All About Us. Tom Ellen

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.

      ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ he says.

      ‘I … have no idea,’ I stammer, quite truthfully.

      ‘Do you know what time it is?’

      Instinctively, I glance down at my wrist. My watch says one minute to twelve. The watch I’m still wearing. I’ve woken up in completely different clothes, in a completely different place, and yet this watch is somehow still fixed around my wrist. My brain is poking fruitlessly at this fact when I realise Harv is snapping his fingers in front of my face.

      ‘Hello? Hellooooo?’

      He looks at me strangely, and then takes a large bite of his toastie. ‘It’s after six, man, you’d better get a shift on,’ he says, stickily. ‘Marek just called me. He’s going mental. You weren’t answering your mobile. They’re all already at the Drama Barn.’

      I shut my eyes for a second, hoping that when I reopen them I’ll be back in the attic, nursing the mother of all hangovers, with Daphne glowering down at me.

      But no. Inflatable Harv is still right there, swigging his lager and staring at me through narrowed eyes. ‘Are you stoned or something?’ he says. ‘Or are you just being a twat?’

      ‘No, I’m …’ I have no clue what I am. I feel like I’m in some sort of highly advanced virtual-reality video game.

      A door opens behind Harv and a small blonde girl emerges, smiling at us. Fuck. It’s Geordie Claire. She lived opposite me in halls. I haven’t seen her since … well, since uni. She waves two little red tickets at me. ‘Good luck, Ben! Me and Stu will be front row.’

      I squint at the tickets. They say: DRAMA SOC PRESENTS: THE CAROL REVISITED.

      Suddenly I know where I am. And, more importantly, when I am. I have to grab the door frame to steady myself.

      ‘Shit, Ben, are you OK?’ Claire asks, rushing towards me.

      Harv laughs and slips an arm round my shoulder. ‘Must be first-night nerves. Come on, man, we’ll have a quick drink and then I’ll walk you down there.’

      Claire looks slightly concerned, but just nods goodbye and heads out.

      Harv leads me through to our corridor’s shared kitchen, and the milky-cheesy-rotten-fruit stench that hits me is almost as strong as the déjà vu. I am now one hundred per cent certain that this is not a dream. Only reality could smell this bad.

      I slump down into a plastic chair and take a few deep breaths (through my mouth, obviously). Harv shakes his head as he watches me gulping desperately for air.

      ‘Mate, will you chill out,’ he laughs. ‘You’ll be fine. It’s not like you’re the main part. What’ve you got, like, three lines?’

      I’m barely listening to him. There’s a Nuts magazine calendar hanging over the pasta-sauce-spattered microwave. Just above Michelle Marsh’s partially exposed breasts is the confirmation I’m looking for, the confirmation I’ve been dreading:

       DECEMBER 2005.

      I’ve come back fifteen years.

      Harv plonks a can of lager on the table in front of me. He’s now talking into a little electric-blue flip phone. God, I remember that phone. He thought it made him look like someone out of The Wire. ‘Yo, Marek,’ he says. ‘It’s all right, relax, I’ve found him … Yeah, he’s fine. Just a bit nervous … I know, three lines, that’s what I told him. Anyway, we’re on our way now, so don’t panic … Cool. In a bit.’

      He snaps the phone shut with a satisfying click. He used to love doing that. ‘Well, Marek’s officially losing his mind,’ he announces. ‘He thought you’d bottled it. Apparently the girl doing the props has also dropped out last minute. He’s calling everyone he knows to find a replacement.’

      I can’t get my head around this. I know I should probably be crying or screaming or checking myself into an asylum, but all my brain seems capable of doing is compiling a list of every time-travel film I’ve ever seen. 12 Monkeys, The Terminator, Timecop: they all involve people being sent back to kill somebody significant. Is that what this is? Does Geordie Claire turn out to be the next Hitler or something? She is vegetarian.

      But then there’s also Bill & Ted, Back to the Future, Groundhog Day …

      ‘Harv …’ I stare up at him