She flashed her eyes up at him as he felt this truth drop from his lips so freely and he couldn’t quite determine what her reaction was. It was the very epitome of inscrutable. He wished, not for the first time, that he could read minds. Although usually that was in a warlord kind of situation and not a chance to work out what on earth his current crush was thinking.
‘Be there for you, that’s what you want.’
‘Yeah, I know it’s a big ask, but…’
‘Huge ask. Huge. How dare you suggest I spend my spare time with the person whose company I enjoy most in the world? Except Sam’s, of course.’
‘You enjoy my company more than anyone else’s in the world?’
‘Oh, hush, man. Why do you always pick up on the unimportant stuff?’
And as he looked at her and saw how true she was, he was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to do as she suggested and tell his side of the story. Tell her about the day they were filming a group of rebel fighters in the jungle when they heard an attack on the nearest village. How they ran to help, shocked not to be running into people fleeing as they did so. How when they got there, the heat, the smell, was overwhelming. How that smell woke him up in the night as often, if not more, than it woke his daughter. How he and his cameraman dashed from burning house to burning house but there was nobody left to save. Nobody until he heard a baby scream and ran and found a woman fallen to the floor on the edge of the village, her body slumped over unnaturally, and he realized the cries were coming from a baby underneath her. As he opened his mouth to tell his best friend, the woman he loved, how he had found Elechi, the tears streamed hot and fast down his face.
Chapter Thirty-one
Sylvie approached Penmenna School tingling with nervous excitement. The morning had dawned clear with a nip in the air. The seagulls, no respecters of weekend lie-ins, were circling overhead, their cries noisy but reassuring. This was just another day for them, nothing momentous happening here.
But Sylvie wasn’t a seagull and today was the first day of her dreams becoming a possibility. She kept trying to downplay it in her mind, just another class, nothing special, but her heart hammered out the rhythm dream-come-true-don’t-mess-it-up-dream-come-true-don’t-mess-it-up as she marched up the granite steps and turned the key in the heavy iron lock.
It was scary enough being responsible for the opening of the school, let alone anything else. She had never had to do that before and the huge bunch of keys that Rosy gave her jangled with burdensome responsibility. The key jarred in the lock, the door heavy, and Sylvie felt the rush of panic as she struggled to get the clunky metal key to turn.
As she jostled it in the lock and muttered up a little prayer she felt it shift a little and then turn. The other, slightly more modern, locks undid easily and her shoulders relaxed back down into a normal human position. They had practically been as high as her ears as she imagined not being able to get into the building on the first day that the Sylvie Williams School of Ballet came into being. She would have had to transport everyone to Lovage Farm and watch Tom drop dead on the spot as a class often pre-schoolers started trying to twirl and spin all over the hay shed.
The door lumbered open, creaking like an ancient beast arising from sleep. Sylvie put her bags down on the step and raced inside the door; she had thirty seconds to get to the alarm and enter the code correctly before it started alerting the whole of the village that someone was breaking into the school. This was the bit Sylvie was dreading the most. She dashed to the box and managed to put the code in, then stood, breath held, as the box flashed a sequence of lights before settling down. Phew, she was in.
Grabbing her bag she wandered through the school, putting the lights on as she went. There was something very surreal about being here when it was completely empty, lifeless. She might be an adult, a one-time professional ballet dancer, mother to a budding genius and niece to the grumpiest man on the planet, but she was still freaked out by silence. Inside the building she couldn’t even hear the screech of the gulls. Nothing.
She started to hum to herself as she pulled the weighty door to the hall open and put her things down. Then the first thing she did was put some music on. As the opening chords ofRomeo and Julietcrashed through, the building suddenly felt more alive. She took a deep breath. This place was Penmenna School, there was no more fitting place for her to trial this. She had been teaching for years, and the only difference was that today she was working entirely for herself, not some faceless leisure corporation. She could do this. She had faith in herself. In her ability. This was going to be fine. Another deep breath.
She started to sing. It was hard to be anything but optimistic with the powerful music filling the hall. If nothing else it reminded her she was a fighter. Now she just had to fight herway through the PE equipment cupboard and pull out the mats before the children came filing in.
She had six classes planned for Saturdays, and felt a little guilty that so many of her children from the leisure centre had switched allegiance and signed up with her. She had the pre-school class first, then her primary class for beginners, followed by her Grade One ballet class, then a Grade Two, Grade Three and a Grade Four class. It was going to be a long old day and she had scheduled breaks between all of them, but still it would be a marathon with each class lasting forty-five minutes.
Sylvie started to do some stretches when she heard a voice join in with her humming; it was a little off-key but knew the music. Hmm. Interesting. Although she rather hoped it wasn’t a new parent who was super-ballet-obsessed; they liked to try and run the class themselves, explain how she was doing it all wrong and that little Annabel had come out of the womb humming Tchaikovsky and the whole family knew she was a star in the making.
She stopped and watched the door to see who the humming belonged to.
‘Hello, dear, I do love this. Prokofiev? I thought I’d come along and watch.’
‘Ah, hello, Sheila. That’s kind of you. I’m not sure that watching…’
‘No, of course not. That wouldn’t be right. I meant support, I came to support.’ She started to rustle in her bag but, not appearing to have any success, she took her glasses from the top of her head. ‘Such a useful thing, this chain thingy, should have got one years ago. Anyway, in here somewhere…’ She rifled through again, but looking as she did so this time.
‘Aha!’ Her triumphant sound pierced the air and she pulled out a large Tupperware container. ‘Here, oranges, for half-time.’
‘Ohhh…’
‘I was watching a programme, my dear, only the other night and do you know what? They say that ballet dancers are a lot stronger than football players, stronger than many athletes, so I was thinking if it’s harder than football and they get oranges at half-time then I should cut some up for your little ones. So I did. Here.’ Sheila proffered the very large Tupperware container filled to the brim with little orange segments.
‘That is so kind. I’ve never dished out oranges before. I think they’re going to love them…’
But before she could finish her sentence, Sheila was back to rummaging through her bag.
‘And look dear, while I was doing it I had an idea and I thought, oh, go on, why not? So here, have this as well.’ Sylvie had to take a step back as the school secretary brandished a cheese-and-pineapple hedgehog at her. A hedgehog with a little bit of tissue and some bag fluff stuck to it.
‘Thought a bit of protein wouldn’t go amiss, and look, I’ve given him sultanas for eyes.’
‘So you have. This is great, thank you. Um… the thing is, though, I don’t think I’m supposed to let people wander in and watch…’
