We were on the cusp of the Sixties. New Zealand teenagers were joining the rock and roll craze that had taken over the United States and the United Kingdom. Parents who had survived the Second World War were faced with another war – the war against the youth culture with its loud and inappropriate music and outrageous clothing. Teenage dance halls were sprouting up across the country.
But we didn’t dance in the Exclusive Brethren.
We didn’t do a lot of things that most people did. We didn’t go to movies or listen to the radio or play team sports.
I was almost 16. I wanted to do all those things. I was becoming more and more convinced that the rules of the Exclusive Brethren, my family’s religion, made no sense.
For two weeks, friends from school had been talking about the teenage dance they were going to at the end of the month.
Linda and Robyn, my two best friends wanted me to go with them.
I was desperate to go but my dancing experience was restricted to one performance.
When I was five, my Auntie Verna had dressed me up in a grownup’s skirt and made me dance while she sang and clapped her hands. She was a teenager and I guess it was her idea of teenage rebellion. She got into huge trouble when my grandmother found out.
Linda and Robyn were the only girls in the entire class who knew my family was Exclusive Brethren.
“But I don’t know how to dance or what to do,” I moaned as they tried to persuade me to go. “Besides, what would I wear? And, what will I tell Mum and Dad?”
“No problem,” said Robyn, “I’ll lend you clothes.”
“Talk to that Brethren girl from Third Form,” suggested Linda. “Make her say you’re going to stay at her house.”
Robyn and Linda were my friends but they didn’t understand how difficult life was for me. And to further complicate things, I lived in Ashhurst, a village 12 miles from Palmerston North where I went to school and where the dance was to be held.
In the end, I asked an older friend to cover for me. Ann was 21. She also lived at home with her parents in Ashhurst. Ann looked like a good Exclusive Brethren girl, one who followed the rules and questioned nothing. But I knew that wasn’t always the case.
Ann had her driver’s licence and she agreed to pick me up from the dance at half-past ten and drive me home. Our story was that we had both been invited to tea at another Brethren girl’s home so Ann was going to meet me straight after school and we’d go together for tea.
On the day of the dance, excited teenage girls were passing notes to one another in class. I was terrified. How I wished I could change my mind about going.
We went to Robyn’s for tea and to prepare for the big night.
Robyn and I dressed to match. I borrowed her florescent green poodle skirt and her fluorescent orange scooped-neck top, which I cinched in at the waist with a wide stretchy belt. Robyn wore the reverse. Her skirt was orange and the top was green. Linda wore her pink poodle skirt with the matching top. Bobby sox and saddle shoes finished our outfits. I’d borrowed my shoes from Linda and they were a little too big. I was worried about that.
My makeup was thick. My face felt stiff. I looked like a different person. My long hair was pulled back into a ponytail, high on the top of my head. We’d dipped the end of the ponytail in peroxide so it was even blonder than my natural colour. I was worried about how I would explain that to my parents. However, for once my long hair was a blessing – done this way I had the Widgie look. Widgies were the rocker girls of the day in New Zealand. Rocker boys were called Bodgies.
I might have looked the part – and the rebellious side of me liked that — but I was so scared. I could feel my heart beating in my chest.
“I can’t do it, I can’t do it,” I whimpered. I don’t know how to act. Everyone will know I’m different.”
Then I had an idea. I would bandage my leg and limp so I didn’t have to dance. That way, I could watch and then I’d know what to do for the next dance. Robyn and Linda reluctantly agreed to the plan. We even found a crutch in the garden shed at Robyn’s house.
The dance hall was huge. I stood mesmerized. Hardly breathing, hardly seeing.
There were balloons and streamers and a large poster of Elvis Presley. There were seats all around the edge of the hall. I’d heard that to sit on one of those seats meant you were a wallflower. I hoped my bandaged leg and crutch would save me from earning that embarrassing reputation.
The boys in the band looked like Bodgies with their skinny pants and bright coloured socks and their slicked back, oily hair. The music was loud. Rock music. Even non-Brethren people said it was evil. Despite the loud music, I could hear a buzz of excited teenage chatter.
And there were boys — lots of boys. There were more boys than I had ever seen in my life. A few of them were trying to pull off the Elvis or James Dean look of a bad boy Bodgie but most of them were clean-cut in their white shirts and ties.
I panicked. I escaped to the bathroom. When I came back into the hall I saw Robyn and Linda giggling with some boys.
My thoughts were going in circles.
“What will I do if the Lord returns and finds me in this den of iniquity?”
“Will these boys want to kiss and what about that other stuff that might happen?”
“What if a Bodgie starts talking to me?”
“What if no one talks to me?”
“What if God strikes me dead?”
The questions and self-doubt were flooding into my brain so fast I could hardly breathe.
One of the clean-cut boys came up to me.
“I’m Dave. What’s your name?”
Without thinking, I said with my best attempt at an accent, “I’m Elka.”
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“From Sveden,” I said, “I sorry my English not so good.”
“You’ve hurt yourself, what a drag.” said Dave.
That was my cue to say my leg was killing and I needed to go and apply some more ointment. I spent the next fifteen minutes hiding out in the bathroom. When I returned Dave had taken up with some other girl. They were doing the Twist. Linda had tried to teach me the Twist at school the day before.
I was so glad I had a bandaged leg and didn’t need to try dancing. I was free to watch the happenings and prepare myself for next time.
I was getting confident.
Another boy sidled up to me. He was a little bit Bodgie with his oily hair and the curl in the middle of his forehead, but he was wearing the standard white shirt and tie.
“Hello,” I said without hesitation before he could introduce himself, “I’m Elka from Sveden.”
And Elka I remained for the rest of the dance.
At half past 10, Ann picked the three of us up and drove us back to Robyn’s where I quickly changed into my own clothes, ripped the bandage off my leg, scrubbed my face clean, and put my hair back into two plaits.
My father was there to meet us as we pulled into the driveway. He commented on what a lovely evening it had been, asked Ann how her father was, and thanked her for driving me home. I wondered if he suspected that our story wasn’t exactly true.
That night as I lay in bed, halfway between asleep and awake, I smiled to myself.
I’d been to a dance.
I’d become Elka with a Swedish accent.
I hadn’t been struck down dead by God nor had the Lord returned and taken everyone but me to heaven.
I’d lived to see another day and maybe another dance.
Some names have been changed.
