The Girl on the Cliff

by Lucinda Riley

  While Jeremy painted, Mary cared for her growing baby, taking both Anna and Sophia to the park on sunny afternoons, or sometimes up to Piccadilly so that Anna could browse through racks of the clothes she loved. It still amazed Mary that whatever Anna picked out she could purchase for her daughter, with no thought for the amount of money it would cost. She was a woman of substance, married to a wealthy gentleman.

  Meanwhile, as the years passed in the tranquil cocoon of their comfortable home, Sophia learned to crawl, toddle, walk and then run through the house. And Anna’s passion to achieve her ambition of becoming a ballerina grew apace. One evening, when Sophia had just turned four, Anna, starting to show signs of womanhood at fifteen, came into the kitchen where Mary was preparing supper.

  “Mother, have you heard that Ninette de Valois has opened her new ballet school?” she asked.

  “No, I hadn’t, Anna.”

  “Can I go, Mother? Audition for her and see if she will teach me? Then perhaps one day I might be accepted into her company and dance at Sadler’s Wells. Can you imagine th-that?” Anna sank gracefully into a chair, sighing in sheer pleasure at the thought.

  “But I thought you wanted to dance for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes?”

  “I did, b-but how much better to be part of the first British ballet company.” Anna stretched out a leg, flipped off her shoe and pointed a highly arched foot. “Can I go, Mother, p-please?”

  “Perhaps you should talk to your father and see what he thinks,” suggested Mary.

  “It would mean I’d be d-dancing all day, with no time for English and arithmetic, but how much more can I learn? I can read and write and add up, which is as about as much as any d-dancer needs to do, surely? And I c-can tell you the dates of the Battle of Hastings, Trafalgar and—”

  “Anna,” repeated Mary, “go and speak to your daddy.”

  • • •

  As Mary had suspected, Jeremy was putty in Anna’s convincing hands. It was agreed that she should go to audition for Ninette de Valois, to see if she could win a place at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School.

  “It is doubtful that our darling Anna will settle to anything else, until she has at least t-tried this,” said Jeremy, secretly proud.

  Three days later, Mary accompanied Anna on the bus over to Islington where the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet School ran its classes. Mary had never been backstage at a theater, and as she was led through the warren of passageways to a small room containing a barre and a piano, she felt both unnerved and excited to be entering a different world. Anna was asked a few questions about her previous training, and then Miss Moreton, the teacher, put her through her paces, first at the barre and then in the center of the room. Mary could not help but marvel at the way Anna had improved over the last few years. She’d always had a natural grace and turnout, but her burgeoning maturity had added a new poise to her movements.

  After the last enchaînement, Miss Moreton paused as she studied Anna. “You dance like a Russian, and you have the look too. Are you Russian?”

  Anna stole an anxious glance over to Mary, who gave a small shrug and shake of her head.

  “No. I’m English.”

  “But she was taught by the Princess Astafieva and Nicholas Legat for a while now,” put in Mary nervously, wondering whether this was a plus or a minus.

  “Well, it shows in your movements. As I’m sure you know, Anna, we here at Sadler’s Wells are of course Russian-influenced, but as the first British ballet company, Miss de Valois is trying to develop our own style. You’re raw, but talented. Can you start on Monday?”

  Anna’s dark eyes, filled with anxiety, lit up with joy. “You mean I’m in?”

  “Yes. Now, I’ll hand your mother a list of practice clothes you’ll need, and you must buy your ballet shoes from Frederick Freed. We’ll see you bright and early on Monday morning.”

  At home that night, there was much cause for celebration. Anna was beside herself with excitement, and the entire family was swept up in it.

  “Now you really w-will see me dancing Odette/Odile onstage, Sophia.” Anna cooed in delight as she danced her little sister around the kitchen.

  “There’ll be no stopping her now, darling,” Jeremy commented as he lay in bed next to Mary that night. “Let’s just hope she can achieve her d-dream.”

  • • •

  Over the next five years, it seemed Anna’s determination, dedication and natural ability were starting to pay off. She made her debut as the young Master of Treginnis on the stage of the newly opened Sadler’s Wells Theatre in Rosebury Avenue. Dressed in a little Lord Fauntleroy suit and wearing a close-cropped wig, Anna’s character both opened the ballet and was left alone onstage at the end. Mary, Jeremy and nine-year-old Sophia clapped and cheered as the company took their curtain call. The part was far removed from Anna’s dreams of a frothy white tutu, but it meant that Ninette de Valois, the queen of the company, was noticing Anna. Other small parts began to follow, such as one of the four Cygnets in Act II of Swan Lake and the Creole girl in Rio Grande.

  In January 1939, just short of her twenty-first birthday, Anna made her debut as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake. The Sadler’s Wells Theatre was packed—this was the first time that homegrown talent from England, rather than imported or exiled Russian dancers, would lead the cast of the British company. Word about Anna and her talent had started to spread through the balletomane world. Mary, in a new evening dress, with her hair professionally styled for the occasion, sat with Jeremy and Sophia in a box. The strains of Tchaikovsky’s poignant overture hushed the audience to silence. Mary held her breath, sending up a prayer that this moment, so long dreamed of by Anna, would be perfect for her.

  Mary had no cause to doubt. As the bouquets rained onto the stage to crown the rising young star, she held Jeremy’s hand tightly and tears rolled down her face. The dressing room afterward was packed with well-wishers, and Mary could hardly get through to congratulate her daughter. Anna, still in her tutu, her eyes huge with heavy stage makeup, made her way through to her family and threw her arms around her mother.

  “Ah, pet, I’m so proud of you. You said you’d do it and look at you! You have!”

  “It’s all due to you, Mother.” Tears glittered in Anna’s eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered, “thank you for everything.”

  • • •

  Mary looked back on the moment when Anna had achieved her goal with mixed emotions. In retrospect, she realized it was when she had begun to lose her daughter. The world Anna inhabited, full of colorful, artistic characters, with their exotic clothes, strange habits and sexual proclivities, was far removed from Mary’s experience. As Anna was proclaimed the young queen of British ballet, and others gathered around her to bask in her reflected glory, she began to move away from the cocoon of her Kensington home.

  Mary had always waited up for Anna to arrive home after a performance, wanting to hear how it had gone and provide cocoa and biscuits for her exhausted daughter. Now, often, she wouldn’t hear Anna’s footsteps on the stairs until three in the morning. Anna would talk the next day of a posttheater dinner with her friends at the Savoy Grill, or dancing at a fashionable nightclub with no less than junior members of the royal family.

  Mary no longer had control over her daughter’s life. And, as Anna was now earning a good wage of her own, she could not complain about some of the daring dresses she wore—often without a corset—or the amount of red paint she applied to her lips. She was aware from the number of bouquets that were delivered to their home that Anna had a stream of male admirers. Whether there was one in particular, Mary didn’t know. Any inquiries made in this direction were always stonewalled.

  When Mary complained to Jeremy that Anna’s social life was a worryingly unknown quantity, especially the male element of it, Jeremy would comfort her gently. “My dear, Anna is a young and very b-beautiful woman. She is also a star. She will behave as she wishes.”

  “That’s as may be,” Mary commented irritabl
y one evening, “but I’m not happy about the smell of cigarette smoke that drifts into our bedroom in the small hours. And I know she’s drinking.”

  “Smoking and the occasional gin are hardly crimes, Mary. Especially for a young woman who is under so much pressure to give of her best every night.”

  Mary turned and eyed him, frustrated that Jeremy always seemed to be on Anna’s side. “I worry for her, that’s all. The crowd she runs with . . .”

  “I know, darling, but she’s a b-big girl now. And you have to let her go.”

  The tension between Mary and Anna came to a head a few weeks later, when Anna decided to invite, unannounced, a posse of her friends back home after the performance. The sound of Cole Porter on the gramophone and the shrieks of laughter from Anna’s guests in the drawing room kept both Mary and Jeremy awake until the early hours. The following day, determined to speak to Anna and lay down some ground rules, Mary knocked on Anna’s door and entered the bedroom. Anna was fast asleep. So was the young man lying in bed beside her. Breathless and choking with horror, Mary slammed the door behind her and left the room.

  Ten minutes later, Anna appeared downstairs in the kitchen in her robe. She smiled sheepishly at her mother, who was crashing breakfast plates into the sink. “I’m sorry if I kept you awake last night. I should have asked. It was late and I th-thought—”

  “Never mind about that! What was . . . who was . . .” Mary could not bring herself to voice the words.

  “You mean Michael?” Anna pulled her cigarettes from the pocket of her robe, lit one and perched gracefully on the edge of the table. “He’s my d-dancing partner, Mother. And we are . . . lovers.” She took a drag of her cigarette. “You don’t mind, d-do you? After all, I am over twenty-one now.”

  “Mind? Of course I mind! You might live in a world where that kind of behavior is acceptable, but you have a sister of ten years old. And while you’re under my roof, you will behave with some common courtesy. What were you thinking of, Anna? Sophia could have walked into your bedroom at any time and seen—him!”

  “I’m sorry, Mother.” Anna shrugged. “I mean, the world has changed, and these d-days, no one minds about se—”

  “Don’t even say the word!” Mary shuddered. “How could you even think of being so brazen? You should be ashamed of yourself! And I’m ashamed that I failed you, that I brought you up to believe that kind of behavior wasn’t a sin!”

  “Mother, you’re sounding awfully p-parochial, and rather Catholic and—”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me like that, my girl! I don’t care how big a star you are on the stage, when you’re under my roof you abide by our rules! And I will not have”—Mary pointed upward to the ceiling—“that kind of shenanigans beneath it!”

  Anna sat calmly, smoking her cigarette. Mary watched as the ash fell to the floor and Anna made no move to prevent it. Eventually, Anna nodded. “All right, Mother, I understand. And if you d-don’t approve of my life, well, I’m a big girl now, with my own income. Maybe it’s time I found my own roof.”

  Without another word, Anna removed herself from the kitchen, slamming the door behind her.

  A day later, she packed her suitcases and moved out.

  Jeremy tried to comfort his wife, assuring her that Anna’s behavior was normal for a young girl in the modern age. A girl who was not only finding her feet as an adult, but was increasingly fêted by an adoring public. Despite the sense in what Jeremy said, Mary struggled to come to terms with Anna’s abrupt departure.

  In the following weeks, Anna made no attempt to contact her mother. Anything Mary heard of her was gleaned through the many newspaper articles and gossip columns, of which Anna seemed to be a regular feature. She was pictured with stars of stage and screen at glittering gatherings, and on the arm of various aristocratic men. The shy little girl who Mary had sacrificed so much to rescue had turned into a creature she did not know or understand. And yet . . . Mary acknowledged there had always been a rod of steel running through her daughter. Whatever Anna had wanted, she’d usually achieved. The fact she was now at the top of her chosen profession was testament to that. And the ease with which Anna had cut her mother, her father and her sister so completely from her life, illustrated a hitherto unseen callousness.

  However, as the storm clouds of war gathered over Europe again, Mary had problems enough under her own roof. Jeremy, who had come so far from when she had first met him, began to have nightmares again. The tremor in his hands and the stutter became more pronounced. Every morning he would read The Times and his face would grow gray. His appetite diminished and Mary watched as he withdrew into himself. No matter how many times she told him that if there was war, no army would want him, Jeremy’s fear of returning to his nemesis grew apace.

  “Y-You d-don’t understand, Mary. They may not want me initially, but as they grow desperate for ca-cannon fodder they’ll take anyone to throw at the Krauts. Believe me, I’ve seen it, men older than me thrown over the top to keep the n-numbers up.”

  “Jeremy, pet, it’s in your medical records that you suffered from shell shock. Of course they won’t want you back.”

  “I was sent b-back to the t-trenches four times, Mary. In a far worse state than I am t-today.” He shook his head despairingly. “You can’t understand war, Mary. Please don’t t-try.”

  “But everyone says it’ll be different this time. There won’t be trenches, pet,” she entreated time and again. “This war, if it comes, will be fought with the new modern equipment that’s been developed. No one in their right minds will be after losing a whole generation of men like last time. Please, Jeremy, things have changed.”

  Jeremy would stand up, anger, frustration and fear plain on his face, and leave the room.

  As the news became worse and the inevitability of another war became more certain by the day, Mary keened inside for her husband. Jeremy no longer joined his wife and daughter in the kitchen for supper, preferring to eat alone in his study.

  “What’s wrong with Papa?” Sophia would ask as Mary tucked her up for the night.

  “Nothing, pet, he’s just not feeling himself at the moment,” Mary would comfort.

  “Will there be war? Is that why Papa is so worried?” she’d question, her huge green eyes, so like her daddy’s, staring up at Mary from the pillow.

  “Perhaps. But if there is, there is. Don’t you be worrying, pet. Your daddy and I lived through the last one to tell the tale, and we’ll do it again.”

  “But everything’s different now, Mother. Anna’s gone, and Papa feels . . .” Sophia sighed. “As if he’s gone too. Nothing is the same as it was. I’m scared, Mother, I don’t like it.”

  Mary would hold her daughter in her arms, stroking her hair, just as she had held Anna long ago, and murmur soothing words she no longer believed.

  The summer dragged on, and signs of preparation for impending war began to appear in the city. Mary felt as if the entire country was in a state of suspended animation, holding their breath for the inevitable. Jeremy was catatonic. He had even moved out of their bedroom and now slept in his dressing room, citing the fact that his nightmares were disturbing Mary’s sleep. Brow furrowed with anxiety, Mary begged him to contact his old regiment and allay his fears.

  “You were invalided out, pet. There’s no chance they’re going to want you. Please, Jeremy, write a letter and put your mind at rest. At least once you’ve heard for definite, it will make you feel better.”

  But Jeremy would sit there in his chair in the study, staring out into the distance and not hearing her.

  When war was announced at the beginning of September, Mary felt a sense of relief. Perhaps now, they’d all know where they were. Ten days later, Mary was lying in bed reading a book when there was a knock on the door.

  “M-May I c-come in?” Jeremy asked.

  “Of course you can. For pity’s sake, this is your bedroom.” Mary watched Jeremy as he shambled over toward her. He’d lost considerable weight and his face w
as as gaunt and drawn as when she’d first met him. He sat down on the bed next to her and took her hands in his.

  “Mary, I w-wanted to tell you that I l-love you. You and Anna and Sophia have made my l-life worth l-living.”

  “And you mine,” said Mary gently.

  “I’m s-sorry for being d-difficult in the past f-few weeks. I won’t be anymore, I p-promise.”

  “I understand, pet. I hope that now it has begun, you’ll start to feel better.”

  “Yes.” The word was no more than a whisper. Jeremy reached forward and took Mary into his arms. “I l-lo-love you, my darling. N-never f-forget that, will you?”

  “I won’t.”

  “Be as strong and b-brave and kind as you’ve always been.” He released her, kissed her on the lips and smiled at her. “W-would you mind if I s-slept in here w-with you tonight? I don’t w-want to be alone.”

  “My love,” replied Mary tenderly, “this is your bed and I am your wife.”

  So Jeremy climbed in next to her and Mary held her husband in her arms, stroking his hair, until she heard the telltale signs of his regular breathing. Unable to sleep herself, she watched over Jeremy. And, only in the early hours, when she was content he was sleeping deeply and peacefully, did she let herself sleep too.

  22

  The following morning, Mary left Jeremy in bed and went downstairs to make breakfast for Sophia. The two of them left the house at eight fifteen to make the ten-minute walk to Sophia’s school, just off the Brompton Road.

  “Have a good day, pet, and I’ll be here as usual to collect you afterward.”

  Mary watched as Sophia turned away from her and headed into school. The day was sunny and bright, and as Mary walked toward the row of shops where she routinely bought her meat and vegetables, she felt more cheerful than she had for a while. At least Jeremy had communicated with her last night and had seemed calmer. Even though this new war promised to be hell all over again, Mary knew that as long as she and Jeremy clung to each other, everything would be all right. She lingered for longer than normal, listening to the other women chattering to the butcher about the likelihood of rationing, and when the Germans would begin to bomb London in earnest. Whatever came, Mary thought as she made her way home, she and Jeremy could face it together.