her shoulders to her ears and says: ‘Aaron, sugar?’
Onstage, the narrator is wearing a dressing gown, sat in an old brown armchair. He is supposed to be missing a hand but I can tell it’s a trick of the sleeve.
‘Aah-ron?’
She gazes blankly down at the stage.
Her shoulder bag is under the table, unzipped and gaping.
‘Just wanted to say hi,’ she burrs into the microphone.
I have a quick look for a purple diary but all I can see is a hairbrush, a fat black wallet and a tube of E45.
‘I’ve got a special friend with me tonight. Say hi, Olly.’
She looks over at me. I stay perfectly still.
‘He’s waving,’ she says.
As she flicks the switch on the black box, the red light dies.
‘I can talk to him but he can’t talk to me because the audience would hear,’ she explains. ‘He’s the stage manager.’
‘I thought he was an actor.’
‘Ooh, I’ll tell him you said that. Aaron hates actors.’
She leans over and presses a single button on the sound desk. The narrator’s spotlight fades. Zoe waits for a few seconds before pressing the same button again. A yellow wash comes up over the stage.
‘So, wow, sound and lighting director?’ I say, doing my impressed face. It’s important for Zoe that I appear to buy in to her new life.
‘Yeah, you can just call me Houdini.’ She waggles her fingers like an evil wizard. ‘Basically, I digitally preprogram all the lighting changes so that all I have to do is press the “go” button on cue. Not so mysterious.’
‘Oh. Still, that’s really cool.’
‘That’s why I always get really bored up here. I end up just mucking around with Aaron.’
Aaron must have been the one who taught her how to fit in.
During the first big musical number, we wheel our chairs up close to the sound desk so that we can see all of the stage. This is the bit of the play where the Jewish theatre company are practising for their upcoming performance. Some of the Jews keep getting the song wrong and messing up the dance moves. But it’s not particularly funny.
Zoe introduces me to the cast.
‘Those girls singing are part-time lesbians. They had a threesome at the last cast party. Nathan – who plays Kruk – he’s only fourteen, claims he’s a paedophile stuck in the body of a boy. Owain, the short one on the left, is a sleaze. Arthur – who’s playing the dummy – he’s a slut but we love him. Jonny – the one talking now – is sweet and beautiful and in love with Arwen. Arwen’s playing Hayyah – the one with the red hair – she is in love with herself mostly, and a little bit with Jonny. Aaron hates everyone and sleeps with everyone in equal proportion. Honestly, this lot are unbelievable. Our last cast party was basically an orgy.’
‘Yeah, wow. Because there’s an orgy scene in the play.’
‘I know, you wouldn’t believe the amount of sexual tension after a whole day rehearsing that scene.’
‘Ha ha.’
She swivels her chair to face me.
‘Or even worse: watching your friends rehearsing an orgy.’
‘Ha.’
I turn mine to face her.
She makes a lot of eye contact. I think she has been watching too much theatre; this whole thing feels stage-managed.
‘So have you got a girlfriend?’
‘No, we broke up but I think that was for the best, in the end,’ I say, since we’re trading clichés.
‘Oh shit, I’m sorry.’
She skits her chair towards mine. Our knees dock.
‘There’s no point having a boyfriend or girlfriend at our age. Me and Aaron went out for a bit but it was just pointless – we both knew that we wanted to have other people. In Versive, everyone goes with everyone. We’re all still friends.’
She has certainly convinced herself. I bet he cheated on her.
‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘like a commune.’
She reaches past my arm and presses ‘go’. A spotlight comes up on Hayyah, the beautiful redhead. She starts to sing.
I remember this bit of the play. The song’s called ‘Swanee’ – a jazz number by George Gershwin. Kittel, the SS officer, forces them to play the song even though jazz is banned by the Ministry for Culture.
‘When did you break up with your girlfriend?’ she asks, touching me on the knee.
‘About six months ago,’ I say, still watching Hayyah as she twirls across the stage. She is substantially more beautiful than Zoe.
‘Oh. What you need’s a rebound.’
She flicks the switch on the transistor box; the red light blips on. She holds the microphone to