Sweet Sorrow(110)

‘Well, that was quite something,’ said Mum.

‘Why did you come to the matinee? It’s better at night.’

‘Better? Surely, no. It was lovely, Charlie. And weren’t you good?’

‘You can really sword-fight, brother,’ said Billie. ‘I don’t think I’ve heard you speak so much in years.’

‘And didn’t his voice sound nice?’ said Mum. ‘I wish you talked that clearly all the time.’

‘Your girlfriend’s good,’ said Billie.

‘She was very good,’ said Mum, ‘and quite gorgeous. Talk about punching above your weight!’

‘Mum …’ said Billie.

‘What is it, your personality?’

‘Mum!’

‘I’m teasing him, I’m allowed to tease him. She might want to tone the make-up down. That’s my only criticism. Do we get to meet her?’

‘No, not today,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to go and run our lines.’

We’d arranged to meet in the long break between the shows, slipping away after the matinee, cutting through the woods to the gatehouse – where else could we go? It was better now, less ceremonial, a reunion, and afterwards we lay face to face in the cool, dim room.

‘I don’t ever want to do anything except this.’

‘I think,’ she said, ‘after a while it gets a bit sore.’

‘I wouldn’t mind. I’d work through it.’

‘I know you would.’ We kissed. ‘Let’s just stay here then,’ she said. ‘Not bother going on tonight.’

‘I think they’d notice. You at least.’

‘Are you sad?’

‘About what?’

‘The last night. I always get a bit sad. All that work and it sort of … evaporates. You watch – at the party, it’s all going to get very emotional.’ We curled closer together, like a knot pulled tight. Still, I felt a shudder of unease and longed for reassurance but knew that, just as in a horror film, to express a fear out loud risked bringing it to life. Instead, we talked about the play, how she’d stumbled that afternoon in the scene where she thinks that Romeo, not Tybalt, has been killed.

‘I’m meant to think he’s dead, the great love of my life. When I get to that bit, I try to picture it, what I’d do if a person that I really loved was dead, and I’d be screaming, I’d be banging my head against the wall, and instead, in the play I’ve got to say, Can heaven be so envious? It’s a terrible line. What does it even mean?’

But an idea had fixed in my head. ‘Who do you think of?’

‘What?’

‘In the scene, when you’re doing your acting.’

‘“Doing my acting”?’

‘Who do you imagine is dead?’

She glanced at me, glanced away.

‘You.’

‘Not Miles?’

‘No, not Miles! You.’

‘So … you’re thinking about me on stage?’

‘Only sometimes.’

‘To upset yourself.’

‘It does sound weird, put like that.’

‘Me, but dead?’

‘Not just dead. I think happy stuff about you too.’ Perhaps I smiled. ‘Don’t get cocky,’ she said, ‘or I’ll start thinking about someone different.’

‘When else?’

‘Can we change the subject?’

‘Okay. But when else do you think about me, when you’re saying the lines?’

‘I’m not going to tell you! You’ll have to watch and see.’ We kissed, then to move on, she added, ‘Monday, you can take me out for that famous coffee. I’ve got a while until college.’

‘I think we’re a bit past the coffee stage now, don’t you?’

‘We can still do it. We’ve still got things to talk about, haven’t we? More if anything. Nothing’s changed, not changed in a bad way. Still love you.’

‘You too.’

‘Well, then we’re fine.’ We kissed and in a gesture out of a film, she reached for her watch, her arm far behind her, her neck elongated, her fingers patting on the floor, and in that moment, that gesture, I don’t think I could have loved her more.

‘Christ, the time – we’ve got to go. Are you ready? Last time ever?’

But back in the dressing rooms, all anyone talked about was the party. Ivor had insisted soft drinks only, that it was perfectly possible to have fun with soft drinks, and so before curtain-up we gathered in the boys’ dressing room to itemise our stash, drawn from the dregs of the drinks cabinet – limoncello, cooking sherry, curdled advocaat, sparkling red wine – concealing the bottles and containers in shrubs and hedges around the gardens like squirrels hiding nuts for winter. At seven p.m. we warmed up, sang songs, group hugged, Ivor made another of his impassioned speeches – we were to go for it – and we began.

There were many parents there that night, the famous parents whose faults and failings we’d itemised in all those intense conversations, and during Friar Laurence’s speech, we peered into the audience from the wings to point them out.

‘There they are! Front row!’ whispered Alex. ‘I told them not to go in the front row.’