Page 17 of The Cut
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
W. H. Auden
She’s his muse. Her hair is gathered up into a knot on the top of her head, revealing smooth skin on her neck.
The cervical vertebrae are visible through the fine layer of pink fabric stretched tight over perfectly aligned shoulders.
Her head inclines forward then backward in hypnotic motion, keeping time to the glissando of the piano.
The muscle that runs from the back of the skull behind the ear guides the eye down into the soft skin of the shoulder and along the arm, now extending into a beautiful arc overhead.
Then, light as air, her arms float down and scoop as if the atmosphere in the room is like sand running through fingers.
She is bathing in a ring of light as the rays of the morning sun flare through the glass and blow out the camera frame for a second.
Zooming in even closer through the reinforced windows of the classroom, his eye passes through the buried wire in the glass that imprisons these caged swans.
Annie Maddock is an inch or so taller than the other girls holding on to the barre. Her neck seems longer than the rest, her arms more expressive, as if she is suspended on a soft cloud. She is mesmerising, in every possible way. 90
Dave holds the camera in his right hand over his shoulder, and for a second his eye leaves the viewfinder and he watches her with naked eyes through the window.
Her ruddy cheeks betray the concealed effort in her body and the small beads of perspiration on her forehead and neck are dabbed with a towel from her bag, before the dancers move into the centre of the room.
Dave ducks down slightly, bringing his camera to the floor outside the window to change the tape.
Once reloaded, he peeks back up. His eye glues itself to the viewfinder.
The frame in and out of focus judders to find its subject then bang!
The crack of metal on glass. An angry, heavily made-up face, filling the lens, is glaring at him, ringed knuckles rapping on the window.
Patel sharply backs off from the viewfinder as Mrs Clarke, the ballet teacher, orders the piano to stop.
She mouths something and shoos him away dismissively with her hand.
‘Go home, Peeping Tom.’
Dave cuts his camera and slinks away as the girls grab a break, to sip water and towel down.
Annie stands in the centre of the room, watching him leave.
She stares at him, smiling, then lifts her leg, pulling it high behind her ear like a gymnast, inclining her head towards him as she mouths ‘Bye-bye’.
The roar of the throttle and the spluttering backfire of Dave’s motorbike tears up Forest Hill.
He skids to a halt outside the vicarage and cuts the engine, removing his helmet and shouldering the gate.
He wheels his bike quietly around the side passage of his dad’s surgery to the back of the house.
He opens the kitchen door and starts upstairs to his room.
‘I thought you were going to help me on reception today, young man?’ Sandeep’s stern tone makes Dave stop midway up the stairs.
‘Sorry, Dad, I got stuck at school.’ Dave unzips his bag and pulls out the camera. ‘I’m making a montage for my GCSE art course work.’ 91
‘On a Saturday? Hmm … well, so long as you’re not just wasting time.’ Sandeep eyeballs him over the rim of his glasses.
‘Don’t worry, this will be worth it, you’ll see.’ Dave turns to head up the stairs.
‘They’ll try to sabotage you, you know.’ Sandeep’s voice catches him as he reaches the top.
Dave stares back to his dad. ‘You always do this, kill all the fun. It’s always homework and coaching and hard graft.’
‘I just don’t want you held back by shirkers.’ The electronic sound of the door opening signals Sandeep’s next patient.
‘So, what am I supposed to do? Hide myself away and have no friends?’ Dave reddens as the anger reaches his face.
‘Now, you listen to me.’ Sandeep pulls the door and lowers his voice.
‘Just be careful who you allow into your life. Do you know how many patients left this practice when they found out the new doctor had an Indian surname?’ Sandeep’s mouth clenches.
‘It’s not always what they say … it’s what they don’t say. ’
‘I really like her!’ As soon as the words tumble out of Dave’s mouth, he wishes they hadn’t.
Sandeep’s face falls.
‘She’ll turn you down.’ His voice softens. ‘Oh, my dear boy. I’m only trying to protect you.’
‘I don’t need your protection, I have friends … good friends.’ Dave begins to pull the camera cables from his bag, ready to set up to the TV.
‘But they’re not true friends.’ Sandeep stares back at his son. ‘They never will be.’
They regard each other for a second, a deep wedge of resentment fracturing the bond between them. 92
‘Why did you bring us here? Why did we have to leave Edinburgh?’ Dave shakes his head as he turns and slams his bedroom door behind him.
He closes his eyes, leaning his back against the door, and gathers himself.
Then a rush of heat rises into his chest as he remembers the film he has just shot.
He kneels on the floor and begins his familiar ritual of marking the tape case with a black felt-tip pen: time and the date.
He pulls out a brown leather box from under his bed.
With a small key, he opens the padlock and lifts the lid.
Inside, he runs his fingers along a line of other tapes, about thirty in total.
His finger hovers over one (31/10/92 Spirit in the Woods.
A. Maddock) and then another (10/11/93 The Crow’s Nest. A.
Maddock). Each tape that Dave has collected since his father bought him the camera has been dedicated to her.
Dave plugs the camera into his portable black-and-white TV and presses play.
He slots a CD into his Walkman, and slides headphones over his ears.
The sound of Radiohead blasts into his ears as he bathes in the image of the ballet dancer fading up on the screen. His breath stolen by the gravity-defying Annabel Maddock balancing in front of him. Floating like a feather, in that beautiful world.
The image is slightly blurred, but she takes her hand from the barre and extends a lifted leg slowly into a perfect arabesque. She really is just like an angel.
‘You are so friggin’ special,’ Dave whispers to himself.
There is something about her that he can’t describe.
Capturing her on film like this feels like the most natural thing in the world.
He wanted her to notice. He wanted control.
In his juvenile brain, he somehow understands that these years are transient, none of us can remain like this forever. 93
In time, every millisecond of this footage will be pored over. The grainy image slowed down, made clearer, analysed and dissected. Not for its beauty but for its meaning.
The reflection of the boy holding the camera in the glass window of the dance studio would be the final exhibit that would seal his fate. 94