“This piece goes so fast,” he whispered back, “I wasn’t sure whether my eyes were playing tricks.”
Bronwyn half rose from her seat, and the level of her voice rose with her. “I’ve got to get backstage.”
As Robert gripped Bronwyn’s forearm, forcing her back into her seat, a woman behind them leaned forward and murmured, “Please keep quiet.”
For the next few minutes Bronwyn managed to stay silent; but then, as the thirteenth dancer began a solo that counterpointed rather than distracted attention from the rest of the performance, she muttered, “Where the hell did he come from? What’s he up to?”
“Really!” The murmur behind them had become a hiss. “Some people.”
Robert tightened his grip on Bronwyn’s arm and put his mouth to her ear, grateful for a surge in the music that made it impossible for anyone else to hear him. “There’s nothing you can do now. You’ll have to wait till it’s over. Just be grateful he’s such a good dancer.”
“Good? He’s brilliant.” Bronwyn groaned as the music dropped several decibels. “But I’ll still kill the bastard when I get my hands on him.”
“Shut up!” The woman’s demand was loud enough to make heads turn throughout the stalls.
Robert’s grip on Bronwyn’s arm was now so tight that he was worried he might inflict some injury. She patted the restraining hand and gave him a nervous, apologetic smile — a promise that she would keep quiet — and for the remaining twenty-five minutes of Six of One she did not say a word. But she could not enjoy what she was watching, even though the intruder made it one of the most extraordinary pieces of theatre she had ever seen, and certainly the finest performance by the Australian Contemporary Dance Ensemble (ACDE) since she had formed it six years ago. There was no way she could relish the irony that her ensemble was literally living up to the nickname, Baker’s Dozen, by which it was known throughout Australia. In the world of the performing arts ridicule could kill reputations, often with a cruelly debilitating slowness, and she feared that ridicule, not admiration, would greet this performance by thirteen dancers of an internationally celebrated masterpiece that had been choreographed for only twelve.
But there was no ridicule that night, only wave after wave of astonished applause. The twelve dancers of the ACDE, their individuality subdued though not obliterated by silver masks and blue-and-red tights, took ten curtain calls, and the thirteenth dancer took the first two with them. The dancers were wobbly-kneed from their exertions and their triumph, reeling from it, too pumped up with adrenalin even to consider what they should do about the stranger.
When, within a few seconds of the opening bars of the recorded music, he had bounded onto the stage, the other dancers had immediately realized there was no sense in trying to get rid of him. He was never in their way, never at odds with the choreography or the music, a wild mixture of eighteenth-century classics and 1960s rock. It was as if every step he took, every broad or subtle movement of his body, had been plotted for him by Michael Gillmore as part of Six of One. To hustle him offstage would disrupt, or even destroy, the work as he was elegantly reshaping it. And when the others saw that he was at least as good a dancer as they were (later, they had to admit among themselves that he was much better), their initial apprehension and anger were replaced by a delight at his unfalteringly inventive skill.
It was at this point that he became their leader as well as their colleague. It was not as if he was trying to outshine them; he made them shine more brightly. He did not force them into changes, but, after a few minutes, when they had become accustomed to his presence, he did encourage them into slight variations, into the most slyly evolving nuances, that placed him at the heart of Six of One. The other dancers responded with an exhilaration, a bemused recklessness, that was close to ecstasy.
Once the thirteenth dancer had captured them, it did not occur to them to try to break free. And even if Bronwyn had been backstage there was no way, short of bringing down the curtain or pulling the plug on the recorded music, that she could have stopped the performance.
Two or four dancers regularly left the stage, regained their breath, then returned to keep the collective energy going. These exits and re-entries, unobtrusively placed, kept the piece hovering on the brink of a tremendous climax of movement. But the stranger remained onstage throughout the performance. He never seemed to relax his efforts, although Bronwyn Baker noted, with bitter admiration, the cunning with which he paced himself so that he rarely appeared to be dancing at less than full throttle.
While the applause was still pounding in from the stalls and circle, Bronwyn and Robert Elston, who was the ACDE’s manager, hurried backstage.
“Where is he?” she shouted. “Where’s that bastard got to?”
There was silence for a few minutes. Then Danny Harkness said, “He seems to have shot through.”
Danny had untied his ponytail, and Bridget had uncoiled her bun. Their faces were framed by shoulder-length hair in a way that heightened their extraordinary resemblance. It seemed to Bronwyn that they were playacting, making an ill-timed game of how much they looked alike. She could have knocked those beautiful heads together.
“That’s a very helpful observation, Danny, I’m sure,” she sneered. “Thank God Mike Gillmore wasn’t here to see the fiasco.”
“What fiasco, Bron?” Bridget asked. She waved her arm towards the auditorium. The applause had stopped, but there was still an excited buzz from the other side of the curtain. “Listen to that.”
The thirteenth dancer might not have escaped so easily, might not have escaped at all, if the ACDE had been a bigger company. It operated tightly on a small budget, without a stage manager, and relied on temporary stagehands to ensure that things ran smoothly.
The stagehands that night were not dance fans. Without props to handle or scenery to shift, they spent most of the time playing cards, their backs to the performance. They had no idea that, at least in Bronwyn’s estimation, an emergency had erupted. No one had told them to keep count of the dancers.
The thirteenth dancer had assumed that security on the stage door would be tight, but it was far more lax than he had experienced in any of the European theatres where he had danced. No one questioned him as he explored backstage. No one interrupted him when, having found an empty dressing room, he prepared for his performance.
He pulled off the shaggy, dirty-blond wig and matching moustache and slid out of the workman’s overalls he had worn over his tights. His mask — no time-consuming fuss getting makeup right — and dancing shoes were in an electrician’s toolbox. The knife was there, too, just in case. He could not imagine any circumstances that would force him to use it that night, but the thought that he might need it eventually was much stronger than it had been when he’d opened the sideboard drawer in Brisbane.
Thirty-five minutes later the wig, moustache, and overalls were back on. The doorkeeper did not even look up as the thirteenth dancer walked out into the night.
In his motel room he had two quick cigarettes, lighting one from the butt of the other and dragging hard at the smoke. He was surprised to find himself so hungry for the taste. He despised smoking. Usually, it was only the edginess of being near his mother that drove him back to the habit. His mother... He rang his mother. She took a long time to answer.
“I think I’ve got that job, Mum.”
“What job?”
“With a dance company here in Adelaide.”
“Oh.” The syllable suggested boredom, if it suggested anything.
“I’ve just had an audition, sort of.”