The script, the ticket, the programme: they’re all from that same night. The one that popped into my head earlier: the Sardines-in-the-maze night. I pick up the programme. The front cover reads: UNIVERSITY OF YORK DRAMA SOC PRESENTS: THE CAROL REVISITED.
The play was Marek’s extremely cringeworthy – and surprisingly violent – modern-day reworking of A Christmas Carol. I only had a small part, but still, as I turn the programme over, there I am: allocated my own blurry black-and-white cast photo. I’m gurning toothily at the camera in what appears to be an impression of Wallace from Wallace & Gromit.
I stare down at the picture, and suddenly I cannot believe that this grinning nineteen-year-old kid and I are actually the same person. It’s like looking at a photo of a stranger; I feel no connection at all. What is left of him now?
Obviously it could have been the snakebites and the sambucas, but that night in the maze – a week after this photo was taken – I remember feeling some strange, almost spiritual certainty that everything would turn out all right for me. That I was headed in a decent direction, that my dreams were achievable and the future was a blank canvas I was about to decorate beautifully.
And then – yeah. Look what happened. I took that canvas and filled it with mistakes and failures and wrong turnings. Bad decisions and lies and terrible things I can never, ever take back.
If there’s ever a Ben Hazeley Wikipedia page – and unless someone who shares my name does something worthwhile with his life, there won’t be, but just suppose there is – I can picture now exactly how it will look. Where other Wikipedia pages have headings like ‘Career’ or ‘Legacy’ or ‘Filmography’, mine will just say: ‘Fuck-Ups’. It will be a long, detailed, heavily bullet-pointed list that will begin with the subheading, ‘1996: Dad Buggers Off’ and end – next week – with ‘2020: Cheats On Wife’.
My head is getting heavier by the second, and I know I should crack on with the decorations, but for some reason I can’t tear myself away from the items in this tin. It suddenly makes me angry that Daphne’s kept all this stuff. I picture her sneaking up here from time to time, opening the lid and poring over these objects: physical reminders that she would have been better off without me.
Because that’s it, isn’t it? If your life is just a series of mistakes and screw-ups, then surely it would be best if you weren’t around?
There’s no photo of Daphne in the programme – she was drafted in at the last minute, after someone dropped out – but I can still see her exactly as she was at eighteen: this happy, funny, exuberant girl who gave everyone, friends and strangers alike, the full wattage of her amazing smile, as if she genuinely didn’t realise its power.
And then I stepped in. Chipped away at her over the years, to turn her into the tired, angry, miserable woman in the hallway earlier. Surely her teenage self would be just as disappointed as mine at how things turned out? She must have imagined that by thirty-three she’d have a successful, supportive, normal husband. And kids. I know she wants kids, even though we haven’t broached the subject once this year, despite lots of our mates starting to have them.
A weird memory hits me – not even mine, but something Mum told me when I was a teenager. I’d been eagerly pestering her for happy stories about me and Dad – positive that he’d soon be back in my life – and she’d finally caved and told me about how, when I was eight, I’d wandered in on him watching that Monty Python film, The Meaning of Life. Hearing the phrase, I’d repeated it, parrot-fashion: ‘Dad, what is the meaning of life?’ And he’d laughed and then replied: ‘I suppose it’s to increase the sum of human happiness.’
I loved that answer when I was fourteen, but now it strikes me as the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard. Because all I’ve done since then is subtract, subtract, subtract.
I squeeze the bridge of my nose, and my vision blurs at the edges. I look at my watch to see that it’s one minute to midnight. One minute to Christmas Day.
And then I remember that the watch is bust. Still, that’s probably not far off the real time. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day …
I pick up the programme again, and the fake gun, and hold them both steadily in the palm of my hand.
I’ve no idea how long I sit there staring at them before I fall asleep.
Chapter Six
Traditionally, I find that my hangovers wake up a few seconds after I do.
After a big night of drinking, I tend to get this lovely calm-before-the-storm moment as soon as I regain consciousness, where there’s no pain yet, no regret, no violent urge to vomit. And then as soon as I open my eyes or move my head, all hell breaks loose.
I’m lying perfectly still with my eyes shut, enjoying this period of prelapsarian bliss as I try to fill in the gaps from last night. There are plenty of them. I remember the biscuit tin and the fog of self-pity, but I can’t remember Daff coming home. I can’t remember doing the tree. I can’t even remember coming down from the attic.
Oh please God, don’t let me have slept in the attic.
I experiment with turning my head very gently to the side. There’s no blinding migraine or sudden desire to be sick, which is encouraging. I also seem to be lying on a comfortable pillow and mattress, which bodes well for the please-God-don’t-let-me-have-slept-in-the-attic situation.
I decide to risk it and open my eyes. But it’s not a headache that hits me – it’s cold, hard terror.
I scramble upright, suddenly wide wide WIDE awake, my heart head-butting my ribcage.
Where the HELL am I?
It’s like my brain is still a few seconds behind my eyes, struggling to process the information it’s receiving. The bogey-green curtains; the scratchy Brillo-pad carpet; the poky brown cupboard that hides a grubby little sink and mirror within it.
I hear a low, slightly manic moan from somewhere, and then realise it’s coming from my mouth.
This is … this is uni. This is my bedroom in the first year at uni.
Have I gone mad? Is this what going mad feels like?
Or maybe … maybe this is some kind of elaborate – really elaborate – prank. I suddenly remember an awful interactive theatre experience that Harv dragged me along to once, where the audience ended up as part of the show. We were led into the middle of this extravagant stage and forced to start shaping the plot by ad-libbing with the actors. Maybe this is something similar. If so, then whoever designed the set deserves every award going. It’s literally exactly as I remember it.
I feel my head start to pound, the hangover kicking in now, but then I notice the door handle is rattling frantically and the thumping is actually coming from outside the room.
‘Ben? You in there? Ben!’
The handle jiggles again, but it seems the door is locked.
‘Benjaminnnnnnnn?’ It’s Harv’s voice. Thank God for that.
I stumble to my feet, my heart still thundering, and notice that I’m dressed in a pair of jeans I don’t recognise and my old Wu-Tang Clan hoodie. I thought I’d lost this thing years ago.
I open the door and immediately have to fight the urge to start laughing.
It’s Harv, but it also … isn’t.
It’s like Harv has been gently inflated, or suffered some traumatic allergic reaction. His sharpened cheekbones and laughter lines are all gone, and his face is younger, rounder, doughier. I notice a solid pouch of belly hanging stoutly over his belt buckle. He has a can of lager in one hand and what appears to be a peanut butter and cheese toastie in the other.