Chapter 1 The Apple and the Pearl #32
On the table behind him is a bowl of three still-warm arancini with molten mozzarella at their cores.
Gino sent them over from the Grub with Charlie, nestled with a napkin in a little warming tray and a dish over the top to keep the heat in and the hairspray out.
He’s nibbled half of one; he’s saving the other half for the first interval.
He’ll eat another half at the second interval and another half just before the third act wedding dance for a little kick of energy, which leaves him a whole arancino to look forward to as he’s wiping his make-up off and getting changed after the show.
The subtle fragrance of saffron lingers in the air, mingled with sweat, lightbulb-singed towels and the spray cleaner Alina uses on their beaded jackets that can’t be spun in the washing machines.
Romero swallows, just to taste the pollen of it on his tongue again.
The dish is carefully crafted just for him.
Gino only uses ingredients he knows Romero can bear and only in combinations he knows will sing a sweet music together.
Saffron, to feel the sun on your face on the first days of spring.
Sticky rice, for the feeling of lying down to sleep, sated and happy.
Breadcrumbs rolled in olive oil, for the crunch of warm boots in fresh snow.
Mozzarella, for the gentle nuzzling into a baby’s soft neck.
Tonight he’s dancing the Blue Suitor. As he manipulates the soles of the boots to warm the leather, he pedals through his feet slowly to stretch the tendons under his arches and warm them through.
He imagines his muscles stretching like the mozzarella, soft and elastic and filled with milky sweetness.
He pulls on the black leather boots with the soft sole and fits them over his toes.
He is uncomfortable, as always. The seam of the tights makes an awkward ridge under his foot and he dreads putting on the itchy jacket.
Costumes make everything worse. He’d be a better dancer if he didn’t have to wear this sequinned crap while trying to move.
He’s worn almost every costume by now. He started off a page, where everyone starts, and now, in the four years he’s been with the company, Romero has danced every single male part except the King and the Crow.
He’s been every Page, and now every Suitor, and he’s done the orchard dance and the hunting dance and the wedding over and over again.
Some dancers find it boring, doing the same show every night – those are the ones who leave after a pledge or two.
But Romero’s never minded. There’s a comfort in life here, a certainty to the flow of each day.
He does class, rehearsal, the show. Looks at the casting for the morrow as he leaves the theatre, he eats dinner, he helps Gino tidy up, he goes to sleep, he does it all over again.
He arranges the dance boots over his calves.
He’s got these ones perfectly broken in now, moulded to his feet and comfortable to wear, but it won’t last. Three more weeks, he estimates, before the leather starts to wear through at the big toes and he has to start all over again with the blisters and callouses of new boots.
He pulls on the sequinned jacket of the Blue Suitor with an itchy squirm and does up the hooks squinting in the mirror. He covers his arancini with a napkin and leaves the dressing room, shutting the door carefully behind him.
The door to the women’s dressing room next door is framed by a row of battered pointe shoes propped up on their toes.
The ribbons are spilling everywhere, the smell of hot glue and sweat wafting along the corridor.
He nudges the ribbons out of his path with one leather-tipped toe, and when one shoe tumbles onto its side he quickly props it back up again.
Moving someone’s shoes would be like eating the food Gino made only for him.
You learn quickly what’s communal and what’s someone else’s territory here, and if you take a while to get it right then Cecile’s shouting and the passive-aggressive sneers of the other dancers will usually see to it that you learn how to rub along.
Romero had been determined to rub along.
There was no other option, he had nowhere else to go.
He’d been cut in the first few rounds of every other audition he’d been to; The Apple and the Pearl had been his only chance at employment as a dancer.
He’d watched class, rehearsals and the show on his first day, taken his pledge that evening and tried his best to disappear into background and give no one an opportunity to take against him.
He wasn’t sure if anyone other than Michael the violinist, his pledge-mate, noticed he was even alive for the first three weeks and he was fine with that, until the chef – he didn’t know his name yet – caught him in the corridor just before the midnight bell.
Okay, Gino had said, blocking his way through the corridor.
He’d only just finished up for the night and his forehead was beaded with sweat from his ovens and his white jacket was covered in splashes of sticky scarlet sauce, but he was intent.
Whatever he wanted to say was bursting out of him.
I’ve given you long enough, now you need to tell me why you don’t eat.
Romero was skewered like a chicken for the spit.
I do eat. He remembers the panicked shame fizzing in his chest as he glanced over the chef’s shoulder to the door that led towards the cabins. His feet itched, he wanted to run.
Gino had clasped his turmeric-stained fingers and raised his eyebrows.
What exactly is it that you eat? Grass? Flakes of paint from the set? Air?
I eat things I have in my cabin.
Gino had grimaced, a look of physical pain like Romero had punched him. Things? You eat shit from a packet instead of my food? No wonder there’s nothing of you.
He’d looked away from Gino, into the dark window to see his own face, pale from the residue of his stage makeup and the ever-gnawing hunger in his belly.
One day, he thought, this chewing, chomping monster that lives inside me and feeds only on crackers, dried apple rings and secrecy will consume me completely.
But what does your mother say about this skin and bone? Gino had softened his voice and leaned towards him. And don’t tell me all you dancers are skinny. I’ve been cooking for these people for twenty-two years and I can tell the skinny from the starved.
He looked back to Gino. My mother’s dead.
Your father then, what does he say about what you’re doing to yourself?
Romero gave a wry, bitter grin.
Right. I see. Well, I understand this thing can be hard when you’re suffering but you need help. Come to the dining carriage after the show tomorrow night and I’ll show you what beauty there can be in a plate. And if you don’t come I’ll show up at your cabin and drag you here.
After the show, Romero went to the dining car shaking, his palms clammy.
The man would shove food into his face, he would sit him down and spoon revolting things into his mouth, and if he refused and clamped his lips shut like a baby he’d find himself in front of Cecile and Belinda, their disappointed stares boring craters of shame in his skin.
He stood in the gangway avoiding the gaze of anyone who’d been friendly to him so far, trying to breathe through his mouth.
Already the smells were disturbing him, making it difficult to think.
Onions to make his toenails smart; pepper to make him think of drownings at sea; anchovies to make his stomach swoop at the thought of falling from a great height.
Later, he realised that more people than Gino had noticed that he didn’t eat. Belinda, for certain, probably Cecile, maybe someone like Mara, Stuart or Greg. Your misery is everyone’s else’s here. Just look at the way Michael is making everyone suffer.
Gino had seen him hovering by the gangway that night and smiled, flicking a wave of silvered hair out of his eyes.
It was impossible for Romero not to notice the way his beard petered into silver as it covered his neck, the way his green eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, the way his shoulders filled his white chef’s coat making him think of the boulders on the shoreline that never wavered, even with the sea crashing against them all day and all night.
It added an extra layer of humiliation, to be reduced to wreckage by this thing that squatted inside him in front of a man like this.
Come here. He took Romero by the shoulders and guided him through the serving hatch and into his kitchen to deposit him in front of three small chopping boards, each with a pile of fresh herbs lying on it.
Romero wanted to gag, so close to these fresh things all spewing scents like some primordial soup. The monster started to agitate.
Gino pointed to the one on the left.
Crush the leaves between your fingers and tell me what your senses say.
Romero took a coriander leaf and squeezed it.
He put a finger to the tip of his tongue and tried not to shudder.
He could just about bear the assault of the smells – he was used to blocking his sinuses and leaving his lips a little agape to breathe – but to taste this thing the chef had given him made him want to cry.
He shut his eyes to stop the tears spilling over his eyelashes.
He would have to break his pledge and leave, no matter Belinda’s dire warnings.
The monster was pounding at him, roaring to get away, there was no way he could bear this.
What do you taste?
There had been nothing else to say. The monster raved in his belly but a small voice, a surprising voice of mercy that he now recognises as the Crow’s whispered, Just tell him the truth.
Jealousy, he said, and opened his eyes.