‘Who told you that? What would you know about having a child? Who the hell do you think you are talking to me like that?’
‘You don’t understand, none of you understand, you don’t care about my future, all you do is tell me have no choice and to be content with it, just like you’ve have made yourselves content with your mediocre lives!’
‘That’s enough!’ said Paul braking sharply.
‘Never speak to your mother or me like that again! Don’t you dare sit there judging other people’s lives until you’ve made even half the sacrifices your mother has made for you. Do I make myself clear?
‘You’re not smarter than everyone else so don’t talk to us as if we were poor morons who have not understood how the world is and are just waiting to be enlightened by you! Nobody is stopping you from doing what you want. It is just not possible. Try to get that into your head!’
An awkward silence descended over the car. I was dumbstruck and red with shame. I never thought he had it in him. Dad had never really bothered to tell me off at all but Paul, mild-mannered, dopey old Paul, had talked to me like a father and put me in my place. And he had done it well. He started the engine and drove off. Neither of them spoke to me for the rest of the journey.
As soon as we arrived home, I got out of the car and ran up to my room, but Paul called me back halfway up the stairs.
‘What?!’ I said, turning around unwillingly.
He gave me a big smile. ‘We had an exchange of views, and I’m sorry that I raised my voice, but you should never go to bed angry, okay?’
I looked at him trying to remain indifferent, but I could feel the tears burn my eyes.
‘Come on, come here dancer and give me a big hug!’
I went down the stairs slowly with my hands in my pockets and I let myself be embraced. I was not used to being treated like a daughter and almost felt gratitude for the telling-off he’d given me. I didn’t want to cry, but the tears came down on their own, and it was almost a relief.
Then he turned to my mother who had already gone into the living room.
‘Elena, that means you too!’
He took me by the hand and led me to her.
‘Come on now, make friends you two,’ he urged us.
He may have won me over, but Mum was a whole different story.
‘Paul, I’m not a child, and I know how to handle my own daughter!’
Of course she knew, she wouldn’t talk to me for a year!
‘I know you do, nobody does it better than you do, I’m just asking you not to keep your anger inside because it isn’t good for you and it doesn’t help you to find any solutions.’
Well, well! Old Paul really knew how to be persuasive when he wanted.
‘Come on, Mum,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry I overdid it.’
‘All right, all right, take York out now, he’s bursting.’
It was the most that could be expected of her, but it was the first time we had made peace twenty minutes after having quarrelled. Paul was definitely bringing a favourable change to our lives.
The following afternoon, at Nina’s house, I was no longer convinced that I wanted to make that call. I was feeling guilty and the sense of bravado from the adrenaline of the show and all those compliments had evaporated.
‘Mia, pick up the phone and make the call,’ Nina begged me for the sixth time.
‘I can’t Nina, I can’t do it to Mum.’
‘Then you don’t really want to go to the Royal Ballet,’ she replied, folding her arms.
‘Of course I do, it’s the thing I want most, you know that!’
‘I don’t think you want it enough.’
‘Yes, I do!’ I protested.
‘So tell me, how are you going to make it happen?’
‘I don’t know.’
She turned her back on me and pretended to be absorbed in her phone.
‘Fair enough, you’re probably right, they might not let you in anyway, why complicate your life? You’d be perfectly fine being a stockbroker like your father. Or an accountant. There are plenty of ‘normal’ jobs waiting for you.’
‘Why wouldn’t they let me in? Don’t you think I’m good enough to pass the audition?’
‘I think you’re amazing, you idiot!’ she said, turning around to face me in exasperation. ‘If I thought I’d get away with it, I’d use my college fund to send you.’
‘Would you call her if you were in my shoes?’
‘I’d have called her ages ago,’ she said, handing me the phone. ‘Come on, do it!’
I swallowed. If I had been frightened calling Patrick for the first time, now I felt like I might actually pass out. I hadn’t spoken to my grandmother Olga for at least six months. She called me at Christmas and Easter and sent me a present for my birthday, but I hadn’t actually seen her since I was really small. She had always told me that I could count on her for anything, but since I had never really needed anything, it was difficult to know to what extent she really meant it. I supposed I was about to find out.
She answered on the second ring, and I almost hung up, but Nina batted my hand away pressed the speakerphone key.
‘Hello, Nonna, it’s Mia.’
She paused for a moment, and I was suddenly afraid she had forgotten who I was.
‘Mia! Nonna’s precious baby, what a simply marvellous surprise!’
The tension had aged me twenty years.
‘How are you? I keep meaning to call you!’
‘Oh no, I want to hear about you. I so often wonder what my little girl has been doing. I hardly recognise the beautiful young woman in your photographs! And you’re still dancing, yes?’
‘Yes Nonna. That’s why I wanted to talk to you, actually’
What I said in the next few minutes would determine the rest of my life. I couldn’t afford to make a mistake. I wished Nina could do the talking for me, she was so good at convincing people, but it was all up to me now.
‘I’m all ears, darling.’
Nina mimed tearing at her hair, signalling to me that I should be dramatic.
‘I didn’t want to burden you with this, Nonna, and I’m embarrassed to even ask, but you’re my only hope!’
‘Is it your mother? Needs money, does she?’
‘Money does come into it, and so does Mum, but it’s not about her really, it’s about me. And ballet’
‘You want to go to an expensive school and you can’t afford it?’
My grandmother really was the old fox Mum made her out to be: shrewd, cunning, calculating, but at the same time absolutely brilliant. I adored her.
‘The Royal Ballet School in London. I have an audition, but they won’t accept me unless I can prove I have the means to pay my fees.’
‘The Royal?’ she chuckled, ‘But darling, I know everyone at the Royal, when I was young I never missed a first night, although between you and me not so much for the ballet as for the champagne. I knew Ninette de Valois very well.’
‘Ninette de Valois? The founder of the Royal Ballet’
‘Why yes! My granddaughter at the Royal Ballet would be the greatest satisfaction of my life. I would never stop telling people about it!’
‘But Nonna, the problem is that Mum doesn’t want me to go because she can’t afford the tuition, my audition is in two months and in the meantime I have to provide all the documentation! Claire, my teacher, has asked for more time, but I don’t know how long I’ve got. It’s a disaster, Nonna, you’re the only person who can help me!’
‘How much money are we talking about?’
‘Loads!’ I said, but Nina frowned and waved her hand under her chin to tell me to tone it down.
‘I mean, it is quite a bit of money, but then it is the most prestigious ballet school in the world!’
‘Of course you want the best, darling. There was a time when I wanted the best for your mother, but she wanted to do her own thing and made a terrible scene about my getting involved in her private life, as if a mother isn’t entitled to wo
rry about her child. But that’s of no concern to me now.
‘Let me make a few phone calls in London and see what I can do. Once they know you’re my granddaughter they’ll give you all the time you need. Then I’ll talk to my accountant to see how I can help you, but you have to do something for me.’
A shiver ran down my spine.
‘Anything, Nonna.’
‘I want you to be the best of them all, darling, or I’ll suspend my sponsorship!’
‘I will be Nonna, I swear.’
14
I had taken a leap into the void. Now there was nothing I could do except hope that the parachute would open. When I was with Nina I had been so convinced that I had made the only rational decision, but now I wasn’t so sure and I began to worry that it wouldn’t be as easy as I’d imagined.
If Mum had thought my grandmother was so overbearing and manipulative that she stopped speaking to her altogether, maybe she had good reason. I wondered if I would have done the same in her shoes. Shelling out all that money would give her the power to interfere in my life as much as she liked and I certainly wouldn’t be able to stop her.
As for telling Mum about it, I didn’t know what had made me think she would understand. She would be betrayed and hurt, and angrier with me than she’d ever been before. Perhaps she would cut ties with me, too. And who could blame her?
Feelings of unease and guilt tormented me day and night. I felt like a liar and a hypocrite and it influenced everything I did, from my performance at school to preparations for the audition which, thanks to my grandmother’s intercession, had now been confirmed for mid-February.
The only person who was completely satisfied was Claire, who saw it as justification for her advice to wait for a miracle.
‘Focus, Mia, you’re out of time! Need I remind you that we have little more than a month and a half to go? There is no time for daydreaming or laziness, or all the work we’ve done so far will go to waste. An audition is just an audition, you have no guarantee of being accepted!’
I knew it well. Part of me didn’t even want to be accepted any more. How would I ever know if I’d been chosen on merit, and not just because of who my grandmother was? But it was too late to go back now. All I could do was try not to think about it.
Christmas Eve was spent at home with Mum and Paul and Betty. It was nice to be all together at the table, and Paul had cooked enough to feed an army: there was salmon and dill, roast turkey with chestnut stuffing and all the trimmings, home-made Christmas pudding and brandy butter. Betty kept saying she couldn’t eat another mouthful, but she kept filling her plate and glass all the same, toasting everything and everyone she could think of.
I had given out the gloves and hats I bought from Bath along with a big juicy bone wrapped in a silver bow for York. When it was my turn to unwrap presents, I felt myself die inside when I saw that Mum had bought me a new pair of pointe shoes.
My eyes filled with tears for shame at what I’d done to her.
‘Come on, there’s no need to cry,’ she said, hugging me, ‘Your old ones were all worn out. Now you can start the year with brand new shoes and Claire will stop nagging you about it!’
She looked at me, all happy and proud while all the time I was lying to her like a shameless coward. I hated myself for what I was doing to her. No end could justify something so cruel. But it was done, and now I would have to live with the guilt.
Patrick knew, Nina had told him about it. He hadn’t agreed at first, until he realised that it was the only chance I had, but he still thought we should have told Mum straight away, rather than waiting until after (and if!) I was accepted. We spoke almost every day now, usually very late in the evening, depending on his shifts. I seriously began to believe that he was interested in me, although I was always terrified that I had just misinterpreted his innate kindness. I kept writing down our phone calls as if to have proof that I hadn’t just imagined it all.
On Christmas morning my father came to pick me up at home for take me to lunch with them.
Three hours alone in the car with him was enough punishment for anyone. He asked me about school a couple of times, then tuned the radio onto a finance channel and our conversation ended there. I put on my headphones and listened to Coldplay for the rest of the journey.
Libby was waiting for us when we arrived, but the person who opened the door to us was a ruined husk of a woman. She had been cooking since the night before for sixteen people, she was running late and the twins, as usual, were out of control.
She greeted me with a hug and an air of desperation.
‘Would you mind setting the table, love?’ she asked, as the twins clung to my legs shrieking. ‘I’m against violence, but the way things are going you’ll be reading about me in the evening editions!’
That day seemed never ending. First there was dinner with Libby’s parents, grandmother and brothers, plus all their children. The adults went on and on about local politics and interest rates, while the children screamed and fought over their new toys, kicking and biting one another until an adult came over and gave them a spanking. The television was so loud it made my ears ring, it was raining outside, and no one seemed interested in anything except eating and complaining.
At eight o’clock they all left, scowling in anticipation of the traffic they would get caught in on the way home, and the twins were finally packed off to bed, dragging their new scooters up the stairs with them. My father settled into an armchair to read the paper, while poor Libby loaded mountains of plates and glasses into the dishwasher. Despite her obvious fatigue, she kept smiling as worked. I felt a sudden rush of affection for her. Poor Libby! I wished she had found herself a kinder and more thoughtful life-partner. She set up the sofa bed for me, kissed me goodnight and then retired, exhausted, to her room. I fell asleep lulled by the rain, my father’s snoring and the sound of Libby crying softly next to him.
A few days later the news came of Patrick’s arrival.
I had heard it from him before Nina told me, but I acted surprised as best I could. We had arranged that he would go to his house to say hello to the family, then come and pick me up on his bike to take me to dinner.
Words can’t describe the breathless excitement of waiting. After months of phone calls and messages, after a lifetime of dreaming that he would notice me. After thirteen years of waiting, my second dream was about to come true. That evening I would go out to dinner with Patrick Dewayne. Alone.
Between a date with Patrick and attending the Royal Ballet I genuinely couldn’t say which had seemed to be the most impossible. Mum and Paul were out, which saved me from having to invent an excuse. For his part, Patrick knew his sister only too well and realised she would have to be told with extreme tact, so for that evening, he too carefully avoided doing so. Sometimes we have to protect ourselves from the love of others.
I waited for him, sitting on my bed and looking out of the window, with York lying across my legs. This was our first date, and even though I had known him forever, I realised I knew almost nothing about him. I was terrified of being disappointed, of discovering that that the boy I had idealised had never existed, that he was only a figment of my imagination, a fairy-tale prince, and would shatter my dream into a million pieces with one wrong word or gesture. And there was no one I could talk to about it.
When I heard his motorbike pull up outside the house I had a sudden urge to hide under my bed and refuse to come out until next year. How should I behave? What should I say? Did I look okay? This wasn’t me and Patrick hanging out as brother and sister, but an actual, official date. I wondered if he was feeling the same way.
I opened the door and was hit by a violent gust of wind that almost knocked me over. Patrick looked at me and smiled. He took off his helmet, got off the bike and came towards me. I watched him like you watch your favourite rock star, desperately trying to rearrange my hair, which I was sure must look like a bird’s nest in that wind.
‘You look wonderful,�
�� he said, tucking a curl behind my ear. I still hadn’t spoken a word, not even ‘hello.’
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked.
I nodded, yes.
‘Me too! Grab your jacket and let’s go.’
I went inside obediently, put on my scarf and jacket and returned to him as if by remote-control, and he helped me on with my helmet and fastened it under my chin.
Then he lowered the platforms for my feet, and told me to I hold on to him. As if I needed to be told! I had died and gone to heaven. I held him close as we sped through the night, and I knew then that he could not disappoint me with any gesture or word.
He took me to a French bistro where we ate onion soup with crusty bread, and I watched him, and saw only his mouth and his supple hands moving, without being able to focus on what he said, hypnotised by his face, trying to memorise every tiny detail: the faint shadow of stubble on his chin, a scar on his eyebrow, the soft blond hair on his arms, the way he cleared his throat.
He spoke all evening, perhaps to avoid any embarrassing silences, telling me about his ship and all his friends, and old stories about the teachers in our high school.
I was struck dumb with happiness, everything was just as I’d dreamed, he was perfect, and I felt like I was completely disconnected from reality. If he had taken a photograph of me out to dinner he’d have had the same level of conversation.
When we left the restaurant, he suggested going for a walk. I wanted him to take my hand, but I didn’t know how to make him understand, so I put my hands in my pockets to avoid embarrassment.
‘I really enjoyed watching you dance.’
‘Did you?’
‘I could have kept looking at you forever!’
And I could keep looking at you forever.
‘Well, you know, I’ve just always done it, I don’t even think about it much.’
‘You’re so good and you don’t even realise it!’
You’re so beautiful and you don’t even realise it.
‘I mean it, really, you’ll make an incredible Prima Ballerina,’ he said stopping and putting his hands on my shoulders.
I closed my eyes, my heart beating fast. I was ready, ready to be kissed, ready for that moment of a lifetime. Emotion overwhelmed me, I wanted it with all of my being, my stomach was in knots and my legs were weak.
9781789543087 If I Can't Have You Page 21