Book Excerpt
The Tube from Turnham Green is quiet,
until we reach Earl’s Court, where it starts filling up. By the time we get to
Victoria I’m in a scrum spilling out onto the platform. I find the Victoria
Line platform and shoe-horn myself into a carriage; Seb would be proud of my
elbow action.
At Oxford Circus I’m carried by a sea of
shoppers up the escalators, across the foyer and up some steps to the street
level. I’ve managed to come out the right exit, opposite the flagship Topshop.
The massive store calls to me. Now that’s
where to buy a dress for the tribute. Simple and trendy. I dread to think what
Thisbe’s wardrobe department contact is going to make me. Something showbiz, I
guess: long and loud and sparkly. Ugh.
But I don’t want to offend Thisbe, who’s
called in a favour, apparently, to get me a dress sewn so quickly. So, with a
sigh, I turn my back on Topshop and trudge down Argyll Street. When I see the
Palladium, like a classical temple with massive columns, my mood lifts. At least I’m getting to visit
one of London’s most historic theatres, where anyone who’s anyone has performed
over the years, from Elvis Presley to Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra to Ella
Fitzgerald, Elton to Adele – even The Muppets have taken to this stage. I wonder:
will I get to stand on the stage?
Nope, is the answer. I don’t even see the
auditorium. A security guard shows me from the foyer down into the underbelly
of the theatre, to a small, windowless room made even smaller by its many
contents: two dressmaker’s dummies, a hanging rail of costumes, shelves of
fabric and haberdashery, and a desk for the sewing machine. I barely have time
to make a mental comparison of this room and the wardrobe department at the
Royal Opera House – in a big room overlooking the Piazza and flooded with light
– before a girl springs out from behind one of the dummies and hugs me.
Hugs
me?
Thankfully, it’s brief. She steps back and
beams. I smile back automatically, and in a second I take her in: round, rosy
face, electric-blue eyes, dark wavy hair. She’s a little older than me, maybe
twenty, and wearing stylish jeans and a really unusual shirt covered with
little embroidered seahorses.
“You’re Cara Cavendish?” I say, daring to hope
that maybe my dress won’t end up being horrendously glitzy after all.
“The one and only,” she says cheerfully. “And
you’re Ava-who-needs-a-dress. Thisbe explained. Sit, sit…” She pulls out a
little stool from under the desk and I perch on it.
Cara walks around me in a circle, eying me up
and down. “Easy-peasy,” she declares. “Dancers’ forms are so simple to dress.”
“Oh,” I say. “I’m not a dancer.”
She completes her circuit and leans on the
desk, looking curiously at me. “But you’re Beatrice Duvall’s daughter,” she
says.
The name gives me a jolt, but I manage to
reply evenly: “That doesn’t make me a dancer.”
“’Course not,” says Cara. “I mean, my mum was
an architect, and look at me! But I heard you were training to be a dancer like
your mother. With the Royal Ballet.”
“I was. I… stopped.”
“Oh. Why was that then?”
I frown at Cara. She smiles back at me.
“Did Thisbe put you up to this?” I ask.
“Up to what?”
“All the questions.”
“Oh, no. That’s just me. My brother’s always
telling me I’m blunt, because I don’t go in for all that evasive British crap –
ignoring the elephant in the room. Better to lay it all out there and say, ‘My
mum’s dead, and it sucks.’ You know?”
“Not really,” I reply honestly. I’ve never
said those words in my life.
Cara nods like I’ve said something profound.
Then, to my relief, she claps her hands and says, “Let’s talk dresses.”
After a quick-fire round of questions designed
to establish my style, Cara hands me a scrapbook in which she’s pasted
cuttings, photos and drawings of formal dresses, and she talks me through cuts,
lengths, necks, sleeves and fabrics. Somewhere around the midi dress page I
begin to come undone.
“What is it?” she says.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Something,” she says. “You look like you’re
about to have a panic attack. Is it claustrophobia? This room is a little
dinky.”
“It’s not that. It’s...”
She waits expectantly. I gesture to the
scrapbook.
“It’s just all a bit real, suddenly, looking
at these dresses. I mean, I’ve got to wear one and stand on a stage at the
Royal Opera House in front of people. Lots
of people.”
“Ah,” she says. “Yeah, I’d be a wreck doing
that. But you’ve performed on stage before, right?”
“Sure. Plenty of times. But this isn’t a
performance. I have to be myself. I mean…”
“You mean you have to be your mother’s
daughter. And your mother was the legendary Beatrice Duvall.”
Startled, I nod. She gets it. I don’t even
know this girl, but she gets it.
“So,” Cara says, plucking the scrapbook off my
lap and leafing through the pages, “what you need, besides the strength to get
on that stage, is a really kick-ass dress. A dress that makes you feel tall and
powerful and goddam beautiful, like nothing can touch you while you’re wearing
it. Ah-ha. Here. This one. What do you think?”
The dress illustration jumps right off the
page. It’s bold, it’s simple, it’s glamorous, it shouts “designer”: a strapless
bodice with criss-crossing satin ribbons and a flowing skirt with chiffon
overskirt ending just on the knee.
“Wow,” I say. “You can make that? In time?”
She grins. “Hell yeah.”
“And you think I can pull that off?”
Her grin widens. “Hell yeah.”
Mini interview
What is
the inspiration for the story?
A kaleidoscope of ideas… Memories of
performing on stage. The years I lived in Kensington, London. The many shows
I’ve seen in the West End. A backstage tour of the Royal Opera House. The
public reaction to Princess Diana’s death. My own experience of losing my
mother.
What draws
you to this genre?
Young adult: the time of life that
most signifies discovery and sensation and freedom. Dreaming big;
confronting reality. Being trendy; being quirky and out of step. Messing up
gloriously; succeeding epically. First crush, first kiss, first love. Making
memories that will last a lifetime.
Why do you
write?
Because writing makes the blood sing in my
veins; it makes me feel alive; it defines me. Because I’m a bibliophile, and
the only thing better than having a book in my hand is having my own book in my hand. Because I want to
entertain, inspire – and leave a legacy for my children.
