by Adle Geras
Alison had gone back to sleep. Hugo was always nice to Alison. He was very likeable and Alison didn’t seem to mind him. In fact, things in that area were much better these days. For years, Claudia hadn’t had a moment’s peace because Alison used to behave quite atrociously to every single man who ventured into the house.
Hugo treated Alison with respect and Claudia admired him for his understanding and kindness, which was more than she could manage. I am such a bad mother, she told herself many times, and the worst thing about me is I know I’m a bad mother and can’t seem to do anything about it.
When Patrick left her for Jeanette, she had felt betrayed, belittled and hurt. Only the discipline of having to go to class every day kept her from spending hours grinding her teeth or weeping or plotting hideous revenge. She left the care of her little daughter entirely to the new nanny, Yvana, and pushed herself to the limits of endurance. She worked harder than anyone, tiring her muscles, stretching, bending and forcing her body into ever more demanding postures to distract herself from everything that was wrong in her private life.
The result of her hard work, added to what she knew was a spectacular talent, was stardom. She began to be offered principal roles: Aurora, Firebird, and her most triumphant success, Coppélia. Her image, her face appeared in magazines. Her presence made parties sparkle. Her beauty shone from postcards and billboards. If she had a pound coin for every time the words ‘flame-haired lovely’ had appeared in the tabloids, she’d be a rich woman. It would be falsely modest to deny it – she was a huge star.
One of the things that went with stardom, Claudia soon discovered, was followers. Men gathered around her whenever she appeared anywhere, flocks of them. Sometimes at parties she had literally to push her way through them. They seemed besotted, as though her perfume was some kind of drug. Most of them were too disgusting for words, but there was occasionally someone who caught her eye and she would single him out and take him home with her.
She was as good at sex as she was at dancing, and it was something, maybe the only thing, that stopped her from thinking. It took her to a place where there was nothing but the sensation in her own blood, her own flesh; somewhere where there were no problems, no disappointments, no quarrels, no spite … just skin and mouths and a rush of feelings tingling through her. Claudia loved it and didn’t see why she should deny herself the pleasure.
Hugo had been one of the besotted, at least at the beginning. He’d come to watch her in Coppélia on the first night and then returned for every single performance. It was a rather hideous production, set in some kind of 1950s suburbia with Dr Coppélius lusting after dolls behind the net curtains. The critics thought it was very daring and it had turned Claudia into a sensation. She still remembered the costume with affection; fishnet tights, and the breasts she often had to bind up when she wore traditional tutus given free rein, so to speak, in a very revealing blouse.
Hugo had pursued her with a dogged persistence that she’d found amusing. He was at every party she went to, and had a habit of standing next to whoever she was talking to and sort of infiltrating himself into the conversation. At the end-of-the-run party for Coppélia, she’d finally spoken to him about it.
She’d been talking to someone she really rather fancied when Hugo appeared over his shoulder. He was dressed all in black (black polo neck under his black jacket, black trousers and shoes), his hair fell on to a forehead that was high and pale, and his eyes were the kind that seemed to look not at what was in front of them, but at something beyond. Visionary eyes. She couldn’t see what colour they were, but they were gazing at her and it was hard to look away.
The poor young man who’d been murmuring into her ear took one look at Hugo and sloped off in search of someone else.
‘Look what you’ve done,’ she said to Hugo. ‘He’s gone off and I’ll probably never see him again.’
‘You can do better than him. He’s a bore.’ Hugo smiled at her but Claudia made a point of not smiling back.
‘I didn’t find him boring at all. I think I might find you, on the other hand, completely tedious. You’ve been following me about for weeks.’
‘I admire you. I’ve watched you dance every night. I want to speak to you. I think you’re beautiful.’
‘I know I am. Everyone tells me that.’ Claudia was a little drunk or, she realised, she wouldn’t have been quite so frank. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, you know.’
‘I’d like to make a ballet for you,’ Hugo said. ‘I think you’re more talented than anyone has realised and you need me to bring out the best in you. I want you to come and join my company. The Carradine Company.’
‘I’ve never heard of it,’ Claudia said. This wasn’t quite true. The company had a very good reputation. Hugo smiled as though he knew she was lying.
‘You will,’ he said. ‘Everyone will have heard of us within the year.’
‘And you want me to join it? Your interest is entirely professional?’ She looked up at him. She knew how she was always drawn to tall men, and a small thrill of attraction flickered somewhere – in her stomach, in her throat – and she considered what it might be like to kiss that really rather lovely mouth.
‘No, not entirely. You must be aware of that. It’s …’ he smiled and the melting sensation took hold of Claudia even more strongly. ‘It’s more personal than that. Can we leave this horrible party? It’s smoky and loud and I can’t hear what you’re saying and I want to be alone with you. Please?’
She hesitated for no more than a second, and then said, ‘Why not? Are you going to walk me home?’
‘If you like. Let’s just get out of here and see.’
Claudia’s fingers tightened on the steering-wheel. Oh, that night, she thought, and wriggled in the seat. It was like being sixteen again. Better than being sixteen, because then all she was doing was working, working, working, and on this night, just after her thirty-second birthday, she’d been given her youth back again.
They walked along the Embankment.
‘I’ve never been down here at night,’ Claudia said. ‘Isn’t it beautiful!’
‘Like all the clichés you’ve ever heard: diamond necklaces lying on black velvet and so forth. I’ve seen everything you’ve ever been in, you know. I’ve had to turn into a stage-door Johnny in order to meet you. It’s not my habit to go to parties all the time, but you seem to do little else and I was determined to speak to you.’
‘Well, here I am. Speak all you like.’
‘I meant what I said, you know. I want to make a ballet for you. Would you dance in it, if I did?’
‘Yes, of course, Hugo. That would be amazing.’
‘It’d have to be something special to do you justice. Something beautiful, like you. Something different, because that’s what you are, different.’
Now, driving through the countryside with the darkness pressing at the windows of the car, Claudia remembered how she’d loved listening to Hugo when he was talking about her, how she drank in every word he said. Her mind went back again to that first walk.
‘I know what sort of dancer you are,’ Hugo said to her. ‘And how much more you’re capable of being, too. You’re thoughtful, and more disciplined than most ballet dancers. Lots of dancers let feeling take the upper hand, but you’re so … so controlled. Controlled yet passionate. I can see it; so much passion in you, waiting to be exploited. Waiting to be revealed.’
Claudia leaned her weight against his as they walked and smiled up at him. ‘I have actually noticed you, you know. At the parties, I mean. Of course, you have an advantage, being so tall. But it’s clever of you to know me so well. I mean you to see what kind of a dancer I am.’
‘I do,’ said Hugo simply.
‘But I know nothing about you. Tell me. Tell me everything. You’re not married, are you?’
He laughed, as though the mere suggestion was ridiculous.
‘Nor am I,’ said Claudia. ‘Not any more. We’re divorced. My husband left
me. I do have a daughter, though.’
‘Don’t sound so apologetic. If she’s anything like you, she must be gorgeous.’
I changed the subject then, Claudia recalled. And we talked about everything. His life, my life, my marriage, and his work, his struggle to make dance that was seen, and paid for. Everything. We reached his street after what seemed like hours.
‘This is where I live,’ Hugo said. ‘Come inside. Come and have breakfast. It’s nearly morning.’
She stepped into the house without a word and stood in the narrow hall. Hugo reached behind Claudia to close the door and she didn’t move and then his arm was on her shoulder, and he drew her to him and kissed her and she collapsed back against the door and they were there for minutes upon minutes, kissing. Claudia felt herself falling, and everything growing dark and hot. Soon, there was nothing in her head but this need, this desire.
Neither of them had spoken. It was, Claudia reflected now, like a ballet. We made our own steps and movements and it was beautiful. I mustn’t think about it, she told herself, not while I’m driving. Just the memory of that first night still had the power to turn her weak and faint. This, she remembered thinking, is what my body was meant to do. They made love and then, almost immediately it seemed, they made love again and then they slept and, by the time she woke up and saw his thin face next to hers, she was lost, gone, finished and consumed. In love. This hadn’t happened with any of her other men. This was different. She’d never wanted anyone as much as she wanted Hugo when they first met.
That first flush of emotion and lust had gone on for quite a long time. At the beginning, all she’d wanted to do was say his name. To anyone she met. Just the sound of it on her lips thrilled her, and even though she knew how silly it was, she couldn’t stop herself doing it. But, as she had known it probably would, the sexual thrill lessened. That was the thing about familiarity – it got to be familiar and then the unfamiliar began to seem desirable.
Claudia blushed as she remembered the recent occasion on which she’d slipped up and been unfaithful to Hugo. A nice young stagehand on the French tour. She used to take off her costume between the matinée and the evening performance and put on a silk robe and meet him in the wings. Insatiable was the word that came into her mind. We both were. Remembering it was making her feel randy. That had been one of Dylan’s words. Dylan, with his long, blonde hair and hard, muscled thighs and a tongue and fingers that knew exactly what was required.
She couldn’t break up with Hugo now. He’d given her this part at exactly the right time, when she’d begun to feel her age a tiny bit more; when every routine was an infinitesimal degree more difficult to achieve than it had been last month. The Princess in Sarabande. She would make them all sit up and take notice, she had to. If she didn’t, it would only be a matter of time before she was doing character parts and then, the next thing you knew, she’d be old and no man would want her any longer. It wasn’t a prospect she was prepared to consider.
‘This is it, Mum,’ said Alison. ‘This turning on the right.’
‘Sorry, darling, I was miles away.’
‘As usual. Lucky I woke up or we’d have been lost. On the moors.’
Claudia didn’t answer, but drove through a wrought-iron gate set into tall, squarish gateposts. The drive was long and curved slightly. She was vaguely aware of shrubs on the lawn on either side of the car, their shapes still discernible in the darkness.
‘It’s huge!’ Alison said, as Wychwood Hall came into view. ‘And all the windows have got lights in them.’
‘Someone’s got money to burn,’ Claudia muttered. The building stood out black against the night sky. It did have a lot of windows, some of which had panels of stained glass set into them. The people living here were clearly unworried about electricity bills. In the portico, another light had been left on to welcome them. The front door was heavy and wooden with an enormous brass knocker. The moors rose behind the house and sleet had just begun to fall. Claudia shivered. She was quite sure that what they’d see when someone answered the door was a retainer of the kind you got in all the best horror movies; white-faced and dressed in funeral clothes.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘What have I let myself in for?’
*
Alison couldn’t sleep. She switched on the bedside lamp, put on her glasses and peered at her watch. Half-past one. Was it possible that she’d been asleep and woken up again? If that’s happened, she thought, I won’t drop off again now for hours. And I’m hungry. She punched the pillow and lay down again, staring at the ceiling. There were hours and hours to go till breakfast, and how was she going to last out? She looked around. It wasn’t a bad room. A bit like a posh youth hostel or a plain sort of hotel. It had its own shower and loo. That was fab. A staircase led up from the front hall to a long corridor and that was where all the bedrooms were. Alison smiled to think of the whole company lined up under their duvets. If there weren’t any walls it’d look like one of the junior dormitories at school.
I’m always hungry, she thought and wondered if she was abnormal. One of the most annoying things about being the daughter of a ballet dancer (and there were loads of annoying things, too many to list, Alison reckoned) was not being able to eat properly. Claudia Drake couldn’t afford to put on weight, oh no, that simply wouldn’t do, so her cupboards and fridge at home never had anything decent in them. She hopes I won’t put on any more weight, Alison thought, and that’s another reason why there’s nothing in the house. That’s pathetic! Hasn’t she heard of shops? Doesn’t she realise I buy a Mars bar every time I go out? She is so stupid sometimes.
The whole ballet thing struck Alison as ridiculous. There were all these people: sweaty, hairy real people, pretending to be lighter than air and floaty and beautiful and completely unreal. And the joke is they train harder than footballers. They work themselves to death and twist their bodies and feet and everything into positions that are mad. They can’t eat properly because that would put weight on, and they can’t miss a single day’s class because then the whole thing would sort of collapse. Claudia had never missed a class ever. She wouldn’t, Alison thought, even miss one if I was taken off to hospital with a burst appendix or something. The ambulances would be screeching to a halt outside the flat, men with stretchers would be tearing up the stairs, in too much of a hurry even to wait for the lift, and Mum would be on the way out, saying can’t possibly stop. Sure you understand … class … you’ll do everything you can, won’t you, darlings? and dazzling them with her smile.
Lying back on the pillows, Alison allowed herself to dream a little. She let herself pretend that she was someone who had a normal mother. And a normal father. A mother who stayed at home so that she could go to day school and come back every afternoon. And a father. That would be the best thing. A father who loved her mother and had a proper job in this country and who loved both his wife and his daughter so much that he’d never, ever go off with someone else and leave them to fend for themselves; a father who was there.
I was only little when he left, she thought. I was five, but I remember lots of stuff. We used to go to the zoo and make faces at the animals, copying them. He was funny. He carried me on his shoulders, and swung me round at bedtime before dropping me on to the bed. He used to read books to me. Mum says he didn’t and it was always her, but it wasn’t. She was always rushing out of the house to be in time for the show. Alison had said that to Claudia once and she’d gone scarlet, which Alison thought proved that she was right. She almost spat at her daughter: you don’t remember anything properly, you were scarcely more than a baby! Alison smiled to herself. I just shut up about it, but I wasn’t a baby and I do remember and it was him. He wrote my special book, didn’t he? Mum’s forgotten all about that. It was a lullaby book, and he typed it out by himself and drew little pictures on each page and stapled all the pages together and I’ve still got it.
She got out of bed and went to fetch her atlas from the suitcase which was lying op
en on the floor near the window. If her mother had bothered to ask why she’d packed an atlas, Alison had a story all ready about homework for school, but in fact it was where the Lullaby Book lived, always. The pages stayed nice and flat and who in their right mind would ever think of looking in an atlas when they didn’t absolutely have to? She went back to bed, and took the little book out of its safe hiding-place. Then she looked at it, which was quite unnecessary really because she knew the whole thing by heart and had done since she was about three. Still, the tiny illustrations always made her smile. My dad, she thought, was good at drawing pictures and so am I. It’s thanks to him I’m good at art and making things. Mum can barely sew the ribbons on her ballet shoes. Now, looking down at the pages, she heard her dad’s voice saying the words as she read them:
Here is a bear who is brown and small
and wants to speak in a small brown voice
so you can hear the tales he tells
of big black bears in caves of stone.
He whispers gently in your ear:
Look I am here. You are not alone.
She felt better at once, and put the book away again. If only I wasn’t so hungry, she thought, I’d probably be able to fall asleep. A thought occurred to her. She knew where the kitchen was downstairs. She laid the book aside, got out of bed and put on her dressing-gown. Then she stepped out as quietly as she could into the corridor.
There was a dim light shining in the hall. Alison crept down the stairs and into the kitchen. This was the most modern-looking room she’d seen since they arrived. The rest of Wychwood House looked very old-fashioned, but this was big and square with a high ceiling. Every single fixture and fitting was so modern it was practically space-age. Wherever she looked Alison could see white and palest blue and shiny silver. The cooker was an enormous thing – all oven doors and gleaming hotplates, with an extractor hood hanging over it like a canopy of burnished copper.