Prima Donna (41 page)

She smoothed down her pink Chanel skirt anxiously, catching sight of herself in one of the baroque floor-to-ceiling mirrors. She was appalled by what she saw and planted her hands on her hips.
Since when had Pia Soto
ever
imagined she’d wear tweed? She shook her head. If only B could see her now. At least she’d approve.

She stared at her reflection and tried to recognize her own face at least, but even that seemed foreign. She took a few deep yogic breaths. It was just because she was nervous and on her own. If
Sophie was with her she’d make her laugh with some dreadful – what was it again? – ding-dong joke?

An image of Sophie, all skinny arms and legs and wild hair, looking indignant and just like a rusty nail in the Prada dress, floated into her head. Pia smiled to herself. She missed her, more
than she could ever have expected, more than she would ever admit. She hadn’t just fired her assistant, she had thrown away a friendship – her only one, in fact – and all in a
brattish fit of pique that even morphine hadn’t been able to smother.

Not that Sophie cared. She’d wasted no time in cosying up to Ava and, now that she had her own illustrious career to nurture, Pia would be nothing to her. Just the enemy.

Pia exhaled sharply, banishing the regrets. No, she was on her own now and that was how it was. How she’d always liked it best. It was better to be alone and independent. She didn’t
need anyone’s help. She’d already proved herself up on that stage. In that one short hour in the English dusk, she’d given Alvisio’s songbird not just life and spirit, but
also immortality.
The Songbird
was not only sold out for the rest of the season but, thirty years from now, people would still remember it as the ballet she and Ava had danced. Their
dance-off would go down in the ballet history books and she had put him up there with Stravinsky and Diaghilev.

There was a light rap at the door and she stared at it. She’d done all this for him. Now it was time for her reward. The butler went to open it and Pia turned her back to stare out of the
window again.

‘
Segualo, prego, signore
,’ she heard the butler say in a quiet voice.

Pia counted to five, then turned round, full of grace and poise. ‘Signore Alvisio,’ she said, gliding forward and offering a delicate hand. ‘It is such a pleasure to meet you
face to face, at last.’

‘
Il piacere e tutta la miniera
. The pleasure, it is all mine,’ he said, gesticulating stiffly, taking her hand but kissing her twice on the cheeks.

He was in his seventies, with small dark eyes, his hair and matching beard the colour of anthracite. He was wearing black bagged trousers, à la Cary Grant, and a dark grey-striped crew
neck jumper. Pia instantly felt overdressed and wished she was wearing something more . . . her.

‘Won’t you sit down,
signore
?’ she said, gesturing to the bony salon chairs.

‘
Grazie
.’

Signore Alvisio studied her openly while the butler served coffee, and she knew she’d confounded his expectations. She looked nothing like ballet’s
sauvage belle
today.

‘So this is where you hide,’ he smiled. ‘Many people trying to find you, no?’

Pia grimaced. ‘Yes, I know. It’s bad at the moment. I feel as though even Interpol must be after me.’

Alvisio’s eyes twinkled. ‘Everybody wants a piece of you. And who can blame them?’

Pia drew herself up, pleased by his flattery. She had been right to come here.

He sat back in the chair, hands linked lightly across his lap. ‘So you liked what I did for you?
The Songbird
flattered you well, I thought.’

‘Oh
signore
, it was . . . such an honour to dance it. If I could have come back to dance only one last ballet, I would have chosen that. I still can’t quite believe that you
wrote it for
me
,’ she said, bringing both hands up to her heart. It didn’t hurt to remind him that it was still her ballet, and not Ava’s.

Alvisio nodded. ‘I wanted to showcase that light jump of yours. It is . . . how you say?
Eccezionale
. You are always like a bird to my head.’ He tapped his temple.

‘
Grazie, signore
,’ Pia said modestly.

‘And how is your foot feeling, now that you have danced on it again?’

They both looked down at Pia’s tiny ankles. She was wearing two-tone pumps – pumps? – and there was no hint of swelling or bruising to be seen. Pia rotated the foot easily.

‘As good as new,’ she smiled, lying only a little bit.

‘Show me your arch.’

Pia flexed and pointed her foot seamlessly. Evie had done a fantastic job of ironing out the judder that had made it feel like it was pushing against rubber when the wires first came out.

‘No pain? No swelling?’

‘The day after the show it was a bit puffy . . . but once I get back to daily classes that should disappear. Evie’s discharged me now. I’m a free agent again.’

Too free, she thought to herself.

‘Hmm, yes,’ he said sombrely, bringing his forefingers together. ‘Which brings us to business. It is a worry that you danced only one act,’ he said abruptly.

Pia stared at him. ‘Oh, but that had nothing to do with my stamina! I didn’t stop because I was in pain.’

‘So you were just . . . unprofessional, then?’ he asked, raising a crooked eyebrow.

‘Well, n-no . . .’ Pia stammered.

‘Then what? What could have made you walk out on the Royal Ballet?’

‘It was complicated.’

Alvisio said nothing but his face showed that that answer wasn’t going to cut it.

‘I received some news that made it untenable for me to stay,’ Pia enlarged, looking at her hands.

‘News? When?’

‘During the interval. I went back to change and . . . I learnt some things that changed everything for me.’ She took a big breath and looked up at him. She was clearly going to have
to tell him all of it.

‘You have to understand it had been very difficult for me, during my convalescence. I wasn’t allowed to go home to Chicago. I had to stay in England in a place where I didn’t
know anybody. I was frightened and lonely and in pain. I really thought I would never be able to dance fully again.’ She shrugged. ‘And then when I learnt that Ava was going to dance
The Songbird
, I became very depressed as well. I could feel my whole world slipping away from me.’

She paused.

‘Go on.’

‘But I started working with Evie and she said she could make me even better than I had been before, so I began to feel hopeful again. I began to settle in.’

‘Good.’

‘Well, yes, it was. Until the competition with the ChiCi was sprung on me and then everything sped up. It was all too much too soon. I was frightened about going on
pointe
again;
frightened of jumping; frightened of spinning; frightened of . . . everything!’ she said, throwing her hands in the air. ‘But nobody would listen. They all kept saying I would be fine
on the night and that it was a great opportunity to launch me back into the spotlight. And what could I do? I was indebted to them for what they’d done for me.’

‘But they were right – you
were
great on the night,’ Alvisio said.

Pia shook her head. ‘No, I was lucky. It was too soon. I knew it but I went out there anyway because I felt
obliged
.’ She held up an index finger. ‘Just one wrong step
or slight twist could have taken me straight back to surgery again. I was risking my future on a sense of honour.’

Alvisio was silent for a long moment. ‘So then what happened to change that?’

‘I found out that I wasn’t the one indebted to them.
They
were indebted to me. I owed them nothing, after all.’ She nodded to herself and sat back in the chair.
‘And so I ran. I had to.’

‘And you came here?’

Pia nodded. ‘I haven’t left my room since I got here. I’ve been waiting for you. I wanted to get things sorted out with you first before showing my face in public again. I
thought that if we could sign contracts, I could hold a press conference and answer questions then. It would help keep things a bit more controlled.’

‘A press conference?’

‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘Telling them that I’m joining La Scala.’

Alvisio stared at her. ‘I think . . .’ he said finally, ‘that things are moving too fast for you again.’

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I’m fine now. I just need to get back in class and work with a regular partner again. Work with
you
,’ she smiled, stretching her back.
‘I’m just aching to dance again.’

‘It is not that easy, I’m afraid, Pia.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It is a problem that you did not finish the ballet. There are still questions about your performance strength. The powers-that-be need to see that you can still dance for three hours at
the highest level, night after night.’

‘But that’s fine. I can show them that once I’m there,’ Pia shrugged. ‘There’s really no issue at all about my fitness.’

Alvisio sighed. ‘You are not our only consideration any more, Pia. Things have changed.’

Pia grew pale. ‘What do you mean?’ she said slowly.

There was a brief pause as Alvisio considered his words.

‘For the past few weeks, we have been in talks with other people,’ he said mildly.

‘
Other
people?’

He nodded.

‘I don’t dance like
other
people,
signore
,’ Pia said quietly. ‘
Other
people don’t compare to me.’

The man shrugged noncommittally and a tense silence fell.

Pia watched him. She realized he couldn’t meet her eyes on this, that his body language was evasive.

She leant in towards him.

‘Is it other people,
signore
? Or another
person
?’

Signore Alvisio sighed heavily and stared at his lap, before looking slowly back up at her. He didn’t need to say it.

‘Ava,’ she spat, throwing herself back in her chair.

Alvisio absorbed the enmity.

‘She is very keen to dance for us too.’ He held his hands up, showing her his dilemma.

‘Oh yes? Since when?’

Alvisio said nothing. Petrova’s sudden desire to sign to La Scala had been news to him too, but his bosses liked the promise of investment in some new studios that came with her signing.
It was a better financial package, and in terms of international profile and box-office draw, they kept saying there wasn’t much between the two primas now anyway.

‘You wrote
The Songbird
for me,
signore
,’ Pia whispered. ‘You’ve always wanted
me
. I’m the best dancer to interpret your vision. We both
know that.’

The old man coughed. ‘Yes, but Ava danced it beautifully too. I didn’t expect her to dance it so . . . poetically.’ He looked in her eyes. ‘It was how I imagined you
dancing it when I wrote it.’

‘That’s because she copied my style. She was like my clone, up there. It had nothing to do with her own interpretation at all. She doesn’t feel your choreography the way I do.
She’s just making it up.’

Alvisio sighed. It was no use arguing. His hands were tied. ‘I would have agreed with you two months ago. I used to find her dancing very punchy. But she has changed since dancing in
Chicago. She has broadened her technique and artistry. And if I ignore her development, I do so at my peril.’ He shrugged. ‘I have to do what is right for the prestige of La
Scala.’

Pia’s eyes scanned his frantically, like a laser. This couldn’t be the end. It couldn’t. Ava couldn’t take this away from her too. Why did she even want La Scala anyway?
Why not the Royal or the Paris Opera? They were both better suited to her technique.

She got up and started pacing the room, her hands to her mouth.

‘Pia, I’m sorry it has to be like this. If there was any other way . . . But we both know
The Songbird
was your exam for us.’

She turned on her heel to face him. ‘What if I beat her?’

‘
Scusilo?
’ An image of the two of them in boxing gloves popped up in his head.

‘If I compete against her again? Go the full distance this time, no matter what, and show you that I’m back to my best.’

The choreographer looked confused.

‘You mean another dance-off?’

‘No.’ Pia shook her head. ‘Better than that. We’ll enter the International Ballet Competition in Varna in July. What better setting than the most prestigious ballet event
in the world? We’ll have to compete against the best of the rest, as well as against each other, and we’ll have to do it over three rounds, so you know I will have had to hit
form.’

Alvisio tilted his head, intrigued and impressed. She didn’t know what she was really up against, that his bosses were already drawing up the contracts for Ava to sign, but it was clear
she wouldn’t give up. It was clear that this mattered terribly to her.

It was what he’d always liked about her – her fire, her spirit. It was what informed her dancing, and what shaped his ballets. And at the end of the day, it was written in his
contract that he had the final say on who they signed, regardless of whatever pressure the board brought to bear on him. He nodded slowly at the vision of Pia, so defiant, wearing a too-old tweed
suit, eyes glimmering, and he knew they’d cope fine in the old studios if they had to. Pia Soto would be recompense enough.

He stood up arthritically and pursed his lips.

‘I’m going to sweep the board clean and give you another chance to show me what you can do. If Ava wins, I’ll sign her. But if you do, I’ll sign you instead.’

Pia gasped and clapped her hands together at the reprieve, before suddenly rushing forward and giving the choreographer an exuberant hug. ‘Thank you,
signore
,’ she
whispered.

‘You haven’t won yet,’ he grinned in spite of himself.

‘No, but I will,’ she replied.

‘I hope so,’ he said. And meant it.

Mrs Bremar put the teapot onto the tray and looked out of the kitchen window as the last lorry, kitted out with lighting rigs and stage sets, rumbled down the drive. The
dancers, the guests, the stage crew, the television companies and the reporters had all gone, and every last helicopter had buzzed into the air. Only the flattened yellow grass and a stray torch
still burning across the lawn gave any clue to the fact that any of them had ever been there.