Read Summer Flings and Dancing Dreams for Free Online

preserved forever.
    Walking upstairs into my parents’ bedroom was probably the hardest part. The photos were still on the wall, gathering dust, a grainy black and white print of mum and dad in dancing clothes holding a trophy – I remembered the night, I could almost hear the applause, a golden memory from childhood. I gazed for a long time at a photo of me and Dad on the carousel in Blackpool. We were there for the Dance Championships and in between we’d gone out to the pier, up the tower and my favourite – the Pleasure Beach. It was a magical place for a child, filled with rides and roundabouts, fruit machines, faces full of candy floss – but the best of all was the candy-coloured horses on the carousel. I’d wait by the side with Dad, shaking with excitement, and when the ride stopped I would run to get on the purple or the pink horse, Dad running after me, laughing and calling my name. He’d sit behind me, holding me round my waist and when the ride started it seemed to go so fast my stomach would lift into my mouth and I would scream, scared I’d fall, but knowing I was safe in Dad’s arms.
    I moved along the photos on the wall smiling to myself at the 1970s shots of flared jeans and long hair. Mum’s hair was always lovely and thick and blonde, but looking at her now, through my middle-aged eyes, I saw a beautiful young woman with so much to live for – who’d have thought her life would turn out the way it did?
    I turned on the ceiling light, a large fake chandelier, all glitter and grandiosity, so typical of my parents. ‘Kippers and curtains!’ I murmured to myself, gazing up at the twinkling drops of glass twisting in the light. Then I spotted the opening to the attic and my heart sank. I hadn’t even started yet and I’d forgotten about the bloody attic, a whole extra room to clear out – and no one had been up there for years, God only knew what was up there. And knowing Mum’s hoarding tendencies you could bet it would be packed to the rafters – literally. Come to think of it, she had hinted that I might find the family treasure up there, hidden away.
    ‘If only,’ I’d said, knowing there would be nothing of value, because we had never owned anything of value. But I was intrigued as to what I might find there.
    I searched for a stepladder under the detritus of my mum’s life optimistically called ‘the spare room’. There is nothing ‘spare’ or ‘roomy’ about it, I thought as I heaved up dusty boxes and tore my way through a dense forest of bags and clothes. I finally discovered the ladder and torch and headed back to the master bedroom from where I entered the dreaded attic. Reluctantly pushing open the hatch that lead into the roof, I saw the amount of stuff and all I could think was ‘room of pain’ – and not in a sexual way. Just what was my mother hoarding up here? Random flashes of my torch revealed huge black bin liners were stacked against the walls, but as shocked as I was by the quantity, I have to confess to slight relief at the vague sense of order. Even in torchlight I could see the bags hadn’t just been thrown or piled six feet high with stuff spilling out, which seemed to be my mother’s signature storage solution. Whatever was in these bags had been put away with care and I was vaguely optimistic that it would be fairly easy to see (once I’d found the light switch) what was inside each one before clearing the space.
    God only knew what those bags contained, but it was going to take more than a day to sort that lot out. I clambered up into the attic it was dark and cramped and I could taste the thick dust at the back of my throat. I found the light and looked at the first of the bin liners. It was huge, so I grabbed it with both hands and pulled at it with all of my weight to bring it out into the tiny square of attic that was unoccupied. As soon as I tugged at it however I realised it was light as a feather, which was surprising and I almost lost my