Emily's Innocence

‘No, sir.’ Tomás consulted his clipboard again. ‘It’s mixed programme. This is a local youth centre, which provides a number of different sports and dance classes for children aged from four to sixteen. Tonight we’re here to watch a performance of tap, jazz, street dance and ballet.’

‘Ballet?’ Luis repeated scathingly, ‘Meu Deus. I take it this is all part of the master plan to reinvent me as sincere, high-minded patron of the arts.’

‘The press office did think this kind of involvement with children’s community arts would be a useful way of highlighting a more sensitive side to your character, yes, sir.’

Despair and frustration closed in on Luis, surrounding him as palpably as the high wire fence against which the youths were gathering outside. ‘In that case you’d better nudge me when it’s time to clap,’ he said wearily. ‘And wake me up if I start to snore.’

Emily turned the corner from the tube station and hurried in the direction of the community centre. She was late. Across the road a cherry tree in full blossom was like a ghostly galleon in full sail in the gloom, and as she walked quickly past, a gust of sudden wind sent white petals swirling across the street, their scent for a moment overpowering the spicy smell of Indian and African food from the takeaway shops at the end of the street. Emily pulled her lumpy second-hand cardigan more tightly around her, bracing herself against another wave of homesickness as she remembered the Japanese cherry trees at the end of the rose walk at Balfour. Where Luis Cordoba had kissed her, a wicked little voice reminded her.

She quickened her pace, automatically lifting her hand to her mouth at the memory as if she could scrub it away, and along with it the disturbing, insistent feelings it aroused in her.

But the next moment all that was forgotten as she saw the crowd of hooded teenagers pressed against the fence of the community centre. As she got closer she could see what was drawing them: two black, official-looking cars with darkened windows were parked in front of the building.

Oh, God. Her heart plummeted and her footsteps faltered as fear seized her. What was it this time? Another stabbing? Or a shooting…

And then she was running, her heavy plait thudding against her back with every step, her eyes fixed on the scruffy building to which she had become so attached in the past two lonely months. Larchfield Youth Centre offered a refuge from the problems of the outside world and gave a new sense of purpose to the lives of hundreds of underprivileged, displaced and disillusioned young people.

And to one overprivileged, displaced and disillusioned heiress too.

A sinister-looking man was standing by the door, wearing a headset. She glanced at him nervously, half expecting him to try to stop her from going in, but he merely stared at her impassively which worried her even more somehow. Heart thudding uneasily, she hurried along the dingy corridor, breathing in the now-familiar smell of teenagers—hormones and hair gel, undercut with a faint trace of stale cigarettes—towards the girl’s changing room at the far end. As she opened the door she was instantly enveloped in chatter of fifty excited voices.

In the midst of the crush of Lycra-clad girls, Kiki Odiah, Larchfield’s youth worker, was spraying glittery hairspray over the head of a small girl in a silver leotard and tap shoes. Emily pushed her way over, shrugging off her bulky cardigan as she went.

‘Sorry I’m late. I haven’t had time to go home and change.’

Through a cloud of glitter Kiki threw her a glance of pure relief. ‘You’re here now, honey, that’s all that matters.’

‘What’s going on?’ Emily couldn’t keep the anxiety from her voice. ‘I saw the cars outside—is it immigration? They haven’t come for the Luambos, have they?’

Kiki shook her head so the beads in her hair gave a musical rattle. Her dark eyes glittered with suppressed excitement as she sprayed hairspray on the next small head. ‘You’ll never guess.’

‘Tell me, then!’

‘Royalty.’

‘What?’ Emily gasped, a chilly sensation of misgiving prickling at the base of her spine. Several of the minor royals were friends of Oscar and regular visitors to Balfour. ‘Who?’

Kiki shrugged. ‘Not British, that’s all I know.’ Luckily she was too absorbed in hairspraying to register Emily’s visible relief, shaking the can with a rattle as she continued. ‘But then I’m just a lowly youth worker. I only found out about all of this when a carload of men in suits arrived and started crawling over every inch of the place this afternoon. And now the whole of the council youth services department have showed up, and are suddenly taking an interest in what we do.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Which is what you might call ironic, seeing as we’ve only got enough money to keep us open for the next two months.’

‘Maybe that’s why they’re here, whoever they are, to give us the money to stay open?’ Emily suggested hopefully. The issue of funding hung over everything at Larchfield like a guillotine.

‘I don’t see why. I’m no expert, but it sounds to me like these guys are talking Spanish, and I can’t imagine why any Spanish royalty would be interested in giving money to Larchfield.’

Emily frowned. ‘I can’t imagine why Spanish royalty would be coming to watch our dance show either. I mean, the children have worked really hard, but it’s hardly Sadler’s Wells.’

‘Search me.’ Kiki looked over the children’s heads to the swarthy, olive-skinned guard who had just come into the room, and giggled. ‘In fact, I wish he would search me. I just can’t resist those dark Latin types, can you?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact I can,’ said Emily a little too tartly, as the image of Luis Cordoba flashed, in-furiatingly, into her head. ‘Especially at the moment, when we’ve got fifty children to get ready to go onstage in a little over fifteen minutes.’

‘OK, Miss Prim and Proper!’ Kiki grinned. ‘You go and organise your cygnets and I’ll practise my curtsy.’

And she grabbed the hands of the nearest little silver-clad tap dancer and whirled her round, singing, ‘One day my prince will come,’ and laughing.

All that was missing were the thumbscrews and a tuneless rendition of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, thought Luis as he surreptitiously slid back the starched cuff of his shirt and tried to check his watch.

Smothering a sigh he shifted position on the hard plastic chair that was way too small to accommodate his shoulders and the length of his legs. Actually, even without the thumbscrews it was a pretty effective torture. Beside him, Tomás was smiling benignly at the stage where numerous little girls dressed in silver leotards clattered chaotically through a tap routine. But, of course, Tomás had a little daughter of his own, which clearly gave him some sort of mystical insight into the whole thing. Parenthood did that: turned perfectly intelligent, discerning adults into misty-eyed fools.

Even his own brother—the eminently rational Rico—hadn’t been entirely immune, he thought with a stab of anguish. From the moment Luciana had been born her every yawn, every smile, had been scrutinized and analysed with an intense interest to which Luis had found it impossible to relate.

And still did.

Guilt lashed through him—familiar, but still painful enough to make him tense and catch his breath. Tomás threw him a curious glance and Luis forced a smile, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead while the blurry impression of Luciana’s small face swam into his mind’s eye.

He couldn’t even remember with any sort of clarity what she looked like. Or when he’d last seen her. How old was she now? Another whiplash of guilt struck him as he realised he didn’t know for sure. Five, was it? Or six? It had been ten months since Rico and Christiana had died, and Luciana had been five at the time—he knew that because the newspapers had focused so relentlessly on the tragedy of being orphaned at such a young age. Luis’s hands were curled into fists. Had she had a birthday since then?

The performance on the stage appeared to have ended, and the children curtsied with varying degrees of grace. Automatically Luis joined in the applause, taking advantage of the opportunity to lean over and say quietly to Tomás, ‘It is finished?’

‘Not quite, sir. I believe there’s one more item on the programme. Are you all right?’

‘Never better,’ Luis murmured blandly.

Part of the punishment was bearing the pain alone, in silence. He didn’t have the right to share its burden.

He settled uncomfortably back as a line of little girls in snowy white tutus filed onto the stage. These ones were younger than the last group, smaller and more intimidated by the presence of the audience. A collective ‘ahhh’ went up from the rows of people behind Luis as they shuffled into position, sucking their fingers and looking out beyond the stage lights with huge, solemn eyes.

The music began—Dance of the Little Swans. Luis wasn’t sure whether to laugh at the clichéd predictibility of it, or weep for the protracted torment. Instead he arranged his face into what he hoped was an expression of appreciation and watched as the children raised their arms and began to bend their knees in a series of careful pliés.

One little girl at the back stood still, frozen in anguish. The other children rose up onto their tiptoes and pirouetted shakily, but the only movement she made was that of her wide, terrified eyes which kept darting to the safety of the wings. The girl next to her was unimpressed by her failure to perform and nudged her heartily in the ribs.

Laughter rippled through the audience. At the front of the stage the other children were stolidly going through their routine, pointing toes, making sweeping movements of their arms and casting occasional furious glances at their classmate at the back. Luis watched her. Maybe it was because he’d just been thinking about his little niece, but something about the girl onstage reminded him of Luciana, even though she looked nothing like her. No doubt a psychiatrist would enjoy explaining that it was just another manifestation of guilt. The child before him had shrunk backwards a little so she was standing outside the spotlight’s glare, but other than that she hadn’t moved, and from his place of honour in the front row he could see the glisten of tears in her eyes and the tremble of her bottom lip.

And then it struck him. It wasn’t just his tormented mind playing tricks on him; it was her attitude of patient suffering, of dignified misery, that reminded him of Luciana. He had seen the same expression on the face of his little niece, sensed the same silent anguish in her in the little time he’d spent with her, and it had made him feel every bit as helpless as he did now.

It wasn’t a good feeling.

A movement in the wings caught his eye. Keeping to the shadows, an older girl ran lightly across the back of the stage and dropped to her knees beside her. For a moment Luis was too relieved to register properly the narrow, very straight back, the glossy dark plait that hung heavily between her shoulder blades, but then she stood again and it was impossible not to notice the length of her extremely shapely legs encased in thick black tights.

She was wearing a short black skirt and a fitted T-shirt, emblazoned across the back of which were the words Pink Flamingo.

Ten months ago he had made a vow to his brother and buried his appetite for women and excess alongside Rico in the family vault on Santosa. Now Luis felt his dormant interest flicker almost painfully back to life. Leaning over to Tomás he whispered, ‘Isn’t the Pink Flamingo a gentlemen’s club?’

‘I wouldn’t know, sir.’

No, of course not. But Luis did, and he was intrigued to know what a girl who worked in a lap-dancing club was doing helping out at a children’s ballet show. Bending down, still with her back to the audience, the Pink Flamingo girl took the little dancer’s hand and whispered something in her ear. Relief spread across the small, pinched face as the older girl turned around and began to join in the steps of the dance.

Deus, she was stunning. Towering above the tiny children on the stage she looked every bit the haughty, graceful swan amongst a gaggle of fluffy, ungainly cygnets. Beside her the little girl who had looked so lost a moment ago was now smiling tremulously, growing in confidence and stature by the second.

He watched the precise movements of her slender legs, the upright set of her shoulders and head, and felt a prickle of unease at the back of his neck. Dragging his gaze upwards to her face he blinked, frowning suddenly and leaning forwards in astonishment and disbelief.