Eva Ibbotson - A Glove Shop In Vienna

The peace of mind which is supposed to follow any firm decision did not follow. Nor, come to that, did peace of body. But she stuck it out and behaved with efficiency, organising first the confidante so necessary for this kind of enterprise — a warm-hearted, rackety friend called Christine who had divorced her husband and lived a cheerfully promiscuous life somewhere off the Earl’s Court Road. Christine sent an eager invitation to an imaginary school reunion; Philip was delighted for her to go; her mother swooped happily on the children and bore them off to her cottage. Jenny threw up in the lavatory, had a hot bath and tottered, light-headed from sleeplessness, on to the 8.57 train.

Thomas was waiting at Euston. He had bought a new jacket and cut himself a little shaving. Meeting, they were suddenly violently shy and embarrassed and in the taxi avoided each other’s eyes.

Then, outside the hotel, Jenny suddenly exploded into sophistication, well-being and joy. She felt completely relaxed, wonderfully worldly. There was only one more moment of anxiety and that the worst of all, far transcending any guilt: the terror of not pleasing — and then that, too, was past.

That first time there was mostly relief at having somehow not failed each other, but afterwards they talked in the way that men and women do talk at such a time — perhaps the only time that human speech, being no longer necessary, becomes what it was meant to be. Later they went out to eat and already the alchemy was at work, transforming Thomas from a gauche academic into a courteous and charming host; changing Jenny from a diffident housewife into a subtle and witty woman of the world. When they got back to the hotel they were already old-established friends and lovers and this time found themselves carried by that strange and mysterious act into a place which marvellously mingled gaiety and peace.

Yet when she packed her case the following morning, Jenny thought, well really it wasn’t so amazing. No one swung from any chandeliers. We’re just people who are fond of each other and wanted to be together. What’s all the fuss about? Fidelity… adultery… all those stupid words. Why do people carry on so? Why did I get in such a state?

They had decided to travel back by separate trains, but Thomas insisted on seeing her off. So once again they stood on the platform at Euston station, smiling at each other, keeping an eye open for acquaintances, thanking each other over and over again.

Then Jenny got on the train and shut the door and lowered the window. And as she felt the door slam between her and Thomas, saw him stand there with his head back, looking at her, his glasses in his hand, she was seized suddenly with an anguish so terrible, so physically overwhelming that she thought she could not bear it. It was as though everything inside her had suddenly imploded — as though each and every organ in her body was collapsing one by one and crumbling into dust — and she cried, ‘I can’t leave you, I can’t, I can’t!’

But the train had started; there was only time for a last glimpse of Thomas’s face showing the same incomprehensible anguish that was on her own and then they were past the end of the platform, moving between sooty walls and tenements, gathering speed…

It was then, standing there in the corridor of the 1.35 to Torchester on a drizzly morning on the twenty-third of June, that Jenny understood about the Bible. She understood why it had said ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’ in that stroppy, unequivocal way, and she understood why it had not said why . It had not said why because most probably it did not know, or more likely because there were no words for the knowing. But

Jenny, tottering to the buffet car to see if it was yet open and would sell her, so early in the day, a double whisky or perhaps a pint of opium, could have told the Old Testamental gentleman who had penned that bit exactly why. Because to make love is to make love and in that plastic hotel behind the British Museum, on a bed most hideously covered in purple candle-wick, she and Dr Thomas Marsham had given birth to this devastating product, had manufactured it as surely and solidly as the Bessemer Process — in the far-off, halcyon corridor of her schooldays — had been supposed to manufacture steel.

There was nothing to be done about it. She had set off on this course and somehow she would work it through and perhaps in the end she would hurt no one, not even herself. But as she travelled homeward, disembowelled and divided, as to a distant, sun-drenched landscape she could never hope to reach, Jenny, drinking whisky and eating hard-boiled eggs (for passion, like pregnancy, most strangely affects the appetite) knew why the Bible carried on the way it did. She wouldn’t read it — one didn’t any more. But, God, she knew …

Her name was Madame Delsarte. Trained at La Scala, she had danced in all the capitals of Europe, taught with her famous countryman, Cecchetti, in Russia.

Now she was old, the ramrod back held firm against the rigours of arthritis, the dyed hair piled high above a raddled, made-up face. Old, but deeply formidable as she surveyed the intake for the ballet school she now ran in London.

It was a late winter morning in 1931. Pavlova, killed by overwork, had died two months before; Diaghilev too was dead, but they had done their work. Even the English, who prided themselves on being Philistines, wanted their daughters — if not yet their sons — to dance. That morning, over thirty children had been brought to the tall, yellow stucco house in Regent’s Park which housed the prestigious Delsarte Academy of Dance. Of these, fifteen had already been rejected. Now, Madame turned her attention to the survivors. They had been weighed and measured, their hearing tested, their ability to sing in tune ascertained. Even so, another five would have to go.

‘You can dance now, mes enfants ,’ she said. ‘Do anything you wish. Just follow the music’

The meek little woman at the piano played a Delibes waltz and the children danced. Three revealed themselves immediately as unmusical. There was one boy who was clearly gifted, another who — desperately though she needed boys — would have to go.

But these decisions were made below the level of her consciousness. She was watching only one child.

Someone had taught her and taught her well. There was no precociousness, no dangerous attempt to go up on her toes, yet at nine she had already tasted the control that alone brings freedom. A narrow little face, fawn hair cut in a fringe, large brown eyes. She had been shy at the interview but now she was wholly absorbed. ‘Even with her eyelashes, she dances,’ thought Madame.

She motioned to the pianist to stop and gave instructions to the two assistant teachers who gently led the casualties away.

‘Come here,’ said Madame to the child with the fawn hair, and she came, biting her lip and holding back her tears, for this summons could only mean that she had failed.

‘Dancers don’t grimace,’ said Madame Delsarte. She led her to the window embrasure and stabbed her cane at the pianist who broke into a march.

She was alone now with the child. Outside, snow had begun to fall. She could have been back in Russia, at the school in Theatre Street…

‘What is your name?’

‘Alexandra, Madame,’

‘And who taught you to dance, Alexandra?’

‘My mother.’

The voice was low, sweet, but absolutely English. Why then, this absurd sense of familiarity?

‘Mothers are usually a disaster. Is yours a dancer?’

‘Yes, Madame. At least she was.’

The pride in the child’s voice was unmistakable.

‘What is her name?’