Hester's Story (12 page)

‘You don’t wear colours. Right. Silly me. I thought colours was all there was, but you probably know better.’

‘I mean colourful colours, red and blue and stuff. I’m going to wear white, black, grey and beige from now on. And silver of course, for parties.’

‘Hmmph!’ said Silver’s mum, looking cross and bemused. ‘What are you going to use for money to buy new clothes? That’s what I’d like to know.’

‘I won’t need to buy much at first. I’ve got quite a lot of stuff in those colours and I’ll just add to it, bit by bit. From markets and charity shops and things. It’s
amazing what you can find if you know what you’re looking for.’

‘And what am I supposed to do with this lot?’

‘Take it down to the Oxfam shop or something,’ said Silver. ‘I don’t care what you do with it. I just know I don’t want it.’

‘Maybe Maureen …’

Silver looked away to hide her smile. Maureen was her cousin, two years younger than she was, and twice as fat around the waist. Should she point out that Maureen had about as much chance of fitting into her clothes as an Ugly Sister did of getting into Cinderella’s shoes? No, I’ll shut up, she decided. Let Mum find out when she takes it all over there.

Silver blinked and returned to the present. She frowned into the mirror. The ‘strictly no colour’ plan had worked well for a number of years, but nowadays she did sometimes add a splash of something here and there for special effect. There was the apricot velvet shawl which she wore with her black silk dress; the moss-green and emerald and turquoise scarves she sometimes tied around her neck or hair, and the satin dress she’d packed to take to Wychwood for the first night party, in a red so dark that it was almost black.

Pale lipstick today, a pinkish shade called
Si la rose
. I’m innocent, she smiled into the mirror. I’m a good girl. I’m going to meet everyone quite soon. I’m hardworking and conscientious. She had three other lipsticks in her bag and one of them, she knew, made her look like something out of a horror movie, a rather attractive ghoul, perhaps. It was almost black and she wore it on occasions when she needed to be strong. Magic wands, that’s what lipsticks are, she said to herself and was pleased with that description. Had she seen it in an ad somewhere? Maybe, but it was still quite right even if she hadn’t thought of it herself.

A last look in the full-length mirror showed her that she had been transformed into somebody who was ready to meet people and walk about in the world. She took her coat from the hanger in the cupboard and left the room.

As she ate her breakfast, she thought about winter. Most festivals happened during the summer, but Wychwood was different. She wondered whether there would be snow on the moors all around the house. Her first starring role had been as Clara in
The Nutcracker
when she was only just fifteen and that was a wintry ballet, with a set that included specially designed snowflakes which glittered as they drifted down from the flies in the theatre and settled in her hair. ‘A magical début’ said the papers and more than one couldn’t resist ‘A star is born.’

Silver smiled and took a sip of coffee. She never minded a cliché when it was also a compliment. She’d gone on to dance almost every major role in the last nine years. Odette/Odile was her favourite; the one she was born to perform. One review had specially pleased her. You couldn’t often say that about a critic, but this one knew his onions all right. She had whole paragraphs off by heart. The bit she liked best compared her to Hester Fielding:

Not since Hester Fielding’s legendary Odette/Odile of 1959 has there been a performance of the role to match McConnell’s. She brings to the double part not only the elegance we expect, but also the almost superhuman power that is the special quality of real swans. She combines grace and poignancy with the hard-edged glamour needed in the dramatic shift of the dual role. It’s hard to imagine that she isn’t partly a bird. Astonishment is the only possible reaction. Astonishment and wonder.

Since accepting the part of the Angel in
Sarabande
, she’d wondered about the wisdom of taking more than three weeks out of her diary to dance in front of such small audiences for ten consecutive nights. Other choreographers, especially Jacques Bodette, who was waiting for her to finish at Wychwood before beginning rehearsals for
Sellophane in G
, tried to talk her out of it. But she wasn’t going to pass up the chance of staying in Hester Fielding’s house, of meeting her and dancing in front of her. For years, she’d been watching Miss Fielding’s performances on video, over and over again. Her copies of
Swan Lake, Giselle
and
Sleeping Beauty
were almost worn out because she’d played them so often. She had been quite honest with Bodette and he’d understood perfectly.

‘
Naturellement
,’ he’d said. ‘No one would refuse such an invitation. I envy you,
ma petite. La divine
Hester Fielding …’ He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, what can you do?

Gina, her flatmate, was now sitting opposite her, tucking in to a plate of cereal.

‘You nearly ready?’ she said. Gina was a chaotic blonde, who had trouble adapting to the strict discipline of the ballet. ‘I hope you’ve packed a nice thick sweater. Yorkshire’s sure to be freezing cold.’

‘God, you’re a cheery soul this morning! I’m off now. Bye!’

Silver leaned over and kissed Gina goodbye. Then she picked up her suitcase and began to carry it down three flights of stairs to the front door.

*

Claudia changed gear and sighed. She and Alison were driving to Wychwood House and she felt quite disoriented. Anyone would, on a journey into a place where there was nothing to see but moors and more
moors (ha! ha!) and only the occasional sheep to break the monotony. It wasn’t exactly raining, but misty droplets of water seemed to hang in the air and make everything around slick and moist and chilly. How typical of Alison to pretend to be asleep and leave her with no one to talk to.

‘Darling, you’re not sleeping, are you?’

‘I was trying to. What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing, only I wanted to ask you something. Something about Hugo. Do you mind?’

Alison sat forward and sighed. ‘Go on then.’

‘Did you notice anything different about him, the last time you saw him?’

‘When was that?’

‘Honestly, Alison, don’t be obtuse! Just before he went off to his dad’s. The other day.’

Alison was silent for a few moments and then said ‘Right. He was a bit glittery, I thought.’

‘Glittery?’

‘I don’t know how else to describe it. He was excited. His eyes were all shiny and, well, glittery. Is that all you wanted to say? Okay if I go back to sleep now?’

Claudia nodded absently. Glittery. Yes, that was quite right. He was excited about something, and it was probably that young McConnell girl he’d managed to persuade up to the wilds of Yorkshire. A bit of a feather in his choreographical cap, that was.

She tried to recall the whole conversation they’d had, she and Hugo, as she lay in bed by herself watching him (already up and dressed in his usual black trousers and black polo neck) throw things into his suitcase. At the start, when he’d been incapable of tearing himself away from her for even the shortest time, they’d have stayed in bed together for as long as possible. Going off to his poor old widowed father for
a few days wouldn’t have got him up so early and so enthusiastically. It was
her
, Claudia was sure of it, though she had no proof. Silver McConnell. Hugo couldn’t stop talking about her.

Everyone in the ballet world had been doing nothing but talk about Silver McConnell for the last couple of years. Claudia had followed every review, every interview. It wasn’t that she was envious of her success (I’m a star, Claudia told herself repeatedly – I wouldn’t change places with anyone), but her youth was something else. Silver had danced Odette/Odile in
Swan Lake
last year at Sadler’s Wells and people were still saying how amazing she’d been in the part. Hugo must have seen her then and decided to try and get her for
Sarabande
.

Claudia had made it her business to visit him straight after Silver’s audition. Hugo was very excited, that much was clear.

‘She’s really fantastic,’ he told Claudia. ‘Just right for the Angel.’

‘Where did she get the name
Silver
from? It’s surely not what she was born with,’ Claudia said.

‘No, she was called Sylvia but never could say it properly when she was a kid. Called herself Silver and it sort of stuck. And now it suits her perfectly. She
is
very silvery. You’ll see when you meet her.’

‘I’m a bit surprised, actually, that our paths haven’t crossed before.’

‘She’s been in Paris with the Opera Ballet there. And yes, she
is
very eye-catching. She was dressed entirely in black and white. Stunning silver earrings, like flashes of lightning, hanging down. White neck, with a very gracefully poised head. Very good skin. What she looks like is a rather stylish portrait of herself in black and white.’

Claudia remembered how he’d smiled. There had
been something about his mouth – not exactly a smile just a small, satisfied look that was there and gone before you could fix it properly in your mind – and what it said to Claudia was
he thinks he’s found a new star
. Be sensible, she said to herself. You are the principal dancer in the Carradine Company. This was quite true, but there was a tiny voice speaking in her mind, a voice she couldn’t quite ignore, saying the unthinkable:
You might be past it as a dancer. Silver McConnell is very young. She’s the new prima ballerina everyone’s talking about. She’ll be at the Festival. What if Hugo brings her into the company permanently? What future will there be for you then?

No, Claudia told herself, I must try to be positive. I shan’t worry about Silver. She’s going to do something with Bodette when the Wychwood Festival is over, and once she’s with him the Carradine Company will seem very unglamorous in comparison. I’m not going to worry about the dancing. Not yet. She resolved to banish any idea that she might not be able to do her part justice, any fear of being past her best. These things had been troubling her more and more recently, but she wouldn’t allow them into her head today. I’m a prima ballerina. I’m a star. I will think of Hugo, who’ll be waiting for me. And besides, she thought, I’ve had all those calls asking me to consider modelling. At least four magazines in the last six months had tried to persuade her to come on what they called a shoot, with nothing but the best photographers in attendance.
The clothes will look divine on you, Miss Drake. Do say yes
 … This was a surprise to her, as she thought models had a shorter working life even than dancers, but she’d been assured that her fame as a ballerina would more than make up for her relative maturity.

That was a nice way of putting it: relative maturity. They probably mean, she thought, that I’m on my way
to being a wrinkled old crone. Still, the body was slim enough to be a clothes horse and that, plus her reputation (she was always in the gossip columns of one paper or another), would more than compensate for not being eighteen years old. She’d had to refuse these people, naturally, but it was comforting to know that there was someone out there who wanted her, and would still want her, even when she was no longer dancing.

Alison had gone back to sleep. Hugo was always nice to Alison. He was very likeable and Alison didn’t seem to mind him. In fact, things in that area were much better these days. For years, Claudia hadn’t had a moment’s peace because Alison used to behave quite atrociously to every single man who ventured into the house.

Hugo treated Alison with respect and Claudia admired him for his understanding and kindness, which was more than she could manage. I am such a bad mother, she told herself many times, and the worst thing about me is I
know
I’m a bad mother and can’t seem to do anything about it.

When Patrick left her for Jeanette, she had felt betrayed, belittled and hurt. Only the discipline of having to go to class every day kept her from spending hours grinding her teeth or weeping or plotting hideous revenge. She left the care of her little daughter entirely to the new nanny, Yvana, and pushed herself to the limits of endurance. She worked harder than anyone, tiring her muscles, stretching, bending and forcing her body into ever more demanding postures to distract herself from everything that was wrong in her private life.

The result of her hard work, added to what she knew was a spectacular talent, was stardom. She began to be offered principal roles: Aurora, Firebird, and her
most triumphant success, Coppélia. Her image, her face appeared in magazines. Her presence made parties sparkle. Her beauty shone from postcards and billboards. If she had a pound coin for every time the words ‘flame-haired lovely’ had appeared in the tabloids, she’d be a rich woman. It would be falsely modest to deny it – she was a huge star.

One of the things that went with stardom, Claudia soon discovered, was followers. Men gathered around her whenever she appeared anywhere, flocks of them. Sometimes at parties she had literally to push her way through them. They seemed besotted, as though her perfume was some kind of drug. Most of them were too disgusting for words, but there was occasionally someone who caught her eye and she would single him out and take him home with her.

She was as good at sex as she was at dancing, and it was something, maybe the only thing, that stopped her from thinking. It took her to a place where there was nothing but the sensation in her own blood, her own flesh; somewhere where there were no problems, no disappointments, no quarrels, no spite … just skin and mouths and a rush of feelings tingling through her. Claudia loved it and didn’t see why she should deny herself the pleasure.

Hugo had been one of the besotted, at least at the beginning. He’d come to watch her in
Coppélia
on the first night and then returned for every single performance. It was a rather hideous production, set in some kind of 1950s suburbia with Dr Coppélius lusting after dolls behind the net curtains. The critics thought it was very daring and it had turned Claudia into a sensation. She still remembered the costume with affection; fishnet tights, and the breasts she often had to bind up when she wore traditional tutus given free rein, so to speak, in a very revealing blouse.