Spud - Learning to Fly (32 page)

‘Okay, let’s say it
is
VPH,’ said Boggo, continuing on his express train of thought. ‘How do I let her know that I know it’s her?’

‘It’s not VPH, Boggo,’ said Rambo casually sipping his tea.

‘How do you know?’ asked Fatty.

‘Three reasons really,’ said Rambo suavely. ‘Firstly, VPH is madly in love with me. Secondly, she told me that she finds you repulsive. And thirdly, the misguided idiot who sent you that note is in this very room as we speak.’

Fatty’s head whipped around to where Penny stood helpless in the kitchen. A look of horror spread across his face like his life was on the verge of falling apart. But Penny was looking desperately across to where Brenda was no longer cleaning the windows and stood frozen with fear. She seemed petrified as she slowly stepped down off the stool on which she had been standing. Then she turned and fled.

I know poor Brenda must have been mortified, but I couldn’t help laughing like a maniac. Penny just stood there and watched the rest of us howling at the bewildered Boggo and she eventually said, ‘Okay. That’s like … really embarrassing.’ Then with her head held high she flounced out of the room.

‘That’s so great!’ said Rambo in a mocking voice. ‘Now you two can go out on a double date.’ The grin instantly fell from Fatty’s face and Rambo cruised off to the bogs with a towel draped carefully over his left bicep.

At last we have brought the play down to a far more respectable 125 minutes’ running time. Unfortunately, Viking said we were now gabbling our lines and reckoned he couldn’t hear at least three quarters of the play. The good news is that the Dream seems to be coming together at the death. It’s nowhere near perfect, but it’s nowhere near embarrassing either. Everyone tells me my female voice for Thisby is hilarious, but since we haven’t yet played to an audience and Viking has banned the cast from laughing at themselves, it’s impossible to know if they’re being honest or just being friendly. I left the theatre feeling fairly confident, with a spring in my step.

22:45 ‘Spud!’ hissed Fatty from under a small tree in the garden to my left. ‘Over here!’

‘What’s up?’ I said.

He shushed me to silence and led me through some bushes, making more noise than a marauding elephant, and out into a clearing of grass, where he collapsed onto a bench like he had just run a four-minute mile. He said we had to talk.

‘I’m helluva confused, Spuddy,’ he began, shaking his head and heaving for breath in the darkness.

‘What is it?’ I asked after a long pause.

‘It’s complicated,’ Fatty said. He then looked around suspiciously and whispered, ‘Your oath to God you’ll keep this quiet and not tell Boggo?’ I nodded solemnly and repeated, ‘My oath to God.’

‘Spuddy,’ he said, speaking quickly, ‘I know this might be a bit weird and stuff, and like it might sound like – stupid to you because you’ve had a few hot … well, you know … girls and stuff.’

I told Fatty that I could offer him my best advice, but reminded him that all my relationships have ended in disaster. He nodded and said, ‘It’s just that there’s nobody else I can talk to.’ I nodded solemnly and Fatty nodded solemnly back at me. Then there was a long pause before he said, ‘I think I’m in love with Penny.’

His honesty took me by surprise and a loud and terrible snigger shot out of my mouth like a machine gun and exploded into the night. I immediately covered my mouth and hoped Fatty wouldn’t have noticed.

‘You all right?’ he asked, a note of alarm in his voice.

‘Fine,’ I said to the dark shadow sitting beside me. Just a hiccup.’

‘Hold your breath for a minute and think of a waterfall,’ advised Fatty in a loud voice. I pretended to hold my breath and Fatty continued, ‘I think about her all the time. She’s beautiful. I can’t … I can’t …’ Fatty ran out of words to describe his feelings.

‘It’s like you can’t breathe properly when she’s around,’ I said.

‘Exactly!’ cried Fatty. ‘That’s exactly it! You see, I knew you were the right guy to talk to.’

‘Anyway,’ continued Fatty, ‘Boggo and Rambo said I could get expelled and arrested for kissing an under age girl.’ He paused and then spoke in a low nervous whisper. ‘They said because I’m now sixteen and she’s thirteen, that would make me a paedophile.’

‘As long as you don’t sleep together then you’ll be fine,’ I advised in a responsible voice.

‘Really?’ came the astonished reply from the darkness. ‘But I don’t even want to sleep with her. I mean I do, but I’d just be honoured to hold her hand or go on a date.’

There was a long pause before Fatty asked, ‘So you sure it’s cool, if I like make a move and maybe try … you know …?’

‘Look, Fatty,’ I said, ‘Boggo is just screwing around with your mind because he’s jealous, and Rambo’s just screwing around with your mind because he’s Rambo. You follow your heart and let the rest go to hell. You’ll never know if you never try.’

Suddenly I was pulled to my feet by enormous arms that enveloped me in an embrace.

‘Thanks, Spuddy,’ said Fatty with an enormous sigh of relief. ‘You’re sheer class.’

I gave him a thump on the shoulder. We then walked the long road back to the house and he never once stopped talking about his girl.

Grand Opening of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

It’s a vicious circle. You can’t sleep because you’re nervous and excited. The more you can’t sleep the more you panic because you aren’t sleeping in the first place, and the more you panic the longer you can’t sleep which then creates more panic and less sleep.

05:00 Vern wasn’t in bed. After five minutes of waiting I began to grow concerned that the cretin had made a break for it. It wouldn’t go beyond the realm of reason to think that Rain Man could disappear into hiding and derail the mechanicals’ scenes and thus the play. Suddenly I was full of rage that Vern could ruin months of hard work and quite possibly an important stepping-stone in my theatrical career. After all, as The Guv always says, ‘this world is quite simply divided into those that have played the bard and those that haven’t’.

I hurled back the duvet and marched into the common room and was relieved to find Vern standing at the window staring out at the first streaks of the morning while sipping away at a mug of hot water. He didn’t seem to notice me and continued to be mesmerised by the view from the window.

I asked him what he was doing and he replied, ‘Thinking.’

This isn’t a good sign at all.

6:10 Boggo shook his head in disgust. ‘Appalling casting,’ he said. ‘Viking must have been mad to think he could pull it off.’

Fatty and Penny agreed, and said that Vern was certain to have some sort of freak out.

‘My oath to God, he’s like the worst upstager in the world,’ said Boggo, trying to fish something out of his tea. Fatty nodded seriously and said, ‘He can’t go like two minutes without scratching his balls or pulling hair out of his head.’

‘Ja,’ added Boggo looking terribly wounded, ‘and it’s always on my best lines.’

‘Vern’s retarded,’ said Penny rather loudly but without elaborating. We all fell into a deep silence and considered the possibilities of what might go wrong with Vern tonight.

‘I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,’ said Fatty, hauling himself up from the chair and following Penny out of the common room.

PM Couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the play. Grew increasingly terrified as the day wore on and developed a possible intestinal problem.

18:30 Viking delivered a long and inspiring final speech about how his work was now done and how it was all up to us from now on. He told us to enjoy it, and to forget about trying to get it right and instead advised that we should lose ourselves in the moment and express ourselves as actors. Unfortunately, he then said he would be watching us like a hawk and would destroy anyone who dropped the pace.

He concluded with, ‘Remember this is a privilege and tonight is a christening. Enjoy, relish, and keep that bloody pace up!’

19:30 Nervous energy was crashing off the walls. Dressed in our workmen’s uniforms, the mechanicals paced around the tiny dressing room mumbling our lines to ourselves. Boggo looked genuinely terrified and publicly vowed that he would never do this to himself again. Vern locked himself in the bogs where loud and disturbing muttering was heard. Every five minutes or so a loud voice would blurt out of the tannoy system. 30 minute call, 25 minute call, 20 minute call …

19:50 Vern still in the bogs and refusing to come out despite Boggo banging on the door and pretending to have the runs. By now my nerves were shot and questions swirled around my disordered mind. Firstly, what happens if the audience is completely freaked out by Vern and nobody laughs at our scenes at all? Secondly, what happens if Vern gets freaked out by the audience? Then a nasty third question popped into my head. What happens if my Thisby voice is met with the chirping of crickets? And then the fourth and worst question: what if I walk out there and realise that I’m not good enough and never will be?

19:55 ‘My dear Gentles!’ began The Guv as our beginners’ call blasted through the tannoy. ‘We have come to make the commoners laugh, and so we shall. Fear not the fiery devil of failure, for tonight he shall return unto the Bard what is rightfully his!’ There was a snap from the lock of the bathroom door and a hesitant figure with demented eyes staggered out as white as a sheet.

We followed The Guv into the wings where we watched the curtain open and our play begin. The theatre was packed and the audience felt warm and friendly and seemed to be listening carefully to the opening scene. Boggo was shifting from foot to foot and kept opening and closing his scroll to check his lines. My hands shook terribly, as did my knees and just about anything that wasn’t completely attached to my body.

‘We’re on,’ whispered The Guv. ‘May God help us all.’ And he marched out into the bright gleam of the footlights with us trailing along behind.

The school went berserk when the mechanicals filed on. We hadn’t said a single word, but the laughter seemed to roll on for minutes. We had to wait and wait and wait for that first line. Not sure if they thought we just looked funny in our costumes, or whether it was The Guv, or even Fatty or Vern that set them off, but either way it felt like the worst was over.