But You Used to Dance, Nigel

In the winter Hillside is jolly dull. The evenings feel unbearably long. They do not have a television and the wireless signal is somewhat erratic. It cuts in and out every time it rains. The old folks excuse themselves after dinner and retire to bed around about nine. Ginny and Claudia have their knitting. Peter plays endless games of chess with himself. He places two seats on either side of the table and shifts from one side to the other each time he makes a move. Matthew reads detective novels and Eleanor studies. She has her finals coming up at Easter. Every spare moment’s spent cramming historical dates and the lineage of kings. Even so, she’s likely to fail. Nigel is the smart one.

The others are better looking, but it’s Nigel who’s going to be a success. Nigel has understood this from a very early age. Consequently, a distance has grown between him and his siblings and he hasn’t done anything to bridge the gap. He thinks the girls are rather silly, but then again, what pretty girl requires a brain, and all his sisters are exceptionally pretty. Nigel is sure they’ll marry well and soon be somebody else’s problem: giggling and doing things to their hair. Matthew’s hardly what you’d call an intellectual and, as for Peter, well Nigel prefers not to think of his older brother, who always seems to lose at chess, even though he’s only playing himself. Nigel spends his winter evenings alone in the armchair next to the fireplace, doing nothing of consequence. Occasionally he doses. When not dosing, he stares at the walls and wishes he were somewhere else.

It is Ginny and Claudia who suggest dancing. They are all of a sudden done with boredom and wish to do something that isn’t dull. They been discussing it while they knit. Click. Click. Click. “Oh, do put on a record, Claud! It’s so very dull in here.” Click. Click. Click. Go the knitting needles. “Here’s a stellar idea, Ginny. What about rolling up the rug and having a little boogie round the parlour? Come on Matty. Help us move the coffee table. Peter, put away your chess.” Click. Click. Click.

The chessboard’s abandoned. The knitting decanted into a hamper. Even Eleanor’s persuaded to leave her books. All five siblings are up and shimmying round the parlour, twisting and jiving like demented souls. Nigel is the only one abstaining. Nigel does not dance. Though Ginny and Claudia refuse to take him at his word. They haul at the sleeves of his dressing gown. They try to tip him out of his chair. “Come on, Nige. Dance with us. It’ll be the most tremendous fun.” Nigel tells them that it won’t be fun for him. Nigel tells them he isn’t budging. He reminds them that he doesn’t dance and it’s not because he isn’t capable. Nigel excels at everything he turns his hand to. He could be an expert dancer. He just chooses not to dance.

“But you used to dance, Nigel,” insists Matthew. “Remember when you were in the Christmas pageant.” Over in the corner, by the piano, Ginny suppresses a giggle while Claudia lets out a wild guffaw. At the mention of the Christmas pageant, Peter, flips open the piano lid and picks out the first few bars of Nigel’s theme. Rinky dinky rinky dunk, rink-a-dink-a-link-a-lunk hums Claudia gallumping round the coffee table. Ginny and Eleanor join her, arching their arms above their heads. “Watch, here comes Nigel’s signature move?” shouts Matthew and all three girls pretend to trip over their laces and collapse in an undignified pile on the floor.

“I was six,” seethes Nigel. All the others nod piously. “And it wasn’t my fault. I am a good dancer. If Mother had tied my laces properly.”

“Poor old Nigel with his two left feet,” says Ginny.

“Nobody expects you to be brilliant,” adds Claudia. “It’s only a bit of fun.”

But Nigel will not leave his armchair. He doesn’t have to prove anything to the others. He knows he could dance rings round all of them. He just chooses not to. Like he chooses not to be funny or popular with the girls from school. Like last year, when it came to voting for head boy, he’d already decided he did not want it, though obviously he knew exactly how  tremendously popular he was. The trick, thinks Nigel, as he tries to ignore his gyrating siblings, is to understand your own potential and then keep it hidden like a secret weapon until you need to blow the sceptics away.

Inspired by a line from Agatha Christie’s 1955 novel Hickory Dickory Dock