She slipped off her silk robe and stepped into her costume. The tight-fitting bodice was a deep red with orange and gold appliqué and the ten-layered tutu was adorned with silk feathers.
Anya raised her arms as the concealed zipper was closed. The costume fitted perfectly and showed the long slender lines of her arms and legs.
Out in the real world, her tiny frame drew stares and whispers because Anya was so very thin, and yet that tiny body was a powerhouse of lean muscle and she was incredibly fit.
Oh, every single day, she worked for it. Hours of training and rehearsal and rigorous self-control meant that her body could perform feats most others could only dream of. Yet, despite her command on the stage, right now she shivered with nerves as the ten-minute call came and the costume manager did a final check.
Now she was Tatania, her stage persona.
‘Merde!’ the costume manager said—the dance equivalent of ‘Break a leg’—and Tatania nodded but did not respond because her teeth were chattering too much.
She wrapped a heavy silk shawl, one that she had bought for her mother, around her bare arms and shoulders.
Her mother, Katya, had been a single mum and a cook in a Russian orphanage. She had died recently but had lived to see her daughter reach these heights and for that Anya was grateful. Katya had had a vision for her daughter long before Anya had.
As a young girl, Anya could remember practising her dance steps in the kitchen of the detsky dom where Katya had worked. As Anya had grown older, rather than going home to their tiny cold, empty house, she would go to the orphanage and practise her steps with an ache of hunger in her stomach for the stew her mother cooked.
Sometimes she would sneak a taste but, if caught, her mother would give her a slap.
‘Do you want to get big, like me?’ Katya would say.
Of course they had clashed, though never more so than during her teenage years.
‘No boys,’ Katya had said, when she had caught Anya staring at Roman. ‘Especially not one like Roman Zverev. He is trouble.’
‘No,’ Anya had said. ‘He just misses his twin.’
‘The twin he beat up, the twin he scarred.’
‘No,’ Anya had attempted, ‘that was just because Daniil refused to be adopted without his twin and it was the only way Roman could get him to leave.’
‘Don’t answer back,’ Katya had said and had pulled down the roller blind and sent Anya to the back of the kitchen. That night, once home, Katya had spoken more harshly to her daughter. ‘There can be no boys. To succeed with your ballet you can have only one focus.’
Anya had obliged—there had been no boys.
But a few years later, away from the orphanage, she had met Roman.
And he had become a man.
Ready now to take herself to the stage, Anya looked at her trinkets and touched them. She opened a small box but did not take out the bunched-up piece of foil. She would save that for the interval. Instead she ran her fingers over a faded label. It was a label that she had torn from the sheets when she and Roman had first made love and beside it was a small gold hoop earring.
Tonight she brought the label up to her lips and then replaced it back in the box and snapped the lid closed.
There was a knock at the door, and she was informed it was time. Anya made her way through the maze of corridors in the old London theatre. ‘Merde,’ was said many times but still she did not respond.
Anya did not make friends readily. Her only focus had been getting to the top and they all thought her cold.
She was.
Anya was the queen of ice.
Until she danced.
Mika was there; he wore a suit of red and a small cap, which would soon hold a feather that the firebird would give to him. They nodded to each other but that was it; they were immersed in their own pre-performance routines.
The press insisted that they were a couple. Mika had quite a reputation with women and, such was their chemistry on stage, it was assumed it carried on afterwards.
In truth they did not really get on.
Anya wasn’t particularly close to anyone.
Once she had been. Until Roman had left her, there had been laughter and passion and she had been open to others.
Not any more.
The audience started to applaud and Anya shrugged off her shawl and did a final limber up as the audience hushed and the orchestra teased.
‘Merde,’ she said to Mika as he picked up his bow and arrow, the props used for the opening act, and, before her very eyes, he became Ivan, the prince, and went onto the stage—the setting for the magical garden.
Anya took some deep breaths and her teeth chattered as she fought nausea. Even after all these years, she still suffered with the most terrible stage fright and the more she advanced in her career, the worse it became.
It was an incredibly demanding role and the pressure on her was immense.
She moved several steps back and positioned herself and, closing her eyes, she took in some slow deep breaths and waited for the moment.
When it came, she was no longer Anya, or even Tatania.
As she flew onto the stage, she was the firebird.
A flash of gold, caught by the light, darted across the stage and she heard the audience gasp. The sight of the firebird intrigued Ivan, the prince.
Now he hid behind a tree as the firebird waited on the other side of the stage, taking more deep breaths and preparing to stun the audience again.
She did so.
Now the prince hid in the garden in wait to watch and then capture the firebird, and after another pause she came back on and swept up a piece of golden fruit.
Firebird was so beautiful, Anya thought as she danced. So slender, fragile and graceful. Few knew the agony that it took to birth this beauty and tonight, on closing night, it all came together as she shimmered and danced for him.
For Roman.
The man she had loved too much.
Their love affair that had lasted for just two short weeks but then he had so cruelly left.
For a long time she had feared he had died.
He had not.
And he had never once told her he loved her.
Had he? And would she ever see him again? Firebird asked herself over and over as the prince captured her in his arms and the pas de deux commenced.
There was a small flutter of hope that she might—soon the dance company would move to Paris and that was where she was now sure he lived.
Would Roman seek her out this time? Firebird wondered as the prince lifted her high into the sky.
Left alone on the stage towards the interval, she danced her solo with everything she had.
Everything, everything, was right.
The interval came and she did not respond to the chatter from her colleagues; instead she shut herself in her dressing-room. For the first ten minutes she just recovered her breathing. The role was the most demanding of any of them. Then Anya ate the other half of her banana and a small chocolate bar and closed her eyes, desperate to not escape the zone that she had found tonight.
And with the sweet taste of chocolate on her tongue she remembered her first taste.
Always she had practised in the kitchen, but once she had become a teenager, her