by Tom Ellen
Over salmon and chicken and endless white wine, we steadfastly ignored our tablemates and huddled together revisiting the past, expounding on the present and then cringing at all the same bits in the speeches.
It wasn’t just that she looked hot – though she very much did – it was how she made me feel as I talked to her: like I was nineteen again, like the past fifteen years hadn’t happened and the future was still blank and inviting. It was just like in Paris: I loved the fact I could present an edited version of myself to her. I could prune away at the rudderless screw-up that Daphne has watched me become until a better man emerged.
And then later, right at the end of the night, something happened.
All I remember is that the music was winding down, and Alice must have been as wrecked as I was, because she dragged me off the dance floor and into the ‘quirky’ photo booth we’d spent most of the evening taking the piss out of.
We grabbed our ridiculous props – fairy wands and top hats – and at her insistence, we pulled a variety of stupid faces as the flash bounced off us: rictus grins and zombie grimaces and – for the last picture – air-kissing selfie pouts. I closed my eyes for that one, I remember that, and as I felt the flash echo through my eyelids, I realised I wasn’t air-kissing any more. Alice’s lips were pressed up against mine. I pulled away, obviously. But not as quickly as I could have done.
When I opened my eyes, she was shrugging and laughing like it was no big deal. Just a joke.
So that’s what I’ve been telling myself it was. But jokes don’t keep you awake at night, prickling with guilt.
When I got home the next day, I didn’t even tell Daphne I’d seen her. Daff’s always had a weird thing about Alice. I guess because Alice and I were so close during that first term at uni. Even now, she’ll still make the occasional semi-joke about how Alice used to fancy me. Those jokes always leave me prickling with guilt too. So I didn’t tell her when Alice messaged a few days later, and I didn’t tell her when I messaged back. Daff and I were going through a particularly grim patch where we were barely even speaking; she was constantly busy with work, whereas I was fretting about how badly paid, boring and sporadic my employment situation was.
I’m a writer, I suppose, technically speaking. But that makes what I do sound much grander than it actually is. I always imagined I would follow in my dad’s footsteps and write some great play or TV series or novel, but I could never quite sharpen those dreams down to anything specific. I used to think I lacked drive or self-confidence, but the truth is, I just don’t have it in me. I never did. Paris proved that, among other things.
So at some point I downgraded my ambitions and worked as a staff writer for a pretty tawdry lads’ mag. Then, when the dwindling print industry blocked off that career path, I started doing what I’m still doing today – penning press releases and travel brochures for any company that will pay me.
It’s nothing to complain about, I know – I’m lucky to be working, full stop – but it’s nothing to shout about either.
I remember Daff went through a period a while back of trying to light a fire under me. She’d introduce me to editors or other writers; encourage me to try and keep writing stuff I enjoyed, even if I never showed it to anyone. But I’d already given up on myself by then, so I couldn’t really blame her for eventually doing so too.
I drain my glass, and as I pour another, the broken wristwatch catches my eye. It was so strange, those memories popping into my head back in the pub. Particularly that game of Sardines in the maze at uni: I haven’t thought about that in years. Daphne was the first one to find me, and we ended up snogging drunkenly in the thorny hedge, before Alice pulled the branches back, frowning, a few minutes later.
Deep down, I’ve always wondered what would have happened if Alice had found me first. Maybe she should have.
I read her message one more time, and then hit reply.
Hey! 29th sounds good – will be great to see you. Let me know what time works. Xx
As soon as I press send, I experience several contradictory things at once. Fear and excitement and guilt and self-pity, plus a weirdly thrilling sensation that I’ve set something huge in motion; crossed a line that can’t be uncrossed.
Pathetically, though, the overriding emotion is that it’s nice to feel wanted.
Chapter Five
After another large glass of wine, and a lot more staring blankly at my message to Alice, I discover – to my genuine surprise – that the bottle is now four fingers off empty.
Bollocks. That’ll be another row tomorrow. Or later tonight, whenever Daphne gets back. It’s coming up to half eleven now, and she still hasn’t texted.
I feel knackered suddenly, but I decide to do the decorations before heading to bed, so as to provide myself with some passive-aggressive armour ahead of our next argument. I wobble to my feet, realising that my warm three-Guinness glow has now been replaced by a harsh, metallic red-wine drunkenness.
I trudge upstairs to the back attic, feeling the draught cut right into my bones as I open the rickety little door. The decorations are all the way at the back, of course, and to get to them, I have to navigate a treacherous obstacle course of cardboard boxes, suitcases and even an old skateboard (mine, not Daphne’s).
I’m millimetres from the tinsel when I accidentally nudge a massive see-through crate full of Daff’s stuff, which promptly smashes to the ground, spilling its contents everywhere.
‘Fuck’s sake …’ I mumble.
I’ve dropped to my knees to start clearing up when I spot something among the debris. An old metal biscuit tin, its lid hanging half open to reveal a selection of random objects: a crumpled script, a torn-up ticket, a faded programme for a play and a bloodstained fake revolver.
And then it hits me. These objects aren’t random at all.
Out of nowhere, a shiver runs through me; a ghost of that same feeling I felt in the pub, talking to that weird old watch-seller. The sense that this is more than just coincidence.
It’s the gun I reach for first. Crazy how Daphne kept this. I never knew she had. I turn it over and over in my hands, feeling its cold plastic grooves, tracing the smudgy red fingerprints on the handle. I can picture her now, handing it to me. I remember it so clearly. The night we met.
The script, the ticket, the programme: they’re all from that same night. The one that popped into my head earlier: the Sardines-in-the-maze night. I pick up the programme. The front cover reads: UNIVERSITY OF YORK DRAMA SOC PRESENTS: THE CAROL REVISITED.
The play was Marek’s extremely cringeworthy – and surprisingly violent – modern-day reworking of A Christmas Carol. I only had a small part, but still, as I turn the programme over, there I am: allocated my own blurry black-and-white cast photo. I’m gurning toothily at the camera in what appears to be an impression of Wallace from Wallace & Gromit.
I stare down at the picture, and suddenly I cannot believe that this grinning nineteen-year-old kid and I are actually the same person. It’s like looking at a photo of a stranger; I feel no connection at all. What is left of him now?
Obviously it could have been the snakebites and the sambucas, but that night in the maze – a week after this photo was taken – I remember feeling some strange, almost spiritual certainty that everything would turn out all right for me. That I was headed in a decent direction, that my dreams were achievable and the future was a blank canvas I was about to decorate beautifully.
And then – yeah. Look what happened. I took that canvas and filled it with mistakes and failures and wrong turnings. Bad decisions and lies and terrible things I can never, ever take back.
If there’s ever a Ben Hazeley Wikipedia page – and unless someone who shares my name does something worthwhile with his life, there won’t be, but just suppose there is – I can picture now exactly how it will look. Where other Wikipedia pages have headings like ‘Career’ or ‘Legacy’ or ‘Filmography’, mine will just say: ‘Fuck-Ups’. It will be a long, detailed, heavil
y bullet-pointed list that will begin with the subheading, ‘1996: Dad Buggers Off’ and end – next week – with ‘2020: Cheats On Wife’.
My head is getting heavier by the second, and I know I should crack on with the decorations, but for some reason I can’t tear myself away from the items in this tin. It suddenly makes me angry that Daphne’s kept all this stuff. I picture her sneaking up here from time to time, opening the lid and poring over these objects: physical reminders that she would have been better off without me.
Because that’s it, isn’t it? If your life is just a series of mistakes and screw-ups, then surely it would be best if you weren’t around?
There’s no photo of Daphne in the programme – she was drafted in at the last minute, after someone dropped out – but I can still see her exactly as she was at eighteen: this happy, funny, exuberant girl who gave everyone, friends and strangers alike, the full wattage of her amazing smile, as if she genuinely didn’t realise its power.
And then I stepped in. Chipped away at her over the years, to turn her into the tired, angry, miserable woman in the hallway earlier. Surely her teenage self would be just as disappointed as mine at how things turned out? She must have imagined that by thirty-three she’d have a successful, supportive, normal husband. And kids. I know she wants kids, even though we haven’t broached the subject once this year, despite lots of our mates starting to have them.
A weird memory hits me – not even mine, but something Mum told me when I was a teenager. I’d been eagerly pestering her for happy stories about me and Dad – positive that he’d soon be back in my life – and she’d finally caved and told me about how, when I was eight, I’d wandered in on him watching that Monty Python film, The Meaning of Life. Hearing the phrase, I’d repeated it, parrot-fashion: ‘Dad, what is the meaning of life?’ And he’d laughed and then replied: ‘I suppose it’s to increase the sum of human happiness.’
I loved that answer when I was fourteen, but now it strikes me as the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard. Because all I’ve done since then is subtract, subtract, subtract.
I squeeze the bridge of my nose, and my vision blurs at the edges. I look at my watch to see that it’s one minute to midnight. One minute to Christmas Day.
And then I remember that the watch is bust. Still, that’s probably not far off the real time. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day …
I pick up the programme again, and the fake gun, and hold them both steadily in the palm of my hand.
I’ve no idea how long I sit there staring at them before I fall asleep.
Chapter Six
Traditionally, I find that my hangovers wake up a few seconds after I do.
After a big night of drinking, I tend to get this lovely calm-before-the-storm moment as soon as I regain consciousness, where there’s no pain yet, no regret, no violent urge to vomit. And then as soon as I open my eyes or move my head, all hell breaks loose.
I’m lying perfectly still with my eyes shut, enjoying this period of prelapsarian bliss as I try to fill in the gaps from last night. There are plenty of them. I remember the biscuit tin and the fog of self-pity, but I can’t remember Daff coming home. I can’t remember doing the tree. I can’t even remember coming down from the attic.
Oh please God, don’t let me have slept in the attic.
I experiment with turning my head very gently to the side. There’s no blinding migraine or sudden desire to be sick, which is encouraging. I also seem to be lying on a comfortable pillow and mattress, which bodes well for the please-God-don’t-let-me-have-slept-in-the-attic situation.
I decide to risk it and open my eyes. But it’s not a headache that hits me – it’s cold, hard terror.
I scramble upright, suddenly wide wide WIDE awake, my heart head-butting my ribcage.
Where the HELL am I?
It’s like my brain is still a few seconds behind my eyes, struggling to process the information it’s receiving. The bogey-green curtains; the scratchy Brillo-pad carpet; the poky brown cupboard that hides a grubby little sink and mirror within it.
I hear a low, slightly manic moan from somewhere, and then realise it’s coming from my mouth.
This is … this is uni. This is my bedroom in the first year at uni.
Have I gone mad? Is this what going mad feels like?
Or maybe … maybe this is some kind of elaborate – really elaborate – prank. I suddenly remember an awful interactive theatre experience that Harv dragged me along to once, where the audience ended up as part of the show. We were led into the middle of this extravagant stage and forced to start shaping the plot by ad-libbing with the actors. Maybe this is something similar. If so, then whoever designed the set deserves every award going. It’s literally exactly as I remember it.
I feel my head start to pound, the hangover kicking in now, but then I notice the door handle is rattling frantically and the thumping is actually coming from outside the room.
‘Ben? You in there? Ben!’
The handle jiggles again, but it seems the door is locked.
‘Benjaminnnnnnnn?’ It’s Harv’s voice. Thank God for that.
I stumble to my feet, my heart still thundering, and notice that I’m dressed in a pair of jeans I don’t recognise and my old Wu-Tang Clan hoodie. I thought I’d lost this thing years ago.
I open the door and immediately have to fight the urge to start laughing.
It’s Harv, but it also … isn’t.
It’s like Harv has been gently inflated, or suffered some traumatic allergic reaction. His sharpened cheekbones and laughter lines are all gone, and his face is younger, rounder, doughier. I notice a solid pouch of belly hanging stoutly over his belt buckle. He has a can of lager in one hand and what appears to be a peanut butter and cheese toastie in the other.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ he says.
‘I … have no idea,’ I stammer, quite truthfully.
‘Do you know what time it is?’
Instinctively, I glance down at my wrist. My watch says one minute to twelve. The watch I’m still wearing. I’ve woken up in completely different clothes, in a completely different place, and yet this watch is somehow still fixed around my wrist. My brain is poking fruitlessly at this fact when I realise Harv is snapping his fingers in front of my face.
‘Hello? Hellooooo?’
He looks at me strangely, and then takes a large bite of his toastie. ‘It’s after six, man, you’d better get a shift on,’ he says, stickily. ‘Marek just called me. He’s going mental. You weren’t answering your mobile. They’re all already at the Drama Barn.’
I shut my eyes for a second, hoping that when I reopen them I’ll be back in the attic, nursing the mother of all hangovers, with Daphne glowering down at me.
But no. Inflatable Harv is still right there, swigging his lager and staring at me through narrowed eyes. ‘Are you stoned or something?’ he says. ‘Or are you just being a twat?’
‘No, I’m …’ I have no clue what I am. I feel like I’m in some sort of highly advanced virtual-reality video game.
A door opens behind Harv and a small blonde girl emerges, smiling at us. Fuck. It’s Geordie Claire. She lived opposite me in halls. I haven’t seen her since … well, since uni. She waves two little red tickets at me. ‘Good luck, Ben! Me and Stu will be front row.’
I squint at the tickets. They say: DRAMA SOC PRESENTS: THE CAROL REVISITED.
Suddenly I know where I am. And, more importantly, when I am. I have to grab the door frame to steady myself.
‘Shit, Ben, are you OK?’ Claire asks, rushing towards me.
Harv laughs and slips an arm round my shoulder. ‘Must be first-night nerves. Come on, man, we’ll have a quick drink and then I’ll walk you down there.’
Claire looks slightly concerned, but just nods goodbye and heads out.
Harv leads me through to our corridor’s shared kitchen, and the milky-cheesy-rotten-fruit stench that hits me is almost as strong as the déjà vu. I am
now one hundred per cent certain that this is not a dream. Only reality could smell this bad.
I slump down into a plastic chair and take a few deep breaths (through my mouth, obviously). Harv shakes his head as he watches me gulping desperately for air.
‘Mate, will you chill out,’ he laughs. ‘You’ll be fine. It’s not like you’re the main part. What’ve you got, like, three lines?’
I’m barely listening to him. There’s a Nuts magazine calendar hanging over the pasta-sauce-spattered microwave. Just above Michelle Marsh’s partially exposed breasts is the confirmation I’m looking for, the confirmation I’ve been dreading:
DECEMBER 2005.
I’ve come back fifteen years.
Harv plonks a can of lager on the table in front of me. He’s now talking into a little electric-blue flip phone. God, I remember that phone. He thought it made him look like someone out of The Wire. ‘Yo, Marek,’ he says. ‘It’s all right, relax, I’ve found him … Yeah, he’s fine. Just a bit nervous … I know, three lines, that’s what I told him. Anyway, we’re on our way now, so don’t panic … Cool. In a bit.’
He snaps the phone shut with a satisfying click. He used to love doing that. ‘Well, Marek’s officially losing his mind,’ he announces. ‘He thought you’d bottled it. Apparently the girl doing the props has also dropped out last minute. He’s calling everyone he knows to find a replacement.’
I can’t get my head around this. I know I should probably be crying or screaming or checking myself into an asylum, but all my brain seems capable of doing is compiling a list of every time-travel film I’ve ever seen. 12 Monkeys, The Terminator, Timecop: they all involve people being sent back to kill somebody significant. Is that what this is? Does Geordie Claire turn out to be the next Hitler or something? She is vegetarian.
