‘Don’t worry, it does that. It plays all kinds of tricks and it pisses us all off but you get used to it. We call it the Grub because it’s the ugly side of things, the maggot in the fruit.’
He gives her back the plate of congealing pancakes and beckons for her to follow him. He walks confidently into the mist as he sips at his coffee, his warmth dissipating the water vapour. After a few paces Zach trips and smacks his knee on a boulder sticking out of the ground.
‘Fuck!’ He holds on to the offending stone to rub his knee and groan a little.
‘Is this a graveyard?’ Lara asks, her knuckles white around her plate.
Zach looks around and sees she’s right. He has tripped over the grave of a Desmond C Jones, which is covered in patches of yellow and white lichen and half buried in brambles. He picks his way around the thorns to find a path through the rows of graves, which stretch as far as he can see into the mist. He shrugs. ‘We stop in funny places. You get used to it.’
She follows him, her footsteps light and wary, until Zach finds himself in a patch of clearing mist on a wide, cobbled avenue between the graves. He can no longer see the iron carapace of the Grub but he can sense its bulk somewhere behind him. Directly ahead at the end of the avenue there is a shadow looming. It’s the tallest thing around, spiky and threatening like a haunted house from a horror film. And although he can’t think how he’s going to explain to this girl that their theatre doesn’t always look like that, he’s got to hand it to whatever imagination it is that powers this thing – today the Grit is seductively spooky. Zach has the feeling it’s revelling in its uncanny new clothes.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘That’s the Grit. It’s our theatre, and we call it that because it’s another ugly part of the show, the speck of dirt that gets trapped in the oyster shell. We store all the set and gear in the first few carriages behind the locomotive: there’s a whole system but Mackie will tell you where to put everything.’
Lara looks puzzled. ‘So does the theatre kind of – travel with you – or is it a completely new theatre each show?’
Zach sighs. This is why Belinda’s paying him the bigbucks now. Juliet would have known what to say. She would either have described all the specific ways the Grit disobeys the ordinary laws of the universe, or she would have told her not to worry about it with such a tone that Lara could find herself all the way at her next pledge without ever having wondered what the fuck the Grit really was.
‘Both. Neither. We take down the things inside, like the lighting rig and the stage – that definitely travels with us – but we leave the actual building behind. It turns up at the next venue a bit different but essentially the same.’
He can see by the twitching of Lara’s fingers on her plate that he’s doing a terrible job.
‘It’s like that boat.’
Lara frowns.
‘You know, the boat that has all the planks and sails and whatnot replaced. But it’s still the same boat.’
She’s still looking nonplussed and Zach feels a little bubble of hope pop inside him.
‘Look, don’t worry about it for the moment. If you think too hard about it, it’ll trip you over.’ He turns away and walks up the avenue.
‘The best way to understand is just to come inside and see. There’s a point where you have to accept it or go home. All shows have quirks, this one just has a few more than most.’
The graves lining the avenue start to become marble mausoleums, complete with rococo carving and gold inlaid writing, and Zach finds himself reading the messages etched for eternity, things about sleeping with angels andperpetual peace. Not for the first time, he wonders if this is a real landscape.What do you mean, real?Juliet had scoffed when he’d asked her years ago.Real as in, it’s still here when we’re not, has a life outside what we see here on the day the Grub arrived.Juliet had shrugged.Does it matter?
Now Zach has reconsidered how he defines the word ‘real’. He thinks about the creatures revealed as the house lights come up for the curtain call each night, the improbable shapes that flicker at the edges of your vision at dusk, all that stuff inside the box in Belinda’s office that looks like diamonds and is really only dust. He thinks of all the mischief and malevolence he’s seen from the Crow as it cavorts around the theatre and the train, and he wonders if he left everything that was ‘real’ that night when he waited at Manchester Piccadilly, or if that world had whirls of weird hiding in plain sight too.
The quick, light footsteps of someone running towards them sends Lara scuttling towards the safety of Zach’s bulk until the silhouette of the black-clad figure sharpens in the mist.
‘Phone signal!’ the man pants as he passes them on the avenue. He’s wearing a headset with the microphone poised at his lips. ‘And internet too! I’m just off to tell Gino!’
‘That’s Charlie, deputy stage manager,’ Zach explains as the man jogs away. ‘Good bloke. Everyone likes him.’
Juliet would have followed that up with telling her about the members of the cast and crew who are not so popular.Mackie’s grumpy in the morning but he’s a good boss, the bestyou’ll ever have I reckon, Alina gets antsy if you nick her pens or soap and for the love of all that’s holy keep away from Derek.But thinking about the tangled webs of love and hate and indifference that stretch between the Grub and the Grit makes him feel tired again, so instead he focuses on the crunch of his boots on the leaf skeletons. Lara follows him, quietly chewing on her pancakes and Zach feels the knot of nerves in his stomach loosen a little. Eating is a good sign.
The foot of the stone staircase up to the doors of the auditorium is crowded with battered black flight cases. Zach sees Lara lean over to read a few of the labels written in black marker on white gaffer tape.KING AND QUEEN COSTUMES, X 4 WING BOOMS, CROW HEADDRESSES LARGE AND SMALL, PEARL. He remembers Juliet smirking at him in that annoyingly knowing way of hers.Are you the kind of idiot I need to spell things out for, or have you got a brain between your ears?
He’s just started the long climb up the steps – the Grit doesn’t always position itself so high up but today it’s leaning into the drama – when Zach hears Lara clear her throat gently.
‘Excuse me, Zach?’ He turns to face her, one foot on the bottom step. ‘Do you have a watch? I need to take some pills at about ten.’
He slaps one hand to his forehead. ‘Shit! I forgot! I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s okay, I—’
‘Listen, I have to tell you something really important.Juliet would never forgive me and Belinda would have my guts for garters. There are two curfews here and they’re timed to the second. You absolutely must be inside the Grit by the half – that’s five to seven every night – and you absolutely must be inside the Grub by midnight. There’s a bell, it’s really loud, you can’t miss it. Eighteen chimes before the house opens and twelve at midnight. You don’t have to count them, but you got to get inside.’
‘Do you mean I’ll get in trouble if I’m not there?’
