Out: A Schoolboy's Tale

by David Brining

  18: Edge of Glory

  EVEN an experienced performer like me gets nervous before a show. You never know quite how it's going to go, how the audience will respond, whether there will even be an audience, so for the inexperienced, stepping on-stage before five hundred people can be terrifying. Mark Burridge looked sick, Jambo Hartley's face was green and Jason Middleton was reading his lines, anxiety etched on his brow. I sprayed some Bach Rescue Remedy under my tongue and offered the bottle to Burridge. Our play was fast approaching. The show opened at 7.30 with us on second at 8.15. It was now 6.15. Curtain-up was getting close.

  I was sitting on the wide wooden window-sill of our house-room, staring through my reflection at the darkened rugby-pitch beyond, breathing on the glass and writing 'JP woz 'ere' in the mist, the J and P joined at the stems. The backs of my hands were red and stinging from the vicious slaps game I'd played with Sooty. Man, the parrot-faced little twat had absolutely battered my hands, you know? His reflexes were so sharp I’d hardly landed a slap and he'd timed his twitches so perfectly I'd conceded penalty after penalty till he made me scream. Anyway, as I blew on the smarting red skin and vowed revenge, I thought our play would go well. It provided all the groans, boos, cheers and laughs a house play should. It had a great mix of characters, a fast-moving plot, corny jokes and lots of slapstick. What was there not to like?

  Since we'd been told to assemble at 6 for make-up at half-past, I'd stayed after school and done some Physics prep with Joe Bainbridge, who was doing the lighting for Firth. Thank God he'd been around. I hadn't understood a damn thing. I mean, I had a GCSE on this in six months' time. Depressed, I stared at the questions and my scribbled efforts:

  'Speed of truck retards to from 10 km/h to 5 km/h moving a distance of 30m. How far before it stops will it go?

  'It will have gone 60m.'

  ''No,'' said Bainbridge, ''Ten metres.''

  ''What?'' The sum was there. ''10 to 5 = 30, 5 to 0 = 30+30 = 60.''

  ''It's slowing down,'' said Bainbridge. ''The average velocity is 2.5. It's going three times slower, so a third of thirty is ten. Didn't you read the question?''

  ''A train, 90 metres long, stops in station, buffers (front) in line with lampost on platform. Starts with average acceleration of 0.45 m/s2. What will its speed be in km/h, when tail-buffers pass lamp-post? v2 = u2 + 2ax,'' I said, although I had opted for v = u + at.

  'v = 0 ? u2 = ?2

  u = 0, u2 = 0

  a = 0.45 m/s2

  x = 90 m.

  v = 0 + 2 x .45 x 90

  = v2 = 0 + .90 x 90

  = v2 = 0 + 81.00

  = v = √81 = 9 = v = √89181 x 1000 = 9x1000= 9000

  .45.90

  2 x 90 x

  .9081.00

  Therefore speed = 9.000 km/h9 km/h9 x 3600

  1000

  = 32.4 km/h.'

  ''Hooray,'' went Bainbridge. ''You got one right! But do you know why?''

  I stared at him. Blank incomprehension.

  ''Why did you use that equation?'' He flipped over a page to where Millie had written the same question over another disastrous prep with another load of crossings out. In red, 'Way too short and parts of it don't seem to mean anything', Millie had given my Charles Law prep 10/20. Bainbridge just shook his head like I was some retarded, stew for-brains spaz.

  ''Dunno,'' I said, ''But I wrote you a limerick.''

  'There was A young student called Joe,

  Who fell down and broke his toe,

  Whilst covered in pot

  It became rather hot,

  And his whole leg started to glow.'

  ''Blimey,'' said Burridge, ''You're helping him with his Physics? Your hair'll turn white.''

  I got my own back, though, with Chapter 31 of Casterbridge [SPOILER etc.]:

  'The furmity seller's revelation [that H. sold his wife and child in an auction for five guineas] has been the final turning-point in Henchard's decline. The creditors let H. down and H. corn is now bankrupt. He moves out to Jopp's cottage. He hates Jopp but goes as a form of self-punishment. His bankruptcy is precipitated by two events i.e. i) the failure of someone to pay him back ii) scandal over his past. Farfrae buys H's business and his house and F's name obliterates H's.'

  ''Everyone lies about their past lives and about their true feelings,'' I said, ''And it brings disaster – Henchard, Lucetta, Susan… and even though there's so much bad luck and that, Henchard makes a series of bad decisions and loses everything, including his name, and that's the significance of Farfrae painting his over Henchard's.''

  ''He's being punished by the Gods for selling his wife and child,'' said Burridge.

  ''Yeah,'' I agreed, skimming through the novel for a quote and found this, the last line, on page 326: 'Happiness is but an occasional episode in a general drama of pain.' Now you see why I wrote THOMAS HARDY RULES OK? on the back of my exercise book. He had summed up life in a sentence.

  The dress rehearsal had been a total disaster. Everything that could've gone wrong went wrong. The lighting-crew missed nearly every cue. The cap-guns hadn't fired. The whole cast'd seemed nervous and ill-at-ease, you know? Turner and Rosie had yelled at each other, Turner declaring the play was 'crap anyway'. Sutcliffe'd tripped over a box, bruising his shin. Dwyer mislaid the props. Even Leo missed an entrance. As for me, I forgot my lines. Ali had alternated between fury and despair, yelling ''We're going on tomorrow and you're still pissing about! Get serious, please! We get one shot, one.'' He'd jabbed a finger at Middleton. ''I couldn't hear a bloody word and I was in the front row.'' Then Paulus got the hair-dryer. ''You've got as much charisma as a piece of wood.'' And me. ''You, Jonny, you've got the memory of a fucking goldfish. You've done those lines like a billion times.''

  We hung our heads, except the Sixth Form, who made wanking gestures behind his back and said he needed to 'go get shagged'. Anderson had suggested Paulus offer up his arse. Paulus had thrown this box of plastic guns at Anderson's head. The whole thing had collapsed into tetchy bickering and vicious name-calling. Worse, I'd really wanted Ali, to kiss him again, to hold him again, but there was nowhere, no place and no time to be alone.

  As the clock ticked round to 6.30 and Bunny barked a brisk 'Right, you lot,' the Sixth Formers packed up their poker, we gathered our stuff and moved to the Grimshaw Art Room where Mrs Locke, Mrs May and two Sixth Formers called Palmer and Liddell were applying the slap. Firth were ready so Harry Turner slipped into a vacant chair where Palmer began daubing his face with foundation.

  ''Where's Rosie?'' demanded Bill Laud. ''He should be here by now.''

  ''You got my costume, Jonny?'' Sooty was borrowing my black trench-coat for his gangster look. I tossed him a Morrison's bag. It'd serve the vicious, beaky twat right if I'd 'forgotten' it after that Slaps game. He kept chewing his lower lip and frowning. Funny, but when I wore the trench-coat, I started thinking like a gangster. Maybe that's why Mum didn't like me wearing it. I kind of swaggered through town going 'you want a favour from me? Isss OK, but one day I might need a favour from you' and 'Leatherface is sleeping with the fishes tonight' till Bunny Hutchinson came in and cuffed me round the head saying ''For God's sake, boy, don't you ever stop talking?''

  We started changing. This should've been exciting but I felt anxious for Ali, for the play, for the cast. I desperately wanted it to be successful. I stripped to my vest and, waiting my turn, watched Paulus in the chair between Sooty and Jambo having powder dabbed across his broad nose. There was little conversation. Usually the air was thick with banter.

  I'd sat in that very same chair during Midsummer Night's Dream, Palmer streaking my bare legs green, Liddell powdering my gel-spiked hair green and Mrs Locke painting my face, guess what? Well done. Ali had been next to me, running through his lines with Mrs May as she made up his face. I was in total awe of him, gulping when he smiled, stammering when he told me I was great to work with and wishing me luck. Now, preparing to star in Ali's own play, I felt exhilarated, 'cos he w
as my boyfriend now, and now I knew what he'd meant when he said he loved what I did. I remembered in Oliver when I'd been shy and nervy, while Mrs Locke was gluing this beard to Ali's chin, he'd suddenly turned and gone 'Jonathan, I love your voice' and in our farewell scene, when he's in jail and waiting to hang, he'd actually, on the last night, grabbed me into an improvised hug. It had made the audience cry, but I hadn't really understood why he'd done it till now. I was glad.

  Dwyer passed with a cardboard box of cap-guns, asking who needed a gun.

  ''Me!'' I yelled excitedly. Rummaging in the box, I grabbed a long-barrelled toy Colt and a red plastic ring of six caps. I like twirled it round my index-finger in a kind of impression of East Clintwood, and aimed the barrel at the back of Paulus' head. ''Hey, punk! Do you feel lucky? Well? Do you? Punk?'' Then I span it again, diddle-diddle-deeing the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, told Sooty there were 'two kinds of people, those with loaded guns and those who dig – you dig' then cried ''Ouch'' as the gun wrenched my finger.

  ''Pack it in, Peters,'' said Middleton irritably. ''I'm trying to focus.''

  ''Get back in line,'' I growled, quoting The Outlaw Josey Wales, ''Before I kick you so hard you'll be wearing your ass for a hat.''

  Paulus chucked a make-up stained cotton-wool ball at my head. I chucked it back, hoping for a cotton-wool ball fight, but Turner slapped my head and told me to sit still.

  ''JP, you're next,'' said Liddell, squinting at the hand-written instructions he had been given by Ali, then passing them to Mrs Locke.

  ''What's this say, Miss? I can't read Rose's childish scrawl.''

  ''Moustache,'' Mrs Locke decided. ''Get the Copydex.''

  Palmer slapped the cold, clammy cream on my face and started smoothing it in whilst Liddell coloured my hair grey with some kind of powder. My nerves were starting to jangle. I glanced sideways at Burridge whose bird's-nest curls were being powdered white. He looked very sick, his blue eyes dull. Dwyer and Rice started moving boxes of props to the tables in the wings. I heard Paulus mutter something, Sutcliffe reply by saying he thought he might faint, and Bobby Rose call them both 'a couple of knicker-wetting poofs'. Middleton, wearing a black trilby and mac, was pacing again, eyes fixed on his script. Warburton was fiddling with his kilt and sporran. God, it was like sooo tense, you know? Like a stretched rubber band, or the Strictly final. So thank God for Sonning, thank God for Laud, thank God for Anderson and thank God for Trent. The arrival of our men-in-drag brought us out in hysterics. They had decided to dress together in what Anderson dubbed 'a bit of girly-bonding', and made a grand, Grand entrance together.

  Sonning was like wearing this frizzy grey wig, dowdy yellow frock, moth-eaten fox-fur and, bizarrely, grey trainers. A yellow handbag dangled from his arm.

  Laud was wearing this royal-blue skirt and matching jacket, and a twin-set in pearls. He had somehow squashed his feet into this pair of blue high-heeled shoes and his head into a huge brown wig which resembled a loaf of bread and added like a foot to his height.

  Anderson had crammed his massive, flabby bulk into a ridiculously short, red leather skirt, enclosed his massive tree-trunk legs in fishnet tights and squeezed his gigantic torsos, complete now with enormous balloons, into a tight yellow halter-top. Mrs May had already done his make-up. He had like these massive red lips, huge patches of green eye-shadow and a long curly brown wig. He split our sides.

  And then there was Leo.

  Our lovely lion scampered in wearing the French-maid's outfit, the long blonde wig, the frilly apron and a pink garter around his right thigh. He'd like pushed these balled-up socks down the dress to give himself breasts, you know? He stood in the centre of the room hoisting them into position with his forearm blaring ''I feel fantastic!''

  ''You look fantastic,'' cried Ali, appearing behind him. ''All of you look fantastic. You guys will bring the roof down.'' Laying a hand on Leo's shoulder, he beamed at us. He was wearing a yellow shirt and seemed really hyper. My heart melted.

  ''Christ,'' said Turner, ''The sun just walked in.''

  ''Some say it matches my personality,'' said Ali. ''Bold and outgoing.''

  ''Or vile and revolting,'' said Warburton. ''Are you trying to lose a bet or something?''

  ''That's exactly what Leatherface asked me,'' he answered. '''Is that a canary yellow shirt?' he goes. And I go, 'Oh, no, sir. It's a canary yellow shirt'.'' We laughed. ''Then I said 'Where's my team, sir?' He said 'Walk this way' and I said, 'If I could walk that way... ',''

  And we chorused ''I'd be in a circus!'' ha ha.

  ''You been in the pub?'' growled Turner, leaning over to smell his breath.

  ''Unfortunately not,'' Ali replied. ''I've been meeting the punters. Full house. Six hundred people, waiting for you.''

  My stomach lurched sickly as Palmer daubed this jelly-like stuff on my top-lip.

  ''Here,'' Ali told some gimp. ''Give these cues to Gregory and tell him if he messes them up, I'll string him from the nearest telegraph-pole by his great hairy bollocks.''

  ''Alistair!'' chided Mrs May, ''Under-sixteens present, thank you very much. We don't want great hairy bollocks all over the place, do we?''

  Everyone bellowed with laughter. Mrs May simply raised an 'honestly, boys' eyebrow at a grinning Mrs Locke and returned to Bobby's nose. Please, God, let me get her for A-Level English. She's sooo cool.

  Palmer finished my moustache and turfed me out of the chair.

  ''Very suave,'' said Alistair, ''Very rakish. Mad, bad and dangerous to know.''

  I slipped into my white shirt and tux and looped my black bow-tie round my collar.

  ''Can you tie that yourself?'' asked Warburton, adjusting his sporran suggestively.

  ''Course,'' I said, demonstrating slickly. ''Licensed to thrill, me.''

  ''Shaken, not stirred,'' he grunted sourly.

  Ali jerked his head towards the corridor, a mix of emotions, hope, excitement, nerves, pride, anxiety, anticipation, an entire emotional life playing out on his face.

  ''You look great,'' he said warmly. ''You will be great. I hope you enjoy it.''

  ''Me too.'' I touched his hand. ''It's your play. I really hope we do it well for you.''

  ''I wore this shirt especially for you, 'cos I know yellow's your favourite colour.''

  ''It's nice,'' I said. ''Break a leg, Alistair.''

  The corridor was empty. He touched the crucifix inside my shirt. ''I love you so much,'' he said, and kissed me. Just as I was melting into his arms, applause from the hall alerted us to Bunny's bad-tempered, red-faced return.

  ''You lot, get out. Get to the Green Room. My house is coming in. Peters, move yourself, will you? Just because you can tie a bow-tie.'' Then he crashed out again.

  I was starting to think he had it in for me.

  ''Before you go,'' said Alistair, ''Just have a laugh, right? If it goes wrong, it goes wrong, but it won't. You are a brilliant cast. Good luck to you all, enjoy yourselves and,'' he smiled, ''Break a leg. If not your own, someone else's, eh Stu?'' He winked at Anderson.

  Anderson grinned. ''Yes, boss.''

  And then we were gone, filing down the corridor on the endless but too-short walk to the school hall and to Room 51, our waiting room for the next thirty minutes.

  Excitement was spreading. I felt something gnawing at my intestines. Paulus ran off for a leak. Everyone else was frowning, focussing, getting into The Zone. Ali was whispering fiercely to his brother who suddenly looked up at him with a gaze of total adoration. God. He lived with him. I had forgotten. I was suddenly so jealous!

  Sweating inside the dinner-jacket, I was now worrying the perspiration would ruin my moustache. I rubbed my palms on my trousers as another bead of sweat welled slowly through my left temple. Polite applause burst from the hall.

  Bunny appeared in the wings and looked at us. ''You ready?''

  ''Are we ready?'' bawled Turner. ''Are we ready?''

  ''Ready!'' we yelled, tension, anxiety and excitement exploding from ou
r bodies.

  ''Let's do it!'' cried Turner while Bunny hissed feebly for us to be quiet.

  Firth House trailed dejectedly past. Their show, directed by Adrian Shelton, Nick's brother, had not gone so well. They'd done Proper Drama, like some serious French piece, and depressed the audience to hell. Simon Ayres' head-shake said it all. If the school mag's official photographer hadn't found something to snap, it must've been shit.

  I perched next to Paulus on the prop-table in the wings as the lights came up to reveal Harry Turner, who shall now be referred to as Marco Sclerotti, wrapped in a blue silk dressing-gown, feet propped on a desk, speaking into a telephone. Although I knew it by heart, I followed my highlighted script.

  ''Yes… yes… yes… yes…'' He paused. ''Yes… yes… yes…'' He paused again and, looking directly at the audience, leaned forward as though about to address them, then he leaned back again and said ''Yes … yes… yes…'' There was a murmured chuckle.

  Ali, pacing about in the wings, seemed incredibly jumpy, incredibly nervous. All his brash, motivating confidence had melted away. This was his script. These were his words. And he had delivered them over to a bunch of schoolboys. He was only seventeen himself. I suddenly appreciated, as his brother clearly did, how stressful this was for him.

  ''So how much has he left?'' said Marco. ''Two million? Man, that's a lot of bread, as my baker would say.'' He paused. ''It's a joke, Jacko, a joke? Know what one is?'' He glared at the audience, dark and silent behind the spotlights, and said ''Do you know what one is?''

  A few people laughed. Someone shouted ''Not sure you do, Hazza!''

  Ali looked sick. He muttered ''They hate it'' to Anderson, who laid a meaty hand on his shoulder and murmured a consoling reply. I felt so sad for him, and then Sooty Sutcliffe, trench-coat hanging open, black trilby pulled towards black Ray-bans, sauntered casually on-stage saying ''Everyone knows what a joke is, Marco, and yours wasn't one.'' Now he addressed the audience, totally off-script. ''Our director has a strange sense of humour. We're not sure he knows what a joke is either. You don't like it? Spare a thought for us. We've had to put up with him for like two months. I've aged ten years. When I started this, I looked like some Junior School gimp. Now I look like Dr Crawford.''

  That burst of laughter saved the play. This skinny no-hipped fourth-former, fourteen years old, with the beaky nose, the nondescript mousy hair and the eyes too close together, had saved the day so when Jason Middleton delivered his line ''I am Herr Lakker, ze German barber,'' and there was more laughter, I muttered ''are they drunk?'' to Paulus.

  Marco and Giuseppe now laid their plans, that Herr Lakker would make contact with the gardener Arthur MacArthur, con his way into the household, rob the safe and scuttle off to the Sclerottis with the loot, otherwise, said Marco ''It's a paira di olda concreta galoshes.'' Then Stuart Anderson, having added curlers and a Union Jack headscarf to his ensemble, lumbered on-stage and the audience was ours. Heaving up his balloons in best pantomime-style, he received a guttural roar and launched into a nagging, innuendo-riddled attack on Marco's poor bedroom performances and disappointingly microscopic 'equipment'.

  ''How did you two meet?'' asked Giuseppe. ''I forget, and anyway, I think the ladies and gentlemen would like to hear the tale.''

  ''I was sitting in my car one evening,'' said Marco, ''When a tree, coming towards me at high-speed, crashed into my radiator. I walked along the road till I came to a pub, the George and Dragon. I knocked on the door. Nessie opened it. 'Excuse me,' I said, 'Is George here?' She invited me in, took her teeth out of a glass, and poured two cognacs. There she stood, cognac dripping from her moustache. Honestly, the last time I saw a mouth like that, there was a hook in it. I took her to a disco that night. She wore a split-skirt. Have you ever seen a hippopotamus in a split-skirt? The bouncer asked me why I had brought a burst sofa to the club. Her knickers didn't have elastic in them. They were on a curtain-rail. I asked her why she'd brought her sister. She said there was only her.'' Les Dawson lives on, right?

  Laughter rolled round the hall. My heart soared.

  ''After her morning wallow,'' said Marco, ''She proposed and I accepted.''

  ''You sure she didn't twist your arm?'' said Giuseppe.

  ''She couldn't. She'd already broken it in three places with her rubber truncheon.''

  Herr Lakker then encountered kilted, sporraned Jock Macabre, whisky-bottle in hand.

  ''Och the noo and hoots mon, Jimmy. Whit's your game?''

  ''Vot ein vundervoll day,'' said Lakker, in his bowler hat and furled umbrella disguise.

  ''Willna last, Jimmy, willna last. The sun rarely shines south of the border.'' Jocko slugged some whisky, in reality four-day-old cold tea. Me and Paulus had swigged some earlier. It was revolting and made Paulus spew up yet Jocko seemed to like it, especially when he suddenly goes off on one about how everything's so much better in Scotland, and how much Scotland's given to the UK, and how his country's ripped off by public school poofters. It was like listening to one of those bloody tea-towels listing Scottish inventions, you know? Rubber by Dunlop McCondom, TV by Baird, penicillin by Fleming, the Macintosh by Angus McMacintosh, burgers by Fergus Macdonald, electricity by Jocko McPower, water by Jimmy McWater – I mean, McYawnsville, right? Like listening to the bloody Scottish Nationalists and their tedious devolution debate, eh? Ha ha. One small nothingness wants to cecede from another small nothingness. I mean, who cares? There's more important freedoms to fight for.

  ''Ow!'' My bloody wife booted me hard in the shin 'cos the stage-crew were setting the dinner scene, Paulus, as Sharp, and Burridge, as Kirby Mills, were on, greeting the guests and seating them at the table and I was just staring into space, 'like some spaced-out mong.' We had no scenery and we'd not been allowed to paint anything so the audience just had to imagine the plush velvet sofa, the rich shag-pile carpet, the sparkling crystal chandelier, the ancient fading tapestries, the blazing log-fire rather than the old black plastic chairs from the music centre and the Headmaster's table. Nonetheless, when Mark Sonning tottered on-stage, it was to another, almost animal, roar from the crowd.

  ''Hello, Aunt Clarissa,'' said Sharp, adding in a loud aside to Mills ''She's a little bit deaf, so you'll have to speak up.''

  ''Who can't keep it up?'' said Clarissa. ''Him? Looks the sort.''

  ''This is my solicitor, Mr Mills,'' said Sharp. ''He's helping with the will. He's been very generous with his time.''

  ''Half-past six,'' answered Clarissa.

  With a sudden lurch of the stomach, I was on, linking arms with Bill and telling Paulus/Sharp how tired and upset he looked and introducing my wife, Lady Penelope Farthing, with the well-upholstered frame and a string of 'leg-over into the saddle' gags when Herr Lakker arrived, selling, well, Hair Lacquer. Ha ha.

  ''Somesink to make your hair stay vere you vant it in, Donner und Blitzen und Gott in Himmel. I am Herr Lakker, ze chairman barber. Ve haff vays of making it stop.'' Clenching his fists, he jigged a little on the spot. ''Englischer piggen-dogger und grrrrrr.''

  ''Perkins.'' Sharp ordered. ''Be a good chap and chuck the gentleman into the gutter.''

  As Sharp took me and my wife away to see his etchings (hur hur), Perkins turned towards Lakker. Quick as a flash, Lakker knocked him over the head with the bottle of hair-tonic and gagged him, firing out the immortal line ''Shut your faces. This is the best gag in the play.'' There was this loud unison guffaw from the hall. Feeling Paulus quiver with suppressed hysteria, I choked back a laugh of my own.

  ''Stop corpsing,'' hissed Laud. ''Stay focussed.''

  We stumbled into the wings whilst Lakker was shoving Perkins into the grandfather clock, disguising himself in half-mast trousers and a too-small jacket and telling the audience he was a master of concealment, and erupted into fits of giggles. This play was hilarious. We'd forgotten, during the endless, angry hours of rehearsal, just how much it made us laugh. The question was, could we get through the next half-hour without losing it completely?

/>   Our dinner party was a triumph of timing and intonation. It began with Mills, Sharp, Jasper (me) and Penny enjoying pre-dinner sherries (more revolting four-day-old cold tea which made us gag), meeting Arthur MacArthur who suffered, inevitably, from arthritis and being interrupted, at last, by Lulu the Maid. Flying across the stage wailing ''Oh, Guy, my dear, you must be so upset,'' Leo flung himself bodily at Paulus, who caught him neatly in his arms. The audience cheered. Leo kicked up his legs coquettishly, batted his eyelids flirtatiously and said ''Is there anything I can do to relieve you, Guy? Perhaps you need someone to look after you, someone to care for you, someone…'' He walked his fingers up a chest then down towards a waist. ''To reach those parts other, less courageous maids cannot reach.''

  ''This isn't in the script,'' I hissed to Bill, suddenly jealous. Leo had done this to me, and in real life, not some poxy play. But the audience was cheering and stamping.

  ''Dinner, sir,'' said Lakker pretending to be Perkins, ''Is served.''

  He'd skipped several lines 'cos Ali'd sent him on early to stop Leo stealing the scene. Nevertheless we made our way to the long table.

  ''I wonder,'' I said to Clarissa, ''If you'd kindly pass the bread.''

  ''Of course he's dead,'' said Clarissa. ''I hope he's dead. If he isn't, he'll have a nasty shock when he wakes up in a coffin.''

  ''What happened to him, nephew?'' I asked. ''It seemed so sudden.''

  ''Well,'' came the answer, ''He hadn't felt well for ages so he went to the doctor, nose running, head aching, eyes streaming. The doctor said 'flu?'''

  ''And he said 'No, I came on my bike','' interjected Penelope.

  I giggled, which set Paulus off, which set Leo off.

  ''These crackers,'' said Jock Macabre, ''Are a little hard.''

  ''What's like a knacker's yard?'' said Clarissa.

  ''Switch your hearing-aid on,'' I said.

  ''I haven't been laid on,'' Clarissa said crossly, ''Not for years, and even then it was over all too quickly. Come as you are, I said… what a disappointment.''

  Paulus giggled again as the Sixth Form guffawed.

  ''SWITCH YOUR HEARING AID ON!'' I bellowed into her ear.

  ''I know,'' said Clarissa, ''I'll switch my hearing-aid on. That'll help.'' She passed her cup to Jock. ''Would you put some sugar in please?''

  ''Let me,'' I said. ''When I went to his house, he had a fork in the sugar-bowl. He turns the gas off when he flips the bacon over.''

  ''Watch your lip, Jimmy,'' growled Jock.

  I stuck out my lower lip. ''Can't see it from here,'' I said, and felt the fake moustache detach itself and float towards the table. Several people laughed then everyone else joined in as I grabbed it, stuffed it into my breast pocket and said ''Phew, that was a close shave.'' There was a round of applause. I gave a mini-bow.

  ''Excuse me, sir,'' said Lakker/Perkins, ''Mr Mills is on the telephone.''

  ''That's odd,'' said Penelope. ''Wouldn't he fall orf?''

  ''Off what?'' Clarissa had skipped several lines.

  ''The telephone,'' I said loudly, trying to retrieve the script.

  Stewart, confused by the missed lines, killed the lights, plunging us all into darkness.

  ''Come off,'' hissed Dwyer urgently from the wings, ''Get off.''

  ''Is there a power-cut?'' ad-libbed Penelope as we stumbled off. ''Damn unions.''

  ''Who sat on your onions?'' Clarissa asked. ''I haven't had my onions so much as peeled for about a hundred years…''

  ''Made your eyes water, no doubt,'' Sharp added, well, sharply. Sorry. I just read the lines I'm given, you know?

  Another gale of laughter as Gregory restored the lights whilst Dwyer was marshalling his people to set up the much anticipated bedroom-scene and caught Rice in full-beam. Now there were a few jeers, but when Lulu returned with her line, ''Oooh, I really enjoyed that'', the jeers turned to cheers and applause.

  ''Oh Guy,'' Lulu sighed, clambering up his body as it reclined on the battered, flowery sofa we'd 'liberated' from Smeaton House and Graham Vesey, their SM, ''Please, please say you love me. Now we are alone, well, apart from these six hundred people, but just pretend they're not listening, you can speak your true feelings for me. Tell me that you love me.''

  ''Well.'' Sharp shifted up the sofa uncomfortably. ''Do you think it's wise? Just think what the neighbours would say, or the family? My God. The family! If they found us together... on a sofa… and alone? I mean, you're a man and I'm a woman… no, no,'' he flustered, trying to recover, ''I'm a man and you're a woman.''

  ''Wanna bet, Poorly?'' yelled someone from the audience.

  Back-stage, me and Sooty collapsed against each other, braying like donkeys.

  ''Then it's perfectly natural,'' said Lulu. ''We're perfectly suited. We belong together like bacon and eggs.'' S/he dabbed Sharp's nose with the feather-duster. ''Bread and butter.'' S/he tickled him under the chin. ''Coffee and cream,'' and, turning to the audience with this almighty 'oo-er', repeated the word 'cream' with as much innuendo as s/he could force into it.

  The hall erupted.

  ''Crikey,'' said Sooty, awe-struck, ''He's fucking brilliant.''

  Lulu dabbed Sharp's nose again, saying, with a glance at the crowd, ''How do you like my French-tickler? Big, fluffy and, oo la la, so handy for getting into those awkward cracks…''

  A loud 'Wa-hey' burst from the Sixth Form and, apparently, from some of the Staff.

  ''I have something to show you,'' s/he said slyly. ''It's hidden in my apron.''

  Another loud roar.

  ''Put your hand in and you'll feel something warm.''

  Bloody hell. I looked at the others, standing in the wings. Everyone had just dissolved into total hysteria. Sooty, choking, was pounding my shoulder. Ali had buried his face in the script. Anderson seemed about to explode. Even Bunny, leaning red-faced in the wings, seemed to be weeping. Leo unpeeled himself from Paulus, looked directly into the audience and said ''My heart, you perverts, my heart. What d'you think I meant? Honestly! Men!''

  Someone, maybe his Dad, maybe Hellfire, started chanting ''Le-o, Le-o, Le-o, Le-o.''

  ''Get on,'' hissed Ali, smacking me on the shoulder. ''He's totally off-script.''

  ''Hello, Guy, I wondered if you… Oh. Lulu. I didn't expect to find you here. You defy the laws of gravity. Easier to pick up than to drop.''

  S/he turned on me, draping himself round my waist, off-script again.

  ''Oh, Jasper. My hunky hero. Mad, bad and dangerous to know. We belong together, like bread and butter, like bacon and eggs, like …''

  ''Don't say it!'' I cried desperately. ''Don't even think it! Not peaches and cream…''

  Arching his eyebrow, he twined his right leg, resplendent in the fishnets and garter, round my waist like it was some stripper's pole, flicked his wig and, flirting outrageously with a six-hundred-strong audience, batted his lashes and said in a small, hurt, piping voice, ''I was actually… as a matter of fact… going to say… bananas…'' MASSIVE fuck-off pause whilst he licks his lips suggestively and the audience collapses in tears, ''And thick, THICK custard.''

  I turned helplessly away, sobbing with laughter so Sooty had to lead me off. Leo extended his open palms to the crowd with a puzzled shrug, like 'what have I said?'

  ''Get back to the bloody script,'' gasped Ali, wiping tears from his face. ''Stop pissing about and get back to the script.'' Paulus, Sooty and I clung together, trying to calm down for the final scene where Kirby Mills read the last will and testament of Sharp's uncle and handed over a briefcase of loot, saying ''I'll give you the two million now.''

  ''No!'' yelled Lakker, ''You vill giff it to me.'' He faltered. ''Bollocks. I don't have a gun.''

  I had a gun but I needed it for my twist-in-the-tale double-cross.

  ''You're not Perkins,'' cried Penelope Farthing.

  ''No! Ich bin Herr Lakker und if you don't giff me ze the money, I vill shoot you dead, every single von off you.'' Then he hissed to me ''Give me your gun.''


  ''What?''

  ''Give me your gun.''

  ''No,'' I said. ''I need it. Where's yours?''

  ''I forgot it.'' The audience started laughing again. Looking round the set, his eyes alighted on the umbrella. ''But I do haff zis, and so, Englischer piggendoggers, vill shoot you vis zis poisoned-dart-firing umbrella and you vill die horrible agonizing deaths.''

  ''Brilliant, Jase,'' I muttered, pulling the cap-gun from my jacket. ''I'll take the money, thank you very much.''

  ''Oh Jasper,'' said Penny, ''What are you doing?''

  ''Shut up, Penny. You tire me. One more word and I'll shoot you.''

  ''But you'll make a hole in my dress, and it was only new this morning.''

  Arthur MacArthur appeared to tell us the car was ready.

  ''So ve don't need him any more!'' Lakker pulled the trigger of his dart-firing brolly.

  ''And I don't need you any more,'' I yelled, leaping about and shooting wildly around the set. ''Go ahead, punk. Make my day!''

  'BANG, BANG.' Staggering Lakker crashed into this ten-foot tall plywood backdrop so hard it swayed. The audience emitted this 'woooo' sound as he slid to the floor beside Arthur.

  ''Whit's all this noise?'' said Jock from the doorway, Lulu stroking his sporran and mewing something about it being so soft and furry.

  ''Don't move!'' I shouted, jumping sideways to cover them.

  As the clock bonged one, Perkins burst out, rolled across the floor and crashed into my legs. Seizing Jock's toffee-glass whisky-bottle, Lulu crashed it down on my head and I crumpled into a heap, the bottle shattered around me, the plywood panel swaying again. Shit, I thought, joining the heap of bodies sprawled on the floor, if that comes down, it'll flatten us like ferrets. Then, as the booby-trapped bag blew up in Sooty's beaky face, he decided to hurl himself bodily backwards into the already swaying set for a spectacular death, the fucking idiot. I watched it swoop, heard another 'woooo,' felt Sooty collapse across me as, backstage, Ali, Bunny, Dwyer and the rest of the cast braced up the scenery. I swore at Sooty who just kissed my cheek, then, while I was recovering, North and Whiting were giving it '' 'ello 'ello 'ello'' and it was over. Amid the cheers, the lights cut to black.