Olivia's First Term (3 page)

Chapter Five

It took a while for the auditorium to quieten down after the excitement of Georgia's accident but soon every seat was taken and the audience waited expectantly, ready for the show to begin. The Swan school term properly started the next day when every child would turn up in the distinctive olive-green and gold uniform, with all the changes of clothing needed for a day not just of normal lessons but also classes in jazz, tap, ballet, singing, acting and more. Swan children could always be spotted on the bus and Tube, not just by their uniforms but by the sheer amount of stuff they were carrying, and by the fact they were often trying to learn lines or studying a musical score. Being at the Swan was fun, but immensely hard work too.

But today was a day for celebration and everyone was wearing their own clothes. In just a few minutes the new children and their families would be treated to a school tradition: a performance by the current pupils especially dedicated to the “newbies”, as the newcomers were known. Being part of the newbies' concert was considered a great honour.

Then there would be a welcoming speech by the school's legendary owner, Alicia Swan. Her own spectacular career in musical theatre had been cruelly cut short by the arthritis that gnarled her beautiful hands and twisted her feet so that she now walked with a stick. Since then she had devoted herself to nurturing “the stars of the future” and so far she was making an excellent job of it. Newspapers called Alicia “the star-maker”. She could sniff out talent just like a terrier could smell a rat. Her own daughter, Antonia Swan, had been acclaimed the greatest classical actress of her generation – she was a heart-breaking Ophelia in
Hamlet
, a brilliant Viola in
Twelfth Night
, a luminous Rosalind in
As You Like It
, a Juliet to die for in
Romeo and Juliet
– before she fell head over heels in love with a high-wire daredevil and abandoned her 
glittering career to run away and join a circus. Alicia had found it hard to forgive Toni, but, after several years of estrangement, mother and daughter had been reconciled. Toni had been on the brink of making a comeback on the West End stage playing Antigone when she had been killed in a plane crash on her way to the first day of rehearsals.

There was barely a West End or Broadway show that didn't have a former Swan student in it. Hollywood's highest-paid heart-throb, Theo Deacon, was a Swan boy, and since its first appearance in the Saturday night schedules, the UK's most successful TV talent show,
You're a Star!
, had been dominated by ex-Swan pupils. The show's producer and chief judge, Robert Howell, had laughingly threatened to ban anyone with connections with the school.

Swan students had been selected to appear in the annual Children's Royal Spectacular at the London Palladium more times than any other stage school. But this year there was a change in the selection process and the line-up of those appearing in front of the Queen would be voted for by the TV-viewing public in a live knockout competition. The Swan would be fighting for its
place in the final line-up against the strongest teams from the best stage schools, youth theatre and dance groups in the country.

Alicia was confident that the Swan boasted enough talent to see them through. She had high hopes for the new intake; there were some exceptionally gifted boys and girls among them. She knew that somewhere in the theatre today there were some real stars in the making. Often it was the quiet ones who surprised you most.

Chapter Six

The lights went down, the music soared and Alicia Swan appeared on stage in a halo of light. She welcomed everybody warmly and announced that there would be a slight change to the programme: Katie Wilkes-Cox would be replacing Georgia Jones to sing the well-known song “Popular” and perform a dance. She took a gracious bow, acknowledged the rousing applause of her staff and current students who were ranged behind her on the stage, their faces shining, and then made her way down to her seat in the front row.

Alicia was an elegant and glamorous figure dressed in dark-green velvet whose delicate movements didn't betray the pain and effort of every step she took. Her hand reached into 
her pocket and she gave an imperceptible sigh as she felt the creased letter that had arrived that morning. Like all the previous letters she had sent, this one had arrived back at the school with the words “Return to sender. Addressee unknown” stamped across the front.

The band played again, and in the back row Eel tossed her chestnut ringlets and squirmed furiously.

“Stop it, Eel,” said Olivia.

“I can't help it, Livy. It's the music, it makes me want to dance. It's as if my feet have taken on a life of their own like that girl in
The Red Shoes
.”

Olivia clutched her little sister's hand even more tightly as rows of tap-dancing children took to the stage in a spectacular song-and-dance sequence that soon had the audience cheering wildly.

Eel watched fascinated, tapping her feet in perfect time, although she had never had dancing lessons. She longed to be up there on the stage. She thought it must be wonderful to have everyone looking at you. The tap dancers were replaced by a cheeky-faced boy and a girl who did a version of “I'd Do Anything” from
Oliver
!
The girl was charming, and the boy, who had red hair and freckles, made the audience laugh.

Alicia watched with approval. Aeysha Aziz and Tom McCavity would both go far. Tom's mix of bashfulness and cheek made the audience feel warm and smiley, as if they were toasting their toes in front of a cosy fire.

Under cover of the clapping Olivia leaned towards her father, and as she did so she noticed the worry lines around his tired, handsome face and the dark shadows under his eyes.

“I thought,” she whispered, “you were going to introduce us to our grandmother, not take us to see a show.” Jack Marvell shifted in his seat uncomfortably. The truth suddenly dawned on Olivia and she gazed at him hard with her piercing green eyes. “She does actually know that we're coming, doesn't she? You did phone her and ask her if it would be all right if we all moved in with her for a while?”

Guilt flickered across Jack Marvell's pale, weary face. “Actually, I decided it might be better if I didn't. I'm not Alicia Swan's favourite person. She blames me for taking your mother away from her and the glory of the London stage, and holds
me responsible for Toni's death too. The last time I saw Alicia was at your mother's funeral and she said that she never wanted to see me again. I took her at her word. She seemed very certain about it. I think she feels that if Toni hadn't run away to join the circus with me in the first place, she would never have been on that plane.”

He looked drawn and sad. Jack Marvell seldom talked about his wife's death. It was too painful for him, and Olivia and Eel had learned not to ask about Toni. But not talking about her mother made it feel to Olivia as if everybody was trying to pretend that Toni had never existed. Eel was still a baby and Olivia had been only five when her mum had died, and when she tried to remember her face everything became a little hazy. Mostly she could just remember her mum's smell, a hint of lily of the valley.

When she was little there had been photographs of her mother everywhere in their caravan, often captured by the great theatre photographers while playing her most famous roles. But after she had died the photographs had disappeared, as if Jack could not bear to be reminded of what he had lost or of anything to do with the theatre. Jack had plunged himself
into work, but sometimes at night, when he thought the children were fast asleep, Olivia had seen him take one of the photos from his box of precious things and stare at it so hard it seemed as if he was trying to will Toni back to life. Marisa, the tattooed circus contortionist who could squeeze her entire body into a small suitcase, had once told Olivia that her parents' relationship had been a real love affair. “They were like Romeo and Juliet.”

“So,” said Olivia hotly, forgetting to lower her voice, “we're going to be a horrible surprise for her then.” People turned round in the rows in front and
sssh
ed them angrily.

A girl and boy who had been doing a
pas de deux
from
Swan Lake
were applauded and replaced by the girl Olivia recognised from the four-by-four. The music began and Katie's clear voice filled the auditorium, pure and sweet.

“I can't believe you've done this to us,” hissed Olivia.

“I'll explain,” said Jack desperately. People glared at them.

“We're hardly going to be very popular with our grandmother! She won't want us and you clearly don't want us either,” said Olivia loudly. People all around gave them thunderous looks of disapproval. Jack Marvell beckoned desperately to Olivia and Eel and the three of them slipped out of the theatre and into the foyer with Olivia still holding tightly on to Eel's hand.

Katie was just reaching the end of the song.

Chapter Seven

“Olivia,” said Jack quietly, and Olivia thought she heard a crack in his voice, “you know that you are not unwanted. You and Eel are the most wanted children in the world. You two are all I've got left, you're my reason for living. But I'm just not able to look after you on my own at the moment. When I can, I will. I promise. The Great Marvello never breaks a promise.”

“I know that,” said Olivia fiercely and she did. Her father was a man of his word. After his accident had stopped him performing and audiences had dwindled away to nothing, he desperately tried to keep the circus together, paying all the other performers week after week, and it was this generosity that had got them into the trouble they were in now. Because it was the 
Great Marvello – the infamous high-wire walker who had skipped across the top of Niagara Falls and fearlessly negotiated the chasm between the two highest points in Paris, even stopping on the wire to light a Primus stove and fry an egg – who everybody wanted to see. But he couldn't perform because he had broken both his legs and four ribs in an accident in a small town in Italy, just one of the many stops the circus made as it endlessly travelled across Europe and the further-flung parts of Scotland and Ireland.

Olivia felt sick whenever she thought about that bright January morning that had begun so full of promise but had almost ended in tragedy. They had been walking down the main street on the way back from the market. Eel skipped along a few metres in front of Olivia and Jack, as always moving as if she was responding to some invisible orchestra playing inside her head. Jack was talking intently to his elder daughter, shyly proposing that they might start trying to work up a tightrope double act together.

“You've come on so well, Liv. You're improving every day. It would be fun to work together, and a father–daughter double act could be a real draw, something a bit different.”

Olivia was thrilled. She and Eel had always done bits and bobs to help out in the circus, selling the tickets and programmes, helping the performers do their quick costume changes and joining in the finale with some acrobatics, but this was different. Her dad was asking her to be his partner. He must think that she was genuinely good. High-wire walking was dangerous and if you worked with a partner, you had to trust that person completely. It was essential, because your lives were in each other's hands.

Olivia felt as if she had swelled to twice her normal size with pride. She opened her mouth to say “yes”, when she saw a look of horror on her father's face. Eel had skipped her way into the road, entirely oblivious to the car that was racing towards her. Jack lunged at Eel, knocking her out of the way. There was a screech of brakes and a sickening thud. A bag of tomatoes had split, and its contents oozed all over the tarmac. Jack lay very still in the road. For a few moments there had been an eerie silence and then from somewhere far away came the sound of an ambulance siren.

The driver of the speeding car was shaken but unhurt, Eel escaped entirely unscathed and
everyone said that it was a miracle Jack had survived the impact. But the bones had been slow to heal, and sometimes Olivia wondered whether her father had broken something even more precious in the accident: his spirit.

From behind the doors of the auditorium they heard a racket of applause. There was a pause and then the music swelled again.

“What if Granny Alicia simply turns us away?” asked Olivia nervously, grasping Eel's hand more firmly.

“She won't,” said Jack. “Alicia may be a bit of a dragon, but she has a kind heart. It's just that her daughter's death broke it. Once she's met you, she won't refuse to help you. You are her granddaughters, her daughter's children. Flesh and blood. She won't turn you away and let you starve. I know she'll take you in.”

“Take
us
in,” said Olivia slowly. “But what about you?” The shifty look once again flashed across Jack's face. “You're not intending to stay with us, are you?” Olivia shouted, furious. “You're planning to dump Eel and me on a grandmother we've never met and who probably won't be at all pleased to see us and then you're
going to run away, aren't you, leaving us at this awful place,
a stage school
, knowing full well that neither of us can sing, dance or act so it will be hell for both of us. You couldn't have made a worse job of it if you really
had
found an orphanage run by a wicked witch.”

“Liv, it's not like that, honestly,” cried Jack despairingly, and he would have gone on but at that moment they both realised that Eel was no longer holding Olivia's hand. Olivia looked around wildly and ran to the big glass doors that led to the busy road, expecting at any moment to hear another ominous screech of brakes. Could Eel have slipped outside without them noticing? Then she heard an outraged shriek from inside the auditorium. Olivia and her father looked at each other and rushed back inside the theatre.