‘Felix, that’s not weird to me. If you want my honest opinion, I think it’s great you were seeing how it felt to be a ballet dancer.’
He studies my face with his button-shaped hazel eyes. ‘You mean that, don’t you, Aunty Emily? I can tell when you’re lying and that’s not your lying face.’
I pull him in for a hug. ‘So, how did it make you feel?’
He breaks away with a goofy smile on his face. ‘It was great and made my chest feel like there was a ballet performance happening inside it. I told Amelie the next day about it. She said my smile gets wider when I dance.’
I give him a squeeze. ‘Can we forget the weird thing? I’m sure your mum didn’t mean what she said to someone on the phone.’
‘She did mean it. I knew when she was telling the truth. Amelie said her mum thinks she’s weird for wearing boys’ T-shirts. That made me feel a bit better.’
I need to steer him away from this conversation. The last thing I want to do is create bad feeling for Vivi. She was an amazing mother to Felix. ‘Tell me about Rory?’
Felix sniffs. ‘I told him about what had happened.’ He wipes his pink nose. ‘He was like you, Aunty Emily, he didn’t think it was weird.’
‘What did Rory do?’
I watch my nephew’s face light up. ‘Rory took me to ballet classes.’
His words ping around the corners of my mind like mini ball bearings in a pinball machine, Rory did that for Felix. Gasping, I stare at Felix. ‘When?’
A grin spreads over his face. ‘We never went to football. We went to ballet.’
‘Actual ballet classes?’
Felix nods with a huge smile. ‘Every Saturday.’
A memory of Felix dancing in the snow earlier comes rushing back to me. ‘Did you enjoy them?’
‘Yes, they were cool. I miss them.’
I take his hand. ‘Hang on – why haven’t you told me about this?’
He shrugs. ‘I thought you would say I was weird.’
‘Oh, Felix!’ I exclaim, pulling him into a hug. ‘I would never say that. Don’t ever think that again – okay?’
He nods.
‘Has not going to classes made you sad?’
I can feel him nod against my chest. ‘Very sad. I’ve had to practice in my bedroom. When I am out with Amelie, she lets me dance in her dad’s garage, but we must stop doing that as I was doing a leap and crashed into the family tent. Amelie had to tell her mum that she’d ripped a hole in the tent.’
Even though I think Amelie is a little wild with her mullet-like haircut, her love of boys’ basketball T-shirts and her giant trainers, I do like her friendship with Felix.
My mind is busy making sense of Felix’s revelation. All the bangs and crashes I’ve been hearing were him practising his ballet. It all makes sense. ‘After arguments you often go upstairs – do you dance in your room?’
He nods again. ‘Ballet makes me feel happy again.’ With an elegant swing of his arm, he leaps off the bed, accidentally knocking the package off Rory’s bedside cabinet, and twirls around the room.
‘I thought ballet made you think of your mum and her ballet DVDs.’
After a jump into the air, he comes to a shuddering halt. ‘Only one was her DVD. The rest were mine.’
‘Oh, I see,’ I say, pulling up my knees, thinking about Rory and Felix’s revelation. ‘I can’t believe Rory took you to ballet classes.’
Felix comes to sit by me. ‘He knew of a ballet school in Brighton.’
‘Did your mum ever know about this?’
