Chapter 1 The Apple and the Pearl #3
The quick, light footsteps of someone running towards them sends Lara scuttling towards the safety of Zach’s bulk until the silhouette of the black-clad figure sharpens in the mist.
‘Phone signal!’ the man pants as he passes them on the avenue. He’s wearing a headset with the microphone poised at his lips. ‘And internet too! I’m just off to tell Gino!’
‘That’s Charlie, deputy stage manager,’ Zach explains as the man jogs away. ‘Good bloke. Everyone likes him.’
Juliet would have followed that up with telling her about the members of the cast and crew who are not so popular.
Mackie’s grumpy in the morning but he’s a good boss, the best you’ll ever have I reckon, Alina gets antsy if you nick her pens or soap and for the love of all that’s holy keep away from Derek.
But thinking about the tangled webs of love and hate and indifference that stretch between the Grub and the Grit makes him feel tired again, so instead he focuses on the crunch of his boots on the leaf skeletons.
Lara follows him, quietly chewing on her pancakes and Zach feels the knot of nerves in his stomach loosen a little. Eating is a good sign.
The foot of the stone staircase up to the doors of the auditorium is crowded with battered black flight cases.
Zach sees Lara lean over to read a few of the labels written in black marker on white gaffer tape.
KING AND QUEEN COSTUMES, X 4 WING BOOMS, CROW HEADDRESSES LARGE AND SMALL, PEARL.
He remembers Juliet smirking at him in that annoyingly knowing way of hers.
Are you the kind of idiot I need to spell things out for, or have you got a brain between your ears?
He’s just started the long climb up the steps – the Grit doesn’t always position itself so high up but today it’s leaning into the drama – when Zach hears Lara clear her throat gently.
‘Excuse me, Zach?’ He turns to face her, one foot on the bottom step. ‘Do you have a watch? I need to take some pills at about ten.’
He slaps one hand to his forehead. ‘Shit! I forgot! I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s okay, I—’
‘Listen, I have to tell you something really important. Juliet would never forgive me and Belinda would have my guts for garters. There are two curfews here and they’re timed to the second.
You absolutely must be inside the Grit by the half – that’s five to seven every night – and you absolutely must be inside the Grub by midnight.
There’s a bell, it’s really loud, you can’t miss it.
Eighteen chimes before the house opens and twelve at midnight.
You don’t have to count them, but you got to get inside. ’
‘Do you mean I’ll get in trouble if I’m not there?’
‘Big trouble. Bigger than you can imagine. So get yourself a watch and sync it to Belinda’s.’
Zach remembers Juliet strapping a cheap watch with a canvas strap onto his wrist the first time she took him into the Grit.
Don’t take it off, don’t mess with it, if it starts to slow get a new battery from Belinda immediately.
You don’t want to know what’ll happen if you’re caught out after curfew.
He misses Juliet, gone off to her retirement flat in Brighton only six weeks ago.
Twenty years on the show and she made it out not just alive, but thriving.
I thought demons had me in their grip when I came here, young buck.
Now I know the real demons don’t want anything to do with me and I’m free.
‘Sorry, Zach? I do actually need to know the time.’
Zach glances at his wrist. ‘Ten seventeen,’ he says. ‘Honestly. Wear a watch. If Mackie sees you without one tomorrow he’ll tell you one of his horror stories.’
He takes the rest of the steps two at a time and veers sharply to the right towards a rickety wooden door marked ARTISTES in faded yellow paint.
‘Stage door,’ he calls over his shoulder. ‘Moves around and looks different but always to the right of the auditorium entrance.’
He pushes the door and holds it open for Lara. ‘After you.’
* * *
With a caw, the Crow settles on a lichen-spattered headstone engraved with the name Desmond C Jones and looks around the graves with satisfaction.
An avenue of ivy-cloaked mausoleums, yews draped in cobwebs, holly studded with ruby-bright berries.
All Souls’, the Crow thinks happily, and yes, this is the place to bring the humans to mourn their dead.
A gift from Crow to her beloved cast and crew, the day of the year for the ancestors.
Dead mothers, dead fathers, dead lovers, dead dreams.
She turns on the pocked stone to face the Grit and rearranges her wings.
Every night the show is the same, curtain up seven thirty sharp on these old dances to older tunes, but every morning the Grit sinks itself into different earths on the thresholds of different worlds and it is Crow who guides them.
Today on the day of dead things there’s a new crew member to pledge a year and a day in service of the Crow, and what does she see when she looks around her?
A king and a queen – or she will tonight, when the dancers take their cloaks about them and parade afore the proscenium.
Three sisters, naturally: what is a ballet without a princess poised in her pointe shoe?
An orchard – no, this is the land’s winter now and there is nothing growing but poison seeds nestled in the holly and the yew.
The sea – no, Crow has brought the Grub far inland to celebrate the dead on this day.
Three suitors, then? Yes, and more. A curse – oh, The Apple and the Pearl is full of them – and a quest, of course.
That’s what you get when you deal with humans.
And last of all Crow, singing in her nest, bringing all these people here, luring them out of the world to present The Apple and the Pearl.
Crow has been doing this for a long time now.
Crow the impresario, Crow the mistress of the ring.
With any luck that’s what they’re telling the new girl, how to do the show properly as it’s been done for hundreds of years now, how to do this show so you don’t piss Crow off because you don’t want a Crow for an enemy, girl.
The Crow looks up at the Grit, caws appreciatively and takes off into the mist with three great tugs of her wings.
* * *
When she hears the little sighing click, Belinda opens her arms and the Pearl falls into them.
She clutches it securely to her chest and flicks on her torch to inspect every single rope, lever and pulley criss-crossing the old hornbeam joists, checking for any tears, frays or fissures.
Every morning she wakes with a bubble of dread that something has gone wrong and today is one of those days she’ll have to spend in here with Mackie and the Crow while they re-knot some rope or weld some part of the chassis, but mercifully that is not to be her fate today.
She steps down from the carriage and elbows the door shut.
No need to lock it. It will only open for her.
She shifts the Pearl under one arm – it’s always light and cold in the mornings, its energy spent by the night’s exertions – and angles her torch to inspect the bell, mounted on the great iron frame above the engine carriage.
It’s covered in dancing particles of mist and the bronze is dull in the weak winter sun, but still it glows.
Belinda spots a little patch of rust on the headstock.
Hmm. She will need to get in touch with the bell smith.
The crew are in the middle of unloading the flight cases from the storage carriages behind the engine, and she can see Derek wandering towards her with a toolbox balanced under each arm.
She has no desire to be harassed about some irrelevant detail of what Mackie said yesterday so she quickly settles the Pearl inside its case, shuts the latches and hurries down the train just past the dining car to her cold, damp office.
Belinda locks her office door and pulls out the portable heater from under the desk.
She plugs it in and sits in her chair, basking in its red glow as the smell of dust charring in the heat fills the space.
She checks her watch – eleven twenty-two.
Plenty of time. She likes mornings; the most troublesome members of her flock are still in bed and she stands a chance of getting something done without the constant interruptions of sorry-Belinda-can-I-just.
She leans back and shuts her eyes, running through her to-do list in her head: chase down the last expenses forms; put in Alina’s order for pointe shoes; email that pawnbroker in Edinburgh to apologise for that amethyst necklace that turned out to be a bit of rope; email the bell smith.
All of it can wait for her to warm this mist out of her bones. The day – and night – is long yet.
All Souls’, and the year is turning to winter, everything shrinking back into its roots. Stopped in a graveyard roiling with mist around the yews of course, but the Grub likes its little jokes.
All Souls’, and still they’re safe for the year.
She’s thought about writing it up in the dining car, like they do in hospitals, no deaths on this ward for 8 – 3 – 5 days!
, just to focus people’s minds. She suggested it to Mackie once, in a half-joking way.
He became very still, took a sip of his lager and frowned.
But what of joy, Belinda? Don’t you think people deserve to just live, here and now, without fear?