Bailamos.”
An intake of breath, slow and deep, fills her lungs with courage. She turned sixty last week. What could be scarier than that? She surveys The Husbands. They huddle even closer together, closing ranks so she cannot easily pick one off. The last time she saw any of them on the dancefloor was an obligatory tango at a wedding anniversary, their faces in rigor mortis.
Of course, she should have foreseen her current predicament from the first group dance class. It’ll be such fun, Lily had promised. The Husbands, creased brows, crossed arms and sweaty armpits, knew better. Six months later, and the three men still occasionally crash into their partners, step on their toes, always managing at some point during the song to become entangled with their spouse in a cacophony of flailing limbs. Raymond, on the other hand, moves like a jungle cat. She feels safe with him leading, knowing he will support her whether she is turning in for a spin or leaning in for a dip. Their instructor was particularly impressed by how a man of his age and build would merrily shimmy his shoulders and wiggle his hips with such teenage abandon. Patrick raised an eyebrow once, and called him “flamboyant.” Please! Raymond was the captain of three sports teams in school, and always had the prettiest girls chasing after him. He has never had anything to prove. When their youngest son Philip, fresh out of Oxford on a government scholarship, sat his parents down at the family dining table, and told them he was gay, it was Mabel who sputtered and stuttered. Raymond, however, simply took Philip in his arms, saying, you are my son, and nothing will ever change that.
“Do you want to dance, Patrick?”
Of the three men, he has shown the most interest, occasionally initiating a dance with his wife without prompting, especially after a few drinks. She glances at the table top. She should have asked for another round before making her move, but how could she when she knows Patrick will pick up the tab as usual?
She is just about to tell him that it’s okay, she was just asking, when a nervous grin forms across Patrick’s face as if being carefully drawn by a child.
“Why not?” He looks like he has agreed to bungee jump off a cliff, equal measures excitement and fear.
Her enthusiasm deflates quickly. He is better than when she last saw him dance with Lily, a little less stiff. Still, he moves like he is checking off a list in his head, so she is hesitant about executing any elaborate moves. She studies his face to occupy the time instead. He is not unattractive. His face is weary and mottled with age, but decent and kind, with a hint of playfulness. An Indian Cliff Richard. It is sweet that he does not look directly at her: she is his best friend’s wife after all. As she feels the chunky strap of his Rolex watch against her waist, she thinks about how lucky Lily is, never having had to work. No late nights planning lessons and marking, no Saturdays taken up by Drama Club, remedial lessons, class camps. Thankfully, none of Mabel’s boys has taken after their father, whose past is one failed business venture after another, a ribbon of regrets. They all have good, steady jobs: two lawyers and a high-flying civil servant.
The songs ends, and she diplomatically mumbles something about having to work the next morning. As they navigate past other couples to get back to their table, she notices Raymond and Mei Yun returning as well.
“Don’t worry,” says Patrick, clapping Raymond on the back as he plops into his seat with a heavy whoosh, relieved to have come home to the sanctuary of other men. “You’re still the king.”
Mabel is about to tell her husband that it is time to go, when he stretches his hand out to her.
“Can I have the last dance?” he asks, desire in his eyes. No, not desire. A sort of pride.
He takes her by the wrist, and with a gentle but insistent tug, pulls her onto the floor, his left palm softly cradling her back. Then, with his right hand, he shoots her left arm straight up towards the ceiling, as if calling the band and all the other couples to attention. For a moment, it seems to her that the music has stopped, and everyone is frozen in place, waiting for his cue.
As she tilts her head up towards him, a swirl of lights catches Raymond across the face like he is having his photograph taken. He looks so young. She remembers their last holiday together. It was only to Malacca, only for a weekend. They sang along to all her favourite Teresa Teng albums on the three-hour drive (even though he is more of a Bee Gees kind of guy), and walked along the river that Saturday evening, hand in hand, secondary school sweethearts again. She remembers being sixteen (pigtails, pinafore, pimples), Mousey Mabel, quiet and grey, and how he had all these grand plans laid out. He was going to be the towkay of a big company, buy her a bungalow, a Mercedes, maybe one for each of them. She laughed, and said she would go to the Teachers Training College anyway. Just in case.
The music starts up again, releasing the other dancers from its spell. He pulls her close to him, almost lifting her off the ground. She closes her eyes, and breathes him in.
There is another world where he is everything he has ever hoped to be, and everything she has dreamed for him to be. This is not that world. But tonight, the most handsome man in the room has taken her in his arms. They will go home together after this last dance, and, without being asked to, Raymond will make her a bowl of instant noodles, and stay up reading the latest John Grisham novel beside her while she finishes grading test papers.