Prima Donna (21 page)

Ava took a long slow sip of water. ‘Well,’ she said finally. ‘I have to say I’m surprised. I thought she was stalling to up the money.’ She shrugged. ‘But Pia
is incredibly driven, Sophie. If anyone can make it back, she can. I think she has the anger to do it.’

‘Anger?’ Sophie’s eyebrows shot up. Not talent? Determination?

Ava nodded. ‘Yes. Anger. I think that is what drives her. Over the years, I have studied her performances and I have come to the conclusion that Pia is a – mmm, how you say? –
tormented woman. Off stage she is so much the “Queen of Gesture”,
niet
?’ she smiled, referencing the Ballet Russes ballerina Ida Rubenstein, who led a python about on a
lead and drank champagne from fresh lilies. ‘But she is only ever truly at peace when she’s on the stage. There’s a change in her spirit when she dances that goes way beyond
characterization. She’s a brilliant dancer but she’s not
that
good an actress. If she was, I would say she’s in the wrong industry, you know?’

She went on. ‘
Niet
, I think the Pia we see on stage is the true Pia, not the
brat
we see off duty.’ She leant in, waving her fork. ‘But I think she is like
that because she is haunted by something, and she only ever gets away from it when she dances.’

Haunted. The image of Pia before curtain-up, standing there taut and – yes, Ava was right – tortured, filled Sophie’s mind.

It all made a lot of sense. She stared at Ava, impressed by this generous, forgiving and open-minded appraisal of her rival.

‘You’re right,’ Sophie said thoughtfully. ‘If she’s not dancing, she’s running . . . She can’t slow down. She has this desperate need to keep moving,
keep doing things. It’s almost like she’s scared to stop.’

‘Like a shark,’ Ava said.

‘Huh?’

‘If a shark stops swimming, it drowns, Sophie. She is the same. Pia will make her way back to ballet because she has to. Dancing is the only way she knows how to survive.’

After the initial wave of Latin histrionics, Pia lapsed into a dejected silence that made the previous weeks’ depression look like an adolescent sulk. Will tried talking
to her; he tried giving her space. He even abandoned his study and started sitting on the bed and reading to her. But she didn’t hear a word.

She wouldn’t sit up in bed, she wouldn’t allow herself to be washed or moved and she certainly wouldn’t eat. She was getting thinner, literally before his eyes, defiantly
letting her muscles waste away, as though Baudrand’s dismissal of her hopes was the final word on her return to international ballet.

Will could have punched the man. His casual betrayal had done more damage to her chances of recovery than even the second accident. Thankfully, the plaster had done its job in that instance,
insulating her foot from the very worst of the impact, and it was only the cast becoming saturated in the lake that had allowed her foot to swell and bruise as much as it had. If there was any
delay to her recovery, it would only be by a couple of days. But that seemed irrelevant. Just when she’d seemed to be coming round, she’d lost all hope again and the fire had gone out
of her.

Will stood at the doorway and watched her. She was lying on her side, her back to him, and he couldn’t tell if she was asleep. It was two in the afternoon.

It was a week since she’d read about Baudrand’s dismissal of her recovery, and she was still wearing the same white nightie that had looked so alluring in the firelight. It was
grubby now, and marked with tea and food stains. Her hair – unwashed since the bath after she’d been pulled from the lake – hung limply, and when he got closer to her there was no
disguising the fact that she stank.

‘Come on. We’re going to walk and talk,’ he said, marching over to the wardrobe and pulling out a caramel-coloured cashmere tracksuit for her.

‘I can’t. Remember?’ she said flatly, not moving.

‘It’s okay, you’re going to talk, I’m going to walk,’ he replied, pushing her onto her back and pulling her up to a sitting position. Her head lolled back
pathetically. ‘Oh buck up, Pia,’ he said sharply. ‘You are
not
going to waste away in this room. It’s not why I brought you back here.’

‘We all know why you brought me back here,’ she said spitefully.

Will looked at her and wrinkled his nose. ‘You sure of that? Because right now it’s not such an appealing prospect from where I’m standing.’

Pia jerked her head up sharply at that. His lust for her was something she absolutely took for granted. It was pretty much one of the only things left she could count on.

‘Now, are you going to get yourself dressed, or shall I?’

Pia hunched her shoulders over sullenly. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said quietly. She knew she wasn’t going to win this argument. He was in a determined mood and she wasn’t
anywhere near strong enough to stop him dressing or undressing her. She felt so weak.

‘Good. I’ll be back in ten minutes,’ he said, marching out of the room.

When he came back, he had to bite down his surprise at the sight of her. The tracksuit billowed around her now. She’d added a burnt-orange pashmina round her neck and was sitting in the
wheelchair waiting for him, head down, like a patient in a care home.

He carried her down the stairs and placed her in the new spare wheelchair. He’d thrown so many cushions and blankets on it, it was practically a sofa.

For the first time in days, Pia broke a small smile. ‘There’s no room for me,’ she said, wedged between bolsters. ‘I tell you what, you take the cushions for some air.
I’ll stay back here.’

Will looked at her, flustered. ‘Well, they’d probably be better company.’

He threw half the cushions on the floor and wheeled her out of the front door. The ramp wasn’t nearly so scary with him at the helm, and as he tipped her back to drag the chair over the
gravel, the sun shone full on her face, forcing her eyes shut and filling her with warmth.

A sigh escaped her.

They rolled along in silence for a few minutes, Pia taking in the buzz of activity in the world beyond her bedroom. Gardeners were digging in beds, carting barrow-loads of topsoil along the
drive, pruning back creepers. A couple of young guys were aerating the lawn, stomping up and down the grass stripes with spiked shoes. Everyone seemed so busy. Everyone but her.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked finally, as they turned towards the back of the house and went along the terrace. A pool – covered up for the winter – was situated below
it, with a vine-walled tennis court set further back.

‘I’ve got a surprise for you,’ Will replied enigmatically.

She looked in the windows as they passed by and caught sight of the kitchen, which she hadn’t been in yet. Mrs Bremar was in there chopping vegetables, with her back turned to them.

‘Is it far?’

‘No. Just far enough for you to tell me what’s been running through your head these past few days. I really don’t understand why Ava being cast in
The Songbird
means
the end of your career.’

It was a reasonable enough statement, but there was a long silence as Pia tried to articulate the politics behind the decision.

‘Baudrand knows that I will never play second fiddle to anyone, least of all
her
,’ Pia said, struggling. ‘Which means he knew when he cast her in my ballet that I
would never go back to the ChiCi.’

‘But he would never do anything to lose you. You’re his top star,
the
top star in ballet,’ Will argued, manoeuvring her onto the lawns that ran down and away from the
house. ‘He can’t afford to lose you.’

‘He already has. Let’s face it: there are no guarantees I’m going to make it back. I may never recover my form,’ Pia said, her voice so quiet he could hardly hear her.
‘If he waits for me, he risks losing Ava back to Moscow – or, worse, to another company. Everybody knows she’s desperate to get out of Russia.’ Pia swallowed hard. ‘So
he weighed up the odds and made his decision. Ava’s the sure thing. And I’m on my own.’

‘You are
not
alone,’ Will said protectively, squeezing the back of her neck.

She smiled, touched by his loyalty, but he’d missed the point. Their relationship – whatever it was, whatever it was going to be – didn’t change the fact that she’d
been cast adrift from her anchor.

‘Yes, I am,’ she said. ‘Without ChiCi to showcase my return I can’t prove I’m performance-fit again.’

‘That doesn’t matter. Every ballet company in the world will be vying for you once they realize you’re available. What about the Royal? I know for a fact that they’d jump
at the chance to speak to you.’

Pia shook her head wearily. ‘
Why
are you so desperate for me to go to the Royal?’

‘I’d have thought that was obvious,’ he shrugged. ‘Because then you’ll be near to me. I don’t want you disappearing off to the other side of the world.
Imagine what it’ll cost me in landing fees.’

Pia chuckled. ‘Well, I’m sorry to be such a financial burden but if I do get to go anywhere, it’ll be to Milan.’

‘To La Scala? But why there?’

‘To dance under Dimitri Alvisio,’ she sighed, not wanting to go into it all. ‘Besides, no one’s going to sign me, lame, on the strength of how good I
once
was.
And to prove to them I’m back I need a stage and a production. And where will I get that now? Nobody’s going to want to take a chance on me.’

She realized that Will had brought her to a stop at the bottom of the lawn.

‘What’s this?’ she asked flatly, staring up at a large slate-grey summerhouse, already dreading the extravagant and seductive lunch that would invariably be laid out
inside.

‘Come see,’ he said, scooping her up easily in his arms.

He opened the doors with his foot.

Pia looked around, expecting to see tables covered in linen and grapes, silver champagne buckets, urns full of flowers, and most probably a decadent chaise longue draped in blankets.

But there was nothing in there. Literally nothing. Just mirrored walls, a sprung floor, a piano and a
barre
. A framed poster of her dancing
Sylvia
last year hung next to the
door.

‘Oh my God!’ she gasped, completely taken aback. It wasn’t what she’d expected at all. ‘You’ve made me a dance studio,’ she whispered.

‘Please don’t tell me you thought I was going to woo you with some corny lunch,’ Will grinned.

‘Busted,’ she replied quietly, looking around in surprised wonder.

‘I’m not going to let you give up, Pia,’ he said determinedly. ‘Evie Grainger’s flying back as we speak and she’ll be starting with you the day after
tomorrow. You’ve got six weeks before they take the wires out again, then you’re fully back on your feet. After that, it’s all down to how much you want it. London, New York
– wherever – will be yours for the taking. As far as I’m aware no one’s ever said no to you and lived to tell the tale, have they?’

She smiled hesitantly, nowhere near as confident as he was, but just being back in a studio was bringing all her old feelings rushing to the surface. This didn’t have the right smells yet
– no rosin powder on the floor, no sweat on the mirrors – but with Evie Grainger on her side, it would only be a matter of days before it was broken in.

‘Stay there,’ Will said, sitting her down on the floor and running back out to the wheelchair. He returned with the blankets and cushions and spread them all out on the floor.

Pia lay down gingerly, looking up at the ceiling, trying to control the rush of emotions that were breaking upon her. Will turned on a sound system and
Swan Lake
started up. He lay down
beside her.

‘Is it okay, then?’ he asked, looking up at the lights.

Pia turned her head towards him, alarmed by this sudden intimacy. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she replied, her voice shaky. She felt him slide his hand into hers and she had to
suppress the urge to pull it away. He was being kind, she knew, but it felt . . . smothering to her. It really was all she could do to accept his medical care. Any amorous intentions he had were
going to have to wait until she was back on her feet and calling the shots again. Only then would she decide whether or not to sleep with him. She was used to looking after herself, it was her
primal need, and she abhorred – to a degree that he would never be able to understand – this loss of control over her own life. She might be forced to let him mastermind her recovery,
but she’d be damned if she was going to let him dictate
everything
that happened to her. She wasn’t a victim.

He mistook the flicker of determination that lit up behind her eyes and gave a small smile. ‘That’s my girl,’ he said, stroking her limp hand with his thumb. ‘It’s
time to fight back. Ava Petrova’s not going to know what’s hit her.’

It was growing dark by the time they left the studio, and the smell of the coal fires burning in the house wafted down enticingly. Pia inhaled deeply, exhausted. She needed to
go to bed. She had all the stamina of a fairy at the moment.

A heavy dew had settled on the grass and as Will went to push her back up the lawn the wheels spun on the slope. He wouldn’t be able to get traction without creating deep muddy tracks in
his striped lawn.

‘We’ll follow the path back to the house this way,’ Will said, taking her alongside a wall that divided the lawn from a wood.

Pia looked into the trees. ‘Is that where—’

‘Yes,’ Will said quickly, not wanting her to get upset. ‘It’s in there. Quite far off, though. You really covered some distance. You must have been fairly determined to
get away from me.’

‘Away from Violet, you mean.’

‘Why Violet?’ he asked, relieved. He’d been sure she’d been fleeing from him. ‘Didn’t she look after you properly?’

Pia shrugged, not wanting to go into details. She didn’t want him to find out about the loo-stranding incident. ‘Technically, I guess she did. She just . . . isn’t a
girl’s girl.’

‘Neither are you,’ he grinned. He could well imagine their battle of egos.

‘Well, thank God Evie’s coming now. At least she knows how to deal with me.’