Sophie Hannah - A Game for All the Family

“No!” says Ellen triumphantly. “We want to be married to each other because we love each other more than anyone else, and that’s who you should marry, isn’t it? Your favorite person, the one you want to commit to and spend the rest of your life with?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“We might both have dalliances—just for fun—with people we fancy, but that’ll be fine. We can each have as many dalliances as we like and it won’t threaten our relationship, because our marriage won’t be about that. It’ll be based on something much deeper. There’ll be no romantic or sexual jealousy like there usually is in a marriage. George says everyone should do what we’re going to do, and then fewer people would end up getting divorced when their desires change. He says romantic desires can only ever be fleeting, and it’s important to marry the person who mirrors your spirit most exactly, whether or not you want to make out with them or go to bed with them. When you think about it, he’s right, isn’t he?”

“Honestly? I don’t think there is a ‘right’ when it comes to relationships. I think everyone must do what works for them. If this plan works for you and George and will make you both happier than any other plan, then go for it.”

Or make me happy and change your mind before you reach marriageable age.

Am I a conventional conservative at heart, despite my liberal pretensions?

It’s unflattering to think that fourteen-year-old socially deprived George Donbavand might know more about life and love than I do.

I don’t see why I should have to fret about this alone, so I say, “Dad would agree with me. You should tell him too.”

“Really?” Ellen perks up at the prospect of having two understanding parents in on the secret.

“I think so.” On impulse, I say, “Have you heard of Vita Sackville-West?”

“No. Who’s she?”

“She was part of the Bloomsbury Group and had a long, happy marriage with a gay man. She was a lesbian, I think. I’m pretty sure she had the kind of marriage you and George are planning.”

And the only reason you’re planning it is because Professor Anne—stupid twat that she is—doesn’t realize that forcibly keeping people apart deprives them of the opportunity to get thoroughly sick of one another. If she followed a recipe entitled “Create a Doomed, Forbidden Love Out of Nothing,” she couldn’t possibly do a better job.

Ellen leaps up from the sofa. “I’m going to Google Vita Sackville-West,” she says. “I hope you’re right about her. George and I aren’t telling anyone until we’re eighteen, but it’ll be easier to explain it if someone’s done it before. George says people are more likely to hate and fear things that are new and different.”

“Only bigoted people,” I whisper to myself after she’s left the room. I don’t want to be one of those. Definitely not.

Engaged. My fourteen-year-old daughter is engaged. But it’s fine, because there’s no sexual strand to the relationship, and never will be.

Except that doesn’t sound fine to me. A marriage should be about romance and physical love as well as friendship.

Where did I put George’s story, after Lachlan Fisher gave it to me? I haven’t seen it since I came home. Suddenly I’m desperate to read the creative work of my future son-in-law.

I go in search of my green bag, which isn’t in the kitchen. God, I hope Ellen tells Alex quickly—in the next ten minutes, ideally. I need someone to talk to about all this. I could do with a steer from my own mother, but she’s been dead more than ten years. I wish she’d lived and my stepmother had died instead. Julia. She’s not a bad person by any means, but I’ve always been cool toward her. It would have been immoral to allow her to like me, knowing that every time I see her, the words “It should have been you!” ring out in my mind.

George’s story is—thank goodness—in my green bag. It’s folded in a way that borders on the I-don’t-give-a-shit scrunched up. Without the announcement of Ellen’s engagement, I probably wouldn’t have looked at it.

I take it back to the kitchen, stretch out on the sofa and start to read.

Only a few words in, I recognize it. I know this story, start to finish. I’m in it. Reading it feels like being tricked into attending a dreaded reunion.

I skim quickly over the words, trying to take it in at a glance. Names of actors and directors jump out at me.

Christ on a fucking cracker.

I’m here, and so are my former colleagues, my reason for leaving London, for leaving my job. All of it.

George Donbavand has written my story.

“The Casting Ouch”

or

“The Ben Lourenco Affair”

by George Donbavand, 9F

No, it’s not a typo! If I’d meant to call my story “The Casting Couch,” I would have made sure to give it that title. Do you really think I am so slipshod as to send a story out into the world without thoroughly checking it first? If that’s what you think, I’m surprised you’ve progressed this far. I wouldn’t want to read a story by someone who wouldn’t check for mistakes. How could you rely on anything they wrote?

You will see that there are two alternative titles above. That’s because the first one, while perfect if readers interpret it correctly, will inevitably be taken as a typo by some, and this cannot help but mar its perfection. So it’s no doubt safer to call it The Ben Lourenco Affair , after its tragic hero. Though in fact Ben Lourenco is not strictly speaking an embodiment of tragedy in the traditional dramatic sense, because he is not brought down by a fatal character flaw or moral weakness. There is plenty of moral weakness in the story, lashings of the stuff, but none of it is Ben Lourenco’s.

Should I tell you that from the get-go? Too late! I already have. I’ll tell you something else as well: the yarn that I am about to relay to you is divided into what is known as “front-story” and “back-story,” as many yarns have been since records began—or so I am told by the venerable Mr. Fisher, guru of Class 9F.

What follows is slightly different from that age-old format. Different and, I would venture to suggest, more interesting. Here, as you will soon discover, we have a known front-story wrapped around and rooted in an unknown back-story. Not unknown to everybody, natch. There are people who know what did or did not go down, but none of them are actors in the front-story. And, take it from me, there’s nothing more taxing than being expected to play a lead role in a drama based entirely on another drama whose script you cannot read and must merely guess at.

That’s no excuse for terrible acting, mind. And you are about to encounter, in these pages, human beings acting terribly, for which I apologize. On the plus side, you will hopefully enjoy being aghast, as I did when I first heard this sorry tale. It’s completely true, which makes it so much worse. Though it also gets me off the hook for never revealing the truth surrounding the back-story. I can’t, because I don’t know it, so please take this warning of partial narrative disappointment and stash it away in your back pocket for later, as it were.

Luckily, I know the facts concerning the front-story, which is the only reason I haven’t fired myself from my authorial position on the spot.

And now the moment has arrived when the introductory pleasantries have been concluded and the dramatic plunge must be taken, so here goes . . .

Who is Ben Lourenco? You might have heard of him, or you might not. He’s an actor: British, originally from Billericay, which until recently I had assumed was in Ireland. The name sounds so Irish, doesn’t it? Frankly, I think it should be moved there.