Chicken and Chips.

Back when I was living in London -- pre Mark, pre kids, and just shortly after dinosaurs roamed the earth - I was all busy with career stuff, and oh so very important with myself. I was writing for TV in the daytime, and performing in a play in the West End at night.

You think I'd have been happy, but no. I was in a shitty relationship - fooling myself that it would get better. But stuff like that doesn't get better. It just gets more relentless.

5 days a week, I'd get the tube from my daytime TV job to the theatre at night. The tube station was right next to a famous fried chicken shop. The smell would drive me crazy because I'd generally be hungry. But eating a big chicken dinner before doing a play is not in any of Stanislavski’s big books on how to do proper acting, so I'd avoid.

One night though, the temptation was too much, and I headed in there for a ‘meal deal’. And yes, I knew that Stanislavski would be birling in his grave at the sheer audacity of it, but I didn't care.

Walking across the road to the theatre, there was a guy sitting in the cold in the street. Younger than me and clearly without a home, he looked like something out of a Dickens novel. A very pale, skinny, blonde boy. He nodded a smile up to me as I walked past, holding the warm box of chicken I knew I shouldn't have.

I checked myself and walked back towards him.

“You don't by any chance like chicken?” I asked.

“I do.” he said, smiling.

“Good,” I said, “Can you take this? You'd be doing me and the world of theatre a great favor.”

“ Thank you.” He said as I handed him the meal.

“No need to thank me,” I smiled. “I should be thanking you. Though not as much as the poor sod who has to act with me should.”

He laughed. “Have a great show,” he said, as I headed off.

He was there the next night too. I saw him from across the street as I came out of the tube station. This time I went into the chicken place and got him a meal and some hot tea too.

He smiled seeing me approach. “Hey,” he said, “How are you?”

“The smell from that place is terrible.” I said, “ I don't know how you can handle sitting there.”

He smiled a bittersweet smile.

“You get used to it,” he said.

I smiled back and shut my face.

“Anyway, I got you this,” I said. “You have to take it, or I'll have it, and I think we both know that's not a good thing.”

“I can help you out,” he said.

“The world of theatre thanks you,” I added.

And we both laughed as I handed him the box.

He told me his name was Chris and he was from Yorkshire. I told him my name and that I was from Glasgow. Then I had to go, but I said I'd maybe see him tomorrow, to which he replied, 'almost definitely if there was chicken involved.’

And so it became a habit: 6 nights a week I was at the theatre, and 6 nights a week I'd pick up some form of chicken meal and a hot drink for Chris and hand it to him before I went to show off for money.

If he was bored of chicken, he didn't say. Instead, he'd take the box with an ever-brightening smile.

He was younger than me, in his early 20s. He didn't want to talk too much about his life, but he told me he couldn't stay at home because it wasn't safe. Mostly, he wanted to know about my life, and I told him it wasn't all it cracked up to be. What people show on the surface is never the whole story; there's a whole undercurrent of narrative going on underneath even the shiniest veneer. He laughed and said he suspected as much, watching people pass by every day. I asked if there was some way I could help him, and he replied, quite curtly, that I was helping.

Mostly our chats were small and daft. Silly stuff. Jokes. There were a whole load of things we didn't say, because they would take longer than 5 minutes to discuss, and they were likely way too painful.

I learned it was his birthday soon. He was about to be 24th. So I bought him a meal, but also a new body warmer. Wide-eyed with gratitude as he opened his gift, he stood up and asked if he could give me a cuddle. He was smaller than I'd thought. We cuddled briefly. He was skinny beneath his layers. “Thank you,” he said, putting on his birthday gift.

On the last night of the show, he wasn't there. I walked around the block looking for him, but there was no sign. So I went to the theatre, and the woman on the stage door handed me a note. She said a scruffy-looking boy had come in earlier and said he needed to leave me a message, so she'd given him a pen and paper. I looked at the note. It said.

Hi Lynn

Sorry I'm not there for your last show. But it's better. Because saying goodbye would be hard. I want you to have a happy life. I'm glad we were friends. I will always remember you. Hope you have a great night.

Chris. X

I must have made a strange noise, because the woman on the door asked if I was feeling alright. I said I'd just remembered I shouldn't eat fried chicken before a show, and handed her the box. She took it, but with way less enthusiasm than Chris ever had.

And I went to my dressing room and I cried. And then I painted on my big face and went on stage to show off for money. And when the show ended, there was a bit of a party, and I smiled, and shook hands with people, and we all agreed I was very, very marvelous, and I felt a bit empty.

I never saw Chris again. Ridiculously, I would look out for him whenever I was in London. But in a city of 8 million people, unsurprisingly he wasn't to be found. I like to think he got off the streets. I like to think he's tucked up happy and warm in a cosy wee home somewhere, with a partner who loves him, and a couple of kids maybe, who cuddle his now-not-too-skinny body often.

Even now, all these decades and a different continent later, there are times when I pass a fried chicken place and the smell wafts out into the street, and I'll find myself thinking of him. And I get a little sad, wondering if I could have done more. But even then, I know there's a vanity in that. He absolutely did not want to talk about being on the streets, and I am not so powerful that I have the right to tell a guy I see for 5 minutes a night what he should and shouldn’t do, and what he should think.

I periodically tell my kids, nobody can solve everything, but everyone can solve something. And when a problem seems too big, you just keep chip, chip, chipping away at it until it becomes a more manageable size.

I hope maybe those conversations with Chris might in some ways have done that, but I will never know.

I can tell you from my fancy acting days that Shakespeare said, “All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players.”

And I like that. I like that a lot. (Though, can I just comment that currently, too many white guys have taken on the role of baddie.)

Because just like characters on a stage, we are each of us the person we are, the person others perceive us to be, and the person we’d like others to perceive us to be.

And yet, at the end of the day, we are each of us really just the person we cannot escape from.

So, in the story of now, it makes sense to choose your role wisely.

We are not better than one another, no matter how we dress it up.

On the big theatrical stage of life, we’re just at different points in our own individual stories. Chip chip chipping away at the big problems till they become more manageable.

One chicken meal deal at a time.

X

PS: Every time you click on the wee heart emoji on this post to like it, your adorability increases tenfold. That’s a lie obviously - you’re full pelt adorable as it is - but it does wonders for my algorithm and I am incredibly grateful. xo

P. P. S: If you enjoy talking/listening/stories/ random facts, come and join me and Mr Tweddle this Thursday at Fish and Bear. This Thursday we will be back a MacLeod’s in the Magical No-Kings-dom of Van Nuys. xo

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Chicken and Chips - Audio