Hester's Story

by Adle Geras

  ‘This ballet stuff won’t butter any parsnips,’ she said as they came home. ‘Still, I daresay it won’t do any harm.’

  And so it began. On Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, Estelle inhabited another universe, where music played and her body stretched and lifted and bent and her head was filled with dreams of flying through the air to the sounds that filled every part of her head, even after she’d left the studio. Estelle was one of only five other girls in the class. Petrol rationing was the excuse for the shortage of pupils but Estelle didn’t mind. The others were older than she was, and she admired them all and worked hard to copy them in everything they did. All five of Madame Olga’s pupils were reflected in the big mirror, moving together, and Estelle would see their reflections and think how pretty they looked, their mirror images moving along with them to the lovely melodies of Chopin or Délibes.

  Estelle loved class. She loved the safety of it, the routine; the feeling she had of always knowing precisely where she was. She liked dancing the same steps in the same order and the idea that if she tried really, really hard, she would achieve a perfect sequence of steps and then Madame Olga would praise her.

  ‘Push yourself,’ Madame would cry. ‘Push yourself to the limit of what your body can do.’

  Estelle did, every time she went to Wychwood House. She found that if she concentrated hard enough on what went on in class, she could put everything else into a separate compartment in her head and think about it quite differently – in a much more detached way. As the war dragged on, food was becoming less and less tasty and she dreaded the powdered eggs and the awful day when the sugar ration ran out for the week, as it always seemed to do. But Estelle danced and danced and forgot what was happening in the real world. Auntie Rhoda and Uncle Bob kept the news from the girls as much as possible, and anything Estelle heard about France she somehow didn’t connect with her father or grandmother. She learned from a letter about her father’s second marriage to a young woman called Yvonne, and found that it was easy not to get upset about such things if she put them in a kind of detached part of her mind. Estelle discovered she had a gift for this, for being able to ignore things that would hurt her if she thought about them too much. She became skilled at keeping a distance between herself and anything too unpleasant to think about.

  One day shortly after the end of the war, Auntie Rhoda called Estelle into the parlour for what she called ‘a quiet word’. As soon as she saw her aunt sitting rather stiffly at the table with a small package in front of her and a letter in her hand, Estelle understood that something awful had happened.

  ‘Come and sit down, dear,’ Auntie Rhoda smiled at her.

  ‘What’s the matter, Auntie Rhoda?’

  ‘It’s bad news, dear, I’m afraid. Your grandmother … I’m so sorry. She was a very old lady, though, wasn’t she? We must think of her at peace.’ Auntie Rhoda held out the letter and Estelle took it. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at the tiny black letters of her father’s familiar handwriting.

  My dear Estelle, I am very sorry to have to tell you that my mother died two weeks ago in hospital. She had been suffering from pneumoniathe and her end was peaceful and without pain. The funeral was held yesterday. I know how sad this will make you and I am sorry to be the bearer of such news. Your grandmother was most insistent that I should send you this chain. She says that you will know what to do with it, but if you are willing to take my advice (and don’t forget that I am still a banker) I would put it away in a safe-deposit box in the local bank. In that way, you will not have to worry about losing it.

  ‘He’s written to me too,’ Auntie Rhoda said, taking Estelle by the hand and guiding her to a chair at the kitchen table. ‘Your grandmother has left you a small legacy, you know.’

  Estelle didn’t care about her legacy. Her eyes were on the package on the kitchen table. ‘Is that the box my father sent?’

  ‘Yes, here it is. We could keep it safe in the bank if you like.’

  ‘No,’ Estelle trembled with terror. How could Auntie Rhoda prevent her from keeping Grand-mère’s chain? She held out her hand. ‘I’ll look after it. I won’t lose it, I promise. Please let me have it.’

  ‘Well, I can’t stop you, I suppose, but I don’t think it’s very sensible, you know. What if you mislay it?’

  ‘I won’t. I wouldn’t. I never would. Give it to me.’

  Suddenly, the horror of everything struck Estelle and she grabbed the box from Auntie Rhoda’s hand and ran out of the room. She fled up the stairs to the bedroom and flung herself on the bed, sobbing and clutching the small box tight in her hand. Rage filled her. How could Papa do such a thing? Write her a letter about Grand-mère’s death? If he’d phoned, she could have gone to France, to the funeral. She was old enough to travel by herself. Why hadn’t he telephoned? Or sent a telegram? He didn’t want me there, she thought. He says Grand-mère died of pneumonia but maybe that’s not true. Maybe, she thought, Papa didn’t want me to meet Yvonne. Maybe Yvonne told him she didn’t want me to come. If I’d gone, I could have stood beside the grave in the cemetery and wept and then Grand-mère would have known how much I loved her. I’ll never see her again.

  Estelle sat up and dried her eyes. She pulled Antoinette to her and buried her face in the doll’s skirts. Paula was downstairs. She could hear her talking and soon she would be up in the bedroom, asking what the matter was. Estelle fingered the chain she wore always round her neck, the chain her grandmother had given her before she left for Yorkshire. Papa might be a banker, she thought, but he doesn’t know me very well. I’ll never let Grand-mère’s half of the chain out of my sight. I’d never entrust it to a bank. And the idea that I’d ever lose it is ridiculous. Does he think that I’m careless or stupid?

  She opened the small round tortoiseshell box. There it was, the chain she had promised to pass on to her own daughter. She knew she had to hide it at once before Paula saw it and started asking questions. If she does, Estelle told herself, I’ll just tell her it’s none of her business. She got off the bed and hid the box away under her vests, right at the back of her drawer in the shared chest of drawers. It would be quite safe there. Paula wouldn’t be interested enough to snoop around for it.

  That night she cried bitterly for her grandmother, just as she used to when she first came to the Wellicks, pulling the pillow over her head so that Paula wouldn’t hear her. She dreamed all night of Grand-mère’s room: the high bed piled with pillows frilled with lace, the hatboxes, the jewels, and her grandmother’s voice speaking to her, singing to her, making her feel warm and loved and safe. As soon as she woke up, she remembered the truth and felt chilly and dazed with sorrow. Once she was dressed, she took her father’s letter and tore it up into small pieces. She gathered up the bits and went into the back parlour, where she threw them on the coal fire. They acquired glowing, scarlet edges before turning to grey ash. I won’t think about it, she told herself. I’ll try to forget I ever got that letter. While she danced at Madame Olga’s, she pretended Grand-mère was still alive, still in her father’s house in Paris, and sending good wishes to her granddaughter. Estelle decided that there wasn’t much difference between death and distance. What it came down to was not seeing the person you loved. Not ever.

  25 December 1986

  Alison Drake looked across the table at her mother. Claudia Drake, beautiful international ballet superstar, ta-rah, was pushing two minuscule roast potatoes round her plate. She always did that: arranged her food artistically, nibbled briefly at a couple of things and then rearranged it all over again. Alison debated throwing the remains of the Marks & Spencer turkey roast at her. Her mother, annoyingly, was blissfully unaware of what was going on in her daughter’s mind, so Alison decided to say something.

  ‘You haven’t exactly made an effort this year, have you? I don’t call this a proper Christmas.’

  ‘I can’t do a big, elaborate thing,’ Claudia said. ‘I’ve explained it to you. I’ve got to get us ready to go up to
Yorkshire on Sunday. Rehearsals start on Monday. I can’t leave a whole lot of stuff in the fridge.’

  Perhaps it was the ill-prepared and skimpy meal. Perhaps it was the lack of decorations and a tree. Maybe it was her fury at having to drag along with Claudia to the depths of the countryside, but suddenly Alison lost her temper completely and began to shout at her mother.

  ‘It’s always fucking rehearsals with you. You never have time for real people and real things because you’re so taken up with your stupid ballet and your stupid class that you can never ever miss, oh no, because proper professionals never miss class, do they? And your whole, your whole ridiculous pretend world which is more important to you than the real world. I don’t care if I never see another fucking ballet ever again in my whole life.’

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Claudia was shouting right back. ‘Don’t you know that I run myself ragged trying to arrange things so that you’re not put out? Apologise. Apologise at once, or I shall send you to your room and you can stew there till Sunday for all I care.’

  Alison mumbled into her plate:

  ‘I’m sorry I swore at you, but I mean it about the ballet. I do think it’s boring. I don’t see what’s wrong with saying that. You’re not exactly sympathetic about what I want to do.’

  ‘Well, darling,’ Claudia smiled, and Alison knew she thought the worst was over and that she’d won. ‘Midwifery, I ask you!’ She shuddered. ‘All that blood. I don’t think I could bear it. Couldn’t you find something more – I don’t know – more glamorous?’

  Alison had been through this before. She decided not to tell her mother all over again that glamour wasn’t what she was after. Surely the beautiful Claudia Drake could understand that lesser mortals (i.e. other women and girls) weren’t exactly designed for the limelight. She changed the subject.

  ‘What am I supposed to do while you’re rehearsing? I don’t see why I have to come anyway.’

  ‘You know very well why. Aunt Mavis couldn’t have you. She’s been invited on a cruise. To Egypt.’

  ‘Your childcare arrangements are crap. Most people have lots of relations. Sisters and brothers and things.’

  ‘It’s hardly my fault that I’m an only child. Nor is it my fault that your father is totally inadequate and pathetic. Not to mention the fact that he decided to live in America with his so-called wife, who’s a tart with no more brains than your average chicken.’

  ‘Dad isn’t. He isn’t pathetic. He rang up last night, didn’t he? He spoke to me for ages. You’re the pathetic one. And you don’t know how clever Jeanette is, or isn’t. She’s not his so-called wife, either. She’s his real wife.’

  Claudia pulled a face. ‘Oh, per-lease! How clever do you have to be to get a man’s attention if you keep the top buttons of your blouse permanently undone and flaunt underwear that’s no more than a string and a prayer? Your father is a fool and a bastard and there’s nothing more to be said.’

  Alison changed the subject. She usually did when it came to talking about her father. The whole matter was too painful to go into, and she tried to avoid it when she could.

  ‘I could stay here on my own. I’m fourteen. That’s easily old enough.’

  Claudia looked at her pityingly. Alison stared right back, saying, ‘What about friends, then? You don’t seem to have many of those, do you? Not that that’s a surprise. And Granny probably died early just so’s she wouldn’t have to look after me.’

  Alison knew that if Claudia were sitting beside her, she’d have hit her. She was breathing deeply: always a sure sign that she was trying not to lose her temper. Her voice, when she did speak, was carefully light and cheerful.

  ‘I have very many friends, as you know, but of course they’re performers like me, and so quite unable to help me out by having you to stay.’

  How nice of her, Alison reflected sarcastically, not to say anything really nasty. She easily could have done. She could, for instance, have flung the question back: why haven’t you got any friends who’ll have you to stay for a few days? She’s not asking because she knows the answer. I’m new at that school, and anyway, who’s going to ask someone fat and shortsighted (Speccy Four Eyes. Couldn’t they think of anything more original to call her?) and unpopular to come and spend part of the holiday at their house?

  Alison bit her lip, unwilling to show how miserable this knowledge made her. She hated people who moaned about everyone hating them, and in any case, they didn’t. Not really. Nobody cared enough about her to hate her, or to bully her. They just don’t include me in things, she told herself, and I don’t care. She knew this wasn’t true, but repeated it anyway in the hope that this would make her feel a bit better. She also knew she wasn’t really fat, but just rather taller and more well-built than the daughter of a skeletal mother ought to be. It was the contrast which always made her feel clumsy and heavy.

  Alison wondered if her mother regretted keeping her. She could have let Dad take me, she thought. If she had, I’d be living with him and Jeanette in America and she’d be the one I never saw, instead of Dad.

  Patrick Drake left them when Alison was five, and from the moment the door slammed behind him forever, Claudia had seen to it that he’d had as little as possible to do with his daughter. I can see what her game is, Alison thought now as she’d thought a thousand times. She’s punishing him. She really must have loved him and she’s obviously never forgiven him. No civilised divorce for my mum, oh no. She just thinks of him as a bastard who had the cheek to fall in love with someone else. Alison didn’t find it in the least surprising that someone had got sick to death of living with Claudia.

  Quite apart from her general annoyingness, there was the matter of her schedule. She was on tour for most of the year, and when she wasn’t she was at rehearsal or in class or having her photo taken and certainly would hardly ever have been at home looking after her baby or her husband. She’d employed a series of nannies and opted out almost entirely. You couldn’t blame Dad for falling in love with someone else. Jeanette was an American student in the class he taught at the Polytechnic, and even though she wasn’t as beautiful as Claudia, she was pretty enough, and kind and there all the time.

  Since Patrick had left, Claudia had dragged Alison all over the world and put her in the charge of so many nannies that often Patrick couldn’t see her for months at a time. Alison grew furious whenever she thought about this. How did Mum dare? Until I went to boarding school, she used to take me along to places where home was a hotel room for weeks on end. Before her father moved to America, six years ago, Claudia could easily have asked him to look after Alison on several occasions, but she never did.

  Tears came into her eyes and she blinked them away. It was all this thinking about Dad. She saw so little of him now. Because he lived abroad, he couldn’t visit often, and he was a rotten letter-writer. He used to send postcards with little poems on them and sometimes presents, but the gaps between letters became longer and longer.

  Just before Christmas, Alison had sent him a card she had made herself. She liked the picture on the front, which showed her and Claudia up to their necks in snow, wearing bobble hats, with a Gothic castle in the background. She was less proud of the letter that she’d sent with the card, telling him about the Wychwood Festival in a way that made it quite clear she hated the idea. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so negative, she thought. He’ll probably think I’ve become one of those girls who do nothing but moan all the time.

  Claudia smiled. ‘There’s nothing to be done now, Alison, so you will just have to make the best of it, I’m afraid. And it’s not for long. I’m not mad about the countryside either, as you know, but it’ll be a treat to work with Hugo. Or I think it will. He’s such a hard taskmaster and he won’t make any exception for me. It’s days since I’ve seen him. He’s with his father for Christmas, of course.’ She sounded peeved about this, as though she thought that Hugo should have asked her to go with him, Alison thought. Serve her right.

&n
bsp; Hugo Carradine had been her mother’s lover for two years. She was, Alison knew, more keen on him than she had been about some of her others, because she’d made a point of telling her all about Hugo within days of their getting together. You’re a big girl now, Claudia told her. Twelve years old and quite capable of hearing the truth.

  ‘I love him, darling,’ she’d said. Be frank with your children about your feelings. Alison was convinced her mother had read that in a magazine somewhere. ‘I really hope you’ll do your best to like him too.’

  Alison had told her he was okay and he was, compared with some of the men Claudia’d been involved with in the past. She decided that it was pointless to go on about Wychwood. They would do exactly what suited Claudia. They always did. She helped herself to Christmas pudding. At least I can have as much as I want of this, she thought. Mum won’t even allow such stuff anywhere near her plate and, as for brandy butter, well. That was the embodiment of evil.

  27 December 1986

  Hugo Carradine was sitting in the front stalls of the Arcadia Theatre. A few hours and they’d all be arriving – Claudia and Alison and the other members of the company – but for the moment he was alone here at Wychwood. He’d got up early, left his father’s house, and driven to Yorkshire as the light was breaking over the moors. Now he had a short space in which to be alone and able to savour the special atmosphere of an empty theatre. The curtain was open, and the stage glowed a little in the pearly light of the winter afternoon, which filtered down from the small windows set into the roof, high above the flies and the lighting galleries. Here, wooden beams were hung about with the black shapes of the lamps that changed the space beneath them into one magic kingdom after another. When the lighting man slipped a gel, a square of coloured celluloid, into the frame, the colour of everything was transformed.