He looked exhausted when he rolled up to our rehearsal in full rowing club kit, a heavy rucksack hanging off his shoulder. His teddy jacket was absent. I was so used to him wearing it that he seemed sort of vulnerable without it.
He walked straight past me, without looking at me, mouth clamped shut, and sat down next to Pip, who was going over today’s scene.
Sunil arrived moments later. He was wearing checked trousers with a black shearling jacket and a beanie.
He took one look at Jason and said, ‘You look exhausted.’
Jason grunted. ‘Rowing.’
‘Oh, yes. How are the six a.m. practices?’
‘Freezing and wet.’
‘You could quit,’ said Pip. She seemed a little hopeful at the prospect.
Jason shook his head. ‘Nah, I do enjoy it. I’ve made a lot of friends there.’ He shot a quick glance at me. ‘It’s just been a lot.’
I turned away. There was no way to make this better.
In true Jason tradition, he was assigned the role of a stern older man. This time it was Duke Orsino from Twelfth Night, another of Shakespeare’s romcoms.
The premise of Twelfth Night is a big, messy love triangle. Viola is shipwrecked in the land of Illyria and, since she has no money, disguises herself as a boy called Cesario so that she can get a job as a servant to Duke Orsino. The duke is in love with a noble lady of Illyria, Olivia, so he sends Viola to express his love for her. Unfortunately, instead of accepting the duke’s feelings, Olivia falls in love with Viola, who is disguised as Cesario, a guy. And, doubly unfortunate, Viola falls in love with the duke. It’s not technically gay, but let’s be real: this play is very, very gay.
Sunil had already volunteered to be Viola, saying, ‘Just give me all of the roles that mess around with gender, please.’
Pip and I huddled next to each other against the wall with my coat over our legs. It was freezing cold in our giant rehearsal room today.
‘You two run through the scene,’ said Rooney. ‘I need to go and get some tea or I will actually die.’
She’d had another of her nights out last night.
‘Get me a coffee!’ shouted Pip as Rooney went to leave.
‘I would literally rather stomp on a nail!’ Rooney shouted back, and I was interested to see that this made Pip laugh instead of her usual gritted-teeth annoyance.
Jason and Sunil were amazing. Jason was well-practised, having done a lot of Shakespeare before, and Sunil was equally good, despite the fact that the only acting he’d done was a minor role in a school production of Wicked. Jason was all, ‘Once more, Cesario,’ and Sunil was all, ‘But if she cannot love you, sir,’ and, overall, it was a very successful run-through.
I sat and watched, and it almost took me out of my head, making me forget about everything that had happened in the past couple of months. I could just live in the world of Viola and Orsino for a while.
‘I am all the daughters of my father’s house,’ said Sunil. One of the final lines of the scene. ‘And all the brothers too.’ He glanced up at me and Pip with a smile, momentarily breaking character. ‘That’s such a good line. New Twitter bio.’
Sunil really seemed to be enjoying being in the production. Maybe more than any of us, to be honest. He and Jason went off to work on the scene on their own, and with nothing to do, I stayed sitting against the wall, knees tucked up to my chin waiting for Rooney to come back from her tea run.
‘Georgia?’
I looked up at the voice to find Pip scooting over to me, her open copy of Twelfth Night in one hand.
‘I had an idea,’ she said. ‘About what you could do in the play.’
I was really, really not in the mood to actually do any acting today. I wasn’t sure I could act as well as I’d thought, anyway.
‘OK,’ I said.
‘There’s another character in Twelfth Night who has quite a big thematic role – the clown.’
I snorted. ‘You want me to be the clown?’
‘Well, that’s just what he’s called in the text. He’s more of a court jester.’ Pip pointed at the scene in question. The clown had some lines leading up to the scene that Jason and Sunil were currently working on. ‘I thought it might be really cool to have you do some of these bits before this Viola-Orsino scene.’
I read the lines, sceptical. ‘I don’t know.’ I glanced at her. ‘I … my acting’s been pretty shit lately.’
Pip frowned. ‘Dude. That’s not true. Those roles just … weren’t right for you. You’re not shit at anything.’