When I Was Invisible (15 page)

Once we were alone with our dancing teachers, I took Nika's hand and found it was cold and sweaty. She was really scared.
I
was really scared. There were other ballet schools, of course, but we loved Monsieur Armand and Madame Brigitte. He seemed to know so much about dance – he had worked with so many famous ballet dancers, or
premiers danseurs
, as he called them. Some of them danced on stages all over the world and he said he had followed the career of Sylvie Guillem very closely and would one day tell any of us who were interested all about her. Madame Brigitte was the most beautiful dancer we had ever seen. She was my real-life Sylvie (apart from Nika) and I wanted to be like her in every way possible. I knew Nika felt the same. The thought that we wouldn't be allowed to come any more made me feel sick. I knew I was going to throw up right there and then if they made us leave.

‘Do not look so worried,' Monsieur Armand said. He had a strong French accent, even though he had lived in London for several years, his wife had told us.

‘Yes, this is a good thing,' Madame Brigitte said with a big smile and a really kind voice. She wasn't French. ‘We have seen real talent and passion and drive in you two. More than anyone I think we've ever had in this school. And we would like to extend an invitation for you both to be taught individual lessons on Monday evenings by Monsieur Armand.'

Wow
, I thought. I was holding my breath and couldn't quite believe what she was saying to me, to us. They thought we had shown the promise that they had talked about in the very first lesson. I looked at Nika to find she was looking at me. I wanted to do it, I so wanted to do it.

‘For the first three months it would be free of charge,' Monsieur Armand said. ‘That way we would be able to assess whether the individual lessons are of true benefit to you or not.'

‘Would it be just the two of us?' Nika asked. I was glad she asked because I wasn't sure if it meant lessons just taught by him or if it meant one lesson each.

‘
Non, non
, it would be me and you, Vero
nique
, and then me and the other
Ver
onique.' You could always tell which one of us he was talking about because he emphasised our names in different ways. ‘Whoever went second would wait outside for the first to finish, that way you can walk here after school together and your parents will only need to make one trip. Simple,
non
? Your parents are outside, so we will talk to them and provide them with a form to sign, but we wanted to know if you were interested first?'

‘Yes!' I blurted out.

‘Yes!' Nika blurted out at the same time.

‘
Bon
.'

‘That's wonderful!' Madame Brigitte's grin made me smile even wider. I was going to be a ballet dancer. It was really going to happen.

‘Veronika Harper' produces no results that are of any use to me. Which should I try next? ‘Nika Harper' or ‘Nikky Harper'? I suppose Nikky Harper because that is the name she is most famous for. I often wondered, when I saw her on the front of the magazines and in the gossip columns in newspapers, why she hadn't used Grace, like she'd always planned to.
‘Nikky Harper.'
I type. Press: enter.

I wanted to tell Nika. I knew she'd understand. She would hold my hand and tell me it would all be all right. I was waiting outside the ballet studio because Nika was second today, and I was sitting there, wishing she would come back. I missed her when she wasn't with me. Monsieur Armand had extended the lessons today for both of us. I was meant to be doing my homework, but I couldn't concentrate on it, I couldn't think about anything. I felt odd, in my body. Monsieur Armand said I was stiff and moving like an elephant riding a donkey, but I felt so strange. I wanted to tell Nika about it. Mum had said to Dad she thought it was growing pains that I was complaining about, that my body was growing much faster than the rest of me could keep up with. I knew it wasn't that, but I didn't tell Mum because she would think I was causing a fuss and I wasn't.

The door to the studio opened and Nika walked out. She had a funny look on her face. Sometimes Monsieur Armand would get cross with us. He would say he was frustrated because we weren't concentrating, we weren't being as good as he knew we could be. Nika and I would compare notes afterwards, we would ask each other if he had commented on our pirouettes, on our positioning, our landing. Sometimes he said the same things to us, sometimes it was completely different. He made us cry sometimes, and we would comfort each other. It was hard work, but both of us knew if we wanted to be professional dancers, it was necessary. Madame Brigitte had told us that. Nika was odd today, though. She came out, cradling her ballet shoes, with her chin on her chest. She sat down on the floor beside her school bag and pulled her knees up to her chest and stared at the floor in front of her.

‘
Ver
onique?' Monsieur Armand said. ‘Why don't you come back in for a few minutes before your parents arrive?'

‘Yes, sir,' I said and jumped to my feet. I kept looking at Nika but she wouldn't look at me. She wouldn't look at anything except the floor. Usually she'd give me a look to let me know what sort of a mood he was in, if I should brace myself for a telling off or if he would be over-brimming with compliments.

‘Are you OK?' I asked Nika.

‘She is fine,' Monsieur Armand replied for her. ‘We covered new material and new ground today and she is unsure if she can do it. I know she will be fine.'

‘Last night I asked my mum if I could give up ballet,' Nika told me.

‘But you love ballet,' I reminded her.

‘Yeah, yeah, I do,' she said sadly. ‘But I don't want to do it any more. It doesn't matter anyway because Mummy said I wasn't allowed to give up. She said everyone knew I was doing it and they were all so impressed that only one other person – you – had been asked to have private lessons too, and I wasn't stopping on a whim.'

‘Do you really want to stop ballet?' I asked her.

‘Don't you?' she asked me.

I shook my head. I never wanted to stop ballet. It was my one escape. The only time I felt right was when I was dancing. I could never give up ballet, even if I wanted to.

Three weeks later, Monsieur Armand introduced me to the new material and the new moves. They weren't so hard, weren't so bad. But I understood why she wanted to give up ballet.

‘Nikky Harper' is more fruitful, but not that much. There are a few articles from that time when she was everywhere, a few more where they mention Todd Chambers, the man she was with, some talking about her drugs problem. But all of them end the same way: she simply disappeared. One day she was with him, the next she was gone and no one had heard from her since.

‘Nika Harper'
next.

Monsieur Armand called us all to attention before the class began. He always wore all black – poloneck and tight trousers – and he always carried a long black stick with a brass top. He didn't need it for walking, he used it to correct you if you were in the wrong position. Sometimes, if you got it wrong too many times, he would bang it on the ground and shout at you. It was awful when he shouted. The sound of it would go right through you. I always felt bad, too, because you could tell he didn't like shouting. He seemed to shout more at Nika these days, I could hear it when I sat outside during her individual lessons.

‘Ladies, we will soon be starting the audition process for our Christmas show. This is the first show we have ever held, but I feel so many of you are capable and talented enough to be able to handle the process. The ballet will be our version of
Le Nutcracker
. Everyone will have a role, but the lead role will be that of the Sugar Plum Fairy. She will have the longest solo dance and then a
pas de deux
. A duet. I have already decided that one of the Veroniques will dance this part. I am telling you all now so you are not disappointed. You will all work hard, I believe, no matter what your role.'

My heart started to dance in my chest. I adored
The Nutcracker
. After
Swan Lake
, it was my absolute favourite ballet ever. Dad had taken me to see it up in central London last year at Christmas. It had been magical, and I'd loved the Sugar Plum Fairy. Her solo had made everyone gasp, hold their breath and then give her a standing ovation right in the middle of the ballet. I wanted the role. More than anything I wanted the part. Nika would want it, too, I knew that. Monsieur Armand was staring at Nika and she was staring at the ground.

‘OK, ladies, dance on. And remember, from now on, I will be watching you, assessing you. Every move you make will help me to decide which role you are assigned. Dance on, dance on.'

I leant towards Nika. ‘I really want to be the Sugar Plum Fairy,' I whispered to her.

‘I hope you get it,' she whispered back.

‘Don't you want it?' I asked.

‘No,' she said. ‘No, I don't.'

‘Does he …?' Nika asked me. She only said the first two words but I knew what the other two would be. We often knew what the other one was saying without actually saying everything. We were thirteen now, and it'd been like that since we became best friends at eight.

‘Sometimes,' I admitted. ‘Not all the time. I pretend it's not happening so I don't have to give up dancing.'

We sat side by side outside the studio, waiting for Monsieur Armand to be ready for us. We had one extra lesson a week now, as preparation for the Christmas show. He still hadn't told us who was going to be the Sugar Plum Fairy. Everyone else had their roles, their parts they could practise at home. Nika and I had to both learn the part as though it was ours. Whoever didn't have the role would be understudy, which meant she wouldn't dance at all in the show unless the other was ill.

Nika sighed. ‘Same.' She was watching me then, staring me right in the eye. She said: ‘Sometimes it's months between … and I almost forget so I concentrate on the dancing.'

It wasn't as bad as it could have been, though. I knew it could be far, far worse …

‘I didn't know if he was doing it to you, too. When I asked you if you wanted to give up dancing you said no, so I thought it was just me,' Nika said.

‘He wasn't at the time you asked.'

‘I went to see Madame Brigitte the other day and I told her. I said that I wouldn't tell anyone and I wouldn't stop ballet if they didn't want me to, but I wanted it all to stop.'

Nika was so brave. I would never have told. If she hadn't asked me, I would never have told. ‘What did she say? Was she cross?'

‘No. She almost cried and she said she would talk to him, and she said she would make it stop.'

I held my breath for a few seconds; tears filled my eyes. It was going to stop, we'd be free and safe now. ‘Do you think it will stop now? As in this lesson?'

Nika's leg started to jiggle as though she was trying to stop herself from sobbing by jiggling herself, like I saw mothers do to babies to stop them from crying. ‘He came to my house yesterday. He told my parents that there'd been a misunderstanding, that he only touched me to help me find the right positions.'

I felt sick for her. He had sat in her house, lying.

‘He said he had explained everything to his wife when she had asked and now he was explaining it to my parents so they would know not to be worried by the things I told them. And all my individual lessons are free now to make up for the misunderstanding. Last year, I told my mum everything, and she didn't believe me. Now they're never going to believe me because they think he's wonderful.'

Nika covered her face with her hands, ran them slowly over her face and up over her hair, which was pulled back into a fluffy ponytail. ‘I'm sorry, Roni. I know you wanted to be the Sugar Plum Fairy but last night he said the role was mine and he was looking—' Her voice broke, her face crumpled as if she was about to cry. Then she pulled herself together, became strong again. ‘I'm sorry you won't get to be the Sugar Plum Fairy, Roni.'

I reached out for her hand. I didn't care about that. I cared about everything being OK for both of us. She had told her parents and they didn't believe her. And now Madame Brigitte didn't believe her. ‘I don't care about that. I'm sorry they didn't believe you,' I added.

‘After the show, I'm not going to dance any more. If you tell your parents they'll tell my parents and then we can both stop the lessons or he'll leave us alone,' she said.

I nodded. ‘OK,' I said.

‘Deal? You tell your parents and then we can end this?'

‘Yes, deal.'

The door to the studio clicked open.

‘
Ver
onique and Vero
nique
,' Monsieur Armand said. ‘What a true delight. Vero
nique
will be the Sugar Plum Fairy, and
Ver
onique, you will be her understudy. Next time, you will be the star and she will be the understudy,' he said. ‘Vero
nique
, come.' He held out his hand to her. She stood up slowly, and moved even more slowly towards the studio. She did not take his hand; she did not look at him. She kept her gaze straight ahead as she walked into the large room where all our dreams had begun.

Minutes passed and there was silence on the other side of the door. Without warning, the music of the Sugar Plum Fairy began. Loud. Louder than it had ever been before; so loud it was distorting on the longer notes. So loud, it set off the noise in my head.

I pressed the palms of my hands over my ears, tried to keep out the noise in my head, tried to shut out the music from the studio. It didn't work. I could still hear Nika's pain on the other side of the door.