Chapter 1 The Apple and the Pearl #42
The music for the White Princess’s solo starts and Luke joins the trot of dancers heading out of the dressing rooms and down the two flights of stairs to the stage.
Sequins and silver and gold everywhere, spangled headdresses for the girls and itchy, sparkling jackets for the boys.
Pointe shoes tap on the concrete and the wooden stage floor as everyone crowds into the stage right wing, ready for the finale of the show.
He is relieved to see Derek’s boots disappearing up the ladder above Charlie at the prompt desk as he arrives in the wings.
Thank fuck for that. Luke is gloomy now.
He stifles a cough, swallows, feels his throat a little constricted by the beginning of swelling in his tonsils.
Bollocks, he’s definitely getting ill. Maybe that’s what he’ll say in the unlikely event of anyone asking after him tonight.
He’ll give a wry smile and shake his head.
Think I’m coming down with something. Don’t want to pass it around.
There is an air of relief in the wings. The bright smiles are beginning to sag and the mascara starting to smudge.
One more push and we’re through until tomorrow, say the wriggles inside the too-tight costumes.
Looking forward to my dinner, say the rolled necks and massaged shoulders.
There they gather, all the dancers of The Apple and the Pearl, everyone watching Stephanie as she steps into arabesque and the last few notes echo around the Grit.
The finale is no one’s favourite part of the show, except in the sense that it’s all almost over, with showers, hot food, cold beers and soft beds awaiting them all in the Grub.
The music is brassy, a little bit vaudeville or Hollywood musical for most people’s tastes, but there’s an undeniable sense of joy that comes from the pit as the tune goes pom-pa, pom-pa, pom-pa-POM and they all surge onto stage together, sequins spangling, catching the light, letting all that trombone blast through them as they surge onto the stage to surround Stephanie, kneeling centre stage with her eyes on the floor.
Romero’s advice: Travel the assemblés and then you’ll be right in front of the King mingles with Cecile’s voice in his ear: Keep the spacing, hold the coupé for a count of two and watch Ritchie if you’re too stupid to count for yourself.
Watch the line of the chin, you’re not a woodpecker.
He follows the circle as it swirls, then spins out to the stage left corner – Feet tight in the chainé, Luke!
I could get a bus through there! – and throws his arms out in what he hopes is a nobly celebratory manner towards where Greg and Mara stand at the back of the stage.
He watches the wave of bows and curtseys as Greg sweeps Mara past everyone, trying not to dip his own head too early or too late – This is the climax of the show, I am begging you not to fuck it up.
Snot drips out of his nostril and into the groove under his nose and resignedly he stands, arms aloft, waiting for it to curl over his top lip and into his mouth.
So undignified but that’s ballet for you.
A shiny parcel bedecked with ribbons and gilt with nothing but humiliation and pain inside.
He is facing upstage and glad of it, because the temptation to stare into the stalls for another glimpse of that creature is strong, but his fear of Cecile shouting at him if he faces the wrong way is stronger.
This must be what Belinda warns you about.
Stronger and stranger than you can imagine.
Do not think you will be able to dally, you will not.
The Princesses are dancing in unison with their Suitors and this is it, they are wed and they will live happily ever after, and there are only a couple more steps to be danced tonight and he performs them, chassé pas de bouree, glissade – Sharp second foot please, I don’t care if it’s late in the evening, I don’t want to see sloppy footwork – and then he melts towards the wings with all the rest of the dancers, but before he goes he contrives to turn to face downstage towards the audience for one last glimpse – and he will defend himself if he must, but he has to see that creature again – but it’s too late, he is already in the wings and the creature is out of his sight, on the other side of the proscenium.
His disappointment is a warning to him. That creature is not his grandmother, it’s a fairy creature from another world.
And it’s not like he particularly wants to see his grandmother again, but the hollow feeling in his stomach is another warning. He must be lonely if he’s missing her.
The timpani starts for the Crow’s solo and Luke stands in the wings, shoulder to shoulder with the full cast of The Apple and the Pearl and all their accompanying sweat.
Benji is sitting on the floor behind Charlie, looking slightly green, Romero grinning and rubbing his shoulders.
Harriet stands in a gaggle of silent well-wishers in sparkly silver dresses, and from here they look like they’re in a kind of cult doing some type of spiritual healing, laying their hands on her to absorb some of the adrenaline coursing through her.
That’s an unkind thought. They’re just congratulating her for a good show, just telling her she did well.
So easy to be a dick, or at least have dickish thoughts, when you’re on the outside of things.
Luke would like to say something to Harriet or Benji, or even both of them, Well done or Hope you had a good show or I thought you did great, but he has no idea if it would be welcome.
Is it too familiar, an assumption of some kind of connection they definitely don’t have?
Or is it rude not to say anything at all?
Does everyone know these kind of things, or do they just bet and win more often than not?
Is everyone just pretending? He imagines a stage full of wooden marionettes, their puppet masters and mistresses sending out their stiff simulacra into the world to keep their own meat safe.
Only idiots like him and Derek didn’t get the memo, wandering about the world all soft and squirmy and squishable.
It’s legerdemain, mate, he imagines Derek drawling, wiggling his fingers and waggling his eyebrows like a drunken pier-end conjurer. It’s all an illusion.
The discordant cello and clarinet fall off and now it’s just the timpani, beating out the last notes as Josh walks slowly upstage, the cloak dangling from his cruel, broad shoulders.
Luke licks away a drip of mucus from his nose that’s half the impending cold and half the impending tears.
Not yet, he tells himself. Get back to the Grub first.
Charlie says ‘tabs’ and from the corner of his eye, Luke can see the curtain start to fall, the drum slowing as it descends along the line of the proscenium.
When it hits the stage it makes a clinking sound, bounces a little, and a moment later Luke surges with the rest of the dancers onto the stage and stands on the end of the back row, back straight, eyes determinedly on the swirl of Anita’s hair directly in front of him.
The voice of his grandmother in his ear, I know you’ll peek, Lukey, you’re a naughty little boy at heart and you never do as you’re told.
Charlie’s voice from the wings, ‘Tabs up’, the creaking of the fly ropes and the scarlet tide of the curtain begins to lift.
* * *
There is no applause, there never is, but still, some of the company miss it. Don’t you think a theatre needs that sound? Evelyn used to say to Michael as they lay in his bed together. Don’t you think the very bricks are soothed by it?
The dancers are arranged on stage with the King, Queen and Crow in the front line in the centre.
On either side stand the three Princesses and their Suitors, slick hand in slick hand.
Behind them are two rows of corps de ballet, a neatly poised back foot for the women, a dignified bent knee for the men.
In the flies, Kavi holds on to the ropes that haul the curtain.
It won’t fall, the tension is perfectly weighted, but he likes to keep his fingers touching the rough weave of the hemp so he can feel every quiver.
Mackie stands in the stage left wing with an iron rod warming in his palm – an old tip from Juliet, just in case.
In the stage right wing, Cecile, fingering her necklace of polished pink rock salt, plans her adage exercise for tomorrow’s ballet class as she watches Greg take his bow.
Belinda stands next to her, rubbing the salt in her pocket between her forefinger and thumb, leaning to one side to peer into the auditorium.
In the pit, AJ stands still on his podium with his baton resting on the music stand and his hands clasped together.
His orchestra are on their feet before him, heads bowed towards the scores on their music stands so they don’t have to look out into the auditorium and see what’s coming next.
All except Henry, who looks out into the auditorium as he does every curtain call, desperately trying to catch the eye of something, anything that will take him away.