by Margaret Way
'Splendid!' the second doctor, the younger man, said yet again.
Mr Paddon-Jones looked up, saw Lucie's ashen face and patted her hair gently. 'Everything's going to be all right, my dear. Trust me.'
'Yes,' she whispered, and closed her eyes. Not even in hospital had she been so overwhelmed by hopelessness. 'Julian,' she said faintly.
'I'm here.'
She opened her eyes to look back at him, struggling now with the tears. She had known him such a short time yet even at his worst, when he had hurled insults at her every day, he had seemed an important part of her life. She had never known precisely why. She did not know now.
Julian had joined the conversation, allowed now as a
layman to inspect the knee, but Lucie only heard what they were saying in disjointed snatches. There was a very bright light above her, yet the room was dimming and brightening alternately as she fought in and out of waves of deep shadows.
'Now,' she heard Mr Paddon-Jones speak, much more loudly, 'you can get to your feet, Lucie.' She felt the weight of his hand on her arm—a clever hand, a healer. 'Lucie?' he spoke again.
She had to open her eyes. She had to struggle to get up.
'It's a natural reaction to feel afraid.'
Lucie turned her head then and opened her dark violet eyes. She couldn't bear to look down at her white, useless legs. The skin was not even her own, the flawless skin her mother had always rejoiced in. 'It's so important for a dancer, Lucie, and you've got it.'
'Come, Lucienne,' Julian spoke to her—not as the doctor, gently persuasive, but as Julian Strasberg. She had always known he would come back.
'Will I be able to stand?'
Mr Paddon-Jones seemed to stand back and Julian took her not by the hands, but by the waist. There were no hands like his. No support, or inspiration. Without Julian she was a broken doll.
He lifted her and she stood up, somehow.
'Yes, that's it!' Mr Paddon-Jones beamed his approval. 'Walk around the room, Lucie. Easy now.'
What was happening to her. Was she going crazy? She could not move—not off that spot.
Her face touched them all, she was so alarmed. But' then Julian's arm was supporting her, a stage gesture, as though they were both to walk out before an audience and she responded from long habit; only now instead of moving marvellously, she hobbled, inside ranting at her lack of strength.
'How does it feel?' The other doctor smiled at her, understanding dimly what she was going through.
'Strange.' She knew her operation had been a great success. She knew they were very pleased on both counts, hers and theirs, but weakness and panic were reducing her to a caricature of Copelia, the mechanical doll. Her legs felt withered and awkward. She repeated in a husky little voice she did not even recognise.
'Of course it does!' Mr Paddon-Jones put his hand gently on her shoulder and patted it and Julian took it as a sign to move away, which in fact it was.
Neither man expected Lucie's reaction. Freed of Julian's strong grasp, she gave an agitated little moan, turned her head blindly towards him, then released her hold on consciousness. Her slight body, abandoned, began to crumple, but Julian Strasberg, taut with strain, moved swiftly. He caught her and lifted her with easy strength while Mr Paddon-Jones cried vexedly:
'Her pallor should have warned us. Poor child!'
Julian was silent. He had been expecting it all morning. In the crisis of emotion, Lucie scarcely looked real, or breathing, a beautiful ghost of what she had been. His own nerves screaming, he laid her down on the table, scarcely noticing the two doctors, who were not a little upset.
CHAPTER THREE
In the taxi Julian gave her an intent look. 'All right?'
'I'm sorry about that,' she said awkwardly. 'My legs feel quite different.'
'They'll do that,' he agreed. 'I remember when I broke my ankle I was mad enough to kick anyone that came near me. Even after, I was impossible!'
'It wasn't so traumatic for you. You have so many gifts.'
'I should say ypu were right.' She was not looking at him, so she did not see his mouth quirk sardonically. 'Therapy will make you supple again.'
Jessie was waiting for them. She heard the taxi sweep up the drive and she opened the front door and ran down the short flight of steps.
Lucie's face told her what an ordeal it had been. 'Come in quickly, out of the wind.' Jessie put her arm around the girl, a large protective figure. 'It's quite raw.'
Lucie did not feel it; she had not even bothered to zip up her cardigan. Inside Jessie peered at her, looking worried. 'You're terribly white.'
Julian followed them in, shutting the door. He too glanced at Lucie appraisingly. 'What about some coffee, Jessie? I'd love a cup.'
'Sure.'
'She fainted,' Julian explained, and threw his jacket over an armchair.
Jessie made sympathetic noises. 'Her eyes are awful!'
'Full of visions.' Julian too looked at Lucie with sober attention. 'She's been giving herself hell.'
'I'll make coffee.' Jessie said briskly.
In the most natural way possible, Julian gathered Lucie up. 'Come here with me.'
The smell of the roses he had bought her charmed the air. She allowed herself to be set down on the long sofa and he lowered himself beside her, staring at her unsmilingly. The clothes she wore were simple, inexpensive, but such was her natural grace, the quite ordinary garments looked surprisingly elegant; ribbed sweater, matching cardigan, a soft skirt in chequered wool. Always featherlight, now her whole appearance was impossibly delicate. One could well imagine her being carried away on a playful wind.
'I've been meaning to thank you for everything,' she said painfully, acting under compulsion.
'I will allow you to at another time.'
'Please, Julian—nozu!' Her violet eyes were always a blink away from tears.
'What have I done for you?' he asked derisively. 'Very little. I would be quite happy to do much more.'
'Why?' She asked it diffidently, because she didn't understand.
'Because you're one of my dancers.' His brilliant almond eyes were subtly shadowed.
'Are you some medieval sorcerer?' she asked oddly. 'You know I'll never dance again.'
'So? What about it?'
She could hardly believe he had said it. He, who was passionately devoted to the dance.
'What else can I do?' she wailed.
'The fact is, little one, we don't know for sure that you'll never dance again. Paddon-Jones admitted as much. No one knows just how much you could take.'
'Until I break down?'
'Yes,' he nodded, refusing to lie to her. 'You can forget you want to be a dancer, or you can try very slowly again.'
'And at the end of it heartbreak. The moment of annihilation when one leg or the other or perhaps both together decided to give out.'
'It has happened,' he agreed.
'Then I don't want to try.' Lucie had lost all faith in her physical machine. Why, even the effort of getting out of the hospital had made her heart hammer. 'Too bad you can't put me through hell again. Gerard,' she imitated his commanding tone, 'what was that? Just exactly what was that? Never a word of praise!'
'Weren't you happy the first night of Black Iris?' There was something almost caressing in the vibrancy of his tone. 'Didn't it mean anything to you when I told you you danced beautifully? Or maybe you didn't even hear it?'
'Probably not. You've always kept me between fear and elation.'
Jessie came back into the room well satisfied to see that the colour had returned to Lucie's pale cheeks. 'Well, tell me what Jonesy had to say.'
Lucie sat back, not even caring, while Julian recounted the doctor's every word.
'You mean there is a chance?' Jessie put her cup down so forcefully it was a mercy it did not shatter.
'That we must find out. The muscles tell us. I'll have the pool heated so she can swim.'
Only then did Lucie dart a startled glance at
him. 'But I must go home!' she protested.
'Perhaps.' He gave her the sidelong glance he might have given a child. 'Save that for another month. I want to supervise the therapy, and I imagine Jessie will want to be in on it too.' He looked at Jessie and she visibly melted.
'You mean I'm retained?'
'Unless you have another job to go to.'
'Nothing lined up.' This had not been a job to Jessie, not from the very first moment when she had seen the tiny, defenceless Lucie. 'Actually I've got a lot of helpful ideas of my own.' Jessie launched into an account of how she had nursed a well-known athlete, an Olympic sprinter. ...
'Perhaps you could apply a few of those same methods,' Julian suggested, an audience of one.
'Aren't you listening?' Lucie cried suddenly. 'I'm not like you, who won't be beaten. No matter what happens you go on just the same. I couldn't take it— the terrible disillusionment, the failure. Better not to try at all then have to face the agony again.'
'Who said you have to face it all at once?' Julian quietened her with a glance. 'In a word, your attitude is negative.'
'You're a swine,' she said softly. ,
'So I believe your best friend told you.'
'My best friend?'
At the expression on her face his winged eyebrows rose a fraction. 'Tennant. Surely you two were very close?'
'I can't endure this,' Lucie cried emotionally.
'Julian!' Jessie decided to intervene.
'In the end it's a kindness,' Julian insisted. 'You don't know, of course, but he's back.'
'You've spoken to him?' Lucie put out a hand to touch him.
'Him—his mother. I've even had calls from his family lawyer. In fact if I had another one, I was going to report it. No sense in putting up with being harassed.'
'So he knew I was staying here?' Lucie moistened her suddenly dry mouth with the tip of her tongue.
'Yes.' Ironically Julian watched her. 'Isn't it a mercy I have a silent phone number?'
'By the same token isn't it a miracle they didn't decide to call?' Jessie sat back looking vaguely uneasy.
'I didn't have to repeat myself,' Julian said. 'I simply said I would throw any visitors out.'
'You could too.' Jessie viewed him with an expert eye. Come to that, she should have been able to do it herself. Judo lessons had made life a lot more interesting.
'You can't want me-to stay on,' Lucie was saying as though she could not bear to go.
'There's plenty of room,' Julian waved a negligent hand. 'Make it another month. You should be showing quite ari improvement by then, and because I won't have time to supervise you, Jessie will have to.'
'I won't be too hard on you, sweetie,' Jessie promised, vaguely troubled by the transparency of Lucie's white skin. Always a featherweight, she was too slight for comfort.
'Just look at my legs, Jessie!' Lucie suddenly wailed.
'Stop that!' Julian gave her a quelling stare. 'Ballet dancers must be strong.'
'I had everything once.' Lucie leaned down and slid her fingertips to her toes, unconsciously balletic in her slightest movement.
'Not quite,' Julian drawled. 'Of course you came on a tremendous lot, but that was only because I was so relentless with you. You have style, classical purity, but never by any chance could I call you a ballerina.'
To Jessie's way of thinking, he was being shockingly hard on her, but no doubt he had his reasons. Indignation was making Lucie's white cheeks blossom pink.
'Surely I'm keeping you, Julian?'
'Don't be insolent,' he said coldly.
'I'm not being insolent!'
'Well—difficult.' He stood up and touched the side of her cheek. 'Rest today. Tomorrow your therapy begins.'
By the end of a fortnight Jessie had to admit that Lucie was not coming to her therapy eagerly. Her accident had been a savage blow not only to her limbs but the founts of her mind. She seemed to have lost confidence, all hope that she would ever dance again. Not ever on stage. Not even for her own private satisfaction.
'I can't do it, Jessie!' she cried, time and time again.
'Yes, you can.' This from Jessie, crisply. She was beginning to think she would have to speak to Julian privately. It was obvious Lucie was sick with dread even about trying, almost as though her limbs were in imminent danger of giving out on her with the mildest effort. The trouble, of course, was psychological. Jessie just knew that eventually Lucie would regain normal strength, and at this stage she did not care to remind herself that dancers needed a great deal more than that. Single and childless, Jessie had a strong maternal instinct.
'How's that?' she asked Lucie bracingly.
'It hurts like the devil.' The sweat had broken out all over Lucie's small face and she was inhaling deeply.
'Then we'll stop now,' said Jessie, 'and think about lunch.' They might as well, Jessie thought. She was not achieving much pleading and threatening. She would have to speak to Julian—the truth, this time. Delicate little Lucie required a strong hand.
Lucie was sitting up in bed reading when Julian looked in on her.
'Oh, hello!' She looked up shocked, fully expecting to see Jessie's rumpled head appear around the door.
'Lucie.' He looked irritable and moody, as if he had been through a long and tiring day.
'How did the performance go?' She put down her book, swallowing nervously. She was wearing a nightgown Jessie had given her and one small puffed sleeve had fallen off her shoulder.
'So-so.' He shrugged a shoulder elegantly but with a familiar look of dissatisfaction. 'Camilla lacks—how shall I say it?—spice, for the role.'
'Why don't you tell her that?' she asked daringly. Camilla was never subjected to the tirades she had had to endure.
'No need. She's aware of it herself.' He talked nearer the bed, looking down at her. 'How are the exercises going?'
'Great.' Her violet eyes darkened at her own lie.
'Let me be the judge of that.'
Always acutely sensitive to his moods, she read his tone accurately. 'What's the matter?' Immediately she said it she caught her lower lip between her teeth.
Julian did not even bother explaining. 'Tomorrow I want you to come in to class.'
'Oh, no!' She made a sound of distress and shrank back against the pillows. 'I'll never be ready for class again, Julian. Don't talk about it.'
'I'm not talking about it,' he said harshly. 'I'm telling you. Be ready in the morning. I'm taking you in with me.'
Lucie drew in her breath again, ready to speak, but he turned his back on her and walked to the door. Part of Lucie sought to plead with him, part warned her not to. Not now. Time enough for that in the morning.
Jessie, a cup of tea in hand, had to call Lucie's name several times before her slight body swayed up.
'Oh, Jessie,' she said plaintively, and held her hand to her temple, 'I've got a terrible headache. I think I'll have to stay in bed today.'
'Breakfast will make you feel better,' Jessie said with a buoyancy she did not feel. 'Here, drink down this cup of tea and I'll see what I can rustle up.'
'No, really, Jessie,' Lucie held out a staying hand, 'I couldn't manage anything. I feel ill.'
She could not face class; Jessie could see that. Jessie glanced down at her watch, then at Lucie's frightened face. ‘Shall I call a doctor?'
'No!' Lucie did not even falter. 'I'm sure there's nothing wrong with me. I just don't feel well.'
'What's bothering you, sweetie?' Jessie sank down on the bed, feeling a deep current of sadness. Pyschological damage was incalculable. People had even been known to consign themselves to wheelchairs.
'You haven't spoken to Julian, have you?'
'About what?' Jessie could hear that faint edge of hysteria.
'About my progress.'
'He always asks, of course.' Jessie smiled at her calmingly, certain Lucie needed shock tactics but uncertain what Julian intended.
'He wants me to go in to class!’ Lucie's violet eyes mirror
ed her terror.
'So?'
'You can't know what you're saying, Jessie!' Lucie stared back incredulously. 'I can't go to class. I can't possibly work out—you know that!'
Jessie brought her strong, warm hand consolingly down on Lucie's. 'I expect Julian has a few little limbering up exercises worked out—nothing strenuous.'
'You don't know him!' Lucie suddenly shouted. 'He's merciless!’
'He has your welfare very much at heart,' Jessie corrected her almost sternly. 'He won't ask you to do anything you're not able.'
'Oh, Jessie!' Lucie bowed her silky raven head like an abandoned child.
'There, there.' Even Jessie, normally a tower of strength to her patients, was flustered. 'I know Julian is very volatile. . . .'
'He goes up in flames!' Lucie threw her two arms in the air with such expressiveness Jessie blinked.
'It's simply, dear, that he wants to check on you himself. You know he's never home these days, so you must go with him to the studio. What is there to fear?'
