Sweet Sorrow

by David Nicholls

  ‘Well, maybe you’ve got me wrong.’

  ‘I don’t get people wrong.’

  ‘Why can’t I be interested?’

  ‘In Shakespeare? Ha!’

  ‘Why not? It’s better than sitting at home all day. Let’s … let’s see what happens.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said and placed both hands on my shoulders. ‘But if you’re going to do it, Lewis, you’ve got to do it properly. It’s no good sitting out and sneering, you’re not with the boys now. You’ve got to commit!’

  Romeo

  Somewhere between the courtyard and the Great Lawn, Fran had disappeared. Short of hiding in the woods, I had no option but to join the cast, lolling in the sun while Romeo held forth on the demands of playing the eponymous role, his handsome head resting on his meaty arm. The eponymous role, he noted, wasn’t always the best role, and yet it was the eponymous role that always came his way and this was his curse, always to be eponymous, using the word so frequently and with such emphasis that I began to wonder if there was someone in the play called Eponymous. Behold, here comes the Duke Eponymous …

  ‘I mean, look at Othello!’ he said.

  Alex, the skinny black kid who’d sculpted me, laughed. ‘Miles, I would love to see your Othello.’

  ‘Hey, it’s a great part. As a white actor, I would refuse to play it—’

  ‘That’s very gracious of you—’

  ‘—but Iago’s a better role. Like in this play, it’s my name in the title, but I wonder if I’m naturally more of a Mercutio.’

  And Alex laughed again. ‘Oh, you mean my role? The role in which I have been cast?’

  ‘And Alex mate, you’ll be amazing. But with the eponymous role, there’s such a weight of expectation, like it’s all about me.’

  I watched him resentfully. He was handsome, I suppose, with the kind of hearty, old-fashioned good looks you might find in an old B-movie, fighting a stop-motion dinosaur. ‘Handsome and he knows it’ is the phrase my mum would use and, as if hearing this, the boy turned to me, pointing in lieu of my name. ‘What’s the better part, Romeo or Mercutio?’

  I meant to shrug, but twitched.

  ‘Who are you playing?’ he said.

  ‘Me? Don’t know yet.’

  ‘What school d’you go to?’

  ‘Merton Grange,’ I said and Romeo nodded, as if this somehow provided an answer.

  ‘Same school as us,’ said Colin Smart, who had been hugging his knees and gazing at the boy throughout.

  ‘Bit of a first for Charlie,’ said Lucy Tran, nastily. ‘Not really famous for his acting at Merton Grange.’

  ‘I’m Miles,’ said Romeo. ‘I’m at Hadley Heath, like our George over there.’

  Miles indicated a hunched boy sitting a little way off, eating a banana and reading an old Penguin copy of Madame Bovary in the merciful shade of a wall.

  ‘Hm?’ The boy looked up through aviator frames, the lenses as thick as aquarium glass. He wore what looked like a white school shirt underneath an unnecessary jumper, his hair a cap of glossy black like a Beatles wig, his skin inflamed, the colour of raspberry juice around his mouth and nose.

  ‘George’s part of my crew, aren’t you, Georgie?’ barked Miles.

  The pimpled boy shook his head. ‘No, Miles, I’m not part of your crew,’ then, returning to his novel, ‘you absolute simpleton.’

  Miles gave a hearty Sir Launcelot laugh then lunged at him, holding George’s chest down with one hand, mashing the banana in George’s fist with the other. Five miles from town, in its own high-walled compound, Hadley Heath was the kind of private school whose name is prefixed with the word ‘minor’. With good reason, the students tended to avoid the town centre and, like snow leopards, it was almost unheard of to observe their behaviour close up. We sat and watched in awkward silence until –

  ‘Hey, Miles,’ said Alex, speaking up. ‘Miles, maybe stop that?’

  Miles rolled away, wiping his hand on the grass. ‘We’ve got a really strong drama department at Hadley Heath.’

  ‘Why are you such an arsehole, Parish?’ muttered George.

  ‘Amazing studio space, really versatile, we do a lot of stuff in the round, you’re practically in the audience’s lap. I’ve played Pal Joey in Pal Joey there, Arturo Ui in Arturo Ui, Cyrano in Cyrano—’

  ‘Headline in the student paper: “Cyrano Ham”.’

  ‘Don’t provoke me, George! We just did Murder in the Cathedral—’

  ‘Miles played the Cathedral,’ said George.

  ‘Actually, I was Thomas à Becket, which is quite a marathon. Okay, it’s not the Dane, which is the role I really want to play, but it’s pretty substantial.’

  ‘Which Dane’s that, Parish?’ said George, still pulling banana from his hair. ‘The eponymous Dane?’

  ‘Don’t make me come back there, George, you little squit.’

  ‘You know you don’t have to keep saying “eponymous”, you could say “titular”. “I was the titular role”—’

  ‘It’s just such a fucking responsibility, you know, carrying the show?’

  ‘Except, there is this other character called Juliet,’ said Alex. ‘She’s quite important too.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Miles, sceptically.

  ‘What’s your favourite Shakespeare soliloquy, Miles?’ said Lucy, reverently, and I saw Helen and Alex roll their eyes.

  ‘You know a funny thing?’ said Miles, rubbing his chin, actually rubbing it. ‘You won’t find any of my favourite Shakespeare in a play. Because’ – the punch-line – ‘it’s actually a sonnet!’

  ‘Fuck me,’ murmured Helen.

  ‘Lucy,’ mumbled George, ‘do you have any idea of the monster you’ve unleashed?’

  ‘My mistress’ eyes,’ said Miles, turning his face to the sky, ‘are nothing like the sun!’ and I lay back on the lawn and pinched my own eyes shut, my lips already gummed together from silence and ignorance. If this creativity business was meant to make us more free and confident then why had I never felt so constricted and self-conscious? Alina had said something about learning how to move through this world, responding naturally to others, and I’d snapped to attention; to a boy who could not walk across a crowded space or share a sofa with a parent or stand next to a girl he liked without losing the power of speech, this was a talent worth possessing. But I wouldn’t acquire it by moulding a stranger’s face or pretending that my bones were disappearing one by one or by listening to Shakespeare burble out of some confident, arty bastard who knew poetry off by heart. I just wanted to know what to do with my hands, that’s all. Where do I put my hands?

  If my mission was doomed, there now seemed something dishonest and dishonourable about it too. I was taking part in an initiation rite for an organisation that I had no wish to join, and which did not need me as a member. Helen was right: it wasn’t fair to waste their time. I would wait until the end of the day out of politeness, then leave without the telephone number. The picture of Fran would fade, the feeling too, like recovering from a mild cold. Or perhaps I’d go insane; I’d find out soon enough.

  Cross-legged on the ground, Miles was now telling sad stories of the death of kings and I listened with the sun on my face. If I couldn’t quote Shakespeare, at least I could tan.

  I felt the coolness of a shadow on my face. ‘Charlie, could we have a word?’ I’d fallen asleep. The others had long gone and now Alina and Ivor crouched over me like detectives over a body on the beach.

  ‘Sure,’ I said and, dizzy, stood between them, sweat chilling on my back as they escorted me back to the house. They’d seen my papers and knew that they were false and now I would be taken out to the rockery and shot.

  ‘Hey, great work today,’ said Ivor, and I wondered what part had been great. Being a leaf, drying in the sun? Making myself as small as can be?

  ‘We wanted you to take a look at this,’ said Alina, holding out a ring-bound document. ‘It’s the text that we’re using. You know the play of course.’

&nb
sp; I shook my head and nodded at the same time.

  ‘Well, Monday’s our read-through. Nothing to worry about, we’re not looking for a polished performance—’

  ‘—but we’d love you to take a look at a guy called Sampson,’ said Ivor. ‘He’s one of the Capulet gang.’

  ‘He is a bit of a jack-the-lad,’ said Alina.

  ‘Great fun though.’

  ‘Lots of bawdy jokes.’

  ‘And he practically opens the play.’

  ‘Just give it a go.’

  ‘No pressure.’

  Here was my chance: thank you, but I’m not coming back, it’s not for me. But Ivor looked so hopeful and Alina looked at me so intently that not for the last time, I missed my cue. I nodded – sure, okay – and the rest of the afternoon was spent pretending to be a steam-powered machine.

  By the end of the day I was exhausted, full of unexpected aches, dusty from all that scuttling and crawling, and still no nearer to the magic phone number, or even the briefest of exchanges. Fran must have been avoiding me, and while the rest of the cast stood around and hugged each other, I gathered my possessions and the last of my pride.

  ‘Have a great weekend, people!’ shouted Ivor. ‘But remember, Monday is Shakespeare day. We’re going to dig into the text, and we’re going to dig deep. Nine sharp in the orangery. But remember – no acting allowed! We’re reading through, just reading through …’

  My bicycle was where I’d left it, abandoned under one of the old yews that lined the driveway. I hid the play script on the other side of the tree, my letter of resignation, and mounted my bike to ride away, but the gravel slipped beneath me and I fell to the ground in one final act of degradation. From behind me, I heard laughter and applause. ‘Arty wankers,’ I murmured to myself and then turned to see Fran walking briskly next to me.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Oh, hi there.’

  ‘You forgot this.’ The abandoned script.

  ‘Yeah, right. Thank you.’

  ‘I’m hoping it was by accident.’ She held it out, as if it were a contract to sign.

  ‘Yes, I must have …’ I looked left and right, unwilling to take it.

  ‘My dad picks me up at the bottom of the lane every night. I mean, if that’s all right. If you’re not in a rush …’

  I was not in a rush.

  Walking Home

  We walked the length of the driveway in silence, and it was a long driveway. Then out into the canopied lane that led down to the main road, and still the only voice was the one in my head, the voice that ordered me concentrate, this will matter, concentrate.

  ‘I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk today,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, it was quite full on.’

  We walked further.

  ‘I thought maybe you were avoiding me,’ I said.

  ‘Not at all! I tried, but every time I looked up you were pretending to be a cat, so …’ and here she laughed, too much I thought, and stowed her hair behind her ear.

  ‘Yes, sorry about that.’

  ‘If anything, I thought you were avoiding me.’

  ‘God, no!’ It had never occurred to me that being aloof might be interpreted as aloofness. ‘It’s just I’m not used to that kind of stuff.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone ever gets used to it.’

  We walked on. The heat of the day still lingered under the canopy, the still air blurred here and there with clouds of midges like thumbprints on a photo. Some way off we could hear the low hum of the motorway and I was aware, too, of the chatter of the company members behind us, keeping their distance, stalking.

  ‘So – be honest,’ she said, ‘did you hate every second of it?’

  ‘Is that how it looked?’

  ‘Sometimes. When you were being a statue, I thought you were suddenly going to, like, lash out.’

  ‘I’m no good at that stuff.’

  ‘You were! I thought your human steam engine was amazing and I don’t say that kind of thing lightly. Even then, you did look … furious!’ and she laughed again, putting her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Well, like I said, it’s not my thing …’

  ‘So why did you come?’

  I kept my eyes ahead. ‘Try something new. Keeps me busy.’

  ‘Off the streets.’

  ‘Out of trouble.’

  ‘Are you in trouble?’

  ‘Not really. Just bored at home.’

  ‘And were you bored today?’

  ‘Not bored …’

  ‘Well, there you are then.’

  ‘Embarrassed.’

  ‘Yeah, well everyone gets that to begin with. It’s like when you join the Foreign Legion or the SAS and you have to carry a fridge on your back and drink your own wee or whatever. Here, you have to play the hat game. It’s so we’re all bonded and uninhibited. Do you feel bonded?’

  ‘Not massively bonded.’

  ‘Uninhibited?’

  ‘Inhibited.’

  ‘Well maybe once we start working on the play … What’s your part?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sam-something.’

  ‘Sampson. Well, there you go. Lots of insults, lots of bawdy jokes. He’s a reeeeeal saucy little lad.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘Just don’t do that thing where you thrust your hips. Leave that to Juliet.’

  ‘Which is you?’

  ‘It is.’ She pulled a face. ‘It is.’

  ‘The eponymous role.’

  She laughed. ‘Though the eponymous role is not always the best role.’

  ‘Ideally, you’d rather be playing Sampson.’

  ‘That’s my dream.’ We smiled at each other and walked on through the soft green marine light dappled and shimmering like the water in a rock pool. Observations like this would come to me occasionally, things that might pass as poetry, and I thought about pointing it out, the rock-pool thing, unsure if this would make me seem poetical or a bit of a knob. There was some overlap between the two, so I decided to keep my observations to myself. Fran spoke instead.

  ‘This summer’s a bastard, isn’t it? Sun comes out, sky’s blue if you’re lucky and suddenly there are all these preconceived ideas of what you should be doing, lying on a beach or jumping off a rope swing into the river or having a picnic with all your amazing mates, sitting on a blanket in a meadow and eating strawberries and laughing in that mad way, like in the adverts. It’s never like that, it’s just six weeks of feeling like you’re in the wrong place with the wrong people and you’re missing out. That’s why summer’s so sad – because you’re meant to be so happy. Personally, I can’t wait to get my tights back on, turn the central heating up. At least in winter you’re allowed to be miserable, you’re not meant to be wafting about in a field of sunflowers. And it just goes on and on and on, doesn’t it? Infinite, and never how you want it to be.’

  ‘I think that’s exactly right,’ I said and suddenly she grabbed my arm.

  ‘Which is why you should do this play! New experiences, new people …’ She glanced behind her, lowered her voice. ‘I know they seem a bit’ – she pulled a face – ‘but they’re all right really, once they calm down.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ve got a job.’

  ‘That’s exciting. Where?’

  ‘Petrol-station attendant.’

  ‘Ah, and what first drew you to that world?’

  ‘The smell on the forecourt. I like the way it gets into your clothes and hair.’

  ‘That and the confectionery.’

  ‘Exactly: the crisps, the sweets, the pornography …’

  ‘D’you get to help yourself? Not the porn, the sweets.’

  ‘Well, the porn they keep wrapped up in cellophane—’

  ‘Like some beautiful gift.’

  ‘—but the sweets, no. Occasional Twix, but no.’

  ‘Well, you’re a professional. Good money?’

  I glanced at my fingernails. ‘Three twenty an hour.’
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  She whistled. ‘And how many hours?’

  ‘Ten, twelve.’

  ‘Well, there you are, we can work round that. It’s not an excuse after all. In fact there are no excuses.’

  We had reached the bottom of the hill now, the junction with the main road, the concrete bus shelter to our side. ‘This is where Dad picks me up. We live that way,’ she said, and mentioned a village, a hamlet of twenty or so houses, thatched and whitewashed and enviable. Yes, I thought, that makes sense, that fits. ‘Do you want to wait here with me? He’ll be a while yet.’

  But I was aware of the rest of the company passing us now, nodding and grinning, and I felt furtive, awkward and keen to be gone. ‘No, I’d better head off. I’m working tonight.’ I climbed on my bike, snagging my inside leg on the saddle, suddenly inept.

  ‘You all right there? Having difficulties?’

  ‘Nope, fine, fine.’

  ‘Well. I’m pleased we spoke.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘And here –’ She held out the play script in both hands. ‘You can’t say I don’t try.’

  I glanced towards the bus shelter where the company grinned and giggled, then turned back to Fran and spoke in a low, urgent voice, like a spy.

  ‘Look, I’ll be honest, I’m not coming back on Monday.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I shrugged and peered the length of the road. ‘I’m just not much of a joiner.’

  ‘Yeah, everyone likes to think that. No one ever says, the thing about me, I’m a real joiner, I’ll join in with any old shit, me.’

  ‘No, but in my case—’

  ‘This not-joining thing, is it because you’re a maverick or a loner?’

  ‘Bit of both, I like to think.’

  ‘I bet you do. Well, it’s no good,’ she said, and held the script out again. ‘There’s nothing wrong with joining if you join the right thing.’

  ‘And this isn’t right! The only reason I came today … well, can I … I don’t know, take you for coffee or tea or something? Either really, I don’t mind. Or we could try and get into a pub, I know somewhere, they’ll serve practically anyone – I don’t mean, I just – just as long as we keep our heads down and sit in the beer garden, whatever you want really, but I just can’t do this Shakespeare thing. I’ll make a tit of myself. Even more than I’m doing now.’