There was a stand on the veranda and on the stand stood three musicians dressed in white: a singer holding a heavy microphone accompanied by a guitar player and an accordionist. The sun was going down behind the hotel and the lights on the veranda had come on, but there was still a bright glow across a sky without clouds. It was a concrete hotel with blue awnings and wide balconies with glass partitions. Built on a cliff, its big veranda gave an uninterrupted view of the bay where the sea was calm and blue and rippled. Because of the view there were wedding receptions at the hotel every weekend in the summer months.

The tables were arranged in rows across the veranda and were full with wedding guests. In front of the bandstand a large area had been left empty for dancing. The newlyweds were sitting in the middle of a long row of tables that was being laid with food and drinks on a paper tablecloth. The man in the dark suit, the bowtie and the gardenia pinned in his lapel was listening to the music. He was the groom.

    ‘Just three of them but they can pack a punch, eh?’ he asked.
    The woman nodded.
    ‘They’re very good.’
    They were holding hands under the table. This was the happiest day of their lives. They had told each other many times already. And they had told their guests too. The woman still wore her wedding gown, a long dress made of ivory taffeta and tulle that was romantic but not sensible: it was a hot and humid evening.
    ‘I wish I’d changed,’ she said, patting her face with a paper napkin.
    The man tapped his fingers to the music.
    ‘There wasn’t any time,’ he said.
    The three musicians on the stand had a serious expression. They were professionals. Next weekend they would be playing at another wedding reception, on the same veranda, dressed in the same clothes, standing on the same stand.
    ‘What are we listening?’ the woman asked.
    The man said a word she could not pronounce. Ever since they had met he had told her many words she had found impossible to repeat. But she did not mind; there was something endearing about foreign cultures.
    ‘An improvisational dance,’ he explained over the noise of the music. ‘In a nine-eight time.’
    ‘A what time?’
    The music was very loud.
    ‘It’s a male dance,’ the man said. ‘But only one man at a time may dance it. In the past it was a sign of disrespect if someone else joined in. There could be violence. Even today some men wait until the dancing man has finished or given them his place.’
    ‘No women?’
    The man shook his head.
    ‘Traditionally women weren’t allowed to dance it. Only prostitutes dared do it. Today some women dance it too.’
    ‘Men, women and prostitutes,’ the woman said.
    ‘Right,’ the man confirmed.
    ‘You have to teach me.’

The man laughed. There was always a hint of scorn in his laughter, but he had beautiful white teeth and laughing made him look even more attractive. Guests queued up in front of the couple’s table.
    ‘Congratulations.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    Someone raised his glass and the couple did the same.
    ‘And many offspring.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘Soon eh?’
    ‘Certainly.’
    And everyone within earshot laughed.
    ‘What did he say?’ the woman asked.
    The groom shook his head.
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Oh, some nonsense.’

The sun slowly disappeared behind the hotel but it was not any cooler. The woman looked at the hills across the bay where houses stood among the dense myrtle. It was a beautiful landscape but the houses she thought ugly.
    ‘Beautiful eh?’ the man said. ‘Nothing like where you come from.’
    He had an opinion because at Christmas he had flown to be with her. On New Year’s Day she had insisted they drive to her parents. He had not liked them.
    ‘Oh, it’s not all that bad,’ she smiled.
    The man leaned towards her and cupped his hand behind his ear: the music was loud.
    ‘What?’ he asked.
    ‘Where I come from.’
    The man shook his head.
    ‘A godforsaken place,’ he insisted.
    She did not hear well.
    ‘Godforsaken,’ she said.
    ‘That’s what I said.’

 

It was the noise but also his accent that threw her. He spoke good English but sometimes she did not understand him and others he did not understand her. Sometimes she had to speak slowly but tried not to overdo it. He thought it was patronising.