by Evie Blake
‘On the count of four, I want you to start to walk around the room. No eye contact – eyes to the floor, please. One, two, three, four . . .’
Maria begins to walk, not looking at her fellow dancers, wondering what they are all thinking. Part of her is terrified of making a fool of herself, and yet another part of her is excited. She is beginning to grasp what her teacher is saying.
‘I want you to walk with the emotion of hesitation,’ he calls out.
The piano slows down and, in response, Maria begins to shuffle around the studio.
‘Walk with contentment.’
She ambles along; for some reason, she has an image of herself as a large man with a big belly, well fed, heavy with satisfaction. She pushes out her stomach, puts her hand on it.
‘And with joy.’
Now she is a black cat of Venice, jumping between rooftops, prancing in the spinning light, pausing to lick the cream off the tip of her nose.
‘With freedom.’
She is gliding on an icy river. She imagines what it must feel like, for she has never skated in her life, yet the image is magical to her – that sense of moving on ice – all grace, speed and perfect balance.
As she is sliding around the room, she can’t help noticing her blonde friend, who is tiptoeing around the studio. How different their versions of freedom are!
Despite the fact it is the first day of class, Lempert works them hard. After two hours of breaking down their bodies, everyone in the group is breathless and steaming. Maria’s black leotard is stuck to her body with sweat.
‘Enough!’ Lempert suddenly announces. ‘Every morning, we will have technical class and each afternoon we will study other related subjects such as dance notation, theory, stage practice, make-up and life drawing. This is a rounded education in dance – an organic approach.’
There is a rustle of surprise among the dancers.
‘We will take a break now for lunch. Be back here at two for theoretical class.’
The girls crowd into the tiny changing room. There is no window in here and the dank room is lit by a single bulb. Despite the bustle around her, Maria takes her time. She has a packet of sandwiches with her that Jacqueline made for her that morning: some kind of grey meat paste between two precious slices of the coarse rationed bread. She has no idea where to go for her lunch, and she is too shy to ask anyone else. Gradually, the changing room empties out until she is the last left.
She hangs up her black leotard, damp with sweat, and is glad that she has a fresh one with her for this afternoon. She puts on her skirt and sweater, buttons up her coat and picks up her bag. Well, she should get some fresh air, at least; surely she can find a park to sit in. She is not hungry at all. Maybe she will give the London pigeons her sandwiches, although she knows – with food shortages and rationing – that would not be a very moral thing to do.
She walks out of the dance school – an old red-brick house, not dissimilar to Jacqueline’s house – and stands for a moment on the pavement outside, pondering which way to go.
‘Hello there,’ says a voice behind her.
She turns around to see the blonde girl from class, adjusting her hat as she approaches her. The girl sticks out her hand. ‘Joan,’ she says.
‘Maria.’
‘Pleased to meet you. And where are you from, Maria?’
The girls begin to walk down the street. They seem to be heading away from the river.
‘Italy,’ Maria mumbles, waiting for the hostility. Joan, after all, sounds very British.
‘Oh, Italy!’ Joan surprises her by sounding impressed. ‘Oh, lucky you. Where are you from in Italy?’
‘Venice.’
‘No? Really? Oh my gosh; I have always dreamt of going to Venice. Is it as beautiful as they say?’
Maria thinks about her home city as they walk down Kennington Road, cars and trucks passing by them, belching out fumes. It couldn’t be more different from this urban jungle. ‘Oh, yes,’ she enthuses. ‘It’s a magical place.’
Joan giggles. ‘Oh, I do so love the way you speak English. It’s so sweet. You sound a little American.’
Maria feels a tweak of annoyance. ‘I learnt from Jacqueline . . .’
‘And she’s half American, isn’t she? That explains it,’ says Joan. She stops suddenly and puts her hand on Maria’s sleeve. ‘I say, now I know who you are! Are you the daughter of that amazing Italian woman Jacqueline is always talking about? Belle?’
‘Yes, that’s me.’
‘She sounds so brave, helping all those Jewish people escape during the war. You must be proud of her.’
‘Yes, of course I am.’ But all Maria remembers of that time is not how brave her mother was, but how tense she was. She couldn’t stop herself from helping people, and yet there was always this fear they would be discovered. If she thinks about it, Belle risked her and Pina’s lives to save strangers. She knows it is not very noble to think this way, but it is the truth.
‘I say, let’s go for a cup of tea and a bun. Do you fancy that? There’s a café just down the road.’
Joan is a chatterbox, but Maria likes it. She is so friendly and warm, quite unlike any of the other English people she has met so far.
‘So, what do you think of Lempert?’ she asks Maria.
‘I am finding it hard to understand his approach, to be honest . . .’
‘Oh, don’t worry; you’ll understand soon enough, once we start dancing properly.’ Joan’s eyes shine. She opens up her cigarette case and offers Maria a cigarette. ‘Of course, I am in love with him,’ Joan says dramatically. ‘But I am also in love with countless other men, as well.’ She sighs with panache. ‘I fall in love too easily, you see.’ She removes the cigarette from her mouth while taking another sip of her tea.
Maria looks at the red lipstick stain left on the end of it. ‘I have never been in love,’ she says, all of a sudden, shocked at her admission to her brand new acquaintance.
‘Oh, but you are so young, you are only just beginning. How old are you?’
‘Eighteen. But you don’t look much older than me,’ Maria protests.
‘Twenty-two, my dear, and that makes all the difference, I can tell you.’ Joan pauses and stubs out her cigarette before taking a bite out of her currant bun. ‘Although, I fell in love for the first time when I was seventeen. Still, that was the war. You grow up fast during the war. Things are different.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, surely you must know? I mean, you were living in occupied territory and in so much danger . . . hiding all of those people like Jacqueline, and helping them escape.’
‘It wasn’t me. It was my mother who did that. I was too young, really, to know any different. Most of the time it was quiet. They only bombed Venice once and that wasn’t even the city.’
‘Well, it wasn’t quiet here, I can tell you. I wanted to study dance, and I was down at Dartington Hall with Lempert and Jooss.’ Joan tears her bun into tiny pieces and eats them one at a time, savouring each mouthful.
‘Where’s that?’ Maria asks.
‘It’s this fabulous place in Devon – a performing arts school. Oh, I just loved it there.’ Joan sighs, picking up every last crumb on her plate with her fingertip. ‘But then, you know, it was wartime so I came to London to make myself useful. I wanted to be part of it, you know.’ Joan’s smile begins to droop. She shakes her head. ‘God, I certainly was a part of it then . . .’
She pauses, takes another sip of tea and picks herself up again.
‘But, you see, when the Americans came, we would have these terrific dances. That’s where I met Stan. He was an American bomber pilot. He looked like Clark Gable, I promise you he did. He was so dreamy and I fell for him hook, line and sinker, so I did.’
‘And what happened?’ Maria asks.
Joan clasps her hands to her breast and says dramatically, ‘He broke my heart.’
Maria is enjoying this love story. Her life with Belle and Pina had been d
evoid of male romance, and talk of the American pilot, Stan, has her excited. Did he die in combat? Did he go missing? ‘What happened?’ she asks, breathless.
‘The scoundrel was married, back in Ohio. Only told me that after he popped my cherry.’
‘Excuse me?’
Joan giggles. ‘You know . . . took my innocence away . . .’ She winks at Maria, who immediately colours. ‘Oh, I know it sounds like I was cheap, but it was so different during the war. When you met someone and you felt a connection, well, you just acted on it. I mean, they could be dead the next day.’ She drains the last drop of tea from her cup. ‘So, I gave Stan the best thing I could. Like a talisman, I hoped it might keep him alive, and I guess it did – but not for me; for his little wifey back home in the US of A.’ Joan grimaces.
‘I don’t think I can see you living as an American housewife,’ Maria pipes up, wanting to make her new friend feel better.
Joan flashes her eyes at her. ‘Exactly, my dear; you are so right. I am certainly not ready to settle down yet. I want to have fun.’
Maria nods, not knowing how to respond. Her life so far has been sheltered. No dances with American soldiers or romance of any sort.
Joan glances at her watch. ‘I say, we had better get back.’
The girls gather up their things. As they scuttle out of the café, Joan grabs Maria’s sleeve and squeezes her arm tight. ‘I am so glad we got talking. All the other girls are so stuck up. It’s going to be nice to have a proper girlfriend.’
Maria looks at Joan in surprise. They have only just met; how could she call her a girlfriend already?
‘What are you doing tonight?’ Joan asks Maria, ignoring her expression. ‘Would you like to come out dancing with me? Meet some men?’
Their taxi weaves through the choked streets of London and the city appears like a huge metropolitan beast, exhaust fumes steaming in the rain, the heartbeat of the city even more urgent than Valentina’s dear Milan.
‘Mikhail wants me to go to Russia with him,’ Antonella is saying to her as they sit side by side in the back of the black cab.
‘Does he want you to meet his family?’ Valentina is only half listening to her friend; the other half of her is looking out of the cab window at the rain beating down upon the Londoners scurrying along the streets.
Despite this city’s bleak aspect, her heart is pounding with excitement. She is here, in London. And so is Theo. He could be just around that corner right now. She imagines him walking in the rain, a large golfing umbrella held aloft and shielding him from the dismal weather, an English newspaper tucked under his arm. She knows it is a ridiculous thought. Millions live in London, and yet she can’t help hoping she will see his figure emerge out of the curtains of rain.
‘Oh, no, of course not,’ Antonella is saying. ‘He wants to take pictures of me in Russia. Naked.’
‘Why can’t he do that in Milan?’ She turns to her friend, giving her more attention. ‘And, besides, I didn’t know Mikhail was a photographer.’
‘It’s a new avenue for him. He says he is bored with painting,’ Antonella huffs. ‘I think it’s because of you, and your pictures. I think you have inspired him.’
Valentina can’t help feeling a little pleased about this, despite the fact her friend is piqued. She glances at Antonella, appreciating how stunning she looks. She is in her best gear for the trip to London. Her lustrous red hair is piled on top of her head, tendrils spilling in all directions; her eyes are made up smokey; her lips a red to match her hair colour. She is wearing a black military-style coat, unbuttoned, her ample bosom accentuated by a red silk shirt. Her nails are no longer talons, but have been cut short and painted such a deep crimson they could be black.
‘OK,’ Valentina says, ‘but why Russia?’
‘He has this idea of having me naked in nature, near where he is from.’ She scratches her head. ‘Oh, where is it now? Not too far from Saint Petersburg, I think. There are lots of forests, he told me, and he has this little wooden cabin in the middle of nowhere. He wants me to pose outside the cabin, naked apart from a large axe in my hand.’ She grins mischievously. ‘He has lots of ideas. He wants me to straddle a sawhorse, my ass in the air, and ready for the taking!’ she giggles.
‘It sounds very sexy.’
‘It also sounds cold. I mean, I think it’s still snowy in parts of Russia at the moment.’ Antonella sighs. ‘But I do love him, the darling, so I guess I will do it for him.’
Valentina looks at her friend thoughtfully. How easily she can say that she loves a man. She wonders whether Antonella really means it. Or does she say that about every man she ever sleeps with? The taxi pulls in beside a small, gated park. Valentina surveys the grand neoclassical houses that surround the park. Surely Antonella’s aunt can’t live in one of these buildings? They look like embassies, not domestic homes.
‘Oh, here we are, Valentina,’ she says squeezing Valentina’s arm. ‘Welcome to South Kensington.’
‘My God,’ she exclaims. ‘Is your aunt a millionairess, or something?’
‘I know; it’s pretty amazing, but Aunty is property rich and cash poor. I don’t quite know how she got this house, or even if she actually owns it. I think it belonged to one of her lovers once . . .’
Valentina gets out of the cab, feeling disorientated. She has only been to London once before, with her mother, when she was about eleven and her mother was doing a shoot. That time they had stayed somewhere really central, but she can’t remember the name of the place. All she remembers is travelling around on the Tube, and how many people there were – so many more than Milan. And she remembers one wonderful afternoon in the British Museum, gazing at all the Egyptian mummies. She’d love to go back there.
‘Hey, let’s go to the British Museum while we’re here,’ she suggests as they drag their cases up the steps to the grand portico entrance of Antonella’s aunt’s house.
Antonella scrunches up her nose in distaste. ‘No, thank you! I didn’t come all the way to London to go to some fusty old museum . . . Oh, no . . . What I want to do is go to the Torture Garden!’
Valentina groans. ‘I can guess what kind of place that is.’
‘Come on, Valentina, you’re the one who encouraged me to let my inner dominatrix out. We have to go there now we’re in London.’
‘I suppose; it’s just I hate those rubber costumes. I wish we could just wear our own stuff. In fact, I think I would rather be naked, apart from a red cloak, like O.’
‘Like who?’
‘O in Story of O by Pauline Réage. It’s the most famous erotic novel. Don’t tell me you’ve never read it?’
‘You know I don’t like books,’ Antonella tells her. ‘Anyway, the whole point of going to somewhere like the Torture Garden is to wear rubber.’ Antonella slaps Valentina on the backside. ‘Come on! Get your submissive ass into the lift; I’m dying to sit down and have a drink with Aunt Isabella.’
Valentina opens up the London A-Z and looks at the street map again. She has left Antonella in the house in South Kensington with her aunt Isabella, the two of them halfway through a bottle of Soave and munching through a bowl of stuffed olives. It is quite obvious to Valentina which side of the family Antonella gets her wild side from. Despite being twice her age, Isabella still has the fiery hair and temperament that her niece shares. She is the sister of Antonella’s father, Alexandro, who left the family to run off with a younger woman when Antonella was ten. Isabella, a magazine editor, took it upon herself to represent the paternal side in Antonella’s life and never lost contact with her niece. She has the same sexy exuberance as Antonella – and the same brutal directness. Already she has interrogated Valentina about her erotic photography, insisting in seeing all of her work on her laptop and apparently delighted by the nude pictures of her own niece, while at the same time asking Valentina if she thought it was exploitative of women. Her final question annoyed Valentina.
‘And what does your mother think of your photographs?’
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Valentina made it quite clear that she has neither shown her mother her work, nor intends to. Isabella said nothing to that response, although she had arched her eyebrows in surprise. Valentina knows that Isabella was good friends with her mother when they both lived in Milan in the sixties and seventies. Isabella’s enthusiastic appreciation of her pictures can’t help but make Valentina wonder what her mother would make of her exhibition in London. She hasn’t bothered to tell her. In fact, she hasn’t even told Mattia. She has been avoiding talking to her brother since she broke up with Theo, although she was forced to tell him about that when he rang her at Christmas. She’s ashamed to admit to her sibling her inability to commit, since he has been happily married for years. Although Mattia only met Theo once, she knows that he liked him. He had even hinted that he could be the ‘one’. If there is such a thing, Valentina thinks, crossly.
The rain has stopped and the light is beginning to fade as Valentina walks briskly down the damp streets. So, this is Soho. It is not as she expected. She had been imagining gaudy sex shops and peep show entrances, but in fact all she can see are trendy cafés, bespoke shops, little bistros and galleries, yet there is an air of creativity and a spirit here that appeals to her. It is a tiny, warren-like area. She keeps going around in circles until she finally finds Lexington Street. The gallery is right at the end of the street. She glances at her watch: 6 p.m. Exactly on time. She rings the bell and has to wait a few minutes before the intercom buzzes.
‘Valentina Rosselli to see Kirsti Shaw.’
The door clicks and Valentina pushes it open. She walks past a deserted reception area and into a large gallery space: a square white box. She can see that the exhibition is in the process of being hung. There is a ladder leaning against one empty wall, whereas the wall beside it is already hung with paintings. Two spotlights are angled to pick up the images. She walks across the space, surveying the other work. There seem to be about ten artists in the show, each of them having a total of six pieces. She can see her photographs in a stack by the far wall. There is also a long table the other side of the room, covered in pictures. She wonders where everyone is.
