The play has started by now – I can hear Marek on stage, hamming it up – and its finer details begin to tumble back into place in my mind.
The Carol Revisited. ‘Dickens meets Tarantino’ is how Marek pitched it to us at the first rehearsal. Six months from now, he will be openly dismissing it as ‘crude and underdeveloped’, but at the moment, I can hear him giving it his absolute all as he bellows, ‘Humbug, motherfucker!’ at the presumably bewildered audience.
Marek was – is – Drama Soc chairman, and therefore also was – is – a massive show-off. Not content with writing and directing, he’s also playing the main part: Vinny Scrooge (seriously), a meth dealer who is near-fatally shot by a hitman and then guided through his past experiences by a mysterious ghost.
I’m playing the hitman, I remember that much. And the ghost—
‘Ben, dude, they want us backstage.’
I turn around to see a stark-naked man standing in front of me, a stoner’s grin smeared across his face.
Bloody hell. Clem Matthews. Third-year, I think. Not what you’d call a natural actor, but apparently the only student on campus willing to get his knob out in public. I suddenly wonder what he’s doing nowadays. Porn, presumably.
Quite why Marek insisted on the ghost being fully nude, I can’t remember now. Something to do with spiritual realism and shocking the ‘boring old farts’ in the drama department, I think.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ Clem says.
The costume girl stops me. ‘Hang on, are you keeping that watch on? You weren’t wearing it in rehearsals.’
I stare down at my watch, still stuck firmly at a minute to twelve. I forgot I had it on. Why do I have it on? How the hell is it still here when everything else has disappeared?
‘It’s fine,’ Clem breezes. ‘Hitmen obviously wear watches. They don’t want to be late for their murders, do they?’
He grabs my arm, and I follow his bare arse cheeks out behind the wobbly set. We both stand in silence, waiting to go on.
‘How you feeling?’ he whispers. ‘Nervous?’
I suddenly recall how awkward this always was in rehearsals, having to make small talk as I tried very hard to ignore Clem’s dangling penis.
‘Bit nervous, yeah,’ I whisper.
He shrugs. ‘You’ve only got, like, three lines. You’ll nail it.’
Three lines. Why is everyone so obsessed with this three-lines thing? Then it hits me: I have no idea what these three lines are. It’s been fifteen years since I looked at this script. I’m about to walk out on stage with no clue what to say when I get there.
I’ve just decided to make a run for it when I feel a light tap on my shoulder.
‘Hey, are you Ben? This is yours, right?’
Daphne smiles brightly as she holds out a plastic fake revolver.
Chapter Eight
I was expecting to see her, but still.
For a second, I am caught so completely off guard that I can’t even move. Daphne has to lift my hand up and press the gun into it.
‘They told me: “Ben’s the one who’s not naked”,’ she whispers. ‘So I’m guessing that’s you?’
I nod, dumbly. I can’t believe it’s really her. My heart feels like it’s trying to punch its way out of my chest.
Even in the almost pitch darkness I can tell her smile is on full beam. Her curly hair is pulled back into a ponytail that drapes halfway down her shoulder and she’s dressed in the regulation backstage outfit of tight black top and black leggings; a combination that makes her look a bit like a ballerina or a strangely sexy cat burglar.
I’m vaguely aware that I am just staring openly at her, which is probably coming across as more than a little creepy. But I can’t help it.
When this moment first happened, fifteen years ago, I’d be lying if I said it was a fireworks-in-the-sky, love-at-first-sight revelation. As she handed me the gun, I’m pretty sure all I thought was: ‘Huh, the new props girl is quite hot.’
But now – somehow – I’m standing here looking at the girl who’ll become the woman who’ll become my wife. I’ve spent the past fifteen years with her. I know her inside and out. Or at least I think I do. Either way, I have no idea how to treat her like a total stranger.
This weird, silent trance is shattered by the sensation of Clem’s penis bopping me gently on the thigh as he leans across to introduce himself.
‘I’m Clem,’ he whispers, offering his hand. ‘I’m the one who is naked.’
Daphne nods and shakes it. ‘OK: naked, not naked,’ she says, pointing at him, then me. ‘I think I’ve got it. And I’m Daphne, by the way.’
Clearly, both of them are now finding my slack-jawed gawping slightly awkward, because Daphne dials her smile down and looks away, and Clem starts massaging my shoulders.
‘Ben’s a bit nervous,’ he mouths at her. ‘Even though he’s only got three lines.’
That brings me back down to earth with a jolt.
‘I don’t know what they are,’ I splutter. ‘I don’t know my lines.’
Clem laughs without smiling. ‘Good one.’
‘No, seriously … I can’t remember them.’
Clem is now looking at me like I’m the one with his tackle out in a public space. But Daphne just raises her index finger and says: ‘Give me one sec,’ then disappears into the darkness.
Clem starts muttering something at me, but I’m not paying attention; I’m just listening to Marek out on stage telling Tiny Tim to go fuck himself, and before I know it, Daphne’s back again, bearing a script and a key-ring torch.
‘Right, what’s your character’s name?’ she whispers, flipping through the pages.
I look at Clem blankly.
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ he hisses. ‘Have you been hit on the head or something?’ His laid-back stoner persona seems to have completely evaporated over the past thirty seconds. ‘He’s called Jimmy the Hat,’ he tells Daphne.
‘Jimmy the Hat …’
