Darcey Bussell Favourite Ballet Stories

by Favourite Ballet Stories (retail) (epub)

  ‘I don’t care,’ Rosalind said. She couldn’t pretend. She had never been good at pretending.

  One afternoon Tracey and Holly came from Grove Road Primary. The top class had drawn get-well cards. Nearly all of them had a ballet girl standing on her pointes.

  ‘Thanks,’ Rosalind said and her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ll be going to that school, will you, that posh ballet school? I mean it’s great, you’ll be coming to Hill Street Comprehensive with the rest of us, eh?’ Tracey said, trying to be nice. Rosalind just stared at them with tears streaming down her face until a nurse led them away. ‘It’s no good being sorry for ourselves,’ the same nurse said later that evening. ‘You’re lucky to be alive, young lady.’ Rosalind had stopped crying then. She put the ballet girl cards under her pillow.

  ‘How’s Paddy?’ she said when Mum came that evening.

  ‘He’s all right. Well, he’s got a bit of a cold as a matter of fact and a chesty cough. Doctor’s put him on antibiotics and he’s got to stay in bed. Still he’s a good little patient. He talks about you all the time. He’d got Granny reading him The Tin Soldier when I left. Nothing ever seems to get him down . . . so brave . . . marvellous really.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Rosalind. At first she was glad not to be there, listening to Paddy coughing in the next room. But that night she woke and looked at the moon shining pale through the curtains and she wondered if he was all right.

  ‘Why don’t you bring Paddy to see me?’ she said that next day. She was sitting in a chair by this time.

  ‘Well . . . we didn’t think you . . .’

  ‘I’d really like to see him,’ she said. ‘I mean it’s been ages.’

  ‘Well, when he’s better . . . He’s still got a temperature, you know.’ Mum looked worried when she spoke but Rosalind didn’t realize how worried until after she had gone. That night she woke and, lying in the ward with quiet breathing all round her, she was sure that something awful was happening to Paddy. And the more she thought about it the more she was sure that he was really sick. Paddy who loved her most in the world was really ill and she might never see him again and they weren’t telling her . . . just making excuses . . .

  ‘Where’s Paddy?’ she said quite loudly when Daddy came next day and several heads turned to look. ‘Why didn’t you bring him?’

  ‘Paddy? He’s all right,’ Daddy said. ‘He’s outside as a matter of fact. Mum thought they’d better wait in the car. Well, his temperature’s down but he’s still got a bit of a cold.’

  ‘I want to see him,’ Rosalind almost shouted.

  ‘Well, OK, poppet,’ Daddy said. ‘No need to get all het up.’ He waved from the window, beckoning.

  She could see at once that Paddy was all right when he came running into the ward.

  ‘Wozzy . . . Wozzy . . . Wozzy,’ he shouted, scrambling joyfully on to the bed and hugging her, anointing her cheek with two weeks’ supply of wet kisses. He was just the same, grey eyes, blond hair. ‘Wozzy wead . . . Wozzy wead book.’

  ‘Oh, all right, mega-nuisance,’ she said and Paddy grinned hugely at the familiar word. The book fell open at the right page and she began to recite. The woman in the next bed was smiling, whispering to Mum, ‘Ever so good with him, isn’t she?’

  She was like the paper dancer, Rosalind thought, listening to the sound of her own voice, the paper dancer who had been burned up in the fire. That was right. But Paddy wasn’t like the big-mouthed fish at all. He was like the tin soldier who stood brave and true on his one leg and went on loving the paper dancer whatever happened.

  Paddy was the tin soldier, steadfast to the end.

  Hi There, Supermouse

  by Jean Ure

  Nicola’s parents have always told her she’s no good at dancing, unlike her sister Rose, who is considered a rising star. Then one day Nicola meets Mrs French, who thinks she has real talent and offers her a part in a play. Rose is mortified and, before Nicola realizes what is happening, she takes her part. But Mrs French has other ideas . . .

  IT WAS HALF-PAST nine when Mrs French dropped Nicola off in Fenning Road.

  ‘Don’t forget,’ she said. ‘Tell Rose we definitely still want her.’

  ‘Yes. All right.’ Nicola, in her eagerness, was already through the gate and halfway up the path. ‘I’ll tell her.’

  She hopped up the step into the front porch and jabbed her finger on the bell, keeping it pressed there till someone should come.

  ‘What’s all the panic?’ It was her father who eventually opened the door. ‘Don’t tell me they’ve landed at last?’

  ‘Who?’ Nicola paused impatiently, already poised for flight.

  ‘The little green men,’ said Mr Bruce.

  ‘Oh!’ She didn’t have time, just now, for her father’s jokes; she had news to break. She tore across the hall and into the sitting room. ‘Mrs French wants me to –’

  The words died on her lips: Rose was there, curled up in pyjamas and dressing gown on the sofa. She had obviously been allowed to come downstairs and watch television to make up for having missed the rehearsal.

  ‘Mrs French wants you to what?’

  Her mother twisted round to look at her. Nicola stood awkwardly on one leg in the doorway. Somehow, with Rose there, all triumph had gone.

  ‘She wants me to –’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘She wants me to do the part –’

  She tried not to look at Rose as she said it, but her eyes would go sliding over, just for a quick glance. A quick glance was enough: Rose’s pink cheeks had turned bright scarlet, her freckles standing out like splotches of brown paint carelessly flicked off the end of a paint brush. Nicola forced herself to look at something else. It seemed too much like spying, to look at Rose.

  Mr Bruce came back in, closing the door behind him. He gave Nicola a little push.

  ‘Born in a field?’

  Nicola didn’t say anything. He was always saying ‘Born in a field?’ when she didn’t close doors behind her. Mrs Bruce, leaning forward to see round her husband as he crossed back to his armchair, said, ‘What do you mean, she wants you to do the part?’

  ‘She wants me to do it – instead of Rose. But it’s all right,’ said Nicola. ‘She still wants Rose. She wants Rose to play another part . . . she wants her to be the good little sister.’

  ‘There isn’t any good little sister!’ Rose’s voice was all high and strangulated. ‘There isn’t any such part!’

  ‘They’re going to write it in,’ said Nicola, ‘specially for you. Mr Marlowe said you were a proper little trouper, and Mrs French said you’d done a lot of hard work and it wouldn’t be fair to – to discard you. So they’re going to make this other part, and you’re going to come in with the Good Little Boy, and hold his hand, and –’

  ‘I don’t want to hold his hand! I don’t want another part!’ Tears came spurting out of Rose’s eyes. ‘I want my own part!’

  ‘Hush, now, Rose, there’s obviously been some mistake. Did you tell Mrs French, as I told you –’ her mother looked at Nicola, mistrustfully, ‘– that the reason Rose couldn’t come to rehearsal this evening was because you’d made her sniff powder up her nose?’

  Nicola nodded.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes! I did! That’s why she made me take her place. She said I’d got to pay pence.’

  ‘Pay pence?’ Mrs Bruce looked bewildered. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘What she said . . . she said I’d got to pay pence.’

  ‘Penance,’ said Mr Bruce. ‘Do I take it we have some sort of crisis on our hands?’

  Mrs Bruce tightened her lips.

  ‘Nothing we can’t get sorted out. Rose, do for heaven’s sake stop making that noise! How can I get to the bottom of things if I can’t hear myself speak?’

  Rose subsided, snuffling, into her dressing gown. Mr Bruce, shaking his head, disappeared into his paper. He usually washed his hands of it when it came to
what he called ‘female squabbles’.

  ‘Now, then!’ Mrs Bruce turned back again to Nicola. Her voice was brisk and businesslike. It was the voice she used when she suspected someone of not telling her the entire truth. It meant, let us get down to brass tacks and have no more of this nonsense. ‘What exactly did Mrs French say?’

  ‘She said, how would I feel like playing the part of the Bad Little Girl all the time.’

  ‘Instead of Rose?’

  ‘It’s because of the mouse. Rose can’t do the mouse the same as I can.’

  ‘Yes, I can!’ Rose sat bolt upright on the sofa.

  ‘No, you can’t,’ said Nicola. ‘You don’t like mice.’

  ‘What’s that matter? It’s not a real mouse.’

  ‘But you have to pretend that it is! You have to feel it –’

  ‘I do feel it! I feel it all wriggling and horrible!’

  ‘If you thought it was horrible,’ said Nicola, ‘you wouldn’t have it with you in the first place.’

  ‘Yes, I would!’

  ‘No, you –’

  ‘Do they have to?’ said Mr Bruce.

  ‘No, they don’t.’ Mrs Bruce spoke scoldingly. ‘Be quiet, the pair of you! This is ridiculous. How can Nicola possibly take over the part at this late stage? Rose has been rehearsing it for weeks.’

  ‘Anyway, what’s she know about it?’ Rose jerked her head, pettishly, in Nicola’s direction. ‘She’s never acted.’

  ‘Quite. I really think, Nicola, you’re being just a tiny bit selfish. When it’s Rose who’s done all the hard preliminary work – just to come waltzing in and reap the benefit. It’s not very sisterly, is it?’

  Nicola stuck out her lower lip. Her mother, seeing it, changed tack. Her voice became coaxing.

  ‘You know how much it means to Rose. For you, it’s just fun. For Rose – well! For Rose it’s everything. After all, she’s the one who’s going to make it her career. It really means something to Rose. Surely –’

  She broke off and smiled, hopefully. Nicola said nothing. She could be stubborn, when she wanted; and now that she’d got the part, she certainly wasn’t going to be talked into giving it up just to satisfy Rose.

  ‘Make her!’ Rose’s voice rang out, shrill and accusing from the sofa. ‘Make her say she won’t do it!’

  ‘I can’t make her,’ said Mrs Bruce. ‘It must be Nicola’s own decision.’

  Her father lowered his paper and looked at Nicola over the top of it.

  ‘I suppose you couldn’t just say yes and keep them happy?’

  Why should I? thought Nicola.

  ‘After all . . . anything for a quiet life.’ Mr Bruce winked at her. He quite often winked at Nicola over the heads of Rose and her mother. It was supposed to convey a sense of fellow feeling: Us Lads against Them Womenfolk. Usually she responded, but today she did not. She just went on standing there, stony-faced, in silence.

  ‘No?’ said Mr Bruce. ‘In that case –’ he raised his paper again, ‘– there’s nothing more to be said. She’s been offered the part, she obviously wants to do it, so let’s not have any argument. Rose will just have to take a back seat for once.’

  Mrs Bruce looked at her husband, frowningly.

  ‘It really isn’t playing fair, to take away a part that’s already been given to someone else . . . I’m surprised that Mrs French would do such a thing.’

  ‘But I was the one she wanted all along!’

  The words had slipped out before she could stop them. Mrs Bruce turned, sharply.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because – because she told me.’

  ‘She didn’t,’ screamed Rose. ‘It’s a lie!’

  ‘’Tisn’t a lie!’

  ‘It is! It is! Why should anyone want you? You can’t dance! You can’t –’

  ‘Rose, be quiet! And you, Nicola. Brawling like a couple of alley cats. You can both get up to bed.’

  It was rare for Mrs Bruce to grow as cross with Rose as she did with Nicola. Rose pouted, but none the less humped herself off the sofa. She trailed rebelliously in Nicola’s wake to the door.

  ‘Good,’ said Mr Bruce. He rustled his newspaper. ‘If that’s all settled –’

  ‘It’s not all settled.’ Mrs Bruce plumped up the cushion where Rose had been sitting. ‘As soon as you two get back from school tomorrow we’re going down the road to talk to Mrs French. We’ll see what she has to say about it. In the meantime, you can both of you get upstairs and put yourselves to bed . . . I’ve had quite enough of your bickering for one evening!’

  The next day, after tea, both Rose and Nicola were marched down the road to Mrs French. They stood on the front steps behind their mother as she knocked at the door with the lion’s head knocker.

  ‘Now you’ll see,’ said Rose.

  They were the first words she had addressed to Nicola all day. Nicola didn’t deign to reply. She was thinking, If Mrs French lets her have the part back, it will be the meanest thing I ever heard . . .

  It was Mr French who opened the door – at least, Nicola assumed that it was Mr French. He was youngish, and good-looking, with long, curly black hair and a gold chain round his neck with a medallion hanging from it. When Mrs Bruce explained that they had come to see Mrs French, he twisted round to look at a grandfather clock in the hall and said, ‘Can you bear to wait five minutes? She won’t be long, she’s just giving a class. Due to finish any time now.’

  He led them through into a front room, which was cluttered with books and stacks of gramophone records.

  ‘Sorry about the mess – we’ve never quite got around to finding a home for everything. We’re still having the place done up, which means only half the rooms are habitable. Now, what can I offer you? Can I offer you coffee? No? You’re sure? Well, in that case perhaps you’ll excuse me if I slope off. She shouldn’t be too long.’

  As Mr French left the room, Rose turned excitedly to her mother.

  ‘I didn’t know Mrs French gave classes.’

  ‘I expect they need the money. Big place like this . . . must cost a lot to keep up.’

  Rose clearly wasn’t interested in what things cost to keep up: her mind was running on quite other lines.

  ‘Do you think I could have classes with her?’

  ‘You?’ Mrs Bruce looked at her in surprise. ‘Why should you want classes with her? What’s wrong with Madam Paula?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Rose. ‘But Mrs French used to be with the Royal Ballet.’

  ‘That doesn’t necessarily make her a good teacher. In any case, you don’t want to specialize in ballet. You’ve always said you want to be in musicals.’

  ‘She’s changed her mind,’ said Nicola. ‘She wants to go to the Royal Ballet School now.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Rose had turned pink beneath her freckles. She shot Nicola a venomous glare.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to.’

  ‘I never knew that! Why on earth didn’t you say so before?’

  ‘’Cos she never thought of it before.’

  ‘Yes, I did! I thought of it –’

  ‘Enough!’ Mrs Bruce held up a hand. ‘Don’t for heaven’s sake start that again.’

  ‘But I did think of it before! I thought of it ages ago.’

  ‘Then you should have said ages ago. We could have done something about it.’

  ‘We still could,’ said Rose. ‘You don’t start there till you’re eleven. If I could have classes with Mrs French – can I have classes with Mrs French?’

  ‘But what about Madam Paula? She mightn’t like it.’

  ‘It wouldn’t matter about Madam Paula if I was going to the Royal Ballet School . . . can I? Please? Say that I can!’

  ‘Well . . . I don’t know. I suppose, if you’re really set on it –’

  ‘I am,’ said Rose. ‘Honestly. I really am. I’ve been set on it for years. I’ve –’

  ‘All right, all right! You’ve made your point. I believe you.’

  ‘
So will you ask her? This evening? Will you?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I’ll ask her this evening . . . as your father would say, anything for a quiet life.’

  Rose beamed, triumphantly, in Nicola’s direction: she’d got her own way again. She was always getting her own way.

  Mrs French came in wearing black tights and a sweater, with her hair pulled back into a knot, the way it had been that first day, on the building site.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Bruce! Rose, Nicola . . . what’s all this?’ She laughed. ‘A deputation?’

  Nicola, embarrassed, sat on her hands on the extreme edge of an armchair, whilst Rose moved up closer to her mother on the sofa.

  ‘I hope it’s not inconveniencing you.’

  Mrs Bruce made it sound as though even if it were she had no intention of going away again. Nicola cringed. If the armchair had had a cushion she would have put it on her head and pretended not to be there. As it hadn’t, she kept her eyes fixed firmly on a pile of books, which had been stacked in the hearth. The top one was called Theatre Street by somebody whose name she couldn’t pronounce: Tamara Kar-sav-in-a. She heard Mrs French say, ‘No, not at all! As a matter of fact, I’d just come to the end of a class, so you chose a good moment – that’s a very famous book, by the way, Nicola. Written by a famous Russian ballerina. You can borrow it, if you like.’

  ‘Can I?’ Nicola looked up, avidly. She liked it when people offered to lend you their books: it showed they trusted you.

  ‘Remind me to let you have it before you leave.’ Mrs French perched herself amiably on the arm of another chair, similar to the one that Nicola was sitting in. ‘You might like to read it as well, Rose. It’s all about life in a Russian ballet school.’

  Rose looked dubious: she wasn’t much of a reader. She tugged, impatiently, at her mother’s arm. Mrs Bruce, who had been starting to say something, broke off.

  ‘What?’ She bent her head. Rose whispered, urgently. ‘Oh, yes! All right. Let’s get that out of the way first . . . Rose is nagging me to know whether it would be possible for her to take some classes with you. Apparently, she’s set her heart on going to the Royal Ballet School –’