The Secret Starling

by Judith Eagle

  ‘It’s your lucky day,’ said Amelia-Ann with an extremely satisfied smile. ‘Tom’s driving Luci and Curtis into Leeds this afternoon.’

  ‘We’re going home for the weekend, ’cause our dad isn’t working nights,’ explained Luci.

  ‘We’ll ask Tom to drop us off on the way,’ said Amelia-Ann, ‘and then we can go to the ballet shop.’

  * * *

  Tom was Amelia-Ann’s big brother and he drove a red Ford Cortina. Peter sat in the front with Stockwell, holding the ballet shoe so the cat could bat at the ribbons with her paws. Clara squished in the back with the others. Amelia-Ann wore a furry jacket that looked like it might once have been a rabbit, and her hair protruded in a sort of palm tree on top of her head.

  Tom, all arms and legs in faded denim, folded himself into the driver’s seat. A single gold earring glinted in his ear. He looked questioningly at the cat.

  ‘I told you …’ said Amelia-Ann. ‘This is Stockwell.’

  ‘Named after the tube station,’ confirmed Peter.

  ‘Cool,’ said Tom, revving the engine loud.

  Tom drove fast, the music turned up so high that Stockwell leapt into the back. Luci shared out coconut drops, dark syrupy jewels that tasted of coconut and ginger. Peter wound the window down even though it was freezing, and sat with his elbow out, moving his head to the music and clicking his fingers. Amelia-Ann wound her scarf round both her and Clara, so they were tied together ‘like Siamese twins!’ and asked Clara a stream of questions like she usually did.

  As the car sped along and the wind rushed in from the open window, Clara sucked her sweet and brushed her hair out of her eyes. The rock music was pounding so hard she could almost feel it in her chest. She had never heard anything like it before. A voice soared high above the guitars and drums, lonely and desolate, just like the moor. Amelia-Ann locked little fingers with her. ‘Friends forever,’ she whispered. And then the wide expanse of purple moor shrank back and gave way to the houses and streets of outer Leeds; the sounds of the city filled the air and the car slowed to join the snaking lines of traffic along the busy thoroughfares.

  ‘Where d’you want dropping off?’ bellowed Tom.

  ‘Main drag,’ yelled Amelia-Ann from the back. ‘We can cut through one of the department stores,’ she said to Clara. ‘Have a quick mooch before the ballet shop.’

  Tom swerved sharply right, ignoring the indignant toots from the oncoming cars, and pulled to a stop with a screech.

  ‘Be here at five, or make your own way back,’ he said to Amelia-Ann as Curtis and Luci shrieked goodbyes to Clara and Peter.

  ‘See you next week,’ they cried.

  ‘And don’t get up to any of your tricks,’ added Tom, ‘or I’ll tell Nan.’

  ‘Blah blah blah, and anyway, how will you know if I do?’ said Amelia-Ann.

  Clara imagined what would have happened if she had spoken to Uncle like that. But Tom didn’t explode or even say one mean thing. Instead he laughed, tweaked Amelia-Ann’s palm-tree hair and gave her some coins. ‘Go on with you, and mind you get your friends a cream bun each.’

  When Clara and James had come on their expeditions to Leeds they’d always gone straight to the shoe shop and, once mission was accomplished, headed back home. Mooching was the opposite. It was all about lingering. So while Peter took Stockwell off to look at the pet department, Amelia-Ann and Clara swanned about, spraying each other with perfume, wrapping themselves in feather boas and pulling on plum-coloured suede boots.

  Later, they all met in the café on the fourth floor where they tucked into ginormous round buns, light as air and oozing with cream and jam. Stockwell sat on Peter’s lap, her little black head peering just above the table.

  ‘I’m SO glad we’re friends now,’ Amelia-Ann declared. ‘Tom’s going to college next week, and Luci and Curtis won’t be around so much when Auntie Celeste comes back. It’s boring as anything with just Nan.’

  ‘What about your mum?’ Clara pictured Amelia-Ann’s mum, Babs, dancing her way round the world on a cruise ship. She must be impossibly glamorous. Amelia-Ann would be glamorous too, when she grew up.

  ‘She’s hardly ever here,’ said Amelia-Ann. She jabbed her cream bun with her finger and watched the jam ooze out. ‘She prefers being at sea – says she hasn’t got land legs.’

  They were all mum-less, thought Clara. Peter’s mum had left him on a train. Clara’s mum had died. Amelia-Ann’s mum preferred being on a ship to being at home.

  ‘What tricks was Tom talking about?’ asked Peter.

  Amelia-Ann smiled and her eyes brightened.

  ‘Promise you won’t tell?’ she whispered.

  ‘Promise,’ they both said together.

  ‘Look.’

  Clara and Peter craned their necks to see what Amelia-Ann had taken out of her pocket and was now holding under the table. Two shiny bottles of nail varnish, one turquoise, one canary yellow, glittering like jewels in her hand.

  ‘Did you take it?’ exclaimed Clara.

  ‘Ssh, keep your voice down,’ said Amelia-Ann. But it was too late. An official-looking man was bearing down on them. He had a scowl on his face and was dressed in a uniform.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Quick!’ shouted Amelia-Ann, throwing her bun down so it landed with a splat, the cream and jam sticking it to the table. ‘Scat!’

  For a split second Clara’s eyes met Peter’s, and then she was hurling her bun down, scraping back her chair and running, streaking after Amelia-Ann out of the café, through the soft furnishings department, past kitchenware and down the staircase, down, down, out onto the ground floor, past the cosmetics stands and onto the street.

  ‘Keep going!’ yelled Amelia-Ann over her shoulder.

  Clara’s heart felt like it was in her throat, her ears pounding. She ran behind Peter and Stockwell and Amelia-Ann, down a side street, into an alley, up a flight of stairs leading onto another alley and into another narrow street. At last Amelia-Ann stopped, heaving great gulping breaths. The three of them collapsed in a huddle on the pavement, shaking with a combination of relief and laughter.

  ‘You shouldn’t …’ started Clara. But Peter was turning out his pockets now. ‘This was all I could get,’ he said, holding out a small red net bag full of glassy-eyed marbles and a tiny pen torch. He flashed the torch on and off. ‘You should see what I usually get. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to shove an Airfix model into your school bag in Woolworths,’ he added. And then, with a spurt of laughter, ‘Although they did catch me the time before last. I was in school uniform and they told the head. He went mad.’

  Clara didn’t know whether to be shocked or impressed. Stockwell peeped out at her from the inside of Peter’s jacket. She was looking at Clara as if to say, what are you waiting for? You’ve got important business to attend to. ‘Let’s go and find Petruschka,’ Clara said.

  The street Amelia-Ann led them to was crowded with a jumble of small shops: a tobacconist with an array of pipes in the window; a stick maker full of walking sticks and umbrellas; a tiny, rickety shop selling small silver things – pill cases and thimbles and teaspoons and charms. Petruschka was right at the end, squashed between The Button Box and Books for Keeps.

  Clara’s skin tingled.

  The shop was lit by hundreds of twinkling lights and dozens of ballet shoes danced across the window display. There were scarlet ones with little bows, plain black-leather ones with elastic straps, and satin ones in the palest pink and ivory, slippery ribbons pinned to look like they were fluttering. ‘Ballet shoes, every style, made to measure,’ read a small card at the front of the display. ‘By appointment only. Please ring the bell.’

  ‘If I can’t be a ballet dancer when I grow up, I’m going to have a shop like this!’ said Peter, passing the ballet shoe over to Clara and jabbing at the bell.

  The satin slipper felt light and insubstantial. Unlike the shoes in the window, each one with a partner, this one was on its own. It was a forlorn little
scrap, but there was something precious about it all the same.

  ‘What’s this then, what’s this? Can’t you read? Card says by appointment only.’ The door opened and an elderly man peered out. He had a brush of snowy white hair held back by gold-rimmed glasses perched high on his head. At his neck was a neat bow tie printed with tiny blue birds.

  ‘We’re sorry—’ started Clara. But in spite of what he said, the man was already ushering them in and retreating behind a glass-topped counter under which were displayed dozens of ribbons of various shades and widths. Shoe-sized drawers lined the walls of the shop, each one labelled in minuscule writing. Music was playing, filling the room, dipping and soaring. Behind the counter were photographs of dancers – some in full costume, others in practice clothes – many of them scrawled with signatures and kisses. There was a stool in the corner that Amelia-Ann perched on, her hands underneath her bottom as though she didn’t trust them to not swipe something. Peter stood alert, almost quivering. Clara could see that he was entranced.

  ‘You want shoes for your ballet lessons, eh, children?’ said the man. ‘Let’s measure you up then. Who’s first?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Clara quickly, ‘that’s not what we are here for.’ Carefully she placed the lonely ballet slipper on the counter. All five of them regarded it, Stockwell rather disdainfully, as though she’d had absolutely nothing to do with it over the last few hours.

  ‘I’m afraid we don’t do repairs,’ said the man, a look of concern passing over his features. ‘We used to, but now it’s just me …’

  ‘It’s not that,’ said Clara. ‘We found this shoe, and we wondered if you might know anything about it. Look.’ She turned it over. ‘See? It’s got the name of this shop stamped on the sole.’

  ‘Does it now?’ the man said, and Clara could see he was interested. Pulling his glasses down so that his hair flopped forward, he examined the sole of the shoe. He seemed to look at it for a long time. At last he straightened up.

  ‘I’ll have to get my ledger. We record the details of all the shoes we make,’ he said, and disappeared behind a heavy velvet curtain.

  ‘The music – it’s Swan Lake,’ whispered Peter. ‘Pretend I’m Von Rothbart!’ He pirouetted fiercely across the shop floor, flapping his arms menacingly at Clara before turning away and gazing haughtily into the distance. Amelia-Ann applauded softly and Peter lowered his arms just as the man reappeared bearing a pile of dusty-looking books and handed the shoe back to Clara.

  ‘Could you read the number out to me, dear? My eyes aren’t what they used to be,’ he said.

  Clara picked up the shoe and squinted. The numbers really were very small.

  ‘028658,’ she said.

  ‘58,’ the man repeated. ‘That tells us which year we made it in.’

  ‘1958? That means it’s sixteen years old! No wonder it looks ancient,’ said Amelia-Ann.

  The man drew out a book nearer the bottom of the pile. ‘Not that one, no, ah, it’s this one.’ The books looked old, with dusty dark-green covers. Inside, the heavy cream paper was closely lined. The man flicked through page after page. ‘First four numbers, dear?’ he peered up at Clara. His glasses had slipped down his nose.

  ‘0286,’ said Clara. The man, breathing heavily, pored over the lists lining the pages of the ledger, his finger tracing the numbers as he went. Clara wished he would hurry up. She felt as though she was on tenterhooks. At last his finger came to a stop.

  ‘No, that can’t be right,’ he glanced up. ‘Give me that,’ he said almost sharply, gesturing at the shoe that Clara was still holding. Silently, she handed it over. His manner had changed. He was peering closely at the numbers again. The children waited.

  Once upon a time that shoe had held life, thought Clara. Someone had slipped their foot into it and it had fitted them perfectly, like a second skin, or a glove.

  ‘How did you get it?’ the man was asking, looking at both Clara and Peter properly for the first time, a frown etched on his features. ‘Come on, where did you find it?’

  ‘At home,’ said Clara. ‘Why, what is it?’ She felt a sudden unease.

  The man lowered himself heavily on to the stool behind the counter. ‘That shoe,’ he said, ‘belonged to a young dancer who was destined to be one of the greats.’ He rose from the stool again, anxiety giving way to bad temper. ‘Come on, children, you stole it did you?’

  ‘They did not!’ said Amelia-Ann rising indignantly from her stool.

  ‘She’s right, we didn’t!’ agreed Peter.

  The old man sat down again and shook his head. ‘It was not to be,’ he muttered. ‘It was not to be.’ He rubbed his eyes and pushed his hair back again with the glasses.

  ‘What was not to be?’ asked Clara. Suddenly the forlorn ballet shoe seemed to be full of something. She wasn’t sure what. Promise? Hope? Or was it fear? Clara felt a tremor of misgiving.

  ‘Christobel Starling,’ cried the old man excitedly. ‘Dropped down dead, quite literally, in the middle of what most critics believe would have been the performance that made her name. She was on the cusp of stardom.’

  Clara went very still. Time seemed to stop.

  ‘What performance?’ whispered Peter.

  ‘Swan Lake,’ said the old man. ‘The poor girl was in the middle of it and … poof—’ He mimed blowing out a candle. ‘Gone. Quite gone.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Clara felt like she had been thumped hard in the chest.

  The music had stopped playing. A potent silence filled the air.

  ‘Christobel Starling was my mum,’ she managed. Peter’s mouth, she noticed, had fixed itself into a shocked O. The palm tree on top of Amelia-Ann’s head had collapsed, as though it had been felled.

  ‘Oh, my poor girl,’ the old man was saying. ‘I am so sorry. This is news to you, I see.’ He flapped his hands anxiously. ‘I didn’t know she’d had a child.’ He lowered his glasses and peered at Clara again. ‘She must have been very young when you were born.’

  But Clara had stopped listening and was crashing backwards, away from the man, out of the shop and down the street. She felt strangely liquid, as though everything was dissolving. Her mother, Christobel Starling, had died giving birth to her! That was what she had always been told. If the man was telling the truth, then Uncle had lied. Why would he do that? And what if he’d lied about other things too?’

  This was so unexpected, so … big, Clara felt like her head might explode. The ballet shoe belonged to her mother. Her mother had been a ballerina. Clara would have been a baby when her mother died.

  ‘Clara! Wait!’ Peter and Amelia-Ann were chasing after her. She stopped. Her head felt like it was full of the heaviest matter, pressing down on her skull and temples, squeezing so much it hurt. She had the curious sensation that she was crying behind her eyes, hot, burning tears with nowhere to go.

  ‘Clara.’ Peter’s hand was on her shoulder. She turned, expecting to see her confusion mirrored in his face, but Peter’s eyes were bright. ‘I can’t believe it! You’re so lucky! Imagine, your mum, a famous ballet dancer!’

  Now Peter was pirouetting in the street. Amelia-Ann stood quietly, her button eyes anxious, darting from Peter to Clara.

  ‘Christobel Starling, what a glamorous name,’ he continued. He made an elaborate curtsey, gesturing thanks to an imaginary audience, accepting applause and catching bouquets of flowers.

  ‘Stop!’ Clara said, and then immediately wished she hadn’t when Peter’s smile faltered and he halted mid-curtsey, embarrassment flashing across his face.

  And then the tears did fight their way out of her eyes and her legs went all wobbly, so she had to sit down on the kerb, even though there were cigarette ends everywhere. Peter sat down on one side, patting her on the shoulder, and Amelia-Ann sat on the other, holding her hand.

  ‘I know you love ballet and everything, Peter,’ she said between big hiccupy sobs. ‘But so what if she was the most famous, the most beautiful, the most marvellous b
allet dancer in all the world? The important thing is, why would Uncle tell me she died when I was born instead of when she was dancing some stupid ballet?’

  ‘Swan Lake is not a stupid ballet, Clara. It’s one of the most—’

  ‘All this time I thought she died because of me,’ Clara interrupted. It was the first time she had properly admitted it to herself, let alone anyone else. It had been a stubborn, scary, uncomfortable thought buried away in the furthermost corner of her heart, like a sharp stone, impossible to dislodge.

  When Clara’s sobs had turned to shuddery sighs, Peter asked if she had any of Uncle’s cash with her.

  Clara nodded. She had tucked it into her sock.

  ‘Two hundred pounds!’ exclaimed Amelia-Ann. ‘If I’d known that, I would’ve asked you to buy the nail varnish for me!’

  Clara smiled weakly. ‘And if I’d known you wanted it, I would have offered to get it for you!’

  ‘Let’s go and have a slap-up breakfast,’ said Peter. ‘That’s what me and Granny always do after we’ve had a shock.’

  So they went into the Brass Kettle, and even though it was four in the afternoon and way past breakfast time, Clara had the full English (fried egg, bacon, sausage, beans, fried bread, black pudding and mushrooms), Amelia-Ann had smoked kippers, and Peter had egg, chips, tinned tomatoes and extra white sliced bread. Even Stockwell was allowed some scrambled egg.

  ‘What shocks did you and Granny actually have?’ asked Clara, biting into a crisp slice of fried bread dipped in egg yolk. She was starting to feel better already.

  ‘Oh, loads!’ said Peter, taking a slurp of tea. ‘Once, a pigeon flew in the window and pooed all over the furniture and it took ages to chase it out. Another time a boy on a bike tried to grab Granny’s bag, but she held onto it and whacked him one over the head.’

  ‘Then what happened?’ asked Clara. There was something so chirpy about Peter. In fact, he had been getting steadily chirpier since the day they met. Here he was with his granny ill and all his worries about the rent and stuff, and yet he hadn’t complained for ages. She’d been so caught up in her own worries about Braithwaite Manor, and then throwing herself into her new-found friendship with Amelia-Ann and Luci and Curtis, that she hadn’t thought to ask if he was OK. She must remember to look after him, just as he was looking after her.