Born to Dance

by Jean Ure

  Caitlyn looked at bit worried at that, as if she ought to be contradicting me, but couldn’t quite bring herself to do so. She may not have had any proper training but even she could recognise that a distressingly round face, coupled with a loud, bouncing personality (thank you very much, Dad!), wasn’t the most promising material for a future Giselle. Caitlyn would be perfect! I could just see her as the betrayed peasant girl, driven to her grave by grief and finding herself in the company of the dreaded Wilis, a vengeful band of spirits who had all been betrayed by their lovers. One of my favourite ballets, but no humour at all.

  “Would you like to watch something else?” I said, as the DVD came to an end. “You don’t need to go yet, there’s bags of time. I’ll walk you to the bus stop. No problem!”

  “All right.” She curled up happily on the sofa with her legs tucked beneath her.

  “What shall we watch? We’ve got loads here! The Rite of Spring. Have you ever seen that? Or Petrushka, or—”

  “What about the dance you’re doing for Miss Lucas? You’ve never told me what the story is!”

  “Oh, it’s really yucky,” I said. “It’s all about this Christmas tree fairy that’s got old and past it and these horrible, spoilt rich kids that chuck her out and get a new one and she’s all, like, wet and cold and nobody wants her and—”

  I gabbled through the story as fast as I could, expecting Caitlyn to join me in pulling faces. Instead, very seriously, she said, “So, where does your dance fit in?”

  “Well, it’s a sort of interlude halfway through.”

  “Before the fairy’s rescued? While she’s still lying in the gutter?”

  “Yup.” I nodded.

  “So she’s like … dreaming of when she was young?”

  “Yup.”

  “And that’s why she’s doing all these pirouettes and fouettés?”

  I was about to say yup for the third time and ask her if she’d like me to find a DVD with Sean in it, cos I knew she’d be too shy to ask for herself, when it struck me that a note of doubt had crept into her voice. Defensively I said, “I thought we needed a bit of excitement! Otherwise it’s such a drag.”

  “It could be sort of touching,” said Caitlyn.

  I was silent a moment. “Are you saying you don’t think it works, what I’ve done?”

  “No!” She shook her head. “It’s brilliant! It’s just—” She hesitated. “I just thought maybe it might … break the mood?”

  She said it almost apologetically, like who was she to criticise? Actually, just for a moment I did feel a flash of indignation. What did she know about dancing, compared with me? She who’d never had a ballet lesson in her life! Daring to tell me that I’d got something wrong. That was some nerve that was!

  But then, quite suddenly, I was overcome with shame. I was the one at fault, not Caitlyn.

  “You’re right,” I said. “It’s totally out of place. It’s just me showing off!”

  Caitlyn bit her lip.

  “It’s OK,” I said. “You’re only telling me what I already know. I’ve known it all the time! I just didn’t want to admit it. Here!” I pulled out the CD of the music I’d originally been going to use. “Tell me what you think of this.”

  Obediently Caitlyn settled herself into a listening position, eyes tight shut. I thought, That’s how Dad listens to music! Dad always says that if he listens with his eyes shut he can see pictures in his head. Maybe it was the same for Caitlyn.

  She sat right through, very still, without moving. If I’d asked Livi or Jordan to listen to anything classical, they’d have been sighing and fidgeting after the first few seconds. Not that I absolutely had to use anything classical; it just seemed more suited to the old-fashioned storyline.

  “So, what do you think?” I said, as I took the CD out of the player.

  “I think it’s beautiful,” said Caitlyn.

  “Better than what I’ve been using?”

  “Not better. Just …”

  “More in the mood.”

  “Yes!” She sounded relieved. “More in the mood.”

  I said, “Hm.”

  “What is it? Is it something famous?”

  “It’s someone’s adagio.” I looked at the label. “Albinoni. I think it is quite famous, actually.”

  “It’s kind of haunting,” said Caitlyn. “And sad!”

  I sighed. “It’s what I should’ve used all along. I was going to! But then I thought maybe we needed something more exciting. Something –” I struggled for a moment – “something I could enjoy doing! I was thinking of me. Cos I’ve got this really strong technique?”

  Caitlyn nodded, eagerly. “I know! I’ve watched you.”

  “But I’m not so good at adage. Like all the slow stuff?”

  I didn’t really have to explain to Caitlyn. She obviously knew almost as much about ballet as I did.

  “Mum says it’s where I’m weak. But that isn’t any excuse,” I said, sternly. “Just cos I think the storyline’s a bit soppy.”

  “It isn’t,” said Caitlyn. “Honestly it isn’t! It’s really touching.”

  I pulled a face. “In that case my choreography ought to be touching. Otherwise I’m cheating.” What was worse, I was letting Miss Lucas down. She trusted me, and all I was doing was seizing the opportunity to show how clever I was. “I’m going to have to start over!” I cried.

  Caitlyn looked alarmed. “But you’ve done so much work.”

  “Yes, and it’s all wrong! It’s my own fault. I’ve been putting me above the show.” Something Mum said you should never do. “OK!” I tossed the CD into my school bag, lying on a chair where I had slung it. “That’s it! Tomorrow we start on something new.”

  “We?” said Caitlyn.

  “Yes! We’ll work on it together. I can’t do it by myself,” I said. I obviously could’ve done; I just felt that Caitlyn deserved to be included. After all, she was the one who’d finally forced me into admitting the truth.

  Her cheeks had gone pink again – with pleasure this time. Like she couldn’t quite believe that I was asking for her help.

  I said, “I’ll make up the steps and you can dance them so I can see what they look like.”

  She was practically crimson by now. I had never known anyone blush so much! I almost never blush at all, which probably means I’m not a very modest sort of person. Caitlyn was almost too modest.

  “Really,” I said, “it’ll be fine! You’re a Christmas tree fairy who’s too old and shabby to be put on top of the tree any more … I’m not going to expect anything too complicated. It’s going to be sad and gentle and reduce everyone to tears!”

  “… step, step … into the arabesque … and … hold … and … step and … demi-tour and … that’s it! Slowly, slowly she sinks down … she simply doesn’t have the energy to carry on.”

  Caitlyn obediently crumpled, one leg tucked beneath her, the other extended, head drooping forward on to her knees, frail and exhausted: all hope gone.

  I cried, “Yes! That’s exactly how I want it!”

  “Now your turn,” said Caitlyn.

  “I don’t need to, I already know it!”

  “Please,” she begged.

  “I won’t do it any better than you.”

  If as well, is what I privately thought. Caitlyn could manage to look frail without any effort at all: I am the very picture of what Mum calls “rude health”.

  “Maddy, please,” begged Caitlyn. “I love watching you dance!”

  We were back at school after the half-term break. I’d finished sketching out Miss Lucas’s dance sequence in the front hall at home. We have a really big hall, almost the size of a room in itself. Wasted space, according to Dad, but excellent for dancing, so long as the rest of the family isn’t there. Dad, especially, would have found it impossible not to interfere and make comments.

  Maddy, are you sure you want to do it like that?

  If I could just offer a tiny suggestion?

  The answer
to which would be a firm no! This was my work – well, mine and Caitlyn’s. It was true I was the one who had made up the steps, but she had inspired me. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d still have been showing how clever I was, doing pirouettes and fouettés all over the place. I’d specially wanted to include a pas de chat. It was my favourite party piece just at the moment, very light and springy, like a cat. And I just happened to be good at it! But the Christmas tree fairy wasn’t light and springy, she was old and sad and fragile, and I had Caitlyn to thank for reminding me.

  “Everyone’s going to weep buckets,” she said, as I finished the sequence and sank down, trying my best to look frail.

  To be honest, I still wasn’t convinced I was doing it as well as Caitlyn. That is, technically I was. Technically I was way ahead of her. I do have a particularly strong technique. But I didn’t have her line! I had to work at it: to her it was second nature.

  “Let’s run it just once more,” I said. “I need to check the timing.”

  I was beginning to get a glimmer of how satisfying it was to see someone performing the steps that I’d made up. Just as I always used to wonder how Mum could possibly enjoy teaching, I had often puzzled how Dad could bear to give up dancing to concentrate on choreography. It always seemed to me that it must be really frustrating, specially as Dad spent half his time demonstrating how he wanted things done. Wouldn’t he far prefer to be onstage himself?

  Caitlyn said almost the same thing. “I don’t know how you can bear to sit there and watch me! You do it so much better.”

  “I like to be able to see what it looks like,” I said. “I can’t see it if I’m doing it myself.”

  “But I was horrible! I wobbled when I did the arabesque. You didn’t!”

  “You won’t, either,” I said, “when you’ve had a bit more practice. We’ll just go on working at it. You’ll see! I bet by this time next week you’ll be steady as a rock. You can’t pick things up just overnight,” I said. “Doesn’t matter how talented you are. We’ll go through it again tomorrow.”

  “OK.” She nodded, eagerly, and seemed about to add something, then changed her mind. And then, quite suddenly, she changed it back again. “My mum was wondering, as I’ve been round your place, whether you’d like to come back with me on Monday and stay to tea?”

  She brought it all out in one big gasp. I was quite surprised. I said, “Tea?”

  “Well …” She faltered. “Only if you’d like to.”

  “I’d love to!” I said.

  “Really?” Her face lit up. It was as if she’d half expected me to make some kind of excuse, just cos of where she lived. I didn’t care where she lived! I was just curious to meet her mum and see what sort of person could possibly think school fees were more important than ballet lessons. It didn’t make any sense!

  “Monday would be fine,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Caitlyn. “Cos of you not having class. Oh, and you wouldn’t have to worry about getting home afterwards. Mum said we’d take you. So d’you want to ask your mum if it’s all right?”

  “Oh, it’ll be all right,” I said. “Mum’s very easy.”

  She was like some crazy mad person when she was teaching, striding up and down, smacking and poking at people, but in ordinary life she wasn’t so bad. She mostly let us do what we liked, just so long as it didn’t interfere with our dancing. All the same, I didn’t actually breathe the dreaded words, Coopers Field. I just said, “We can walk there from school, and anyhow her mum’s going to drive me back. Caitlyn,” I added, “is the girl I’ve been telling you about.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Mum. “I met her the other day. I do have a memory, you know!”

  “Didn’t you think she looked like a dancer?”

  “To be honest, I didn’t really notice,” said Mum. “I agree she wasn’t pudding-faced!”

  “She doesn’t have legs like tree trunks, either,” I said.

  Mum shook her head. “How could I be expected to know that when she was wearing trousers?”

  I said, “Hm.” I hadn’t thought of that. I’d always reckoned our school uniform was quite cool, but maybe trousers did have their drawbacks.

  “They could be hiding a multitude of sins,” said Mum. “She could be bandy-legged, for all I know.”

  “Well, she’s not,” I said. It really is an uphill struggle, sometimes, with Mum.

  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, going back with Caitlyn after school on Monday. I didn’t really think we’d be mugged, in spite of the way Mum was always angsting about it, but I did worry a bit about gangs, and what it would be like inside one of the big tower blocks. Mum always said it must be like living in a coffin. She also said that the lifts smelt of sick and the stairs were covered in piles of dog mess. But maybe that was just Mum. As Sean pointed out, she’d never actually set foot inside a tower block. All the same, I was relieved when Caitlyn pointed to a cluster of little houses, with a patch of grass in front of them, and said, “That’s where we are. We’ve even got a garden!”

  She said it proudly, and I thought, So much for Mum.

  “It’s really not as bad as people make out,” Caitlyn assured me. “We’re all just human beings. Not like we’ve got two heads or anything.”

  “Never thought you had,” I said, but I felt a bit ashamed.

  “Mum’s ever so pleased you’re coming,” said Caitlyn. “She thought you might be too grand.”

  I said, “Me?”

  “I told her who your mum and dad are. I showed her this book that’s got pictures of your mum in it. She was well impressed! She doesn’t actually know anything about ballet but she could see your mum’s famous. You won’t tell her anything about me, will you?” Caitlyn looked at me, anxiously. “You won’t tell her you’re giving me lessons? Cos it would worry her. She’d think it was charity and she won’t accept charity.”

  “It’s not charity,” I said. “It’s cos we’re friends! And cos wasting talent is a crime.”

  “But you won’t tell her? Will you? Please!”

  Reluctantly I promised that I wouldn’t, even though I’d been thinking that I might, if the opportunity arose. But I didn’t want to upset Caitlyn when she was so happy that I was going back with her.

  “Mum’ll still be at work,” she said, as she let us into the house. “She doesn’t get in till five. Soon as she’s here we can have tea, and then we’ll take you home cos I don’t expect your mum will want you to be late. Look, this is my bedroom where I do my practice.”

  “In here?” I said. I couldn’t help sounding surprised. Her bedroom was tiny!

  Defensively she said, “I use the windowsill as a barre and I can check what I’m doing in the mirror. Over there.” She pointed to a full-length mirror propped against the wall. “I found it one day … someone had thrown it out. So I brought it back home and cleaned it up and it’s fine except for a few little marks. I can’t imagine why anyone would’ve got rid of it. And look, there’s the garden! Sometimes I practise out there. I know it’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.”

  I sank down on to the edge of her bed.

  “How long have you been doing it?”

  “Trying to teach myself ballet?” She sank down next to me. “Ever since I saw Coppélia … almost two years.”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t believe how she had managed to teach herself anything at all. How had she known what to do?

  As if reading my mind, Caitlyn said, “I’ve got all these ballet books.” She waved a hand at a shelf above the bed. I twisted my head around to look at them. Stars of the Ballet, Stories from the Ballet, Teach Yourself Ballet, Basic Ballet, Ballet for Beginners, Classical Ballet, The History of Ballet …

  “It’s what I always ask for,” said Caitlyn. “Ballet books! For Christmas and birthdays. I give Mum a list. And then sometimes I find them second-hand, like in charity shops or online. That’s how I got the one with your mum in it. And DVDs! I’ve got some of those, too. Mum
has this friend she works with. She’s a huge ballet fan! She sometimes gives Mum stuff for me. Stuff she doesn’t want any more. Mum says that me and Marje, we’re obsessed.”

  “You’re real balletomanes,” I said. “But if your mum knows—”

  Quickly Caitlyn said, “She thinks I just love watching it.”

  “You mean after all this time she hasn’t realised what you’re doing? Trying to teach yourself?”

  “Well, she does, but … she thinks it’s something I’ll grow out of. Like when I was little I had this thing about collecting little china animals?”

  “Collecting little china animals isn’t the same as desperately trying to teach yourself ballet!” I retorted. And then, unable to contain myself any longer: “Can I ask you something? How come your mum would rather pay for you to go to Coombe House than have ballet lessons? I know that probably sounds a bit rude—”

  “It does rather,” agreed Caitlyn.

  “Well, I’m sorry, but it’s important! It could be ruining your whole life. And it’s not like Coombe House is anywhere special. Mum once said it’s quite tinpot.”

  “So why does she send you there?” said Caitlyn.

  I pulled a face. “She wants me to be able to concentrate on my dancing. She reckons if I went to St Andrew’s, the same as everyone else, I’d have loads more homework. I wanted to go to St Andrew’s. All my friends from primary went there. I had the hugest battle with Mum! She let Sean go, but he always manages to get round her. It’s sheer favouritism! She lets him do whatever he likes. She wanted him to go to Hallfield.”

  “Ooh, posh!” said Caitlyn. “Why didn’t he want to?”

  “Cos he’s so not posh.”

  Caitlyn widened her eyes, like she didn’t believe me.

  “He gets on with everyone, like everyone gets on with him.” I sighed. “It’s just one of those things. You get used to it. He’s totally spoilt.”

  Caitlyn giggled. “So are you!”

  “How can you say that?” I stared at her, indignantly. “I’m not Mum’s favourite!”

  “No, but you are spoilt.”

  I frowned. “Is that why you didn’t like me, when we first met?”