by Lana Citron
‘Fiona, you have no idea how much this means to me.’
‘Brodsky, for God’s sake sit still. Your job is to keep schtum, got it? Lisa mustn’t suspect a thing. Geraldine is not to suspect a thing. No one is to suspect a thing.’ Fiona was indeed one of the most duplicitous people I had ever come across, thus an extraordinary undercover detective.
‘A pretty good idea, don’t you think, Brodsky?’
Of course it was a good idea. It was the most brilliant, most amazing, incredible mutually beneficial idea. Label me a mercenary, condemn me as an opportunist, but Geraldine McIntosh’s cloud was to be my silver lining.
‘You are so devious, Fiona,’ I had smirked.
‘I know,’ she’d replied. ‘Thanks.’
Geraldine was running late. I sat in Pizza Pronto anxiously chewing my nails, my face contorting due to the magnitude of pressure bearing down on me. My thoughts were focused on Edinburgh, on my future, and Fiona’s somewhat morally reprehensible offer. Fiona had said to think of it as a proper ‘inside job’ and of her as my ‘client’. I was merely doing a job, the payoff being a place in the show. The young waiter hovering before me coughed, then handed me a menu. He was gorgeous and I was leering. Yes, the pendulum had swung so far that I was now the guy who stares like a prat at the pretty waiting staff, much to the irritation of his partner (that’s feminism for you!). Worse still, I’d become the type of twerp who then tried to make a witty comment, by way of a flirt.
‘Can I get you anything, Miss?’ he asked sweetly.
‘What I want is off-menu,’ I giggled.
He blushed profusely and was saved by Geraldine’s entrance.
‘Issy, there you are. Sorry I’m late.’
She swooped in, out of breath, demanding, ‘A litre of sparkling, darling boy,’ and lit a cigarette. The heavy smoking, late nights and rock-and-roll lifestyle had definitely taken their physical toll, though she was still a strong-looking woman.
‘Ah, the lure of youth,’ sighed Geraldine, indicating the waiter who had since scarpered. ‘And I should know …’
When Geraldine McIntosh fell for Lisa Slater, she fell hard. I understood. The magnetic lure of a flawless complexion, a bright pair of eyes that instinctively pulls on you, leaving you intoxicated beyond redemption. The blank page of youthful beauty aching to be written on, scrawled over, blotted. Even Max recognised this universal aesthetic. He had already been smitten by several babysitters and waitresses. The first time I accused him of liking his nursery teacher, he punched me, accompanied by a ‘Mummm … shut up’ denial, angry at having been caught out. I dare say I deserved it. Luckily for him, it was mutual and she was infatuated with his bowl-cut blond hair, piercing blue eyes and utter gorgeousness.
As regards Lisa, Geraldine had reached the point of saturation or in culinary terms, she was deep-fat-frying in love. Over a couple of pizzas and a decent bottle of Chianti, Geraldine talked ceaselessly about her muse and her devotion to this young, vibrant, talented, vulnerable, wild woman.
‘Yes, but is she funny?’ I blurted out, then added for good measure, ‘It’s just I find a sense of humour vital in relationships.’
‘She is everything to me,’ she replied, slightly stunned by my query.
All I heard was Lisa, Lisa, Lisa and then I heard, ‘Right, down to business, so are you up for it, Issy Brodsky? The Edinburgh Festival?’
‘Yes, most definitely, certainly, I am so excited!’ I declared.
‘Wonderful stuff. It’s great to have you on board.’ She leaned across the table and gently touched my forearm. ‘And Issy, I know you’ll get on fine with Lisa.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep a good eye on her,’ I winked.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Eh … nothing untoward, just being big-sisterly.’
‘Oh yes, you are quite a bit older than her.’
And then we got down to the nitty-gritty.
‘There’s Adrian, the Mingers, Lisa and now you. We’ll be doing a couple of preview shows before Edinburgh, but that’s about it. Any questions?’
I sat dumbly trying to take it in. Act cool, Brodsky, like it’s no big deal, as if things like this happen all the time.
‘No questions,’ I replied confidently, though my voice was quite highly pitched. Then Geraldine unveiled the contract and laid it out on the table. Reader, I looked down at MY FUTURE, then hollered at the waiter for a pen and, having an aversion to all legal documents, skimmed over the details and scrawled my signature at the bottom. Yes, yes, indubitably, irrevocably, most certainly, undoubtedly, yes.
I, Issy Brodsky, of sound mind and limited experience as a stand-up comic, agreed to perform a nightly ten-minute gig in the comedy show ‘The Late Night Titter Club’ produced by Geraldine McIntosh at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and agreed also to undertake the following duties: leafleting, organising, liaising, and any other as yet unspecified jobs. Suitable accommodation would be provided.
Basically, that’s how it happened. How the dream suddenly sprouted into another dimension, that of reality.
I ran all the way home, felt like I was in some 1950s Technicolor musical. I wanted to spin round lampposts, leap on cars, burst into song, join arm-in-arm with the common people, take over the traffic and high-leg it up Camden High Street, can-can style.
As Bob the builder said: ‘Can you do it?’
‘Yes I can.’
Or rather, hypothetically speaking I could, but practically – well, that was a whole other story.
A WHOLE OTHER STORY
Once upon a time in the land of domestic bliss there lived a woman who had obligations (Max), responsibilities (Max), certain duties (mothering) and a dream. She had worked long and hard for her dream. It had taken a while to surface, years of being directionless (university, post-grad, France/heartache, working as a researcher/assistant in various production companies) followed by a pregnancy, single motherhood, and in truth she knew not where the years had gone except that time marked her face and Botox was becoming a more attractive option. Then the unexpected happened and an opportunity fell, plonk, into her lap. One so portentous that she felt as if a million doors had swung open, wherein she espied her glorious future, her dream come true. But there was something niggling at the back of her mind and that something was known as her Conscience.
The major flaw in her grand plan.
Ecstatic with renewed hope she triumphantly declared, ‘Nothing is impossible.’
Her Conscience snidely let pass, ‘Dream on, lady. What about your obligations?’
‘What about him?’ she countered.
‘He needs looking after.’
‘He will be looked after.’
‘By whom?’
‘Where there’s a will,’ she replied, ‘I’ll find a way.’
‘You’re on your own. Really, who is going to take on the Responsibility?’ If there was one thing in her life she was confident about, that was raising her Responsibility. Responsibility was a most well-rounded, confident, happy, bright funny, luscious, small person. Sure, it still astonished her that he had chosen to come through her.
‘I told you, I’ll find a way.’
It wasn’t that she’d overlooked the fact that someone would have to take over her duties. It was just she thought she would have been given more planning time. God damn, but if ever there was a reason to live in a more conventional set-up and have a partner, then that was it: access to on-tap childcare cover.
Aha, she thought, not to be undone at such an early stage, and stated to her Conscience she would carry her Responsibility with her. After all, Responsibility was hers and would be on summer holidays.
‘As a burden,’ scoffed her Conscience. A month’s sojourn in Edinburgh was not a place for a young child who needed constant amusement and looking after. Responsibility was not a thing to be shunted willy-nilly, here and there without due care or consideration. What kind of time was he going to have? Her Conscience continued to mock her.
> ‘The organisation would be huge. Perhaps for a week, but not four.’
‘You are forgetting that my mother is coming for the whole of August to visit.’
A chink of blue in the overcast sky where storm clouds quickly gathered.
‘I doubt being a twenty-four-hour babysitter is part of her plan.’
‘No, but …’ There had to be a way around it. She considered hiring an au pair, a childminder.
‘Exorbitantly costly. You should know, especially seeing as you have all that money to repay.’ Her Conscience carped on as if purposefully putting obstacles in her path. Her eyes narrowed in determination. She would overcome this impediment.
‘Get out of my head,’ she hollered.
‘Don’t be pathetic. I’m your Conscience.’
‘But I’m doing nothing wrong, I’m following my dreams,’ she urged defensively.
‘You’re a mother. Sometimes I think you’re living in a fantasy world.’
Outwardly she balked, though she knew it had a point. She would give her Conscience that much. Her Conscience was conspiring against her. It was undermining her.
‘Tut, tut, tut, such a bad mother, thinks she can get away with having a life of her own. Tut, tut, tut.’
Suddenly she was gripped by the fear that she would lose this opportunity. ‘Nooooooooo …’ she cried out. ‘Nooooooooo …’
‘Are you okay Mum?’ Max was beside me in the bed. I sat bolt upright and switched the bedside lamp on.
‘Max, I was having a nightmare.’
‘Don’t worry Mum, there’s no such thing as monsters.’
Ah, how quickly the tables turn.
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF NOT BEING AN ORPHAN
… is not only having a mother and a father, but parents who take an active, if at times interfering, role in Max’s life. My mother lived in New Mexico and visited us for a month each year. Coincidentally, that month was August and my father, based in Switzerland, in recovery from his second divorce, was always visiting, be it on business trips and/or just for a change.
When I lost the ‘Women Can Be Funny Too’ quarter-final, my mother spent two hours on the phone trying to ‘heal’ me. My mother was an old-time hippie. A right-on, liberal, look-on-the-bright-side-of-everything do-gooder, believing in freedom of expression, peace, yoga, pictures of rainbows, positive affirmations and all things holistic, mystic and organic. Her philosophy was to be yourself, be who you wanted to be, or both. She believed in facing the fear, feeling the fear and fighting the fear – and if that didn’t work, running away. Defiantly she avowed, ‘What will be, will be,’ yet was also convinced you could achieve anything if you put your mind to it. Dedicated to helping victims of society, she had adopted three old people in Africa (a leper, a blind woman and a cripple), two families in India, a sperm whale, an endangered species and a thousand-year-old tree.
To me this spelt out a certain neediness in her. Once I’d told her, ‘Ma, you can’t buy love,’ to which she replied, ‘Issy, where did I go wrong?’
DON’T GET ME STARTED
See, growing up wasn’t all tepees and roll-ups. My folks divorced when my brother and I were little. My father went off to rake in big bucks and hide from the tax man in Switzerland, while my mother raked over her organic plot and hid her cannabis plants from the law. You could say our upbringing was privileged yet unconventional. I loved my mother dearly, but put us under the same roof for more then a couple of days and we’d be at one another like itching powder. She was too much into the alternative. No one wants their mum collecting them from school wearing rings on her fingers and bells on her toes. I was convinced that enforced vegetarianism was tantamount to child abuse, and allowing Freddie, my brother, to wear make-up so as he could express his feminine side was pathetic, considering that when I did it, I was somehow subscribing to a misogynistic, patriarchal way of life. Plus, making me wear dungarees to my non-uniform school when I was in primary was fine, but fundamentally cruel in secondary. Then, in my fourth year of secondary school, she totally went overboard and refused to let me go to Robert Henson’s party, when (wait for it) I knew for a fact he actually fancied me and that I was guaranteed a snog.
As far as I was concerned she owed me one, so I called my mother and said, ‘Mamushka, to whom I owe my very life, I want thou to know I will care for you unconditionally in years to come, when your bones weaken and thou descends to frailty in both body and mind. Or if beset by sickness, I give you my word that I shall tend to you as you did me in the early years, mop your brow, do the zimmer shuffle or at the very least put you in a nice enough rest home.’
‘Darling, I’m touched, but what is it? You said it was an emergency.’
I cut to the chase. ‘You know how I lost that comedy competition to go to Edinburgh?’
‘Yeah …’
‘Well, it just so happens the promoter has offered me a ten-minute slot in her show and …’
‘Issy, I thought this was an emergency. I’m in the middle of a three-day detox deep meditation. I’ll call you back.’
I called my father. He said, ‘Marvellous news, darling,’ and he’d think about it.
I decided to think more laterally.
I called my brother.
He refused to take my call.
I called Fiona.
‘There could be a problem with the childcare cover,’ I said.
‘Find a solution,’ was her riposte.
Trisha said, ‘Do you want me to take over the Arthur Penn case, ’cause we are not a charity.’
Maria said, ‘I’d love to but …’ There’s always a but, and hers was a summer cruise.
Nadia said, ‘Apology accepted,’ having scoffed the entire box of Rococo Chocolates I’d bought for her and then said, ‘Issy, about being chief bridesmaid for us.’
‘Nads, I already told you, I don’t think I have the time.’
‘And we respect your decision. See Tim and I were thinking that maybe you’re too old.’
‘Old?’
‘You are thirty-something …’
‘Nads, what has age got to do with it?’
‘It’s going to look weird with you and Kassie.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘She’s eight and you’re …’
‘Not.’
‘We just think it’s going to look strange.’
‘Oh do “we”. Chrissakes, Nads, can’t you see what’s happening to you? You’re beginning to speak in the plural.’
‘I’m getting married!’
‘Fine, it’s your wedding, do what you want.’
‘I will, thanks.’
However, more daunting than not having any confirmed child cover was our first preview show. Crossing the bridge at Little Venice to the famous Canal Café Theatre, it struck me that I was the show’s last-minute appendage and Festival virgin, and as such I’d probably be expected to partake in some form of an initiation ritual. Geraldine had suggested we turn up early so we could rehearse. I was first to arrive and sat in the small, dark theatre awaiting the others. Soon Adrian bounded up the stairs, his huge presence swallowing up the space. Adrian Down was a big man. A big, wide man, a bit like Hagrid’s little brother.
‘Hi Issy, you’re very early.’
‘Enthusiastic,’ I replied. ‘Plus I need the practice.’
‘Well congratulations, babe. I knew you’d make it.’
‘Thanks, though it was a close call.’ Inwardly I felt like such a cheat, my place in the show begotten by ill gains.
‘The nurse’s uniform is great. Now it’s just your material you have to work on.’
‘Ha ha, Adrian, I am only a novice …’
If I was a comedy cocker spaniel pup, springy tail wagging and recently house-trained with a nose still wet with my own urine, then Adrian was a big German shepherd of a dog. He’d been in the business as an MC and stand-up long enough to know everyone from the newcomers to the old-timers to the in-betweeners, the continual try-ers, the ‘the
re go I but for the grace of God’-ers and the ‘why doesn’t someone just put them out of their misery’-ers. Roughly translated, this meant he could be of immense help to me in a) getting to grips with the festival and b) getting me into parties. It also meant he was well aware of all the pitfalls that a Festival novice like myself could easily fall into. He was very helpful and we rehearsed till the Mingers showed up with a loud Liverpudlian flurry of ‘Cooeee, only us, Edinburgh here we come … this is mental, innit … like … like … mint!’
The Mingers physically lived up to their stage name. In comedy terms they were mongrels, I’d venture related to the Staffordshire bull terrier breed: biting humour and rough with it. They turned to me, hoop earrings, hair pulled back, lip liner prominent and said, ‘So Brodsky, what exactly did you do to convince Gerry to give you a place in the show?’ Their tone full of innuendo.
‘That would be telling,’ I replied, caught offguard by their directness.
‘Go on, we’re listening.’ Arms crossed, they expected a reply.
‘Nothing. She called and offered me a spot.’
‘So why you blushing? Are you a carpet-muncher?’ They both laughed raucously. ‘Look at her face,’ and then further mocked my reaction. ‘Don’t worry luv, we won’t tell Lisa.’
‘Won’t tell Lisa what?’ Lisa appeared round the bar door and purred in a low, sexy voice, ‘Hello there and how are we all?’
DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS
It was the first time I’d seen Lisa since the abysmal competition show. She defied comedy classification. Lisa was a freckle-faced twenty-six-year-old, with rose-bud pink lips and a mop of strawberry-blonde curls bobbing shoulder-length on a petite, perfect body. The Baby Spice of comedy, but clever. There wasn’t a canine bone in her body. From where I was standing, she had it all. I stood further back. Yep, she definitely had it all.
Over the next half-hour I didn’t get a word in, merely observed as Lisa, Adrian and the Mingers quickly caught up on all the gossip and news over tea and biscuits. Then we started discussing the running order of the show and who would go on first.