entered as quietly as a cat, which was his habit. ‘Come to see how Giselle should be done?’
They gave each other tigerish smiles.
‘I congratulate you, Sebastian. A superb production. Rarely have I seen one that was superior. Not for three years that I can remember.’ The last production of Giselle had been the English Ballet’s, three years ago almost to the day. ‘And Giselle herself … no, I have not seen a better. Certainly not Skrivanova. By the end of the second act, that one, she land with a thump, like a tired horse.’ This was generous, as the rustling and whispering from just outside the door, which Sebastian had left a little ajar, testified to a larger audience than us three. Skrivanova, his prima ballerina, was bound to hear of this disparagement. The intense interest created abroad by this discussion was not just idle inquisitiveness. If I joined the English Ballet, there was a chance that someone in the LBC, probably Bella, would get a principal contract. All the coryphées – the dancers in the corps who had shown promise and who were under consideration for a soloist contract – were hanging on every word.
‘Skrivanova. Yes.’ Sebastian lingered in a hissing way on the last consonant. ‘Naturally I don’t blame you for wanting my dancers for yourself. There isn’t another company in the world that has such a flair for discovering talent.’
I felt a stab of guilt, for this was true. Though I had worked insanely hard, it was Sebastian who had promoted my career
‘Ah yes. The men, no, there we have the edge, but when it comes to the ballerinas, my dear Sebastian, you have an exceptional success. Almost, one might say, you are a Svengali. You take over their minds and bodies until they become an extension of your artistic vision.’ I understood that Miko was making an appeal to my pride and independence.
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t sleep with them all, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Only the desirable ones. Skrivanova has a face like an amiable frog and the brain to match. It never even crossed my mind to take her to bed.’ Another appeal to my pride and also a stab in the traitorous Skrivanova’s back.
Miko shrugged. ‘With make-up she looks all right. But I agree with you, old fellow, she cannot hold a candle to Marigold.’
They looked at each other with a man-of-the world cordiality which hid honed steel, and then at me, much as two hungry tigers might contemplate a fresh kill.
‘So,’ Sebastian was unable to conceal another hiss, ‘let’s not beat about the bush. This isn’t a social call. You want to lure yet another of my pretty birds into your net. And you think that Marigold will betray her old friends for money. Isn’t that rather insulting to her?’
I wondered if it was. Certainly I was awfully fed up with having to scrimp and make do. I was prepared to be insulted if it meant I need not worry about the rent and could afford to wash my hair with shampoo instead of washing-up liquid.
Miko laughed and spread his hands. ‘I come clean. I want Marigold to dance for me. And naturally I pay her more because I can afford to.’ How much more? I longed to ask. ‘But it is you who insult her if you think it is only money which will make her come to me. She will be a fool not to do so. It will be the making of her.’ He hesitated, then brought it out in a rush. ‘A principal’s contract with the second finest company in Europe is not so easily come by.’
There was a crescendo of muttering and whispering outside and the door creaked open a fraction wider. Despite my agony I felt a surge of joy. Sebastian, intentionally or unintentionally, had forced Miko to show his hand.
‘Yes. I admit she would be a fool, if no other consideration came into it. But you see –’ Sebastian also hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the door and closed it – ‘it’s not just a question of her career.’ He shot a glance in my direction. Never had those Atlantic grey eyes looked colder. ‘You’re the first to be let in on the secret, Miko. I’ve asked Marigold to marry me.’
Miko was clearly taken aback, in fact he practically rocked on his heels, but his astonishment was as nothing compared with mine. No word of marriage, love or even mild affection had ever crossed Sebastian’s rather thin lips. I realized that my mouth was hanging unattractively open. He came over and put a proprietorial hand on my shoulder.
‘I know Marigold too well to believe that she would put ambition before my – our happiness.’
The idea was preposterous. This must be a trick, invented on the spot, to put a spoke in Miko’s wheel. Miko’s little eyes were still twinkling but a frown puckered the cushions of fat above them.
I felt Sebastian’s hand tighten on my collarbone. ‘Marigold?’ he said softly.
I stared up at him, trying to fathom his mind. Could it be … that he really wanted to marry me? If there was even the smallest possibility that he was sincere I could not decline his offer abruptly and callously in front of Miko. It would be discourteous, even cruel. Even as I thought this I chided myself for a fool. Sebastian had never given me a moment’s thought except as a potential money-maker and – how had Bruce described me? – a spunk-bucket. God! What ought I to do? My whole future might depend on my present answer and my entire leg was pounding, bursting with pain. For a moment I thought I was going to be sick. Perhaps that would be the best thing. Though it would be embarrassing it would save me from having to make a decision. In the event I did something less messy and more serviceable. I fainted.
‘This is so kind of you,’ I said to Sebastian the following day. ‘I’ve never had so much luxury.’
Things had taken such a dramatic turn for the better that I had to pinch myself several times for reassurance. On my way to class that morning, getting downstairs and crossing Maxwell Street had hurt so much that I had groaned aloud. I had fainted in the bus queue and been rushed by ambulance, with flashing light and wailing siren, to hospital. Once there all sense of urgency seemed to evaporate and I had sat in A&E in great pain, ignored by everyone for at least a couple of hours until it occurred to me that I ought to find a telephone and let the LBC know I probably wouldn’t be coming in that day. Sebastian’s sudden appearance among the bored staff and grumbling, impotent patients was as galvanizing as a lion’s among grazing wildebeest. I had been taken by wheelchair to a waiting taxi and driven to the Wyngarde Private Clinic.
Now I had a room all to myself which looked like a set in a Doris Day film. The bed had a pink velvet quilted headboard, there were curtains with roses on and two pink wing chairs for visitors. An enormous television stood at the foot of the bed. I had my own pink bathroom complete with bathrobe and the end sheet of the lav paper folded into a point.
‘Proudlock-Jones is the best man in the business for feet.’ Sebastian wandered about the room, inspecting the view of Wimpole Street from the window, the telephone, which he unplugged, the arrangement of artificial roses – pink, of course – on the bedside table and finally my cotton nightgown which the pretty nurse had brought me. ‘Unfortunately he doesn’t work on the NHS.’ Sebastian put one knee experimentally on the bed.
‘Ow-how!’ I yelled.
‘All right, no need to make a fuss,’ he said rather grumpily.
The pretty nurse came back just then, wreathed in smiles and bearing the ubiquitous kidney-shaped dish. It seems a peculiar fetish of the medical profession. After all, it must be comparatively rarely that they actually have a kidney to put in it. I saw to my dismay that it contained
