BU21 Page 5

  ALEX. So he’s knocking away his fizzy beer – ten-minute pints, like he’s at a stag night or something – and he’s going on about Regaining the Glory Days of England and Standing Shoulder to Shoulder Against the Forces of Evil – fucking drivel, you know –

  And he tells me that the reason he invited me for a drink was to ask me whether he could use me as a featured ‘case study’ in the book that he’s writing – and I’m like –

  ‘Yes, mate, feel free to use the deeply personal and humiliating story of my dead girlfriend boffing somebody else, told to you in confidence in a mental-health group, to enrich yourself. Seriously, crack on.’

  And he’s like –

  GRAHAM. Cheers, mate!

  ALEX. And I’m like –

  (To GRAHAM.) Mate, you fucking mention anything about me in your book, even the merest hint or insinuation, and my lawyers will rip out your still-beating heart and show it to you before you die, alright?

  (To us.) And he’s like.

  GRAHAM. Suit yourself.

  Beat.

  What’s that on your jumper?

  ALEX (to GRAHAM). It’s owl shit.

  (To us.) And then he’s going on about the day of the crash, how he was just in Fulham by chance on a delivery, and how it changed his life, and how his interview gave people hope and strength – you know, his ‘iconic’ interview –

  I know, right? Chav Churchill demagogue bollocks to you and me – but the proles lap it up like nobody’s business –

  And then he tells me how on his drive home he decided to dedicate his life to ‘the cause’ – and I suddenly realise something about him.

  Things suddenly fall into place.

  ‘Your drive home?’ I ask him. ‘So where was your car parked?’

  And he was like.

  GRAHAM. Just round the corner, mate.

  ALEX. Which was weird because they didn’t let anybody drive away that was within about a mile of the crash – outer cordon, you know – my Audi was fucking cordoned off for three weeks in Bagleys Lane –

  And I was like ‘So where exactly were you when the plane crashed?’

  And he was like –

  GRAHAM. I can’t remember, mate – concussion, probably.

  ALEX. And then he pauses and says –

  GRAHAM. On the corner of the Wandsworth Bridge Road and the King’s Road – I remember now, clear as day.

  ALEX. And I told him that was weird, because, you know, that whole junction was completely and utterly destroyed, so he wouldn’t have stood a chance if he was actually standing there.

  And he’s like umming and ahh-ing and saying he can’t quite remember with the shock, and I ask him –

  ‘So the five or six people you rescued – where exactly did you rescue them from?’

  And he’s floundering around –

  And I just knew at that moment for certain that he was nowhere near the crash when it happened.

  ANA. And I sat at the kitchen table with the carving knife in one hand, like this – and my other hand on the table.

  And then I think for a second, I put the knife down, and I get up, and I get the bowl from the sink, the washing-up bowl, and I put that by my feet. The blood can go in there, because my housemates, they’re cleaners anyway, they don’t want to come back to more work, you know?

  I think, okay.

  Alright already. Piss or get off the pot.

  And my father is an atheist, but my mother, she believes in God, goes to church, so I thought I’d pray, for her, before –

  And I start:

  She recites the first four lines of the Lord’s Prayer in Romanian.

  And I stop – because I can’t for the life of me remember the second half of it.

  And I think for a second, I put the knife down, and I go to google it on my phone.

  And I’m about to unlock my phone, but the photo on the front, the wallpaper –

  It’s Mickey Mouse.

  And I think back to the plane, and being in that park, and how the Mickey Mouse towel saved my life, and I look at Mickey – ridiculously happy, like he’s on drugs, Mickey – and I think of when I was a child, and how I used to sleep every night with a Mickey Mouse soft toy, and how he’s still in my parents’ house in Bucharest, probably –

  And all of a sudden I had this moment, this overpowering moment of truth – and I realise how ridiculous I must look –a washing-up bowl at my feet, checking the words to the Lord’s Prayer in Romanian –

  And all of a sudden I think it’s so funny.

  And I just start laughing.

  And I just can’t stop laughing –

  And it turns to tears, the laughing –

  But then it’s laughing again.

  And you know the total, absolute truth, right?

  It wasn’t God who saved my life that day.

  It was Mickey fucking Mouse.

  GRAHAM. So the truth of it is that I wasn’t actually there.

  Okay?

  Not in the way that people, you know, imagine.

  I wasn’t there when it happened.

  That morning I was helping out a mate on a painting and decorating job in Munster Road. Sanding down the filler, you know? And I was just getting in the van to go to Brewers for some more filler – Tetrion, you know – and I saw this plane – you know – about a mile or so in the distance, go down –

  So I fucking motor down as fast as I can to see what’s going on, but I get as far as the Fulham Road, and everything’s fucked with the traffic. So I leave the van, and I run down to where the flames are.

  My blood’s really up, you know? Fucking pumped. Adrenaline.

  This is about fifteen, twenty minutes after it had happened, by this point.

  There were all these people coming towards me, scared shitless. People were just, you know, out of control. I got knocked down and I cut my head, and I didn’t even feel it.

  But I kept on going, because I wanted to see, you know, what was going on?

  Everybody does it. When there’s a crash on the motorway, everybody slows down to rubberneck shit. It’s human nature. We’re just made like that.

  No, you know what? I take that back. I was going to help – in my mind, that was my definite fucking aim to help – but when I got there it was just, you know, chaos, and I was actually really, really frightened.

  And I get closer and closer, but still I can’t see anything because of all the police and firemen and shit –

  And I was covered in all this white filler dust from sanding down the walls of the house in Munster Road – like a fucking ghost – and when I get to Harwood Road this ambulance driver takes one look at me and puts a foil blanket over my shoulders and walks me over to the triage thing by Fulham Broadway Station, telling me over and over that I’m going to be alright and shit.

  And I didn’t, like, stop him – I mean, I had a cut. Here. Little one.(Points to his head, a little embarrassed.)

  I guess I just wanted to be a part of it.

  I dunno.

  And it’s at this point that the TV crew comes up to me.

  And it’s not as if I was going to be all like, ‘Yeah I just popped down to gawp at some dead bodies – alright, Mum!’ – (Does thumbs-up to camera.) on national TV, on the fucking BBC, because I’d have looked like a total cunt.

  So I – I just riffed it, on the spot, I just riffed it.

  Fuck knows why. I guess I –

  And yeah, of course I felt ashamed – and the next morning I woke up with like a massive hangover – so I drank a bottle of whisky just so I could fucking sleep – and you know sometimes you wake up with this enormous fucking hungover paranoia, and you’re like ‘what the fuck did I do last night?’ and then it dawns on you, with suddenly nightmarish clarity –

  ‘Oh yeah, I lied about rescuing people out of acatastrophic plane crash on national TV.’

  Not happened to you, right?

  And you fucking brick yourself, mate. You fucking brick yourself.
r />   And then I go out to get some Diet Coke to scare off the hangover, and I suddenly catch sight of all the newspapers on the newsagent’s counter –

  And my face is literally on the front of all of them.

  And I’m like fuck fuck fuck.

  And I buy some of the papers – basically so they’ll be less of them, so I can, you know, hide my fucking embarrassment or something –and they’re all about quoting my speech, and – beep, beep, beep – my phone starts going off, and it’s going all morning, and all my mates and my mum and shit are phoning me, congratulating me, saying I’m a fucking hero, that I’ve given courage to the nation, all that shit.

  And for the next couple of days I’m totally fucking terrified.

  I feel like the sky is going to just collapse on my head. It twists my fucking guts.

  I’m certain they’re going to find me out, and when they do they’re going to fucking slaughter me.

  The newspapers, my mates, my mum, everybody, is going to fucking slaughter me.

  My life is just this constant torture.

  But they don’t. Find out.

  Nothing happens.

  And my name has got out – probably one of my mates bragging in a pub – because I start getting these phone calls from the TV stations and stuff.

  And for a week I say no, but they keep calling. All day the phone’s ringing. Taunting the fuck out of me.

  And you know what?

  Nobody gets to be a hero, normally, do they? Not ever in your life.

  I don’t want to be one – but it’s like everybody else kind of wants me to be one.

  And eventually I kind of come to the conclusion that I’d be letting people down if I don’t step up and be the person that everybody needs me to be.

  The figurehead. The hero.

  And over the next weeks and months, the fear just gradually recedes, and you start to become the thing you’re pretending to be.

  Fake it until you make it – you know, like in Alcoholics Anonymous.

  And there’s not a moment where I’m not ashamed of lying – but I reckon I’ve atoned for it – I reckon that I’ve caused far more good than bad.

  I’ve given people hope, and courage, and, you know – all that.

  Nobody’s really a hero. Not really. Everybody has feet of clay, don’t they?

  But right now I’ve got a fucking problem, haven’t I?

  I’m sitting in the pub with this posh cunt, and he’s found me out.

  And I swear to God, I think about killing him, just to keep everything quiet.

  And I’m sitting in the pub, thinking about how I’m going to do it – follow him home and strangle him – whatever –

  And he just says –

  (Absurd posh voice.) ‘Seventy-thirty in my favour.’

  And I’m like – ‘What you chatting about, mate?’

  And he’s like,

  ALEX. You’ve just got yourself an agent, mate, and my rates are seventy per cent of your gross earnings from the book for the next two years. Or I fuck. You. Up.

  GRAHAM. And I’m like – ‘Sixty-forty.’

  And he looks at me, and he just smiles.

  Scene Five

  A different feel on the stage. Time has passed.

  They’re all on stage.

  ANA. So the one-year anniversary of the BU21 crash was –

  The memorial service I didn’t attend.

  People remembering the crash is really not the problem. It’s people trying to forget the crash that’s the problem, you know, you fuckers?

  I watched it on television, though. I sort of had to. God knows why. The politicians did their preposterous speeches, and Graham, who wrote that book, did a speech as well.

  That was quite good, actually.

  At least he, you know, understands what it was like to be there.

  In the group this week – I’m going again, by the way – Derek asked us all, ‘What did you learn about yourself over the past year?’

  And some people said inner strength and determination, all that stuff, but for me, I realised one thing.

  When I was in the park that morning, screaming in agony, I wanted to die. Begged for it. But life was too strong.

  And that afternoon a few months back, in my kitchen, I wanted to die also. But again, life was too strong.

  Because, you know, life will fight for itself, tooth and claw, however hopeless the situation – because it’s an animal, you know – compulsion –

  It’s almost completely impossible to resist, the ancient biological urge to live.

  Often I wish I could.

  Anyway – I’m doing good. Well, better. I’m working three mornings a week at a charity – at the BU21 Survivors’ Group, actually.

  Just at reception, you know? But it’s something. It’s a start.

  And I guess one day I will feel hope again, but for now, I live because I have to.

  Thank you for listening.

  ANA leaves.

  ALEX. So I guess this is the sort of wrap-up bit, the ‘moral’ of the fucking story. Never been massively up on morals, so –

  Look – one day your life’s probably going to fall to shit, like mine has. I mean, your girlfriend probably won’t be burnt to death by a falling plane while being fucked from behind by your best mate, that’s statistically pretty fucking rare –

  But one day things are going to turn to shit for you, for one reason or another. And how are you going to cope with it? Will you boss it like a boss? Or are you going to cave in like a fucktard?

  That’s the question to pose yourself, yeah? And if the answer’s ‘cave in’ – do something about it, yeah? Change.

  So I moved to a hedge fund in Mayfair – onwards and fucking upwards, you know –

  And it was at the Christmas party, I reckon, where I had this – this stunning moment of transcendent insight about myself.

  Well, I say Christmas party, but actually it was just me and six Lithuanian prostitutes in a hotel room at the Lanesborough.

  That’s a proper party, yeah?

  I’d bought enough charlie to precisely recreate the snow scenes you see on the Christmas cards – I actually could have covered a charming old Cotswolds hamlet in pure-driven cocaine, you know?

  But I didn’t, obviously, I put it all in my nose in the prescribed manner.

  I can just picture all those carol singers, you know – with their fucking lanterns – standing ankle-deep in my Christmas blow, all singing much more loudly and stridently than usual – all Santa’s fucking reindeer with their noses jammed to the ground – Rudolf’s taken so much that his nose goes red and his reindeer septum falls out his nose – all that shit.

  And I looked at the prostitutes, and suddenly things became really thrillingly clear to me.

  It’s the professional lack of intimacy – doing their job, fucking well, utterly without emotional commitment.

  Professionalism, man. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.

  And it’s something I’ve kind of built into my own life, you know? The best way to really, truly flourish in this world is to keep this minimal distance. It’s like the opposite of mindfulness – I call it mindlessness. Never be – (Ridiculous Californian voice.) present.

  (Normal voice.) Always be absent.

  Avoiding pain while maximising pleasure. The maths of a good life. Not letting anything close enough to fucking hurt you.

  Fucking works.

  So the money I got from that Graham cunt, you know what I blew that on?

  Yeah, bet you can’t guess.

  Maybe you can.

  Yeah, predictably I spunked that all the to BU21 Survivors’ Charity.

  Six hundred and twenty-eight grand.

  Come on, what did you think I’d do with it? I’m not a total cunt.

  And it’s fucking tax efficient, donating to charity.

  See you fucking later. I’ll be in the bar after if you’re hot and available. No strings.

  Although, l
ooking around tonight – pretty ropey so – (Finds somebody in the audience.)

  Fuck it, any port in a storm. If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.

  Seeya in a sec.

  ALEX leaves.

  CLIVE. Love is – it’s changed me utterly.

  Because I’ve realised that heaven isn’t a place in the sky where you go when you die, it’s here and now.

  Head. Literally. Blown.

  Floss is like – all the purity and truth and passion and clarity and love I used to think, at one point in my life, you could only get from God, from the divine – you get much more of that shit in one afternoon up in Floss’s room than in an eternity in heaven.

  Especially if you’ve got just a tiny little bit of MDMA.

  The really weird thing is, right – love is – basically your soul experiences it as this huge catastrophe – I can’t sleep, can’t concentrate, I get randomly weepy at inappropriate points, my head’s just all over the place, you know? And the enormously odd thing is that that’s exactly how I felt when my dad died – the symptoms are exactly the same – only this time they’re good symptoms, not bad symptoms.

  That’s so fucked up, isn’t it?

  It’s kinda like human beings are these weirdly badly constructed mechanisms, like they were built by these really dodgy workmen who botched all the emotional… cabling. Got it all patched into the wrong places.

  Sorry, that doesn’t even make sense.

  This year I’ve been the saddest I’ve ever been, and now I’m the happiest.

  And I never could have predicted – and that’s the thing about life – the most important, magical thing about life, I think – you can never, ever predict stuff. Sometimes unexpected shit happens that fucks your shit up, really, really badly – but also, it goes the other way – even if you’re really, really sad and fucked up today – tomorrow, you might find yourself totally, unpredictably, happy –

  You just never know.And that’s the most beautiful thing in the world.

  Love, man. It’s all about love. That’s all you need to know.

  CLIVE leaves.

  THALISSA. It’s not like I’m one of those girls that like defines themselves by whether they’re married.

  But it’s fucking nice, you know, now it’s about to happen.

  Alex is – he’s a guy, he’s a bit – a bit uncommunicative about things sometimes, a bit surly,a bit snarling and supercilious – a bit like he hates me, sometimes, like when he talks to me every word just drips this contempt,sometimes – but in his own way, I think he’s as happy as me. About us.