Celeste had just come from the costume fitting. Miss Olsen had told her she’d checked her measurements earlier but the leotard the seamstress had been making was for someone bigger.
‘You can’t have lost weight so soon,’ Miss Olsen had said.
Celeste didn’t know what to say. What she knew was that Miss Olsen hadn’t measured her that morning.
‘And you are slightly shorter. Don’t tell me you have shrunk between breakfast and teatime?’
The costume was being taken in.
Where have I shrunk to, thought Celeste, and why does everyone think I can dance? She counted her fingers, checked her limbs, to make sure they were all there. She’d had to ask Miss Olsen where Anna was and the wardrobe mistress had snapped at her and pointed to a wooden staircase.
Celeste stopped by a meagre door that could well have opened a broom cupboard. Then a flash of light in her mind’s eye, no more than a stone skimming the waves, brought her a hard-won memory. She knew she had been to the dome before, but she couldn’t say when. There had been an old lady with a sewing-machine, and the chamois leathers she cleaned the chandelier with hung on a washing-line. There were birds actually inside the dome, gulls, gannets and pigeons, lots of them. Someone had even said they’d seen an albatross there, that’s why they’d come up here. But who were they? Who was it she had been with? An image drifted away from the edge of her memory. By the time Celeste wearily climbed the stairs, she was completely lost.
That afternoon she had gone to the rehearsal room as instructed. The dancing master had sat facing the long mirror where the floor sloped to replicate the floor of the stage. He had tapped out the rhythm while the piano played and she had stood, bewildered and motionless.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ he asked. He looked at her closely. ‘Have you lost weight? You seem – smaller. Are you feeling ill?’ Then seeing her confusion, he said, ‘Let’s break.’
Celeste had held onto the barre as if it were a life raft until Mr Gautier appeared.
‘I’ve just come to say that you were the best thing about the dress rehearsal,’ he said. ‘In fact the only good thing about it.’
The dancing master took him aside and spoke quietly to him. Celeste caught the odd word.
‘Are you sure?’
‘… exhaustion… perhaps with rest…’
Mr Gautier had turned to her and said, ‘You are a very talented dancer. I’m sure once you are rested you will be ready for this evening’s performance.’
Her only hope now was that Anna would untie the knots in her woolly mind. At least she remembered her governess. No, she thought, she’s our governess. She felt muddle-headed. Our governess – what did that mean? What else had she forgotten, apart from knowing how to dance? But she had never been able to dance – she had two left feet. Who was it who used to say that to her?
It was dark in the city; it had been dark since midday. Outside snow was falling and the copper rooftops shimmered with a blue light. Inside, on a table laid for two, a candle flickered while the only other light came from the well in the floor. It was an eerie kind of light that lit from below a brooding monster that was the chandelier, draped in its covers, waiting to be illuminated. It was so dark that she couldn’t see Anna. All she could make out in the gloom was an ancient, crochety stove that looked more like a stage prop than anything useful. It glowed grumpily in the bitter cold of the place. By the stove was a neat pile of logs and the smell of vegetable soup bubbled from a pan on the stove itself.
The moment Celeste saw Anna she felt safe and her head stopped hurting. Here was someone she trusted, who looked after her and – more importantly – knew she wasn’t a dancer. Anna was thin, but not boney, with a kind face and eyes that laughed at life. Her words were always wise. Celeste had no idea how old Anna was; quite a bit younger than Mother and surely Mother wasn’t old. Anna would know where her mother was. And then all knowledge was gone again and only an ache remained.
Anna held out her arms and Celeste was wrapped in the comforting smell of roses.
‘My clever little treasure,’ she said. ‘I heard that you’ll dance tonight and that Camille’s costume is being altered to fit you.’
Celeste’s heart missed a beat.
‘I can’t dance, Anna. You should know that.’
‘Are you being funny? This is such good news. I’m so proud of you.’
‘Did you see the dress rehearsal?’ asked Celeste.
‘Of course I did – you were magnificent. Is everything all right?’
‘No,’ said Celeste. ‘It’s all wrong.’
‘Come, sit down,’ said Anna. ‘You are in a pickle over nothing. Don’t worry. There will be more money – you will be paid and with what I earn we might even find rooms near the theatre.’
‘I can’t dance and I’m not—’
Anna interrupted her. ‘It’s because you are a perfectionist that you think that you’re no good. But you are so talented, my little treasure.’
Celeste saw there was no point in telling Anna what had happened that afternoon. No point at all.
‘Is it the logs that are worrying you?’ said Anna. ‘Of course, that’s what’s the matter. I should have said something straight away.’
‘Why should the logs worry me?’ she said.
‘Because you are always so anxious that we’ll be discovered, and I knew you would notice them.’
Surely she should know what it was Anna was talking about? But her mind was blank.
‘A young man came up here,’ said Anna. ‘He’s been employed to work in the fly tower and he wanted to look out over the rooftops to the harbour. He discovered me making soup. He told me that he used to be a sailor and was good at rigging but he wanted a job on dry land for the winter. His skills are much needed in the theatre. Of course, I told him we didn’t live up here, I even went so far as giving him a false address. But I’m not a good actress. He didn’t believe me, but he was kind. His name is Stephan Larsen. He came later with the logs and swore he would not tell anyone that we’re here.’
‘It’s not Stephan Larsen that’s worrying me,’ said Celeste.
She wanted to say that what was worrying her was she had no memory of any of this.
‘It’s Miss Olsen. She knows we’re living here.’
‘Leave Miss Olsen to me. Don’t let her upset you.’
‘Everything is upsetting,’ said Celeste.
But the soup tasted delicious. Celeste tore a piece of bread from the loaf.
‘The bread – Stephan gave us that as well. And you should eat more slowly,’ said Anna. ‘You usually eat slowly. You don’t want to be too full when you dance. You are very fussy about that. And why are you holding your spoon in your left hand?’
The words of the man in the emerald green suit came back to Celeste. ‘I have already been too generous in letting you have one of the sleepers. Not that she is of any use.’
Celeste had thought that the strangeness of the afternoon would be over when she was with Anna, but it wasn’t. There was no one she could turn to.
‘Don’t forget, my little treasure, that Madame Sabina will still want you in her dressing-room before you change.’
As Celeste was leaving Anna said, ‘Is that another hole in your stocking?’
Celeste looked at the hole. ‘Another hole? I don’t think so. Why?’
‘Well, this morning I painted it in with black ink as there was no time to do any mending. Don’t you remember?’
Celeste looked again at the hole. Her white skin shone through it.
There was silence and then Anna said in a tight, cheerful voice, ‘It must have rubbed off.’
What neither of them said, and what both of them knew, was that ink is hard to get off skin and even if washed with soap and water it leaves a bluish mark. There was no mark.
‘Never mind, Maria,’ said Anna, ‘I’ll mend it tonight.’
‘Maria,’ whispered Celeste to herself and knew in that name, that other name that wasn’t hers, there lay the answer to all that was missing.