That brings me back down to earth with a jolt.
‘I don’t know what they are,’ I splutter. ‘I don’t know my lines.’
Clem laughs without smiling. ‘Good one.’
‘No, seriously … I can’t remember them.’
Clem is now looking at me like I’m the one with his tackle out in a public space. But Daphne just raises her index finger and says: ‘Give me one sec,’ then disappears into the darkness.
Clem starts muttering something at me, but I’m not paying attention; I’m just listening to Marek out on stage telling Tiny Tim to go fuck himself, and before I know it, Daphne’s back again, bearing a script and a key-ring torch.
‘Right, what’s your character’s name?’ she whispers, flipping through the pages.
I look at Clem blankly.
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ he hisses. ‘Have you been hit on the head or something?’ His laid-back stoner persona seems to have completely evaporated over the past thirty seconds. ‘He’s called Jimmy the Hat,’ he tells Daphne.
‘Jimmy the Hat …’ she repeats slowly. She shines the torch at me. ‘Shouldn’t you be wearing a hat, then?’
‘Marek says it’s an ironic nickname,’ Clem explains, through gritted teeth. ‘Like Little John in Robin Hood.’
‘Ah, right, gotcha.’ Daphne nods. ‘Such a fine line between ironic and just … confusing.’ Her expression is thin-lipped, earnest, perfectly deadpan, and despite everything, I have to put a hand to my mouth to muffle my laughter.
She finds the page in question and stabs it with her finger. ‘OK, got it … Jimmy the Hat … Right, so you walk in when the lights go out. Then the lights come up, and you say: “Scrooge, you son of a bitch, I thought I might find you here.”’ She looks up at us. ‘Isn’t this set in Scrooge’s house? Obviously he’s going to find him here.’
This makes me start laughing again, and for a second I’m worried I won’t be able to stop, and that I’ll be shoved out on stage still giggling like a lunatic, until the men in white coats arrive to take me away.
‘This is not the time to start dissecting the fucking script,’ Clem whispers, but he’s smiling now too.
‘OK, OK …’ Daphne looks back at the page. ‘Scrooge says: “Jimmy the Hat, what the fuck do you want?” And you say, “Where’s the dope, Scrooge?” And he says, “Fuck you, Jimmy!” and you say, “Eat lead, cocksucker!” and then you shoot him.’ She gives me a conspiratorial glance. ‘This is great stuff. Dickens would be so chuffed.’
I lean over and stare at the page under the torchlight, trying to burn the words into my brain. And then suddenly the stage lights go out, and I feel Clem grab my shoulders and bundle me roughly through the gap in the set.
When the lights come back up, they are bright white and searing intensely into my face, and I’m staring out at forty or fifty bored-looking audience members. I turn to look at Marek, who is lying in bed with a rictus grin on his face, his eyes begging me to say something.
‘Er … Scrooge, you … son of a bitch,’ I stutter. ‘I thought I might find you here.’
I see Marek wince at my robotic delivery, but he’s instantly back in character.
‘Jimmy the Hat!’ he bellows. ‘What the fuck do you want?’
‘Where’s the dope, Scrooge?’ I enquire, with slightly more emotion this time.
He jabs a finger at me. ‘Fuck you, Jimmy!’
‘Eat lead, cocksucker!’ I shout back. And the relief that I’ve actually done it – I’ve managed to deliver my three lines without ruining the whole play – is so overwhelming that I almost start laughing again.
But then, nothing happens.
The audience are all still staring at me blankly, like they’re expecting something more. I think I can see Harv in the back row, although I can’t be sure, as he’s got both hands over his face. I turn to look at Marek, who is now beetroot red and visibly shaking. He’s glaring down at my hand, for some reason. Or, no, not my hand; the gun in my hand.
‘Ah, right, yeah,’ I murmur. And then I point the revolver at him and squeeze the trigger.
There’s a loud bang from up in the sound booth, and Marek is suddenly screeching in over-the-top agony, his white nightshirt covered in what is quite clearly tomato ketchup.
I stumble backwards, past Clem, who is emerging nakedly onto the stage and muttering, ‘Mate, seriously, what the fuck?’ as he passes me. I grope my way back into the darkness, where Daphne’s smile is still waiting for me. She raises her hand for a high-five and leans in so close I can feel her breath on my cheek.
‘And the Oscar goes to …’ she whispers, and we both dissolve into silent laughter.
Chapter Nine
I spend the next hour in the dressing room, alone for the most part, trying and failing to make sense of what the hell is going on.
The thing I keep coming back to is that nothing – nothing – is playing out the way it did first time around. Obviously, fifteen years ago, I didn’t forget my lines or gawp at Daphne like a creepy oddball, and she didn’t have to go and find me a script or high-five me as I came offstage.
I have no idea whether any of this matters. But I do remember reading some sci-fi story when I was a kid about a time traveller who crushes a butterfly and ends up killing off the dinosaurs as a result. And if there’s any truth in that logic, then I’m starting to seriously wonder what sort of knock-on effects all these new developments will have.
But then maybe, I consider, as I stare at my insanely youthful face in the dressing-room mirror, maybe that’s the point of all this. I think back to the attic, which already seems like days ago: didn’t I drunkenly imagine what might have happened if tonight had gone differently? And that old man in the pub. The watch-seller. When he asked me if I would change anything, tonight was one of the memories that flashed into my mind. That strange feeling rushes through me again – the unsettling sense that the old man knew me somehow. I stare down at the watch he gave me, its hands still frozen at one minute to twelve, and make a concerted effort to wrap my brain around what is going on.
Before I can manage it, though, the rest of the cast are stomping back into the dressing room, dragging me back out on stage for the curtain call.
I blink into the white light again as the audience claps half-heartedly at us, and then we’re all back in the dressing room together, shouting and laughing and hugging.
If Marek bears me any ill will for turning his gravely serious near-death scene into a ridiculous farce, he doesn’t show it. He squeezes me just as tightly as he does everyone else, gushing about how amazingly the whole thing went, and seeming particularly pleased that several audience members walked out during a flashback in which Scrooge slits a rival drug dealer’s throat with a guitar string.
‘Did you see the looks on their faces?’ he yells. ‘They just couldn’t fucking handle it!’
We all spill out of the Drama Barn into Langwith College bar next door, and as my feet cross the ominously sticky threshold, the déjà vu is humming away stronger than ever. God, I remember this place so well. I can’t count the number of nights I spent in here, feeding my student loan into the pool table, fifty pee at a time.