Sweet Sorrow(58)

This was to be the day of my first rehearsal with Romeo, nodding and listening mainly, and some laughter too, and so we practised, lying on our backs in the long grass of the orchard.

‘Ah ha ha ha! Something like that?’

‘I like it. I like the little shake of the head,’ said Fran.

‘Sort of “Romeo, you crack me up!”’

‘Yes. I got that. Let go of your chin though.’

‘Ha-ha!’

‘Oh man, Charlie, you’re bad at this.’

‘Okay, you do it.’

‘Fine, watch.’ Fran laughed, entirely naturally. ‘How was that?’

‘Not great.’

‘Oh, because I didn’t hold my chin? Well, fuck you, Daniel Day-Lewis. I don’t know why you don’t just go the whole hog and slap your thigh.’

‘Like this?’

‘Exactly. Little Dick Whittington-type thing.’

‘Slap thigh. Okay, maybe I’ll try that.’

‘Or you could just be natural. Be yourself.’

‘If I was being myself, I wouldn’t be here.’

‘And yet here we are,’ she said. ‘Here we are.’ Up at the house, the triangle sounded. ‘And that marks the end of today’s session.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What for?’

‘For teaching me how to laugh again.’

‘Ha.’

We walked back together. ‘How are you feeling?’ she said.

‘Bit nervous. I’m pretty sure they’re going to replace me after this.’

‘Rubbish.’

‘Whenever I speak in the first scene, I keep seeing Alina pinch the bridge of her nose and shake her head very slowly. I say, “Part, fools! Put up your swords!” and I swear, she puts her fingers in her ears.’

‘Still, they’re not going to replace you.’

‘But if they do?’

‘Then I’ll resign from the production. We all will. We’ll down sticks.’

‘Would you do that for me?’

‘No. No, probably not.’

‘Oh.’

‘Well, I’ve learnt the lines now.’

‘That’s very touching.’

‘But they’re not going to replace you, so you’re fine.’

‘But if they do …’

‘What?’

We were at the house now, the large room Polly had cleared for rehearsals, French windows open to the air. ‘Do we still get to go out for coffee?’

‘You’re obsessed with this coffee.’

‘Or dinner or something?’

‘Dinner. There’s posh. Where?’

‘I don’t know. The Angler’s?’

‘Steak night or the Sunday carvery?’

‘That would be completely up to you. Lady’s choice.’

‘It is tempting.’

‘Or we could just … see each other.’

‘You don’t think we see each other?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Because I am literally looking right at you.’

‘I mean away from here, from all this …’

‘Here he comes now,’ Miles was approaching, gulping water as he walked, ‘Britain’s most hydrated young actor. What’s he wearing?’ It was a basketball top, the neckline scooped well below his sternum, bare at the sides. ‘It’s a netball tabard. Well, good luck. Hey, what was the name of your best friend? In real life?’

‘Harper.’

‘Just imagine that you’re talking to Harper. Imagine you’ve both met girls that you really like and you’ve got to talk about it.’

Was this subtext again? ‘Okay.’

‘You talk about that stuff, don’t you?’

‘Not really. Mainly we beat each other up.’

‘Well, pretend that you talk. That’s all this scene is, two young men talking honestly and openly about their feelings. They managed it in 1594. Imagine if it still happened now. Imagine a world where you’re not all quite so repressed.’





Improvisation


I’d not heard from Harper since the fight with Lloyd. On Monday and Wednesday I’d worked my shift at the petrol station and stolen more cards in preparation for the handover, but he had not appeared. Phone messages, too, had gone unanswered and I wondered if perhaps some line had been crossed. In the great catalogue of physical and emotional violence that we’d visited upon each other over the years – the pushing off the pier, the fireworks thrown, the air-rifle scars – the pool-ball incident was surely minor. We’d once played a game in the field behind Harper’s house, ‘Agincourt’ we called it, taking it in turns to put on a blindfold and hurl three professional tungsten-tipped darts high, high in the air while the rest of us picked a spot and had to stand still, shoulders hunched, eyes closed, waiting for the darts to rain down. The game could only really end when someone received an injury and sure enough, before too long there was an audible thunk and Fox stood with a single dart standing vertically from his skull while Lloyd, who had thrown the thing, curled up in a ball, unable to breathe for laughter. All of this was normal, ‘classic Lloyd’, with no hard feelings. But throw one single pool ball at someone’s head …