SLOOT

by Ian MacPherson

  SLOOT

  Ian Macpherson

  Imprint

  Copyright © Ian Macpherson 2019

  First published in 2019 by

  Bluemoose Books Ltd

  25 Sackville Street

  Hebden Bridge

  West Yorkshire

  HX7 7DJ

  www.bluemoosebooks.com

  All rights reserved

  Unauthorised duplication contravenes existing laws

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Paperback 978-1-910422-53-3

  Printed and bound in the UK by Short Run Press

  Dedication

  To my beloved daughters

  Rosie and Maeve

  ‘Are you a sloot? Are you, Hayding?’ – The three aunts

  1

  Hayden couldn’t see the audience from the stage. He didn’t want to see the audience from the stage. He wanted to be at home writing his novel – not that he’d started it yet – but there he was, caught in the unforgiving glare of the spotlight.

  He’d just launched into an alcohol-related riff about a lost weekend in Scrabster with the bass player from the Clits. An extended shaggy-dog story about picking up all the bacchanalian details from the subsequent court case. He’d told it once too often and the audience fed off his lethargy. Result? A smattering of confused laughter, as if they didn’t quite know why they were laughing.

  Hayden McGlynn was good-looking in a louche sort of way. Bit like me. The words dry, laconic, cerebral might best describe his comic schtick. No harm in that, you might say, but it’s not to everyone’s taste. This particular night he was getting away with it. Just. The venue, Old Joanna’s, is situated near Kentish Town tube in one of London’s trendier areas. Bespoke bookshops. Designer charity shops. Greengrocers with hand-crafted okra. With matching audience. Which explained why Hayden hadn’t been howled offstage. Yet.

  He abandoned the sorry tale with a heavily edited ending and was about to segue into a routine about discovering he wasn’t Jewish – the only penis reference in his entire act – when a lone voice from the sea of darkness before him interrupted. ‘I’ve just had a great idea,’ it suggested drily. ‘Why don’t you say something funny?’ Cruel but, in the merciless world of comedy, fair. The audience, as if suddenly freed from the shackles of civilised behaviour, hooted. A genuine, from-the-heart eruption of unrestrained glee. And with that eruption, Hayden was cast into the seventh circle of standup hell. Laughter, yes, but the wrong sort. Every comedian’s nightmare. At, not with. The audience stared at him for an eternity. No. Hold on. It felt like an eternity to him. But to them, with their comfy seats, and their safety in numbers, and the womb-like darkness of the room, it was less than the time it takes to read this line.

  He leaned into the mic with a professional nonchalance he didn’t totally feel. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s my ad lib writer’s day off.’

  Laughter. He’d risen to the challenge – for now. Now, in the best scientific definition available, being one nanosecond on either side of the present. But now moved on. The voice from the darkness was back.

  ‘Well, what do you think he’d say if he was here?’

  Hayden was ready for this. This one was easy. This one was a gift. ‘She’d say “How’s that for a lightning-quick sex change?”’ He rode the wave of laughter and, at exactly the right point, held his hand up for silence. ‘“You’ve never met me,” she’d continue, “so what led you to assume I was male in the first place?”’

  Applause. Laughter. No retaliation. He was almost back on top. But where to from here? He couldn’t count on members of the audience giving him feeder lines ad infinitum, so back into the act, that was where! And he’d make it sound like he’d never said any of it before.

  ‘When I was twelve I was convinced I was –’

  ‘Jewish. Heard it.’

  ‘Haven’t we all.’

  Laughter reflecting their own cleverness back at themselves, the okra-munching fucks. Hayden’s thoughts, by the way, not mine. They were taunting him now. If Hayden was denied the safety net of his overworked material, he had to match them quip for quip. The audience knew this and had moved in for the kill.

  All that would save Hayden now from blood on the floor was a deus ex machina, and at precisely the moment of maximum need, his mobile rang in his left trouser pocket. ‘Ode to Joy’: the ice-cream van version. The timing was immaculate. Had the gods caught on to modern technology? Gods or no gods, it worked.

  ‘Put it on loudspeaker,’ a female voice called from the distance. ‘We’ll close our eyes and pretend it’s a radio play.’

  A burst of laughter gave Hayden time to think. Worth a shot. He glanced at the screen. Bram. His oldest and best friend. Bus driver on the 130 route, City Centre to Clontarf, Dublin 3. He stared into the middle distance and pressed accept.

  ‘Bram.’

  Murmurs of approval. The audience settled in. Imaginary cup of tea. Biscuit. Dagger at the ready.

  ‘I know,’ quipped the phone in a Dublin accent, the mic catching and amplifying it perfectly.

  Audience laughter. Hayden braced himself. He didn’t know where this was going.

  The audience remained settled. Sup of tea. Quick biscuit-dunk. Dagger disguised as a cake knife.

  ‘Listen, Bram, I’m onstage at the moment.’ He draped an arm over the mic-stand and feigned serene.

  ‘Good man yourself. I’ll tell you something. You wouldn’t get me up there. So, how’s it going?’

  Hayden opted for acerbic. ‘Since you ask,’ he said, ‘I was holding it together pretty well till about 20 seconds ago.’

  ‘Could be your gags,’ said Bram.

  The audience tittered. They would have hooted, but they didn’t want to miss anything, because this was good. This was very good.

  Bram spoke through the titters. ‘Here’s one you can use, right? There’s this –’

  Hayden cut across him. ‘Bad time, Bram.’

  ‘Fair enough. Leave it to the pros. I take it you’ll be coming over.’

  ‘No plans at the moment, no.’

  Bram’s pause sounded surprised. ‘Ri-i-ight,’ he said. ‘I’ll pass on your condolences so. Catch you later. Oh, and before I go. Might be an idea to call the aunts.’

  With that he was gone. The audience wasn’t. You could almost feel them coalesce for the sheer joy of mischief.

  ‘For pity’s sake, man, take us out of our misery. Call the aunts.’ A single voice.

  ‘Call the aunts.’ A smattering of voices.

  ‘Call the aunts.’ The entire, electrified room.

  ‘Call the aunts! Call the aunts! Call the aunts!’ A metronomic pounding of feet on the floor like one giant foot. This was getting dangerously close to Nuremberg ’38.

  Hayden bowed to the inevitable. He peered at the screen. Tapped in a number. Listened to the familiar buzzing sound as the number connected.

  The audience settled back.

  Pause.

  ‘Howaya, Hayding.’

  ‘It’s your tree aunties here. In Dubling.’

  ‘Course we didn’t need to say that.’

  ‘Being as how you phoned us.’

  The audience erupted. It was something about the tone. Tiny voices. High-pitched. Ancient as history.

  ‘We’re getting static here, Hayding.’

  ‘Maybe if you moved a bit closer.’

  ‘Like the Isle of Man.’

  The audience, loving every second of it, shushed.

  ‘Tanks, Hayding. That’s miles bette
r.’

  ‘But might we say you’re not easy to get hold of, pardonnez our French.’

  ‘We tried everyting.’

  ‘Old address.’

  ‘Spiritualism.’

  ‘Divine intervention.’

  ‘Nutting.’

  ‘So tanks for phoning. You’re a very good boy.’

  ‘I think you’ll find that was our idea,’ an indignant voice shouted from the darkness. This heartfelt interjection, followed by laughter, set the three aunts off on a tangent.

  ‘You’ve got company, Hayding.’

  ‘A little friend, perhaps?’

  ‘Only we do be worried about you all on your ownio over there in the great big metropolis.’

  ‘Wit its mighty beating heart.’

  ‘And its mighty beating –’

  Hayden coughed for dramatic effect. ‘Thing is, I’m onstage at the moment,’ he said.

  ‘Aren’t you great dough, Hayding. Very brave.’

  A round of ironic applause.

  ‘And popular too, if we may make so bold.’

  The audience roared. The three aunts could do no wrong.

  ‘See, Hayding? You got a big laugh there and you never said a ting.’

  ‘But timing is very important in comedy, Hayding, and you’re a bit late for the silent fillums. You could’ve been huge.’

  Wild, spontaneous applause.

  ‘See? There you go again.’

  ‘But we digress.’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘Yes, Dottie. We do.’

  ‘Florrie. You’re Dottie. We were wondering, Hayding, if you were coming back for the funerdle.’

  ‘Funerdle?’ The audience was back on a point of information. ‘Ask them who died!’

  ‘Did we not say, Hayding? Uncle Eddie.’

  ‘So anyway. Are you coming over for the funerdle?’

  2

  Without the three aunts to back him, Hayden was stuck with his act. He slipped the mobile into his back pocket and steeled himself. He knew what was coming next. So, it seemed, did the audience. Maybe it was the way he held the mic, or maybe it was the merest hint of weariness behind the eyes. Hayden braced himself.

  ‘The –’

  ‘Heard it.’

  Laughter. Theirs, not his. He raised a hand in mock triumph.

  ‘So have I. You’ve been a wonderful audience. Irony intended. Goodnight.’

  He left the stage to teasing whoops and the odd word of encouragement: ‘Hope you get more laughs at the funerdle.’ A sympathetic squeeze from the compère as he brushed past. A dismissive thumbs-up from baby-faced, spindly-legged Foetus O’Flaherty as he bounded, no introduction needed, onstage.

  FOETUS (ECSTATIC): Howaya!

  AUDIENCE (EQUALLY ECSTATIC): Howaya!!!

  Hayden may have exited to a spontaneous eruption of delight, to howls of expectant laughter, but the howls were not for him. For every standup, there’s a moment where you realise you’ll never get that kind of laughter again, that the world has shifted imperceptibly on its axis, and this was Hayden’s moment. The generational handover moment. Nothing to be done. Move on. He opened the door at the back, slipped out, and closed it quietly on his past. The adjoining bar he now entered was his present and, by implication, the beginning of his future. A future yet to be mapped. Symbolically perhaps, it was empty.

  Steve the barman stopped polishing the counter. ‘Sounded like a good one, mate,’ he said. ‘Usual?’

  Hayden nodded and grabbed a stool. Steve filled a glass with ice, tossed in a lemon slice, and placed it meticulously on the bar. As he bent to open the cooler, the performance door opened. A woman came out as the audience erupted. She hesitated, then headed towards Hayden. A superannuated waif, with sad eyes and light brown hair that didn’t know what to do with itself, she frowned as Hayden moodily fingered his glass. Steve reappeared, whisked the top off a bottle and poured it, with a flourish, into Hayden’s glass. Sparkling water. The woman relaxed slightly. Hayden burrowed in his pocket. Steve raised his hand.

  ‘On the house,’ he said. ‘And what is your young lady’s pleasure?’

  Hayden looked confused.

  ‘It’s Trace, remember?’ she said, easing herself onto the barstool beside him. She smiled shyly at Steve. ‘I’ll have what Hayden’s having.’

  Hayden swivelled discreetly on his stool, just a few degrees away from her, as if erecting a psychological barrier of sorts. He knew this woman. But how? Where? Why? She certainly seemed to know him.

  ‘You were magic tonight,’ she said. He wasn’t. ‘They just didn’t understand you,’ she said. They did.

  Hayden stared into his glass, his silence drowned out by whoops from the other room. Foetus had already whipped the audience up into a frenzy with his call-and-response catchphrase.

  ‘Hey, fella, where you from?’

  ‘Termonfeckin!’

  ‘Yow!’

  ‘Funny guy,’ said Steve. He rinsed a glass that didn’t need rinsing and leaned over to Trace. ‘Had a chat with him earlier. Turns out the midwife called him Little Foetus. His mum thought Foetus was an Irish saint.’ He shook with internalised merriment.

  Hayden bristled. ‘Hilarious, Steve,’ he said. ‘His name is Fergus.’

  This was a classic case of a standup pulling rank. Steve was a great barman, the sort who seemed to have time for everyone, but he’d made a basic error: he found another comedian funny. Steve winced. Might be best, he thought, to change the subject.

  ‘So, when did you two – you know.’

  Hayden rolled his glass as if it contained the finest malt, and took a tentative sip.

  ‘An AA meeting,’ said Trace.

  Of course! Hayden had gone to one AA meeting. Emphasis on the one. Big mistake.

  ‘Our eyes met across a crowded room,’ said Trace.

  They had too, thought Hayden. Sometimes people’s eyes meet across a crowded room because they happen to be facing each other at the time and the people in between are sitting down. But Trace was cursed with the romantic gene. She’d read things into it.

  ‘I sensed his…’ She smiled and sighed softly, a misty glow in her eyes. ‘I dunno, vulnerability?’ He hadn’t been vulnerable. He’d been sober. ‘I thought he needed looking after. Except he never came back, so here I am, doing my duty by the Higher Power. You know. Just keeping an eye on things.’ She beamed at him. ‘And isn’t he doing great?’

  Hayden faced into the bar and stared at the row of spirits. But no. He wouldn’t be drawn. He was off the stuff for good. No lapses so far, though he had to admit real life was a bit hard to take, and there was so much of it. But maybe that was the point: at least you got to experience it. As if reading his thoughts, Steve decided to guide the conversation elsewhere.

  ‘That stuff about the Clits,’ he said. ‘Is it, like, true?’

  Hayden took a meditative swig from his glass. Interesting watery notes. Aquatic tones. Hint of bubble.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. He thought about expanding on this. No court case, but he had woken up with the bass player from the Clits. True story, embellished for comic effect. So the story wasn’t, perhaps, factually accurate. On the other hand it was artistically true, so Hayden left it at that. Trace, however, didn’t.

  ‘Thing is,’ she said, ‘if you’d been sober you wouldn’t’ve done it. Whatever it is.’

  Hayden shrugged. ‘I probably didn’t do it anyway,’ he said.

  ‘But you’d’ve known you hadn’t done it,’ said an infuriatingly emollient Trace. ‘Besides, God knows. And He’s really chuffed that you’ve stuck with His Twelve Point Plan.’

  Hayden grabbed his glass and slammed it down on a beer mat. ‘Twelve Point Plan? God? What the hell does this non-existent God of yours know about alcohol, me, and what I got up to in, in, in
Scrabster with his Twelve Point fucking Plan?’

  Steve winced. It wasn’t the God bit, or the swearing. He’d heard all that before. He slid the beer mat discreetly to one side and inspected the copper counter. No dent. He relaxed and thought about intervening, but Trace got there first. She gave Hayden a pleading look.

  Hayden drained his glass and sat it, gently this time, back on the bar. ‘Okay, look, sorry,’ he said. ‘But give me a break. A man can only take so much.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Anyway, got to go. Lots to do. You know. Things. Other things.’

  ‘Good to know,’ said Steve. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well,’ said Hayden, ‘packing for a start.’ He probably should have left it there. ‘Oh, and I’m writing a novel, actually.’

  He’d meant to keep it to himself, at least until he’d written the opening line. But there it was. Out. Steve nodded his approval.

  ‘Smart move,’ he said. ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘Early days yet,’ said Hayden. Steve gave him a questioning look, so he felt the need to elaborate. ‘Bit hush hush.’ So hush hush even he didn’t know.

  Steve leaned in closer. ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ he said. ‘Crime fiction. That’s where the money’s at.’ He polished the counter lovingly. ‘If I was you, I’d go straight for the genre stuff. You’d never have to work again.’

  Hayden sat up. ‘That,’ he lied, ‘is exactly what I’m writing.’ This was his eureka moment. Why hadn’t he thought of it? He had to claim ownership of the idea, and he had to do it now! ‘Comedy crime, Steve,’ he said, settling back on his stool like a seasoned pro. ‘Well done. Got it in one. You can’t go wrong with a corpse, right?’ He was talking to himself at this point. ‘You sit at home, happily tapping it out, and here’s the beauty of it: you get all the adulation without the hassle of that lot.’ He pointed back in the general direction of the now hysterical audience, muted behind the closed door. ‘Early days as I say, but I do know this. It’s funny. It’s crime. It’s sort of, I dunno, black comedy.’

  ‘You said it, brother.’

  ‘Not that sort of black, Steve,’ said Hayden. ‘Sort of Celtic screwball noir. New genre.’