Hester's Story (6 page)

Most of it was dark and gloomy, and it seemed as though there were rooms and rooms hidden away, somewhere where you couldn’t see them down long dark corridors and at the top of forbidding flights of stairs that stretched up into the shadows. But Estelle felt, going into the back parlour, as though she were once more at home, in France, in her beloved grandmother’s house. She sat in a plump chair upholstered in pinkish velour and took in the ornate furniture, the heavy greenish brocade curtains which looked grand to her, even though she could see they were a little faded and had been mended here and there, and the pale blue walls covered with framed photographs of ballerinas in many different poses. They looked beautiful, every one of them, with their arms and legs making perfect shapes against the painted scenery in the background.

‘Why do you wish to learn to dance?’

Estelle hesitated before answering, not knowing how to express her need, her desire. In the end she said, ‘I think the steps are there in my feet, but I don’t know how to let them out.’

Madame Olga smiled, and said, ‘We will go to the studio. Follow me, and please, take your shoes off and go in the socks. We must care for the floor.’

Estelle would have followed her anywhere. They crossed the wide hall and she left her shoes by the door and went into the room she’d seen from the window. She could feel the wood smooth under her feet.

‘Good, now stand like this.’ Madame Olga threw her magnificent shawl over the back of a chair and took up the first position and Estelle copied her. She nodded, but said nothing and changed to second position and then third and so on and Estelle mirrored every movement. Then she raised her arms, and Estelle followed. Still, Madame Olga said nothing. She moved to the rail.

‘This we call the
barre
,’ she said. ‘Rest your hand lightly, like me.’

Estelle lost track of the time. When they returned to the parlour, the light was fading and suddenly she felt frightened. Surely Auntie Rhoda would be missing her by now? How long had she been here?

‘I think I should go home now. It’s nearly tea-time.’

‘You will please come again. I think you will be a good dancer. Yes.’ Madame Olga nodded and Estelle felt as though her whole body might fly up to the ceiling, like a bird, from pure happiness.

Estelle asked Auntie Rhoda’s permission that very evening, at supper. Auntie Rhoda stared at her as she spoke. She’d just dished out some mashed potato on to Uncle Bob’s plate and paused with her spoon in the air, before plunging it into the potatoes again.

‘I don’t really think so, dear,’ she said, with an air of finality.

‘But why not?’ Estelle wouldn’t normally have dared to ask, but this was too important, and she could feel everything she’d dreamed of sliding away from her. Paula said with satisfaction in her voice, ‘Estelle’s going to cry.’

‘No, I’m not. I just want to know why I can’t have dancing lessons.’

‘Because even with the money your father sends us we can’t afford it and, besides, we know nothing about this person. I don’t hold with fripperies like ballet. They make a person think they’re better than other people.’

Estelle stared at the mashed potato that Auntie Rhoda had dolloped on to her plate.

‘I’m not eating that,’ she said, ‘and I
am
going to have dancing lessons. I shall write to my father. He’ll send more money when he knows how much I want to dance. My mother was a ballerina. I want to be like her and you can’t stop me!’

She pushed her chair back from the table and stamped out of the room. Then she left the house in a rage, before anyone could come and fetch her back. Once she was outside she ran all the way to Madame Olga’s front door. By the time Madame opened it, after she’d been banging on it frantically for what seemed like ages and ages, Estelle was weeping tears of anger and frustration.

‘
Moia golubchka
,’ Madame Olga said. ‘My child!’ and she gathered Estelle into her arms and draped her shawl around the child’s shoulders. ‘Why do you cry? What is the matter?’

‘They don’t understand. They don’t see that I
have
to dance. I must. All Auntie Rhoda cares about is the money. I shouted at her. I have to have lessons.’ Madame Olga said, ‘Ah, please do not worry about this. You will have the lessons. This I promise you. Go home now and I will speak to this aunt of yours who knows nothing. All will be well. You will see.’

Estelle never discovered what Madame Olga had told the Wellicks. She went to see them while the children were at school and Estelle realised that
Madame Olga must have said she wouldn’t be asking for any payment. Auntie Rhoda never mentioned the conversation, but took Estelle rather grudgingly into Leeds and bought her a pair of ballet shoes (pink, with lovely satin ribbons to tie) and a dress like a gym-slip with a very short skirt. All the way there on the bus, she’d muttered about what a waste of clothing coupons such purchases were and how impossible it would be to find such items in wartime, but luck had been with them and they’d found everything quite easily.

‘This ballet stuff won’t butter any parsnips,’ she said as they came home. ‘Still, I daresay it won’t do any harm.’

And so it began. On Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, Estelle inhabited another universe, where music played and her body stretched and lifted and bent and her head was filled with dreams of flying through the air to the sounds that filled every part of her head, even after she’d left the studio. Estelle was one of only five other girls in the class. Petrol rationing was the excuse for the shortage of pupils but Estelle didn’t mind. The others were older than she was, and she admired them all and worked hard to copy them in everything they did. All five of Madame Olga’s pupils were reflected in the big mirror, moving together, and Estelle would see their reflections and think how pretty they looked, their mirror images moving along with them to the lovely melodies of Chopin or Délibes.

Estelle loved class. She loved the safety of it, the routine; the feeling she had of always knowing precisely where she was. She liked dancing the same steps in the same order and the idea that if she tried really, really hard, she would achieve a perfect sequence of steps and then Madame Olga would praise her.

‘Push yourself,’ Madame would cry. ‘Push yourself to the limit of what your body can do.’

Estelle did, every time she went to Wychwood House. She found that if she concentrated hard enough on what went on in class, she could put everything else into a separate compartment in her head and think about it quite differently – in a much more detached way. As the war dragged on, food was becoming less and less tasty and she dreaded the powdered eggs and the awful day when the sugar ration ran out for the week, as it always seemed to do. But Estelle danced and danced and forgot what was happening in the real world. Auntie Rhoda and Uncle Bob kept the news from the girls as much as possible, and anything Estelle heard about France she somehow didn’t connect with her father or grandmother. She learned from a letter about her father’s second marriage to a young woman called Yvonne, and found that it was easy not to get upset about such things if she put them in a kind of detached part of her mind. Estelle discovered she had a gift for this, for being able to ignore things that would hurt her if she thought about them too much. She became skilled at keeping a distance between herself and anything too unpleasant to think about.

One day shortly after the end of the war, Auntie Rhoda called Estelle into the parlour for what she called ‘a quiet word’. As soon as she saw her aunt sitting rather stiffly at the table with a small package in front of her and a letter in her hand, Estelle understood that something awful had happened.

‘Come and sit down, dear,’ Auntie Rhoda smiled at her.

‘What’s the matter, Auntie Rhoda?’

‘It’s bad news, dear, I’m afraid. Your grandmother … I’m so sorry. She was a very old lady, though, wasn’t she? We must think of her at peace.’ Auntie
Rhoda held out the letter and Estelle took it. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at the tiny black letters of her father’s familiar handwriting.

My dear Estelle, I am very sorry to have to tell you that my mother died two weeks ago in hospital. She had been suffering from pneumoniathe and her end was peaceful and without pain. The funeral was held yesterday. I know how sad this will make you and I am sorry to be the bearer of such news. Your grandmother was most insistent that I should send you this chain. She says that you will know what to do with it, but if you are willing to take my advice (and don’t forget that I am still a banker) I would put it away in a safe-deposit box in the local bank. In that way, you will not have to worry about losing it.

‘He’s written to me too,’ Auntie Rhoda said, taking Estelle by the hand and guiding her to a chair at the kitchen table. ‘Your grandmother has left you a small legacy, you know.’

Estelle didn’t care about her legacy. Her eyes were on the package on the kitchen table. ‘Is that the box my father sent?’

‘Yes, here it is. We could keep it safe in the bank if you like.’

‘No,’ Estelle trembled with terror. How could Auntie Rhoda prevent her from keeping
Grand-mère
’s chain? She held out her hand. ‘I’ll look after it. I won’t lose it, I promise. Please let me have it.’

‘Well, I can’t stop you, I suppose, but I don’t think it’s very sensible, you know. What if you mislay it?’

‘I won’t. I wouldn’t. I never would. Give it to me.’

Suddenly, the horror of everything struck Estelle and she grabbed the box from Auntie Rhoda’s hand and ran out of the room. She fled up the stairs to the
bedroom and flung herself on the bed, sobbing and clutching the small box tight in her hand. Rage filled her. How could Papa do such a thing? Write her a letter about
Grand-mère’
s death? If he’d phoned, she could have gone to France, to the funeral. She was old enough to travel by herself. Why hadn’t he telephoned? Or sent a telegram? He didn’t want me there, she thought. He says
Grand-mère
died of pneumonia but maybe that’s not true. Maybe, she thought, Papa didn’t want me to meet Yvonne. Maybe Yvonne told him she didn’t want me to come. If I’d gone, I could have stood beside the grave in the cemetery and wept and then
Grand-mère
would have known how much I loved her. I’ll never see her again.

Estelle sat up and dried her eyes. She pulled Antoinette to her and buried her face in the doll’s skirts. Paula was downstairs. She could hear her talking and soon she would be up in the bedroom, asking what the matter was. Estelle fingered the chain she wore always round her neck, the chain her grandmother had given her before she left for Yorkshire. Papa might be a banker, she thought, but he doesn’t know me very well. I’ll never let
Grand-mère’
s half of the chain out of my sight. I’d never entrust it to a bank. And the idea that I’d ever lose it is ridiculous. Does he think that I’m careless or stupid?

She opened the small round tortoiseshell box. There it was, the chain she had promised to pass on to her own daughter. She knew she had to hide it at once before Paula saw it and started asking questions. If she does, Estelle told herself, I’ll just tell her it’s none of her business. She got off the bed and hid the box away under her vests, right at the back of her drawer in the shared chest of drawers. It would be quite safe there. Paula wouldn’t be interested enough to snoop around for it.

That night she cried bitterly for her grandmother, just as she used to when she first came to the Wellicks, pulling the pillow over her head so that Paula wouldn’t hear her. She dreamed all night of
Grand-mère’
s room: the high bed piled with pillows frilled with lace, the hatboxes, the jewels, and her grandmother’s voice speaking to her, singing to her, making her feel warm and loved and safe. As soon as she woke up, she remembered the truth and felt chilly and dazed with sorrow. Once she was dressed, she took her father’s letter and tore it up into small pieces. She gathered up the bits and went into the back parlour, where she threw them on the coal fire. They acquired glowing, scarlet edges before turning to grey ash. I won’t think about it, she told herself. I’ll try to forget I ever got that letter. While she danced at Madame Olga’s, she pretended
Grand-mère
was still alive, still in her father’s house in Paris, and sending good wishes to her granddaughter. Estelle decided that there wasn’t much difference between death and distance. What it came down to was not seeing the person you loved. Not ever.

25 December 1986

Alison Drake looked across the table at her mother. Claudia Drake, beautiful international ballet superstar, ta-rah, was pushing two minuscule roast potatoes round her plate. She always did that: arranged her food artistically, nibbled briefly at a couple of things and then rearranged it all over again. Alison debated throwing the remains of the Marks & Spencer turkey roast at her. Her mother, annoyingly, was blissfully unaware of what was going on in her daughter’s mind, so Alison decided to say something.

‘You haven’t exactly made an effort this year, have you? I don’t call this a proper Christmas.’

‘I can’t do a big, elaborate thing,’ Claudia said. ‘I’ve explained it to you. I’ve got to get us ready to go up to Yorkshire on Sunday. Rehearsals start on Monday. I can’t leave a whole lot of stuff in the fridge.’

Perhaps it was the ill-prepared and skimpy meal. Perhaps it was the lack of decorations and a tree. Maybe it was her fury at having to drag along with Claudia to the depths of the countryside, but suddenly Alison lost her temper completely and began to shout at her mother.

‘It’s always fucking rehearsals with you. You never have time for real people and real things because you’re so taken up with your stupid ballet and your stupid class that you can never ever miss, oh no, because proper professionals never miss class, do they?
And your whole, your whole
ridiculous pretend world
which is more important to you than the real world. I don’t care if I never see another fucking ballet ever again in my whole life.’