Sweet Sorrow(26)

‘I’m all right, thank you.’

‘Well you look terribly moody and charismatic, standing all alone, like someone from Chekhov. I’m sure that’s your intention, but wouldn’t you rather join in?’

‘No, I was just looking at the –’ I indicated a window, a drainpipe.

‘The house. Yes, it’s a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster. The main part’s Jacobean, but there’s all this other stuff just … glued on.’

‘I’ve seen it from town. I always thought it was a mental home or something.’

She laughed. ‘Well I suppose it is, in a way. You see, we live here.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s quite all right, you’re not to know. I’m Polly, that’s my husband over there, Bernard –’ A tall man, military in his bearing, was pouring water into the tea-urn from a plastic bucket. ‘Would you like the tour?’ No one had ever declined the tour, and so she looped her arm through mine. ‘We’ve lived here all our lives, though it’s just the two of us now. Without the children, it started to feel rather big, which is why it’s so lovely to see all you young people here. Ivor’s our nephew. This is our second year. We did the Dream last year, did you see it? When we heard that he was setting up his little company, we thought – why not! There’s only one condition, I said, I demand a role! I used to act when I was younger, you see. Ivor went quite pale, I think he thought I might ask for Titania, but no, I was Hippolyta – very dreary – but this year I’m the Nurse. It’s the part I was born to play. I’m doing her east London. “Even aw odd, ov awl days in da year, com Lammas Eve shall shee bee four-een”. I toyed with doing it Glaswegian, but that’s a terribly hard accent – even some Glaswegians can’t quite pull it off – so for the moment at least am doin it loik vis. Of course Ivor and Alina have got some very esoteric plans for the production. “Concepts” – is that the word? I’m sure it’s going to be set in deep space or a Venezuelan bus depot or something and I do worry that there’s going to be an excess of movement. Not just normal walking, the other kind. I have a particular distrust of mime, because why mime a jug when you’ve got a cupboard full of the things? My main hope is that we won’t cut the text, because what is Shakespeare if he’s not the language?’

We agreed, Shakespeare was the language. She was, she said, ‘a Shakespeare nut’. Apart from suggesting that he was the first rapper, there was little I could add, and no need because Polly barely paused for breath as we toured the orangery, the rose garden, the rockery and something called the grotto, a hollow concrete sandcastle the size of a family car, embedded patchily with sea-shells. In her low, cracked voice, she asked – do you have a dream Shakespearean role? Where did you go to school? None of the answers were in my favour, but I did notice that my own voice had become that of a nice young man, polite and well spoken, with no hint of irritation as my chances of getting the phone number slipped away. By the time the tour was complete, Fran was in conversation with a handsome, shaggy-haired boy, their heads too close together, his hand on her shoulder …

‘Romeo and Juliet,’ sighed Polly. ‘Don’t they look a picture? D’you think they’ll fall deeply in love in real life? I believe that’s the tradition, at least for the length of the production. Method and all that.’

‘Right, everyone!’ shouted Ivor, juggling. ‘Back to work!’

Games with balls, games with bamboo sticks, games with blindfolds and handkerchiefs and hats. We climbed a cliff face on the floor and curled like dried leaves on a bonfire, clambered on each other’s sweaty backs and moulded our partners’ faces like clay with our grubby fingers and all the time I wrestled with the paradox of how to do these things and not do them at the same time. Then games with language, stories built one word at a time – Once –

Upon –

The –

Ocean –

There –

Tangoed –

Twelve –

Kumquats!

And it was maddening, the way each time we were approaching something sensible and coherent, someone would throw in something mad and nonsensical and send it off into idiocy …

I –

Tickle –

Everybody –

Who –

Smells –

Soporifically –

Of –

Wombats!

And they’d be off in hysterics again. Artichoke–Telephone–Shampoo! Dromedary–Ladder–Bin! God, these people loved this stuff, and it confirmed something that I’d long suspected: that within a theatrical environment, people really will laugh at any old crap.

‘Okay, everyone, shake it out! Shake, shake, shake! Lunchtime!’

This time I would not fail. I timed my walk with care, hand on the pen in my pocket. In the courtyard, Fran stood by herself at the table, but— ‘Charles Lewis, why are you here?’ Helen Beavis held me by the elbow. ‘As if I didn’t know. Christ, you’re predictable.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Sniffing around that perfectly nice girl.’

‘Actually, it’s nothing to do with her, Helen.’

‘Ha! Yeah, you’re here because of your interest in Theatre Sports!’