Ralph Delibes was a self-made man. Vaughn had heard this phrase so often he hardly noticed when people said it, or described his stepfather as 'a hard-nosed businessman – but good at heart'.
Vaughn knew that his stepfather was good at heart. For as long as he could remember, Ralph had worked the long hours necessary to build up and maintain his successful computer software design company. Yet he had supported Vaughn in all his short-lived adventures, from guinea pig keeping to learning karate, and encouraging him to gat involved in the soccer club. Vaughn knew that a man who was capable of all this and more must be in possession of a good heart.
But he also knew other things. First, complications at Vaughn's birth had stopped his mother from having any more babies, so he had remained an only child. Ralph hadn't objected when Vaughn's ex-dancer mother had continued to send him to ballet classes, since she would never have a daughter to follow in her footstep. And when Vaughn had shown more talent and enthusiasm, Ralph had, as ever, been generous.
From the darkness of the landing where he had used to hide when his parents entertained, Vaughn had once overheard him tell a dinner guest that, "he's pretty good at it apparently. I suppose he might as well get it out of his system, if he enjoys it. It's harmless enough."
On top of this, Vaughn was acutely aware that his talent for dance wasn't the only one he had. Since his first day at Rawlish High School, he'd been good at the work. He was never out of the top five in his class, in any subject. And that meant that Ralph Delibes's longest held and most cherished dream had a real chance of coming true. Vaughn would be the first Delibes (even though he kept the last name Vaughn) to attend university and enter a profession.
A profession you needed a degree for, that is.
When Vaughn got home from school on Friday, both of his parents' cars were in the driveway. He wondered why Ralph had come home early. Opening the front door as quietly as possible, he took off his shoes and made for the stares.
"Darling" mum threw open the double doors of the living room. Her hair was twisted up, and she was warring loose black pants and a small white t-shirt that showed off her Greek tan and here feet were bare. Vaughn knew that some ware in the room, a pair of thin-strapped gold sandals would be lying where she had kicked them off.
She kissed him on the cheek, "goodness you look tired." As she spoke she ushered him into the living room, taking his shoes out of his hand and dropping them in the hall. "Come on, Ralph's through here."
The light that filled the conservatory was no longer the golden light of summer. But it was warm enough to have the windows open. Ralph was sitting in his favorite chair, his back supported by cushions, his drink – which looked like gin and tonic – in his hand. The evening paper lay unopened on his lap. On the table between the chairs stood an opened bottle of coca-cola and a glass containing ice cubes. The only other thing on the table was an envelope.
"Sit down son. Have a drink."
"His hands aren't very clean Ralph," said Mum
"So what?" said Ralph cheerfully. "Neither are mine."
Vaughn saw that the envelope had the Rawlish High crest in the corner. The cap of the coca-cola bottle made a satisfying hiss. "What's all this about?" he asked his stepfather, tilting his glass. "Shouldn't you be at work?"
Vaughn's step dad was tall and thin. Mum always said that his workaholic nature kept him that way. He had well-tended dark hair, a bit gray on top, and the kind of moustache favored by middle-aged American actors. When he wasn't in expensive business suits, he wore clothes from catalogues where the models were pretending to be sailing or walking in a park.
He smiled, making deep creases in his cheeks, and shifted in his chair. He put one ankle on the other knee. "I thought I'd come home early and see you before you go out. You are going out, art you? To your class?"
Vaughn's chest contracted. He usually went to ballet class at six-thirty on Fridays. Ralph had been told that Miss Fitzgerald was in hospital, but he'd obviously forgotten.
"He's not going out tonight Ralph," said mum gently. "Norma's had an accident. We did tell you."
Ralph karate-chopped his head playfully. "I knew that! But anyway, do you want to read this letter?"
The first paragraph told mum and Ralph how delighted the school was with Vaughn's progress how confidently his teachers were predicting his shining GED results.
Vaughn looked up. "It's the standard letter Mr. Cadwallader sends out at the beginning of year 11 to everyone. Nick Simmons got his yesterday. What's the big deal?"
Ralph took his ankle off his knee. Ice clinked against the side of his glass. "Read on."
The next paragraph said that because of this, Vaughn was one of a group of very able boys being invited to start an advanced level course a year early.
"Why?" asked Vaughn, bewildered. "Why are they in such a rush?"
"They're fast tracking you," said Ralph. He leaned forward, his eyes bright. "Pretty good idea isn't it?"
It didn't seem like a good idea to Vaughn. He felt confused, but he made himself focus on the one fact he could see clearly. If he was ever going to present Ralph with an alternative scheme for his future – a scheme which didn't involve Rawlish Sixth Form at all – the moment to do it had arrived.
"Did I mention Olivia Perry to you?"
The brightness in Ralph's eyes faded slightly. "Err…"
"She's a ballet teacher. She teaches at the community center at Lowry Road."
Mum glanced at Ralph apologetically. "She's teaching Michael while Norma's sick," she explained.
"I went to her class last night," said Vaughn.
Ralph's eyebrows twitched "isn't Thursday night Falcons training?"
"Yes but it is the only night that Miss Perry teaches seniors."
"I see." Ralph sipped his drink. "This is a temporary arrangement, is it?"
"Um… well, anyway, Miss Perry's a really good teacher. A serious teacher, who is prepared to coach me, if I'm good enough…"
"I'm sure you are, sweetheart," interrupted Mum.
"… For ballet school auditions."
Every one was silent.
"You know, the American Ballet Academy." Said Vaughn. His nerve was failing. He couldn't breathe. His voice got quieter. "It's in New York. The auditions are in February and March, to start in September."
While Vaughn had been saying this Ralph's smile had gone. His cheeks weren't creased any more. He looked at Vaughn's mother. "Did you know about this?"
She nodded. "Listen, Ralphie. If Michael is ever going to be a professional dancer, he has to go into full time dance training next year. He'll do the rest of high school at the ABA, just like he would at an ordinary school, but he wouldn't go to university afterwards." Vaughn could hear equal measure of tenderness and toughness in her voice. He knew that she would always be on his side of this argument. "He'll join a company and dance for his living."
There was a pause, during which Vaughn struggled with the knowledge that he loved both his parents and wanted to please them both, but couldn't. What ever happened, one of them would get hurt.
Ralph was still leaning over the coffee table, his forgotten drink in his hand. Sitting there in his work clothes, he looked as if he were at the end of a meeting at which nothing had been decided, with an unsolved problem still dangling ahead of him, promising hours and hours of work.
Vaughn had rehearsed this moment in front of the mirror hundreds of times. Be clear headed and tell him straight. Don't let him get emotional. But Ralph was already more upset then Vaughn had feared.
"Tell me something Michael," he said. He was trying to sound unconcerned, but the disappointment in his voice crashed over Vaughn like a landslide. Under it, Vaughn's already faltering nerve collapsed. He waited obediently for Ralph's question.
"Do you have the remotest idea – the smallest idea – what Rawlish costs?"
Vaughn knew that Ralph didn't really want this question answered. And he certainly wouldn't want to be told that judging by present surroundings, what the school cost was of no material significance.
"Alright, we're comfortable," he admitted. "But do you really think that I worked my ass of for the past twenty years to throw my money away on some pathetic little ballet school?"
Vaughn's flattened courage recovered itself. He stood up, and looked down at Ralph's serious and surprised face. "The ABA isn't some pathetic little ballet school!" he protested "It's a famous school, much more famous then Rawlish!" he applied to his mother. "Isn't it?"
Mum nodded. See too was watching Ralph's face. "It's a very tough audition, Ralph, but if we don't let him at least try…"
"Try to make a fool out of himself, you mean?" Ralph remembered his drink and took a mouthful, gesturing towards Vaughn's chair. "Sit down and stop the melodrama, Michael. You're not at stage school yet you know."
Vaughn didn't want to sit down. He turned to escape, but his socked feet slid on the tile floor, and he stumbled. Mum half rose to help him, but Ralph was quicker. He stood up, spilling some of his drink on the table as he set it down, and caught hold of a chunk of Vaughn's hair, twisting it around his hand.
"Get off!" Vaughn had lost his temper. "Leave me alone!"
Mum tried to intervene, but Ralph's grip was too strong. Vaughn had no choice but to stand still. "Are you seriously telling me that you want to be a dancer?" Ralph asked, as if the possibility had only just come to him.
"Yes, that's what I…"
"Shut up and let me tell you something. You'll never be a dancer. You'll be a statistic, that's what you'll be. In the unemployment benefit queue." He released Vaughn's hair. "Now get out of my sight."
Vaughn went up to his room. He took off his blazer and tie and hung them up without noticing what he was doing. He opened his schoolbag. Latin. Geography. Unbelievably, tears stung behind his eyes. Tears. 'For god's sake Vaughn get a hold of yourself.' Note book. Folder. Pen.
He sat down at his desk. It was daylight outside, but he still put his desk light on from long habit. This is where he'd been doing his homework at five o'clock every night for four years, except for Friday nights when he went to Miss Fitzgerald's. Tonight, though, there was no Miss Fitzgerald. There wasn't even the prospect of calling Wiess and suggesting that they go see a movie and maybe grab a burger afterwards. There was nothing to look forward to but Ralph's frostiness and mum's brave cheerfulness.
He tried to read the words in front of him, but the stinging in his eyes worsened. He snapped his Latin textbook shut. He closed his folder and put down his pen. He turned of the light and closed his curtains. Then still in his school pants and shirt, he lay down on his bed.
He'd begun something that was certain. Deciding to quit the falcons was the first rung on a very, very long ladder that reached so high that the end of it disappeared in the clouds like jack's beanstalk. The second rung, which he just tried to step onto in the conservatory, that had broken so spectacularly that it made Vaughn feel sick to even think about it. And how could he get onto the third rung, when he wasn't even sure where, or how far away, it was?
Lying in the darkened room, he fingered his jaw, which felt scratchy, and thought about Mr. Cadwallader's letter. It brought him no joy. In fact, it threw up a big, big question. Could he – he, ordinary Michael Vaughn – really turn his back on the academic glory which would come to him so easily, in order to pursue a different kind of glory, doing something so impossibly difficult, so filled with uncertainty and in which he was so extremely unlikely to succeed?
Suddenly the truth of what Miss Fitzgerald's Daughter had said. He sat up, thinking hard, and looked through the gloom at his reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. His hair was a mess and he needed to shave. But his eyes stared calmly back at him.
Ballet dancers really were mad. Their madness was a delirium, a fever out of control. It didn't matter what a sensible person would do. He didn't want to be a sensible person. He wanted to work his way further and further into the over heated world of ballet and be infected with the madness too. And surely, the only way to achieve this was to go to a place where everyone else was as he was?
He knew from chemistry lessons that if you wanted to make something very hot, very concentrated, you burn it in an enclosed space, depriving it of the oxygen it needed to flame freely. Slowly, you reduced it to glowing white-hot embers.
An enclosed space. A place where he no longer had to juggle one life with another, and keep his achievements to himself, and be attacked by people like Charlie Miller and Jake Thorogood. Wouldn't that be a glorious, blessed relief?
Wow, thank god that this chapter is finished! I know I haven't updated in ages, but that is because I have had NO time to write because of school (DO NOT LIKE VERY MUCH AT THE MOMENT)!
Well the other day I went to see a ADT (Australian Dance Theater) performance called HELD and I recommend every one to see it if it comes to a town near you, because they are now on a world tour! (yay!) It is a modern dance that has a photographer who is on stage with the dancers and taking photos of them, and a second after the photo is taken it appears on huge board things behind the dancers!
Anyway, I hope you liked it and I would love it if you could review! Thanks!