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  I was at the English Ballet Company School, Anna thought, bristling. I was going to be a star. She closed her eyes and saw sequins and feathers and Swarovski crystals. Powder on a white puff, flicks of eyeliner and the sparkle of shadow. Tights with a hint of shimmer, pointes worn down to the box, ribbons frayed around her calf, the hoops of sweat on her leotard, the vomit in her mouth the split-second before the curtain went up, the thrum of the orchestra, the darkness of her eyelids as she waited, one deep breath after another until she could feel the warm, engulfing heat of the lights. The steely determination, the poise, the in-built stubbornness that fired like the strike of a match as soon as anyone questioned whether she could do it, whether she wanted to or not.

  ‘Tell me what time they rehearse,’ she said, pulling on her sunglasses, deliberately not looking at Seb. ‘I’ll be there.’

  Chapter Six

  The Nettleton village hall was at the far end of the square, red brick with a parapet and a white key stone with the date, 1906, carved into the masonry. It was flanked on either side by plane trees, their prickly seeds swaying like hedgehogs, the leaves shading the front steps with spots of dancing light breaking through like rain. By the looks of the noticeboard, it was used for everything, from old people’s tea dances to after-school clubs. From the outside, Anna could see the windows decorated with paper-plate suns and pipe-cleaner daffodils.

  She could feel her hand shake as she pushed open the heavy wooden front doors and was almost blown backwards by some hideous pop track as it blasted in her face like a roar.

  Perfect, she thought. It was like her once only venture to Glastonbury. Same annoying-looking teenagers, same painful music, same hippy-dippy niceness and probably only one toilet that worked.

  Jackie and Mrs McNamara were standing at the front of the stage chatting while, what looked to Anna, a bunch of malnutritioned juveniles bounced around like malcoordinated maniacs on stage wearing tracksuit bottoms, oversized T-shirts and crop-tops. One, she noticed, was actually wearing a onesie with a tail. That would have to go.

  ‘Anna!’ Jackie called, clearly delighted to see her for the pure fact she could now pass the buck of this terrifying shambles.

  The hall was stuffy and Anna felt completely overdressed in tight leather-effect leggings, flimsy blue tank-top and a gossamer MaxMara cardigan. The heat, mixed with the nerves of coming back into this type of situation, of drawing on skills that lay happily dormant, made her wonder if she might faint.

  ‘This is the dream team, Anna Whitehall,’ Mrs McNamara shouted, and Anna’s name on her lips catapulted her straight back to gym class. Huffing and puffing across the lacrosse pitch in the freezing cold. Come on, Whitehall, none of your ballet flim-flam out here!

  Anna gave her a tight smile, and then they all stood side by side for a second and watched the debacle on stage. The horror of what she was watching quickly gazumped her fears.

  ‘OK, Matt,’ Jackie shouted. ‘Turn it off a second.’

  A loping, spotty teenager flicked off his iPod on the stand and Anna felt like she’d experienced a miracle.

  ‘Everyone, this is Anna Whitehall. She’s here to put the final touches to the routine. Iron it out before the big audition.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Anna whispered, perplexed. ‘Was that the routine?’

  ‘Yeah, what about it?’ A girl with a bright-orange Amy Winehouse beehive shouted from the stage, a tiny nose stud glinting as she sneered.

  Anna just waved a hand. ‘Nothing,’ she said, but could feel a wave of the stifled giggles washing over her, mixing with the adrenaline of her nerves, which must have done something strange to her expression because another girl sprang forward, this one with a platinum fringe flicked like Farah Fawcett, and said, eyes narrowed, ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Well, it’s just—’ Anna glanced at Jackie and Mrs McNamara for back-up, but they both just looked at her with blank expressions. ‘Well, it has no steps,’ she sniggered, as if it was obvious. She was the first to admit that this style of dancing wasn’t her forte, but it didn’t take a genius to see it was just a hotch-potch of random jumping about the place.

  ‘It’s got fucking steps.’ Matt, the iPod owner said, running his hand through his dirty-blond hair and frowning, his freckle-smattered nose runkling.

  ‘OK, Matthew, don’t swear,’ Mrs McNamara cut in.

  The flicky fringe girl pointed a finger at Anna. ‘What would you know, anyway?’

  Anna raised a brow, was the girl baring her teeth at her? Christ, it was like being in the zoo. Anna shook her hair and straightened her back in an attempt to maintain her hierarchy. ‘I’m a professionally trained dancer—’ she said, and was about to add her qualifications; that she was a goddamn expert in everything from classical ballet to jazz and contemporary to bloody mime, when Jackie cut in, ‘Lucy, Anna was going to be a star!’

  Anna turned to see if she had deliberately said it like that to belittle her, and from the slight tilt of Jackie’s lips, realised that that was exactly what she’d done.

  ‘But you weren’t? You never made it?’ Lucy’s lips pulled into a smug smile and a couple of the others giggled.

  Anna swallowed. ‘I grew too tall,’ she replied quickly and too defensively, she realised. ‘I would have done. But I was too tall,’ she said again, slightly slower and with a hint more poise.

  ‘You don’t look very tall to me. Darcey Bussell is tall.’

  Anna rolled her eyes. ‘TV makes you look taller.’

  ‘What’s your excuse then?’ some little wavy-haired shit called from the back and they all laughed.

  ‘Billy!’ Mrs McNamara said with a warning tone, but even her lips twitched.

  Anna ran her tongue along her bottom lip, furious. As they all eyed her with delight, she just managed to stop herself from retaliating. She was better than this, than them. She glanced up at the ceiling. There was no marble ceiling rose here, no golden cherubs carved into the plaster, no fleur-de-lis in the arched moulding, no giant spotlights or even a lighting rig, no royal box with duck-egg-blue furniture and velvet drapes. No, this was nothing.

  She surveyed the motley crew, all attitude, Beats headphones round their necks and low-slung tracksuit bottoms. She thought of her stars at the Opera House ‒ their elegant grace, their long limbs like gazelles as they stretched, their fluid beauty as they poured themselves into yards of net and tulle that shone and frothed and flickered as they danced. She thought of sitting in the stalls, watching with her notepad, pen poised for notes, swallowing down the giant lump of envy, of failure, of disappointment, lodged in her throat.

  She didn’t have to do this.

  She glanced across the row of them as they flopped down on the edge of the stage, at the spots, the barely there stubble and the Wonderbras, and shook her head as if to say that they were lucky to have her, and then made the movement to turn and walk away but, as she did, she saw the chin jut out of Farah Fawcett Lucy and was catapulted back further, to exactly where she hadn’t wanted to go: to her interview at the English Ballet Company School. Her hands shaking and sweaty as she’d passed the state-of-the-art, air-conditioned studios, head down, eyes glancing furtively to the left and seeing only the unwavering confidence reflected off the faces of the dancers in the three-sixty wall of mirrors.

  ‘You will give your life, Anna, and most probably fail.’ Madame LaRoche had said, her black cigarette pants and spotty scarf making Anna feel like Audrey Hepburn was sitting crossed-legged in the chair in front of her, cigarette dangling between her red lips. ‘Less than one percent make it, Anna. And you are already old. Already you will have to catch up. One percent.’ She held her fingers close together to show the tiny amount. ‘Are you in that one percent?’

  Anna hadn’t answered.

  ‘Of course she is.’ Her mother had crossed her hands over her Chanel bag, the only designer item she owned, that she pulled out of its tissue paper at the bottom of the wardrobe to impress at moments like this.

&
nbsp; ‘Anna?’ Madame LaRoche had fixed her in her beautiful, beady gaze. ‘Are you in the top one percent? Do you have the hunger?’

  And Anna had swallowed. She thought of the auditions, of the classes she had watched, of the girls who might be thinner, harder, cleverer, tougher than her. Girls who didn’t blink when they looked at her. Who danced through stress fractures, twisted ankles, who pushed themselves till they were sick on the floor, vomiting blood they’d worked so hard. Toes bound and crushed and bleeding; blistered, swollen feet frozen in ice. The constant, gruelling quest for perfection, the hours at the barre, the gnawing hunger. Knees strapped into place, tiredness that seeped into the bones like lead, weighing you down like an astronaut suit. Did she have the hunger?

  In Nettleton, Anna was the top one percent. Here. Here she felt suddenly tiny, soft, fragile, breakable, scared, nervous, terrified. She could see her father watching them leave, cheeks wet, begging her mother to stay, that he was sorry. She could see the eyes in the street as they sped out of the town. She glanced momentarily at her mother, saw her rigid jaw, her defiance, her determination.

  ‘For goodness sake,’ her mother huffed, ‘Stop asking her. Of course she is.’

  ‘Anna?’ Madame LaRoche had asked again.

  And Anna had done that pose, the Farah Fawcett Lucy pose. She had swallowed down all her fear, she had locked it up tight, jutted out her chin and thought of all the girls she would have to battle to take down. ‘Yes,’ she said, unblinking. ‘Yes. I’m better than the top one percent.’

  And then she had fought like a stray dog in that place, the black-haired, olive-skinned girl amidst a sea of alabaster blondes who would walk past in the corridor whispering things like, ‘Bet she doesn’t even know what a passé is.’ By the time she had to come back to Nettleton for holidays, she was a tough little ball of conditioned attitude and steely defences.

  ‘Anna?’ Jackie said again, nudging her on the arm this time.

  ‘Yes.’ Anna spun to face her, tearing her eyes from the girl on the stage. ‘Sorry, yes. Erm.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘OK, look, maybe I wasn’t watching clearly.’ She took a step back, ran her eyes back over the bunch of reprobates. ‘Why don’t you come down off the stage, I’d like to see it here, on the floor. You shouldn’t be on the stage yet, you’re not ready.’ She pulled off her cardigan when she realised that she was sweating and would have killed someone for a glass of water.

  ‘Come on,’ she called as none of them moved. ‘Jackie, Mrs McNamara, it’s fine, I’ll take it from here.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ said Mrs McNamara dubiously as she watched the kids schlep sullenly down the stairs to the vacant space in the centre of the hall.

  ‘It’s fine.’ Anna waved a hand. ‘It’ll be better without you.’

  Jackie raised a brow and smirked. ‘OK, if you say so.’ The two of them then made a show of slowly gathering their bags and walking out of the hall, pointedly glancing over their shoulders to check that order hadn’t slipped to chaos.

  Razzmatazz lined up sulkily, facing Anna, but none of them meeting her eyes. Ten-year-old Billy, thick wavy brown hair, too long and swept to the side like a miniature Justin Beiber, who seemed to just come on stage to be thrown about the place, scowled at her like she was the devil.

  ‘OK, no music. I’m going to clap the beat,’ Anna said as they stared at the floor.

  ‘No fucking music? We can’t do it with no fucking music,’ Matt shouted.

  Anna saw Jackie pause at the door and open her mouth, but she jumped in before she could say anything. ‘No, you probably can’t,’ Anna said, curtly. ‘That’s my point. If there are steps, you won’t need music.’ She eyeballed Matt. ‘At the moment all you have is, as you say so delightfully, fucking music. Fucking shit music at that.’

  Billy sniggered.

  ‘We can all swear,’ she went on. ‘I’d just prefer it if from now on we didn’t.’

  ‘And why the FUCK should we do what you say?’ Lucy goaded.

  ‘Well,’ Anna paused for a second and then smiled, ‘You know those montages on Britain’s Got Talent of all the worst acts, the really, really bad ones, that they play over and over again?’

  No one said anything.

  ‘At the moment that’ll be you,’ Anna said happily, cocking her head to the side, her lips stretched into a wide fake smile as all the kids looked at the floor. ‘Right, let’s go.’

  An hour later, Anna wondered if some of them had sweated for the first time in their lives. And she had to congratulate herself for the fact that they were now at least moving their feet in time with one another on occasion.

  Seb was waiting for her outside, leaning against the side of the car reading a book. Anna was feeling good, not that she’d admit how good to anyone, but it felt like she’d achieved something. Not a massive amount, but more than sorting antiques into boxes and getting job application rejections.

  The feeling made her see Seb differently too. Blond hair caught in the early evening sun that was just dipping behind the spire on the church, eyes down, concentrating on the book, lips moving ever so slightly, long fingers turning the pages. His tie was loosened and top button undone. He wasn’t the enemy. He was hers, she remembered, like an object she’d put in a cupboard or on a shelf and forgotten about, something she’d seen so often she no longer saw it.

  Pulling on her cardigan, she crossed the road and when she was by his side kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Oh!’ He looked up, startled, ‘What was that for?’ he said, as if such casual shows of affection weren’t something they’d done for a while.

  She shrugged. ‘I just, you know—’ Suddenly a bit embarrassed for being so free. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘How was it?’ he asked, glancing from her to the door of the hall.

  ‘Yeah, good.’ She nodded. Wanting to say more, to let everything trip off her tongue about how she’d whipped them into shape, how in one fell swoop she’d stopped the swearing and made them focus on job in hand. How it had felt using skills that she had let hibernate for so long. ‘They’re terrible and there’s just so much work to be done, but it was a good start. I think we’re all pleased.’

  Seb nodded, incredulous but impressed. ‘And you like them? You were OK with them?’

  ‘I wouldn’t necessarily say I like them, but I think we respect each other. I think they’re grateful that I’m here.’ Shielding her eyes from the sun, she gave him a casual shrug and breathed in the sweet smell of the evening sunshine.

  Seb closed his book and draped his arm over her shoulder, ‘Well congratulations.’

  She liked the feeling of his surprise, of his appreciation. ‘Yeah, it was good,’ she said, pushing her shoulders back, flicking her hair out of her eyes. ‘I like to think I made a difference.’

  ‘Well I was certainly wrong, wasn’t I?’ He squeezed her shoulder.

  ‘Yes you were!’ she said with faux put-outness. ‘I think I was pretty good. Made them realise the work something like this takes, how they need to apply themselves.’

  ‘Good work, Anna. See, not so bad here, after all.’

  She almost agreed. It was almost there on the tip of her tongue...

  But then the doors in front of them were kicked open with a bang, and they both turned to see the kids start to amble out of the hall, bags slung over their shoulders, make-up redone, sweaty tops changed, Coke cans in their hands and packets of Hula Hoops.

  ‘That was shit,’ Lucy said, with a flump of her freshly back-combed hair.

  Two at the back turned to look furtively in Anna’s direction while Clara, with the flame beehive, said lazily through a yawn, ‘It was total crap. And I’m fucking knackered. I’m done.’

  ‘It’s like Nazi youth camp,’ Matt said.

  ‘Hey, we should tell Mr Watson next History.’ A fat boy Anna had ignored threw his head back with a guffaw.

  Matt laughed, ‘We could put her up as an example of modern dictatorship.’

  �
��I’m done as well,’ Billy piped up and kicked a stone that Matt caught with the side of his trainer and booted miles ahead.

  Clara swiped him round the head. ‘You have to go, Mum wouldn’t let you quit.’

  ‘That’s just unfair,’ he whined and they all laughed.

  After a pause, Lucy added loudly, ‘It’s cos she’s such a fucking bitch.’ And gave a casual flick of her fringe as her eyes skated sideways to lock with Anna’s.

  As Anna’s lips parted, her mouth just dropping open a fraction, the others giggled but, noticing Seb, their new geography teacher, pulled their heads together as if he wouldn’t be able to single them out individually if they became one giant organism that scuttled off like a crab along the pavement.

  Anna sucked in a breath. The word bitch hit her hard in the stomach. She wanted to go over and grab bloody Lucy by her bloody fringe and tell her she wasn’t allowed to call her a bitch. She swallowed, thought of what she’d said to Seb, of how she thought they had been hanging off her every word. Her little victory popped.

  She felt Seb’s hand on her shoulder and wanted to shake it off. The last thing she could face was his sympathy.

  I don’t care, she repeated to herself. I don’t care. Call her a bitch. That was good. It was good not to be liked. All those teachers with canes and detentions in the past, good old-fashioned discipline, they didn’t care if they were liked. In fact, it was better this way. Hate her. Yes. That was much easier.

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked Seb.

  ‘Yeah,’ she shrugged, nonchalant. ‘Fine.’

  He paused and she could tell he was debating whether to say something else.

  ‘Anna—’ he started.

  Here we go, she thought.

  ‘The thing is, with kids you have to connect with them. You know, you can’t just tell them what to do.’

  ‘Thanks for that, Seb,’ she muttered. Codswallop, she thought. You want something, you work damn hard to achieve it.