Soldier Boy , livre ebook

Legend Press Ltd, 51 Gower Street, London, WC1E 6HJ
info@legendpress.co.uk | www.legendpress.co.uk
Contents Cassandra Parkin 2020
The right of the above author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.
Print ISBN 978-1-78955-1-174
Ebook ISBN 978-1-78955-1-181
Set in Times. Printing managed by Jellyfish Solutions Ltd
Cover design by Kari Brownlie | www.karibrownlie.co.uk
All characters, other than those clearly in the public domain, and place names, other than those well-established such as towns and cities, are fictitious and any resemblance is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Cassandra Parkin grew up in Hull, and now lives in East Yorkshire. Her debut novel The Summer We All Ran Away was published by Legend Press in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Amazon Rising Star Award. Her short story collection, New World Fairy Tales (Salt Publishing, 2011) was the winner of the 2011 Scott Prize for Short Stories. The Beach Hut was published in 2015, Lily s House in 2016, The Winter s Child in 2017, Underwater Breathing in 2018 and The Slaughter Man in 2019. Cassandra s work has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies.
Visit Cassandra at
cassandraparkin.wordpress.com
or follow her
@cassandrajaneuk
For Harry
Shine bright, like the star you are
CHAPTER ONE
(DECEMBER, NOW)
standing in the bright light and harsh disinfectant scent of the grimy toilet block, staring at her reflection in the mirror.
Alannah s used to the dull discomfort that comes with looking at herself. Each day begins before the mirror of her practice barre in her bedroom; most afternoons end with time in ballet class. Weekends are dominated by this relentless study of her own face and body, stretching and smiling through the pain, disciplining herself not to lick the sweat from her upper lip, taking and applying the corrections, watching for flaws, finding the ways she can improve, and the occasional moment of shock - that girl looks quite good - wait, that s me
This mirror lacks the brutal clarity of the studio. It s nothing more than a small polished patch of steel, its dim surface made cloudier by the angle of the glaring pinkish lights and the dried swirl of a cleaning cloth smeared across it. If she approaches it carefully, letting her gaze slide over it without ever quite snagging and pausing, her image becomes a blur, as if she s watching a confident, comfortable stranger. Someone who looks and doesn t feel the inevitable stab of no, not good enough, not right , but instead thinks, yes, quite nice . Perhaps if she looks long enough, she ll call the other girl out to her, let her climb into Alannah s skin and walk around in it.
Neither she nor the girl in the mirror are supposed to be here. She s meant to be in a car with three other girls and their ballet teacher, Mrs Baxter. On their way to a hotel room and tomorrow to the theatre, where they ll rehearse and rehearse and finally dance for an audience, alongside what her sort-of-friend Lucy refers to as actual proper ballet dancers . Christmas lights gleaming through dark evenings; the sensation of winter in the air. One night with her parents watching, three nights with Granny Jane. Back at home, the tree trimmed and pretty in the living room, waiting for her to return in triumph. Instead, she s in a roadside toilet block, her dad waiting in the car, both wondering where they might go, what will happen next, how all of this will end, neither of them daring to speak about any of it.
In her hand are her mother s scissors. She s not supposed to have them. They re fabric shears, from the top drawer of the sewing cabinet. Her parents don t agree on a lot of things, but her dad has always approved of the way her mum keeps her sewing supplies. Each drawer carefully ordered. Fabric folded into cubbyholes and sorted by type, colour and pattern. Scraps in a large but not-unattractive cotton sack, regularly sorted and purged. Cotton-reels with their ends tucked under. The sharp things - needles, scissors, seam rippers, the rotary cutter with its frightening circular blades - in the top drawer, a legacy from when Alannah was too young to be trusted not to touch, and too small not to try and touch anyway.
We ll be out of here in ten, her father had told her, taking clothes from drawers and shelves, packing them into his kit bag, swift and focused. One teddy if you absolutely must. Warm clothes. And bring your duvet. It might get cold. Knowing she had only moments to choose her reminder, she crept into the sewing room, slid open the drawer and found the cool sleek touch of the scissors. This is how she wants to remember her mother - the way she is when Alannah is most afraid of her. She s sharp and bright, dangerous if handled wrongly, able to make anything, repair any damage, cut through any challenge. ( I m a witch , her mother croons in her ear, I ve said it three times so now it s bound to come true . Remaking Alannah into the daughter she truly wants.) In the mirror, Alannah can see the throb of blood in her neck.
Dad ll be worrying , she thinks. Stop dreaming and get moving .
( Don t overthink it, Alannah, her ballet teacher endlessly tells her. Let yourself feel the music No, she doesn t want to feel , she doesn t dare let herself feel , that s the whole point. If she stops for a moment to feel , who knows what s going to happen?)
Stop dreaming and get moving , she repeats to herself, hearing the words in her dad s voice because this is something he often says. Or when he s in a better mood, he puts on a Yoda voice and intones, Do. Or do not. There is no try . Better moods were more common when he went to work, most common of all when he was still in the Army and they were living in the gone-and-here rhythm of Dad Going Away and Dad Coming Back. But he s been out for two years. Hasn t had a job for four months. Hasn t been in a better mood for a long time. It s not his fault. Things will get better . She s heard the words so many times, they run on a loop in her head. None of it s his fault. Things will get better.
So why is everything getting worse?
Her vision s adjusting now; she can see herself more clearly, commence her search for flaws. There she is, her muscles hugged tight against her bones, her limbs slender, her posture correct, her neck long, her shoulders held in place. Good enough for now. But who knows what the next year will bring?
Mrs Baxter, brisk and firm. You re growing up now, you ll start becoming women. That means your bones will harden, and then, if you re ready, we can think about pointe work. And in the changing area and in the corners of the studio, the other, darker murmurs from the older girls. She got too tall, she heard one whisper to another, a little scornful, a little disgusted, as if getting too tall was a mark of weakness. Another time, another two girls, talking casually about a rival: Don t worry about her, her boobs are massive, she ll never be the right shape. The thought of what s coming, the storm of hormones about to ravage her body, turns Alannah cold. What if she gets too tall? What if her boobs turn out massive? What will happen to her then?
Her mother has told her over and over again not to worry, she doesn t have to have the perfect body, doesn t have to be a dancer, and she ll be proud and happy whatever her daughter chooses. But how can Alannah believe that, when everything her mother does shows her it isn t true? What s the meaning of all the pretty custom-made clothes, the cute little hair decorations, the exquisite dance costumes, the hours her mother spends grooming her, and the endless, endless praise of her hair, her face, her slenderness, her grace, if it s not I only love you when you re perfect ? Alannah knows what s really going on. Her mother doesn t like ugly things. What if Alannah ends up ugly?
She didn t always feel this way. She s seen photos of herself as a baby and then as a toddler, romping confidently about the house and garden, comfortable in her shape. She can dimly remember being small, not thinking about her body, not caring how it looked. She s done her best to hold it at bay, working diligently at home and in class, eating as little as she can get away with, trying to discipline her body into thinness and smallness, to make time stand still. But her future s written into her genes. There s no escaping what s coming.
Get on with it, she says out loud. Her voice echoes off the walls and makes her jump. She s glad she s alone, even though the place itself is spooky - a pebble-dashed hut in a rain-soaked layby, drainpipes painted in thick drips of bottle-green, spindly spiders flattening themselves against the walls, and a stink of pee and disinfectant that rolled out like a hug when she tugged on the door. She d thought it might be locked, was prepared to use the bushes, but it opened, and inside were three cleanish cubicles, two wall-mounted things with buttons to dispense soap and water and warm air, lights bright enough to see clearly by. And no other girls or women. And a mirror. And her mother s scissors, slithering in the pocket of the black combat trousers her mother made, blade tips pricking and jabbing at the meat of her thigh.
The feeling inside her is demanding and terrible. She s tried to keep it down but it s too strong. She has to act or else she ll burst. Lying in bed at night, she s found herself terrified by the thoughts of what s