The Drowning Read online

  Next came the physical examination. The Academy needed to see how good their turn-out was, how flexible their feet, how strong their backs, the overall alignment of their bodies, whether they had ever had any injuries.

  “Be honest,” they were told. “We need to be confident that you can get through three years’ work without weaknesses rearing their ugly heads. If you try to hide anything serious, you will be the ones to suffer in the end.”

  Jenna stood brave and tall as the steely eyes looked her over. She was lucky to have a flexible body and not to have broken any bones – but even so, she gave a sigh of relief when the inspection ended.

  I felt like a fluttering moth being trapped and put under a microscope . . . Are her wings really strong enough? Do you think she can fly for ten hours at a single stretch?

  The relentless pace of the day refused to slacken or give Jenna time to breathe. The Head of Dance stood in front of them.

  “I’d like you to fill in these.” She gave them each a blank sheet of paper. “Write me a personal statement. Tell me why you want to be here, why you want to do our course. You can tell me anything you like, as long as you really feel it and mean it.”

  Jenna stared down at the paper. My dancing life in a nutshell? She picked up her pen and began to write as fast as she could:

  I went to my first dance class when I was four years old. Leah, my ballet teacher, had just arrived in St Ives and was starting up a theatre dance school. Dad said it would be a good idea if I went on Saturday mornings. My parents own and run a tea room which is open six days a week. They’re always busy,so having me safe and occupied on a Saturday seemed like a good idea.

  I loved it. I’d spend all week asking when I could go to Leah’s again,singing the music she’d used for our class – and driving my parents mad! Then I’d pull on my pale blue leotard,clip my frilly skirt over it, and hop up and down, wanting to leave.

  When I was six, Dad drove me up to London to stay with his sister, my aunt, Tamsyn. She took me to see my first ballet, Giselle, danced by the Royal Ballet. I can still remember feeling completely overwhelmed and enchanted. I knew straight away that that was what I wanted to do when I grew up.

  Four years ago, as a special treat, my aunt took me to see Matthew Bourne’s company,Adventures in Motion Pictures:their Swan Lake with Adam Cooper. It made me rethink everything: the storyline, the music, the way you could dance to it.

  I hope more than anything else in the world that you will take me on. I shall work until I drop – and I promise you will not be disappointed.

  When they were asked to stop writing, Jenna gave her piece of paper to the Head of Dance, catching in her eyes the faintest glimpse of a smile.

  After lunch – Thanks,Tammy, I’m ravenous – they were put through their paces once again in a jazz class. This time they were all in regulation black: tight tops, bell-bottomed trousers, soft black jazz boots. And with a new teacher: young, dynamic, with a body lithe as a snake, she did the splits on the floor as easily and swiftly as her head-high kicks and dazzling pirouettes.

  Half-way through the class, Jenna’s confidence and energy began to flag. She noticed how well some of the other students were dancing, how quickly they picked up the teacher’s instructions for the routine they were expected to learn on the spot.

  I’m just one of the crowd. They all dance better than me. I don’t know what I’m doing, apart from wasting everyone’s time.

  She was glad when the class came to an end.

  Catching her breath, she changed back into her jeans and blue top. The rest of the afternoon passed swiftly in a haze of vocal work: group singing to warm up their voices; a solo song, followed by a monologue from a modern play she had chosen. At the end of it, Jenna’s mouth felt dry. In the uncomfortable silence, her legs shook with sudden exhaustion.

  “Thank you for listening,” she said to the panel.

  “We’ll let you know your results in writing as soon as we can,” the Head of Dance told her.

  “I . . . I . . . ”Jenna forced the words to spill out. “I hope you will want me.”

  Rapidly, she turned and ran: out of the studio, up the stairs, into the cloakroom. She flung on her coat, grabbed her bag, pulled off her hairband so her hair could flow long and smooth down her back.

  It’s over . . . it’s all over . . . Now there’s nothing I can do but wait . . .

  Outside she realised, startled, the dark evening had already clamped its teeth.

  She stood in the doorway. The black street swayed around her. A van hurtled past at hair-raising speed, its radio blaring. For a moment she could not remember which way to turn.

  “Jenna?” Aunt Tamsyn emerged out of the shadows. “How did it go?”

  Relief washed through Jenna’s heart. “God,Tammy . . . I’m so pleased to see you.”

  “There now!” The birdlike hug enveloped her. “Let’s go and have a celebration supper. You can talk me through every single minute of your day.”

  Sitting on the train going home on Monday, Jenna replayed the audition in her head. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that she’d failed.

  Back in St Ives, Mum and Dad greeted her hurriedly, busy in the tea room. She walked through to the inner courtyard which they shared with three other cottages, and into the kitchen of their adjoining house, wondering as she did so whether she’d blown any chance of escape in the autumn.

  She darted upstairs to find Benjie and tapped on his door.

  “Jenn?” Benjie squinted up at her from the floor, the light glinting on his glasses. “Come and look at this.”

  “What on earth . . .”

  An enormous plastic cage, lined with yellow straw, perched on a low table beneath the window. In one corner of the cage sat a small wooden box with cutaway windows and a door labelled TIMBER HIDEAWAY; in another a dark green plastic igloo. In the middle, a sleek furry animal with pink feet picked ferociously at a bowl of nuts and seeds.

  “My new guinea pigs,” Benjie said proudly. “This black-and-white one’s called Klunk. The gingery-brown one, she’s smaller, her name’s Splat. She’s asleep in the igloo.”

  Jenna laughed in spite of her misery. Klunk inspected her with shiny round black eyes. She knelt beside Benjie. “Where did you get them?”

  “Hedley from my class gave them to me yesterday. His dad breeds them. I’ve wanted some for ages. They’re great to watch. Klunk loves anything green: spinach, broccoli, parsley. He nibbles like crazy.”

  “You’ll have to keep them clean as well as fed.” Jenna sat back on her heels. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I got on?”

  Benjie stared sideways at her. “Oops,sorry,sis. I forgot. How did it go?”

  “Lousy. I was total crap. I’m sure they’ll turn me down.”

  Benjie looked startled. “Why? What happened?”

  “The morning was OK, I guess, though I was shaking with nerves. But the jazz class in the afternoon was really tough. Some of the other kids were brilliant. There was one guy whose jumps were so fantastic he made me feel like an earthworm.”

  “Did you sing?”

  “Yeah. I did that number from Oliver! – you know, the Artful Dodger one,‘Consider Yourself’, but it came out all squeaky and my cockney accent was rubbish. One of the girls had a fantastic soprano voice which filled the whole building. It made me so depressed that by the time it came to the monologue, I nearly dried up altogether.”

  Benjie flung an arm round her shoulders. “I’m sure you weren’t as grotty as that.”

  “The more I think about it, the worse I’m sure I must have done.” Jenna hugged him. “Shame I couldn’t sneak you in, to cheer from the back row.”

  Waiting

  The bus swung out of St Ives and began its slow journey along the wet, late-winter road towards the villages of Carbis Bay and Lelant.

  Jenna heaved a sigh of relief. Half-terms at home involved hours helping Mum and Dad in the café, or keeping an eye on Benjie. Her danc
e classes with Leah, which continued throughout the year, meant that most afternoons at half-past three she had a cast-iron excuse to tear off her apron and dash out of the Cockleshell Tea Room as fast as her legs could carry her.

  She’d run through the narrow streets, her bag bumping against her thigh, pushing against the crowds and ducking out of the way of cars, up the hill to the coach station, longing for the moment when the bus moved through Carbis Bay into the open green fields of Lelant – and away down the right-hand bend in the road towards its village hall.

  There, week in, week out, small groups of children and teenagers came and went, carrying their shoes and dance gear, filled with hopes and fears, disappointments, delights, longings and ambitious dreams.

  Today would be the first time Jenna had seen Leah since her audition. She’d told her about it on the phone, but now the girls would want to hear the details. And the answer to the questions burning their way into Jenna’s heart. Had she heard from the Academy? Had she been successful? Did they want her? When would she hear?

  She simply didn’t know. Five days had passed and still the postman had brought her nothing.

  “No news is good news,” Aunt Tamsyn had said to her on the phone last night – but somehow Jenna couldn’t quite believe it. “There’s nothing you can do but wait.”

  “I’m hopeless at waiting.” Jenna stared grimly out of the living-room window at the Digey, already half-hidden in twilight, at people scurrying busily home over the cobblestones with their parcels and bags. “I’d rather do anything than sit around. I should be doing my coursework but I just can’t concentrate.”

  “It won’t be long now. I’ve met the Head of Dance several times. She’s very meticulous about writing to her hopefuls as soon as she can. She knows you’ll be on tenterhooks—”

  “I’m that all right!”

  “She has to consult the rest of the panel, they have to be absolutely sure they’re making the right—”

  “But they must’ve done that on Sunday evening, after we’d left. They were with us all day. It can’t be that difficult to decide.”

  “Be patient, Jenna.” Aunt Tamsyn sounded brisk and businesslike. “Don’t forget, there’ll be letters to write to all of you, whether you’re good, bad or indifferent. And you know what the post can be like.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Look, if you’re going to work in this business, last Sunday was just the first of many auditions. Learn to take them in your stride. You can have all the talent in the world, you know. But you also need courage and sheer dogged determination.”

  “I know.” Jenna sighed. “Stamina and stickability—”

  “Exactly. When I started my agency, I was living in a bedsit in Blackheath and I had three clients. Don’t you think there were days – weeks even – when I thought I wasn’t going to survive? If you crumple up and give in, fall at the first hurdle, you might as well forget the whole thing, right now.”

  “You know I can’t do that—”

  “So chin up, girl . . . There’s someone on the other line, I’ve got to go . . . Ring me tomorrow.”

  Jenna shut her eyes. She knew exactly how her aunt looked: her face flushed from the buzz of excitement her work gave her, her long silver earrings flashing in the lamplight of her office desk. There’d be files and papers everywhere, empty coffee mugs, photographs of her clients lining the walls, all of them signed with a bold, black flourish: To darling Tamsyn,with gratitude.

  After twenty years in the business, she’d helped so many people find fame and fortune . . . She was always so generous with her time, so loving. If only Mum could be more like that . . .

  “Night,Tammy.”

  “Good night, Jenna. Sleep well.”

  She slid off the bus, breathing the air that heaved in from the sea. The land smelt of the first softening of early spring.

  She pushed open the door of Lelant’s village hall.

  Inside, lights, voices, laughter and bustle greeted her: Leah testing the CDs were in good working order; several girls limbering up at the barre; others gossiping in a huddle; Leah’s youngest daughter, Georgie, sitting on the floor in a purple leotard eating a bag of crisps.

  At the end of term they were planning to give a show for charity and one of the mothers had brought in some material for the costumes. It lay in crushed piles of glittering silver and gold on the small platform.

  Jenna’s two best friends, Imogen and Morvah, broke from the group and came flying towards her. She’d known them both since she was four years old. In many ways, they’d grown up together, each at different schools but meeting week after week at Leah’s classes. The initials of their names spelt JIM and Dad always called them the Three Jimmys . . .

  Now she steeled herself for their greetings and the inevitable question: “Hi, Jenn! Have you had any news yet?”

  Leah spotted the strain on Jenna’s face and called a swift halt to the chatter.

  “Right, girls, let’s get to work . . . Exercises first, then I want to do some more choreography to the three opening routines for the show. Easter’s round the corner and we’ve still got tons of work to do.”

  Jenna got through the class feeling as if her body was moving on automatic pilot. She hadn’t been to Leah’s class since the end of the previous week and already she felt her limbs were stiffer, less supple than they should be.

  Usually I’d be completely absorbed in this . . .

  Now all I can think of is how much I want to be in Covent Garden,in the Academy’s ground-floor studio,the wheels of trucks and cars whizzing past the window, Nick making the piano sing like a lark.

  “Jenna.” Leah beckoned to her at the end of class as the other girls clambered up the stairs to the changing room. “Could I have a quick word?”

  “Sure.” Perspiration dripped down Jenna’s back.

  “Are you OK?” Leah looked anxiously into Jenna’s eyes. “Are you coping?”

  “With the waiting for news?” Jenna shivered slightly, her limbs rapidly losing their warmth. “Just about . . . Sorry, Leah, I danced badly tonight.”

  “Nobody else noticed . . . Look, I was wondering . . . Would you like to dance a solo for me in the new show?”

  Jenna gasped. “I’d love to.”

  “Great. I’ll choreograph a dance specially for you. Come to my studio on Sunday afternoon . . . We can start work on it then, one to one.”

  “Thanks, Leah.” Jenna grasped her arm. “I mean, really, thank you.”

  “Go and get changed. Quickly, or you’ll miss the bus.”

  Jenna turned to race up the stairs into the changing room.

  “And Jenna—”

  “Yes?”

  “Good luck . . . Ring me the minute you have news.”

  Jenna stared at the front door as the letters slid through the box.

  She knelt and picked up the post.

  Two bills for Dad, a letter for Mum, junk mail . . .

  And a letter postmarked “The Urdang Academy” for somebody called Miss J. Pascoe.

  Jenna sat in the middle of the hall.

  She could smell the mouth-watering scent of Dad’s freshly baked bread coming from the tearoom kitchen.

  She heard Mum’s voice, shouting across the inner courtyard: “Where are all the clean serviettes, Elwyn? They’re supposed to be in the corner cupboard.”

  Upstairs, Benjie rumbled his train set around his bedroom floor.

  Jenna clawed at the envelope.

  The notepaper shook between her fingers. The words danced in front of her eyes, upside down. She hunched her knees to her chin, held the piece of paper between finger and thumb, turned it the right way round.

  Dear Jenna

  I am delighted to be able to tell you that your audition on Sunday was successful . . .

  Jenna screamed with joy.

  She scrambled to her feet. Holding the letter as if it were her most precious possession, she started to dance around the hall, into the living room, out of the
living room, into the kitchen.

  She flung open the kitchen door and yelled across the communal courtyard.

  “Dad! I’ve done it! They want me!”

  He hadn’t heard her. Pots and pans clattered in the tearoom kitchen, Mum’s voice grumbling among them.

  Jenna made a dash for the phone.

  “Tammy? It’s me!”

  “Hi! Any news?”

  “They’ve said yes! I can’t believe it! I was so sure I’d blown the whole thing!”

  “Jenna! That’s fantastic! When did you hear?”

  “Just now! This very minute!”

  “What does the letter say?”

  “I don’t know, I’ve only read the first line!” Jenna peered at the bottom of the piece of paper shaking in her hand. “Something about them moving to new premises in the autumn . . . The Finsbury Town Hall in Islington.”

  Tamsyn gasped. “That’s great news. I’d heard rumours . . . They’ll have so much more space there, be able to do so much more. You can go by bus from here.”

  “Yes.” Jenna hopped up and down. “I can’t take it in . . . It’s like being in a dream. Thank you so much,Tammy . . . I couldn’t have done it without—”

  Mum cut in abruptly. “Who are you talking to?”

  Jenna turned. Mum stood in the kitchen doorway.