When We Were Young

by Richard Roper

  The minutes ticked by as I sat on the bench. I ached to be back home with Mum, Dad and Alice, but that strength of feeling bothered me now. Of course I missed them and wanted to see them again, but part of that longing was rooted in the fact that the life I’d left had been such a safety blanket. To go back there now, give in to it—settling back in the shed, fighting off Dad’s attempts to evict me every few months—it would be a way of forgetting about Joel. Time is a great healer, as the cliché goes. And just as the scar on my arm has faded, so would the blisters on my feet, and so would my memories of Joel. But that felt like the biggest cop-out. I didn’t want to go back to how things were before.

  When I eventually got back to the house, I realized I must have lost my keys in the river. I rested my head on the door and pressed the doorbell. But there was no answer. I looked through the frosted glass of the door for signs of life. The hall light was on, but I presumed only because under British laws all dads leave hall lights on no matter how small the chance of burglary.

  I went next door to Alice’s. As I approached, I heard the sound of a basketball on flagstone. Through a gap between the fence and wall, I watched as Alice aimed a shot at the hoop the other side of the patio. It hit the backboard but bounced over the top of the hoop. Alice collected it, wheeled herself back to her original position, and tried again. She shot a further five times without success but scored with her sixth. Her expression was unchanged throughout: quietly determined.

  I was on the verge of calling over to her when I heard another voice.

  “You’re nearly as good as me.” A man with biceps the size of Scarborough wheeled into view.

  Alice raised an eyebrow. “You do realize that’s the only reason I’m dating you, don’t you, petal? I’m just here to steal your skills and then it’s over.” She threw the ball harder than strictly necessary into the man’s midriff.

  “So we are dating, then,” the man said, throwing the ball back.

  Alice spun around, aiming at the hoop.

  “I’m thinking about it, Daniel,” she said, scoring with her shot.

  “Oh, it’s ‘Daniel’ is it, now?”

  Holy shit. Daniel. Dan the Man.

  I went to back away so as not to disturb them, but I managed to trip on the grass verge and fall into the drainpipe.

  “Okay, interesting development—I think there’s some guy watching us from over there,” Dan said.

  Shit.

  “Jesus, Theo?” Alice called.

  “Oh, hi there,” I said, tapping the drainpipe with my knuckle as if I might have been sent from the council to do some sort of survey.

  “What the hell are you doing back here? And why are you dressed like that?”

  “It’s . . . sort of a long story.”

  “Riiiiight. Oh, this is Dan, by the way. Dan, this is my brother, Theo.”

  Dan and I nodded at each other. Then there was a pause.

  “So are you going to come round, or are you just going to stand there like a weirdly well-dressed Worzel Gummidge?” Alice said.

  I smiled. I’d missed her a lot.

  When I went around into the garden, Alice had gone inside to get something, so I was forced to make awkward conversation with Dan. I got the impression Alice had done this deliberately to save herself from the awkwardness, which was a very astute decision given the patter I came out with.

  “So . . . Magic Johnson. Was he basketball?”

  “He was,” Dan said. “I mean . . . about thirty years ago.”

  My only other bit of basketball knowledge was the film Space Jam. Thankfully, Alice reappeared to save my blushes. Or so I thought.

  “So are you so successful already that you’ve bought yourself a whole new wardrobe?” she said.

  “Yeah, well, about all that . . .” I toed at a bit of loose stone on the ground. I didn’t really know where to start.

  Dan, who’d sensed the brewing awkwardness, cleared his throat. “I should be getting going, really. Big day tomorrow and all that.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said. “Let me guess: a vital game in the A-league? The Gloucester Jets versus the Cheltenham . . . Ladybirds.”

  Dan looked at me evenly. “Not quite. We’re having our Labrador put down. Choccy.”

  Behind him, I saw Alice put her head in her hands.

  “Ah. Sorry,” I said.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Dan replied. “I mean, I guess to some extent he was the best friend I’ve ever had, but that’s by the by.”

  “Right. Yeah. Sorry.”

  “No, no, don’t be,” Dan said. Then he sniffed and added, “Loyal, too. A real hero.”

  “All right, that’s enough,” Alice said.

  Dan grinned. “Sorry, Theo, only messing. He was about a hundred years old and he was my stepdad’s anyway, I’m just there for moral support.”

  He reached up and slapped me cheerily on the back. I tried not to act like my chest cavity had just exploded. The way Dan and Alice were looking at each other, I reckoned I’d have to brace myself for more punishing blows like that in the years to come.

  “Well, then,” I said after Dan’s taxi had disappeared around the corner.

  But Alice put a hand up. “Nope, you first,” she said. “Wait, what alcohol does this tale require?”

  I considered this. “Got any whisky?”

  “Yeesh,” Alice said. “I’ll have a look.”

  She returned a while later with a dusty-looking bottle without a label on it.

  “Can’t get the stopper out,” she said, handing me the bottle without a huge amount of confidence in her eyes that I’d be any more use. Eventually I managed to pull the stopper out with my teeth and spit it onto the floor.

  “That made me feel like a sea captain,” I said.

  “Yes, well, enough prevaricating, Moby Dickhead. Are you going to tell me what’s happened or what?”

  And so—over more whisky than was sensible—I did.

  * * *

  By the time I’d finished talking, the empty bottle was dripping with dew.

  Alice had listened with a consistently even expression, apart from her eyes widening when I revealed the truth about Joel’s bucket list. When I got to the part in Oxford, I forced myself not to alter the story.

  “I keep telling myself that he’d got it wrong—I hadn’t really been thinking more about the TV thing than him, but if he saw that in my face, then it has to be true, doesn’t it?”

  Alice peered at me through the gloom for a long time without speaking. Then she said, “I’m not going to try and make you feel less guilty, I’m afraid.”

  “No, of course not. I don’t want you to,” I said, though I knew that probably wasn’t true.

  “Look, whatever happened,” Alice said. “You can’t go back and fix that. But you tried to find him afterward, didn’t you? You wanted to make up for it. The fact he’s hiding from you and Amber shows there’s deeper stuff going on with him—stuff he needs to figure out for himself.”

  I was about to say that I thought it was more likely he was off getting trashed—all because I’d been such a terrible person to him. But I managed to stop myself. For once in my life I wasn’t going to make this all about me. Joel’s entire life was crumbling around him; there were things far more concerning to him than my selfishness. I would sit by the phone waiting for Amber’s call, and as soon as that happened, I’d be ready to do whatever I could to help.

  Just then a car slowed in the road. I thought it might have been Dad’s, but then it set off again.

  “Where are Mum and Dad, then?” I asked.

  “Mini-break in Shropshire. They’re back tomorrow. You can sleep on my sofa if you want.”

  “Nah, that’s okay. Have you got your key? I’ll just sleep in the shed tonight, I think.”

  “Ah,” Alice said. “About that
. . .”

  * * *

  I slept on Alice’s sofa that night after all. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to explain there and then, but after I’d made us a cup of tea the following morning she took me over.

  “What happened?” I asked, surveying the square of sun-deprived grass where the shed had once sat.

  “Mice,” Alice said. “Apparently they were nesting there, all hanging out like a Disney film.”

  I realized I was holding my mug at an angle which meant tea was slowly dripping onto the grass.

  “So where’s all my stuff, then?”

  “Dad boxed it up and moved it into the dining room.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Alice took a sip of tea, then she said, “Sorry, do you want me to give you a moment or something?”

  It was hard to tell if she was being serious or not. As I looked at the spot where the shed had stood, I realized it was relief I was feeling. I was glad it was gone.

  “Come on,” I said, “let’s go back inside.”

  Inspired by the cause of the shed’s demise, we put The Great Mouse Detective on my laptop and Alice agreed to help me sort through all my boxes. I had my phone next to me and I kept glancing at it, willing there to be a message from Amber saying she’d found Joel, but to no avail.

  I was sorting my old notebooks into “keep,” “chuck” and “not sure” piles. It depressed me how little the quality varied from year to year. Something I’d written when I was twelve was indistinguishable from ideas penned when I was twenty-four. Even the handwriting had barely changed. The “keep” area was thin on the ground. Most of it had come from Alice, who I suspect had only done it to keep my fragile ego intact. We sifted in silence for a while, watching Basil fighting Professor Ratigan on Big Ben.

  I lifted a tattered copy of the Blackadder script book out of a box. Underneath it there was a smaller book.

  “This film is a hell of a lot darker than I remember,” Alice said. Then, after I didn’t respond, “What’s up?”

  Slowly, I raised the book so she could see it.

  “Theo and Joel: Quite the Little Double Act,” Alice read. “That’s my drawing of you both, isn’t it? Holy shit, I’d forgotten about that. We did two, right? I remember you copying out all the jokes and the scripts into the one you gave Joel. Took you hours.”

  I opened the pages and started to read, and suddenly I was fourteen again, in physical pain from laughing at a character Joel was doing, marching around his bedroom as a general with amnesia. It was as if someone had yanked me down through the pages. When I finally stopped reading I felt like I had come to after a long dream. The film had finished. Alice had obviously decided to leave me to my reminiscing.

  My emotions had gone through a violent tug-of-war as I read through the book. There was stuff in there that still made me laugh—certainly more than my own solo ramblings. But with each punch line there came the sting of unfulfilled potential. If only we’d managed to stick at it without everything else getting in the way. I held the book in my hands, running my finger over the title lettering, anger building as I thought about what a waste it had been. And then I realized that actually, no, I wasn’t going to just sit by my phone and wait for Amber’s call, hoping for the best. I was going to find Joel and bring him back home, and what’s more, I knew exactly how I was going to do it.

  I grabbed my phone and dialed Amber’s number.

  “Amber, it’s Theo. You’ve not had any word, have you?”

  “No, still nothing,” Amber said. She sounded bereft.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’re going to need a bit of help—but I’m pretty sure I’ve thought of a way we can get to him.”

  When Amber and I had finally finished talking through the plan, the afternoon was slipping away, but as it did so, it seemed to take all my doubts with it. Because this time I was sure of it—I was going to get my friend back.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Joel

  I suppose I could have told myself that I had my phone off in Lisbon for noble reasons—that I wanted an authentic experience where I wasn’t glued to a screen, to really engage with Mum. But the truth was I knew having it on would mean having to speak to Amber, having to lie to her again. At the same time, I didn’t want her to be worried about me, so I knew I’d have to check in with her eventually. When I went to, two days after my impromptu dance with Mum, I was shocked to see quite how many missed calls I’d had from her. I jumped as my phone rang in my hand—but this time it wasn’t Amber.

  “Joel, m’boy!”

  There was, remarkably, a pause.

  “Hi, Jane. Everything okay?”

  “Yes, yes, sorry—listen, I’ve got some rather fucking interesting news for you.”

  That was a bit more like it.

  “Go on . . .”

  “It’s about your show. The one you and that other chap wrote.”

  I nearly dropped the phone. Surely not . . .

  “The thing is,” Jane said, “it turns out there may be hope after all. Rumors are that the rival Channel 4 thing might be a dead duck. Anyway, the powers that be want to meet. Soon as possible. Just with you,” she added. “All a bit cagey. You know how they can get.”

  “Right,” I said. “But—”

  “I’ve got a good feeling about this. I can read that little weasel I spoke to like a book. But time is very much of the essence. They want to make a decision by the end of the week. That means meeting A-sap. Three o’clock tomorrow. I’ll text you the restaurant details, okay?”

  “But, Jane, I’m in—”

  “Sorry, bad signal, can’t quite hear you. Anyway, see you tomorrow, dear boy.”

  With that, she hung up.

  I sat on my bed for a long time. I hadn’t harbored even the tiniest speck of hope that The Regulars could be revived. But why did they just want to meet with me? Were they trying to cut Theo out of the picture?

  My phone buzzed again. The restaurant info from Jane. I drew my knees up to my chest. To be at the meeting would mean leaving Mum behind on her own. I listened to her humming to herself on the balcony. She’d told me earlier she thought she might go off to do a bit of solo exploring, adding that she just fancied a little alone time. I knew that it was more likely she was trying to save my embarrassment at slowing her down, as the heat and steep streets had taken it out of me the previous day. A small voice inside me said I could easily get a flight home tomorrow morning, see what the meeting was about and come back. Another told me that violated what this holiday was about. As the voices fought, Mum came back inside. She read my face in an instant.

  “What is it? What’s happened?”

  She came and sat down on the bed next to me, and I told her everything about The Regulars and the call from Jane Green.

  “Well,” Mum said when I’d finished, “I think it’s rather obvious what you should do.”

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Joel

  Perhaps for the first time in my life, I was early for a meeting.

  Jane had chosen a private members’ club for the lunch—all plush drapes and full of twenty-somethings talking about their start-ups. It made me feel old. The table was in a booth hidden away in a barely lit corner. When Jane arrived, I’d already got through a bottle of sparkling water and was on to another. I don’t know why I felt so nervous. I suppose I was just out of practice. I used to wing my way through these meetings, but it had been a while. And I’d usually have a few glasses of something to take the edge off.

  Jane’s behavior wasn’t exactly helping today. She ordered a martini and drank half of it in one go, and was unusually sketchy on the details of which executives were coming, what they were going to ask me, and what the deal was with Theo being omitted from the conversation. The idea of getting in touch with him appealed about as much as walking over rusty na
ils, but it still didn’t feel right he wasn’t included—especially as I might not even be around to see the thing air. Maybe I’d just insist that Theo be in charge of it all—let him have his show; see how happy it made him in practice.

  Jane downed the rest of her drink and ordered another one straightaway, barking at the waiter like a drill sergeant. This really wasn’t like her at all. She kept looking to the door and tapping away manically on her phone. She sent one final message and put her phone into her handbag, which she’d placed on the table.

  “So, I’m afraid there’s something I need to tell you,” she said.

  “Let me guess—they’ve canceled?” Jesus, what a pain that would be. What a wasted trip.

  Jane sighed. Then, quite unexpectedly, she reached over the table and took my hand. In the process, one of her chunky rings nicked my finger, and a little cut opened on my knuckle. I felt a faint sting—a ghostly impression of the pain that had gone before.

  “I want you to know I wasn’t happy about this, and that I only agreed to help them because they promised they had a bloody good reason,” Jane said. “I don’t like lying, but apparently this was something of an emergency.”

  “Jane,” I laughed, “have you had a bump on the head or something? Why all the weird secrecy? Can’t you just tell me what’s going on?”

  But she ignored me, snatching her newly arrived drink straight from the waiter’s hand and taking a huge gulp. She glanced at the door again. I followed Jane’s gaze and then felt my stomach give a painful lurch. There, walking toward me, hair bouncing with each nervous step, was Theo. And then, as if perfectly choreographed, he moved to one side to reveal Amber just behind him.