Page 62 of Don't Point at the Moon

After expelling a deep sigh, he stepped through the side gate and up the steps to the school entrance. Just as Zane had said, the door pushed open. Inside, the municipal corridor of grey and lemon yellow stood empty. Noticeboards with colourful posters and flyers, and intermittent classroom doors, lined the walls.

As he made his way down the wide passage, oddly familiar smells of paints or crayons and other indescribables reminded him of his childhood. At odds with what Zane had said, a student was practising scales on a stringed instrument somewhere in the depths of the building. Only as he moved farther into the school did the child begin to play the opening strains of a tune. Walking to the open doorway on his right from where the sound flowed, Mitchell decided to poke his head in and perhaps wave a quick hello to the young musician.

Except he found not a child sitting there but Tommy Chow.

Tommy perched on a plastic chair at the far end of the vast empty gymnasium, dressed in white shorts and a hot pink T-shirt, an elegant cello cradled between his thighs. Mitchell marvelled at how comfortable and natural he appeared. His body swayed with the all-too-familiar melody issuing from the instrument as the bow moved back and forth across the strings. Originally written for the violin, the haunting theme fromSchindler’s Listtook on a whole new meaning for Mitchell, played on the mournful cello.

He began to retreat but stopped. Something drew him in. Each precise and sorrowful note filled the empty hall with such eloquent sadness, bringing back memories. Instead of leaving, he leant against the sharp frame of the open door and closed his eyes.

The night of his death, Joel had dragged Mitchell and three of their friends to see a late showing ofSchindler’s Listwhile they were undergraduates at Warwick. Joel had sat mesmerised through the whole film, holding painfully tightly onto Mitchell’s hand and unashamedly letting tears flow. Afterwards, Mitchell had refused drinks, claiming tiredness from pulling all-nighters and wanting to go home to bed. Joel had been buzzed and insisted on staying out to party, promising to get a cab home.

Mitchell still remembered being awakened the following morning by a call from Joel’s parents. They had been contacted by the police in the early hours to tell them about their son. A lorry driver who had fallen asleep at the wheel and ran a red light had crashed into the back of the taxi carrying Joel back to their digs. Despite valiant efforts of the emergency services team, Joel had died on the way to the hospital.

Memories came back to Mitchell of the boyfriend who had seen the good in everyone and everything despite experiencing his fair share of hate and discrimination, who had loved nothing more than making dinner, dancing and singing along to music like some cheesy character from a Disney movie, someone who had loved life—and Mitchell—with all his heart, and had carefully mapped out their future in his head.

And the loss got worse over time. Tins of food no longer carefully lined up in cupboards with their labels facing forward like a well-stocked supermarket. The bookshelf lined with Joel’s collection of wolf memorabilia comprising figurines, framed photos or picture mugs, all left to gather dust. No more insistence on kisses and cuddles before lights out, no catching Joel in the kitchen after cleaning the floor, ballroom dancing around the room with the mop while using a tea towel tied to each foot to dry the floor tiles.

At Joel’s funeral they’d played the theme tune toSchindler’s Listas the curtain had slowly closed around the coffin. Mitchellhad sat pale and impassive through the whole ceremony. Joel’s mother and sister had both been sobbing messes, holding onto each other, permitting him to ignore himself and concentrate on doing his best to console them.

On his way to and from the car park he had walked beneath a black golf umbrella through torrential rain. Not a single droplet had touched him. His shoes had only become wet because of random puddles. At the time, the rain had been like his numbness, shocking, elemental and never-ending, but something he could protect himself from. Maybe he should have collapsed the umbrella and let the rain soak him to the skin.

Hindsight had become his tormentor, and guilt and blame were ingrained in him. Why had he had to be selfish about being tired when he could have stayed out a little longer to enjoy drinks with their friends? What hardship would that have been? Or why hadn’t he insisted they go home together instead of surrendering so easily to Joel’s stubbornness? At the inquest, he couldn’t even feel anger towards the lorry driver who had also died, a single-parent father of four kids working insane hours to put food on the table.

Dark weeks had followed. Bad food habits and insobriety had become his sanctuary, a way to lose himself, the inevitable hangovers a deserved punishment.

Intervention had appeared in the form of his sister. No shouting, no lectures, no rationalising his emotional state—everything he would have expected from his firm and pragmatic sibling. Instead she had broken down in front of him, told him she forbade her brother from giving in to despair like their mother had. She needed him strong, needed to know that he would be there for her and her family in case she had to face dark hours of her own. She would not leave until he had promised.

Before she’d left, he had tried to soothe her by shaving, showering and changing into clean clothes, as well as swearingoff drinking. Although the anguish had remained, he had buried himself in his studies, attained a respectable degree, good enough to get him onto a graduate programme with a leading bank, and worked at surviving. When he’d first seen the position advertised internally, a role based in Hong Kong, he had barely paid the posting any notice. Until one night, as he had lain awake, images of Joel had danced across his vision. The following day, without consulting anyone, he had applied.

In his head, he had rationalised that he could escape his pain by fleeing to Hong Kong. A new life, a new start, a safe Mitchell. If he could immerse himself in work and prioritise his profession, his company would protect him. He would honour Joel’s memory by never getting close to anyone. And he would stay away from vain and heartless men like Tommy Chow, who had no emotional depth and who, if he let them, could hurt him deeply.

He could almost hear Joel’s exasperated voice telling him he had everything wrong. Joel would have wanted to be remembered as a force of nature, his life filled with laughter and love, not a cold stone statue to be worshipped.

Mitchell had been wrong about so many things.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, as the music echoed through the hall, he allowed himself to cry, quietly and privately, not wanting to alert anyone and especially not wanting to give Tommy cause to stop playing.

As he took a deep breath and dabbed at his eyes before stepping away and moving on down the corridor, he heard words in his head, words wrapped in Joel’s voice.

Enough.

You can let go now.

Chapter Sixteen

As the house lights went up for the cast’s final bow of the last night, Tommy stood out of sight in the wings, scanning the stage and ensuring everything went to plan. Maybe the performances were over, but the backstage crew would keep working until the last person had left the auditorium. He raised a thumb to the lighting booth before stepping over to a blind spot and looking out to the audience.

Familiar faces climbed to their feet, giving the actors an ovation. His gaze flashed past Kate, Beth and Mark in the fifth row, who were applauding wildly. William stood in the aisle at the end of the same row, clapping politely. Although Tommy could not see him, he knew Harold would be there, sitting in his wheelchair, hidden behind those on their feet in the row in front. Zane had told him Mitchell would be there, but Tommy had not expected the surge of pleasure at singling him out, smiling and happy.

The week after the junk trip, Tommy had become furious with him. How dare Mitchell ghost him? Who the hell did he think he was? How much time and effort did typing a simple response take, even if he was busy? Tommy had raked over the day of the boat trip time and again, wondering if he’d pissed Mitchell off in some way by doing or saying something offensive. Each time, he came up with nothing. When the weeks of being incommunicado had rolled by, he’d begun to mourn their exchanges, missed Mitchell’s face, seeing him break into a smile or laugh at something Tommy had said, usually unwittingly.

As the cast cleared the stage, the band played the last notes to the closing number, ‘Cabaret, and a single spot shone on a lone black chair draped with a swastika flag in the centre of the stage. With a final crescendo, the music stopped and the spotlight extinguished, leaving the stage in darkness and signalling the show’s end.

Tommy was thankful for no significant mishaps that night playing to a packed house. During the whole run, Zane had controlled the props like an obsessive. Everything in its place, used and returned to its rightful position before he went home for the evening. Set changes had been slick and seamless. Cast members had fluffed lines on the opening night, which was nothing new, but the prompt had worked well to get things back on track. The computerised lighting had been spectacular, even if cast members occasionally forgot their stage positions and delivered lines in partial shadow. The only major cock-up had come on Friday night, when the sound effect that should have been distant machine gun fire was instead the sound of a gaggle of geese honking, raising titters from the audience. Fortunately, that had only happened once. He’d been in shows where phones had not rung on cue, clocks had not chimed, or worse still, when gunshots had not sounded at crucial moments.

A scattering of applause came from those audience members who had stayed until the band’s last note. Typical of community theatre, they'd had a run of only five performances—four evenings and one matinee. After tirelessly rehearsing over the past three months, after all their hard work, everything was over in the space of days.

Spirits would be high in the dressing rooms, but Tommy needed to remind people that the theatre closed promptly at ten-thirty, and everything had to be packed and removed from the building. Official group photographs had been taken with actors in costume at the dress rehearsal or between the matineeand evening performances. People had no real reasons to stick around except to natter. Shelly had devised the idea of giving each cast member a free first drink ticket for the after-show bar, valid until ten-fifteen. No better way to get people moving than the promise of a free drink.

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