Ballet Shoes for Anna

by Noel Streatfeild

  Francesco thought of Jonathan and Priscilla.

  “There are twins who live on the other side of the wall. They were asking us to tea.”

  “You will say no,” said Uncle Cecil.

  Gussie felt, as he was in disgrace already, a little more wouldn’t hurt.

  “Why can’t we go to tea?”

  Uncle Cecil looked at Gussie and that he disliked him showed.

  “Because your English is atrocious. When the term starts with school and homework plus a lesson in English from me, when I am free, your days will be full. I do not want you wasting your time and injuring your eyesight staring at television and chattering with the neighbourhood children.”

  The children had never seen television. There was a set at Wally’s farm but it was never turned on when they were there so it meant nothing to them. But they had always talked to everybody they met as best they could in their mixed languages, so they were incapable of believing their uncle meant what he said or, if he did, that it would really happen. People always talked to each other. What really mattered in this conversation was the awful news that Uncle Cecil intended to teach them English. That was terrifying. And when? Would it interfere with Anna’s dancing lessons? However, nothing could be done that night so Francesco got up. He bowed to his uncle.

  “Thank you for telling us,” he said politely.

  Gussie gave less of a bow and spoke in rather a growly voice.

  “Thank you.”

  Anna gave her little bob curtsey.

  “Thank you, Uncle Cecil. Good night.”

  But outside the lounge when the door was shut Gussie made a rude face at it.

  “And I shan’t go hungry to bed. The Aunt will see I eat.”

  And Gussie was quite right. There was a splendid cheese sandwich under his pillow.

  THE NEXT MORNING after breakfast Francesco followed Aunt Mabel into her kitchen. Each time he saw the kitchen he was filled with fresh admiration. There had not really been a kitchen in the caravan for the stove on which the food was cooked was usually put outside. In Jardek and Babka’s little house the kitchen had been a very small sort of outhouse. He gave a great satisfied sigh.

  “This room is beautiful,” he told Mabel. “Almost too good for using.”

  Mabel in bed the night before had worried about the children’s food. It was true they were eating better but she could see they seldom liked what she cooked.

  “What sort of food did you eat when… well, I mean, before the earthquake?” she puffed.

  Francesco tried to remember.

  “Nothing had a name, there was much stews and rice and all is tasting very good with garlic, and often there is a curry so hot it makes tears in the eyes and …”

  Mabel gasped as if she was tasting the curry.

  “I’m afraid your uncle wouldn’t like that sort of food at all.”

  “If perhaps some food might be left on the plate,” Francesco suggested. “That is a terrible thing that cabbage.”

  “Next time your uncle goes to London,” Mabel whispered, “we will have mushrooms. You’ll like those.”

  Francesco remembered why he was there.

  “The Uncle says we may not talk to the children who live next door but they were asking us to tea. Since we may not speak have you perhaps a piece of paper and an envelope so we may write to explain why?”

  Aunt Mabel, who had been washing up, stopped and went to sit in a chair. She pointed to the door.

  “Shut that please.” Francesco shut the door and Aunt Mabel pointed to another chair. “Sit down, there, dear. I want to try and make you understand something.” Francesco sat and Aunt Mabel, very puffily, went on. “You uncle is a good man but he does not like children, so it’s hard for him that you are here, but he does his duty – he gives you a home.”

  “We did not ask to come,” Francesco reminded her.

  “I know,” Aunt Mabel agreed, “and I am very glad you are here. But for your uncle it is different. You see, though he was working when your father went away and he was told by your grandfather that he was…” she broke off unable to finish.

  Francesco was totally unembarrassed, so often he had heard his father roaring with laughter describing his escape from England so that he could paint. He tried to put his aunt at ease.

  “Christopher’s father said he stole but all he took was enough to sell to take him to Paris where he must paint. Some day he knew he would have money and when that day came, of his share he must lose what he had taken. This is not to steal, it is to borrow, that is all.”

  Aunt Mabel nodded.

  “Yes, dear, but your uncle does not see it like that. He was brought up to believe his brother was a thief. So now he feels it is necessary to take special care of you three so nothing bad can influence you. That is really why you may not know the local children, you see you might watch something unsuitable on the television. You know, Westerns and things like that.”

  Francesco had no idea what a Western was, but what his aunt had said had set up a little worry in his mind. If just borrowing enough things to sell to pay your fare to Paris was something that in Britain made you a thief, perhaps special care should be taken of Gussie who was in so many ways so like Christopher. Care too should perhaps be taken of Anna who, if money was needed for dancing lessons, might take anything. But those were not thoughts with which to trouble The Aunt.

  “I understand and I will make the others understand. Now perhaps I could have the paper and the envelope?”

  Aunt Mabel opened a drawer in the dresser and showed him notepaper and envelopes. Then she picked up a little box.

  “And if you should ever want to write a letter that needs stamps, I keep them in here.”

  The letter was the work of all three children. They wrote it lying on the floor in Anna’s bedroom. Francesco did the writing prompted by Gussie and Anna, all remembering carefully Olga’s lessons on letter writing and how the difficult words should be spelt.

  My dear Twins – they had to put that for they had no idea how to spell Jonathan and Priscilla – we send you greetings. We regret we cannot accept your kind invitation for The Uncle wishes us to study for we speak English very bad but we shall meet you at school with sincere felicitations. Francesco. Gussie. Anna.

  The next question was how the letter should be delivered.

  “I think we should fix it to a stone and throw it over the wall,” Gussie suggested.

  “That cannot be,” Francesco pointed out. “The Uncle sits in the lounge and he will see. No, one of us must go to the house and knock.”

  “To knock we need not,” said Anna. “In Britain all houses have a slit in the door for letter, and like here there is always a bell.”

  In the end it was decided Anna should take the letter.

  “But do not ring the bell,” Francesco told her. “Go soft as a little cat to the house and just put it through the slit in the door.”

  Anna, though secretly scared in case The Uncle saw her, carried out her mission successfully and the envelope lay safely on the next door house’s mat.

  That afternoon was Anna’s first dancing lesson. Francesco and Gussie took her to the studio for Wally’s mum thought she should not walk about on her own. At the studio door, Francesco gave Anna the fifty pence for her lesson.

  “Try and make her write down you have paid in case she asks twice,” he said, “for fifty pence is a lot of money.”

  Miss de Veane was alone when Anna arrived. Anna gave her little bob and handed over the fifty-pence piece.

  “Here is the money, Madame.”

  Audrey de Veane gazed down at Anna and felt a curious sensation, it was a feeling of tenderness, which she did not recognize for it was so many years since she had felt it. She had looked not unlike this little girl once. But hard times and the need to work had soon knocked sense into her. Then she had married and come to live in Fyton where she had thought to live as an ordinary housewife for the rest of her days. It was not to be, her husba
nd had died leaving her a house but very little money, so she had earned what she needed in the only way she knew – teaching dancing. Even in Fyton she supposed there might be somebody worth teaching. But there never had been. What she had taught was a long line of Doreens, all giggles and curls without as much talent as would fill a saltspoon. Then out of the blue had come this child. Was it possible? Then she gave herself a mental shake. She must be getting soppy in her old age, she told herself.

  “Thank you, Anna,” she said putting away the fifty-pence piece. “Now put on your shoes while I write out the receipt.” By now, through gossip and the papers, she knew who Anna was. “Whom do I make it out to? Your uncle?”

  Anna, bent over her shoes, kept her head.

  “No. Mr Francesco Docksay.”

  Outside the boys waited, leaning against the wall.

  “One lesson gone,” said Francesco, “and only four left and still it is we do not know how it is we may earn fifty pence each week.”

  “Perhaps,” Gussie suggested, “Anna is not liking Miss de Veane. Then we must wait until S’William comes home and can sell the picture and tell us where it is Anna should learn.”

  Francesco looked sadly down the road.

  “If only in Fyton there was donkeys and camels to be watched or messages to run. But here there is nothing, all is ordered and arranged.”

  Gussie slid to the ground and stretched out flat on the pavement.

  “All is too honest here, you cannot bargain in the shops, so how can you make a little money on the side?”

  Francesco caught hold of Gussie by his jersey.

  “Get up. Each day I am telling you on the streets in Britain, you cannot lie.”

  Gussie sat up.

  “Why not? Why should I stand for half an hour? I was in nobody’s way.”

  Francesco pulled Gussie to his feet.

  “I do not know why but I do know care should be taken. Today I am talking to The Aunt and she is saying The Uncle is believing Christopher was a thief.”

  Gussie turned pink with rage.

  “He was not. He only borrowed a few things to take him to Paris so he could paint. Some day money would be his and then what he had borrowed would be returned. This is not to steal.”

  “Not to us or to Christopher,” Francesco agreed. “But to The Uncle – yes. So he was told by his father and so he believes.”

  “But what has this to do with resting in a road?” Gussie asked.

  Francesco tried to explain.

  “Because of The Uncle. As he thinks Christopher was a thief, then to him it could seem there is bad in us too which must be watched, so always we must try to do well. This is why we may not know other children. They could show us something which is a Western where we could learn to do wrong.”

  Gussie was much quicker than Francesco when it came to picking up odds and ends of information.

  “That is a box called The Telly which is in Wally’s farm. I think it is like a small movie. The harm is because when such a picture is showing called a Western Wally will not go to bed.”

  Francesco, as so often when talking to Gussie, felt what he was trying to say slip away from him.

  “But you do see, Gussie, if that is how The Uncle feels we must try very hard not to offend. We need to be much more careful than when …” he broke off, while both boys in their minds watched Togo pull their caravan along roads covered in dust while Christopher sang songs which made Olga say: “No, Christopher. Not in front of the children.”

  “Than when,” Francesco said at last, “we had our caravan.”

  Inside the studio Anna was happy in a way she had not been since the earthquake. Dancing terms seemed to be the same in all languages and so was the correct positioning of the body, arms and feet. Only over one point did she and Miss de Veane differ. It was after Anna had performed a small enchaînement in the centre of the studio.

  “When those shoes wear out,” Miss de Veane said, “I will start you off on pointe work.”

  When she had said this to her other pupils there was tremendous rejoicing. For to dance on their pointes was every girl’s ambitions. Anna was not pleased at all – in fact she was shocked.

  “That cannot be,” she told Miss de Veane. “Jardek was saying I would have my first shoes with the blocked toes when I was eleven. Now I am eight.”

  Miss de Veane, who, during the class, had seen in her mind’s eye Anna at her next public show dancing “The Dying Swan” swallowed what she would like to have said. This was an unusual child and needed handling carefully. She collected herself inside her black dress.

  “Oh well,” she said to herself, “two years will soon pass.”

  Anna was only eight but she was sensitive and there was something in Miss de Veane’s hoarse statement she did not like. So when at the end of her class she joined the boys at the door and Gussie asked how the lesson had gone she said doubtfully:

  “It was good. Very good. But I do not know yet if Miss de Veane is such a teacher as Jardek would wish.”

  THE CHILDREN THOUGHT the school uniforms very elegant. The boys had purple blazers with the school crest on the pocket, grey socks with purple turnovers, grey shirts and purple ties and a purple school cap. Anna wore the same except she wore a grey pleated skirt and instead of a cap, since it was the autumn term, a grey felt hat with a purple ribbon round it.

  Aunt Mabel had been clever. She was determined their three children should be as well turned out as all the other children, but if she bought all they needed it would use up her entire savings so she had to get Uncle Cecil to pay part of the money. Asking Cecil for money always threw her into a state so she was huffing and puffing worse than usual when she came into the lounge to speak to him.

  “Ce – Ce – Cecil,” she gasped. “The children start school next week and they need uniforms.”

  Mabel had chosen a bad moment for Cecil was in the middle of adding a column of figures. He carefully wrote down a figure and marked where he had got to, then he put down his pen and glared at Mabel.

  “The children seem adequately dressed to me. Why should they have uniforms? They can attend school in what they have.”

  Mabel knew it was a waste of time to say “all the other children in The Crescent wear uniform, we don’t want our three to look different”. Such an argument would carry no weight at all with Cecil so she had planned another.

  “The boys have only cotton shirts and Anna cotton dresses. They have jerseys but since they are used to hot climates, for the autumn they should have thick coats or they will catch cold – even pneumonia.”

  Mabel had chosen a good argument. Cecil hated illness, and he certainly did not want talk in the neighbourhood. He opened a drawer and took out his cheque book.

  “How much will overcoats cost?”

  Mabel had worked out how much she needed.

  “The coats should be big so they will last and they will need thick shoes. I couldn’t do with less than fifty pounds.”

  Cecil looked as if he might have a fit.

  “Fifty pounds! It’s a fortune. My dear mother did not spend that much on my clothes in a year.”

  Mabel nodded.

  “I know, dear. But fifty pounds today goes nowhere.”

  The children, when Mabel took them to the shops where the uniforms were sold, took their uncle’s point of view.

  “Why,” Gussie demanded, “do we need all these clothes? We have our jerseys when like today it is cold.”

  “This is not what we call cold, dear,” Mabel explained. “But later in the autumn and when winter comes it can be very cold and very damp and you are not used to it.”

  Anna suddenly remembered real cold.

  “After the earthquake the cold was terrible. Even in a rug my teeth is rattling.”

  The assistant who was fitting out the boys pricked up her ears. These must be the children of the artist who was killed in the earthquake. The manager should know they were here. It was clear the children had not unlimi
ted money, perhaps under such circumstances help and advice would be forthcoming, even a slight reduction.

  The assistant was quite right. The manager too had read all about the Docksay children. Glowing with good feeling, he arrived at Mabel’s elbow.

  “Ah, Mrs Docksay, I heard you were here, and these are the three little people who escaped. Now, let me see how I can help you.”

  The manager did help. He seemed to know exactly how much children would grow before next summer. He knew of an exchange scheme in the school which meant outgrown uniforms could be sold. He was wonderful about overcoats, sending the assistant downstairs to bring up what he called “my special stock”.

  While all this was going on the children stood patiently having different garments fitted on to them. Never, even during S’William’s wild outburst of extravagance in Istanbul, had they known such spending. Before the earthquake Olga would sometimes tell Christopher she must visit a bazaar because clothes were needed. But that had never meant more than a frock for Anna or some shirts or shorts for the boys. Once or twice on some celebration day Christopher would take Olga to a shop and a meal afterwards and Olga would come home giggling and wearing something very exotic, but serious top to bottom shopping they had never known. Now amazed, but stunned into patience, they found themselves with new warm underwear, school uniforms, overcoats, mackintoshes, shoes, rubber boots, new pyjamas and each a splendid dressing-gown.

  “It is too much,” Francesco whispered to the other two.

  “Such money would pay for the most beautiful dancing classes,” Anna moaned.

  Gussie said nothing for he was studying the situation. In his opinion where there was so much apparently to be had without trouble there should be pickings for those who were buying. Such an arrangement was usual when much money was spent.

  When all the shopping was over the manager said:

  “I am sure these little people are tired. May I offer you all tea?” Then he smiled at the children and added: “With perhaps ice creams.”