the sisters nearest in age were twins, neither of whom had wanted to spend much time with the baby of the family when they were growing up.
‘If I had a villa on the beach I would be heading straight there and possibly never coming back.’ Elise eyed Posy keenly. ‘Unless there’s another reason you’re staying around.’
Posy shifted in her seat, unpinning her hair so she didn’t have to meet Elise’s gaze. ‘I don’t want to be too far away. People are ill on tour, they need emergency understudies; I’d hate to miss out because I’m not here.’ She just needed the opportunity to stand out. If they would just give her a solo, one small role, then they would see what she could do.
Elise didn’t answer for a long moment; instead she swept the discarded hairpins up from Posy’s dressing table and began to bend them back into shape. ‘Posy, you and I have danced together for how long now? Three years?’
Posy nodded, her chest tightening at Elise’s unusually serious tone.
‘In that time neither of us have been asked to do anything extra, to be featured in any way while girls who joined this season, last season, have been getting duets, solos, character parts.’
Posy closed her eyes. It was all too true. ‘It doesn’t mean we won’t get there...’
‘Non,’ Elise contradicted her. ‘It does. And I for one did not become a dancer to spend my life being nothing but beautiful scenery.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m leaving. I’m joining a tour company.’
Posy spun round and stared at her friend in disbelief. ‘You’re what? Cramped dressing rooms, digs, a different small town every day, no paid holiday? Instead of here, instead of all this history, the reputation? Why?’
‘To dance,’ Elise said simply. ‘I will go in as First Soloist, if I do well then I could be Principal by this time next year. I have been promised a chance to dance Clara and Aurora this autumn. There’s even a chance of Odette/Odile if I work hard. I deserve this. I’ve paid my dues here, Posy. As have you. Why don’t you come with me? I know they would jump at the opportunity to have someone with your training.’
But Posy was already shaking her head. Here was where she was meant to be. This was the stage she wanted to conquer—not a different stage every night. ‘I can’t. But I wish you all the luck in the world if this is what you really want.’
‘What I want is a handsome prince to whisk me away from all of this, but if it won’t happen in real life at least I’ll get to dance it. Posy, there’s a whole world outside. Remember that, you have choices...but come, it’s Saturday night and we are free for such a short while. Do you want me to wait for you? There’s a table at Luigi’s with our name at it.’
‘You go ahead. I’m still not changed and I left my jacket in the studio. I’ll see you there, okay?’
‘Okay. Don’t be too long. It’s not good to be alone when your thoughts are sad.’
There’s a whole world outside. Elise’s words echoed through Posy’s head as she headed away from the dressing room and up the staircase that led to the rehearsal studios and break rooms where she spent much of her day. There was a world outside but this was all she had ever wanted from the moment she first put a ballet shoe on. She had sacrificed friends, romance, higher education, even her family to be able to walk along these corridors, rehearse in these studios. To step out onto that stage. How could she give up on her dream when it was still attainable? Impossible.
She’d expected the dancers’ area to be dark and shut up but to her surprise the lights were on in the wide corridors. She stopped to look at the familiar space, at the sofas lined up along the wall facing the huge windows with their views across Covent Garden and the wider city skyline, encouraging the dancers to sit and rest between their gruelling routine of class and rehearsal. Windows above the sofas looked into the large studios, each wall covered with mirrors and barres, capable of holding forty or so dancers. She spent nine hours a day, six days a week in these corridors and studios; they were more home than the narrow bedroom she rented just a few streets away.
She’d left her jacket slung on one of the sofas and she picked it up, suddenly impatient to be out of the building and away from her worries. Elise was right, maybe being alone when she was sad was a mistake. She’d be better off at Luigi’s with a glass of wine and a plate of pasta, her usual Saturday night treat. As she turned she caught sight of two people in the studio and froze when she recognised the ballet master, Bruno, and the formidable company director, Dame Marietta Kirotsova, deep in conversation.
Her heartbeat speeded up. Here was her chance, handed to her on a plate. She could go in there and ask them just what she had to do, what she had to work on, how she could distinguish herself enough to finally take her rightful place as a featured artist. She inhaled, apprehension creeping through her. She was used to criticism, to rejection; she had to be. But this time it mattered more than it ever had.
‘Just move, Posy,’ she admonished herself, but for the first time in her life her feet wouldn’t obey. Maybe she was a coward after all, maybe it was better to hope than to know that there was no hope.
And then all thoughts fled as she heard her name, loud and clear through the partly opened door. She tried to speak up, to let them know she was there, but her voice had dried up, her limbs incapable of movement.
‘Rosalind Marlowe? Oh, you mean Posy?’ Bruno’s voice, still heavily Italian even after several decades in London, carried easily through the still air. Posy swallowed, wishing she were anywhere else.
‘She’s danced with us for five seasons. Do you think she’s ready for a featured part?’
Posy squeezed her eyes shut, wishing with all the fervour of a small child for the right answer, that her worries would all be over soon.
‘No.’
And just like that her world ended.
‘She’s an excellent technical dancer, maybe the best we have. I can see her as coryphée one day—and she would be a wonderful teacher. But she doesn’t have the fire, the passion to step outside the corps. I never look at her in character and believe this is a woman who has loved, who has lived. It’s a pity but as I say she is almost unsurpassed technically and a great asset to the company...’
Posy didn’t wait to hear more. Somehow she regained control of her legs and began to back quietly away. She had her answer. She would never be a soloist, never stand in the spotlight, never see the crowds jumping to their feet for her. Worse, she would never dance the steps she knew and loved so well. Would never be Juliet or Giselle. She was fated to watch other girls live out the tragedies. She had failed.
NICO MIGHT—AND DID—tell himself that he would rather be anywhere in the world than stuck here on L’Isola dei Fiori but even he had to admit that right now he was as contented as an imprisoned man could be. Maybe it was the soft summer evening light, the way the brilliance of the sun had dimmed to a glowing warmth, the sea breeze a cool accent to the heat. Maybe it was the scent of night-blooming jasmine mingling with the salty tang of the sea or maybe it was the way the green cliff tops rolled across the horizon dipping suddenly into the azure blue of the sea punctuated only by the curving perfection of fine
