Ballet Shoes for Anna (18 page)

E
VEN IF YOU
were up in the middle of the night rules were never changed in Dunroamin. So the children were called the same time as usual and were still half asleep when it was time to go down for breakfast.

Gussie was not feeling as pleased with himself as he had been during the night.

“Do you think,” he whispered to Francesco, “that having meant to paint a gnome blue is enough for The Uncle to put me in a home?”

Francesco had no idea, but until S’William appeared he was still in charge.

“I do not think so. Anyway, if he does I will go too. I think Madame Scarletti will find room for Anna.”

It was an even more awful breakfast than usual. If anyone had to speak it was in a whisper. Gussie afterwards said The
Uncle looked like a sky looks before there is thunder. And The Aunt, not as if a cat is catching her but as if it had caught her.

Breakfast over, Cecil made a pronouncement. “You will stay in your room this morning, Augustus. The police may need to see you.”

On the way upstairs Francesco whispered to Gussie: “Thank goodness it is only you who has to stay in your room. I had thought it would be all of us so I was worried about Bessie and the hens.”

“I thought of that too,” Gussie agreed. “But I did not think he would lock our doors so we could have sneaked out.”

Francesco looked sadly at Gussie.“That was a bad thought. Sometimes I think you will never learn how things are in Britain.”

After Francesco and Anna had gone to the farm and Mabel had done the bedrooms, Gussie was very bored. He hung out of the window and thought about the excitement of last night and wondered how a gnome would look painted blue. Presently he heard the doorbell ring and guessed it was the police. He hoped they would send him for it would be something to do, but nothing happened. Then the front-door bell rang again. This time Gussie tiptoed into the passage to see who it was. Mabel, who had evidently been cooking, came along the passage drying her hands on her apron. She opened the door wide, but Gussie could not see who was there. Then a voice said:

“Good morning, Mrs Docksay.”

Gussie made one rush and he was down the stairs clutching Sir William round the waist.

“Oh, it’s so good you are home. Anna is needing to learn with that Madame Scarletti. Francesco is becoming like a cross old man and I may be sent to a home because I have trouble with thieves.”

Sir William seemed never to change wherever he was. He had not now got Muzzaffer, the camel, on which he had arrived at Camp A. But otherwise he was exactly the same.

“I met Francesco and Anna at the end of the road. I have suggested we lunch together.” He turned to Mabel. “I would like a few words with Mr Docksay if I might. Then, with his permission, I will take Gussie to join the others at a restaurant, they say it is called The Lotus Bud.”

At The Lotus Bud Sir William, by refusing to allow more than one child to speak at a time, managed to get more or less the whole story of their stay in Dunroamin. At the end, he turned to Francesco.

“One way and another you seem to have managed well. Your uncle has agreed to the sale of your picture and in the meantime I will advance what is needed. I think you should buy a bicycle right away for Wally. It would be pleasant if it was waiting for him when he returns home.”

To Anna he said:

“So you may become a great ballerina. Madame Scarletti spoke to me on the telephone last night. She will train you, and for the time being take you into her home. She has
someone called Maria who will look after you.”

Then he turned to Gussie.

“It was silly of you to want to paint your uncle’s gnome blue, but I gather the police have decided that was your only crime. You know your uncle does not like children and you seem to have done nothing to make him change that opinion. What I would suggest is that I look around for a boarding school for you boys; there are some good ones about where you could both have fun as well as learn. But what we have to think about is the holidays, for Anna too will have holidays. Of course you could go to Dunroamin.” The children groaned. “In fact, you must see your aunt, for she is very fond of you. Anyone got any ideas?”

It is strange how things happen. Where no ideas were before suddenly there was the same idea in all three children’s heads.

“A caravan,” said Francesco.

“Not one pulled by a horse like Togo,” Gussie explained. “But one that stays where it is.”

Anna nodded. “On Wally’s dad’s farm. There would perhaps be room for me in the house but not for the boys.”

Sir William seemed pleased. He spoke in exactly the same voice as he used when he had stated: “The army say the runway will be open tomorrow, in which case we should get a plane for Istanbul.” Now he said:

“Good. I will see Wally’s dad as soon as he gets home. If he agrees, that sounds fine. Anyway, you can try things out, and if they don’t work I shan’t be far away. I’ll keep in touch.”

Francesco smiled at him.

“I hope you do. It is a great consolation to know where you are.”

It was in 1972 that my aunt Noel wrote
Ballet Shoes for Anna
, yet in one way it could have been the present day. As I write this afterword now, in 1998, there has again been an earthquake in Turkey, with over a hundred people killed and thousands injured – just such an earthquake that carried away Jardek, Babka, Christopher, Olga and Togo, together with their home and caravan. Noel herself had been in an earthquake, not in Turkey, but staying with friends in Rhodesia (now, of course, Zimbabwe); she noticed the effect – on the birds, particularly – then. Noel was a great noticer, and liked to experience events personally or have been in similar circumstances, or have seen people react when in similar circumstances, to be happy writing about them. Then her fertile imagination could do the rest.

A home destroyed by an earthquake is not greatly different from a home destroyed by a bomb. And Noel had seen plenty of that in the war when London was blitzed. People lost their families, homes and possessions, and were numbed with grief and shock just as were Francesco, Gussie and Anna. Noel had seen complete strangers come to the rescue and provide homes and hope, much as did her flamboyant S’William.

Before writing a book, Noel used to collect her ideas on pages of notes, and she reckoned to live with her characters for six to seven months before she even started to write. She used to say that if
she
didn’t know her characters, her readers never would!

In
Ballet Shoes for Anna
, Noel was returning to her true
love – the ballet. Her first book for children,
Ballet Shoes
, she said she only wrote because it was a subject on which she doted. This passion for ballet and dancing started with her at the age of eleven when she stayed with relations who had taken a house at the then fashionable seaside resort of Hastings. Imagine her excitement at finding that in the house immediately opposite was a troupe of child dancers! Coming from the life of a vicarage – always to her unbearably restricted – the life of those children seemed unbelievable.

I remember visiting Noel about the time when she was writing
Ballet Shoes for Anna
. Her home was then near Eaton Square – at 51a Elizabeth Street – a smart area of London close to Victoria. Noel’s flat was on the 3rd and 4th floors, and to reach it you had to climb a steep and rather dark staircase. There was a landing by the flat on the floor below Noel’s, and it was surprising how often the owner popped out just as you were going past! I think she liked to know what was going on. Luckily, she and Noel were great friends.

The sitting room of the flat was large, with a beautiful carpet and curtains. Dominating the room was the lovely portrait by Lewis Baumer of Noel when she was about 30, with her auburn hair close-cropped. It now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. On either side of this you could see out of large windows that looked across Elizabeth Street, with wooden window boxes on each sill. I remember them always to be full of wonderful flowers, because Noel was a great gardener. During the war she had even created her own garden in a space where houses once stood.

As you would expect, one wall was almost covered with a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, and behind the armchair where Noel usually sat was a splendid long mantelpiece with a
fascinating array of little ornaments set along it, including a blue Dresden china clock in the centre. Into this striking room a small black poodle – whose name was Pierre – would usually make an appearance. He used to settle down by the armchair, and liked to accompany us if we all went out to dinner at Le Matelot – which was by extreme good fortune almost next door. He was always well looked after with scraps!

But of course Noel herself was the centre of our attention – she was such a larger-than-life character! Visiting her in the evening, particularly, was quite an experience. On arrival the drinks trolley was immediately wheeled in, and once everyone was settled down with the tipple of their liking, she would reach for her cigarettes. Those were the days when smoking was not only an acceptable part of everyday life, but it was then considered rude if you didn’t have cigarettes in the house to offer your guests. Noel would produce her cigarette holder, the like of which I have never seen anywhere else, gold, and a ring to hold the cigarette on the end of a long stalk, with a ring at the other end which slipped round her finger to hold it. Noel smoked with a very distinctive puckering of the lips, and there she would sit, regaling us with her stories, or talking about the family. She was a great family person, and very interested in people.

Above all, Noel liked people with spirit. She had little time for wimps, or pompous people. If they were strong-willed and naughty, so much the better. She had been strong-willed and naughty as a child, and she discovered that readers liked the characters that were always in trouble, and children who were able to be a little bit more determined and brave than one would have been oneself in the same circumstances. So Gussie has us on tenterhooks as we
wonder whether he will get into real trouble; the children make bold and self-sacrificing decisions to obtain, for them, apparently unattainable sums of money, and break out to impossibly inaccessible London for help. Cecil starts off a pompous ass, and remains one, but Mabel gives hope at the end that she will rise up and cease to be so feeble.

Ballet Shoes for Anna
has many of the magic ingredients that Noel often wove through her books: a catastrophe that so shatters the children’s world that they have to rely on each other to survive, (and we watch how the characters develop as the story unfolds); ballet as the central theme, with all the detail of the practice barre and the steps; and the emotionally charged moments when the grown-ups realise Anna’s real talent, and finally come to the rescue. And Anna is not a heroine who just
likes
ballet – no. Anna is determined to succeed, and Francesco and Gussie are equally determined that she will be the best.

There were no half measures for Noel, and this determination to succeed against the odds, to shoot for the stars, is one of the qualities that have made her books dearly remembered favourites for many many years. More than one person has said to me that reading Noel’s books in her childhood had created this feeling that anything is possible and you
could
change your life. I’m sure people said this to her also, but I know how happy she would be to hear that generation after generation of children is reading and enjoying her books, and getting from them pleasure and inspiration.

W
ILLIAM
S
TREATFEILD

Noel Streatfeild was born on Christmas Eve in 1885. She was the second daughter of the Bishop of Lewes, and grew up a strong-willed and difficult child (a story she tells in
A Vicarage Family
). From an early age she was determined to become an actor, and indeed attended the Academy of Dramatic Art, before performing for nine years in the West End and abroad.

It was a sudden decision to become an author, and at first she wrote only for adults. In 1936, however, she wrote
Ballet Shoes
, her most famous book, and two years later won the prestigious Carnegie Medal for
The Circus is Coming
. She then planned to write children’s and adult novels alternately, but her success as a children’s author made this impossible.

Although Noel had no children herself, she never failed to supply the kind of book that children wanted to read. She put this down to the fact that she could remember very vividly being a child herself, and that she had a “blotting-paper memory”!

Ballet Shoes

The Gemma Series

White Boots

A Vicarage Family

Apple Bough

The Painted Garden

When the Siren Wailed

Thursday’s Child

Far to Go

Tennis Shoes

The Circus is Coming

Party Frock