"You are coming with me to New York?" Edward asked as he sat back to check with Liz that he was correct in his assumption before he booked their flights. "Out Thursday next week and back on the following Tuesday. Ms. Schmidt has emailed that I'll be able to interview Vladimir and Sasha on Sunday. Vanity Fair have booked Michel Faux to do the accompanying photos, but their still haggling over details. I think we're both invited to lunch since you and Luci hit it off."

Liz answered from the kitchen, where she was tidying up after supper. "I know, she phoned earlier. We are going shopping after lunch, while you boys work. The kids are going to her parents for the weekend. I think she's getting theatre tickets organised as well for the Saturday. So yes, I am definitely coming and it better be business class. You can go steerage if the magazine is only paying for one ticket."

"Yes darling." With a few clicks he was all booked.

"I'm off for a bath. Don't work too late."

After midnight, there was the unmistakable sound of their daughter arriving for a visit by the slamming of the front door and the crash of her bags being dropped on the wooden floor of the hall. "How was China, Sabina?"

"God, who said being a travel journalist was fun? The expo in Shanghai was abysmal. Trekking in the Gobi was a total disaster and do not mention Hong Kong or Macau. Ugh, my government appointed translator was an absolute creep. I've submitted my chapters to the editor, but I am job hunting. She offered me Siberia next and thats just no way. Why can't I get Fiji or Bermuda?" The tall, slim travel writer leaned down to kiss the top of her father's head. "I take it mum's retired for the night. So, whats new of planet parent?"

"We're off to New York next weekend, I have a Vanity Fair piece to do. Liz is bankrupting me as she's shopping with her new best friend, Luci Stravenkov."

"I take it that your interviewing the man who does not give interviews. Wasn't he the one that punched that reporter from Rolling Stone and was sent on court appointed rehab in 91?"

"Yes and has not drunk since."

"Why the change in heart?"

"Blame your mother. We went to the ballet and well Luci and her just clicked."

"What! You went to the ballet. Mum normally goes on her todd. Was it a modern piece? I can't see you liking Swan Lake?" Sabina asked as she started going through the pile of hardcopies of her father's recent publications. The Weekend Magazine had a cover shot was of the dancer in full stage make-up and costume as the doomed Crown Prince. "Sasha Makarov…. must be Russian?"

She flicked through the full magazine. She stared at the centre spread. "That's Alex! WTF? A dancer?"

"Read and all will be revealed. Alex kept his own desires secret. His uncle was an absolute beast to him. He hid his sexuality and his love of dancing from everyone. I've known he was a dancer since Dieter Sprintz contacted me in 2005. Alex was then living with Manfred Schnagel."

Sabina sat and read every word and then listened to her father's recordings. "He's OK? I know he's successful and working hard, but he sounds so lost at times. He's got a mask on, a different one to the one he wore when he lived with us, but its all a front giving you what he's wants you to see. Those lost moments are the real Alex. I think back, the boy I befriended was a construct as well. The image of the boy Ian and those bastards who used him fashioned."

Edward switched off his laptop and stretched his legs. "Alex told me he has disassociative identity disorder. I think we only see his true self when he dances or when he chooses to love. All other times he is thinking five steps ahead to protect himself. He was quite candid that he started to hide himself at eleven. Maybe Jack got to see behind that mask, but I think he even fooled her into thinking he was OK. It all started to fall apart that Christmas, when he knew Jack was unhappy. His construct of safe and normal was breaking apart. He tried to tell us… show us he was lost. I just hope he stays happy and finds another lover like Manfred who accepts that he's broken into pieces."

…

This storm had been brewing since he arrived back in New York. Luci was pissed at him. In an effort to protect her, Alex and Vladimir had kept certain details about his past to themselves. Now she knew, but Alex would take anger over pity any day. Nina was at kindergarden and the boys were at school. There was a full pot of coffee brewed and Alex's favourite cranberry and orange muffins on the table. His friend wanted to talk.

His fingers flexed as he looked for an easy exit. He dutifully sat and waited for Luci to sit as well. He started with a diversionary tactic. "When Maria died, you both took me in. It was not because we were close or that you liked me. I know the old bag had threatened Vladimir, but I also know you were giving me home, because I would have gone to live with Manfred then. You both warned him off at the funeral. Told him to go and let me mourn her properly. Both of you tried to get me placed in a company here, pulled in your contacts and favours. I have never thanked you for putting yourselves out for me." Alex had been well aware of the manoeuvres to provide parental support when he was seventeen in the vain hope he would have stayed in New York. "At the time I thought you were protecting Manfred, but you were really protecting me from future recriminations."

He got up and poured out two cups of coffee. "This is home. I know I'm safe here. I never thought I'd ever have that. Growing up where we lived was a place to eat, sleep and to pretend to be a family. I had an illusion of a home, in London with Jack after Ian died, but it was never a safe place. It was the price of my compliance with my abusers. That life forced me to run. The best decision I ever made was selling Cheyne Walk to that friend of Paul's." Alex took a sip of the hot beverage. "It was my choice to go with Misha. When you have limited options, you tend to make really shit decisions. For your information I told Maria the worst bits. Even, that magazine interview was whitewash. If you knew the things I have done. When I first told Sabina about the abuse, she did not believe me until we were kidnapped by Cray. In that school in France, I faced true horrors. I was threatened… they told me they were going to cut me up because I had tried to escape. I still have nightmares about that."

Luci's beautiful face was pale and pinched, she was still so angry. ""I'm not angry at you, Cuckoo. It's just… I thought you were a thief, into underage drinking, doing drugs and a runaway. Normal teenage stuff. Not this. Everyone now knows, that you were… hurt so badly. I can understand why Maria and Vladimir fought so hard for you. It took me a while to accept you. How could I not when you were so sweet with Petrusha and Grishka. You cooked and cleaned like you needed to earn your keep. I saw a sad boy behind your hard mask, but this brutality. Those photos that shit in Moscow blackmailed you with."

"It was blackmail… Maxim had gotten photos of me and my friend, Dimitry. We met at Point Blanc Academy. I'd do anything to protect my friends. It's not like fucking meant anything. He was pathetic and I had already planned my exit strategy. It was nice going back to London."

He picked up a muffin and started to pick out the red berries. "I thought your father would have told you, we had a little misunderstanding when we first met. He took me into his study for a serious talk. He kept staring at me, trying to size up this cuckoo, having heard the rumours I was Vladimir's misbegotten progeny. Only, I offered him a blow job, I don't think he knew what to say when I took his refusal to mean he wanted full sex and just dropped my trousers. He was so sweet and embarrassed. He guessed I'd been seriously sexually abused and that I had to relearn boundaries. We talked and I assumed he'd told you. Before, everyone got to have their jollies with me." Alex then stared at Luci. "If you had known, would you have still taken me in?"

The woman looked pensive. "I would have insisted you see a psychiatrist, I would have made Vladimir take you on as a soloist; his backers and the other directors would have been more sympathetic if they had been aware you were at risk. You weren't ready to talk then. You had pushed it all to the back of your mind and carried on. Vladimir said cryptic things I now get, about your drinking and addiction. Coping mechanisms for trauma. Yes, you are my cuckoo, Maria's chosen heir. I took you in for her. She played matchmaker for me and Vladimir. She thought of him as her son as well."

The young man's fingers stroked the words inked onto his wrist. 'Nothing is forever'. This was sanctuary. Something to fight for but also something to be destroyed. He was making the right decision in going to Australia. "So, Dave says I need to expand my artistic horizons. That I have good instincts for incorporating conceptual art into dance. So, shall we visit the Museum of Modern Art this afternoon? I will take my new camera and photograph the most beautiful woman I know. " Before she hit him for being a creep, he continued, making her understand she was his mother even if he never called her that, "I never knew my mother, I've never spoken to any of her friends. She's an unknown quantity. I often wonder if she and you were alike. Probably not, she must have either been a fool or a saint to be with my father. Must have loved him at least, because love makes you insane."

…

Vladimir hated board meetings, but as a director of several organisations he had to attend several dozen every year. The current Artistic Director of the American Ballet Theatre was waiting to talk to Vladimir and knowing that snake, he was not going to like what he proposed. Mark Landry had been driven to overturn and readdress everything Vladimir had done during his term in the same post. One refusal was now hurting Mark Landry, he had seen Sasha dance in 2004 and had been bitingly cruel in his rejection of Vladimir's protégé. His friend, Ludmilla thought it was poetic justice that one of the rising stars of Russian Ballet refused all offers to dance at the Met, when he would be a guest for the other dance company in the city. The young dancer had told her that revenge was a dish of pure bitterness. She was always most charming when telling Mark Landry that Sasha Makarov was indisposed or had a previous engagement. So, Mark was making pleasant conversation about the up and coming season with the other directors, Vladimir knew he would not be so lucky. "So, I hear Sasha has signed a full contract with the Australian Ballet. Rumour has it there's a problem with his work visa. If he needs work, our doors would always welcome a dancer of his proficiency and repertoire."

"Ludmilla handles all those sorts of problems, as you know." Vladimir was worried. There was no reason for it, Sasha did not have a criminal record, either here, in Britain or in Russia. He was only taken in for questioning in Russia, regarding Maxim Lukov's dubious activities and was not have needed to appear as a prosecution witness.

"You must understand their misgivings considering Sasha was an associate of a wanted criminal. There is a current international warrant for Mikhail Breskin"

"You are very poorly informed. Let me tell you some truth behind your rumours. Sasha was 15 when Breskin groomed and raped him. In California and also in Florida, the law is quite clear that the use of coercion, violence or drugs/alcohol to have sex with a child under 16 is a felony, not a misdemeanour. Breskin has had a warrant for his arrest for rape and the attempted murder of Aleksandr since 2003. So, you call Sasha a willing participant not a survivor of child abuse . That man got Sasha hooked on drugs, a common method used to entrap vulnerable runaways into prostitution. I know Aleksandr has not seen nor had any contact with that thug since then. The Russian Security Services used truth serum to confirm that fact when they interviewed Maria's son. Those bastards beat, drugged and threatened Aleksandr with psychiatric treatment for perversion. My cousin Vadim was sent to state clinic at 15 for being homosexual. At seventeen he cut his throat with some wire and killed himself. I discovered his body. I know how they utterly destroyed him, taking a lovely, gentle boy and driving him into hopeless darkness. Russia is still like that under a very thin veneer of openness and acceptance." Vladimir was gripping onto his glass of water so hard, he wondered how the vessel was still in one piece.

"You are so lucky, you have never met really despicable people, like the man who brought Sasha up. I spoke to Graeme, he was spotted at 11 as an exceptional talent, offered a place at the Royal Ballet school after their official closing date for entries had passed. For his uncle to refuse that place but also forbid him any further lessons or even to talk about ballet. He crushed a child's hopes and dreams because Aleksandr was to be a soldier like his father." Vladimir wiped his face. "Luciana and I tried so hard to get him a placement here. Maria was right to be afraid he would fall back into destructive behaviour if he was hurt. He was again a whore after Manfred died. Now this again after Titania. We wanted to protect him. Maybe in Sydney he will find happiness. Who knows. I have been an over anxious parent expecting him to break, but like Maria he is as hard as a diamond and just as beautiful."