Sweet Sorrow

by David Nicholls

  ‘Benvolio.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A guy called Benvolio. He’s Romeo’s friend.’ I glanced to my side, saw him tilt his head, confused, amused.

  ‘Where did that come from?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just thought it might be, you know, a laugh.’

  ‘And is it?’

  ‘Yeah. I like the people.’

  ‘And who are you playing again?’

  ‘Benvolio!’

  He muttered the name, as if Benvolio might be someone he knew from school. ‘Is it a big part?’

  ‘Well it’s not the eponymous role.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Quite big.’

  ‘So – you’ve got lines?’

  ‘Lots of lines. Couple of big speeches.’

  ‘And … do I have to come and see it?’

  I laughed. ‘Not if you don’t want to, Dad.’

  He thought about it. ‘Is it long?’

  ‘Quite long. Like I said, you don’t have to—’

  ‘No, let’s see. Let’s see,’ he said, picking at the egg on a frying pan. ‘I wondered where you’d been going. I thought you were just roaming the streets, waiting for me to go to bed.’ This was exactly what I had been doing. He slid the pan back into the water, and we said no more about it.

  Now, cycling to Harper’s, I told myself that it was not a big deal. I even practised the words out loud. ‘Not a big deal’, accompanied by a little shrug. It was, after all, Shakespeare not ballet. The big house stood in its field, lights in all the windows. I leant my bike against the cement mixer and ran to the door, adopting the wry, self-assured half-smile that said ‘not a big deal’.

  Lloyd opened it. ‘By my troth, ’tis thee!’

  ‘Hello, Lloyd.’

  ‘Why dost thou call here so late in the even-time, arrant knave?’

  ‘Look, is Harper there?’

  ‘Aye, aye, he is, he is. Step forth …’ Lloyd bowed and beckoned me in. ‘But leavest thou thy sword outside.’

  I stepped inside. Earlier that day, we’d rehearsed the scene in which Romeo, returning from Juliet, is teased and goaded by Tybalt but, suddenly wise, floats serenely through the mockery and aggression with a hippy-ish, almost religious serenity, preaching peace and reconciliation. ‘Thou knowest me not,’ he tells his enemy. ‘I loved thee better than thou canst devise,’ as if being in love made him invulnerable and endlessly forgiving. That was what I aspired to, that Act III, Scene I attitude.

  Harper stood at the end of the hall, Fox grinning behind him, eyes bright in anticipation. ‘Lewis! You’re full of surprises.’

  ‘Indeed, sir,’ said Lloyd. ‘Quite the dark horse he is.’

  ‘Are you going to keep that up, Chris?’ I said. First names. Keep calm. Stay in control.

  ‘What of it, sir?’

  ‘They’re just leaving,’ said Harper.

  ‘Aye, aye, we tarry not!’

  ‘Because the joke’s quite old now,’ I said.

  ‘Of what dost thou speak, thou saucy knave?’

  ‘Yes, I get it, I got it the first time.’

  ‘’Tis not a joke.’

  ‘You’re not even doing it very well.’

  ‘All right, keep it down!’ said Harper. Behind him, Fox started to laugh.

  ‘Do not lose thy rag with me,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘You are so tiresome.’

  A high-pitched, goading laugh …

  ‘You too, Fox.’

  ‘Thy words have no sting, fancy lad.’

  ‘Pack it in, Lloyd,’ said Harper. ‘Fox, go home.’

  Fox stepped outside but Lloyd was incapable of leaving without some final flourish. ‘We saw your dad, Lewis.’ He clicked his fingers quickly, crooner-style. ‘The Jazzer, jazzing out. Ba-da-ba ba-ba ba-ba-pow!’

  Visions of terrible malice, of smashing his head into the doorframe, or running him through just as Romeo murders Tybalt.

  ‘Lloyd!’ said Harper. ‘Go!’

  ‘Goodnight, sweet prince! Goodnight!’ A moment, while the door closed, the laughter faded away.

  ‘Is it too late?’

  ‘No,’ said Harper. ‘Come on. Let’s play pool.’

  ‘You break. I met this girl by accident. She’s just left Chatsborne, Fran Fisher, do you know a Fran Fisher? You’re stripes, I’m spots. And she was doing this play thing, the Shakespeare thing, the one they told us about in school. Nice shot. And the only way to see her was to join, so that’s what I’ve been doing. A play. Bad luck, my go. And it’s not bad, you know, it’s fine, I quite like the people – yes! – bit pretentious but they’re not taking the piss all of the time, and it’s a nice venue. Shit! Your go. I even think it might be quite a good production. Of the play. Helen Beavis is doing the design.’

  ‘The Bricky?’

  ‘Yeah, but no one calls her that. They call her Helen. It’s refreshing. Also, she’s really good, at art and design and stuff – and it’s open-air, site-specific, in this massive house—’

  ‘It’s what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You just said it’s something …’

  ‘“Site-specific.” I just mean that it’s not in an ordinary theatre, it’s specific to this house. Is it my go?’

  ‘Why are you talking like this?’

  ‘I’m just explaining why I’m doing this Shakespeare play. Your go.’

  ‘But you’ve never done a play before. You’re on.’

  ‘No, and I never will again, it’s just … the summer’s so long, and I’ve got nothing else to do and I don’t know, don’t you ever want to try something … new?’

  ‘Yeah, but, I don’t know, bungee jumping. Not a play. Fluke.’

  ‘Not fluke, skill.’

  ‘And aren’t you just a really shit actor?’

  ‘Me? Yes, I’m really terrible. My go, two shots. Well, not terrible. Fran worked on the lines.’

  ‘Fran’s the—’

  ‘The girl, Juliet. You should come and—’

  ‘Come and see it?’

  ‘Yes! Why not! You know a couple of people in it.’

  ‘Your go.’

  ‘Helen Beavis, Colin Smart—’

  ‘Fucking hell, you’re hanging out with Little Colin Smart now?’

  ‘He’s all right. Lucy Tran, she’s really good in it.’

  ‘Number Forty-two?’

  ‘Yes, except no one calls her that because it’s racist—’

  ‘It’s not racist.’

  ‘Of course it’s racist, it is literally racist, it was always racist, and always stupid too because she’s Vietnamese. Not even Vietnamese, she’s British, she was born here, and even if she was Chinese, it would still be fucking racist and fucking stupid.’

  ‘All right!’

  ‘Actually, no, don’t come and see it. Just … forget it. Whose go is it?’

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes, I just asked whose go?’

  ‘Yours.’

  ‘All right, top right pocket. I don’t know, Martin, it just makes a change from hanging around down here and taking the piss and being shitty to each other all the time.’

  ‘You think I’m shitty to you?’

  ‘Not you, just all of us together, the way we are. Don’t you think it’s weird? All the name-calling and jokes and stuff? I mean, when it’s someone’s birthday, shouldn’t you, I don’t know, buy them a present rather than nick their trousers and set fire to them? Isn’t that just deeply, deeply weird?’

  ‘I think this conversation is weird.’

  ‘Is it? Probably. I don’t care.’

  ‘I mean, yes, I think it gets out of hand sometimes.’

  ‘Yeah, you could say that …’

  ‘But I don’t think we’re bad mates.’

  ‘No, and I didn’t say that.’

  ‘When your mum was moving out—’

  ‘No, I know, I know.’

  ‘When you were fucking up all your exams—’

  ‘I realise that.
’

  ‘When you were being all weird and moody—’

  ‘Was I? Probably I was. I was a bit depressed, I think.’

  ‘You were nuts.’

  ‘I was. Your go.’

  ‘But we didn’t go anywhere, did we? I mean we were there.’

  ‘Well you were. And I appreciate it. But if someone calls me Council or Bunkie or Nobody again, or talks about Dad like that, I’m going to … walk away.’

  ‘Your go. It’s just banter.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Between mates.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t need that any more.’

  ‘Now you’ve got new friends? Unlucky, my go.’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘And this girl.’

  ‘Fran. Yes.’

  ‘Is she nice?’

  ‘She’s amazing.’

  ‘Attractive?’

  ‘I think she’s beautiful.’

  ‘So have you done it yet?’

  ‘No. Everything but.’

  ‘Everything but, eh?’

  ‘We’ve got a plan.’

  ‘Well, if you’ve got a plan. And you like her?’

  ‘Yeah, I really, you know. I love her.’

  ‘…’

  ‘…’

  ‘…’

  ‘…’

  ‘Well, you’d better get your beauty sleep, Charlie.’

  ‘Let’s finish this first.’

  ‘Top right pocket.’

  ‘Off you go.’

  ‘…’

  ‘…’

  ‘…’

  ‘Well done,’ I said. ‘You win.’

  Workshopping

  ‘… and roll back up, one vertebra at a time, into a standing position,’ said Alina. ‘And now, before you go, here’s one final word from your director.’

  ‘Here we go,’ said Alex.

  ‘It’s the D-Day speech,’ said George.

  ‘It’s going to be very emotional,’ said Helen.

  ‘Sh!’ said Miles.

  And sure enough, Ivor came to stand in the centre of the circle. ‘Well, what an experience. Three weeks ago, I thought – there’s no show. There’s nothing here, no one’s listening, no communication, it’s all a waste of time. But you’ve worked so hard, so, so hard and I don’t mind telling you, this has got the potential to be, well, something pretty great, something Shakespeare might watch and think, yep, that’s exactly what I meant. Now next week is going to be very technical, quite slow, boring in places and very hard work. I know, too, that it’s a big week for some of you, with your exam results coming out, and so we’re going to take a few hours off on Monday, to let the excitement die down.’

  I wouldn’t look. I would stay in bed, pull the pillow down over my head.

  ‘But the scaffolding will go up while we rehearse, we’ll dress it. Tech on Tuesday and possibly Wednesday, Thursday dress rehearsal then that night … we’re on! There are still tickets, so please, get your aunts, your uncles, your cousins, your school friends along. Because I think they’re going to see something really …’ Ivor touched his knuckle to his lip, to contain the emotion. ‘Really. Special. Now. Go home!’

  We were not going home.

  ‘Pub?’ said Helen.

  ‘Or are you running lines?’ said Alex.

  ‘No, we can go to the pub,’ said Fran. The pub was part of the plan. ‘But we’re on our bikes.’

  ‘Your bikes. You’re so wholesome.’

  ‘Aren’t we?’ said Fran.

  ‘Well, give us doublers,’ said Helen.

  ‘Doublers?’ said Alex. ‘I’m sorry, is this the Beano? No one calls them “doublers” They’re croggys.’

  ‘Croggys is just made up.’

  ‘No, it is a croggy,’ said Fran. ‘It’s the standard term.’

  ‘Must be a Chatsborne thing,’ said Helen.

  ‘If anything, it’s a back-y,’ I said.

  ‘Literally a back-y,’ said Fran.

  ‘Doublers don’t work anyway. We’re too big.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks, Charlie,’ said Helen.

  ‘No, we’re all too big.’

  ‘It works downhill,’ said Fran.

  And so at the top of the lane the four of us clambered onto two bikes like a circus troupe, Fran and I taking the seats, Helen and Alex standing on the pedals. In passing, Alex noticed my rucksack – ‘Good Lord, what have you got in there? Are you running away from home?’ and I wondered if I should tell him, I’m spending the weekend with Fran, the whole weekend, just the two of us. We’re going to have sex – but already we were off, hurtling down the lane at terrifying speed; dead, surely, if we hit a fallen branch or met a car coming towards us. Dead and so close to having intercourse. ‘I don’t want to die!’ I said out loud. ‘Not now.’ ‘Faster!’ shouted Alex, and so we picked up speed, whooping and hollering, causing the rest of the company to split and scatter. ‘See you at The Angler’s!’ shouted Helen, as we passed. ‘If we live!’

  We walked the rest of the way, the others joining us later in the pub garden. Conspirators, Fran and I were careful to avoid each other’s company. Instead, she talked to Polly, subtly drawing out the intelligence we’d need while I sat and listened to George and Miles bicker.

  And still I couldn’t help looking at my watch, the aching slowness of the minute hand. So tedious is this day, as is the night before some festival, says Juliet, to an impatient child that hath new robes/And may not wear them. The play was stuffed with anticipation, talk of tomorrows, of sunrises and sunsets, hours and minutes, and if the characters had wristwatches they’d not just check them but tap the glass, longing for them to run faster. If I’d been going to college, it might have made an essay – ‘Time and Horniness in Romeo and Juliet: an Exploration’. I checked my watch again. Full sex. Of course it would be silly to think that there was nothing sexual about all the things we’d done so far, but this was full sex, like full volume, a full house, a full English breakfast; it contained everything, and after this there’d be nothing left to do except to do it again. I checked my watch repeatedly until eight p.m. when, as agreed, we said our goodbyes.

  By one minute past, we were gone, smiling secretly. At the rival petrol station near the pub, I stopped to buy a bag of ice – I’d never bought ice before, associating an abundance of ice with millionaires – and I stuffed the sack into the top of my rucksack and felt it cooling and melting against my neck as we struggled to cycle back up the hill towards Fawley Manor. Close to the entrance, we stopped, checked both ways like spies behind enemy lines, stashed our bikes behind the high stone wall that bounded the estate.

  The sun was low as we cut through the woods so that Bernard and Polly would not spot us when returning from the pub. ‘They’re seeing friends in London tomorrow,’ said Fran, ‘and going to the theatre. Back late and out all day Sunday …’ Approaching the drive, we heard the sound of their car and crouched in the undergrowth like kids playing soldiers. We saw Bernard step out of the old Mercedes to open the wooden gate, sober and straight like the old family chauffeur, while Polly’s head lolled backwards on the passenger seat.

  ‘We could have just asked her,’ I whispered.

  ‘This is more exciting,’ said Fran and kissed me, not ten feet from Bernard, and once the car had moved on we climbed the wall and made for the gatehouse. The key was still there on the lintel and Fran placed it in the lock and slowly opened the door. It creaked like a sound effect.

  I think we’d both hoped for some miraculous transformation, a low-lit hotel room, but the cottage looked even duller in the fading evening light, a long-abandoned holiday rental, musty and scrappy. There’d be mice here, rats even, and fat spiders lurking in corners. ‘The honeymoon suite,’ said Fran, and I pulled her towards me and kissed her clumsily. ‘Let’s get things ready first,’ she said and we both slipped silently into our chores, moving furniture and sweeping the floor, pausing when we passed each other to kiss or touch, trying not to betray a sense of urgency or nervou
sness.

  The first thing Fran arranged was the music: a Sony Discman, two miraculous mini-speakers and a small stack of CDs in a manila envelope. ‘Music to clean up by,’ she said and pressed play on the Trainspotting soundtrack. In the kitchenette, taps coughed and choked, the water a murky brown, but we wiped the dust off the red Formica kitchen table, and unpacked our supplies.

  A Swiss army knife. Bananas, a tube of Pringles, the largest commercially available bag of peanuts, wine gums and own-brand digestives, a torch, four bread rolls, a cucumber and some thin-sliced Yorkshire ham, sachets of instant coffee from some holiday hotel, greasy pats of butter stolen from the pub, favourite T-shirts and underwear and a pot of hummus, tea-bags, two oranges, plasters, roll-on deodorant, candles, nightlights, matches and some basic cosmetics. We’d shared the alcohol provision: I had vodka, a two-litre bottle of Coke and the bag of ice, Fran had cava and some Portuguese red wine. We plugged in the ancient fridge, which shuddered like a generator, and crammed the slushy ice into the tiny freezer compartment. The plan was to spend our daytime reading in the meadow, and I unpacked my chosen books with some pride: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and the six-hundred-page film tie-in edition of The Name of the Rose. Fran had The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence and a school library edition of Playing Shakespeare by John Barton. I did not unpack the condoms – I’d amassed six of them now, an even more ambitious project than The Name of the Rose – but even so, the provisions laid out on the table were a strange combination of decadence and practicality. ‘We’re sexy explorers,’ said Fran, shining the torch on the Pringles. ‘There’s a party, but it’s in Nepal.’

  Fran had also managed to pack two clean sheets. On a hunch, we felt along the bottom edge of the sofa and tugged and tugged again, half expecting it to shear off in our hands until, like a piece of ancient farm machinery, the mechanism gave and the sofa turned into a bed of sorts. We stretched the fitted sheet across and looked at it in silence.

  ‘Lighting!’ said Fran.

  We’d resolved to use a minimum of electric light on the off chance that Polly or Bernard might drive by. Instead we lit candles around the edge of the room so that it began to feel a little like a ritual, as if a chalk pentagram might be next; the great deflowering.

  Nerves.

  ‘I’m just going to …’

  The bathroom was airless, dim and smelt of old flannels. Despite our preparations, we’d forgotten soap but I found a shard, pink and cracked with an edge like a flint arrowhead, doused myself with cold, brown water and scraped at my armpits. Next door, the music stopped. ‘Charlie! Where are you?’