Hester's Story

by Adle Geras

  *

  ‘I’m sure we’ll get used to it.’ Hester smiled at Hugo. ‘We have so much in common, after all, don’t we? I’m sure there are lots of mothers who find it difficult to talk to their children.’

  ‘I’ve never found it hard to talk to you. Don’t you remember? On New Year’s Eve I have a memory of wanting to lay my head on your shoulder and tell you all my troubles.’

  ‘Yes, I do remember. I was touched.’ She was sitting behind her writing table in the Office and Hugo was on the chaise-longue, Siggy on his lap. ‘Siggy seems to think you’re a member of the family, so I suppose you must be. It’ll be a while before I absorb it fully, but he’s a very wise old cat.’

  ‘I feel a bit like Cinderella just after the slipper’s been put on her foot. After our talk this morning, I’m a bit less confused. Everything’s fallen into place. This all …’ he waved a hand to include Hester and the room and the house beyond the room, ‘seems somehow right. I’ve always admired you from afar. I liked you from the very first time I met you and actually I’ve even thought that we were a little alike and then decided I was flattering myself.’

  ‘Perhaps we are alike. Imagine if someone else had been given the commission this year. Imagine that.’

  ‘I can’t. I can’t imagine it. What would have happened?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing dramatic. We’d each have gone on with our separate lives, that’s all. I would have mourned my dead baby every day for the rest of my life.’

  ‘And I’d never have known you were my mother. Which would have been sad, though nothing like as sad as your situation. I had a mother, after all, who loved me and brought me up and I loved her too.’

  ‘I’m grateful to her. You can’t begin to understand how grateful. She must have been a wonderful person too, because you’re a credit to her.’

  ‘And to you and my father …’

  ‘Your father, yes.’ Hester looked searchingly at Hugo. ‘Are you prepared to do what I asked you when we discussed it earlier? Not to say a word about Adam? Not ever? You know my reasons. I can’t do that to Adam’s wife, suddenly appear in public with his son. It would hurt her so badly. I hope you agree that I’m right. I don’t know about Claudia. Do you feel you have to tell her?’

  Hugo shook his head. ‘We’re not going to be together very much longer.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Is it going to be hard for you? Or for her?’

  ‘No, I think we agree that we’re not – our relationship isn’t what it was. I won’t tell her.’

  ‘But if you get married, of course your wife will need to know everything.’

  ‘I’ll tell you before I confide in anyone, I promise.’ A thought occurred to him. ‘This situation must be hard for you. I’m glad you felt that you could tell me about my father. Do I look like him?’

  ‘You have his smile. He was tall, like you, but broader shouldered. Ever since I met you, you’ve reminded me of someone and now I see that it’s actually two people. One of them is my father. He had your build, but when I was a child, he seemed to be so stiff. I used to think he looked like a scarecrow, but you don’t. Not a bit.’

  ‘I hope I don’t. Who’s the other person?’

  ‘Me. I think you look like me. I’ve watched you in rehearsal and class and you move in just the same way. Your port de bras – everything.’

  ‘D’you know something? I can’t think of anyone I’d rather look like.’

  He got to his feet gently and Siggy took his place on the chaise-longue, looking only slightly put out.

  *

  Hester was just about to set off down the covered corridor to the Arcadia for the dress rehearsal when she remembered that Alison must have finished decorating the dining room. Not much time, she thought, but I’ll just go and see.

  She opened the door and stood for a long moment on the threshold, taking it in. The room had never looked like this, not in all the years since the Festival was first launched. All around the dado-rails, piled on the mantelpiece and on the mirror above it, along the front of the raised platform at the end of the room were more branches than she’d ever seen in her life. Ruby and George must have been out in the countryside collecting them for weeks. They’d been sprayed with silver paint and all along each one, someone – Alison, she was sure – had tied elaborate bows of satin ribbon. Such colours! Red and black and pink; blue and violet and yellow; pale green and silver and gold. It took Hester a little while to understand what the ribbons were. She realised it when she noticed the ballet shoes, dotted here and there. The ribbons came from Ruby’s box in Wardrobe which was always stocked with every possible colour visiting ballerinas might require. Alison had stuffed the toe of every shoe and balanced them all so that it seemed as though an invisible creature had left them there, poised and ready to move into a dance.

  Beautiful. It was so beautiful that Hester found herself blinking away tears. I must thank her properly, she thought, for this magical idea. She hadn’t thought the house was capable of such beauty when she’d first inherited it from Madame Olga.

  1970

  Six months after her accident, Hester took on the most demanding role of her career. After she’d made up her mind that she was no longer a dancer, she threw herself into teaching with an energy that surprised everyone, herself most of all. She found that there was an enormous satisfaction from creating a ballerina out of someone who up till then was only an awkward child. She acquired, very quickly, a reputation for strictness and not suffering fools gladly. Liking her own way, and seeing that she got it, which had brought her into conflict with more than one choreographer, was exactly the quality that seemed de rigueur if you were a teacher. Hester played up to the part, and even though she stopped short of copying Madame Olga’s dress and manner, she adopted a uniform and a style of her own, dressing always in very well-cut black trousers and a variety of silk shirts in jewel colours. Her hair, which she’d worn long throughout her dancing career, had been cut into a chin-length bob.

  Hester also began to travel all over the world, amazed that there were people from Australia to Moscow longing to hear about her career, to listen to her views on the latest developments in modern dance, and on a whole variety of subjects about which she was magically supposed to know everything simply by virtue of who she’d once been. The legendary Hester Fielding, that’s what they called her now. Dinah, who had been living in New Zealand since her marriage ten years ago, was overjoyed that they could meet again. ‘It means you can come and see me and we can talk properly for the first time in years,’ she wrote. ‘Letters are all very well, but I can’t wait to see you.’

  It was in the spring of 1970, while Hester was staying with Dinah in Christchurch, that a phone call came from Piers. The line was crackly and difficult and he sounded as though he were talking underwater, but Hester heard him. Madame Olga had suffered a stroke. Hester returned to England at once. While she was on her way home, Piers had arranged for Madame Olga to be moved from Wychwood House to St Thomas’s Hospital in London so that they could visit her every day. They expected her to make a complete recovery and convalesce in the luxury of Piers’ house. What illness would dare lay Madame Olga low?

  ‘She’ll tell those doctor chappies what’s what,’ Piers said, in the hearty voice and bluff manner he reserved for particularly sad occasions when he thought people needed cheering up. Hester believed him. It was impossible to think of Madame Olga, who was so self-possessed and elegant and in charge of everything, lying in bed like a sick person; like an old woman. She’s only seventy-two, Hester told herself. That’s not really old. She was strong, too. Hester had never known her to suffer from anything worse than a cold in all the years she’d known her. She would definitely be fine.

  Then the second stroke came and Hester and Piers rushed through the streets of London in the dark to visit her. They took a taxi from the theatre after watching the first night of a production of Swan Lake in which one of Hester’s own pupils was appearing. Piers was wai
ting at the stage door at the end of the performance, ready to take her to the hospital.

  Something was different. Hester knew it at once. Madame Olga had been moved to a small side-room near the entrance to the ward. They only did that for patients who were very ill indeed. Hester began to sweat, in spite of feeling cold all over.

  ‘Madame?’ she whispered, going to sit on the chair drawn up beside the bed. ‘Madame, it’s me. Hester. Please open your eyes.’

  She’d shrunk. She was a little old lady lying in a bed. Her thinning hair had been plaited by one of the nursing staff and she wore a white nightgown with lace at the neck. Her hands looked like pieces of bleached wood, gnarled and swollen at the joints, but still arranged in a graceful way on the blanket, as though she had decided on this particular position for them. Her eyes were closed and her skin, which had always been smooth and pale and unblemished was dark under her eyes and saggy and loose near her chin. She had lost something of herself, and Hester began weeping because her Madame Olga had gone and this poor, sick woman, this old and feeble person had replaced her.

  Hester took her hand and held it. ‘The ballet was good tonight. Dulcie’s very promising, I think.’

  ‘You are now like me,’ Madame Olga spoke so quietly that Hester had to lean forward to catch her words. Every one of them was an effort. ‘The dancers become the teachers, yes?’

  Hester nodded and tried not to cry. ‘It doesn’t seem so long ago that you came down to the Royalty to see me in Sleeping Beauty, when I did the Bluebird. Do you remember?’

  ‘Everything. I forget nothing. This is the curse of old age. All remains and you cannot clean your head. But listen to me, child.’

  She seized Hester’s wrist then and her hand was like a bird’s claw. She tried to sit up a little but that was too much for her and she fell back against the pillows. Hester said, ‘Don’t distress yourself, Madame. I’m here. I can hear you. Speak to me.’

  ‘I want to say something to you,’ she whispered. ‘I have wanted to say it for many years. This. All of it is yours. All my jewels. You remember them, I think. I have left them to you and also the house. What will you do with such a house? It is not my business. But Wychwood is yours.’

  Hester couldn’t move her hand from Madame Olga’s grip, so the tears ran down her face unchecked and she barely noticed. She heard what the old lady was saying and part of her took it in. Madame Olga was leaving everything she owned to Hester, and at this very moment, she didn’t care two figs for any of it. She couldn’t bear the way Madame Olga’s voice was leaving her. The power of her lungs, which was almost as great as the power of her will, had gone, and now only a thin, thin breath of air was left to carry what she still wanted to tell Hester.

  Hester knelt down beside the bed and thanked her.

  ‘I love you, Madame,’ she whispered, her mouth close to Madame Olga’s ear, but it was hard to see whether she was aware of the words. In the end, a nurse came to tell Hester it was time to leave. She said, ‘Come again tomorrow, dear. Madame Rakovska needs her rest now.’

  Hester was already by the door when she heard a sound, a hoarse cry that was a version of her name, ‘Hester. Hester, come to me.’

  She went back to the bed. Madame Olga was struggling to sit up and Hester put an arm around her to help her. She could feel every bone in Madame’s back through her nightdress, and thought that if she moved too quickly, the old woman might break into a million separate fragments. Madame was struggling to speak. ‘You forgive me, yes? Say this. Say you forgive me. I beg of you. Please.’

  ‘Forgive you? There’s nothing to forgive, Madame. You’ve been like a mother to me. You’ve done everything for me. Please don’t say such things.’

  ‘Say it,’ she insisted. ‘Say you forgive me. I beg. Please, I am dying, darling child. Let me know this before I go. Please. Say it.’

  Hester didn’t know what she was talking about. ‘I forgive you. Of course I do. But there’s nothing to forgive.’

  She closed her eyes and smiled as Hester laid her gently down again. She looked as though she was dreaming of good things. Madame Olga died that night and Hester never saw her again. From time to time, in the years following her death, Hester would wonder what she’d meant. Why was she asking for my forgiveness? What could she possibly think she’d done?

  On the morning following her visit, Hester answered the telephone and a voice on the other end, a voice she didn’t know, told her the bad news. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. I will have to ring Piers at once, she thought. The funeral. We must arrange the funeral. Her hand was trembling uncontrollably as she dialled his number, but the tears remained unshed for many hours. It was only when she was quite alone, in her bed that night, that Hester allowed herself to weep. I will never, she thought, stop missing Madame Olga. Never.

  *

  Wychwood House was looking particularly grim and grey when Hester and Edmund went to look round it. They walked through the rooms, where dust sheets covered every piece of furniture. The carpets were threadbare, the curtains eaten by moths and heavy with the dirt of years. Madame Olga had brought very little with her to London, so the cavernous wardrobes were full of her dresses and coats. The bright scarves and shawls she always wore were in two drawers of the chest in her bedroom, and in another were albums and boxes bursting with photographs of dancers and other vanished friends from the days when snapshots were small, black and white and indistinct.

  ‘Look at all this stuff,’ Hester told Edmund, faint with the thought that she’d have to clear it up; deal with everything.

  ‘We’ll cope with it,’ said Edmund. ‘I’ve already spoken to various chaps who’re going to come and clear the house. Auctioneers in Keighley. You never know, some of the furniture might fetch a bob or two. Don’t forget that this isn’t what she’s left you. Not really. Not these old clothes and things. You have to look at the house as full of possibilities. Potential, the estate agents would say.’

  ‘But potential for what? It looks like the House of Usher to me. How can I possibly live in it?’

  ‘Well, not in its present condition, of course you can’t. But if it’s done up. Decorated, and that wilderness outside cleared and made into a garden …’

  They went for a walk that afternoon, over the moors. The sun had come out for what Edmund called ‘a special guest appearance’ before night fell. The sky was streaked with purple and rose pink and orange as it made its way down behind the slope of a hill to the west. They talked about Wychwood House.

  ‘I’d like to do something spectacular,’ Hester said. ‘Something unexpected. I’d like Wychwood to be known for ballet in the way that Glyndebourne is known for opera. A festival. I wish I could do that, but you’d need a theatre, wouldn’t you? And no one would dream of putting a theatre in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘I don’t see why not. You could build it down there, in that dip behind the house. I can see it now. A small theatre, of course, about two hundred seats. But very beautiful. And we must call it something romantic. The Alhambra.’

  ‘No, that sounds like a music hall. What about the Princess?’

  ‘Princess? No, that’s terrible. Why that?’

  ‘After Princess Margaret, I thought. She loves the ballet. Perhaps she could be a patron of the festival?’

  ‘Well, perhaps she could, but the name is still awful. I’ve got it!’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Hester. ‘Though I reserve the right to hate it.’

  Edmund stood quite still and announced the name in a ringing voice that seemed to fill the whole landscape on this still afternoon. ‘The Arcadia Theatre.’

  Hester said nothing for a moment, and he went on. ‘The classical paradise. Et in Arcadia ego … I, too, have been in Paradise.’

  ‘It’s lovely, Edmund. How clever you are! Thank you. It couldn’t possibly be anything else. But that means it’s got to be traditional. Not modern. It has to fit in with the house and the surroundings. Are people really going to come all
the way up here?’

  ‘They will if the ballet’s good enough. And it will be. With you in charge, of course it will. You could have a competition every year, choose your choreographer that way. Then let whoever it is choose what he wants to do. Or she wants to do, I suppose, though I don’t think there are that many women choreographers.’

  ‘Brilliant, Edmund!’ said Hester and hugged him. ‘But you’ll have to help me.’

  ‘Don’t I always?’ Edmund smiled at her.

  ‘You do. Always.’

  *

  The Wychwood Festival was launched in 1976 and the first night of the ballet was the sixth of January. The invited audience of critics and ballet lovers from all over the country sat in the beautiful interior of the Arcadia Theatre and watched a production of Rosemary for Remembrance, a piece based on Hamlet, seen from Ophelia’s point of view. The applause at the end of the evening went on for nearly ten minutes. Edmund timed it on his watch.

  At the end of the party after the first night, Hester and Edmund went upstairs together.

  ‘It’s going to be the best ballet festival ever, Hester,’ Edmund said, putting his arm around her waist. ‘I’m so proud to be part of it, through you.’

  They were standing at the top of the staircase and he pulled her to him.

  ‘You smell so lovely,’ he said and buried his face in Hester’s hair. He stepped away and touched her cheek.

  ‘Good night, darling girl.’ He turned and walked quickly towards his room. She was left there, not knowing what to do. She went to her bedroom and sat at the dressing-table. The chain, the gold chain that she always wore, caught the light, and Hester examined the face that she saw reflected in the mirror. I’m not a girl any longer, she thought. I must stop myself from thinking about love and kisses like a green young thing. I’m a business woman now. A festival director. I’m going to be good at it, too. Tears came into Hester’s eyes as she thought of how much Madame Olga would have enjoyed tonight. How happy she would have been in the foyer of the theatre, trailing one of her more magnificent scarves and with her hands weighed down by silver rings studded with pieces of amber the size of small onions. She would have been proud of me, Hester thought. The ballets will be wonderful and people will come and see them from all over the world. They’ll come to the Arcadia Theatre. Hester Fielding’s theatre. My theatre.