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The second day of rehearsals was always disappointing. On the first day the excitement of a new script was swallowed by the table read, and then the terribly dull presentation of the director’s vision beat any remaining joy out. By the time blocking of scenes began in the afternoon Robert was already reminiscing about his recent Boggle conquests. Day two was cause for him to introduce some novelty to keep himself entertained. In recent productions it had been food and crosswords, but he also liked to bring some ammunition to fire at the director should he prove bothersome; this usually took the form of childhood anecdotes extracted from his mother or embarrassing belongings stolen from his dreary little flat. Recently this had barely provoked him, so he’d taken to bothering the rest of the cast.
This gothic romance they were rehearsing was another in a streak of terrible scripts with very cheap rights. Some of the writing was so lacklustre that even Dennis understood the plot in places. Robert had been gearing up to fight for one of the main speaking parts of the play, but when it was given to him without any fight he felt at a loose end. Chris then revealed it would be a movement based piece, which was a complete cop out in Robert’s opinion. It was another of the director’s dastardly tactics to punish him for his talent. His best monologue had been trimmed beyond recognition and he did not share a single scene with Chris. He may has well have asked Robert to leave forever, although this was arguably a more effective way of doing so.
As Sandra and Chris ran through their second romance scene, Robert and Max decided to have a competition of strength and tried to out-plank one another. Jonathan soon joined in, which Robert would have protested at were he not concentrating terribly hard on not falling face first into the grimy rehearsal room floorboards. He need not have bothered fretting as all of them were drawn away from this rather suddenly.
‘NO!’ Chris shouted, batting Sandra’s hand away as she brought it down around his waist.
The rest of the society looked up from their scripts in confusion, except for Dennis who was probably trying to find out where he had missed this added line.
‘Ahem, can we try this part again without you touching me, please?’ he said, adjusting his scarf, ‘I think it suggests an overfamiliarity not present in our adaptation.’
‘Are you sure, Chris?’ Sandra said, ‘it is part of the text.’
‘Very sure,’ he snapped.
‘But Lavinia literally says that she wants to hold-’
Chris turned away from her, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘Right, from the top of the scene, please! Can we have some focus in the room?’
They continued as he asked, but there was a new tension in the air. Physical touch on stage had never fazed Chris before. Something had changed since their last production, or at least the last time Chris had cast himself in a role that required some level of intimacy. Actually, when was the last time they did a show where anybody touched him? Now that he had drawn attention to it, Robert noticed that throughout the first act’s movement sequences Chris was not touched once despite playing the main love interest for Lavinia. It could be a comment on Edmund being ultimately incompatible with Lavinia, or something interesting could be afoot.
Robert’s interest in the rehearsal reemerged.
He watched with intense focus at every single piece of choreographed movement during the day, at the way Chris was holding himself at a distance from others. He stole glances of Sandra’s similarly searching eyes, and there was a mutual but silent agreement something was indeed off. Any time she made to lay a hand on him when the script called for it he dodged. When Jonathan’s character was supposed to help him up he faltered, eventually allowing him to pull him by the hands even though they should be tied behind his back. He vanished altogether for most of the lunch break, which was not entirely abnormal.
Just before they were set to return for the afternoon, Robert nipped out the back of the theatre and across the road to the corner shop to grab a can of lemonade. He was perusing the yellow label items when a familiar figure darted past him.
‘Chris!’ Sandra called out from up one of the aisles, but he had already fled the scene.
Bemused, Robert abandoned the sushi and headed to the self-checkout. Within seconds Sandra was at his side sighing and huffing, which usually meant she want someone to ask her what was wrong. He met her eye through the security camera screen above the checkout.
‘I don’t know what’s got into him lately,’ she blurted out. ‘I mean, he has been blatantly ignoring me outside rehearsals for months now but this last week he’s been beastly.’
‘I think he’s having a delayed onset teenage phase.’ Robert chuckled to himself as Sandra rolled her eyes. ‘Seriously though, I might start calling him Bernarda. He looks like he’s in mourning wearing all that black. And he’s slouching like a teenager. Oh, maybe he’s gone emo?’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, I cannot deal with another man’s emo phase! How am I supposed to play against him when he won’t even look me in the eye?’
As they started walking back to the playhouse, Robert decided not to ask about the other men. ‘Maybe it’s time we break the eyeliner back out again. The mums liked that.’
‘Robert, this is not funny!’ Her voice rose with her temper. ‘He’s going to make me look terrible because of his bad acting!’
‘I’ve been saying this for years! None of you listen to me but I’m always right about these things. I have two words for you: Losing. Talent.’
‘Oh my god, he is losing talent,’ Sandra said. ‘I feel terrible saying it but when was he last actually good?’
‘Well, in my opinion-’
She quickly waved her hand at him to stop. ‘Sod that, I forgot who I was talking to.’
They were back in the room with thirty seconds to spare before rehearsal started up again. Robert was finally called upon to rehearse his scenes with Sandra and Jonathan, in which he was somehow going to play both Lavinia’s old clairvoyant father and also the ghost of one of the murdered townsfolk. It sounded logistically tricky, but nothing he could not handle. It was more Trevor’s problem than his.
Chris had taken up position at the piano and was trying to count through the movement piece for the ghosts. Robert was ashamed to admit he was rather relieved he was in just a small chunk of it, if only to avoid the critique. Annie and Max, the other two ghosts, were not paying the slightest bit of attention. The underscoring stopped as Chris noticed they were otherwise occupied but said nothing, just sighing, looking back down at his script and sipping from his sixth black coffee. The scene, for the time being, remained a single ghost affair.
The afternoon only got less focussed from then on. Dennis, Vanessa and Jonathan’s highwayman scenes were rather entertaining to watch (or, as they say in the industry, bad) until they realised that the door Dennis used to hide behind was lockable from the inside, so about forty minutes was lost trying to break him out. Sandra and Annie were supposed to be looking at sourcing period-accurate costumes but every time Robert walked past they seemed to be watching some sort of dramatised hockey show and giggling. Max was sitting on the floor beside them reading over his lines while Sandra ran her fingers through his hair. It was a sickening and far less entertaining sight. At some point Trevor burst in and demanded information on what exactly constituted a ‘Swiss themed backdrop, no lake, moderate snow, something Promethean’. He clapped Chris on the back as he went to leave which made the director jump like a cat seeing cucumbers.
With the constant interruptions and quite frankly terrible time management, the end of the day came round faster than expected. The society had had bad rehearsal days, but usually that was due to most of the cast being at A&E. Most people were on form, except for the glaring exception. Robert decided, with much thought but little wisdom, to confront the problem head on.
Chris and Trevor dismissed everyone and set off on their last patrol of the building before locking up. Most of the society hurried out to grab a table at the Dead Duck for quiz night. Dennis had tried to insist on waiting for Robert, but he managed to send him away by promising to listen to the updates about his Tomodachi island later that night. Robert tried to appear nonchalant in delaying his departure, which involved slowly putting on his coat four times and making a fake phone call to a fake talent agency about a fake opportunity. Just as he was booking in the time for his fake audition, the pair returned to the room.
‘Yes, thank you Mr… Chris…tiano… Trev…issimo. I’ll see you on Sunday the 34th!’ Robert signed off.
When he very subtly glanced up, the bastards had barely even registered his presence and continued past him toward the exit. Chris nodded as they passed but immediately returned his attention to Trevor. They seemed deep in some boring technical conversation about budgets and sustainability. Robert swore to himself, thinking he had missed his chance but as the door opened only Trevor stepped out. He paused in the doorway, arm raised awkwardly as he aborted reflexively patting Chris on the back. And after a brief goodbye Chris turned his gaze to Robert.
‘Why are you still here?’ he said, his tone accusatory but his expression more bewildered.
‘I had some questions about the ghost sequence.’
Chris sighed. ‘Ok, can we talk outside? I don’t want to still be here when the choir show up.’
Robert obliged, heading out to the car park. While Chris locked the door behind them, he gave Trevor a wave as the unfortunate replacement for his yellow monstrosity of a van pulled away.
They started walking toward the high street, at first in silence. Chris was staring at him, but every time Robert turned to catch him he would look away. Eventually, after what felt like at least a quarter of an hour, Robert said, ‘so the play.’
‘Yes, the play.’ Chris said back almost robotically.
‘The ghost sequence.’
Robert realised it was going nowhere, so he changed tack, ‘Actually, it’s about the monologue-’
A heavy sigh escaped Chris, and he barely uttered, ‘what now?’
‘Well, actually it’s about Max’s monologue. I was thinking-’
‘Right, Robert, I am not changing anything now because Max is not here and we have left rehearsal. I’m not going to remember what you tell me for tomorrow, so why don’t we both go home and talk about it in the morning?’
‘Are you not coming to the quiz?’
‘Not today, I shouldn’t think I’d be too helpful. Actually,’ Chris paused and came to a halt, ‘I think I’ll head this way.’
Robert looked down the alley Chris nodded toward. ‘You don’t live there.’
‘I need to- I am collecting a parcel.’
‘From Cornley Vale Retirement Apartments?’
‘Y- yes.’
Robert simply stared at him. Chris twitched nervously but stared back.
‘When was the last time you slept, Chris?’
The question was completely ignored and Chris began to shuffle away, ‘Ok, right I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Chris.’
‘Bye, Robert!’ And he turned and marched down the alley.
Robert followed close behind and slid an arm round his waist, restraining him. Whatever switch had subdued Chris today flicked off, and he roared at Robert, ‘HANDS OFF, NOW!’
‘Not until you tell me what is wrong.’
‘FUCK OFF, ROBERT.’ He squirmed, but Robert had clamped his arms at his sides.
‘Stop screaming or the old ladies will think we are fuck on.’ Robert pulled Chris’s head round to face him, and he whispered, ‘what is wrong?’
‘Can you just unhand me, please?’
‘No. Tell me or… it’s uppies.’
‘Robert, no! NO!’ Chris shouted as Robert prepared to scoop him up, ‘I’m not well!’
‘Fine, your choi-’
As he registered those words Robert dropped Chris, who fell backwards and landed on his arse. Not well? He seemed fine, broadly, perhaps to an untrained eye. Probably shaken by the manhandling and the falling over. But he had not spoken with the charm he used to lie. Down there on the alleyway floor, eyes closed, he heaved a deep sigh. A defeated man.
‘What?’
‘I hoped that nobody would notice, or at least bring it up.’
‘You could try to be less obvious about it next time,’ Robert suggested playfully as he helped Chris back to his feet, but it failed to elicit a smile. His heart sank. Chris was not allowed to be sick.
‘Right, I would appreciate it if you kept that to yourself and let me go home.’
Robert tutted. ‘You haven’t said what the problem is yet.’
‘Please, I’ll be fine.’
‘Oh God, it’s not contagious, is it?’
‘No.’
Chris looked heavenward and squeezed his eyes shut. This was one of the signs that Robert’s tactic of attrition by annoyance was succeeding.
‘Oh, to hell with it. I have… a problem with my brain.’
‘I could’ve told you that, Chris. No need to waste NHS time.’
‘Thank you for your keen observation. I sought the advice of a qualified medical professional who gave me medication to sort it out. It evidently has not worked and I have chosen to stop taking it. Is that enough information for you? Am I free to go?’
That hardly seemed responsible. ‘You’re supposed to finish the course, though? If it’s that sort of… thing.’
‘It was- well, it still is not that sort of thing,’ Chris said. ‘It’s—you know—a mental health thing, as they say.’
He had stage-whispered mental health in a way that suggested he had inherited his parents’ views on the matter. Robert tugged on Chris’s sleeve, pulling him out of the alley to sit at the base of a monument in the high street.
‘You’re depressed, then?’
‘To put it bluntly, yes, I suppose. I was going to say melancholy.’
‘Jesus, Chris.’ It was Robert’s turn to sigh. ‘You’ve been depressed since the first day I met you.’
‘What?’ Chris scoffed, ‘that’s ridiculous. I’ve been perfectly fine until rather recently.’
‘I mean, that’s blatantly untrue.’ It was the wrong time to press him on that particular matter. ‘What made you get the, uh, medication in the first place?’
‘Sandra said I’d been affected by the way the BBC contract ended. At the time I assumed she was just taking out her anger at losing her television gig on me, which is understandable as I don’t think my meetings with them won us any favour. But after our enforced hiatus, after the first few rehearsals for… oh Lord, I can hardly remember. Arthur Miller? You know the one I mean. After one of the rehearsals, I think quite early on, Trevor told Annie to make me get help. Said it was affecting the creative process of the show. She would not leave until I filled out the damned form, and then they called and an appointment was made and I had to go through with it.’
‘And?’
‘They gave me that ghastly stuff.’
‘Hm, they aren’t always so bad,’ Robert said, vaguely recalling some early times at the Polytechnic.
‘Well, no, that’s the catch, isn’t it? I slept properly for the first time since the incident-’ Both of them looked away briefly, knowing exactly which gunshot he was referring to, ‘and after a few weeks of feeling seasick on land, I felt less like I- like I would benefit from, well, closing up shop.’
The gravity of Chris’s words did not hit Robert until later that night, having been slightly distracted by an unpleasant sickness that reared its head whenever the incident was mentioned. Before his mind could catch up, his hand moved to pull Chris in for an awkward side by side hug. He squirmed but conceded when Robert moved his arm up to lay across his shoulder.
‘I did start to feel mad, though. I never used to eat breakfast, yet I would wake up hungry. It was the only feeling I had, really. It was insatiable. I thought that was better than before, to feel nothing instead of everything.’
Robert’s phone began to ring; it was Sandra. He did not answer. The quiz was starting in five minutes, and there was absolutely no chance they were making it. He would not miss this conversation for the world. So it was Do Not Disturb mode on.
‘Please don’t tell her,’ he said. That was, of course, in reference to his mother Celia. While the Grove-Bean dalliances had been firmly left in the previous decade, there was still some contact between the former lovers. When they were not at each other’s throats, they had often been in the company of the other’s family. Only Robert and Celia’s communications had survived the incident.
‘I think she probably worked it out. I hadn’t noticed how obvious it all was. She teased me at Christmas, but that’s normal. It was only a few months later when she… showed me what everybody else could see. I can’t imagine what people must think of me.’
His voice cracked as he spoke, and he sniffled; the unmistakable sound of somebody on the verge of tears. He was pulled in tighter, this time melting into Robert’s side.
What had Celia mentioned in her last call? A new restaurant that served lobster risotto and something about the fusty old man at the post office. Anything about Chris had slipped his mind. Except…
‘Oh, Christopher.’
Under his arm Chris’s shoulders grew tense. ‘Don’t call me that.’
‘You can’t take advice from a woman who eats once a fortnight.’ That was barely an exaggeration. Was there a single issue Chris had avoided inheriting?
‘But she’s right.’
‘She’s right to say that you eat too much and it shows?’
Unresponsive, except for a short, solemn hum of agreement. Robert looked down at the man in his arms; he was fiddling with the buttons of his overshirt which was carefully arranged over his midsection. Robert had noticed the extra weight quite early on, because he noticed everything about Chris. He thought Chris was facing it with his faux-stoicism, but this self-consciousness made sense of his strange behaviour. Insecurity hit them all over the course of the society’s career, and Chris was no exception. It made sense, in hindsight, that he would have very particular ideas around what he should look like given his past. But as Chris huffed there beside him, Robert saw the pieces of a broken thirtysomething being held together by caffeine and self-hatred.
‘I could claim to be offended, you know,’ he said, and Chris pulled away from him.
‘What?’ And then came his wide-eyed look of horror. ‘Damn, Robert, I didn’t mean- oh, bugger.’
‘I’m not by the way, Chris. I’m well aware that I’m the biggest man in Cornley.’
‘I didn’t mean- this is why I choose to keep things private, so I can avoid upsetting people the same way my dense lump of grey matter does me.’
‘Again, I take no offence. Does your “dense lump of grey matter” understand that?’
In the evening light, Chris’s eyes appeared almost grey. He wore the sleeplessness like an ill-fitting mask, but one that Robert was so used to it was hard to imagine him without it. This used to be the man that risked it all for a chance to be seen, with misplaced optimism despite a furious temper. Oblivious to the doting looks from girls and boys in class, with his M&S wardrobe and his immaculate hair. That had hardly changed, except for the strands of silver that had started to appear at his temples. He was once an enigma, and in many ways he still was. Years passed before they had learnt a single thing about Chris’s life before the society, about his love of jazz or his bizarre family or his penchant for old fashioneds. Only from Celia did he learnt that he’d wanted to be a dancer, that his RP accent was put on and he once sounded much more like a regular kid from Gloucestershire, that he had a talent for racket sports which he’d continued to play until quite recently.
But Robert watched him wrestle with words and feelings right here and now, and cursed the thrum of nerves that this man brought out in him.
‘I’m sorry,’ the hollow-eyed man said.
‘Stop apologising,’ he replied. ‘Let me get this straight. You went cold turkey because you were getting fat?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose. Should I not have?’
‘Probably not, no.’
‘But I needed the hunger to be over. I wanted to look and feel like me.’
‘And has this been worth it?’
Chris considered the question for a moment, and shook his head.
‘Fucking hell, Chris, it’s not hard to make another appointment. Just tell them it’s not doing it for you and they’ll try a different one. It took Max three tries to find the right one. I got lucky first try, probably because my symptoms were so eloquently explained.’
‘You? And Max?’ The disbelief dripped off his words. It was easy to forget how sheltered Chris was from most real-world things.
‘Oh, not anymore for me, that was back around Haversham and Pan. Max might still be on them for all I know. Sandra had questions for me when he first got them which is the only reason I ever knew.’
‘But you’re fine!’
‘We’re actors, Chris. Some of us keep acting off stage.’
Something shifted in his posture. ‘I should know, though. I’m the director, I’m the president of the society. Why did nobody tell me?’
‘Well, why did you not tell anybody?’
‘Because- it’s none of your business. I have to be fine, or else the society won’t function! It’s a private matter.’
‘There, exactly!’ Robert tapped him on the nose, and received a scowl. ‘Though maybe if we had told you about our… issues, you might have pulled the rod out your arse and dealt with yours sooner.’
‘I do not have a rod in my arse. I have standards.’
‘So do I. And you are not falling foul of them.’
The sound Chris made was not quite words but not quite a vomiting meerkat either.
‘I mean… what do I mean? That you, Christopher Alfred Bean, are—and I hate to say it—my best friend.’
At the heartfelt declaration Chris edged further away. ‘No. You hate me. We hate each other.’
‘Naturally.’
A barely audible ‘right then’ escaped Chris’s mouth before he choked up again.
‘It makes it less fun to fight you when you’re doing it to yourself. Not sleeping, not eating, constant headaches. I can’t do any of that to you, that’s withdrawal and self-neglect. At least we don’t have to worry about losing you in high winds.’
‘I’m sorry?’
Robert laughed, ‘I’m only teasing. I won’t, if it bothers you so much. I just think it’s high time you filled out a bit.’
‘I- what? Filled out? It was a bit more than that. I’m not a teenager, in case you hadn’t noticed! I had to buy new clothes.’
It was probably going to take a while to convince Chris that he was not some eternally youthful elven creature and that he could and would in fact change.
‘So? You’ve been wearing the same pairs of jeans for ten years, and those godawful slacks made you look about fifty anyway. One or two sizes up isn’t the end of the world, as long as you don’t steal my place as Cornley’s “mum candy”.’
A gentle chuckle broke through the sobbing, ‘I think that requires your personality.’
‘Oh, I’m flattered!’ Once again that warm nervousness grew in the pit of his stomach.
The lampposts flickered on, illuminating Chris’s tear-stained, pensive face as he gazed down the street. His features had softened more than Robert first thought and he was as infuriatingly pretty as ever. While lost in thought, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt cuff, his overshirt had parted enough to reveal the main source of his shame: the fabric of his t-shirt clung to his belly, which peeked over the waistband of his trousers. Robert had noticed, obviously, but never actually looked at it in case he was caught. It suited him, if he was being completely honest. This was the finishing touch to the overworked history teacher look that he had been going for.
‘Robert, is it bad that I want to be like I was? Physically, I mean.’
‘Come here,’ Robert said, and this time Chris was the one who initiated contact, burying his face in Robert’s shoulder and sliding his arms round his chest. ‘Look, Chris, I don’t care what you look like as long as you keep casting me. I don’t think it’s anybody’s business, really. Keep it, lose it, gain more, whatever.’
Those furious, teary eyes narrowed and darted up to meet Robert’s at the idea of getting any bigger. But so what, he thought.
‘What I do care about is that I can’t be mean to you until you’re better, which means I’ve been bored out of my mind waiting for you to look less like a sleepless zombie.’
‘Oh, so I do look awful?’
‘Did I say that?’
Chris sighed, his breath warm against Robert’s skin. ‘No, but zombies are not exactly handsome.’
‘It was hyperbole, Chris. Do I have to be literal with you? You look like the exasperated love interest in a Richard Curtis film. Is that better?’
‘Too far the other way.’
If only he knew what he looked like from the outside, Robert thought. ‘You have their trademark pathetic, wet look down.’
‘Hmph, maybe once upon a time.’
Placing a firm hand on each of his shoulders, Robert wrenched Chris off of him to see the exact expression he was referring to. ‘You’re doing it now.’
A smile teased the corners of Chris’s mouth which he was clearly trying to fight off, ‘You are outrageous, Robert.’
The things Robert’s mind suggested for him to say were not things he was prepared to reveal, so he said nothing for a moment, simply staring with the only intensity he knew. Chris’s smile won over the rest of his face, even though he had not quite finished crying.
‘Right then,’ Robert said after some time, slapping his thighs and standing. ‘Home time?’
With some hesitation, Chris said, ‘yes, probably sensible.’ He attempted to follow suit, but only made it a few inches off the stone slab before clutching his head and landing back down.
‘I’m fine!’ he barked, ‘just a minor headache.’
‘I hardly believe that.’
After a cursory glance to check the high street was still mostly empty, he swept Chris up into a bridal carry and started to set off in the direction of his house. The resistance was minimal and silent except for an almost imperceptible ‘how the hell’. Robert hummed his way through some poorly remembered Beatles as he trekked onward.
‘Has it occurred to you that someone could see us?’ Chris grumbled, ‘they might get the wrong idea.’
‘I’m not putting you down until you drink some water.’
‘I don’t understand you.’
If it had been further than five minutes he might have been a tad less stubborn, but the test of strength was almost as much a motivator as making sure Chris did not collapse unattended. That remained unsaid.
As they rounded the corner to Chris’s street, he started to squirm more.
‘Calm down,’ Robert said, ‘I don’t want to drop you again.’
‘I would argue you shouldn’t be in a position to be dropping me in the first place.’
Perhaps he had not approached the whole situation in the ideal fashion, but it got him to this position so that was, in Robert’s book, a win.
‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled, and then full volume: ‘how’s your arse?’
‘Fine. I’ll probably feel that tomorrow.’
‘Makes a change from you moaning about it being numb.’ Chris flushed and rolled his eyes. ‘Come on, you have to admit once upon a time you wouldn’t have lasted twenty minutes where we were sitting.’
‘I suppose.’
‘See, there’s a positive. Plus this,’ he glanced at Chris’s belly, ‘is cute.’
For one moment, their eyes met and neither seemed to register fully what he had said. When Chris’s face became an even deeper shade of pink, Robert realised that it was maybe not quite the right thing to say now. Chris wrestled himself out of Robert’s arms, snatching his bag and staggering toward the entrance to his block of flats. He grabbed the brick wall to steady himself, and when he reached the door he turned, composed himself, and said:
‘Thank you, Robert. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
And because he was Robert Grove, he said, ‘I mean it.’