You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) Read online

  Jonathan’s phone vibrating in my hand, then ringing shrilly, startled me so much I almost dropped it. I held it out to him and he glanced at the screen, then swiped it with his thumb.

  “Sadie?” There was a pause. “Laura’s here. I don’t know why she hadn’t been answering her phone; it must be on silent. What’s wrong?”

  I felt suddenly icy cold. This was it – the punishment I’d feared, the fate I’d tempted, was coming sooner than I could ever have expected, and in the most terrible way imaginable.

  “I’ll tell her,” Jonathan said. “We’ll get her on a flight tonight; she’ll be there in the morning. It’s not your fault.”

  “What is it?” I asked. “Is it Owen?”

  Please, please let him not be dead, I prayed. If he is, I’ll die too – my heart will stop and never start again.

  “It’s Darcey,” Jonathan said. “She’s in hospital. Pack your bag. I’ll ring for a taxi and get the office to change your flight. Do it now, Laura.”

  Chapter 19

  November 2001: Performance

  Like all dancers, I was used to working through pain. I’d finished the ballet during which I broke my toe, and returned to work after just four days off, which is why it never healed properly. I’d danced with pulled muscles and tendonitis. Most days, I danced with my feet bleeding into my pointe shoes. I was far more used to feeling pain than not feeling it. And now, I was going to have to go on stage even though my heart was breaking, and I was going to have to dance and dazzle and smile, smile, smile.

  I looked at my face in my dressing room mirror. I looked white and miserable, and my eyes were red and swollen from crying. Well, that was the first thing I needed to sort out. I poured a stream of eye drops into each eye, ignoring the sting, and while they took effect I did my hair, securing it in its bun with countless pins and grips and a cloud of industrial-strength hair spray.

  Then I turned my attention to my face. My make-up took me half an hour: heavy foundation to mask my blotchy pallor, contouring to bring out my cheekbones, blusher to mimic a healthy glow, layers of shadow to make my eyes look huge and luminous. By the time I’d carefully stuck on my false eyelashes, the face that looked back at me wasn’t that of a frightened young girl any more, but a ballerina, confident, serene and beautiful.

  Still in my leotard, tights, hoodie and legwarmers, I made my way through the corridors and found an empty studio. I spent almost an hour warming up alone, feeling my body coming gradually to life, my muscles remembering their individual jobs, the residual pain and stiffness receding. I forced myself to concentrate only on my body, preparing it for the task ahead like a mechanic tuning a car. The turmoil I felt in my mind I securely isolated, the way the sports psychologist had taught us. Later, on stage, I could let my emotions take over, when there was useful work for them to do, when they’d add expression to my face and passion to my steps. Now I had no use for the gnawing pain in my heart, so I ignored it.

  I was in the best shape I’d ever been, I told myself: honed, trained and rehearsed. I was ready for this. Now all that remained was to put Laura aside and become Aurora, the beautiful princess celebrating her birthday with her doting parents and a court that worshipped her, preparing to meet the four princes competing to make her their bride.

  Back in my dressing room, I put on the gorgeous rose-pink costume I’d wear for my first scene. It was a perfect fit – it had been made for me, and the final adjustments had been completed just the day before. I laced up my pointe shoes, tying the ribbons securely around my ankles, and took a last look in the mirror. I was ready – the transformation was complete.

  All through the building, I knew, my colleagues would be going through the same process. Alongside the stage manager’s calls over the tannoy, I could almost hear the buzz of anticipation building. It was opening night of one of the most popular shows in our repertoire – everyone would be nervous, terrified, excited, but entirely focussed on their own performance. At that moment, I realised, nobody gave one single fuck about the spat between the two principal dancers or the rumours about Marius and me.

  The thought gave me the courage I needed to leave the bolthole of my dressing room and make my way to wait in the wings.

  I heard the roar of applause that signalled the conductor’s arrival in the orchestra pit, then a second, quieter wave of appreciation as the curtain went up and the set was revealed – true enthusiasts know that one should clap for the conductor, but never for the set.

  I felt a warm pair of hands of my shoulders and started, then heard Roddy’s voice whisper in my ear, “I’m on. You’re going to be fabulous. I love you, and so will everyone else after tonight. Merde.”

  “Merde,” I whispered back.

  The first scene – the princess’s christening, at which the fairies bestow their blessings on the baby, the evil Carabosse arrives and curses her with death on her sixteenth birthday, then the powerful Lilac Fairy mitigates the curse to a hundred-year sleep – seemed to pass in seconds. I felt none of the paralysing stage fright I’d experienced before performances in the past – I was strangely calm, keyed up and eager to get out there on to the stage and get through my first big scene, the horribly difficult Rose Adagio. When my musical cue came, I stepped out on to the stage as poised and eager as any princess making her debut.

  All the notoriously perilous balances went without a wobble. Jerome, then Roddy, then Stav, then Tom held my hand in turn, letting me find my balance before releasing me to stand alone, perfectly still, my entire body hovering over the toes of one foot. I could feel my muscles burning with the effort of it, but they didn’t let me down, and I knew my face kept its radiant smile throughout. If I hadn’t been confident of my performance, the roar of approval from the audience told me I’d nailed it. I was on my way to becoming a star.

  My thighs were trembling with fatigue and my feet felt like they’d been dipped in acid, but I was hardly conscious of my body at all as I left the stage. I was floating on a wave of elation and success, made weightless by the bubble of triumph inside me.

  Then I saw Mel and Felix, and my joy shattered like the Christmas bauble Owen would squash between his clumsy toddler’s palms years in the future. The two of them were standing together in a corner, Felix already in his costume for his grand entrance after the interval, Mel in her lilac tutu, her face masked with make-up, her hair pulled tightly back behind her perfect, delicate face. Felix was looking slightly absurd as male dancers always do until they start to move. His legs in the thick white tights, perfectly muscled though they were, seemed frail and vulnerable under his elaborate brocade jacket, and the bulge his ballet belt created between them was a crude parody of the maleness I knew when we were together, naked in bed.

  But it was his face I looked at – his dear, familiar face, normally so animated, laughing or about to laugh. He wasn’t laughing now − his head was tilted downwards as he listened to Mel.

  I watched them for just a few seconds before they saw me, but it was enough. I knew what she was saying to him, what she was doing. I knew that she was nurturing the seed of doubt and mistrust she’d planted, pouring shit on it so it would grow into a horrible, destructive plant with roots strong enough to destroy the fragile foundations of love Felix and I had built.

  I hurried over to them, but I was too slow on my tired legs. Felix glanced over to me, his face haggard with sadness, then turned away. There was no time for me to talk to him – he was about to go on stage again and, unlike Mel, I wanted him to have maximum focus for his big solo.

  Whatever Mel had said to him, it didn’t affect him on stage. It would be exaggerating to say I never loved him more than when I watched him dance – this was the man who reduced me to a quivering jelly in bed, over and over again – but he was dazzling to watch, graceful and powerful, his technique so perfect and sure that he was free to bring real expressiveness to the role.

  I stood in the wings and watched as the Prince’s companions disappeared into the forest
, leaving him alone. The lights dimmed and Felix danced alone on the darkened stage, every movement expressing his loneliness, frustration and longing. I could have watched him forever, but all too soon my own cue came and I was back on, dancing the image of Aurora, summoned by the Lilac Fairy to persuade the Prince to break the spell of sleep.

  Somehow I got through the scene, even though Mel was looking daggers at me and Felix, who should have appeared enraptured by my beauty, refused to meet my eyes at all. As I danced, I felt my confidence ebbing away. Even though I knew the steps perfectly, I found myself ending up in the wrong place several times. My balance was off, the footlights dazzled me and I forgot to spot properly in my turns and got dizzy and disoriented.

  At the final moment when Felix was supposed to wake me with his kiss, he still didn’t meet my eyes, and his lips didn’t make contact with mine.

  There was applause for me afterwards, of course, but it wasn’t the rapturous outpouring of appreciation I’d heard after my first solo, and I knew that even if the audience hadn’t noticed the technical faults in my performance, they could tell that something wasn’t right.

  When the scene ended and the curtain came down for the interval, I ran to my dressing room in tears. Roddy was there, waiting for me, ready to wrap his comforting arm around my shivering shoulders and towel the sweat off my back.

  “I can’t go back on,” I sobbed. “It’s awful, he hates me. We can’t dance together like this. I don’t know what Mel’s been saying to him, but be believes her, not me. I’m going to fuck it up, I know I am.”

  “You’re not going to fuck it up,” Roddy said. “Come on, Laura. You’re a professional. This is your big night – the only person who can spoil it for you is yourself. Man up, change your costume, drink some water and get back out there and knock their socks off. You can do it.”

  “I can’t.” My teeth were chattering so I could hardly get the words out. “I screwed the last scene up so badly.”

  Roddy wrapped a clean towel around me. “You’re freezing. You know we aren’t supposed to get cold. Never mind how you dance, you’ll be in all kinds of shit if Anna catches you in here shivering.”

  I managed a feeble smile. “Will you talk to him, Roddy? Find him, and tell him that what she’s saying isn’t true?”

  “Okay,” he said. “But only if you promise to get your kit on for the next act, fix your face, and get out there and do your job.”

  “I promise,” I said.

  “Good girl.” Roddy hurried out, slamming my dressing room door behind him. His tough love approach was what I’d needed. I sipped some water, cleaned off my smudged eye make-up and reapplied it, and stretched the tightness out of my thighs and calves. I forced myself to breathe deeply, to focus, trying to isolate my fear and sadness again, deep inside me where they wouldn’t get in the way. It didn’t work as well as it had before. The confident princess I’d managed to find within myself before had retreated again, replaced by a frightened girl unequal to the challenge she faced.

  But Roddy was right – I had a job to do. Whatever happened between Felix and me, this was the defining moment of my career. If I wasted this opportunity, I’d never forgive myself.

  Somehow, I found the strength to pull on my magnificent finalé costume, pin the sparkly tiara to my hair and walk back out into the corridor with a smile on my face.

  When I passed Mel, I ramped the smile up a notch and said, “You danced brilliantly earlier.” It wasn’t true – she’d seemed wooden and lacking in sparkle, but the look on her face, as if I’d slapped her with a sweaty pair of tights, was worth it. Suddenly, my smile felt genuine.

  The final pas de deux in The Sleeping Beauty is relatively simple, at least compared to the agonising difficulty of the earlier scenes. I knew I’d have to be absolutely precise, but the choreography held no terrors for me. And Roddy had promised to locate Felix in the interval and speak to him, and he’d know there was nothing between Marius and me, that I loved him and was faithful to him. In less than an hour, it would all be over – I’d be taking my curtain calls, holding the red roses Sadie always sent me on opening nights, smiling into the faces of the audience, who I’d be able to see for the first time. It was all going to be all right, I told myself. I just had to get through this final scene, do my very best – which was, as Roddy said, only doing my job.

  I waited to make my entrance, still smiling, and when the music told me it was time, I glided out on to the stage at exactly the same time as Felix made his entrance from the opposite wing.

  I could see straight away that Roddy’s mission hadn’t been successful. Either he hadn’t been able to find Felix, or Felix hadn’t been willing to listen. His face was stony and set. I felt my own smile waver, and for a second I wanted nothing more than to run off stage, run all the way to my dressing room, hide there and cry.

  But I didn’t. I moved into the familiar sequence of steps, feeling my muscles doing what they’d been trained to do, even though my mind was in a turmoil. I swept my arms into the choreographed gestures that meant, in the language of ballet, “I love you.” Felix’s arms echoed mine, but there was no love in his face – none at all. When he touched me, I could feel his hands almost flinching away from contact with mine. He didn’t support me for long enough for me to find my point of balance, and I wavered and almost fell.

  “Please, Felix,” I hissed through my smile. “Please don’t do this.”

  Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head, but if he said anything I didn’t hear it, because I’d moved away, instinctively obeying the music.

  We moved into the series of lifts – frightening for any dancer, but I’d loved doing them with Felix, because I trusted him so completely. Even though, strictly speaking, I was too tall to partner him, he was so powerful he lifted me effortlessly, making me feel as if I was flying.

  It didn’t feel that way tonight. His hands on my waist felt unsteady and insecure, and the upward momentum of his arms was slightly out of time with the spring of my legs.

  It was on the third lift that it happened. Somehow, we’d got through the first two, but this time I jumped more powerfully, he thrust my body higher into the air, and I felt my weight tip too far backwards, his balance falter, his hands slip away from my body – and then I was falling, the lights a blur as I tried to land safely and failed.

  Over the music, over the horrified gasp from the audience, I heard a sickening crunch as my ankle shattered.

  For one mad moment, I thought I could get up and carry on dancing. There was pain, certainly, but it didn’t feel all that much worse than pain I’d danced through before – not then. Then I saw Felix’s face. He was chalk-white with shock – almost green under his make-up. He was looking, horrified, at my left leg.

  I looked too – I wish I hadn’t. My foot was twisted to an impossible angle. A dark pool of blood was spreading over the floor and soaking my white tights. For a moment, I didn’t understand where it had come from – had I scraped myself against something? Then I saw the shard of bone, a different white from my tights, that had torn through the fabric as well as my skin, and I understood what had happened.

  With that realisation, the full force of pain hit me like a punch to the face and, almost immediately, I blacked out.

  Chapter 20

  All the dozens of times I’d been on flights before, the ban on phone use had seemed an inconvenience at worst and a welcome respite from the buzzing electronic summons of my mobile at best. Now, it was torture. There was no way for me to contact Sadie get an update on how Darcey was for seven long hours – seven hours for which I was completely unable to sleep, to watch the inflight entertainment or to read the magazines I’d automatically bought at the airport. All I could do was stare at the satellite flight tracker, willing the tiny aeroplane-shaped icon to hurry the fuck up and get me home to my daughter.

  I refused both the beef curry that was served an hour after take-off and the wilting chicken wrap they gave us before landing, and, alt
hough I would have loved to take full advantage of the bar service, I resisted – I’d need to drive at the other end.

  At last, the aircraft began its descent, and the second its wheels thumped on to the runway I was rummaging in my bag and switching on my phone, ignoring the disapproving tuts of the woman next to me.

  But when, as I stared at the screen willing it to find a signal, she muttered to her companion, “I don’t know what people think is so important that it can’t wait ten minutes,” I was unable to stop myself snapping back, “My daughter’s in hospital in Bristol with a head injury, that’s what’s so important. So maybe you could stop judging other people for ten minutes.”

  Her face fell. “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry,” she said, and I immediately felt guilty as hell for biting her head off. “Poor wee mite. What happened?”

  “She fell off a horse,” I said. “I don’t know any more than that. As soon as my sister told me I got on the first flight I could, and when I spoke to her at the airport in New York she was in A&E, waiting to be seen.”

  “Poor little soul,” the woman said. “And poor you, how terribly worrying. I remember when my eldest was eleven, he…” and she embarked on a long and involved tale of her son’s many skateboarding accidents, while I switched my phone off and on again in a desperate attempt to get it to find my network. But when at last it did, and I saw a message flash up on the screen saying that I had four new voicemails, I realised that my battery was on its last legs. Before I could listen to them, the seatbelt sign was switched off and in all the fuss of disembarking, my phone died.

  After that, everything took on the quality of the sort of dream I used to have when I was dancing, and still do in times of stress. It took ages for our luggage to be unloaded, and my bag was among the last to thud on to the carousel. I wandered around the long-stay car park looking for our trusty Ford Focus before I remembered that we’d come in Jonathan’s new car, which I’d never driven before.