Page 27 of Tendu: Dancing in the Castle

I took the phone over to the window, but he snatched it from my hand.

“I’ll have it, if you don’t want it. Might as well get what we can from the bastards, Phi. Top of the range this, isn’t it?”

I returned to the sofa, defeated in all efforts to improve my lot.

Justin’s own phone began its musical-theatre medley. “Your old number,” he said, mystified.

“He has the sim card.” I remembered how he’d used it to transfer contacts to my new phone.

“How very determined,” said Justin and, to my horror, he answered the call.

I covered my face, then uncovered it and watched his reactions.

“Yes?” said Justin into the phone. “Not going to happen, matey, so you can forget that right now.” There was a long pause during which Justin listened, rolled his eyes and sighed. “Okay, I’ll tell her.” He disconnected. “He’s desperate to speak to you, like might come round and lean on the bell all night, desperate.”

“He said that?”

“No, this is my assessment of the situation. You be quiet and listen. Two main points. He says you were right about him and Michelle, but it’s in the past. There was this whole repeated thing about it being only you now, very keen to make sure I told you that. And you’re not to worry about college. He’s fixed it all with Madame, so you’re not in trouble.” Justin paused a moment to think before continuing. “I hate to stick up for a bastard man in any way, but, well, you’ve been with him every night for weeks. We can discuss the neglect of your best friend at a later date over apologetic gifts and cupcakes, but the fact is, he can hardly have had time to see her too. He sounded kinda broken, Phi.”

It was all too confusing and terrible. Back in my small single bed, the solace of sleep wouldn’t come. The scene with Michelle and Aleks in the studio replayed on a loop: how they’d looked, how they’d spoken, the cheek kiss and smile. An unhealthy amount of time was spent trying to work out what every little inflection and movement meant. The night sank into a void of blackness from which nothing good could ever come, and I wept.

I wept for Aleks, for though my mind had initially fixated on the facts of his relationship with Michelle, there was a darker, sadder truth too. The end of his performing career must have been terrible. I recalled that the research did have something to do with rehabilitation for injured dancers. If she’d been there for him, if she’d helped him, what right had I to condemn that?

Someone hammered at the front door. Justin didn’t emerge from his room, and I peered nervously through the peephole. It was Allan, our neighbour from upstairs who often worked nights.

“Hi, Phi,” he said when I opened the door. “There’s a bloke sitting on the steps outside. Usually something to do with you, aren’t they?”

“What bloke? Who?”

“Don’t worry. I didn’t let this one in, not that he asked. Blond guy.”

So Aleks was near, but not bell leaning or demanding to be let in. I really wanted to see him, but also didn’t. Because. Because what? Jealousy. Some form of instant clarity was still uncomfortably with me. A peek from the bottom of the stairwell to check that he was all right couldn’t hurt, though, surely?

My socked feet were silent on the stairs.

He sat on the top step outside, head in hands. He looked round, and we regarded each other for a moment before we both approached the main doors. I nearly turned and fled, but instead opened the latch and began to sob as his arms came round me.

“I am so sorry,” he said several times into my hair.

Unable to analyse the situation, I just held him. Everything about Aleks was comforting: his arms, his almondy smell, and the complete non-aloneness of hugging him.

“I should have told you,” he said. “Of course I should, but I did not want to cause upset. And this thing with her? It was nothing, just a convenience at a bad time. For her too. It was not like us, how we are being. Don’t think that. You are so perfect to me.” He sank to his knees, holding my hands in his. “I love you, Amalphia. I completely adore you. I am begging you still to please not leave me.”

I knelt too and examined the pleasing lines of his nose and cheekbones, the latter of which were more distinct in distress.

He went on. “But it is when one thing go wrong that you see what else is wrong. I know I am not so perfect. You are right to say is over; all is over for me. You have already seen I have the disease of an old man.”

I shook my head. “Your hands are very cold,” I told him. “You’ll have to come up to the Dickensian hovel now.”

We were soon cuddled and warm in my tiny bed.

“It was so awful,” I told him. “It was like I could just pull all the clues together and see what was true.”

“The amalgamations are meant to stimulate parts of the brain not usually used. I experienced only slight discomfort myself, nothing else.” His tone darkened. “But I am feel the badness of the past too, angel. Each week in the staff meeting, I am sit near the angry man. Justin is sensing this today, no? Seeing that this man is hitting you?”

“He didn’t hit me, not exactly. He shoved me around a bit. The worst thing was how he spoke to me.” I didn’t want to have Aleks hear the unfortunate tale, but truth flowed on. “It was like the opposite of how you speak to me.”

“He is putting you down? Oh yes, I see him. He knows he is with a woman several leagues above. His only chance to keep, is to make you believe you are less than you are.”

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