RETURN TO SWAN LAKE

a novel by Gary Canup

Chapter 10

Next morning at exactly eleven Davy dropped his bike on the lawn and ran up the walk to the portico, eager to find out how Jan had done in the audition. He pressed the doorbell. The twittering of birds in the surrounding trees was cheerful enough but their morningsong failed to recapture the atmosphere of intimacy created last night by the nocturne of crickets and treefrogs. He pressed the doorbell again. He wondered what was taking Edward so long to answer the door. Perhaps the old man had not heard the bell, or perhaps the bell was out of order. He was about to try the door knocker this time when finally the door cracked open and he peered up not into the face of Edward but into that of Mother herself squinting out at him. "Yes?"

"Good morning, ma'am. Jan told me to be here at eleven this morning."

"Jan? No, I'm sorry, she can't come out to play, she's auditioning for an important ballet teacher," and Mother started to close the door.

"Ma'am? Ma'am?" Davy said.

She held the door and squinted out at him with annoyance.

"I'm Davy."

"Who?"

"Jan's friend. Remember?"

The woman seemed bewildered.

"She told me to be here at eleven today, to see how she made out in the audition."

"She did?"

"Yes, ma'am. I swear she did."

"Then I suppose I had better let you in."

"Geez," Davy thought.

She opened the door and he entered.

"Please forgive the appearance of the house," Mother said, closing the door softly, ever so softly, behind them, "but it's Sunday and the staff has the day off."

Davy gazed around the gloomy foyer. The decorations which last night had appeared so bright and festive now looked as dull and spiritless as Mother herself. The balloons were shriveled like the bladders of the aged, many of the streamers had fallen to the floor, and the birthday banner had come down at one end. A lonely pushbroom leaned against the wall over a small pile of rubbish where someone, perhaps Mother herself, had made a half-hearted and aborted attempt at clean up. The fact that the big sliding doors to the drawing room were closed suggested that the drawing room was as big a mess as the foyer. Davy was astonished that Mother had let Madame Jenkins see the place like this.

Still in her houserobe, her hair in disarray, her face devoid of makeup and her eyes little more than slits, Mother was clearly hungover from last night's merrymaking. Evidently the festivities had crawled well into the wee hours of the morning.

"So did she pass the audition?" Davy asked.

The woman peered anxiously up the staircase at the closed studio door. "I don't know, they're still up there. It is taking somewhat longer than anticipated. No one's allowed to go in there, not even me — her own mother." She turned to Davy and did her best to form a hopeful smile. "Perhaps you'd like to sit with me in the drawing room? Keep me company?"

"No, thank you, ma'am."

Her expression of hope collapsed with such sudden violence that it seemed to inflict stabs of pain upon her face and she immediately shut her eyes and lifted her fingers to her temples.

"Is it okay if I go up and wait outside the studio door?"

"Suit yourself," she told him, already turning and shuffling away. "But don't go in there. They won't even let me in. Her own mother. And keep it quiet. I have overnight guests still asleep up there," she said over her shoulder as she shuffled off into the dining room.

Davy went up the staircase. He sat down against the bannister opposite the studio door. He gazed almost reverently at the closed door. Jan was in there. Trying to become a ballerina. Now and then a faint shadow flitted across the slit of light beneath the door. A heavily-accented voice came muffled through the door.

He stretched out his legs and rested his head against the bannister, rolling one leg nervously. The boy was anxious to tell Jan about a solitary excursion he had made to Swan Lake. He had found his way there alone and had paddled to the island and had entered the coppice. He had sat on the moss and had gazed around. What he needed to tell her was that it had not been the same without her, not even close. He couldn't wait for the two of them to visit Swan Lake together again.

He lifted his knee and inspected the tear in his jeans. He had gotten it last summer while sliding into third. A thread protruded from the unraveling fringe and he tugged and tugged but the thread would not pull free, so he gnawed it off at the root and rolled it into a ball between forefinger and thumb and glanced about for a place to discard it but, finding no suitable place, just pushed the ball into his pocket as though he had decided it was a gem worth keeping.

Hearing the weary shuffle of footsteps up the staircase, he turned and watched the gradual appearance of Mother at the top of the stairs. With her arms folded beneath her bosom she cast a fretful glance toward the studio door then continued on her way in the opposite direction down the hall, her back slowly receding until she entered one of the bedrooms.

A few minutes later she emerged, looking somewhat fresher, as though maybe she had done a little something to her hair, and the woman came pacing slowly down the hallway again. Mother was wandering the house like one of the walking dead. Her fretful eyes once again fixed on the studio door. Then, noticing Davy sitting there, she weakly smiled and gave him a little thumbs-up sign of encouragement before gradually descending the staircase again.

Davy settled back uneasily, rolling his leg. He had feared that she was going to come up and talk to him again. Maybe next lap she would. Hurry up, Jan, hurry up.

After a few more minutes a dull shadow appeared in the slit of light beneath the door. The shadow darkened and separated into two narrower shadows and suddenly the heavily accented voice was just inside the door. Davy sat up. The great Madame Jenkins was about to emerge. The door came open and Davy was so dazzled by the flood of radiance that streamed from the studio that he squinted beneath his hand at the figure framed in the doorway, and Davy was literally shocked by what he saw there: Madame Jenkins looked nearly a hundred years old! Her nose was bulbous, wisps of gray hair stuck out around her head like fiery projections from the surface of the sun, and a dark cape covered the rest of her. Davy was at a loss to understand how this relic could so much as walk or feed herself, let alone teach ballet.

But as she emerged from the glare of the doorway and entered the more accurate lighting of the gallery, the boy saw his mistake.

The nose was not bulbous; it was aquiline in a way that lends dignity and even a touch of ferocity to an otherwise attractive face. The hair was not gray; it was blond and tied back in a ponytail that was tucked inside her cape, and those wisps he had seen were merely those short strands of hair that come loose during vigorous dancing. As she swept past him her cape blew aside and Davy was treated to a glimpse of muscular leg and flat abdomen generously displayed by a black leotard and she drew the cape about her again and shot him a glance down her nose of haughty contempt for all creatures of his gender who thought only of sex and nothing of discipline and hard work and dedication and she swept off down the staircase in her flowing cape. Davy, blinking dully after her, lowered his estimate of her age from a hundred down to about thirty-five.

He turned and squinted into the radiant studio, waiting. But the woman's little student did not emerge. Or was she a student after all? Davy climbed to his feet and entered the studio.

She stood in the middle of the room, staring at the floor and absently dabbing at her sweaty face with the towel draped around her neck. Her white leotard was dark at the chest and underarms, and her bare legs were sheened with perspiration. Her long raven tresses had been pulled back and braided and pinned in a coil at the back of her head, the way she typically wore it when she danced ballet, and wisps of loose hair were plastered to the nape of her neck.

The boy rapped softly on the open door, and she looked over at him.

"Hi, Jan."

She responded with a weak little smile.

"Did you pass the audition?"

To his astonishment she replied with a cheerful little nodding.

"You did?" He leaped and punched the air. "Way to go Jan!"

She smiled distantly again and appeared to slide back to wherever she had been before he had entered the room.

"That is good news, isn't it?" he asked.

Jan told him she had no time to talk, she had to practice a number of routines Madame Jenkins had assigned as homework for tomorrow's class. The other girls were far ahead, and she had to work hard to catch up. He could stay and watch if he liked.

Davy decided to stay. It was better than spending no time with her at all.