‘Drama,’ said Jason from the other side of the room. I turned to see Sunil raise his eyebrows at him, and then they both started snickering.
‘If you think Georgia is sooo shit –’ said Pip.
‘That’s not what she said, but OK,’ I said.
‘Then let me see you do it better, Rooney Bach. If you’ve got no problems with getting gay for a scene.’
‘Oh, I have no problems with getting gay, pipsqueak,’ said Rooney, seeming to imply something else entirely, which Pip noticed, and recoiled a little in surprise.
‘OK then,’ said Pip.
‘OK,’ said Rooney.
‘OK.’
Rooney slammed her copy of Much Ado on to the floor. ‘OK.’
I went to sit with Sunil and Jason so we could all watch Pip and Rooney act out Beatrice and Benedick’s first argument from Much Ado About Nothing. I predicted that it was going to either be absolutely hilarious or an utter mess. Possibly both.
Rooney stood tall and sneered down at Pip. ‘I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.’ She wasn’t even looking at her copy of Much Ado. She knew it off by heart.
Pip laughed and turned away, as if addressing an onlooker. ‘A dear happiness to women! They would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor.’ She turned back to Rooney, narrowing her eyes. ‘I thank God and my cold blood I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.’
Rooney’s mouth twitched. It was shockingly similar to the way it did when she wasn’t acting.
She stepped slightly closer to Pip as if to emphasise her height advantage. ‘God keep your Ladyship still in that mind!’ She pressed a hand on to Pip’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘So some gentleman or other shall ’scape a predestinate scratched face.’
‘Scratching could not make it worse,’ Pip bit back immediately with a cock of her head and a cheeky grin, ‘an ’twere such a face as yours were.’
How did they both know this scene off by heart already?
Rooney leant right in, her face mere centimetres from Pip’s.
‘Well,’ she breathed in a low tone, ‘you are a rare parrot-teacher.’
Pip took in a sharp gulp of air. ‘A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.’
And Rooney, the absolute maniac, let her eyes drop down to Pip’s mouth.
‘I would my horse had the speed of your tongue,’ she murmured, ‘and so good a continuer.’
The silence that followed was earth-shattering. Jason, Sunil and I just stared, entranced. The air in the room was beyond electric – it was on fire.
We waited for the moment to end, and it was Pip who finally broke. She wrenched herself out of the moment, red-faced.
‘And that’s how it’s done, kids,’ she said, with a bow. We clapped.
Rooney turned away and started fixing her ponytail, oddly quiet.
‘So you two are gonna play Benedick and Beatrice, right?’ said Jason.
Pip shot a glance at me. ‘Well, if Georgia doesn’t mind …’
‘No, of course not,’ I said. ‘It was great.’
Perhaps a little too great, if the flush on Pip’s cheeks was anything to go by.
‘What?’ said Pip, looking back to Rooney, who was still busying herself with pulling out and retying her ponytail. ‘Was the scene too sexy for you?’
‘Nothing’s too sexy for me,’ she shot back. But she didn’t turn round. She was hiding.
Pip smirked. I could tell she felt like she’d won.
We spent our remaining rehearsal time helping Rooney and Pip plot out the scene, adding in a few props, before running through a couple more times. They seemed to get more flustered each time, along with increasing the amount of intense eye contact and touching in the scene.
At the end of the two hours, me, Sunil and Jason stacked the chairs, then went to wait near the door while Pip and Rooney stood in the centre of the room and bickered over a couple of lines towards the end of the scene. Jason shrugged his teddy coat on.
‘So,’ he said to Sunil. ‘Regrets?’
Sunil laughed. ‘No! It was fun. I’m very glad I got to witness …’ he gestured vaguely towards Pip and Rooney, ‘… whatever this is.’
‘We’re very sorry about them,’ I said.
He laughed again. ‘No, honestly. This has been fun. It’s actually a welcome change to the general chaos and drama of Pride Soc. And the stress of third year.’ He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I think – I think I’ve needed to do something like this. University has been stressful. Like, when I was a fresher, I was just … in a really bad place, and then I spent all of second year doing things for Pride Soc, and … well, obviously that continued into this year. Orchestra is a good time but stressful as hell. I don’t think I ever really take the time to just … pursue something just because it’s fun. You know?’ He looked up, as if surprised we were still standing there, listening to him. ‘Sorry, now I’m oversharing.’