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  Her brilliant career was finished...

  Lucienne had inspired and triumphantly performed a ballet created for her by the remarkable Julian Strasberg. Then a tragic accident left her physically and spiritually unable to dance professionally again.

  Julian had made her the toast of Australia's critics, and he was determined that she would regain this eminent position.

  But even a charismatic magician like Julian couldn't give her back the courage to believe in her dreams - could he?

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents

  are pure invention. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Original hardcover edition published 1982 Australian copyright 1982 Philippine copyright 1982 First Australian paperback edition 1982 © Margaret Way 1982

  ISBN 0 263 73989 9

  Set in Monophoto Plantin 10 on 12 pt.

  Printed in Australia by The Dominion Press, Melbourne

  CHAPTER ONE

  It started for Lucie when she was seven years old and ended when she was twenty-two. Then she lay in a hospital bed wondering why the gods who had chosen to destroy her had not, in their mercy, killed her outright. Bitterness filled her and she lay there immobile, her legs that had served her faithfully shrouded in plaster, unreconciled to her fate.

  Through the open door to her right, Sister Jarvis came in and with her the now "familiar waft of hospital smells.

  'Have you taken your medication?' The voice was gentle but bracing. 'You should, dear. You need it.'

  Lucie ached to ask this good, capable woman why she needed anything. Instead she allowed yet another capsule to slide down her throat, only wishing it would bring her permanent oblivion.

  'Good girl!' Sister settled her back against the pillow and gave her a little nod of encouragement. None knew better than Sister Jarvis that one could not survive and agonise over all the suffering and tragedy one saw in the course of a day, but her heart bled for this beautiful, broken little ballet dancer. Paddon-Jones had done a flawless job on that knee, but Lucienne Gerard would never dance again as she used to; to thundering cascades of applause. The broken leg would heal, the damaged bones of the foot, even the scar under the right knee would become invisible, so beautifully had the operation been performed, but she would never accomplish again what she had done in the past. Dancers of the calibre of Lucienne Gerard needed a superb physical machine; a body that would never let them down no matter what impossible demands were made upon it. Under extreme conditions it was almost certain her legs would not survive the torture that was part and parcel of virtuoso pyrotechnics.

  Lucienne Gerard would be whole again, just as beautiful and infinitely graceful, but beyond that, there was nothing anyone could do. The most brilliant young principal of the spectacular new Strasberg Ballet would have to live happily ever after far away from a stage and footlights and the shouted bravos.

  Sister turned away abruptly, making a sound that was intended to be heartening but came out like a little sob of shared pain. Some things hurt worse than others. A broken body to a dancer was as catastrophic as a great athlete laid low by some crippling sclerosis. It was a total loss of the body's splendid mechanism, with a separate terrible shock for the brain.

  Only a month before, Sister Jarvis had seen Lucienne Gerard on stage. She had been dancing the lead role in Black Iris, a small masterpiece especially created for her by the remarkable Julian Strasberg. One of the finest choreographers in the world, a native of New York, he had nevertheless turned his back on one of the greatest companies in the world for the complete artistic freedom he now enjoyed as sole director of the young, emerging Strasberg Ballet, a company he had sworn to lift to the highest pinnacle of the ballet world.

  Sister Jarvis, not a balletomane, regarded that evening as one of the most enriching of her whole life. She had been thrilled and enchanted—so much so that she had been devastated when she had learned the identity of the patient in Room 330. Why? she had asked herself. Why? And over and over her mind had gone back to that wonderful night. . . .

  Strasberg, a phenomenally talented man, and to Sister's dazzled eyes staggeringly sexy, had been called onstage afterwards to receive the audience's almost hysterical acclaim. Lucienne Gerard, tiny beside him, had looked surpassingly beautiful and exotic in her black and gold costume. Against her white skin a broad falcon collar of a queen had flashed the same gold, car- nelian, lapis lazuli and turquoise as the gold floral circlet on her jet black head. Very gravely she had handed him a single flower from her glorious bouquet; an iris, a flower sacred to the ancient Egyptians, and the audience had gone wild.

  The ballet, a legend, had been set in the opulent court of the Pharaoh Tuthmosis and the costumes and the set, designed by Strasberg, had left a fairly jaded audience, familiar with lavish sets, gasping in delight. Already there had been a chain reaction in the fields of fashion and interior design. They had looked splendid together, Sister recalled romantically, almost like an all-powerful Pharaoh and his young queen. Julian Strasberg was a stunning man, very dark, yet not swarthy, coal black hair and eyes, a dark golden skin. And that mouth and those cheekbones! Just the sight of him was enough to revitalise a woman. For all the blazing masculinity and sheathed power, he was the most graceful, the most pantherish man Sister Jarvis had ever seen—or indeed expected to. He even aroused feelings in her that she had never suspected she possessed—and just as well. As for her nurses—why, she positively had to yank them away every time he visited the ward. In reality he was a dangerous man in the sense that he had immense charisma, the capacity to fill people with strange emotions—a man from another world.

  Quelling her recollections, Sister walked to the door. In the course of his career, Julian Strasberg too had suffered a permanent injury that when he was very tired left him with a slight limp. But then his talents and skills were so wide, so amazing, he did not solely rely on the life-support of a perfect machine. Lucienne Gerard, on her own admission, did. She was a dancer, an interpreter, first and last.

  When she was ten, her widowed mother had denied herself every last little luxury to place Lucie in a good ballet school. Even then, her natural ability, her musicality, had been astonishing; a frail little girl with long japanned hair and enormous violet eyes. Her mother had wishes, hopes for her, and she had fulfilled them all, working tirelessly when other children were out playing; immense sacrifices made easy by her great love for her mother and her own natural genius. At fifteen she had won a scholarship to the Australian Ballet School and at sixteen, danced her first solo role with the Australian Ballet Company.

  Two years later, when their cup of happiness was running over, Lucie's mother went into hospital to have an innocent little lump removed from her breast, and less than eight months later Lucie had had to be restrained at her graveside.

  After that, there was no way Lucie could cope with her grief but to sublimate it in dance. When she was not dancing, she was overwhelmed. The only way she could keep herself together, to bear her lonely life, was to dance. It wa
s what her mother had sacrificed her life for—so that Lucie, one day, could be a famous ballerina. It had been more than a dream, Lucie's mother had believed it. So Lucie lived with her heartbreak, imagining her mother could still see her ... lightning-fast turns, perfect balances, penches, dazzling fouettes, grands jetes that hung in the air .. . often with the tears coursing down her face.

  In a small but radiant little role, Julian Strasberg had first seen her. At that time he had been touring with the World Ballet and while there formulated his own plans. His was from a distinguished background; a father famous as an architect, a mother equally famous as one of the four greatest ballerinas of her time. Of mixed parentage, German and Russian, Julian Strasberg had been taken to the United States as a child. There, his mother and father realised brilliant careers, but the young Julian was a rebel, an enfant terrible. Though his father had insisted he train as an architect, for all his inherited ability, the world of theatre and dance came to occupy the most important place in his heart and his brain. He could have been a great dancer himself had he devoted himself to that medium, but it seemed he only wanted to know how dancers' bodies worked.

  What he really wanted, his mother was once quoted as saying, was to create a whole new ballet repertoire; one that made tremendous demands on the company. His own company, so he could enjoy absolute control. Julian Strasberg, for all his enormous brilliance, was well known to be a raging tyrant.

  In time, the tremendously gifted Camilla Price, an international star and undoubtedly an ex-lover, joined him. So too did several others, but still he set about seducing the youthful Lucienne Gerard to his side. A flawless technician as his mother once had been, she was, as he often told her, in class and in private, deeply repressed. She needed to suffer, and the minute she was part of his Company he dedicated himself to that task, sometimes reacting violently, turning the full force of his anger on her, when the others would have been ecstatic had they been able to dance like Lucienne. Her agility was perfection, yet he continued to make inhuman demands on an already exceptional technique. As for her feelings, it was obvious to everyone, he did not consider she had any. She simply existed to be punished. Yet it was evident that he had planned Black Iris around her right from the beginning. Julian Strasberg was a monster and Lucienne Gerard was his prize victim.

  In nightmares, the minutes before the car crashed came back to Lucie in shocking detail. Joel, angry and jealous and in his jealousy sounding ugly....

  'Damn it, he's unspeakably cruel to you, then you let him kiss you!'

  'I don't remember.' She truly didn't. They had been rehearsing all evening and now she was so tired the tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  'I wish I could believe it.' Joel was livid with a blinding sex jealousy. 'Does it turn you on, being humiliated and bullied? He never takes his eyes off

  you. Picking on you when you're perfect. You can handle every dance step in creation, yet he's determined to crush you beneath his feet. And what do you do? You act the little coward—taking it, forever taking it when the rest of us would be screaming uncontrollably. And then, the one minute he's gentle with you, you just melt into his arms!'

  'To keep from falling,' she had protested hopelessly. Julian Strasberg had arms like steel. He could lift her— he did lift her, showing Joel and Damien how to make her soar or how to catch her a bare inch from the floor. No one held her like he did.

  Joel was not even listening, he was so full of hating. 'I think under it all, he wants you. Him and his love affairs! Just imagine Camilla Price giving up A.B.T. to chase Strasberg half way across the world!'

  'Other stars did the same.' Lucie had found herself defending her tormentor. 'He's an extraordinary man—a revolutionary, almost certainly a great man. Working with a well established company wasn't what he wanted.. . .'

  'Oh, no,' Joel had turned to jeer at her. 'He wanted something new, far away, so he could dominate everybody. There's such a thing as having too much creative energy, don't you know? You don't really think we're going to hold him in this country for long. So much for building up a world company! He just wants time to try out his ideas. Somewhere new in case he fails or maims one of his dancers. He wants you—whether to create things around you or to destroy you I don't know. There's some terrible relationship between you, and don't think Camilla doesn't know. She's ready to attack you with her nails.'

  'Please stop, Joel!' she had begged him, disturbed by so much anger and violence. Everything was so different, and she was totally unprepared for it.

  'But I love you!' he had shouted. 'Doesn't it mean something? Or do you prefer savages like Strasberg?'

  Lucie had been horribly unnerved. Her eyes shut fast to stop the rush of exhausted tears, she too missed the lorry coming fast around the bend in the road. Joel saw it too late. He swerved instinctively and braked, but the car slithered out of control. It slewed hard into a guard rail and came to a crushing, grinding halt. The passenger side had borne the brunt of the crash. Joel sustained a minor head injury on the moment of impact, otherwise he miraculously escaped.

  Lucie had not seen him since.

  There were always flowers in her room and for the first two weeks a constant stream of visitors, people frqm her own world, and after a while they all came to see it as a cruelty. How could anyone speak brightly of Lucie's future? They had all heard she was finished as a dancer. It was not even possible to speak about personalities or performances—dear God, not to a girl whose life's dream was gone. In the end it seemed like a kindness to leave her alone. Only Julian Strasberg continued to come, for heaven knows what reason. Julian Strasberg and Joel's mother. "

  That afternoon, when she was at her lowest, Joel's mother called again.

  'Won't you see her?' Sister begged sadly.

  'No.' Lucie turned her head away, so much beauty and poignancy in the little ^ movement that Sister's throat tightened.

  'But she's in anguish, Lucie.' She had come to call the girl by her name, acutely aware her compassion was bordering on distress for herself. 'She told me she hasn't heard one word from her son since he disappeared.'

  'I'm sorry,' Lucie said automatically, in a low voice. 'But what can I do?' She did not even glance down at her legs. 'Joel wrecked my life. I expect he'll wreck his mother's. There's nothing either of us can do about it. It's our destiny, our unhappy fate.'

  'But there is something you can do for her,' Sister Jarvis persisted, as much for Lucie as for the lost, bewildered woman who was seated down the corridor. 'You'll come out of this, Lucie, I know you will. You don't ask, but you're making rapid progress. You're a very strong little person really, for all your apparent fragility. Very strong and disciplined through your dancing. You know how to live with pain and terrible disappointments. Mrs Tennant has no such strength. She's in despair and terribly worried about her son. You can help her, even from a hospital bed.'

  Lucie was silent, but she turned her head back and looked up into Sister's grave face. 'She never wanted to meet me before,' she said.

  Sister was flabbergasted, her eyes roving over the girl's exquisitely refined features. 'But I thought. .. .'

  'Yes?' The huge violet eyes were quite without bitterness.

  'That you two were engaged—or about to be.'

  'No.' Lucie clasped her small, slender hands together. 'I made no commitment to Joel. All I've had all my life was my dear mother and my career.'

  'But his mother thinks you were very much in love!'

  Sister blurted out, indicating her shock.

  The porcelain-skinned face went even tighter and more intense. 'Joel was my friend, a dear friend and a gpod partner. And I was wrong to think that.'

  'Oh, Lucie!' The whole tragedy was striking Sister too forcibly these days. She could not rid her mind of that wonderful evening when Lucienne Gerard, ballerina, had been whole and triumphant. 'You won't see her?'

  'No.' For a mere instant the violet eyes were awash with tears. 'I'm not angry with Joel. I expect in his own w
ay he's as devastated as I am. I don't want him to punish himself or his mother. I'm sorry for both of them, but I don't want to see either of them. Ever.'

  Sister responded quietly, restoring some measure of tranquillity. 'All right, my dear. Mrs Tennant has a family. They will have to solve the problem of Joel.'

  Lucie was asleep when Julian Strasberg arrived, and he instantly perceived that her dream was troubled. He stood over her, watching her attentively and as a shudder racked her body he said firmly, 'Lucienne.'

  'No,' she muttered, still in the grip of torment.

  'Wake up!'

  Her eyes flew open, as though she instantly recognised the tone.

  'Ah, yes, you've been dreaming. Bad dreams.'

  'About you.' It was a tremendous effort for her to speak to him, but she knew she had to because he would not go away.

  'So what was I doing, little one?' He eased himself into a chair, a faint smile on his striking, hateful face.

  'You wanted me to hold a penche until every bone in my body was screaming to relax.'

  'And did you?'

  'Perhaps. What does it matter?'

  'You look better.' He ignored the constant signs of anguish, the terror that was in her.

  'I believe Sister said the same thing.'

  'An excellent woman.' There was a hint of amusement in his voice. 'You know, in another week you'll be ready to go home.'