Having had my brief encounter with salsa in Cyprus recently, despite all efforts to avoid it, I suddenly remembered a visit to Dublin a few years ago with some non-salsa friends.
And they certainly DID NOT want to do salsa, and although I’d packed my dance shoes in the hope that my whingeing would persuade them to accompany me to a salsa club, they were having none of it. But if found me, it did, albeit fleetingly. It sort of waved at me and whispered in my ear – i’m still here, and here’s a teeny tiny bit of me just to keep you topped up…….
Now, it sort of happened like this. IIt was One of those nights, the last hour of which you just couldn’t make up; the sort of hour, which if you told people about it, they would think you were lying, and you would have to bring out witnesses to corroborate it. And I have got witnesses, because they were in it….
The evening started off with all five of us. We have known eachother since 19…ahem, and although we don’t see eachother very often these days, all have our assigned roles within the group: the highly organised career woman, who will buy 3 designer outfits before the rest of us have rolled out of bed, the very organised earth mother, who always has a supply of milk cartons and tea bags somewhere in her luggage, the one with no sense of direction who we always lose, the one is slightly older and has had a very interesting life…., and me – the one who is always late.
When its all five of us together at the same time, we balance eachother out; but lose the first two, and well, it can all go a bit to pot really. And it did….but we had more fun!
After a lovely meal and a couple of exploratory visits to a selection of Dublin pubs, the organised section of the group decided they were tired, and headed off to the hotel. This left the scatty section – which included me – to visit one more pub. Then we decided we too should return to said hotel. But, um, where was the hotel…..
We set off hopefully, positive that something would jog our collective memories. But we’d spent the evening visiting Dublin pubs, so, really, fat chance there. Still, it was a very warm summer’s evening, and Dublin is very nice, so we carried on regardless.
Suddenly, the one who always gets lost – who is used asking for directions, obviously – grabbed a nice young man as he was walking past and asked him the whereabouts of our hotel…….and being a nice young man, possibly overwhelmed by our Welsh charm (all three of us are Welsh and will talk anyone into submission), he offered to walk us there.
And of course, he told us his life story. By now, it is around midnight, and we have no idea where we are or where we are going, but he is such a nice young man, we didn’t really care. Then, he told us he worked in advertising and was currently working on a campaign for fizzy drinks….and there is my office he said. There are Cornettos in the freezer and said fizzy drinks in the fridge, would you like me to get you some, it’s such a nice evening…..
And we all went, Yes, please, free ice-cream and fizzy drinks. And its past midnight, get us!!!! (well, we didnt say that, but that was the gist of it)
So, he trotted over the road. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited…..And we waited. And then it began to dawn on us that he may not come back. That it may have been an elaborate way of getting rid of us. I mean, we can’t half talk, the three of us. He could have gone in the front door and nipped out a side door, and the one who’d had an interesting life needed the loo, and my feet were hurting…
And miraculously he reappeared, clutching four cornettos and four cans of fizzy drinks. What a nice young man! The four of us continued on our way – he was from New Zealand, apparently, over for less than a year, liked Dublin, thinking of Hong Kong next – and then we were there, far too quickly, back at the hotel. And he turned left, and we turned right, and we all waved, and thought, you can’t beat eating Cornettos at Midnight in Dublin in the company of a lovely young man from New Zealand.
With the best part of the evening apparently over, we climbed the steps to the hotel, still clutching our cans of Fanta, or Seven Up, or whatever he’d given us. As we walked through the door, the Night Porter said, do you want to go on somewhere else………..?
Myself and the one with no sense of direction said, yes, why not….the one who had had an interesting life, said, no, too tired, need the loo….
So he pressed the buttons for both lifts, sent the tired one up towards her room, and pressed the button sending myself and the one with no sense of direction downwards – to who knows not. We never asked….
As the lift doors opened in the basement, I heard something….a vaguely familiar tune, with latin rhythms, vibrant and catchy, and i said, salsa, salsa, i can hear salsa….so we turned the corner – still clutching our fizzy drinks – and stepped through a fire escape into a bar heaving with people, as a band played the last few notes of the last salsa tune of the evening (as it turned out).
We stood in the doorway, me waiting for the next track, so i could strut my salsa stuff, but the band started packing up. This was much to the relief of my friend, I feel – she’d had a bad experience at a salsa club in Cardiff a few years previously, and as a result had a few prejudices.
So, we walked to the bar, put our cans on the counter, turned to survey the heaving and happy crowds…and when we turned back to pick up our drinks, the barman had poured them into glasses for us and thrown the cans away….
By now, past words, we just looked at eachother, finished our drinks, picked our way back through the fire escape and took the lift to our rooms.
And in the morning made sure we spoke to eachother about it, so we knew it wasn’t just a dream…you know, like the Bobby Ewing dream….
so, there you are – I got a whiff of salsa, despite everything, and a free cornetto to boot….
Copyright Chris Penhall 2008
