Sweet Sorrow(107)

‘That’s why we need to see you,’ said Miles.

‘Are you all pissed?’

‘I’m not,’ said Miles. ‘I’m driving.’

‘But yes,’ said George. ‘We’ve been drowning our sorrows to a certain degree.’

‘So are you going to let us in, or what?’ said Helen.

‘No.’

‘Bit rude,’ she said.

‘Okay, you’ve got to come out then,’ said Colin.

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘There’s no point.’

‘Charlie,’ said Alex, ‘we’ve gone to all this trouble to stage an intervention. It is extremely dramatic and emotional, and the least you can do is hear us out.’

‘Please?’ said Fran. ‘Ten minutes.’ She stood at the back, just one of the group, and now I wondered, could I close the door on her?

‘Away in a manger,’ sang Alex, the others joining in, ‘no crib for a bed …’

‘All right! All right, there’s a park down the road. Give me a sec. I’ll put some shoes on.’

The sun was low, televisions babbling through open windows as we walked in the middle of the empty road towards the recreation ground.

‘Is this the one that they call Dog Shit Park?’ said Alex, his voice too loud.

‘It is!’ said Helen. ‘There’s another Dog Shit Park on the east side—’

‘The “East Side”!’

‘—but this is the original.’

‘The original,’ said George, ‘and still, I think, the best.’

‘Dog Shit Park West.’

‘The playground, yeah?’ said Helen.

In the evenings, the tarmacked zone became a kind of shared conference room for local youth and we checked it wasn’t booked, moved the empty cans and bottles and arranged ourselves on see-saw, roundabout, slide and swings, where I found myself between Alex and Helen.

‘The thing is,’ said Helen, ‘Charlie, we want you back.’

‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’

‘No one else can do the part,’ said Alex.

‘Oh, they can,’ I said.

‘But not like you.’

‘It’s not the same.’

‘Poor old George here is exhausted,’ said Alex. ‘Aren’t you, George?’

George passed by on the roundabout. ‘The doubling doesn’t work. I can learn the lines, but Miles here and I have zero chemistry …’

‘It’s true, Charlie,’ said Miles from the top of the slide. ‘He’s terrible.’

‘Problem is,’ said George, ‘it’s like trying to act with a gifted chimpanzee.’

‘George’s not versatile,’ said Miles. ‘The audience will think he’s the same character in a different hat.’

‘That’s true,’ said George. ‘Like Miles, all my performances are essentially the same,’ and Miles ran down the slide to pull George from the roundabout.

‘And Ivor’s desperate for you,’ said Helen.

‘He’s not angry,’ said Alex.

‘Alina is angry.’

‘Ivor’s just desperate.’

‘I couldn’t do it anyway,’ I said. ‘There’s … too much going on.’

‘And we know about all of that,’ said Alex.

‘The grades – who gives a fuck?’

‘Only wankers care about GCSEs.’

‘Wankers and employers,’ I said.

‘Fine, so retake or do something else,’ said Helen. ‘The play’s not going to stop you.’

‘And as for the scam thing …’ said Alex, in a low voice.

‘Big deal.’

‘I think it’s cool if anything.’

‘Sticking it to the man.’

‘We’ve all done worse.’

‘Believe me, much worse.’

‘There are other things,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ said Helen, ‘we know.’

‘We don’t though,’ said Fran from the swings. ‘Not all of it.’

‘Okay. No. Maybe not, but—’

‘I’ve got to look after my dad.’

‘Fine,’ said Alex, ‘but you can leave the house.’

‘He’d want you to, surely.’

‘Four more days.’

‘I can’t,’ I said, ‘he’s not in a fit state to—’

‘But if you tell him.’

‘Talk to him.’

‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to be there.’

And everyone was silent for a while. ‘Fine,’ said Alex. ‘Fine.’

‘But you’ll think about it,’ said Helen.

‘It’s no fun without you, Charlie,’ shouted George from underneath Miles. ‘No fun at all.’

We walked back to the car in and out of the pools of street light, the rest of the group contriving to melt away until Fran and I were side by side, just like in the early days, except now we walked in silence.

‘I’m sorry about the fête,’ she said eventually.