Authors: Adèle Geras

Hester's Story (55 page)

‘I’d have thought you’d have had enough of it by now,’ Silver said. ‘You’ve watched us going through our paces every day, almost.’

‘It’s going to be different though, isn’t it? It feels different.’

She went back to the side of the stage and took her place next to Ruby. The house lights were still up and she could see them: the audience. They were talking quietly but the noise they made sounded like a hum from where she was. All the ladies were dressed up. You could tell because their necklaces and earrings caught the light. There was Hester, in her usual place in the sixth row.

‘Doesn’t Hester look great?’ she whispered to Ruby.

‘She always does. And that moss-green velvet is one of my favourites. I made it for her.’

‘Really? That’s amazing.’

‘Wait till you see the skirt. Yards and yards of fabric. She looks like a queen when she’s wearing it.’

‘Silver’s dress is hanging up in the dressing room. I saw it. It’s very dark red. She’s said she’ll make me up after the show for the party. That’s really nice of her, don’t you think? And she’s going to lend me one of her scarves, like she did on New Year’s Eve. I could kill my mother. She never said I should bring anything partyish. I haven’t got anything anyway – at least, nothing I like.’

Alison stopped abruptly, aware that she was gabbling, talking for the sake of it, because suddenly there was a feeling in her stomach that was exactly like butterflies fluttering around. How funny! People were always saying they felt that, but she hadn’t realised that it was true.

The musicians started to play and the house lights dimmed. George in his lighting box at the back of the auditorium turned one of his magic switches and the stage was bathed in pinkish-yellow light. There was the set, which was so beautiful that everyone started to clap before one single step had been danced. Claudia, lying among the cushions on her couch, looked like part of a painting and Alison found that she was holding her breath. Then Ilene came in, carrying a basket of fruit, and presented it to Claudia and the music swelled and grew and filled the whole auditorium with a melody so luscious that it reminded Alison of melted chocolate.

‘We’d better go and do some work,’ Ruby said. ‘Andy’ll be there looking for his stuff in a minute, and I must make sure that those wings are ready for Silver.’

They sat together on their chairs as the ballet progressed. There were quite long periods when they just watched what was happening on stage, but during one of Nick and Silver’s
pas de deux
, Ruby touched Alison on the arm.

‘I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to say this later, so I’ll say it now. It’s been so good to have you working on this.’ She waved her hand towards the props table. ‘You’ve been a great help to me, and it’s been … it’s been fun, too. I’ve enjoyed it. Thank you for everything, Alison.’

‘That’s okay,’ Alison blushed with pleasure. ‘I’ve had a good time. It’s made me, well, it’s made me
understand a bit what everyone gets so excited about. I’ve never really known before.’

‘Are you a ballet fan now, then?’

‘I don’t know about that, but I like it better than I used to. It’s okay. It’d be even better if they said the odd word every now and again.’

Ruby had to cover her mouth with her hand, to make sure that her laughter wasn’t heard on stage, where Silver was looming over Claudia, hiding her face with the white wings that had taken such ages to make.

Hugo always stood in the same place for every first night – at the back of the auditorium – too nervous to sit in a seat, and yet wanting to see the ballet, the result of his work, unfolding on the stage. He was much more nervous tonight than usual, and not only because this ballet meant so much to him, but also because he was waiting to see Silver appear. And, he knew, also because of everything that had happened in the last couple of days. He’d been so preoccupied with
Sarabande
he’d not had the chance to take any of it in properly.

There they were, Hester and Edmund, sitting together in the sixth row of the stalls, right in the middle. Hester had her hair up in a kind of bun at the top of her head, which made her look younger than usual and more like a ballerina than ever. How could such a person be his mother? His
mother
.

Part of him still felt like Sheila Carradine’s boy. She’d loved and cared for him for more than thirty years. How could he not love her? Love her memory and honour it? That was impossible. But Hester – he was flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood. It made him feel dizzy to think of such a thing. Later, he thought. I’ll think about the implications later.

He blinked. Part of him was still the choreographer, the creator of everything that was appearing in front of this audience, but there was another part which wanted simply to watch Silver. He stood up straighter as she moved into the sequence he’d devised for her. She was so beautiful that Hugo found he was holding his breath for most of the time that she was dancing. How she moved! Here it comes, he thought. The music swelled and soared and she flew up and up into the air in a way that seemed to defy gravity and then down again as though she weighed less than nothing. She landed on the stage in total silence, not like a human being but like some ethereal creature. Like an angel. Her wings stretched out and glittered where the gold threads caught the light and, for a moment, Hugo’s eyes were filled with tears at the perfection of it. Silver achieved what every dancer aspired to: she came as near to flying as humanly possible. He leaned against the back wall of the auditorium and thought of how it would feel to hold her again.

Nothing in the whole world was like this. The dancers at the edge of the stage, bowing and curtseying and looking up to the circle, and picking up the flowers that the Friends of the Wychwood Festival always threw on to the stage at the end of every performance – and the applause, like a kind of music, rising and falling. For a moment, Hester longed to be one of them, wished more than anything she could be there, there on the stage with the others, sweating and happy after having danced and danced. That’s me, she thought. I’m not this middle-aged person, sitting in the front stalls looking at everything, wearing my best dress. I’m one of them. One of the dancers. That’s what I want to be, what I’ve always wanted. Madness.
She shook her head and immediately the madness left her. There was still the same trace of deep envy she always felt at the end of every performance, but looking at Edmund, sitting beside her and clapping and clapping and shouting out ‘Bravo!’ at the top of his voice, she returned to the real world, in which she was about to be happy. Hugo was up there now, embracing Silver, then Claudia, calling Ruby and Alison out of the wings to take a bow, and then beckoning to her.

‘Ladies and gentlemen. Please welcome to the stage the real star of the Wychwood Festival, Hester Fielding.’

Hester would stand in the golden light again, and some of the flowers would be for her. She would pick them up and bury her face in their fragrance and remember to make the kind of deep
révérence
on which Madame Olga had always insisted. Edmund stood up and kissed her briefly, sweetly on the lips as she passed him and made her way to the small door that would lead her from the stalls and up on to the stage.