Prima Donna (53 page)

‘Oh my godfathers, this is exquisite,’ Sophie whispered, her fingers as soft as breath.

‘Do you like it?’ Pia smiled, wearing nothing but a thong as she stepped into her white tights. ‘Karl designed it for me.’

‘Lagerfield?’ Sophie gulped. It was just like something out of the Chanel couture.

At that moment there was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ Pia said, rolling up her tights.

She looked up casually. ‘Adam!’

Dismayed, Sophie dropped the tutu, and it billowed down like a parachute, landing with a soft sigh on the ground. She looked over at Pia, panicking. The contrast of her peachy skin against the
marble-white veneer of the tights was startling, and Sophie knew Pia wouldn’t bother to cover herself. She wasn’t being provocative. Aside from the fact that she’d never
considered Adam as a lover, her body was just a tool here. Not a weapon.

‘Pia . . .’ Adam faltered. He’d spotted Sophie and was clearly wrong-footed to see them allied again. ‘I . . . I came to wish you luck.’ He stepped into the room
and placed a spray of lilies in her arms, kissing her lightly on the cheek.

‘Thanks,’ Pia said. ‘I appreciate it. You’re dancing?’

‘Yes.
Pas de deux
of
The Nutcracker
, with Ingrid.’

Pia’s understudy, Sophie recalled, shocked to hear that he wasn’t partnering Ava.

‘How are you, Sophie?’ he asked, turning his gaze to her.

Sophie nodded curtly. She didn’t dare to test her voice, afraid it might betray her. He continued to stare at her. She knew she looked different and she wondered if he could guess the
reason.

‘Have you seen Ava yet?’ Pia asked quickly, sensing Sophie’s discomfort. ‘Have you taken flowers to her too?’ she added wickedly as she stepped into the tutu.

‘No,’ Adam said, tearing his eyes off Sophie and standing to attention. He knew he deserved the barbs and scepticism – from both of them. He’d betrayed them both in
different ways. ‘No, I’ve no interest in how she does,’ he added, looking at Sophie.

‘What’s she dancing, do you know?’

‘Variation of Odette, and variation of Aurora, I believe,’ Adam replied.

Sophie’s eyes met Pia’s.

‘Well,’ Pia said finally. ‘What are the chances of that? There are – what? Nearly forty options on the repertoire, and she chooses the exact same ones as me?’ Pia
shook her head. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

‘You’re not dancing a
pas de deux
?’

‘And who would I dance with, Adam?’ Pia said, suddenly sharp. ‘I’m on my own, remember? I’m the lone ranger of the ballet world now.’ She raised her arm in a
whipping motion. ‘Yee-hah,’ she said sarcastically.

Adam nodded. He knew it better than anyone. He was a great dancer, but he’d needed her in order to be world class. ‘Well, good luck anyway,’ he said, walking backwards to the
door. ‘I’m rooting for you.’

The door shut behind him and Pia whirled round to Sophie, her eyes wild and the flush in her cheeks beating past even the heavy layer of make-up.

‘That bitch has got someone on the jury,’ she whispered. ‘The chances of us choosing the same variations are minuscule.’ Pia’s eyes narrowed. ‘She’s
rigging this.’

‘But she can’t! You’re just being paranoid. The voting’s electronic,’ Sophie soothed.

The organizers had been boasting to all the press about their world-first mathematically encrypted voting system.

‘Maybe, but it takes only one person to max her votes and crunch mine to make the difference between gold and silver.’ She shook her head and pursed her lips. ‘She’s
definitely got someone on the inside. I don’t believe for one moment that it’s a coincidence.’

Sophie nodded bleakly. It did seem unlikely. ‘Look, I can’t stay. I’ve got to go and set up. The first dancer’s on in ten minutes. Try to stay calm,’ she said,
walking over and giving Pia a hug. ‘Just be amazing. I’ll give you extra long legs!’

‘And Ava three heads?’

‘Of course!’

She shut the door and turned down the corridor.

‘Sophie,’ a voice called behind her, and she felt a hand on her arm.

‘Adam? What are you still doing here?’ she whispered, worried that someone might come out and catch them – someone like Ava.

‘I need to talk to you.’ He stared down at her, every inch the dashing prince, looking magnificent in a bottle-green velvet jacket, his legs heavily contoured in navy tights, his
stage make-up adding to the strength of his already striking face – the swell of his lips, the carve of his cheek, the cut of his jaw . . .

‘There’s nothing to talk about, Adam,’ she said, turning away.

‘Please, Sophie,’ he said, squeezing her arm. ‘I made a mistake. Can’t we at least talk?’

She looked up at him, the man she’d adored from afar for so long, and realized that she felt curiously unmoved. Once upon a time she’d thought he was her Happy Ever After. How much
of her infatuation with him had been habit, she wondered. Or loneliness?

‘There’s really nothing to talk about.’

‘You know there is. There was always something between us.’

Sophie snorted. ‘Forgive me for not realizing that you’d noticed.’

‘Of course I noticed! But I was so stressed about Ava and all her games and then when I saw you with that journalist—’

‘Oh, so it’s my fault, is it?’ she flashed back. ‘You didn’t notice me for three months, Adam! Three months of seeing you every day and watching you fly out through
the door at the end of each one before I could even get my easel folded. And then the very day someone else shows a bit of interest and I have some fun, suddenly you’re on my doorstep and
I’m supposed to believe
that
revelation propelled you into Ava’s bed?’ She shook her head angrily.

He held out his hands appeasingly. ‘She was all over me suddenly.’

‘Oh, well, in that case . . .’ Sophie retorted sarcastically. ‘God forbid that you would have turned her down.’

Adam’s hands fell to his sides. He had no defence.

‘Do you want to know why she was all over you, Adam?’ Sophie asked, resting her trembling hands on her hips. ‘Because
I
asked her to make an effort with you. I told
her how I felt about you and she – being the prize bitch that she is – took that as reason enough to seduce you.’

She was aware of heads beginning to peer around doorways. Adam shifted his weight uneasily.

‘She seduced you to score a point against me. And, by extension, against Pia. Because, at the end of the day, that’s all any of this has ever been about. You, me – we’ve
both just been ammunition in her war against Pia. But don’t worry, it’s not personal. She’s had what she needed from both of us. She’ll leave us alone now.’ She looked
at Adam’s pale face. He looked as sick as she felt. ‘And I’d appreciate it if you’d do the same.’

Ava’s dressing-room door – two down from Pia’s – suddenly opened, and a man came out carrying a cane. He was remarkably short and broad. As he approached and passed them,
he nodded his head in greeting.

‘Adam, Miss O’Farrell,’ he said in a thick accent.

‘Mr Alekseev,’ Adam said quietly.

Sophie stared at the man’s retreating back. She’d met him before, she was certain.

‘Who is that man?’ she whispered fiercely. ‘I know him.’

‘I’m sure you do. That’s Mikhail Alekseev.’

Russian name. Russian . . .

‘I know that. You just said that. But who
is
he?’ she repeated.

And then it came back to her – where she’d met him. The Russian she’d met at the snow polo in St Moritz. He’d said he . . .

‘He’s a broker,’ she said. ‘What’s
he
doing here?’

‘No, you must be mixing him up with someone else, Sophie. He’s no city boy. That’s Ava’s manager.’

Sophie climbed back up the stairs and into the warren of backstage passages. Yelena Maritsuva, the Belarusian prodigy and first to dance, spun past in
pirouette
.

Sophie walked on, her heart hammering with what she’d just learnt, and mindful of the stares that followed her. She wasn’t just recognizable for being the official competition
artist. Thanks to Russell’s lead article, which had then spawned a hundred others, everyone knew she’d been caught between the primas – first as Pia’s ally; latterly as
Ava’s – and already rumours were circulating that she’d been seen out with Pia again. This would only add yet another level of intrigue for the bystanders watching the famous
rivalry; it was something else for the balletomaniacs to Tweet about.

A security guard let her out of the backstage area, and as she walked out towards her easel and chair in the open-air theatre her feet faltered at the sight of the night-time extravaganza. The
semi-circular stage, which was offset by ivy-decked classical columns and had looked like a hanging garden by day, was now dramatically spotlit, looking romantic and haunting, mystical and pagan
all at once. She couldn’t imagine a more fitting setting for a ballet competition, and she fiercely wished its beauty was the only reason she was here.

She sat down at her easel and began to flick through the sketches she’d made of Yelena during rehearsal the day before. She was performing a variation of the Mistress of the Driads in
Don Quixote
and Sophie had particularly liked her
developpés
. They were silky, and lambent. She decided to go with that and started arranging her pastels so that she
wouldn’t need to rummage around once the lights dipped, but her mind was on other things.

The revelation that the spooky Russian was Ava’s manager had unnerved her. She realized now that he was the same man she’d seen speaking to Baudrand – upsetting him – on
the night of the exhibition. But it was the fact that they’d first met in St Moritz that weighed upon her mind. What had he been doing there? It was too much of a stretch to believe that it
was just coincidence, surely? St Moritz was where everything had gone wrong for Pia and where everything had gone right for Ava.

Okay, it wasn’t Ava’s fault that Pia had been suspended, or injured, or even that Baudrand had come knocking at
her
door. And the Cartier campaign had only come to Ava
because Pia was indisposed. But it was in St Moritz, in the Cartier tent, that Pia lost her coveted contract with Patek Philippe. It was obvious that Alekseev must have been the one who alerted
them to her flirtation with Cartier. Managers were notorious for their ruthlessness when it came to promoting their clients. Sophie wondered how much Ava had been involved in the sabotage. Probably
fully, she thought, as Ava’s cruel adulterous smile flashed before her eyes again.

But, losing the Patek Philippe contract had ended up being small fry compared to everything else that had happened to Pia subsequently. Sophie shook her head and sighed, unable to make a
connection. He and Ava probably weren’t guilty of anything other than profiteering from Pia’s bad luck.

Maybe he hadn’t been there to spy on Pia, after all. Maybe it
was
just a coincidence. He may have been there to meet someone else entirely.

Still, one thing just didn’t make sense:
why
had he called himself a broker? It was such a strange term for a manager to use about himself.

She felt the atmosphere shift, and looked around her easel to see the judges – all twelve – coming in. Sophie politely joined in with the clapping as they took their seats directly
behind her. She recognized Madame Faure, Directrice of the Paris Opera; she saw Terence Duff, choreographer for the New York Met; a Korean man she didn’t know; Carlos Acosta, the
international dancer; Ichiro Takahashi, the avant-garde composer; Irina Nowak, the Polish principal dancer and former laureate of Varna; Mary Stoppes-Wade, the dance critic; Ivan Topalov, the
secretary of the competition and . . . Baudrand.

Her hands stopped their automatic clapping and she heard her pastels clatter to the floor.
The Songbird
dance-off may have come and gone, but Baudrand had a direct interest in making
sure that Ava, as his new star, always came out on top. Pia had been right, after all. Dancing wasn’t going to be enough.

Slowly, not wanting him to spot her, she slid down her seat to pick up the colours from the floor. The clapping continued all around her.

She sat back up and tried to make herself like a statue, but to no avail. She felt a finger tap her on the shoulder.

Oh God! It was pointless trying to hide. As one of the judges he must have known she was here, and it figured that he would want an explanation. She hadn’t seen him since the night of the
exhibition and he had left countless messages asking where she was. How could she tell him she’d fled because Ava had seduced Adam? It was hardly professional behaviour. And after the break
he’d given her . . .

She turned around with a fixed smile in position.

But it wasn’t Baudrand who was smiling back.

The dancers followed each other in quick succession, and there was no time between performances to get backstage to warn Pia. She counted them down, hoping to catch Pia’s
eye from the wings, but the lights shining up onto the stage meant Pia couldn’t see her, the judges or anyone else in the front four rows. Sophie took a scant comfort in the knowledge that
ignorance was bliss.

As it was, she needn’t have worried. Not yet anyway. Pia gave a faultless performance that no judge – even a bent one – would have been able to mark down without arousing
suspicion. Her arms looked so fluid, fluttering delicately, that Sophie began to question whether she actually had any bones in them, and her feet shimmered lightly in the pinpoint
bourrées
that made her glide across the floor.

The audience gave her a standing ovation, but Sophie remained sitting. She preferred to stay out of sight for the moment, pretending to put the final flourishes to her depiction of Pia.

Adam and Ingrid put on a less stellar performance. Ingrid’s timing was off, meaning she could only perform two
pirouettes
instead of three and Adam was left desperately trying to
bring her up to tempo around the stage. But it wasn’t marked against him. His stylish recovery and exuberant
entrechats
garnered points with the judges. Like all the dancers
performing a
pas de deux
, they were being scored individually.