The Brodsky Touch

by Lana Citron

  I recounted the story from the best bit, the conception, to the sad bit, having to tell Finn (the guy I’d been going out with for ages) that not only had I been unfaithful, I was also up the pole. It didn’t go down well.

  ‘You were brave bringing a stranger’s child into the world.’

  ‘Well, I was three months gone.’

  ‘And did you consider you know …’ Trisha couldn’t say it, the word ‘abortion’.

  ‘Too late.’

  ‘I was always against … you know.’ Trisha was an adoptee, for her it was a more loaded dilemma.

  ‘It’s a hard decision to make.’

  ‘Would you have, or have you ever had to …’

  ‘Luckily, no.’ Many of my girlfriends had had to suffer that moral predicament. Some treated it as contraception, yet for others it was the hardest decision to have to take and many were filled with regret.

  Trisha started crying. ‘Issy, I never thought I’d be in this situation.’

  That’s life for you, hey. Always challenging, pushing you to the limits, catching you offguard and presenting you with worst-case scenarios. Oh, how the experience of life likes to make hypocrites of us all. Much akin to marriage and fidelity. How easily cherished ideals fall prey to the reality of long-term commitment.

  ‘What if it, Issy, you know, it happened to you now?’

  ‘Dunno.’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I guess it would depend on the circumstances of conception and where I was in my life. It’s such a personal decision.’

  Trisha was a divorcee with three teenage kids and not long to go before the nest was empty. She looked pained, her thoughts a mass of conflictions. She had only just hooked up with her much younger man. In one respect, motherhood killed the romantic in me. It’s a big deal raising a child and, for most of us in the West, a conscious decision.

  ‘Trish, unless I felt that primal urge to have another, honestly I don’t think I would. Kids need a lot of nurturing.’

  ‘Yep, you’re right,’ she said, recovering form and setting back to work.

  ‘Issy, what do you want?’ ever the non-emotional, cut to the core, no namby-pambying Trisha barked down the phone.

  ‘Advice,’ I replied.

  ‘Spit it out.’

  ‘I saw Max’s father last night.’

  ‘Did he recognise you?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘And …’

  ‘Trisha, do you think I should try to find him?’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Thing was, if I did find Jan, I’d would have to rework the messianic child story I’d so laboriously concocted. There was no way I’d be able to fob Maxy off with it any longer. To be honest he’d already outgrown it. Recently a local priest gave an assembly at his school and announced, ‘We are all God’s children,’ much to Max’s confusion. He grappled with the concept and asked if I could fix a play date with his brother Jesus ’cause he wanted to meet him. Tempted to offer up the standard ‘lost hero/soldier’ saga, sweetened with an Action Man, I’d held back, unconvinced. It was too easy, lazy lone parenting, if you ask me. Sure, I’d even toyed with the idea of claiming Max was born of angel seedling, though alien spawn would, for Max, be a more kudos-garnering option.

  My head pounded with the mind-boggling complexities of human nature, blood being thicker and, though Max had strong ‘father figures’ in his life, they would most probably never negate the primal desire to search for and discover his actual biological roots. So I put myself in Max’s position and tried to see it from his point of view (we’re talking seriously low level, three-foot-something) and concluded that I would be undeniably peeved if my mother, having sighted my biological father, hadn’t at least done her utmost to track him down.

  Trisha urged caution, extreme caution. She had tried to seek out her natural parents, though the search proved disappointing. Her mother didn’t want to know and Trisha’s subsequent appeal to her to reveal who her father was backfired when the mother hinted at abuse. Trisha had definitely not wanted to know that. In retrospect she said she’d rather have held on to the romantic belief that she was born of a Romeo and Juliet scenario.

  Trisha suggested I do one of two things: try to befriend him to see if there was any common bond, or do nothing. ‘Brodsky, my advice would be to go very slowly. No rash or hasty decisions. You know how men are, always the hunter, never the prey. Oh, and Brodsky …’

  ‘Yes?’ I asked guardedly, hoping she wasn’t going to bring up the Arthur Penn case again.

  ‘Good luck.’

  THERE WAS IN EDINBURGH A WOMAN ON A MISSION, ON A MISSION (WELL, I RECKONED I’D HAVE KICKED MYSELF IF I DIDN’T AT LEAST TRY TO TRACK HIM DOWN)

  Issy Brodsky, Double D super-agent found herself once more in the third person with a howling hangover and a decision taken. She decided to act with caution. Merely having found Jan unburdened her of a heaviness within and an emotional relief such that she consequently lost two pounds.

  It dawned on her there was a high-percentage chance that Jan was involved in the Festival. However tangential, he was most probably a performer, actor, director, dancer, writer, artist or filmmaker. It made sense; most people in Edinburgh in August were linked to the arts, providing her with a starting point, a thread of logic to clutch on to, rather than to randomly scour the streets while out leafleting. So, over the next few days she would check through all Festival brochures, programmes and suchlike for Dutch or European productions. She would knock on every administrator’s door requesting to see cast lists. With vigour she was determined to try every method known to man to find Jan or any permutation of his name: Yan, Yann, Janek, Johann, John.

  IN THE MEANTIME, DEATH AND RESURRECTION TOOK PRIORITY

  Lisa had summoned me to her bedroom, in which every daily paper – broadsheet, tabloid – was strewn across her bed.

  ‘I’ve checked: nothing. Not one word has been written about us.’

  I couldn’t decipher whether she was disappointed or relieved.

  ‘Issy, consider yourself incredibly lucky.’

  There, I decided, was a novel way of interpreting my circumstances. See, none of the reviewers had turned up to our show, having been tempted away by the opening of another much more interesting show with far higher-profile actors and free booze. We Tits would have to get in line and patiently wait our turn. It was a double-edged sword. The whole review system could and did make or break a show, never mind the performers’ egos. Get a stinker of a review and the show dies, unless, that is, you can edit out all the negatives – which absolutely everyone does. Get a good one, or even a fairly good one, and it’s easier to coax an audience in off the street. The worst situation was to be ignored by the reviewers, as you would find yourself in review limbo, not professional enough even to warrant one. Never underestimate the audience; they are savvy, sophisticated and know the Edinburgh ropes – they are also the key to breaking even financially.

  ‘I suppose you are really missing your son,’ Lisa began kindly.

  ‘Like a severed limb,’ I replied. During one of our many phone conversations, my young son had said something that sent me askew.

  ‘Mum, only eighteen more days to go.’ He had been counting the days.

  ‘Lisa it was like someone had a fistful of my intestines and was twisting them.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Lisa proclaimed. ‘If it’s too much for you, Issy, you could always, well …’

  U2’s ‘With or Without You’ was playing on the radio.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Issy, if you think you can’t go on, continue with the show, I’ll, we’ll understand. I mean, I’ll help you sort it with Geraldine.’

  ‘God no!’ I protested. ‘Lisa, there is no way I’d let you all down, I promise, I swear to you. No way would I even consider leaving the show.’

  Yep, in the face of death and emotional nuclear fallout from seeing Max’s father, I was adamant that performing at the Festival an
d launching myself on the comedy world was one opportunity I wasn’t going to let slip by.

  ‘Issy, between ourselves, if it’s just your pride keeping you going, I can always do a longer set.’ Lisa gently put her hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Lisa,’ I said, ‘I’m really touched.’ Actually I was astonished and slightly rattled by her suggestion.

  ‘Tense more like,’ she babbled, continuing to rub the base of my neck. ‘Want me to give you a massage?’

  ‘Hmm, okay.’

  ‘Look, between ourselves, you know I think you’re great, it’s just the Mingers were a bit weird about you messing up and they called Geraldine and Geraldine called me …’

  ‘They called Geraldine, in hospital?’ I was astonished.

  ‘She’s out now. Issy, I’m just warning you that you’re treading a fine line.’

  I couldn’t believe the Mingers could be so two-faced. I began to protest, but Lisa’s digging fingers were unravelling firmly knit knots, dating back to Girl Guide badges.

  ‘But … but … oh yeah, just there.’

  THE SAYING AND THE DOING

  I was shitting it. Sure, the intention was to perform again, but going back up on stage was to me of Everest proportions. Oddly, the two-faced Mingers saved me, credit where credit was due. Post-death they took me under their flabby, tattooed upper arms and pushed me up on stage.

  ‘It’s like falling off a horse.’

  Riding, I explained, was categorically not my thing.

  ‘All right then, pretend you’re careering down a steep hill, you fall off your bike. What’s the first thing you do?’ Minger One asked.

  And before I could even mentally form a response, Minger Two answered, ‘First thing you do is get back on.’

  ‘Not,’ I contested, ‘if the wheels are all mangled and my body is broken.’

  Get a grip, woman, fight the darkness, spurn Satan, this ain’t no suicide mission. Lady, are you a pussy-whipped bespectacled small man with a lisp and short on facial hair or just a big girl’s blouse?

  Yesirree, G. I gave voice to my evangelising fundamentalist within and faced the fear.

  FACING THE FEAR

  ‘I feel sick. I can’t go on.’

  ‘Yes, you can.’

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Ow!’

  Okay so the Mingers’ electrified cattle prod was probably going slightly over the top, but it worked. Over the next few days and nights I kept one eye on Lisa, the other out for Jan, should he cross my path again, and performance-wise grinned and bore it like a trooper. Adrian offered me further sympathy and Lisa took me out make-up shopping after enlightening me about the fact that I suffered dreadfully from a shiny face and that a bit of powder could make all the difference.

  ‘IT COULD MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE … ATTENTION TO DETAIL’

  ‘Yes, yes, I realise.’ I felt like I did at my doctors’ when she gave me advice about contraception. Like a thirty-recurring woman wouldn’t already know all there was to know.

  ‘Are you practising safe sex, Ms Brodsky?’ my doctor would ask in her mock-concerned voice. I’d look at her blankly and in all seriousness reply, ‘No, Doctor, I purposely go out of my way to pick up diseases so I can wait for hours on the phone to try to get an appointment and then spend more hours in the waiting room so I can have some stranger stick some God-awful instrument into me. It’s a favourite pastime of mine.’

  If there was one thing I hated, it was being treated like an idiot.

  I could hear Bambuss chewing on a toothpick at the end of the line.

  ‘I thought you and Maria were going on a cruise.’

  ‘We were,’ he snapped, the response loaded, weighted down by the implication that somehow I was to blame for it. ‘Yes, Brodsky, my first holiday in fifteen years cut short. It was the first time since my wife’s death I have taken off. Maria and I had been looking forward to it for a long while. We booked it last year. And then …’

  ‘Bambuss, it’s not my fault this lunatic is on the loose. Anyhow, why are you on this case? There’s loads of really great detectives out there.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you know it, Brodsky, but I headed the original Arthur Penn murder investigation. Darren is my nemesis. I’ve been trying to track him down for years.’

  ‘Oh well, in that case maybe you should change tack. Your methods don’t appear to have worked.’ I loved winding Bambuss up.

  ‘I wouldn’t sound so smug if I was in your situation, Brodsky,’ came his retort. He, too, enjoyed trying to freak me out.

  ‘Why would that be, Bambuss?’

  ‘Has it occurred to you that you could be Darren’s next victim?’

  ‘Of course, but you know me, I always maintain a positive attitude to life.’ I’d held such a notion at bay, considering it more of an abstract concept, sure there was too much on my plate already. I knew what Bambuss was after. He wanted to creep me out, instil me with fear, try to coax me into some sting and use me as Darrenbait.

  ‘Brodsky, there’s no need for you to worry but …’ Interestingly, both Nadia and Fiona had said the exact same thing to me. I had an inkling that when repeatedly told not to worry it is precisely what one should do. ‘But for your own safety keep an extra-vigilant eye out at all times. Try not to be on your own.’

  ‘Okey pokey, Bambuss.’

  ‘It’s no joke, Issy,’ he said. ‘This guy is dangerous, you could be next in line. I need to know everything, starting with the last time you saw him.’

  ‘Well Bambuss, now here’s the thing …’

  The seriousness of my predicament dawned and I was forced to grass myself up, basically guaranteeing my own dismissal if the Trap got wind of it. In light of my cooperation I made Bambuss swear he would do his utmost not to say anything. Although ever since the finger incident (yes, you guessed it, you’ll have to read that classic book The Honey Trap to find out), his seduction of Maria and the ‘Soho fiasco’, there existed an uneasy edge to our relationship. In common speak, considering all the grief I’d caused him, I wasn’t sure how trustworthy his word was.

  ‘Finding Darren is my life’s ambition. If I do, I’ll be knighted. If I am, then you and I, my dear Brodsky, are quits. But I need to know everything, all the details. Has he been in touch with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re positive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Think hard, any strange texts, cards, calls, encounters?’ Bambuss probed. ‘Anything you think could help us, Issy, call me, okay?’

  I strained my brain, sieved my thoughts went through the past few months like an archaeologist. Nothing came to mind.

  ‘AND HOW IS MY STAR?’

  Uncertain whether Geraldine was being facetious, I replied, ‘Thankfully my performances have begun to improve.’

  ‘Not you, I’m talking about my Lisa,’ she rasped before commencing a five-minute coughing fit. Geraldine was in recovery and out of hospital. We had all been instructed via Lisa to call and report in on our Festival experience. I felt for Geraldine, could scarcely imagine the trauma she must have been going through all alone in London while her true love was up in Edinburgh having, well, more than a good time.

  ‘Lisa? Oh yeah, Lisa is good.’

  ‘And you girls are having fun?’

  ‘Loads,’ I replied.

  ‘Well, don’t have too much. She told me you were a bit of a wild thing, Issy.’

  Me wild? If only Geraldine knew what her love was getting up to or, in Lisa’s case, down to.

  ‘ON MY KNEES GIVING HIM THE BEST …’

  I didn’t want to know. I really didn’t want to know. At least not the graphic details, the ins and outs, the … ‘When I noticed this green light.’

  Lisa had summoned me to her room. She lay stretched out on her bed surrounded by bouquets of flowers successfully camouflaging the hideous décor. She looked like a pretty girl in an advert, writhing on the bed in crisp clean white pants advertising those plug-in odour busters. You know the type, t
he ones that last for sixty days. I’d be cast as the frolicking, Labrador source of the pong. ‘Isabel my head hurts, will you make me a cup of tea … and some toast?’

  I was her ‘Isabel’ and a favour was traded for information. Hey, everyone has a price. So I tended to her requirements then lay like the loyal pup at the end of her bed listening to her munch, slurp and recount her most recent evening of debauchery with the Casting Agent; the experience inclusive of a Paris Hilton moment. Yep, talk about overexposure. I mean, imagine the mortification of big bunny-eyed Hilton, to be so cruelly and doubly shafted? It’s a wonder the young heiress didn’t go off the rails. On the contrary, Paris made the experience work for her, even got a TV deal off the back of it.12

  ‘All the guy had to do was ask. I mean, I’m an actress. I do like being filmed. It’s basic good manners, is it not, Isabel, to ask?’

  ‘What about Geraldine? Don’t you feel guilty?’

  ‘No,’ came the abrupt reply. ‘You’re jealous, admit it. It’s written all over your face.’

  ‘Me, jealous? As if,’ I snorted.

  ‘Then why so curious?’

  ‘But, what if Geraldine finds out?’

  ‘How will she find out?’

  ‘Adrian saw you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about Adrian, he’s cool. The Casting Agent would be an idiot to say anything, so that leaves just you.’ She gave me one of those deep, penetrating stares of hers. Made me feel nervy, naked, thirsty.

  ‘You can trust me. Promise.’ My fingers criss-crossed my chest.

  ‘But that’s it, Issy, there’s something about you. I think you’re holding back on me.’ She dangled her newly painted fingers in my face.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I implored, ‘I feel really close to you Lisa, I consider you a good friend.’ I’d latched on to Lisa pretty firmly and, if I did say so myself, played the sycophantic ugly best mate with aplomb. She loved it and, to be honest, it worked for me too. Edinburgh was an intimidating place, a place where everyone seemed to know everyone else, though not me. In a way, it was like being at a party every night, only to discover that it wasn’t ‘the’ party. Cool things only ever happened at ‘the’ party. Lisa may have been my mission suspect but she was also one of the few people I knew in Edinburgh well enough to hang out with and who had access to some of ‘the’ parties. ‘Lisa, don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging you but, it’s … I dunno, I find it strange that you seem to be ignoring how ill Geraldine is. Cancer is deadly serious.’