‘Arthur?’ I hear Mum’s voice, though it’s tinny and distant, as though she speaks to me through a dream. Blurry faces appear before me. Nothing of familiarity greets me; even the feel of my own skin is foreign. ‘What has he taken?’ My mother’s voice is frantic now.
My face is damp now; I’m crying. I swipe and swipe atthe tears but they don’t stop. They just keep flowing down my cheeks, mixing with my sweat until the salty concoction stings at the grazed patch on my chin from this morning’s shave. This morning. So much time feels as though it has passed since then. The world around me rushes by, and yet I am paralysed, feeling every hair on my body as it prickles, straining on each breath. I am going to die.
‘We need him out of here. We cannot have this happening on our property.’ A voice I don’t recognise floats in beside my mother’s.
‘He needs a doctor. Can someone call an ambulance?’ My father’s voice is here now, frantic.
‘With the world’s media outside? Absolutely not. He’s already caused us enough trouble.’
‘What am I meant to do?’ The voices blend together in some sort of monstrous call and my own gets lost in the chaos of it all.
‘Stick him in a taxi and take him home. He’s clearly off his face. The boy needs tough love, not to burden A&E on a Sunday night.’
My body is shutting down. I wish nothing more than to curl up and sleep for an eternity.
As they barrel me out of some back doors and into a blacked-out car, there’s only one thing playing over and over in my mind: I fucking hate the BAFTAs.
Chapter 2
Beatrice
Running has never been my strong suit. Running down the main road in the pitch-black in a pair of wellies and a ball gown I last wore age sixteen at my year eleven prom could be an Olympic sport, particularly as the obstacle course of potholes has grown more treacherous since this time last year. Leaping over one crater and splashing through another, I try not to think about the fact it hasn’t rained for a week and I have no idea what liquid may have just spattered up my dress outside of a village pub on a Sunday evening.
‘Bea, wellies!’ Tracy shouts from behind the bar as the door swings open and hits the umbrella stand on the other side with the force of my entrance.
‘Am I late? Have I missed it?’ I rush, too excited to take heed of the landlady.
‘You will if you traipse any more sheep shit across mycarpet. I’m still trying to get rid of the smell of the pigs.’ Tracy points her finger at me as she swipes up three empty pint glasses in her spare hand.
‘Sorry, duck, I reckon that could be me.’ Nick, another local regular, sniffs his jacket and looks apologetic. Tracy only rolls her eyes and signals again for me to lose the shoes. Kicking them off, I line them up next to the others that have been banished to the beer garden for the evening and re-enter barefoot.
‘One word about my feet and I’ll call the council and tell them about you all standing out there with that hairdryer pretending to catch people speeding.’ Pointing my finger mostly at Bill who is both a busybody and the sort of bloke who always gives you one too many kisses on the cheek when he greets you, I make my way across the sticky patches of carpet to the congregation of familiar faces gathered around the table closest to the TV. The television set would hardly put the Odeon to shame, but it’s a modest little set-up, just large enough that the old folks can still see the ball when they have the Euros on, but just small enough that Tracy can quickly toss a cardboard box over it when the TV licence twats come moseying around.
Tonight, however, the crowd is so dense around the screen that I have to tiptoe, peering over the sea of blue rinses and balding heads, just to catch a glimpse of my most anticipated watch of the year. I could watch at home, in the comfort of my pyjamas, and with a drink I don’t have to pay for, but then I wouldn’t get to see Al in his three-piece tweed suit, or Barbara wearing the fascinator she wore to her daughter’s wedding ten years before I was born.
This is not your average village pub. This is the Big Apple, New York, Lincolnshire. The local pub, well, the only pub for at least ten miles. Named after, you guessed it, a rather large apple that grew on this land, which was once an orchard, back in 1672. And it is perhaps the only pub that cares more about the BAFTAs than the World Cup.
‘There he is!’ Sandra springs out of her wheelchair to point at the screen and the congregation bursts out in a rumble of excited chittering. Resorting to standing on a chair to see, I finally catch sight of who is causing such a commotion: Eddie Cavendish, actor, superstar, and our local boy.
Eddie Cavendish did what so many have failed to do: he got out, he left Lincolnshire, he made something of himself, and he never looked back. Eddie Cavendish did exactly what I have always dreamed of. He is the living proof that it’s possible.
‘And the BAFTA for Leading Actor goes to …’ the announcer pauses.
‘Come on, Eddie.’
‘Go on, son.’
‘Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.’
The pub erupts during the television’s silence. A stranger could walk in any moment and assume we’re a bunch of gamblers with a high-stakes bet on the horses, and I honestly wouldn’t blame them. Awards season sends us lot crazy. I join in, my heart in my throat, only allowing enough air to squeeze through for me to chant his name under my breath as though casting a spell that will guarantee his win.
I don’t hear his name called, but with the way the pints go flying across the room and even the most elderly of the crowd are up on the tables celebrating, I think it’s safe to assume he’s done it again. It never gets old, seeing him win. I never knew him – he’d moved away long before I was born – but most people here helped to raise him, and whether we see him win one award or hundreds, each one is still as special as the last.
Thankfully, after the first time, Tracy had the foresight to only serve her pints in plastic cups on BAFTA night but it turns out Batemans is particularly hard to scrub out of woodchip wallpaper so I’m sure I shall be roped in to help with that later on.
‘He’s a good lad, in’t he, our Eddie.’ Barbara takes a seat beside me as we both retreat to the bar as an impromptu conga line breaks out and takes a tour around the fruit machine. It quickly disperses when Bill, its leader, tries to direct it into the ladies’ loos. ‘It’ll be you we’re cheering on soon.’
Barbara nudges my elbow with a grin. Her drink sloshes onto my dress with the motion. Almost as soon as the words come out of her mouth, that all too familiar lump forms in my throat. ‘Yeah.’ I laugh breathily. ‘I wish.’ Barbara’s droplets of stout dribble down my ankle and I swipe them away and attempt to hide the expression on my face with my hair for a second of respite.
