Claire Fitzwilliam

From FitzyWiki

Her Basics

Name

Name: Claire Rebecca Fitzwilliam (formerly Driscoll)
Nickname(s): Clairey by a few people

Dates

Birth Date: 21^st April, 1967
Marriage: Tuesday, 9^th August, 1988
Divorce: 2006, finalized in 2007

Places

Birth Place: Cape Town, South Africa
Places of Residence: Cape Town, (Kensington) London
Current Residence: Cape Town

Family

Parents: Ruth Fitzwilliam, Charles Fitzwilliam.
Siblings: Louise Fitzwilliam, Eleanor Fitzwilliam-Blumberg, Patrick Fitzwilliam
Raised By: Parents, nanny Augusta Knapp
Significant Other(s): Married to John Driscoll from 1988 - 2006. Currently single and not looking.
Children: Avery, James, Bess Driscoll

Education

School(s): Herschel Preparatory School, Royal Ballet School, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (short courses)
First Language(s): English
Additional Language(s): Afrikaans, French, Xhosa, German, among other South African languages
Occupation: Former principle of the Royal Ballet, now retired. Current director of and teacher at the Fitzwilliam School of Ballet and Performing Arts.

Footnotes

¹

Her Self

Physical Appearance

Height: 5'10"
Haircolor: White blonde
Eye color: Pale blue
Weight:
Bust:
Memorable marks:

Description: Claire is somewhat of a stretched, leaner version of her grandmother. While Isabella was alive, Claire was frequently compared to her due to their white blonde hair, pale blue eyes, and light splash of freckling. Claire's hair, which is often parted far on the left, is wild and wavy and thick, and she keeps it very long, reaching her hips, though the ends are curly and tapered. More than often, it's up in some form of bun, either loose or tight. Rarely is it down.

More than half of her life having been spent in the arms of ballet, Claire is naturally graceful. She stands with upright posture, walks turned out, and has a long, swanlike neck and even longer legs. She also has double jointed fingers and legs, giving her astonishing lines.

Out of practice for over a decade, she filled out somewhat after her marriage and subsequent pregnancies, but back into dancing for the past two years, she has regained the extreme athleticism of her youth. She is muscular and lean and beaten up.

Personality

Over the years, Claire has gone from being a self-conscious, easily embarrassed pre-teen to a warm, confident woman. While she is by no means as outgoing or forward as her sister Louise or her grandmother Isabella, she is friendly and talkative. But time has also helped her become rather independent. After a few losses and failed relationships, she learned to rely on herself and does very well on her own.

Claire can be and often is a perfectionist and workaholic, pushing herself beyond reasonable boundaries to get where she wants to be. She has an obsessive nature, as well, and can be hard on herself if she's not where she wants to be. This doesn't mean she is competitive or calculated; rather, she is focused and dedicated. With no one to tell her to take a break, she stretches herself daily, trying and doing until her feet can't take it.

Despite her looks, and perhaps despite the way she can dress, Claire is one of the least sexual people in her family, as far as caring about being sexual. She can be crude, but she has only had two relationships and never experienced much in the way of a sexual freedom. This is only noteworthy because her sister and grandmother are famous for their sexuality, and her other siblings have very openly sexual relationships with their partners. While Claire no longer thinks she's missing anything, she still wonders and wishes and questions from time to time.

Interests and Uncategorized Facts

Claire's interest and focus and life, now that her children are older two have moved out and on their own, is ballet. While motherhood is important to her and her children are her world, in the three years since her divorce she has managed to comfortably shift into living on her own.

From the time she was four, Claire was dancing. Her initial focus was scattered, though she loved ballet. One of her grandmothers was a dancer in the Ziegfeld Follies and vaudeville, and the other was in the Imperial Ballet and Ballet Russes. These two conflicting areas meant that Claire at first wanted to be on Broadway, and later shifted entirely to ballet. And there her mind stayed.

She teaches ballet at her own dance school, which only opened in spring 2009 after two years of planning. Because of her age on paper, she doesn't see herself becoming professional again unless she creates a complex alias or convinces people to give her a short guest spot for a season. But the few years she spent as a principal in the Royal Ballet were not enough for her now. She regrets retiring early and now dances as though she will be able to fix the mistake.

Outside of dance, and outside of motherhood, she is a huge philanthropist, donating money and time to causes that even her family as a whole doesn't generally get into. She has taught English in the townships several times, and donated millions for AIDS research and sexual education and contraception in South Africa. Her focus is primarily for her country of birth, as she believes it needs her help.

But on the opposite end, she is very into fashion, which was a trait inherited from her grandmother. She collects hats and shoes obsessively, especially large sun hats. Also like her grandmother, she doesn't often wear jeans (though unlike her grandmother, she actually owns some). But now that she's teaching, she often wears warm ups, which include various old articles of clothing cut into various new shapes.

She is close with several designers and fashion houses, and inspires different people to do different things. In the 1980s, she and her sisters were in and on Vogue and Bazaar a half-dozen times, and from that point on were never ignored. But having been out of the spotlight since her divorce, she has also been out of the fashion world for the first time in several years. One day she may regain the energy, but for now she's content doing what she loves and nothing else.

She drives this, her father's Rolls Royce given to her on her eighteenth birthday (she didn't know how to drive at the time).

Her Life

Claire Rebecca Fitzwilliam (formerly Driscoll) was born 21st April, 1967 in Cape Town, South Africa to Charles ("Charlie") and Ruth Fitzwilliam. She is the oldest of four children, with two younger sisters called Grainne Louise ("Louise") and Eleanor, and one younger brother called Patrick.

Born into a life of privilege and rich heritage, as well as possessing a special inheritance that no amount of money could buy, Claire spent the very earliest years of her life welcoming new siblings and attending an all-girls school near her home. She enjoyed school thoroughly and was quite intelligent, but nothing compared to her love for ballet, which her mother, a former ballerina herself, enrolled her in at the age of four.

With two retired dancers for grandmothers (one a ballerina, the other a Ziegfeld Girl), encouragement was in no short supply as she began her lifetime of dance. Talented and in love with dance, Claire spent a great deal of her first ten years practicing religiously and doing little else. She also enjoyed musical theatre for a time, performing in every play her school put on (that she could be in). Her first aspiration was to be a Broadway star, famous just like her paternal grandmother was during the vaudeville era. When dancing overtook theatre as she got older, ballet replaced Broadway.

She is and has always been incredibly approachable and understanding, selfish for her dancing but selfless for her family. When her brother was born with brittle bone disease and all that came with it (including poor hearing and a weak immune system), six year old Claire and her dancing had to take a slight backseat to more pressing issues. However, Patrick, even as a toddler, found his eldest sibling an usual comfort. They were very close from the start, and he loved to watch her dance. He never cried while in her arms, never showed any signs of discomfort if she was there to sing and to talk and to distract him as he returned from hospital stay after hospital stay. The family found itself in England quite often for special care during the mid to late seventies.

During this period, Claire became very close to her paternal grandmother. The children were often sent to stay with her grandparents while Charlie and Ruth dealt with Patrick because, at two, Patrick's benevolence and general toddler indifference to his disease was destroyed. He went from accepting the soothing care of his family to rejecting it. At five, the time his homeschooling began, Claire was the only person he would allow near him for nearly four months, but even this was inconsistent and he was not at all kind. His anger at being locked up and forbidden from attending a normal school was at times more serious than the broken limbs. From the age of four until puberty, Patrick was a volatile, self-destructive young boy. His three older sisters were generally kept out of the way of the worst of it.

Despite, or perhaps because of her brother's unhappy state, Claire turned her childhood into a fairytale. As a toddler, she loved seeing her papa's wings and was upset that she had none of her own, so a collection was soon started and by the time she was ten, Claire had dozens of wings of various types and sizes and often wore a pair when exploring and playing. She was very imaginative, taking her knack for storytelling from her papa and grandmama, and loved it when her nanny, Augusta, took her and her sisters to where she lived. There were elephants where Augusta lived, but there was violence, too.

Claire's room in Cape Town was gold and silk and lace and fluff. Cluttered with canopies and drapery and trunks filled with toys. It was a haven for her to play pretend.

On their frequent trips to London, Claire was aways at her grandmama's side, going into the biggest shops and taking the tube just to be exciting. She looked a great deal like the woman, and this was often a central focus of the media.

At eleven, Claire auditioned for and won a spot in the Royal Ballet School. But at eleven, with Patrick in such a bad way and her siblings relatively young for such a move, she was denied the chance to go to London to attend. The denial of the very catalyst that would propel her into the world of ballet provoked a series of angry outbursts and unhappiness, and Claire said she would quit if she wasn't able to go. This was heartbreaking for her mother, who didn't want to see her daughter give up on what she wanted, but no matter how many family members said they would host the girl while she boarded, Ruth wouldn't give in. The only way to keep Claire from dropping the dance form was to promise her that she could audition again.

Claire was no novice. She was gifted, gifted in a way that made it impossible for her parents to say no to her when, at thirteen, Claire was accepted into RBS once again. With the dangerous state South Africa was in at the time, Charlie's father's health declining, Patrick needing specialized care, and Claire threatening to fly to England on her own (and no one doubting that she would, at least, get to the airport), her family made the difficult decision to pack up their home and move to London.

      1980 – 1988

The fact that they had essentially moved for Claire did not escape her sisters. They had both been enrolled in ballet, but neither took to it for more than a few years. Louise had given up all hobbies and Eleanor took violin lessons casually, so making future careers wasn't at the top of their list. Altering their lives so that Claire could have a shot at a company (as this is what it looked like to the children) was not something the girls, Louise especially, were willing to readily accept.

Claire's parents tried to make the conflict in South Africa the main component for their relocation. The rest of the primary reasons, Claire's education aside, were unpleasantries that neither wanted to burden anyone with. They padded this excuse with the common knowledge that the children's own grandparents (and Charlie with them) relocated back to England for the very same reason in the 1930s, and they would now get to see their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins on a regular basis. Louise didn't buy it and said that Claire was the favorite, and for the first year after the move, she distanced herself from her sister in protest.

This resentment within her own family and the changes of moving to a new country and attending a new school (and being told off-hand that she was a "late starter" at RBS) created a vast amount of stress for Claire. The first year in England had her feeling extremely pressured to do better than ever and to prove her sister wrong. Coupled with the onset of puberty and Claire's own development (she began to endure a growth spurt and became unfamiliar with her own body), she began to suffer from anorexia.

Louise had a field day with her sister's vulnerabilities. Close in age enough to be in the same social groups and emotional development, Louise poked and jabbed her sister with words and even physical altercations. Claire was one of the few not boarding at the school, and had come in two years later than most. Despite the fact that she was the best in her class and wowing teachers and company members with her skills and, more importantly, stage presence, she felt slightly ostracized on top of too tall. It was easy to find her weaknesses and to exploit them, and Louise was silently dealing with traumatic issues of her own, making it impossible to fix the situation for both.

Anxiety began to bite back, however. At fourteen, Claire suffered a nervous breakdown and nearly quit the program and dancing altogether. She was hospitalized for some time due to her malnourishment, and then underwent therapy for several exhausting weeks. But one look at the fact that her family had moved so far away to support her, one look at all she had accomplished and the simple fact that ballet had been the one thing that made her feel free for nine years, saved her. She shrugged off the insecurities and moved on, remembering that she was the dancer so many in her level wanted to be. (Her struggles with her weight, however, never went away.)

Her parents had always supported her willingness to push herself further, and their refusal to let her join RBS at a younger age didn't at all restrict her from international competitions. In 1981, she received a gold medal at the International Ballet Competition. She won the Prix de Lausanne shortly after her breakdown, in 1982, followed that same year with a gold medal at the USA International Ballet Competition. Though she donated her scholarships to those who truly needed them, and though she was in love with competition, traveling and practicing on top of six days a week of class contributed to her hospitalization.

She would have kept competing, but at fifteen, Claire became an apprentice with the Royal Ballet Company. She was placed into the corps for the 82/83 season. Her professional career, as it were, ended her competitive career.

Despite being friendly and talented and a generally pleasant person to be around, Claire was not truly popular, though over the years she would naturally gravitate to an unintentional leader of her age level. For her first two years at RBS (before she would transition into the Upper School), Claire was mostly on her own. The rest of the girls were boarding and knew each other, and Claire was somewhat shy and softspoken and practiced obsessively, to the point of slight (but always unintentional) intimidation.

She did have one consistent friend, however--though he was not a student at the school. His name was Avery Murdoch. They met in 1980 when both were freshly thirteen. He often took pictures of the goings on around the Royal Opera House as a way to pass the time away from his overbearing mother, and Claire was often in the area to oogle the dancers. Consistent encounters led to a shy friendship, but it strengthened over time. He was, Claire later found out, gay. But she didn't care. Why would she? In the early 80s, with the AIDS scare all around them, Avery needed friends, not enemies. And the pair were best friends by the time they turned fourteen.

After her hospitalization, Claire was no longer quite as shy as she had been before. She found that to protect herself from her sister, she had to be a bit harder, and it was this attitude that shaped the rest of her life.

Soon after her apprenticeship began, she fell into a somewhat proper relationship. Proper only in that she was formally asked out and taken on numerous dates for a period of two months. The boy was called Hunter and was a talented dancer from her school. They started as partners in pas de deux, and had a very nice relationship that had Claire confused enough to think she may have loved him. As with most fifteen year olds in two month relationships that go no further than a shy kiss here or there, she was greatly mistaken.

Her relationship dissolved in the autumn when he went on to the Upper School and started to feel jealous about the fact that Claire had received an apprenticeship before he had and, on top of that, she wasn't putting out and barely endured kissing him (she never even kissed him on the mouth).

Despite the fact that Claire had perhaps loved him, she was not entirely upset when he never talked to her again. It did, however, jade her appreciation for relationships and she stopped caring about having a boyfriend. Not that she ever really cared so much as wanted to feel worthwhile after her pitiful first year in London. At fifteen, with such a busy dancing career, it wasn't even necessary to seek acceptance anymore.

However, on 28th November, 1982, she was blindsided by Jack Camden, a punk boy from Avery's East End school with a torn up leather jacket and a hideous American car. Claire expected to not even like him, but she was very wrong.

Though it took months to truly warm up to him and his odd way of expressing affection (he didn't talk, and used odd body language to get his point across), she felt an instinctive need to take care of him, which was half of why their relationship became so powerful. He was essentially orphaned, his mother abusive in every avenue, and lived on the streets or in his car or with friends, working under cars after skipping school. While he initially thought he would treat her like every other relationship--fuck her and call her if she let him go without a condom--her refusal to do more than kiss him once on the mouth initially hooked him into trying harder. When she refused to put out at all, he stopped staring at her legs and took to her presence, her personality, and their one-sided conversations.

Jack turned into her steady boyfriend. Her first real, authentic, truly important relationship. But he was such a strange demographic, and she was in an environment that barely accepted him. Teenagers and preteens going to school in an old mansion to learn ballet. Claire, by this point, was closer to the company members, who were all two to twenty years older but lived and worked in London and could not defend her when the friends she had managed to accumulate started to protest her interest in a tactless punk.

Claire could understand their shock, but the circle of friends at her school had adopted her as their leader for no other reason than she was going places and had money. Her reputation was as important to them as it might have been to her if she realized that she had one. Claire was supposed to, according to them, be innocent and dedicated. Her friends protected her virginity more than she did.

Despite the fall out, and despite the conflicts between her acquaintances and Jack's gang, they dated for over a year and a half. In that time, Claire became a soloist at RB, fell in love, sprained her ankle, endured the deaths of her grandfather and grandmama (after losing her maternal grandparents some years earlier), was invited to join the American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet, forgot her virginity, and was involved in a car crash.

That car crash would have killed her, or perhaps damaged her beyond repair, had she not been immortal. Jack's arm was broken at the elbow, but the more serious damage was his witnessing her head slam into the dash, and the glass cut into her skin. He heard her scream. And he remembered the drunk driver that caused it. For the time it took emergency to reach them, while Claire was knocked out, Jack believed she was dead. And he was traumatized.

A month and a half later, the driver, who had gotten off with minimal time in jail, landed himself in intensive care when Jack found him on a street corner and beat him within an inch of his life. Broken arm be damned.

In June 1984, Jack was sentenced to three years in prison for assault and battery. It was Claire's turn to be traumatized.

After Jack’s arrest, Avery was the only person Claire had outside of her family and the company. Avery took his role in her mental recovery quite seriously. Claire was not okay and did not pretend to be okay, which was rather out of character for her. Her dancing suffered and she considered quitting again. It was not interesting to her. But Avery knew that was a lie. He knew it was merely a bump, and that she would be happier with her dancing than without it.

Jack and Claire stopped talking before the end of the year after her crying drove him to hang up the phone and never call back.

She was too scared to write.

Avery supported her until she made it to principal in 1985, the youngest in RB's history until former classmate Darcey Bussell nearly matched her after Claire retired in 1989. She had met Kenneth MacMillan in 1980, and he began reworking roles and creating new ones for her. A third choreography was never danced by her and was given to and reworked for Darcey Bussell. The attention, the achievement of her dream, and the parade that surrounded her, made her so happy that she was able to cope with the loss of her first love. She was ready to be an adult, and ready to exist for herself. Or so she thought.

Also in 1985, Claire started taking classes at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, taking short classes and not pursuing certification, but wanting to improve her stage presence. She simply wanted to fill up every moment of quiet and free time with busywork and distraction.

About this time, Louise had become quite a notorious piece in the papers, chronicles of her sexual exploits a common occurrence (she dated a string of super- and semi-famous people). Combined with the fact that she was beautiful and had two equally haunting sisters, the three girls were often photographed for fashion magazines and lifestyle magazines and Claire did a series of interviews about her career. The Sisters Fitzwilliam, as they were known, had impacted the London fashion scene quite unintentionally.

Additional education or college had never been a part of her plans, a part of her goals. She had an entire diamond fortune that now amassed tens of billions of pounds. Her trust fund would become hers when she hit eighteen. She was secure in her spot at RB (and eagerly awaiting another go at ABT), and was being mentored by her mother's former classmate and English assoluta, Margot Fonteyn. But losing Jack had shaken the very foundation she had built herself up on. Without that foundation, she was no longer secure at all. She continued to dance, did show after show after show with RB, and in late 1985, at the 85/86 season opening gala, she met the second John who would change her life forever.

Jonathan ('John') Driscoll was in his final year of law school at the University of Oxford, had simultaneously quit working under his father and opened up his own firm, and was eight years Claire's senior. He met her informally, his parents hounding him to meet the eighteen-year-old dancing heiress. She was in a magazine. Isn't she beautiful? Wouldn't she be good for you?

John certainly thought so.

He could not get her out of his mind, and it was quite a surprise that he ran into her in a cafe after Claire turned nineteen. They began a very odd friendship, one separated by eight years of life and goals that could not even compare. But John was the only man Claire had considered opening herself up to since Jack's arrest, perhaps because he was so different from Jack, and Avery encouraged her, saying that his life was more appropriate for her, anyway. She needed stability now. Security.

Avery was right.

Unfortunately, he wouldn't live to see it.

In the 80s, amidst the AIDS crisis, Avery's reputation was being soiled outside of school. Some people looked badly at Claire for her acceptance and love of the young man. Avery was stalked, and moved in with Claire before she was seeing John. The windows of her flat were broken on a couple occasions, Claire's tires slashed out front. John often found himself spending the night in order to protect her. Claire took the position of a mother, as Avery’s own mother had disowned him after he came out, and often checked up on her best friend if he was out.

In early 1987, at a gay bar in London, Claire stopped in with Avery as they usually did whenever Claire had a free evening. They would often go out together and sometimes, if the situation turned rough, Claire would be the beard. But this particular night was different.

The difference was the men knew that Avery was gay and there was nothing Claire could do to stop their taunts except take Avery’s arm and hurry to his car. But it didn't work. Not only were they taunting Avery, they wanted Claire. She was, in fact, the real motivation behind the severity of the crime. The leader of the group of three men was Michael Warren, and he had taken a liking to the girl in the papers. But Avery got in the way, and the bar's patrons were alerted by the shouts. And then by the shots.

Avery was dead before the police and ambulance even arrived. Dead before Claire could run back and hold him.

The second loss in three years. But this one greater than the last.

The attackers turned themselves in shortly after the murder for reasons they never admitted, though Claire has an idea (hallucinations she provided). London was drowned in rain.

If she had been depressed after Jack's arrest, Avery's death beat the rest of the wind out of her sails. She had lost Jack, and she had lost Avery. Her grandparents were no longer living, and she wasn't sure where she was going. John and her family were always there, but her dancing suffered to the point where she took a few weeks off to breathe. But instead of focusing on her grief, John helped pull her back onto her toes. Unfortunately, Claire took to them and ran.

For years, her aunt Marion, Ruth's sister, had been insisting that Claire come dance in Russia. Marion had been a dancer with Kirov, and Ruth's mother had been in the Imperial Ballet and Ballet Russes. Russian ballet was in Claire's blood, but until 1987, she wasn't ready to be so far away.

When she told John that she was going to dance with the Kirov, he panicked. Though her stay with the Kirov was intended to be a guest position, he worried that she would not come back. She had reasons not to, after all, and he understood them. But he didn't like them. So he proposed.

It was a bad time, but neither was prepared to admit it. Claire was still vulnerable and they had only been dating for about the same length of time she had seen Jack. Not only that, but it was not likely that she would refuse him and risk losing another relationship. Claire did love him deeply, but he was right to worry--she may well have stayed in Russia, or said no if he proposed later.

However, despite this, they were happy enough to announce it, happy enough to plan the wedding, and happy enough not to have second guesses.

Arriving in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), she lived with her aunt Marion and uncle Vasya, two aging ballet dancers with no children of their own. The time outside of England, even during such a tumultuous time in Russian history, was good for her, and bad for her. She loved the Kirov and was happily welcomed by the dancers there, but she met a young man called Leonid Antonov on a walk through the city, and he would be the next person to change her life.

Leo was covered in tattoos and initially was quite cold. She ran into him when he was with a group of whispering "friends", and learned very little about him even when he ran into her again and again and again and warmed up enough to strike a wonderful, if dangerous, friendship. Claire knew there was something about him that was probably not genuine, but he was not able to speak about it. Trying to find him at his flat caused him to overreact, and exploring his possessions led to many articles about her family.

But even so, for several months she saw a lot of him, and he was reasonable and level-headed, aware that she was engaged and aware of the fact she was bruised from a relationship that was never resolved. He respected her greatly, and protected her, but then he began to disappear, and when he resurfaced weeks later, he was angry and told her they shouldn't be friends while not telling her why. And the cycle would repeat until one night she found him outside her aunt's back door, invited him in, and fell asleep into a sex dream turned nightmare. When she woke, he had disappeared.

Still, she missed him. She didn't understand him, was never in love with him, but she wished he had not left her.

Heading back to London, she was preparing for her wedding. John had visited her in Russia, but most of their planning was done long distance, and was out of her hands. His mother knew what she wanted, and Claire couldn't stop her. As a result, they were married in London in a giant cathedral.

Leo had somehow taken another part of Claire with him, and Claire formally took half of the season off. Rumors buzzed that this meant the end of her career, and those rumors were confirmed in late 1988 when she moved back to Cape Town and announced that she was pregnant.

Happily pregnant, in fact. She officially retired from RB in 1989, much to the dismay of the company.

           1988 – Present

She gave birth to Avery Fitzwilliam Driscoll on 4th June, 1989. He was born two months early during a holiday in India. They stayed in Shimla for an additional two months to make certain that Avery could handle the long flight back home.

Whilst Claire knew her son wouldn't die, seeing him so small and helpless rekindled the fire that motivated her to take care of her ailing brother for so many years. With her brother now healthy, thanks to his angelic manifestations at puberty, the images of Jack in court and Avery's blood on the pavement were what truly pushed her forward.

Claire had the motivation. All she had to do was look at Avery's tiny fingers wrapped around her thumb, and she knew that John was right: There was no use in grieving. She would not be able to rest until she had done all that she could to make others happy. That included herself.

And to do that required her to forget Jack (she never told anyone about Leo).

She had left his photos in London before the move and told her parents not to speak of him. It was time to get over everything. He had not come back for her after his release. Perhaps he had never been released. Claire didn't know and didn't want to care. She was a mother and a wife now and had other concerns. Concerns that involved convincing herself there was more outside of dancing, and that she hadn't made a mistake.

Two years later, and two years of constant devotion to a school in the townships of Cape Town (such devotion that her own baby was under the care of a live-in nanny on the days when she didn't bring him in with her), she became pregnant again and had her second child, Jameson Francis Driscoll, on 16th August, 1991.

Both children were taught Afrikaans, but Avery's nanny, who was poor in English, had used it around him as an infant so much that it became Avery's first language, and John, who was establishing a firm in Cape Town and thus very busy, fired her. Claire stayed home, only volunteering on occasion, and raised her two boys with more care than she had realized she was capable of giving. Putting them into lessons and finding their passions as Claire had hers was first and foremost in her mind. Perhaps some of her obsession was linked to regret, but she refused to acknowledge it, afraid that her children would believe they had caused it.

Three years after that, Claire became pregnant again, and this time, she had a girl. Elizabeth Renée Driscoll was born on 8th March, 1995.

With three children, working outside the estate was not something she wanted to do anymore, so she donated money and time when she could and concentrated on raising her kids. On occasion, she would bring them into the townships and let them play while she taught or simply spent time with the people there.

Though it was decided when Avery was young that any boys would go to Eton, and it was tradition for the male Fitzwilliams to attend, she was loath to have her babies be so far away, and she didn't want to move (perhaps afraid to go back to the place that would remind her of things she no longer had). But when Avery didn't reject the idea of going away (and was looking forward to it from the time he was eight), Claire relaxed. A little.

At twelve, a year earlier than expected, Avery was accepted into the school. His acclaimed skills on the violin and apparent genius were the reasons for this early and usual decision. To ease his experience in London (because his only relative there was in his final year), Claire talked to one of her friends, Helen Benedict, about having her son stay with her and her son, Frank, in hopes that he would meet new friends and see London at a different perspective. Helen agreed, though quietly kept from Claire the fact that Frank was somewhat troubled since the death of his father.

Claire did her best not to cry at Avery's going-away party or as he boarded the plane the next day. But her best was hardly good enough. She knew her baby would be okay, and told him if he needed help to go see his grandparents or his great aunt Alice and cousin Fabian. That Helen knew where to take him if he didn't get along with Frank.

But Avery didn't tell anyone what was happening, or that Frank was smoking and misbehaving.

Avery also didn't tell anyone that questions about his sexuality were propelled wildly forward when Frank began to seduce him, and then sexually bully him. By the time Avery's grandparents became aware, by the time Claire was alerted, Avery was hospitalized in an accidental drug overdose at the hands of Frank--who denied that he had done anything wrong.

It was hard to keep Avery away from a boy at his own school, especially when it was the ideal environment for him, but Claire wanted him home. John disagreed. Once recovered, he attended his classes and continued playing sports and performing music and getting high marks. But Frank was always there, and soon Claire was made aware of bullying. This time, the bullying opened up the fact that their son was likely gay, and getting treated worse and worse because of it. And because of Frank.

Claire wanted to pull him out of school, but John was unable to cope with the fact that his son was gay. Part of his fear was rooted in Avery Murdoch's murder, and part of it was simply the homophobic upbringing he had endured. That his golden child was gay was almost too much to bear. That it was leading to violent attacks and emotional damage was even worse. Claire made him swallow his pride.

But everything that happened, from the bullying to the hospitalization, still haunts Claire. She suffered from nightmares, was constantly at odds with John, and experience extreme self-hatred. When Avery was finally pulled from school, she thought they could start to heal. But Avery was worse off than she knew, and she was the one to find him after his first suicide attempt, face-down in his own blood. A flashback to her friend being gunned down.

The conflict with Avery crippled Claire's marriage to John. Their fighting became ugly, and she cited not being ready to marry him, his being homophobic, forcing her to do whatever his mother wanted when they were courting. She also brought up Jack for the first time, and John often said he was not good enough, and then reminded Claire how many sacrifices he had made to make her happy. He had moved for her. She fought with him almost constantly for two years, and by the third, and Avery's final year at Eton before they withdrew him, she could see divorce.

And then John was forced to confront the fact that his wife wasn't even human. It was a secret Claire had kept, as she had no idea how to introduce the topic, or to do it in a way that wouldn't scare her husband and her children. She knew she had to do it one day, but when Avery called her from London in a panic, there was no more hiding it.

When she told him, when she showed him, John didn't know how to take it--couldn't handle it at all.

In 2005, they separated for three months, but when he moved back in they held on for a year, and during that year, Avery brought his boyfriends, Jack and Jake, to live with them. It was not an official move-in, but Jack had nowhere else to go. John and Claire barely interacted, but it was clear that there was a certain amount of resentment. Resentment that grew when Annabelle, Jack's young sister, came to stay with them from time to time.

Annabelle was raised by a nanny and Claire wished that she could provide the home that this little girl never had. In 2006, Claire began to hint at adoption. John refused, saying that he wanted his family to heal before it was expanded once more. They still had to lie about Avery's sexuality in order to keep in favor with John's parents. Not only that, he didn't want any more children. His age had a great deal to do with it. Jack's refusal to let his little sister change legal hands meant that the battle was short-lived, but the tension was back.

On her birthday, divorce papers were filed.

Trying to keep her family together when the news of the divorce broke proved even more difficult. James had been so far removed that he reacted with extreme hostility, telling Claire that he hated her, telling Avery that he hated him. He found himself treading down an almost identical path as his older brother, experimenting intentionally with risky behavior. Being away at Eton, there was nothing anyone could really do. The mounting stress even got to Avery, who descended into a frozen coma that left Claire traumatized. Her first baby, the love of her life, frozen and lifeless with his eyes wide open just as her grandmother had done two decades before. When he finally managed to come out of it, she could barely breathe. This proved the lowest point of her mental state, possibly since the loss of her best friend decades earlier.

She went to Sophie's wedding to Domani in July 2006, where she had a truly terrible time holding herself together and was grateful that John came with her. That John was there with her while Avery needed them and she needed support. He talked to her for hours that night, trying to see why she had gone down this rocky path and what was going on underneath, but there was nothing to be done for it. She had unresolved issues, it seemed, and John, hough in love with her, couldn't provide what she needed. John held her and they slept together that night, both of them knowing it would simply be the end and neither of them quite wanting it as much as they had before.

John moved back to England then, and Claire returned to Cape Town, feeling bruised by one failed relationship after another, and all of the turmoil. She had James to help, and the family even went to Jamaica to relax.

Bess won a spot in RBS that very year, and was gone in August 2006.

The divorce was finalized early in 2007. With a prenup signed at the start, their assets were not in question. Shortly after this, Louise walked out on her family and Richard, her husband, had the girls move in with their aunt while he attempted to settle things down. This short stay turned into a near permanent stay, especially after Abby became pregnant by Jake's older brother, Nick, and gave birth in 2008.

In 2007, Claire began plans to reclaim something she had lost before she was ready: ballet. She decided to start a not-for-profit ballet school outside the city, somewhere that could potentially host boarders in the future. Somewhere that could give poor and abused children and adults alike a place to get away. A place where scholarships could give people a chance to find a life in a company or a school.

While supporting her niece through her pregnancy, watching her oldest son move out, and finally soothing her relationship with her youngest son, Claire obsessed over the details. One unhappy event after another couldn't hold her down. She had to be strong for herself and Abby, and support what family she could as one person after another appeared to come back from the dead.

Far away as she is, her ghosts are stil her own. While she teaches class six days a week, she weakly pretends that some how, some way, she can reclaim her youth and pretend that the tangle of the past twenty years was worth it all in the end.

Dancing Years: Broken Down

Schooling

1971 - 1980: University of Cape Town Ballet School
1980 - 1985: Royal Ballet School

Professional Career

1982 - 1983: Member of the corps of the Royal Ballet Company
1983 - 1984: Soloist of the Royal Ballet Company
1985 - 1988: Principal of the Royal Ballet Company

Awards

1981: Adeline Genée Gold Medal Award
1981: Gold Medal - Moscow International Ballet Competition
1982: Winner - Prix de Lausanne
1982: Gold Medal - USA International Ballet Competition
1986: Sir Laurence Olivier Award (for Giselle)

Roles Danced

Professional

Apprentice/Corps de ballet (82/83): Snowflake (Nutcracker), Flower (Nutcracker), one of the four swans (Swan Lake), Giselle, La Bayadère, Ballet Imperial, Manon, A Month in the Country, Rhapsody, The Rake's Progress, Checkmate

Soloist (83/84, 84/85): Lead flower (Nutcracker), Lilac Fairy (Sleeping Beauty), Tchaikovsky pas de deux, Sugar Plum Fairy (Nutcracker), Ballet Imperial, Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Coppélia (Coppélia), Gamzatti (La Bayadère), Ballo Della Regina, The Rite of Spring

Principal (85/86, 86/87, 87/88): Auora (Sleeping Beauty), Lilac Fairy (Sleeping Beauty), Cinderella (Cinderella), Clara (Nutcracker), Sugar Plum Fairy (Nutcracker), Swanilda (Coppélia), Birthday Offering, Nikiya (La Bayadère), Gamzatti (La Bayadère), Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Giselle (Giselle), Odette/Odile (Swan Lake), Tatiana (Onegin), Hermann Schermann Kitri (Don Quixote), Medora (Le Corsaire), The Sylph (La Sylphide), Ballet Imperial, Lise (La Fille mal gardée), A Month in the Country, Manon (Manon), Firebird (The Firebird), In the Middle, Step Text, Mary Vetsera (Mayerling), Other Dances, Apollo, Raymonda, La Luna, Grand Pas Classique, The Dying Swan

Guest Artist (at Mariinsky/Kirov Ballet): Odette/Odile (Swan Lake), Chloé (Daphnis et Chloé), Ondine (Ondine), Giselle (Giselle)

Roles Created

Sir Kenneth MacMillan created roles in Mayerling and Cinderella for Claire. A role in The Prince of the Pagodas was created for her but she did not dance in it.

Quick Thoughts

-After moving out at eighteen, Claire began to drink her tea in a jam jar.

Claire Fitzwilliam

From FitzyWiki

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