Chapter 22
BETWEEN SEASONS
Before everyone disappeared for the month-long summer break – during which time the Dance Hall would host the BBA graduating class performance, ceilidhs for the public, and private corporate functions – Armand held a small photoshoot in the Conservatory, our glass-domed cocktail bar where the afternoon light was perfect.
Sander and I posed in front of a pine-green backdrop pulled taut: the Scottish Highlands, abstracted.
Nick had chosen us for the promotional poster for La Sylphide, which would be displayed outside the building and printed in advertising spreads to drum up excitement for the next season.
How appropriate to begin a new year of work with the first full-length ballet of the Romantic era, still bewitching audiences through the open window of a castle and the mist of a forest clearing some hundred and fifty years after its creation.
It was the first time ballerinas became more than human: with nothing but threads darned around the toes of their flimsy slippers to offer the smallest of boosts, their feet skimmed the floor, imbuing them with ethereal lightness.
Armand directed Sander to kneel in a long, low extension opposite me while I hovered in a tight fifth en pointe, my back angled to show off white, hand-embroidered fairy wings so delicate they were cleaned only with spritzes of vodka, and stitched so close to my spine that they moved with my breath.
‘Trix, tilt your head away from him just a little. Try looking up to the camera through your eyelashes, little flutter… Oui, ca marche… That is exactly the amount of sadness I like to see. He is of the earth, you are of the air itself. It hurts your hearts so.’
I couldn’t decide if I was sad or relieved that I wouldn’t see Sander again until the autumn.
His dazzling performances as a principal over the past year had garnered him a veritable world tour of guest slots in other companies’ schedules, not to mention galas, and he wouldn’t be back until the night before we all returned for company rehearsals.
The prospect of four weeks without the guilty pleasure of being around him did, indeed, make my heart hurt.
But it was also plenty of time for the fever of fancy to subside.
I’d had crushes before, on boys from our partnering lessons at the BBA, boys at resorts on family holidays, guest principals who made most of the ballerinas (and plenty of the male dancers) swoon whenever they graced the BCBC with their presence.
I had been in this shimmering, dizzying state before. It would pass.
* * *
Since the BCBC season didn’t stop for Easter, and Christmas Day was mostly a desperate gasp for air between endless Nutcrackers, summer was the only real chance at a holiday for me and my friends.
That year we flew out to a villa that Charlie’s uncle owned on the Italian Riviera – I still have a photograph of Charlie reclining under a parasol with a Peroni in one hand and a paperback of Jonathan Livingston Seagull in the other, his injured foot resting on a stack of towels.
It was lucky that we had the villa for free – otherwise, now that I’d been promoted and received a not inconsiderable salary bump, I would have felt awkward navigating questions of money.
None of my friends were exactly living like paupers – Fiona was a second cousin once removed of the Duke of Kent.
Jamie, as the son of a state school English teacher and an Avon saleswoman, was the only one of us who came from what my mother irritatingly called “the lower middle classes”.
He joked that I’d be footing the bill for dinner on the last night, but I was in such a good mood that I was inclined to actually do it.
‘This might be the last summer holiday you’ll get,’ Fiona said as we floated in the pool. ‘Enjoy it while you have it.’
‘Don’t say that. I wouldn’t give this up for the world.’
Fiona thought for a moment, twitching her nose like a rabbit. ‘Not even for the Palais Garnier?’
She had me there. Now that I was a principal, and word of my ability to keep up with Sander’s energy had spread beyond Britain, a slow but steady trickle of invitations had begun to arrive via the company mail room.
A few days in Paris here, a long weekend in Rome there – it would definitely be a more exciting way to fill the time between BCBC performances than shellacking pointe shoes and unloading the washing machine.
All being well, my future summers would be busier than they’d ever been.
‘I’m only human,’ I said, flexing my arches in the water, soothed by the patterns of sunlight on turquoise. ‘I would go mad without a week of proper Mediterranean sun, and proper fun with my friends.’
We had been in Portofino for three days, doing an informal barre in the pool every morning as our one concession to routine, but otherwise luxuriating on sun-loungers, driving to the beach, and going to the same family-run restaurant down a side street every night, where the patriarch/head chef called me and Fiona “bella” and gave us a free round of drinks when we did swan arms in perfect unison at the table.
‘I wonder how Sander’s getting on with all his guest contracts,’ I said, unable to help myself.
The geographical distance hadn’t been as helpful in tempering my crush as I’d hoped.
Thoughts of his smile, his eyes, his steady grip around my waist, had followed me here.
I pictured him by the Seine, shielding the face of his silver pocket watch from the sun.
‘I wonder how he relaxes,’ Fiona said to the clouds. ‘If he relaxes.’
‘He’s got plenty to enjoy out there.’ Charlie was reclining poolside with Fiona’s comically large sunhat on his head. ‘Sylvie Guillem alone, I mean, come on.’
‘She is divine,’ Fiona agreed, paddling over to him and making a futile attempt to steal her hat back. ‘I’d sell my soul to have hips that narrow. And her extensions, ugh.’ She bobbed back towards me, splashing water on her neck. ‘I need to double my stretching sessions.’
‘Sander is one lucky bastard,’ Charlie continued. ‘Maybe they’ll have a fling while he’s in Paris. He’d better introduce me when I get promoted. If that day ever comes.’
‘Keep your hair on,’ Jamie called from the edge of the pool, where it overlooked the sea. ‘You’ll make principal soon. I’ve got a feeling.’
While Charlie launched into an a cappella rendition of The Beatles’ “I’ve Got a Feeling”, I swam over to Jamie. And not just to get away from the thought of Sander having flings with glamorous Parisian étoiles.
‘Happy?’ I asked.
He nodded. Towards the end of the Rhapsody run, his panic had suddenly cleared, giving way to an effusive zest for life to the point where I considered the possibility – though he’d never struck me as someone who would need them – that he was on some sort of antidepressant.
‘Good. You had me worried for a bit, back in London.’
‘Did I? Sorry.’
‘No need. I don’t know if something was on your mind during Rhapsody but… well, as long as you’re all right now.’
We faced the mid-afternoon horizon in silence, save for the splash of Fiona’s backstroke and Charlie’s robust refrain of “Oh yeahhh”.
‘I had a bit of a scare, that’s all,’ he said.
I turned my head, but he remained facing the sea. ‘What sort of scare? A health one?’
‘I slept with someone who, er, rang me up a few weeks later to say he’d been diagnosed with HIV. You know. AIDS.’
The sun was blazing in a cloudless sky, but I was cold all over. ‘Jamie.’
‘There was a week where I had to wait – to get to a clinic, get a test, wait for the results.’ He exhaled a shaky breath, gripping the tiles.
‘A horrible week. The worst. I know it’s a cliché but my life really did flash before my eyes.
And all I could think was, “But I haven’t done a lead role yet. ”’
‘Darling.’ My eyes went blurry.
He turned to me and took my hands. ‘But it’s okay, Trix, it’s all okay! The test was negative. I’m okay. Near miss.’
I nodded, holding on to the side of the pool until I got some air back in my lungs. ‘Oh, Jamie. I’m so sorry you had a scare like that. Thank God you’re all right. That you’re healthy.’
He smiled, but it had an odd twist to it. ‘The way things are going, not just in London, bloody everywhere… I’m starting to doubt there is a God.’
All I could think to do was loop my arms around him. ‘At least they can test for it now. That’s something. Surely where there’s a test, one day there’ll be a cure.’
‘Yeah. Well.’ Jamie slipped out of my grasp so he could duck beneath the water, then reemerged to face the villa. ‘Until then, I’m not taking any more chances. We may be well past Lent, but I’m giving up sex.’
‘Giving up sex?’ Charlie interjected, aghast. ‘Monsieur Rouvier would be so disappointed.’
‘Monsieur Rouvier’s probably dead by now,’ Fiona said, pausing her swim and blinking in clear surprise at how much time had passed since our acting lessons at the BBA upper school. Then her mouth flattened. ‘Good riddance, frankly. He made my skin crawl.’
‘If you want to make the audience believe, you must first go out and live!’ Jamie recited in a garbled French accent, before dramatically diving beneath the water.
‘Mais bien s?r,’ he added, shaking out his hair like a dog, ‘make use of your beauty and stamina while they last, and have as much sex as possible!’
Monsieur Rouvier apparently said this to every cohort of fifteen-year-olds. The four of us cracked up, cringing at the shared memory.
‘Do you really think Sander’s going to have it off with Sylvie Guillem?’ Fiona asked.
‘Oh God, I thought we were done with that,’ I groaned. ‘Besides, even if he did, I doubt he’d boast about it.’
‘Very true,’ Charlie said, resting his book on his chest. ‘I’ve actually no idea which way he swings.’
‘Wait, you don’t know?’ Jamie said, floating towards the centre of the pool. ‘I could have sworn I told you.’
‘Told me what?’
‘Sander’s gay.’