It’s About Love

Dad was actually on TV.

He never went to drama school or anything. He was in town with Uncle Chris and some agent spotted him. He was training to be a mechanic.

I know the story well.

Straight away, the agent got him a walk-on part in a science fiction series called Babylon 5. He told Dad it would be his big break. They flew him to California to film it and everything.

‘Big Alien Pilot’ was his character. His scene happened in the space station bar. He starts a fight with one of the main characters and gets beaten up, even though he’s twice the size of the other guy. We used to sit around as a family and watch it on video, Dad doing live commentary from the sofa. I reckon I’ve seen it a hundred times.

When you’re seven and you watch your dad on TV in blue skin make-up, a pair of prosthetic horns and a leather waistcoat, looking bigger than everyone else, it’s pretty cool. That’s my dad! type thing.

Then, as you get older and you start paying more attention to the ‘what if’ expression on your dad’s face as he watches, and you can feel your big brother and your mum doing the same, the magic kind of wears off.

Dad said they wanted him to come back as a different alien and get beaten up again and it turned out that would be all he’d ever get to do. The agent told him he could make a good living playing ‘the heavy’, but that nobody wrote decent parts for big men. Dad said he didn’t want to spend his life pretending to be monsters and bodyguards, so he came back, and finished training as a mechanic.

A year later, a nineteen-year-old student nurse having trouble with her first car came into the garage where Dad worked. Dad started checking it over and noticed that the girl wouldn’t stop staring at him. He tried to ignore it and went under the car. As he lay on his back, he realised that the girl was lying down on the floor next to the back wheel, just so she could see him.

Turned out she was a huge Babylon 5 fan and knew every scene from every episode. She also had a thing for big men.

Less than a year later, a giant and a pregnant nurse were married, and a month after that, Marc was born.

By the time I arrived Marc was nearly four. Four years of being the only child and then a baby shows up, crying and needing help with everything.

Mum always used to tell people that Marc’s first word was ‘ball’ and that mine was ‘Dad’. Kinda messed up that there are moments that end up defining your character before you even have a choice.

Marc’s face.

Blank expression, but he’s blinking. His hair’s shaved. Mouth closed. Thick neck. Strong jaw. His Adam’s apple moves as he swallows. Skin is perfectly smooth.

Then there’s something on his left cheek, a dot underneath his left eye. It’s red. And it’s turning into a line.

Like someone is drawing it. Like he’s being cut with an invisible scalpel.

The cut grows, curving up towards his eye, splitting skin. But there’s no blood. Just a clean red line. His expression shows no sign of pain.

His left eye closes as the cut crosses over it on to his forehead. It reaches half way up and then stops.

His fingertips dig under the skin at the bottom of the line and he pulls.

The skin comes away from his face, like wrapping paper, but there’s no blood, just more skin underneath that’s a shade lighter and it’s someone else’s eyes. It’s a younger face. Skin perfectly smooth.

It’s my face.

It’s me.

(#ulink_3ad64ece-1748-572f-b2c1-54807398529e)

I’m walking through the graveyard before the hill up to college, reading the epitaphs of strangers on the mossy gravestones.

Most of them seem to be for kids and there’s something really creepy about seeing a name carved into stone above two dates only three or four years apart.

Noah asked us to watch a film we like and choose a scene to use in the lesson and I realise that I’m excited.

As I step out of the graveyard on to the pavement, I see Leia across the road, starting up the hill. I think about calling out to her, but it doesn’t feel right, then the blond kid from film studies comes up from the underpass steps behind her.

I hang back, pretending to check my phone, and watch him catch Leia up. I stay on this side of the road and keep a good distance as they walk together, and I want to know what they’re saying. The blond kid is talking and gesturing, using his hands like he’s pitching an idea. He’s probably chatting her up. I hate him.

Everyone sits in the same seats.

I’m staring at the blond kid as Noah starts saying how he believes the best way to learn is to actually do stuff instead of just talking about it, and how, by Christmas, he wants us all to have our own draft scripts. A sheet of A4 paper goes round the class for us to all write our personal email addresses on. He wants them so he can send us links to check out. A couple of people look at each other wondering whether that’s even allowed. They gave us individual college emails in the first week, but everyone still writes their real one down for him.

Leia’s wearing a big grey sports sweater. The kind that looks like a hand-me-down, and that you can only wear if you have that ‘I don’t care what anyone thinks’ air. The sides of it are hugging her chest and I’m absolutely not stealing looks whenever I get chance.

We’re supposed to write a description of the scene we chose from our film and hand it in at the end of the lesson. Noah says it’s a good way for him to get to know us – that he wants to get to know us through our choices. I look at him and try to figure out if it was him I saw in the car on Saturday night.

It could’ve been.

The room is bubbling.

It’s not like at school, where the teacher would be telling people to shut up every two minutes. People are chatting and moving around and nobody else seems to be surprised by it, so I try not to be. The blond kid keeps looking over at Leia and I can feel myself staring at him like a guard dog or something, and I know I’m being stupid, but I can’t help it. I want him to see my face.

I’m writing about the scene in Reservoir Dogs where Tim Roth is practising his monologue so he’s got an anecdote about something criminal and nobody else in the crew will suspect that he’s an undercover cop.

I’m writing how I like that we see him practise. How I like it when we get to see the little things that happen before or after the action.

How I think most people don’t really consider what happens before they show up at a party, or what someone who isn’t the ‘hero’ is thinking in the moment, and even though I don’t like a lot of Tarantino movies, Reservoir Dogs would probably be in my top ten films ever. I’m writing all this stuff and it feels brilliant.

“Not saying much today are you, Mr Jedi?” Leia doesn’t look up from her page as she speaks.

I can’t see what she’s writing about and I want to ask, but the blond kid watching us is making me angry.

“Let me guess,” she says. “Another love story?”

“No.” And the word comes out of my mouth much colder than I meant it to.

“All right, easy Skywalker.” She’s looking at me now and I read the word RUSHMORE at the top of her page.

“My name’s Luke,” I snap, and I look at her without blinking. Leia looks a bit surprised and she’s about to say something back when the blond kid is standing in front of our desk.

“How’s it going?” He’s looking at just her. His voice sounds like he’s completely relaxed, like the lesson is happening in his house and we’re just guests.

Leia says, “Fine. Simeon, have you met Luke?”

Simeon?

Simeon looks at me, then back at Leia.

“You always find the interesting looking ones, don’t you?”