Hester's Story

by Adle Geras

  After Hugo had finished with her, she went to sit down again. For a wonder, Alison was here. She was gazing at Nick like a mesmerised sheep, but at least she was in the rehearsal room and behaving herself quite well. That’s thanks to me, Claudia told herself. It sorted her out forever, true enough, but I was pretty savage that day. How old was she? Maybe nine or ten. She’d been getting on my nerves all afternoon. What is there to do, Mummy? I don’t want to play with my dolls. I don’t want to go and see what Joanie upstairs is doing. I don’t want to watch TV and on and on till Claudia thought she was going mad. She’d lost it completely: yelled at the poor kid with the full force of her lungs and her face red and twisted up with anger. She could remember how it had felt even now, her mouth tight and her hands clenched to stop herself from actually hitting Alison as she shrieked at her.

  There’s nothing to do, and I don’t care if you do think you’re hard done by. Bloody well find a book or something and shut up. Just shut up. Above all, I don’t want to hear that voice of yours droning on and on as if it’s my fault you can’t find ways of keeping yourself occupied. God, your father doesn’t know how lucky he is sometimes to have left all this behind him. Maybe I should pack you off to them, him and the Jeanette person, and see how you like it there, eh?

  Alison, to give her credit, had given nearly as good as she got and screamed right back. Okay, okay I’m going and I’ll never ask you what to do ever again. I’ll please myself and I shan’t care whether you like it or not and if you’re horrible to me just once more I’ll go to the papers and tell them their precious ballerina is a witch who’s cruel to her only daughter and then see how many of them will want to take your picture. I hate you!

  Claudia smiled. That had been intelligent of Alison. A trump card. She’d hugged her and kissed her immediately, of course, even summoning up some tears, and gone into an over-the-top routine of love and devotion and pretended stress over something or other, apologising, promising never to say anything like that ever again, and it had worked. Sort of. Alison never did have to go to the press, but Claudia knew she wasn’t taken in for a moment. Still, she never bothers me with demands for entertainment, Claudia thought, so it worked out rather well.

  She often wondered whether she really loved her daughter. Or whether she loved her properly, in the way that other people seemed to adore their offspring. When she was pregnant, she longed for the birth of the baby. She spent hours imagining how wonderful she’d look in photographs, with a pretty little child at her side. No one had told her how much sheer hard work babies were and, of course, it was just her luck to have given birth to the most difficult baby in the world. Claudia recalled so many battles to get the baby to eat, so many nights broken by her crying, that it was a wonder, quite frankly, that she’d come out of it feeling anything remotely resembling affection for her daughter.

  She sighed, and consoled herself with the thought that of course she must love Alison. Of course she did. It was just that the love was so often overlaid with irritation that it was hard to know sometimes exactly what she felt. At least here at Wychwood there was no need to worry about her. She had a huge garden to wander about in, an enormous house to explore (even if there were bits of it which were private rooms and therefore out of bounds) and a cat to keep her amused. And now, it seemed, she might even be developing a crush on Nick. She’d be okay.

  Having decided that, Claudia put Alison out of her mind entirely and considered Nick again. I could look at him for hours, she thought, and bent down to take off her ballet shoes to hide the blush that was suffusing her face at the thought of that body pressed close to hers. Being a redhead had its disadvantages.

  *

  The man who had just come into the kitchen to join the company for lunch looked like someone’s idea of a nice granddad. Or an elderly uncle, Alison thought. He was too old to be any kind of dancer, though he was certainly thin enough. Hugo stood up and pushed his chair back and went over to shake hands with the new arrival. They came to Hugo’s end of the table and sat down there. Where did the extra chair appear from? It seemed to have materialised out of thin air. No, Andy had simply moved down a place and left a space between him and Nick.

  ‘Okay, everyone,’ said Hugo, ‘here’s someone I want you to meet. This is George Stott, who’s the lighting manager, the front of house manager and also secretary of the Friends of the Wychwood Festival. A very important person as you can see. He’s Ruby’s husband, for those of you who’ve already met Ruby.’

  George smiled and said, ‘Good afternoon, everyone. It’s good to have you here and I hope you all enjoy the time you spend at Wychwood. Hugo’s been very kind about me, but what I’m really good at is making things run smoothly, so if you’ve any problems, don’t hesitate for a second. I’ll be happy to help in any way I can.’

  He sat down and poured himself a drink from the jug of orange juice in the middle of the kitchen table. Then he began to help himself to cold meats and salads, and turned to Alison.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve met this young lady. Is no one going to introduce us?’

  ‘Alison is my daughter,’ said Claudia, in a way which made it sound, Alison thought, as though she was anything but pleased about this.

  ‘Delighted, I’m sure,’ said George and smiled at her. Alison smiled weakly back. The conversation went on around her. Ilene and Andy were discussing Hester.

  ‘Incredibly chic,’ said Ilene. ‘How old is she? Fifty?’

  ‘Fifty-three,’ said Andy. ‘I looked it up. She used to go about with Edmund Norland, who wrote the music for Sarabande. Bet you didn’t know that.’

  ‘By “go about” do you mean “sleep with”?’ Ilene asked.

  ‘Don’t think so. Don’t really know. She never married, I know that much. And her partner, Kaspar Beilin, who’s in San Francisco now with his own company, never made a secret about being gay. Don’t forget, the press were a whole lot more discreet in those days. You could do all sorts of stuff in private that would end up on the front page of the tabloids if you did it today.’

  ‘What have you done that might have ended up on the front page, then, Andy?’ said Claudia, overhearing the end of his remark.

  ‘Front page? Moi? Never in a million years. No one would give a damn about my love life. It’s stars they’re after. Stars like you, Claudia.’ He beamed at her, and Alison saw how her mother relaxed and smiled happily for almost the first time that day, just because Andy made a flattering remark. Putrid and pathetic. She put out her hand to pick up another bread roll – they really were delicious, freshly baked and with a proper golden crust, and there was even butter to go on them – when Claudia said, in a voice that seemed to Alison to ring out in the enormous kitchen and rise up to the ceiling and sort of hang there before floating down into the ears of every single person in the room:

  ‘Oh God, darling, not another roll, surely? You’ve had more than enough. Here, have a tangerine or something.’

  Alison felt burning hot all over. She put the roll back, and said nothing. I wish I could push her face into her plate and get squashed lettuce leaves and tomato pips all over it. I wish I could take this knife and tear up her stupid pink tracksuit with it. She noticed that everyone else had suddenly begun to chat more loudly and energetically than ever to cover up their embarrassment. No one said anything to her but she saw Hugo looking at Claudia with something like horror on his face and Silver looking at Hugo and then leaning forward to say something to George.

  Alison took a tangerine from the fruit bowl in the middle of the table, peeled it and ate it without tasting a single mouthful. Then Nick got up from the table. As he left the room, he turned and looked straight at her and winked. He didn’t say a single word and yet Alison understood. The wink was his way of saying, Mothers, honestly!

  *

  Hester was waiting for Hugo in the Office. They’d agreed at the interview, shortly after he’d been given the commission for this year’s Festival, that he’d come and keep her up t
o date with everything that was going on in rehearsals. She would never have sat in on them, but liked to know that all was well and in particular that the choreographer was happy with the arrangements at the Arcadia.

  The company was still at lunch. You would never know, Hester thought, from the silence all around, that the house is full of people. That’s the thing about putting on a ballet, it occupies your time. Today was a little exceptional, but on other days, rehearsals would be taking place during the afternoon.

  Edmund had sent her another postcard. She had a whole collection of them, lined up on the mantelpiece, so that she could imagine him in Vienna. Today’s postcard was of a Baroque building, with curlicues and gargoyles and bits and pieces of ornamentation everywhere, but she’d had formal flowerbeds from a palace, street scenes, a portrait of Johann Strauss, and quite a few works of art from museums and art galleries. He’d written almost every day. Today’s message, in perfect, tiny writing, said:

  Do you remember the 1963 tour? Sitting in a café just down the road from this church and eating a cake that was more cream than sponge? No ballet dancer worth her salt would dare to do such a thing now. Hope you are bearing up, Hester. Only a few more days till Jan 2nd. I’m off to New York tomorrow. That won’t be easy. Much love E.

  Someone was knocking. Hester put the postcard down and called, ‘Come in.’

  Hugo put his head around the door. ‘Is it convenient? Now, I mean, for our chat.’

  ‘Yes, yes of course. Do sit down.’

  She admired the way Hugo didn’t make a production out of finding a place to sit, but simply went straight to the armchair and put his folder full of notes (he was reassuringly well organised) on the floor beside him. She said, ‘Some choreographers I’ve had up here haven’t enjoyed their daily talk with me, you know. They thought, some of them, that I was being bossy. Controlling, one of them called it.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Hugo. ‘I don’t mind a bit. In fact, it’ll be good to talk to you about problems I can’t discuss with individual members of the company.’

  ‘I’m glad you see it like that. I enjoy keeping in touch, that’s all. And sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who’s not so close. But tell me a bit about yourself first. Tell me about your parents.’

  ‘My mother died last year. I’m adopted, which of course makes not a scrap of difference to my grief or to how I miss her. She and my dad told me about the adoption very early on, so it’s never been an issue. They were my parents and that’s how I’ve always thought of them. They were both architects, in partnership together, and my father’s a bit lonely now. I don’t see as much of him as I ought to, because he lives near Newcastle and I’m down in London with the company. Still, we had a good Christmas together.’

  ‘But you had to rush off and leave him almost immediately afterwards. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘He understands that this commission is a great honour. And he was impressed by the mention of your name. You’re the one dancer even people who’ve never been to the ballet have heard of.’

  ‘Very kind of you to say so.’

  Hugo waved a hand around the room, at all the photographs on the walls.

  ‘No one’s forgotten, though. It’s all on film. Silver McConnell told me that you were the real reason she took the part in Sarabande. She worships you, you know.’

  Hester laughed. ‘It’s ridiculous, really, but knowing something like that still gives me a thrill, even though I haven’t danced professionally for years. It’s good to be remembered. I teach a lot of master classes and I do still go through my basic class routines every day, but I’m very far from what I was. Look at this …’ Hester pushed her shoes off and pointed her stockinged toes towards Hugo. ‘Who on earth with any sense would deform their feet like this? Look how horrible and lumpy and contorted they are; that’s the punishment for all that dancing. All those classes. Those hours en pointe. It’s insane.’

  ‘But beautiful. While you’re doing it anyway. Very beautiful.’

  ‘Thank you, but there’s a price. Lumpy feet. Pains in my joints, too, which’ll probably get worse as I get older. Oh, don’t listen to me. I’m just in a gloomy mood. Let’s talk about Silver McConnell. She’s very promising, I believe.’

  ‘Silver’s my first problem. She’s very talented. In fact, I think maybe too talented. She creates a fantastic effect without having to work nearly as hard as some.’

  ‘I expect she will – work harder, I mean – after you’ve shown her what you want, won’t she?’

  ‘I’ll have a try. I’m just off to rehearse with her now.’

  ‘If she’s a real ballet dancer, and not just superficially gifted, then she’ll understand what you’re trying to do. Let me know what happens.’

  ‘I will.’ Hugo stood up. ‘And thank you for listening. I’m going to look forward to these meetings with you. Really.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Hester. She watched him leave the room and realised that it was true. She liked him. She, too, was looking forward to the next day’s meeting. But what had come over her suddenly? Showing him her feet? She’d never done anything like that before. She picked up the postcard from Edmund and added it to the others on her mantelpiece. She imagined herself telling him all about how she’d stuck out her stockinged feet without a second’s hesitation and how he’d laugh the laugh that seemed to come from the very heart of him; the laugh that had enchanted the whole of the Charleroi Company from the very beginning.

  1950

  ‘Everyone, I’d like you to meet Edmund Norland,’ said Piers, coming out on to the stage at the Royalty Theatre. The members of the company were sitting in the stalls. Hester, Dinah and Nell were right at the back, which was the best place to sit when Piers was giving one of his pep talks. They were in the middle of rehearsing for Giselle, and Hester still occasionally thought she must be dreaming, hugging herself with pleasure at the realisation that she, Hester Fielding, was going to dance the principal role. She was seventeen years old, and going to dance Giselle! She still could hardly believe her luck and had to pinch herself every day as a reminder. Piers told her it was something of a gamble but that he’d chosen her because she was the only person who was both young enough and good enough. Estelle was dancing Queen of the Wilis, Miles was Loys and Dinah was thrilled to have been cast as Bathilde. Piers had promised Hester that Madame Olga would be there on the first night. Hester turned her attention from daydreaming about Giselle to what was happening now. Piers had this young man on stage with him and Dinah was whispering in her ear.

  ‘Who is he? He’s rather nice, isn’t he?’

  Hester looked at the young man standing beside Piers. His fair hair fell over his forehead. He seemed pleasant enough and certainly he was full of smiles for his audience.

  ‘He’s all right,’ she whispered back.

  Piers was in full flow now. ‘Mr Norland is a composer. A wonderful composer, naturally, and please don’t think what I’m about to tell you is influencing me in any way. He genuinely is the new Tchaikovsky and he’s written a ballet for us. It’s Red Riding Hood, and I intend to put it on for Christmas, straight after we finish the Giselle run. It’s already September, so you’ll understand that we don’t have a great deal of time. Mr Norland’s come to this rehearsal to give me his opinion on who might be a suitable heroine. I have my own ideas of course, but Mr Norland insists on meeting the company. I told him we were like a big family here, and he is about to be included in it, for better or for worse. So please do your best work today, and bear in mind that we have a special guest in the audience. Right, everyone, off you go to prepare yourselves.’

  As they were getting ready for the stage rehearsal, Nell told them more about Mr Edmund Norland.

  ‘Magda Volsky’s his girlfriend – you know, the principal dancer in the Westhaven Company. She’s very skinny and foreign. Quite funny-looking actually, but not a bad dancer. Not that I’ve ever seen her, of course, but that’s what I’ve heard.’

  ‘You
always know so much, Nell!’ Hester said. ‘How do you manage it?’

  ‘She gossips to everyone,’ said Dinah. ‘You must have seen her.’

  ‘Well, yes, in our company,’ said Hester, as Nell threw a powder puff at Dinah and laughed. ‘But I didn’t know she knew about other companies as well.’

  ‘You’d be surprised what I know,’ said Nell. ‘I’m a mine of information.’

  During the rehearsal, whenever she wasn’t on stage, Hester stood in the wings and looked at Piers and Mr Norland in the third row of the stalls. Piers was right. The Charleroi Company was like a family. Piers was the father; Dinah and Nell and some of the young men were like her brothers and sisters, the older dancers were like cousins, and Estelle P was a rather nasty great-aunt. There were occasional arguments, of course there were, between members of the family but, on the whole, you could depend on them. And you loved them, too, Hester realised. Only Madame Olga was dearer to her than Dinah, Nell and Piers.

  The theatre itself was a home and more than a home. The stage was a magic place that could become anywhere. No more than a box, really, enclosed by curtains and scenery and lit by lamps which shone a coloured light on you and changed you into a ghost, or a young peasant girl or … the flats were up for the last act of Giselle, all mist and gravestones and blue shadows, but Hester was already imagining a forest, thick with green trees which might hide a wolf. She wanted to be Red Riding Hood, and she was determined to make a good impression on this Edmund Norland, who seemed to have some influence on Piers. She stepped out into the light, and transformed herself into Giselle.