Prima Donna (51 page)

‘Here you come indeed,’ she said, moving his hand and guiding him into her. She closed herself around him and rocked him gently, in no hurry, as he lowered his head to her breasts.
‘God, I’m so proud of you,’ she sighed, her back arched gymnastically, her hands gripping his buttocks and holding him into her, keeping him as close to her as she could get
him.

‘It means I’ll be needing a groupie, though,’ he murmured. ‘Someone who’s got all the tricks for keeping me satisfied on the road.’ She grinned in the dark
and hitched her ankles up, keeping her knees parallel, and she heard his breath catch as the change in angle quickened his lust.

She matched his stride.

‘Don’t know anyone, do you . . . ?’

‘Maybe,’ she smiled.

She looked around in the darkness. The embers in the fire smouldered silently now, only stray puffs of ash occasionally lifting off the hearth as the breeze got trapped and
blew down the chimney.

She smiled sadly. There hadn’t been a night that they hadn’t made love in front of that fire. He’d have it lit all year round, she knew. She watched him sleep and felt the
first cracks split through her heart. But there was nothing to be done. She had to go now, before it was too late.

The first chinks of dawn were hitting the trees, throwing out pale vanilla shoots that would water down the night’s inky blackness, and she knew it wouldn’t be long before he began
to stir. He was an early riser, even with a hangover.

In the distance she heard the engine of the car rumbling slowly down the track. She had asked the driver to wait by the trees. She looked back and allowed herself to drink him in for the final
time; she knew the images she stored now would have to nourish her for the rest of her life. She watched the rise and fall of his chest, the contours of his profile, the dark stubble, the pink
flush in his cheeks that he only ever got after sex or during sleep.

And then, with a burst of courage, she stepped out of the cottage and closed the door behind her. The lake shimmered, viscous with cold, and she saw a grey heron standing motionless on one leg,
hoping for an early morning catch. She tiptoed up the track to the waiting cab.

‘Morning, Padraig,’ she mumbled as she tossed her overnight bag along the seat and fell in after it.

‘Y’all right, Sophie?’ the driver asked, concerned. She was pinched white.

‘Ay,’ she gasped, like a drowning woman reaching for breath. ‘Just take me to Dublin. Please.’

Sitting down at her usual seat, Esther opened her bag and pulled out her iPod. She flicked listlessly through the menu, wholly unable to decide whether she fancied the new
Black Eyed Peas album or Lily Allen. Truth be told, what she really fancied was another three hours in bed. She felt gopping. She was going to have to cut back on those nights out with the lads
down the pub. If nothing else, her bank balance was as battered as her liver. And besides, she was fed up with her parents’ disapproving looks when she staggered in each night and had to
pretend she wasn’t nearly as drunk as she actually was.

She plumped for the Black Eyed Peas – they’d wake her up – and put in the earplugs. She was checking her texts when the woman next to her tapped her on the shoulder.

‘Oh God, am I playing my music too loud? I’m so sorry,’ she blustered, fumbling for the volume control before the woman could get a word out.

‘It’s not that,’ the woman said. ‘It’s just that I think the man over there’s trying to get your attention.’

‘Huh?’ Esther looked out of the window, baffled. She saw the driver of a burgundy Morris Minor honking his horn and driving like a lunatic, swerving round parked cars and trying to
get as close as possible to the bus. ‘Holy mother of God! What are y’doin’, Tony?’ she screeched through the window, jumping to her feet and knocking the contents of her bag
all over the floor. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ she cried, crouching down to pick it all up before standing up again and trying to gesticulate to him that she was picking things up from the
floor, not hiding from him.

The woman kindly rang the bell for the bus to stop, and helped her pick up her things.

‘Thanks, oh thanks so much,’ Esther blustered. ‘That’s my sister’s boyfriend out there. Oh God, something must have happened.’ Her voice quavered.

The bus came to a stop. Tony abandoned his car in the middle of the road and jumped out.

‘Where is she?’ he shouted, running towards her.

‘Who? Sophie?’

‘Who else?’

‘Well, why would I know? I thought she was with you. She’s
always
with you,’ she said, not quite able to keep the jealousy out of her voice.

‘She was gone when I woke up this morning.’

‘Gone? Gone where?’

‘
That
’s what I’m trying to find out, Esther,’ he said, exasperated. ‘Do you mean to say you have no idea where she is?’

‘No,’ Esther said, shaking her head. ‘None.’

‘She didn’t confide in you about anything? Was she unhappy about anything? Had I done something to upset her?’

Esther shook her head, her bottom lip beginning to tremble. ‘Nothing. She seemed absolutely fine when I saw her last. Oh God! Don’t say she’s gone again. She’s only just
come back.’

‘Please don’t cry, Esther. I’ll find her. You just need to help me. When did you see her last?’

‘The day before yesterday. She wanted to have lunch with me.’

‘You guys don’t normally meet for lunch.’

‘Well, no . . . but only because she’s always with you. I guess she felt she’d been neglecting the rest of us and was trying to make it up a little.’

‘So the lunch was her idea.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Did she say anything that struck you as odd?’

Esther thought for a moment, then shook her head. ‘No, she . . .’

‘What?’

‘Well, it’s . . . no, it was probably nothing.’

‘What was? Tell me what was nothing.’

‘Well, it’s just that I was moaning about Mam and Dad giving me a rough time recently, and she told me not to be so hard on them. She said they were going to need me, that I’m
their rock.’

‘She said that?’

Esther nodded. ‘I thought it was an odd thing to say at the time, because she’s the eldest. That means she’s the rock, doesn’t it?’

‘It does. Unless she knew she wasn’t going to be around,’ Tony said, staring into space. His colour was ashen, his clothes rumpled. He clearly hadn’t shaved, probably
hadn’t eaten. He looked like he’d jumped out of bed and straight into the car.

‘Oh God, how am I going to tell Mam? I can’t believe she’d do this again,’ Esther said, beginning to cry. ‘Not after all the heartache it caused last
time.’

Tony looked at her. ‘Why
did
she leave last time? Whenever I asked about it, she would never say.’

Esther shook her head. ‘No. Please don’t ask me. I can’t talk about it. Mam and Dad made me swear that I never would.’

‘Well, you’re going to have to tell me, Esther,’ he said grimly. ‘Because I’m not going anywhere until you have. I’m going to get to the bottom of this once
and for all.’

Sophie shifted position. She took a deep breath and tried again, but she felt distracted, disengaged.

She checked her watch. Three o’clock.

A black-clad assistant came over, crouched down and tried to make herself as small as possible in the darkened wings. ‘Would you like a coffee?’ she whispered, handing over a
polystyrene cup.

Sophie smiled and took it, though she couldn’t think of anything worse. It was like drinking mud.

‘Thanks. How much longer are rehearsals going on for today?’

‘Just another hour. The main performances start at seven.’

Sophie nodded and found herself hunching down at the thought. It was the first round tonight – the classical choreography section – and she knew Pia was here. Everyone did. She and
Ava were the headline acts, the Varna ballet organizers having spotted a dream opportunity to market the event as the ultimate and defining encounter between the two primas, following the truncated
Chicago–London dance-off.

It had infused the competition – usually a rarefied, elitist date – with the kind of glitzy mass-market appeal of
The X Factor
, and press attendance had quadrupled. Every
hotel in the city was booked and if you wanted to leave it would have to be by foot or by bus.

Sophie felt drained by it all and regretted agreeing to take part – she wasn’t sure she wanted to confine her career to just ballet portraiture anyway – but she needed the
money.

Still, the buzz backstage alone was enough to give her pins and needles. It was like playing hide and seek as she avoided the larger-than-life characters – Adam, Ava, Pia – who had
contributed to her misery, and if she wasn’t hiding in the dark behind her easel, she was sequestered in her hotel room.

She put down her chalk and switched to charcoals, trying to focus on José Cabrera as he rehearsed his adagio variation on James, the groom hero in
La Sylphide
. Sophie watched him
refine his
grand pas de chat
time after time and tried not to feel bored.

Adam. She hadn’t seen him yet either. She suspected he was trying to keep away from Ava, who – she had heard from Lucy – had ruthlessly discarded him straight after the
gala.

And Sophie knew for a fact that the two women hadn’t met up yet. Ava’s strikes had been long-range, and she and Pia hadn’t been face to face in over two years. It was the
moment everyone was waiting for. Junior dancers had taken up strategic positions backstage, keeping the balletomaniacs updated via Twitter; the stage crew was running a book, with three-to-one odds
on a catfight.

So far, they’d been rehearsing in private studios but, with the first round tonight, they wouldn’t be able to avoid seeing each other any longer.

Sophie shook her head and made her hand move across the paper again, but she knew she was producing dross. She felt wiped out. There was no point in continuing. She’d be better off going
back to the room for a couple of hours’ sleep before the real performances began.

Clicking the easel shut, she tiptoed off the stage – no mean feat in squeaky Converse trainers – and left it propped up against the wall by the backstage door. With her folio under
her arm she opened the door and stepped out into the balmy sunshine, stopping to admire the view over Varna Bay. It felt so good to her to be here. Most tourists came for the ancient spa qualities
of the Black Sea, and there were mud and water therapy complexes on the beach. But Sophie just liked the smell of the salt on the wind. It felt exfoliating, cleansing.

‘Knock, knock,’ said a voice to her left.

Sophie whirled round, startled.

‘What . . . ?’

‘You say: “Who’s there?”’ a redhead said. She was sitting on the wall opposite, grinning at Sophie, dressed bewilderingly in pale pink towelling hot pants,
oatmeal-coloured long johns and a yellow vest. There was only one person Sophie knew who would pull together an ensemble like that.

‘P—’ she began, incredulously.

Pia held her finger up to her lips and jumped down. Boldly walking past the photographers grouped around the backstage exit, she came up to Sophie and winked at her. ‘Hiding in plain sight
only works if you don’t say my name,’ she whispered. She playfully bobbed her wig with her hands. ‘Like it?’

Sophie cocked an eyebrow. ‘If that’s supposed to be in homage to me . . .’ she said darkly.

‘As if. There’s no perm strong enough that could rival those curls,’ she grinned.

‘Tell me about it,’ Sophie groaned, before stiffening. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’

‘Waiting for you. I’ve been sitting here for two hours actually. It’s been quite an education, I can tell you. Did you know they think I’m sleeping with four of the
jurors – one of whom’s a woman!’ Her eyes twinkled.

Sophie’s didn’t. There was a loaded silence.

‘But that’s not why I came here,’ Pia said, picking up Sophie’s resistance. ‘We need to talk.’

‘You think so?’ Sophie replied off-handedly.

‘Yes,’ Pia said. ‘Come back to my hotel with me.’

‘No, thanks.’ If Pia thought she could just charge back into her life and start calling the shots, after the way she’d treated her . . . She wasn’t her boss any more.

There was a pause.

‘Please.’

Sophie’s eyebrows shot up. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard that word fall from Pia’s lips before.

‘There are some things I really need to say to you.’

Sophie hesitated. It was disconcerting being so close to Pia again. She’d forgotten how dazzling her beauty was.

‘Look, I’d say it here if those guys weren’t hanging around,’ Pia jerked her head towards the paparazzi off to the side. ‘But I think I’ve pushed my luck
enough for one day. If one of them begins to twig . . . Let’s just get out of here.’

‘Oh fine,’ Sophie said resignedly. ‘Where’s your car?’

Pia shook her head. ‘I’m not using one. That’s what
they
’
re
looking out for. Let them chase Ava around town. I’m getting about on that.’ She
stepped back so that Sophie could see the gleaming red Vespa propped up behind her.

Sophie shook her head. ‘Oh no. I’m not getting on that thing with
you
. I think I can probably imagine what your driving’s like.’

‘I’m a changed woman,’ Pia grinned, handing her a helmet. It was Ferrari red with two thick racing stripes down the middle. ‘Hop on.’

Sophie perched precariously on the back, holding on to the handrail behind her seat, and closed her eyes, willing herself to be strong. She mustn’t let Pia back in.

They wove like skiers out of the Sea Gardens, past the strolling families and necking teenagers, and onto the open boulevards. The roads were wide and pale, with thick-canopied trees lining the
pavements, like fur trims. Parasols dotted the streets, and though the shops boasted none of the glitzy brands of northern Europe, it could only be a matter of time – cafe culture was already
alive and kicking, with internet cafes everywhere.

Pia knew her way around the city intimately, whizzing down backstreets, and Sophie let herself relax as the midsummer sun beat down upon her. She knew that she looked pale, ghostly even, and
spending her days cooped up in rehearsal studios didn’t help. Still she hadn’t come here to top up her tan.