I nod dumbly.
He grins at me. ‘Hey, d’you reckon we can name every Bill Murray film from Groundhog Day on?’ He glances up at the clock. ‘Nah, best not, actually. Marek would murder me.’
He downs his beer and pulls me up by the shoulder. ‘Come on, man, let’s go.’
As we tear across campus, I am hit by wave after wave of déjà vu.
Our poky little college bar, the run-down Kwiksave, the cocky squads of ducks that waddle up from the lake to shit on the walkways; all of them appear as we sprint past, as if daring me to doubt how real this is.
Because it clearly is. Real.
But still, as I chase Harv across the rickety red bridge by the English block, I feel almost like I’m watching this whole thing from above. Like it’s happening to someone else. Maybe that’s the best way to deal with it: forget the whys and the hows and the what-the-actual-fucks and just go with it until it’s over.
We finally stop running when we reach the Drama Barn – or the Drama Closet, as we rechristened it: a tiny fifty-seater venue right in the middle of campus. There’s already a line of people outside queuing to get in.
‘Fucking hell,’ Harv pants, mopping his forehead with his sleeve. ‘I need to start doing more exercise.’ He nods at the entrance. ‘Well, go on then, dickhead. Break a leg and all that. I’ll see you afterwards.’
Still on autopilot, I walk past the queue and approach the bloke sitting by the main door, taking tickets. I vaguely remember him; a second-year, I think, fully kitted out in the unofficial Drama Soc uniform of black turtleneck, black jeans, black trainers.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ I tell him. ‘Can I, erm … come in? I’m in the play.’
He grunts but doesn’t look up from his phone. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Ben Hazeley.’
He starts scanning a list on the table in front of him. ‘Any relation to Patrick Hazeley?’
And even in my stupefied state, I still feel it. The sense that I’ve been instantly reduced to a little kid; that I exist only as a footnote in the life of a man I barely know.
‘Yeah, he’s my dad.’
The second-year looks up at me; I’m suddenly interesting enough to warrant his full attention. Interesting by birth. Interesting by proxy. ‘Shit, is he really your old man?’ he says. ‘I love his stuff. Seriously, Earth Weight was the first play I ever saw. Fucking … brutal. Incredible writing.’
‘Yeah,’ I say.
He moves aside to let me through. ‘Good luck anyway, mate. See you after, probably.’
I slink into the venue, which is still dark and empty at this point. I remember that the dressing room is right at the back, but I feel like I need a few minutes alone before I have to do any more actual interacting, so I duck into the little toilet behind the lighting rig.
I should really have been expecting it, but seeing my reflection in the mirror makes me genuinely jump. If Harv’s been inflated, then I’ve been whittled down. It’s the face I saw in the programme last night. I push my bony nineteen-year-old cheeks right up to the glass to find soft patches of nearly-stubble in place of wrinkles, and no sign yet of a widow’s peak retreat in my thick dark brown hairline.
I splash my face with cold water and as soon as I come out of the toilet, I hear a voice behind me.
‘Marek is going to KILL you!’
Alice is right there, smirking up at me. She looks … To be honest, she looks almost exactly the same as when I saw her at the wedding. Which is to say that she looks a bit like a blonde Phoebe Cates in Gremlins, except she’s now sporting more of an Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction haircut. She looks good.
‘Come on, the audience will be in any minute.’ She beckons me through to the dressing room, which is stuffed with bodies: people wriggling into shiny suit jackets, having their faces frantically powdered, yelling out lines at random across the uproar. I spot Marek – who hasn’t changed much either; same beard, glasses, wild hair – in the corner, muttering into his phone. He sees me, mimes throttling someone (presumably me) but doesn’t break off the call.
‘He’s found somebody to do the props, I think,’ Alice tells me. ‘Some mate of Jamila’s. He’s just speaking to her now.’
I nod as I feel the beginnings of a thin film of sweat on my brow. Because I suddenly know where all this is heading. I know that I’ll see her in – what will it be – ten minutes? And then it’ll be much, much harder to pretend this is all happening to someone else.
‘Audience is coming in!’ somebody hisses, and suddenly the noise level in the room sinks to a nervy murmur.
The next few minutes are a total blur. I’m helped into my costume – a cheap black Reservoir Dogs-type suit – and then slapped about gently by a girl with a powder brush.
The play has started by now – I can hear Marek on stage, hamming it up – and its finer details begin to tumble back into place in my mind.
The Carol Revisited. ‘Dickens meets Tarantino’ is how Marek pitched it to us at the first rehearsal. Six months from now, he will be openly dismissing it as ‘crude and underdeveloped’, but at the moment, I can hear him giving it his absolute all as he bellows, ‘Humbug, motherfucker!’ at the presumably bewildered audience.
Marek was – is – Drama Soc chairman, and therefore also was – is – a massive show-off. Not content with writing and directing, he’s also playing the main part: Vinny Scrooge (seriously), a meth dealer who is near-fatally shot by a hitman and then guided through his past experiences by a mysterious ghost.
I’m playing the hitman, I remember that much. And the ghost—
‘Ben, dude, they want us backstage.’
I turn around to see a stark-naked man standing in front of me, a stoner’s grin smeared across his face.
Bloody hell. Clem Matthews. Third-year, I think. Not what you’d call a natural actor, but apparently the only student on campus willing to get his knob out in public. I suddenly wonder what he’s doing nowadays. Porn, presumably.
Quite why Marek insisted on the ghost being fully nude, I can’t remember now. Something to do with spiritual realism and shocking the ‘boring old farts’ in the drama department, I think.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ Clem says.
The costume girl stops me. ‘Hang on, are you keeping that watch on? You weren’t wearing it in rehearsals.’
I stare down at my watch, still stuck firmly at a minute to twelve. I forgot I had it on. Why do I have it on? How the hell is it still here when everything else has disappeared?
‘It’s fine,’ Clem breezes. ‘Hitmen obviously wear watches. They don’t want to be late for their murders, do they?’
He grabs my arm, and I follow his bare arse cheeks out behind the wobbly set. We both stand in silence, waiting to go on.
‘How you feeling?’ he whispers. ‘Nervous?’
I suddenly recall how awkward this always was in rehearsals, having to make small talk as I tried very hard to ignore Clem’s dangling penis.
‘Bit nervous, yeah,’ I whisper.
He shrugs.