I tell Miko to get lost?’
I bared my teeth in a grin as in the intervals between him talking to me I found I was flying over snow-sprinkled mountains and deep dark lakes.
‘Stop giggling.’ Sebastian sounded annoyed but I didn’t give a damn. ‘Move over. I want to fuck you.’
I thought I heard another splash from the bathroom and what might have been a stifled cry.
‘Now?’ It sounded a strange thing to want to do when one could soar like a bird over oceans and continents. ‘… nurses? … Lizzie?’
‘I’ve locked the door. Lizzie can wait outside.’
I wanted to explain that Lizzie was already inside but his hands were pulling up my gown. Too late his body was on mine, in mine.
‘I don’t know what’s so funny,’ he said afterwards in a slightly offended tone.
‘Neither do I.’ My voice boomed and in the distance someone cackled like a hen. Could it possibly have been me?
I spent two more enjoyable days in the clinic, warm, fed and practically killed with kindness, before Sebastian visited me again and said I must go home as it was costing a hundred pounds a day which the company could not afford.
‘As much as that?’ I flung back the covers and threw my good leg over the side, almost crushed by a terrible weight of guilt. ‘I had no idea. Of course I’ll leave at once. Oh, thank you, Sebastian, for paying for me.’ I seized his hand. My gratitude was so tremendous I felt I quite loved him.
Sebastian’s eye fell on several inches of naked thigh below my crumpled nightdress. ‘Mm. There’s no immediate hurry. I’ll just lock the door.’
‘Oh, yes, do!’
‘Your enthusiasm makes an agreeable change,’ he said after a while. ‘Of course I’m perfectly aware that the motive is mercenary.’
An increase of guilt encouraged me to submit willingly to a predilection of Sebastian’s I hated, the details of which I’d rather not go into.
‘You needn’t feel overburdened by indebtedness,’ said Sebastian as he rolled away from me, elegantly pale with effort and, one hoped, thoroughly sated. ‘I shall deduct the four hundred pounds from your salary in instalments over the next year.’
As I lay mute with indignation he laughed long and low.
‘Marigold! It’s me,’ called Lizzie, coming in through the front door of the flat accompanied by the most delicious smell of vinegar. ‘How are you, darling? Have you been horribly bored?’
I had been taken by ambulance back to 44 Maxwell Street that morning. The flat was up four flights of stairs and our miserly landlord had set the timer switch so that you had to run like mad, taking three steps at a time, to get from one landing to the next before the light went out. The ambulance men, manoeuvring the stretcher with difficulty round the narrow bends, had complained volubly about being plunged into absolute darkness every eight seconds while comparing the stink unfavourably with a ferret’s cage. I explained that the pungent smell was due to the third-floor lodger treating the stairwell as his own private pissoir. After that they advised me to throw myself on the mercy of Social Services and plainly disbelieved my protests that I was actually quite fond of the place. Because Nancy and Sorel were in America with the touring part of the company, I could only afford to heat my bedroom, and the temperature of the rest of the flat struck cold as a tomb. The men looked at my extravagant interior decorations with expressions of wonderment not unmixed with derision, but they had been sympathetic and friendly and I was sorry to see them go.
I had spent the intervening hours between their departure and Lizzie’s arrival shivering and dozing. ‘A bit. What’s in those parcels?’
‘Fish and chips! Isn’t it utter bliss?’
I agreed that it was but habitual caution could not be entirely suppressed. ‘Should you be eating a zillion calories, dear girl? For that matter should I?’
‘Oh, who gives a damn! You need nourishment and I need cheering up. Let’s for once just forget about our waistlines. Want a plate?’
‘Certainly not.’ I opened the newspaper on my knee. ‘Oh, the smell of ancient reheated fat! So sinful yet so delicious! Why do you need cheering up?’
Lizzie tucked her springing blond hair behind her ears and looked at me regretfully. ‘Oh, you know … I cocked up in the rehearsal today … So what’s the verdict on the leg, then? I asked Sebastian but he wouldn’t tell me.’
‘Cast off in six weeks. No dancing for two months.’
‘Darling, don’t worry. The six weeks will go in a flash and then after a few weeks of class you’ll be dancing as well – in fact better – than ever. Does your leg hurt very much?’
‘It’s okay when no one’s crashing it against banisters. I’m going to be pretty much marooned up here until the cast comes off.’
‘Oh dear.’ Lizzie looked anxious. ‘Six whole weeks! It couldn’t have happened at a worse time.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well … it’s so cold … and Nancy and Sorel are away … I know! I’ve got something that’s going to cheer you up.’ She took a newspaper from her bag. ‘Take a look at this!’ She turned to a page on which she had outlined a paragraph in red. ‘It’s by Didelot!’
I screamed and grabbed the paper. ‘I’d no idea he was there. I’d have been a hundred times more nervous if I’d known. Does he say terribly cutting things? I hardly dare look.’
Didelot was the nom de plume of a ballet critic with a formidable reputation, an unforgiving eye and a pitiless pen. Tales of careers ruined by his caustic criticisms abounded. It was enough for him to point out that a dancer had dropped an elbow or had landed one fraction of a second behind the beat or had ‘spoon’ hands for that dancer to feel that they might as well pack their bags. In his favour he would not allow himself to be courted, refusing all invitations to fraternize with directors, dancers and choreographers. Apparently, when approached by an interested party, he would give them a blank stare and turn on his heel, disdaining even to notice their greeting. Sebastian had once pointed Didelot out to me as he sat in the audience taking notes, an insignificant figure with a bald patch, a fringe of grey curls and a large black moustache. It was widely acknowledged that his judgement was as much to be respected as it was feared.
I read the review carefully. Marigold Savage gave us a refreshingly different Giselle. In Act I the shyness, the sensitivity, the innocence were there as the role requires, but there was a waywardness in the extension of the arms, a suggestion of abandon in the épaulement which satisfactorily prefigured the descent into madness. When Albrecht’s treachery was revealed, Savage’s dancing expressed anger as well as pathos. When she lifted the sword it was a matter for debate whether it was intended for Albrecht or herself. She was triumphant as well as tragic. This brought into sharper contrast the ethereal, intangible spirit of Act II who is permanently either en l’air or sur les
