Elizabetta took her final draw on the slim French cigarillo, removed it from the gold plated holder, screwed the butt into the wall and threw it into a nearby bush. It was November cold and she drew her fur collar around her face. Just for one last moment she stood in the half light at the edge of the gas lamp’s arc, waiting as the rest of the corp de ballet made their way through the stage door, unwittingly accompanied in this dance by the accordion player busking under the next lamp.

Elizabetta, whose real name was known only to her long dead mother, but who was referred to as Eliza, was as slim as a stook hook. She was neither tiny nor tall at five feet and four inches, with large slender hands, an aquiline nose, big brown eyes just a little too far apart and hair the colour of milky tea. Naked, she looked like an illustration in a medical anatomy book, sinews and ribs pressing beneath her skin. This was a product of so much hard work; many hours practising since she was six years old, very little food and enough cigarillos to smoke the rats from a Man-of-War.

Whilst Eliza was not the prima ballerina of the company, she was a stalwart member of the ensemble. She worked hard, was reliable and it was widely agreed she had the best tour on lair of any dancer on any stage. She thought she was happy with this until Francois entered her life.

He was the new male principal, shipped over from Paris by the company manager who seemed to have made a surprisingly, some would say suspiciously, good deal with the Ballets Suédois. Francois was an immediate hit with his pretty blonde watercolour looks and his statuesque physique. He was not as delicate and elegant in his movements as audiences were used to, but he was fast and when he leapt the audience would gasp and some women were known to swoon.

He had caught Eliza’s eye in the summer, had created opportunities to brush past her and to tell her how excellent she was, “so very underestimated” “should be the prima”. He promised her that he would speak to the manager, demand that she be given at least a solo dance in the next season. Eliza began to believe this could be a chance for her and felt thrilled by his attentions. She spent much of the late summer and autumn waiting for him in his rooms, where he would whisper promises whilst he fucked her.

Winter was threatening now and the promises had left on a late autumn breeze. Eliza stood in the gloam, watching as Francois climbed from the Hansen and made his way into the theatre, smiling his melting hello to a ballerina as he brushed past her at the door. Two tiny boys came by carrying a raggedy figure made of old sacks, “Penny for the Guy? “they asked. Eliza, put her hand on her belly, once washboard flat and now swollen like a proven loaf. She knew tonight would be her last performance, all her many years of hard work undone, and while she could still afford it put a penny on the sack man’s hat.