Sweet Sorrow(24)
Wedging my feet beneath the edge of the bunk bed prison-style, I resolved to do fifty sit-ups in the hope of instant results, and managed twenty, scuffing my head on the skirting board with each one. I folded two slices of toast into my mouth and wrote a hasty note, saying that I’d be gone all day but with no further explanation – how could I explain? – then mounted my bike and retraced my journey out of Thackeray Crescent, Forster then Kipling Road, down Woolf then Gaskell, Bront? and then Thomas Hardy Avenue, around the ring road and over the roar of the rush-hour motorway. On the outskirts, a municipal white sign marked the town’s limits, along with its frank motto, ‘A Good Town’ (in Latin, Bonum Oppidum), which was about as much as they could plausibly get away with.
I cycled on silent roads, past the poly-tunnels and through the wheat fields, the direction less certain now. I turned too early, retraced my route, paused opposite a concrete bus shelter, a lane shaded with low branches. I crossed the road and began to climb.
The day was already hot, the sun slicing through the canopy of trees. Ascending the lane, panting and gasping, I saw the footpath but wanted to make a more official entrance and so continued to climb until I saw a small mock-Tudor gatehouse. Beyond two five-bar gates a driveway curved through woodland, screening the house from the lane. ‘Fawley Manor’, read the plaque. I stood on the pedals but the gravel shifted beneath the wheels and I gave up and walked. The driveway followed the edge of a wood, then widened, opening out onto a lawn between ancient yews.
It was a typical home-counties mansion, a greatest-hits medley from the last thousand years of architecture – columns and porticoes, diamond-leaded double-glazing, 1930s pebble-dash between stick-on Tudor beams, a satellite dish sprouting from the ivy. If I’d been more knowledgeable, I might have felt less impressed but I only saw its size, its isolation and apparent age. I’d never felt more like a trespasser, fully expecting the crunch of the gravel to alert the hounds. Looking for somewhere to leave my bike, I took in the ornamental goldfish pond, abandoned croquet mallets, a dovecote, all this grandeur marred only by a decrepit Transit van with two masks above a flourished ribbon painted on its flank, both masks laughing above the words ‘Full Fathom Five Theatre Co-operative’. Out of the rear doors tumbled a figure, dragging two large netted sacks. I froze but Ivor saw me and immediately bounded over, a sack on each shoulder.
‘Hulloooo. It’s our mystery man from yesterday! I knew it, I knew you’d be compelled to return. Just dump your bike there, it’s perfectly safe, and take one of these, will you?’ The string sack was packed with foam footballs, beanbags, juggling pins and, alarmingly, assorted hats. ‘Hate to be a wanker, but I’ve forgotten your name.’
‘Charlie.’
‘Knew it was something like that. Charlie or Charles? Not a Chuck, are you? You don’t seem the Chuck type.’
‘Charlie.’
‘Okay, Charlie, let’s go!’ He showed the way with a flap of his hair. ‘Have you done a lot of theatre?’
‘No, this is … I’m just … it’s a new thing for me. I’m just trying it out.’
‘Fresh meat! Well, you’ll love it, I know you will. Come, join us!’
We headed towards a sound, a slow, rhythmic slapping and clapping, crossing the courtyard and coming out onto the wide, green expanse, bracketed by what I suppose must have been the east and west wings.
‘The Great Lawn, where we’re creating our fair Verona. Hard to believe, I know, but you wait and see – and here they are!’
The company sat in a large circle, their legs crossed, slapping their thighs and clapping their hands in a solid 4/4, the rhythm stumbling as I approached. In quick succession I saw Lucy Tran scowl and whisper to Colin Smart, lynch-pin of Merton Grange’s shadowy Drama Society, who sat open-mouthed with surprise. I saw Helen Beavis grinning and shaking her head, and there in profile, laughing with some boy, was Frances Fisher. She smiled brightly, mouthed, ‘You came!’ or maybe ‘Hooray!’, but I looked away. This would be my policy: aloof, blasé, just a guy who feels like some Theatre Sports, that’s all.
‘Okay, quiet everyone, quiet down. Eyes on me! Eyes! I want to see all those eyes, people!’ Fingers in a V, Ivor pointed to his eyes. ‘Okay, I’m pleased to say we have a late addition to the company. ‘Everyone say hellooo to Charlie, Charlie …’
‘Lewis.’
‘Hello, Charlie Lewis!’ they chorused and, head down, I raised one hand and squeezed between strangers in the circle.
‘We don’t know who Charlie’s going to be playing as yet; we’re going to talk about that later. For now, we’re going to do some exercises, yes? Yes?’
‘Yes!’
‘Then this afternoon, Alina is going to talk to us about movement!’
Alina planted her hands on her knees and set her elbows at ninety degrees. ‘We’re going to talk about how we carry ourselves, about how we hold ourselves, independently and in relation to each other, how we breathe, how we move through this world, present and alive, responding naturally and spontaneously to others. Because we don’t just talk to each other with words, do we? We can say something without opening our mouths. We communicate with our bodies, our faces, and even when we don’t move –’ She froze, and in a whisper, ‘We. Still. Move.’