Star Quality

by Jean Ure

  Danny said, “What?” Then, following the direction of my outraged gaze, he added, “Oh! There she is.”

  She was standing in front of Mum’s Firebird photo. Not just standing: posing. Mum’s mirror image. Heads were turning as people walked past. A woman with two small girls had stopped to watch. The girls were staring, mouths agape, eyes wide with wonderment. I made a dart forward, but Danny put out a hand and held me back.

  “Let me just …” He pulled out his camera. Danny never goes anywhere without his beloved camera. “There! Got it! That,” he told me, “is a near perfect picture.”

  But she shouldn’t have been doing it! Not in the foyer of the Millennium Hall. Not in any public place. Madam would be furious!

  I said this to Danny, who was still snapping away. I have noticed this before, with professional photographers: they simply never know when to stop.

  “What’s the problem?” said Danny. “What’s she doing that’s so wrong?”

  “It’s very bad manners,” I said.

  You just don’t do that sort of thing! You might when you were a little bratty five-year-old, showing off. Not when you were one of Madam’s students.

  “It’s Firebird,” said Danny, “isn’t it?”

  I said, “Yes, it is, and she ought to know better!” Firebird wasn’t her part anyway. Even if it was, that was no excuse. It was as bad as leaving the theatre without removing your make-up. It just wasn’t done.

  “Don’t be mad at her,” urged Danny. “I’m sure she doesn’t mean to upset anyone.”

  She had upset me. I was the one responsible for her! I went marching determinedly across the foyer, but too late: she was already engaged in earnest conversation with the mum and the two little girls. I arrived just in time to hear the mum say, “Would it be awful cheek to beg a selfie? They’d be so thrilled! Wouldn’t you, girls?”

  The two little girls both nodded, eagerly. The way they were staring at Caitlyn you’d have thought she was already a star. Blushing, Caitlyn protested that she was still only a student.

  “But just think,” said the mum, “when you’re famous they’ll be able to tell everyone that they met you when you were still at ballet school!”

  Oh, I thought, yuck.

  Caitlyn gave a little embarrassed giggle. “That’s if I ever get famous,” she said. And then she caught sight of me and Danny and a look of relief came over her face.

  “This is my friend Maddy,” she said. “Maddy O’Brien … She’s a dancer, too. Would you like to take a photo of her as well?”

  One of the little girls squealed. “You’re Sean O’Brien’s sister! I saw a picture of you!”

  Caitlyn smiled hopefully at me. “Maddy?”

  Not the least idea that she’d done anything wrong! But I dutifully lined up next to her, wiped the scowl from my face and forced myself into a gracious smile. I was really cross with Caitlyn, but I knew I couldn’t take it out on the two girls. It wasn’t their fault; they were just a couple of excited little ballet fans. You had to respect your fans. Mum had always drummed it into me.

  Just remember … you’re nothing without them!

  “Well,” said Danny, as we went back across the foyer. “How flattering was that?”

  “Wasn’t flattering at all,” I muttered.

  “Way to get noticed, eh?”

  “I didn’t mean to get noticed,” said Caitlyn, earnestly. “It was really embarrassing!”

  “Yes,” I said, “it was. You’re lucky someone like Miss Hickman didn’t catch you.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Danny. “No harm done. You made two little girls very happy, and they are not the only ones –” he patted his camera – “to have got some brilliant photos!”

  I tried to work out, afterwards, what it was that had made me so cross with Caitlyn. It really hadn’t been such a huge crime as all that; I knew she hadn’t been showing off. Hey, everybody, look at me! Caitlyn wasn’t like that. If she was too shy to come back and say hallo to Sean, she was certainly too shy to draw attention to herself in a crowded foyer. To do it deliberately, that is. She’d obviously been studying Mum’s picture and had fallen into the same pose almost without realising it.

  I was glad, now, that I hadn’t had a go at her. I would have done if it hadn’t been for Danny. I wondered if he had told Sean about it – whether he’d shown him the photos he’d taken. Sean would probably have laughed, if he’d been there. He’s always been what Mum calls irreverent, meaning he tends to make fun of rules and regulations and of anyone in authority. He’s one of the few people, Mum says – not altogether approvingly – who’s been known to pull Madam’s leg and get away with it. I just hoped Danny hadn’t told him how cross I’d been, cos that would make me sound like some kind of self-righteous nag.

  I wasn’t a nag! Sometimes, like Sean, I am even a bit irreverent. It was Danny’s fault if I’d got cross. The way he’d reacted, like he’d suddenly seen this vision. Like Caitlyn was all set to become the next Darcey Bussell, or something. I mean, what did he know? He wasn’t a dancer! Just because he lived with Sean didn’t make him some kind of expert. Caitlyn hadn’t been doing anything the rest of us couldn’t. Not that the rest of us would. Well, I wouldn’t! I’d know better. I really thought Caitlyn should have done, too.

  A couple of days later, she broke it to me: she was going to be one of the dancers featured in Danny’s book.

  Just at first, I couldn’t believe it. He’d chosen Caitlyn, rather than me? I’d been so sure he was going to choose me! He had been going to. I knew he had! Until he’d caught sight of her, posed in front of Mum’s photo, and suddenly – wham! – he’d had a change of heart. A near perfect picture. That was what he’d said. In other words, Caitlyn was actually being rewarded for her shocking display of bad manners!

  It was what I thought, too, but I could hardly admit it. I said, “What makes you think that?”

  “Cos you’re family! It’s like you said … when Sean got us tickets. You said it was what anyone would do.”

  “That was just tickets,” I said. “This is work. You have to be professional when it comes to work. Like if Dad puts Sean into one of his ballets there’s always going to be people that’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s just because he’s family.’ It actually isn’t, cos Sean’s a good dancer; but it’s still what people would say. Some people.”

  Caitlyn’s face suddenly cleared. “Of course! That’s why Danny couldn’t use you … It’s not really fair, though, is it? Just cos of people like Tiffany getting jealous.”

  I struggled for a moment. I like to be honest whenever I can. “It’s not just because of people like Tiffany,” I said. “Danny’s an artist. Like Dad. Artists always put their work above all else. In the end they choose whoever they think is best.”

  Caitlyn munched uncertainly on her lower lip. A slight frown creased her forehead. I could tell exactly what she was thinking. Is Maddy really saying I’m the best?

  I struggled a bit more. I was trying all I could not to sound bitter or resentful, but I have to admit I didn’t really believe Caitlyn was any better than I was. If as good. Not being bigheaded, but I was the one that got chosen to demonstrate my pas de chats, not Caitlyn! It was probably right, what she’d said. In spite of being an artist and putting his work above all else, Danny must have felt it wouldn’t be right to use me, no matter how much he might want to. It wasn’t the same as Dad using Sean in his ballets. Dad really did have to choose the best person. But really, when it came to it, just posing for a book of photos was hardly the same as actually dancing. Nowhere near as important! Just so long as Caitlyn was aware of it.

  “If you want to know the truth,” I said, “it’s probably those pictures he took of you the other night.” I might have added, when you were making a spectacle of yourself in a public place. But I spared her. “I reckon that’s what decided him. Like why bother looking for anyone else when he’d already got you?”

  “Mm.” She nodded, slowly; digesting the idea. “If he
’d come and watched us in class he’d probably have chosen someone quite different … like Tiffany, for instance. That would be even worse,” she said, “wouldn’t it?”

  I said, “Worse than what?”

  “Worse than not being able to use the person he really wanted cos of what people might say!”

  Well, yes, I thought, it would. Tiffany would be totally impossible. Caitlyn was at least humble. But I still couldn’t help feeling hard done by. It wasn’t right that people should be rewarded for behaving badly. Stupidly, as well, cos it had been stupid, getting all silly and shy and not coming backstage to see Sean. It really is very annoying, the way things sometimes work out.

  Later that night, in my bedroom, I stood in front of the full-length mirror on my wardrobe door and studied myself. Dancers are always studying themselves in full-length mirrors. It’s not a vanity thing, it’s because we’re always on the lookout for faults. Am I properly turned out? Is my bum tucked in? Are my shoulders relaxed?

  I drew myself up in the Firebird pose. Firebird was so my part! Surely by now Danny must have learnt enough about ballet to realise that Caitlyn wouldn’t be chosen to dance it in a million years? Sean would know. I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t have said something! “Very pretty picture, but of course she’s quite wrong for the part.”

  I looked at myself more closely. My eyes narrowed. Was that a roll of fat where my hip ought to be?

  I pinched at it. Was it? Or was it just my imagination? Dancers are always imagining they are putting on weight. It’s like an occupational hazard. But if it was a roll of fat …

  That would explain why Danny hadn’t chosen me! Danny was an artist; he had the eye of a professional photographer. He’d have homed straight in on it.

  It was, in its way, a relief – nowhere near as bad as Danny not choosing me cos he thought Caitlyn was better. Which, if I was to be honest, had still been my secret fear. But weight? Weight was nothing! Weight could be got rid of just as easily as it could be put on.

  Now that I had identified the problem, I didn’t intend losing any time. I am one of those people. I know better than to starve myself. Eat sensibly; that is what they are always drilling into us. We had all heard the tale of the student from a few years back, who had actually been a friend of Jen’s. She’d been so desperate to keep her weight down that she’d gone on a strict diet of bottled water and celery and had dramatically passed out in the middle of class. What was so sad, Jen said, was that she’d always been terrified of being thrown out.

  “And then they went and threw her out anyway. She was devastated.”

  That poor girl had become almost a legend. She was always being held up as a dire warning; though Jen always said that it was the school that was to blame.

  “It’s like a reign of terror from the moment you get there … They keep you living on a knife edge.”

  It’s true that most of us do live in constant fear of the physical assessments we have to go through. You wait to hear the dreaded words: too tall, too short, too fat, too thin … You can never relax for a moment. Even I, who am not at all an anxious kind of person, can get a bit stressed around assessment time.

  That afternoon at the end of our pas de deux class with Mr Bishop, I suddenly heard myself asking Nico whether he thought I was too heavy. The words just came shooting out of my mouth, with no warning.

  Nico’s cheeks turned brick red. “Are you saying you don’t think I’ll be strong enough to lift you?”

  “No!” Now I’d gone and upset him. We’d been getting on so well! Why did I have to open my stupid blabbering mouth? “Honestly,” I told him, “I didn’t mean that at all! I just meant –” I lowered my voice to a whisper – “I’m scared I’m getting fat!”

  Nico ran his eyes over me. All over me. I tried not to shrink into myself.

  “You don’t look fat,” he said. “What’s more important, you don’t feel fat. I’d know if you were gaining weight. I’m your partner. Trust me!”

  I wanted to, but how could he be so certain? We hadn’t even started doing lifts yet! He had no idea how heavy I was.

  Nico grinned. “You think I wouldn’t notice if you were putting it on? I’d know immediately.” He placed his hands either side of my hips. “See? I’d be the first to feel it!”

  I told myself that of course he was right. Being partners is a very intimate relationship: if Nico thought I was getting fat he’d find some way of letting me know. Not straight out, maybe; just little hints every now and then until I’d picked up on the message. It still didn’t stop me peering sideways at myself in a plate-glass window as Caitlyn and I walked back together, later on, to the Underground. Once you get it into your head that you are becoming huge and gross and horrible it is very difficult to give up on the idea. It quickly becomes an obsession. I even, almost, turned to Caitlyn and asked her. The only reason I didn’t was that it would have been too shaming. But I still wasn’t totally convinced!

  I arrived home just as Sean was on his way out. He raised a hand as he shot past me down the hall. I called after him: “Hey, Sean!”

  “What?”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Only if it’s quick, I’m in a rush.”

  “It is quick! I just want to know—” I took a deep breath. Sean would tell me the truth, if anyone would. He wouldn’t spare my feelings.

  “Well?” He was waiting, impatiently, one hand on the door.

  “It’s just—” The words came gabbling out of me. “DoyouthinkI’mgettingfat?”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake!” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so narcissistic!”

  I opened my mouth to say, “What’s that supposed to mean?” but thought better of it. He obviously wasn’t in the mood. But I had to know!

  “Does Danny think I am?”

  He nearly exploded at that. “How the hell should I know what Danny thinks?”

  “Well, like, if he’s said anything.” Like, I would have asked Maddy to be in my book, but she’s getting so heavy. “Has he said anything?”

  Sean wrenched the door open. “You think we don’t have more important matters to talk about than my self-obsessed little sister?”

  I said, “I’m not self-obsessed, I’m worried! And what’s … whatever it was … narciss-stic anyway?”

  “Narcissistic! Look it up.”

  “I can’t, I don’t know how to spell it.”

  “So find out!”

  The door slammed behind him. I was left by myself, feeling hurt. It wasn’t like Sean to be so short-tempered. He may be a big star and used to people worshipping him, but he is always approachable. I couldn’t understand what I’d done to upset him; all I’d wanted was his honest opinion. He didn’t have to bite my head off!

  I found Mum and Dad downstairs in the kitchen and grumbled to them about it.

  “What’s Sean’s problem? Why is he in such a hateful mood? He’s just practically bitten my head off!”

  “No doubt you gave him good cause,” said Dad.

  “I did not!” I said it indignantly. “All I did was just ask him a simple question. He didn’t have to snap at me.”

  “Don’t be too hard on him,” said Mum. “You caught him at a bad moment.”

  I said, “Oh?” I didn’t know Sean ever had any bad moments. It seemed to me he just sailed through life.

  “Apparently,” said Mum, “he and Danny have had some kind of falling-out so he’s feeling a bit raw.”

  Aggrieved, I said, “Well, he could have told me! Why couldn’t he just tell me? ‘I’m sorry I can’t take much interest in you and your stupid little problems right now; I have enough problems of my own.’ That was all he had to say. Then I’d have understood.”

  “You really think that sounds like Sean?” said Mum.

  “Well, he told you and Dad!”

  “So now we’re telling you. What was your stupid little problem, anyway? Can we be of help?”

  I mumbled that it wasn’t important. Mum would
go totally ballistic if she thought I was getting obsessed with my weight. She has this thing about dancers who let themselves get too thin. “Like watching a stage full of coat hangers!” On the other hand she also has a thing about dancers who let themselves get fat.

  “Who wants to see a load of beach balls bouncing about?”

  Best not say anything. She’d only start lecturing.

  “So how are you getting on with Chris Bishop?” said Dad.

  He meant Mr Bishop who took us for pas de deux. I’d forgotten he and Dad had been in the Company together. There was almost no one on the staff that Mum and Dad hadn’t either danced with or been taught by.

  I told Dad that I was really enjoying Mr Bishop’s classes.

  “This boy I’m dancing with? Nico? It’s like we just instinctively understand each other.”

  Well, we had understood each other, before I’d gone and upset Nico by asking him if he thought I was too heavy. It was a really thoughtless thing to have done; I saw that now. Boys are every bit as sensitive as girls. I knew from Sean that they worry just as much, for instance, about their height and their upper-body strength as we do about disappearing hip bones or bulging thighs. It was one occasion when I really wished I’d thought before opening my mouth.

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” said Mum. “If you don’t get on with your partner, it can make life really miserable. You want to hear Sean on the subject!”

  The mention of Sean reminded me. I said, “What does narsss-is-ist mean?”

  Mum raised an eyebrow, like, what has that to do with anything?

  “I just suddenly thought of it,” I said. “What’s it mean?”

  “Narcissist? It comes from a Greek myth about a beautiful young man called Narcissus and a nymph called Echo, who falls in love with him.”

  “That’s the Roman version,” said Dad. “In the Greek version it’s a young man who falls in love with him.”

  “Whatever,” said Mum.

  “I’m telling you,” said Dad.

  I said, “So what happens?”