Paradise End

by Elizabeth Laird

  The thought of it filled me with a mixture of excitement and dread. I didn’t even try to think about the display, and what Mrs Litvinov would do when I didn’t turn up to the dress rehearsal.

  I’ll get round it all somehow, I kept telling myself. I’ll think of a way. I’ll call her and tell her I’m ill or something. It’ll be all right.

  But I didn’t think it would be. Mrs Litvinov’s got eyes like X-rays. She can see right through excuses and read your mind. I’ve seen her do it to people dozens of times.

  It was the usual Saturday evening at home. Lauren was slumped on the sofa, watching TV. Mum was sitting at her desk in the corner, marking piles of exercise books. Dad had just come in off duty. Normally, I’d have burst in and shown everyone my new dress, put it on and pranced about in it, but the thought of what I was planning to do was making me feel peculiar.

  ‘Hello, love,’ Mum said, looking up. ‘Had a good time?’

  I could see she wanted to be nice to me. She thought I’d be in a mood about missing the party, and she was trying to be sympathetic.

  ‘I’ve got my dress. It’s finished,’ I said, not looking at her.

  ‘Good,’ said Mum. ‘Did you say a proper thank you to Graziella?’

  ‘No. I told her it was rubbish and asked her to do it all over again. What do you take me for, Mum?’

  ‘Let’s see,’ said Lauren, rolling over and trying to grab the bag out of my hand.

  I jerked it out of reach.

  ‘Watch out! You’ll mess it up.’

  She lost interest and went back to the telly.

  Dad put his head round the door.

  ‘Where’s Sam?’

  ‘Out working,’ said Mum. ‘Jepson’s are catering for a private party over at the Crown ballroom. He said it might be a late do.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ said Lauren. ‘He gets off at nine. I heard them tell him on the phone. He’s trying to get Ellie Smithers to go clubbing with him afterwards.’

  The smug look on her face made me feel sick.

  ‘You’re a slimy little snake, Lauren,’ I said, making a hideous face at her. ‘You have absolutely no regard for other people’s personal space.’

  Mum frowned at me, but didn’t say anything. Dad had gone upstairs.

  I heard the front door open and shut again, and Sam came into the sitting room.

  ‘You’re early,’ Mum said mildly.

  ‘Stood you up, did she?’ Lauren said, looking pleased.

  Sam threw a cushion at her, but his eyes were on me. He looked half wary, half excited, as though he was gearing himself up for a fight.

  ‘How was the do?’ Mum said. ‘Did they run you off your feet?’

  ‘It was OK. Someone got pissed and we had to chuck him out. I spilt some wine down my white jacket. Can you wash it, Mum? I’m going to need it again next Saturday.’

  He was still looking at me.

  Mum put a final tick in the last exercise book, closed it and dumped it down on the pile. She stretched her arms out and yawned.

  ‘Oh yes?’ she said. ‘Jepson’s have got another party on, have they? What do they want you to do this time? Washing up or waitering?’

  ‘Waitering,’ Sam said, and paused.

  ‘Where is it?’ said Mum. ‘Not too far away I hope. I always worry in case you can’t get yourself home.’

  A horrible feeling was crawling through me. I knew what Sam was going to say before he even said it.

  ‘Couldn’t be nearer.’ He was backing towards the door. ‘It’s the party at Paradise End. The food and the caterers are coming down from London, but Jepson’s are doing the serving.’

  Mum’s and Lauren’s heads swivelled round to look at me. I knew they were expecting me to go mad, blow up like a firework and scream and yell. But I just felt a cold hand of worry clutching at my insides. Things were complicated enough without Sam being involved.

  I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I pushed past him, went up to my bedroom and slammed the door shut.

  The only place I wanted to be next morning was Paradise End. I had this burning secret inside me, and I knew that if I stayed at home, I wouldn’t be able to help blurting it out.

  What with sleeping a bit late though, and being made by Mum to tidy up and do some homework, it was gone twelve o’clock when I finally arrived at the big front door.

  ‘I don’t want any lunch or anything,’ I said to Tia, who had opened the door to me herself.

  I couldn’t face the thought of another tense meal in that gloomy dining room, with Dixie playing cat and mouse with me.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Tia said, reading my mind. ‘It isn’t a proper lunch. It’s so hot today we’re having something outside by the pool. Frost isn’t here anyway. He doesn’t get back from Zurich till tonight.’

  I followed her upstairs to her bedroom.

  ‘We’re trying things on for the party,’ Tia said over her shoulder. ‘Come and help choose.’

  ‘Who’s “we”?’

  ‘Mimi and me.’

  My heart sank. Being with Dixie was like being in the same room with a wild creature, all fur and feathers at one moment, and all teeth and claws the next.

  But it was obvious, as soon as I went into Tia’s dressing room, that Dixie was in a good mood. She was sitting on the stool in front of Tia’s dressing table, a vague smile on her face.

  ‘Carly,’ she said. ‘We need you. You can tell us what you think. After all, what does an old fogey like me know about what girls wear these days?’

  She looked funny and sweet and helpless, and I couldn’t stop myself smiling at her.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Mimi. You’re not an old fogey,’ Tia said automatically, as if she’d been given a cue and was producing the right lines. ‘You’re frightfully elegant. You know you are.’

  ‘Darling, you’re so sweet,’ said Dixie. She pointed at the cream-coloured dress, which was hanging from the hook on the back of the door. ‘Try that one on again. You’ve got to choose, sweetie. It’s that one or the pink one. You know what I think. The pink. Think the pink.’ She seemed to be having problems getting her words out.

  As usual, her perfume filled the room with its heavy scent, but as I walked past her towards a little basket-work chair in the corner, I caught an unmistakable whiff of something else. Alcohol.

  I sat down in the chair and looked at Dixie. She was balancing carefully on the stool, trying to focus her eyes on Tia, and then I understood. Dixie was drunk. Out of it. Off her face. Wrecked. In the middle of the day.

  The weird thing was that Tia didn’t seem to notice. She was looking with anxious loathing at the coral-coloured dress hanging over her wardrobe door.

  ‘Mimi, please, no,’ she was saying. ‘I can’t wear that thing. It makes me look like a marshmallow.’

  ‘All right, my pet. No need to fuss.’ Her voice was sugary, as if she was talking to a child. ‘We’ll send the howwid pink one back to Stefano. If Tia wants the cweam one, she shall have it. Put it on again. Let Carly see it.’

  Tia shot a look at me. The expression in her eyes was long-suffering and apologetic. She threw off the top and shorts she was wearing and began to scramble into the cream dress.

  Dixie wasn’t looking. She was staring at herself in the triple mirror on Tia’s dressing table. She moved her eyes for a moment to look at Tia’s reflection behind her own, then went back to staring at herself.

  ‘Nice. What do you think, Carly? Isn’t she pretty?’

  The dress was utterly gorgeous. It fell round Tia in soft folds almost down to the floor. It was held up over the shoulders by little straps that sparkled with a frosting of tiny diamond-like stones.

  ‘It’s fantastic,’ I said, feeling envious of Tia and nervous of Dixie at the same time. ‘You look great, Tia.’

  Tia stood squinting down at herself. Dixie dragged her eyes away from the mirror at last and turned round.

  ‘Pretty but boring,’ she said, and I couldn’t tell if she meant Tia or
the dress. ‘Needs cheering up a bit. Diamonds cheer things up. I’ll let you wear my bracelet, darling. It’s full of diamonds. Dozens of diamonds.’

  ‘Thanks, Mimi,’ said Tia in a colourless voice. She was trying to undo the zip. I helped her. The dress dropped to her feet in a silken whisper.

  ‘Pretty,’ said Dixie again, looking at her daughter as she stood there in her bra and pants. ‘Darling Tia, so pretty.’

  Tia looked at her warily, like someone who’s been given a present to unwrap, but is afraid there’s something nasty inside. Then she dived for her top and dragged it on.

  Dixie’s face fell and she heaved a huge sigh. For an awful moment I thought she was going to cry.

  ‘Proud of you,’ she said. ‘I’m a bad mother. Useless. No good. Can’t be a good mother. Not me.’

  Tia was in the act of pulling on her skirt as Dixie said this. She stopped for a moment, as if her mother’s words had paralysed her.

  Dixie tried to stand up, and had to sit down, but she made it on the second attempt.

  ‘Got to go,’ she said.

  I couldn’t watch her as she staggered out of the room. I felt – what did I feel? Embarrassed, I suppose, and scared, in a way, but more than anything else horribly, horribly sorry for Tia.

  Why hasn’t she said anything to me? I thought. She can’t not know. Her mother’s a total alcoholic. What am I going to say?

  I didn’t need to say anything. I looked up and saw that Tia was watching me.

  ‘She isn’t – it’s not usually this bad,’ she said in a small voice, and if I’d been embarrassed she looked a million times more so. ‘She gets like this sometimes, for a month or two, and then she stops and doesn’t touch a drop for ages. It’s Otto who’s making her so unhappy. When she gets like this about someone, obsessed, I mean, she just can’t think about – about anyone else.’ She swallowed. ‘Look,’ she went on, recovering and speaking more normally, ‘do you mind if we don’t talk about it any more? I usually try not to notice. There’s nothing I can do anyway.’

  ‘No I don’t mind.’ I felt relieved. ‘I’m only sorry for you. It must be – I mean – doesn’t your uncle . . .’

  I stopped. I was pushing her too hard. She shrugged, and I could tell she wanted to change the subject.

  ‘Never mind about Mimi,’ she said. ‘It’s been worrying me, what I said yesterday, about you not having time to come to the party. It was so mean of me. It was like I was forcing you to say you’d come. I did, I suppose, because I wanted you to so badly, but I’m scared you’ll get into trouble at home, and you’ll be thrown out of the display, and anyway, you’ll hate the party, because you won’t know anyone except me, and Mimi will be horrid to you and ...’

  She looked miserable and confused. I felt a steely resolve forming inside me.

  ‘I’m coming,’ I said. ‘I said I would and I am. It’s all settled. I’m not backing out now.’

  15

  The worst thing about the next few days – the really awful thing, in fact – was that everyone (except Lauren of course) was so nice to me. Mum went on and on about the display, telling me how proud of me she was going to be, and Dad started shifting over to the middle of the sofa when we were all watching TV, so that I could sit in the comfy corner. Even Sam stopped teasing me.

  Mum kept saying things like, ‘I know you’re disappointed about the party, love, but honestly, you probably wouldn’t enjoy it. You wouldn’t know a soul there apart from Tia, and if the newspapers are right about the sort of people Dixie Braithwaite hangs out with, you probably wouldn’t want to know them anyway.’

  The worst moment was when she said, ‘Carly, I’m impressed. You’ve taken your disappointment better than I’d expected. Get yourself a cup of tea and let’s have a chat and a biscuit before you have to get started on your homework.’

  ‘Can’t Mum. Haven’t got time. Sorry,’ I said, diving for the door.

  She’d have been stunned and furious and upset if she’d known what I was planning to do, and the thought made me feel so guilty I couldn’t bear to be in the same room with her. My mind kept spinning round and round, churning up my feelings like a giant paddle. One moment I was determined to go to the party and stand by Tia whatever happened, and the next moment I was so terrified at the thought of bunking off the dress rehearsal and facing the most awful row at home I’d ever be likely to have in my whole life that my legs would hardly hold me up.

  Mum’ll never speak to me again, I thought. Dad’ll kill me. Mrs Litvinov’ll cast me off. My dance career will be over before it’s begun.

  But deep down I didn’t waver. I was going to get to the party whatever it cost.

  I still hadn’t got a clue about how I was going to manage it. I’d have to be sneaky about it, of course. I’d have to pretend I was setting off for the dress rehearsal, but slip off to the party instead. Later, when it was all over, I’d just have to face up to everyone’s rage and fury.

  I was beginning to hope, though, that Mrs Litvinov wouldn’t have to know the truth. If I could think up a really good reason why I hadn’t turned up, she’d have to accept it and keep me in the display. I lay awake every night, trying to work it out, and my plans got wilder and wilder.

  I’ll phone Mrs Litvinov last thing Saturday afternoon and tell her I’ve been struck down with a lightning dose of summer flu, I thought, as I tossed and turned in my hot little bed.

  No, she’ll phone back before the display to find out if I’m better, and talk to Mum, and that’ll be that.

  I’ll say there was a bus strike and I spent the whole evening trying to get into Torminster, but gave up in the end and had to go home.

  That’s useless. Everyone’ll know that’s not true.

  How about if I say I was on my way to the dress rehearsal, and a gang of lads took me hostage, and I didn’t manage to escape till ten o’clock, when it was all over?

  Grow up, Carly. She’d tell you to go to the police and report it. She wouldn’t buy it in the first place anyway.

  In the end, I decided that I’d just have to wait till the last minute, and hope that inspiration would strike.

  The last class at Wellesley before the display was on the morning of the party and the dress rehearsal. For the first time ever, I didn’t want to go. I found I was dragging my feet down to the bus stop, with the carrier bag with my dress in it bumping against my thigh. I didn’t know how I was going to look Mrs Litvinov in the eye.

  I knew I had to face her though. For one thing, I had to show her my dress (I was quite looking forward to that bit actually), and for another, I was nervous about my dance. I needed, badly, to practise it in front of her one last time.

  ‘Pity your dress rehearsal’s this evening, isn’t it?’ said Lauren, as we stood waiting for the Torminster bus. ‘Shame you’ve got to miss Tia’s party.’

  That might sound OK to you, as you read it on the page, but trust me, it wasn’t. There was triumph and curiosity and a horrible pleasure in her eyes. I gave her a look back that would have scorched a hole right through anyone less thick-skinned than Lauren. I’ll say this for her though. She’s got a good sense of self-preservation. She shut up then and there and I didn’t hear another squeak out of her all morning.

  As soon as we got to the Wellesley Centre I ran up to the cloakroom and put my dress on, then went to show it off to Mrs Litvinov. Her eyes widened when she saw it.

  ‘Very, very nice, Carly. It’s elegant and exactly right for your routine. Did your friend really design it? A talented girl, obviously.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m sorry you’ve got to let her down this evening, but that’s life, isn’t it? Things always seem to clash. Anyway, commitment has its own rewards. I don’t often say this to students, but I don’t mind telling you. You have a rare talent for dance, and talent always involves sacrifice. Get out of that lovely dress now and put your leotard on. We’ve got work to do.’

  If she’d said all that, about me being talented, any other time, I’d have floated righ
t up into the air till I’d bumped my head against the ceiling. As it was, I just felt numb with guilt.

  ‘Right,’ she said, when the class was lined up in the hall. ‘We’re going to do our warm-ups first, then work through our normal routines, to relax you. Those of you taking part in the display will go through the set pieces one by one. We won’t overdo it this morning, because you’ll be running through it all again tonight at the town hall. Over there, though, we’ll be concentrating on getting you used to an unfamiliar stage, and the effect of the lighting, so this is your last chance for a real practice.’

  I felt hollow inside when she said that. The way I’d thought about the dress rehearsal, it had just been something boring that I’d wanted to miss. Now I realized that I needed it. Next Wednesday night, when the display began, I’d have to step out on to a strange stage in front of a whole battery of lights, and seats that were full of strangers. I would have missed my chance to get used to it. I wouldn’t know what the hell I was doing. My heart lurched with fright.

  It was an effort getting through the morning. I had to drive everything out of my head and concentrate on the dance. Every time I relaxed, a battle started up in my mind.

  Stuff the party. You can’t possibly miss the dress rehearsal. You need it.

  No. I promised. I told Tia I’d go to the party. I’m not going to let her down.

  ‘Carly! You missed the beat there. Do it again. Once more please, Mr Simons.’

  I got through somehow, and dragged a silent Lauren home with me.

  No one was surprised when I went upstairs that afternoon and slammed shut the bedroom door. I suppose they expected me to be in a mood. I could hear the house slowly emptying. Sam went off somewhere with his mates. Dad was cutting the grass in the back garden. Lauren had skipped off to the swings with Darren and Francine. I couldn’t hear Mum. Sometimes she nods off on the sofa on a Saturday afternoon.

  I lay on my bed and thought about things. Now that the morning and the actual presence of Mrs Litvinov was fading a bit into the distance, and the evening was getting closer, I was beginning to feel a bit less worried and a bit more excited. So what if I was going to land myself in one hell of a row? In a few hours’ time I’d be wearing the most beautiful dress I’d ever owned, and I’d be swanning around in Paradise End at the most amazing party I would ever be invited to in the whole of the rest of my life.