Sweet Sorrow(29)

‘Yes, I must have …’ I looked left and right, unwilling to take it.

‘My dad picks me up at the bottom of the lane every night. I mean, if that’s all right. If you’re not in a rush …’

I was not in a rush.





Walking Home


We walked the length of the driveway in silence, and it was a long driveway. Then out into the canopied lane that led down to the main road, and still the only voice was the one in my head, the voice that ordered me concentrate, this will matter, concentrate.

‘I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk today,’ she said.

‘Yeah, it was quite full on.’

We walked further.

‘I thought maybe you were avoiding me,’ I said.

‘Not at all! I tried, but every time I looked up you were pretending to be a cat, so …’ and here she laughed, too much I thought, and stowed her hair behind her ear.

‘Yes, sorry about that.’

‘If anything, I thought you were avoiding me.’

‘God, no!’ It had never occurred to me that being aloof might be interpreted as aloofness. ‘It’s just I’m not used to that kind of stuff.’

‘I don’t think anyone ever gets used to it.’

We walked on. The heat of the day still lingered under the canopy, the still air blurred here and there with clouds of midges like thumbprints on a photo. Some way off we could hear the low hum of the motorway and I was aware, too, of the chatter of the company members behind us, keeping their distance, stalking.

‘So – be honest,’ she said, ‘did you hate every second of it?’

‘Is that how it looked?’

‘Sometimes. When you were being a statue, I thought you were suddenly going to, like, lash out.’

‘I’m no good at that stuff.’

‘You were! I thought your human steam engine was amazing and I don’t say that kind of thing lightly. Even then, you did look … furious!’ and she laughed again, putting her hand to her mouth.

‘Well, like I said, it’s not my thing …’

‘So why did you come?’

I kept my eyes ahead. ‘Try something new. Keeps me busy.’

‘Off the streets.’

‘Out of trouble.’

‘Are you in trouble?’

‘Not really. Just bored at home.’

‘And were you bored today?’

‘Not bored …’

‘Well, there you are then.’

‘Embarrassed.’

‘Yeah, well everyone gets that to begin with. It’s like when you join the Foreign Legion or the SAS and you have to carry a fridge on your back and drink your own wee or whatever. Here, you have to play the hat game. It’s so we’re all bonded and uninhibited. Do you feel bonded?’

‘Not massively bonded.’

‘Uninhibited?’

‘Inhibited.’

‘Well maybe once we start working on the play … What’s your part?’

‘I don’t know, Sam-something.’

‘Sampson. Well, there you go. Lots of insults, lots of bawdy jokes. He’s a reeeeeal saucy little lad.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘Just don’t do that thing where you thrust your hips. Leave that to Juliet.’

‘Which is you?’

‘It is.’ She pulled a face. ‘It is.’

‘The eponymous role.’

She laughed. ‘Though the eponymous role is not always the best role.’

‘Ideally, you’d rather be playing Sampson.’

‘That’s my dream.’ We smiled at each other and walked on through the soft green marine light dappled and shimmering like the water in a rock pool. Observations like this would come to me occasionally, things that might pass as poetry, and I thought about pointing it out, the rock-pool thing, unsure if this would make me seem poetical or a bit of a knob. There was some overlap between the two, so I decided to keep my observations to myself. Fran spoke instead.

‘This summer’s a bastard, isn’t it? Sun comes out, sky’s blue if you’re lucky and suddenly there are all these preconceived ideas of what you should be doing, lying on a beach or jumping off a rope swing into the river or having a picnic with all your amazing mates, sitting on a blanket in a meadow and eating strawberries and laughing in that mad way, like in the adverts. It’s never like that, it’s just six weeks of feeling like you’re in the wrong place with the wrong people and you’re missing out. That’s why summer’s so sad – because you’re meant to be so happy. Personally, I can’t wait to get my tights back on, turn the central heating up. At least in winter you’re allowed to be miserable, you’re not meant to be wafting about in a field of sunflowers. And it just goes on and on and on, doesn’t it? Infinite, and never how you want it to be.’

‘I think that’s exactly right,’ I said and suddenly she grabbed my arm.

‘Which is why you should do this play! New experiences, new people …’ She glanced behind her, lowered her voice. ‘I know they seem a bit’ – she pulled a face – ‘but they’re all right really, once they calm down.’