Sweet Sorrow(65)

I’d closed my eyes again, draped my arm across my face, but still I felt the shadow fall and heard the movement in the leaves as she settled next to me.

‘Come out tonight,’ she said, taking my hand.

‘Just me and you?’

‘Nope, everyone. We’re all going out together.’

‘It’s not ideal.’

‘No. But don’t go away.’ From the house, the triangle sounded. ‘At the end of the night, don’t go anywhere without me, Charlie. It’s very important that you understand. Nowhere without me.’





Masks


The plywood box was shrouded with a cloth and carried into place by Chris and Chris with solemn reverence, as if it might be the Ark of the Covenant.

‘Okay, so this is a work in progress …’ said Helen.

‘I love this bit,’ said George. ‘It’s when it feels real.’

‘There’s still lots of work to do …’

‘Just show the model, Helen dear,’ said Alina.

The cloth was tugged away to oohs and wows. I joined in. Chris and Chris were the kind of boys who haunted the aisles of Hobby Lobby, addicted to that particular pleasure of making tiny versions of very large things, and the model was exquisite, a miniature street corner in dusty white, skewed and twisted so that the buildings leant forward drunkenly. It was a masterpiece of balsa wood, moss and 000-brush work and we all leant forward while Helen stood over the scene like a puppeteer.

‘It’s kind of a modern Italian town but after the earthquake, the one in the play.’

‘’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years,’ said Polly.

‘Exactly, so the buildings are all twisted, like it could all collapse at any moment. Too busy fighting to fix anything. It’s a metaphor – get it? There are balconies and walkways, but they’re sort of precarious. I mean they’ll be safe, we’re not going to kill any of you, but there’ll be stuff going on vertically. It’ll look solid, but it’s scaffolding and dust sheets mainly. We’re playing with the idea of laundry – cliché, I know – and for the interiors, we’ll pull the sheets tight like the sail of a yacht. See …’

Helen pulled a string, and we applauded.

‘We’ve got these bulbs, bare bulbs, and we’ll string them from roof to roof like fairy lights for the party scene. And for the big fight in Act III, we were thinking about football in Italy, how the kids play in the town square and how when there’s a big international match they set up all these chairs at night and watch it like a community, and that’s how we want the fight to be, folding chairs flying around like you see on the news, and flares and fireworks being thrown – we’re still working on that – and for the Friar Laurence scenes, we’ll bring on this tree, dusty and white except for the leaves and it’ll be the only green you see on set because he’s sort of nature and herbs and gardens and, anyway, that’s where Romeo and Juliet get married. And this is what you’ll all look like …’

She produced a stack of outsize playing cards.

‘The thing is, we want everyone to look cool.’

‘Thank God,’ said Alex.

‘And we thought red and blue was too obvious, because we want to make Charlie’s point that the differences are just in their head, and so Montagues are going to be this grey white, Capulets this kind of light blue. So – I’m really shit at drawing. You ready? Be nice to me, you bastards.’

She turned the first card. It was Fran, recognisably so, her shoulders bare in a pale grey shift, a nightdress or a shroud. The cards were passed round, revealing Miles as Romeo, chin in the air, his pale jacket slung over his shoulder, then the elder Capulets and Montagues in stiff, sharp suits and cocktail dresses and on and on through each company member, faces suggested with just a few lines. Each drawing made that particular cast member grin and laugh in recognition, in anticipation of striking that pose. ‘We’re mixing modern and a sort of vague sense of period, so you might have a nice suit jacket but sort of Elizabethan boots or jeans with a ruff, because we want it to be relevant, man, but also because that’s what everyone does now. Basically I’ve just ripped off every RSC production for the last twenty years.’

Miles, who had barely registered Helen’s existence until now, held his own portrait at arm’s length as if appraising an Old Master. ‘Can I keep mine afterwards?’ he said, and Helen fought to hide her smile.

Years later, going through old things, I found the picture that Helen had drawn of Benvolio, in little round glasses, listening. I’d not seen the portrait for many years and for the first time that day I laughed to myself. It was the kind of thing you see on the walls of every school art-room, in amongst the massive eyes, the pencil-shaded old shoes and self-portraits from reflections in a spoon. Even at the time I could see the nose was weird, the arms bent awkwardly and she really couldn’t ‘do’ hands, just trowels. But it was the first time that anyone had drawn me without a penis sprouting from my forehead and, rediscovering the card, I laughed because I remembered how much I’d loved it at the time, how proud my friend had been, and how we’d shared her pride.

‘This is going to be amazing!’ said Lucy, thrilled with all the red leather she’d be wearing.