Danny walks up the path behind him and stands next to him for a minute, looking at the bag by his feet. He sits down.
Danny Alright, Ted?
Ted Alright, Dan?
Danny How’s it goin’?
Ted Yeah, alright mate, not bad. Danny looks around, at the tree, smokes his cigarette.
Ted Ten years.
Danny I know mate. Feels like yesterday, dunnit?
Ted Feels like ten years to me.
Danny takes some skunk out of his pocket and starts skinning up, 9 it’s a bit windy. Without being asked to, Ted shields Danny ’s hand from the wind.
Ted (to Tony, about Danny) He ain’t changed much, still believes he can have whatever he wants. Thinks he’s gonna play guitar on seminal albums and tour America and write a cult fuckin’ novel that’ll change the way we think about our lives. Shit. He’s one of my oldest friends, and I love him to pieces. I’d lie down and fuckin’ die in the road for him – but sometimes, sometimes, he can be a bit of a knob. You know, I’m not being funny, but, you know, when he’s with all his cool new ‘creative’ mates. They ain’t real, Tony. They ain’t like us. They sit around, with ironic trousers on and three haircuts each, waiting to be discovered.
What he don’t realise is that in ten years, he’ll be thirty-five, one a them fuckers we used to laugh at at parties, gurning his face off, dribbling over some nineteen-year-old acid
casualty called Sparkle telling himself he’s still got it. He’ll be there, giving it the old – I might be sensitive but I’m still dangerous – treating women like shit coz he hates himself
for never having had the guts to put himself second and commit to one of ’em. It takes strength to commit, Tone, it really fuckin’ does … Then, next thing he knows, he’ll be forty-five, strung out from the cocaine and the booze and the MDMA,10 having panic attacks every night when he’s on his own, coz he’ll have realised that he’s too old to be young anymore, and the world won’t apply to him, and all the
kids’ll be listening to music he don’t understand and suddenly all o’ them interesting ideas he had, and all them exciting collaborations he was involved in, won’t be half as fuckin’ important anymore. He’ll be worse off than me then. He’ll have no seminal fuckin’ work to wank off about, he’ll
be alone in his trendy flat, conducting imaginary interviews with imaginary journalists about imaginary masterpieces. And me? I’ll be as miserable as I’ve always been, right there beside him.
Danny finishes rolling the joint. 11 He lights it, lifts it to the tree, exhales, passes it to Ted. Ted smokes, heavily.
Danny What do you reckon he’d be up to now?
Ted What d’you mean?
Danny Like, for a job.
Ted Dunno. Same as the rest of us probably. Fuck all.
Danny Nah, he would have been something.