A Girl’s Guide to Kissing Frogs

5

The winter of 1982 was the coldest on record. I read in the newspaper Lizzie had brought the fish and chips in that they were restoring the hothouses at Kew and one of the rarest plants, a Chilean palm, had been wrapped in a polythene tower through which warm air was pumped to keep it alive. I envied it. Shortly after Lizzie left, the boiler that provided hot water for the bathroom and heated the tiny radiator in my bedroom broke down. In the morning there were frost patterns all over the window and my breath curled up like a whale spout into the crimson canopy.

The hours went by at the pace of an old woman crawling on arthritic hands and knees. My spirits drooped but I told myself not to be so self-indulgent, hopped over to the bookcase and found the first volume of Gibbon. I managed to read for ten minutes before sleep overwhelmed me. I awoke with a dry throat and a feeling of loneliness so acute that even Siggy in all his transcendent beauty could not console me. I read more Gibbon. Gibbon-lovers I had met always held forth in a lofty way about the elegant simplicity of his prose. Probably you have to be in a cheerful mood for it to do you any good. After three-quarters of an hour I was ready to throw myself out of the window.

I had a jolly good cry for about five minutes which made me feel marginally better. I mopped my swollen lids with a hanky soaked in cold water and stared through the grimy window at the darkening sky bisected by pigeons and starlings. If I could not show more strength of mind than this I deserved to fail. Emotional resilience is not the least of the requirements for a dancer. From the moment training starts at the age of ten or eleven, there is a high possibility of failure. At the end of each summer term, weeping girls are driven away, never to return. If you are one of the lucky ones chosen to go up to the next level, your elation is moderated by the knowledge that the following summer it could easily be you packing your suitcase in tears because you are too tall, too fat, too heavy-footed or not strong enough. Or you might lack the right temperament, be unable to take instruction fast enough, have a muted personality, be unmusical or simply not please the eye. After six years of gruelling work, if you meet the requirements of the selection board, you graduate into the upper school and become a student. But this is not a guarantee that you will get a place in a company. Even those who attend ballet schools that feed specific companies have only a small chance of a contract. Perhaps half a dozen a year are taken into the corps.

When I showed an aptitude for ballet my parents sent me to Brackenbury House in Manchester. The teaching was excellent but we girls always felt ourselves to be provincials. At the age of sixteen, five of us, considered the best dancers in the school, were determined to come to London to audition for the Lenoir Ballet Company. We chose the LBC because it had no feeder school of its own. Bella, Lizzie and I got in. The other two, good though they were, had to face the fact that their careers in ballet were effectively over. One went into musicals and the other became a PE teacher. That’s how hard it is to get anywhere.

I had to convince myself that this injury was a temporary blip on the upward trajectory of my career. The gods had been with me so far. I would earn their respect by maintaining a positive cheerfulness in the face of this minor disaster.

I put on a hat and gloves and tried to read more Gibbon with nothing but my watering eyes over the bedclothes before giving in and shivering with Siggy in the darkness beneath the blankets, popping our heads out at intervals for oxygen. I had never thought about it before because I had been too busy, but now I realized that happiness, my happiness anyway, depended on structure and order. From the age of ten almost every minute of my life had been organized. A dancer’s body is like a fine instrument that needs delicate tuning. After even a few days’ rest, one’s muscles become stiff and uncooperative. However tired we were, however bad our headaches or colds, six days out of seven we went to at least one class a day. On Sundays, Nancy, Sorel and I exercised for several hours in our sitting room, which had a barre and a large mirror that we had fixed to the wall ourselves. Now the hours stretched ahead of me, blank, frighteningly empty.

I was roused from a state of semiconsciousness by a knock on the front door. I looked at my clock. Half-past seven in the evening of the longest day of my life. The knock came again. Pulling the eiderdown round me, I limped into the hall. I lifted the letterbox flap. A delicious and reassuring scent drifted through the draughty rectangle. I opened the door.

‘Marigold! Thank … goodness!’

‘Bobbie! How wonderful! But you’re almost the last person in the world I expected to see! I thought you were in Ireland.’

‘I am … usually. Can … come in? … as … phyxiating out here.’

‘Of course!’ I embraced her enthusiastically. ‘Oh, sorry, I probably stink to high heaven. I haven’t been able to have a bath today and you smell gorgeous.’

‘Luckily … bottle of scent to … drown myself … might not … made it … top.’ Bobbie was puffing like one of those little funicular trains that run up cliffs. ‘… going to see … Giselle … last night but you … not dancing … rang the company … at home … broken leg.’ She hugged me again then held me at arm’s length. ‘… look at you.’ Her eyes took in my cap, my gloves, my cast and my shivering state. ‘Marigold! … mauve … cold! Bed … at once!’

I was too weak to do other than obey. Bobbie brought a chair up to the bed and sat panting for a while, holding my hand and chafing my back.

‘All right, I’ve got my breath now. Why is this place colder than a polar cap?’

I explained about the boiler. She went away and came back with the blankets from the other two beds. She piled them on my recumbent form, keeping one to wrap round herself. ‘That’s better. Now tell me about your poor leg.’

‘Foot actually. It’s a comminuted fracture but the surgeon thinks it’ll mend all right. I’m starting to feel warmer already. I don’t know why I didn’t think about Nancy and Sorel’s bedclothes.’

‘I expect you’ve got mild hypothermia. The mind is the first thing that goes, apparently.’

‘Oh, Bobbie!’ I looked at her with pleasure. Even had she been as ugly as a warty old crone I would have been thrilled to see a fellow human being, but she happened to be remarkably beautiful. ‘I hope you aren’t a dream. I couldn’t bear it if you vanished now.’

‘I’m here, darling, and I’m not going to leave you until I know you’re all right. Why aren’t you being properly looked after?’

‘Sebastian told the clinic I was going to a nursing home so they’d let me out early, but it would have been too expensive. And everyone in the company’s either away or too busy.’ I brought Bobbie up to date with the events of the past week, feeling warmth return to my extremities and optimism to my powers of reasoning. ‘I don’t need looking after, really. I can hobble about. It’s just that it’s so difficult to get up and down the stairs.’

‘I’ll find something for us to eat and then we’ll think what’s the best thing to do.’

‘There’s a tin of frankfurters.’ I pulled a face. ‘Otherwise it’s brawn, I’m afraid.’

Bobbie picked up a pale green carrier bag with ‘Fortnum and Mason’ written on it. ‘I stopped on my way to pick up a few bits and pieces. I won’t be a minute.’

She returned with a tray piled with good things.

‘Smoked salmon!’ I cried. ‘Oh, the luxury! A whole camembert! Tomatoes and olives! Cold chicken!’ I felt my mouth fill with saliva. ‘And little fruit tarts! You angel!’ I winked away tears of gratitude.

She had also brought a bottle of claret that tasted deliciously of raspberries and liquorice. While we ate and drank we talked as easily as though we had met yesterday, though in fact it had been two years since we had last seen each other.

I had known Bobbie all my life. Our mothers had been at the same boarding school. As a homesick new girl, my mother, who was much given to hero-worship, had developed a crush on Bobbie’s mother, who was several years her senior. She had run errands for her and written her passionate notes and spent all her pocket money on presents of chocolates and bath salts. To judge by her adult personality, Bobbie’s mother, Laetitia, had been a good-looking but reserved and probably rather friendless girl. It must have suited her to have an acolyte.

Somehow the relationship had lasted beyond school and even after marriage. Laetitia was invalidish. My mother spent weeks with the Pickford-Nortons in their large, gloomy house in Sussex, surrounded by dripping trees and sodden shrubberies, cooking little delicacies, running baths, fetching books from the library, a willing slave. After she married my father the visits became much less frequent, but once a year my mother, my sister Kate and I made the long journey from Northumberland to the south coast to stay for a week or two at Cutham Hall.

Given the eight-year age gap, it would have been quite understandable had Bobbie chosen to ignore me altogether during these visits, but she had been angelically kind and looked after me like a mother – which was just as well as my real mother was too busy to have time for me. Laetitia became more demanding with age. She had to have shawls, spectacles, hats and pills fetched, and constant cups of tea and cakes made while she lay either in bed, on a sofa or in a deckchair in the garden. Her cook and her daily gave notice almost hourly and had to be cajoled into staying. During the sulking periods, my mother had to vacuum acres of carpet, polish her way through cupboards of silver and rustle up lunch and supper for Major Pickford-Norton, a small man with a peppery temper and a selfishness quite as colossal as his wife’s.

Bobbie had taken us for walks and helped us make daisy chains and grass whistles or collect conkers, depending on the time of year. Sometimes we went to the beach. Bobbie would give us piggybacks down to the place where it briefly became sand and we’d make mermaids with shells and bladderwrack and skate’s-egg cases and she would plait my hair so that it wasn’t torture to brush afterwards. On wet days she took us in turn on her knee and read us stories and played Happy Families and Ludo. I thought her the most beautiful creature in the world, with her long fair wavy hair and eyes that were the colour of the sea. Despite my dislike of Cutham Hall and my fear of Major Pickford-Norton, it was a huge disappointment when Laetitia wrote to say that her indifferent health precluded any more visits.

‘How’s your mother? Is she managing without your father?’

Bobbie’s father had died two years ago.

‘Very well. She has a companion called Ruby who’s a dear and looks after her brilliantly. She’s put on two stones since my father died. The marriage wasn’t a happy one, you know. How’s darling Dimpsie?’

Despite being very different kinds of people, Bobbie had always been very fond of my mother. Most people were.

‘All right, I think. She came backstage after a performance of Swan Lake when we toured the north last year. We had supper together.’

‘And Kate? And your father?’

‘I haven’t seen either of them for ages. We only have a few days off at Christmas and it’s too far to go home. Tell me about Ireland. What made you rush back there so suddenly? Are you really going to live there permanently?’

Bobbie’s life had been interwoven with mysterious comings and goings. I had received several enigmatic notes from her over the last few months postmarked Eire.

‘Oh, yes.’ Bobbie stretched out her hand to show me a wedding ring. ‘Finn and I were married six weeks ago.’

‘Married? Bobbie, you might have told me! And who is Finn?’

‘I know it was bad of me but truthfully we didn’t tell anyone. We married in the register office in Dublin with two colleagues from Trinity College as witnesses and afterwards we went out to dinner, just the two of us, and that was it. He has three children, you see, by his first wife, and we didn’t want to make a fuss. Most people in Connemara – that’s where we live – wouldn’t even consider that we are married. Divorce isn’t recognized in Ireland, though Finn went to a lot of trouble to get his first marriage annulled. I wouldn’t have minded living in sin for the rest of my life as long as I could be with him.’

‘Tell me about Finn. It’s a beautiful name.’

Bobbie smiled. ‘Oh … he’s very clever. And very good … though he’d laugh if he heard me say that. He’s very handsome, very Irish, though that could mean any number of things. He’s writing a biography about Parnell – the Irish politician – and he’s an advisor to the government on education. Does that make him sound dull? He certainly isn’t that. I only have to see the back of his head and I get butterflies.’ She was silent for a moment, thinking. ‘He’s in everything I do, in everything I see, in every thought, in every hope, every dream. Yet I don’t really know how to describe him.’

I laughed. ‘Well, the picture so far is encouraging. Tell me about the children? How do you get on with them?’

‘I love them. And I hope they love me. It would take too long to tell you the whole story now and I want to hear about you, but Curraghcourt – that’s Finn’s house where his family have lived for centuries – is the most wonderful place and we’ve opened it to the public to help pay for repairs. And I’ve started an antiques business. That’s why I’m here, looking up dealers, people I used to know when I worked for the auction house. Finn and I never have a minute to call our own, except sometimes after dinner we sneak off alone together and then – well – it’s paradise.’

I tried, but failed, to imagine wanting to be with someone that much. This was worrying. Was I a cold heartless person, incapable of love? I had no time to answer this question because Bobbie was asking me about my leg.

‘I’ve got an appointment in six weeks.’

‘And how long till you can dance on it?’

I looked down at my glass. ‘About two months. That’s if …’ Despite my best intentions my nose began to prickle and my throat became tight. Tears began to well. ‘Bobbie, I’m terrified … if it doesn’t heal properly I may never be able to dance again.’

‘Oh, darling!’

‘And the awful thing is, life without dancing seems … utterly pointless. If I try to imagine myself not dancing – I don’t even know who I am!’

After this confession I broke down completely. Bobbie got up and put her arms round me and I sobbed hard on her shoulder. At last the storm of weeping blew itself out. I mopped my face on the handkerchief she offered. ‘Thanks. I never seem to have one. I’ll wash it and send it back.’

‘Keep it. I really am sorry to have touched such a tender place.’

‘I needed to say it. It’s something we’re all so frightened of that it’s like a taboo. But it’s been in my mind all the time, haunting me like something terrifying you think might be under the bed only you can’t bring yourself to bend down and look in case it’s staring at you with glaring red eyes …’

‘Your problem is you’ve got so much imagination. Don’t you remember, when you were little, that story about a scarecrow who came alive? Kate thought it was funny but you woke screaming for several nights after. Not that imagination isn’t generally a good thing, and you wouldn’t be such a good dancer if you didn’t have it.’

‘If I can’t dance again I’ve just got to try to face up to it. I certainly won’t be the only one. It happens all the time. Mostly feet but sometimes backs and knees – then it’s goodbye career, hello teaching, reviewing, whatever you can get.’ I was annoyed to hear my voice wobble pathetically. ‘When you think how few opportunities there are to dance the principal roles and how many good dancers there are I ought to be grateful that I’ve had the chance to do Lac and Giselle and Manon and all those brilliant parts.’

‘What you need is—’ Bobbie broke off with a little yell as Siggy poked out his head from beneath the eiderdown and bared his incisors at her.

‘It’s all right, it’s only Siegfried. He’s hungry, I expect.’ I leaned over the side of the bed and put a morsel of chicken on his saucer. He pushed his head out further, looked at Bobbie with unfriendly eyes and hopped down to the floor. Siggy was possessive and jealous, but his marked preference for me above all other beings was good for my morale.

‘A rabbit!’ Bobbie laughed and bent down to stroke him.

Too late I cried, ‘Look out, he bites!’

Already his head had flashed forward. For a slightly overweight creature he could move fast when he wanted. She drew back her hand with a cry of pain. A drop of blood burst out on her finger.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘Please don’t feel hurt. He bites everybody but me.’

‘It’s all right. I like animals – even savage ones.’ Bobbie really was an exemplary guest. She sucked the wound, then examined it. ‘It’s all right. Just a tiny puncture. He’s certainly a very good-looking rabbit.’

Most people were insulting about Siggy after he had bitten them. Though I deplored his character, I could not help feeling proud of him. He had lovely orange eyes, neat little ears and a beautiful fluffy coat of thundercloud grey.

‘I’ve had him a year now. I found some children trying to push a sack down the culvert at the end of the street. I asked them what was in it and they said it was a rabbit which bit them all the time so they’d decided to drown it. Of course I took the sack away from them. Immediately they all ran off so I was lumbered, really. He’s never once bitten me. It’s as if he knows I rescued him from a horrible fate and he’s grateful.’

‘A very intelligent rabbit.’ Bobbie looked kindly at Siggy. I felt the sort of glow parents of an infant prodigy must enjoy. ‘Marigold, do listen to me a minute.’ Bobbie offered her camembert crust to Siggy who chomped it down, making a mess of his whiskers. ‘I don’t think it’s good for you to stay here. You’re lonely, freezing and semi-starving. People who are recovering from operations need warmth and good food and fresh air.’ She looked apologetic. ‘I can smell the stairs a tiny bit in here. You mentioned someone called Sebastian. Who is he and why is it up to him whether you go into a nursing home or not?’

‘He’s the director of the Lenoir Ballet Company. And my lover … sort of.’

‘Sort of?’

‘Well, strictly in the physical sense. Not in the sense of loving each other. Though we might be engaged to be married. I’m not really sure.’

Bobbie took away our plates and refilled our glasses. Then she lay on the bed next to me and rearranged the blankets to cover both of us. ‘That’s better. I can feel the blood returning to my feet. Now, tell me all.’

I was entirely frank and did not bother to garb the relationship with spurious romance. Bobbie listened intently, putting in the occasional question which I answered truthfully.

When I had told everything there was to tell she said, ‘I see. Now I feel more strongly than ever that you ought, for a time at least, to have … a little holiday. If you could contemplate the journey to Ireland, Finn and I will be absolutely delighted to have you to stay. You never saw such wonderful countryside and you’d love Patience, his sister who lives with us and … why are you shaking your head?’

‘Thank you so much, darling Bobbie, for asking me, but I should be conscious the whole time that I was yet another person requiring attention and taking up your time. You said it yourself. It’s paradise when you can be alone with Finn. It’s enormously kind of you to offer and perhaps when you’ve become used to him and are content just to rest your eyes on him across a crowded room, I’ll come willingly.’

Bobbie laughed. ‘I’d love to have you. Truthfully.’

‘Thanks. But I’d be a martyr to guilt the whole time.’

‘Well, then, the alternative is—’

‘All right! I know whither this is tending. You want me to go home.’

‘Just for a few weeks.’ Bobbie looked at me pleadingly. ‘Dimpsie’s such an angel and she’d love to have you. Think of the scenery and the clean air. Proper food, relaxation, new horizons. You might even enjoy it.’

‘I might,’ I replied rather glumly.

Less than twenty-four hours later I was standing on the platform at King’s Cross with Siggy in a travelling basket and a one-way ticket to Northumberland.