Misdirection

Red faced and anxious, a blonde, dread-haired, twenty-something mum and her little ballerina daughter in pristinely white leotard and tutu come bursting into the community centre. I tear myself away from the news and stick my head out of the office door. “Are you ok?” I ask.

“We’re late,” the mum tells me breathlessly, “we’re here for the ballet class.”

I pause for a moment. We have over twenty groups and classes going on here every day. I can’t keep track of them all, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have any kids ballet classes today. Nonetheless I do a quick mental check and scan the whiteboard in the foyer, just to be sure. “I’m really sorry,” I tell her, “there aren’t any kids ballet classes here today.”

“Yeah, there are,” she tells me. I love it when people come in and tell me that something is happening at the centre when I know full well it’s not. It’s hard not be impressed by their confidence, no matter how unfounded.

“No,” I tell her, “I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, there are,” she tells me again, because I was too stupid to understand her the first time, and moving past me, she peers through the window of one of the ground floor rooms. “See?”

Sure enough, the first thing I observe is a four year old ballerina rolling around on the floor. Now I’m really confused. Just at that moment one of the nursery workers opens the door.

“Bethany,” I say, “what’s going on in there? Is that the nursery or a ballet class?”

“We’re just finishing up,” she tells me.

“But is that the nursery or a ballet class?”

Bethany looks at me like I’m an idiot and carries on her way. I don’t know what the fuck is going on at this point. I don’t know what the nursery gets up to whilst I’m not paying attention. They could be training three and four year olds for urban guerilla warfare as far as I know. The tutus might just be a cover, a bit of simple but effective misdirection. We operate on a trust/honour system here. If people tell us they’re not up to any nefarious activities, we believe them. But at this point that whole conceptual edifice is starting to crumble around me.

Peering past her, though, I see that all the other kids in the room are either dressed in regular clothes or other types of fancy dress – a princess, a Spiderman. What were the chances of me just happening to see that one kid dressed as a ballerina in my moment of doubt?

“I’m really sorry,” I tell the mum, sure of myself once more, “there’s no ballet class today.”

“Three o’clock,” she says, fumbling to find her phone, “St. Andrews church… “

“This isn’t St. Andrews.”

The mum realises her error and her daughter realises it too; she sits with her legs splayed on the foyer entrance mat, sobbing quietly as her mum adjusts her white satin ballet pumps and tries to reassure her.

“There’s a kids ballet class here on Mondays,” I explain, “but not today.”

“This isn’t St. Andrews… ” she echoes.

“No, that’s down the road.”

“She’s been looking forward to this for months,” the mum says to me, now wanting my empathy, her previous condescension all forgotten and swept away with.

I look at her daughter staring up at me, red eyed and distraught. “It’ll be OK,” I tell her kindly, and she explodes into a tsunami of tears.

Wow, I think, you’ve certainly got the right temperament but you’re going to have to toughen up if you really want to be a dancer and you’re absolutely right, as of this moment, things are very fucking far from being ok. But you’ll be alright. Probably. Unless something happens unexpectedly, out of the blue, with no provocation or justice, something unreasonably awful and life destroying. But for you, little girl, I don’t think that day is today.

“I’ll draw you some directions,” I tell the mum, “you’ll only be a bit late.”