Kate Tempest - The Bricks that Built the Houses

‘Hi, Becky!’ Marina squeals all her greetings.

‘You OK?’ Patrice asks Becky, holding her arms at the wrists, shaking them, loosening her up. ‘You’re nervous?’ He puts his chin down, pouts at her.

‘No. I’m OK,’ Becky says.

They stand in a line between the two walls of the corridor. Becky stretches her hands high above her head, links them together and points to the ceiling with the flat of her palms. Up onto her toes. As tall as she can make herself, breathing into her belly, she bends at the waist, touching the floor, pushing her palms down, breathing out slowly. Eyes closed. Counting the seconds. On the other side of the frosted glass doors that line the corridor, the dancers from the company are getting ready. Becky and Marina and Patrice can hear voices rising and falling, waves of laughter rolling in and out.

‘Someone’s having fun in their dressing room ,’ says Patrice.

‘One day,’ says Marina, ‘we will have dressing rooms, and then we will have fun.’

Becky checks the clock. Marina sees her doing it. ‘Twenty minutes,’ she says, eyes shining.

‘It’s been twenty minutes for ages.’ Becky shakes her hands gently, rolls her neck from side to side, bends at the waist to lay her hands flat against the floor.

Marina rotates her shoulders, making circles with her arms while jogging gently on the spot with soft feet. Patrice lowers himself to sit on the floor with his legs out to either side of him; he holds the sole of his left foot with both hands, forehead touching his knee like a prayer.

When Becky steps out onto the stage, the blackness beyond the lights is total. Everything is reduced to tiny, precise movements. Her muscles. The music. The bodies on stage. Time is irrelevant.

The applause brings her back to the world. She stands breathing, looking out, re-entering life, sweating like a human. Looking for Pete as the house lights come up.

The three dancers get changed and head down together. Arm in arm. Pete is standing at the bar, facing out, shoulders hunched, staring into space. His hair is getting long; he’s grown it past the stage where it mushrooms outwards and now it falls downwards into his eyes. Becky watches him, tries to work out what kind of mood he’s in. He looks stoned.

‘Hi!’ she says, reaching up to kiss him.

‘Alright,’ he says, his kiss dry.

‘These are my friends, Patrice and Marina. This is Pete, my boyfriend.’ Marina smiles, Pete looks at the floor and back at Becky. ‘Are you OK if we have a drink here with these guys?’ she asks him.

Pete shrugs. ‘Course,’ he says, ‘whatever you want.’

Patrice extends his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘Hiya, mate. Alright.’ Pete shakes his hand. Patrice looks over his shoulder at Marina and pouts.

‘Very firm,’ he says to Pete. Pete stares at him, doesn’t respond in any visible way. Just stares. ‘OK,’ Patrice says slowly.

‘And I’m Marina.’ Marina reaches her face up for a kiss on the cheek, Pete bends down clumsily, hesitates, and offers his hand instead. Marina pulls back, laughing. ‘Oops!’ she says. ‘How awkward.’ She shakes his hand.

‘Sorry,’ says Pete. ‘I’m not from round here.’

‘What did you think of the show?’ Becky asks him, her whole face opening up into a hopeful smile.

Pete looks over her head at the wall beyond and doesn’t make eye contact. He rocks back onto his heels. ‘It was good,’ he says.

Becky takes some lip balm out of her pocket, applies some to her lips, rubs them together, waits for him to say more. He doesn’t. ‘OK. Well, thanks.’ Her sarcasm is faint but unmistakable.

Pete says nothing. Puts his hands in his pockets.

‘Drinks?’ Patrice says.

Even here in the bar, the dancers group themselves according to status. The leads are in the middle, sitting with the choreographer and the director, making a literal inner circle; the lesser dancers ripple out around them. Becky, Pete, Patrice and Marina, not even in the company, take a table tucked away in the corner, by the toilets. They are offered small kisses or shoulder squeezes as dancers and tech crew walk in and out of the cubicles.

The bar is crowded. It’s a light, spacious room with high ceilings; long velvet curtains hang over arched windows. Becky, Patrice and Marina huddle together, chairs pulled in tight to the table, leaning towards each other. Pete sits with his chair further out from the table and watches them speak to each other, drinking from his pint in big gulps, wiping his mouth after each gulp with his thumb and forefingers.

‘That was an insane amount of work,’ Becky says, her voice giddy with excitement. ‘I can’t believe we did it.’ They smile at each other, proud and swooning from the effort.

‘I mucked up, like, three times and I think certain people are angry with me,’ Marina says, sticking her bottom lip out.

‘ I’m angry with you.’ Patrice pours Prosecco into their glasses. ‘But it’s only because I’ve never learned to truly love myself.’

‘No one’s angry with you. Don’t be silly,’ Becky says.

Marina leans in closer, looks towards the lead dancers in the centre of the room, dropping her voice. ‘Those lot are angry with everyone, all the time. Especially me. They think I’m clumsy and today I was clumsy and now they’ll never want to sleep with me.’

Becky laughs.

‘They think everyone’s clumsy. It’s because everyone is clumsy compared to them. And I don’t think they sleep with anyone except each other.’

‘It’s not fair,’ Marina says. ‘They literally have genetic superiority over me. It’s not an equal playing field.’

‘Honey, you have different blessings.’ Patrice raises his glass for a toast. ‘You have a great personality.’ He flashes his teeth at her.

‘You can be so mean.’ Marina picks up her glass.

‘It’s only because I love you. You know that. Now, cheers me.’

They raise their glasses. Becky looks at Pete, urges him to participate. He smiles with his lips closed, the smile sinking into his face. He raises his glass.

‘Cheers, everyone,’ Becky says. ‘Well done.’ And they all drink.

‘I just couldn’t get low enough today. I don’t know what else I can do. I’ve practised for five, six hours today, yesterday, every day, for ever, and it just comes to it, and I can’t do it.’ Patrice fiddles with his hair as he talks.

‘You’ll get it. You just have to relax,’ Marina says. Becky nods.

A pause descends as they sip from their glasses. They listen to the room.

Marina, the most uncomfortable with silence, breaks it, as she always does. ‘What about you, Pete?’ she asks. ‘What do you do?’

Pete looks at her. He shrugs. ‘Not much.’

Another silence falls. Nobody minds but Marina.

‘Smoothies!’ she screams. ‘I nearly forgot to tell you, guys. My mum got me a machine thing for my birthday. OMG, guys, GUYS, I’m doing, like, a little bit of turmeric root, big handful of kale, some pineapple, a few almonds, not too many. One of those every day, and I’m feeling great. Honestly.’

‘It’s a fad,’ Patrice says.

‘You’re a fad,’ Marina shoots back at him.

‘ I’m a fad?’ Patrice lowers his eyebrows, strokes his chin, pantomimes trying to work out the insult.

Pete is silent, sitting back, watching. Knees as far apart as they can go. His jacket’s done up to the chin and he’s holding the top of his zip in his mouth, only moving to flick his hair out of his eyes now and again, and gripping his pint like it’s a tree root at the edge of a cliff. Becky is laughing along with her friends but distracted by him. She has her hand on his thigh; she squeezes it, catches his eye.