When We Were Young

by Richard Roper

  Joel looked unusually nervous, fidgeting away with a beer mat. None of the easy charm I was used to. It was oddly unnerving. Joel had always been someone who could adapt to any situation and take things in his stride, one of a number of his traits I’d been envious of. It had taken me years to get to the heart of the difference between us, but in the end I had settled on the realization that Joel was a man who could pull off any hat you were to give to him, no matter how novel, whereas I was a man who never fully trusted that an automatic door would open as I approached it.

  Aside from looking nervous, he also looked, well, like shit. I thought he’d have had the full Hollywood treatment by now, but his skin was waxy and dull, and he looked rather gaunt. There had been rumors, once he’d started getting semi-famous, of coke binges (such a cliché!) and lost boozy weekends in Soho. I’d even seen him on a tabloid website coming out of some awful-looking club appearing “worse for wear,” among other euphemisms.

  I could already feel the beer I’d necked going to my head, and I wanted to get whatever this was over with before I started making a prat of myself.

  “Come on, then. Out with it. Why are you here?” I asked.

  Joel scratched his chin, then puffed out his cheeks.

  “Do you remember the first time we got high by the Thames Head stone?” he said.

  Well, that wasn’t what I’d been expecting.

  “No,” I replied flatly, but an image of the two of us that day flickered in my mind all the same. Why that, of all things? Was mentioning that day at the Thames Head just his clever little way of leading me down memory lane to happier days? What an infuriating tactic, I thought.

  Nearly as infuriating as the fact that, with every passing second, I was starting to realize just how much I’d missed him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Joel

  I was finding it hard to focus. I couldn’t work out whether Theo had seen me asking the barman to pour two bottles of nonalcoholic beer into my pint glass. Also, him sitting there with his jacket around his shoulders like a grumpy Napoleon was so peak Theo, it made me want to hug him.

  I sensed he was lying about not remembering that day at the Thames Head stone, but I decided to take him at his word and launched into the story as best I remembered it. We’d acquired what we’d been told was cannabis resin but what could just as likely have been a bouillon cube. We were rebels without a cause: we weren’t going to be told what to do. And what said “Fuck you” better to “the Man” than smoking what could well have been gravy at the beginning of a National Trust trail?

  “We should walk this path, you know,” Theo had said, blowing a smoke ring into the chill winter air.

  “What, now?” I’d yawned. “I think it’s about two hundred miles, isn’t it? And I am very hungry.”

  “Not now but, like, in a million years, when we’re thirty or whatever. We’ll wend our way through the country, stopping off at all the taverns, copping off with . . . you know . . . wenches.”

  “I’m not sure you’ll ‘cop off’ with anyone you call that.”

  I’d ducked as he threw a twig at me.

  “Imagine it, though. Just you and me tramping along. We’d bring some of this weed.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I could learn the accordion and bring that, too.”

  “Okay, I’m out.”

  Theo had ignored me and scrambled to his feet, climbing on top of the stone, where he balanced precariously, arms windmilling. “We’d end up in London, weary from our travels.”

  “Riddled with chlamydia.”

  “Riddled with experiences.”

  I’d pretended to snore.

  “Come on, are you in?” Theo had said, jumping down from the stone.

  “If I say yes, can we go and get pizza?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “Fine, then. I’m in.”

  We’d walked off, arms around each other’s shoulders. Any embarrassment that this outright show of affection might normally have caused was masked by the pretense we were too stoned to walk straight—though I hadn’t realized cannabis tasted quite so much like a Sunday roast.

  Now, in the pub, Theo was looking at me skeptically as I recounted the story.

  “And then what happened?” he asked.

  I frowned. “I think you pushed me into a hedge.”

  “Oh yeah.” Theo smiled, then saw me notice and took a big gulp of his drink to hide it.

  “You remember, then?” I said.

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “So . . . ?”

  “So what?”

  “So let’s do it! Think about it: you and me, tramping the Thames Path. Oxford, Runnymede, Windsor, Henley. Look!” I took out a book from my back pocket that I’d bought the previous day. “I’ve got a guidebook and everything.”

  Theo just stared.

  “Are you serious?” he said. “Leaving aside I’ve got a job, so I can’t just go toddling off on long walks, you think you can just waltz back into my life and pick up on some stupid promise we made each other when we were fifteen? After everything that’s happened?”

  “Okay, okay, fair point,” I said, holding my hands up. “I should have warned you I was coming. And it goes without saying, you know how sorry I am about Edinburgh still, and obviously what happened with . . . with . . .”

  At this, Theo stood up. “You can’t even say her name. Can you? It’s Alice. My sister is called Alice.” He drained the last of his pint. “Well, thanks for the offer and everything, but I’m afraid I’d rather jump off a very tall building onto a very big spike than spend another second with you.”

  I watched him trying to leave, straining furiously to get his arms through the right holes in his coat. Even when he’d managed that, he made a typically undignified exit as he attempted to barge his way through a door with “Pull” written on it at eye level.

  Well, that had gone about as badly as it could have done. I didn’t really know why I was expecting anything different. To think I’d be able to trick him into the walk on the strength of one happy memory already seemed ridiculous.

  The pub seemed to have grown oppressively hot. I went to the gents’ to splash some cold water on my face. As I lifted my head from the sink, I saw Amber staring back at me from a faded poster. It was from the short live run we’d done of The Tooth Hurts after the end of the first series. After all these years, even on a smashed poster in the grim men’s toilets of this knackered old pub, the sight of her smile made me ache. I fought the urge to call her and unload everything.

  Out of the window, I saw Theo stalking off, hands clenched at his sides. But just as I went to turn away, I saw him stop and glance back before he carried on. And it was that hesitation that gave me renewed hope. He was tempted. But he clearly felt he couldn’t indulge me any further on principle. What I needed was some other incentive to offer him. Something he couldn’t resist.

  I looked again at the poster, and an idea began to form. If I was going to convince my old friend to overlook the past and let me back into his life, I was going to have to offer him his dream on a plate.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Theo

  I was back on the road when Joel caught up with me, breathing quite heavily despite the short jog. He wasn’t spending his TV money on a personal trainer, then.

  “Theo, slow up.”

  “Not interested,” I said.

  “Look, okay, I haven’t told you everything,” he panted. “There’s another reason why I’m here.”

  “Still not interested.”

  “Theo.” This time, he grabbed my elbow. The shock of him taking hold of me like that startled me. I felt a flash of anger and wrenched my arm away.

  “Look, unless this other reason is that you’ve invented a fucking time machine, then I don’t want to know, all right?”

 
A dog walker came around the corner, her whippet trotting along in front.

  “Afternoon!” she said brightly.

  “Afternoon!” we responded in unison, because even when you’re having a dramatic showdown, you’re still aware that this is England and there are rules.

  “The thing is,” Joel said, “I had a meeting with the BBC the other day.”

  “Good for you.”

  Joel ignored me.

  “A show they’d commissioned for next year’s been canceled. They need a replacement—another show. Six-part comedy. BBC Two, nine thirty p.m. slot.”

  “And?” I said. “So what?”

  “Well, they put me on the spot there and then. Asked me to pitch something. But I hadn’t got anything. Not even the kernel of an idea. But I couldn’t say that, could I? So I was racking my brains and then suddenly I remembered: The Regulars.”

  My heart skipped a beat. The Regulars. The best idea Joel and I had ever had. It was something we’d come up with one underage drunken night. Set in a pub—because write what you know and all that—the show would follow an eccentric gang of regulars and their attempts to keep their local run-down boozer from closing. But then we’d gone our separate ways, and nothing had ever come of it.

  “You remember it?” Joel said.

  “Of course I do. So . . . what did they say when you pitched it?” I was trying not to sound interested, but from the way Joel was smiling, I’d obviously failed.

  “Theo, they loved the whole thing so much, they told me there and then they want to make it.”

  I gaped at him, all pretense gone now. “Are you serious?”

  “Yep,” Joel said. “I know. Mad, right? But, well, the only thing is, because they want it to replace this show that got binned, they need scripts by the end of next month, otherwise they’ll just scrap having a new show in that slot next year.”

  “Next month? Isn’t that . . . surely that’s cutting it too fine?”

  “It is. Or at least it would be if I was doing it on my own. That’s why I told them I’d need a cowriter. And that I knew just the man . . .”

  As it dawned on me what Joel was saying, I had the strangest urge to burst out laughing. It was ridiculous. Things like this just don’t happen.

  “Think of it,” Joel continued. “We walk the Thames Path, writing the scripts as we go, and then we get to London, casually drop off the script at the BBC in person, and then mosey on to the end of the path. It couldn’t be more perfect.”

  As I struggled to comprehend what was happening, Joel rambled on animatedly about casting and wrap parties and that this was only just the start for me and my career. And you know what the worst part was? I was instantly softening toward him, feeling my anger subside, realizing that actually I could probably get to a point where I could forgive him for everything after all. How horribly fickle I was.

  Joel spun around in front of me and grabbed me by the shoulders. “Are you listening to me? You do realize what I’m saying, right? This is what we’ve always dreamed of. And the walk! I know things have . . . well, changed since we came up with the idea, but wouldn’t it be good to actually go through with that plan?”

  I chewed my lip. Given the way I knew Joel worked, the Thames Path was actually perfect. He’d have to be disciplined about it. He couldn’t just wander off or get distracted like he always used to. The time frame was tight, but I knew we could do it. I mean, he could have said we only had half an hour and I’d have probably given it a shot. Because what he’d said was true. This was all I’d ever dreamed about. But as I looked at Joel’s face, wide-eyed with expectation, a part of me—the part that had told him I never wanted to see him ever again—felt the need to stay firm.

  We’d walked as far as the station. A train was just pulling in.

  “Look,” Joel said. “I tell you what. I’m not going to ask you to make a decision right now. I’ll be at the start of the path tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, okay? If you’re not there, then I’ll know you’ve decided against it, and I won’t try to contact you again. No pressure. But . . . at least tell me you’ll think about it?”

  Him telling me there was no pressure would have felt believable if he hadn’t still got his hands clamped down on my shoulders. There was a palpable desperation in his eyes that made me feel uncomfortable. This was far from the insouciant, bordering-on-arrogant Joel I used to know.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, reaching up and taking his hands away one by one.

  “Great!” Joel replied. He took a step back, looking a little embarrassed that I’d had to loosen his grip like that.

  We looked at each other for a moment, neither quite sure how to part. We hadn’t been huggers, even before things had gone to shit. But we’d never shaken hands, either. That was something we’d always agreed was for bank managers and football referees.

  I’d just shifted my weight onto my back foot, about to turn and leave, when Joel, his eyes to the ground, said, “It’s really good to see you, Theo.”

  With that, he was off, head down, hands in pockets, straight through the gate, up onto the platform and then through the closing doors of the train, which promptly moved off as if it had been specifically waiting for him. Speaking as a man who’s at least half an hour early for every journey, length or significance immaterial, I could only stand back and admire him.

  I looked down at the spot on the ground where Joel’s gaze had fallen shiftily as he’d said his parting words. He may have thought he’d just pulled the wool over my eyes, but I knew Joel Thompson far too well not to realize that there was something about all of this that he wasn’t telling me.

  As the train rounded the bend, my thoughts turned to The Regulars. I tried to imagine how ten-year-old me would have reacted had he been told this was what lay in his future: his very own sitcom on the BBC. On balance, I suspect his head would have almost certainly exploded.

  * * *

  I was a funny-looking kid. My growth spurts were haphazard in that they seemed to happen in different parts of my body at different times, so I never looked at home in my own skin. I capped off the look with uncontrollably curly hair and a mildly lazy eye, or “forgetful,” as Mum used to say, when she tried to cheer me up about it. That was one of the things that led to my defining characteristic at that age: my shyness. One of my earliest memories is being taken to visit some cousins I’d never met before in Norfolk, where I was so consumed with white-hot embarrassment simply at being in the same room as new people that I spent the entire afternoon with my face buried in the sofa, playing dead. As long as nobody knew I existed, then everything would be okay.

  I did my best to enjoy primary school, but I never made what you’d call a proper friend. I just found being around groups of people too much, especially at break and lunch times. It was all so overwhelming—the shrieking and the constant chasing and shirt tugging. Why couldn’t everyone just be a bit quieter? A bit calmer?

  Things came to a head on the last day of term before Christmas one year when I was seven. We’d all been herded down the street into the village hall and separated out into groups, where a teacher told us we were about to play “the chocolate game.” Before I knew what was happening, a large bar of chocolate had been dropped in the middle of our group, and immediately it was chaos. A pair of dice and a hat appeared. The boy next to me—who seemed to know exactly what to do, as if he’d been training for this his whole life like an Olympic athlete—grabbed the dice and swiftly rolled two sixes. At this, everyone began to scream and yell as the boy scrabbled to pull on the hat, as well as a scarf and gloves, before tearing with utter desperation at the chocolate packaging with a plastic knife and fork, trying to get to the gooey mess within. People were shrieking with excitement. Similar scenes were happening all around the room and I just could not bear it. Then the dice were thrust into my hands. A posh little blond boy screamed at me to roll them
, but instead I threw them down and made a break for it, ignoring the shouts of “Come back!” and “It’s only a game, Theo!” as I ran. I just about managed to pull open the heavy village hall door and throw myself out into the freezing dark.

  My mum was called to collect me. I remember her kneeling down in the snow and hugging me tightly, as I tried to explain why I was upset. “Hey, love, it’s okay. Let’s get you home, shall we?” The car was warm and Slade was on the radio. And soon I was back home on the sofa, sandwiched between Mum and Dad, with four-year-old Alice sitting on the floor, carefully building a Lego tower before knocking it down and starting again, giggling at her own destructiveness. The fire was crackling in the grate. Dad ruffled my hair. There, I was loved. There, I was safe.

  The BBC must have decided to show reruns of some old comedy classics as a bit of pre-Christmas TV filler. Mum and Dad were chuckling along here and there, but it was the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore art gallery sketch that completely floored them. Never before had I seen my parents helpless with laughter, and even though I didn’t really know what was so funny, watching Mum and Dad fall about like that made me laugh, too. There, in that moment, I was so far from the misery of the village hall, I may as well have been on another planet. All it had taken was these two fools on the screen, fuzzy in black and white. How happy they had made Mum and Dad! It was like a superpower, to make someone laugh like that. And so began my obsession.