Ted What about your epiphany?

Danny What about it?

Ted It’s not really my thing anymore, Dan.

Danny It’ll be a laugh.

Ted A laugh? We’ll get there, you’ll fuck off and start chatting to a bunch of people with adjectives instead of names, while I sit there like a lemon, getting drunk on my own.

Danny It won’t be like that, Ted. Come on, we ain’t been out in ages.

Ted That’s coz I ain’t really on it no more.

Danny Ten years, Ted. Come on, for Tony, mate.

Ted Charlotte going?

Danny Yeah, she is.

Ted Maybe it would be nice, me and you and Charlotte, like the old days, eh?

Danny Exactly.

Ted Alright, let’s go party then, shall we? But you can’t just fuck off with her the minute we get there and leave me, Billy no mates, looking like someone’s brought their Dad along.

Danny Nah, Ted. The three of us. We’ll go and have it, for Tony, and the old days. And for right now. And for fuckin’ forever mate.

Ted Oh stop will ya, I’m welling up. Scene Two

Charlotte ’s standing at a bar, with a gin and tonic. She looks tired. The cardboard cut-outs from earlier are all around her. Sound of people talking, not saying much, songs from a juke box, doors opening and closing, barmaid bantering with regulars. The friendly sounds make a contrast with the still, monstrous cut-outs, who are crowding her. Really close to her. She faces the audience, with them either side, the bar between her and the edge of the stage.

Charlotte I’m stood at the front of the class and I feel like I’m drowning. I’m staring out at them, and I’m thinking who the fuck are you lot anyway? I look at them, but I can’t see children, I can just see the colour of their jumpers, smudges where their faces should be.

Behind me, today’s date is written on the board. I’m trying to pretend I don’t know what it means.

It’s hot and the classroom stinks, and the clock’s broken and the work stuck up on the walls is old and the corners are coming away and the kids are screaming.

I’m trying to remember why I wanted to do this in the first place. You can’t inspire minds on a timetable like this.

I think I’m miserable, Tony.

I mean, I stand in the staffroom in between classes and smile along with the others, but they’re all so bitter, Tony. They’re all so fuckin’ hateful. Thirty years in the job, and they hate everything about it, but it’s too late for them to get a new job and I’m pretty sure that secretly they hope the kids’ll come

to nothing. I mean it. You should hear the way they talk about them. No wonder the kids are killing each other over postcodes,¹⁴ or getting sick at the thought of not being famous.

The classroom’s hot, and I’m staring at the kids, and I’m remembering us lot when we was at school – moving through the corridors like we was the fuckin’ Roman