The Vintage Summer Wedding (8 page)

‘You will give your life, Anna, and most probably fail.’
Madame LaRoche had said, her black cigarette pants and spotty scarf making Anna feel like Audrey Hepburn was sitting crossed-legged in the chair in front of her, cigarette dangling between her red lips.
‘Less than one percent make it, Anna. And you are already old. Already you will have to catch up. One percent.’
She held her fingers close together to show the tiny amount.
‘Are you in that one percent?’

Anna hadn’t answered.

‘Of course she is.’
Her mother had crossed her hands over her Chanel bag, the only designer item she owned, that she pulled out of its tissue paper at the bottom of the wardrobe to impress at moments like this.

‘Anna?’
Madame LaRoche had fixed her in her beautiful, beady gaze.
‘Are you in the top one percent? Do you have the hunger?’

And Anna had swallowed. She thought of the auditions, of the classes she had watched, of the girls who might be thinner, harder, cleverer, tougher than her. Girls who didn’t blink when they looked at her. Who danced through stress fractures, twisted ankles, who pushed themselves till they were sick on the floor, vomiting blood they’d worked so hard. Toes bound and crushed and bleeding; blistered, swollen feet frozen in ice. The constant, gruelling quest for perfection, the hours at the barre, the gnawing hunger. Knees strapped into place, tiredness that seeped into the bones like lead, weighing you down like an astronaut suit. Did she have the hunger?

In Nettleton, Anna was the top one percent. Here. Here she felt suddenly tiny, soft, fragile, breakable, scared, nervous, terrified. She could see her father watching them leave, cheeks wet, begging her mother to stay, that he was sorry. She could see the eyes in the street as they sped out of the town. She glanced momentarily at her mother, saw her rigid jaw, her defiance, her determination.

‘For goodness sake,’
her mother huffed,
‘Stop asking her. Of course she is.’

‘Anna?’
Madame LaRoche had asked again.

And Anna had done that pose, the Farah Fawcett Lucy pose. She had swallowed down all her fear, she had locked it up tight, jutted out her chin and thought of all the girls she would have to battle to take down.
‘Yes,’
she said, unblinking.
‘Yes. I’m better than the top one percent.’

And then she had fought like a stray dog in that place, the black-haired, olive-skinned girl amidst a sea of alabaster blondes who would walk past in the corridor whispering things like,
‘Bet she doesn’t even know what a passé is.’
By the time she had to come back to Nettleton for holidays, she was a tough little ball of conditioned attitude and steely defences.

‘Anna?’ Jackie said again, nudging her on the arm this time.

‘Yes.’ Anna spun to face her, tearing her eyes from the girl on the stage. ‘Sorry, yes. Erm.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘OK, look, maybe I wasn’t watching clearly.’ She took a step back, ran her eyes back over the bunch of reprobates. ‘Why don’t you come down off the stage, I’d like to see it here, on the floor. You shouldn’t be on the stage yet, you’re not ready.’ She pulled off her cardigan when she realised that she was sweating and would have killed someone for a glass of water.

‘Come on,’ she called as none of them moved. ‘Jackie, Mrs McNamara, it’s fine, I’ll take it from here.’

‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ said Mrs McNamara dubiously as she watched the kids schlep sullenly down the stairs to the vacant space in the centre of the hall.

‘It’s fine.’ Anna waved a hand. ‘It’ll be better without you.’

Jackie raised a brow and smirked. ‘OK, if you say so.’ The two of them then made a show of slowly gathering their bags and walking out of the hall, pointedly glancing over their shoulders to check that order hadn’t slipped to chaos.

Razzmatazz lined up sulkily, facing Anna, but none of them meeting her eyes. Ten-year-old Billy, thick wavy brown hair, too long and swept to the side like a miniature Justin Beiber, who seemed to just come on stage to be thrown about the place, scowled at her like she was the devil.

‘OK, no music. I’m going to clap the beat,’ Anna said as they stared at the floor.

‘No fucking music? We can’t do it with no fucking music,’ Matt shouted.

Anna saw Jackie pause at the door and open her mouth, but she jumped in before she could say anything. ‘No, you probably can’t,’ Anna said, curtly. ‘That’s my point. If there are steps, you won’t need music.’ She eyeballed Matt. ‘At the moment all you have is, as you say so delightfully, fucking music. Fucking shit music at that.’

Billy sniggered.

‘We can all swear,’ she went on. ‘I’d just prefer it if from now on we didn’t.’

‘And why the FUCK should we do what you say?’ Lucy goaded.

‘Well,’ Anna paused for a second and then smiled, ‘You know those montages on
Britain’s Got Talent
of all the worst acts, the really, really bad ones, that they play over and over again?’

No one said anything.

‘At the moment that’ll be you,’ Anna said happily, cocking her head to the side, her lips stretched into a wide fake smile as all the kids looked at the floor. ‘Right, let’s go.’

An hour later, Anna wondered if some of them had sweated for the first time in their lives. And she had to congratulate herself for the fact that they were now at least moving their feet in time with one another on occasion.

Seb was waiting for her outside, leaning against the side of the car reading a book. Anna was feeling good, not that she’d admit how good to anyone, but it felt like she’d achieved something. Not a massive amount, but more than sorting antiques into boxes and getting job application rejections.

The feeling made her see Seb differently too. Blond hair caught in the early evening sun that was just dipping behind the spire on the church, eyes down, concentrating on the book, lips moving ever so slightly, long fingers turning the pages. His tie was loosened and top button undone. He wasn’t the enemy. He was hers, she remembered, like an object she’d put in a cupboard or on a shelf and forgotten about, something she’d seen so often she no longer saw it.

Pulling on her cardigan, she crossed the road and when she was by his side kissed him on the cheek.

‘Oh!’ He looked up, startled, ‘What was that for?’ he said, as if such casual shows of affection weren’t something they’d done for a while.

She shrugged. ‘I just, you know—’ Suddenly a bit embarrassed for being so free. ‘Nothing.’

‘How was it?’ he asked, glancing from her to the door of the hall.

‘Yeah, good.’ She nodded. Wanting to say more, to let everything trip off her tongue about how she’d whipped them into shape, how in one fell swoop she’d stopped the swearing and made them focus on job in hand. How it had felt using skills that she had let hibernate for so long. ‘They’re terrible and there’s just so much work to be done, but it was a good start. I think we’re all pleased.’

Seb nodded, incredulous but impressed. ‘And you like them? You were OK with them?’

‘I wouldn’t necessarily say I like them, but I think we respect each other. I think they’re grateful that I’m here.’ Shielding her eyes from the sun, she gave him a casual shrug and breathed in the sweet smell of the evening sunshine.

Seb closed his book and draped his arm over her shoulder, ‘Well congratulations.’

She liked the feeling of his surprise, of his appreciation. ‘Yeah, it was good,’ she said, pushing her shoulders back, flicking her hair out of her eyes. ‘I like to think I made a difference.’

‘Well I was certainly wrong, wasn’t I?’ He squeezed her shoulder.

‘Yes you were!’ she said with faux put-outness. ‘I think I was pretty good. Made them realise the work something like this takes, how they need to apply themselves.’

‘Good work, Anna. See, not so bad here, after all.’

She almost agreed. It was almost there on the tip of her tongue...

But then the doors in front of them were kicked open with a bang, and they both turned to see the kids start to amble out of the hall, bags slung over their shoulders, make-up redone, sweaty tops changed, Coke cans in their hands and packets of Hula Hoops.

‘That was shit,’ Lucy said, with a flump of her freshly back-combed hair.

Two at the back turned to look furtively in Anna’s direction while Clara, with the flame beehive, said lazily through a yawn, ‘It was total crap. And I’m fucking knackered. I’m done.’

‘It’s like Nazi youth camp,’ Matt said.

‘Hey, we should tell Mr Watson next History.’ A fat boy Anna had ignored threw his head back with a guffaw.

Matt laughed, ‘We could put her up as an example of modern dictatorship.’

‘I’m done as well,’ Billy piped up and kicked a stone that Matt caught with the side of his trainer and booted miles ahead.

Clara swiped him round the head. ‘You have to go, Mum wouldn’t let you quit.’

‘That’s just unfair,’ he whined and they all laughed.

After a pause, Lucy added loudly, ‘It’s cos she’s such a fucking bitch.’ And gave a casual flick of her fringe as her eyes skated sideways to lock with Anna’s.

As Anna’s lips parted, her mouth just dropping open a fraction, the others giggled but, noticing Seb, their new geography teacher, pulled their heads together as if he wouldn’t be able to single them out individually if they became one giant organism that scuttled off like a crab along the pavement.

Anna sucked in a breath. The word bitch hit her hard in the stomach. She wanted to go over and grab bloody Lucy by her bloody fringe and tell her she wasn’t allowed to call her a bitch. She swallowed, thought of what she’d said to Seb, of how she thought they had been hanging off her every word. Her little victory popped.

She felt Seb’s hand on her shoulder and wanted to shake it off. The last thing she could face was his sympathy.

I don’t care,
she repeated to herself.
I don’t care.
Call her a bitch. That was good. It was good not to be liked. All those teachers with canes and detentions in the past, good old-fashioned discipline, they didn’t care if they were liked. In fact, it was better this way. Hate her. Yes. That was much easier.

‘Are you OK?’ asked Seb.

‘Yeah,’ she shrugged, nonchalant. ‘Fine.’

He paused and she could tell he was debating whether to say something else.

‘Anna—’ he started.

Here we go, she thought.

‘The thing is, with kids you have to connect with them. You know, you can’t just tell them what to do.’

‘Thanks for that, Seb,’ she muttered. Codswallop, she thought. You want something, you work damn hard to achieve it.

Seb sighed and shook his head, then gave her shoulder another squeeze before she straightened herself up tall and pulled on her sunglasses.

‘Shall we go home?’ she said, as if the whole previous conversation hadn’t happened.

If people sense your weakness, Anna, they take advantage of it.
She remembered her mum saying that as they walked back to the pokey flat, the vintage Chanel clutched in her hands, beige nail varnish shimmering.
If you have any problems, you talk to me not them.
Anna remembered nodding, wondering how she was going to be able to ring her dad to let him know that she’d got in. The phone was in the living room where her mum slept.
If you’re injured, you dance through it, we’ll fix it. If they know, you’ll be marred with being weak for ever, Anna. And no one associates winning with weakness.

They drove home in silence, the countryside streaking past the window in bright lines of green, red and yellow, but Anna stared ahead at the grey Tarmac.

‘Look, don’t worry about the kids, Anna. It’ll get better,’ Seb said as they pulled up outside Primrose Cottage.

‘Too right it will,’ she said, glancing at him briefly before opening the car door. ‘Because I’m never helping those little shits again.’

She felt him put his hand on her thigh. An image of her kiss on his cheek just ten minutes ago made her wonder if she could put her hand over his where it rested on her skin but her body wouldn’t let her. Instead, she stepped out of the car and walked over to drag open the rusty garden gate, lifting it on its broken hinge. As she walked up the path, the thorns on the big fat yellow roses caught her top, the stems sagging even further under the weight of their grotesque petals and heady aroma. ‘These fucking flowers,’ she shouted, ripping them off her before storming up to the door.

At the end of her first year at the EBC School, they had staged a performance of
Swan Lake
. Anna had felt a rush of triumph when cast as one of the four in the
Danse Des Petits Cygnes
.

Linked with three others, Anna? Is that what you want?
her mum had said, glancing up only briefly from a minestrone soup she was stirring.
It’s a good start, but I’ll come and watch you when you’re The Swan Queen, Anna. When you’re Odette.
The soup bubbled in the pot and when she flicked the spoon to rest it on the side, it sprayed drops of red against the white tiles. Anna had watched them trickle down, holding her breath and keeping her eyes wide so she wouldn’t cry.

I’m not saying this to punish you, Anna darling. I’m saying it to make you better. Don’t settle for what they tell you is good. You decide what is good, what is the best. If you believe in something enough, and you’re determined, you’ll get it. I want to spur you to do better,
she had said, taking a sip of the soup at the same time as ripping off a piece of kitchen towel so Anna could wipe her eyes.
You have to go out and grasp what you want.

The photo of the girl, two years above, playing The Swan Queen had been glued neatly into Anna’s book.

She paused at the shabby door of the cottage, the rose scratches just welling with blood on her arms, the air burning her lungs like a sauna, and thought, I don’t want this. I’m better than this. You have to go out, Anna, and grasp what you want, she reminded herself, before thrusting the key into the lock.

I have to go out and grasp what I want.

Chapter Seven

As forecasted, the temperatures continued to soar, with no end in sight for the excruciating heat. Predictions of record temperatures, warnings of elderly people dying and sun-worshippers frazzling covered the front pages of the papers that Anna read over commuters’ shoulders as she sweltered on the London Underground.