When We Were Young

by Richard Roper

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Theo

  I came to on a park bench in Peckham.

  As I struggled to get up into a sitting position—so stiff with cold that it felt like my bones had fused together—I saw that someone had left a sandwich and coffee, presumably for me, at the end of the bench. I was all set to tuck into the sandwich, ignoring the implications of what this meant for me and my life, when I saw someone sleeping on a bench a little further on who obviously needed the food more than me, and I left it with him instead.

  The train journey the previous evening had been surreal. I’d managed to get a table seat all to myself—one benefit of looking and smelling like some sort of river creature, I suppose—and I kept falling asleep, only to be jolted awake as the train swayed. I remember waking and looking out of the window. I could just about see through the gloom, and it looked somehow like we were traveling through water, but after a moment I realized it was just the way the grass in the fields was moving in the breeze that made it look like wind rippling the surface of a lake. Then, what felt like moments later, I was being prodded awake by a cleaner with a litter picker who told me we were in London. As I left the train, I caught sight of a poster advertising tickets for the studio recording for this year’s Tooth Hurts Christmas special. The fact that just the studio records were being given their own poster showed what a juggernaut the show was—I’d never seen that before.

  Going through the barrier, I’d felt a rush of something approaching nostalgia. There’s always something undeniably romantic about getting off the train in London, especially under Paddington’s arches. That was the moment a pigeon flew so close to my face that its wing touched my mouth. And then I remembered that I hated this stupid city and all that it stood for. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve—replacing pigeon with river—and took out Joel’s note, the one he’d written to me in Oxford. I’m sorry about the damage on the wall. Bill me for it. Flat 4, 121 Prospect House, Peckham Rye. My phone was dead, thanks to the river incident, so I had to ask a reluctant stranger to let me borrow his phone to look for where Joel’s road was. Once I had it memorized, I set off to get on the tube, reading the rest of Joel’s note again as I went down the escalator. You were a great friend to me, and I will never forget that. “Were” a great friend. That was the part that stung. Joel had obviously decided our briefly rekindled friendship was over, and after the way I’d behaved, how could I blame him? I didn’t know what I was going to do when I got to his house. What if he refused to let me in? I thought about him arriving on my doorstep in Kemble what now felt like months ago—jamming his foot in the French doors so I couldn’t close them. He hadn’t given up then, so neither would I . . .

  But after the eighth time I’d pressed his buzzer with no reply that evening, I wasn’t sure what else I could do. Either Joel wasn’t there—in which case I had no idea where else to look—or, perhaps worse, he was there, knew it was me outside, and didn’t want to let me in. A third, even worse option revealed itself: What if his condition had deteriorated after he’d left? What if the walk had been too much for his body to take? I began jamming my fists on all the other buzzers. The few people who answered told me they couldn’t help. Defeated and exhausted, I’d sloped across the road and slumped onto a bench. Someone had left an old oversized fleece there. Not stopping to think why, I’d lain down on the bench and pulled the fleece over me like a blanket, and willed some answers to come to me as I slept.

  Now, stretching my arms out over my head, trying to get the blood flowing again, I prayed the morning would bring more luck. I crossed back over the road to give Joel’s buzzer one last try. But there was no answer. I spent the rest of the morning doing slow laps of the park, willing the sun to break through the stubborn bank of clouds above. I leaned against a bus shelter and pondered my next move. I desperately didn’t want to give up this early, but I wasn’t sure what else I could do. More galling still was that if I did have to admit defeat and head home, I was very much out of money, which meant finding a phone box and calling Alice, or Mum and Dad, and asking them for help getting back. The idea filled me with shame.

  At that moment, I heard a woman at the bus shelter next to me say, “Now, you sure you’ve got the tickets?”

  “For the hundredth time yes,” her friend said. “You do realize we’re going to be about four hours early?”

  “Sorry, I’m just too excited. I’ve never been to one of these recording thingies before. And anyway, all I can think about is whether Karen and Nigel are going to get together.”

  I swung around and stared at them. They exchanged looks and turned away, closing ranks—a textbook London maneuver so as to avoid an interaction with an unwelcome stranger. But I knew what they were talking about already. It was the Tooth Hurts Christmas special recording. The only person in the world who might be able to help me find Joel would be there. I wasn’t done yet.

  * * *

  Three hours later, the familiar beacon of Television Centre appeared up ahead. I’d tried to slip onto the bus without paying, using the two women as a shield, but the driver was wise to it and chucked me off. Without money to get a cab, I’d had no choice but to get to the BBC on foot. The last stretch of the journey had been agony. One of my walking boots—not built for being dunked in the Thames—was done for, the front flapping open with every step like an animatronic mouth. Blisters begat blisters begat blisters on my toes and heels. I was sweating copiously, and the smell of that mixed with the still-wet gunk on my clothes left a lingering stench. Riverbed, Pour Homme.

  There were some paparazzi knocking around outside, laughing and smoking together. I joined the back of the ticketholder queue just as the doors opened. By the time I got into the building and to the front of the line, I realized I hadn’t exactly planned for what I was going to do next. I looked straight ahead and attempted to ghost past the man in the BBC lanyard who was checking people’s tickets.

  “Excuse me, sir, have you got your ticket?”

  At the last second, I affected an offhand manner. “What’s that?”

  “Your ticket, please.” A smile, but a firm voice, eyes wandering over my filthy clothes.

  “Oh, no, I don’t need one.”

  The security guard clasped his hands together in front of him, fingers interlocked. “I’m afraid you do.”

  I let out a weird, high-pitched chuckle. “No, no—I’m not making myself clear. I don’t need a ticket because I’m an old friend of Joel Thompson’s. And Amber,” I added. “Amber Crossley?”

  “Yes, I am aware of who that is.” The smile was gone now. “Have you got a guest pass?”

  I patted my pockets theatrically—left and right trouser, inside jacket, in case it was with my silver cigarette case and silk handkerchief. One of my hands came away with a muddy smudge.

  “Afraid not,” I said, my voice now taking on a posh drawl. But I wasn’t Simon Russell Beale on my way for martinis with Alan Yentob, I was a disgusting swamp monster—and there was a subtle but noticeable shift in atmosphere as another man with a lanyard appeared and steered me to one side.

  This wasn’t looking good.

  “Please,” I said, “just give Amber a call. My name’s Theo Hern. She’ll remember me.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir,” the man said. “The cast are uncontactable this close to the recording.”

  Desperate times called for desperate measures. I lowered my voice. “Look, I promise you, I’m not insane. I do know Amber. And I need to speak to her, urgently, about a mutual friend of ours who is seriously ill and vulnerable. She is the only one who can help me find him. So, please—I’m begging you.”

  The man gave me a sympathetic smile. I felt a glimmer of hope. But the smile was clearly one he reserved for all the weirdos and fantasists who claimed they knew Amber Crossley. How many men had he had to eject from the premises as they told him that you don’t understand, me and Amber a
re deeply in love—she’ll realize that one day soon, don’t you see?!

  “Please, sir,” the man said, gesturing toward the exit. It made it worse that he was being so kind, keeping his voice low, trying not to humiliate me.

  My shoulders slackened. All pretense gone now. Head down, so as to avoid the stares and sniggers of the stragglers lining up with their tickets, I shuffled out of the building through the revolving doors. As I pushed my way outside, I was hit by a blast of cold air and the blinding flashes of cameras. I shielded my eyes but was too late to stop myself from bumping into someone coming at speed from the opposite direction.

  “Sorry,” I grunted, stooping to retrieve the phone I’d just knocked from their hand, before looking up to see that it belonged to someone I’d not seen in a very long time.

  * * *

  “It’s okay, he’s with me,” said Amber Crossley.

  Such was my relief at seeing her, I had temporarily forgotten about my appearance. So when I reached out to hug her, babbling away in an excited stream of consciousness, it had been something of a code red for the security guys, who forcibly yanked me away and bundled me into a side room.

  “Reggie, it’s fine. This is Theo, he’s an old school friend. He doesn’t . . . normally . . . look like this.”

  I smiled weakly.

  Apparently satisfied that I didn’t pose a threat to Amber, the security guard let go of me and, after fixing me with a final look of disgust, left the room. For the first time, I properly took in Amber. She was dressed in jeans and an oversized gray hoodie—the picture of an actor in dress-down mode. She was taller than I remembered, and there was something slightly different about her nose, but when she smiled, I was suddenly fifteen again, shy and awkward, finding it difficult to know how to hold myself.

  “You know, it might have been best to call ahead,” Amber said.

  “I would have done, but . . .” I pulled my phone from my pocket. The screen was caked in gunk.

  Amber took it from me, holding it between two fingers, and knocked on the door. Someone opened it and Amber said a single word: “Lucas.” Seconds later, a man in a Breton striped T-shirt with bleached-blond hair appeared and held my phone up to the light. “Water damage?” he asked.

  Amber nodded.

  Lucas—I presumed—disappeared without another word, taking my phone with him.

  “He’s a lifesaver when it comes to technology,” Amber said, applying some sort of lip balm. “The amount of phones I’ve dropped in baths and sinks and hot tubs.” It might have been my imagination, but I was pretty sure she blushed slightly after the casual use of “hot tubs.” “Anyway . . . ,” she said, looking me up and down again. I realized she was waiting for me to explain.

  “It’s quite a long story,” I said. “It ends up with me falling in a river.”

  “Christ, are you okay? Do you need a blanket or something? I can ask Lucas—”

  “No, no, it’s fine.”

  “As long as you’re sure . . .” Amber held my gaze for a moment. “God, it’s been years, hasn’t it?” She sounded a little stiff suddenly, and an awkwardness descended. It was then that I realized this was the first time we’d spoken since Alice’s accident. I wondered if she’d ever thought of getting in touch.

  There was a burst of activity outside—I caught a snatch of conversation about “lighting checks.”

  “They’ll want me in makeup soon, I expect,” Amber said. “So, was there anything in particular you came to see me about, or . . . ?”

  “Well . . . ,” I began. Was this fair to Amber, bringing up Joel and his illness just before she went out in front of the cameras and a few hundred superfans to perform in a lighthearted comedy show? It was a small concern in the grand scheme of things. But the decision was made for me when Lucas appeared once more to take Amber in to makeup.

  “Why don’t you come to my dressing room, have a glass of wine there?” Amber said. “You can watch the recording on a monitor.”

  The next thing I knew, I was being led into the bowels of the studios, through brightly lit corridors, past extras and camera operators and runners and clipboard-wielding floor managers and studio managers, down into Amber’s dressing room. There were bulbs bordering the mirror, herbal teas and ointments in wrinkled tubes, all the accoutrements of a star. The monitor in the top-left corner of the room showed the audience filing in. The set on the stage was the familiar setting of the dentist’s office, with the reclining chair and various charts and posters on the fake wall.

  A glass of white wine appeared out of nowhere. I swiveled in my chair and noticed the script for that evening’s episode on the edge of Amber’s dressing table.

  The Tooth Hurts

  (Xmas Special II)

  “Filling Time”

  Written by Joel Thompson

  The title was one of those puns that fell into the “so bad, it’s good” category. I imagined Joel typing it out, then deleting it, then doubling down and retyping it. And then I imagined a world where I’d been there with him, sitting across a desk in our office with corkboards filled with Post-its, half-empty coffee mugs everywhere. He’d have looked at me with a sly grin on his face. “How’s this for a title, then?” And we’d have debated it for far too long, forgetting to eat, forgetting we had homes to go to . . .

  I knew that life wasn’t possible now, but the need to find Joel—to tell him how I wished we could have had that, if things had worked out differently—that felt stronger than ever.

  * * *

  I was up on my feet, applauding, as Amber came into her dressing room. With retakes and scene changes, the recording had taken nearly three hours—but I’d been rapt throughout.

  “You were fantastic,” I gushed.

  “Thanks, Theo.” She seemed surprised to hear me compliment her like that.

  I poured her a glass of wine and began rhapsodizing about her performance. “The way you delivered that line about the tractor—oh, and your face during the root canal scene.”

  “Yes, well, I just say the lines, don’t I? It’s the script that’s so good.”

  Though there was a little forced false modesty in her tone, Amber did have a point. So it wasn’t the most sophisticated thing in the world, but it just worked. Everything about it was so full of heart and warmth, and that the audience were still laughing and aahing after all the retakes was just a remarkable achievement. Joel’s achievement.

  “Anyway,” Amber said. “What was it you wanted to—”

  But before she had a chance to finish her sentence, some enormous hoop earrings attached to a person swept into the room in a cloud of perfume.

  “Darling, you were absolutely terrific. Your best yet. Such a fucking pro with the great unwashed, too—you had them absolutely eating out of the palm of your hand.”

  Amber nodded her head in a mini-bow.

  The woman looked at me and recoiled. “Christ alive, who is this?”

  With difficulty, Amber finally removed some fake eyelashes.

  “Theo, this is Jane Green, the show’s producer. Theo’s an old friend, Jane.”

  “Is he, now?” Jane said, looking me up and down without even trying to conceal her disgust. “And what’s he doing here?”

  I gave Amber a look: Why is she talking about me like I’m not actually here? She can see me, right?

  It was then that I clocked her name. Jane Green. The person Joel told me he’d sent our script to.

  “Well, sorry, matey boy, but I need the star,” Jane said. “Amber, darling, we’ve got that call with Hank in LA.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes. Five mins. I expect he’s finishing off his smoothie or waxing his balls or something.”

  I snorted with laughter. Jane turned and gave me daggers.

  “Sorry, champ, time to go.” Keeping a safe distance, she started to usher me
out, flapping her arms at me like I was a wasp threatening a picnic.

  “Hang on, wait,” Amber said. Her eyes were suddenly full of concern. “Theo, this isn’t about Joel, is it—the reason you’re here?”

  Jane whipped her head around. “Joel? What about him?”

  But Amber still had her eyes fixed on mine. “He told me he’s been with his mum for the last week,” she said.

  “Really?” I said. “But that’s . . . not . . .” I faltered. So Joel hadn’t told Amber about the Thames Path. But why? I suppose that the idea of him coming to see me to try to make amends, walking two hundred miles in the process, was something she’d have tried to talk him out of.

  Amber was smiling ruefully. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew he wasn’t telling me the truth. And he told me this morning he was taking her away, Jesus Christ.”

  Jane looked at Amber and tapped her watch. Amber raised her eyes to the ceiling and let out a long, steadying sigh. Then she began to collect her stuff, suddenly businesslike.

  “I’m sorry, Jane. Please, can you cancel the call?”

  Jane started to say something, but Amber cut her off.

  “I’ve got something much more important than Hank to worry about. Where are you staying tonight, Theo?”

  I shuffled my aching feet. I wasn’t sure I was ready to admit that a park bench in Peckham was pretty much the only option open to me.

  “Well,” I said. “I hadn’t really got that far, to be honest . . .”

  * * *

  In the underfloor-heated bathroom of Amber Crossley’s Hampstead home, I peeled off my disgusting clothes and lowered myself into the bath that was just the bearable side of boiling. I was past caring about my appearance by this point, but when we got to her house, Amber told me she needed some space to think, and sent me upstairs.

  As I scrubbed myself clean, the water gradually turned to the shade of the Thames. I must have looked like a news-footage seagull being cleaned after getting caught in an oil spill. I was still exhausted, but I felt better for having washed off all the grime. As I dried myself afterward, I looked in the mirror and decided there and then that when all this crap was over I’d finally get a proper haircut, something an adult would have. Maybe I’d stop eating cereal for dinner and get a high-interest savings account. All I’d need to do then was make some money to put in it. At least I had a working phone again. As Amber had promised, Lucas had worked his magic and managed to revive it, handing it to me just as I got into the taxi with Amber. I’d prayed for a message from Joel, but no luck.