Page 87 of Tendu: Dancing in the Castle

We released hands in the foyer, sounds of bustle and breakfast coming from the great hall.

“It will be easier for me when our secret is ended,” he said. “I am hope, soon?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.”

“Why not?” His voice regained some of the cool air of earlier.

“Aleks,” I said in frustration, flummoxed by his up-and-down, hot-and-cold behaviour. “Remember last night? And how you felt about it this morning? Look how I embarrassed you in a room full of people who didn’t know about us. Can you imagine if they had?”

“Malphia, no, don’t—”

“Don’t what? Be realistic? One of us has to be. You’re going in there to schmooze with your sophisticated friends. I’m going to be told how crap I am by my mother, when the truth is neither you nor her have to bother. I already know.”

I stormed across the room and chose a smoothie for breakfast, surely the least likely food to garner criticism. Turning to locate my parents, I discovered that Aleks had sat down by them. I walked over to the table, the dread of what he might be about to hear, acute and painful. The words ‘lumpy-bumpy’ would make me appear more unfortunate than ever. He smiled as I sat down beside him, across from my parents at the table.

My mother paused in her eating of a ‘full Scottish breakfast’ that included black pudding and haggis fritters, to dive straight into one of her favourite subjects. “I know you think these smoothie things are healthy, dear, but they can be as calorific as a fried breakfast.”

Aleks looked steadily at her and said, “Amalphia doesn’t need to be worried about that.”

“It’s not the same for male dancers,” she stated as if she, who had never done so much as a simple tendu, knew more about ballet than him. “Girls have to be careful not to be too curvaceous. They need to watch their weight.”

“And some become ill doing so,” he replied.

“This attitude explains a lot,” she said to him, then directed her contempt back in my direction. “I noticed last night that you’re beginning to look a bit lum—”

“I think what your mum’s trying to say is that your tits are too big,” interjected Justin from his place a little further up the table. His words earned him a subzero glare from my mother and much heartfelt gratitude from me. He knew what she’d been going to say, and he’d stopped her.

Carolyn smiled at her son. “I agree with Aleks. You have a beautiful figure, Phi. Don’t start getting paranoid and going on strange diets.”

Justin nodded. “God no, you wouldn’t want to end up with none at all like Simone.”

Simone spun round on hearing her name to find everyone staring at her. She looked exhausted, with big bags under her eyes. Maybe she’d partied too hard the previous evening? With a toss of her hair, she turned away from us again.

“Been there, done that, the extreme-diet thing,” I said, meaning to be light and funny, forgetting who was there.

“That doctor didn’t know what he was talking about,” snapped my mother. “How could you be anorexic at that weight?”

“You were this way?” asked Aleks, looking intently into my face.

Ignoring my parent’s protest to the contrary, I told him the truth. “Yes. It was better once I was at college. They were very right-on about everything: healthy eating, healthy weights.”

“And then I introduced her to the best cake in the world, and she hasn’t looked back,” added Justin.

“You know, that place in Covent Garden,” I said, before realising that the fact Aleks and I had eaten cake together would come as a revelation to some.

Justin distracted everyone again. “Speaking of introductions, Mrs. Treadwell, have you met the Cockheads?”

The man and woman sitting with Simone looked embarrassed but resigned.

“Who knew?” Justin went on. “Simone’s real surname is not Conner at all!”

I glanced at Aleks. “You don’t have to do this,” I murmured quietly to him. “You know, talk to my parents like this.”

“I want to be next to you. I want to support you.”

We were suddenly surrounded by small excited people.

Peter’s family squashed me with cuddles. Benjamin grabbed my hair and proceeded to rid his fingers of whatever breakfast stuff he had been eating. I stood up from the table and lifted the baby high up into the air, making him giggle and forget my hair. I could hear my mother’s oft-told lecture on healthy-weight charts and how the numbers had been made up by fat people. Aleks’s eyes met mine in an intense gaze.

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