Chapter Text
Olly is not a violent person. He writes music, dresses up and performs on stage. He signs ceasefire petitions.
…He does understand, growing up the way he did, the importance of standing up for himself though. That sometimes one has to stop what they"re doing, summon all their resources, and stand up, because otherwise something horrible will continue to happen unchecked.
In his experience, standing up is difficult, back-breakingly; and it never gets easier no matter how many times one does it.
…This is what Olly is thinking about these days, because his Game keeps spitting him out in the ‘It’s a sin’ world - he just gets a touch of wet air on his skin, one whiff of cold wet stone, and he immediately takes the Headset off.
…The horribleness of the situation in that level of the Game makes Olly’s hair stand on end. To know that the Father character will go on abusing other boys in the School unless Olly grows a spine and stands up to him is heartbreaking.
***
Olly thinks about his Game a lot throughout his summer, as he is driven from one place to the next, as he is in the music studio, as he is spending time with his family and friends. The headset is a VR headset his best friend gave him for Xmas a couple of years back. The cartridge for the Game appeared one day in his box of tarot cards and incense sticks - a small device of scratched plastic, with ‘Palo Santo’ written on it in black marker.
Did someone give it to Olly? Did he pick it up in a new wave shop?... Unknown and unimportant now. Once Olly started playing the Game, he immediately knew it was, for the lack of better word, magical.
He didn’t tell anybody about it. ‘Palo Santo’ was personal. He thought, so far, that the Game was supposed to teach him something, to help him realise certain painful truths about himself.
The ‘Palo santo’ level, for example, was all about letting go of the idea of love Olly craved when he was younger - love that kept him safe above all else.
He was unendingly grateful for this realisation. He loved Palo Santo and Mr Showman with all his heart and knew he’ll always will, but he let go.
He was older and stronger now, he could himself provide love that kept others safe.
***
The ‘It’s a sin’ level was, of course, about something darker and more horrible: child abuse. Olly’s eyes filled with tears whenever he thought about what happened in that School.
…Lately, this summer in particular, he started to also feel cold rage.
…He thought about how he’d stand up to the Father. Thought every time he put the headset on, hoping he’d get to spend a few moments on the ‘Palo santo’ level and see his old love, and instead feeling cold wet wind, seeing the stone courtyard through the fine mist of cold grey drizzle.
He went to Dungeness to visit the little cottage where Derek Jarmin, the visionary film director who shot the ‘It’s a sin’ Pet Shop Boys video, wasted away from AIDS. He remembers being shocked by the intensity of his final paintings, the signs of wrestling with demons clear in the thick impasto.
***
…He thinks he’s finally got it when he leaves the stage in sohoplace after performing ‘White Rabbit, red rabbit’. The play is an embryo really, it could have been taken to a number of different directions by the actor - but also by the audience.
…The play could have become very, very dark.
…The audience and Olly, as one, refused to let it happen. Perhaps to the detriment of what the author wanted (but it was as the author wanted - for the actor and the audience to determine what the play was going to be on any particular night), the play remained a… play, that Olly performed on stage, as the audience and as his family and friends watched.
…When he got up from where he lay on the stage to bow to them, a Schroedinger’s actor (is he alive? Is he dead?...) - he later realised he was not supposed to, but again, the sense of collective refusal for the play to go dark was thick in the air - he thought he’s got it, finally.
***
…That night Olly slides out of his bed careful not to disturb the cats, creeps into his study and puts the headset on.
…He is where he expects to be: in the doorway, looking at the dark wet School courtyard, filled with the gentle pitter-patter of the rain. It’s cold.
…But he is older now. (He has a flashback to himself on stage earlier this evening, saying: ‘I am 34 years old’). He is in his current body, wearing the dark denim boiler suit he wore on stage and his platforms.
…From the sitting room behind him, ‘Eastenders’ theme tune sounds. The Father has turned the telly on.
Olly turns.
The familiar kitchen, smelling of burnt food and the wet, looks tiny, out of proportion to how he remembers it.
He takes a step inside, picks up the two mugs of tea from the counter. Turns again - boy, how small everything is! - to enter the cluttered sitting room, coloured sickly yellow by the lit table lamp.
…In the chair, there sits a Father, in his boxer shorts and stained vest. The man looks small, even though Olly is the same height as he was when he was a teenager (well, two inches more, thanks to the platforms; but they are not to blame). Olly smells old sweat, but the stench is not as overwhelming as before, when it made him nauseous.
The old man looks at him with heavy, cold stare, rasps:
- Why are you taking so long.
Olly arranges his face into a soft smile, murmurs:
- Jus’ going to close the door… - as he deposits one mug of tea onto a side table.
Olly turns and walks back into the kitchen, back to the open door into the courtyard, and assumes the same pose he was in before, on the threshold.
He hears Father choke on his tea and start to wheeze.
Olly sips his tea, moves his head so that the cold raindrops hit his hot face, closes his eyes, the echoes of the words the policewoman said on the phone in his ears, lingering a moment more; feeling another important, personal, heavy, painful chapter of his young (‘I am 34 years old’) life conclude, knowing that this was the last of the Game he had to play, knowing he won’t be back.
Fin!
P.S. Two mugs of tea is a reference to the similar device from the play but Olly didn’t poison his abuser, he called the police to report him (Olly is not a violent man). Obviously reporting a child molester to police in 1987 was an uphill battle, but the important bit is that Olly has done it.
P.P.S. The play (without giving anything else away) contains a number of scripted scenarios, which the actor and the audience can play out, or refuse to do. The Game, as I have written it, is a reference to Olly"s art - also a means to process important and painful personal things (it"s good to have a creative outlet).