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DANCING ON THE
ISLE OF MAN (Part 3)
November 2005
by Jo Elliott
This is the
story of sixteen veils.
It’s a good
night for staying home tonight. There’s a “Strong Wind” warning in operation.
This morning’s storm has left roads flooded and the odd tree down, and
tonight’s, they say, will be worse. Don‘t go out, says the radio. But it doesn’t
look too bad yet, and in any case, I can’t stay home. There’s work to be done.
It’s all very
exiting. Carol Hall is coming over to the Island in a few weeks to teach us a
new style of dancing, the Melaya Lef. This style was invented, so I have been
told, by the prostitutes in Alexandria, and it is cheeky, flirtatious, and fun.
There’s a catch. (There’s always a catch.) In order to dance Melaya Lef, you
need a Melaya. This is a large veil, originally used to wrap yourself in when
going out into the streets. It must be about three metres long and wide enough
to cover you from chin to ankle, made of opaque and slightly stretchy fabric,
preferably black.
Chrissy has
four decorated performance Melayas which she brought back from her trip to
Egypt. She is keeping one herself and offering the others for sale to club
members. But that’s only four, and so far seventeen people have signed up for
the workshop.
This is a
problem because there are not many fabric shops on the Island, and only one of
them sells fabric anything like cheaply enough to make veils on that scale. I
have a small amount of stuff, less than a metre, which would be ideal: black,
stretchy, and with a nice shine to it, though perhaps a little too transparent.
I bought it there over a year ago.
So back I go
to the shop, and ask the manger if she has anything like it in stock. No,
unfortunately not, that roll was a one-off, left over from a big order from
somewhere like Marks and Spencer’s. Chrissy, however, has been luckier. She has
returned to her favourite hunting ground, eBay. And there she has found for sale
at a ridiculously low price, a whole roll of fabric which sounds just right, a
fine black jersey.
It arrived a
few days ago, and that is why I am setting out, in defiance of the weather
forecast, to drive down to Port Erin to help Chrissy make 46 metres of fabric
into veils. Chrissy has a serious sewing room in her house. Her computer and
assorted equipment sits on a desk at one end, her sewing machine and overlocker
on a table at the other. Enough fabric to stock a small shop is stacked, neatly
folded and sorted by colours, on the shelves lining two of the walls. Our
particular concern is with the bulky black roll lying in the middle of the
floor.
The material
is almost perfect: dense black, soft, smooth and stretchy. The idea is that I
will cut it into three metre lengths, and Chrissy will overlock the ends. (The
sides are selvedges and don’t need doing). Chrissy puts a CD to play soft music
on the computer, and we set to work. First the over locker must be set to the
right tension. This takes some time and a certain amount of swearing. Chrissy
apologises for the language. I say no need, I know machines have ideas of their
own. So does this fabric. I pride myself on being able to cut straight by eye,
but this fine, slippery stuff is deceptive. I add a few bad words of my own.
Soon we fall
into rhythm. Chrissy is hemming the pieces as fast as I can cut them. I find the
easiest way to spread out a length is to kick the whole roll over to one end of
the room and then back again, unrolling as it goes. I loose my tape measure,
then my scissors, borrow Chrissy’s, find them all again, and keep going. The fat
roll becomes thinner and thinner, until only a couple of metres are left. A
large black heap occupies the centre of the floor. Sorted out, folded and
stacked, we count sixteen Melayas, huge and surprisingly heavy. Enough for
everyone.
Outside, the
night is very dark, but the air is still and surprisingly warm. Fog lies in
folds across the tops of the hills. The Island holds its breath, waiting for the
storm. And so I make my way home, swinging round the Blackboards, bouncing over
the Fairy Bridge, threading carefully through the gathering mist at Santon,
happy in the knowledge of a job well done.
Read more of Jo's stories on her website:
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