Page 31 of Slow Burn

Afterwards, we all left the theatre together as a cast, with some going on for drinks or paella.

Luca’s parents had flown out to watch, so he quickly introduced them to Gabriele and I and asked if we wanted to join them for dinner.

Both of us declined – I had some studio admin to catch up on and planned to head back to the hotel.

Earlier, Julia, one of the teachers holding the fort, had emailed me with a couple of queries and it was important to be responsive – and quickly – so that she didn’t feel like she had to muddle through on her own.

I wondered why Gabriele was so reluctant to socialize with the others – he seemed like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders lately, and I didn’t think it could be the pressure of the show, since in that regard, things couldn’t be going better.

I smiled at them all, and briefly at Gabriele, before heading in the direction of the Gothic Quarter and our hotel.

A few minutes in, I stopped to take a photo of a stunning, floodlit church and, on a whim, posted it on the ‘Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves’ WhatsApp group.

These days, it was hit and miss as to whether anyone would respond, a situation I was going to need to do something about when I was back in the UK.

Was it just the change in me my family couldn’t get their head around?

Or was it that they felt as though I was disrupting their lives as well as mine?

Trying not to overthink, I let myself enjoy the sensation of walking in central Barcelona at night.

During the day, the cobbled streets teemed with tourists and locals going in and out of the high-end shops and hotels in this part of the city, and it might be shaded, for the most part, due to the narrow streets and stone buildings, but I found it humid and airless, and definitely not meant for the thousands of people that flocked there.

But tonight it felt different. A cool breeze ruffled the back of my neck and, except for the odd tourist taking the long way back to their own hotel, the streets carving their way off the main drag were quieter and emptier than I’d ever seen them.

‘What do you make of Barcelona. A good crowd, no?’

Startled, I turned to see that Gabriele had fallen into step beside me.

‘Sorry. I seem to have a habit of creeping up on you,’ he said.

I laughed. ‘My fault, I was in a world of my own. And yes, the audience were great tonight. Talk about getting into it!’

‘Wait until you meet the Italian crowd. This is nothing !’ he said with amusement.

We walked in silence for a beat or two, before I plucked up the courage to ask.

‘Is everything okay?’ I said.

‘Why, have I been even more of a recluse than usual?’ he teased.

I considered how to put my thoughts into words, and whether now was even the right time to do it.

He didn’t seem the most attuned to the effect he had on other people, or how his own attitude or mood might be obvious to others.

He was who he was, it seemed, and he wasn’t afraid to show it. I liked that about him.

‘You’ve been a bit distant since we arrived in Spain. Since we had that coffee in Madrid. I wondered if it was something I said. Is it about Paris?’

He shook his head lightly. ‘Of course not. It has nothing to do with you, Lira.’

I felt a shot of embarrassment. As if I could impact his mood like that.

‘So tell me what’s bothering you,’ I said gently. ‘Is there anything I could help with?’

Over the past few days, he had definitely seemed more withdrawn, and it wasn’t just his usual borderline sexy brooding; it was something more, I could tell.

And it hit me then that maybe I cared about him more than I was letting myself believe, otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed his subtle change of mood in the first place.

Gabriele rubbed the back of his neck, slowing his pace, as though he couldn’t walk and think at the same time.

‘You know how you told me you feel a responsibility to your family? To run the studio for them; to be the person they can rely on while everyone else is scattered around the world doing their own thing?’

‘Yes,’ I said, wondering where this was going.

Of course I knew. I felt it every minute of every day, especially while I was out of the country.

If something happened at the studio while I was away, my parents would never forgive me, although, for the first time, I was beginning to realize that I’d probably, eventually, be able to forgive myself.

I couldn’t be there all of the time, and it was my prerogative to take a break every now and again, no matter what it was for.

If nobody was prepared to step up to help me manage James Jive, then it was also on them if things didn’t go exactly to plan.

‘I have something very much like that going on. With my father,’ said Gabriele, his voice sounding different. Strained, quieter. Like it was difficult for him to admit any of this to himself, let alone to me.

‘Tell me about it,’ I said, softly, so as not to scare him off.

‘My papa, Enzo, is Italian, in case you did not know that already. My mother is from Argentina. They met while he was on a work trip to Buenos Aires and fell instantly in love. My mother moved to Italy with him almost immediately and they have lived there ever since, in Tuscany, where I was born. That was thirty-five years ago now, and they are still very much in love, although sometimes you would not know it from the way they disagree about absolutely everything. Loudly!’

I smiled. I could imagine it very well. In our house, it was my mum and Sedi who were the most volatile and explosive, with the rest of us trying our hardest to stay out of conflict as much as we could.

We’d given up trying to help them smooth things over and had learned that they just needed to get it out of their systems. Also loudly. They always got over it eventually.

‘It all sounds very romantic,’ I said, imagining meeting my future husband on the streets of Argentina, with tango music hanging in the air and dancing on every corner.

He nodded. ‘And until now they have been very happy together, living on my father’s farm in Tuscany.’

‘Farm?’ I said. ‘As in animals?’

Gabriele shook his head, laughing. ‘No, not animals. Olives. And grapes. My father makes wine.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Hence the work trip to Argentina.’

‘His business used to take him all over the world, but these days he cannot travel so easily. He gets tired. Working so many hours puts a huge strain on him now, and although he loves the farm, it is a lot for one person to cope with, especially now he is nearly seventy years old.’

I was beginning to realize that Gabriele and I might be more similar than I’d imagined. The businesses of dancing and wine might not have much common ground, but a family business was a family business and I could guess at what Gabriele was about to tell me next.

‘Does your father want you to help him with the farm?’

Gabriele looked at me with a grim expression.

‘He has always wanted that. And the expectation was that I would begin working at the vineyard as soon as I had finished school. But by then I had fallen in love with dance and I knew I was very good at it and that it was what I wanted to do with my life. My father has never let me forget how much I let him down, and now things are becoming even more difficult. He is getting older. My mother is worried about his health, and a few days ago she called to tell me he had fallen over outside, but of course he refuses to see a doctor, because he is stubborn. Or maybe scared, I do not know. And I feel this… obligation to step in and help, even if I am not quite ready to give all of this up.’

I took all of this in. ‘So we’re the same, in a way,’ I ventured. ‘Because the question is, do we follow our own dreams and accept that we’re going to have to let our families down, or do we do what’s expected of us and sacrifice what we want for them?’

‘Until now, I have been okay with letting them down. My father has never wanted me to dance. In fact I think he finds it an embarrassment. When his friends ask what his son does, he does not want to have to say he is a dancer. It is not masculine in his eyes, especially in rural Tuscany. This shifted a little when I was on TV in Italy. My mother would tell everybody she came into contact with and my father did not protest as much as usual. But he did not say he was proud of what I had achieved. He still thinks I should be working on the land, getting my hands dirty, as he likes to call it.’

‘That must be hard for you,’ I said.

Gabriele groaned. ‘At least you have done as your parents asked. You have been a good daughter; you sacrificed everything for them. But me… I have simply run away from the problem. I have not done a single thing to help my father with his vineyard and farm. And if he has made himself ill working himself to the bone, then surely it is my fault?’

I stopped suddenly, grabbing Gabriele’s arm gently.

‘No, Gabriele, it’s not your fault. Your father is a grown man who can make his own decisions.

If he can’t cope with the business on his own, he should hire more staff, or employ somebody to run the business for him.

It doesn’t have to be you. Surely, he must see what a talent you have and that it can’t be wasted? ’

Gabriele looked deep into my eyes, as though he couldn’t believe that he was telling me all of this, and that I was listening and wanting to help.

‘He has never seen me dance, not for years. He refuses to come.’