‘Right.’ I cut across her. ‘So I’m a child again, am I? Last night you told me that since I was nearly fourteen I should stop being childish and start taking responsibility. You are just so—’
‘Two. You haven’t got anything suitable to wear, and—’
‘Oh haven’t I? That’s what you think.’ Anger was building up inside me like lava inside a volcano. ‘You haven’t seen my tap dress. It’s going to be fabulous. It’s—’
‘Three. That Saturday evening’s the dress rehearsal for the display. You’ve promised Mrs Litvinov you’ll be there from seven till ten. You couldn’t get to the party till ten-thirty at the earliest, and even if we let you go, we certainly wouldn’t let you stay after eleven. Look, love, I’m sorry, I know you’re disappointed, but you’ll have to send Tia’s mum a polite little note saying you can’t make it.’
‘Routine one. Positions please,’ says Mrs Litvinov, fixing her knife-sharp eyes on Lizzie, who’s wriggling about, doing something to the back of her leotard. For the first time ever, I’m slow off the mark. My feet don’t want to tap today. I don’t really want to be here at all. I want to be at Paradise End, talking parties with Tia, planning what I’m going to wear, looking round the garden to see where the marquees will go up.
Tia looked so miserable when I said I couldn’t come to the party, all slumped down and shrivelled, that I thought she’d actually got shorter. I wasn’t in a sympathetic mood though, quite honestly. I suppose I was too disappointed myself.
‘It’ll be horrible,’ she kept saying. ‘I’m going to hate it. It would be different if you were there. I wouldn’t be on my own.’
‘On your own?’ I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘There’ll be three hundred other people, for heaven’s sake.’
And, I thought, they’ll all be rich and dead glamorous and there’ll be film stars and celebrities – people who anyone else would kill to meet, but I didn’t say a word.
Tia’s mouth went into a tight, straight line and she looked stubborn for a moment, like a dog on a lead that’s dug its paws in and won’t budge.
‘Oh, come on.’ I started feeling exasperated. ‘There’ll be someone there you like. There’s got to be someone, out of three hundred.’
She shook her head.
‘Even if there was, if there was another you, or – or someone like, well, Sam or someone, I couldn’t get to know them. You don’t know Dixie at parties. She makes me feel, I don’t know, three years old or something. She doesn’t mean to, but she just destroys me.’
I could imagine what she meant. I could see Dixie grabbing all the attention, petting Tia like a baby at one moment and putting her down the next. And I could see Tia, standing on her own, being pitied and humiliated, and I stopped feeling irritated with Tia and started feeling furious with Dixie.
‘Oh God, Tia, I’m so sorry. I feel I’m letting you down.’
‘You can’t help it. I’ll manage. I’ll do what I usually do, that’s all.’
‘What do you do then?’
‘I make a plan. I work out escape routes and hiding places. I think it all out first. I’m quite good at it actually.’
I jumped up.
‘They’re so unreasonable! I could murder Mum and Dad for this.’
‘It’s not their fault. It’s your dress rehearsal.’
‘It’s Mum and Dad too. You don’t know how totally negative and stupid they are. They wouldn’t let me come even if I was free. If it wasn’t for them I’d skip the dress rehearsal. Pretend I had a cold or something. Say the buses weren’t running. Or just bunk off. I might do it anyway.’
‘You can’t, Carly! Mrs Litvinov would take you off the display.’
‘No she wouldn’t.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Yes she would.’ The rage roared through me again. ‘I hate Mrs Litvinov! It’s so mean! Why has she got to fix it for that Saturday night? It’s so unfair!’
And that’s what I’m feeling now, in the tap class, and that’s why my feet won’t work and my rhythm’s all wrong, and my arms are as stiff as levers.
‘Carly! What’s the matter with you today? Relax those shoulders. Keep your taps clean. OK, everyone. Two more routines, and then the set pieces. From the top please, Mr Simons. Now then, shuffle-hop-step and off you go.’
There goes the piano, tinkety-tonk, and there don’t go my feet.
‘Carly!’ Mrs Litvinov holds up her hand and Mr Simons stops playing. ‘What are you doing? Sea-lion impersonations? On the fourth bar it goes tap, tap, shuffle-hop-step and flap. You know that. We’ve done it dozens of times. Again please, Mr Simons.’
I get through the class somehow, all stiff and clumsy, like a doll. Mrs Litvinov stops going on at me after a while, but I can feel her sharp black eyes on me. For the first time ever I want her to leave me alone. I don’t even respect her any more.
At the end of the class she calls me over.
‘Right, Carly. What’s the problem? You were all over the place today.’
‘Sorry, Mrs Litvinov.’
‘Sorry isn’t good enough. Sorry isn’t going to get you through the display.’
I don’t say anything.
‘Well, come on. Don’t just stand there. Something’s bothering you, I can tell.’
She’s looking almost sympathetic and a flicker of hope lights up my heart. If I ask her really nicely, if I explain, maybe she’ll change the date of the dress rehearsal, or even let me off. I take a deep breath.
‘It’s next Saturday,’ I say. ‘I’ve got a problem with the dress rehearsal.’
‘Yes?’ I can see concern in her eyes. She’s expecting me to say something kind of emotional, like it’s going to be my nan’s funeral that day, or I’ve got to visit my brother in prison. I can hardly say, There’s this amazing party that I’ve been invited to, and it’s in a stately home with marquees and a band and loads of incredibly famous people. Now can I? I can’t even think up a false excuse fast enough.
All I manage to say is, ‘My best friend needs me that night, Mrs Litvinov. She’s got a problem with her mum. She really, really needs me.’ And that’s the truth after all.
Mrs Litvinov bites her bottom lip. She’s shaking her head. I know I’m on to a loser. I don’t know why I even gave it a try.
‘I’m sorry, Carly, but a dress rehearsal’s a dress rehearsal. If you want to be in the display, you have to be there. You’ve made a commitment and now it’s time to honour it.’
On she goes, and I’m not even listening. I could have said it all for her anyway. I’m concentrating on holding my temper back. Then I realize she’s asked me a question.
‘Your costume,’ she says again. ‘I asked you to bring it today. Where is it?’
‘I haven’t got it. It’s not finished.’
I know I sound sulky, but I can’t help it.
She frowns again.
‘Today was the last day. I warned you last week.’
‘I know, but. . .’
She’s looking at me as if she’s wondering if she made the right decision, and I have a horrible feeling, down in the pit of my stomach, that she’s going to bump me off the display. That sets me into a right old fright.
‘Honestly, Mrs Litvinov, it is nearly ready. And it’s lovely. Fantastic. Wait till you see it.’
‘I am waiting, Carly.’
‘You’ll love it, I know you will. My best friend designed it. She—’
‘What?’ She’s looking worried now. ‘Your best friend? How old is she?’
‘Fourteen, but she’s brilliant. It—’
‘Carly, I do hope you realize that the way you look is vitally important. I haven’t imposed a uniform on you, only specified black and white, but. . .’
‘I’ll have it at the dress rehearsal,’ I say, nodding frantically at her like a total freak. ‘I promise. I’m picking it up this afternoon.’
She heaves a sigh.
‘I suppose it’ll have to do. There’ll be a few more days if we need to make adustments. In t
he meantime, Carly, you must work on your attitude. Tap comes from the heart as much as the feet. I’m sorry about your friend, but you’ve got priorities here and the display should be up there at the top of your list, with nothing else on your mind.’
I can see Lauren at the door, mopping all this up, and I can’t wait to get away.
‘Yes, Mrs Litvinov, sorry Mrs Litvinov,’ I gabble. ‘Got to go or I’ll miss my bus,’ and I dash out of the room, grab Lauren’s elbow and yank her after me, desperate to get out of there.
I know I’ve gone on a bit about my dress, but you should have seen it, especially that afternoon when I tried it on, finished, for the first time, in front of the long mirror in Tia’s dressing room.
I couldn’t see it properly at first, because Graziella was fussing round, twitching at the collar and peering at the hem, but at last she stood back and said, ‘Yes, is OK now. What you think, Carly?’
What did I think? I was too dazzled to think anything much, except that I looked about twenty-five years old, and dreamily cool, and not all bones and angles for once, but fluid and floating.
I did a quick tap routine, even though it didn’t make a sound at all on the carpet.
‘It’s – oh, I can’t say,’ I said at last. ‘Fantastic. Brilliant. Everything.’
‘It’ll look OK with your tap shoes, won’t it?’ said Tia, looking down at my feet. ‘Look, Graziella. There’s a pin still stuck in the sleeve.’
I felt uncomfortable. For a moment Tia had sounded really grand, like someone talking to a servant.
‘The shoes’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘You two have no idea. I’m just so impressed. I wouldn’t have believed – honestly – I look. . .’
It’s not often I’m lost for words, but I was that time. Then a nasty thought struck me.
‘My hair lets it all down. Story of my life. I’m going to shave it off and get a wig.’
Tia laughed.
‘Carly, you’re a complete idiot about your hair. It’s great. Unlike anyone else’s. Totally your own.’
‘Totally my own sad, revolting mess you mean. Thanks a lot.’
She was shaking her own honey-blonde hair at me.
‘People spend years looking for a style. You’ve got one. It’s terribly easy to look like me – blonde bimbo – so obvious. We’re everywhere.’ She hesitated. ‘That’s what I want to do, if ever I get to be a real designer. Not make loads of fashionable clothes, like everyone else does, but help people find the way they want to look. You know, make them feel better about themselves. So that they can bring out the person they really want to be.’
At least, I think that’s what she said, but by then I wasn’t listening. I was too busy admiring my dress in the mirror.
‘There’s only one thing I really hate,’ I said.
‘What?’ Tia looked anxious all of a sudden.
‘That I’ll be wearing this to the display and not to your party.’
‘Oh, the party.’ Tia’s face had cleared, but it clouded over again. ‘I was trying not to think about that.’
Graziella undid the zip at the back of the dress and I climbed out of it again.
‘Don’ be silly, Tia,’ she said, sounding bored, as if she’d said the same thing hundreds of times before. ‘Is a nice party. Lots of kids your age.’
Tia made a face at me behind her back.
‘OK, you two,’ Graziella went on, ‘I got to go now. The wine is coming this afternoon. Big delivery.’
She’d been holding the dress and now she laid it down on the back of a chair.
‘Graziella, I just, I mean, thank you so much,’ I said. ‘You’ve no idea. It was so lovely of you to do it.’
She smiled as if she was surprised.
‘No problem, Carly. I like to sew. Is good to keep in practice.’
‘I can’t get over her making this for me,’ I said, stroking the rich, black silk as Graziella left the room.
Tia shrugged.
‘Why? It’s all part of her job.’
The uncomfortable feeling came back and I felt a stab of resentment.
‘No, it isn’t. She did it like a favour. It was really, really nice of her. She probably did it for you anyway, not for me, just because she’s fond of you.’
‘Oh, fond!’ Tia raised her eyebrows.
‘Yes. You heard me. Fond.’
Tia looked uncomfortable. She walked away from me, out of the dressing room and into her bedroom where she stood in the middle of her acres of carpet, maddeningly distant and aloof. I followed her. I wasn’t going to let her slip away. I wanted to sort this out.
I felt suddenly as if she was looking down at me from somewhere high above. It annoyed me.
‘You don’t understand, Carly’ she said.
‘I don’t, as a matter of fact. I don’t believe in treating people like they’re inferior, or slaves or something. Just then, when you told Graziella to take the pin out of my sleeve, you sounded like a flaming duchess. In fact, you sounded exactly like your mum.’
Tia flushed.
‘Maybe I am like her. She’s my mother, isn’t she?’
‘No! You’re not like her at all! She’s heartless. She never thinks about anyone except herself.’
Tia didn’t say anything. The red flush was deepening in her cheeks.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry.’ I jumped on to the sofa and began banging my forehead down on a cushion. ‘She’s your mother. It was an awful thing to say about your mother. It was just the way you spoke to Graziella. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, she’s a really nice person, and she cares about you. I know she does. And you . . .’
‘I told you, Carly, you don’t understand.’ She was frowning as if she was looking for a way to explain, but couldn’t find the right words.
She sat down beside me and began running a finger round a button on her top. I made myself go quiet and still, to encourage her to talk.
‘What don’t I understand?’
‘I’m Graziella’s job. Don’t you see that? She’s paid to look after me. OK, she likes showing me how to sew. We don’t mind spending time together, but next year, when she’s saved enough money, she’s going back to Italy. She’s going to open a dress shop in her village. She talks about it all the time. Do you really think, once she’s gone, that she’ll ever give me another thought?’
‘OK, but that doesn’t mean—’
‘When I was little, there was Lizzie,’ Tia went on, as if she hadn’t heard me. ‘I really, really loved her. She used to put me to bed. Sometimes I sat on her knee, and she bounced me up and down. She even read me stories when she wasn’t too busy.’
‘There you are, you see? You were her job too, but she loved you and you loved her back.’
‘Did she? She couldn’t be bothered to stay with me. She left when we moved to Geneva and someone offered her more money. She used to send me postcards sometimes, but she doesn’t any more. After her there was Martine. I hated her. She pinched me when I cried. Mimi sacked her after a bit because she was rude about Perry – he was Mimi’s boyfriend then. I can’t remember all the others. There was one called Birgitte who I really liked, but she left, and then Cathy, and Imelda and Beata. None of them ever stayed for long. Mimi always quarrelled with them and gave them the sack.’ She shook her hair back and looked at me, and her eyes were bleak and defensive at the same time. ‘In the end you just begin – well, what’s the point? You have to protect yourself, because in the end everyone leaves.’
There she was, sitting beside me on that luxurious sofa, dressed in her beautiful clothes, shaking her long, shining hair back from her shoulders, when, I don’t know why, a picture came into my head. It was like something from a children’s book, a story of a princess who was building a wall round herself, brick by brick, imprisoning herself in a tower. Making a shell. A place to hide.
Maybe that’s what Dixie did, I thought. Maybe she was like Tia once: a nice person, but she grew a kind of armour for protection, and the real person died insi
de and all that was left was a shell.
‘No!’ I said loudly, making us both jump.
Tia looked quite scared. I could see she was afraid I’d turned against her.
‘I’m not going to let you do it!’ I said, thumping my fist down on the arm of the sofa.
‘Do what?’
‘Build a wall round yourself. Close up. Stop being able to love and trust people.’
She looked puzzled.
‘I haven’t. I don’t.’
‘No, but you might. You’ve got to get one thing into your head anyway’ I took a deep breath. ‘You can trust me. You can count on me. I’m not going to go away and stop sending you postcards. You can’t give me the sack. We’re best friends now and you’re stuck with me for life.’
I suppose I’d expected her to look pleased and say something about being my best friend forever too, the way anyone else would have done. She did start to smile, a really hopeful, nice smile that started in her eyes, but then she looked away again.
‘I know you mean it, Carly’ she said. ‘It’s awfully sweet of you.’ She hestitated and looked embarrassed. ‘But you can’t help being so busy. I don’t blame you at all. I mean, you’ve got your family and your school friends and your tap and everything. You haven’t even got time to come to the party.’
I felt my heart lurch, as if it had decided what I was going to do even before my head had. Up to then, I’d wanted to go to the party just because it was grand and exciting. Now I suddenly saw that it was a test, the first test of our friendship. If I wanted Tia to stop building up the bricks of her tower, I was going to have to take the biggest risk of my life and get myself into all kinds of trouble.
‘Well you’re wrong then,’ I said. ‘I am coming to the party. I’m going to bunk off the dress rehearsal and come up here instead, and no one’s going to stop me.’
14
I’m not usually devious. I tend to go for things head on. ‘Like a bull at a gate,’ Mum says. But I could see, as I walked home from Paradise End that evening, with my beautiful dress carefully packed in a carrier bag in my hand, that I was going to have to be cunning if I was to get to the party without my whole life falling round my head in ruins.
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