Star Quality

by Jean Ure

  “You won’t be the only one who’s just starting,” said Dad. “And let’s face it, you couldn’t have had any better training. Your mum may be a tyrant, but believe me, there’ll come a time when you’ll thank her for that!”

  “Yes, and just think,” said Mum, “if we’d let you go when you were eleven, you would never have met Caitlyn. We all know how much she owes you, but it’s far from being a one-way street … It wasn’t until you made her your pet project that you really started to show commitment. I was so proud when she took that audition with me and I knew that it was you who’d been teaching her … I couldn’t have done a better job myself!”

  I glowed. I couldn’t help it! Mum almost never praises me. The most she’ll say is, “That’s a bit better.” Not even better: just a bit better.

  Dad caught my eye and winked. “Wonders will never cease, eh?”

  “What wonders?” said Mum.

  “Maddy knows! Don’t you?”

  I giggled and nodded. It was good, having Dad on my side.

  “You and your little secrets,” said Mum. She patted my head as she left the room. “I think you’ll find I always give praise when praise is due.”

  “So there you have it,” said Dad. “If I were you, Mads, I’d go away and have a bit of a gloat … I’d say you deserve one!”

  It was our very first day at CBS. Caitlyn had begged me to wait for her at Waterloo so that we could walk there together. She’d said, “I know it’s silly, but I’m all trembly.” I hadn’t teased her cos to be honest even I felt a bit of a quiver as we went in through the main entrance. We may have been coming to the school for almost a year for our extension classes, but we had only been visitors then. It was very different being full-time students. At last we could feel that we really belonged.

  We’d spent the morning having registration, copying timetables and doing ordinary academic lessons – maths, English and geography, in this case – just as we would at any normal school. Now, at last, it was lunchtime. A group of us were sitting at a long table in the canteen, all eagerly looking forward to our first dance class of the day. There was me and Caitlyn, Roz and Alex, Tiffany Blanche, a tiny girl from Hong Kong called Mei, and Tiffany’s friend Amber, whose surname I couldn’t remember.

  “Hey!” Tiffany suddenly leaned across and prodded me. “Maddy! Why was it again that you didn’t come here at eleven, same as most of us?”

  It was the second time she’d asked me. The first time I hadn’t lowered myself to reply. I hadn’t liked the way she’d asked the question! All superior, like anyone that was any good would have joined the school ages ago. What business was it of hers why I hadn’t come when I was eleven? Now here she was, at it again, poking me, hoping to hear that I’d initially been turned down and had had to reapply.

  You can tell with some people that they just want to score a point. I knew why she wanted to score a point. We’d hardly gathered for registration before Mei had recognised me and squeaked, “Oh! You’re Sean O’Brien’s sister! I saw your photo in a dance magazine!”

  “Not just me,” I said, hurriedly.

  It had been all of us. Mum, Dad, me, Sean. Even Jen, who wasn’t dancing any more. Ballet’s Royal Family was what it had said. It had made me want to cringe. Caitlyn, needless to say, had been triumphant. She’d laughed and said, “Royal family … I told you so!”

  I wished Mei hadn’t seen it. I hadn’t asked to be photographed. It’s incredibly embarrassing when you’re doing your best to be just another dance student and no different from anybody else. It hadn’t bothered me at school when my friends had gone round boasting to everyone that “Maddy’s family is famous!” They weren’t actually famous, except in the ballet world, and no one at school had been particularly impressed. Being a ballet dancer isn’t exactly the same as being a pop star. But now I was with people for whom ballet was the most important thing in the whole world. The last thing I wanted was to be singled out. I didn’t mind them knowing who my mum and dad were, or that Sean was my brother. It wasn’t like I was trying to keep it a secret. I couldn’t have done, anyway. Almost everyone already knew. The dance world is quite small and Mei wouldn’t be the only one who’d seen the photograph. But drawing attention to it had obviously got right up Tiffany’s nose! And now she was getting right up mine. Was I the one who’d mentioned my family?

  “I’d have thought,” said Tiffany, dipping her spoon into her yoghurt pot, “that you wouldn’t have wanted to waste any time. Personally I couldn’t wait to get here!”

  “Me neither.” Amber nodded, eagerly. “I knew I wanted to come here right from the very beginning.”

  “Maddy knew from the very beginning that she was going to come,” said Roz.

  “So why didn’t she?”

  “What d’you mean, why didn’t she? She has. She is. Isn’t she?”

  Roz stared round as if to say, or am I seeing things?

  “She is now,” said Amber.

  “You surely must have been ready for it?” Tiffany was leaning forward again. A clump of yoghurt went splodging on to the table. “Oops!” She scooped it up and put it into her mouth. “I mean, it would be rather odd if you weren’t.”

  I seethed, inwardly. I’d told Mum this would happen!

  “I could have come earlier if I’d wanted,” I said. I probably could have, if I’d nagged hard enough. It had just never occurred to me. I’d always been quite happy to wait till I was thirteen. Until now.

  A wave of doubt suddenly engulfed me. Could it mean that Mum was right? That it wasn’t until starting to teach Caitlyn that I’d developed a proper sense of commitment?

  “You honestly didn’t want to?” said Tiffany. She and Amber exchanged glances. They shook their heads. Unbelievable!

  “You probably didn’t need to come earlier, did you?” said Mei. “Not if you had your mum to teach you.”

  “Yes, cos Maddy’s mum,” said Roz, “she’s f—”

  “Yeah, yeah!” Tiffany rocked back on her chair. “We all know who her mum is. And her dad. And her brother.”

  “This is what I’m saying,” said Roz. “Maddy could have come here any time. But when you’ve got one of the best teachers in the world …”

  I cringed. Mum is one of the best teachers. Roz was trying so hard to be loyal! But she was just making matters worse. And now Caitlyn was chipping in, as well.

  “If anyone wasn’t ready,” she said, “it was me.”

  “Oh?” Tiffany’s gaze immediately switched direction. “Why’s that?”

  “Cos I didn’t even start learning till I was eleven.”

  “You didn’t start learning?” Amber’s gaze had also switched direction. It was like Caitlyn was some kind of creature from outer space, the way they were studying her.

  Mei said, “That’s amazing! You must have loads of natural talent.”

  “She has,” I said.

  “But I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you! It’s all thanks to Maddy,” said Caitlyn. “She was the one that believed in me. She gave me my first opportunity! And she was my first teacher.” She giggled. “She was really strict! Not as strict as her mum, but she did used to bully me.”

  I said, “What cheek! I never bullied you.”

  “You did,” said Caitlyn. “You were always lecturing me, saying how I didn’t have any backbone. And then –” she turned back to the others – “you’ll never guess what?”

  “What?”

  Everybody, now, was craning forward to listen.

  “She made me learn her part for the end-of-term show at our school and right at the very last minute she went and twisted her ankle – pretended to twist her ankle – and said I had to go on instead cos I was her understudy. I’ve never been so terrified in my life. I was, like, shaking in my shoes!”

  “Why?” said Tiffany. “What were you terrified of? That’s what being an understudy’s all about.”

  “So long as you knew the part,” agreed Amber.

  “She knew th
e part,” I said. “She just wasn’t properly trained. She’d never had a single lesson till I started teaching her. And I’d only been doing it for a couple of months! So going on in my place was incredibly brave, if you ask me.”

  “I’ll say,” said Alex, who’d heard the story before. “You wouldn’t have got me doing it!”

  “I didn’t want to,” said Caitlyn. “It was only cos of Maddy, bullying me.”

  “So what happened?” said Mei.

  “What happened,” I said, “was that she gave a totally brilliant performance and Sean saw it and told Mum and Mum said Caitlyn had better let her see what she could do, and as soon as she saw her she said she’d take her on.”

  “She gave me this special scholarship,” said Caitlyn. “Cos she knew my mum couldn’t afford lessons.”

  “That is so romantic,” breathed Mei. “Like something out of a fairy tale!”

  Tiffany said, “Hmm.”

  What did she mean, hmm? What was she implying?

  “Mum doesn’t take on just anybody,” I said.

  “I’m sure,” purred Tiffany.

  “It just helps,” said Amber, “if you know the right people.”

  Earnestly Caitlyn said, “Yes, it does! I was just so lucky.”

  “It’s the sort of thing,” agreed Roz, “that will go in your biography.”

  “Oh,” said Tiffany, “is someone going to do a biography of her?”

  “Probably,” said Roz. “When she’s famous. They might even make a movie.”

  Tiffany looked at Roz with distaste. Then she looked at Caitlyn and her lip curled. I knew what she was thinking. How could someone so utterly ordinary ever hope to become famous?

  It’s true that Caitlyn isn’t striking like Tiffany, with her long limbs and her blond hair. She isn’t especially pretty, like Roz, and she doesn’t have Mei’s daintiness. It’s only when she dances that she really comes alive. Offstage she can seem quite mouse-like and unremarkable. On stage she has what Mum calls star quality. It’s not something that can be taught; you either have it or you don’t. Sean has it, in buckets. By all accounts, Mum also used to have it. I am not sure that Jen did. I hoped that I might. I knew I came across, as they say. Across the footlights, that is. I don’t just fade into the background. But whether I actually had star quality … Mum had never told me that I had. On the other hand, maybe she wouldn’t. She’d never actually told Caitlyn; only said it to Dad one day, when she didn’t realise I was listening.

  “Do you know, I really think little Caitlyn might surprise us all … She definitely has potential.”

  “Star quality?” Dad had said, and Mum had said yes. “Star quality.”

  I couldn’t help wondering if she’d ever said it about me. If she’d ever even thought it about me. Maybe it was just something she took for granted when it came to her own children. We were the O’Briens! Of course we had star quality.

  Tiffany was still gazing at Caitlyn with a sort of amused contempt. “Famous!” she said, and gave a little snigger.

  “D’you know,” said Caitlyn, solemnly, “I’ve never even thought about being famous. Have you?”

  She addressed her question to the table at large.

  Alex said, “You’d better believe it! When I was eleven I used to spend hours interviewing myself … Alexandra Ellman, prima ballerina …”

  “Oh, me, too!” agreed Roz. “I once interviewed myself as Roz Costello, Baby Ballerina … the youngest person ever to dance Princess Aurora … How pathetic was that!”

  “I don’t think it’s pathetic,” said Tiffany. “Perfectly natural, if you ask me.”

  “Exactly,” said Amber. “What’s the point of becoming a dancer if you don’t believe you’ll reach the top?”

  Caitlyn hung her head. “I just never thought about it. All I wanted to do was dance.”

  “Didn’t you ever have dreams when you were little?” said Mei. “When the curtain comes down and you’re standing there, in the spotlight, and everyone’s cheering and throwing flowers and someone gives you this enormous bouquet?”

  “Not really.”

  “So what did you dream about?” said Amber.

  “Mostly I just dreamt about being able to have ballet lessons … being able to buy a pair of ballet shoes and …” Caitlyn’s voice trailed away, uncertainly.

  I waited for either Amber or Tiffany to make one of their smart remarks. Tiffany half opened her mouth, then obviously thought better of it and snapped it shut again. Amber didn’t even make the attempt. It was Roz who said, “That makes me feel really tawdry.”

  So then I said, “What does tawdry mean?” And Roz said she didn’t really know, but it sounded right, and Alex said it meant sort of cheap, and we all agreed that maybe we shouldn’t be worrying so much about becoming famous as about becoming the best dancers we possibly could.

  Tiffany said, “Oh, how noble!” But it wasn’t specially convincing.

  At the end of the day we walked back to Waterloo together, the usual bunch of us – me, Caitlyn, Roz and Alex. Mei was with us for part of the way. As her family were in Hong Kong, she was staying in the hostel, just up the road, which the school kept for students who needed accommodation. Some were foreign, others simply lived too far away. Sometimes people’s parents rented houses so that their mums – it was usually their mums – could move to London to be with them. Quite often they let out rooms to other students. Amber, for instance, was living with Tiffany and her mum. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted that, thank you very much – not with Tiffany! But I did think it might perhaps be fun to stay in the hostel rather than going back home every day. I suggested this to Caitlyn, as we left the others and peeled off towards the Underground, but she reacted with horror.

  “What about my mum? She’d be all on her own!”

  I said, “Yes, of course. I’d forgotten about your mum.” Doing my best to sound sympathetic. I know that I am not always as understanding as I should be, though I do try to consider other people’s feelings. I could see that it was difficult for Caitlyn. My mum is quite high-powered, totally preoccupied with her teaching. Plus she has Dad (when he is not flying about the world putting on his ballets) and also me. Not to mention Sean and Jen, who both live quite near and are for ever dropping by. Caitlyn’s mum only has Caitlyn, and is, I think, a rather shy and lonely sort of person.

  “What will you do,” I said, “when we have to go on tour?”

  “You mean, if I get into the Company.”

  “Yes.”

  Caitlyn crinkled her nose. “I daren’t look that far ahead! It’s like tempting fate … Suppose I get thrown out?”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. “Of course you won’t get thrown out! Don’t even think about it.”

  “How can you help it?” wailed Caitlyn. “Everybody thinks about it!”

  She didn’t add, everybody except you, though she could have done cos it was quite true: I didn’t think about it. Maybe I might nearer the time, but for goodness’ sake we’d only just come to the end of our very first day!

  “Someone told me,” said Caitlyn, “that by the time we reach the end of our training there’ll be only half of us left. And did you know –” she turned, big-eyed, to look at me – “did you know that six people were thrown out last term? Mei was telling me. Six people!”

  “Pity it didn’t include Tiffany,” I said. “Can’t think anyone would miss her.”

  There was a pause. I could see Caitlyn struggling to think of something to say in Tiffany’s defence. She is someone who always tries to see the best in people. I tend to just jump in and say whatever I feel.

  “Don’t tell me you like her?”

  “She’s a good dancer,” said Caitlyn.

  Grudgingly I said, “I suppose.” From what little we’d seen. “I wish you hadn’t told her about Mum giving you a scholarship, though.”

  “Why?” Caitlyn seemed startled. “Didn’t you want me to?”

  I said, “I don’t mind. Not like it�
�s a secret. But now she’s going to go round telling everyone you only got in cos of knowing the right people.”

  “Oh.” She bit her lip. “Maybe I did.”

  “That’s absolute rubbish,” I said, crossly. “Mum would never have given you a scholarship if she didn’t think you deserved it. As a matter of fact –” I wasn’t sure that Caitlyn knew this – “it’s the only scholarship Mum’s ever given. Ever! Which just shows that she agreed with Sean. He was the one that said you had a special talent.”

  Predictably Caitlyn’s face had turned bright pink, either because I’d mentioned Sean or because I’d told her what he’d said. Most likely a mixture of both.

  I sternly informed her, not for the first time, that she really had to have a bit more faith in herself. “Otherwise,” I said, “people like Tiffany will just walk all over you, like she tried to do today. She can try it with me as much as she likes. Doesn’t bother me! You’re too modest. It simply doesn’t get you anywhere, not in this business. You have to be really tough in this business.” (I was quoting Mum, here.) “If you keep putting yourself down all the time, people start thinking you can’t be much good. It helps, of course, if you’re naturally bumptious, which apparently I am, according to Sean.”

  Caitlyn giggled. “What’s bumptious?”

  “It’s, like, when people are too full of themselves … I know,” I said, in an effort to be truthful, “that I can sometimes be a bit pushy. But I’m never nasty. Not like Tiffany. I’m not,” I said, “am I?”

  “Course you’re not,” said Caitlyn. “She’s the one that’s full of herself.”

  Bitterly I said, “It’s cos she started at CBS when she was eleven. She reckons it makes her superior. Her and that Amber!”

  “But Mei started when she was eleven. She’s not superior.”

  “No,” I said. “Mei’s lovely.”

  “I’ll tell you who else is nice … that girl Chloe.”

  “Chloe Adams?”

  “Yes.” Caitlyn nodded, enthusiastically. “Don’t you think she’s nice?”