Chapter 1 The Apple and the Pearl #35
Romero goes back to his arancini. He puts a jumper over his lap so he doesn’t spill crumbs on his tights and annoy Alina. He turns off the hot lightbulbs that ring his mirror, puts his feet up on the table and takes the other half of the first arancino between his forefinger and his thumb.
He spent his second month going straight to the dining car after the show to help Gino serve and clear up.
In that time he learned he could stand to eat carrots if they were braised in olive oil, potatoes only if they were roasted, raw green peppers, cous cous, lamb’s lettuce, courgettes if they were steamed, lentils any and all ways, cream, mozzarella, sunflower seeds, chickpeas if they were whizzed into houmous, and salmon baked in the oven with a drizzle of lemon.
Gino prodded him gently in the stomach one night.
You’re making me very happy, he’d said. You’re getting fatter by the day.
A bolt of electricity passed between them.
It was late, past midnight, and the dining car was empty, lurching with the Grub as it passed on wherever it was going.
Romero drew back, but something, perhaps his contented bellyful of dhal, made him bold.
He put out his hand and laid it on Gino’s chest. No spark now, just a warmth that spread from his fingertips and through Gino’s shirt and onto his skin, and he’d felt Gino melting towards him like butter on a slow, tender flame.
I’m too old for you, Gino had whispered, his voice thick and rough, but he had not pulled away. His beard was prickly on the soft skin of Romero’s neck. I could be your father. Go and find a boy your own age.
Romero takes the last bite of the first arancino and chews it slowly, deliberately, as he places the napkin back over the plate.
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.
The Crow’s solo is ending, the last, plaintive note of the oboe fading away into that curious silence that ends each act of this show, and Romero imagines Josh standing with his back to the audience as the curtain falls, back arched and arms raised as if calling rain.
Slowly, deliberately, Romero licks each fingertip clean of the film of oil that coats his skin and lets a couple of stray crumbs dissolve on his tongue.
* * *
The orchestra wait for Jean to take her oboe from her lips, take a breath and swallow, then they all stand up as silently as they can and leave the pit, not daring, never daring to look back into the auditorium.
They go straight to their green room where Wilf, Steve and Jasper tuck into their usual first interval snack – a bag of salted nuts each.
Sandra the clarinet goes to the loo where she uses the last of the toilet paper, and she means to replace it but forgets as soon as she’s finished washing her hands.
Max the second violin and David the new harp are talking about the football, Max swiping through his phone and reading out recent scores.
Jean sits near them, silently sipping coffee from a Thermos.
Her phone buzzes and a small smile creeps onto her lips as she picks it up.
Lance strokes Yolanda’s black-silk-clad thigh but he is thinking about the smooth skin on Mara’s back as she stood in the corridor in the Queen costume, waiting for Alina to fasten the hooks.
Michael sits tuning his violin, staring into space as he plucks at his E string.
Henry sits just behind him, pretending to read something on his phone.
A knock on the green room door and AJ opens it, standing awkwardly on the threshold.
‘May I speak with Henry a moment please?’ He smiles. ‘Nothing at all bad, I promise.’
Belinda drops her handbag on the floor and presses her temples. After a moment’s hesitation, she locks the door. Sitting at her desk is a wizened old woman wearing a bin bag covered with tiny black sequins.
‘Thank you for coming.’ Belinda says. ‘We have some personnel issues to deal with this evening.’ She pulls her notepad out of her handbag and flicks to her to-do list.
‘All right, I’ve got here: Is the new LX girl suitable; can we think of something to help the new dancer settle in; we have to do something about the changeling; can Anita dance the Crow; can Bella dance the White Princess; Wilf the cellist needs another formal warning about the booze; and last of all – what did you do with Michael’s heart? ’
Upstairs on the dancers’ floor, Milly and Alina are in the women’s dressing room wrestling with Jessica’s Pearl waltz costume which has spontaneously lost a sleeve.
‘I didn’t do anything!’ Jessica looks stricken, standing with one pointe shoe on and one bare foot, her arm stretched high above her head. ‘I promise, I just put it on as usual!’
‘Fuck fuck fuck,’ whispers Alina through a mouthful of safety pins as she and Milly sew the sleeve back on, their needles diving through the seam like kingfishers in a brook. ‘This fucking show, these fucking tricks, I’m fucking sick of them.’
On stage the crew are moving scenery. Danny mutters to Kavi through his headset as he guides the seascape backdrop down onto the stage, painted blue and green with waves and clouds and small silvery flashes of what could be fish.
‘Your hands all right?’ Danny asks as the backdrop shudders a little. He winces and steps further out of the way, shielding his eyes from the lights as he squints up into the flies.
‘Fine, mate. The rope’s just a bit sticky.’
‘Well, mind my head please.’
Zach crouches by an upstage lighting boom, pointing at something while Lara leans over him and frowns.
‘Is there any way to predict how the stage will be different tomorrow?’ Lara is saying. ‘Like, does the Grit have a pattern or anything?’
In a little pool of light downstage, just in front of the curtain, Zuleika practices the tricky pirouettes in her solo.
Cecile watches her from the darkness of the wings.
She checks her watch: eight twenty-six. Zuleika does the turn perfectly once, twice, three times to be sure, pulls her legwarmers down her thighs, balls them up and tosses them into the wings.
Mackie sits on a bench hunched over his laptop. Shirley presses a strip of masking tape onto the props table and labels it King – Crown. Charlie presses his little red button, leans towards his microphone and says, ‘Act two beginners please, act two beginners.’
* * *
As the first, shy notes of the violins creep over the tannoy, Cecile sits in her office with two sheets of paper on the desk in front of her – the casting of the performance that is currently underway and a blank version for tomorrow night.
She’s done most of the corps de ballet and she’s working her way up to the soloists and principals, but she’s distracted, keeps checking the silent screen of her phone, glancing over her shoulder, seeking out her reflection in the square of mirror above the desk.
She pulls the paper towards her and stares at it.
She needs to finish this casting before the end of the act.
She stretches, hands clasped above her head, and tries to get comfortable in her chair.
It’s an ergonomic office chair, ordered in one of Belinda’s fits of health and safety paranoia, but she’s never sat on anything so uncomfortable in all her life.
The only thing she likes about it is the way you can swivel.
She can turn away from these blasted blank sheets of paper with a single touch of her toes on the floor.
On stage, the surge of the overture subsides, the clarinets begin their looping, swooping song for the Princess’s dance and Cecile picks up her pencil to write Zuleika’s name in the column next to the words Blue Princess.
She puts Greg’s name next to the word King and Romero’s next to Blue Suitor.
She writes Harriet and Benji in for the Red Princess and Suitor, to give them another shot to get comfortable in the roles, and gives Stephanie the Queen.
She puts Josh’s name next to the White Suitor, even though it’s not his best role, which means it should be Sarah for the White Princess.
That leaves Mara for the Crow, and she’ll put Stuart in one of the gaps in the hunting dance, just to keep him humble.
There are no stars on The Apple and the Pearl.
She flings the pen down and glances at her watch.
Eight thirty-six. Not much time left now.
This morning Gino had cheerfully told AJ, Phone and internet signal should you want it!
while he slid her customary espresso across the counter without making eye contact.
She would quite like to make it up with Gino and sometimes she rehearses what she might say in apology.
I should not have tried to interfere with your menu choices, of course our dancers should be well nourished, forgive me.
Or, I was just trying to make my mark on the company, trying to be in charge by doing what the ballet mistresses of my youth had done.
Or, Please understand, Gino, when I was performing I ate two apples and drank four coffees a day and no one cared about my health at all.
But with every passing pledge it feels more and more impossible.
She no longer cares if the dancers of The Apple and the Pearl are fat or thin – and she’s seen that the audience do not care either – but now she’s walled up behind her own stern mask and Gino exclusively communicates with her through AJ, though he still knows to buy that Sancerre she loves.