The humiliation she had inflicted on me still burned strong, but I also felt a kind of pride at not having given up. I felt like my determination would serve me well in the future.
‘If it seemed hard tonight, you should know that was nothing compared to the preparations you’ll do for the premiere of a show. There, rehearsals will go on into the night until everything is perfect, whether you’ve got your period, ingrown toenails, muscle cramps or whatever. No one complains, because there are a row of substitutes outside that are just waiting to take your place.’
I nodded humbly, wiping my forehead.
‘You’ve done very well tonight, but you have to learn to listen carefully to corrections and not just do what was in your head, otherwise no one will want to work with you. You can be as difficult as you like once you’re a lead dancer, then no-one will dare contradict you, but until then, my girl, keep quiet and listen.’
‘Yes Claire.’
‘Yes, Ms Claire,’ she replied.
Once at home, with my feet immersed in a bowl of steaming hot water and a yogurt in my hand, I decided I had earned a phone call with Patrick.
‘Hello Pat?’
‘Hey Mia, nice to hear from you! How are you?’
And just like that, all the pain in my feet vanished. It was as though just the sound of his voice could make everything okay again.
‘Great!’ I lied shamelessly.
I realised that I had no reason to call him, apart from my massive crush, and I needed to come up with an excuse sharpish.
‘I just wanted to update you on the latest developments …’
‘Yes, I was going to call you actually. I was worried about you after the other night.’
You were worried about me?? You were going to call me??
‘Well.at the moment I’ve got everyone trying to convince Mum to let me join the Royal Ballet, including the milkman! But she won’t crack!’
I heard him smile.
‘It could work. Wearing your opponent down is a good military strategy. I hope she gives in before you start the psychological torture, though!’
‘You don’t know her.’
‘Yes, I do, Elena is one of the sweetest and most understanding women I know! When I was little, she always stuck up for me if I broke a window or a plant pot with my football!’
‘She’s an angel to everyone except me, apparently!’
‘I’ll talk to her when I come back if you like. My friends seem to think I’m quite persuasive. I’m always getting sent to plead for people who’ve got into trouble with the officers.’
‘And do they listen?’
‘Mmm. not always. It depends what they’ve done! But if I’ll do it for my friend’s drunken friend, God knows I’ll do it for you!’
While he was talking, I was faithfully recording everything in my notebook and, lost in thought, I blurted out, ‘I can’t wait for you to come back!’
There was a moment’s silence. I had embarrassed him.
‘I mean, so you can talk to Mum.’ I tried to recover.
‘I can’t wait to come back, either,’ he said.
12
‘Don’t worry, Mum, I’ll call you as soon as we get there,’ I shouted from the rear window, waving at her.
In fact, I would have preferred to stay at home and do my chores. I was in a black mood, just for a change. I didn’t want to go to Bath and I was increasingly convinced that accepting the invitation had been a terrible idea, but Nina seemed so happy and I was feeling really guilty for not having told her anything about the phone calls with Patrick. Friendship, like love, evidently required its share of compromises.
Carl drove in silence, as if he was just waiting for me move so he could say something unpleasant. Nina, on the other hand, never stopped talking and laughing. She was the personification of joy, an unbearable explosion of enthusiasm and positivity. If she hadn’t been my best friend I would have thrown her out of the window.
I wished I could experience for myself that happy feeling of reciprocated love, but as usual, I found myself witnessing something that it seemed would never happen to me, and all those high spirits got on my nerves.
Alex tried to cheer me up by offering me a biscuit, but it did no good. We were going to be stuck in the car for at least three hours, and all I wanted to do was put my earbuds in and go to sleep.
‘So Mia,’ said Carl, ‘Did you decide what you want to be when you grow up?’
‘Are you offering careers advice?’
‘Well, if you don’t become a star you could always find work as a dancer at surprise birthday parties. Jumping out of the cake and singing happy birthday, that sort of thing.’
‘Great idea, I’ll keep it in mind,’ I replied, fighting the urge to strangle him.
‘Or you could be one of those buskers who dress up as statues in Covent Garden. You’d be close to the Royal Opera House then. Or a snake charmer, you’d be great at that…,’ he went on, to an atmosphere of general embarrassment. ‘Or.’
‘Or you could shut up and leave her alone!’ Alex intervened.
‘It was only a joke!’ he said, unrepentant and seemingly intent on continuing to bother me for the next hundred miles.
‘Shut up, Carl, I’m not in the mood. If I ever need a snake to charm I’ll know where to find you!’
I didn’t want to ruin things for Nina, but I wasn’t going to let him spend the weekend trying to wind me up, either. She turned on the radio to try and diffuse the tension and turned to look at me with an embarrassed and pleading smile, and I rolled my eyes and smiled back as a sign of truce.
I turned to look out of the window, determined to ignore Carl for the rest of the journey.
‘I can’t wait to come back, either,’ Patrick had said.
That sentence had haunted me ever since I’d heard it, and every time I recalled it, my heart leapt in my chest and I began to feel a strange sense of euphoria. I would use that feeling as a shield to protect myself from Carl’s stupid jokes, and survive that dreaded weekend after all.
Nina kept her hand on his leg throughout the journey and every so often she rested her head on his shoulder. I knew Alex would have liked me to do the same, but he was aware of the risks he was taking, so he stuck to explaining equations to me on his laptop.
We arrived in Bath in the late afternoon and Nina insisted on visiting the Christmas market in the city centre. It was freezing cold and I wasn’t in the mood, but then when was I ever? I supposed it could be a good opportunity to buy Christmas presents for Mum and Paul and, perhaps, for Patrick. Despite my initial reluctance, I found the festive spirit contagious, and was soon laden with bags full of hand-made gloves and hats, caramelized apples and snow globes with little models of the abbey inside.
Carl and Alex bought reindeer horns with bells on and made us take goofy pictures of them that they immediately put on Facebook. To mark the occasion and avoid freezing to death we were offered two huge glasses of mulled wine.
‘No Alex, I’m not drinking!’
‘Aw, come on, you’re on holiday, enjoy yourself!’ Nina encouraged me.
I took a sip of wine and then returned the glass to Alex.
‘You enjoy yourselves. I’ll be your guardian angel. Your designated driver!’
Nina and Carl walked arm in arm, stopping at every stall to exclaim over the decorations and gingerbread houses, while Alex and I followed a little way behind, eating fat German sausages. I had never liked Christmas because it reminded me too much of the family I no longer had, but there, in the shelter of the cathedral, with the music, twinkling lights and street entertainers, I couldn’t help but be swept along by the spirit of the celebrations.
We sang Christmas carols all around the town centre, the four of us walking arm in arm, our noses red with cold and in some cases, wine, and Carl even stopped tormenting me for a while, except to tell me that I should learn how to juggle fire so I could come back and perform there next year. I let it go and continued to enjoy
the evening.
Then Nina took my arm and asked in my ear, ‘Are you happy Mia?’
‘What? I suppose so, why?’ I said, a bit taken aback.
‘Because I don’t like being happy if you’re not happy!’
She was a little drunk, which made her even more affectionate than usual.
‘I am happy if you are,’ I replied.
‘But you are happy only when you dance, I want you to be happy with someone else! I want you to be in love with someone.’
Oh Nina, I wish I could tell you the truth.
‘Well, when I am I’ll let you know.’
‘Don’t you like Alex at all?’
‘Not like that, no. He is very nice though!’
‘And Carl?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘You don’t need to worry about that,’ I assured her, ‘Just make sure you don’t leave us alone together, because one of us won’t make it out alive!’
‘I really like him, Mia.’
‘I know. He likes you too!’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘Nina, everybody likes you, why would you ask something like that?’
‘I don’t know who to trust any more after Thomas. I don’t want to make the same mistake again. I always used to think people were basically honest, it never occurred to me that someone would say they loved you just to get you into bed,’ she said sadly.
‘I don’t think Carl is like that. He’s not my favourite person at the moment, but I think he’ll treat you with respect, and if he doesn’t, he’ll regret it!’ I said grimly.
‘You’re the best sister in the world!’ she said, hugging me.
Sister. I wished one day that would be true…
We drove slowly back to the house, which was a few miles outside the city. Nina had drunk too much mulled wine and had stuck her head out of the window to calm her nausea. When we got in, I led her to the bathroom and held back her hair while she threw her guts up into the ancient avocado toilet.
Meanwhile the boys were trying to light the fireplace. The house was cold and damp and Nina’s romantic idea of spending the night with Carl to exorcise the memory of her disastrous first time was in ruins. I boiled the kettle and made a cup of tea from an old tea bag that I found in an ancient tin box and let Carl take it up to her.
Alex and I sat in the living room on the old mustard-coloured velour sofas. Nina’s mum had inherited the house from a great aunt long before we were born, and she kept talking about doing it up and using it as a holiday rental, but somehow they never got round to it. So the house had remained stuck in the 70s: all embroidered cushions, ancient dolls and a cuckoo clock that had stopped at six o’clock on an unknown day in an unknown year. If that market had had a vintage section, we could have made a fortune.
‘What an evening, eh?’ said Alex, lighting a cigarette.
‘This is only the beginning. Wait until the ghosts come out to play later.’
‘I hate summer places in winter! They make me sad, like time has stopped.’
‘Why did you want to come? I said no from the start, I knew it would be like this.’
‘Do you want the truth?’
‘Sure.’
‘I’m only telling you because I’m drunk .’ he smiled. ‘I came because you were.’
‘Alex, I told you about this.’
‘I know, but I like hanging out with you, even as a friend.’
It really was true: the best way to attract boys was to ignore them. Not that ignoring Patrick all my life had helped much.
Carl came back downstairs.
‘Nina wanted you,’ he said, ‘We can go and get some food while you’re up there.’
He took the car keys and went out followed by Alex, while I went upstairs to check on Nina.
She was submerged under a mountain of blankets in her huge old bed. It can’t have been more than three degrees in that room.
‘How are you feeling?’ I asked, sitting beside her.
‘A bit better.’
She was white as a sheet and there was an acidic smell in the air.
‘Nina . I’d make sure you brush your teeth before you kiss Carl, okay?’
‘Do I stink?’ she asked, waving her hand in front of her mouth.
‘Like a dead rat.’
‘God, what a state…’ She smiled weakly
‘Never drink on an empty stomach.’
‘I got plastered and I wanted to spend a romantic night with Carl! I brought a sexy outfit and everything…’ she said, belching softly.
I took off my shoes and slipped under the covers. The cold of the damp sheets gave me chills and I huddled close to her.
‘Do you remember when we hid in there and everyone was looking for us?’ she asked, pointing to an old, heavy wooden chest in the corner of the room.
‘Yes! And we’d fallen asleep. Your parents were frantic!’
‘And that time we watched A Nightmare on Elm Street in secret?’
‘Oh my god, don’t remind me! And then Patrick came and scratched on the door with his nails! I nearly fainted!’
‘No television for a week!’
‘It wasn’t even that long ago, but it seems like forever,’ I sighed.
‘What do you think we’ll be like when we grow up?’
‘I wish we didn’t have to. All this responsibility and decision-making is a pain in the arse,’ I said.
‘But I can’t wait to have a family like mine. I want loads of kids!’
This was the biggest problem for people who had grown up in happy households with parents who loved each other: they seemed to believe that they would inherit the ability to find a soul mate like the colour of their eyes.
‘I just want to dance, I can’t really see myself being a mother.’
It was half true. I planned to dance until I was thirty-five and there would be plenty of time to have children after that. As long as the father was her brother.
‘But what if I can’t?’ she said.
‘Can’t what?’
‘What if I don’t meet the right man?’
‘Who says you won’t meet him?’
‘A lot of people don’t. What about Aunt Nora? She’ll be forty soon and she’s still single.’
‘Your aunt Nora has lots of friends and goes out every night and enjoys herself.’
‘But when she goes home afterwards she’s all alone.’
‘That doesn’t mean she’s unhappy. She has a lot of interests, a job she loves, she travels, does yoga and when she feels the need for a family she can come to you.’
‘But can you really be happy without a family who are always there for you no matter what, to love and protect you?
I understood perfectly what she was looking for, which was precisely why I worried about her sometimes. For my part, I had never really known that sort of security, and I’d already had to learn to get by on my own, so I was prepared for the worst. Which of us was right? Nina, with her romantic ideal of a happy family or me, with my eternal pessimism?
‘You’ll find the right man, you’ll see. Just stop looking for him!’
‘You think?’
‘Nina, you’re basically perfect. If you can’t find Mr Right, what hope is there for us mere mortals?’
‘I’m not perfect, I’m barely passable.’
‘Hey, what’s this? You’re supposed to be the cheerful one!’
The alcohol had made her mopey and I didn’t like it. Perhaps, behind her smile and her bubbly personality, there was lurking self-doubt that I hadn’t picked up on before.
We heard the boys come back laughing and joking. Maybe the rest of the weekend would go better.
I went down and left Nina to nurse her hangover.
‘Prawn noodles and spring rolls,’ Alex announced triumphantly.
‘You got takeaway?’ I asked.
‘Why, were you going to cook?’ asked Carl sarcastically.
‘Nope, I don’t cook.’
‘Oh yeah... banana
s and yogurt...’ he muttered as he emptied the shopping bags.
Idiot. I’d had just about enough of his bullshit.
Carl went back up to Nina’s room and I set the table, then went out to sit on the patio. The cold air cleared my thoughts. If drinking meant getting all mopey and depressed I didn’t think I’d bother, unless I got some terrible injury and ended up living alone, with my memories and regrets. I thought of what had happened to Claire. To what extent were we really masters of our destiny? What was the sense in fighting so hard for something that could crumble away to nothing at a breath?
Carl came out to tell me that dinner was ready. To my surprise, he hesitated for a moment, then sat down next to me.
‘Do you want to strangle me? Go ahead, there are no witnesses.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘I…wanted to apologise for acting like a dick.’
‘Alex sent you, didn’t he?’ I asked him point-blank.
‘Sort of. He’s right though, so...’
‘Thank you for your honesty.’
There was a long pause.
We were both sitting with our hands in our pockets and the hoods of our sweatshirts pulled up. It was freezing.
‘I was pissed off…’
‘I could tell!’
‘I thought we got on. I thought you liked me a bit.’
‘Carl we did get on, but…’
‘You don’t like me.’
‘Actually, I like you very much, just not in the way you wanted.’
‘Thank you for your honesty.’
‘Would you have preferred it if I led you on? What presents would you have bought me after you took me to the ballet? I’m not like that, Carl. I know I’m a miserable git sometimes, but I like to be straight with people.’
‘I know, and that’s one of the things I like best about you, but it hurts.’
‘I was sorry to lose you too, you were my only male friend! ‘
He smiled. ‘You’ve got Alex as well, now.’
‘Two friends! They’ll kick me off Facebook for lack of commitment!’
‘Can you tell me the truth about something else?’ he asked, suddenly becoming serious.
If I Can't Have You Page 18