It’s About Love

He stands up slowly and turns to the whiteboard. He’s acting differently, like he’s waiting for something, and pretty much everyone’s eyes are trained on his back as he pulls out a marker and starts to write.

He does a big letter S, then a capital H. A couple of people look at each other, then back at him. As he starts the straight line of an I people are starting to chatter. Noah steps back from the board without turning around and holds his arms out like a conductor.

What’s this guy doing?

And it shouldn’t be a big deal really, a teacher about to write the word SHIT on a board, but it feels like we’re all breaking the rules together. Then Noah steps forward and curves the I round and up into a U and writes SHUT UP. And everything’s quiet. He turns round and he’s smiling and I’m thinking, right now, that must feel amazing.

“You hear that?” he says. People are looking round, out of the window and shaking their heads. My eyes don’t leave him.

“Somebody just fell in the shower.” He tilts his head slightly as though he’s listening for it himself. “You hear it?” He raises his index finger.

People don’t know where to look, but I’ve played this game. I still play this game all the time on my own and I like him. I like you, Noah.

“No one?”

He’s starting to look a bit let down. Nobody else even seems like they might be getting ready to speak. Then my hand goes up. What are you doing?

“I heard it.”

Get your hand down now.

But I just keep it there, as everyone’s eyes turn to me. Noah cracks a smile. “Thank you …” He’s leaning forward, waiting for me to say my name.

I lower my hand. “Luke. My name’s Luke.”

I can feel Leia looking at me on my right, but I stay with Noah. He nods. “Good. Now the real question is, Luke, are they dead?”

And it’s like the scene is ours. Me and him with an audience either side of us. Simeon’s staring back, but I don’t care. This is why I’m here. What? This is why I’m here.

“No. He’s not,” I say, and my blood is electric.

“Ah,” says Noah, “so he’s a he?”

And the room is gripped and I can feel ideas flicking through my head like holiday photos in fast forward.

“Yeah, he’s a man. A young man, and he’s not dead, he’s just lying down.”

As the words come out of my mouth I picture Marc, curled up on his side in a white shower cubicle, like Michael Biehn at the start of Terminator, steam rising as water falls on him.

The girl with the shaved head frowns. “That’s stupid.”

People look at her. I stay on Noah, as he says, “Is it?”

“Yeah,” says the girl. “Why would somebody just lie down in the shower?”

Noah looks at her. “And that’s why it’s brilliant.” He points at her with one hand and at me with the other. “Because you want to know.”

My throat’s dry as I swallow, but I feel great. He said my idea was brilliant.

Then Leia speaks. “It’s what he does.” All eyes move to her.

I turn in my seat. She’s leaning forward, like she’s getting ready for a race. I stare at her mouth as she says, “He waits until his family have gone to work and then he runs a shower and he lies underneath it in the bath. It reminds him of the rain.”

Then she’s looking at me with those dark shining eyes and I’m looking back at her and it’s so clear. There’s something there. There’s definitely something there.

“Amazing!” Noah’s clearly excited. “You two have to work together.”

No wait … Brooding loner, remember?

But then Noah claps his hands and says, “OK, everyone! Pair-up and wait for your sound. Find your character. Start where it matters. In a moment where things hang in the balance. Show us that moment, offer us a question that we need to know the answer to. I’ll come round and hear ideas. Ready? OK. Go.”

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For nearly an hour we talk ideas.

I suggest something, Leia listens, then she gives an idea and I respond, and back and forth again and again as we build up our character and his backstory together. Her ideas are brilliant, and the whole time we’re talking it’s like I forget everything else as I just watch this story we’re creating grow out of nothing on the table in front of us.

By the time Noah works his way round to us we’ve got a sketched-out scene and both of us are charged.

“Come on then,” he says, squatting down in front of our desk. His eyes are excited.

I look at Leia, she looks at me. “You wanna start?”

“No, you can.”

And her face lights up. “OK, so it’s morning, right, Luke?”

I nod. Noah watches her.

“So it’s morning, late morning, like half eleven or something, and he’s lying down in the shower. It’s a bath actually, one of those cool free standing ones with the feet and there’s steam as the shower’s raining down on him. He’s nineteen.”

“What’s his name?” Noah asks and we realise at the same time that we didn’t give him one.

I hear Marc’s name in my head. Then Leia says, “Toby. His name’s Toby.”

Noah nods. Leia carries on. “OK. The house is empty. His dad’s at work and his younger sister’s at college. She’s nearly seventeen.”

She uses her hands as she talks, like Mum does, and it hits me that maybe Toby is her brother’s name in real life and if she’s using real details then he’s the same age as Marc.

“So he’s a scientist. Physics, actually, and he’s working on a really complicated theory. The shower helps him think.” My stomach’s dancing as she speaks and my pen rings a circle round her email address that she scribbled on my pad.

Noah frowns, but in a curious way rather than unhappy. “Where’s Mum?” he asks.

Leia taps her pad with her pen. “She left, but when Toby was little, she used to have baths with him. They used to sit in the bath together and put the shower on and pretend it was raining. It’s a good memory, like his happy place, and now it’s his best place to think.”

Did her mum leave?

Noah’s eyes are narrow, like he’s following her train of thought. “I see. So it’s like his connection to Mum, even though she’s gone?”