Page 38 of Slow Burn

Gabriele wasn’t himself on stage that night, although the audience would never have known.

He danced each step perfectly, executed each lift with skill and confidence, and to the naked eye, our chemistry on stage was as sizzling as it had ever been.

But there was something in the way he held me that wasn’t the same.

I couldn’t put my finger on it, exactly, but it was like he was touching me, holding me, spinning me because he had to, not because he wanted to, or because he was so caught up in the moment, in our dance, that it flowed organically from one movement to another, which was how it usually felt.

And when he looked at me, his eyes weren’t sparkling, flirtatious; they were deadened, as though his mind was elsewhere entirely, which, naturally, it would be.

We still got a standing ovation. He still held my hand as we took our bow.

He still smiled and waved at the audience who were enraptured by his good looks and his phenomenal dancing.

But as soon as he was able, he dropped my hand and walked ahead of me, going into his dressing room and shutting the door behind him.

‘What’s up with Gabriele?’ asked Daniella, falling into step beside me.

It wasn’t my place to say. ‘Not sure,’ I replied.

I went to the dressing room I was sharing with a few of the other girls and removed my stage make-up, combed out my hair and changed into jeans and a light sweater, because the temperature dropped a little in Lisbon at night.

I wasn’t sure what to do – whether to leave Gabriele alone or to knock on his door and see if he was okay.

Daniella and Luca had already left for drinks in Bairro Alto, trying their best to persuade me to join them.

Daniella had teased me about not coming anywhere unless Gabriele was there.

I’d laughed it off because maybe it was true, but all I could think about was him and how he was doing after the news about his dad.

I knew he had a complicated relationship with him, a dynamic that sounded even more challenging than the one I had with my parents.

At least I didn’t think they were disappointed in me; they were just a little unobservant and caught up in their own needs and wants, but I could forgive them that in a heartbeat.

After hanging around aimlessly for a bit, still undecided, I picked up my bag and headed out of the room, taking my time as I walked along the corridor, which was quiet now, subdued and dark.

I stopped outside Gabriele’s dressing room, wondering whether I would be able to hear something if he was still inside.

He could be back at the hotel already, for all I knew, and I’d have been skulking around outside his door for nothing.

But then I couldn’t bear to think of him being all alone in there either, struggling with whatever was going on with his dad.

I tentatively knocked on his door. No answer. I put my ear to the door, checking to see if there was any sign that he was inside, although he clearly didn’t want to talk to anybody even if he was. I tried once more.

‘Who is it?’ I heard him say.

His voice sounded strange – muffled, subdued – but perhaps that was just because there was a wooden door between us.

‘It’s Lira,’ I said, elevating my voice as much as I could, without drawing too much attention to myself. I wasn’t sure who would still be within earshot – some of the production team would most likely be hanging around, clearing the stage, setting it for the following night’s performance.

The door swung open and Gabriele was standing there. I could tell immediately that something terrible had happened.

He took a step back, letting me in. I closed the door behind me, my eyes searching his face, which looked drawn and grey in a way it hadn’t out on stage. The same dead eyes, but now even more vacant than before, as though he’d heard something that his brain wasn’t equipped to deal with.

‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

He tried to speak, but had to stop to clear his throat. Whatever it was, he was finding it difficult to say. I braced myself for the worst.

‘My father died an hour ago,’ he said.

Without thinking about it, I walked the few steps to him and wrapped my arms around him. At first he felt rigid beneath my hold, frozen almost, but slowly his muscles began to soften and he folded into me, resting his head in the gap between my cheek and my shoulder.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, my throat tight with my own tears. ‘I’m so sorry, Gabriele.’

It was the natural course of things, to lose a parent when you were a certain age. But Gabriele was too young; his father been taken too soon and so suddenly. How could life be so unfair?

In the absence of anything useful to say – because what was there? What could possibly help? – I stroked his back, letting him hold me, letting him know that I wasn’t going to let him go, not until he wanted me to.

When he eventually pulled away, I held his face in my hands. His eyes still had a slightly haunted look about them. It must have been such a shock for him, to come off stage and to have heard that.

‘Sit down,’ I said, ushering him into a chair, slightly worried that he might just crumple into a heap on the floor if he didn’t. He did as I suggested, leaning forwards, covering his face with his hands. ‘Can I get you something?’ I asked gently. ‘Some water? Something stronger?’

He shook his head. ‘I do not need anything.’

I crouched down next to him. ‘How’s your mum doing?’

He groaned. ‘As badly as you can imagine. My father was the love of her life. She has never so much as looked at another man. He was her everything and now he is gone, snuffed out like a flame. One minute she was watching him out in the vineyards, the next the doctors were telling her he was unresponsive, that there was no hope. She had not wanted to tell me how ill he was before I went out on stage, but in the time it took for us to perform our show, he slipped away.’

His voice broke and my heart went out to him.

I clutched his hands in mine, feeling like sobbing myself, but desperately trying to hold it together.

This wasn’t about me, it was about him and his family, and I was determined to do whatever I could to help him get through this.

Where did one even start when something this huge happened?

In the back of my mind, I had a vague thought about the show. There was no way Gabriele could carry on now. But that would have to wait; it didn’t matter. We would cancel shows if we had to. What mattered was making sure he was okay, that he had everything he needed to get through this.

‘What do you want to do?’ I asked. ‘Shall we walk back to the hotel together? You can lie down. I’ll bring you something to eat.’

He shook his head. ‘I could not swallow a single thing.’

I stood up, looking around the room. Gabriele was neat and precise in all areas of his life, it seemed.

Whereas the dressing room I shared with the other girls was chaotic, a mess of make-up and hairspray and costumes flung haphazardly on rails, Gabriele’s things were hung neatly with equal space between them.

Only a handful of products were lined up on his dressing table.

A book – its title in Italian – lay next to them.

‘Shall I pack up your stuff?’ I asked, searching for a bag to put them in.

‘Leave them,’ he said. ‘I will not need any of this for the moment.’

He stood up as though it was an extreme effort to even move, pulling his coat over the costume he wore for our final Argentine tango. This in itself showed he wasn’t thinking straight, because changing into something more comfortable was the first thing he did every night.

‘We can go,’ he said, abandoning his dressing room, leaving it as a stark reminder of how everything had been better before he walked out on stage that night, and that everything had taken a terrible turn for the worse by the time he got back.

I walked him back to his hotel room because I wasn’t sure what else to do and I didn’t want to leave him.

I wanted desperately to hold his hand, but he was even harder to read than usual and I couldn’t even begin to imagine how I’d feel if it was me in his position, and therefore I didn’t presume to know what was best. Perhaps I’d want to be alone, too.

At the door to his room, he fumbled for his key, patting down his jeans, checking all of his pockets.

‘I can’t remember where I…’ he said, eventually finding it in his back pocket.

He buzzed himself in.

I stood on the threshold, unsure whether to follow him inside.

‘Will you be all right?’ I asked from the safety of the doorway, watching as he slumped on the bed, as though every ounce of energy had been zapped out of him. He slipped off his shoes without using his hands and lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

‘I will have to be,’ he said.

I shuffled awkwardly from one foot to the other.

‘Shall I stay with you or…?’

‘You go. Have a nice evening.’

‘Gabriele,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to have a nice evening. Not when you’ve had news like this. Let me stay with you. Let me look after you. I know there’s nothing I can do to make any of this better, but let me be with you while you go through it.’

He didn’t move, nor did he say anything.

Unsure whether it was the right thing to do or whether I’d be overstepping some kind of invisible line that seemed to be constantly shifting between the two of us, I slipped off my shoes and my coat, leaving them by the door.

And then I walked over to the bed and I lay down next to him, flat on my back so that I was looking up at the ceiling, too.

And then I reached out and took his hand.