NEAT stack of newspapers sat on the kitchen table in the basement kitchen. Other than the sound of her own breathing, Allegra could hear nothing. She tore her eyes from the stack and looked at her father.
‘Shall I read them to you?’ he asked.
Allegra shook her head and returned her gaze to the tower of newsprint in front of her. Instead of taking the top one off the pile, she picked one from the middle and eased it from its place. The critic who wrote for that paper was always the hardest to read. Not because he was vicious. He was blunt, yes, but never vicious. It was much, much worse than that.
By some magical power, this man always managed to hone in on those elements of the performance that Allegra fretted about herself and then shone a big, nasty spotlight on them. However, if she could read this review and get it out of the way, the rest would be a piece of cake. At least, that was what she was telling herself.
She pushed the pile of papers to the far edge of the table to give herself space to unfold the broadsheet and carefully turned pages, smoothing each one flat, until she reached the arts section.
There, filling almost half the page, was a grainy black and white photo of her and Stephen in the last act. Stephen, as always, looked like one of those sculpted marble statues, all perfect musculature and good bone structure, as he supported her in an arabesque.
She felt a little of the panic drumming beneath her ribs drain away. She didn’t look too bad herself. And the line of that back leg was perfect, even though she’d only hit that position for a split second before moving through it to the next step. Surely, a picture like that had to be a good omen?
She glanced down at the text beneath the picture and phrases swam in front of her eyes.
‘Astounding.’
‘Technically brilliant.’
‘Allegra Martin didn’t miss a step…’
She released the breath she’d been holding out through her lips and let it curve them into a slight smile. She risked a look at her father, but he was wading through another of the papers. The cup of chamomile tea he’d made her was now almost cold. She reached for it and took a sip, then grimaced.
Now her initial shakiness had subsided she went back to the beginning of the article and read it in whole sentences, taking it in slowly, weighing every word instead of fracturing it into phrases that had a tendency to jump out at her.
It all sounded good but as she switched from the bottom of the second column to the top of the third she started to feel chilly again. By the time she’d read a couple more paragraphs she knew why.
‘I’ve always been a huge Allegra Martin fan…’ the man had written.
The ballerina in question raised an eyebrow. Really? If that was the case, she’d hate to be on his bad side!
‘…but while her performance as the Little Mermaid was technically flawless, I still don’t think she has lived up to her early promise.’
Allegra’s stomach bottomed out and a faint taste of chamomile tea clung to her teeth, making her feel queasy. She read on.
‘Miss Martin seems to have lost the engaging sense of wonder and joy she had as a young dancer and, while I appreciate her virtuosity, I don’t feel she captured either the exquisite joy of first love nor the torture of unfulfilled longing that a truly great rendition of this part would require.’
She wanted to stop, but she couldn’t. It was like driving a speeding car when the brakes had failed. Her brain was frantically pressing on the pedal, but her eyes kept reading.
And it only got worse:
‘In Hans Christian Andersen’s original story, the Little Mermaid was a creature not blessed with a soul, and I’m afraid, with Allegra Martin in the title role, this was all too obvious.’
Allegra didn’t move. Nothing would work. Not her mouth, not her legs, not her arms.
Soulless? He’d called her soulless?
She pushed her chair away from the table and stood up, met her father’s eyes.
He didn’t say anything. Very unusual for her father. He always had something to say about her performances, some aspect she could improve for next time. Also, no matter how hard on her he was in private, when the reviews came in he normally got very defensive, would argue why the writer was wrong.
The chill in her stomach dropped a few degrees.
There was nothing to argue about, nothing to refute. She could see it now—the glimmer of disappointment in his eyes.
‘You think it’s true, don’t you?’ she asked, her voice almost a whisper. Even at that volume, it managed to wobble slightly.
He closed and opened his eyes slowly. ‘I don’t know what’s been wrong with you the last year or so, Allegra. You’re just not as focused as you used to be. Your work is suffering.’
She looked at him with pleading eyes. Yes, her father was hard on her, had always pushed her, but he was supposed to be her protector, her champion! Why was he saying this? Why couldn’t he dismiss the opinion of one ‘know-it-all hack’, as he liked to call them?
That was when she saw something else in his eyes, clouding out the original emotion, making it darker and harder. He wasn’t just disappointed with her; he was angry.
‘You can’t waste your gift like this. You’ve got to stop throwing it all away.’
There was a sharp stinging at the back of Allegra’s eyes. He wasn’t talking about losing the role of principal dancer—although that might be a possibility if her current artistic drought didn’t end—he was talking about the big picture, the vision he’d had for her ever since he’d put her name down for an audition for the Royal Ballet School, aged ten.
He wasn’t talking about jobs and salaries and reviews. He was talking about living up to her mother’s legacy, of carrying on where Maria Martin had left off on the road to becoming one of the greatest British ballet dancers in history.
He was saying she just wasn’t good enough. Might never be.
Allegra rose to her feet, looked at the paper still open on the table and then back at her father.
‘I want to see you bringing that same energy and commitment you used to have back to every class, every rehearsal, every performance,’ he said. ‘You owe it to yourself.’
You owe it to her. That was what he really meant, wasn’t it?
Didn’t he think she would if she could? I’m trying, she wanted to scream at him, but nothing’s working because I feel dead inside! I’m not her. I haven’t got her talent. I’m not sure I’ve even got my own any more! Or that I want it if I do have it.
The words didn’t even get close to being on the tip of her tongue; they swirled around her head instead, making her eyes blur and her throat swell. She licked her dry lips and forced something out.
‘I’ve got class at ten-thirty,’ she said. And then, without looking at her father again, she turned and headed up the stairs that led from their basement kitchen, pulled her coat from the hook near the door and walked with silent steps into the chilly morning air.
People were everywhere. Finn stood still and took a few moments to adjust. After a week in the frozen wilderness, where the only noise was the wind curling round rocks or the crunch of snow beneath his boots, a busy provincial airport terminal was an assault on the senses.
Not that he minded.
This was just a different kind of adventure, a different kind of wilderness. One that Finn considered far more dangerous, even with its thick sheen of civilisation.
And, while he hadn’t minded Toby’s company, he’d been secretly relieved when the man had been whisked away in a limo as soon as their helicopter had hit the tarmac. Now he