Chapter 1 The Apple and the Pearl #47
Just over a month ago, the night of his first show as the Crow, Stuart had put a hand on his shoulder as he returned his plate to the kitchen hatch. Before you get stuck into your truffles, he’d said, there’s something I need to show you.
He’d taken a tray from the serving hatch bearing one of those old-fashioned embossed silver cloche things over a plate. Next to it were two shot glasses filled with a clear, oily liquid that barely swayed as Stuart pulled it off the counter.
Follow me, Stuart said, and Josh followed him out of the dining car and along the corridor, leaving the noise behind.
They walked through eleven carriages of cabins and bathrooms, Stuart confident, with the tray secure in his hands and Josh confused, stumbling behind him, a dread mounting behind his breastbone that Stuart knew something about Ritchie and he felt panic rising.
Stuart and Greg were pledge-mates. Maybe there was some honour thing involved, some vow to punish your pledge-mates’ cheating partners.
They reached the caboose and Stuart wedged the tray between the wall and his hip while he wrestled with the doorknob.
Mate, Josh had said, trying to keep a lightness in his voice though he was starting to panic. What the fuck are we doing?
Did Greg not tell you? Stuart bent to put the tray on the floor of the caboose and moved it across the flaked-paint floorboards with one trainer-clad toe.
Josh shook his head, swallowing. The sly bastard, Josh thought. Can there really be anything, anything at all that teddy bear’s kept from me?
Good man. It’s supposed to be a secret, but you know what things are like.
Who is this for?
Stuart grinned. The Crow.
There was a silence. Josh stared at the tray on the ground. He wasn’t sure what to say.
Is that a metaphor?
Stuart burst into laughter. You don’t need to take it so seriously! Gino gives you the tray, you bring it here, you go to bed with your boy safe in the knowledge you’ve kept the spooky creatures at bay for another day.
Do I have to pick up the tray too? he’d asked, stupidly, wondering what the penalty might be if he overslept, if he forgot, if it was simply a freezing morning and he couldn’t face wandering the cabins in his pyjamas.
Nah. Belinda sorts that out. Josh thought of the times when he’d woken up early and left his cabin to go to the loo to see Belinda walking briskly through snow or slanted golden light with an empty tray crooked in her elbow.
Is it—dangerous out here? Like, has anyone ever actually met the Crow? Josh was more than familiar with the Crow’s keening after a snatching, but the idea of ascending to a new level of weird and having a tête-a-tête with the creature now that he was dancing this role was making him feel sick.
Stuart had shrugged. I haven’t but Mara’s good mates with it, apparently. Shouldn’t say you’re in danger. Crow probably thinks you’re a grumpy old git.
Stuart reached down, picked up one of the shot glasses and bent over the railing.
He poured the shot onto the dark ground and Josh stood back as if he were waiting for something to catch alight.
I’d not worry about it if I were you. You know what it’s like.
Weird shit comes looking for you, you don’t need to worry about finding it.
But weird shit has never really come looking for Josh.
He’s not like Romero, with that curl to his upper lip that suggests he can smell the supernatural on you like a dog or a deer, or Michael the violinist with that trick with the mushrooms he pulled this morning.
Seven years he’s been here, seven years of standing on stage while whatever beings have turned up in the audience cavort, seven years of rehearsals and classes and petty rules and pettier rebellions and never a whiff of anything interesting, never the slightest hint that the Crow sees him as anything but another boring body to do the show and spit out when the mortal knees start to creak and groan.
He opens the door to the caboose and places the tray on the rough floorboards.
He shivers. The night is foggy, illuminated only by the floodlights set up so the crew can pack the front carriages of the Grub with the set and the lights and costumes, all the tools of this oldest of trades.
Muffled voices swear as the doors to the cargo carriages of the Grub whine and clank.
He takes one of the shot glasses and leans over the railing to pour the viscous liquid onto the wet leaves, leaving the other by the plate like Stuart told him. He almost thinks he can hear a slurp.
Despite the damp chill that seeps through the wool of his jumper, Josh props his elbows over the railings and leans out into the night.
He waits, listening to Danny, Zach and Mackie calling to each other through the fog, trying to sense something in the night, something other than his own leaden dread of going back to his cabin to lie next to Greg’s lumpen body and wake up to the faint yellow stain on his pillowcase.
He can see the shape of dark trees against the shadows cast by the floodlights and he thinks about how long it’s taken those things to get so big and gnarled and deep.
Who cast their seeds into this enchanted mud and when?
One to grow, Josh thinks, and he remembers his grandfather scattering breadcrumbs all around the gate to his plot.
They remember those who do them a kind turn, and they tell their friends.
You don’t want a crow for an enemy, boy.
What would his grandfather say if he could watch the show?
He would not be very interested, probably, or would not show it.
For a moment Josh fantasises about going back to his cabin and getting out his phone to order seeds online, to have boxes of courgettes and leeks and carrots and parsnips delivered to his parents’ house to sleep in the darkness of their shed until he’s done with this ballet stuff.
Done with this show that pickles you inside a timeless, placeless world even while your joints fall apart.
Done with Greg and all his gentle, suffocating love.
And done with showers slick with other people’s soap. Then he’ll go, and he’ll grow again.
Beside him, the Crow settles on the floor of the caboose, right by the tray. Josh feels hot and cold needles prickling on his skin. It ignores him, pecks at the sweet potato on the tray and dips its beak into the shot glass.
He would like to say something, but his tongue is heavy and his mouth dry.
He has the feeling it’s waiting for him to do something – leave, perhaps – but this is the first, and perhaps last, time he has ever seen this creature so he needs to grab this chance.
He puts both hands in the pockets of his jeans, finds a couple of hair grips and an elastic band.
Josh puts one of the hair grips onto the tray and the Crow gives it a couple of cursory pecks.
It cocks its head and looks up at him, black eyes gleaming in the lantern light. Now it’s listening.
‘If I told him, do you think he’d forgive me?’
The Crow is silent.
‘I just don’t think I can do this anymore.’ Josh rubs his fingertips over the worn denim on the inside of his pockets. ‘I mean, I made a pledge to you, not to him.’
The Crow goes back to its dinner. Josh knows he is dismissed.
He pushes himself off the railings and something twinges in the back of his ankle.
He circles it a little to release the gunk.
White Suitor tomorrow, and as he opens the door to the caboose the first steps of the solo come to his unwilling feet and he starts to mark them as he steps into the corridor and pulls the door shut, leaving the Crow to its feast.
He wanders past the cabins, moving through each carriage in turn, until he gets to his own cabin door.
Inside, the bed is creaking as Greg moves around, piling up pillows around his knees to get comfortable.
Josh puts his fingers on the door handle but he cannot make himself go in.
He shuts his eyes, thinking of all the other things he could do instead.
Go back to the dining car and get another beer.
Pretend he’s got something to tell Romero or Benji.
Knock on Stuart’s door and ask to borrow something.
Go to Ritchie’s cabin and lurk outside, hoping he’s not planning to join in Mackie’s party.
Lock himself in the bathroom, stare at the smudges of black make-up he couldn’t get off his face.
Go for a walk among the graves. Try and make it to whatever place Belinda warns you that you don’t want to go to.
He leans his forehead on the door and listens to Greg humming to himself inside their cabin.
Did you know crows mate for life? he told Greg once, lying together in a small cabin two carriages over, their limbs entwined and rocking with the gentle motion of the Grub.
Greg had laughed. Enough about crows now. You got me, I’m here.
But he is not a crow. Just the bone and sinew and lumpen blood of a man no longer in love. He puts his hand on the door handle to his cabin. He will go inside. There is nowhere else to go. He just needs a little minute to resign himself.
* * *
Cold as a witch’s tit, her breath pluming into the darkness. The Crow sits on the damp wooden floor-boards of the caboose, wraps the black serge skirts around her legs and pulls the tray onto her lap. An owl hoots into the night and the Crow caws softly in answer.