Chapter 1 The Apple and the Pearl #34
The Suitors’ first dance is solemn and proud.
Swathed in those carefully draped cloaks, they parade slowly around the Princesses.
Benji’s doing well, his steps perfectly in time with the music and matched to him and Stuart.
He no longer looks nervous; he looks like a prince.
Romero can sense a couple of particles of that charismatic glitter alight on his skin.
The three Suitors stop at the back of the stage, poised in perfect stillness gazing out across the auditorium.
He remembers the first time he’d looked out there, on his second week with the company.
He’d been a Page escorting the Blue Princess and as he took Stephanie’s warm hand and stepped into the light, the force of the fair folk’s combined glamour hit him like a brick wall.
He’d stumbled and Stephanie had gripped his hand to keep him upright.
You’re okay, just push through it and don’t look too closely, it happens to everyone, she’d whispered as they paraded around the stage, her regal smile fixed as Romero pulled himself together.
Now, as Josh cavorts around them, Romero looks determinedly at the gilding of the balcony and counts the round bobbles there to distract himself.
He feels Benji’s shoulder stiffen under his hand and he gives him a squeeze, to reassure him, to keep his attention here on stage and not out there in the horrors of the auditorium.
He thinks of the lunch Gino made him, still lining his belly.
Avocado, for the feeling of stretching arms and legs in bed on a lazy morning when you don’t have to set an alarm, mashed with sun-dried tomatoes for thirst slaked, and basil for a message from a long-lost friend.
All spread on a slice of brown toast, for the feeling of unexpectedly hearing the first few bars of a favourite song.
He thinks of the two and a half arancini waiting for him in the dressing room.
He thinks of Gino, chopping and frying and stirring and mashing, alone in the Grub, pledged to keep each one of them here fed and watered until their own pledges are over.
The violins start. Greg and Mara lead the court in a slow, mournful dance around the three still Suitors in the middle of the stage and the danger is past. Now he lets himself watch the other dancers moving past him.
Harriet is doing well in her first show as the Red Princess, confident and calm.
The scarlet of the costume suits her. Luke, the newest pledge, fluffs a lift, tripping over his own feet and Romero hears Zuleika the Blue Princess hiss Sort yourself out.
Another crime on Luke’s rap sheet, which, judging by the way Cecile shrieked at him this morning in rehearsals, is getting longer and longer.
Now he’s pissed Zuleika off and she’ll be tense and nervous – even more tense and nervous than usual – for their pas de deux.
The court exits stage right and the three Suitors pause in a tableau of low arabesques, still joined hand to shoulder, until Josh banishes them with a flick of his cape.
Romero follows Stuart into the stage right wing as Josh walks to the back of the stage and breathes deep into his belly.
The first solo is a killer on the lungs, they all say.
The wing is busy with Shirley buzzing around Greg and Mara to remove their crowns for safekeeping, Danny hauling the second act set into place and Anita marking the Crow’s solo with one eye on Josh to prepare for her first show in the role, whenever Cecile decides she’s ready.
Romero tries not to be jealous of her, getting to dance the Crow before him.
She’ll be good at it. She’s got a strong jump.
Zuleika grabs Luke by the sequinned jacket and pulls him away from the stage.
‘That was not fucking acceptable,’ Zuleika whispers as Josh begins his solo, standing on her toes to bring her face close to his. Luke is looking stricken, opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish. ‘You were late, you were off the music and you didn’t know what you were doing.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Luke says, his chin wobbling as if he is trying to hold back tears. ‘I won’t do it again.’
‘I know you fucking won’t.’ Zuleika lets go of his jacket with a little shove, opens the door to the corridor with a graceful, silent fury.
Romero slips behind her, already easing the itchy jacket off his shoulders.
He doesn’t want to get involved. Let her burn off a bit of steam, let her feel above someone. That should calm her down.
In the dressing room, Romero hangs up his jacket and sinks into his chair.
He stretches to one side, then the other.
The second act is the big one for the Blue Suitor but he’s ready.
He isn’t nervous, but he’ll make a little show of warming up and practising a few turns and lifts with Zuleika when Charlie announces act two beginners.
She likes to get worked up, Romero’s realised, after being her main partner for a few months now.
It masks her nerves. And she’s been even more on edge since Michael’s girlfriend left him and the violin solo in the Blue pas de deux has turned into a dirge that sends the Grit’s tannoys wild with weeping and makes everyone quiet and glum.
What do you think of, when Michael gets going during our pas de deux?
she asked him a couple of months ago, when it became apparent that Michael’s grief wasn’t going anywhere.
He likes Zuleika, but he wasn’t about to tell anyone, not even Gino, what memories really force themselves into his mind – his father’s fists, his mother’s screams, the fat, groping hands of his uncle under the duvet – so he made something up.
My mum’s funeral, he’d said with a sad little smile, hoping this conversation was going to be short.
What about you? he’d asked and her face had darkened in a way that made him think he was going to regret asking. The week my dad came out of prison.
You’re his pledge-mate, aren’t you? Greg had said to Romero the week after this tannoy business started.
Can’t you have a word, try to cheer him up a bit?
And Romero had genuinely tried, sitting with him for breakfast, bringing him tasty little tidbits from Gino, chatting about nothing as they walked through the pleasant summer landscapes the Grub stopped in, but three months ago Romero had gone to Belinda to renew his pledge and Michael had not been there.
Isn’t Michael coming? He’d asked, stupidly, and Belinda’s lips had tightened.
I’m dealing with it, Romero. I appreciate you’ve been trying to help.
Josh, a week later during the second interval as he stepped in the puddle under the tannoy in his socks: I honestly believe Michael’s life would be better in a fairy court.
Mate! Stuart had said at the same time as Greg tutted Josh! Josh had thrown his wet socks on the floor defensively. I’m not saying anything you’re not thinking.
Behind him, Luke clears his throat. Romero winces. He hopes the new boy isn’t going to start confiding all his woes, which must be legion, the way Cecile treats him. If he can’t help Michael then there’s not going to be much he can do for Luke.
‘It’s hard to learn all the choreography at once,’ Luke says with an embarrassed little smile. ‘But at least the music is nice.’
Romero makes a little hmmm noise and watches Luke peel off the tights from the page costume in the mirror.
He suppresses a twinge of guilt. He can’t be bothered right now to play agony uncle, let-me-give-you-a-pep-talk mentor.
Right now he’s eating, and besides, no one did that for him.
Greg and Stuart had been pleasant but fair enough, they were pleasant guys, Josh had been outright hostile and Charlotte had stood in the wings and laughed while Alina sewed him into the hunting dance costume he was too skinny for.
He had certainly not mourned Charlotte when she was taken, though of course you’re not supposed to say that.
Romero watches as Luke picks up his phone and scrolls aimlessly, the guilty feeling spreading across his skin.
Zuleika didn’t need to speak to him like that.
The thing is, everyone’s still missing Alex, who had been genuinely popular among the cast and crew.
Tall, good-looking, a good partner to dance with, a founding member of the Saturday night poker sessions – which are on indefinite hiatus now – replaced with someone shy and spotty, straight out of school.
Where the fuck did Belinda find this kid?
Josh had grumbled at the end of his first week.
She couldn’t come up with someone who can learn the choreography?
And Greg had touched Josh’s arm as a gentle rebuke but no one had said anything in Luke’s defence.
Romero looks at the plate of arancini. Now they’re going to taste like the feeling of wanting to do the right thing but not being sure what that is.
A nightmare scenario: because everyone ignores him, Luke is snatched in the next week or so, which casts a pall of guilt over the whole company.
Cecile will scream at Belinda, You didn’t let me have a proper audition!
What do you expect? Mara will tell Josh that he’s a rotten excuse for a human being.
And Romero will not be able to eat arancini again.
He turns around. ‘You’re missing a little spacing trick in the wedding dance. You know the bit before the chassé arabesque?’ Luke nods. ‘You need to travel the two assemblés before that so you’re in front of the King by the time you turn downstage.’
So small, such a piece of nothing, but Luke looks pathetically grateful. ‘Thanks. I know exactly what you mean. I’ll do that tonight.’