I can’t help but think of children using toys to convey repressed trauma.

If you try and make more cheese from less cheese the holes in your plan will soon become obvious, Emmental even. Like everything cheese is a finite resource. Cheese the play by Nikki Schreiber makes this very clear in the maddest possible way. The piece is set in a disused office on Oxford Street and the humble staff welcome you in as one of their colleagues. You sense the foam ceiling is heavy with asbestos as you sit down on the ink-stained swivel chairs.

2008 and London Mortgage Co has gone into receivership along with Lehman Bros and Northern Rock. Before the staff (us) break into wild drinking and karaoke, 3 managerial types decide to perform a play written by one the managers Freya, played with great comic aplomb by Rachel Donovan. Joe, Rube and Freya fall in and out of character, fumble with the props and deliver lines as if their reading from a script scribbled on the back of a beer coaster. They make fantastic use of old office furniture and stationery as they bumble through trying to make sense of their sectors collapse and sudden redundancies. I can’t help but think of children using toys to convey repressed trauma.

The child play that follows leaves us plenty of space to revel in the ridiculousness of it all and to reflect on our own experiences of the great cheese shortage. Cheese, I realise is actually a 5-year retrospective, told the only way a painful story like this can be told; metaphorically.

A Delia Smith type in a bad wig with the price tag still dangling tosses culinary delights (bulldog clips) to distract Joe and Rube from the cheese shortage and a crazy scientist with a machine clones cheese; spin doctoring the financial crisis making it palatable and selling it back to us as ‘everyone’s responsibility’. A faceless nameless antipodean is electrocuted for not toeing the line in a very familiar pecking order experiment. Freya and Joe find an alternative world farming turnips and finally all seems sustainable until Rube resurfaces and tries to convince Joe to invest his turnips. The deal stinks of cheese and Joe declines.

Throughout this consistently hilarious but dark hearted 90 minute play we peel through several set layers; office dividers, a wall of boxes, and finally the office windows revealing the empty offices across the road and two cleaners moving through like tumbleweed. Capitalism out of steam.

CHEESE (a play) by Nikki Schreiber

10 – 28 September 2013

“With the help of her therapist, she’s learning to chant “step forward” to physically propel her into a more central place in the conversation”

Joan suffers from feelings of invisibility. Or another way of saying it, Joan is invisible. She has a tendency to fade into the background in any social situation as default. With the help of her therapist, she’s learning to chant “step forward” to physically propel her into a more central place in the conversation and be less invisible. “You are only as invisible as you feel” she says. It seems to be working though. I think (anyone seen Joan?) We are watching our figures, currently I’m watching mine get bigger, so we choose happy hour at Yo Sushi for Sunday brunch. It’s impossible to ignore the metaphor of a sushi train while talking about dating. Round and round they go for you to peruse and then snatch you reach out and grab one that takes your fancy only to be left feeling unfulfilled. ‘But you don’t give up’ I say vocalising my train of thought. ‘You keep on snatching dishes until finally you get the deep fried Crispy Prawn Korroke with Kimchee Mayonnaise and paradise is yours’. Joan sighs with her eyes at my gluttony and shoves her phone in front of my face. I scroll through hundreds of photos of Joan flanked in gorgeous gay men, swishing martinis. “It’s all about friends and cocktail parties. Dating is for the desperate”. I reel back in awe of Joan’s new lease on single life and before I can say “you go girl” she fixes her bob and says “stick that in your blog and smoke it!” 

“Poaching eggs is time consuming. Antonietta knows this which is why she orders her eggs poached. Measuring her devotion”

Eating with Antonietta is a front row seat to some understated and therefore overstated facial expressions. Eyes downcast, to make a point. Eyebrows arching, to make a point. Face freezing eyes expanding, by far her most terrifying look particularly during breakfast, to make a point. Face freeze means something is not right. A Bloody Mary with not enough Tabasco. A person at the next table with too much forehead. “It’s too early for that” she’ll warn, index finger to lips.

But today her face is at ease as she approaches. She walks with purpose across the train platform looking for me. I wave and she looks away as if he hasn’t seen me. I grab her by the arm. She kisses my ear. I can smell her armpits.

I’ve deliberately not told Antonietta about the waitress and her drawn-on eyebrows in the cafe. Antonietta needs something to distract her from the many tables she has to choose from. The one she will want is the table for 6 that has a sign on it saying please keep this table free for groups of 6. Something about elbow room but I know it’s about seeing how far the proprietor will go to please her. She swings around surveying the cafe’s table arrangement. Finger waves lazily toward a few tables as if consulting on where I’d like to sit but we both know it’s entirely up to her.

Relationships come easy to Antonietta. Her tumbling black curls, strong nose and lips convince potential suitors of her fertility. She dates them, makes them laugh and announces that they are going out. It’s that simple. It’s the next part where she struggles. Good at wooing, hopeless at doing. She doesn’t seem to notice the pattern. Each new relationship she is convinced of its longevity and the person’s ability to overlook her option paralysis. I enjoy watching her express absolute certainty about the new union. If her eyes are wild while pontificating, I tend to say “that’s nice darling” and change the subject because she’s trying too hard to convince me and therefore herself. But this one, apparently, was different.

We choose a table near the kitchen which will have to do. She registers her disappointment at not getting the best table with downcast eyes. Chairs scrape under the table. We sit.

“I’ve met someone”.

I look down at my lap and then up again, it’s how we nod Antonietta and I, with our eyes.

“You know the one at the gym. The one I never told you about? We’ve been all eyes across the treadmill for months. He’s not the type I’d normally go for. He saw me at my worst after step class and still kept eye contact. It could of been shock but it looked like puppy eyes. Yes puppy eyes doll. I go straight up and grab him by the arm and I say you looking at me with pity or desire? He laughs, head back, I could see his molars. All his own teeth still. He is shorter than me too by a few inches so all credit to him for still wanting a piece of me all sweaty and swollen. He has a lovely pad in Covent Garden, small but tastefully furnished although the lounge suite has to go. Two leather sofas facing each other, almost kissing. The lounge room is so small. Why would anyone buy two huge sofas for such a tiny space? He’s tapping away on e-Bay as we speak sourcing an L-shaped lounge, you know one that seats three but the third person always feels unwelcome and eventually takes the beanbag, one of those”

Antonietta has just described my lounge room, killing two birds with one insult. She paints an ideal picture of love in its infancy but peppers it lightly with disdain usually in regard to poor taste in shoes or ill-conceived upholstery, this time it’s an over-sized sofa.

“Be happy for me and try not to remind me of my hopeless track record”.

The waitress pushes up against the table and whips out her order book.

“Hello there what can I get you two”

Antonietta moves her eyes toward the waitresses’ painted fingernails and then upwards toward her eyebrows. She’s a lot of face. Antonietta informs her she hasn’t had the chance to peruse the menu. The waitress smiles politely and returns behind the counter. She brings her back with fingers in the air, twinkling.

“I’ll have the Full English breakfast 1”

The waitress scribbles something down, probably ‘high maintenance bitch table 4’. I wait to place my order knowing full well amendments are soon to come.

“Do you poach the eggs? Is this an egg poaching kind of place?” she asks. She lets her head fall, it could be a nod or heavy regret. Poaching eggs is time consuming. Antonietta knows this which is why she orders her eggs poached. Measuring her devotion. She compares every food giver to her mother. She would die for her if it meant getting her eggs right. Italian eggs, we all know, are the ones that require the most devotion. I think to myself “I hope this new one can cook” and realise I’ve said it out loud and to her face.

Antonietta’s grandfather on her mother’s side was born in the Reggio Calabria in the south of Italy and was made a prisoner of war in Australia in 1946. Antonietta’s grandfather on her fathers’ side had emigrated from Beijing to find gold in the 1850’s. Two generations later Antonietta’s parents meet in Canberra in 1950’s and began selling Italian and Chinese groceries off the back of truck to local immigrant communities. This merged into a deli empire by the 1970’s and the Hua Camini fine foods brand was born. Antonietta watched her mother work 18 hours days and chose not to follow in her footsteps. Instead her father’s traits expanded into a personality terrified of commitment, refusing to ever lay her hat. London kept her interest, the longest of any place. Perhaps because of her love of the Full English. It was its elements and their endless possible combinations that appealed to Antonietta not the breakfast as a whole. Full English was the lone culinary emblem of English culture and Antonietta enjoyed rearranging its elements to subvert the tradition and to leverage the claustrophobia she was feeling being stuck in one place.

‘You’ve got massive bags under your eyes’ Antonietta tells me. I try to disarm her assault by owning my misfortune.

‘Yes it’s the lack of sunshine’.

We discuss eye cream and its correct application. It’s the ring finger and a light tapping on the bone ridge under the eyes. I wonder how different the ring finger is to the other fingers. Antonietta insists the ring finger is the only finger to use. The big old mangled index finger just won’t do.

‘It’s my liver, my destructive 20s are finally catching up with me’. I scratch my nose for way too long. I can see a ‘no’ emerging from her lips. Dead pan eyes mean a ‘no’ is coming. Before it falls I try this.

‘It’s all the alcohol I’ve been drinking’.

At first this seems to fit with his understanding of my vices because she nods but nods under sufferance. Then emerging from her crooked lips comes this.

‘No doll you’re just getting older’.

I try to own this assault too.

‘I love getting older; misheard conversations on the dance floor and their tragic consequences are replaced by fluid exchanges over dinner tables where every word is understood’.

I make a good point even though I know the consequences of conversations without the muffling of loud music and mind-bending substances can be just as tragic.

The waitress parks herself at our table but looks as if she’s broken down and we were the closest berth. Antonietta gathers her up in her big brown eyes, she’s not going to reverse out easily. ‘All Day English Breakfast, hold the sausages, hold the bacon, hold the beans and the toast. No actually I will have toast but wholemeal but hold the butter. Beans but on their own and eggs runny but not undercooked’. She glares but not for long and repeats the order. Antonietta lets her through to the next stage. I breathe out.

‘All Day English Breakfast, hold the sausage’ I say and smile apologetically.

I always make it better. Model customer. I’d serve them if they asked and still pay for my breakfast. I’m proud of my empathy. I’ve waited at bars for hours while the bar girl ignores me. She must be busy…twirling her hair and staring into space. I’ll fix my own drink. It’s the only English thing about me; I don’t like to make a fuss in restaurants, and I respect the queue. Both are signs of a civilised society, except no one gets the service they want even after queuing for it.

When breakfast arrives we scratch our receding hairlines in disbelief. How does a café as makeshift as Bella on St James Street in Brighton serve up such posh eggs. ‘Italians’ Antonietta says. ‘They do simple food better than anyone’. This is undisputed. Not while dining with an Italian anyway. An Italian whose mother allegedly does the best breakfast in the world. Every Italian will tell you their mother does the best breakfast in the world but something tells me Antonietta’s mother does. Stalwarts come in a suite he tells me. Eggs scrambled, poached, fried, boiled. Bacon piled high, crispy, lean. Toast brown, white, multigrain, rye. Orange juice freshly squeezed. Coffee full, rich, never bitter. All this on 4 hours sleep and a fist full of Valium. Perfection takes its toll.

On the way to lunch at the Pier we stop by TK Maxx. I try on a pair of jeans, one leg is flared the other tapered, stonewashed around the crutch but nowhere else. Antonietta fingers through racks of XXL designer jackets and looks like a crack head in a legal high shop, keen but suspicious. Piled up high with this year’s fashion at last years prices. Like KFC, TK Maxx is a guilty pleasure, each purchase you quietly regret when parading down Old Crompton Street. Because gays know.

At the Pier we inhale 4 donuts from the home of donuts in Brighton Doughlicious Doughnuts, at the entrance of the Pier. Antonietta objects to the minimum purchase of 4 but I assure her I can eat 3, if I have to. Mustn’t grumble. The good people at Doughlicious Doughnuts know what’s best for us. A few minutes of negotiations and I’m sure Antonietta could have managed to purchase a single donut but I couldn’t have stood the embarrassing clash of logic.

We watch the sun’s dying rays through the burnt wood of the old Pier then slowly stroll toward dinner at Sam’s in Kemp Town village. Sam’s is always a warm, homely experience. English cuisine at its most nourishing. I plan to order duck. Sam Metcalfe, owner and head chef, is so consistently good with duck I don’t care how it comes. I draw the line at feathers but with the right sauce maybe. Antonietta has a problem with the waitress. Too much eyeliner puts her off her food. In a husky voice she welcomes us. Antonietta’s face relaxes slightly, a husky voice usually means a fellow sister from the battlefield of single life and 3 day benders. She forgives her for the eyeliner. I breathe out. Antonietta’s finger, well limbered by the racks at TK Maxx, drags down the menu. It’s fills my heart with a feeling not unlike watching someone drag a finger nail down a blackboard.

‘Tell me about the fish’

‘I’m not sure, I’ll have to ask the kitchen’

Sharp intake of breath. Antonietta does tumble weed eyes. The waitress jets off toward the kitchen. I hold the endless space with an extended grimace. She returns but at a slow pace.

‘It’s cod’

Disappointment cements in every crevice of Antonietta’s 50 something face.

‘With creamed peas, leeks and something else’

Shrugs.

I laugh, Antonietta laughs, we all laugh. Genius. She knew the moment she saw Antonietta‘s judgmental eyes meander into the restaurant she was not going to win this one so she was trying nonchalance on for size.

‘I’ll have the steak then. Medium rare. Is your rare rare or actually medium or is your medium medium or actually rare?’

The waitress blows her eyes wide open. She archers one eyebrow at me as if to say ‘who is this guy’.

‘I’ll serve it and you tell me’

I laugh, Antonietta laughs, she jets off. Antonietta thumbs the air in her direction.

‘She’s good’

We live to eat another meal. For now.

Dessert is another frontier; plenty of choice and scope for Antonietta to prove once again that no one is as servile as her mother. I raise my hand to order tap water. No one notices. I lower it and decide I’m not really thirsty.

“Beside the bed he saw a photo. He felt a quick rush of adrenalin as he tiptoed toward it”

Reece decided it was a good idea to invite the Gilligans over to meet his parents. On paper the Gilligans were the closest thing Reece had to normal friends – happily married white heterosexual couple with two kids. The Finnigeratis’ were proud Greeks and thought most non-Greeks were weird anyway, so they were ready to be underwhelmed. The dinner started well with Mr Finnigeratis looking charmed by Mr Gilligan’s basic Greek. Mrs Finnigeratis spent most the evening glaring at Mr Gilligan and twitching her bottom lip while Mrs Gilligan raved about the kitsch orthodoxy iconography. Mrs Gilligan wasn’t surprised, she expected Reece’s mother to be steely and distant. Mrs Finnigeratis could sense the close bond between her and Reece. It was not her fault Reece adored her. Although Mrs. Gilligan knew that Greek men loved no one as much as their mother. If only Greek mothers knew this innately, they wouldn’t have to test their son’s affection with mind games and drama.

By dessert (walnut cake in syrup) it struck Mr Gilligan that not only did the Finnigeratis avoid all talk of the past especially when it involved Reece, each time he probed they scoffed and pushed another dish of something toward him gesturing wildly for him eat, there was also not a single photo of Reece out on the mantel piece. There were plenty of photos mostly old women in black surrounded by fat offspring. Mr Gilligan filled everyone’s glasses until they were splashing wine on to the floor. He followed this closely by enquiring about the whereabouts of the toilet. Mr Finnigeratis pointed upwards. Mr Gilligan was up so fast Mr Finnigeratis had to shout the directions as he headed quickly toward the stairs. Mr Gilligan struggled to find the toilet. He wandered around from bedroom to bedroom baulking at the pink wallpaper that adorned each room and remarking ‘whoops wrong room’ in case anyone was watching. At the end of the corridor he found two closed doors. He knew one of them had to be the Finnigeratis’s bedroom and the other the toilet because he hadn’t come across either yet. He decided whatever room he lucked upon was the room he would enter. He flung open the door on his left. Before him was even more lashings of pink wallpaper and a bed with a purple damask fan shaped bed head. ‘Oh dear’ he remarked again continuing the charade of disorientation. Beside the bed he saw a photo. He felt a quick rush of adrenalin as he tiptoed toward it. It was a photo of three children in a gold frame. Mr. Gilligan picked it up slowly, with reverence. He dusted the glass with his knuckles. Two girls around the ages of 7 or 8 and an older boy sat on a couch together. The boy stared at the camera like it had the potential to do him harm. Who else could these children be if not the Finnigeratis children? You don’t have anyone else’s children beside your bed except your own? Mr. Gilligan considered this. He squinted and pushed his glasses to better meet his eyes. He inspected the face of a chubby boy who had thick square glasses propped ideally on his plump cheeks. Mr. Gilligan could see one of the girls shared the same jaw line as their father and the other held the same glare as the one Mrs Finnigeratis was reserving for Mrs Gilligan downstairs. Mr Gilligan studied the picture and for the life of him could not see any Reece in the boy. Mr. Gilligan needed a stronger light and there was only one place where he could find that. He crept out of the room and stood outside the remaining closed door. This time he hoped it was the toilet. Sure enough. ‘Finally’ he said aloud, amusing himself now with his overcompensation of pretence. Here to his relief was no pink wallpaper. White stucco walls instead and olive green curtains. Mr. Gilligan turned the light on and sat down on the toilet. He held the photo in front of his eyes and took the boy’s features in. There was not a single feature that resembled the Reece he knew. He wondered who else it could be if not Reece. Who was this chubby boy in the photo that should be Reece? He flushed the toilet and peered around the door to see if anyone was coming down the corridor. The coast was clear so he made his way back to the bedroom. He returned the photo to the bedside table ensuring it sat at the right angle. Mr Gilligan was not sure what came over him expect the now irresistible urge to discover what this family were hiding. He swooped like an eagle claiming prey and lifted the mattresses from bed base. Jackpot. A pile of photos. He shuffled through them quickly until he got to one that interested him. It was photo of an obese teenager in what looked liked a bespoke caftan. He had a party hat on his head. Mr. Gilligan noticed that the teenager’s cheeks were so fat he’s eyes struggled to see over the rise. Perhaps this was the chubby boy a few years later. He shuffled through more of the photos but still couldn’t see any of Reece so he went back to the obese teenager in the caftan. There was something about the teenager’s eyes. He could only see the half of them as they struggled to see over his checks. He imagined the lower half of his eyes and gradually the two halves matched in his mind. A hot flush moved from the pit of his stomach to his head. These were eyes he knew. He flipped the photo around to see if anything was written on the back and there in Greek were the words ‘Reece’s 16th birthday’. Mr. Gilligan returned to the dining table that night catatonic with smugness. Mrs. Gilligan looked at her husband and knew immediately he’d been snooping.

After a few months of being Reece’s friend I knew he was covering something up. He always hid behind the Greek thing whenever I enquired about his past. He said it was complicated and that I wouldn’t understand because it was a Greek thing. I thought this was a strange response to a straightforward question like ‘what school did you go to?’

We’d known Reece for almost 2 years before Mr. Gilligan’s uncovered the truth of Reece’s past, under the mattress that night. Naturally he held on to knowledge for as long as he could waiting for the right time to reveal it, in a scenario that would hopefully make Reece look disappointing in the eyes of his wife and he therefore less disappointing as her husband. As was usual like most of Mr Gilligan’s attempts to be the foremost thing in his wife’s mind it ended up backfiring.

He took Reece aside in Edith’s a few nights later and blackmailed him. He wanted him to spend more time with him and less time with his wife and if he had to spend time with his wife he was to comment on how fabulous Mr Gilligan was and how lucky she was to be his wife. If he didn’t do as he was told he would tell the world his secret. Mr Gilligan’s obsession with his wife stripped him of any dignity. Reece heard Mr Gilligan out which was no mean feat, the man could talk underwater. He kissed his cheek and turned to us and confessed “I was fat, there I’ve said it”

Reece didn’t make friends he made fans. If he liked you he’d pour all his love into you. He would discover what’s special about you and promote it to everyone. He was your number one fan and in return you were his. The innocence of Reece’s love was so rare it appeared sinister. Reece Finnigeratis loved every single fan with complete and utter devotion. He meant every kind word he said about you and when he promoted you he did so because he thought you were worth promoting. Just because he loved you like the next person didn’t mean he loved you any less. He knew what it was like to feel ugly and invisible once and how good it felt when someone beautiful complimented him.