Read Online Paper Alice by Charlotte Calder - Free Book Online Page B

night mentally revisiting that dilapidated kitchen. My mind’s eye like a roving camera, slowly moving from Chet at the table and Andy leaning against the dresser, then to the fridge between them and the poster on the door. I had an idea it was advertising some kind of play reading, but maybe I’d dreamt that too. And the date . . .
    It must have been lurking in my subconscious all along, because now I suddenly zoomed right in on it. My eyes flew open in the dark. Thursday, 12 May , it had said, at the Cave.
    I remembered the guy in the pub. See you Thursday evening.
    Probably a coincidence; he was most likely talking about something else entirely.
    And yet . . .
    When was the twelfth? Today was Tuesday, but what date was it?
    Then I remembered that the deadline for my essay yesterday was the ninth. The twelfth of May was the day after tomorrow.
    I kept a sharp lookout for one of those posters at uni the next day. I knew there’d be quite a few of them around, but of course the moment I tried to find one, I couldn’t. People rip stuff down, just for the hell of it. I know, because I’d helped put up awhole lot of posters for an O-Week dance party in aid of earthquake victims, and the next day there were barely any of them left. Some people are just dickheads.
    I found what I thought was the corner of one, still pinned to a noticeboard in the library foyer, and just some sticky tape where I was sure I’d seen one on a window in the student union. I’d just about given up when I happened to spy a poster still bravely clinging to the underpass near the Physics Building. One corner was hanging down and it’d copped some graffiti, but it was still readable.
    It was for a reading of extracts from new plays by different authors, put on by the uni dramatic society. To be held in the Cave, the basement where they put on most of their productions. At 8 pm, entry free.
    I’d been to a couple of things at the Cave – a stand-up comedy night during O-Week and an absurdist play a little while after that. I have to say, I only went to the play because a friend, Jess, was in the cast. She’d been one of the drama stars at school and she did what she could in this production, which turned out to be a bit of a dog’s breakfast. I think a difficult play like that needs professional actors to bring it to life, and the student performers were mostly very far from that level. But who am I to criticise – good luck to them for tackling it.
    I went with Milly and Dunc on the last night. Dunc, typically, thought the whole thing was a ‘heap of shit’ and had to be persuaded with some difficulty to stay for the party afterwards. Though we didn’t end up staying long. Most of the people there, if they weren’t in the cast or crew, had been, or hopedto be, in others. So that turned out to be just about the sole topic of conversation, and the basis for the in-jokes.
    Dunc had stood around looking bored, like a fish out of water – if a drowning fish could ever look bored. I at least made an effort, but it makes you feel yay high when whoever it is you’re talking to is watching over your shoulder for a Somebody, not a nobody, to associate with. Even Jess looked a bit out of it – this being her first uni production.
    The only one of us who did seem to be enjoying herself was Milly. She can really hold her own in the loud and theatrical department, though appearances can be deceptive. There was a skinhead-type boy – a member of the cast – whom, I could tell, she was singling out for special attention. Sure enough, that night did eventuate into one of Milly’s disasters.
    So I wasn’t exactly desperate to embrace the scene at the Cave again. Anyway, I reminded myself, the gathering mentioned by the guy in the Rose and Star was probably nothing whatever to do with the dramatic society. In a city this size it could be anything, anywhere – a