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swallowed. The credit cards she’d kept free to pay off the rest of it, month by month, to syphon off from the salary that she no longer had. ‘I’ve applied to the administrator, I’m doing everything I can.’
    Roger snorted. ‘As if that will do anything at all. You won’t see a penny. You’re just a generation who thought they could have, have, have. I blame Labour. All you
Guardian
readers thinking that the world owes you another pair of shoes. What’s that woman in that ghastly programme?’
    ‘
Sexy in the City,
’ Hilary sighed.
    ‘Yes, just like that. Well, it’s come back to bite you.’ Roger tapped a cigarette out of a silver case that he always carried in the top pocket of his shirt, put it between his lips but didn’t light it, just sucked on the raw tobacco.
    Jackie at least had the decency to absorb herself in her phone, Anna noticed, as Hilary leant a hand on the table and said, ‘You need to sort it, Anne. Can’t fail at your first job as a wife. That wouldn’t do at all.’
    Tell them to stop, Seb
, she thought as they carried on. Tell them to stop.
    But he said nothing, just looked at his glass.
    The conversation swirled on around her until she heard Jackie say, ‘I know, I’ve been trying to persuade her to put her phenomenal talent to use back here in Nettleton. Razzmatazz are heading towards a big
Britain’s Got Talent
audition.’
    ‘And Anna‒’ Hilary frowned, ‘You’re not doing it?’
    ‘I just‒’ Anna made a face, glanced at Jackie and thought, you sly cow.
    ‘You really should, Anna. I would have thought you’d jump at the chance of extra money. Seb, what do you think?’
    Tell them that you think it’s a terrible idea. Tell them something because you know, more than anything, I don’t want to dance.
    Seb licked his lower lip and said, ‘I think it’s Anna’s decision.’

Chapter Four
    Anna’s ballet teacher pulled her mother aside when she was eight and told her she had talent. Real, proper talent. Talent that she couldn’t really do justice with her own teaching. Anna’s mother had wanted to whisk her off to London there and then, but it had been her father who’d said no. Who’d said a child should enjoy their childhood. So the compromise had been Summer, Easter and Christmas holidays spent at The Yellow House, a precursor to The English Ballet Company School.
    But the second her father had been caught in bed with Molly, the local auctioneer, he forfeited, in her mother’s opinion, any rights to Anna’s future. And, quick as a flash, they were speeding down the M3 to London, towards an audition for a full-time placement at The English Ballet Company School.
    As the sun edged its way over the Hammersmith flyover, her mother had said,
I should have done this years ago. In fact, no, I should have just gone back. I should have gone straight back to Sevilla. What is there keeping me here? There’s nothing, nothing for me here.
    The feelings of the springs in the back of the car seat jutting into her back and whether she’d ever see their cat again were Anna’s predominant memories of the trip. Which distracted her from the fear of her audition and the possibility that she wasn’t quite good enough. That everyone else there had started when they were six, and weren’t chastised every lesson at summer school for their lack of flexibility. That if she did get in she’d suffer the humiliation of being in classes with younger kids, that she’d be described as a ‘late bloomer’.
    You,
her mother had looked over from the road, the sleeves of her black fur coat flopping down over her hands on the steering wheel, and said,
You’re the only thing keeping me here, darling. You. You’re going to be a star. I can just see it. You’re going to be a star and we’ll wear Chanel and we’ll go back to that bloody village and we’ll show them that we’re better. We’re better, Anna.
    Anna was lying in the bath when Seb popped his head round the door to say