Kitabı oku: «All About Us», sayfa 4

Chapter Eight

I was expecting to see her, but still.

For a second, I am caught so completely off guard that I can’t even move. Daphne has to lift my hand up and press the gun into it.

‘They told me: “Ben’s the one who’s not naked”,’ she whispers. ‘So I’m guessing that’s you?’

I nod, dumbly. I can’t believe it’s really her. My heart feels like it’s trying to punch its way out of my chest.

Even in the almost pitch darkness I can tell her smile is on full beam. Her curly hair is pulled back into a ponytail that drapes halfway down her shoulder and she’s dressed in the regulation backstage outfit of tight black top and black leggings; a combination that makes her look a bit like a ballerina or a strangely sexy cat burglar.

I’m vaguely aware that I am just staring openly at her, which is probably coming across as more than a little creepy. But I can’t help it.

When this moment first happened, fifteen years ago, I’d be lying if I said it was a fireworks-in-the-sky, love-at-first-sight revelation. As she handed me the gun, I’m pretty sure all I thought was: ‘Huh, the new props girl is quite hot.’

But now – somehow – I’m standing here looking at the girl who’ll become the woman who’ll become my wife. I’ve spent the past fifteen years with her. I know her inside and out. Or at least I think I do. Either way, I have no idea how to treat her like a total stranger.

This weird, silent trance is shattered by the sensation of Clem’s penis bopping me gently on the thigh as he leans across to introduce himself.

‘I’m Clem,’ he whispers, offering his hand. ‘I’m the one who is naked.’

Daphne nods and shakes it. ‘OK: naked, not naked,’ she says, pointing at him, then me. ‘I think I’ve got it. And I’m Daphne, by the way.’

Clearly, both of them are now finding my slack-jawed gawping slightly awkward, because Daphne dials her smile down and looks away, and Clem starts massaging my shoulders.

‘Ben’s a bit nervous,’ he mouths at her. ‘Even though he’s only got three lines.’

That brings me back down to earth with a jolt.

‘I don’t know what they are,’ I splutter. ‘I don’t know my lines.’

Clem laughs without smiling. ‘Good one.’

‘No, seriously … I can’t remember them.’

Clem is now looking at me like I’m the one with his tackle out in a public space. But Daphne just raises her index finger and says: ‘Give me one sec,’ then disappears into the darkness.

Clem starts muttering something at me, but I’m not paying attention; I’m just listening to Marek out on stage telling Tiny Tim to go fuck himself, and before I know it, Daphne’s back again, bearing a script and a key-ring torch.

‘Right, what’s your character’s name?’ she whispers, flipping through the pages.

I look at Clem blankly.

‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ he hisses. ‘Have you been hit on the head or something?’ His laid-back stoner persona seems to have completely evaporated over the past thirty seconds. ‘He’s called Jimmy the Hat,’ he tells Daphne.

‘Jimmy the Hat …’ she repeats slowly. She shines the torch at me. ‘Shouldn’t you be wearing a hat, then?’

‘Marek says it’s an ironic nickname,’ Clem explains, through gritted teeth. ‘Like Little John in Robin Hood.’

‘Ah, right, gotcha.’ Daphne nods. ‘Such a fine line between ironic and just … confusing.’ Her expression is thin-lipped, earnest, perfectly deadpan, and despite everything, I have to put a hand to my mouth to muffle my laughter.

She finds the page in question and stabs it with her finger. ‘OK, got it … Jimmy the Hat … Right, so you walk in when the lights go out. Then the lights come up, and you say: “Scrooge, you son of a bitch, I thought I might find you here.”’ She looks up at us. ‘Isn’t this set in Scrooge’s house? Obviously he’s going to find him here.’

This makes me start laughing again, and for a second I’m worried I won’t be able to stop, and that I’ll be shoved out on stage still giggling like a lunatic, until the men in white coats arrive to take me away.

‘This is not the time to start dissecting the fucking script,’ Clem whispers, but he’s smiling now too.

‘OK, OK …’ Daphne looks back at the page. ‘Scrooge says: “Jimmy the Hat, what the fuck do you want?” And you say, “Where’s the dope, Scrooge?” And he says, “Fuck you, Jimmy!” and you say, “Eat lead, cocksucker!” and then you shoot him.’ She gives me a conspiratorial glance. ‘This is great stuff. Dickens would be so chuffed.’

I lean over and stare at the page under the torchlight, trying to burn the words into my brain. And then suddenly the stage lights go out, and I feel Clem grab my shoulders and bundle me roughly through the gap in the set.

When the lights come back up, they are bright white and searing intensely into my face, and I’m staring out at forty or fifty bored-looking audience members. I turn to look at Marek, who is lying in bed with a rictus grin on his face, his eyes begging me to say something.

‘Er … Scrooge, you … son of a bitch,’ I stutter. ‘I thought I might find you here.’

I see Marek wince at my robotic delivery, but he’s instantly back in character.

‘Jimmy the Hat!’ he bellows. ‘What the fuck do you want?’

‘Where’s the dope, Scrooge?’ I enquire, with slightly more emotion this time.

He jabs a finger at me. ‘Fuck you, Jimmy!’

‘Eat lead, cocksucker!’ I shout back. And the relief that I’ve actually done it – I’ve managed to deliver my three lines without ruining the whole play – is so overwhelming that I almost start laughing again.

But then, nothing happens.

The audience are all still staring at me blankly, like they’re expecting something more. I think I can see Harv in the back row, although I can’t be sure, as he’s got both hands over his face. I turn to look at Marek, who is now beetroot red and visibly shaking. He’s glaring down at my hand, for some reason. Or, no, not my hand; the gun in my hand.

‘Ah, right, yeah,’ I murmur. And then I point the revolver at him and squeeze the trigger.

There’s a loud bang from up in the sound booth, and Marek is suddenly screeching in over-the-top agony, his white nightshirt covered in what is quite clearly tomato ketchup.

I stumble backwards, past Clem, who is emerging nakedly onto the stage and muttering, ‘Mate, seriously, what the fuck?’ as he passes me. I grope my way back into the darkness, where Daphne’s smile is still waiting for me. She raises her hand for a high-five and leans in so close I can feel her breath on my cheek.

‘And the Oscar goes to …’ she whispers, and we both dissolve into silent laughter.

Chapter Nine

I spend the next hour in the dressing room, alone for the most part, trying and failing to make sense of what the hell is going on.

The thing I keep coming back to is that nothing – nothing – is playing out the way it did first time around. Obviously, fifteen years ago, I didn’t forget my lines or gawp at Daphne like a creepy oddball, and she didn’t have to go and find me a script or high-five me as I came offstage.

I have no idea whether any of this matters. But I do remember reading some sci-fi story when I was a kid about a time traveller who crushes a butterfly and ends up killing off the dinosaurs as a result. And if there’s any truth in that logic, then I’m starting to seriously wonder what sort of knock-on effects all these new developments will have.

But then maybe, I consider, as I stare at my insanely youthful face in the dressing-room mirror, maybe that’s the point of all this. I think back to the attic, which already seems like days ago: didn’t I drunkenly imagine what might have happened if tonight had gone differently? And that old man in the pub. The watch-seller. When he asked me if I would change anything, tonight was one of the memories that flashed into my mind. That strange feeling rushes through me again – the unsettling sense that the old man knew me somehow. I stare down at the watch he gave me, its hands still frozen at one minute to twelve, and make a concerted effort to wrap my brain around what is going on.

Before I can manage it, though, the rest of the cast are stomping back into the dressing room, dragging me back out on stage for the curtain call.

I blink into the white light again as the audience claps half-heartedly at us, and then we’re all back in the dressing room together, shouting and laughing and hugging.

If Marek bears me any ill will for turning his gravely serious near-death scene into a ridiculous farce, he doesn’t show it. He squeezes me just as tightly as he does everyone else, gushing about how amazingly the whole thing went, and seeming particularly pleased that several audience members walked out during a flashback in which Scrooge slits a rival drug dealer’s throat with a guitar string.

‘Did you see the looks on their faces?’ he yells. ‘They just couldn’t fucking handle it!’

We all spill out of the Drama Barn into Langwith College bar next door, and as my feet cross the ominously sticky threshold, the déjà vu is humming away stronger than ever. God, I remember this place so well. I can’t count the number of nights I spent in here, feeding my student loan into the pool table, fifty pee at a time.

The bar’s lime-green walls are reverberating to the sound of ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’, and my butterflies-and-dinosaurs theory begins to flounder slightly, because everything starts slotting neatly back into place, exactly as I remember it.

Daphne has disappeared, just like she did all those years ago, and I recall the sharp pang of regret nineteen-year-old me felt as I scanned the bar and couldn’t spot her. Harv turns up and starts forcing sambuca shots on everyone, and then Alice sits down next to me, just as she did first time round.

She’s pink-cheeked, fresh from scrubbing off her stage make-up, and she looks lovely. I watch her down her shot, and wonder if maybe this is where things will really start to change. If maybe this time Daphne won’t show up at the bar at all, and tonight will become what I always imagined it would: me and Alice’s night.

She drops the tiny glass back onto the table and grimaces. ‘Well, thank God that’s over.’

‘What, the shot?’

She laughs. ‘No. The play.’

‘Oh, right. Didn’t you enjoy it?’

‘Yeah, no, I did. It’s just I’ve been so nervous about it for weeks. It’s nice to be able to finally stop worrying about it.’

Alice had a much bigger part in The Carol Revisited than I did – although to be fair, the same could be said for literally every other member of the cast. She was playing the second lead – Marie, Scrooge’s fiery moll – and as I recall, it required a ton of line-learning and late-night rehearsing.

‘You were great,’ I tell her.

She shrugs. ‘Thanks. It was pretty fun. But tonight’s what I’ve really been looking forward to.’ She smiles at me for a second before adding: ‘The cast party, I mean.’

I smile back and find myself wondering if she always imagined this would be our night too.

She picks up two shots from the tray in front of us and says: ‘Here, come on. Let’s get very, very pissed.’

I smile and nod, feeling exactly as torn as I did all those years ago; part of me enjoying the feeling of being flirted with by Alice, the other part desperate to see Daphne again.

We do another grimace-inducing sambuca shot each, and then Alice squeezes my arm and gets up to say hi to somebody else. And as I scan the room again, Daff is suddenly there, right on cue.

She’s standing at the bar with her best friend, Jamila, and a few of her other mates. She gives me a grin and a wave and then turns back to them.

Under the bar’s garish strip lighting, I can finally see her face properly, and my heart starts pulsing in my chest. It’s stating the blindingly obvious to say that she looks younger – a little bit redder and rounder in the cheeks – but the really big difference is in the way she carries herself. There’s this lightness to her that I remember being immediately struck by when I first met her – a goofy, playful silliness that I honestly haven’t seen in years.

Probably because I’ve managed to gradually grind it out of her.

She’s listening to Jamila tell some story, and as she nods along, she nibbles absent-mindedly at the rim of her plastic pint glass. That’s a trait I remember thinking was a cute little nervous tic, until I later learned it was a tactical ploy to hide her top lip.

Daff’s always had a weird thing about her top lip. She hates the little scattering of light brown freckles that run across it – which, to be honest, I’ve always thought were really cute. But some boy at her school once teased her about them in Year 8, and it’s stuck with her ever since.

And now here she comes, walking towards me, smiling awkwardly, and I have to pretend I don’t know any of that. I have to pretend I don’t know anything about her. That she’s some random girl I’ve just met.

How the hell am I supposed to do this?

‘Hey!’ she says. ‘Not-Naked Ben.’

‘Not-Naked Daphne. Hi.’

She pulls out Alice’s chair, and before I can tell her that it’s Alice’s chair, she’s plonked herself down in it. She raises her pint glass to me. ‘Congratulations again on your stellar performance.’

I hold my hands up and force a laugh. I’m still finding normal conversation with her too much to handle, to be honest. Plus, I’ve become so keenly aware of my tendency to stare that I’m now doing the exact opposite – making barely any eye contact at all. Which is probably just as weird.

‘I thought you’d headed off,’ I tell her left shoulder.

She shakes her head. ‘No, I was supposed to be meeting some friends off campus, but I brought them back here instead.’

‘Ah, right. Cool.’

Alice is now back at the table, holding a tray loaded with pints of snakebite and black. I see her glance pointedly at Daphne as she slides one towards me and then goes off to find a free chair next to Marek down the other end. I feel a twinge of guilt, as well as something else I can’t quite put my finger on. Regret, maybe? But there’s no time to dwell on it, because Daff is leaning back in.

‘So is this your thing, then?’ she asks. ‘Do you want to be an actor? Because I have to say, I’m not a hundred per cent sure you’re cut out for the hitman business.’

‘You’re right,’ I say, nodding. ‘The best hitmen do traditionally remember to kill their victims.’

‘Well, maybe you could be a sort of pacifist hitman,’ she suggests, her smile widening, ‘who’s trying to bring down the industry from within.’

‘A non-violent hitman. Yeah. I’m into it.’

‘The Gandhi of assassination.’

I snort a laugh at this, and it draws another glance from Alice.

Harv materialises behind us, clutching another fresh crop of sambuca shots. He sinks one himself and then thumps another down in front of me. ‘I didn’t get you one,’ he tells Daphne, ‘because I don’t know who you are.’ He sticks his hand out. ‘Let’s remedy that right now. I’m Harvey.’

‘Daphne,’ she laughs, shaking his hand.

‘OK. Daphne. Now that we’re old mates, I’ll go and get you a shot.’

She’s still shaking his hand and laughing. ‘No, no, honestly, I’m fine. Thanks.’

‘You sure? Final answer? All right. Nice to meet you, anyway. This is the longest handshake ever.’ He breaks off and slumps down into a free seat at the other end of the table.

I really can’t face this latest shot. I’m feeling extremely light-headed as it is, and I suspect that inexplicably travelling into the past is a bit like operating heavy machinery: you probably shouldn’t be pissed when you do it.

‘Do you want this?’ I whisper, nudging the sticky glass towards Daff. ‘Because I definitely don’t.’

She grimaces and slides it back. ‘Ugh. No way. Can’t stand sambuca. It was the first drink I ever got sick on. Bad memories.’

‘That’s so true,’ I say. ‘The first drink you get sick on will always be undrinkable. Mine was peach schnapps. Still can’t go anywhere near it.’

She laughs, wrinkling her nose. ‘Peach schnapps. You must have been a classy kid.’

‘Oh yeah, big time. We were about fourteen, I think, down the park one Friday night, and Ross Kennett turned up with a bottle of it that he’d nicked out of his mum’s cabinet.’

‘Classic Kennett,’ she says.

‘Exactly. Textbook Kennett. I think I only had three shots, but even now, just the smell of it makes me feel sick. I must’ve thrown up underneath that slide for about fifteen minutes straight.’

‘Well, that’s a lovely image, Not-Naked Ben. I’ll keep it with me always.’ She takes a sip of her pint. ‘So, hey, you never answered my question before – is acting actually what you want to do?’

‘No, no, not at all,’ I say. ‘I just did this for a bit of a laugh, really.’

When she asked me this question first time round, I vaguely recall launching into a long, boring spiel about how what I really wanted to be was a writer. I think I trotted out the standard monologue I’d memorised for when trying to impress attractive girls, which was full of painfully crowbarred references to Franz Kafka.

This time, though, I decide against trying to conjure up some non-existent self-belief, and ask her a question instead.

‘What about you?’ I say. ‘Do you want to get into theatre stuff?’

She shrugs. ‘Well, I was only helping out tonight as a favour, really. But yeah, I do enjoy it. I don’t know, though … I’m definitely not an actor, and I don’t think I’d be much of a writer or director, either.’

‘Gun-handler?’ I suggest. ‘Last-minute script-finder?’

She laughs. ‘Yeah, exactly. Or maybe … I don’t know. Maybe producer? I like the idea of being someone who helps to make good stuff happen, you know?’

I nod, and the difference between us at this age suddenly seems staggeringly clear. I was a pretentious knobhead, full of unrealistic dreams and unfounded confidence; Daff was modest, humble and obviously bound for success.

She shoots me another one of her wide, bright, amazing smiles – the kind I see so rarely in 2020. I don’t know if this is the exact same discussion we had first time round – probably not – but the general feeling I’m getting is the same. That fluttering excitement at the knowledge that I’d definitely met someone special – someone I’d still be thinking about long after this conversation finished. But also, a strange sense of ease and comfort – like I’d known this person for years, and conversation just flowed effortlessly between us.

She says something else, which I don’t quite catch, because as I glance over at the bar, I see a face I recognise.

A scraggly rust-coloured beard above a tie covered with cartoon reindeer. Two twinkling blue eyes that meet mine as he shoots me a wink …

I launch up from my chair, nearly spilling every drink on the table.

‘Are you OK?’ Daphne laughs.

I’m craning my neck to see through the mass of people surrounding the bar. But he’s not there. I must have imagined it. After all, I’ve just come back fifteen years: why would he look exactly the same and be wearing the exact same tie?

I must be losing it.

‘Sorry. Just thought I saw someone I knew.’ I slump back down, but Daphne’s attention is focused on the other end of the table. Marek is now aggressively drunk and sounding off so loudly that everyone is forced to turn and listen.

‘I’m honestly glad that people walked out,’ he shouts. ‘The truth is, you can’t produce a truly great work of art that is also commercially successful. It cannot be done. The two things are fundamentally incompatible.’

Everyone around him nods in solemn agreement, and I suddenly remember exactly how this bit goes.

Daphne puts down her glass, clears her throat and then asks him, quite earnestly: ‘Do you think that’s definitely true?’ Fifteen heads turn to look at her.

Marek is used to holding court without any interruptions whatsoever, so he’s now staring at Daphne like she’s just poured her pint over him.

‘Er, yeah,’ he snaps. ‘I do.’

‘Oh, OK then. Fair enough.’ She nods and says nothing more. Marek clearly feels the need to reassert himself, though. ‘You don’t think it’s true, then, I’m guessing?’ he says.

‘Well, no.’ She shrugs, apologetically. ‘I think there are lots of good writers who are also commercially successful.’

‘Go on, then,’ Marek smirks. ‘Would you care to enlighten us with some examples?’ Daff opens her mouth to speak, but he shouts over her before she can get a word out: ‘Because, to be honest, I’m not sure I’d even want to be commercially successful anyway.’ She tries again, but Marek is way too loud for her. ‘Anything of any real artistic merit has always been scorned or ignored by the masses,’ he proclaims. ‘Like, look at the Dada movement, right …’ – and at this point, I stop listening and focus on watching Daphne.

She doesn’t seem particularly cross at being interrupted; she just sits there looking at Marek with one eyebrow raised, and it hits me again that I haven’t seen this playful, feisty spark in her in years. If we hadn’t got together – got married – maybe she’d still have it.

‘But isn’t that the ultimate dream?’ she says, when Marek finally breaks off for a swig of snakebite. ‘To make something really good that also resonates with lots of people?’

Marek slaps his glass down. ‘Not achievable, I’m afraid, because most people are idiots. I mean, seriously: can you name one decent writer – in any genre – who’s also commercially successful?’

Daff takes a deep breath and starts counting them off on her fingers. ‘Nora Ephron, Stephen King, Sue Townsend, Armando Iannucci …’ She puffs her cheeks out. ‘That’s four, for a start.’

There’s a beat of embarrassed silence while we all watch Marek consider arguing that these good and successful writers are not good and successful. In the end, he gives up and reaches for a Big Lebowski quote: ‘Well, that’s just like … your opinion, man,’ he drawls.

Daphne holds up a fifth finger. ‘Ah, yeah, and the Coen brothers. Thanks. That’s five. Or six, if we’re counting both of them.’

There are a few laughs at this, and Marek takes out his phone and starts jabbing at it to indicate that the conversation is over.

‘Sorry about that,’ Daphne murmurs to me, not looking in the least bit sorry. ‘I hope I didn’t upset your friend.’

‘He’s not really our friend,’ Harv whispers, leaning across. ‘He’s more a bell-end that happens to live on our corridor.’ Daphne laughs hard at this, and Harv stands up to address the whole table. ‘Right, I’m getting more shots. Who’s in?’

‘Fuck shots,’ says Marek, snapping his phone shut and assuming leadership once again. ‘Let’s play Sardines!’