Dancing in the Dark

They are sitting in fire-lit companionable silence. Each deep in thought.

When he thinks about his life, he hasn’t made a song and dance about things.

He couldn’t.

He can sing but not dance. Although there were times when he wished it were the other way around. Teenage kicks would have been easier if he had swivel hips and feet that moved magically in time with music. Knowing all the words to “Banks of the Bann” and being able to sing a cappella didn’t have the same pull.

He takes stock.

He knows the feeling of parental pride, the joy of their triumphs, large and small. Their first steps, first words, first win at school sports, first try or goal, the graduation ceremonies, the weddings. He has shared their disappointments, sheep number 4, not Joseph.

He knows what it is like to have children bullied face-to-face, on Facebook and on FaceTime. The ineffectiveness of school intervention. He knows what it is like to have children struggle with bipolar disorder and hopes that this time they have broken through. To sit with them in a secure ward when they haven’t.

He knows what it is like when children discover you have feet of clay and are merely mortal.

He knows what it is like to have Death sit skeletal and impatient by his hospital bed. Tutting and shaking the hourglass timer of his life to make the grains of sand run faster. And to grieve when he takes his parents.

He has been fox hunting. Sir Marcus Fox, M.P., lost his Shipley seat in 1997 when he spoke truth to power, sending messages on the Bradford Telegraph and Argus.

He knows what it is like to delight in the countryside, rolling stone circled Downs, heather and bracken wrapped moors, echoing caves, mist swept mountains. To hear the wind roar or sigh through trees, to huddle warm in a tent as the rain beats down. To the joy of a firelit pub pint or the first long cool pull in a summer beer garden. To the smell of summer air after rain, to the sound of Springtime jackdaws chattering in their nests, to the sight of a sparkling frost-coated spider’s web.

He knows what it is like to sleep well and badly. To sleep owl lullabied under the stars, under a hedge, in a Yorkshire abbey graveyard, on a railway station with Middlesbrough’s misfits, on a sea-soothed beach.

He knows the joy of music. Soulful, introspective jazz or the extrovert joyful music of his youth made him dance in the aisles when he was 70, although perhaps he should have stuck to what he knows and just sung along.

“Penny for them, Huns”.

“Oh, they are worth far more than that, my love”.