Dancing with Danger. Fiona Harper

Mermaid was technically flawless, I still don’t think she has lived up to her early promise. ‘

      Allegra’s stomach bottomed out and a faint taste of chamomile tea clung to her teeth, making her feel queasy. She read on.

       ‘Miss Martin seems to have lost the engaging sense of wonder and joy she had as a young dancer and, while I appreciate her virtuosity, I don’t feel she captured either the exquisite joy of first love nor the torture of unfulfilled longing that a truly great rendition of this part would require. ‘

      She wanted to stop, but she couldn’t. It was like driving a speeding car when the brakes had failed. Her brain was frantically pressing on the pedal, but her eyes kept reading.

      And it only got worse:

       ‘In Hans Christian Andersen’s original story, the Little Mermaid was a creature not blessed with a soul, and I’m afraid, with Allegra Martin in the title role, this was all too obvious. ‘

      Allegra didn’t move. Nothing would work. Not her mouth, not her legs, not her arms.

      Soulless? He’d called her soulless?

      She pushed her chair away from the table and stood up, met her father’s eyes.

      He didn’t say anything. Very unusual for her father. He always had something to say about her performances, some aspect she could improve for next time. Also, no matter how hard on her he was in private, when the reviews came in he normally got very defensive, would argue why the writer was wrong.

      The chill in her stomach dropped a few degrees.

      There was nothing to argue about, nothing to refute. She could see it now—the glimmer of disappointment in his eyes.

      ‘You think it’s true, don’t you?’ she asked, her voice almost a whisper. Even at that volume, it managed to wobble slightly.

      He closed and opened his eyes slowly. ‘I don’t know what’s been wrong with you the last year or so, Allegra. You’re just not as focused as you used to be. Your work is suffering.'

      She looked at him with pleading eyes. Yes, her father was hard on her, had always pushed her, but he was supposed to be her protector, her champion! Why was he saying this? Why couldn’t he dismiss the opinion of one ‘know-it-all hack', as he liked to call them?

      That was when she saw something else in his eyes, clouding out the original emotion, making it darker and harder. He wasn’t just disappointed with her; he was angry.

      ‘You can’t waste your gift like this. You’ve got to stop throwing it all away.'

      There was a sharp stinging at the back of Allegra’s eyes. He wasn’t talking about losing the role of principal dancer—although that might be a possibility if her current artistic drought didn’t end—he was talking about the big picture, the vision he’d had for her ever since he’d put her name down for an audition for the Royal Ballet School, aged ten.

      He wasn’t talking about jobs and salaries and reviews. He was talking about living up to her mother’s legacy, of carrying on where Maria Martin had left off on the road to becoming one of the greatest British ballet dancers in history.

      He was saying she just wasn’t good enough. Might never be.

      Allegra rose to her feet, looked at the paper still open on the table and then back at her father.

      ‘I want to see you bringing that same energy and commitment you used to have back to every class, every rehearsal, every performance,’ he said. ‘You owe it to yourself.’

      You owe it to her. That was what he really meant, wasn’t it?

      Didn’t he think she would if she could? I’m trying, she wanted to scream at him, but nothing’s working because I feel dead inside! I’m not her. I haven’t got her talent. I’m not sure I’ve even got my own any more! Or that I want it if I do have it.

      The words didn’t even get close to being on the tip of her tongue; they swirled around her head instead, making her eyes blur and her throat swell. She licked her dry lips and forced something out.

      ‘I’ve got class at ten-thirty,’ she said. And then, without looking at her father again, she turned and headed up the stairs that led from their basement kitchen, pulled her coat from the hook near the door and walked with silent steps into the chilly morning air.

      People were everywhere. Finn stood still and took a few moments to adjust. After a week in the frozen wilderness, where the only noise was the wind curling round rocks or the crunch of snow beneath his boots, a busy provincial airport terminal was an assault on the senses. Not that he minded.

      This was just a different kind of adventure, a different kind of wilderness. One that Finn considered far more dangerous, even with its thick sheen of civilisation.

      And, while he hadn’t minded Toby’s company, he’d been secretly relieved when the man had been whisked away in a limo as soon as their helicopter had hit the tarmac. Now he was alone again. No need to use his vocal cords unless he really wanted to. No need to take anyone else’s needs into account. He could move at his own speed and choose his own route.

      He ignored the moving walkway, clogged with bored-looking tourists with suitcases, hitched his rucksack higher on his back and set off down the near-empty carpeted area beside it, his strides long and his smile wide.

      A buzzing in one of the side pockets of his cargo trousers tickled his legs. At first it made him jump, but then he realised what it was and bent to fish his mobile phone out of a slim pocket low down on his right thigh.

      ‘Hello?’

      ‘Great! Finn, I’m so glad your mobile’s finally on again. It’s all gone pear-shaped since I last talked to you …'

      Finn gave a lopsided smile and began walking again as he waited for his producer to finish his mini-rant. Simon always got like this after a shoot. Finn knew he just had to let Simon vent until he’d either run out of steam or run out of breath—whichever came first.

      When the sentences weren’t hurtling past at a hundred miles an hour and blurring into each other, Finn firmly squeezed a question of his own in. ‘So … what’s really up, Si?’

      There was a slight pause at the other end, as if the other man’s unending monologue had suddenly encountered an unexpected hazard and had taken a split second to work out how to flow around it.

      ‘Slight snag, as they say.’

      ‘What sort of snag? We’re supposed to be off to Panama tomorrow. Can’t it wait until we get back?'

      ‘Ah …’

      Okay. Now he’d managed to dry Simon up completely. This was news Finn probably didn’t want to hear.

      ‘It’s Panama we’ve got a problem with.’

      Finn stopped walking altogether. ‘Oh?’

      ‘Anya Pirelli has injured her knee in a training session. Her coach says it’s going to be months before she’ll be ready to tackle a desert island.'

      That wasn’t a problem, it was an unexpected blessing! Finn started striding again.

      ‘How awful,’ he said, feeling genuinely sorry for Anya, but he couldn’t help thinking there was a silver lining.

      ‘Don’t worry, though,’ Simon added quickly. ‘I’m working on a couple of possible replacements as we speak.'

      Now, that was what Finn had been afraid of.

      ‘There’s no need, Si. We can go back to the old format. Me on my own.'

      Simon’s silence was heavy enough to slow Finn’s pace yet again.

      ‘No can do, I’m afraid, Finn. The TV company have seen the rushes for the first new-format episode. They loved the Formula One star in the swamp.