One Day

by David Nicholls

  ‘Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight—’

  Forty-five minutes to go before curtain up, and the chanting can be heard the whole length of the English block.

  ‘Fight, fight, fight—’

  Hurrying up the corridor, Emma sees Mrs Grainger stumble from the dressing room as if fleeing a fire. ‘I’ve tried to stop them, they won’t listen to me.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Grainger, I’m sure I can handle it.’

  ‘Should I get Mr Godalming?’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine. You go and rehearse the band.’

  ‘I said this was a mistake.’ She hurries away, hand to her chest. ‘I said it would never work.’

  Emma takes a deep breath, enters and sees the mob, thirty teenagers in top hats and hooped skirts and stick-on beards shouting and jeering as the Artful Dodger kneels on Oliver Twist’s arms and presses his face hard into the dusty floor.

  ‘WHAT is going on here, people?’

  The Victorian mob turns. ‘Get her off me, Miss,’ mumbles Oliver into the lino.

  ‘They’re fighting, Miss,’ says Samir Chaudhari, twelve years old with mutton chop sideburns.

  ‘I can see that thank you, Samir,’ and she pushes through the crowd to pull them apart. Sonya Richards, the skinny black girl who plays The Dodger, still has her fingers tangled in the flicked blond bangs of Oliver’s hair, and Emma holds onto her shoulders and stares into her eyes. ‘Let go, Sonya. Let go now, okay? Okay?’ Eventually Sonya lets go and steps back, her eyes moistening now that the rage is leeching away, replaced by wounded pride.

  Martin Dawson, the orphan Oliver, looks dazed. Five feet eleven and stocky, he is bigger even than Mr Bumble, but nevertheless the meaty waif looks close to tears. ‘She started it!’ he quavers between bass and treble, wiping his smudgy face with the heel of his hand.

  ‘That’s enough now, Martin.’

  ‘Yeah, shut your face, Dawson . . .’

  ‘I mean it, Sonya. Enough!’ Emma stands in the centre of the circle now, holding the adversaries by the elbows like a boxing referee, and she realises that if she is to save the show she is going to have to improvise a rousing speech, one of the many Henry V moments that make up her working life.

  ‘Look at you! Look at how great you all look in your costumes! Look at little Samir there with his massive sideburns!’ The crowd laugh, and Samir plays along, scratching at the stuck-on hair. ‘You’ve got friends and parents outside and they’re all going to see a great show, a real performance. Or at least I thought they were.’ She folds her arms, and sighs, ‘Because I think we’re going to have to cancel the show . . .’

  She’s bluffing of course, but the effect is perfect, a great communal groan of protest.

  ‘But we didn’t do anything, Miss!’ protests Fagin.

  ‘So who was shouting fight, fight, fight, Rodney?’

  ‘But she just went completely ape-shit, Miss!’ warbles Martin Dawson, and now Sonya is straining to get at him.

  ‘Oi, Oliver, do you want some more?’

  There’s laughter, and Emma pulls out the old triumph against the odds speech. ‘Enough! You lot are meant to be a company, not a mob! You know I don’t mind telling you there are people out there tonight who don’t think you can do this! They don’t think you’re capable, they think it’s too complicated for you. It’s Charles Dickens, Emma! they say, they’re not bright enough, they haven’t got the discipline to work together, they’re not up to Oliver!, give them something nice and easy.’

  ‘Who said that, Miss?’ says Samir, ready to key their car.

  ‘It doesn’t matter who said it, it’s what they think. And maybe they’re right! Maybe we should call the whole thing off!’ For a moment, she wonders if she’s over-egging it, but it’s hard to overestimate the teenage appetite for high drama, and there’s a great moan of protest from all of them in their bonnets and top hats. Even if they know she’s faking, they are relishing the jeopardy. She pauses for effect. ‘Now. Sonya and Martin and I are going to go and have a little talk, and I want you to continue to get ready, then sit quietly and think about your part, and then we’ll decide what to do next. Okay? I said okay?’

  ‘Yes, Miss!’

  The dressing room is silent as she follows the adversaries out, bursting into noise again the moment she closes the door. She escorts Oliver and The Dodger down the corridor, past the sports hall where Mrs Grainger leads the band through a fiercely dissonant ‘Consider Yourself’ and she wonders once again what she is letting herself in for.

  She talks to Sonya first. ‘So. What happened?’

  Evening light slants in through the large reinforced windows of 4D, and Sonya stares out at the science block, affecting boredom. ‘We just had words, that’s all.’ She sits on the edge of a desk, her long legs swinging in old school trousers slashed into tatters, tin-foil buckles stuck onto black trainers. One hand picks at her BCG scar, her small, hard, pretty face bunched up tight as a fist as if to warn Emma off trying any of that seize-the-day crap. The other kids are frightened of Sonya Richards, and even Emma sometimes fears for her dinner money. It’s the level stare, the rage. ‘I’m not saying sorry,’ she snaps.

  ‘Why not? And please don’t say “he started it”.’

  Her face opens with indignation. ‘But he did!’

  ‘Sonya!’

  ‘He said—’ She stops herself.

  ‘What did he say? Sonya?’

  Sonya makes a calculation, weighing up the dishonour of telling tales against her sense of injustice. ‘He said the reason I could play the part was ’cause it wasn’t really acting because I was a peasant in real life too.’

  ‘A peasant.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That’s what Martin said?’

  ‘S’what he said, so I hit him.’

  ‘Well.’ Emma sighs and looks at the floor. ‘The first thing to say is that it doesn’t matter what anyone says, ever, you can’t just hit people.’ Sonya Richards is her project. She knows she shouldn’t really have projects, but Sonya is so clearly smart, the smartest in her class by some way but aggressive too, a whip-thin figure of resentment and wounded pride.

  ‘But he’s such a little prick, Miss!’

  ‘Sonya, please, don’t!’ she says, though a little part of her thinks that Sonya has a valid point about Martin Dawson. He treats the kids, the teachers, the whole comprehensive system as if he were a missionary who has deigned to walk among them. Last night at the dress rehearsal he had cried real tears during ‘Where is Love?’, squeezing the high notes out like kidney stones, and Emma had found herself idly wondering what it would feel like to walk on stage, place one hand over his face and push him firmly backwards. The peasant remark is entirely in character, but even so –

  ‘If that is what he said—’

  ‘It is, Miss—’

  ‘I’ll talk to him and find out, but if it is what he said it just reveals how ignorant he is, and how daft you are too, for rising to it.’ She stumbles on ‘daft’, an Ilkley Moor word. Street, be more street, she tells herself. ‘But, hey, if we can’t settle this . . . beef, then we really can’t do the show.’

  Sonya’s face tightens again, and Emma is startled to notice that she seems as if she might cry. ‘You wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘I might have to.’

  ‘Miss!’

  ‘We can’t do the show, Sonya.’

  ‘We can!’

  ‘What, with you bitch-slapping Martin during “Who Will Buy”?’ Sonya smiles despite herself. ‘You are smart, Sonya, so so smart, but people set these traps for you and you walk right into them.’ Sonya sighs, sets her face and looks out at the small rectangle of parched grass outside the science block. ‘You could do so well, not just in the play but in class too. Your work this term’s been really intelligent and sensitive and thoughtful.’ Unsure how to deal with praise, Sonya sniffs and scowls. ‘Next term you could do even better, but you’ve got to control your temper, Sonya, you’ve got to show people y
ou’re better than that.’ It’s another speech, and Emma sometimes thinks she expends too much energy making speeches like this. She had hoped that it might have some kind of inspirational effect, but Sonya’s gaze has drifted over Emma’s shoulder now, towards the classroom door. ‘Sonya, are you listening to me?’

  ‘Beard’s here.’

  Emma glances round and sees a dark-haired face at the door’s glass panel, two eyes peering through like a curious bear. ‘Don’t call him Beard. He’s the headmaster,’ she tells Sonya, then beckons him in. But it’s true, the first, and second words that enter her head whenever she sees Mr Godalming are ‘beard’. It’s one of those startling full-face affairs: not straggly, cut very close and neat but very, very black, a Conquistador, his blue eyes peeping out like holes cut in carpet. So he is The Beard. As he enters Sonya starts to scratch at her chin and Emma widens her eyes in warning.

  ‘Evening all,’ he calls, in his jaunty out-of-hours voice. ‘How’s it going? Everything alright, Sonya?’

  ‘Bit hairy, sir,’ says Sonya, ‘but I think we’ll be okay.’

  Emma snuffles, and Mr Godalming turns to her. ‘Everything alright, Emma?’

  ‘Sonya and I were just having a little pre-show pep-talk. Do you want to go and carry on getting ready, Sonya?’ With a smile of relief, she pushes herself off the desk and saunters to the door. ‘Tell Martin I’ll be two minutes.’

  Emma and Mr Godalming are alone.

  ‘Well!’ he smiles.

  ‘Well.’

  In a fit of informality Mr Godalming goes to sit astride a chair, showbiz-style, appearing to change his mind halfway through the action before deciding that there’s no going back. ‘Bit of a handful, that Sonya.’

  ‘Oh, just bravado.’

  ‘I heard reports of a fight.’

  ‘That was nothing. Pre-show nerves.’ Straddling his chair, he really does look fantastically uncomfortable.

  ‘I heard your protégé has been laying into our future head-boy.’

  ‘Youthful high spirits. And I don’t think Martin was completely innocent.’

  ‘Bitch-slapped was the phrase I heard.’

  ‘You seem very well informed.’

  ‘Well I am the headmaster.’ Mr Godalming smiles through his balaclava, and Emma wonders if you looked long enough, would you actually be able to see the hair grow? What’s going on under all that stuff? Might Mr Godalming actually be quite good-looking? He nods towards the door. ‘I saw Martin in the corridor. He’s very . . . emotional.’

  ‘Well he’s been in character for the last six weeks. He’s taking a Method approach. I think if he could he’d have given himself rickets.’

  ‘Is he any good?’

  ‘God no, he’s awful. An orphanage’s the best place for him. You’re welcome to jam bits of the programme in your ears during “Where is Love?”.’ Mr Godalming laughs. ‘Sonya’s great though.’ The headmaster looks unconvinced. ‘You’ll see.’

  He shifts uneasily on the chair. ‘What can I expect tonight, Emma?’

  ‘No idea. Could go either way.’

  ‘Personally I’m more of a Sweet Charity man. Remind me, why couldn’t we do Sweet Charity?’

  ‘Well it’s a musical about prostitution, so . . .’

  Once more Mr Godalming laughs. He does this a lot with Emma, and others have noticed it too. There is gossip in the staffroom, dark murmurs about favouritism, and certainly he’s looking at her very intently tonight. A moment passes, and she glances back towards the door where Martin Dawson peeks tearfully through the glass panel. ‘I’d better have a word with Edith Piaf out there, before he goes off the rails.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ Mr Godalming seems pleased to dismount the chair. ‘Good luck tonight. My wife and I have been looking forward to it all week.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for a second.’

  ‘It’s true! You must meet her afterwards. Perhaps Fiona and I can have a drink with your . . . fiancé?’

  ‘God, no, just boyfriend. Ian—’

  ‘At the after-show drinks—’

  ‘Beaker of dilute squash—’

  ‘Cook’s been to the cash-and-carry—’

  ‘I hear rumours of mini kievs—’

  ‘Teaching, eh?—’

  ‘And people say it’s not glamorous—’

  ‘You look beautiful, Emma, by the way.’

  Emma holds her arms out to the side. She is wearing make-up, just a little lipstick to go with a vintage floral dress which is dark pink and a little on the tight side perhaps. She looks down at her dress as if it has taken her by surprise, but really it’s the remark that has thrown her. ‘Ta very much!’ she says, but he has noticed her hesitation.

  A moment passes, and he looks towards the door. ‘I’ll send Martin in, shall I?’

  ‘Please do.’

  He heads to the door, then stops and turns. ‘I’m sorry, have I broken some sort of professional code? Can I say that to a member of my staff? That they look nice?’

  ‘Course you can,’ she says, but both know that ‘nice’ was not the word he had used. The word was ‘beautiful.’

  ‘Excuse me, but I’m looking for the most odious man on television?’ says Toby Moray from the doorway, in that whiny, pinched little voice of his. He’s wearing a tartan suit and his on-screen make-up, his hair slick and oiled into a jokey quiff and Dexter wants to throw a bottle at him.

  ‘I think you’ll find that that’s you who you’re looking for, not me,’ says Dexter, concise speech suddenly beyond him.

  ‘Nice come-back, superstar,’ says his co-presenter. ‘So you saw the previews then?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Because I can run off some photocopies for you—’

  ‘Just one bad write-up, Toby.’

  ‘You didn’t read the Mirror then. Or the Express, The Times . . .’

  Dexter pretends to be studying his running order. ‘No-one ever built a statue of a critic.’

  ‘True, but no-one built a statue of a TV presenter either.’

  ‘Fuck off, Toby.’

  ‘Ah, le mot juste!’

  ‘Why are you here anyway?’

  ‘To wish you luck.’ He crosses, places his hands on Dexter’s shoulders and squeezes. Round and waspish, Toby’s role on the show is a kind of irreverent, say-anything jester figure and Dexter despises him, this jumped-up little warm-up man, and envies him too. In the pilot and in rehearsals he has run rings around Dexter, slyly mocking and deriding him, making him feel fat-tongued, slow-witted, doltish, the pretty boy who can’t think on his feet. He shrugs Toby’s hands away. This antagonism is meant to be the stuff of great TV they say, but Dexter feels paranoid, persecuted. He needs another vodka to recover some of his good spirits, but he can’t, not while Toby’s smirking at him in the mirror with his little owlish face. ‘If you don’t mind I’d like to gather my thoughts.’

  ‘I understand. Focus that mind of yours.’

  ‘See you out there, yeah?’

  ‘See you, handsome. Good luck.’ He pulls the door closed then opens it again. ‘No, really. I mean it. Good luck.’

  When Dexter’s sure he’s alone he pours himself that drink and checks himself in the mirror. Bright red t-shirt worn under black dinner jacket over washed out jeans over pointed black shoes, his hair cut short and sharp, he is meant to be the picture of metropolitan male youth but suddenly he feels old and tired and impossibly sad. He presses two fingers against each eye and attempts to account for this crippling melancholy, but is having trouble with rational thought. It feels as if someone has taken his head and shaken it. Words are turning to mush and he can see no plausible way of getting through this. Don’t fall apart, he tells himself, not here, not now. Hold it together.

  But an hour is an impossibly long time on live TV, and he decides that he might need a little help. There’s a small water bottle on his dressing table, and he empties it into the sink then, glancing at the door, takes the bottle of vodka from the drawer
once again and pours three, no, four inches of the viscous liquid into the bottle and replaces the lid. He holds it up to the light. No-one would ever tell the difference and of course he’s not going to drink it all, but it’s there, in his hand, to help him out and get him through. The deceit makes him feel excited and confident again, ready to show the viewing public, and Emma, and his father at home just what he can do. He is not just some presenter. He is a broadcaster.

  The door opens. ‘WAHEY!’ says Suki Meadows, his co-presenter. Suki is the nation’s ideal girlfriend, a woman for whom bubbliness is a way of life, verging on a disorder. Suki would probably start a letter of condolence with the word ‘Wahey!’ and Dexter might find this relentless perkiness a bit wearing if she weren’t so attractive and popular and crazy about him.

  ‘HOW ARE YOU, SWEETHEART? SHITTING BRICKS, I EXPECT!’ and this is Suki’s other great talent as a TV presenter, to hold every conversation as if she’s addressing the Bank Holiday crowd on the sea-front at Weston-super-Mare.

  ‘I am a little nervous, yes.’

  ‘AWWWW! COME HERE YOU!’ She wraps her arm around his head and holds it like a football. Suki Meadows is pretty and what used to be called petite, and fizzes and bubbles like a fan-heater dropped into a bath. There has been some flirtation between them recently, if you can call this flirtation, Suki pushing his face into her breast like this. Like a head-boy and head-girl, there has been some pressure for the two stars to get together, and it does sort of make sense from a professional, if not emotional point of view. She squeezes his head beneath her arm – ‘YOU’RE GOING TO BE GREAT’ – then suddenly holds onto his ears and jerks his face towards her. ‘LISTEN TO ME. YOU’RE GORGEOUS, YOU KNOW THAT, AND WE ARE GOING TO BE SUCH A GREAT TEAM, YOU AND ME. MY MUM’S HERE TONIGHT AND SHE WANTS TO MEET YOU AFTERWARDS. BETWEEN ME AND YOU I THINK SHE FANCIES YOU. I FANCY YOU, SO SHE MUST FANCY YOU TOO. SHE WANTS YOUR AUTOGRAPH BUT YOU HAVE TO PROMISE NOT TO GET OFF WITH HER!’

  ‘I’ll do my best, Suki.’

  ‘YOU GOT FAMILY IN?’

  ‘No—’

  ‘FRIENDS?

  ‘No—’

  ‘WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS OUTFIT?’ She’s wearing a clubby top and a tiny skirt, and carries the obligatory bottle of water. ‘CAN YOU SEE MY NIPPLES?’