an angel, a fairy; Puck or Ariel, or Tinkerbell even, dancing around the Lost Boys. And he, he is Peter Pan .
Then one evening in the bar when Hetty is arguing about Page 3 girls at a Women’s Soc meeting and Penn and the others are playing pinball with a devotion usually reserved for international sport – she lands next to him .
He’s sat at a table in the corner, a paperback copy of The Tempest in one hand, in the other a pint of Flowers he has nursed for one long hour already, and will make last another before he makes the walk back down Queens Road and home. He’d thought he’d drink wine by now, a claret or burgundy. But beer is cheaper, lasts longer .
He’s auditioning soon and is lost on Prospero’s island when the tide washes her ashore and she drops into the worn leatherette next to him and says, “Which part are you going for?”
He starts, drops the book, apologizes .
But she doesn’t roll her eyes or drift away. She picks it up for him, wipes a film of beer off on her dress. One small, simple act of kindness, of selflessness. But for James it is everything .
“Prospero,” he says, taking it back from her. “Though I won’t get it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Penn will get it. Everyone thinks so.”
“Then everyone is wrong. Because Penn’s not going for it,” she replies with a raised eyebrow. “But don’t say I said so.”
“He’s not?” He’s not sure whether to be happier with this pearl of knowledge, or that she chose to reveal it to him alone .
“He’s got too much on,” she smiles. “I heard him tell Hunter. Stuff at home, too, you know?”
He nods. Though he can’t imagine what “stuff” Penn would have. Penn didn’t come from a back-to-back in Wigan, the son of a plumber. Penn was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, not coal tar soap to wash out the swearing .
“I love the magic plays,” she says then. “When I was little I used to pretend I was Miranda and wait for Ferdinand to rescue me.”
“And did he?”
“Not yet,” she smiles slowly and bites her lip .
And in those two words he knows what she is telling him. That he has a chance, that if he is special enough, brave enough, she could be his .
“Though in truth I think he’s a bit of a drip,” she continues. “It’s Caliban who gets the best lines, don’t you think?”
“Yes!” he agrees emphatically. “Yes, I do.”
And that is how the conversations begin. Conversations wound through with importance, with meaning. Conversations he tells himself they will remember not just when they wake in the morning, but when they lie in bed when they are old. Conversations about the miners, about Thatcher, about the future of theatre and the history of everything .
They talk through another pint in the NUS bar, then two in the Rosemary Branch on the New Cross Road .
They talk all the way from the pub, past the late night minimart and the shuttered junk shops, up the hill to Lawrence Hall, where she lives .
“So, this is it,” she says .
“This is it,” he repeats .
And then there is a pause, a moment that dances with possibility; but in the seconds it takes for him to summon the courage, she turns and is gone, the fire door slamming shut on her retreating figure as she winds her way up the communal stairs, leaving him to the sodium glow of the streetlight and the sirens of late-night Lewisham .
JULY 1988
SO I make a plan to stay. A blueprint built on desperation, and held clumsily together with the Sellotape that is the self-belief of youth; a whip-smart answer to every “what if” or “but” Aunt Julia could throw at me, and a final flourish, a triumphant trump card: I wasn’t doing this for me, I was doing it for her.
I’ve worked it all out: when she goes back to the flat in London, returns to her coffee mornings and tea parties and cocktails at seven, I will stay here and supervise the decoration.
“I won’t be a hindrance,” I tell her. “I won’t get in the