Can't Let Go

by Jane Hill

  Wanker, I thought. That would be the best choice. That would generate some laughs – some nervous laughs, anyway. Some of those anticipatory giggles that Zoey had mentioned. The men would be shifting uneasily in their seats. Zoey had told me that men were always on tenterhooks when there was a female comic on stage, in case she suddenly did a joke about periods or tampons. The women would have their faces tilted up towards me, already predisposed to like me because I was a woman, and there were so few female stand-ups. That was how I'd felt about Zoey when I saw her first.

  I knew by now that comedians didn't just make it up on the spur of the moment. Every line you hear a stand-up deliver has probably been analysed, consciously or subconsciously; analysed and worked on and tested out on a regular audience or a friend, or on a fellow comic on the long journey to a gig, or on a bathroom mirror, like I was doing now. But not this line: 'When I was eighteen I killed a man and got away with it.'

  No way. No way I could ever say that. Not now, not on stage. Never. Comedy is truth, exaggerated, Zoey had said. But that line – that plain, unvarnished, unexaggerated truth? No. I couldn't use that line because it was too true.

  I cobbled together some stuff about family life and being the middle child. I thought up some material about having a vicar for a father, and having to behave myself in church when I was a kid. I wrote some lines about being a teacher, and some of the things that the kids had said to me, and I added a few lame jokes about things I'd seen on television. Zoey put me through my paces beforehand. She made me tell her my material as we ate an early meal in a little Greek restaurant near the venue, and that was one of the most nerve-racking things I'd ever had to do. Why was it harder to perform for one person than for a whole roomful? Zoey smiled a few times and frowned a bit. She seemed a little bit disappointed in me. I waited for her verdict with butterflies in my stomach.

  'Forget the T V material,' she said. 'That's hack stuff. Everyone's doing jokes about Gillian McKeith. It's not really worthy of you. The vicar material is brilliant, because it's you, you know? No one else could do that. I think you should start with that. It's your strongest material. You'll get them on side. They'll love it. The teacher stuff?' She held out her hand, palm downwards, and waggled it. 'It's okay. It's not especially new. I've heard similar material, but it's . . . okay. Stick that in the middle of your set. Then, link back to your childhood with that line about bad behaviour and tantrums, and end with the material about being the middle child. Ideally I'd like more of that, you know? More of what makes you you. Don't be afraid to go for it.'

  I scribbled her notes down on the piece of paper I had in the back pocket of my jeans. I crossed out bits, and drew arrows to remind me what went where, and when I went into the loo to put my lipstick on I practised my new routine, looking at my watch to check the act was long enough.

  And it was all completely academic, because I never managed to deliver my five minutes of jokes.

  Twenty-two

  The gig was at a pub in Charlotte Street, just off Tottenham Court Road. The street was full of restaurants, and on that hot evening everyone was sitting at outside tables as if London had suddenly been transported to the Med. The pub was buzzing with arty media types. Conversations were spilling out onto the street. There wasn't a spare inch of bar space in the pub, and I had to elbow my way to the front to get some drinks. Even then, it took a while for the bar staff to notice me.

  Zoey led the way downstairs to a tiny dark low ceilinged room full of wooden benches. There was a noisy air-conditioner going full blast but it was still very hot. The room was about half-full. As always, I scanned the audience, even though it had been a while since I'd seen him – it was an automatic routine; an impulse. I'd noticed that Zoey did the same thing, always, when she first entered a venue. She would run her gaze around the audience, looking at each face in turn, before she could properly relax. But obviously she did it for reasons very different from mine. She was just trying to get the measure of her audience. She did it that evening, peering into every nook and cranny, and then she rubbed her hands as if she was satisfied. 'Okay,' she said. 'It's looking good. Now, let's find a seat. You're not on until the second half.'

  Zoey had been right about the quality control. There were a couple of quite funny guys, then two or three who were truly bad. One of them, a scrawny ginger guy who only looked about twenty, told us afterwards that it was his first-ever gig, and that he'd only written his material that afternoon. Like me, I thought. Surely I'd be better than him at least? Suddenly I was feeling competitive. The ginger guy asked Zoey what she thought, and she was as cutting as she could be on stage. 'You look like a funny guy,' she said. 'Well, I mean, you're a funny looking guy. So you're halfway there. People are always gonna laugh when you get on stage. All you need to do now is to make up some jokes, so that you can keep them laughing until the end.'

  The whole shambolic night was held together by a couple of compères, a man and a woman, who sang ribald, very funny songs in between each act. It was hot and sticky down there in that dark room, and the night seemed endlessly long. And yet it wasn't long enough. I wanted time to stop for a while, to give me the chance to pull the piece of paper out of my back pocket and read it through again. People kept leaving, pushing past the stage area and through a drooping curtain; more people kept coming in, drinks in hand. I was talking to Zoey, and looking at my watch, and fidgeting in the uncomfortable wooden seat, and then all of a sudden I knew that I was on next.

  I sat on the edge of my seat, shaking. I sent bad vibes towards the comic who was on stage at the time, hoping that he'd be so bad that the audience would laugh like drains at my material, from the simple relief that I was better than him. I looked at the back of my hand. On Zoey's advice I'd scribbled a few words there, to remind myself of the order of my jokes. The words had smudged slightly in the heat. I stood up and shook my feet, which had developed pins and needles. I walked around a bit at the back of the room, and I waved my arms like I'd seen Zoey do. The compères came back on and did another song. Any minute now they'd be calling out my name. Or at least, not my name, but the name that Zoey and I had invented for the occasion.

  I'd insisted on using a pseudonym. I'd muttered something about not wanting the school to find out. Zoey had been checking something on her Tube map when we discussed it, and she decided I should use the name of a Tube station. 'Dollis Hill!' she said. 'That would be great. Or how about Arnos Grove? That sounds like a name. Oh no, wait. I've got it. Chancery Lane. That sounds so cool.'

  We'd compromised. I'd picked two stations close to each other on the map, and taken something from each name, and now I was – for one night only . . .

  'Victoria Green!'

  The call came. There was supportive but not ecstatic applause from the audience of about twenty or thirty people. I walked quickly up the narrow aisle between the seats, willing the applause to last at least until I got to the stage area. I turned around to face the audience and made myself smile. I had one hand on the microphone stand. I was getting ready to take the mike out of the stand. I was trying to remember what Zoey had drilled into me: 'Take the microphone out, move the stand to one side, at the back of the stage. Take your time. Look at the audience. Get to know them. Then, remember, when you start your last joke, bring the mike stand back. That's the signal to the compère that you've nearly finished.' All of that was going through my head. I was trying to remember my opening line. I was trying to remember my made-up name. I was trying to remember anything at all. And that was when I saw him.

  He was there, in the far corner of that dark room. He was there, grinning at me. He had a pint glass in front of him, and although I couldn't see his face very well I could make out a mop of curly hair and very white teeth. He was looking at me; he was winking at me. He was challenging me.

  I had to run. I couldn't carry on. I pushed over the microphone in my haste and it clattered to the floor. I muttered something to the audience – something like 'Sorry,' or 'I have t
o go.' Three other comedians sitting near the side of the stage area had to stand up to let me past, and then I had to push through a couple of rows of seats to get to the exit. I could feel my face burning and bile rising in my throat. I could hear the voice of one of the compères, making some joke about me. The audience laughed and clapped. I tried to block out the sound. I clawed my way through the thick black curtain that was blocking the exit and then there was a door in front of me. There was no handle on the door. I tried pushing it, but it wouldn't move. There was just a tiny metal loop where the handle should be. I put one finger in the loop and tried to pull it towards me. It wouldn't budge. I had to get out. I was frantic. I couldn't think straight. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. I clawed at the top of the door, where it wasn't fully closed. I managed to get a purchase on it with my fingers. I was about to pull the door open when someone burst through in the other direction and nearly pinned me against the wall.

  Thank God. I was out. I ran up the stairs, pushed through the busy pub and out onto the street. There was no air. There were clusters of people sitting at the wooden picnic tables outside the pub, and they were all looking at me. I looked behind me. I couldn't see him. Of course I couldn't see him. He wasn't there. I knew that, but I couldn't make my brain believe it. I turned along an alleyway, leaned my forehead against the brick wall and I threw up the beer I'd drunk earlier. I turned around and leaned my back against the wall. My knees were shaking and there was a pain right in the bottom of my stomach. Zoey was standing there and she was looking at me. 'Are you okay?'

  'Yeah. Sorry.'

  'Stage fright?'

  That would do. That was the only acceptable explanation for my behaviour that I could give her. 'Yeah. I'm really sorry. I feel so stupid.'

  'Don't,' she said, pulling her mouth into a strange, rueful expression. 'It's my fault. I'm the stupid one. I made you do it.'

  'No. My fault for saying that I would. I've never had stage fright before, but I just suddenly got really claustrophobic in there. It's so hot. Sorry for causing such a disturbance.'

  'Don't worry about it.' Zoey patted me on the shoulder, and looked at me again, really closely, as if she knew what was really going on. 'Seriously, it doesn't matter. It happens to a lot of people.'

  Then she pulled a tissue out of her pocket and gently wiped my mouth with it. 'So? What do you want to do? Do you want to get a drink? Somewhere else, I mean. I guess you don't want to go back in there.'

  I shook my head. 'No, I don't think so. I think I'd better go home.'

  'Okay. Look, I'll come with you, yeah?'

  'No. Please. I need to be on my own.'

  'You sure?'

  'Yes.' It came out snappily. 'Sorry. Look, you go back. I'll see you later in the week. I'll be fine. Honestly.' I wanted to get away from Zoey and her probing green eyes, the eyes that sometimes seemed to see right through me. I wanted to go home, pour myself a glass of wine and lie in the bath until I could persuade myself that everything was okay.

  Twenty-three

  I had lived with fear for most of my adult life and I knew its ups and downs, its moods, its variations, the way it manifested itself. I knew about low-lying unease, how it could leach life and energy from me with its little physical symptoms, like nausea and upset stomachs. I knew about apprehension, the next stage on the dial. I knew about dread, how it could flood over me, paralysing me like a poisoned dart would. I knew that fear, in all its forms, was cold and remorseless. But what I still didn't know was this: was fear internal or external? What happened first? What was the trigger? Something that happened outside of me, outside of my control? Or something inside me, making me hyper-alert?

  Just before my life fell apart, I stood in a car park outside a pub in Southampton, on a still hot summer's evening, and I felt the cold wash of dread. Every hair on my arms and on the back of my neck stood on end. I could feel the heat of the tarmac through the soles of my sandals and yet I was shivering. Was that a premonition of what was to happen later? Did I know? Did I suspect? Had I seen something – unconsciously, apparently unnoticed – that had made me afraid? Did I see a figure out of the corner of my eye in a dark shadow? A movement, a disturbance, a ghost? Or am I imposing false memories on that moment? Maybe the fear I remember actually came later, when it – the thing I'd been dreading – actually happened. Maybe I had felt fine all evening until then. Or maybe I was just picking up on Zoey's apprehension.

  I'd never known her so nervous. Early that Saturday evening the M3 was busy. There were caravans and cars with roof-racks piled high with luggage, the back seats packed full of children wearing headphones and playing video games. We were on our way to Southampton for a gig, and I had offered to drive Zoey down there in exchange for petrol money and a meal. It seemed a better choice than spending another evening with Danny quizzing me about my childhood, his new favourite hobby since my parents' party.

  Zoey was sitting in the passenger seat, alternately shredding a paper tissue and rubbing her hands up and down her trouser legs. There was some new material she was planning to try out, more stuff to go into her Edinburgh Fringe show. She'd been pale and subdued when I'd picked her up earlier that afternoon. I had never seen her like that, so apprehensive, so scared. She was often nervous, yes, like when she'd spilled the drink on me that first time, but she was usually full of a jittery energy, bouncing around like a boxer in his corner before a bout. That day she was different, so different that I asked her if she was feeling all right. She looked almost green as she answered. 'I hate doing shows out of town,' she said. 'That's all. I don't know where these places are, what they're like. Southampton – I've never been there. For all I know it could be some tiny remote hamlet where they hate Americans.'

  It wasn't often that I was less scared than the person with me. It wasn't often that I found myself reassuring someone else. But that day it was my job to calm Zoey down, to tell her that everything would be all right, that there was nothing to be scared of; which was ironic, in view of everything that happened later.

  'It'll be fine,' I said. 'Southampton's just a normal town. Well, a city, I think. Just a normal city where people live. Quite big in the scale of things. It's perfectly civilised. It's not some rural backwater. It'll be fine. Don't worry. You'll be great. You always are.'

  Using a map I'd printed off the internet, we found the pub quite easily. But as I pulled into the crowded car park I started to wonder if Zoey's fears would be justified. The pub was in a down-at-heel suburb of the city and looked unpromising: a big, squat, grubby-looking mustard yellow building, with tiny windows covered with posters advertising two meals for the price of one, karaoke, quizzes and a meat raffle. We got out of the car into the warm evening, and the air was sluggish. I'd been hoping for a sea breeze but there wasn't one. There were tables outside the pub and people turned to look at us – well, to look at Zoey, I guess: the frizzy-haired woman in the orange T-shirt and the weird purple wraparound skirt, her feet in bright green Crocs, followed by the neat, ordinary-looking woman in a white shirt and jeans.

  A bunch of young lads, pints of lager and bottles of beer in front of them, their huge legs in tracksuit bottoms crammed under the tiny table, leered at us; there were glints of necklaces and stud earrings and menacing eyes as they summed us up in a glance. Older couples, dressed up to the nines, looked at us, noted Zoey's clothes and looked away again. A bunch of girls in denim minis and ballet pumps paid us no attention whatsoever. Just an ordinary pub on an ordinary hot Saturday night in a town anywhere in England: that was what I told myself. But there was something about the air that seemed to bristle with menace. There was something about the air in that car park, something about the atmosphere, that made me feel cold to my bones. Or maybe I'm just imagining that in hindsight.

  I locked the car doors and looked across at Zoey. She'd gone white and she had her mouth closed tightly, her lips in a wavy line. 'Jesus,' she said. 'This is going to be a nightmare.'

  Zoey was right. The
gig was a nightmare. It was a big, rowdy neighbourhood pub and the drinkers were enjoying their Saturday-night beer. The landlady told us that it was the first time they'd tried to put a comedy night on there. The stage was right in the middle of the pub, not in a separate room, not even in a separate area. I gathered with the comedians in a huddle at the bar. They were a bunch of scruffy blokes, as always. Steve was there, the tall guy with the Jesus beard from the pub in Kingston. He hugged Zoey and greeted me warmly. There was a skinny hyperactive bloke with sticking-out ears and a cigarette seemingly glued to his bottom lip. Stand-up comedy was not a glamorous or attractive business. Good-looking guys formed bands, I guessed. The weird-looking ones had to work at making people laugh.

  They were telling each other stories about the worst gigs they'd ever played. They talked about heckling and fights and threats of violence, and people invading the stage. They were psyching themselves up for a bad one. 'Are you up for this?' Steve asked Zoey. 'You don't have to, you know. We could call it off if you want to. They don't seem too excited to see us.'

  Zoey looked deep in thought. 'Hold on a second,' she said, and then to me, 'C'mon, let's have a look at who we have here.'

  We did our usual recce of the crowd. I was checking that there was no one suspicious or sinister, no one who might suddenly turn into Rivers Carillo; she was getting a feel for her audience. It was a big, rambling pub, with nooks and crannies and lots of big groups of friends and drinkers. It was rowdy and it was full to bursting. A lot of alcohol had already been consumed. I didn't know how Zoey's material was going to work with these people. But at least there was no one unexpected there: every single person I could see looked exactly the kind of person you'd expect to see in a pub like that, on a sweltering summer Saturday night.