There Should Be More Dancing Read Free

mobile phone as she walked.
    â€˜Got a booking,’ Barry said. It took a moment, but the concierge’s arm shot up, his fingers clicked and a waiter arrived and led the group to a table in a corner behind an imitation rubber plant. The Blandons sat, looking up at the plastic potted palm fronds peeping from all forty-three balconies, and the indoor rainforest bathed in sky-lit air, colourful plastic parrots dotting its branches. In keeping with the ambiance, the furniture was cane and the carpet a busy pattern of hibiscus and lyrebirds.
    â€˜It’s real nice here, Barry,’ Judith said, taking a bottle of sparkling wine from her bag. She ripped the cork out effortlessly and filled her water tumbler, and as she drank Pudding took the bottle from her and poured some for Margery and Mrs Parsons. When a waiter arrivedwith a scotch and Coke for Barry, Judith asked for an ice bucket and ‘a list of the sorts of champagnes you’ve got’, and Pudding asked for a vodka and red cordial. Walter wiped his sweaty brow with his table napkin and told the waiter he’d happily kill anyone for a beer but the doctor would kill him, so he’d better have dry ginger ale, ‘in a seven-ounce beer glass, if you don’t mind, thanks, bud’.
    Barry’s mobile phone rang, and Pudding reached across and snatched it from the table before her father could. ‘Hello?’ Then she smirked at her father and said, ‘Wow, Dad, what a surprise, it’s your secretary . . . again!’
    Judith poured herself more sparkling wine and Barry grabbed the phone, walking away with it. ‘Yes, Charmaine, what’s the problem?’
    Pudding looked around the hotel and said, ‘This is very special for you, isn’t it, Gran?’
    â€˜Very special,’ Margery replied, and everyone smiled and raised their glasses, but before they could say ‘happy birthday’ Margery added, ‘Though armrests on dining table chairs are uncalled for.’
    Judith pointed out to everyone that the Tropic was a skyscraper hotel, ‘It’s got an opening that goes all the way up to the sky, see? And there’s an indoor forest and waterfall right there in the foyer.’
    â€˜It’s called a water feature,’ Pudding corrected. ‘Let’s go for a ride to the top, Gran.’ Margery hesitated, but Mrs Parsons moved about between the armrests, so Walter pulled her chair out and Margery gathered her courage and followed. ‘Coming?’ Pudding called back, but Walter was staring at the waitress at the next table and Barry was still talking to Charmaine.
    When Judith stepped into the lift, Margery patted Mrs Parsons’ arm reassuringly. ‘It’s quite safe. The sign there says it can take five hundred kilograms.’
    At the top a man’s voice said, ‘Level forty-three,’ and Mrs Parsons asked, ‘How does he know?’
    â€˜It’s pre-recorded,’ Pudding said. Margery and Mrs Parsons nodded, though they were no wiser.
    Judith and Pudding went to the high balustrade and looked down to the carpet forty-three floors below. Margery stayed by the lift. There were no chairs to sit on, so she perched on the edge of the potted palm and watched a family try to get into their room. A girl, aged about ten, swiped the key card and opened the door for her mother, while her brother and father struggled with their luggage. Mrs Parsons wasn’t tall enough to see over the balustrade, so she came back and stood next to Margery. ‘I went in an aeroplane once.’
    â€˜What does it look like from up there?’ Margery asked.
    â€˜I had the aisle seat.’
    After a short time they descended in the lift, Mrs Parsons grabbing her beret, and made their way across the foyer, satisfied that they’d been all the way to the top. As they settled again at the table, Barry said, ‘Top suicide spot, this place. Take it from me, it can kill a lovely