Chapter Twenty-Three
Saturday night. He could’ve done anything, gone anywhere. He could’ve got drunk, got stoned, rang Miss fucking Haverton and got laid. Instead, Patrick had chosen to visit Ms Olivia Wilde and now he sat willing her to speak. What the hell was wrong with him being English? And so she used to be a ballerina, what was all the secrecy about?
Libby opened her mouth, no doubt to voice her usual none of your business response, but instead she ate a forkful of potatoes, never dropping her eye contact with him. What was going on behind those pretty grey eyes?
‘I grew up in Brize Norton.’ She took a sharp breath, as if the admission shocked her. ‘It’s honestly not that interesting.’
Oh, it is. ‘Go on.’
‘My mum was a senior officer in the RAF, my dad did god-knows what for the MOD. I learned not to bother asking.’
‘Brothers or sisters?’
‘Two brothers, Lucas and Connor, but they’re ten years younger than me, so I was an only child for ages. Originally, I wanted to fly planes, like Mum used to, so she taught me to toughen up. Judo, kick-boxing, generally how to take someone down–’
‘Like Jack?’
She laughed a little. ‘Like Jack. But she didn’t want me to grow up a tomboy, so she picked girly hobbies. Horse-riding, Brownies, piano lessons and ballet. I was eight when I saw my first professional ballet. The Nutcracker. I took one look at the Sugar Plum Fairy and decided to be a ballerina rather than a fighter pilot when I grew up. I worked hard, took it seriously and got into the Royal Ballet School.’
‘Is that where Zoë went too?’
‘We met on the first day and we’ve been best friends ever since. God, I missed her when she left London, but we stayed friends. She went to university and I turned professional. I joined the corps of the English National Ballet.’ She sipped her wine, smiling at the ceiling. ‘It was like some kind of fairy tale and I was starring in it. They paid me to dance and by the time I was twenty-one I was a senior soloist, well on my way to being a principle.’
‘What happened?’
She dug into her steak, her frown deepening, but she wasn’t crying and after several mouthfuls she carried on. ‘One day we were rehearsing, and my dance partner… he dropped me. I landed badly and fractured my ankle in three places.’
‘Ah, the ankle that hurt when I mowed you down. Surely they pinned it?’
‘Yes, but it was never the same. When you’re in a company, you work hard. Class, rehearsals, performances. It adds up to eight hours dancing a day.’
‘Jesus. So you quit?’
‘For about a year, I tried so hard to keep going, refusing to admit it was killing me, but the black cloud on the horizon kept getting bigger and bigger. In my last ballet, I was a cygnet in Swan Lake. My ankle was agony, plus I had a broken metatarsal and two stress fractures in my right shin.’
‘You danced with a broken foot?’
‘I had to. I wasn’t letting some corps wannabe steal my place.’
‘You’re certifiable.’
She laughed. Finally. ‘One night I’d taken so many painkillers, my head was fuzzy and I missed my cue. I mean, ninety-eight percent of the audience wouldn’t have known, but I buggered it up and I have the DVD to prove it. I’d rather not dance than be second best, so I quit. One day I was understudy for Odette, the next I wasn’t a dancer anymore.’
‘But why just abandon your whole life?’
‘Because I was Olivia Wilde, the ballerina. I doubt I would’ve been the next Darcey Bussell, but that kind of talk got bandied around me at school. But oh look, I’m not a principal ballerina. I failed.’ She forced a smile. ‘I don’t do failure very well.’
‘Ob… sess… sive.’
Her smile grew. ‘I don’t like making mistakes.’
‘You have very high expectations of yourself.’
‘Oh come on. Your mum’s a vet, your dad’s a vet and your big brother is a vet. You wanted to be one too. How would you have felt if you’d failed?’
An excellent point. Christ, this could be him if his dad sacked him. What would he do if he couldn’t be a vet? Somehow he doubted he’d be dealing with it even half as well as Libby. And she wasn’t dealing with it at all.
‘Why don’t you teach ballet?’
‘And why would I want to teach ballet? Every day I’d send a mini-me off to live my dream. Every day I’d be reminded I was a failure.’
Her bitterness surprised him.
‘You had an accident,’ he said quietly.
‘I should’ve found a way to carry on. Tamara Rojo broke her foot. She dances through it. I wasn’t tough enough.’
‘You need to give yourself a break.’
‘But it was my own stupid…’ She knocked back her last half a glass of wine in one.
‘How was it your fault?’ He leaned forwards, resting his elbows on the table.
She shook her head as she moved to sit cross-legged on her chair, picking at a French bean. ‘I haven’t had enough to drink for this conversation.’
He topped up her glass. ‘Don’t let me stop you, princess.’
Libby defiantly glugged her wine.
‘Feel better? Now, spill.’
‘The guy who dropped me was Tristan, my boyfriend. I should never have got involved with my own dance partner. It’s too distracting, especially when things go wrong. He thought he’d teach me a lesson. It went a little further than he intended.’
‘Nice guy. What was he pissed off about? Aside from being called Tristan.’
She didn’t smile, but turned her head, staring out of the window. ‘He expected me to love him more than ballet. To skip class for him. Basically, he was pissed off because he loved me, but I didn’t love him back.’
‘I’m seeing a theme here. Tristan, Paolo.’ Patrick sat back. ‘Little ice maiden, hey?’
‘Piss off. I’m not an ice-maiden. I just loved my job. The routine, the perfection, the pain. God, the adrenalin rush of being on stage, under the lights, hearing the music… I miss it, but I’d sacrificed too much to waste time missing class to go to Paris for the weekend.’
‘Sacrificed what?’
‘My family.’
‘Why aren’t you in Sydney?’
‘I don’t want to give you the satisfaction of getting full custody.’
She kicked his ankle and for a moment they grinned at each other. Jesus, they’d be flirting next.
‘My family emigrated when I was sixteen. I refused, point blank, to leave the Royal Ballet School so they went and I stayed.’
‘You could’ve gone after your accident. Think how big a distraction a whole new country would’ve been.’
‘Don’t take the piss.’ Sadness filled her face.
‘Sorry.’ He meant it.
‘I can’t face my mum. I rejected them for ballet and I can still see the disappointment in her face. I failed in my dream and I failed my family.’
He closed his eyes, knowing the same shame she was feeling. ‘Sorry for calling you an ice maiden.’
‘You’re forgiven.’
He was a coward. Here he was giving her a hard time for keeping things to herself, but he had no intention of telling anyone that he had a noose hanging over his head. Failed? Libby hadn’t failed. Patrick was the one who’d failed. He’d let everyone down. But no more.
His plate was empty, hers almost as she put her knife and fork together.
‘Man, that was fit as, by the way,’ he said. ‘The steak was perfectly cooked and the potatoes... actually, can I have the rest of yours?’
She laughed as he switched their plates and began hoovering up her leftovers. ‘Zoë taught me. She still says I’m rubbish, but I think my paella rocks.’
‘A bold statement you’ll have to prove.’
Her answering smile definitely crossed the flirting border.
‘I can’t help noticing that you’re not crying,’ he said, trying not to grin.
‘Yes, I’d noticed that t
oo. I suppose, things have changed.’
‘Why?’
‘Moving here. This life.’ She paused, toying with her glass. ‘Rob.’
He drained his wine. ‘You’re not still likely to go bunny boiler, are you?’
‘No. He just raised my expectations. He…’ She pressed her lips together, staring at her fingers as they tapped against her glass.
‘Do you think your dad being so secretive made it impossible for you to be open?’
‘I hate you,’ she said, blushing a little.
‘Rob raised your expectations and...’
‘I don’t want to have this conversation.’
‘For god’s sake.’ He pushed his empty plate away, laughing. ‘Let me guess, Mister Romantic has shown you that you can love something more than ballet.’
Her cheeks turned another three shades pinker.
‘What would’ve happened if Vanessa hadn’t come back? Would you’ve played happy families?’
‘Probably. I liked the life.’
‘Marriage, kids, dog, cat, tumbledown farmhouse?’
She nodded.
‘Why do all girls want the married thing?’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
He shrugged. ‘I ran two hundred miles from the last girl who suggested it.’
‘Commitment-phobe.’ She tucked her hair behind her ears and gathered up their plates, but he didn’t miss that her smile had fallen.
‘Hey, your dream is to have what Rob has. This is the guy you were shagging while his wife buggered off with a viola player. What’s so great about that set-up?’
‘Who was she, the girl you ran away from? The one who scarred you for life.’
‘Nina. We met at vet school.’ He cleared the table, putting the peppermill and placemats away as she quietly directed. ‘But she hasn’t scarred me. I still don’t get what’s so great about persevering with the same person forever.’
‘Commitment-phobe.’ She flashed him that angelic, shy smile. ‘How are they, Rob and Vanessa?’
‘Happy. Very happy. More so than I’ve known for a long time.’
‘I’m glad.’ She nodded, looking genuinely pleased.
Together they pottered around the kitchen. He washed the griddle pan as she stacked the dishwasher. He liked that she got on with it, not needing to fill the silence with inane chatter. Nina used to hate silence. He left the pan on the draining board and dried his hands, watching as Libby wiped down the worktops. She even managed that with effortless, graceful movements.
He’d come to assume she’d didn’t possess anything other than jodhpurs and mini-skirts, but jeans worked on her. Okay, they covered her perfect legs, but they were tight and low cut, showing off her trim waist as she reached up to put things in the cupboard. In fact, Libby looked hot in jeans. Shame about the bloody awful black stripes in her pink hair. Seriously, pink hair...
‘So,’ he asked, ‘is the rock chick look part of denying you were ever a ballerina?’
‘No. Seventeen year-old trailer trash has always been my off-duty style. I’ve always hated being nice.’ She stuck her tongue out at him, but then laughed, flicking her hair back.
He couldn’t imagine her not falling in love. It was so easy to picture her holding hands on walks through the woods, having easy conversations over dinner in the pub. Now, he just had to stop picturing himself doing it with her. She was Off Limits.
‘You don’t look much like a ballerina, aside from being so thin.’
‘Don’t say it like that. I’ve never been anorexic in my life, or come close.’
‘I can’t see you in a tutu, looking pretty.’
The dish cloth hit his shoulder. ‘I’ll show you, mister.’
She ran upstairs and he half-expected her to come back down in a tutu. Instead, she returned with a thick photo album and they headed outside with the wine. In the fading light of the late September evening, he sat on the rickety bench as she opened the album near the back, pointing to a photo of a Libby he’d never seen before – maybe he’d seen a hint of it when she was in her running gear. In a pink and purple dress, stood on the tip toe of one foot with the other leg lifted behind her. She looked... beautiful. Jesus Christ.
‘See? Me in a tutu, pretty.’
He poured the wine, trying not to show how floored he was.
‘Passable.’ Perfect. Fuck. Don’t get hung up on her. Not her. Robbie was too good a friend to break the Off Limits rule. And Michael Wray would be on them like a rash. ‘Christ, you were even thinner then. You’re just sticks with muscle. And you can see your chest bones. That can’t be right.’
‘I was a ballet dancer. It’s what we look like. Do you have to focus on the fact I have no tits?’
Without bothering to be subtle, he glanced down to compare now with then, making her laugh. He shrugged, trying not to smile. ‘Not so bad now.’
‘Try admiring my fabulous legs and perfect arm positions. This is when I was the Sugar Plum Fairy, my dream come true.’ She gulped her wine. ‘You’ve no idea how much I miss it, but hey, I couldn’t drink bottles of wine back then.’
‘It’s a whole different world.’ He shook his head and flicked back to the start of the album. ‘Can I?’
She nodded.
He absorbed himself in her life, smiling briefly at the snaps of little Libby in her first tutu, laughing at the stick insect teenager. In one photo, she stood with an equally stick insect girl with dark hair and bad skin.
‘Christ, is that Zoë? I never knew her when she was a teenager. She’s thinner than you.’
Libby took a long drag on her cigarette. ‘I know you think I’m too skinny, but that’s just the way I am. I eat well and exercise a lot. Zoë’s different. Thanks to Maggie’s hideous influence, Zoë’s had a hard-core battle with food since she was seven.’
‘Maggie, why?’
Libby explained how those long summers that little Zoë Horton had spent in Gosthwaite were really six weeks of bullying hell, and guilt swamped him. He’d have been twelve the day he, Zoë and a few others went blackberry picking. With purple fingers and faces, they’d eaten until their stomach’s hurt. When Zoë’s tutu got stuck in the brambles, he’d rescued her, but she’d started crying, upset over the shredded netting. A soft touch for tears, even then, he’d walked her home to explain to Maggie what had happened. But Maggie hadn’t cared about the tutu, only the evidence of the blackberries around Zoë’s mouth. Her first question wasn’t for her great-niece’s well-being. It was, what have you been eating? Poor Zoë.
He skipped forward and smiled at a portrait of Libby dressed in a black and purple tutu. Her poker straight hair was white blonde, her lips bare, her eyes coated with the usual black eye make-up. Stood on her toes, hands on hips with the nonchalant attitude he knew so well, she looked about twenty and just the kind of girl the twenty-five year-old him would’ve quite happily shagged.
His favourite photo was taken in rehearsal. She sat with a friend against a mirrored wall, wearing a leotard and legwarmers like she’d worn the night Jack hassled her. Her hair was pulled back, her face make-up free and her smile... That was her, the real Libby, the one he’d seen when she wasn’t hiding behind the black crap and fringe.
She leant in, looking at the photo and her subtle floral perfume filled his head.
‘You actually look very pretty when you’re not wearing the black crap,’ he said, unable to stop himself.
‘We had to attend grooming classes, to make sure our eyebrows were waxed, our complexions flawless. It took a lot of effort to look that perfectly natural, I can tell you. I rebelled against it.’
She flicked over the page, flinching at the photo of her lying in a hospital bed with her foot in plaster. The girl in the photo smiled, the one next to him looked to be on the verge of tears for the first time.
‘You okay?’ he asked, his voice quiet. Don’t cry, Libs.
‘I had no idea my life was ruined at that stage. I thought I’d be out of action for a few we
eks, then back at class.’
Patrick nudged her. ‘It’s not ruined. It just needs to be different.’
The last photos were of her in a white tutu. ‘Then it was over.’
‘Your life’s not ruined. You’ll see.’
She closed the album and picked up the empty bottle. ‘More wine?’
Without waiting for his answer, she ducked inside, taking the album with her. Christ, he had to be careful. A few glasses of wine would be okay, but they shouldn’t get pissed because if they did... He’d seen the signs: the smiles, the gazes. He’d probably given enough himself. She might be recovering from Robbie, but Libby so would. And he would too. Thankfully, when she returned, her smile in place once again, she lit the patio heater and they sat in separate chairs at the table. Safer.
‘God, everyone’s going to know, aren’t they? What if Lynda asks me and I cry in the middle of the post office?’
‘I’d be surprised if anyone else recognises you. I only did because you mentioned Paolo the other week and... you sit like that a lot.’
‘No, I...’ Libby lifted her head off her knees, glancing down at her arms hugging them. ‘Oh.’
‘You know, I think you’re going about this distraction thing all wrong. You can’t just pretend the last twenty years of your life didn’t happen. You’d been dancing when Jack came round, hadn’t you?’
She nodded.
‘You need to get it back in your life.’
She shook her head.
‘You believe in Fate. Don’t you think it might be for a reason that you’ve ended up in Maggie’s cottage?’ He waited, but she shook her head. In denial. ‘Clara’s mum used to be a ballerina too.’
‘I know.’
‘She has a dance studio in Haverton.’
‘I know.’
‘You could go there. To dance.’
‘No. What I need is a decent career.’
She forced a smile, her lip wobbling and he knew to shut up. He didn’t want to ruin a perfectly good evening by making her cry.
‘Okay, a new career,’ he said. ‘A is for… Artist? Architect? Air Hostess? Actor? Anaesthetist? Do you have any GCSEs?’
‘Bugger off, of course I do. I also have Dance, English and French A-Levels, all As, and a First Class degree in Performing Arts and Dance. Not sure if that’ll get me into medical school though so forget Anaesthetist. And we can skip B. I’m starting my barmaid life tomorrow and as we’ve already discussed, I don’t have the boobs to be a beauty queen.’
Nearly Almost Somebody Page 26