An Unchoreographed Life

Chapter One 

“I know you’re in there, Belle.” Although her mother’s voice was teasing, it also had a prickly quality. At the first of three knuckle-sharp raps, the girl’s head jolted, colliding with the shelf above her, more startling than painful. “It’s time to come out of the cupboard and say goodbye to Uncle Sergei.”

        Curled horizontally, peering out through slanted wooden slats, Belinda could see the rippling silk hem of her mother’s turquoise dressing gown. It was the one Mummy called a kimono. She had bought it from a Chinese market before she gave up travelling and made her home in a place called Worlds End, sandwiched, not on a cliff’s edge with the roar of the ocean below, or next to the flag at the North Pole, but just beyond the snake in the King’s Road where the bus service was excellent. Her mother had christened the estate ‘The Land Architecture Forgot,’ but there weren’t too many buildings that you could learn about hexagons from, so that had to mean something.

Two pairs of shoes stood side by side: one towering, blister-forming; the other, sensible brown lace-ups. Hand-stitched, a little scuffed at the toes. The type Belinda would later recognise in the windows of old-fashioned men’s outfitters and think, He must have been nice.

Having accumulated all the wisdom and secret worries that being six years old can afford, Belinda understood that by insisting she called her friend ‘Uncle,’ Mummy was suggesting he was trustworthy. As opposed to, say, the undercover abductors she was warned lurked outside school gates, elbows poking out of drivers’ windows, concealed cameras, a tempting selection of sweets spilling onto the dashboard (Fruity Frogs, Freaky Fish, and so on), ready to pounce the moment your mother’s back was turned. For someone with so few known blood relatives, Belinda had acquired a number of uncles.

“Bye, Uncle Sergei,” she murmured unenthusiastically, nestling deeper into the spare duvet (second-best, synthetic).

        “She’s locked herself in!” The door was rattled, tentatively at first.

        Children and long-haired cats - strays especially - weren’t supposed to lock themselves in the airing cupboard. Whether this rule had been dreamt up by their landlord, Mummy or the prime minister was unclear. No matter: at this moment neither cat nor child cared much for rules. “Don’t want to,” she muttered.

        “Belinda!” Using her full name was intended to ruffle. At home, the girl was usually Belle, only ever Belinda (the name she preferred under friendlier circumstances) when offence had been caused. She wasn’t fooled by the sing-song tone of her mother’s, “You don’t want Uncle Sergei to think you’re rude, do you?”

        It was a question there was no sensible answer to (at least none that could be made without crossing your fingers behind your back). As far as Belinda could work out - and that was as far as tellings-off suggested - despite everything adults told you, despite promises that you’d never be punished for telling the truth, nothing was more likely to get you into trouble.  

Boys were bad enough, but grown men were even worse. Belinda had been avoiding men ever since Emily’s mother’s boyfriend had swooped down and kissed her. She had managed to resist the almost overwhelming urge to scrub the kiss off until he’d left the room. She could feel the detestable prickle of it clinging, even after two baby wipes.

“I know!” Emily had said, handing her another. “He does it to me all the time. And they’re always doing it.”

Few people kissed as reluctantly as Belinda, barely a brush, and then at the furthest point from a mouth that she could reach.