Hester's Story (30 page)

As they were leaving the restaurant, Hester whispered to Adam, ‘Never phone me again. Never write. I don’t ever want to see you. Not ever.’

‘But why?’ Adam whispered back urgently. Edmund and Virginia were walking a little ahead of them, towards the car.

‘Because you’re a liar. Nothing but lies from beginning to end. You’ve no intention of leaving your wife. I no longer believe a word you say.’

‘That’s nonsense, Hester, you know it is. I love you, dammit. I
will
tell her. As soon as I can. I promise.’

‘And when
can
you? When she’s told me herself how you’ve both been
trying for a baby
? You want everything, don’t you? Me and your wife and a baby. Everything. Well, you can’t have me. I’m a dancer and I can’t concentrate on my work if I’m worrying about you all day long. My work is more important than you are. You’re going to become
not at all
important to me.’

He couldn’t answer, because they’d caught up with Edmund and Virginia. Hester sat in silence in the car all the way to Moscow Road, staring at the backs of their heads: Mr and Mrs Lennister, who were going home together. She felt as though every drop of blood had congealed in her veins. Deliberately, she turned her mind to tomorrow’s class. Piers would take the cast through the first night notes; he’d polish everything that needed attention before the next performance. She wouldn’t give Adam another thought. She’d forget about him and never think of him again.

‘Goodbye,’ Virginia said as Hester left the car when they reached Moscow Road. ‘Thank you for
Red Riding Hood
. It was such a success, wasn’t it? You must be so proud to be a part of that.’

‘Goodbye,’ Hester said. ‘Yes, good night. And thank you.’ She ran up to the porch and let herself in quietly,
unable to stop hearing in her head that voice, Virginia’s voice, sighing into Adam’s ear, grunting and moaning; both of them frantic and loud in their lovemaking. She went up to the Attic de Luxe and fell into bed, wondering how to deal with the misery that was crushing her under its weight.

*

Between Boxing Day and Twelfth Night, Hester moved through the hours like an automaton. She came to life only when she was dancing. Apart from that, she walked about in a numbing fog of unhappiness.

Dinah left for Wales on the second of January and Hester felt, as she waved after the taxi from the front porch of 24 Moscow Road, that this was a recurring image in her life: someone leaving in a big black car, someone getting smaller and smaller as they grew further and further away; someone gone for ever who used to be there. She wiped away a tear that was rolling down her cheek and chided herself. Don’t be so melodramatic and selfish, she told herself. You’re not saying goodbye to Dinah forever. You’ll stay in touch. She’ll write and so will you. It’s not like leaving
Grand-mère
. Not at all. But the sensation of being at the same time bruised and icy-cold was there, just the same. That never changed, however long it had been since Hester was that small child, saying a proper goodbye for the very first time.

A few days after Dinah’s departure, she and Nell moved downstairs to single rooms. Hester felt very grown-up. Suddenly she was one of the senior dancers in the company, a principal with, according to everyone she spoke to, a dazzling career ahead of her. The reviews for
Red Riding Hood
were ecstatic. Adam wrote to her every day and she tore his letters up and threw them away, though not before she’d read them.
He phoned her every night at Moscow Road and she always put the phone down at once. He sent her bunches of cream roses which she gave away to other dancers. He sent messages via Edmund. Then, one night, he was waiting when she came out of the stage door.

Hester hesitated for a moment when she caught sight of him and tried to walk in the opposite direction, trying not to see his face. But he ran after her, and in the end she couldn’t stop herself from turning and running towards him; from burying her face in the fabric of his coat, and weeping with anguished longing as he held her. They didn’t say anything in the car. Later, he told her he couldn’t live without her. He promised again to tell Virginia that he was leaving her. He was going to marry Hester. He was. Did she believe him? Did she think he really would? She no longer knew, but she couldn’t bear to go on alone, not seeing him, not being with him. She had to believe there was a future for them.

*

For the very first time, Hester stayed in the flat all night, wrenching herself out of Adam’s embrace with barely minutes to spare before that morning’s class. As she got ready at the back of the church hall, Piers looked at her somewhat askance and asked, ‘Night on the tiles, Hester, dear?’

Hester smiled weakly. Her whole body felt as though it were made of jelly. She tied the satin ribbons of her ballet shoes round her ankles and stood up to take her place with the others. She asked herself over and over again as her body went through the familiar routines, should I have let him talk me into staying? He didn’t have to do much persuading, she recalled. All he has to do is be near me. Every single part of me
wants to be his and I don’t have the strength to keep my distance. She remembered how they’d torn their clothes off and fallen into bed like famished creatures—

‘Concentrate, Hester,’ Piers sounded cross. ‘You’re not paying attention.’

Hester said nothing and blushed. And bend and
entrechat
and bend and
plié
. She wrenched her thoughts away from Adam and tried to fix them on what Piers wanted her to do.

*

The Charleroi Company left London at the end of March 1952. They were going to Birmingham, Cardiff, Newcastle, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh and then back to London. For weeks, Hester’s life was a succession of train rides, and digs where she had to share chilly and sometimes rather grubby rooms with Nell and Mona. The inadequate radiators in these places seemed to be forever draped in wet tights which were often still a little damp when she put them on in the evening. She took her doll, Antoinette, with her everywhere, and even though she remained in the suitcase, Hester liked knowing she was there. She would never have dared to cuddle her, but there were times, when she was missing Adam dreadfully, when the temptation to take her out and hold her tightly in bed was almost overwhelming.

Coppélia
was one of Hester’s favourite ballets, and Swanhilde was a part she loved. The way she transformed herself each night into a moving, dancing doll, with round eyes and stiff limbs was something like magic. The children in the audience always gasped when they saw the trick being played on the sinister and rather pathetic Doctor Coppélius, and even after many rehearsals and performances Hester would
sometimes find herself shivering a little at the sight of the Chinaman, and the other automata in the Doctor’s workshop, staring at her from the shadows. The costumes and the make-up were so convincing that she could scarcely recognise dancers she’d known for years. This production was one Piers was very proud of, and with good reason.

Throughout the tour, Hester wrote to Adam nearly every day. She had to admit that when it came to talking, to conversation, she had always found it easier to talk to Edmund than to Adam. Her conversations with her lover were too intense, every word too fraught with meaning. She used to spend hours every Sunday night going back over everything they’d said, trying to extract significance from each word. Edmund was funnier than Adam and more easygoing, and he and Hester laughed a lot together. She knew that, whatever happened, he was on her side, and the knowledge was comforting.

All the letters that Adam wrote to her while she was out of London she kept in a beautiful wooden box that Dinah had given her before she left the company. He was a good writer and found a thousand different ways to say that he loved her, but sometimes Hester wondered whether she should believe him. She stared at the thin lines of ink arranged in the neat italics of his beautiful handwriting and didn’t know what would happen to the two of them. And there was something else. It had been more than five weeks since her last period. Her cycle was always very irregular, however, so she tried not to worry too much.

*

Coppélia
opened in Cardiff in the third week in April. Until Hester saw Dinah after the show, she’d forgotten just how very much she’d been missing her. She came
to see the ballet and took Hester out to dinner afterwards, and they arranged to meet for coffee the following morning before class. As Hester waited for her friend, it occurred to her that she must have eaten too much the previous evening. Suddenly, she felt very sick indeed. She took a deep breath and the nausea passed, but when Dinah arrived, she took one look at Hester and said, ‘Are you feeling okay? You look quite green, you know.’

‘Fine, really,’ Hester answered. ‘I ate too much last night, that’s all. I’m not used to it. Are you having coffee?’

‘Yes. I’ll just go and fetch it.’

Once they were sitting down facing one another across the table, Dinah said, ‘Hester, please don’t be cross but I think … well, you’re never ill. Not in all the time I’ve known you. Could you possibly be pregnant?’

Hester laughed. ‘No, Dinah, I’m sure I’m not. Just because last night’s fish and chips didn’t agree with me, you shouldn’t leap to conclusions.’

‘Hmm. Fine. I won’t pry. It’s none of my business. But I’m going to give you something. Just in case.’

She opened her own handbag and produced a notebook and a biro. She wrote something on it and tore out the page. ‘If you ever
do
find yourself pregnant, this is a name and address which might be useful. Don’t say a word to anyone, but keep it by you for emergencies.’

Hester took the piece of paper and folded it up. She held it a little away from her as though it were contaminated. ‘I’m lying. I am a little worried. I’ve missed a period, or at least, it’s very late. But this person is an abortionist, is he?’

‘That sounds so ghastly. Like “butcher” or “murderer”. He’s a doctor, that’s all. He’s helped out a
great many people in the company over the years. And he’s not too expensive. What if you are pregnant? You can’t afford to have a baby now, Hester. Think of your career. You’re going to be a star. A world class star and you can’t ignore that. You have a duty to your art.’ Dinah laughed. ‘Listen to me! I sound worse than Piers, but you know what I mean. You really don’t want to mess up your life with a baby.’

Hester frowned. ‘I hate the thought of abortion. I think it’s … it’s hideous. Just the thought of it … a baby.’

‘It’s not a baby, Hester, not right at the start of things. Not really. You shouldn’t think of it like that.’

Hester stirred the remains of the coffee in her cup, making a figure-of-eight pattern in the dregs. ‘If I am pregnant,’ she said, avoiding Dinah’s gaze, ‘I wouldn’t be the only person involved. The father …’ she couldn’t bring herself to say Adam’s name. She took a deep breath. ‘The father would have some say in the child’s future, don’t you think?’

Dinah took her hand. ‘You’re in love, Hester. You’re not seeing clearly. I promise you that if you did get pregnant, the person who’d be keenest for you to visit the address I’ve given you is Adam.’

Suddenly Hester was furious. ‘You’ve no right to say such things. You’ve no idea, Dinah. He loves me. He really, truly does. He’d never …’ She took a deep breath. ‘I know how it looks to outsiders. I know he said ages ago that he’d leave his wife and he hasn’t yet, but he will. I’m as sure of that as I am of anything.’

‘Then I won’t say another word. I refuse to fall out with you over a man. Just keep that bit of paper safe. Now, let’s get you to class or Piers will be having kittens.’

After that day in Cardiff, Hester was sick every morning, and she began to acknowledge that her
missed period, together with the nausea meant that she was pregnant. Dinah thought she was. But she’d never once had to miss class, so perhaps this wasn’t the proper morning sickness that came with pregnancy. No one she knew had ever been pregnant, so there was no one she could ask about this. How was that possible? She’d lived since she was fourteen with ballet dancers, that was how. Since she’d been in the company, only about three people had left to get married; had given up dancing. She wondered if Dinah herself had used the address she’d given to Hester. No, that can’t be, she told herself. I’d know about it if she had. She wouldn’t have kept it from me.

Hester lay in bed, suddenly terrified. What was going to happen to her body? Perhaps the changes had begun already. There might be something growing and growing, secretly, there in the silent darkness within her, and she wouldn’t know about it for ages. She longed for
Grand-mère
, who would have comforted her and looked after her and told her what she needed to know. She would have brought Hester a
tisane
in one of the yellow cups that she remembered from her earliest childhood. She would have made her feel better. Dinah was in Cardiff and Edmund, who would have listened to her and soothed her fears and cheered her up, was in America overseeing the music for a production of
Red Riding Hood
in Chicago and wouldn’t be back for months. Hester sometimes felt as though she were quite alone in the world – apart from Adam. But she was terrified of what his reaction might be to the news. What would he say?

Every evening, as she danced Swanhilde in one theatre after another, she was aware of changes in her own feelings. Part of her, most of her, shrank from the idea of a baby. Dinah was right about the dancing. How would she go on performing? What would
become of her career if she had a child? She didn’t think she was brave enough to face the shame of being an unmarried mother. The very words sounded disgraceful to her ears. Piers would sack her, that much was certain. Was there another ballet company in the world that would employ her once the newspapers had spread the story? But the most important question of all was, could Dinah possibly be right about what Adam would say? It occurred to Hester that on the contrary, perhaps
this
, pregnancy, might be the very thing to give him the courage to confront Virginia with the truth that he was intending to leave her.