Sweet Sorrow(59)

Now I was forced to imagine a life without Harper. In the chaos of our family’s self-destruction he had quietly and unassumingly made himself present and though I could hardly recall a conversation that might be considered personal or honest, in the strange, mute semaphore of teenage boys he’d communicated a sense of care and somehow passed on the message to the others, an unspoken command to be, if not kind, then not actively cruel. At the time, I’d even gone so far as to imagine I was a little in love with Harper. In a dog-eared library book on the ‘facts of life’ I’d read that ‘homosexual’ crushes were quite common amongst teenage boys. I knew that boarding schools were rife with that stuff, and might there not be a Merton Grange version? Meeting Fran had rendered the theory obsolete but I still found that I missed Harper.

Would he ever know about Fran? The thing is, Harper – Martin – I’ve got tangled up in this, well, this Shakespeare thing, and, don’t laugh, there’s this girl in it, not like the others, she’s funny, really smart and cool and we can talk and talk … you should meet her! But the scenario evaporated even as I tried to give it words and I was forced to accept that they really were better at this in the Renaissance.

‘Tell me in sadness, who is that you love?’

‘What, shall I groan and tell thee?’

‘Groan? Why, no, but sadly tell me who.’

‘Okay, that’s great, let’s stop there. So – tell me, what do you two know about these boys’ relationship?’

Miles, it seemed, knew a great deal and I sank into my classroom silence as he filled in my backstory, the years we’d studied together at Verona high school, how I looked up to him, how perhaps, Miles speculated, I was a bit in love with him.

‘This is great,’ said Ivor, ‘and now I want you both to imagine an earlier conversation, the two of you, before the start of the play, where you talk about love’.

A pause.

‘In your own time.’

‘Sorry, Ivor,’ I said, ‘you want us to …’

‘Go off script, improvise.’

‘As … as these characters?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But using the language of the time?’

‘I can do that,’ said Miles.

‘Yes, but don’t get hung up on it, Charlie. Keep it loose, it doesn’t have to be historically accurate, it’s more about how you relate to each other. Just … make it up.’

‘Okay, let’s do it,’ said Miles, slapping his hands together. ‘Someone forgot their lines in Twelfth Night once and I improvised for, like, a page and a half, in iambics too, and I swear, if you wrote it down, no one would be able to tell the difference—’

‘No,’ I said.

‘No?’

‘I can’t do that, Ivor.’

‘Give it a go, nevertheless.’

The doors to the patio were closed, but if I hurled myself through the glass— No time. Miles was on me, embracing me in his big bare arms. ‘Benvolio, how dost thou? I have been looking for thee in all the squares and alleyways of this fair town.’

‘Ah, dear Romeo,’ I said, my cheek against his smooth bare chest, ‘I wast … at home. With my parents.’

‘Let us not talk of mum and dad but let us talk of love!’

‘Ah, love,’ I said. ‘What dost thou think of love, fair Romeo?’

‘Thou knowst that I scorn love, all poetry, all song. But thou, Benvolio, art a mystery. Dost thou not have a secret love? One that thou holdst dear? Pray tell, for am I not thy dear, true friend?’

‘Great,’ whispered Ivor, ‘this is great!’ and now they were both looking at me as I searched the ceiling, then the carpet, then the ceiling for something to say.

‘Ah, love. With love, my experience hath been … both hit and miss … for love is like something … that I can … take or leave. And that, dear friend, is all I have to say.’

‘Okay,’ sighed Ivor, ‘let’s remember what we’ve learnt.’

What I’d learnt was that I was at my best when listening and nodding. Thankfully it was a listening, nodding sort of scene and as the afternoon went on, I began to understand it. Romeo claims to be in love with someone and my response – Benvolio’s response – is to point out that there are plenty more fish in the sea.

‘Forget to think of her!’

‘O teach me how I should forget to think!’

And I had to hand it to Miles, he could really handle the ‘O’s, the ‘Ah, me’s and ‘Alas’es, could really sing them out, as he bounced around the room, squatting, sitting astride a chair, improvising business with the curtains or a lampshade. I did my best to keep up. ‘Try moving on the line, Charlie,’ said Ivor, ‘rather than before or after,’ but walking while talking was beyond me, especially holding the script. The other hand, which I was unable to squeeze into the pocket of my jeans, dangled limply from the belt loop like a flirtatious cowboy. Miles, meanwhile, found poses that he would hold for a suspended moment, like a model in a photo shoot. He didn’t act with me but around me, as if I was a coffee table.

But along with vanity and self-absorption came a conviction that was catching and once we’d ‘got it on its feet’ and ‘kicked it around a little’ I found that I no longer recoiled from his arm around my neck, the punch on the shoulder. Imagine you’re talking to your best friend, Fran had said, and so I did, and soon Ivor was sitting hunched forward in his chair, earnest and engaged, gnawing on a knuckle. Alina joined us too, serious behind crossed arms but not scowling or pinching the bridge of her nose or shaking her head.