"What can you tell me about her?"
"You must understand that it's rather difficult..."
"Of course. Perhaps if we started with the basics-"
"I am 86 years old. You're asking me to cast my mind back more than 60 years."
"I understand, but this is really going to help me build a picture-"
"Show me the photograph again. Let us start there. Ah... Look at that! I was 19 years old here. So beautiful, although, of course, you never see it yourself when you are young. Youth and beauty are wasted on the young."
"And next to you in this picture?"
"My sister, Daisy. She was a year younger than me. As you can see, we didn't look much alike, apart from the black hair and fair skin. We got that from Mama. Mama often told people that her great-grandmother was a gypsy, although how true that was I don't know. I doubt it, but one has to admit that we had the right colouring for it."
"And when was this taken?"
"Summer, 1949. It was an early summer that year, I remember it like it were yesterday. That's something you will find as you grow older, remembering what you had for breakfast yesterday is impossible, but memories from decades passed are so clear that they could almost be a film."
"Was that summer special for any other reason?"
"Oh, you already know it was... But I suppose you want me to tell it in my own words."
"That would be very helpful."
"It was the most marvellous summer. Glorious in fact. I've always said that there is something about beautiful weather that changes everything, brings you right out of yourself.
It did for Mama, anyway. She'd spent 4 years in mourning after the war, trying to learn to shoulder the awful grief Papa's death left her with. It wasn't just her, of course. The war shattered so very many lives and the mourning was nationwide. Both Daisy and I grew up in the shadow of grief and it shaped us in many ways.
But the summer of 1949 felt like something new altogether. The war was over, we were entering a new decade and that summer. It felt as though the long, hazy days would never end. It felt as though that summer held promise, something new was on the horizon and all we had to do was be brave enough to reach out and take it.
At the start of that summer Daisy and I were on the cusp of adulthood. There's something wonderful about that stage of life, isn't there? Your whole future stretches out ahead of you, years and years of blank pages, waiting to be written. Nothing is sullied or jaded.
We were nothing alike, of course. In personality or looks. She had a much more voluptuous figure, which was about to become highly fashionable thanks to Marilyn Monroe and others like her. The 1950s was the decade for appreciation of the female form and I just didn't make the grade. Mama often told me that I had the perfect figure for her youth and if I'd been alive in the 20s, every girl alive would have stared at me with envy. In many ways I was born in the wrong era and I just had to accept that.
It didn't matter too much to me because of the ballet. My thinness gave me an elegance when I danced. I remember my mentor- a brooding Russian ex-dancer called Andrei- telling me that there is something undeniably perfect about the slenderness of the dancer as she weaves her story on the stage. The fragility adds a layer of vulnerably and beauty, he said.
Daisy danced too, of course. Both of us had been trained in ballet since we were tiny. In her own youth Mama had nurtured dreams of being a dancer but it all fell at her feet when she snapped her ankle after a heavy landing during an audition. Very tragic, really. You could tell that Mama had been a ballerina, there's something in the movement that you never quite lose. A unconscious gracefulness that manifests itself in even the most mundane movement.
Mama's inheritance was large, although not quite as large as Papa's and I often wondered what he thought of her using such large amounts of money to hire live-in dancers to teach us and if he resented his daughters careers being chosen for them almost from the moment they could walk, but of course Papa died before I was old enough to ponder the question, nevermind ask it.
They were part of the family, those dancers that she so carefully chose to guide us. She gave them comfortable lodgings in our home and paid them handsomely to tutor us daily. Mama was almost fanatical about it, she'd much rather we missed arithmetic or literacy than dancing.
"You and Daisy both had different tutors."
"That's right. When we were in our mid teens Mama got rid of our childhood tutors and went all out to secure the very best dancers that she could to come and guide us through the most important years of our dance education. Daisy's was a rather passionate Frenchman named Hugo Mine was Andrei, a Russian dancer of great renown."
"What was the reason for having different teachers?"
"Mama wished us to develop our own unique style of dancing. She couldn't see how that would happen if we shared a teacher, and she was absolutely correct. Daisy's style of dancing was wild, passionate and carefree. Vibrant. Almost colourful, so that when she danced I always thought of the brightest, most vivid colours."
"And yours?"
"My style of dancing was very different. Gentler. More soft and elegant. I played on the fragility the audience would see in me and choose to be more graceful. Hauntingly beautiful, Andrei once said, but I don't like to flatter myself too highly by presenting that praise as the gospel truth."
"Who was better?"
"Oh, come now, it doesn't boil down to that. Let me ask you, who is better, Beethoven or Bach?"
"Both have their qualities. I wouldn't say either is superior."
"Exactly. So it was with Daisy and I. She put much less store in training than I did and as a result, it wasn't uncommon for her to miss steps, but she always improvised so that unless you knew how the dance was supposed to be performed, you wouldn't notice.
But, oh, it infuriated me so much sometimes! Hours I would spend, learning steps, conveying as much emotion as I could into every movement, feeling every ounce of love or pain that the dance required... Then Daisy would burst into the room, full of energy and life and dance the steps her own way. Skip a couple, add a few and it looked for all the world like she had made up the entire dance on the spot, just from passion that flowed through her.
Yes, we were different, but it would be hard to say who was the better dancer. We each had our own style and I suppose the judge of which was better had to be left to the audience and their personal preference.
Mama originally hired Andrei to tutor Daisy, but it didn't work. Andrei had danced all over the world in his prime and he was throughly old school, his method was strict discipline and constant practice, which clashed terribly with Daisy's carefree spontaneity. He lasted less than a fortnight with Daisy's scattiness and improvisation-"
"This is Andrei, right?"
"Goodness me. I haven't seen this picture in so many years... Can I hold it?"
"Of course. Here."
"Look at that! He was so handsome, wasn't he?"
"How old was he at this time?"
"In his late thirties. The career of a dancer is tragically short, especially one who has had several injuries. You know, he once told me in a moment of rare candidness that the end of his career lay either in the bottom of a bottle or watching someone continue his methods on the stage... Look at this picture, Daisy and I are at the front. That's me, just there. The awfully flat chested one... And behind me is Hugo, Daisy's tutor. You can almost see the mad gleam in his eyes, can't you? He was a genius. Completely insane, but a sheer genius. He demanded so much from Daisy that some days she would weep with the pressure of it, but he encouraged her to grow and kindled the fire that alighted every step she took on the stage.
But yes. That's Andrei, stood behind Daisy. You can see, can't you, just by his posture what an elegant man he was. He was tall for a dancer, well over 6 foot. And you can't see it in this old picture, but he had the most piercing eyes. Bright blue they were, with a deep jade green ring around the irises. To this day I've never seen such unusual, beautiful eyes. When he looked at you with those eyes it was like he was demanding something from you, as though he could see something within you that you were hiding and he wanted to pull it from you, hold it up for you to examine. Those eyes enthralled and terrified me in equal measure.
I must have been just 16 when I realised that I was in love with him and it terrified me that he would find out, just with a single glance. I remember, I used dream about running my fingers through those thick, dark curls of his and him pulling me to his chest... Silly, childish dreams. It would have been much easier for me if I had fallen in love with Hugo. Hugo was passion and fire, intensity and openness.
Andrei wasn't like that. He was... Not cold, but controlled, at least. It was rare for him to lose his temper, but he could intimidate with the slightest tone of his voice. He knew, of course, how I felt.
I remember on one occasion, anger at my inability to make a certain turn we had been practicing for days finally cracked at him and he snarled; "Stop trying to please me, Lily!"
The words humiliated me, for he has correctly understood that I wasn't learning the move for the furtherment of the dance, for the pleasure of the audience, but merely to impress him, to bring him happiness. All dancers know that such a singular, selfish aim will rarely convey a beautiful movement.
It was Mama's wish that we didn't apply to the Royal Academy of Ballet. She told her friends that she felt we were recieving a much better education in ballet by having our own private tutors, and whilst this may have been true, Daisy and I knew that it wasn't the real reason. Mama couldn't bear to be alone in that huge house and the academy would have taken us from her, with the exception of short school holidays.
As such, we had to audition for roles independently. And in that summer of 1949, both Daisy and myself decided to audition for a role in Giselle and for the first time in our lives, we didn't compare notes or discuss our days training schedule. Andrei and Hugo, who had always maintained a cordial relationship, suddenly barely spoke to one another. Training intensified and Andrei was stricter than ever. Mama floated between rooms, watching both of her daughters but offering no opinion on either. More than once, I begged her to tell me how I compared to Daisy and who made a more convincing Giselle, but she would never be drawn into the conversation or offer anything beyond telling me that we were both exceptional dancers.
It didn't matter anyway, as neither myself or Daisy got a part in the ballet. I took it as a personal failure, but to my surprise Andrei had laughed it off, telling me that it would be unbelievable if a new dancer achieved such a huge role at her first ever audition. The important thing, he said, was that I had made an impact, hopefully a lasting one. Andrei had intended the audition to my debut into the world of ballet, and his careful plotting paid off. A month after the audition, the delivery of a telegram disrupted our morning practice.
I can still see it now, so clear in my mind's eye. Andrei, covered in the light sheen of perspiration from the morning training, slowly opening the telegram. His broad back reflected in the mirror wall that he stood in front of, the muscles of his thighs straining at the fabric of his leggings. I have always found extraordinary beauty in male dancers. The blend of physicality and masculinity with the softness and intelligence of dance is the most wonderful, attractive combination.
After scanning the telegram, he had lifted those incredible eyes to meet mine and his lips pulled into a rare smile. To my utter disbelief and joy, he flung the letter aside and grabbed me about the waist, laughing as he lifted me with ease. He held me aloft for a second as I giggled, unaware of the source of his sudden joy, but more than happy to enjoy the rewards of it, before he did the unthinkable and pulled me tightly against his chest, brushing his full lips against my cheek.
It has been almost 70 years. 70 long years. But I still remember the feeling of being in his arms. I can still feel the strong, solid feel of his arms around my back and the shock of my palm brushing the hot skin of his chest. And, when I plucked up the courage to glance up, that handsome face, framed with black curls was closer to mine that it had ever been before. Those mesmerising eyes, locked on me with a look of such happiness that it still aches me to think of it.
It must have lasted seconds, but it felt like a lifetime before he gently extracted himself and informed me that I was to re-audition for a much small part in the show.
I suppose it doesn't sound particularly impressive, but you have to understand that it was my first audition. I had no connections in the ballet world and hadn't attended the academy, so it really was a huge achievement. Andrei's joyful disbelief was echoed by Mama. Hugo and Daisy congratulated me, but of course, it was tinged with more than a little envy.
"And you got the part in Giselle, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did. Corps de ballet-"
"What does that mean?"
"Corps de ballet? Well, I suppose you would call it a chorus role in theatre. It meant that I didn't have a solo dance, but was part of the group dancers. There are levels in a ballet, the top being prima, naturally, but I had aimed for corypheé, which would have given me just a few solo moments."
"I see. Were you angry at taking the smaller role?"
"Not at all. I rather think a corypheé role in my first appearance would have intimidated me. As it was, my appearances on stage were frequent. Andrei took an instant dislike to the young Welsh male dancer I was paired with and I truly hoped it was because he was jealous. Andrei attended every choreography training, so that he could learn the moves and practice them with me. He worked me so hard, I must have done at least twice the work of the rest of the corps. He was utterly determined that I was going to stand out, no matter how small my role was."
"And what about Daisy at this time?"
"Things were different for Daisy. I've told you already how she could dance, how wonderfully she could move and how much passion and vibrancy she brought to each piece, but directors and choreographers won't take anyone who skips steps. For all of her brilliance, she couldn't apply enough discipline. It drove Hugo to distraction, Andrei and I often heard them shouting at each other from our studio."
"But Daisy did have some success as a dancer..."
"Of course she did! You can't be that magnificent and not be recognised. She was just too headstrong. She would never accept that even something as free and expressive as dance has rules. 'I'm an artist,' she would say, 'artists should never be restricted. I feel every part of the dance and I can show the audience exactly what I need to express." Then Mama would always counter that ballet is a strict art and the beauty is in the structure of it. They argued something terrible about it."
"But Hugo carried on teaching her, despite the arguments and differences?"
"Of course he did! Poor Hugo had fallen quite hard for Daisy. He adored her and despite their arguments, it didn't take much more than a little teasing and flirting to make him do whatever she wanted.
I read a biography a few years ago that claimed to have found proof of a love affair between Hugo and Daisy. I read the letters they had unearthed and I have to say, they didn't strike me as particularly out of the ordinary for Daisy. She was naturally very tactile and affectionate. All of the pet names and declarations of affection that they took as evidence of a romantic relationship were very natural to Daisy. She spoke to everyone like that and I saw nothing within them that made me believe that Daisy and Hugo were every anything more than mentor and student.
Perhaps I am wrong though. There's no way we will ever know now.
Hugo had decided to use that, you know, Daisy's natural extroverted personality. After her failed audition for Giselle, as Andrei was training me until my feet blistered and bled for my corps role, Hugo had decided to approach Daisy's career from a different angle. With Mama's permission, he began to take Daisy for long weekends in London and little trips to Paris to introduce her to his connections in the ballet world. Andrei was a widely respected and admired dancer, but he was never as personable as Hugo, so this option would never have been for us.
Andrei had spent his career striving for perfection, not friendship.
You know, during the 1970s I happened to be at a dinner party in New York and by fluke I was seated next to an ancient former dancer who informed me in her soft Russian accent that she had worked with Andrei in his prime. The story that she told me sums him up better than any of my words every could:
She first worked with Andrei when he was in his early 20s on The Tsarinas Red Slippers (which was his all-time favourite ballet, incidentally). At this time Russia was in uproar. The Tsar and his family had been executed and the Bolsheviks were taking over the country. Some people felt that the ballet was badly timed and shouldn't go ahead, but most of the dancers insisted. It was an unsafe time for all, especially for a young man whose family were descended from nobility and who had been known to publicly support the Tsar. It was only a matter of time before Andrei was arrested by the secret police and hauled into one of the much feared interrogation rooms.
A week he was missing. So long that his friends assumed he was dead, as so many that disappeared into dark rooms with secret police ended up. The dance troop decided to continue with his understudy, deciding that the ballet would go ahead in his honour.
On the third day of practice with the understudy, Andrei suddenly appeared in the doorway. His face was so swollen and bruised that no one recognised him at first. His nose had been crushed and collarbone was snapped. He was in such a mess that several of the dancers began to cry, while others rushed to embrace him. Andrei shook them all off, and crossed the room to his usual spot, wincing as he bent to pull on his pointe slippers. He stayed on to practice after everyone had gone home, well into the early hours he danced alone.
Two weeks later, the ballet opened and a dancer (who would one day tell me the story in New York) carefully applied thick make up to his still bruised face, asking him if he was worried about the Bolsheviks who would be in the audience tonight, monitoring him and the ballet for any royalist themes. Andrei had told her in his quiet voice that he wouldn't even be aware of them. When she had protested this, he had caught her eye and told her that he never danced for the audience. He danced for himself and war, beatings, torture, could never take away the freedom that his soul felt in those moments. Never. It was the only thing worth living for, and if something is worth living for, then it is worth dying for too.
When I was told this story at that dinner party, it had been 25 years since Andrei had held that teenage girl in his arms and spun her around. But upon hearing it, I fell in love with him all over again. He was such a deep, brooding man with so many layers that a lifetime wouldn't be long enough to unravel them. He was wonderful.
"Are you ok, Lily?"
"I'm sorry, I'm a foolish old woman."
"Here, have a tissue. Would you like a cup of tea?"
"Yes, please."
"Let's take a little break, shall we?"
*†*
"Now. Where were we? I'm sorry, as you get old you'll find that your mind often wanders away from you and can't find its way back... Ah. Hugo and Daisy were always away on their trips to various soirees and events. Hugo was a very sharp dresser and the combination of the two of them, good-looking, beautifully dressed, passionate, lively, out-going... Well as you can imagine, they were invited everywhere.
They even had lunch with Princess Margaret a couple of times. You've probably seen the pictures, they're in every autobiography of Daisy that's ever been written so far. Their life was extremely glamorous.
Meanwhile, Andrei and I were deep in rehearsals for my first ballet, spending every second of every day together. I wouldn't have swapped with Daisy for the world.
Have you ever seen the feet of a ballerina without shoes and stockings? No? If you could find a picture you would perhaps understand the amount of dedication and strength that goes into the occupation. What we are forcing our body to do is unnatural, although to the soul is feels as natural as breathing, but underneath our shoes and clothing, the scars tell their own stories.
That summer Andrei danced me so hard that often we would end the day with blood seeping through my pointe slippers, spotting the soft fabric in large patches. Sometimes as my feet smacked the wooden floor, a blister would burst painfully, staining my stockings with yellow pus. My limbs ached so that when I climbed into a hot bath on an evening, every part of my body would tense and more than once I had to cry out for Mama to come and help me stand up.
Andrei, who had studied the choreography with zealous intensity, took the part of my male partner during our rehearsals.
At first, I couldn't focus. Having his tall, broad body pressed fully to mine, or his large hand on my inner thigh, or holding my waist was too much of a distraction. To be held so tightly to his body as he spoke lowly in my ear was more than I my sheltered childhood had equipt me for and he grew more and more brooding and quieter and quieter until one morning I hobbled into the studio to find him waiting for me, not stood as usual, but sat on a wooden stool, deep in thought.
He spoke before I could.
"When did you forget that dance is about the moment within, not physical movement?" He asked quietly, his soft accent rolling the vowels gently.
I protested, of course, that I didn't know what he meant but one gaze from those unearthly eyes made the words die on my lips.
"A dancer should be able to dance naked. It is not the outer things that affect the dance... It's the sensation within. A true ballerina could dance through the bowels of hell and forget her surroundings, and yet here you are, Lily. Unable to dance because I am here." As he spoke in his quiet voice, he stood up and with a slow movement, he pulled off his cotton shirt.
Oh, I know it sounds silly to you children of a modern age, but it was the first time I had seen a man in the flesh shirtless.
He didn't move but I could see the challenge in his eyes. There was something else, as if contempt was waiting at the edge of his gaze if I didn't rise to meet the test.
I realised then just how much Andrei respected me as a dancer. He truly believed that I was equal in my passion for dance as he was and in that moment, a horrible realisation hit me. Andrei would never love anyone as much as he loved that moment of freedom that he lived for. It was confirmed when I slowly, with shaking hand, unhooked my dress and let it pool at my feet. It took everything I had to to cover my underwear and skinny body with my arms.
Andrei's gaze didn't leave my face. I saw satisfaction that his protogeé had risen to the challenge and then he stepped towards me.
You must try and imagine how it felt to dance with him when his skin was pushed full flush to my body. To dance in my underwear with a man that I found so attractive. At first I was so tense that I stumbled several times. The first lift he attempted, when his huge, warm hand cupped the bare inner skin of thigh, made me squeal and almost fall from his mid-air grip.
For the first time, Andrei didn't stop for breaks. There was no meal time, no 15 minutes breather. Occasionally, as he pulled my back to the bare skin of his chest, he would lean down as whisper the word 'relax' in a hot breath that sent goosebumps prickling across my skin.
It took hours, but slowly something built within me. Every touch of his fingers on my bare skin sent an electric tingle through me and instead of focusing on the outer reaction, I allowed the sensation to affect my movements. I closed my eyes and focused on nothing but the sway of our bodies, the movement of our feet. When I pulled away from him and gracefully extended my arm back, I was genuinely seeking his grip to pull me back, not just copying the movement I had been taught. When his hands cupped my thighs and lifted me, I span away and immediately turned back, seeking his embrace.
The dance transformed for me into something I performed with perfection.... To something I felt in every bone of my body.
It was late evening when Andrei stepped away from me, his cheeks flushed with exertion. I stood before him, slight and fragile as ever, gasping for my first breath in what seemed like days. I no longer felt the urge to hide my body. The dance we had spend the day tangling ourselves in was more intimate than any moment of passion has ever been.
Andrei was panting slightly. His hair was stuck up at different angles and there was a strange look on his face. Something between pride and longing as he gazed at me.
You know, in my career, I've received glowing inches of column space from every paper from the New York Times to the London Herald. They've praised me until I've blushed, declaring me the greatest dancer that ever lived. And yet, not one of them has ever given me such high praise as the simple words that left Andrei's mouth as he stared at me, half naked across the studio all those years ago.
"You dance like me, Lily."
***
"It was late July, 1949 when Daisy first met Princess Margaret.
It was in the papers, you see. Her and Hugo were home for a couple of days and I'll never forget that breakfast. Andrei and I were dressed in our leotards and leggings. He had his pointe shoes tied around his neck and he spent most of the meal brushing back those wild curls that he had neglected to cut in recent weeks. Daisy and Hugo were dressed like Hollywood stars. Truly, they looked so glamorous that it was laughable compared to us. Mama had remarked on it affectionately with pride in her eyes as she gazed round at us, occasionally glancing at the picture of Daisy at dinner with Princess Margaret in the paper, or repeatedly discussing my run with the Royal Ballet Company, for which she had bought tickets for almost every night of the 8 week run.
Hugo and Daisy relayed between them a hilarious story about a middle Eastern Prince who had invited them to stay. Andrei didn't talk much at all. He ate his simple breakfast of eggs and salmon before excusing himself.
Nerves had hit him. In just three days I would be up on the stage, showing the world the result of his years of hard labour. He had built me as a dancer and now the world was about to examine the fruits of his labours.
I was terrified, of course. Not only did I have the weight of the Royal Ballet, Andrei and my mother, but I have also always been my own harshest critic.
These were the thoughts I was weighting up in the hallway, trying to steel myself to go to the studio and Andrei, when the sound of flushing came from the wash closet under the stairs. Before I could move, Daisy appeared, pushing open the creaking door and stopping momentarily when she saw me.
We stopped for a moment to size each other up. It was the first time we'd been alone together a long time and we used the brief pause to examine each other. I stood before her in my dance clothing, whilst she wore a tight blue dress that hugged every perfect curve. I can still picture how her long black hair fell in perfectly styled waves and I remember how beautiful that shock of red lipstick looked against her pale skin. She looked so glamorous that I almost felt intimidated.
We stared at each other before she suddenly smiled and moved across the hallway to stand next to me and adjust her hair in the mirror. She told me that she was looking forward to seeing my ballet and we passed a few moments small talk. I found it difficult to talk to her, for you must remember how small my world was. I existed solely between my studio and rehearsals with the cast. For want of anything else to say, I told her that I was envious of all of the wonderful parties she was to attend.
The way she looked at me was so peculiar that I trailed off, mid sentence. Her lovely face twisted into a frown and she gazed at me with such fierce longing that it intimidated me. "I would give anything to trade with you. This isn't what I want." She then went on to tell me that Hugo had managed to secure an audition for her in Paris for Swan Lake, but I wasn't to tell Mama, yet.
The news sent me into an odd tailspin. Of course, I wanted Daisy to dance too... But the notion that she might surpass me in her role suddenly filled me with jealously.
Oh, I know that I sound mean spirited. I wish it weren't so, but emotions rage through us whether we wish them to or not and the only way we can make amends for it is to at least be honest about them. I was jealous. Daisy was already blessed far beyond me. She had the figure of a goddess, the face of a painted Venus. She was glamorous, extroverted, passionate, wild. She could mingle with royalty or peasants and treat them just the same. She could dance as though she was born to do it, when the same movements took me careful hours of study to learn.
Could she not just let me have this one moment of glory without over-shadowing it?
Something of my emotions must have showed on my face, for Daisy's face changed and she placed a gentle hand on my folded arms. She began to issue an apology for the timing of her announcement but she was interrupted by the arrival of Andrei and Hugo, deep in conversation about an old mutual friend.
Hugo had beamed when he spotted us, sweeping across the hall to kiss me on the cheek and half spin me around.
Andrei offered Daisy a gruff nod before his disinterested gaze wandered away from her. Daisy beautiful enough to take your breath away, but she held no interest for him, he had always regarded her in the same way one would a pretty flower. Daisy held no real interest for him, he saw beauty in a very different way to most people. Beauty to him was in the dance, nothing more or less.
I have no way of knowing for certain, but I suspect Andrei had spent his entire life unknowingly driving women wild with lust. His incredible beauty and brooding nature rendered him irresistible to most women. I have no doubt that he indulged in a few love affairs in his time, but no one had ever truly captured his heart and I predict that the path that he danced across the world was littered with broken hearts, trailing along behind him.
In the weeks of that summer as we rehearsed, I came to believe Andrei came as close to loving me as he could love another person. I became his muse, his obsession. He poured every part of his passion into me. He often tested me, heaped more intensity and more harshness towards me, but I never faltered. A single smile earned from his unwilling lips was my reward for my endurance, but it was always enough for me.
Andrei's love was not like that of another man. To him, I was the work of art that he had created and sometimes when I caught him watching me dance, there was a softness to his gaze that in any other man I would have called true love.
***
"Daisy got the part in Swan Lake in late summer 1949."
"Yes. I think I knew that she would the moment that she told me. Prima, no less. She was to lead the entire dance. Incredible really, an 18 year old with no previous work being given such a huge role, it was extraordinary. It was Giles Beaumont who made the casting, of course. He was known in the industry as a risk taker and he decided to take a gamble on Daisy. I worked with him once, many years later, and he told me that he still remembered that audition of Daisy's. He said that she had made him cry, the only dancer who had ever moved him to tears in her audition alone."
"She must have been incredible."
"She was. There's some footage my grandson found on that youth-tube thing. It's only a short clip but even in that you get a sense of how sensational she really was."
"How did you feel?"
"I'm afraid I became rather fixed on it. It began to affect my own performance and Andrei was perplexed. He couldn't understand why Daisy's performance in another country should impact me. He reminded me constantly that we focus on every individual dance and treat it with the respect it deserves. It was only when he began to look at me differently that I forced myself to re-focus."
"What do you mean, he looked at you differently?"
"Just that he had began to thaw towards me, as I have explained. He began to watch me with such intensity that I genuinely believe he was falling in love with me. My reaction to Daisy's rise surprised him. He believed that I valued the artistic merit of every dance, it surprised him to think that I was ambitious and jealous. He was wrong of course. It wasn't ambition, if you had offered me the lead in The Nutcracker I would have turned it down to spend every day dancing out my emotions in that studio with him instead."
"But you were jealous?"
"Of Daisy. Not the part. For the first time, Andrei read me wrong. It wasn't what he thought."
"When was this?"
"Oh... Let's see... I was coming to the end of my chorus run in Giselle... So it must have been November, 1949."
"Did you go to see Daisy in Swan Lake?"
"Of course. Mama rented rooms at the Hilton in Paris. Daisy's first show clashed with my final one."
"Which did your mother go to see?"
"Daisy's."
"How many of Daisy's shows did you attend?"
"Just the one. I may have attended more but I had invitations to many auditions and that took up much of my time. Andrei came over to Paris with me. He loved attending any ballet, of course, and Daisy's performance captivated him. As I said, she danced with a wild freedom that even I, jealous as I was, couldn't fail to fall in love with. She was incredible."
"What happened next?"
"Daisy received glowing reviews, of course. She was in demand everywhere from Moscow to London but she chose to stay on in Paris. Her next role was the lead in The Tsarinas Red Slippers."
"And for you?"
"It was February 1950 when I took my second ever role, a part in Sleeping Beauty."
"As the Prima dancer?"
"Oh bless you! Of course I wasn't prima! It was my second outing on to the stage. I was honoured to be even chosen for corps de ballet. Margot Fonteyn was the Prima for Sleeping Beauty. It was an absolute honour to even share a stage with her, but I was so lowly that I didn't even rehearse with her.
I can remember the day she appeared suddenly in the studio where the corps were rehearsing and called out my name. I was so nervous I could scarcely breathe! The Royal Academy prima, a legend by the time she was 30, calling out my name! What she said next was worse... She asked me to dance for her. Someone had informed her that I was Andrei's young protogeé and of course, Margot truly adored his work. Naturally, my legs felt like lead and I could feel the envious gaze of 20 other girls as I stood up. Margot looked so regal, so intimidating. She watched me perform a short piece before offering me a small smile and telling me to give her regards to Andrei and tell him that he was training a future prima. I felt as though I were walking on a cloud."
"Daisy was younger than you and already Prima though..."
"Daisy was an exception, no one ever becomes prima on their second outing on the stage. There was a huge difference... She was working with a tiny independent company with a crazy director, they could afford to take risks. I was dancing for the royal academy, there was no chance of them choosing a new ballerina for such huge roles."
"Was Hugo still working with Daisy at this time?"
"Of course not. She was already prima, she had no need of a mentor. So far as I can remember, Mama had paid Hugo and generous bonus and he had taken a job with an academy in Paris. He went to watch Daisy perform once a week, apparently."
"But your mother still paid Andrei to mentor you?"
"Ah. I see what you are asking. Mama paid Andrei because I wanted her to. He helped me approach every role. He brought something out of me that I couldn't manage alone. He was more than happy to stay and I was more than happy to have him guide me. I couldn't imagine training without him in the room, demanding, pushing me, criticising my every movement until suddenly his face would clear and I'd be rewarded with one of those rare, hard to win smiles of his. They always felt like a gift all the more special for being so hard to win."
"You really were in love with him..."
"Oh, I was. So very, very much. I have never loved anyone in the same way. I adore my son, of course, but nothing has ever matched my love for Andrei. He challenged everything about me. Intellectually, physically, passionately... He understood me more than anyone else I've ever met. Just to stand near him was to send an electric tingle straight through my body. His gentle touch, guiding me through the dance thrilled me beyond all else I've ever experienced."
"What happened after that summer of your first performances? Where did it all go from there?"
"Well, I think we should move on to June, 1950. Daisy was in rehearsals for her lead in Tsarinas Red Slippers in Paris and I had just performed my debut in Sleeping Beauty as corps. It was a much quicker turn around in those days. Now they spend months and months rehearsing for a performance and up to a year performing it on the stage. That seems like a luxury beyond measure to me! In my day, the career of a dancer was fast-paced and ever changing. Only the hugest names in the industry would play the same role for months on end, the rest of us were thrust from one role to the next and expected to learn the choreography as if we had made it up ourselves.
The Sleeping Beauty run was to last 3 months. Andrei came to every single performance, bar one. One evening Mama had invited him to Paris to watch Daisy in Tsarinas- I think I have mentioned before that it was Andrei's favourite ballet and he didn't need asking twice to go and watch it. I couldn't go of course, if I wasn't on stage I was in training.
According to the papers, Daisy was mesmerising. Sensational. One headline even boldly declared that she was greater than Anna Pavlova, which raised more than a few eyebrows. There were even some whispers that she rivaled Margot Fonteyn, whom I noticed watching me from the side of her eye more than once.
Of course, journalists have to sell papers. I highly doubt that at that time in her life Daisy was as technically brilliant as Fonteyn or Pavlova, but the message was clear. Daisy was something special and it was only a matter of time before she became something magical.
We were both on our second ever performance and although it may seem as though Daisy was ahead of me, she was prima for an independent company and I was the bottom position for the royal academy, so the notion of who was having more success was subjective... Although certainly, Daisy was gathering headlines whilst no one even knew my name yet.
It's hard for me to remember how I felt at that time. It was so very many years ago and my own life was so full. I didn't really have close friends, just causal ones from the ballet world. I was still living in Mama's home, although she spend half of her time in Paris so for the most part, it was just Andrei and I, alone together in a world of passionate, fiery, tender dance.
†††
The summer of 1950 was different to the previous year.
I have told you already that the summer of 1949 gave us a glorious heatwave that lasted months, but the following year offered us the sort of grey, miserable summer for which England is famous.
Rain thrummed on the glass roof of the studio beneath which Andrei and I toiled away. Daisy was still in Tsarinas over in Paris and I had recently finished my run with Sleeping Beauty... Although Margot had now taken it over to America.
To add to this gloomy picture, I had recently received an offer that was tearing me to shreds. It was the chance to audition for my largest role to date, corypheé in Swan Lake.
This invitation was a source of great misery to me because the part up for grabs was 6 months on stage (not including rehearsals) and it was in Moscow.
You may think that I would leap at the chance to perform in Andrei's home country, on a stage that he himself had graced years before... But you would be forgetting one thing. Russia was dangerous for Andrei. He was still suspected to hold royalist sympathies and as such, he had made unhappy peace with the notion that he would never be able to return to the land of his fathers.
There is no need for me to tell you that Andrei was adamant that I take the audition. He was incredulous that I would even consider not taking it. A leading role for my third outing on stage. He knew what the Moscow stage could propel me too and he was willing to sacrifice what had become his entire world for me to take this chance. You mustn't forget that every day of the past 5 years of Andrei's life had been spent in the studio with me. It was a huge sacrifice for him too, a blind step into some unknown wildness without the comfort of each other to ease the journey.
I took the audition and danced as misery crawled into my heart and built a nest there. Of course, the news came that I had received the part. Three excited telegrams from Paris; Mama, Daisy and Hugo. Incredibly, a beautiful bouquet from Margot Fonteyn, whom I had spoken too only once, if you remember, but who had evidently been following my career from a distance.
There are a wealth of ways to experience sadness. Andrei expected me to channel any sadness I had into a graceful beauty when I danced, in the same way that I had always absorbed emotions and pushed them out through the movement of my body.
This time it was different. The thought of leaving this beautiful bubble I lived in filled me with such grief that my movements were lacklustre and jumbled.
It was a few nights before my departure when there was a firm tapping at my bedroom door. Mama was still in Paris with Daisy and the only other person in the house was Andrei, but he had never once been to my bedroom before. You must remember, I am of a different time than yourself and gentlemen did not enter the bedroom of a young lady, no matter how innocent the visit.
I can still remember the fearful thrill of it as I crept towards the door and hesitantly pulled it open. I remember glancing in the mirror at my flat chested figure and flushed face and feeling a stab of disappointment in my plainess.
I have told you many times how masculine Andrei was, but I think I never thought it more than that evening, when he stood in that hallway looking at me with a mixture of sadness and some deeper emotion that I couldn't read properly.
Neither of us spoke for a moment. He was wearing casual trousers and a half unbuttoned lose white shirt. I rarely saw him out of dancers clothing and once again, I was stuck by the heartbreaking beauty of him. I could tell you about his thick, dark curled hair, or those incredible eyes that seemed iridescent in the lamp light, but it would be futile for me to attempt to impress his handsomeness on you. I would do him a great injustice in the attempt, I'm sure.
He told me that he was going to miss me more than he could say. I always remember him saying that. The words were so unlike anything Andrei ever said that I can still picture his mouth forming them. With a thrill of adrenaline, I invited him into my room and he sat, a carefully respectful distance from me. I can still remember how his entire presence seemed to fill that lamplit room. He was a stranger there, but nothing has ever felt so right as to have him there.
Andrei talked at length. He said that if I found the time in Moscow, perhaps I would visit the graves of his parents and lay some flowers there for him, for he could never again do it himself.
For the first time told me how his mother insisted that he learn to dance- just as mine had with me- and how terribly distraught he was when she died. He told me of his favourite dancers, of moments where the dance felt so pure, so free that he felt he was touching the basin of heaven. He turned the talk to me, of how he saw so much of himself in me and of how proud he was. Of how I had become part of him to the extent that he would be lost without me.
I can remember the heat of tears as I tried to hold them back. I didn't want to spoil the moment, you see. Andrei was never so open with anyone and there was a sense of goodbye that made me want to crawl in a miserable hole and dwell there.
He spotted my tears and crossed the room to kneel in front of me and take my clasped hands gently in his own large, warm palm.
"Lily," he said. "I will be right here, waiting for you. I promise."
And then I said it. Four short words would change everything forever.
"But I love you." I said.
Andrei inhaled and I remember thinking that there was something in his manner than implied confirmation, as though he knew this already and I was setting the thought in stone. After a moment, he raised his other hand and placed it under my chin. Those eyes caught mine and I thought my head would beat out of my chest as he leaned towards me and kissed me softly, pressing his lips to the corner of my mouth in a gentle, tender kiss that lasted just a second.
"I will always be here for you." He said it quietly and the breath that it left his lips on warmed my cheek. Then he stood to leave. He turned in the doorway to look at me for a long moment, then with a small smile, he was gone.
I hardly need to explain to you how I felt. My heart thudded from my chest, my skin crawled with desire... But most of all I felt a disbelieving relief.
††
My time in Moscow crawled by. It was not that I didn't enjoy the superior role, for I did. The main issue was that scarcely any of my colleagues spoke English and Andrei had taught me many things, but Russian wasn't one of them.
I spent what little free time I had writing letters to them all, Andrei, Mama, Daisy and Hugo. It was the main way of staying in contact in those days and it took a considerable amount of time. I also made a point of visiting Andrei's parents graves once a month, weather permitting.
Moscow is a city that I have since visited and danced in many times and I have grown to love it like a second home, but on that first occasion, as a very young dancer away from home for the first time, the darkness of a Russian winter seemed so unwelcoming that I hated it. I couldn't wait to return home and the more I pined, the more the days dragged. The novelty of feet of snow soon wore off and I remember grumbling to the director and being told with a hearty laugh that I should dance faster to ward off the cold.
Mama's letters were always the longest. She seemed to know that I would be feeling homesick and cut adrift, so she wrote long letters which arrived so frequently that I never had time to reply to everything that she wrote. Daisy's letters were short but usually hilariously funny, crammed with stories in the way that only she could tell them.
Hugo's letters were the ones that came to surprise me. I had written to him at the academy in Paris more because I was bored in Moscow, but he replied and over time our friendship grew. We had, of course, lived together for a long time, but he belonged to Daisy in the way that Andrei belonged to me and we had had less to do with each other. During my time in Moscow, I formed a deep long-distance friendship with Hugo that was to last until he died in 1984 of cancer. For almost 35 years we wrote each other a long letter every week and Hugo never failed to attend my shows when I danced in Paris in later years. I do believe that my terribly lonely few months in Moscow were worth the lifelong friendship I gained from it. When you get to my age you'll realise how hard it is to find true friends.
Andrei rarely wrote. He was a naturally quiet man, I would have been deeply surprised if he had began writing long letters. His main form of contact was a short letter, perhaps accompanied with a newspaper clipping he thought I would enjoy reading, or a review of a ballet featuring someone I knew, or once, most precious of all, a sketch he had done of a ballerina in a gracious leaping movement.
I still have all of these things of course. From Mama, Hugo, Andrei... Every letter I have ever sent or received, 86 years worth, I've filed them away. That's the sad thing about all of these e-mails and text messages. You can't keep them in the same way. They are a moment, an instant in time. No one can ever tell me that an instant electronic message brings the same thrill as a three page handwritten letter from someone you miss.
.... I digress. I'm sorry. But yes, I have them all. Previous biographers of myself, Andrei, Daisy or even Hugo have asked me if they can read the letters but I've never allowed them to. Perhaps I will let you.
Moscow wasn't a happy place for me, not on that first visit, although I learnt a great deal. The dance as a soloist was a sharp learning curve and perhaps I embraced it more because there were no distractions. For the first time I nothing else to do at all but dance. There wasn't even a moment's conversation to distract me, so I grew as dancer beyond what I had expected.
It was April, 1951 when finally I returned to England, after just over 8 months away. Mama greeted me at the station with a rare moment of unladylike glee, grasping me in a hug at me with a shriek of happiness. Daisy was there too, taking a morning away from her rehearsals in London to come and greet me. She was more beautiful than ever, dressed in the style of this new decade that flattered her so much.
I had grown thinner in my time away, more angular and sharper-cheeked than ever. Where the rigours of ballet stripped the fat from my bones, it merely tightened the muscle on Daisy's soft curves.
You know, many years later I finally saw a doctor and they told me that I have no breast tissue, which was why I never budded to even the slightest curve at my chest. But even if I had, I would never have been shaped like Daisy. I didn't have the hips or the legs or even the soft curve of her upper arms.... I suppose nowadays you can change all that can't you? You can get your breasts filled and your bottom enlarged and all sorts of things. It's not for me... Although I have to admit, it was something that upset me about my body for many long years, and still does, old and foolish though I may be.
But my homecoming (how my mind does wander!) Mama and Daisy greeted me at the station. Daisy turned so many heads as we walked through that I caught Mama smiling in pride. Daisy never noticed, her full focus was on me. You must remember that we had spend a couple of years apart at this time- with her in Paris and me in London then Moscow- and she seemed so happy to be with me that each sentence blurred into another and Mama scolded her gently for not letting me speak.
Daisy had just began rehearsals for her third ever role: corypheé in The Nutcracker for the Royal Academy in London. You may wonder why she was not offered a prima role... But the expectations of a lone director for a small company in Paris are very different to the standards of the Royal Academy in England. Either way achieving a corypheé role with the royal academy was far, far beyond anything I had achieved and I felt a not unfamiliar stab of envy as she chattered away on that car journey.
Andrei was waiting when we arrived home. Even after all these years, it's hard to express how I felt at seeing him after so many long months. There were a few strands of grey around his temples, just a few, heightened by the blackness of his hair, that was the only difference I recall, but they merely added to his gravitas. He was sat quietly as I entered the studio, gazing out of the window. I must have made some small noise, for he turned and those eyes, whose intensity I had almost forgotten, landed on me. A natural smile pushed his lips upwards and he stood quickly and crossed the floor, then he pulled me tight against his chest, so deep in those arms that I could have stayed there forever, and he said; "Welcome home, Lily. It has been too long."
"Lily...?"
"I'm sorry. Just give me a moment. I miss Andrei so much, it's very difficult to talk about even such distant memories."
"Take all the time you need."
"... As you probably know, I auditioned and also got a role in The Nutcracker. Corps de ballet, again, but for the first time I would be dancing onstage with Daisy, in a lesser role than her too. It bothered me more than it should and I felt awful for it, especially when Mama pulled me to one side and told me that I should just enjoy the opportunity to dance with someone I loved and not to compare myself.
Daisy, in her usual way, was very aware of how I may be feeling, so she tried to be as considerate as possible....
Can I tell you something awful?
"Of course."
"That was what I often hated most about Daisy. The fact that I couldn't hate her.
She was so beautiful, talented beyond everything, charming... But I never once hated her. She may have been silly, impulsive, passionate to the rest of the world, but when it came to those of us that she loved, she put our feelings above all else. She was so giving and kind and loyal... It was as hard to love her as it was to hate her.
I did love Daisy. Of course I did. It was impossible not too.... But it was also impossible to grow up beside someone so blessed.
To err is human, to forgive devine.
I was always human and Daisy the devine.
It's hard to live in that sort of shadow.
It went well though, I was very happy to dance the Nutcracker. I always tried to love Tsarinas Red Slippers most, because Andrei loved it so, but my secret favourite has always been The Nutcracker. I have 2 great-granddaughters now and I always take them to see it every Christmas.
I think it's because The Nutcracker includes so many dancers, and so much magic. The story appeals to me. I spent so many years believing that my toys came alive at night... Longer than most children. The idea still appeals to me.
Andrei worked with what he had. He studied every move. Week and weeks we spent. We took up exactly where we left off and it was as if I had never left.
We were all living at home again, with the exception of dear Hugo, of course. Daisy trained mainly with the academy and, less frequently, at home in her own studio.
She was magnificent. Truly, to watch her dance, even in rehearsals, brought a lump of emotion to my chest. Every extension was fluid, natural, every leap graceful and yet full of fire. The dance flowed from her heart through her limbs. When Daisy danced, you were spellbound.
The fortnight before the show began I had a terrible run of rehearsals. I wasn't to know it at the time, but it was a pattern for which I would become notorious in my career. Throughout my entire ballet career it was common knowledge that my last two weeks of rehearsals would be littered with nerves and missed steps, until the first performance when I would suddenly dance with perfection. I remember the wonderful academy director, Andreas Mancini, telling dinner party guests that so long as I got all of my mistakes out of the way before the production began, I could perform flawlessly for months. It became almost a sigh of good luck if my last few rehearsals were awful. Dancers can be very superstitious creatures.
Of course, I wasn't to know this in that summer of 1951. So far as I was concerned, my rehearsals were going terribly and I was doomed to fail on my first night on the stage. I hadn't been sleeping well and if not for Andrei, I don't think I would have eaten either.
As he always had, he carried me through, strong and silent as ever. He hadn't mentioned anything since my return about my confession of love, but I sensed a new warmth in him. He no longer seemed as remote and distant as before... True, he was as brooding and quiet as ever, but there was a tenderness to him that I hadn't seen before. He had changed and my heart swelled at this discovery...
May I ask, are you married?
"Me? Yes."
"How many years?"
"Five."
"How wonderful. It's a marvelous thing to be in love, isn't it? There is nothing on earth like it...Now, I suppose we are reaching the part of the story that you are really interested in."
"Take your time, Lily. There's no rush."
"As I have told you, those rehearsals were incredibly difficult for me. I danced until my feet bled. It's not uncommon for ballerinas to lose toenails and to add to my woes, I had cracked half of mine clean off and the stabbing pain was affecting certain movements... Ballet is not for the squeamish, I'm afraid.
This particular night my poor feet were so bruised and sore that I finished my rehearsal earlier and could scarcely do more than hobble to the kitchen to make up a foot bath. Usually Mama would be waiting after rehearsals but she was visiting her sister in Manchester. As soon as her daughters began to make a mark in the world of ballet, Mama became very fond of visiting her sister, who had spent years bragging about her own son, Peter. He was a doctor and Aunt Elsie was so proud she rarely talked about anything else. I suppose it was a little vain of Mama to wish to brag, but we are all only human, after all.
But the evening in question... Daisy was at a party, some glamorous event arranged by a lord who was famous for extravagant parties. The sort of thing I would never receive an invite to. Even Andrei was out, he'd taken a rare night off to spend an evening with some old Russian ballet friends who were performing in a touring production that we had been to see the night before.
Andrei rarely spoke of Russia, but his heart always hungered for his mother country. If there were ever any news of Russia, or any Russians in near distance, he always made a point to involve himself.
I had finished my rehearsal alone and closed up my studio behind me, then, as I have mentioned, I made up my foot bath and carried it through into the dining room. The stab of pain from my broken toenail was overwhelmed by the sheer bliss of soaking my feet in that hot water.
I sat there a long, long while. Until the water was lukewarm around my feet and it was only with a huge amount of effort that I managed to pull my feet out and go back to the kitchen to drain away the water.
Wearily, I climbed the stairs. I can't remember what I was thinking but I have no doubt that I was going over every move in my head, every step that I had just missed. I do remember that it was as I reached the top step that I noticed it. You must understand that the attic room was never in use but the stairs to said room continued directly on from the main staircase across the landing. The old cook had slept up there once, but since we no longer had a live-in cook, the only person who ventured up there was Betty, the housemaid to clean it twice a week.
I had made to turn down the hallway to my own room, when I noticed something very peculiar.
A small chink of light cutting through the darkness, framing the attic door.
I could think of no reason why someone would be up there. You may wonder why I wasn't more afraid, but in all honesty, I have never been one to spook easily and I believed that Betty had probably left a lamp up there earlier in the day. As I have said, it was a grey sort of summer so it seemed likely.
The doors in old houses are very thick and I should not have seen the light if the it had been closed properly. After I had climbed the stairs, I began to extend my hand towards the doorknob when it creaked open, just slightly. A tiny crack... Enough for the noise from within to reach my ears and halt my steps.
I can see it so clearly that I feel as though I am there. I leaned forwards, placing my eye against the tiny crack in the door from which lamplight spilt and what I saw within... What I saw within is burned so deeply into my heart that in recalling the memory, I may as well be looking at a photograph.
Andrei and Daisy.
There, upon the bed. Her pale, soft curves and his dark firmness. Wrapped up together in a heated naked embrace that ripped the very heart from me.
There are no words, not a single one that could impress upon you the magnitude of my grief. It hit me in a wave that tore the oxygen from my lungs and I turned blindly to stagger away, rushing down the stairs as tears burned a hot track and grief tore a fire in my throat.
Daisy had everything in the world that I could ever want. There was only one thing that meant more than any of that, and now that was hers too. The utter shock still sends my blood cold now. I would never have suspected anything.
I can't remember how long I sat in that hall. The tears that traced hot, salted paths down my cheeks seemed to come from an ocean within me. The tenderness with which Andrei had kissed and cradled Daisy was so different to the way he had ever embraced me. In that brief second I had looked through the door, I had witnessed his desperation to pour every ounce of his love into her.
A dancer reveals every emotion in his movements.
I don't know what propelled me to climb slowly back up those stairs. Another world of pain waited as I peeked again through the door.
Andrei was laid upon his back and Daisy was curled up against him, wrapped in those strong arms of his. She was tracing patterns on his bare chest with her delicate finger and their breathing was ragged from their exertions. I remember the bitter twist, even now. This seemed more appalling, more intimate than their love making.
Andrei was laughing lowly at whatever she had just said. The change in him was incredible. He was open, vunerable even. This was the side I had always dreamt I could draw from him, but it belonged to Daisy, not me. I realised that the warmth I had detected in him for the past few weeks and had pathetically attributed to myself was due to Daisy.
"I'll have to go to the party, show my face for a while." She had laughed in her throaty way. She pouted and Andrei had laughed again. He had turned, I can see it now, the muscles in his back shifting as he rolled over and held himself on his elbows, pinning her beneath him.
"And if I don't let you leave?" He said. It stabbed me afresh, this side of him that was Daisy's and never to be mine.
I turned away then, wiping furiously at my cheeks and hating every inch of myself. Hating my flat chest and plain face, but hating the both of them more.
I am not a voyeur. I derive no pleasure from watching others when they are unaware of me and I had turned to leave, when I heard my name in the hum of their whispered conversation.
Daisy seemed annoyed, I think. Through the haze of my grief I gathered that they were talking about going public and my name appeared as the main stumbling block. Andrei looked almost sad and whispered that he would be the one to talk to me alone. He wouldn't let her tell anyone until he'd talked to me. From the way they spoke, I gathered that he hadn't told her of my confession of love to him. He had kept my dignity as best he could, under the circumstances.
She demanded to know when and he gently told her that he wanted to wait until I had at least performed my first few shows. Acrid anger rose in me and I remember thinking how I had given him every ounce I possessed and all he cared about was how I appeared on the stage.
I still believe strongly that Andrei must have fallen in love with Daisy when he went alone to Paris to watch her in Tsarinas Red Slippers, his favourite ballet. Her methods may have been unorthodox, but he would have been in awe of her dancing. Her beauty had never interested him- but combined with her dancing and her passionate nature, so different to his own- it must have helped. I suppose their romance bloomed whilst I was in Moscow. The thought of them dancing together and slowly falling in love through those months still makes me feel sick.
Andrei had been unhappy for so very many years. I realised it that night. He had lost his country and his family. In many ways, he was cast adrift to roam with no way to ever return home. His obsession with dance was simply because there was so little happiness in the rest of his life.
Daisy had opened a door for him and shown him a way that he could be happy. She had opened a door that wasn't hers to open. She had snatched the key right from my hand.
Andrei bent to kiss her and I could take no more. I felt hot bile rising in me. I remember feeling as though my body wasn't my own.
Do you know, I can't remember staggering back down to my room. I can remember sitting on my bed, hearing Daisy's hesitating footsteps on the stair, no doubt on the lookout for me so as to avoid being spotted. I remember hearing the low hum of her car engine and seeing the dull glow of her lights along the gravel driveway.
I don't remember deciding to confront Andrei. I have a vague memory of going to Mama's room first and rummaging in Papa's old drawers before blindly stumbling along the hall and up the stairs to attic. I can scarcely tell you how much pain I was in.
I have never, before or since, felt such deep heartache that seemed to cut into my bones. I lived for Andrei. I had let myself believe that he did the same for me. If he had asked me to never dance another step again, I would have done it. I would have changed anything about myself for him. Still, it wasn't enough. Not enough to compare with her radiance.
Andrei had pulled on his trousers when I arrived. He was stood, holding his shirt in his hands wearing an expression of such happiness that it felt like a knife in my gut.
The smile died on his lips as I pushed open the door and his eyes travelled my face in concern before understanding dawned. It was then that he spotted it in my hand and he inhaled sharply.
It was ridiculous, me clutching Papa's old gun, like I was a character from an Agatha Christie novel. I just wanted to scare him. I wanted to make him feel an ounce of what I did.
He looked at me and such a look of deep, aching sadness swept across his face. Those beautiful eyes held mine and he said quietly; "You must never think that I didn't love you too, Lily, in my own way."
Have you ever been blinded by rage? Lost all control for a single second? If he hadn't said those words I wouldn't have done it. It was because he thought those words would be enough for me, that he knew how much I adored him but found me lacking. As if my adoration was worth less than Daisy's. As if that could excuse him falling for her and not me.
It happened in a second of rage that I couldn't control.
It hit him in the throat. Oh, I can't think it about it. I can't. It was terrible. Before I even had chance to cast the gun aside he was on his knees. So much blood. So much that it seemed the whole world was red.
I crawled across the room towards him, but the light in his eyes was already dimming and there was nothing I could do to re-ignite it.
Andrei died in my arms and every second since, I've lived in a hell I created for myself.
†††
"Gone, I said. That was all I could say when Mama asked me where he was. That word, gone. Over and over. I barely spoke for 3 months afterwards and Mama put it down to the deep trauma of Andrei's sudden departure.
I had to burn the rug. Scrub the floor. I cannot remember doing either of these things. I must have burnt my clothes too. Mama and Daisy didn't return until the next evening and it passed in a daze.
I couldn't believe what I had done. Andrei was gone, for good this time... And my heart broke. What I wouldn't have done to dance with him, just once more.
Rumours swirled. Most people, including the various biographers who have written books on Andrei or myself or Daisy, seem to believe that he left with the Russian troop he was supposedly visiting on that night. Some believe he made it back into Russia, only to be assassinated by the secret police there.
Others believe he was a Russian spy who returned and was hidden by his homeland.
Some insisted that he'd had a nervous breakdown and was spotted years later dancing at a tiny theatre on the outskirts of Paris.
None of them ever came close to the truth. His mysterious disappearance became the stuff of legend, as you know. So many books were written on the subject and so many arguments made. Documentaries, films. Not one of them suspected me.
Neither myself or Daisy performed the Nutcracker after all. In fact, as you know, Daisy never danced again.
In the most horrible way, I got my wish. The curves shrank from her body and her hair grew lank, her skin pale. She barely spoke and if she did, it was as though each word were glass in her mouth.
As you know, she commited suicide a year to the day after Andrei's disappearance.
She became a legend herself... The beautiful dancer who was extraordinary, who was tipped to become the very greatest of all time. Who danced two shows then disappeared into isolation before killing herself at the age of 21. They even made a Hollywood film out of her, which perhaps you have seen. It didn't come close to truth, it depicted her as a lifelong manic depressive, which was so untrue it was laughable.
I never knew what she thought of Andrei leaving because she rarely spoke. She loved him and I do believe that hurt me most of all. I wanted him to be mine in death but she never let go of him. She couldn't live without him and in the end she joined him sooner than me.
My career flew from peak to peak but I have never been happy. Not ever have I recreated the joy of that summer so many years ago.
I did the only thing I could. I danced my way through the pain. I danced and danced and when the memories rose up, I danced more. I put my body through such rigours in the hopes that the physical brutality would take away the inner pain.
It never did.
"Lily, are you saying that the remains we found in the oak chest in the attic belonged to Andrei Ivanovich?"
"Yes."
"And that you killed him?"
"Yes."
"For the purposes of the tape, the time is 1600 hours. Present in interview room 3 is myself (DCI Eve Walters), DC Alan Smith and the suspect, Lily Elise Parson. Suspect has been made aware of her rights. Full written signed statement and transcript of confession to follow."
--- Police recording ended ---