Third Dance: Salsa
A type of Latin American dance music incorporating elements of jazz and rock. In Latin American cooking, salsa is a spicy tomato sauce.
Nyet!" Irina wags her finger at Janine. "Listen to the music! Three steps for every four beats of music. You must pause."
The salsa is the first Latin dance they've tried, and she's just made a complete hash of the routine.
"Sorry." She leans into him and drops her head onto his shoulder. "I'm an idiot."
"It's a form of syncopation," he offers.
She rolls her eyes. "That doesn't mean anything to my feet, might as well be called exasperation."
"Not just feet. Arms, too!" Irina calls out.
Janine mutters, "Just to make everything even more complicated."
Irina barks out yet another command. "Start again, this time in open position."
Masha arrives next to the pair as Sherlock widens the gap between him as Masha explains to her, "Closed position is your hand just below his shoulder, his hand on your back. There's more space in the open position. It's a bit more forgiving for beginners. You're doing fine." Sherlock takes both of her hands in his. The Russian smiles and Janine's shoulders loosen a bit. She'd arrived in a foul mood and rather tense, grumbling about her boss being a bastard "Yet again".
Somehow the Russian's praise is a way to make her relax. Sherlock's brows furrow as he considers how that has happened, and whether he can learn it quickly enough to make a difference. John had said that he could always tell when Sherlock was faking it, and it is important to be convincing if his plans are to work.
Three weeks into his planning, and not enough to show for it. Although dancing had been how he'd coaxed her into seeing him again, the lessons are actually beginning to interfere with his attempts to get her to tell him what he needs to know. Tonight, for example; her bad mood at the start of the evening is being exacerbated by her frustrations as a beginner.
Masha tries to explain. "The key is to keep your weight split evenly over your feet. Keep your upper body level, and make your hips move; they are what gives the dance its rhythm. Watch what his hips do when he steps." As Sherlock shifts his right foot forward, Masha asks "Feel the gentle pressure through his hands? He's telling you which leg you need to move first."
As Janine obediently steps back, Irina comes in closer and repeats her earlier instruction. "Eight beats to complete basic steps, but don't step on all eight beats. Feet move on beats one, two, three, and then on four, pause. Five, six, seven, you move again, before pause on eight. Do it now with Masha; I clap. Each clap, you step. No clap, you shout out 'pause' to me. Okay?"
Janine nods, as Irina uses her remote to begin the music again. It's perhaps the most popular salsa piece ever, La vida es un carnaval sung by Celia Cruz in 1998. The words are in Spanish, the beat lively and clear; the rhythm signalled by percussionist striking a cow bell in time.
Sherlock can feel through her hands Janine is tensing up as she listens to the music.
"Wait for it," he whispers. He counts it down: "Five, six, seven," then "pause". When Irina claps, he moves his left leg forward. As Janine steps back with her own right leg, he murmurs, " replace."
Obediently, she lifts her left foot off the floor and without moving it forward, she replaces it back down as Irina claps the second time. "Now forward." Using his hands, he pulls her gently forward, so she steps with her right leg forward, and then on the third beat, again steps forward on the left. Irina calls out "Replace right" instead of a clap, just as Sherlock says "Pause".
He now pushes her hands a bit, to help her step back on the left leg as Irina resumes clapping. They repeat the back and forward movement a few times, each time Janine's growing more confident. It's important to Sherlock that she sees the dancing as fun; he needs her to keep her happy if his plot is going to succeed. If only she were better at it.
He keeps chanting "Back, replace, forward; forward, replace back." Janine is quite stiff, not moving her hips enough and stepping too firmly so the sound of her shoes clumps on the wooden floor, but at least her steps are more or less in time with the music now. She's counting out loud, "One, two, three, pause, five, six, seven, pause."
"Toes. On toes, not heels." Irina is shaking her head. "Weight over toes; no leaning back."
He commiserates. "It's hard at first. But the salsa is a party dance, a sexy dance. It should suit you." As the female singer belts out the song, he translates the Spanish lyrics, "Life is a carnival. Anyone that thinks that life is always cruel, they really need to know it's not like that."
She giggles, "They haven't met Irina."
He picks up the song again. "There are only some bad moments and then it all passes." He moves her through a half turn and then the sequence begins again. "Smile through all those hardships, and it will end right." He is rewarded by a smile from his partner.
Unfortunately, just as she smiles back at him, Janine forgets to replace, and steps forward on the wrong foot.
"Shit… my fault." She's not able to get back into the rhythm at all and stops.
Irina stops the music; "Again, from the beginning."
oOoOoOoOo
By the time the lesson is over, Janine's mood is even worse than when she'd arrived. When Sherlock takes her back to the flat for the newly established ritual of coffee, a cognac and a snog on the sofa, Janine is not feeling cuddly.
"Sorry. Just been a shite day, and now my feet are killing me. Tell the mortician that cause of death was Irina and those shoes. Lethal combination."
"This may help resurrect you." Sherlock pours the brandy into the glasses on the coffee table. "It's okay to be frustrated at first. I hope you won't get discouraged. I really want to continue; it's a great opportunity to keep seeing each other."
"You are the best part of these evenings, that's for sure. And the dancing is fun when I get it right. All I want—no, what I need—right now is for my feet to stop hurting."
"I can do something for that; give me your feet." Sherlock is relieved to have something other than kissing to do.
She kicks off the flats she'd worn after the lesson, and leans back against the arm of the sofa, depositing her feet in his lap.
He obliges, starting to massage around her heels and ankles. Within moments, Janine is almost moaning in pleasure, as Sherlock moves up from the ankles to her calves.
"Sherlock Holmes, you have marvellous hands. Where did you learn how to do this?" she murmurs, eyes closed, leaning back with what he decides is an expression of bliss.
He entertains her with a story of his case in one of London's up-market hotel spas. "Before John," he points out when he explains that it required him to deliver massages to well-heeled businessmen and wealthy tourists on their holidays. It had led him to a gang running three Turkish baths in London, all of which were pulling in significant revenues by laundering money along with the towels used in the steam rooms. "I spent a lot of time pummelling male flesh and massaging aching muscles."
Janine opens her eyes and gives him a calculating look. "Which side do you bat for, Sherlock Holmes? Am I wasting my time here?"
Without a moment's hesitation he lies through his teeth. "Think of me as someone who appreciates the finer specimens of the human race, irrespective of their gender." It's all part of the back-story he has invented for himself.
"A switch-hitter? That's not what Mary said." She sits up, dropping her feet back to the floor.
He struggles to grasp her use of the American baseball term. "John's probably told her that I am uninterested in anything sexual. It seems sensible not to correct their misconceptions."
"Why you sly fox. Otherwise, she might have seen you as a threat, given John's obvious adoration."
His disguise slips a moment and his brow furrows. "He doesn't adore me; when he lived here, he was frequently very vocal in his criticism." The online advice tells him to reassure her that she's not threatened by a competitor. "John tells anyone and everyone that he is not gay and we were not a couple. We were merely flatmates and colleagues, then friends. In his blog, he often makes jokes at my expense."
"Yet he chose you as his Best Man, surely that means something?"
Sherlock shrugs, hoping to convey a scepticism that Janine will see as raising his romantic potential. "As everyone tells me, marriage changes people. He's moved out, is working full-time and hasn't worked a case with me for almost six weeks, so no longer a flatmate or colleague. He and Mary have been back from Morocco a week already and he hasn't made contact. His friendship seems linked to proximity."
"So, are you back on the market now?"
"Only for you."
"Why me?"
"You're special." It's a line he's read in a magazine; it's supposed to work.
"Well, I think you're special, too. Hallelujah. Let's celebrate." Janine takes the stopper out of the cognac bottle and pours herself another measure. When she catches Sherlock's side-eye, "Listen you, Mister Abstemious, alcohol is my drug of choice. You've got yours; I have mine. No judgment here."
How does she know about his drug use? He's extraordinarily careful not to show any signs of being high when he's in her presence. He's a practised user, one capable of micro-dosing cocaine to keep a come-down at arms' length. Sherlock is confident that nothing in his demeanour has revealed what he gets up to in the hours she is not around. So, if she knows, then could it be that Magnussen has been passing on information?
"Oh, Lordy." Janine rolls her eyes at his silence. "Come on; don't play the innocent with me. I do my research. All that stuff in the papers before you did your disappearing act? I know what I'm getting into here."
"Getting into?" he repeats, momentarily slipping back into an old habit of echolalia. It gives him enough time to process what she is saying, and decide that it is a step (finally) in the right direction. "As in you and me, getting into a relationship?"
"Ah, the penny drops at last. You may have been able to deduce the hell out of the wedding guests, but you've taken your time realising that I'm interested in you." She puts her glass down and places her hand on the back of Sherlock's neck. "Did anyone ever tell you that you're a fine kisser? 'Cause if they haven't, they should have." She pulls him closer to her and they kiss.
He's spent ages watching tedious kissing scenes on YouTube to get the theory down. And it was remarkable how many of John's late-night crap television watching had involved kissing scenes, so he does have some idea of what to do. It seems to be working if the soft noises emerging from Janine are anything to go by. He's been getting better at this over the past few weeks. Practice makes perfect.
When she breaks it off and drags in a deep breath, Janine's eyes are sparkling. "What say we decamp to your bedroom now?"
He puts on a sad face. "I've got an appointment tonight."
"Tonight?" She sits back from him. "What kind of appointment?"
He sighs. "Criminals —they don't keep office hours, you know. The work I do means I spend a lot of what Mary calls unsocial hours doing things that can't be done during daylight hours. It's why John is pretty much off-limits these days."
"How mysterious. And rather inconvenient for your love life."
He puts his hands gently around her face and draws her in for another kiss. "I've not had a love life before you. Between my criminals and your boss, we have to make the most of the time we've got."
oOoOoOoOo
"Good night, sweet prince."
His toes almost curl at Janine's misuse of the Shakespeare quote. Janine might think she's in a fairy tale, but the playwright had something else in mind when he wrote that line. It's from the final scene of Hamlet, when the eponymous hero is dying in Horatio's arms. All those who plotted against Hamlet are also dead on the stage, victims who have fallen into their own traps. It's ironic, given that his own plot to use Janine is requiring him to act a role, a play within the play to get at Magnussen.
When he turfs her into the booked cab, Sherlock's smile lasts only as long as it takes to turn away from the kerb and head down the pavement in the opposite direction. The cognac he'd had to steady his nerves has kicked off nausea; perhaps that tentacled thing didn't agree with him. As he heads for a bolt hole to change clothes into yet another disguise, Sherlock decides that very little of this evening has agreed with him.
Tonight, he's going to try south London for a change. He has a dealer there he hasn't tapped up recently, and the man says there's a convenient doss house not far from where John and Mary live. He might wander past their flat just to see if the lights are on.
oOoOoOoOo
South London has its own ambiance, swirling currents of commuters going to and from London to the outer suburbs shape the geography; railway tracks demand diversions of road and foot traffic, carve odd neighbourhoods into cul-de-sacs, places off the beaten path. Bridges and tunnels interrupt anyone looking for a straight line of travel. Away from the upmarket homes near the river, at night the thin veneer of trendiness goes home with the office workers. His loose-limbed saunter, cheap joggers and grubby hoodie is a necessary camouflage, even if it meant he'd had to wave cash at the cabbie to take him.
Well south of the Shard and east of Kennington, where the neighbourhoods of St Saviours, Elmington and Willowbrook come with the tell-tale add-on of "Estate", the area becomes a wild west of no fewer than eight competing gangs. Their battleground is pock-marked with the crumbling remnants of industrial London once serviced by the row housing of workers. Victorian slum clearance down here has left only the concrete monstrosities of sixties and seventies tower blocks and council housing that not even hard-up office workers will try to gentrify. These streets have become the canvas of the dispossessed, the frustrated, the left-behinds.
Brilliant. It's what he loves about London—the whole world is here in the space of ten square miles. From the high crimes and misdemeanours of Belgravian expatriates to the petty thievery and drug dealing of Streatham, London is a cesspit of crime. No one bothers trying to shift the graffiti down here, given that it will only be replaced the next night. As his cab passes one particularly vivid set of six-foot high tags, Sherlock knows that he has just crossed the boundary between Moscow17 and 37/OJB.
As the cabbie heads toward the western outskirts of Dulwich Village, suburban houses reappear, the graffiti vanishes. An aura of calm descends. He gets the taxi driver to drop him at the corner of Half Moon Lane.
Dulwich Village is boring. Perhaps it is yet another reason he has been reluctant to visit John while he's been living with Mary. When he walks up towards the white painted Edwardian terraced house that has been gentrified and split into four flats, Sherlock passes Mary's car parked four spaces away. The sight of the second-hand Audi A3 hatchback raises the same question that he'd thought but not asked out loud when he'd first visited. How can a nurse receptionist working at a GP's surgery afford to buy a two bedroomed garden flat and a sporty car? Yet another mystery he is not allowed to deduce, not if he wants to keep his friendship with John alive.
The thought makes him wonder if asking the question would be enough to break their friendship for good. As soon as the idea takes shape, he wonders why the phrase is for good when what it really means is permanently. What would be good about that? It might save John from being targeted again by whoever put him in the bonfire. It would therefore be good for John, but not for Sherlock. He's not ready, not yet. Going cold turkey on John Watson is too much to ask of himself right now. He'd rather stop the drugs.
I'm addicted to John Watson.
As he approaches Mary's address, he feels the same compelling pull that had made him stop near Dulwich North station to pick up his supplies for tonight's session. Only the oblivion of drugs will give him respite from wanting, needing John tonight.
Looking over the iron railing in front of the house, he can see light spilling out from the bay window of Mary's sitting room onto the well below the pavement. The dark burgundy curtains aren't closed, but the Venetian blind slats are angled enough to give them privacy. His previous visits had shown him that the basement flat has two principal entrances, one from the street level, down a set of cast iron steps to the door to their sitting room, and then internal stairs going up higher to the main front door and hall shared by all the flats in the substantial house. There is another exit, too; one from the kitchen into the small courtyard behind the house where the bins are kept and the alleyway behind.
Useful for a quick getaway. Mary's choice whispers to him of her past, the one he has been forbidden to deduce by John.
He stands under the tall street lamp on the pavement, straining his ears for the sound of John's voice, but hears nothing other than the faint murmur of a television. Sherlock can visualise the pair of them, sitting next to each other on the sofa, with the tastefully patterned wallpaper behind. Planning the wedding often meant the journey was easier for him than the two of them. The visits had made him distinctly uncomfortable, because Mary's flat bears almost no evidence of John living there.
Sherlock feels the absence of every single thing that John has removed from Baker Street. His departure had torn the fabric of the universe of 221b; it no longer feels or looks like the place he'd carried around in his Mind Palace during the two years he'd been away. Yet, the new place where John lives seems devoid of those things.
A sense of profound loss grabs him by the throat, and he turns away, choking down his anger at the upsurge of useless emotions. Cocaine can do that to him, loosening his grip enough that he can't always fight off the waves of stupid sentiment. Defective. Why can't he get past this? John has made his choice; he's made his home with Mary, a woman who is burying a past he's not allowed to examine. John's boring job, his impending fatherhood, his nine-to-five suburban existence are not things Sherlock can change. He'd given up that right when he'd jumped from the roof.
Sherlock turns and strides away, determined to find the doss house that his dealer had told him about. Safe haven near Herne Hill, mate. Lookout, comfy, off the police radar; ain't cheap but it suits a posh boy like you. Password is 'Arsenal sucks', the man had said, as he handed over supplies he 'guarantees' are medicinal quality.
Sherlock expects that the heroin will be cut by fentanyl. Most is these days. He will have to adjust the dose more is the pity. Just looking at the Watsons' home has escalated his need from an urge into a compulsion, an ache pushing past a craving into a necessity. The banality of dealing with Janine and his frustration at the situation with John is eroding any last inhibitions.
When he finds the address, he deduces that the derelict three-storey building with its imposing pastiche of a classical pediment over the doorway had once been a Turkish bath. The glazed white tiles on the exterior walls are now dirty, the alley way to its front door is littered with rubbish. The hand-made KEEP OUT/PRIVATE sign on the red door is no deterrent to him.
An anonymous youth in a grubby hoodie answers his knock, opens the locked door and glares suspiciously; Sherlock gives the password and hands over a twenty-pound note. The door opens onto a dingy ground floor. Half the ceramic tiles have been ripped from the walls, but the shape of the place is still impressive, with high ceilings. The entrance area is cavernous, too exposed. He's told to go upstairs; if he hears a shout from the lookout, it will be to warn of intruders. It's a sensible precaution; the watcher's there to ensure that if the police show up, enough warning will be given for users to shed their drugs. Being under the influence is one thing, having possession of unused drugs in any significant quantity quite another. Sherlock tries to avoid travelling with enough on him to warrant an arrest. The safest place for the drugs is up his arm.
The room he chooses has a high ceiling with windows whose tatters of curtains let in enough street light to be able to see what he is doing when he shoots up. If he had known such a comfortable location was available so close to where John and Mary live, Sherlock would have patronised the doss house before now. He wonders how long before gentrification swallows up this place, too.
He settles himself on one of the stained mattresses, resting on a cushion that allows him to put his back to the wall. The place might reek of mould, but otherwise it has all mod-cons. The mattress isn't jumping with fleas, and the cheap bedspread tossed on it covers more obvious bodily fluids. No wonder someone is charging admission. He decides it's worth the journey; for once, he doesn't mind the fact that it's so far from Baker Street. Putting distance between him and Janine is something to be welcomed at the moment.
Rummaging in his pockets, the question has to be asked now, at last: which is it to be, cocaine or heroin?
A cocaine-fuelled rush would allow him to return to his Mind Palace tonight to work on the Georgian case. He's also picked up a couple of the newest bath salts, for tomorrow. The dealer tried to palm him off with their current street names, but there is no way he will trust something called Blue Silk or Purple Wave without a bit of testing at home. Synthetic cathinones come in too many varieties these days, and he needs accuracy when he's using stimulants. He has become a master of hiding drug analysis behind obscure experiments, not that it really matters anymore, now that John is no longer living in the flat.
That thought is an unwelcome reminder, and the melancholy that had settled on him outside John's flat descends again, wrapping itself around his slumped shoulders and squeezing until his chest aches.
Heroin is the answer to this—a pause in the hectic dance of his life. Heroin promises immediate relief, a way to put all thoughts of what he has lost out of reach. Oblivion beckons, a few hours of respite from the pain that he's been carrying for weeks, months. No, make that years.
Sherlock reaches in his pocket for his lighter and spoon.
End notes:
I am with Janine here. I find the salsa really difficult to get. I can manage the cha cha cha fine, but there is something about both the rumba and the salsa that my brain and feet cannot comprehend.
This is when I suggest all of my readers go do a slight detour. Read "Watching Brief" and "The Big Issue" in the Got My Eye on You story, because events are covered there that explain a lot of what is happening when Sherlock is not with Janine.