The Guest List(56)

Someone taps me on the shoulder, hard. I turn round and I’m face to face with him: Mr Slater. Will’s dad – but first and foremost, always, headmaster of Trevellyan’s.

‘Jonathan Briggs,’ he says. ‘You haven’t changed one bit.’ He doesn’t mean this as a compliment.

Shit, I’d been hoping to give him a wide berth. The sight of him has the same effect on me it always did. Would have thought now, my being an adult, it might be different. But I’m as shit-scared of him as ever. Funny, considering he was the one that once saved my bacon, really.

‘Hello, sir,’ I say. My tongue feels like it’s stuck in my throat. ‘I mean, Mr Slater.’ I think he’d prefer it if I called him ‘sir’. I glance over my shoulder. The group I was in before has closed up, so we’re stuck on the outside of it now: just him and I. No escape.

He’s looking me up and down. ‘I see you’re dressed in the same unusual way. That blazer you had at Trevellyan’s: too large at the beginning and far too small at the end.’

Yeah, because my folks could only afford the one.

‘And I see you’re still hanging around my son,’ he says. He never liked me. But then I can’t imagine him liking anyone much, not even his own child.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘We’re best mates.’

‘Oh is that what you are? I was always rather under the impression you simply did his dirty work for him. Like when you broke into my office to steal those GCSE papers.’

For a moment everything around me goes still and quiet. I’m so surprised I can’t even get a word out.

‘Oh yes,’ Mr Slater continues, unfazed by my silence. ‘I know. You think that simply because it wasn’t reported you’d got away with it? It would have been a disgrace on the school, on my name, if it had got out.’

‘No,’ I say, ‘I dunno what you’re talking about.’ But what I think is: you don’t know the half of it. Or maybe you do and you’ve got an even better poker face than I realised.

I manage to get away after this. I go and search for more drink. Something stronger. There’s a bar they’ve set up, near the marquee. They can’t pour the stuff fast enough. People are asking for two, three drinks, pretending they’re for friends and plus-ones when really I can see them necking them as they walk away. It’s going to get loose, this evening, especially with the gear Peter Ramsay’s brought. When I pick up my whisky – the stuff I brought – I notice that my hand is trembling.

Then I see this bloke I recognise, across the crowd of people. He looks at me, frowning. But he’s not from Trevellyan’s. He’s about fifty, anyway, way too old to be in that photo. And it annoys me at first, because I can’t work out where I knew him from.

He has a too-fashionable hipster haircut, even though he’s grey and going a bit bald and wears a suit with trainers. He looks like he’s stepped out of some wanky Soho office and isn’t quite sure how he ended up here in the middle of nowhere on some random island.

For a few minutes, genuinely, I haven’t got a single clue where I could have met someone like him. Then I think we both work it out at the same time. Shit. It’s the producer of Survive the Night. Something French and fancy-sounding. Piers. That’s it.

He walks towards me. ‘Johnno,’ he says. ‘It’s good to see you.’

I’m kind of flattered that he remembers my name, that he recognises my face. Then I remember that he hadn’t liked my face enough to put me on his TV show, so I dial down my enthusiasm. ‘Piers,’ I say, sticking out a hand. I have no fucking idea why he wants to come and speak to me. We only met the once, when I came to do the screen-test with Will. Surely it would be less embarrassing if we just raised a glass to each other over everyone’s heads and left it at that?

‘Long time no see, Johnno,’ he says, rocking back and forth on his heels. ‘I hardly recognised you … with all that hair.’ He’s being polite. My hair’s not that much longer. But I probably look about fifteen years older than the last time we met. It’s all the drinking, I guess. ‘And what have you been up to?’ he asks. ‘I know there must have been something very worthwhile keeping you busy.’

I feel like there’s something strange about how he put that, but I gloss over it. ‘Well,’ I puff myself up. ‘I’ve been making whisky, Piers.’ I try hard to do the big spiel, but to be honest I can’t stop thinking about the way this bloke rejected me with a few lines in an email.

Not quite the right fit for the show.

People don’t realise this about me, you see. They see old Johnno, the wild one, the crazy one … without much going on backstage. And of course I like them thinking that, I play up to it. But I do feel stuff too, and I am embarrassed by this conversation, just like I was when the production company dropped me. At least I got paid a couple of grand for the concept, I guess.

See, the idea for the show was mine. I’m not saying I thought up the whole thing. But I know it was me who planted the seed. A year or so ago Will and I were sitting in a pub, having a drink. It had always been me who suggested we meet up. Will was always too busy, even though he didn’t have much of a TV career to speak of in those days, just an agent. But even if he puts me off a couple of times he never cancels. There’s too much of a bond between us for this friendship to die. He knows that too.