Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs

by Clayton, Victoria

  Everything depended on how badly Mr Lubikoff wanted me to dance for him. It might be that he had a partner in mind for me. As with candlesticks, ornaments, occasional tables and so on, a pair was worth more than the sum of its parts. Karsavina and Nijinsky, Fonteyn and Nureyev, Sibley and Dowell, couples who struck sparks from each other’s dancing as well as looking good together filled theatres faster than anything. But Mr Lubikoff would not show his hand immediately. For the time being I could not afford to do anything that would make Sebastian my enemy. In my perplexity I almost folded my hands behind my head, the position I generally adopt for serious thinking, but a loud hiss from Sebastian, like a train building up a head of steam before pulling out from the station, prompted me to sigh and look swooningly at his face, now in the grimace of imminent orgasm, the silver lock of hair falling forward across his high bony forehead.

  ‘Be … good … and … you can … dance with … Freddy!’ Each word was accompanied by a powerful thrust that made the boiler blow.

  As he leaned, panting, over me, mission accomplished, I added Freddy to the equation. Frederick Tone, LBC’s premier danseur, and Mariana Willoughby, both dancing at this moment with the touring part of the LBC in America, had failed to become one of those desirable partnerships. No one could say why, it was just one of those things. Freddy had a virtuosic technique with unequalled elevations. Also he had a perfect physique and was breathtakingly handsome. Poor Alex, with whom I usually danced, had no neck, narrow shoulders, a rugby-ball-shaped head and tiny pink-rimmed eyes like a French bull terrier. And although he was technically first class, he never seemed to catch fire, at least not with me. Alex was a nice boy and I was fond of him, but niceness is irrelevant in a partnership – which was lucky because Freddy was an absolute shit.

  Sebastian was already adjusting his clothing. I got back into mine with a feeling of relief that had nothing to do with the act of coitus. Though dancers are usually tremendously sexy, perhaps as an extension of the intense physicality of their lives, and will couple with more or less anyone and anything, I personally could not see what the fuss was about.

  I had lost my virginity at the age of seventeen to a sixty-year-old dramaturge who had been working with Orlando Silverbridge on a revival of Frontispiece, an eccentric ballet which combined dancing and verse. It had been my first professional engagement in the corps. The dramaturge had seemed very old to me then, almost geriatric. He was well connected, a chum of royalty, with a long and distinguished career behind him, and was feted by everyone worth knowing in the arts. He had a bald head but, as if to make up for it, furry ears and a mass of curly grey hair growing over a stomach distended by good living. I made myself go through what was a ghastly experience by reminding myself of his promise to get Orlando, with whom the dramaturge was having an affair at the time, to kick me out of the corps if I didn’t cooperate. I knew he could because Orlando was tremendously ambitious and, despite the furry tum, sat up and begged whenever the dramaturge offered a titbit.

  The deflowering had taken place in one of the rooms beneath the stage where props are stored. Princess Aurora’s bed had been conveniently to hand. Afterwards I had wept in Lizzie’s arms because in those days I had entertained silly romantic notions about love. Unfortunately, when Orlando discovered that I had slept with the dramaturge – I always suspected Bella of sneaking, he had been so annoyed about me poaching on his preserve that it had taken me nearly two years to get back into his good books.

  ‘I’m late for lunch.’ Sebastian looked at his watch and spoke with a hint of annoyance in his tone, as though I had detained him. While I was fastening the ribbons of my shoes he consulted his address book, picked up the telephone and dialled a number.

  ‘Hello? Wilton’s? Will you tell Lord Bezant I’ll be fifteen minutes late. With my apologies.’ He put down the receiver. ‘It won’t do the old skinflint any harm to realize that some of us have jobs to do. I want him to cough up for Les Patineurs. I’ll see you this evening after the show. We’ll go back to Dulwich.’

  Dulwich was the location of the beautiful but dilapidated Regency house where Sebastian lived, which contained little furniture apart from essentials. The drawing room was quite empty, apart from the sofa on which he conducted his love affairs when at home, and his one luxury, a magnificent Steinway grand piano. It was sign of extraordinary favour to be invited to Sebastian’s residence. I knew for a fact that Sebastian’s previous lover had not once crossed the threshold.

  ‘Oh, how lovely! The only thing is … I expect I’ll be rather tired. And there’s the problem of taxis.’

  I had been invited to Dulwich for the first time after Sebastian’s birthday supper at Les Chanterelles. That was two months ago, and when Bella had heard the gossip which had flown round the company about this signal honour, she had given up even pretending to like me. She might have been comforted had she known what a miserable evening it had been. At the restaurant Sebastian had been too busy charming the guests he had earmarked to sponsor forthcoming productions to spare even a glance for me. I had sat between an embittered choreographer who had twice been passed over in favour of Orlando and an impresario whose wife had recently run off with a scene painter. They were glassy-eyed by the main course and sobbing by the pudding. Even the excellent food had not consoled me. Dancers have to be light so they can be lifted easily. I had eaten a few oysters, a small piece of chicken, three lettuce leaves and a slice of pineapple, and looked on hungrily while everyone else made beasts of themselves.

  After several gruelling hours, Sebastian had grabbed my arm, shoved me into a taxi and swept me off to Dulwich. I had had little time to admire the beauty of the house. Sebastian had removed my coat and pointed to the sofa. Sex burns up a lot of calories. Throughout the lovemaking I thought about the dish of pommes frites the weeping impresario had left untouched. I could have eaten the lot without putting on an ounce. When Sebastian had satisfied himself, he helped me into my coat, conducted me to the front door and closed it firmly behind me. It was two o’clock in the morning and not a cab in sight. I had spent a grim three-quarters of an hour in a telephone box which stank of pee until I found a minicab to take me home.

  ‘You can stay the night,’ said Sebastian. I must have looked amazed for he added, ‘You won’t disturb me. You can sleep on the sofa.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said humbly, well aware that this was largesse almost without precedent.

  He looked at his watch again. ‘Scoot.’

  I scooted. The canteen was full. I had to eat my apple and cheese – there were no yoghurts left – standing up.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ Lizzie came over to join me.

  ‘In Lenoir’s office, fucking, probably,’ said Bella, who was sitting at a table nearby. Her companions laughed with detectable hostility. Since I had become Sebastian’s mistress, and especially since I had been given the role of Giselle, my friendships had evaporated with a speed that would have alarmed me had I not seen it happen to others in the same circumstances. Should I become tremendously successful they would come crowding back. Meanwhile I was in an unhappy limbo, no longer one of the crowd nor yet one of the gods. It was wretched but there was nothing I could do about it.

  I ignored the sniggers and assumed an air of calm superiority. ‘I’ve been breaking in a pair of shoes actually.’

  ‘Really?’ Bella spoke scornfully. ‘Then why have you got paper polos stuck all over your back?’

  I waited, hidden from the audience, inside the wooden construction that was painted outside to represent the cottage where Giselle lived with her mother. Behind me in the wings, the corps, dressed like me as village maidens, were stretching and flexing, preparing themselves for their next entrance. My heart beat so hard it seemed to vibrate against the boned bodice of my tutu and my bare arms broke into goose pimples. Tears of excitement filled my eyes. Now I knew that the tremendous, relentless effort to fashion my body into the perfect instrument – the aching muscles, the strains, the sprains, t
he bruises, the bloody toes, the starving, the rotten pay, the rivalries, jealousies and disappointments – had been worth it. From the age of six when I had been told to run round the village hall pretending to be a butterfly, my life had been directed towards this aim, to express with my body beauty, fear, love, grief, joy, hope, despair, evil, apotheosis.

  The percussion struck the notes that mimicked the knocking of Count Albrecht on the cottage door. The stage hand who was waiting with his hand on the latch to open it for me wished me luck. I heard him as though in a dream. Already I was a peasant girl in a state of tremulous expectation, sighing for her mysterious lover whose wooing had transformed her humdrum rural existence into a life of transcendent bliss. I burned to see him, to feel his arms about my waist, to look into his eyes, to marvel at his beauty, to express my gratitude for his love, to share with him a glorious vision of future happiness as man and wife. The music slowed, anticipating Giselle’s entrance. The door opened, I counted the beats, drew in my breath, rose to demi-pointe, and launched myself into a world of sound, light, colour and intoxication.

  2

  Daylight crept through the gap in the curtains that hung round my bed. Out of the confusion of sleep emerged one clear idea, a craving for a glass of water. My eyes and mouth were dry and my skin felt splittingly tight. I barely had time to register these discomforts before a flame of pain in my left foot banished all other sensations. I opened my eyes and lay still, concentrating on not tensing the muscles in my left leg, hoping to lull my foot to a tolerable ache. Siggy, the darling, stirred, stretched and rolled on to his back, snoring faintly.

  After five minutes or so the searing seemed to cool a little. I stared at the canopy of gold sateen above my head. The sateen had cost less than a pound a metre and was meant for lining things, but when gathered into a sunburst of pleats with a lustrous crumpled fabric rose in the centre to hide the stitching, you really couldn’t tell how cheap it was.

  When I was eight my mother had taken my sister and me to Newcastle to see The Sleeping Beauty. The moment the lord chamberlain in his full-bottomed wig had come mincing on to the stage in high-heeled red shoes, I had been ravished from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet by the beauty of that sparkling, starry, fairytale world. I had made a secret resolution, so thrilling I had hardly dared to acknowledge it even to myself, that I was going to be a famous ballerina.

  A little later in the performance I had also resolved to have a red and gold bed like Princess Aurora’s. This was much easier to achieve. I had spent many enjoyable hours with a hammer, nails, scissors, glue and a needle and thread. The crimson velvet curtains that hung round my four-poster had once separated the stage of the Chancery Lane Playhouse from its audience before the theatre closed for good. The gilt cord, stitched into triple loops at each outside corner of the tester and ornamented with gold tassels, had trimmed the palanquin of King Shahryar in Scheherazade. However tired I was, however discouraged by a less than perfect performance, however tormented by Sebastian’s demands, my beautiful bed embraced me, soothed me and cheered me. Every night, unless the weather was really sweltering, I drew the curtains all the way round so that Siggy and I were warm and safe inside our little red room with the critical, competitive world shut out.

  I stroked Siggy’s chin gently. He stirred and stuck out the tip of his tongue. He was incontestably my favourite bed companion. But why was I at home? Why was I not even now basking in the perquisites of director’s moll, lying on the hard little sofa in the unheated drawing room at Dulwich, my already shattered frame having been probed, impaled, bounced on and generally misused? Then I remembered the extraordinary events of the day before.

  At first Fortune had seemed to be on my side. I had been spared the customary two hours of répétition after lunch. Madame had decided to devote the afternoon to rehearsing the corps since they had, she asserted, ‘ze elegance of a ’erd of cattle. You ’op about as zo you are being prodded in ze rump by ze cow’and. Togezer!’

  A free afternoon was a rare luxury. I had gone back to the flat I shared with Sorel and Nancy, also dancers in the LBC, to wash my tights – frequent washing was the only way to get rid of wrinkles which were so obvious on the stage – and break in an extra pair of pointe shoes. A virgin pair clacks as loudly on the stage as the husks of coconuts imitating a trotting horse. The second act of Giselle calls for feather-light landings. I had already broken in three pairs for that evening’s performance but, with the state my foot was in after that unlucky sissone, I thought it might be wise to have a fourth. Once the box – the hard section your toes fit into – becomes soft through wear your foot isn’t supported properly. I was worried but not despairing about the injury sustained that morning. Dancers spend practically all their professional lives in pain. Often our feet are soaked in blood. They have to be wrapped in bandages and lashings of antibiotic ointment. The rest of our bodies are tortured by strained muscles and ligaments and the overuse of joints. Perhaps the undeniable romance of suffering for one’s art helps to make the agony bearable.

  Each dancer has her own method for breaking in new pointe shoes. Some people smash them on the floor, some shut them in doors, but I always used a rubber mallet. A few judicious blows weaken the brittle layers of hessian and glue that the toe box is made from. Having moulded them to the shape of your foot so they fit like a second skin, you paint them with shellac which hardens to preserve the exact shape. Then the tips have to be darned to give a good grip and the ribbons sewn on. It was a process with which I was so familiar that it always acted as a tranquillizer for mounting nerves.

  When I had prepared the shoes to my own satisfaction, I examined my body for hair. Dancers have to be perfectly smooth. Everything except eyebrows and eyelashes must be plucked away. This was no problem for me as my body hair was fine and easily discouraged, but girls with dark hair spent hours each week painfully engaged with tweezers and hot wax. Then I sat by the window and contemplated a fading photograph of a woman wearing a long tutu with a garland of flowers round her skirts and more flowers in her hair, en arabesque penchée. Dancers are a superstitious lot and before performances they resort to whatever sympathetic magic they’ve convinced themselves will help them to give of their best – invoking saints, lighting candles, hiding amulets in their underwear, or in my case attempting to commune with the spirit of Anna Pavlova. Pavlova had weak feet, poor turn-out, a scrawny physique and bad placement, yet she was one of the greatest ballerinas of the twentieth century. She was famous for the power and passion of her dancing which she combined with a delicate expressiveness. Technique alone does not make a good dancer. I always reminded myself of this before I went on stage.

  Giselle was due to start at half-past seven. I arrived at the theatre at six. An enormous bouquet of dark pink lilies, pale yellow roses and green hellebores took up much of the valuable space in my dressing room. I looked at the card. With respect and admiration, Miko Lubikoff. I almost screamed aloud. Who else would have read it? Certainly Annie, my dresser, and Cyril, the stage-door keeper. Like everyone else they were gossips. The arrival of the flowers must be all round the theatre by now, which presumably was what Mr Lubikoff had intended. Sebastian was too lofty for mundane conversation, but Madame would lose no time in letting him know. I cut the card into tiny scraps with my nail scissors and threw them into the bin. I would have to tell a lie and it ought to be a good one.

  ‘Hello, darling.’ Lizzie was wearing a mauve quilted dressing gown full of holes. Her face was covered with Max Factor pancake. Her ringlets had been temporarily tamed by a hairnet and her round brown eyes had been extended with black lines almost to her temples. ‘Just came to wish you good – my God! When Annie said it was a enormous bunch she wasn’t exaggerating! Lubikoff’s serious then? You sneaky thing! I do think you might have told me.’

  ‘The flowers, you mean.’ I tried to look unconcerned. ‘They’re from my godmother, actually.’

  Lizzie snorted. ‘You’re going to have to do
better than that if you don’t want Sebastian to rend you limb from gorgeous limb. That bouquet can’t have cost less than twenty pounds. Everyone knows that godmothers are mean as hell.’

  It was certainly true that mine was. For my last birthday she had sent me a card with a ‘reduced to half price’ label on the back and a cookery book which was clearly second-hand as half the pages were stuck together. As I cannot afford to be wasteful, I had hollowed out the middle, carving my way through splashes of bygone soups, kedgerees and charlottes to make a cache for valuables. It would come in very useful when I had any.

  ‘Oh, Lizzie! I’ve hated not telling you. But there isn’t actually anything to tell. I got a letter from Mr Lubikoff last week saying that he was coming to the workshop and was hoping to be able to talk to me alone afterwards. That’s all.’

  This was not quite true. He had gone on to say that he considered me a fine classical dancer with extraordinary vitality and a magnificent line. He was anxious that because of my undoubted fitness for the ballets blancs – things like Swan Lake, Giselle and La Bayadère in which the girls wear white tutus – I might be denied the chance to interpret contemporary works. He thought the role of Alice in Through the Looking Glass, which the EB were putting on in a few months’ time would be perfectly suited to developing my range of dramatic expression. I knew this paragraph by heart. Everyone is hungry for praise but I believe dancers are more famished than any other group of artists. During classes we receive a continual flow of negative criticism which, although intended to be constructive, lowers morale. Even after a good performance there is always a painstaking analysis with emphasis on improvements that could be made to the curve of a wrist here, the turn of a head there.

  However, modesty forbad taking Lizzie fully into my confidence. Besides, words cost nothing, and in the theatrical world are flung about like autumn leaves.