Star Quality

Mei said, “That’s amazing! You must have loads of natural talent.”

“She has,” I said.

“But I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you! It’s all thanks to Maddy,” said Caitlyn. “She was the one that believed in me. She gave me my first opportunity! And she was my first teacher.” She giggled. “She was really strict! Not as strict as her mum, but she did used to bully me.”

I said, “What cheek! I never bullied you.”

“You did,” said Caitlyn. “You were always lecturing me, saying how I didn’t have any backbone. And then –” she turned back to the others – “you’ll never guess what?”

“What?”

Everybody, now, was craning forward to listen.

“She made me learn her part for the end-of-term show at our school and right at the very last minute she went and twisted her ankle – pretended to twist her ankle – and said I had to go on instead cos I was her understudy. I’ve never been so terrified in my life. I was, like, shaking in my shoes!”

“Why?” said Tiffany. “What were you terrified of? That’s what being an understudy’s all about.”

“So long as you knew the part,” agreed Amber.

“She knew the part,” I said. “She just wasn’t properly trained. She’d never had a single lesson till I started teaching her. And I’d only been doing it for a couple of months! So going on in my place was incredibly brave, if you ask me.”

“I’ll say,” said Alex, who’d heard the story before. “You wouldn’t have got me doing it!”

“I didn’t want to,” said Caitlyn. “It was only cos of Maddy, bullying me.”

“So what happened?” said Mei.

“What happened,” I said, “was that she gave a totally brilliant performance and Sean saw it and told Mum and Mum said Caitlyn had better let her see what she could do, and as soon as she saw her she said she’d take her on.”

“She gave me this special scholarship,” said Caitlyn. “Cos she knew my mum couldn’t afford lessons.”

“That is so romantic,” breathed Mei. “Like something out of a fairy tale!”

Tiffany said, “Hmm.”

What did she mean, hmm? What was she implying?

“Mum doesn’t take on just anybody,” I said.

“I’m sure,” purred Tiffany.

“It just helps,” said Amber, “if you know the right people.”

Earnestly Caitlyn said, “Yes, it does! I was just so lucky.”

“It’s the sort of thing,” agreed Roz, “that will go in your biography.”

“Oh,” said Tiffany, “is someone going to do a biography of her?”

“Probably,” said Roz. “When she’s famous. They might even make a movie.”

Tiffany looked at Roz with distaste. Then she looked at Caitlyn and her lip curled. I knew what she was thinking. How could someone so utterly ordinary ever hope to become famous?

It’s true that Caitlyn isn’t striking like Tiffany, with her long limbs and her blond hair. She isn’t especially pretty, like Roz, and she doesn’t have Mei’s daintiness. It’s only when she dances that she really comes alive. Offstage she can seem quite mouse-like and unremarkable. On stage she has what Mum calls star quality. It’s not something that can be taught; you either have it or you don’t. Sean has it, in buckets. By all accounts, Mum also used to have it. I am not sure that Jen did. I hoped that I might. I knew I came across, as they say. Across the footlights, that is. I don’t just fade into the background. But whether I actually had star quality … Mum had never told me that I had. On the other hand, maybe she wouldn’t. She’d never actually told Caitlyn; only said it to Dad one day, when she didn’t realise I was listening.

“Do you know, I really think little Caitlyn might surprise us all … She definitely has potential.”

“Star quality?” Dad had said, and Mum had said yes. “Star quality.”

I couldn’t help wondering if she’d ever said it about me. If she’d ever even thought it about me. Maybe it was just something she took for granted when it came to her own children. We were the O’Briens! Of course we had star quality.

Tiffany was still gazing at Caitlyn with a sort of amused contempt. “Famous!” she said, and gave a little snigger.

“D’you know,” said Caitlyn, solemnly, “I’ve never even thought about being famous. Have you?”

She addressed her question to the table at large.

Alex said, “You’d better believe it! When I was eleven I used to spend hours interviewing myself … Alexandra Ellman, prima ballerina …”

“Oh, me, too!” agreed Roz. “I once interviewed myself as Roz Costello, Baby Ballerina … the youngest person ever to dance Princess Aurora … How pathetic was that!”

“I don’t think it’s pathetic,” said Tiffany. “Perfectly natural, if you ask me.”

“Exactly,” said Amber. “What’s the point of becoming a dancer if you don’t believe you’ll reach the top?”

Caitlyn hung her head. “I just never thought about it. All I wanted to do was dance.”

“Didn’t you ever have dreams when you were little?” said Mei. “When the curtain comes down and you’re standing there, in the spotlight, and everyone’s cheering and throwing flowers and someone gives you this enormous bouquet?”

“Not really.”

“So what did you dream about?” said Amber.

“Mostly I just dreamt about being able to have ballet lessons … being able to buy a pair of ballet shoes and …” Caitlyn’s voice trailed away, uncertainly.

I waited for either Amber or Tiffany to make one of their smart remarks. Tiffany half opened her mouth, then obviously thought better of it and snapped it shut again. Amber didn’t even make the attempt. It was Roz who said, “That makes me feel really tawdry.”

So then I said, “What does tawdry mean?” And Roz said she didn’t really know, but it sounded right, and Alex said it meant sort of cheap, and we all agreed that maybe we shouldn’t be worrying so much about becoming famous as about becoming the best dancers we possibly could.

Tiffany said, “Oh, how noble!” But it wasn’t specially convincing.

At the end of the day we walked back to Waterloo together, the usual bunch of us – me, Caitlyn, Roz and Alex. Mei was with us for part of the way. As her family were in Hong Kong, she was staying in the hostel, just up the road, which the school kept for students who needed accommodation. Some were foreign, others simply lived too far away. Sometimes people’s parents rented houses so that their mums – it was usually their mums – could move to London to be with them. Quite often they let out rooms to other students. Amber, for instance, was living with Tiffany and her mum. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted that, thank you very much – not with Tiffany! But I did think it might perhaps be fun to stay in the hostel rather than going back home every day. I suggested this to Caitlyn, as we left the others and peeled off towards the Underground, but she reacted with horror.

“What about my mum? She’d be all on her own!”

I said, “Yes, of course. I’d forgotten about your mum.” Doing my best to sound sympathetic. I know that I am not always as understanding as I should be, though I do try to consider other people’s feelings. I could see that it was difficult for Caitlyn. My mum is quite high-powered, totally preoccupied with her teaching. Plus she has Dad (when he is not flying about the world putting on his ballets) and also me. Not to mention Sean and Jen, who both live quite near and are for ever dropping by. Caitlyn’s mum only has Caitlyn, and is, I think, a rather shy and lonely sort of person.

“What will you do,” I said, “when we have to go on tour?”