The Masquerade Ball

It was my first masked ball: my first formal ball of any kind, come to that. The invitation had arrived some weeks previously, a beautifully ornate, embossed affair on black card. It had stated quite simply:

Masquerade Ball & Dinner
7.30pm for 8
July 30th
Steenside Town Hall

Black tie, optional costume

I stared at it, for what felt like an hour. Was it possible that I had been sent this beautiful, alluring invitation to what sounded somehow, despite its brevity, like the most glittering affair that our small town of Steenside had ever seen?

I checked the envelope it had come in: a stiff cardboard rectangle with my name clearly printed on the front. No mistake there, then. But did they actually know who I was? Or had I been chosen, seredipitiously, from a list of inhabitants of the area? I didn't know. Nor did I know from whom the invitation had come.

It took three days of agonising before I replied. I hadn't worn a dinner jacket since my school prom, and I was unsure it would still fit. Three years had caused my waist to expand, although I wasn't yet at the point where I would consider taking out a membership at the local gym or dieting hard.

Not only that, but I was uncertain about going alone. Would I be the only one not in a couple? Technically unattached, I didn't dare to invite a partner and I hated the thought of being left alone as the others danced. Women were a mystery to me, in general, particularly the kind that was invited to formal balls. Despite the rush of good luck, or perhaps the pay-off from a huge amount of hard work, that had resulted in my being added to what was known as the "upper crust", I still couldn't count myself as anything other than an overgrown student playing at being a man. And I dreaded the moment when I arrived in the town hall and saw that all the other attendees had made the same judgement.

My dithering was violently ended when my on-off girlfriend of seven months cried off from our date on the afternoon of the ball. The weakness and transparency of her excuse, something that had happened several times lately, infuriated me sufficiently that I resolved to answer the invitation with a resounding "yes", and enjoy myself without guilt.

The afternoon of July 29th arrived. Being a Sunday, the office had been quiet and I had left early to pick up my newly-laundered DJ from the cleaners. By five fifteen I was ready, jacket laid out to be put on as I was leaving. Rather ridiculously, I was feeling more nervous than I had since my teens. What if no one danced with me? Did I even remember how to dance? It was several months since I had been to any form of structured dance, even a disco at the local club. The ballroom dancing lessons my mother had insisted on when I was sixteen were a dim memory. I was likely to disgrace myself dreadfully. And it was still only twenty-five past five.

Somehow I filled in the time until seven twenty. The Town Hall was a fifteen minute walk from my doorstep, but I had a tendency to hurry and I didn't want to arrive early: a throwback to my dating days, when being late was a sign that you were not "over-interested".

The steps to the entrance of the hall were strung with lights, wound around the wrought-iron handrail. Dark was approaching and the clear white lights, safely on the right side of good taste, were both pretty and practical. Swallowing, I mounted the steps and entered through the imposing wooden doors.

The entrance hall was almost deserted, save for a security guard reading at the desk and, at the far end, a couple in DJ and cocktail dress. The woman was wearing a mask, I couldn't discern at this distance what colour; the man, like me, was merely in formal wear. I headed after them, noting the door through which they disappeared.

As I approached the door, I paused for a second and closed my eyes, breathing carefully. Now was the time to take myself and my three year old dinner jacket home. I could watch the football and drink lager, confident in the knowledge that I was the best dressed person in the room.

"Are you not going in?" enquired a voice at my shoulder. Jumping a little, I opened my eyes and saw...

A woman dressed in a blue and black diamond-patterned cocktail dress, the white skirt almost too short for decency and the matching blue and black stockings nearly, but not quite, the opposite side of taste to the lights outside. Her shoulders, which were bare, were framed against a pair of large white wings, trimmed with black. She wore a blue mask, long feathers protruding from one corner. Her blue-black hair hung loosely around her shoulders. She was stunning.

"They won't bite you, you know," she said, breaking my reverie. "Come on, come inside."

She pushed open the door, not waiting for my answer, and entered. Even in my slightly dazed state I noticed heads turning: heads attached to elegant, conservatively-clad women and smart dinner-jacketed men. She didn't seem to notice.

After a second, I gathered my courage and pushed open the door far enough to enter through. The blue winged woman had somehow reached the far side of the room, where a table was laid out with what I was sure, although I couldn't make out, were very neat and proper hors d'œuvre and glasses of wine. I could tell, however, that the others in the room were not impressed.

Before anything could happen (and I wasn't sure what I was expected, or was I hoping?), a string quartet that I hadn't noticed in the corner began to play. It was a waltz, I recognised immediately. Hovering beside the door, I watched as the well-groomed couples around me walked onto the dance floor, moving smoothly into the movements of the dance.

Why had I come? I was thinking to myself, as I observed that almost everyone had arrived in a couple or a group. I saw no one I recognised; odd, when the town of Steenside was a small one and I had flattered myself I knew most of the inhabitants by sight. Perhaps in their finery people appeared differently.

And suddenly she was at my shoulder again. How she had arrived there I couldn't say; certainly she had contrived not to pass through my line of vision. Or was I so lost in thought that I had failed to notice her? I doubted it: no one could miss her.

"Dance with me?" she asked, extending her hand. At this second time of seeing her close, I could tell that she was older than me, although by how much I wasn't sure.

Without thinking, I took her hand and we went into the centre of the room, joining the waltzing couples. Somewhat to my surprise, I hadn't forgotten the steps and I slipped into the familiarity of the dance. The winged woman was a good partner, following my lead almost instantly; it felt as though she knew what I was going to do next before I did.

As the dance ended I realised we hadn't spoken a single word as we danced, just listened to the music and moved together. She was almost as tall as me, tall for a woman and as I glanced at her feet I saw that she was wearing flat black pumps without heels.

"Thank you," I said to her, registering briefly that these were the first words I had spoken to her all evening. She smiled at me, and suddenly was gone again. I saw her in a swirl of white wings, approaching a man in a smart dinner jacket. The woman at his side, dressed in an exceedingly sparkly silver ball gown, looked irritated and then downright angry as the man moved awkwardly into the next dance (a quickstep). Watching them, I observed his caution with his feet and hands.

Throughout the rest of the evening, the winged woman moved around the men in the ballroom. Not a single one refused her, although several looked uncomfortable and their partners were left to fume at the side of the hall. I danced three times with other women; well-dressed, elegant women who would have shone had the winged woman not been there, attracting attention and monopolising the men.

Looking back now, I laugh to think of the looks on the faces of the others in the hall. The few who were in costume, mainly women, were dressed elegantly and decently, giving the affair the feel of a time-warp back to 19th century social balls. I suppose that I appeared as one of them, dressed as I was in my smart jacket and looking as grown up as I could manage at twenty-one. But inside I was on her side, on the side of the brave and fearless woman in the wings and feathered mask.

I never saw her again after that night, and I doubt anyone else did. It's probably been forgotten, like so many other things, by all the others in the room, or remembered dimly as the incident of the woman who shouldn't really have been invited. But I remember. I remember, and I smile.


"The Winged Woman"  [E]