A Girl’s Guide to Kissing Frogs
‘Let me be the first to congratulate you.’ He closed the door firmly behind him.
Miko Lubikoff had been born plain Mike Lubbock and at the age of fourteen had been selling cabbages from a barrow; he was an example to us all of how hard work and perseverance in the teeth of all odds will pay dividends. He had put the money he earned from the cabbages into ballet classes and, though it was late to begin, talent and diligence had earned him a place in the corps of a fourth-rate company. From this modest beginning he rose rapidly. Though without an extraordinary technique, his strong personality and musicality, particularly in the caractère roles, brought him to the notice of the cognoscenti. Here luck played a part for, whereas Sebastian had an appetite only for young girls, Miko’s taste was for sodomy – preferably with angelic little boys, but he was not fussy. Sebastian’s nymphets rarely had enough money for the bus home, whereas Miko rolled happily about in bed with any balletomane with a large bank balance. Pillow talk bought him partnerships, investments, even a theatre, and currently he was one of the biggest cheeses in English ballet.
He was now past the age of dancing and had grown corpulent with rich living at other people’s expense. His face was round and his nose was fat. His head was a naked dome above two stiff triangular wedges of hair, dyed bright gold so that he looked like a cherub whose wings had mysteriously risen from his shoulder blades to above his ears.
‘My dear Marigold!’ He bowed as low as his stomach allowed. ‘Permit me to say how awed I feel at finding myself in the presence of the outstanding artist. My fingers and toes still tingle from the stimulation of your performance. What attack! You snap from the ground in the first act and in the second you float. Superb! Exquisite!’ He kissed his fingertips.
Rumour said Miko had been born in Stoke Newington, but now he spoke with an interesting mixture of dramatic inflections, trilled consonants and stilted constructions that could have passed for Slavonic. I did not despise him for this. Illusion and invention are the lifeblood of ballet.
‘Thank you so much for the flowers. They’re beautiful.’ A wave of pain from my foot made me feel sick.
He shook his head, smiling. ‘A paltry tribute to one who will go down in the history books with Pavlova, Karsavina, Kchessinskaya, Ulanova and Fonteyn.’
For a moment I wondered if it could be true. In which case ‘Savage’ would sound rather discordant in this catalogue of greats. Then common sense asserted itself. There were plenty of dancers as technically competent as me. Some were better. It would take a piece of extraordinary good fortune to persuade people that I had something special that merited a place in the exosphere of stardom. So far critics had been content to call my performance ‘fiery’, probably because of an unconscious association with the colour of my hair.
‘You have received my letter?’ Miko continued. ‘You understand that I would like you to come to work for me? I can offer you the great classic roles and besides them the exciting new ones, which you can make your own.’ He smirked a little. ‘But there are some sweets that, alas, I cannot promise.’ He pretended to look sorrowful while keeping his merry little eyes fixed on mine. ‘I am told on the good authority of the ladies who have been favoured – and there are so, so many of them – that Sebastian is inimitable in the bedroom.’ He need not have stooped to be catty. For me Miko’s sexual orientation was not the least of his attractions.
‘Naturally I’m terrifically honoured to be asked to join the English Ballet,’ I began, ‘but my contract with—’
Miko held up a stubby finger. ‘Let us leave the business details for now. It has been an evening of the consummate delight. We do not want to spoil it with the … how you say, nitty-gritty? Come and see me in my office at six o’clock on Monday evening.’
I hesitated. If I kept that appointment it would be the end of my career with the LBC. News of my visit to enemy headquarters would fly back to Sebastian as fast as Miko could send it. My goose would not only be cooked but eaten and digested. This left me with almost no bargaining power. How could I be certain that Miko would offer me a principal and not a soloist contract? Miko smiled winningly. My thoughts flew about en gargouillade, that is, a double rond de jambe en l’air, en dedans with the first leg, en dehors with the second, all in the course of one leap and really tricky.
‘It’s a little awkward.’ I pulled a face to express the delicacy of the situation, and also to relieve the emotion caused by a throbbing so bad that I wanted to clutch my foot and yell. ‘You see—’
‘Hello Miko.’ Sebastian had entered as quietly as a cat, which was his habit. ‘Come to see how Giselle should be done?’
They gave each other tigerish smiles.
‘I congratulate you, Sebastian. A superb production. Rarely have I seen one that was superior. Not for three years that I can remember.’ The last production of Giselle had been the English Ballet’s, three years ago almost to the day. ‘And Giselle herself … no, I have not seen a better. Certainly not Skrivanova. By the end of the second act, that one, she land with a thump, like a tired horse.’ This was generous, as the rustling and whispering from just outside the door, which Sebastian had left a little ajar, testified to a larger audience than us three. Skrivanova, his prima ballerina, was bound to hear of this disparagement. The intense interest created abroad by this discussion was not just idle inquisitiveness. If I joined the English Ballet, there was a chance that someone in the LBC, probably Bella, would get a principal contract. All the coryphées – the dancers in the corps who had shown promise and who were under consideration for a soloist contract – were hanging on every word.
‘Skrivanova. Yes.’ Sebastian lingered in a hissing way on the last consonant. ‘Naturally I don’t blame you for wanting my dancers for yourself. There isn’t another company in the world that has such a flair for discovering talent.’
I felt a stab of guilt, for this was true. Though I had worked insanely hard, it was Sebastian who had promoted my career
‘Ah yes. The men, no, there we have the edge, but when it comes to the ballerinas, my dear Sebastian, you have an exceptional success. Almost, one might say, you are a Svengali. You take over their minds and bodies until they become an extension of your artistic vision.’ I understood that Miko was making an appeal to my pride and independence.
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t sleep with them all, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Only the desirable ones. Skrivanova has a face like an amiable frog and the brain to match. It never even crossed my mind to take her to bed.’ Another appeal to my pride and also a stab in the traitorous Skrivanova’s back.
Miko shrugged. ‘With make-up she looks all right. But I agree with you, old fellow, she cannot hold a candle to Marigold.’
They looked at each other with a man-of-the world cordiality which hid honed steel, and then at me, much as two hungry tigers might contemplate a fresh kill.
‘So,’ Sebastian was unable to conceal another hiss, ‘let’s not beat about the bush. This isn’t a social call. You want to lure yet another of my pretty birds into your net. And you think that Marigold will betray her old friends for money. Isn’t that rather insulting to her?’
I wondered if it was. Certainly I was awfully fed up with having to scrimp and make do. I was prepared to be insulted if it meant I need not worry about the rent and could afford to wash my hair with shampoo instead of washing-up liquid.
Miko laughed and spread his hands. ‘I come clean. I want Marigold to dance for me. And naturally I pay her more because I can afford to.’ How much more? I longed to ask. ‘But it is you who insult her if you think it is only money which will make her come to me. She will be a fool not to do so. It will be the making of her.’ He hesitated, then brought it out in a rush. ‘A principal’s contract with the second finest company in Europe is not so easily come by.’
There was a crescendo of muttering and whispering outside and the door creaked open a fraction wider. Despite my agony I felt a surge of joy. Sebastian, intentionally or unintentionally, had forced Miko to show his hand.
‘Yes. I admit she would be a fool, if no other consideration came into it. But you see –’ Sebastian also hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the door and closed it – ‘it’s not just a question of her career.’ He shot a glance in my direction. Never had those Atlantic grey eyes looked colder. ‘You’re the first to be let in on the secret, Miko. I’ve asked Marigold to marry me.’
Miko was clearly taken aback, in fact he practically rocked on his heels, but his astonishment was as nothing compared with mine. No word of marriage, love or even mild affection had ever crossed Sebastian’s rather thin lips. I realized that my mouth was hanging unattractively open. He came over and put a proprietorial hand on my shoulder.
‘I know Marigold too well to believe that she would put ambition before my – our happiness.’
The idea was preposterous. This must be a trick, invented on the spot, to put a spoke in Miko’s wheel. Miko’s little eyes were still twinkling but a frown puckered the cushions of fat above them.
I felt Sebastian’s hand tighten on my collarbone. ‘Marigold?’ he said softly.
I stared up at him, trying to fathom his mind. Could it be … that he really wanted to marry me? If there was even the smallest possibility that he was sincere I could not decline his offer abruptly and callously in front of Miko. It would be discourteous, even cruel. Even as I thought this I chided myself for a fool. Sebastian had never given me a moment’s thought except as a potential money-maker and – how had Bruce described me? – a spunk-bucket. God! What ought I to do? My whole future might depend on my present answer and my entire leg was pounding, bursting with pain. For a moment I thought I was going to be sick. Perhaps that would be the best thing. Though it would be embarrassing it would save me from having to make a decision. In the event I did something less messy and more serviceable. I fainted.
3
‘This is so kind of you,’ I said to Sebastian the following day. ‘I’ve never had so much luxury.’
Things had taken such a dramatic turn for the better that I had to pinch myself several times for reassurance. On my way to class that morning, getting downstairs and crossing Maxwell Street had hurt so much that I had groaned aloud. I had fainted in the bus queue and been rushed by ambulance, with flashing light and wailing siren, to hospital. Once there all sense of urgency seemed to evaporate and I had sat in A&E in great pain, ignored by everyone for at least a couple of hours until it occurred to me that I ought to find a telephone and let the LBC know I probably wouldn’t be coming in that day. Sebastian’s sudden appearance among the bored staff and grumbling, impotent patients was as galvanizing as a lion’s among grazing wildebeest. I had been taken by wheelchair to a waiting taxi and driven to the Wyngarde Private Clinic.
Now I had a room all to myself which looked like a set in a Doris Day film. The bed had a pink velvet quilted headboard, there were curtains with roses on and two pink wing chairs for visitors. An enormous television stood at the foot of the bed. I had my own pink bathroom complete with bathrobe and the end sheet of the lav paper folded into a point.
‘Proudlock-Jones is the best man in the business for feet.’ Sebastian wandered about the room, inspecting the view of Wimpole Street from the window, the telephone, which he unplugged, the arrangement of artificial roses – pink, of course – on the bedside table and finally my cotton nightgown which the pretty nurse had brought me. ‘Unfortunately he doesn’t work on the NHS.’ Sebastian put one knee experimentally on the bed.
‘Ow-how!’ I yelled.
‘All right, no need to make a fuss,’ he said rather grumpily.
The pretty nurse came back just then, wreathed in smiles and bearing the ubiquitous kidney-shaped dish. It seems a peculiar fetish of the medical profession. After all, it must be comparatively rarely that they actually have a kidney to put in it. I saw to my dismay that it contained a syringe with a needle as thick as a pencil. ‘Here we are, Miss Savage. I’m just going to pop in your premed. If you’ll wait in the corridor, sir, for one minute …’ The nurse dimpled in response to Sebastian’s dramatic good looks as she held up the syringe and squirted out some liquid.
‘I don’t see why I should leave,’ Sebastian protested. ‘I’m not squeamish.’
‘Ah, but I’m going to put it in her derrière.’ She gave him an arch look. ‘And you can take away that champagne. She’s on nil by mouth until after her op.’
‘All right, I’ll come back later. Don’t do anything stupid, Marigold,’ he added by way of valediction.
‘Your boyfriend’s awfully handsome,’ said the pretty nurse. ‘Just a teeny prick.’ I bit back the obvious retort. It was actually quite a large prick but as nothing compared with the agony of my foot. ‘Well done!’ The nurse patted my arm sympathetically. ‘You’ll start to feel woozy very soon. Nothing to worry about, dear. Mr Proudlock-Jones is a wonderful surgeon. You couldn’t be in better hands.’ She tapped my cheek with her finger, then went away. I felt comforted by so much kindness. My mind began to unravel as whatever had been in the syringe swirled in my bloodstream. It was a glorious feeling.
‘Hello, darling,’ said Lizzie’s voice what seemed like five minutes later.
‘Oh, Lizzie,’ I said sleepily. ‘Thanks … coming … see me. Going … have operation … soon.’
‘You’ve had it,’ said the pretty nurse, beaming over Lizzie’s shoulder. ‘It’s all over, dear, and it went very well. Mr Proudlock-Jones is very pleased with you.’
‘Oh, good,’ I said, though I couldn’t think why he would be. I hadn’t actually done anything, as far as I was aware.
‘Would you like to sit with your friend for a while?’ said the nurse to Lizzie. ‘I’ll pop back later. Press the bell if you want anything.’
‘I say,’ said Lizzie. ‘This place is utter bliss, isn’t it? Fancy a chocolate finger biscuit?’
‘Not … just now.’
I must have dozed again, for when I came to Lizzie was deep in the copy of Tatler that came courtesy of the Wyngarde Clinic. ‘How are you feeling?’ Lizzie leaned forward sympathetically. She had quite a lot of chocolate at the corners of her mouth.
‘Okay. No pain. Thirsty.’
‘Nurse Thingummy’s been back and she said to give you little sips of water if you wanted it.’ The water was iced and deliciously refreshing. ‘Marigold, do you think I could possibly have a bath in your wonderful bathroom? Ours is heated by the range and Granny always lets it go out during the day to save coal. I haven’t had a hot bath in years.’
‘Go right ahead.’ I waved my hand in a lordly way.
I woke up again a little later to hear the sound of splashing and lots of oohs and aahs.
‘Crikey!’ said Lizzie through the open door. ‘I didn’t know water could be this hot.’
‘You’d better not faint,’ I said, ‘because I’m in no state to fish you out – oh, hello!’
‘I’m Anthony Proudlock-Jones.’ A middle-aged man with a pinstriped suit stretched over his corpulent form strode into the room and seized my hand in his plump smooth one. ‘We’ve met before but you were unconscious.’ He chuckled throatily in a way that suggested whole humidors of cigars. ‘I’m sure they’ve done a good job of plastering you up.’ He lifted the bedclothes to look at my leg. ‘Yes, very nice. You had a nasty comminuted fracture of the metatarsals. I oughtn’t to blow my own trumpet, but I think it’s true to say that in any hands other than mine you’d be waving goodbye to your career.’ He rubbed sausage-like fingers together. ‘But I’m reasonably confident it’ll heal all right. Take it easy for the next six weeks, then we’ll take the cast off and have another dekko.’
Reasonably confident? I felt perspiration spring out on my forehead at the suggestion of a doubt.
‘Remember, no gymnastics! You can wriggle your toes but that’s all. Patience is a virtue, virtue is a grace and Grace was a little girl who wouldn’t wash her face, ha ha!’ He breezed out to dispense healing and wisdom to the next patient.
‘Help!’ called Lizzie as soon as he’d gone. ‘I didn’t dare move. I’ve probably given myself third-degree burns. I had to suck the flannel to suppress bloodcurdling screams. I’ll just put in some cold.’
Mr Proudlock-Jones had put paid to sleepiness for the time being. While torrents of water flowed into the bath, I asked myself what I would do if his confidence proved for once to be unjustified. No course of action occurred to me. If I could not dance I could not live. Of course it would be all right. It had to be.
‘This is the most sensual experience I’ve had in years.’ Lizzie’s voice, floating through the open door, had gone down several tones and was gravelly with relaxation. ‘Much better than sex. And no evil consequences.’
Six months ago, Lizzie had fallen insanely in love with a Russian guest artist who, when wearing a wig and full make-up, looked slightly like Rudolf Nureyev. Certainly from behind the resemblance was remarkable. He had stayed only three weeks before being recalled to Leningrad and, two months after that, the company had a whip-round to pay for Lizzie to have a termination at the handy little nursing home in Southwark where all the female dancers in the company went when self-control or rubber failed. Since then, Lizzie had been much less keen on sex.
‘And generally much less worrying,’ I said, sitting up and helping myself to a biscuit to begin the process of repair. It was the first thing I had eaten for thirty-six hours and it tasted extraordinarily delicious. ‘No fretful evenings waiting for the bath to ring. No need to agonize over whether the bath thinks you were insufficiently enthusiastic and imaginative. One good thing about making love with Sebastian is that he’s so self-absorbed one might as well be an inflatable – Hello, Sebastian,’ I said loudly as he walked into the room. A violent splash came from the bathroom followed by silence.
‘Well! You’re looking quite a lot better already.’ Sebastian picked up the bottle of champagne, untwisted the wires and popped the cork. He picked up my glass and chucked the iced water over the artificial roses. ‘We’ll have to share this.’
‘I probably oughtn’t have alcohol so soon …’
‘Oh, rubbish! It won’t hurt your foot. Drink up.’ He held the beaker-full of foaming liquid under my nose. ‘It’ll relax you.’
Actually I was feeling quite relaxed already, but Sebastian was forking out zillions for my operation and my room so I could refuse him nothing.
‘Go on,’ he said, ‘finish it.’
The chocolate biscuit was powerless to counteract the effect of the champagne when it hit my otherwise empty stomach. When it combined with the remainder of the anaesthetic that was still in my bloodstream, I felt as though I had been shot into outer space in a large pink rocket. The world grew distant and all the consequences thereof.
He stroked my bare arm. ‘Mm. You’ve lost a couple of pounds.’ Sebastian was as obsessed with body shapes as the rest of us. ‘Don’t overdo it. You’ll start losing muscle.’ I wanted to say that it was nice of him to care but whatever part of my brain was in control of my tongue seemed to be paralysed. ‘It’s not unattractive, though.’
I set off on an orbit of the earth and very colourful it was, too, just like those photographs in the National Geographic magazine.
‘Marigold.’ Sebastian was bending over me. ‘You’re giggling like a schoolgirl. Just be serious for a moment. Shall I tell Miko to get lost?’
I bared my teeth in a grin as in the intervals between him talking to me I found I was flying over snow-sprinkled mountains and deep dark lakes.
‘Stop giggling.’ Sebastian sounded annoyed but I didn’t give a damn. ‘Move over. I want to fuck you.’
I thought I heard another splash from the bathroom and what might have been a stifled cry.
‘Now?’ It sounded a strange thing to want to do when one could soar like a bird over oceans and continents. ‘… nurses? … Lizzie?’
‘I’ve locked the door. Lizzie can wait outside.’
I wanted to explain that Lizzie was already inside but his hands were pulling up my gown. Too late his body was on mine, in mine.
‘I don’t know what’s so funny,’ he said afterwards in a slightly offended tone.
‘Neither do I.’ My voice boomed and in the distance someone cackled like a hen. Could it possibly have been me?
I spent two more enjoyable days in the clinic, warm, fed and practically killed with kindness, before Sebastian visited me again and said I must go home as it was costing a hundred pounds a day which the company could not afford.
‘As much as that?’ I flung back the covers and threw my good leg over the side, almost crushed by a terrible weight of guilt. ‘I had no idea. Of course I’ll leave at once. Oh, thank you, Sebastian, for paying for me.’ I seized his hand. My gratitude was so tremendous I felt I quite loved him.
Sebastian’s eye fell on several inches of naked thigh below my crumpled nightdress. ‘Mm. There’s no immediate hurry. I’ll just lock the door.’
‘Oh, yes, do!’
‘Your enthusiasm makes an agreeable change,’ he said after a while. ‘Of course I’m perfectly aware that the motive is mercenary.’
An increase of guilt encouraged me to submit willingly to a predilection of Sebastian’s I hated, the details of which I’d rather not go into.
‘You needn’t feel overburdened by indebtedness,’ said Sebastian as he rolled away from me, elegantly pale with effort and, one hoped, thoroughly sated. ‘I shall deduct the four hundred pounds from your salary in instalments over the next year.’
As I lay mute with indignation he laughed long and low.
4
‘Marigold! It’s me,’ called Lizzie, coming in through the front door of the flat accompanied by the most delicious smell of vinegar. ‘How are you, darling? Have you been horribly bored?’
I had been taken by ambulance back to 44 Maxwell Street that morning. The flat was up four flights of stairs and our miserly landlord had set the timer switch so that you had to run like mad, taking three steps at a time, to get from one landing to the next before the light went out. The ambulance men, manoeuvring the stretcher with difficulty round the narrow bends, had complained volubly about being plunged into absolute darkness every eight seconds while comparing the stink unfavourably with a ferret’s cage. I explained that the pungent smell was due to the third-floor lodger treating the stairwell as his own private pissoir. After that they advised me to throw myself on the mercy of Social Services and plainly disbelieved my protests that I was actually quite fond of the place. Because Nancy and Sorel were in America with the touring part of the company, I could only afford to heat my bedroom, and the temperature of the rest of the flat struck cold as a tomb. The men looked at my extravagant interior decorations with expressions of wonderment not unmixed with derision, but they had been sympathetic and friendly and I was sorry to see them go.
I had spent the intervening hours between their departure and Lizzie’s arrival shivering and dozing. ‘A bit. What’s in those parcels?’
‘Fish and chips! Isn’t it utter bliss?’
I agreed that it was but habitual caution could not be entirely suppressed. ‘Should you be eating a zillion calories, dear girl? For that matter should I?’
‘Oh, who gives a damn! You need nourishment and I need cheering up. Let’s for once just forget about our waistlines. Want a plate?’
‘Certainly not.’ I opened the newspaper on my knee. ‘Oh, the smell of ancient reheated fat! So sinful yet so delicious! Why do you need cheering up?’