Upon a Frosted Star, page 23
But Marvin seemed undeterred, even when confronted with his bitterness and betrayal. ‘I say, why don’t you drive down and we’ll have a drink and discuss it face to face?’
‘You must be out of your goddamned mind. You’re the last person I want to see.’ Forster slammed the receiver down and resumed his pacing.
In the weeks that followed, the telephone rang constantly. A bevy of enquiries and accusations beleaguered Forster after Marvin’s blistering exposé. As did the numerous people who turned up at the manor, knocking on the door and peering in the window in the hopes of gleaning something scandalous. After Detta’s swan-themed exhibition, Forster’s name had become entwined with hers and he heard it now, shouted through the thin panes of glass as the rumours swirled, fiercer than a storm, outside.
April was a terrible month for Forster. Though, according to Vivian, he was earning a substantial sum from sales and commissions from new patrons, ironically in part thanks to Marvin’s story, life in the manor had become stifling. Hiding from the outside world’s attention by day, walking to the lakeside by eve, a singular thought percolating all the while: the moment this month breathed its last, the moment the storms ceased to carve their might across the lake, he would be crossing the Channel for Paris, to resume his hunt for Rothbart. And he would not return without an answer. For Detta was running out of time.
Then, a parcel arrived. Wrapped in brown paper and tied neatly with string, it bore a note:
Forster,
I came across these reviews that covered our time in Paris. Hope they prove useful to you.
Regards,
Daisy May
The Observer
25th November 1913
Rothbart’s Theatre of Enchantments dazzles on the Parisian stage!
After a dazzling performance like none other, Rothbart and his theatre have firmly won the hearts of their Parisian audience. Taking yet another beloved fairy tale, this time Rapunzel, and spinning it into his own whimsically choreographed show, performed by his resident cast of dancers and acrobats, Rothbart has ensured that the city of love is not likely to forget his Parisian tour any time soon.
Debuting on the first of December, this is a show that will steal your senses away. From the troop of aerialists fluttering by on feathered wings to the pure white deer that appeared from thin air and proceeded to sleep on stage, to the river of chocolate cream that twined through the audience, prepare to enter a world like none other.
Prima ballerina Detta Kova follows her success at dancing Snow White at the theatre’s home stage in York with the lead role of Rapunzel. It speaks volumes that although Rothbart’s signature illusions will have you near believing in magic, Kova battles his charms for attention, performing a remarkable thirty-five fouetté turns, breaking the current record, and bringing the audience to their feet in a richly deserved ovation.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Detta
1913
Paris in winter was insatiable. It glittered with life. As did I, strolling along the Champs-Élysées, feasting on a box of pistachio macarons from Ladurée. Rothbart had imposed a company rule forbidding his performers to socialise with anyone outside of our own, tight-knit clan while on tour, and it galled. I wanted to sit in a café and philosophise with a handsome stranger and wander the most fashionable ateliers with some of the French ballerinas I had only exchanged pleasantries with. Anything to distract from Penelope and the last memory I held of her: vanishing in front of me. The way she had stared straight through me with those haunted eyes. I had so adored Penelope’s wide smile, carefree as a posy of wildflowers, yet she had left and returned as something else. And now Rothbart’s prowling attention was fixed on me. Still, I did not leave. I had considered it, turning back to my list of cities that I was eager to see and finally writing to ballet companies there. Their responses were fast and disappointing; they all had other prima ballerinas and soloists already filling their spotlights. If I left, I would have had to step back down into the corps, and I had come too far for that. This was my dream. And when I could not help remembering that bone-snap of the swan Rothbart had ended, there was always another bottle of champagne to crack open. I breakfasted on hothouse peaches and crystal saucers of Moët in a silk peignoir before our mandated retinue of classes and rehearsals began. My tastes running more extravagant until I dreamt in sequins and ballgowns. Forgetting was sweeter than any dessert. I ordered a new wardrobe from Poiret and Worth, wearing gossamer gowns merely to swish into the patisserie down the street to purchase a chocolate cake. Intoxicating myself with couture until my cage glittered, distracting me from its bars.
Still, the nights were my own.
And the later the hour, the brighter Paris sparkled. Unable to sleep for fear of seeing my door handle slowly turn, I stole out into the city under the cloak of night, where Rothbart’s rules couldn’t follow me. Drowned myself in champagne and a few needles of morphine I’d illicitly sourced in a smoky nightclub until sleep reached out and dragged me into unconsciousness.
Checking my little Cartier watch, I stopped for café au lait in a china cup delicate as spun silk, and a pain au chocolat, buttery and flaky, filled with rich chocolate that melted on my tongue like satin. I could have stayed in Paris forever. If only to evade Rothbart and keep dancing on a stage. To not have to suffer the return journey, to never again feel that boat bucking and rolling beneath me, threatening to send me down into those unfathomable depths, the water claiming me as it had my parents. I lingered at that café for as long as I could before I had to hurry back to the Théâtre Magique and the first full dress rehearsal of Rothbart’s latest enchantment: Rapunzel.
As ever, even our dress rehearsals were missing its most vital component: Rothbart’s illusions. Keeping us in constant suspense as we could not yet predict how the theatre would tremble and alter before us on opening night. It would have been a welcome distraction from the rehearsal, which was unusually gruelling. Coming to Paris had set something aflame within Rothbart. His eyes sparkled with a manic energy, his voice boomed louder, his gesturing grew more grandiose than ever. His ambition was a wild force. And it whipped us into a frenzy. I danced longer and harder than the days when I was first trying to prove myself, consumed with the picture Rothbart painted, of the grand city falling at its knees before us. Of the audiences that would adore us and cry encore. I deserved this. For each day I danced for Rothbart, I risked it all.
On opening night, we shone fiercer than ever, the trapeze artists flying from greater distances, the dancers’ leaps reaching for the clouds. As I performed my first variation, in front of the tower within which I was set to be imprisoned, the stage glowed mint-green and shoots pushed through the wooden boards, blooming into roses with midnight-petals and pink orchids, each one larger than my head. Moss rippled up the tower’s stonework as the garden swelled to exaggerated proportions and an earthy brown stream bubbled up from between two stones and twisted through the audience. With a murmur and a gasp of glee, the attendees dipped fingers into the stream as one discovered it did not run with water but chocolate cream. As I began my pas de deux with the witch who unlocked the door to the tower, a pure white deer ran from a shadowed alcove and into the audience, a basket of bell-shaped cakes on its back. The audience helped themselves, dipping the little cakes into the chocolate stream as the deer returned to the stage where it curled up into itself and sweetly fell asleep.
I might have been enchanted had I not been infused with ambition of my own.
As I entered the tower, the set piece revolved to display its open back and within, me. When it span on its axis, so too did I. The choreography demanded a string of twenty-five fouettés. My own hubris demanded more. My ambition smouldered in my veins. I passed twenty-five without slowing, burning for more, burning to be great. Then twenty-eight, thirty. I felt rather than saw the audience tighten in their seats. I held their attention now. When I reached thirty-five before placing my foot down, the audience roared to their feet. My skin crackled with lightning like I had been touched by a god. I felt like a god. Incandescent with power.
When we took our final bows, applause rained down on us, scattering the stage with roses. And as I walked in stylised ballet steps into the wings, my arms full of blooms, I found Jacques awaiting me, leaning against the wall with his shirtsleeves rolled up. The owner of Théâtre Magique, he was tall and broad and a decade older than me with an accent that curled my toes. We had been exchanging long and longer glances since I’d arrived in Paris and he had first seen me dance. A renowned balletomane, Jacques made no secret of his admiration as he observed me from the wings. Rothbart knew, too. It was not a coincidence that he had announced the new company rule of no fraternising after spotting Jacques lingering. But to forbid a thing only enhances its allure. And the temptation was as deliciously exquisite as the de sévigné chocolates I’d been buying by the boxful. I craved him.
After my performance, I ached to sit down, the breath tearing from my lungs after I’d exited the stage, shortly followed by Daisy, who gave Jacques an appraising look. ‘I suppose you won’t be joining us to celebrate opening night then,’ she whispered into my ear as I batted her away. She giggled and ran away with Ada, their pointe shoes clacking against the wooden floorboards. They were followed by a rush of other performers, predominantly dancers, as the aerialists and trapeze artists that had chirruped and soared through the air on feathered wings had ascended up, flying past the tower and into the painted clouds when the curtains fell. Jacques and I stood there, suspended in an immoveable silence, our gaze locked as the world fractured into noise around us. And when the stage had at last emptied and Rothbart was nowhere to be seen, he led me to his private rooms, where we finally kissed, as hot and fiery as I’d imagined it would be.
Though I was headlining the best performances of my career in Paris, by night Penelope haunted my dreams with waterlogged hair, a selkie emerging from the depths. By day, I danced and danced until I shone brighter than a thousand stars, illuminating the dark underbelly of my thoughts, my memories. I lost myself, one fouetté, one standing ovation, one saucer of champagne at a time. I did not pause to consider that the more I dazzled on stage, the more the shadows banded together, growing ever stronger, ever darker. Or that I was not the only one living in those ink-dark ripples. And once I left the stage, I stole through the theatre by moonlight, fleeing to the comfort of Jacques’s arms and admiration, which proved intoxicating.
‘Tell me what you liked today,’ I ordered him, each night, as he poured me a glass of blood-red wine.
‘Your pas de chats were delightful, quick and nimble,’ he said one night. Another, ‘When you sank to the stage, overcome with Rapunzel’s pain, it was unforgettable.’ Inevitably, he would pour me a second glass, then a third, before requesting that I dance for him. I pirouetted slowly in his bedroom, feasting on his attention, as he sat back and watched me, pouting at him when he critiqued my performance, a director in his own right. I had not yet realised that he was a mirror. The man I believed I loved was nothing but a reflection through which I saw only the best of myself. I was Narcissus.
But Daisy knew that none of it was real. We shared a room and nothing eclipsed her. ‘Does it make you rest easier at night?’ she asked me one day, moving a hatbox aside so she might sit at the window in our little bedroom. Busy lacing up my darling new boots, their syrup-brown leather buttery soft, I frowned at her. ‘Going to sleep surrounded by all of this?’ Daisy continued, picking up a rogue earring from the carpet and examining it.
‘Yes, it does,’ I told her. She did not respond to this. ‘I can practically taste your disapproval, you know,’ I added. ‘It’s coming off you in waves.’
Daisy laid the earring in an over-filled jewellery box. ‘I’m sorry, it’s not my place to judge.’
‘No, your god will do that for you, won’t he?’ I laughed bitterly.
Daisy stood. Her face soured as if she’d bitten into a lemon. ‘Yes, he will.’ She left our room.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. I was beginning to sober and I disliked the feeling of reality pressing against me when I was not numb enough to face it. After another minute, I dashed out to find Daisy. ‘I’m sorry,’ I burst out. ‘I’m sorry. I just—’ My throat felt peculiar and I stopped speaking. When I touched my cheek, I was surprised to find it wet. ‘I miss Penelope,’ I whispered, confessing to whatever forces of fate might be watching. ‘And I worry he will come for me next but I cannot leave. Anyway, you’ve seen his rules in Paris, who knows if he will even allow me to leave? He is not a man to cross. And—’ I hesitated, half afraid to admit the guilty secret lurking at the heart of my reason for staying ‘—I love dancing in the spotlight. I cannot walk away now; I need it too much.’
Daisy folded me into her arms. ‘I know,’ she murmured into my ear, holding me tightly. ‘I know. But you must be careful, Detta. Some days I hardly recognise you anymore. I fear that you are treading a dark path.’
‘Is that not precisely how Rothbart prefers us? Veering on the edge of darkness. Becoming great and greater until we slip into that eternal night like wraiths. Or whatever fate he has in mind for us.’
‘You are too great to disappear into that night.’ Daisy gave me a little shake, bringing me back to my senses. ‘And I won’t hear you talk like this again.’
I nodded, my throat too swollen to continue. To say what I ought to have said; that I might have been bathing in champagne and couture to forget it all, but Daisy was living in denial.
That night, as the stars began peeking out over the horizon, they found me lying in a pile of silks with Jacques, our gaze turned skyward. ‘Do you think Rothbart would let me stay in Paris?’ I asked.
‘That’s a dangerous thought,’ Jacques told me. ‘He does not seem like a man that would let his biggest talent walk away.’
This brought my thoughts to the edge of that which I did not wish to confront. It was no small task to walk along that edge of knowledge. My breath quickened. I lifted my hand to admire the cocktail ring I had purchased earlier. A diamond-shaped gold frame held a green onyx, cut in a square with tiny diamonds winking around it like star-glitter. I stared at it until my thoughts calmed and cleared. Jacques lifted himself up on his elbows, watching.
‘Do you like it?’ I asked but he did not answer. ‘Will you miss me when I’ve left?’ I tried instead.
‘Of course, but such is life. We are all birds in a wide, wide sky. Oftentimes we might fly alongside another but we must each soar on our own current.’
I frowned, unsure if it was due to his English or my own wine-muddled head that I hadn’t understood. Before I could ask again, he lowered himself atop me, kissing me until all my fears melted away like snow. Until nothing existed but he and I and the city lights that guided our lips, our hands, as we lost ourselves in each other.
We were booked at the Théâtre Magique until the first bloom of spring, when the chestnut groves blossomed, perfuming the boulevards. The thought of Paris reawakening gave me hope that I could navigate a path through my recent troubles. Yet it was not to be. For before the New Year was ushered in, Daisy roused me from Jacques’ bed, her copper hair falling from her ribbon where she’d tugged at it in desperation: Ada had been summoned to Rothbart that night.
She never returned.
On Rothbart’s sudden orders, we stole out of Paris under the shine of a watchful new moon. Abandoning our sold-out performances and leaving the company in financial strife, a move that would make Rothbart’s patrons furious and give rise to rumours that his Theatre of Enchantments was unreliable. As we crossed the deep waters that led home, I fell into a nightmare of feathered wings and snow.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Forster snapped the newspaper closed and laid it down on the café table at the same time that a man approached him. He was somewhere in his forties, dressed in a blue wool cassimere suit, his salt-and-pepper hair trimmed short. ‘Monsieur Sylvan, I presume?’ he enquired in an accented English, perturbing Forster, who had fancied he resembled an artfully tousled bohemian from the Left Bank and not, as he now suspected, a mere tourist. ‘Yes.’
‘Jacques Laurent. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.’
‘Likewise. What will you have?’ Forster gestured at a waiter who conversed with Jacques in their native tongue, which further disheartened Forster, who was lost in a sea of words that curved and coiled like waves dashing over his head.
Jacques gave a self-deprecating smile which was filled with knowledge of the fact. ‘I am afraid I am somewhat particular when it comes to my wine. But, do not fear!’ He tapped his nose. ‘I have a nose for fine wine; you will enjoy it.’
Forster began to nurture a dislike of the man. Suspecting envy was at play, he attempted to set it aside. ‘Whatever you prefer. I’m grateful for any assistance you can offer me in the matter we discussed.’
‘You wish to hear of my relationship with Detta.’ Jacques’s smile reappeared, this time touched with curiosity. ‘Is it a matter of jealousy?’
‘Not at all.’ Forster hesitated as the waiter appeared with a bottle of burgundy. ‘In fact, we need not speak of Detta at all. My concern is primarily focused on Rothbart.’ Rothbart. That drum-beat of his heart when Forster spoke his name, anger and hate and hope all twined together. ‘I need to locate him and I’ve been given to understand that you managed Théâtre Magique when his Theatre of Enchantments toured there; surely you had some communication with the man?’
‘I did. Though—’ Jacques sighed and spread his hands ‘—that was then. We have not spoken since. There was some peculiar business with one of his ballet dancers and I did not care to embroil myself in that. It was bad enough that they left so quickly, in the middle of their season. His reckless abandonment cost me a fortune and I have not forgiven him.’
