Chapter 1 The Apple and the Pearl #39
In his lighter moments, on days where he has simply been ignored rather than shouted or sneered at, Luke can allow that the company’s cumulative grief might have something to do with the way he’s struggling.
To lose a friend so suddenly, so finally, without warning or goodbye and have him replaced four days later with a spotty kid on his first job out of ballet school isn’t a recipe for a warm welcome.
Still, he feels a strange kinship with the disappeared Alex.
A bond opposite to that of pledge-mates, perhaps: its inversion.
He threw the dancewear into a bin outside Crewe train station on his first day off, but that didn’t help him fill the blank space Alex left behind.
Here Luke stands in a brocade-and-sequin jacket impregnated with Alex’s sweat, he sleeps in a cabin that still now sometimes smells a little like a sandalwood aftershave he must have used, he dances all his roles in the corps de ballet.
Sometimes, at night when he’s lying in his cabin waiting for the curfew bell, he asks the imagined Alex questions.
Was it you who broke the hinge on the cupboard in our cabin?
Did you also find that bit of the orchard dance with the entrelassé landing in arabesque difficult?
Did you leave behind a girlfriend or a boyfriend?
In the moments before they took you, did you regret it, working here on this show?
He feels the heat of a gaze on him and looks around, worried Cecile’s down in the wings already, wanting to hiss one last correction he won’t be able to remember just before he goes on stage, but Cecile’s not there.
Instead, he catches the eye of Derek the follow spot operator and turns away very quickly.
Fuck. He knows Derek’s seen him, he always does.
Having to talk to Derek would make a very shit day even worse.
Zach and the new LX girl start to climb up the ladder to the lighting box.
Luke knows he has to move quickly or he’s going to get caught, perhaps trying to get into the other wing or just out into the corridor, but then he feels a tap on his elbow and a scream bubbles up in his throat. He’s trapped.
‘All right mate,’ Derek says, his hot breath uncomfortably close. He smells of engine oil and grease from the bottom of the pan and Luke leans away from him, trying to be as far away from him as he can without moving his feet.
‘Happy All Souls’. You got any plans?’ Derek laughs in that girlish, giggling way of his that makes Luke’s stomach curdle.
‘No, no plans.’ He smiles weakly. ‘Ha ha.’
The first time Derek cornered him in the wings like this it was his first week.
Standing in the wings trying to learn all the men’s parts in the wedding dance, Derek came too close and stood next to him, the diesel-and-chip-fat smell of him pungent in Luke’s nostrils.
That first time, he gave him a warm smile because he was desperately lonely and he wanted to show he was friendly.
So what’ll do it for you? Derek had whispered with a suggestive leer and for a long moment Luke hadn’t had a clue what he was talking about.
Excuse me? He’d looked politely away from the stage although he really didn’t want to – he didn’t want to be caught talking in the wings.
His teachers at ballet school had been firm in saying that was Not Allowed, but there he was, stuck between the rules of theatre and the rules of life, a place he’s not been able to escape since.
Are you for todgers or tits? Derek had said gleefully and Danny, passing with an armful of act one props, rolled his eyes and said, Give him a chance, Derek mate, he’s not been here five minutes.
Luke had felt his face burn in the dark.
Both, I suppose, he’d said quietly, feeling the floor swoop beneath him.
Why did he say that? What on earth possessed him?
But Derek had nodded. Respect that, he’d said.
Backing both horses, fair enough, and smirked before he moved away.
And as Luke watched him go he realised Derek had not expected him to answer.
The idea had been humiliation and by answering – truthfully – Luke had willingly lain on the ground in front of a predator with belly and throat exposed.
Not that Derek was much of a predator. By the end of the week, Luke had realised Derek was one of those scavengers who goes around squeezing shame and humiliation and resentment out of people and lapping at the puddles.
By the end of the next week he’d realised everyone else on The Apple and the Pearl already knew that and not a single one of them had warned him.
By now, a month later, he’s understood that the rest of the cast and crew see something similar in him and Derek, something kindred in their lonely awkwardness.
A part of him was offended and another part – perhaps a bigger part – wonders if they are all right and he should just give in to it.
But knowing you might one day become irredeemable isn’t the same thing as being already irredeemable so he still tries to avoid Derek.
Except now it is too late. He is stuck until he can escape on to the stage at the beginning of the hunting dance.
Derek nods up the ladder to where Zach had disappeared.
‘He’ll be wearing deodorant tomorrow,’ Derek mutters, with a meaningful look at Luke as though they’re conspirators. ‘Deferring to the sensibilities of the fairer sex, as if I haven’t had to put up with his stink all these years.’
Luke is saved from having to dredge up some kind of response to this by the dimming of the house lights.
He hears AJ’s baton rap three times on the lectern and there is a hush.
Even Derek is quiet. This is Luke’s favourite part of the show, this suspension before each act when everything in all the worlds that the Grub and Grit straddle is suspended in the delicate web held between AJ’s upturned palms, Charlie’s red light and all the molecules of salt in all the pockets.
Charlie says, ‘Tabs,’ and there is a swish of curtains as the violins begin.
Derek moves closer. ‘Had a good show?’
‘Ok, thanks.’ He should just walk away, he knows it; it’s what everyone else does.
Derek leans in further and Luke sees that it’s pointless to try to avoid it: this is just a penance he must perform for some unknown sin. Derek’s got something to say and he’s decided he’s going to say it to him.
‘You ever wondered how we manage to have a full house every night?’ Derek asks.
He’s got his hands thrust deep into his pockets and is swinging back and forth on his heels.
‘You’d think every elf, goblin, imp and sprite from John o’ Groats to Land’s End has seen this bloody show by now, wouldn’t you? ’
‘I guess so.’ He’s found the best thing to do is just to let him talk, give him no encouragement and wait for it to end.
‘It’s just logic.’
Luke shrugs, despite himself. ‘What about this show is logical?’
‘It makes sense to me.’ Derek lowers his voice and Luke stares at the stage where Harriet is stepping into the arabesque penchée that all the girls dread.
Derek’s whisper merges with the violins and Luke has the strange sensation of his mind splitting, like one half of him can hear Derek and the music and the other half is watching Harriet as she wobbles a little.
‘Every tree, every rock, every pool of peat bog, every piddling little hill has at least a sprite, maybe even a whole Fae court attached to it. How many can the Grit seat – four, maybe five hundred? Tiny, really. And you know what, once upon a time you’d know the names of every single one of them like they was your family.
Every single thing in the world would have had its name and its soul, and when they came here to watch the show the dancers and the musicians and the dogsbody likes of us would have said Hello, how are you, hope you enjoy the show. A kind of worship, you know?’
It takes Luke a moment to register that Derek has finished, and two halves of him slam together. He blinks and glances at Derek who is rocking on the soles of his boots in triumph, like he’s figured something out of extreme importance.
‘Right,’ says Luke, feeling a buzzing behind his right ear that is probably another symptom of whatever virus is multiplying in his sinuses. He has no idea what on earth to say to Derek, he never does. ‘Right.’
But he is saved by the sight of Cecile in the wings, fingering the beads of pink salt at her neck, watching Harriet on stage.
She glances at them, her mouth tightens at the sight of Derek – or maybe him, he can’t be sure – then looks back at the stage.
At least she’s seen me, Luke thinks. He tries not to cower. At least she’s registered I’m trying.
Derek follows Luke’s gaze.
‘Ah, I see. The queen demands silence, I get it. Don’t want to land you in it, mate.’ Derek mimes drawing a zip across his lips and Luke wishes there really were jagged bits of metal he could shove into his mouth to shut him up. Then he is conspicuously, blessedly silent.
Harriet finishes her sequence of fouettés on one bended knee, her arms open in supplication to the flies, and then she is surrounded by Jessica, Bella and Anita wearing the green dresses of the orchard dance.
They each smile brightly at her and Luke can see their smiles are genuinely delighted, their eyes full of encouragement, and Harriet looks back at each of them in turn, tearfully grateful.
Luke swallows a cough that has become a lump of disappointment in his throat.
The Apple and the Pearl is not a harsh, dog-eat-dog world.
There is kindness and support and laughter here. Just not for him.