by Adle Geras
Dearest Hester,
I’ve wanted to write to you many times in the years since we last spoke to one another. I have left Edmund, in my will, a yearly allowance which is to be paid to you until your death and after you die, to your heirs whoever they may be. I hope that you won’t feel you can’t take this gift from me. I am doing it through Edmund because he’s my oldest friend and because I don’t want Virginia to discover after my death that I have thought of you every single day. With almost every breath, I’ve agonised over what happened between us and mourned the death of the only child I’ll ever have. Edmund has told me about you over the years, and I’ve followed the public story of your career and felt a mixture of pride in your achievements and despair at my own behaviour. There have been so many times when I’ve nearly done it. Left Virginia and come to find you, Hester, but in the end, as in the beginning, I couldn’t, could not, do that to a woman whom I saw as much weaker than you were; much more dependent on me for her survival. There’s nothing else I can say now, Hester, except that if you’re reading these words then I am dead and I have loved you all my life and will go on loving you from beyond the grave, if there is a beyond. Believe me, my darling. Adam.
Hester folded the letter and put it back in its envelope. She looked down at her lap. Her hands were shaking. A mass of sorrow had gathered in her throat and she felt that if she tried to speak, no sound would come out of her mouth. Her eyes blurred with tears and she was trembling. She made an effort to breathe and put her hands over her face and covered her eyes. I’m in shock, she thought. This is shock. I haven’t seen Adam’s handwriting for thirty years, and now, there it is, right in front of me. It’s like seeing a ghost. I must make myself calm. She forced herself to breathe in and out and gradually began to feel more normal. She thought of Adam’s words: I have loved you all my life and will go on loving you from beyond the grave, if there is a beyond. She tried to hear his voice saying them, but couldn’t. It was as though the whole of him, his voice, face, everything, was fading and disappearing, like a stain dissolving in water.
‘Hester?’ Edmund’s voice brought her back from her reverie. He’d come over and was crouched down beside her. He took her hand. ‘Are you all right?’
She still couldn’t trust herself to speak. She looked at him and nodded.
*
Claudia took a spoonful of the orange-coloured soup in front of her at dinner and wondered why even her normal small appetite had disappeared. She was aware that all around her at the table, the rest of the company seemed to be having a good time. Nick, in particular, was right up the other end (how did that happen when she tried her hardest to sit next to him or opposite him at every meal?) and giggling with Ilene and Andy like a young kid from the corps de ballet. She stared at him, hoping to make him aware of her presence, but it wasn’t working. Instead, she had Ruby on one side of her and Hugo on the other and both of them were as far from pleasant dinner companions as it was possible to be. Ruby was talking to Alison on her other side and Hugo seemed fascinated by George’s stories of the good old days, when he was a young feller-me-lad, out every night on the town, betting on the horses and not being too careful about the amount he drank. She could hear most of the anecdotes from where she was sitting.
Claudia sighed and looked at Alison, who seemed to be enjoying herself and who had, indeed, just laughed out loud. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? Before coming to Wychwood, Claudia thought that having her daughter with her would be a pain, but it hadn’t worked out like that. So why was it that instead of rejoicing she was faintly peeved? She wasn’t in the habit of analysing her own feelings too closely, but the annoyance she felt towards Ruby, for no good reason in the world, must have been partly because Alison was so keen on her. I’m jealous, she thought. Jealous that Alison finds it so easy to chat with Ruby and so difficult to say a civil word to me. How ridiculous is that! She took another mouthful of soup and then put her spoon down. I will throw up, she thought, if so much as another drop crosses my lips. She noticed that Alison was tucking in as usual and had helped herself to a second roll with her soup, but she said nothing. They all, she reflected, looked at me as though I was beating her with sticks the last time I tried to stop her stuffing herself. I’m not saying a single word now.
She looked up and caught Silver, on the other side of the table, staring at Hugo. Her gaze was intense. Why? Why was she gawping at him like a love-struck youngster? Surely they couldn’t … ? No, of course not. She would have spotted it. Hugo was still absorbed in conversation with George, but he, too, must have felt the force of Silver’s eyes on him. He glanced up and saw her. What was he doing? Claudia could hardly believe it. He had raised his glass to her as though it were full of champagne and he was smiling. Only his profile was visible to Claudia but she would have given anything to be able to see the expression in his eyes. Silver raised her own glass in response and smiled. What did that smile mean? Probably nothing. It was pointless to wonder about it. Claudia went back to looking at Nick and imagining what would happen the next time they were alone together. She closed her eyes briefly and shivered with pleasure. Fantasies like this could banish almost anything from her mind. They weren’t as good as the real thing, but they came pretty close.
*
George, Hugo thought, was a good sort, but you had to watch it, or he could become boring. He was the kind of man who was always called a charmer. His hair was grey but still wavy, and his blue eyes did a great deal of twinkling. He was full of stories, which took the place of real conversation. Sometimes they were amusing and sometimes they weren’t and, at the moment, Hugo was so taken up with thoughts of Sarabande that he was finding it hard to take in what the older man was saying.
George was momentarily distracted by his food and for a few seconds didn’t say a word. What bliss the silence was, Hugo thought. Then he became aware of someone staring at him from the other side of the table. He looked up, thinking that perhaps Nick and Ilene and Andy were talking about him, and found himself gazing into Silver’s eyes. He smiled at her and raised a glass, as though making a toast. He’d always known how beautiful she was. It was one of the reasons he’d chosen her for the part of the Angel, but this morning at their rehearsal he’d felt something else, an attraction so powerful that it made him feel a little breathless. He put his glass down quickly and blinked. Silver. He would have to think about what he was beginning to feel for her. They’d been a little at odds until today. She often told him how bossy and dictatorial he was, even though, admittedly, she was smiling while she said it. She’d been quite brilliant today, and perhaps part of the emotion had to do with the dancing and not him. There had been, till today, no sign from Silver that she was interested in him, but now here she was, looking at him intently, and he wanted to reach out and touch her hand. She was smiling at him as though she had a secret that she was longing to share. Was he imagining a blush? Yes, he probably was. Wishful thinking, he told himself. Get yourself under control. There’s Claudia sitting right next to you and looking like a thundercloud. You do not need complications. But as he helped himself to biscuits and cheese, he couldn’t help wishing for the time to go more quickly. He found that he was looking forward to the next rehearsal with Silver on her own. Looking forward? No, Hugo wasn’t in the habit of deluding himself. He was longing for it.
*
The dinner had been fantastic and now there was an apple pie on the table which no one seemed to be eating. Alison, hoping she was safe from Claudia’s attention on the other side of Ruby, helped herself to a big slice and added some cream from the jug in front of her. Her mother seemed out of sorts. Alison knew that this mood usually came over Claudia when she was being thwarted in some way. Not getting what she wanted. What could she possibly want that wasn’t coming her way? Was it to do with Nick? It seemed to her that if anyone had a right to feel pissed off, it was her and not her mother. I’m the one whose dad doesn’t answer letters. I’m the one who wishes Nick would think of me as som
ething other than a nice kid. And I’m the one who has to go back to school and leave Wychwood. She realised, as she ate her apple pie, how much she would miss the place. She would also miss Hester and Siggy and Ruby, who was the only person she’d ever met who treated her as though she were just another person. Not a difficult teenager. Not a fatty who needed her food monitored. Just another pair of hands, getting everything ready. And Ruby was going to let her decorate the dining room. That showed she trusted her. Alison was feeling better than she’d felt for ages. The apple pie helped.
She looked at Claudia and saw that she was staring at Hugo and that Hugo was staring at Silver. Silver looked gorgeous. That wasn’t surprising really. She always did. Today, she was wearing a grey cardigan that crossed over at the front and her skin looked pearly. Most people would have thought she had no make-up on, but Alison knew better. Silver said she always wore make-up and when Alison remarked that it didn’t look as though she did, the answer came at once. That’s the whole point of the exercise. You want them to think it’s your natural face.
Alison considered taking another bit of apple pie because it was obvious to her that no one else was going to, but then she decided she wouldn’t after all.
3 January 1987
The house lights were off. Alison was sitting in the stalls, two rows behind Andy and Nick, who wasn’t aware she was there. She could stare at the back of Nick’s head to her heart’s content. The whole company was in the theatre for the technical dress rehearsal and to admire the set, which had just been put up. A large van had arrived early this morning and since then, George and the three young men from the village who usually did the gardening had assembled it.
Now George was in the lighting box and Hugo was on stage signalling him and speaking to him through a kind of walkie-talkie. Ilene and Claudia were also sitting in the stalls and Silver was in the front row, ready to go up on stage and walk through her moves. In a minute, the other dancers would follow her, taking turns to see if the cues were right. Lights kept going on and off. Blue, then orange, then pink. Hugo walked about a bit, and then made a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down sign and then everything changed again. Ruby was getting the props ready on the table in the wings, and soon, Alison would have to go and help her give the basket of fruit to Ilene, the ribbons and dolls to Andy and the flowers to Silver.
The set was brilliant. Later on, maybe tomorrow morning, she would go and examine all the detail, but it looked fantastic. There was a folding screen upstage right and another downstage left and these could be moved about between scenes very easily. The colours were so vibrant that they seemed to shimmer: purple and gold, moss-green and coral, chocolate brown and ocean blue and turquoise, bronze and black and scarlet. You couldn’t follow one colour without it merging and blending into the next. Every part of the pattern seemed to curve and stream and flow into the next. Was the pattern nothing more than a pattern? Were there faces in the design? Trees? Landscapes? It was hard to tell, but you couldn’t stop trying to find them. There were no hard lines anywhere. As George went through his cues, everything on the screen seemed to change, and there were times when they were in shadow and all you could see was the gold and bronze bits catching what light there was.
Andy was whispering, but some of what he was saying reached Alison and when she heard her mother’s name, she paid more attention. She wondered whether she could creep a little closer and decided that was too risky, so she tried to block out the sounds that were coming from the stage and leaned forward to hear more.
She wondered whether Claudia was really keen on Nick or whether she flirted with him all the time in order to annoy Hugo. She’d overheard the two of them yesterday on the way back from rehearsal, and her mother was saying something about Hugo being obsessed with Silver. Hugo had just laughed and said I’m trying to make her into a ballet dancer, darling, but Alison wondered whether her mother might really have some reason to be jealous. Hugo did seem to be spending a lot of time instructing Silver. Her mother quite often behaved badly. She didn’t seem to be able to stop herself.
Alison looked at the back of Nick’s head again. I’m not stupid, she told herself. I know that he’d never be interested in me in that way. She felt like crying, but at the same time she knew that the adoration she felt for Nick had just grown a tiny bit weaker. He was like everyone else after all – Claudia had only to bat her eyelashes and he went with her wherever she wanted to take him. She’d seen her mother in action many times before and could recognise the signs. Hugo might be on his way out, she thought. I wonder if he knows? I wonder if I should tell him?
Claudia slipped into the seat beside her.
‘I wish you wouldn’t sneak up like that, Mum. You made me jump.’
‘Hmmh. Fine welcome for your mother, I must say. God, I’m so late. Hugo’ll kill me. Give us a kiss, darling. I never seem to see you these days, to talk to. Are you having fun?’
Not as much fun as you are, was what Alison nearly said, but controlled herself. ‘Yeah, not bad. I like Ruby. It’s okay here.’
‘Grudging, but I think that’s a thumbs-up, right darling? Coming from you.’ Alison didn’t bother to answer. ‘You’ll be pleased about this, though. I’ve got a letter for you from your dad.’
‘Really? Where is it? Give it to me.’
‘It’s here somewhere.’ Claudia plunged her hand into the depths of her handbag and rummaged round like someone at a bran tub. ‘Is this it?’ She pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper. ‘No. Hang on …’
Alison wanted to hit her, but didn’t because that would hold things up even more.
‘Did it come today? I’ve been waiting for a letter for ages.’
‘Can’t honestly remember when it came. A few days ago. I know I picked it up and put it in here and then forgot completely about it.’
‘You what?’
‘Don’t make that face at me, young lady. It’s not as though there’s anything important or urgent about it. It’s a bloody Christmas card or something, for God’s sake! What difference does it make when you get it? I forgot, that’s all. I have a lot of things on my mind. Anyway, here’s your precious letter. Take it and welcome.’
At that moment, Hugo called out into the stalls. ‘Claudia? Can you come up here a moment, please?’
‘Got to go, darling. Sorry about your letter, really. Forgive me?’
No, Alison said to herself. I don’t forgive you. ‘You’d better go. Hugo’s waiting.’
Claudia hurried on to the stage and Alison opened the envelope. There was a card in it, but also a sheet of folded paper.
Hello, darling. Thanks so much for your letter. I’m sure that by the time you get this, you’ll have settled in to the routine at Wychwood. Hope so anyway. I’m going to try and phone you when I get back from staying with Jeannette’s parents at Christmas. Looking forward to speaking to you. I hate writing as you know. Lots of love as always, Dad.
Under his signature, he’d drawn a little snowman in ballet shoes, with his arms in the air, and scribbled a verse:
Here is a snowman
Wearing a hat
And dancing a ballet
On feet that are flat.
Arabesques, pirouettes
Whirling and twirling
Too busy to chat.
Alison smiled. He did love her. He hadn’t forgotten the book he’d made for her. This proved it. And he was going to phone her. She wished he’d been a bit more specific about when exactly. What would happen if the phone rang when she was in Wardrobe with Ruby? Would whoever took the call come and get her? She decided not to worry about this for the moment, but just thinking about her mother walking around with this lovely letter in her grotty handbag for days made her want to spit with rage.
‘Alison?’ Ruby was peering down at the auditorium now. ‘Are you there?’
‘Yes, Ruby. Coming.’
She ran up on to the stage, still carrying the letter. ‘I’ve got a letter from my dad. Can I just run back to my bedroom
and put it away? I don’t want to lose it.’
‘How lovely. Of course you can,’ said Ruby. ‘But be quick.’
‘I’ll be back in five minutes, I promise.’
When she returned after putting her father’s letter away in the atlas, next to the lullaby book, she went to find Ruby in the wings.
‘Hello again. You were quick. I’ll be calling on you in a moment to go through the props with me, but could you go and put these on the table on the other side of the stage? Thank you.’
Alison picked up two baskets full of the roses she had helped to make and crossed the stage. The wings were nearly in darkness at the moment. George in the lighting box was obviously having a break. Hugo was on stage, ready to see the next pair of dancers through their routine. She’d almost reached the props table when she saw them. Nick and her mother, standing very close to one another, almost hidden behind a fold of the curtain. Alison put the baskets down on the props table and out of the corner of her eye, she felt more than saw a slight movement. She turned her head. Nick had his left hand around Claudia’s waist and she was leaning slightly sideways, away from him. It looked as though she was practising a step from one of the dances. Then her right hand came up and stroked the side of Nick’s face from his hair down to his chin and she was bending the other way now, coming closer and closer to him until their bodies were so close you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. He’s kissing her, Alison thought, he must be. They’ve managed to slip even further behind the curtain. Just then, George must have flicked a switch and the whole stage area was suddenly bright with pinkish light.
‘Right,’ said Hugo, looking into the stalls. ‘Let’s get on, shall we? Ilene, Andy, can you get up here, please? Claudia and Nick? Ah, here you are.’
Nobody, she thought, seems to notice how flushed Nick and Claudia are. What would happen if she told Hugo what she’d seen? Would they have a row? Would he send her mother packing? No, that would put an end to Sarabande. She couldn’t say a word. Not until after the first night anyway. The one thing she didn’t want to do, both for Hester’s sake and Ruby’s, and also for her own, was to spoil the ballet in any way. It was silly, really, but she’d worked on the props and the costumes and that made her feel as though Sarabande was hers in a funny way.