(This is part of the series of "Silverbridge" stories but can be read on its own.)
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Copyright Oggbashan 22 June 2002
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
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I got my revenge on John when the Twinning Committee arranged some football matches with our Twin Town in Hungary. At least I think it was Hungary. I wasn't that interested. It was just another football match for our Ladies' team. A friendly that didn't count towards any of the competitions that mattered. John and the Men's team were also playing their men's team.
I was still mad with John. He'd got drunk and made a pass at my best friend Jane. Jane just shrugged it off. She said:
"Sheila, it doesn't really matter. He was drunk. In that state he'd chase anything in a skirt."
It was true. That made me madder.
"I know, Jane, but it's an insult to me. Aren't I enough for him?"
"It's just the way most men are."
She was right but most of the men I knew weren't like that. We'd trained them better. John had let me down in front of my friends.
Anyway, I was annoyed with him. I wanted to humiliate him in public. The week of Twin Town events gave me the chance.
By the way, you mustn't think that because we play football that we're unfeminine. We are fit and shapely because of our training but when we dress up we look like the ladies we are. On the pitch - well, that's different! We play hard and we like to win. And I'm going to win this disagreement with John - even if I have to play dirty to do it.
OK. One of the events that week was an exhibition of Folk Dancing by some of their footballers. You know - the sort of thing that makes you yawn when on holiday abroad. Anything billed as "Folklorique" makes me run the other way. The organisers wanted some participation from Silverbridge. Without asking us, our club volunteered eight men and eight women to join the dancing on stage for one item. Then they had to persuade us. In the end we drew straws for it. John and I lost so we were "volunteered".
There was a rehearsal the night before. All our men (including John) refused to go. They said that one evening was enough to lose. We girls had a more responsible attitude. Besides, if we were going to dance on a stage we didn't want to look stupid, did we? We had standards to maintain. If nothing else, we wanted to be sure our costumes would fit. It wouldn't do for a tit to fall out, would it? We shouldn't have worried. Lisa was doing our costumes. She knows our sizes by heart. The men would just wear trousers and shirts with a sash tied around their waist.
Our costumes were not too awful. We wore half-boots, tiered bright orange calf length skirts over a couple of flounced white petticoats, a black waist apron, white gypsy tops, a headscarf and two other headscarves tucked into our waistbands. All three headscarves were at least one metre square - they might have been even larger - and dark blue.
When we turned up at the club for the dance the Hungarians (or whatever they were - I still don't know) had already changed in the Visitors' rooms. We rushed into our familiar changing room and were out fully dressed in less than five minutes. Whatever else you can say about Lisa she is a born organiser and how she can shout!
There was some argument and much waving of hands about the absence of the men but they made the best of it. They did their dance. It wasn't too difficult to work out - a sort of square dance with two sets of four couples then the sets form into one circle. The men circle the girls who circle the other way; the girls pass through and circle the men. Oh - I forgot the scarves.
That's the most important bit. The girls hold a scarf in each hand. In part of the sets the men hold the other end of the girl's right hand scarf. Then the girls twirl round waving both scarves while the men stamp and clap. In the circles the girls hold the other end of the next girl's scarf so each hand has two ends in it.
The bit that gave me the idea for my revenge on John was the finale. Apparently this scarf dance is a courtship ritual - a sort of "Ladies Choice". A loaded choice if you ask me. The partner you start with is the partner you end with. At least the version we saw is rigged. Maybe it wasn't when the peasant girls danced it.
At the end of the circling the girls throw their two scarves over the shoulders of the men facing them, catch hold of the loose ends and pull the men to their knees facing the girls. They knot one scarf round the man's neck, loop the other through the knotted scarf and "drag" the man offstage. As the "Hungarians" danced it the men left still dancing squatted like Russians or Cossacks or whatever. They made it look quite easy. I could see that John and the others would find it difficult if not impossible. Without a rehearsal they had no chance of doing it.
Then we joined in the rehearsal. They coupled us so that each set was half us and half "Hungarian" but half of us had to be "men". Then we swapped so that the "men" became "ladies" and the "ladies" became "men". Followed that? I thought not! It doesn't really matter anyway. What mattered was that the "men" couldn't do the finale properly even though the "men" were really intelligent women.
We went into a huddle with Lisa. Did I say that Lisa was co-ordinating us? No? Oh well. She was.
"Lisa!" I said (or rather shouted as you have to if you want to get a word in when Lisa's co-ordinating) "We haven't a hope of getting the men to do the last bit right. Even we can't!"
The others agreed with me. The men hadn't a hope of doing it, let alone with any style.
"So why don't we play it for laughs?"
"What do you mean?" asked Lisa. I could see she was not too pleased with our performance in the finale.
"The idea is that they do the dance first, then we come on and do a repeat. Isn't that it?"
