Carolyn
I cannot believe I am old enough to use the phrase “in my day”, but in my day the BCBC had a clear and rigid hierarchy.
It wasn’t that being promoted meant immediately abandoning your friends in the lower ranks, especially if you’d all joined the company in the same year and sweated out season after season in the corps together, as Fiona, Jamie, Charlie, and I had.
But an eighteen-year-old artist would never have greeted a principal in the corridor by name, for fear of being perceived as impudent.
God help anyone who took their preferred spot at the barre.
Fiona made that mistake once – Grace Langham stood a breath’s distance from her in frosty silence before delicately clearing her throat.
I hadn’t known it was possible for a person to turn red so quickly.
‘Darling, look what Trix brought.’ Armand held the flowers up to the sitting room doorway as I removed my gloves. ‘Shall I put them in the other room?’
‘Trix, darling. Thank you so much for coming.’ Her cheeks were hollow; her smile was not. ‘And thank you for the flowers, how thoughtful. I hope you can forgive me for not getting up to greet you. Please, sit.’
‘Thank you for inviting me to your gorgeous home.’ Before taking a seat in the olive armchair opposite her, I handed over the Get Well Soon card that had made its way around the company. ‘The flowers are from all of us. I’m so sorry you didn’t get to do opening night.’
There was no scenario in which that could have sounded sincere, given what a glorious time I’d had in her place. She was gracious enough just to smile and read the card. Armand brought in a pot of fresh mint tea.
‘It’s all I can keep down at the minute,’ Carolyn said over the fragrant steam trail.
‘That and candied ginger, water crackers, the odd sugared almond. Armand tried to bring me some chicken broth on Wednesday but…’ She waved the thought away with a grimace.
He reached over and patted her knee through the blanket.
‘God, I’m so sorry, Carolyn,’ I said. ‘How utterly awful. Have you seen a doctor?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, placing the card atop a stack of Vogue and Tatler back issues. Armand sat on a spotless armchair and sipped in watchful silence. I waited to see who would break it first.
‘Well,’ I ventured, ‘of course it’s none of my business, you don’t have to say if you don’t want to—’
‘Darling.’ Carolyn looked at me with an odd half-smile. ‘I didn’t get ill from the seafood.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘I didn’t have any. I was already feeling a bit peaky that day.
By the time we sat down to eat, all I could face was the bread basket and some sparkling water.
A lucky escape – imagine if I’d ordered the oysters after all, oh Lord…
’ For a tense moment it looked as if she was about to retch, but it passed as she took a long pull from her cup of mint tea, eyes watery.
‘I’m glad the others bounced back after a day or so. ’
‘So you’ve been ill with something else altogether. How ghastly.’
‘I’ve been told it should ease up in a few weeks.’ She rested her teacup in her lap and closed her eyes, as if summoning the strength to continue. ‘But I won’t be coming back for the rest of the season.’
‘The rest of the season?’ We still had four months until the summer break. Had she been scheduled for an operation?
‘The next two seasons, realistically,’ she said, exchanging a nod with Armand.
‘What?’ I resisted the urge to spring up from the chair. ‘But… you just said your illness would ease up in a few weeks. I don’t understand.’
‘The nausea will ease up.’ She set her cup down and offered me her hands. I stood, unused to looking down at her face. ‘I am having a baby, darling. We’re starting our family.’
‘… Oh.’
‘A few years earlier than anticipated, but…’ She tilted her head at Armand, who beamed over his tea. ‘It feels like a sign. It took my own mother so long to conceive, she began to think it would never happen. I can’t take this for granted.’
Still holding her hands, I lowered myself beside her on the chaise longue. ‘But…’ But her career. ‘I didn’t know you wanted children.’
‘I do, very much, and always have. But I couldn’t go declaring that around the Hall. I didn’t want a single doubt in anyone’s mind that I was taking my career as seriously as anyone else, that I wanted to achieve the same things as the ballerinas who choose to sacrifice having a family.’
‘But… I can’t believe it. I mean, gosh, congratulations,’ I said, embarrassed that this hadn’t been the first thing out of my mouth. I was so shocked, I had to work twice as hard to find the words. ‘This is wonderful news. I’m so happy for you both.’
‘Thank you,’ they said.
‘It’s just that I can’t imagine the company without you, Carolyn. You’re a titan.’
‘Too kind.’ She released my hands and massaged the back of her neck.
‘My career with the BCBC has been sublime. That goes without saying. But I’m thirty-two, darling.
I’ve danced all the roles I wanted to dance, guested with all my favourite companies, toured in the most incredible places.
Surpassed everyone’s expectations and, most importantly, my own.
What better time to pivot, while the going is still good?
I’ve always hated the idea of my joy running out, of ballet becoming just a job, like some office worker showing up to the same building day after day, doing the same thing they’ve always done until it loses all meaning. No. It’s time.’
‘Gosh. Right. And… Nick?’
‘Oh, he knows. Darling, of course he knows! I didn’t tell him until the Thursday after opening night – he assumed I was sick with food poisoning, too.’
‘How did he take it?’
‘Badly, and graciously, all in one. I knew how disappointed he’d been not to have me for opening night, if only because he didn’t know what on earth to do about Aleksander. But I didn’t need to tell him you’d be able to keep up.’
My promotion struck me now in a new light: I had proven myself, certainly, but I’d also just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I felt, irrationally, like a thief.
‘Armand said you were magnificent,’ she continued. ‘I’m just sorry I couldn’t see it for myself. One day soon, when the nausea has passed, I would love to watch the two of you in action.’
‘Well, we have one more show of Beauty together but, after that, who knows?’
‘You’re both in Enigma Variations, yes?’
‘Yes, but not as partners.’
‘Well, perhaps Coppélia, then,’ Carolyn said. ‘That’s always great fun.’
‘The cast lists haven’t gone up yet.’ I was doing my best to temper my keenness.
Even with the number of principals now back to normal, my chances of landing at least one performance as Swanilda were better than they’d been mere weeks earlier.
My face warmed at the treasure chest of principal roles waiting for me; I tried not to levitate off the cushions.
‘Either way, there’s really no rush. I’d much rather you remain comfortable at home until your baby arrives, than have to come all the way to Covent Garden just to see us. ’
What a surreal thing to say: “your” baby. A person who doesn’t yet exist, but already belongs to you.
Though Carolyn was only able to nibble a corner of it, she insisted that Armand open the shortbread. While trying not to drop crumbs all over their suede furniture, I considered how to phrase the question I’d been hoping to ask at some point before I left their house.
‘Carolyn, may I ask you something?’
‘Of course, darling.’
‘How did you find rehearsing with Sander?’
‘For Beauty? I was about to ask you the same.’
The silence that followed came alive with a shared understanding.
‘It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before,’ I said.
‘Ever,’ Carolyn agreed reverently. ‘That boy is more than an artist, more than gifted, he is…’ Her hands came up empty. ‘The first lift we did took me completely aback.’
‘Me, too! How does he do that with arms like his? With Stephen, with all my partners, they go on and on about “bulking up”, spending extra hours in the gym with weights. Sander’s arms are so slender. I don’t understand how he managed to make a kite out of me, every time.’
‘How does Baryshnikov leap like a hare?’ Carolyn mused. ‘How does Nureyev make fouettés en seconde look as easy as a flick of the wrist?’
‘How did Nijinsky dance like Mercury himself, with little wings on each foot?’ Armand chimed in.
‘You don’t question miracles,’ Carolyn said. ‘Better just to thank God you’re alive to witness them.’
‘Miracle is the word,’ I agreed. ‘Watching him from the wings, I mean, wow.’
Carolyn nodded, but I glimpsed something else in her expression as it disappeared into her teacup.
I reined in my praise before it turned into fawning, although it seemed a perfectly appropriate thing to fawn about.
I wouldn’t be expected to exercise restraint in my awe of a Monet painting, or Shostakovitch’s Concerto No.
2 in F major, or a sky teeming with stars.
The beauty of Sander’s dancing was a fact that existed independently of me.
So why did I feel self-conscious?
Aware of how much energy Carolyn must have been expending to stay on top of her nausea, I said my goodbyes early, and patted her very gently on the shoulder.
‘Thank you so much for coming, Trix, and for the lovely gifts. Send everyone my love, won’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘I feel so guilty that I couldn’t say goodbye properly.’
‘It’s not goodbye forever,’ I said, more tentatively than I wanted. ‘As soon as you’re well and Baby’s up for an outing, you’ll be welcome at the Dance Hall any day of the year. It’s your other home, after all.’
‘Both our home,’ she said, as Armand kissed her hand.
‘Please come over again soon. Once the nursery’s painted, I’ll have nothing to do but read parenting books and learn how to knit.
I’ll be bored senseless. Besides, I’d like to get to know you better.
It’s a shame we’ve just missed each other as principals. ’
‘You’re passing the all-important torch,’ Armand said.
‘I suppose so.’ She sighed.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re up to date on all the corridor gossip,’ I said.
‘You had better, darling, you had better. Oh, and Trix…’
‘Yes?’ I was halfway out of the sitting room, but her tone had shifted so sharply that I stepped fully back in. She was deliberating, and looking at me more shrewdly than she had all afternoon.
‘Be careful.’
‘Be careful?’ Careful not to overexert myself? Not to let my new rank go to my head? She would have been right to warn against either of those things, but she meant something else. Armand looked none the wiser.
‘Of Sander.’
Something in me went cold. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s a gentleman,’ she hastened to clarify. ‘A true gentleman. Thoughtful, respectful. And, let’s not be coy, he’s a gorgeous man.’
Armand gave a chef’s kiss. ‘Stunning.’
‘But even after doing Manon and Nutcracker together, and all the rehearsals for Beauty, I still couldn’t tell you a single thing about him.’
I considered asking if she, too, had ever found him alone in the studio performing impossible steps, but decided against it. ‘He’s very reserved, I agree. He seems to have been that way ever since he joined the company. But… is that a bad thing?’
‘Not necessarily, no.’ She stretched out her socked feet on the chaise longue, pointing and flexing her toes. ‘I mean only that mysteries can be distracting. You’re still young, Trix, but you’re about to reach the height of your powers as a dancer. Don’t get sidelined by distractions.’
‘Why do you think she married a photographer?’ Armand said with a wink.
By the time I left, the temperature had dropped a few degrees more: my steps back to the Underground were brisk, my scarf tucked tight into my coat.
Carolyn’s advice was sound, but it didn’t trouble me.
Sander was undoubtedly a mystery, but there was no danger of him distracting me from my ambitions for the rest of the season, and all the seasons to come. Not in the way she’d implied.