All About Us: Escape with the bestselling, most gorgeously romantic debut love story of 2020!

by Tom Ellen

  But then there’s also Bill & Ted, Back to the Future, Groundhog Day …

  ‘Harv …’ I stare up at him blankly. ‘What happens in Groundhog Day? I mean, like, why does he go back in time?’

  If Harv finds this question at all random, he doesn’t show it. He simply taps his can of lager against his teeth, thoughtfully. ‘Er … isn’t he, like, a weatherman, who’s sort of pissed off with everything? And so he keeps reliving the same day over and over until eventually he … shags Andie MacDowell? Isn’t that basically it?’

  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.’

  Chapter Seven

  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. ‘You’ve only got, like, three lines. You’ll nail it.’

  Three lines. Why is everyone so obsessed with this three-lines thing? Then it hits me: I have no idea what these three lines are. It’s been fifteen years since I looked at this script. I’m about to walk out on stage with no clue what to say when I get there.

  I’ve just decided to make a run for it when I feel a light tap on my s
houlder.

  ‘Hey, are you Ben? This is yours, right?’

  Daphne smiles brightly as she holds out a plastic fake revolver.

  Chapter Eight

  I was expecting to see her, but still.

  For a second, I am caught so completely off guard that I can’t even move. Daphne has to lift my hand up and press the gun into it.

  ‘They told me: “Ben’s the one who’s not naked”,’ she whispers. ‘So I’m guessing that’s you?’

  I nod, dumbly. I can’t believe it’s really her. My heart feels like it’s trying to punch its way out of my chest.

  Even in the almost pitch darkness I can tell her smile is on full beam. Her curly hair is pulled back into a ponytail that drapes halfway down her shoulder and she’s dressed in the regulation backstage outfit of tight black top and black leggings; a combination that makes her look a bit like a ballerina or a strangely sexy cat burglar.

  I’m vaguely aware that I am just staring openly at her, which is probably coming across as more than a little creepy. But I can’t help it.

  When this moment first happened, fifteen years ago, I’d be lying if I said it was a fireworks-in-the-sky, love-at-first-sight revelation. As she handed me the gun, I’m pretty sure all I thought was: ‘Huh, the new props girl is quite hot.’

  But now – somehow – I’m standing here looking at the girl who’ll become the woman who’ll become my wife. I’ve spent the past fifteen years with her. I know her inside and out. Or at least I think I do. Either way, I have no idea how to treat her like a total stranger.

  This weird, silent trance is shattered by the sensation of Clem’s penis bopping me gently on the thigh as he leans across to introduce himself.

  ‘I’m Clem,’ he whispers, offering his hand. ‘I’m the one who is naked.’

  Daphne nods and shakes it. ‘OK: naked, not naked,’ she says, pointing at him, then me. ‘I think I’ve got it. And I’m Daphne, by the way.’

  Clearly, both of them are now finding my slack-jawed gawping slightly awkward, because Daphne dials her smile down and looks away, and Clem starts massaging my shoulders.

  ‘Ben’s a bit nervous,’ he mouths at her. ‘Even though he’s only got three lines.’

  That brings me back down to earth with a jolt.

  ‘I don’t know what they are,’ I splutter. ‘I don’t know my lines.’

  Clem laughs without smiling. ‘Good one.’

  ‘No, seriously … I can’t remember them.’

  Clem is now looking at me like I’m the one with his tackle out in a public space. But Daphne just raises her index finger and says: ‘Give me one sec,’ then disappears into the darkness.

  Clem starts muttering something at me, but I’m not paying attention; I’m just listening to Marek out on stage telling Tiny Tim to go fuck himself, and before I know it, Daphne’s back again, bearing a script and a key-ring torch.

  ‘Right, what’s your character’s name?’ she whispers, flipping through the pages.

  I look at Clem blankly.

  ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ he hisses. ‘Have you been hit on the head or something?’ His laid-back stoner persona seems to have completely evaporated over the past thirty seconds. ‘He’s called Jimmy the Hat,’ he tells Daphne.

  ‘Jimmy the Hat …’ she repeats slowly. She shines the torch at me. ‘Shouldn’t you be wearing a hat, then?’

  ‘Marek says it’s an ironic nickname,’ Clem explains, through gritted teeth. ‘Like Little John in Robin Hood.’

  ‘Ah, right, gotcha.’ Daphne nods. ‘Such a fine line between ironic and just … confusing.’ Her expression is thin-lipped, earnest, perfectly deadpan, and despite everything, I have to put a hand to my mouth to muffle my laughter.

  She finds the page in question and stabs it with her finger. ‘OK, got it … Jimmy the Hat … Right, so you walk in when the lights go out. Then the lights come up, and you say: “Scrooge, you son of a bitch, I thought I might find you here.”’ She looks up at us. ‘Isn’t this set in Scrooge’s house? Obviously he’s going to find him here.’

  This makes me start laughing again, and for a second I’m worried I won’t be able to stop, and that I’ll be shoved out on stage still giggling like a lunatic, until the men in white coats arrive to take me away.

  ‘This is not the time to start dissecting the fucking script,’ Clem whispers, but he’s smiling now too.

  ‘OK, OK …’ Daphne looks back at the page. ‘Scrooge says: “Jimmy the Hat, what the fuck do you want?” And you say, “Where’s the dope, Scrooge?” And he says, “Fuck you, Jimmy!” and you say, “Eat lead, cocksucker!” and then you shoot him.’ She gives me a conspiratorial glance. ‘This is great stuff. Dickens would be so chuffed.’

  I lean over and stare at the page under the torchlight, trying to burn the words into my brain. And then suddenly the stage lights go out, and I feel Clem grab my shoulders and bundle me roughly through the gap in the set.

  When the lights come back up, they are bright white and searing intensely into my face, and I’m staring out at forty or fifty bored-looking audience members. I turn to look at Marek, who is lying in bed with a rictus grin on his face, his eyes begging me to say something.

  ‘Er … Scrooge, you … son of a bitch,’ I stutter. ‘I thought I might find you here.’

  I see Marek wince at my robotic delivery, but he’s instantly back in character.

  ‘Jimmy the Hat!’ he bellows. ‘What the fuck do you want?’

  ‘Where’s the dope, Scrooge?’ I enquire, with slightly more emotion this time.

  He jabs a finger at me. ‘Fuck you, Jimmy!’

  ‘Eat lead, cocksucker!’ I shout back. And the relief that I’ve actually done it – I’ve managed to deliver my three lines without ruining the whole play – is so overwhelming that I almost start laughing again.

  But then, nothing happens.

  The audience are all still staring at me blankly, like they’re expecting something more. I think I can see Harv in the back row, although I can’t be sure, as he’s got both hands over his face. I turn to look at Marek, who is now beetroot red and visibly shaking. He’s glaring down at my hand, for some reason. Or, no, not my hand; the gun in my hand.

  ‘Ah, right, yeah,’ I murmur. And then I point the revolver at him and squeeze the trigger.

  There’s a loud bang from up in the sound booth, and Marek is suddenly screeching in over-the-top agony, his white nightshirt covered in what is quite clearly tomato ketchup.

  I stumble backwards, past Clem, who is emerging nakedly onto the stage and muttering, ‘Mate, seriously, what the fuck?’ as he passes me. I grope my way back into the darkness, where Daphne’s smile is still waiting for me. She raises her hand for a high-five and leans in so close I can feel her breath on my cheek.

  ‘And the Oscar goes to …’ she whispers, and we both dissolve into silent laughter.

  Chapter Nine

  I spend the next hour in the dressing room, alone for the most part, trying and failing to make sense of what the hell is going on.

  The thing I keep coming back to is that nothing – nothing – is playing out the way it did first time around. Obviously, fifteen years ago, I didn’t forget my lines or gawp at Daphne like a creepy oddball, and she didn’t have to go and find me a script or high-five me as I came offstage.

  I have no idea whether any of this matters. But I do remember reading some sci-fi story when I was a kid about a time traveller who crushes a butterfly and ends up killing off the dinosaurs as a result. And if there’s any truth in that logic, then I’m starting to seriously wonder what sort of knock-on effects all these new developments will have.

  But then maybe, I consider, as I stare at my insanely youthful face in the dressing-room mirror, maybe that’s the point of all this. I think back to the attic, which already seems like days ago: didn’t I drunkenly imagine what might have happened if tonight had gone differently? And that old man in the pub. The watch-seller. When he asked me if I would
change anything, tonight was one of the memories that flashed into my mind. That strange feeling rushes through me again – the unsettling sense that the old man knew me somehow. I stare down at the watch he gave me, its hands still frozen at one minute to twelve, and make a concerted effort to wrap my brain around what is going on.

  Before I can manage it, though, the rest of the cast are stomping back into the dressing room, dragging me back out on stage for the curtain call.

  I blink into the white light again as the audience claps half-heartedly at us, and then we’re all back in the dressing room together, shouting and laughing and hugging.

  If Marek bears me any ill will for turning his gravely serious near-death scene into a ridiculous farce, he doesn’t show it. He squeezes me just as tightly as he does everyone else, gushing about how amazingly the whole thing went, and seeming particularly pleased that several audience members walked out during a flashback in which Scrooge slits a rival drug dealer’s throat with a guitar string.

  ‘Did you see the looks on their faces?’ he yells. ‘They just couldn’t fucking handle it!’

  We all spill out of the Drama Barn into Langwith College bar next door, and as my feet cross the ominously sticky threshold, the déjà vu is humming away stronger than ever. God, I remember this place so well. I can’t count the number of nights I spent in here, feeding my student loan into the pool table, fifty pee at a time.

  The bar’s lime-green walls are reverberating to the sound of ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’, and my butterflies-and-dinosaurs theory begins to flounder slightly, because everything starts slotting neatly back into place, exactly as I remember it.

  Daphne has disappeared, just like she did all those years ago, and I recall the sharp pang of regret nineteen-year-old me felt as I scanned the bar and couldn’t spot her. Harv turns up and starts forcing sambuca shots on everyone, and then Alice sits down next to me, just as she did first time round.

  She’s pink-cheeked, fresh from scrubbing off her stage make-up, and she looks lovely. I watch her down her shot, and wonder if maybe this is where things will really start to change. If maybe this time Daphne won’t show up at the bar at all, and tonight will become what I always imagined it would: me and Alice’s night.