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“Faster and it’s not like that with your legs appa! You should know it better by now - this one’s my favourite. Come on oppa – you too!”
Over the years Friday night in the Lee household had come to mean one thing and one thing only – family disco night. In fact, it had become such an institution that with Uju and Iksun’s help, Lee Ikjun had even spent one weekend wiring up the front room of their house with its very own mirror ball and coloured light bank that could be made to flash in time to music: “Look Songhwa-ya, it can all be controlled by my phone here. Isn’t it clever?” he’d explained to his sceptical but tolerant wife. She’d seen the point of his effort more when he’d given her a private demonstration to a slow tune later.
Lights aside, Songhwa had been the earliest and most enthusiastic adopter of family disco night; always keen to get rid of the stresses of a week juggling surgery, teaching, research, clinics and kids by throwing shapes, jumping, twirling and laughing with her three favourites. Only sometimes, inevitably given the number of balls they had in the air, she or Ikjun had to take a rain check and family disco night became a single parent event:
“I’m sorry pumpkin. I’m giving it all I’ve got but you know eomma is better than me at remembering these modern routines.” If only the emergency surgery from this afternoon’s coach crash had been a liver laceration rather than a subarachnoid haemorrhage, then he could have skipped his daughter’s fierce choreography lesson Ikjun thought to himself ruefully. Or better yet, a heart attack! Then both he and Songhwa could be home where they belonged and that Kim Junwan saekki would be spending his Friday night in theatre instead of his precious wife. Why should his sister get to spend time with her man when he was on his own? Ikjun pouted.
“CONCENTRATE appa! I’ve told you lots and lots of times. The arms only go to the left and criss cross in the chorus!”
“Go easy on him Eunha-ya. You know appa’s no good when eomma’s not here. He misses her.” Uju rolled his eyes indulgently as he obediently mirrored his little sister’s moves.
“Yah!” protested his father. “I’m doing my best I’ll have you know, but this isn’t even proper music. It all sounds the same! Now when we put on Zoo or Deuce, then appa will show you a dance routine.” Ikjun missed Eunha’s toddler days when he’d had sole charge of the disco playlist, that was the problem with kids growing up so fast…
His now sophisticated eight-year-old daughter grabbed hold of his arm and squeezed it affectionately while also using it as a support while she did some particularly complicated fancy footwork to whatever identikit girl group this was. “You’re practically a dinosaur these days,” she said with perfect tweenage ennui, “I don’t know why eomma always calls you a club rat. I don’t think you’re going to handle your anniversary night out dancing at all” Eunha shook her head with pretend sorrow but softened the blow by following it peeking upwards with her brightest smile that was always reserved just for her appa. She stretched up on her tiptoes to peck his cheek.
“Eunha...” Uju’s voice held warning and Eunha’s smile abruptly disappeared as she realised what she’d said.
“Oh” She covered her mouth with both hands. “I didn’t mean to tell eomma’s secret! Oh no…” The tweenager was gone in a flash and Ikjun’s littlest girl was back with her chin wobbling and tears already threatening to fall melting her appa’s heart. Ikjun knew what he had to do:
“Say what? Sorry Eunha-ya I wasn’t listening – too busy worrying about what it is we do with our arms in the second verse. Why don’t we start the song again from the beginning and you show me what to do one more time eh? I PROMISE I’ll get it right this time…”
He might have distracted his daughter, but Ikjun couldn’t help turning over Eunha’s words in his head over the next few days. It was not in his nature to leave a conundrum alone. Especially not when given a free clue to a conundrum which had already been troubling him.
He and Songhwa always celebrated their anniversary on or around June 12th, the day she’d first confessed to him, rather than on the day they’d registered their marriage - that had felt like a mere formality in comparison. Up until now, their celebrations had always been coordinated by him. Over the years he’d surprised Songhwa with spontaneous camping trips, picnics (which had ended up being taken in the Yulje garden following an emergency), seaside excursions and even once, a hot air balloon ride, but this year, a couple of weeks before the event Songhwa had instead surprised him with a request:
“Ikjun-ah, will you let me organise our anniversary this year? Just for once, I’d like to be the one giving the treat,” she’d said to him out of the blue, while they were getting ready for bed one night.
“But you already give me plenty of treats! I can give you ideas for more… Right now even if you like,” Ikjun had said pulling his wife in closer to him and wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
Songhwa had thumped him and then grabbed him and…well… even though they’d both then got distracted from the topic of conversation at that point, she’d gone back to it and made him agree the next day: This year, Songhwa was to be the anniversary planner. But what exactly had she got planned? Ikjun had initially assumed it would involve some new campsite that she’d been reading about and wanted to try but after Eunha’s revelation it seemed that couldn’t be right. Could Songhwa really be planning that they spend the night out clubbing?
Ikjun’s nightclubbing habit through his twenties had been legendary. Even the most punishing hours of internship and residency hadn’t stopped him spending any free night hitting the floors of Seoul’s hippest clubs throughout the first decade of the new millennia. Where his junior doctor colleagues chose to prioritise sleep to refresh themselves, Ikjun chose dancing. There had even been a few nights where he’d gone straight from club to ward round. In retrospect he wasn’t proud of himself for that feat, but the lack of sleep had never seemed affect his performance then. And he’d always been sober; unlike others he'd had no particular need of alcohol or other stimulants to let himself go crazy.
The responsibilities of fatherhood had brought his clubbing days to an end, but that his inner club beast was only temporarily contained and not permanently tamed had remained a running joke between him and Songhwa. He’d enjoyed claiming to be a city boy through and through: Pretending he was out of place on their camping trips and that the only stars he understood were flashing LEDs: But they’d both understood that was nonsense and he loved the quiet outdoors as much as her these days. Or he thought they’d both understood.
Because now it appeared his dear wife had plans to call his bluff. Was it really time for him to properly dust off his dancing shoes? Were they really going to spend their anniversary night at some trendy club? All the information he had seemed to point that way:
“What should I wear on Saturday night?” he tried first.
“Whatever you like but on the smart side – your new black shirt would be good,” Songhwa answered casually.
“And the kids aren’t coming too?”
“For our anniversary Ikjun? No. Junwan and Iksun are happy to stay overnight and keep them company. Relax, it’s all been arranged.”
“So whatever you’re planning is going to have us up all night?” Ikjun asked. Songhwa raised an eyebrow and gave her husband a look. He blushed, “I don’t mean…” he began.
“Ikjun-ah,”
“Yes jagiya?”
“Stop asking questions.”
“Okay jagiya.”
Ikjun tried to make his peace with the concept. He did love dancing after all. And he especially loved dancing with Songhwa. Yes, his knees might be on the stiff side these days and his lower back subject to sudden twinges. Maybe he found very noisy places a little harder to negotiate than he once did and the manners and musical tastes of twenty-year-olds baffling at times. But he wasn’t by any means an old geezer already. Not at all! He could still party with the best of them for one night. It would be fun. Fun! How thoughtful Songhwa was to plan such a treat for him. He would do his very best to enjoy it, and if it was a struggle at times, he’d never let her suspect it for a moment.
“You look so beautiful eomma!”
Songhwa had wondered whether her purchase of a sequinned silk jumpsuit for their night out was a little too young for a woman in her fifties, and also whether it was a choice that she would regret when it came to going to the bathroom later. Eunha’s approval, as she twirled to show it off in the front room was only partly reassuring; her eight-year old’s taste was not necessarily always to be trusted. However the look that also radiated from her husband’s eyes suggested she had made the right choice; whatever struggles there might be getting out of it later.
“She really, really does. I hope she doesn’t ditch me for some young buck. I’ll have to fight them off. Be nice to your new appa kids if she comes home with someone different.”
“Ikjun-ah!” Songhwa tried to sound outraged but her laugh undermined her. “Anyway, who’s to say you won’t find a younger model yourself…” She’d always liked him in black.
“We’d better keep a tight hold of each other all night to make sure,” Ikjun crooked his elbow and held it out in offer. “Shall we go jagiya?”
“Let’s…” Songhwa hooked her arm through his.
“You both scrub up well. Have fun,” Kim Junwan, dressed in an incongruous frilly apron, offered from where he was busy cooking a pasta sauce.
“Behave well for your samchon and gomo,” Songhwa directed Uju and Eunha, kissing them both.
“Behave well for our son and daughter. They’re at impressionable ages,” Ikjun directed his sister and friend.
“We’ll be fine. Behave well yourselves,” Iksun stuck her tongue out at her brother. “And don’t break him Songhwa-ya – he’s an old man now – he can’t take on the night and beat it like he once did.”
“Yah!”
“Happy Anniversary!”
“So…” Ikjun was fidgeting nervously in the back of the taxi. “Am I allowed to know where we’re off to yet?”
Songhwa chuckled, over the last weeks she’d enjoyed Ikjun’s discomfiture at not being allowed to run the show a little too much perhaps. She’d understood that he’d got some wind of her plan from their never discreet daughter. That had only added to her fun. She was clearly a less nice person than she’d thought she was. “Oh don’t worry Ikjun. We’re off to your natural home, your favourite place to be. Tonight’s all about treating you to what you like best.”
“Okay! I can’t wait,” Poor Ikjun looked a little like a hare in headlights.
Songhwa relented a little, “Dinner first. We can’t last a night out without filling our bellies.”
Ikjun smiled and looked more relaxed, “I thought tonight was about treating me?”
Songhwa widened her eyes, “But you don’t like eating on your own Ikjun-ah.”
“Very true.” Ikjun took her hand and squeezed it. “Just as well that my favourite treat is watching my wife eat.”
Some nights were for sujebi at your local favourite and some nights were for a fancy hotel restaurant with a view of city lights and the wide sparkling expanse of the Han. And for a leisurely meal of steak, wine, coffee and a special strawberry and chocolate dessert to share with a swooping ‘Happy Anniversary’ written on it. But wherever and whatever they ate and however many years together they celebrated, some things never changed between Ikjun and Songhwa: Hours passed talking of everything and nothing; the pressure’s of Uju’s academy and whether to transfer him to an international school, managing Eunah’s expectations about auditioning for the school choir, a tricky surgery, holiday plans, the possibility of a joint trip to a conference in London, the imminent arrival of the first Chae great-grandchild, and whether the couple at the next table were on their first or second date and their prospects for a third…
“Are you finished? I’ll pay and we can go on to the next part of our evening,” said Songhwa.
Ikjun wiped his mouth and attempted in vain to tussle with his wife over the bill. And also tried to feel ready for a nightclub rather than a stroll and their bed. Although he wasn’t in a hurry for the evening to end; his wife was the most beautiful woman in Seoul and he had no objection to showing off that he was the lucky man who’d snagged her to taxi driver, waiter, fellow diners and passers-by. He would enjoy doing the same on a dancefloor. And surely he’d know some of the music and dance moves thanks to Uju and Eunha’s training.
Songhwa returned, “Come on jagiya, it’s time. Seoul and you have waited too long but Lee Ikjun, renowned 99er club rat is coming back tonight. We’ve got all night. Show me what you’ve got…” She held out her hand.
Ikjun gulped and took it, “You betcha,” he said gamely. “What an invitation! Where are we going then? Itaewon, Hongdae, Gangnam? Volnost? Cakeshop? Octagon? Club Aura? I’m ready to queue wherever you want to.” He tried to sound casually knowledgeable about the current scene.
“It’s been hard to choose. I know how much you love to dance. So…” Songhwa led him to the lift and pressed the button for the basement level. “…I hope you don’t mind that I went for something a little different. We don’t have to go too far...”
The doors of the lift opened and Ikjun heard the sound of, not a throbbing techno beat or hip-hop or the contemporary K-Pop dance he’d been expecting but the infectious bongos, timbale and clave of a live band playing quite a different continent’s music.
“Ikjun-ah,” Songhwa turned to him with an impish grin. “Shall we salsa?”
Salsa dancing?! It was perfect. Perfect. A live band with a singer at one end of the room and floor filled with couples of varying ages and degrees of skill; including an incredibly elegant pair in their seventies who moved together with seamless grace and evident happiness in each other’s company. At first both Ikjun and Songhwa struggled with unfamiliar steps and rhythm, but it was a forgiving style of dance and they soon got comfortable enough with the basics to try an occasional more ambitious spin or lunge. To move together in each other’s arms, eyes and smiles locked, catching each other’s stumbles and carrying on their conversation from dinner with both words and bodies was exactly right.
“Happy Anniversary my club rat,” Songhwa whispered in Ikjun’s ear.
“I love this. I love you. Shall we take a class and learn how to do this properly? Maybe tango too?”
“Why not? We’ve got years yet. I mean look at them,” Songhwa nodded towards the older couple.
“I can’t wait Songhwa-ya. I can’t wait.”
“Oh, and there’s one more thing I haven’t told you,” Songhwa removed her arm from where it was wrapped around Ikjun’s waist and patted the pocket of her jumpsuit. “There just might be a hotel key in there Ikjun-ah. I mean we could dance all night but we are in our fifties so I thought that maybe we might want to go to bed eventually…”
Ikjun pulled his wife in close. “That was good thinking. It’s very important to spend plenty of time in bed at our age.”
“I had a feeling you might think that too,” said Songhwa. “But this night is all about what you want so we could also go on to… what was it…Club Aura Hongdae now if you’d prefer?”
Ikjun gave an extravagant yawn, clasped Songhwa’s hand tightly with a grin and began heading towards the exit. “Next year Songhwa… Next year… Now what was the room number?”