So, here we are: Chris is sharing my dressing room. We have never actually been in a show together and here we are sharing a dressing room, MY dressinig room! We giggle and muck around and enjoy having each other there. He and Bartelt are two of the most important men in my life. There aren't very many important men in my life, sadly, and I am so happy to have them here together. Bartelt takes a terrible photo of Chris and asks what it is worth to Chris for him not to put it on Facebook. Chris delves into his pocket and pulls out the change: "Four quid." Bartelt crosses the room and takes it. Chris was joking; Bartelt is not. They don't know each other at all well, but excellently Bartelt is not my boyfriend: I am not about to start explaining him to Chris – that would be a life's work, anyway.
Chris and I met when I moved from an horrendous living situation at Birmingham University to a better one at the beginning of the January term of our first year. He was in the hall of residence and, although I don't remember seeing him for the first time, both of us remember the first couple of occasions that we spoke properly. One was walking from our Hall on the way to watch some outdoor Shakespeare (the kind of work I really want to get at the moment, must focus on it: not to self). We were carrying various things for a picnic and, as we walked down the hill, we talked about how we wanted to write. Chris has gone on to do exactly that and I... well, that's a whole other book. Yes I have written a show the script of which will be stored at the British Library in perpetuity by virtue of it having been performed professionally, so that's something. But Chris makes his living from writing. Different lives, different journeys and all that, but I can't help thinking that.... well, one of us is successful and the other one is me.
The other memory I have is when I walked into the Midlands Arts Centre and a group of these new friends I'd made were sitting student-wise, gagglish on the floor in their flowery waistcoats and purple berrets (maybe that's just Chris) and I was upon them, banging on, luckily entertaining enough to get away with it. I was funny, but Chris and I were disagreeing about one political issue or another, and it went on, and still goes on even now.
It is flattering that after nearly 400 years of being single, people still ask me, in amazement, why I am single. Often I want to reply, “More troublingly, how on earth are you in a relationship?” but I try not to. And often my friends and family will tell me that it's because I'm very scary for men. Oh, yawn! I actually think that's hocum, I'm not scary, I'm just forthright and take no prisoners. I have not been brought up to believe that the opinion of a man is worth 1.267 of the opinion of a woman, a pie-eyed standpoint, in my opinion, but one which seems to prevail to this day, though secretly. It is the proportion which dare not speak its name. By even mentioning it I am ruling myself out of male attention right there, but these days I have finally understood that I have nothing to lose: despite my legendary arse nd a rack which seems to grow proportionally more than my extending girth and my propensity to wear clothes which are basically too tight for me, there is something about me which is deeply undesirable to men. I never did have anything to lose, of course, unapproachable as I always have been, but I have largely given up trying to seduce men at all these days – it's pointless.
Back at university, though, I'd not yet worked this out. I thought there was some formula I might learn to become sexually attractive and worth, well, buying a drink for, basically. Growing up with no father and a brother who couldn't stand me it does not take Mr Freud to work out that finding male friends who actually liked my company was terribly important.
And this Chris character was well up for a good debate; I could savage his argument and he still appeared to seek out my company. What is more, in answer to the question from When Harry Met Sally, this was without either of us every fancying the other. A true friendship between a man and a woman.
Very soon I am out and into the bar. They have sold about 250 tickets, not enough as far as I'm concerned, but not a disaster. There are people from so many parts of my life, family, friends I've not seen for 20 years... and my mother and brother. I knew Mum would come, but I wondered about Charlie. I am so pleased he's here, yet I feel guilty that I am doing this. This is my story, but it is very close to his story and I hope, well, so much, but I hope no one forgets him as I do my show, as my mother is seen as the primary griever, as Roger – who stands out like a tall Congolese man at a theatre in Bury St Edmunds – is hugged and introduced to various people, I want the bar to know that Charles and Kate were so close.... so close there was no one who could come between them.
The audience go in. I pop to the loo, look in the mirror: what am I doing? Again, I am taken by the audacity of this. I feel as if I have no right to speak, but the tickets have been sold and the only way to get through this is to do the performance – I have the rest of my life to regret it.
I get on stage through one of the boxes by the stage. The couple in there are not known to me. At the end they'll be the first people I speak to, she'll tell me how it was a birthday present for him, I'll say that’s an interesting gift, and they'll agree that it was a great gift, they'll say they didn't know much about the show, that they were surprised to realised that Kate really was my sister and she really was murdered.
As I step onto the stage, the audience starts to see me, the lights start to go down in the auditorium and there is a clap here and there, quickly, it becomes applause. This only ever happens at the beginning of shows where lots of people know me. It is a strange sensation: it feels like it is saying, whatever happens now, Rebecca, we respect your attempt. But I do not want it to be an attempt; I want it to be interesting, well-performed, thought-provoking art. I love to be supported, but I want to make my mother and brother, my so-nearly-present-I-wish-I-could-sense-him-father proud; I want it to be a show which would drive my sister wild with jealousy.
The stage lights come up, I look into the auditorium, somehow bigger with the glare of the lights, a darkness which I suspect spreads out beyond the horizon. I am home.
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