I am standing in front of the mirror with my hand on my diaphragm, trying to push my hand out simply by breathing. I didn’t know lungs went down that far. Jasper says he reckons he can improve my range by at least half an octave. (See, I’m already mastering the jargon.) I decide to text Becky with the news.
are there any duets for
soprano and violin?
If so I’m booking the royal albert hall
for us next season.
HBWx
After that I check my voicemail. Vix has left a message to say that Mum and her whole team are out on location for the day and Tutor Two is arriving at 12.00 sharp.
I range my books into piles, wondering which subject Tutor Two will start on. I’m hoping it’s not maths because that ‘D– Please see me’ is not the ideal introduction to a new teacher.
Twelve o’clock comes and goes and nothing happens. I’m just about to ring down to reception and complain when a call comes through for me saying that someone is waiting for me in the ballroom.
‘The ballroom?’
‘Yes, Miss Winterman, she’s been there a full quarter of an hour.’
I take a stack of books and go up in the elevator. The ballroom is on the top floor. I make my way through the debris of last night’s ball – sad deflated balloons, wilting flowers and glasses full of cigarette butts – to find my new ‘Tutor’ standing waiting for me.
She’s in the centre of the ballroom floor doing some stretches. She’s dressed in a leotard and tights and legwarmers and has a little pink fluffy angora bolero wrapped round on top. Maths tutor most definitely NOT.
‘We’ll get the most important things sorted first.’ That’s what Mum has said. And I guess on her scale of one to 100, singing and dance must be way up top and schoolwork way down at the bottom. I mean, to quote her on geography: ‘If you want to know where somewhere is, you ask the way.’ Or history: ‘History, it’s all so passé.’
Tutor Two turns at that point and catches me standing there. She walks over with long swift steps.
‘Hollywood. I’m Stella. I thought you’d got lost. My goodness, yes. Lovely long legs.’
I dump my books on the floor. ‘Don’t tell me. My mum wants you to teach me … dance?’
‘Is something bothering you?’
‘I just thought … No, forget it.’
There’s no point in arguing. I might as well get on with it.
It takes us a while to get organised. Like, I have to go back down again and get kitted out in some Kandhi dancewear. But within half an hour or so I am standing mid-ballroom facing Stella with my feet in what she calls ‘first position’.
Stella is looking tall and straight and somehow impossibly relaxed at the same time while I’m looking tense and sticklike and I’m all legs and arms and feet. (Mostly feet.)
We start with some barre work and then Stella takes me through a couple of step routines. And I’m telling you this is absolutely nothing like school aerobics. I’m using muscles that have lain dormant since birth.
When I land up on the wrong foot for the fifth time, we pause.
‘I’m not much good, am I?’ I pant.
‘You’ll be fine. Just relax.’
‘Mum’s a really good dancer, isn’t she?’
‘She’s a natural mover. But she hasn’t got your height.’
‘Are you a proper dancer? I mean, like on the stage?’
‘On and off. I trained for ballet. But I guess I hadn’t got what it takes.’
‘But that’s impossible, you’re brilliant!’
‘Like hundreds of other girls. In ballet, even if you’re brilliant, there’s always someone a bit more brilliant than you. Mostly, you have to settle for being in the troupe. I was in the back line.’
I stare at her. I mean, I’ve always taken success for granted. That some people naturally get to the top, like Mum had.
‘Well, you’ll be relieved to hear, the last thing I want to be is a dancer.’
‘It’s a pity, you’ve got the right body. And having a mum like yours could be an advantage.’
I shake my head. ‘Look at the way I move. My legs and arms and feet are all over the place.’
‘We can sort that out.’
‘I wish.’
‘Look,’ says Stella, glancing at her watch. ‘That’s all we’ve got time for today. You’re going to feel stiff in the morning, so do a few of those exercises we started off with and take a hot bath.’
I watch as she packs up her CDs and heads off.
‘I’ll be back the day after tomorrow,’ she says. ‘Don’t forget the stretches.’
The ballroom is silent after she’s left. It’s a vast room with mirrors all round and a glass ceiling that lets the sun through in a great shaft like a spotlight. I hang around for a while, making private surreptitious attempts to do one of those neat turns that Stella did with such ease, one leg thrown nonchalantly in the air.
Then as I turn I freeze in shock. I’ve caught sight of my reflection in one of the full-length mirrors. And for a split second, I take myself for Mum.
I stare at my reflection in its brightly coloured Kandhi dancewear. That’s what she’s doing, I realise. Mum – she’s turning me into another version of her. It’s like the ultimate in reinventing yourself. She’s turning me into a Kandhi clone.
I caught Mum alone for once while she soaked in the tub. She was up to the neck in Charles of the Ritz bath foam. It was puffing up all around her like little fluffy clouds.
‘So how do you like your tutors?’ she purred before I could get a word in.
‘They’re lovely but –’
‘You were lucky to get Jasper, he’s really in demand. He’s even done some of my backing tracks. Ages ago, of course, but –’
‘Mum?’
‘And how did the dance lesson go? I wish I’d had a teacher like Stella at your age –’
‘It was fine but –’
‘Stella’s brilliant, isn’t she? She turned down Festival Ballet, you know, to do workouts with me –’
‘That’s not what she –’
‘You are just so-oo lucky, Hollywood. Most girls would give their –’
‘Mum, would you listen to me? PLEASE …?’
Mum’s eyes widened. ‘OK, I’m listening.’
‘Mum, I can’t go through life only knowing how to sing and dance.’
‘Oh, well, I know that. We’ll find someone to do all that boring school stuff with you in the afternoons.’
‘When? I’m already missing loads.’
‘Vix is on to it. She’s got a pile of CVs and she’s lined up interviews with some agency, starting from tomorrow. So we’ll have a tutor for you in no time, don’t worry.’
‘Good. And they better be smart at maths and chemistry ’cos those are my weak subjects. And maybe biology.’
Mum frowned at me and said in a baby voice, ‘I don’t want my treasure doing all those nasty old dull subjects.’
‘Well, you better get used to it because …’ That’s when I came right out with it without even thinking. ‘I’ve decided. I want to be a vet.’ Somewhere deep down I knew this was what I had always wanted to do.
‘A vet?’ Mum nearly shot out of the tub.
I faltered. I mean, the idea had just come to me and it was pretty new.
‘Yes, a vet.’
Mum was staring at me in horror as if I’d said that I wanted to become a mortician or a prostitute or something.
‘But you can’t possibly want to be a vet. All that mopping up after sick animals. And cutting out stuff. Yuck.’
‘I won’t mind if it helps the animals.’
‘Hollywood. Any other girl would give their … their … I don’t know what they’d give, to have the opportunity I’m giving you. It’s the chance to really make something of yourself.’
‘But, Mum. You don’t understand. It’s not what I want to do. It’s what you want.’
‘How can you possibly know what you want to do at your age?’
‘Didn’t you?’
Mum was somewhat taken aback by this.
‘Well, sure. I felt I had like a mission. You have to be pretty focused to get to the top.’
‘I just don’t want to be a singer, that’s all.’
‘You’ll thank me for it in the long run.’
‘Oh no, I won’t.’
‘Hollywood, you are beyond me. I simply don’t understand you.’
‘No, you don’t. You never will.’
‘I do so much for you and you’re so ungrateful.’
‘Ungrateful! You expect gratitude for ruining my life. All you do is interfere.’
Mum’s eyes narrowed. Two hard frown lines appeared on her brow. I knew this look. It spelt danger.
‘Well, I suggest, Hollywood,’ she said between clenched lips, ‘that you get on with your singing and your dancing and think how lucky you are. And you give this wild career idea of yours a little bit more thought. Now I’m getting out of the tub. Pass me my robe.’
I was being dismissed. Mum was really wild at me. I hadn’t seen her this angry since …? Yep. Since she flung the seafood platter.
She snatched her robe and swept out of the bathroom.
I was left staring at the hole in the bath foam where Mum had been. How is it that your mother, the person you’re meant to be closest to in the world, can turn your life into hell? I watched as, caught in the up-draughts of the air con, the bath foam floated off in great slabs … What did it remind me of?
Like detergent off a polluted river.