Author: Peter Coles

Passing over the Ouse and through the town square, Lana reaches the heavy church door and pulls the iron handle towards her. Not knowing what she is looking for, she meanders through the church – its innards now a vintage store. The altar houses a collection of pottery from the 60s, whereas the nave, pews uprooted, contains furniture and kitchenware so out of date it has reinvented itself. Eclectic as her taste is, the 70s kitsch from Lana’s childhood lacks the style and timelessness of previous eras, so despite this impressive display, she cannot believe anyone will want orange and brown Tupperware in their kitchens again. She continues to browse the used items, even though she never buys anything. Instead, she imagines what her house will look like if she can ever afford any of these cultural leftovers.  

From across the room, the plastic phone draws her in; the bold curved shape gleaming despite its age. The yellow cradle holds a black receiver aloft. She walks over to it and admires the circular dial, also rimmed with black, its bold numbers peeking out of each hole. Her fingers reach into the gaps. Solid and real compared to the screen of her smartphone. She remembers the whirr of her mother’s less stylish beige model as the dial returned to its original place. She drags the number seven round with her delicate finger, watching and listening as it recoils. The cord, a tight black spiral, winds around the base of the old-fashioned telephone and disappears under the table.  

Lana steps deeper into the back of the store, where the lack of light drops the temperature by a couple of degrees. Angels stare down at her from the vaulted ceiling. The store, always quiet on a Monday lunchtime, is her private refuge. She avoids the weekend crowds, as sharing confined spaces with others makes her uncomfortable and somehow even lonelier. Never mind the fact he banned weekend shopping: Saturdays are for housework and Sundays for rest.

On Mondays, the owner minds his own business at the till, usually shuffling paperwork. He used to smile and offer a polite greeting. However, since she became a regular visitor, he barely looks up before catching her eye and returning to his work. He knows she won’t buy anything. The seclusion of the church makes Lana feel like Aladdin in his cave of wonders. Alone she indulges in fantasy lives. She contemplates the previous owners: imagining lonely widows. Relieved widows. Orphaned children, now adults, but always children when sorting through the remnants of their parent’s life, making unexpected discoveries, just like she had done. Her fingers drift to her mother’s eternity ring, loose on her index finger. Amongst the silence, she creates her own people to populate the displays. She gazes at the matching crockery set, evoking images of a happy family sharing a Christmas dinner; a Formica kitchen table laid for breakfast with the ugly Tupperware conjures up the bustle of children getting ready for school. The noise of families bickering fills her head. A noise she always envied as an only child. She places an elderly relative snoozing in an armchair built to last. She fills elaborate display cabinets, now empty and dusty, with family heirlooms, chipped and faded from the sun.  

The stone interior keeps the air cool. A refreshing change after the stifling heat of her office; with no windows or air-conditioning the summers drag by in a fog of sweat and body spray. The breeze picks moisture up off the Ouse and brings it in through the side door to caress her ankles. Its silty smell reaches her nostrils. Her circuit of the church complete, Lana drifts back towards the telephone.  

She leans forward, stroking the cradle with her fingertips, contemplating a purchase. It would create a focus in her hallway, a talking point, and a stark contrast to all the technology her husband has at home. Making it both more and less appealing at the same time. She lifts the handset to her ear. She expects the burr of the ring tone, but instead, the silence of the church whispers down the line. A hum reminding her of the shells she held to her ear as a child: the conch with the sound of the tide inside. How its soft sounds soothed her when she felt anxious. This telephone makes her feel the same. Comforted. She imagines it carries the sound of the Ouse inside it, the ripples of water sploshing as they lap the riverbank. Gently, Lana replaces the receiver and lets her eyes admire the chromatic design. Time feels as if it is standing still today. Her fingertips rest on the receiver, and she feels the vibration before she hears it ring.

A moment passes. Lana stares in disbelief at the ringing telephone. The tone shrill, reminiscent of a time when everyone answered the phone, not knowing who the caller would be. It feels strange to pick up a call and not know who will be on the other end of the line. She looks around for the owner. The ring of the bell continues to echo in the empty church. With no clue what else to do but with a desire for the silence of the church to be restored, she picks up the receiver.

‘Hello,’ Lana remembers the formal greeting her mother recited every time she answered the telephone and wonders if she should utter the store’s name as well, but before she can formulate the words in her mouth, a desperate voice reaches down the line.

‘Help. Help me. Please, is there someone there? Help me. I need help.’

Before her lips have chance to part, she hears the droning tone of a lost line and the sloshing of the ebbing river outside. There is nothing but the silence she longs for. Replacing the receiver slowly, Lana wonders what just happened. 

The interruption of the call unbalances her. She looks around. Nothing around her explains what she heard. She checks the phone again by holding the receiver to her ear.  The hush, hollow sound of the conch shell fills her head. The shop remains empty. Lana relishes the restfulness of this store; the halcyon atmosphere allows her to indulge in her daydreams. Pure escapism. Her husband – her overbearing husband – who began their marriage as caring and protective, soon morphed into a bully who hides behind his marital duties. Lunchtimes are her only freedom from his critical eye.  

Here, by herself, she doesn’t have to believe his snide comments. His verbal assaults, so carefully worded that any retort from her would seem petty and trite. He outwits her daily in a lexical war that she can never hope to win. But his daily victories are never enough. She gave up competing long ago and now only looks for respite, however short-lived. Her words dried up.

Lana’s thoughts drift back to the strange call. Who was asking for help? Why did they call this number? The silty smell of the river drifts through the door. Still alone, staring at the telephone, she questions her sanity first. She remembers the goosebumps. Each individual hair on the back of her neck lifting. The shudder that travelled down her spine. The call seemed as real as the telephone in front of her. 

Lana sways left, then right. The blood drains from her face. Her husband’s control paralyses her with fear so innate she cannot fight it. She doesn’t trust herself to help. She is trapped. No matter how much she hates her husband, Lana envies his power. His ability to disguise his marriage as a happy one to all who know him. Neighbours in their cul-de-sac call him the ‘nicest man in the village’: always offering them friendly advice or the loan of his latest power tools. They do not seem to mind his constant supervision. Sometimes, in public, he even manages to convince Lana with his elaborate game of charades. His talent for secret looks of menace and harm; his words like swords, each blow delivered smooth and concise, under the guise of innocent conversations. She winces, remembering vice-like grips under the table, pinching on the fleshy strip of her inner thigh, the squeeze of her sandaled toe under the heel of his boot. The whispered insults masquerading as sweet nothings.

When alone, the voice in her head is clear. Get out. Leave. Run away. But her courage always falters when she sees him. Who will believe her when she holds it all inside? She should have shared her pain sooner. Every bruise and every outburst hidden. After their wedding, she let her friends go and threw herself into marital bliss. But the honeymoon period withered, and his capacity for pleasure diminished with it. Nothing pleases him anymore. Not even sex.  

‘We’ll have sex when we want children, Lana.’

If her mother were still alive, she would only tell her marriages are tough. They need work, Lana. Not everything is a bed of roses.

How can she ask for help when other women suffer so much worse? Black eyes. Broken bones. Rape. She placates herself with his virtues: he provides for her, they own their own home, they have all the latest gadgets. No virtues ever erase the terror he fills her with. Her complaints like shallow puddles in comparison.  

She chose to marry him.  

So she keeps quiet.  

How can she help this woman if she can’t help herself?

As her lunch hour passes, Lana remains rooted to the spot, she admires the telephone again and the delicate tea set next to it. Trailing her fingers over the counter, she turns to leave the store. As always, purchasing nothing, but this time she takes with her an additional burden: the voice of the mysterious caller echoing in her head. Pleading with her for help.

The next day, the call and its anonymous voice dominate her thoughts. Like a worm, the words ‘help me’ writhe through her ear canal. Weakening her resolve. Lana resists returning to the store the next day: Tuesday means market day, and the store will be too busy. Feeling guilty, she blames her uncharitableness on self-preservation. Trapped within her marriage. Her husband’s criticisms mingle with the voice on the phone.

‘You’re useless. You’re pathetic. Your life is meaningless.’

‘Help me.’

‘You only have me. Without me, you’re nothing.’

His words ricochet around her skull, even when the distance between them extends to miles.

By the third day, she makes a decision. She may not be capable of leaving a loveless marriage and a tyrannical husband, but equally, she cannot resist the draw to help this woman. Would her will ever be her own? As lunchtime approaches, Lana grabs her handbag and leaves the office. Striding with purpose over the bridge, she stops for a moment to watch as the rowers power down the Ouse. The coach calls out from his bicycle on the river bank. The coxswain shouts orders to the rowers.

‘Spin, spin, spin, draw, length.’

Mesmerised, Lana’s eyes track the oars as they cut through the river’s glassy surface, causing a stir as the ripples slap at the bank. Each stroke of their arms propels the boat forward: forging ahead despite the pull of the current. The rowers disappear under the bridge, and Lana continues towards the church and the treasure trove of vintage homeware, which brings her such comfort.

In the passing days, the owner had moved his collection of goods around and for a split second Lana’s stomach sinks. The telephone has been sold. Frantically she scans each display, dismissing a new collection of kitchenalia she would normally be drawn to, without a second glance. Suddenly, she spots it. Set deeper into the church’s insides, right up at the altar, now displayed under an imposing gothic arch and mounted on a stylish Danish plant stand.

It sits, atop its pedestal, the iconic design resonating around the room. A ray of light breaks through the stained glass and ripples across its surface. She stares at the crucifix above it. A force pulls Lana across the church floor to stand in front of Christ. In front of this telephone.

The arrival of an Indian summer afternoon ensures the store remains deprived of custom, as locals walk the embankment instead. Lana spotted the owner sorting a box of books when she arrived, but now he is nowhere to be seen. The telephone lacks its label; with no description of its design pedigree or any details of its provenance, it seems worthless amongst the rest of the unwanted items. Everything else in the store is stamped with a price, a value – decreed by whom, Lana often wonders. She knows one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure, but somehow she feels some items must be worth more to the original owner than the meagre sum on the tag. The history, the whys and wheres of a piece, always more interesting to Lana then its design lineage. The cord, now wound up and secured with a disintegrating rubber band, sits next to the phone. A pang of disappointment hits Lana when she sees the telephone is not connected. She realises now that she hoped it would ring again. Lana seeks out the store’s new arrivals; an interesting collection of tin plate advertisements now hang on the church wall.  

Taking a deep breath, she exhales loudly. The sigh’s echo magnifying the emptiness of the room. 

Once again, just as the silence seems too intense to bear, the phone rings.  Lana watches the receiver vibrate with the trill of the bell. It emanates from the telephone right up to the rafters. Lana’s eyes immediately fall on the cord. Laid next to the phone, neatly bound into a tight coil, still trapped by the yellowing rubber band.

Lana breathes deeply and slowly, reaching the count of five before she allows herself to react. Alone, she longs for the owner to make an appearance and answer his ringing phone. Lana tries pinching her arm. The sound stills cuts through the air.

Tentatively, she raises the receiver to her ear.

This time the voice splutters down the line first, ‘Hello.’ 

‘Help,’ gurgling as if stuck underwater, the voice calls out again.

‘Save me.’

The sound of a river rushes, like rapids tumbling over rocks with the force of an ocean behind them. The cacophonous noise bursts down the telephone and into Lana’s mind.

This time she manages to formulate a response.

‘Where are you?’

Lana grips the receiver so tightly her knuckles push upwards, the bone white under her translucent skin. The desperate voice tries to sound out a word but chokes out a breathless croak. The click of a terminated call follows. Lana finds no comfort in this silence.

Calmly, placing the receiver back in its cradle, she looks around for someone to share her story with. There is no one there. The empty store makes her swallow deeply. Relief swiftly replaces disappointment. Lana knew that she would sound crazy if she tried to tell anyone. Better to keep it a secret.

Heavy footsteps resonate on the flagstone floor. The owner crosses her path.  Words sit in Lana’s mouth. Trapped. He nods a silent greeting at his regular customer and wishes that one day she would buy something.

Once back at her desk, Lana browses her screen, considering the impossible phenomenon of the calls. She vows to herself that tomorrow she will buy the telephone. How else can she help the woman on the other end? If she raids her stash of spare change that she keeps in an old bottle hidden at the back of her wardrobe, her rainy day fund, or if she was ever brave enough, a runaway fund, she’ll have enough to buy the telephone.

The following day Lana’s workload does not allow her a break. Her distracted mind, mired by decisions she does not know how to make, slows her progress through her job list.

By the fifth day, Lana can no longer ignore the voice. She breaks for lunch and starts the walk over the bridge. The bipolar weather had abruptly changed the day before. The late blast of sunshine replaced by torrential rain that washed away the last dust of summer. The river swells with its new bounty. Edges of leaves curl and colour. A few scatter her path. The autumn arriving means winter will soon follow, and Lana feels unprepared for the return of long, dark evenings alone with her husband. She pushes the fear of more time at home aside and focuses on the voice. Today she will deal with the voice. She stops on the apex of the bridge to admire the view. There are no rowers, just the sunlight illuminating the surface between each passing cloud. Lana catches sight of her reflection and sees the sadness in her face. Ruined. Resigned.

As she crosses the church’s threshold, the phone rings. Rushing with anticipation, Lana’s shoes clack loudly, announcing her arrival in the vintage store as they reverberate off the ancient flagstones and damp stone walls. Lana no longer cares who watches as her hand flies to the receiver, grabbing the telephone with an urgency she does not understand.

This time the sound of water gushes around her head, its powerful music suppressing the screams of the woman underneath it. Lana hears her anguish. Lana feels her pain.

‘I’m here,’ Lana calls down the receiver.

‘Hold on for a bit longer,’ Lana begs.

Her nails dig deep into the palm of her hand, and the receiver is pressed so hard to her ear, the sound of the swirling water makes her dizzy.

The dampness of the church begins to penetrate Lana’s skin. Cold numbs her fingers and toes first, then creeps up her limbs. The deadline still transmits the sound of rushing water. Lana’s hands drop the telephone and hang limply by her side.  

The woman’s screams subside, but a deeper cry now bellows from beyond the water. A muffled shout for help.

Lana’s chest caves in.  

Her lungs gasp for air.  

Silt clings to her lips.

Kate Packman is a creative writing MA student at Birkbeck, London. When not writing or reading, she is the head of English in a middle school and for the last three years has chaired the annual Ampthill Literary Festival.

You stand transfixed, hugging the cork bark of the Baobab tree as warm liquid drips down your legs, staining your white socks yellow. You want to bend down and scratch because it’s itchy, but you are frozen to the playground. You watch them form a circle around you. The revulsion in their frowns and screwed up faces does not match the excitement in their flicking wrists.

     ‘She’s wet herself again, Ewwwww,’ shouts one of the girls, pinching her nose shut with her thumb and index finger, disgusted by a smell that has yet to arrive. The children become more animated now. They run in circles around you chanting, ‘Gross’ and ‘Disgusting.’ You have gone. Only your body is left behind. You have this ability to remove yourself from places you want to escape from; a kind of magic trick you have become very good at. When the options are fight or flight, you choose to freeze. You walk through the long corridor of your mind and find a library stocked with all the stories your grandmother told you. You reach for a book and blow the dust off, watching it fly around the dimly-lit room. It’s the story of the Baobab Tree.

     Long ago, when the gods were busy crafting shapes out of clay to make the animals, plants and people to fill up the world, they decided it would be fun to add a giant talking tree. At first, everyone in the heavens was delighted with the new tree, nurturing it with gentle rain and warms rays of sunlight. They decided to call it the Baobab tree. Now the Baobab tree talked all day and night, using each of its words to complain. When it whined about the sweltering heat, the gods sent down a cool breeze. But it soon became dissatisfied with the breeze too, saying it was much too cold. When the Baobab tree finally stopped complaining about its surroundings, it then began to moan about its own appearance. It wanted to be taller than the giraffes and prettier than the most beautiful flowers. Soon the gods were so fed up with the talking tree that they came down to earth to try and reason with it. But there was no pleasing the talking tree and so the gods were left with little choice. They pulled it out of the ground, turned it upside down and pushed it back into the ground head first. The tree could no longer say a word with its mouth filled with moist earth. 

     You feel sorry for the Baobab tree, who had to swallow all of its words, just like you have swallowed yours. Maybe that’s why you hug the tree to your chest. The sound of the school bell, ‘kong go lo lo lo, kongo lolo lolo,’ cuts through the air, bringing you back to the playground. You watch the circles of children turn and run towards the sound. They line up like soldiers outside their respective classrooms, leaving you behind. You feel the muscles in your body thaw and you wiggle your toes in wet socks. You unwrap your hands from the Baobab and squelch back in your black leather buckled shoes. You go to the bathroom to squeeze out the urine from your clothes. You splash some water onto your bottle green skirt and lift it as high as you can up to the hand dryer.

     When you get to class, everyone else is already in their seats and you avoid the eyes that follow. The teacher asks why you are late as giggles are muffled by palms throughout the room. The strong stench of urine rises up from your damp clothes and you imagine it snaking around the room, diving into the noses of your classmates and teacher.

     Your words stopped and the bedwetting started at the end of Ramadan. That was when your father’s sister, her husband and your two cousins visited from London. They stayed at your grandmother’s house for three weeks. During that time, there were many parties and dinners organised for the extended family to meet your aunt. It was the first time she’d travelled back to Africa since her arranged marriage. With so many bodies in the house, it was easy to lose count of all the running children and chattering adults. Your uncle from London was magnanimous with his gifts and compliments. He fooled them all. But you saw the hardness in his stone eyes before any of them did. Your stomach curdled when he looked in your direction and you tried to make yourself as small as you could. 

     It happened on the 27th night, the holiest day in the holiest month of the Islamic calendar. It’s called the Night of Power because it’s the very night that people believe the Quran was revealed. If you happen to be praying at the right time on this night, all your sins will be forgiven. All the adults went to the mosque for the special prayers, hoping for redemption. Your uncle said he had a migraine, pressing his temples down with his knuckles to prove how bad it was. He offered to look after the children since he wasn’t well enough to go to the mosque. The adults agreed with sympathetic eyes for the man who bought suitcases full of glossy gifts. You cried to go to the mosque, but your mother said you would get too tired and would be more comfortable at your grandmother’s house with all of your cousins.

     You remember the sound of the car tyres leaving the gravel driveway, filling your stomach with black butterflies. You were sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor of the living room when your uncle’s cold hands slid under the blanket. That was the first time you froze. You only remember it felt like there were a thousand tonnes of bricks on you and that you smelt the sourness of his heavy breath. You floated above your body on the thin mattress and saw all the other sleeping children scattered around the living room on their own mattresses. You watched their eyelashes flickering and you remembered your grandmother telling you that the angels kiss the eyelashes of sleeping children. You wondered if the angels noticed that your uncle was there with the sleeping children. You noticed the cream curtain wasn’t closed all the way and you looked out through the window to the dark outside, hoping that someone would see and come in. Nobody came and the darkness crept inside, leaving you feeling lonely and lost.

     ‘Fahima, are you listening to anything in this class,’ asks your geography teacher. You hadn’t noticed her standing over you, looking down through her glasses with round, magnified eyes.

‘Can’t understand what’s got into you these days. Your body is here, but you are clearly not! What a silly daydreamer you are becoming,’ she says disapprovingly. The class starts to laugh but her icy stare keeps them quiet. You look up at her, wanting to say something, but like the Baobab tree, your mouth is filled with black earth and no sound comes out.

Zahirra is an English language teacher with a Masters in Education. She teaches international students from all over the world and has lived in Zimbabwe, South Africa, The United Arab Emirates and the UK. She has worked at ChildLine as a volunteer counsellor. She has studied Creative Writing at the Open University and is currently editing the first draft of her first novel. Her favourite writers are Arundhati Roy, Tsitsi Dangaremba, Elif Shafak, Zadie Smith and Bernadine Evaristo.

The first time the man arrives at the ballet studio, the girls ignore him. An embarrassing father come to watch a class, probably, or a friend of Miss Maisie. In the cramped corridor of a changing room, the girls are more interested in staying warm, twisting their hair into tight knots at the base of their neck or searching for hairpins that escape silently across the concrete floor. 

Miss Maisie always lets the girls use the first few barre exercises to warm up – pliés, tendus, petit jeté, rond de jambe – before she nods sternly. This is the cue to remove their layers of woollen leg warmers and sweatshirts. She needs to see their legs, their hips, their shoulder blades that slide down their backs as their arms move like swans. 

Now the man is there too, watching, legs crossed on the stool by the piano, his foot tapping the air to the minuet. Rosie lets her eyes inch towards him, her gaze falling on his long, thin ankles that stretch out of black trousers. 

‘Eyes, Rosie’, Miss Maisie snaps as she walks along the row of dancers. ‘This is epaulment.’ 

Rosie lifts her gaze and returns her neck to the correct position. She can tell the man is watching her. His flat cap shadows his face, a high roll-neck jumper enclosing the edge of his jaw. Hands resting on his lap, his fingers dance lightly, mimicking the girls’ port de bras reaching down and up as their legs fondu.  Rosie used to do the same thing, those many years ago when her mother would bundle her into the corner of the studio, out of the way while she cleaned. Rosie’s mother arrived every day at four o’clock, dragging Rosie behind her, just as the school performed its nightly transition from a primary school into ballet studio. She would move swiftly in and out of the lavatories, classrooms and corridors while the assembly room shone with the light sweat of the dancers and the hard, familiar notes of the piano. When five-year-old Rosie had been unceremoniously dumped into the corner by the dusty box of rosin that left cream stains across her bottom, she hadn’t been able to sit still. This was magic, every dream come alive in front of her big green eyes. Miss Maisie had taken pity on her, and gradually, every week, Rosie had crept closer to the girls, until her little hand reached up to the lower barre, and she’d performed her first ever plié. 

In those early years, Rosie’s thoughts would drift longingly back to the ballet studio when they got home each evening. Her mother slopped baked beans onto Rosie’s plate, before turning away to curl up in front of the television, bottles lining up on the beer-stained coffee table. Rosie was left alone to read every story she could find about ballerinas: Paulina, Petrova and Posy were her sisters too as she put her ballet shoes away each evening into the pink cloth bag. She knew they listened to her through the pages of the book, her own story locked inside theirs. And every day, without fail, she turned up at the studio, Miss Maisie letting her join as many classes as she wished, until she became the studio mascot, an eternal sylph, swan, snowflake, entering the kingdom of the shades, prepared to dance to the end. Miss Maisie still terrified her, but the teacher’s severity was a solid beam that would never ignore her. 

The man is there again the next day, and the next, his face still hidden amongst grey, blue, black and charcoal wool that creeps up over his neck and chin. A few whispered words to Miss Maisie, and then he settles, watching the girls as they dance patterns on the floor with their feet. 

‘Get those heels down,’ Miss Maisie calls out to Rosie as she sautés and jetés and assemblés across the diagonal of the hall, the man’s eyes following her. On the Friday pas de deux class, the boys join them, five young men of different shapes and sizes, shared out amongst the girls. Rosie pirouettes, the boy catching her waist as she turns, and she sees a flash of his curls, then the man, then the boy, then the man as she whips her head around. Her body settles in front of the mirror, arms in first position, one leg bent up in retiré. The mirror is a new addition to the hall and it still surprises Rosie, catching her off balance. Her mind jumps, an uncontrollable jolt, to another vision in another mirror, an early memory perhaps, or something else she can’t understand. She is on the bathroom floor, cold water puddled around her thighs, and there is someone standing at the mirror, a long stream of red pooling down his face, neck, and into the sink. His torso is bare: red and brown streaks pattern his back, bruises blooming out of his ribs. 

The boy releases her and she ends the turn in a tight fifth position plié. 

Rosie is old enough to walk home alone now. She has been doing so for years, but now she is sixteen no one finds it strange anymore. Packing her pink pointe shoes into her bag and letting her hair fall around her shoulders, the kink from her bun lined across her neck, she waves goodbye to the others. The walk isn’t far, just a few minutes along the main road up to Summertown; she always takes the short cut through the alleyway to the flat where she lives alone with her mother. Her father left them before she can remember, a traitor her mother repeatedly hisses, giving them up to seek dirty money in the big city. Rosie vaguely remembers a train journey with her mother to find him, but they had returned home alone, no father collected from the shining lights of London. 

It is very dark on the road tonight and Rosie’s muscles ache from the cold. She walks quickly because she knows the man is following her. She doesn’t need to turn to look. She can sense him there, speeding up when she does, slowing to match her steps. He walks lightly, his head perfectly level, his shoulders held back above his proud, straight spine. When Rosie gets to the flat, she has her keys ready. But when she pauses at the door and turns back towards the black air, there is no one there. He has gone, vanishing into the night. 

Every evening now, Rosie plans her escape from this place. She has a list of dance schools that could save her. She wants to fly to them, a pink swan ready to take her place amongst the others. Tonight, she tries again to ask her mother. In all previous attempts, she has been ignored, her mother locked in a hazy-eyed trance that gives no space to her daughter’s needs. Her mother stopped cleaning the school several years ago, now only vaguely aware that Rosie still spends her hours at the studio, dancing, her talent spreading wide wings every day, ready to fly. Anything to get Rosie out of the way while she drinks and smokes out sweet cloud-rings from a pipe. 

This evening she is listening but will have nothing to do with it.

‘If you want to ruin your life with some disgusting queens prancing around in their underwear, don’t expect me to help you.’

And then something else, a new slice of knowledge, a whisper of the past that makes Rosie’s heart beat a little faster. 

‘If you want to end up like your father, don’t come crying to me.’ 

‘Like your father’, Rosie repeats to herself as she brushes her teeth. Behind her, in the mirror, she can see the face again, a red rip from his hair line to his eyebrow. She closes her eyes: when she opens them, he has gone. 

Saturday classes are in the morning which always gives the studio a fresh, clean look, light pooling in around the shadow of the oak tree that watches outside the window. The man is there again. There is something different this time. They all notice a change in the room, Miss Maisie laughing by the piano, the man smiling. The girls have started gossiping about him now: he is Miss Maisie’s lover; he is an MI6 spy come to recruit new agents; he is a casting agent for a London show; he wants to make them all famous. But then the class starts as normal, the pianist pressing the notes of the waltz with firm joviality. 

Rosie is aware of him watching her, making no attempt to hide the direction of his interest. The others start to notice, and they prod and poke her teasingly as they line up in the corner for grand allegro. Rosie steps out into the room: grand jeté, pas de bourée, assemblé en tournant. A spot of light meets her halfway. He is smiling today, an open smile no longer hidden by the rolls of his jumper. He wears a tight white t-shirt, his long arms strong and tanned, his wash-board flat stomach clearly visible. He taps his foot to the rhythm of the dance. In the bright light of the morning, he cannot sit still. 

The class ends and Rosie starts to leave with the others, but Miss Maisie calls her back. She turns and walks over to her teacher, little beads of sweat running down the back of her pink leotard. 

‘There is someone I want you to meet, Rosie,’ Miss Maisie says softly, drawing her towards the stool where the man waits, still watching. Her teacher looks a little nervous, uncertain, anxiously turning her long thin neck from Rosie to the man. 

He nods at Miss Maisie and she smiles a small smile, stage fright over. ‘Mr Croft is director of a ballet school in London. He would like to invite you to join the school, from September.’ 

Rosie blinks at them both. Something else is lurking behind Miss Maisie’s words.

‘Why?’ Rosie finds herself asking, before she can think of something else to say.

He stands up and raises his hand a little. He is going to speak. Before he does so, he reaches up and removes his cap. A scar line, mottled dark pink, runs from his hair line across his forehead to his left eyebrow.

He twists his cap in his hands, his long thin fingers winding the fabric.

Rosie sees through him into the wide mirror; the shattering of glass opens her memory. Her mother holding a kitchen knife. The blood is fast, a dancing firebird.

Lucy Ashe is an English teacher. She writes reviews for Playstosee.com and currently has a dystopian novel out on submission to agents. Her poetry and prose are published in Truffle Literary Magazine, 192 Poets’ Directory, One Hand Clapping, and Ink Sweat and Tears. She was a semi-finalist in the London Independent Short Story Prize.Twitter: @LSAshe1