by Jean Ure
“She seems like she might be fun,” I said. I hadn’t had much to do with her as yet.
“Actually,” said Caitlyn, “she reminds me a bit of you.”
“Me?”
How could she say that Chloe reminded her of me? We weren’t in the least bit alike! The same height, maybe; but other than that we were about as different as could be. For a start, Chloe’s hair was pale, like milky coffee, and very fine. My hair is thick and chestnut-coloured. Chloe was going to need a hairpiece when she was on stage. On the other hand, she did have this small elfin face with big dark eyes and cheekbones to die for. Every dancer dreams of having cheekbones! My face – I might as well be honest; there is no point in trying to hide from the truth – my face is what Mum once called distressingly round. I do have cheekbones, but I also, unfortunately, have cheeks. All plump and rosy and even, sometimes, covered in freckles. Great for comedy roles; but Giselle? Odette? Sleeping Beauty? I don’t think so! Mum says briskly that there is always make-up, but who was ever going to cast me in those roles in the first place? They’d cast that blasted Tiffany. They’d cast Caitlyn. They’d probably cast Chloe.
Grumpily I said, “How can you think we’re alike?”
“I didn’t say you were alike.” Caitlyn said it earnestly. “She just reminds me of you … Like this morning, when we had that lecture about nutrition and eating sensibly, and afterwards Chloe said she was going straight home to stuff herself with all the bad things she could find … crisps, and chips, and fudge, and—”
“She was only joking,” I said.
“I know, it’s just that it reminded me of you.”
“You must be mad,” I said. “I’d only have to look at a bit of fudge and I’d put on about five kilos.”
“Well, I expect she would, too,” said Caitlyn. “It’s this jokey thing you do, pretending you don’t really care when you obviously do. Like that time your mum wouldn’t let you go for a sleepover at Liv’s cos we had our intermediate next day and she said you couldn’t afford to be up half the night; you needed to be well rested. D’you remember?”
I grunted. I sort of did.
“Livi said anyone would think you were planning on becoming a nun, the way your mum wouldn’t let you go out and enjoy yourself like any normal person. She said you never seemed to have any fun at all. And you said—”
I said, “What? What did I say?”
“You did that thing that you do –” Caitlyn tossed her head – and said, ‘I’m going to have all the fun I want! I’m not going to live like a nun!’
I said, “Well, I’m not. Why should I? Sean doesn’t!”
Caitlyn giggled. I said, “What’s so funny?”
“Sean living like a nun!”
Crossly I said, “Like a monk is what I meant. He’s always out partying! And I can’t even begin to count the number of boyfriends he had before he met Danny!”
Maybe I shouldn’t have said it, not that Sean would mind, but I felt this sudden urgent need to divert attention from myself. I did actually remember the sleepover incident. I’d argued quite fiercely with Mum about it and Mum had said –
I snapped my brain shut. I didn’t want to think about what Mum had said!
“I’m just pointing out,” said Caitlyn, “you made it sound like you thought having fun was more important than being a dancer. I knew you didn’t really mean it! Like nobody really believes Chloe’s actually going to cram herself with fudge. It’s just her being her. Like it was just you being you.”
You’ll do well to buck your ideas up, my girl. That was what Mum had said. You’ll need to show a bit more commitment than that if you intend to get anywhere.
I shifted, uncomfortably.
“Anyway,” said Caitlyn.
I muttered, “Anyway what?”
“It’s different for boys.”
I thought, Excuse me??? Normally I’d have ripped into her for that. I can’t stand it when people say things are different for boys! Like boys can do whatever they want. Boys can get away with anything. Total sexist rubbish, if you ask me. But right at that moment I was quite relieved to change the subject.
“Talking of boys …” I said.
We talked of boys all the rest of the way. Caitlyn complained that she’d never really known any. I said that being at a girls’ school I hadn’t, either, apart from Sean, and I wasn’t sure how much brothers counted.
“They’ve got to count for something,” said Caitlyn.
“Well, we can make up for it now,” I told her. “There’s almost as many boys in our class as girls. It wasn’t like that in Mum’s day. In her day they found it really difficult to get boys into ballet. We’re lucky!”
Very seriously Caitlyn said, “How did they manage to teach partnering?”
“Goodness knows,” I said. “They must have used the same boys over and over till they got worn out! At least we won’t have that problem. I’m really looking forward to starting on pas de deux!”
“Me, too.” Caitlyn nodded, happily.
“Who d’you fancy?” I said.
She looked at me, alarmed.
“As a partner,” I said.
“Oh! OK … Carlo, maybe?”
I said, “I knew you’d choose him!”
“Well, go on, then,” said Caitlyn. “You choose!”
It kept us occupied for the rest of the journey. Far safer, I thought, than talking about me and my lack of commitment. Except that I really had only been joking! I was as committed as anybody. Caitlyn could see it; why couldn’t Mum?
My two best friends at Coombe House, before I left to go to ballet school, were Livi Samuels and Jordan Barker. The three of us had been really close. Caitlyn had only started at Coombe when she was eleven – when I should have gone to ballet school – and at first Livi and Jordan had been a bit resentful, cos of me suddenly spending so much time with Caitlyn, and Caitlyn and me having so much to talk about. I couldn’t ever talk about ballet with Liv and Jordan, but until Caitlyn had arrived we’d been used to doing everything together so I could understand how they felt. They’d got over it after a while, though we’d never quite become a foursome. But the three of us had sworn to keep in touch and I’d promised faithfully that I would call them and let them know what it was like, being at ballet school full-time. I’d really meant to do so! It was just that things kept intervening and somehow or other the days had shot past without me even noticing until a whole fortnight had gone by, and in the end they’d decided that if I wasn’t going to call them, they would have to call me.
“People keep asking about you,” said Liv.
“Like, have we heard anything?” said Jordan.
“Even Miss Lucas! Just this morning. She said, ‘I suppose you haven’t heard how Maddy’s getting on?’”
“Well, you and Caitlyn, actually.”
I said, “I’m really sorry; it’s all just been so mad!”
“That’s what Miss Lucas said. She said you were probably too busy.”
That made me feel really guilty. Poor Miss Lucas! She’d always been so supportive. And I’d always been so impatient! I shouldn’t have laughed about her the way I did. Just because she was getting on a bit and had these sentimental ideas about what dancing should be.
“All pink and pretty,” as I’d once rather scornfully said to Mum.
Mum had told me off. She said that Miss Lucas was a sweet old soul and deserved my respect.
“Just remember your manners!”
I felt bad about it, now. Miss Lucas had put up with so much, simply because of who I was. That is, Mum’s daughter. She was in awe of Mum. It even made her a little bit in awe of me. Well, of course, Maddy, she used to say, you’ll know far better than I do when it comes to performing. And I’d been bigheaded enough to believe that I did!
Looking back, it made me feel ashamed. I had to remind myself that if it weren’t for Miss Lucas and her eager enthusiasm, there would never have been any end-of-term production and Caitlyn would never hav
e had the opportunity to show what she could do.
“I’ll send her a card,” I promised. “The Company has ones you can buy. I’ll get something pretty! Sylphides, or something.”
“She’d like that,” said Jordan.
“Where are you both, anyway?” I said. “You sound funny!”
They giggled. “Mum and Dad are out,” said Liv, “so we’ve put the phone on speaker. We’re at my place, having a sleepover.”
“We nearly asked you,” said Jordan, “but we thought probably your mum wouldn’t let you.”
“She might have done,” I said. “It’s not like we have any exams coming up. On the other hand I do have to be in early for class.”
“On a Saturday? Don’t you have enough during the week? I should have thought you’d get sick of it.”
“It’s not all dancing,” I said. “We have to do ordinary lessons as well. We have dance classes in the morning and dance classes in the afternoon, and all the ordinary stuff in between, same as at school.”
“What d’you have to do that for?” said Jordan. “If you’re going to be a dancer?”
I said, “Well, you need to know about art and music and stuff. You have to be educated.” A fully rounded education was what they called it.
“What about boys?” said Jordan. “Are there many boys?”
I said, “Loads of them!”
Over the speakerphone I heard two deep sighs.
“Imagine,” said Liv, “you go off to ballet school and meet loads of them while we’re stuck here at Coombe without so much as a single one in sight!”
“What are they like?” asked Jordan, eagerly.
What did she mean, what were they like? I said, “They’re just boys, same as any others.”
“They’re not all gay, then? I thought they’d all be gay!”
Scornfully I said, “That’s just a stupid myth. Not all boys that do ballet are gay. As a matter of fact,” I added, “most of them aren’t.”
“Oh, well, of course, not all,” agreed Jordan.
“Just some,” said Livi, kindly.
They made it sound like they were humouring me. Like they thought they knew better than I did.
“If you’re referring to Sean,” I said, “just say so. It’s not exactly a secret.”
That shamed them into silence! For a few seconds they stayed quiet, obviously feeling rebuked. Then, brightly, Jordan said, “So how’s Caitlyn?” Thus proving they had been referring to Sean. They both knew Caitlyn had this massive crush on him.
I said that Caitlyn was fine. I wasn’t going to tell them she was already worrying about whether she would be kept on at the end of the first year. Most people probably did worry. There were just so many reasons for being rejected. More often than not for things you couldn’t do anything about, such as growing too tall, or not being the right physical shape. You could be the most brilliant dancer in the world, but if you didn’t fit the mould they wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of you.
“Anyway,” I said, “how is school? Tell me about school!”
They seized on it, thankfully. School was something we could all talk about. Livi told me how Ms Passmore had left to have a baby and how a man had taken her place.
“A real man!”
“Young,” said Livi.
“Young-ish,” said Jordan. She cackled. “Liv really fancies him!”
“I so do not,” said Liv.
“You so do! I suppose at ballet school you have male teachers?”
“A few,” I said. “Mostly at our stage they teach the boys.”
“You mean you don’t do classes together?”
“Not classical. We do character.”
Livi started to say, “What’s charac—”
But Jordan cut excitedly across her. “I must tell you, the funniest thing happened the other day. We were in morning assembly and this tiny little mouse suddenly appeared out of nowhere and guess what? Mindy Jacobs jumped on her chair and started screaming! Honestly it was hilarious!”
“I mean, please,” said Livi. “She’s a prefect.”
“Naturally we didn’t laugh at the time,” said Jordan.
“No, cos that would have been unkind,” agreed Liv.
“But Mindy Jacobs …”
They both went off into peals of giggles. I supposed it must have been quite funny; Mindy Jacobs had always been so desperately bossy and self-important. I was just finding it difficult to put myself back there, to remember how it felt, filing in to morning assembly, all the prefects sitting in a row down the side, all the rest of us bunched up in the middle. It suddenly all seemed so long ago and far away. My life now was so different. But I gave a bit of a giggle, to show willing.
“By the way,” said Liv, “there’s a new girl you’d be interested in. She’s an ice skater.”
“She’s a bit like you,” said Jordan. “She dances. Same as you, except on ice. Really clever! She’s won medals. You really ought to meet her some time. You’d have loads to talk about!”
I said, “OK.”
“Maybe when you’re not so busy?”
“We could all get together,” said Liv. “How about a Saturday afternoon?”
I said that a Saturday afternoon would be fine, so long as we didn’t have any extra classes arranged.
“I’ll give you a ring!”
This time, I thought, I really would. It wouldn’t be right to drop old friends just because I’d made new ones, even if I did find it difficult to think of things to talk about. How could I tell them that just the other day Miss Hillier, one of our teachers, had had me out front, before the whole class, demonstrating my pas de chat? Livi and Jordan wouldn’t understand how extraordinary it was, to be singled out. Plus they wouldn’t have the faintest idea what a pas de chat was anyway. They thought ballet was all about being able to do the splits or lift your leg up over your head or spin like a top without getting dizzy. I mean, it was all of those things, but they were just, like, the basics. Like doing the splits, for instance, was good practice for when you came to do grands jetés. They weren’t a proper step. And then all that silliness about boys that did ballet! It really made me ashamed of them. It just showed how our worlds had moved apart, and what a gulf there was between them. I could understand their world, cos I’d once belonged to it, but they didn’t understand a single thing about mine.
I told Caitlyn, as we met up on Monday morning, that Jordan and Livi had rung. I told her how Miss Lucas had been asking after us, and that I was going to send her a card.
“Oh, please,” begged Caitlyn, “can we send her one from both of us?”
I said, “I’ll ask Sean to pick one out at the theatre. He can bring it round at the weekend. It’s Mum and Dad’s anniversary; we’re all going out for a meal. Oh, and I told Jordan and Liv we’d get together some time. Maybe on a Saturday afternoon?”
“That’s a good idea,” said Caitlyn. “I’d like to see someone from school again. I s’pose everything’s just the same?”
“Well,” I said, “there’s a new girl that does ice dancing, and Ms Passmore left to have a baby, and Mindy Jacobs got scared by a mouse and started screaming, and Jordan and Liv are green with jealousy cos of our being with boys.”
Triumphantly Caitlyn said, “It’s them that’s living like nuns, not us!”
“Yes, and today,” I said, happily, “we’re starting pas de deux. I can’t wait to see who we’re partnered with!”
Caitlyn pulled a face. “I know I won’t be with Carlo.”
“You could be.”
She shook her head. “I won’t! I’m too short. They’ll put him with someone taller. I just hope it’s not Tiffany!”
I agreed that would be tiresome. Of course I knew why she’d picked on Carlo. He had black hair and brown eyes and a sort of look of Sean about him. She was so easy to read!
“Well, anyway,” I said, “it’ll be fun whoever they put us with.”
In the end, it was Alex who got Carlo. I wondered if
she had any idea that Caitlyn had wanted him. Or why! The boy I’d been hoping for was called Misha, who was actually English, but had been named after a famous Russian dancer called Mikhail Baryshnikov. I knew that he came from a ballet family, like me, and I thought that would have given us something in common. Unfortunately Mr Bishop, who took us for pas de deux, obviously had other ideas. He put Misha with Chloe and put me with a boy called Nico, which just at first was a bit of a disappointment cos I’d secretly quite fancied Misha. He was blond and classical-looking, like he’d be a natural for Siegfried or Prince Charming. What they called a danseur noble. Nico was small and compact and kind of cheeky-looking. More like Franz, from Coppélia. But then I was more like Swanilda from the same ballet rather than Odette or Giselle, so I had to accept that maybe Mr Bishop knew what he was doing. By the end of class I had this feeling that Nico and I were going to get on well together.
Remembering what Sean had once said about partnering, how it made it all worthwhile if a girl bothered to show her appreciation for what you’d done, supporting her and showing her off to her best advantage, I took the opportunity to smile and say thank you. Nico at once grinned back and said, “thank you,” and I went on my way feeling all buoyed up and exuberant. I was going to enjoy pas de deux!
“So what was all that in aid of?” said Tiffany, later, as we sat in the canteen at lunchtime. “What were you thanking him for?”
“I was just being polite,” I said.
“But we hardly did anything! Not like there was any lifting.”
“Just as well,” said Amber, rather bitterly. “Goodness only knows why they put me with Oliver! He doesn’t look like he could lift a rice pudding.”
“Who would you have liked?” I said. “Carlo?”
“Carlo’s lovely,” said Alex.
Amber regarded her with distaste. “So aren’t you the lucky one?”
“The whole point about partnering,” said Tiffany, as if perhaps we weren’t aware, “is that you should feel comfortable. If Amber doesn’t feel comfortable, it’s not going to work.”
“So whose fault is that?” I said. “You have to give it time. You have to get used to each other. It’s a partnership.”