by Evie Blake
A giant dragonfly spins by, its transparent wings brushing her cheek, its energy wild and abandoned. She takes it as her cue and begins to undo the tiny, mother-of-pearl buttons of her blouse, one by one. She remembers her mamma sewing each one on, and now she is undoing herself – what her mother made. He watches her, his expression pensive, and she opens up her blouse and shows him her breasts. The moist damp air caresses her nipples and she senses them harden with expectation.
And, within a second, all that was hazy and in slow motion is suddenly fast. He springs forward and pins her to the bottom of the boat. Her blouse falls from her shoulders as he begins to kiss her, hungrily. What he is doing transforms her. She is delicate, yet as charged with energy as that dragonfly. She is softening, unable to stop herself pushing against him, although she is afraid as well. She is on the edge of her maidenhood, the thread of it can be broken so quickly.
He pulls back, cradles her face in his hands and looks deep into her eyes.
‘My darling,’ he whispers. ‘Tell me to stop.’
She shakes her head. She wants him to continue.
He sits back on his heels as she lies before him on the bottom of the boat, her breasts naked and exposed. He picks up her blouse and makes to cover her, but she pushes it away with her hand and begs him, with her eyes, to come to her again.
‘I am too old for you,’ he protests. ‘You are too good for me.’
She reaches out with her arms. ‘I love you,’ she murmurs.
He can no longer resist and falls upon her again. He kisses her and she tastes the sweetness of his lips on hers, inhales him as if he is the very breath of her life. She wriggles beneath him, tentatively reaching forward with her hand and touching him. Some wildness takes over her. She did not imagine that it would be she who took the initiative, and yet it is Maria who unbuttons Felix’s trousers, and Maria who slips her underwear off and opens up to him. He pushes up inside her with such force she gasps. Her insides are opening to him as he fills her.
‘Maria, I love you,’ he whispers, as he begins to push against her body. His words ignite her further and she is in unison with him. The boat rocks beneath them in accompanying rhythm. It feels right to be doing this on the river. She was born in a city upon a lagoon, the daughter of a sailor, and thus her virginity belongs to a watery world. She closes her eyes, letting his passion wash over her as he picks up momentum. She feels his breath quicken and she arches against him, letting his pleasure seep into her heart. There is no going back now, for she loves this man. And he loves her.
And now the day is nearly spent and yet Maria feels her life has only just begun. Within that tiny fracture of time when he was inside her, she believes that her soul merged with his. She is his. He is hers. As he took her virginity on the rocking boat, the river lapping in applause, so began her need. Now all she wants is to be with him, and yet tonight she has to dance the most demanding role of her life. Her body is vibrating from his touch, trembling with desire and she has to stifle all of this and become Psyche, a creature as light as air, without material substance.
They are performing, not in their school, but in a hall nearby. It is not the premiere of Pandora, although the work hasn’t been performed for four years. Lempert claims that now, after the war, it is even easier to see its relevance: the eternal conflict between good and evil within man.
Joan is already in full costume by the time Maria arrives. She is attired in her robe of crimson, white and purple, with a headdress of snakes. Her face is painted white, her eyes wide and dark, and a black pencil line arches above her eyebrows. She is sitting at the mirror, smoking a cigarette, staring at herself while all the other girls bustle around her, getting ready.
‘There you are!’ She locks eyes with Maria in the mirror. ‘Where have you been?’
Maria sits down beside her, picks up the container of face powder and blows on it gently to create a tiny puff of white.
‘I went boating –’ she pauses for effect – ‘with Felix.’
‘Ah, the mysterious Frenchman to whom you refuse to introduce me.’ Joan pouts.
‘That’s not true. He nearly always meets me from school, but you’ve been staying late with Louis.’
Joan sighs. ‘Well, that’s not going to happen anymore.’
Maria ignores Joan’s long face. She is too happy to worry about her friend’s love life.
‘Hey,’ says Joan, noticing. ‘What are you so smug about?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ Maria says, lightly. ‘Except, I’m in love.’
Joan stubs out her cigarette with gusto. ‘What exactly happened on your little boating trip with Felix?’
Maria blushes and looks away from her.
‘Oh, I see,’ Joan says. ‘Well, good for you.’ She gets up and smoothes down her costume. ‘You had better hurry up and get ready. We shall have to discuss all the details later.’ She winks at Maria.
She is waiting in the wings, alongside Joan and Christopher, who plays the part of the Youth. She watches the first group of dancers, the common men and women of the earth, as they articulate, through movement, mankind’s search for something to worship. Do we all need someone to guide us? she wonders. Will she let Felix be her guide?
Now Joan is on stage as Pandora, entrancing the group, followed by Christopher, as the innocent Youth. It is her turn soon. She must appear as a vision for the Youth, an apparition of goodness. She thinks of Felix watching her out in the cavern of the dark theatre. He spoke to Lempert about filming the dance, and she knows that he will be shielded by his camera now, documenting her movements. She cannot escape his eye.
She is out now, the stage lights blinding her and yet filling her with energy so that she does, for a second, forget she is Maria, the girl who just lost her virginity, and becomes the spirit, Psyche – the triumph of intellect over instinct. Yet the common people reject her and she is forced to retreat as they vie for Pandora’s box. Louis, as the Go-Getter, and Stephen, as the Strong Man, dance a fight for it, Louis winning out. The second chorus group rushes upon the stage, monsters of evil, gathering Pandora up, thwarting the Strong Man. Maria is in the shadows now, watching them crown Pandora with a grinning death mask with white crystalline spikes on its top.
There is a short interval. They rush into the dressing room, a bubble of first-night excitement. Lempert comes in. Maria can tell he is pleased with them. He pats her shoulder with his hand while talking to Christopher about the final dance between the Youth and Psyche, the point at which they have to bring the world out of darkness and back to the light. She suddenly feels weighed down by the responsibility. Her body is so tired, not just from dancing, but from the new sensations it experienced today. She needs some air.
She glances at the clock on the wall. She has ten minutes for a quick cigarette. She slips out of the dressing room and out the back of the building, where she stands in the alleyway, shaking a cigarette out of the packet.
‘I am sure Psyche is far too pure to smoke.’
She jumps. There, in front of her, is Felix.
‘Where did you spring from?’ she asks him.
‘I was here all along, smoking. I saw you come out. You look like a phantom in your white robe.’
She leans forward and lets him light her cigarette. ‘What do you think?’ she asks, nervous for his approval.
‘You are superb, my darling.’
Maria beams from within. It means so much to her that he thinks she is good.
‘I am really very interested to see how it will turn out on film,’ he says. ‘I have never filmed a dance before.’
‘And what do you think of the others?’
‘Well, some of the other dancers need a little more experience, but the girl who plays Pandora is expert.’
‘That’s Joan, my friend,’ Maria tells him, but he is not really listening to her. His eyes flash and his hands sweep in an arc around him as he talks about the meaning of Pandora. She imagines him on set: Felix the film director. She pinches
herself. She has to keep reminding herself that this talented man actually loves her.
‘I think the choreography is quite fascinating. This dance has a political subtext . . .’ He pauses before taking another drag on his cigarette. ‘Yesterday’s good can become today’s evil . . .’
His words trail off into the dark alley and she cannot see the look in his eyes, but she knows he is not just thinking of the dance now. He is thinking of his mysterious past: a part of himself he refuses to share with her. The stage door opens, light spilling out on to the street, illuminating the two of them.
‘There you are!’ Joan says. ‘Come on; curtain’s up in five minutes.’
She suddenly notices Felix.
‘Oh, hello . . . Are you the famous Monsieur Leduc?’
Maria blushes to her roots; how could Joan be so tactless?
‘I think I must be.’ He puts his head on one side and gives her a penetrating look. His expression is far from friendly and, for a second, Maria can see what Jacqueline is talking about when she says that Felix is difficult – yet, not with her. With Maria, he is so tender, so soft and kind.
Joan ignores Felix’s snub and instead turns to Maria, giving her an inquiring look, before disappearing back inside. She knows what Joan is thinking. She can even hear her voice inside her head: He’s a bit old for you, darling, isn’t he? A little bit grumpy looking . . .
She drops her cigarette butt on the ground, its red tip still burning in the dark. ‘I had better go back in,’ she says. ‘See you afterwards?’
Felix suddenly takes a hold of her arm. ‘Actually, darling, that’s just it . . . I am going to have to dash off.’
‘Oh,’ she says, disappointed. She had been looking forward to showing off her intellectual film-maker boyfriend to the rest of the dance company. ‘Will I see you later tonight?’
‘Maria, my love,’ he says, spinning her around so that she is trapped by the beseeching look in his eyes. ‘Before we came out tonight, I got a telegram. I have to go to France . . . tonight. It’s rather urgent . . .’
She looks at him in shock. What can he be saying to her? Their relationship has only just begun; how can he be leaving now?
He kisses her quickly on the lips. ‘You have to go back in, darling,’ he says, pushing her towards the stage door.
‘But for how long?’ she manages to get out.
‘Not long . . .’ He pauses. ‘I promise I will be back in a couple of weeks. You can wait for me, can you not?’
As she dances, she cannot get Felix’s announcement out of her mind: he is going away, tonight – just when she had fallen so completely in love with him. How can she bear to be apart from him, even if it’s for two weeks? And at the back of her mind is another voice, the doubt that still resides in her heart: will he ever come back? Has he tricked her into giving him her virginity, and now wants no more to do with her? Surely not? She saw how he looked at her just now, told her she was superb. After all, he is filming her. All these things tell her that he is not lying to her when he says he will come back. She just has to be patient and she has to trust him. Yet anxiety bites through her composure as she tries her best to focus. She senses Christopher’s consternation; she hears his whispered instructions. Psyche and the Youth are engaged in their final dance, where her power as Psyche outweighs Pandora, and they banish her from the world.
I will not let Felix discard me, Maria vows, as she spins around Christopher, her mind in a tumult. It is in this moment of distraction that she makes a mistake. It is a tiny one, yet it unbalances them both. She is too far away for him to lift her up, and she takes a clumsy step forward. Now she is too close. Christopher lifts her anyway, but he is forced to grab her from above her waist. She is bottom heavy, and she can feel him straining to maintain their balance. She looks out desperately into the audience, imagining Felix out there, the camera rolling, and knowing she is about to fall, knowing that her humiliation will be irredeemable.
She wakes Antonella as soon as it is light.
Her friend is confused at first, her head still groggy with alcohol. ‘Where are we?’ she asks.
‘Shush . . .’ Valentina puts her finger to her lips. ‘I’ll tell you on the way back. I’ve called a taxi.’
‘But where is Aunty Isabella?’
‘I don’t know,’ Valentina says, truthfully. ‘Back at her house?’
She doesn’t go into the bedroom to say goodbye to Francesco. All she wants to do is get out of his flat. As soon as she woke, she had wanted to leave. Francesco was still fast asleep, his breath deep and melodic, his back to her in the bed. She looked at his figure, innocent in slumber, and honestly wondered how she could have been in love with him before. Despite their lovemaking last night, in the cold light of a sober morning, she feels nothing for him. All that has happened is that she feels even more distraught about Theo. She wants him back even more now. She knows she is a hypocrite. She has just fallen back into the arms of an old lover, and not with much persuasion. There had been a little part of her that needed to do this, she knows. It was unfinished business; now it is over. She feels it deep down inside herself. She has no idea how Francesco feels, but she has no intention of seeing him again.
They ride in the taxi through the deserted streets of London, enveloped within a thick mist. This muffled white world makes her feel outside of her body, as if she is in one of her psychedelic dreams.
Antonella cuddles next to her on the back seat. ‘Mio dio, what happened last night? I can’t remember anything,’ she says, yawning.
‘That’s what tequila does to you,’ Valentina says, dryly.
‘What happened to Aunty Isabella? And, more to the point, what about Francesco? Did you sleep with him?’ She gives Valentina an inquiring look.
Valentina nods and Antonella looks puzzled.
‘So what are you doing racing home in a taxi with me, rather than staying in bed for a day of sex with Francesco?’
Valentina looks out the car window at the impenetrable mist, a completely white world with no beginning or end to it. She feels as if they are driving towards oblivion.
‘Maybe he is the one, Valentina? He was, after all, your first love,’ Antonella says.
But Valentina shakes her head. ‘No. It’s too late to go back. He broke my heart once. I won’t give it to him again.’ She dare not tell Antonella her feelings about Theo.
Her friend pats her hand. ‘OK,’ she says, knowing when not to push her. ‘So, what happened to my aunty?’
Valentina doesn’t speak for a moment. She knows how scandalised Antonella will be to hear all about Isabella’s antics with Peter and Rupert, but something stops her from telling her. That is between Isabella and Antonella, especially since Antonella seemed to have her eye on Peter, before she passed out.
‘I don’t know,’ she tells Antonella. ‘Isabella must have gone home earlier.’
The thick London fog chills her right down to the bones, making her shiver as they walk away from the taxi. Valentina glances at her watch. It is six thirty, and few are venturing on to the streets of South Kensington quite yet. Antonella is ahead of her, opening the ironwork gate and trailing up the path to the front door of her aunt’s grand house. Valentina feels her back prickling. Instinctively, she knows someone is watching them. She turns, hoping to see Theo behind her, but knows deep down that it isn’t him. She only has one stalker. Sure enough, there, on the other side of the street, is Glen, standing out in all the white in his long black coat and dark glasses. She is too tired to bother with him now, and she doesn’t want to worry Antonella, so she just ignores him and walks with determination up to the front door, slamming it hard behind her.
Isabella is already up, looking immaculate in a tailored skirt-suit, her long hair pulled into a tight, shiny bun, her face fresh, not a dark shadow in sight. She is sitting at the breakfast bar, sipping a small cup of black coffee and going through her iPhone.
‘Good morning, ladies,’ she says, smiling sweetly. ‘I wasn�
�t expecting you home so early.’
‘Where did you go, Aunty?’ Antonella flops on to the couch. ‘You just disappeared.’
‘It was you who disappeared, darling. I believe you went to bed . . . on your own!’
Antonella begins to bite her nails, looking out of the window. ‘It is a funny thing,’ she says. ‘I thought something was going to happen with that guy, Peter, when we were dancing, but then I started to think about Mikhail.’
‘Your Russian lover?’ Isabella asks.
‘Yes. I think I miss him.’
Isabella smiles knowingly. ‘Darling, I think you more than miss him. What is your theory, Valentina?’
Valentina takes a mug out of the cupboard and pours herself a coffee. She wants to take a shower; underneath her dress, her skin is sticky with caked-on ice cream. She wonders if either of the women can smell the vanilla on her.
‘I think Antonella is a romantic, although she tries her best to suppress it,’ Valentina says.
‘What do you mean?’ Antonella asks, sitting up, defensively crossing her arms over her chest.
‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of, darling,’ Isabella says. ‘It is very sweet, really.’
‘I think that, underneath your very adventurous exterior, deep down, you believe in the fairy tale . . .’ Valentina says, sitting down next to her friend on the couch and offering her a sip of her coffee.
‘What fairy tale?’ Antonella says, taking the mug.
‘That one day your prince will come,’ Isabella says.
‘Oh, that’s not true . . . I think that is crap.’
‘Do you really? You know most women, secretly, deep down, dream about it . . .’ Isabella taps her fingers on the counter top. ‘It is nothing to be ashamed of. It shows great optimism. I’m afraid, my dear, I am a realist, as I suspect is Valentina.’
Isabella raises her eyebrows in a question and Valentina looks into her eyes. She wonders if Isabella knows that she saw her with those two young men. This woman obviously lives a secret double life.