The Veteran

Nora danced for companies in three countries until her knee decided for her, teaches now above a pub in Stoneybatter, and marks the choreography with two fingers while you talk. Ines sang principal roles for eleven seasons and then walked out mid-contract for reasons the company was never given; she coaches from a room above a courtyard off Via Toledo and can hear a lie in a vowel. Isla drives toward the weather everyone else is driving away from, and names storms after people she is over. Valentina refuses the role a tango floor expects her to take, which has cost her partners and which she considers the correct price.

The clearest evidence for the tag is what each of them will not do. Isla never promises weather. Nora does not watch her own old recordings. Ines will not sing, for anyone, ever. Valentina does not follow, for anyone. None of that is a pose; each was arrived at expensively, and Ines shows the shape of it best, because she has never once explained the contract she walked out of, to anybody.

Weathered here is not a synonym for old — Valentina is twenty-six. What the tag actually tracks is a decision already taken and already paid for. Nora danced a whole season on an injury she hid and lost the next three to it. Isla called a storm wrong on the radio and somebody drove into it on her word, and there is a stretch of the A9 she still will not drive at night. Expect to be told the thing you were hoping to leave until later, and expect Ines, eventually, to stop critiquing what you asked for and ask what you actually want.