All About Us. Tom Ellen

for any company that will pay me.

      It’s nothing to complain about, I know – I’m lucky to be working, full stop – but it’s nothing to shout about either.

      I remember Daff went through a period a while back of trying to light a fire under me. She’d introduce me to editors or other writers; encourage me to try and keep writing stuff I enjoyed, even if I never showed it to anyone. But I’d already given up on myself by then, so I couldn’t really blame her for eventually doing so too.

      I drain my glass, and as I pour another, the broken wristwatch catches my eye. It was so strange, those memories popping into my head back in the pub. Particularly that game of Sardines in the maze at uni: I haven’t thought about that in years. Daphne was the first one to find me, and we ended up snogging drunkenly in the thorny hedge, before Alice pulled the branches back, frowning, a few minutes later.

      Deep down, I’ve always wondered what would have happened if Alice had found me first. Maybe she should have.

      I read her message one more time, and then hit reply.

       Hey! 29th sounds good – will be great to see you. Let me know what time works. Xx

      As soon as I press send, I experience several contradictory things at once. Fear and excitement and guilt and self-pity, plus a weirdly thrilling sensation that I’ve set something huge in motion; crossed a line that can’t be uncrossed.

      Pathetically, though, the overriding emotion is that it’s nice to feel wanted.

Chapter Five

      After another large glass of wine, and a lot more staring blankly at my message to Alice, I discover – to my genuine surprise – that the bottle is now four fingers off empty.

      Bollocks. That’ll be another row tomorrow. Or later tonight, whenever Daphne gets back. It’s coming up to half eleven now, and she still hasn’t texted.

      I feel knackered suddenly, but I decide to do the decorations before heading to bed, so as to provide myself with some passive-aggressive armour ahead of our next argument. I wobble to my feet, realising that my warm three-Guinness glow has now been replaced by a harsh, metallic red-wine drunkenness.

      I trudge upstairs to the back attic, feeling the draught cut right into my bones as I open the rickety little door. The decorations are all the way at the back, of course, and to get to them, I have to navigate a treacherous obstacle course of cardboard boxes, suitcases and even an old skateboard (mine, not Daphne’s).

      I’m millimetres from the tinsel when I accidentally nudge a massive see-through crate full of Daff’s stuff, which promptly smashes to the ground, spilling its contents everywhere.

      ‘Fuck’s sake …’ I mumble.

      I’ve dropped to my knees to start clearing up when I spot something among the debris. An old metal biscuit tin, its lid hanging half open to reveal a selection of random objects: a crumpled script, a torn-up ticket, a faded programme for a play and a bloodstained fake revolver.

      And then it hits me. These objects aren’t random at all.

      Out of nowhere, a shiver runs through me; a ghost of that same feeling I felt in the pub, talking to that weird old watch-seller. The sense that this is more than just coincidence.

      It’s the gun I reach for first. Crazy how Daphne kept this. I never knew she had. I turn it over and over in my hands, feeling its cold plastic grooves, tracing the smudgy red fingerprints on the handle. I can picture her now, handing it to me. I remember it so clearly. The night we met.

      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