Tag: deleted scenes

I take you to all the exciting locations. Actually, this happens after the SU meeting; it follows straight on from the current chapter 2 of the Lent term. Had it made it into the final version I’d have made a couple of changes, but it… didn’t. So I’m not.

Will was ranting to some other Fellowship members. Peter thought it best not to interrupt, and so walked home with Olly, who was accosted at every pace by people congratulating him on his speech.

‘I didn’t realise you were going to speak in favour,’ Peter said, once they were out of the Venue. ‘Not that I expected you to speak against – I mean, I hadn’t thought you’d be interested in the question at all.’

‘Yeah?’ Olly smiled. ‘I dunno, it just seemed like the thing to do…’

‘I mean,’ Peter pursued, ‘I wasn’t surprised at Tim speaking, because he’s such a stereotypical Catholic with a chip on his shoulder, and he’s been threatening to do something like this for years, but you’ve never seemed to care much, when we’ve talked about it at home or whatever…’

‘Just because I don’t talk,’ Olly said darkly, ‘doesn’t mean I don’t listen. And if it comes to it, it’s not so much about… well, it’s not so much about taking a side swipe at Evangelical Christianity, as it is about seeing things properly labelled. It’s the rationalist in me.’

Peter wondered what Olly had been going to say that it was not so much about. He would not have been so surprised had it been something to do with impressing Georgia.

‘Which wouldn’t help,’ he said, out loud. Georgia was still seething about the Camilla episode.

‘What?’

‘Sorry. Just thinking out loud.’

‘Oh… I thought Tim was very persuasive on why the Statement of Belief makes the Christian Fellowship a specifically Evangelical organisation, which I didn’t really understand, before. Not, like, living and breathing this stuff, the way you do.’

‘That’s a Theology degree for you,’ Peter said.

‘Do you really think,’ Olly asked, ‘that the existence of something called a Christian Fellowship results in you being misrepresented as a Christian?’

That had been a contentious point in the debate, and had been misunderstood in all directions. ‘Um,’ Peter said. ‘No. Yes. All the time.’

‘Really?’

‘Well.’ He paused. ‘OK, think about the person who tells you they’re a Christian, you know, quite early on, when you’ve just met them. Think about how you react. You take a step backwards, discover you’re late for your lecture, run away screaming…’

‘You mean Will. At least, the way he is now.’

‘You knew him before he was like that?’ Peter said, momentarily distracted. ‘I mean, I know you two were at school together, but I got the impression he sprang fully formed from some church leader’s forehead… Did he used to be a leftie feminist atheist, or something?’

‘Oh, he was always an over-privileged toffee-nosed git,’ Olly allowed. ‘But the Christian thing is new. He used to just fidget through the services up until his voice broke and he left the choir, and piss around in RE, like the rest of us. All this in-your-face Christian stuff has developed since we left school, so far as I can tell. Maybe something got him on his gap year…’ Going by Olly’s face, he was hoping it had hurt.

‘I hope he’s not following us… But yes, that’s my point exactly. It gets to the point where the rest of us are almost afraid to introduce ourselves as Christians, even to people we know quite well, because we know that we’ll then have to spend half an hour explaining that we’re not Bible-bashing, homophobic, anti-woman bigots who have no interest in them beyond converting them. I’m not sure if I get more people assuming that because I’m black… Anyway, that’s what Tim means by the Christian Fellowship misrepresenting other Christians.’

‘Evangelical Christian Fellowship, now,’ Olly corrected him.

‘Indeed. I don’t think, by the way, that it’s going to make any difference. In ten years’ time I will still be describing myself as a socially liberal Anglican on the high end of the candle…’

‘That’s a mouthful.’

Peter snorted.

‘What?’

‘Sorry. Just imagining the way Becky would laugh at that.’

‘Oh, well, Becky…’

They were turning the corner into Alma Road. Peter scrabbled in his pocket for his keys, but before he found them Colette had the door open. ‘Did you drop my card off?’ she asked, anxiously.

‘Hello to you, too.’

‘Sorry. Hello. And congratulations, Olly! Becky was refreshing the forums every five seconds until the result came out. But Peter, did you drop Lydia’s card off?’

‘No,’ Peter teased, and watched her face fall. ‘…I gave it to her in person.’

‘Oh! Did she like it?’

‘She didn’t open it when I was there. But…’ Peter frowned, trying to remember, ‘I think it was a nice surprise.’

‘Oh.’

Colette’s smile made his heart turn over twice: first with wistfulness on his own account, and then with dread, on hers.

We begin with Will deciding not to convert Olly at this particular juncture. Good plan, Will. He is not really relevant to this scene, which is more about the regrettably absent Camilla. I miss her.

Tonight was not the night for such a daunting undertaking, even if Will had known where to start. He had other things to do: a Teaching and Study committee meeting, followed by dinner at Jake’s house, finishing up at the Royal Oak with the rest of the Sailing Club for Frizzo’s birthday. Becky was out as well, having dinner with Adam to celebrate their first anniversary. Peter, therefore, was left to feed only his two fellow finalists and Colette, who was even more quiet than usual through the meal, and slunk off to her room at the earliest possible opportunity.

When the silence grew oppressive, Peter asked, ‘Any plans for the evening, Olly?’

‘I was going to go to Liam’s party – you know, Liam in Maths, used to hang around Morley in first year, sometimes? But something’s come up.’

‘Something?’ Peter was curious.

He looked shifty. ‘I’m going to the cinema, actually.’

Georgia tilted her head and looked at him sideways, accusingly. ‘Oh. You might have told me you were missing Liam’s thing. What are you seeing?’ (Angling for an invitation?)

‘I don’t know, yet. We were going to decide over a drink.’

Peter raised his eyebrows. ‘We?’ he said, and, seeing Georgia’s face, regretted it.

‘Me and Camilla.’ He was turning red, clashing increasingly with his sandy hair.

Georgia had gone from neutral to beetroot without warning. She said, dangerously calmly, ‘You’re seeing her again, then?’

‘That’s right,’ Olly agreed.

Peter considered the distance between himself and the door. Trying to change the subject as unobtrusively as possible, he said, ‘I hear what’s its name, the new Tarantino film, is meant to be very good.’

‘She didn’t look to me like the sort of person who’d be a Tarantino fan,’ Georgia said.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Olly asked through a sudden glacier.

‘Oh, nothing.’

Peter made one last effort. ‘Seriously. It’s had very good reviews.’

‘I shall see what Milly thinks.’

Georgia muttered something about what the rest of us think, the details of which Peter did not catch. Olly, however, did. ‘I don’t care what the rest of you think,’ he stated. ‘I’ll admit to a certain sordid interest, though. Do you have a problem with Camilla, Georgia?’

A swift harsh sigh. ‘No. Of course I don’t. I’ve barely met the woman.’

‘Then I’ll thank you to refrain from making snide remarks about her.’

Georgia rose, which gained her a temporary height advantage. ‘If you choose to interpret a perfectly neutral comment as snide, that’s up to you.’

Olly also stood, stiff-backed as a guardsman. ‘Georgia, if you object to my occasionally enjoying the company of the opposite sex, could you do me the favour of saying so to my face?’

‘Oh, so that’s what they call it these days?’

Peter groaned. They turned to face him, wearing comically similar expressions of outrage. ‘What?’ Georgia demanded.

It was a bad idea, but he said it anyway. ‘Can’t you two just shag and get it over with?’

He took advantage of the appalled silence to get up and leave the room. He just heard Olly say, mildly, ‘Fuck off,’ as he closed the door behind him.

He only got half-way down the stairs before Georgia caught him up. ‘No, we can’t, and you know it,’ she hissed.

He turned back to face her. ‘You can’t stop him going out with other girls, G.,’ he said.

‘I know.’ She had herself under control. ‘I know. It’s not fair. I could just do with not knowing about it, that’s all. And she’s so bloody gorgeous and posh. What the hell do I look like next to her?’

‘The one he’s in love with, that’s what you look like,’ Peter said, gentle but impatient. ‘And if you’ve turned him down, you can’t expect him to live like a monk.’

A floorboard creaked on the landing above them. As one, they froze, looked very slowly upwards, listened as Olly’s footsteps plodded all the way up to the top of the house; then Georgia said, quietly and furiously, ‘Fine. You’ve told me all the things I can’t do. What, in that case, can I do?’

Peter was suddenly sick of them all: of Olly and Georgia, stubbornly apart; of Becky and Adam, loudly and ecstatically reunited; of Lily and Ross, smugly together; of Colette, as far out of his reach as ever; most of all, of himself. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘Do what the hell you want.’

Once upon a time, this was going to be the opening scene of Speak Its Name. Not this particular version, which slots in after another deleted scene where Lydia’s mother is driving her to Stancester (literally, not metaphorically), but it definitely started with a wedding. I was trying to do something clever with doubling and framing; also to introduce all the Alma Road characters; also to drop in the point that the ministers of a marriage are the couple themselves. It does all that, but it also introduces three completely unnecessary characters and slows up the action. And it doesn’t involve Lydia.

The wedding was at Wardle Street Methodist Church. Lily Wicks, former President of Stancester University Anglican, Methodist and United Reformed Church Society, AngthMURC for short, was marrying Ross Whitehouse, former Social Secretary of the same organisation – a commitment that most of their friends affected to deplore, on the grounds of their excessive youth, but were secretly rather pleased about.

‘And after all,’ Peter Nathan observed to Olly Sennick as they awaited the arrival of the bride, ‘who cares if they have only just graduated? If you know what you want, you know what you want.’

‘Well,’ Olly said, cattily, ‘Lily always knows what she wants, and Ross is so laid back that I don’t think he much cares. Ridiculous institution, anyway. It’s just a piece of paper. I can’t see why they need a vicar.’

Peter could not resist rising to that particular piece of bait. ‘Not a vicar, in a Methodist church. You’re right, though: technically, it’s the couple themselves who are the ministers of the marriage. The chap in the dog-collar is just the registrar.’

‘Hmph,’ Olly said.

The pair of them, together with their housemates and various other friends who, if anyone had asked them, ‘Bride or groom?’ would have replied, ‘Um…’, filled the second row on both sides of the church. Peter glanced left and right. On Olly’s other side sat Ruth, attending her last service at Wardle Street before leaving to start her PhD in America. Across the aisle was Colette, managing to look slightly dishevelled even today. She saw him looking, and turned away, a flush streaking up her cheekbones. Peter sighed, and told himself – again – to stop barking up that particular tree. It was pointless, offensive, and liable to cause difficulties sharing a house in the year ahead.

Speaking of which… The two unknown quantities sat on Colette’s right – her friend Becky, the Lancastrian Quaker (loud, but not, so far as Peter had seen, obnoxious), and then her friend Will, the incongruous posh-boy Evangelical, to whom Olly seemed to have already developed a violent antipathy. (Why? It couldn’t be the Christianity alone, or Olly could hardly have survived last year, stuck in the middle of the assorted gaggle of Anglicans and Methodists. It wasn’t as if he had a strong personal liking for anybody beside Georgia…)

Georgia’s seat was empty, of course; she had a place reserved on the front row, handy for bouquet-catching and train-bearing and whatever else a chief bridesmaid was meant to do. Although – was that her voice? Peter looked at his watch.

‘Early,’ Olly said. ‘Trust Lily.’

‘She’ll be wandering around talking to people, and Georgia will be trying to shove her back in the car and drive round the block a few times until she’s properly late.’

‘Not a wise move, in Stancester on a Saturday. Particularly not in Freshers’ Week.’

‘Do you know, I had actually forgotten, for five seconds, that it was Freshers’ Week?’ Peter groaned. ‘And, no matter how bad the hangover, I have to be up tomorrow to shepherd all the little baby firsties to Chapel. I bet there won’t even be any…’ He shook his head. ‘Just don’t remind Georgia, OK?’

Colette leaned across the aisle and said, reproachfully, ‘She’ll be fine once it’s actually started. Actually I think it’s been good for her, being bridesmaid. It’s taken her mind off AngthMURC stuff.’

‘I love Georgia, and I know I voted for her,’ Peter said, ‘and she does get stuff done, but I’m still not convinced that her taking over from Lily was the best idea in the world, from the point of view of harmony in the home and everybody’s mental health. Wait until you’ve lived with her for a term: you’ll see.’

‘Dunno why she wastes her time with it, anyway,’ Olly said. Peter put it down to the enforced churchgoing, and ignored him.

‘What are we – Colette began, but she was interrupted by a well-intentioned fanfare on the electric organ. Peter was the first to his feet, Olly close behind, the whole congregation rising and simultaneously turning to look over its collective shoulder at the west door.

Peter felt surreptitiously in his breast pocket for the card on which he had printed his reading, just to make sure that it was still there. He could have done it without the text, at a pinch, but it was 1 Corinthians 13, which everyone knew from all the other weddings they had ever been to, and to complicate matters Ross had insisted on compiling his own ‘translation’ from all the versions he liked. This, Peter was fairly certain, was not legal (though you never knew, with Methodists), but at least it wasn’t the Street Bible. He wondered if he was nevous, and rejected the thought: he read, in church, without the stutter, which, he thought, showed, if anything did – but here came the bride.

‘End of an era,’ Olly murmured, as Lily passed them, and winked.

Another bit from the first year’s action that went in the great Lydia takeover. Once again I note my fondness for ‘C…l…’ names. I was rather sad to ditch Milly…

Georgia came up the road at a jog, hair flapping, cheeks rosy. ‘Hi, Colette.’

‘Morning. I don’t know how you’re so energetic. It’s January, and it’s tipping it down!’

‘I’ve only been down to Clifford’s Bridge and back,’ Georgia said, as if that wasn’t half-way across the city, and then, ‘Some days I just need to run and run.’

Colette did not know what to say to that. She just nodded. ‘Have you had breakfast?’ she asked. That at least was a safe question.

‘I had phase one of breakfast before I went out. Phase two is now.’ Georgia ran a hand over her forehead, shiny with rain and sweat. ‘Drat. I meant to get some milk on the way back.’

‘Whoops,’ Colette said. She shook the last reluctant envelope into the recycling bin and turned to go back indoors. Georgia followed her upstairs to the kitchen.

The timing was unfortunate. Olly was using a tea-towel to dust off a perfectly clean bowl. Seated at the table was a rumpled looking (but oh-so-sexily rumpled!) girl with big blue eyes and dishevelled blonde hair. She was wearing what Colette recognised as Olly’s dressing gown, and, by the looks of it, not much else. She looked better than she had any right to at that time in the morning and in that garment.

Olly stared at Georgia. Georgia stared at Olly. The air grew denser, and the girl looked at Colette. Colette said, helplessly, ‘Hi. I’m Colette.’

‘Camilla. Milly.’ There was money in her voice.

Colette gestured at Georgia, who was hitching up her damp jogging bottoms. ‘Georgia. We’re Olly’s housemates.’

‘Hi. Hi.’ Camilla – Milly – smiled slowly, apparently oblivious to the thickening awkwardness.

Georgia was not going to help. Colette asked, ‘So, how do you know Olly?’

‘Oh, one of my friends dragged me along to Archery yesterday afternoon, and of course Olly was there as a member.’

‘You’re a first year?’

‘Oh, yes.’

Georgia said, ‘Excuse me,’ and stomped off to the bathroom. Olly shrugged, but, since he was standing behind Camilla, only Colette saw.

‘Which hall are you in?’ Colette asked, having failed to think of a less boringly Freshers’ Week sort of question.

‘Ward.’

The newest, shiniest hall of all. That figured. ‘Do you like it?’

‘It’s not too bad.’

No, she must be aware of the atmosphere; she’d be talking more if she were genuinely unaffected. Desperately, Colette asked, ‘What are you studying?’

‘French and Spanish.’

French and Spanish. Colette probably knew something about French and Spanish, if only she could think of it, and if only Olly would stop gawping at her and turning progressively redder in the face. ‘Cool. I believe Stancester’s Languages School is pretty high up in the league tables.’

Camilla shrugged; the dressing gown slipped a little way down her shoulder. Colette tried not to look. ‘Yes, it’s not bad. I tried for Oxford, of course.’

‘Didn’t we all?’

Olly, contributing to the conversation at long last, said, ‘Oxbridge rejects, the lot of us. Don’t worry. There are plenty around.’

Colette was running out of small talk. She said, ‘Well, I need a shower. Stuff to do. Nice to meet you,’ and fled.

There are some very early lines in here. The whale gag dates from the very first draft of all. Some of it will feel vaguely familiar, as I ended up recycling bits into Lydia’s internal monologue, though I think some of the duplication may have been deliberate. At one point I had the idea of showing the same event from several different points of view. I think cutting it down to a single one was the right move in terms of structure, but it did mean losing a lot. I’m afraid, though, that this is all you’ll ever get about Why Olly And Will Hate Each Other So Much.

Will looked very much like any other stereotypical Stancester student – rah, sloane, Oxbridge reject, call them what you will. He had the floppy hair and the flippy-floppy flip-flops; he owned a wardrobe of rugby shirts, all of which he wore with the collar turned up.

Stancester, despite vigorous attempts by the Public Relations department to shake off the label, was generally acknowledged to be a university for Oxbridge rejects. It had always been fairly likely that a certain proportion of those who lacked the brains or motivation to reach the dreaming spires even leaping from the springboard of private education would end up settling for the rather less dizzy heights of Stancester’s prosaic and distinctly square blocks.

Will was among this number and was not ashamed to admit it. But the Lord looks at the heart, and Will’s beat, with well-meaning, exuberant devotion, to the glory of God the Father.

As Olly had informed Peter, it had not always been thus. Despite the best efforts of a cathedral school, the Dean’s sermons, and Religious Education, Will had never really grasped the point of it all. Oh, he enjoyed the singing, he would nod approvingly when people talked about the United Kingdom being culturally Christian, but it had never, he said, reached the deepest part of his being.

Nor had he ever really expected it to – particularly not three weeks into his first term at university, when the hangover that he had been trying to outdrink since Freshers’ Week had caught up with him, he was despairing of ever getting his head around Professor Bullen’s take on employment law, and he had just got onto the reserve hockey team. Some good, some bad, but none of it really the kind of experience that would obviously lead one to God.

God, however, works in mysterious ways, a fact that Will was to discover over and over again over the course of his university career.

Had he thought about it at all, Will would have compared his first term, to living inside a kaleidoscope, it had been such a colourful whirl of reality, illusion and violent agitation. His Freshers’ Week and the fortnight following it had been like one long school reunion. He had, he estimated, had alcohol in his bloodstream for eighty-five percent of his waking hours, and been roaring drunk almost every night. He had joined the cricket club, the rowing club, the sailing club, and several more that he only remembered when they sent him emails. Occasionally he had been to a lecture. He had, in fact, had a whale of a time.

It was the Tuesday of Week 3 when the whale seemed to tire of its parasitical passenger and vomited him out onto dry land. There was nothing special about Tuesdays; and this one was no different (so far as he could judge) from any other Tuesday. He had no more of a hangover than usual; his contract law lecture was no more boring than usual; his friends were, if anything, more scintillating and amusing than usual. Had you asked him how he felt about life, he would have blinked at you a little and replied that yes, on the whole he was pretty satisfied with it.

Will could not have told you what was so intriguing about the neon yellow poster that appeared, from a distance, to bear the single word Perfection? He could not have told you why he crossed the dining hall to look at it more closely, nor why, having deciphered the legend Want to know more? Look out for SUCF events throughout weeks 3 & 4!, he did not simply identify it as harmless, if silly, Christian propaganda and dismiss it as irrelevant. He walked on and ate his lunch, but the one-word question danced infuriatingly in his mind. Perfection?

He saw an identical poster that afternoon, blu-tacked crookedly to a door and, below it, a half-sheet screaming excitedly Ken Garnett HERE 4pm!!! Will consulted his watch. It was three minutes to four. He hesitated for less than a second before pushing open the swing door and – he could not have told you why – walking in.

After the event Will was, in his own mind at least, perfectly capable of explaining the mysterious attraction the Perfection? poster had for him. ‘It’s like, yeah, the Lord just, just, led me to that event; it’s like He was saying to me, “Will, you’ve just got to stop this sinful life you’re leading, you’ve just got to stop it and follow me.” He was saying to me, “Will, you’ve got to change”. And yeah, that was it, basically.’

Others put it down to boredom.

The effects of Will’s conversion upon his life were not immediately obvious to the casual observer. He continued to participate enthusiastically in the social life of the university’s sporting circle, both in the sport itself and in the attendant lager consumption, and was not noticeably more dedicated in his attitude to his academic work. He managed, however, to squeeze a few more hours into each week of his crowded calendar, and in them applied himself to Bible study, prayer meetings and good works. His circle of friends expanded to include Christian Fellowship members from every conceivable background. This was how he ended up frying eggs and bacon every Friday morning at Saint Martin’s Centre for the Homeless – a commitment he fulfilled religiously no matter how bad his hangover – and that was how he met Becky.

Will and Becky’s friendship was an unending mystery to acquaintances on both sides. Each one’s upbringing, politics and religious views were manifestly at odds with the other’s. Will said ‘sconn’; Becky said ‘scoane’. Becky said ‘laff’; Will said ‘lahf’. One would have assumed that all they had in common was the greasy frying pan at Saint Martin’s. It was impossible to deny, however, that there was more to the bond than the coincidence of the shared Friday mornings, and, against all the odds, Becky and Will got on like a house on fire. They teased each other mercilessly, mocked each other’s accents, brightened each other’s life with unceasing affectionate bickering and entertained the other volunteers and the homeless diners queuing up for their breakfast. Somewhere between the mocking and the insults the eggs and bacon got cooked.

In fact, it was Becky who had invited Will to fill the sixth space in Alma Road, back in the spring of first year. He had missed the boat in the scramble for housing; his Fellowship friends assumed that he would be sharing with people from the Sailing Club; the sailors took it for granted that he would have found a home with the Christians. Which, in the end, he did – but not those Christians, and anyway, Becky tended to get twitchy when people called her ‘Christian’. Olly, too – well. Will tried not to think too hard about Olly, but there it was: evidently a cathedral school hadn’t done much for either of them.

Leaving all that aside, even the ever-gregarious Will had secretly admitted that it was something of a relief when Becky turned to him across a sinkful of hot greasy water, and asked, ‘Who are you living with next year, anyway? Because I’m going in with my flatmate Colette and some of her friends, but I know they’re still one down…’

‘I hadn’t quite got as far as that,’ Will said, sheepishly. ‘I’ve got so much going on, you know? But yeah, if your house does have a spot going that would be great.’

She flashed a grin at him. ‘Brilliant! I’ll have a word with Colette, just to make sure they’ve not found anyone else, but it sounds like we’re good to go!’

And so they were. He wondered, sometimes, if he would have changed his mind had he known that Olly Sennick was one of this vague group of ‘Colette’s friends’ before he signed the contract – but never wondered too hard. After all, he concluded, every time, it was probably part of God’s plan. Perhaps he would be the one to lead Olly to God. Perhaps…