Dancing Queen
Once upon a time when the world was young, or at least when
it seemed so, but in reality circa 1977, I went on holiday to Rosslare Strand. To
be more accurate. my parents brought my three younger siblings and me on our
annual two-week holiday. We had only come lately to the idea of such an
extended vacation. Four children under twelve for two weeks in cramped surroundings
does not a holiday make. 1977 was one of the golden summers, surpassed only by 1976
in its length and splendour. We had a tiny six-berth caravan, bought the year
before by my put-upon father instead of the roomier and newer model I had
approved. My father paid a lot of attention to me, for a young lady of my
tender years. It accounts for much of what has transpired over the course of my
adult life. To cut a long story short, it was bought for a knockdown sum,
though to my analytical eye, the alternative was better return for money. It
was lovingly restored to use: mildew scrubbed off, repainted in and out, giving
it an oddly matt appearance. He remade the damaged bits of the internal
shelving, while my mother made new curtains to replace the faded and frayed
originals. To be honest, given her lifelong proclivity for lame ducks, the
whole thing was probably her idea. He did say, at a much later juncture, that
she always got her own way.
To describe it as a six-berth was a kindness: it was, if
four of the six were persons of small stature and/or all good friends. It was a barely feasible proposition by the summer after we’d bought it, due to my
burgeoning adolescence and reluctance to share personal space with two
pre-pubertal brothers and a youngest sister. Things were bad enough the
previous year when they discovered that I’d been issued, at twelve, with my
first bra. It was from Dunne’s Stores in Enniscorthy, purchased en route, white
with lace, 32A, a veritable miracle. I had to petition my largely oblivious
mother for it. In her defence, we’re not much given to cleavage in my family;
it took me, following in my mother’s footsteps, till the grand old age of
forty, and two babies, to develop anything one could justifiably describe as
such. I remember her saying precisely that to me in later years, about herself,
when we had become friends, as well as mother and daughter. I was a teenage
sylph, brimming with raging hormones but without much by way of external
display. That summer, I was, and remain, just shy of five feet three inches. Whereas
now I have what my precocious schoolfriend Susan, would have described as “a
wobble and a wiggle” which I rejoice in occasionally deploying to maximum effect,
(for which you must forgive me; it arrived late, and the sand in the glass is
running low), I was gamine, and if my hair was cropped, occasionally mistaken
for a boy. To your average pubescent lady-in-waiting, there is no greater
insult. My hair that year was chin-length, having learnt my lesson the hard way
the previous summer. In the couple of
remaining photographs, I am gloriously grown-up, ahead of my peers, with a
bubble of confidence that nobody had taken care to burst for the time being. I’m
posed against a sea-worn concrete bulwark with my brothers, light-years ahead
of them, resplendent in bikini-top and shorts, sewn by my industrious mother, arms carefully-folded immediately under, and propping up, my incipient bosom. There
is another photograph of me taken that Autumn by my late and mutually-adoring father,
no doubt marvelling at his having produced a woman-child in such short order.
That summer, I struck up a friendship with a boy who hailed,
I think, from Enniscorthy. His name was Donal, but I couldn't be sure, so many
years later. He was small, that is, about my height, with almost-black hair and
freckles. My tastes regarding dark-haired men have never really changed. The
recollection of that makes me smile. Just how early do we form preferences? He
could handle a kayak well, was funny and clever. I suffered boys, as confirmed fools,
badly: I was always tops in every subject, and not easily impressed. But he
never tried to show off; he just did his thing, and talked sense. I had a
rotten craft, a fibreglass kayak my father had actually made, after he and a
bunch of his friends got together and bought moulds and materials. It had
knife-sharp edges that sliced your shins open, and overturned if you looked
sideways at it. Donal had a proper boat, and very likely a proper caravan too, or
even a mobile home. Our canoe caused my father, who was a gentleman in any
sense that matters, to swear vocally and expressively every time he fell out,
which was more or less every time a slight swell passed beneath the boat, He’d
built it for himself, as he never failed to remind us, but his six-foot height
was too much for it, and though still reasonably athletic and a water-lover, he
spent more time out of it than in. And we spent more time in it than he, to his
intense annoyance.
Our collective parents, previously strangers, observed in
amusement; the mutual attraction did not pass unnoticed. Two weeks passed
quickly. The sun shone. We went to see Jaws in the local scout hut. I had
charge of my younger brothers, while my long-suffering parents escaped to the
cabaret across the road. The last night, there was a barbeque on the beach.
Finally, a chance to be alone, without prying parental eyes, and the chance
of…what? Never been kissed, and nowhere near sixteen. I hardly remember what I
wore, selected from the extensive wardrobe I had packed over three days, to cover
all eventualities, few of them ever likely to materialise. I do remember somebody playing
Dancing Queen, and I was her, though nowhere near seventeen (ah! those were the
days). See that girl, young and sweet. The barbeque started at eight, and I was
there bang on time. I avoided, with circumspection, anything connected with
seafood, having not yet developed a taste. The sun went down fast, it being
mid-August by then, as the engineering works my dad managed took builder’s
holidays. The sand was icy-cold to bare feet, and I regretted my decision to
wear shorts. It meant that, to keep hypothermia at bay, I eventually had to don
my horrid, navy, fake-fur-trimmed parka, and hide my blue sun-top, my pride and
joy, which displayed, to minimal effect, what little there was. Whatever
happened to sun-tops? Did they defer inevitably to toplessness? After an hour,
a burger, and a minor dispute about my entitlement to attend, as non-residents
of the caravan-park (long story), in desperation I plucked up the courage to
enquire as to his whereabouts. It took me some time, in the dark away from the
immediate vicinity of the bonfire, to find another, nameless child I
recognised. I’ve never been one for names. I summoned all my courage - never
forget how hard it is for teenager to actually get something OUT- and asked,
excruciated “Where’s Donal?”. “Donal who?” the reply came back. My heart sank.
My last hope. “Donal from Enniscorthy, the guy with the red kayak”. “Oh yeah”.
Hope leapt, flamed bright, brighter than the bonfire. “He went home earlier
today”. Straws to cling on: “You sure?” “Yeah, saw him earlier, but he’s off”.
I don't know where I was that afternoon, but evidently not
on the beach. We never got to say goodbye, or exchange addresses. I would have
been perfectly capable of penning faithful and yearning teenage missives on a
regular basis, and for all I know, so would he, but it was not to be. Wherever you
are, Donal, and whatever you became, thanks for the memories.
