by Jo Brand
‘He came to Maidstone to find me last night,’ said Sarah. ‘I met him on the road when I walked out. He pretended to attack me. It was so sweet.’
‘Why fucking pretend? He doesn’t normally,’ Flower nearly said, but kept her mouth shut.
‘I’ve really missed him and he’ll try hard to change,’ said Sarah, unaware that she was repeating the most clichéd line in the domestic-violence script one more time. ‘Look, I can’t stop. I’ve got to go — see you soon.
‘Yeh, see you soon,’ said Flower, depressed, hung-over and very pissed off about the night before after the journey home with Twat and Ashkenazy had turned into a noisy argument about her doing the Comedy Store gig tonight and being accused of selling out.
She wished Charlie was there and at that very moment, the front door opened and a rather smelly, exhausted Charlie dragged himself inside and collapsed on the battered settee.
‘Sarah’s back with Billy,’ said Flower.
‘Oh yeh?’ said Charlie, totally disinterested.
‘Don’t you fucking care?’ shouted Flower.
‘Don’t you?’ shouted Charlie. ‘I’ve been in a police cell all night with Mr Fucking Pretty Boy Heffner! You could at least ask how I am.’
‘Yeh, but you haven’t been beaten on a regular basis by your boyfriend,’ said Flower, annoyed by this appeal from Charlie to put enquiries about his health first.
‘No, but I have been shagged up the arse by a troupe of Peruvian nose flautists,’ said Charlie.
‘Oh shut up,’ said Flower. ‘I’m going to see Martha.’
It felt really good to get out of the house, where Flower was feeling decidedly claustrophobic. For some reason it seemed dirty and small and she didn’t want to be there any more. She hated Charlie and she hated her lot in life.
‘Fuck a duck,’ said Martha, when she heard about Billy and Sarah.
Ted was lying on the settee looking pained as if he had been anally penetrated by some nasal flautists too and he gave the same weary ‘Oh it’s a girl thing’ look to Martha when she expressed surprise about the reunion of Sarah and Billy.
‘Don’t try and talk her out of it,’ said Ted. ‘Ultimately people only do what they want to do so there’s no point in looking for hidden motives or any of that shit. She’ll stay with him until the arsehole kills her.’
‘Thank you for that,’ said Martha. ‘Ever thought of being an agony aunt?’
Ted went back to sleep.
‘What are we going to do about bloody Sarah?’ said Flower.
‘Don’t we just have to let her get on with it?’ said Martha. ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ said Flower. ‘You were all for intervening a little while ago.’
‘I know, I’m sorry,’ said Martha. ‘It all seemed so much more important when I was on my own but now to be honest I’ve got stuff to be getting on with.’
‘Oh thanks,’ said Flower. ‘That makes me feel really good. So I’m the saddo without a life, am I?’
‘I know it sounded like that,’ said Martha, ‘and I’m really sorry.
‘I’m sorry too. It’s just that I’ve been feeling so irritable and scared lately. That weird heckler was there again last night and just as I felt on top of my game and ready to tackle him, he disappeared. But I’m worried he’ll come round again and Charlie keeps not getting to the gigs and I’m frightened,’ said Flower shakily.
‘Just shoot the bastard,’ said Martha cheerily. ‘You’ve got a gun, Calamity Jane.’ Flower put her finger to her lips. She didn’t want Ted to know. He actually might suggest something sensible, like handing it in to the police.
‘Anyway,’ said Flower, ‘enough of that now — are you coming to my big debut at the Comedy Store tonight?’
‘Oh, I wish I could,’ said Martha, ‘but it’s just not possible with John. I feel I can’t leave him.’
Flower thought with such a straight name as John, the poor kid was really going to get bullied in a playground full of Feargals and Jacks.
‘What about Junior’s mum?’ said Flower. ‘Go on, Martha, it’s really important to me. I’m haemorrhaging support as it is.’
‘I did think of her and asked actually, but she’s going to be out,’ said Martha. ‘I’m really sorry but I wouldn’t trust anyone else.’
‘OK,’ said Flower dejectedly. ‘I don’t suppose that Sarah will come either, now she’s back with Billy.’
‘Sorry,’ said Martha. ‘I know it means a lot to you. Perhaps we could bring John with us. I’m sure it’ll be OK for one night.’
‘Martha,’ said Flower, ‘there’s nothing worse than a baby at a comedy gig. It’s like a hypomanic at a funeral.’
‘I don’t really understand that reference,’ said Martha, ‘but that joke might come in handy if you’re ever performing at the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ summer ball.’
‘That’s my problem,’ said Flower. ‘Too intelligent for the masses.’
John, who had been dozing on Ted’s lap, woke up and started to cry so Martha picked him up and began feeding him.
There was a sharp, unChristian knock on the door.
‘I’ll get it,’ Flower offered.
It was the Rev Brian and Pat, Martha’s sister Mary and her incredibly shrunken, bony husband Derek.
‘Hello,’ said Flower, ‘come in.’
The quartet were ushered into the sitting room where Martha had very quickly roused Ted who was trying to smooth his hair, flatten his erection and sort out the drool that had dribbled down onto his shirt during the snooze.
‘Christ, you pick your moments,’ said Martha. ‘Why don’t you ever phone?’
‘Because you’d tell us not to come,’ said Pat. Derek the skull sniggered and wheezed at this and wrinkled his nose as if there was an unpleasant smell in the flat. There was — John had just produced one.
‘And what brings you up to this charming area?’ said Martha. ‘Bit of sightseeing round the estate or an attempted conversion on the teenage murder squad?’
‘Don’t be sarcastic, dear,’ said the Rev Brian. ‘You’re a mother now and you have to grow up a bit.’
‘Bollocks,’ said Martha and her father shuddered as if he had been stabbed.
‘Let’s not get off on the wrong foot,’ said Pat mildly. ‘Sorry,’ said Martha. ‘All right, I’ll put the kettle on. Here you are.’ She handed John over to her mother.
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Mary.
Mary and Martha had never liked each other much, but in the kitchen as Martha made a big tray of tea, things were surprisingly friendly and they found themselves having a laugh about their respective men.
‘We could go to fancy dress with them as Laurel and Hardy,’ said Martha and got a laugh out of Mary.
‘Look,’ said Mary, ‘I know I haven’t been much of a sister.’
‘Stop right there,’ said Martha. ‘Let’s not do the happy families thing quite yet.’
‘Wait till I have mine,’ said Mary, ‘then we will.’
‘God, you’re not pregnant, are you?’ said Martha.
Mary nodded. Martha gave her a hug.
‘We wanted to tell you all together. Mum and Dad are staying for the weekend.’
Martha felt slightly overwhelmed by all this family closeness. ‘Are you going back tonight?’ she said.
‘Well,’ said Mary, ‘we were thinking, me and Derek, about staying in a hotel.’
‘I don’t suppose…‘ said Martha. ‘You see, there’s something really important I have to do tonight but I wouldn’t trust anyone to babysit but you. I’ll only be gone a few hours.’
‘Express some milk,’ said Mary. ‘I’ll give it to him in a cup.’
Mary made it sound easy but Martha knew she faced three-quarters of an hour tethered to a sadistic bit of plastic pumping away with all the dignity of a regimented Jersey milker to produce two teaspoons of the bloody stuff.
Pat and Brian were chatting in the sitting room with Ted whose job they hadn’t been told a
bout yet and so were fondly imagining that this big ugly bear of a man did-something reassuringly dull, like working for the council.
Martha decided that bridge could be crossed at a later date and then scolded herself for not immediately telling her father and getting some pleasure out of it.
Flower was pleased to see Martha’s highly dysfunctional family all together in one place and getting on reasonably well for a change. She felt the weight of the show that evening hanging over her like a big black sponge preventing her from concentrating on anything else, from relaxing or from having a normal day in any form at all. Martha through all the fug of family and John recognised this and said to Flower, ‘Why don’t you just go home, have a really long hot bath, relax and take it easy before tonight.’
‘Yes, I think I will,’ said Flower and headed off. She switched her phone back on. There were three messages from Charlie apologising, which just got on her nerves.
The afternoon seemed to last a couple of days and by six o’clock Flower felt insane with nervous tension. She was also tired and had a headache — not the perfect condition, it has to be said, for doing your best gig.
She wondered whether she should medicate herself with something from Charlie’s medicine box, a cornucopia of homoeopathic cures for anything you cared to name. Flower never took anything for anxiety but today felt that she needed a calming influence to cocoon her from the worst excesses of the show.
‘Take the little yellow tablet,’ said Charlie, ‘in the smallest Russian doll in the medicine box,’ for he had an odd, yet reasonably well organised system. ‘I got that from some bloke last Saturday. He says it’s a German homoeopathic cure for stress. That should do you.’
Flower located it and popped it in her mouth. It wasn’t a homoeopathic cure for stress, but a very strong amphetamine that the joker had given to Charlie in the hope that he would take it and a comedy situation might develop. Within minutes her extremities started to burn.
Flower’s mobile rang. It was Sarah.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Your big night — can we come? I really want to support you but I can’t very well tell Billy to stay at home.’
Great, thought Flower, her mind changing course unpredictably, more fucking stress. Why ‘can’t all the bastards stay at home and let me go and die a little death then forget about comedy and go back to my job.
Before leaving, she bathed and changed into something very neutral so she wouldn’t have to consider if what she wore had any effect on the reaction she got.
The gun was in one of her bags, wrapped up in an innocuous-looking piece of material. Flower, who unwittingly was heading up the scale of arousal by the second, looked at it and put it in her pocket which already contained her set list. She then remembered she’d forgotten to put her lucky pants on, located them annoyingly in the washing basket after the Maidstone gig and sprayed them with a squirt of sandalwood in a gesture Martha would have been proud of, then slipped them on.
Charlie kept quiet and very much in the background. He knew the score before these shows: Flower could be really vicious when in a pre-performance paddy.
They arrived at the Comedy Store at eleven; the show was due to start at twelve. Flower managed to get Charlie, Martha and Ted, and Billy and Sarah in for free. She felt decidedly odd and said to Charlie, ‘Are you sure that stuff that guy gave you is OK?’
‘Of course,’ said Charlie, whose network of mates/ suppliers extended through squats up and down the country. ‘It could be the four cans of lager you had at home.’
‘This is going to be awful,’ said Flower, but in some ways because she was out of her head she felt quite elated and excited, as if that night was finally going to sort her out and show everyone she could do comedy.
The audience was also excited and some were quite pissed, while the old troupers who had done this gig many times sat dejectedly in the dressing-room … just another day at work for them. Flower’s nervousness injected a sense of foreboding into them though.
The compère was Adrian Mole, his real name, a sweet-tempered rather bumbling Lincolnshire-born computer programmer whom everyone loved.
At one point Flower found herself alone in the dressing-room with Dick Knob. She hadn’t seen him since that awful gig at the college which prompted her to go with him and get the gun.
Dick Knob always stormed it in the late show.
‘Take the gun on as a joke,’ he said, ‘and wave it if someone heckles.’
‘I haven’t got it with me,’ said Flower.
Dick Knob threw her a look which said, ‘I don’t believe you.’
The unreconstructed Australian comic Pat Denny was pacing up and down and wondering whether to try out a joke about Australian women looking like horses’ arses. He felt safer in London but had been followed round half of Australia by a small coterie of feminist students who had made his life a misery by turning up at his gigs and shouting words like ‘Rapist’ at him, which didn’t exactly improve his reception.
Jake Ashkenazy turned up, looking sheepish after his diatribe to Flower about selling out the night before. Another comic had fallen by the wayside and he’d been offered a slot. He was lathering himself with false hope again.
Double act, The Fuckwits, were playing cards and drinking beers.
Adrian went on and tried to calm the audience down. That night it consisted of a few stag-night groups of City boys whose sole aim was to get alcohol down and up again as quickly as possible and were foolishly going to see a stripper after the comedy show, by which point their genitals would be in no fit state to respond. There were also lots of tourists who’d been in the West End all night and so were quite drunk, and many groups of friends from out of town on a special night out.
Flower was on last and had two hours to wait. She watched the progress of the other performers on the small monitor in the dressing-room.
Meanwhile, up at the bar Charlie, Billy, Sarah, Ted and Martha could not be said to be getting on like a house on fire. Ted and Billy were niggling at each other because Ted could somehow sense that Billy had some hold over Martha and resented this enormously. Martha had discovered the incredible elastic noose of motherhood was trying to catapult her back to the flat and John, but she kept telling herself to be strong and at least give Flower the support she deserved on her first big night. She too felt a sense of foreboding and wondered if Flower had the gun but was too scared to ask as she seemed jittery and unpredictable.
Martha looked from the handsome Billy to old horseface Ted and was genuinely glad that she was with Ted. Also, of course, she was still relishing telling the Reverend Brian about the lap-dancing club and awaiting his reaction which she predicted would be nuclear, particularly if Ted was her husband by that point too.
Jake Ashkenazy’s name was announced by Adrian the compère, who looked towards the door onto the stage, which stayed resolutely closed.
‘Jake Ashkenazy!’ he said again, rather desperately.
‘Oh, the poor git’s bottled it,’ said Ted and the action of the comedy faded into the background as they started talking again.
Martha wondered whether she should phone Mary and Derek to see if John was all right. Ted advised against it —he was having too good a time. This was lucky as John had been screaming his head off since Ted and Martha left and had sprayed Derek’s velour-look maroon jumper with a particularly pungent strain of baby vomit. He had refused the bottle and both Derek and Mary had separately felt that Mary’s pregnancy might have been a very serious mistake.
Sarah and Charlie both seemed nervous and slightly jumpy for their own reasons. Billy looked pleased with himself though and was basking in the relief of Sarah having stayed with him, his resolve to change strengthened and his proposal of marriage just a couple of hours away from making the transition from thought to speech.
The stage-manager of the Comedy Store, after Jake Ashkenazy’s untimely exit, had told all the acts to do a bit longer while he combed the audience for any comics who m
ight agree to do Jake’s slot.
Dick Knob stormed the show, of course.
Pat Denny started very mildly with some stuff about being an Australian in London and then moved to the heart of his act.
‘Most girls in Australia look like horses, arses,’ he said, to the delight of the stag-night groups who whooped and cheered and shouted, ‘So do they here, mate!’
‘Really?’ said Pat, surprised to be getting such an easy ride. And then he got an even bigger surprise as a lump of horse manure hit him full in the face. This serendipitously appropriate faecal heckle was the work of a Central London women’s group who had been phoned by the Australian students and purely by chance had planned to go to the Comedy Store on the day one member’s dad had had a delivery of manure for his roses and just on the off-chance she’d popped some in her handbag.
Pat Denny couldn’t come back from that and left. It was looking like a short show.
However, The Fuckwits could always be relied upon to save the day. Working on the premise that one in two people love jokes about snot and farting, they produced a tour de force of bodily effluence which the stag-night groups would remember for the rest of their lives.
Eventually, and she thought it would never happen, Flower’s name was announced and she went on to a pissed, tired, but essentially cheerful crowd.
There was some immediate barracking which usually met the arrival of a woman onstage and extended through the continuum of their suitability as a sexual partner to some serious misogyny, which always came from at least five or so member of the audience. The one consolation was that they all shouted. together so no individual piece of abuse could be heard, apart from a continuous stream of low-level heckling from a familiar voice in the front row. Flower could see nothing, nor could she bear to dip down beneath the spotlight and see exactly who her tormentor of the past few weeks had been. She thought the voice sounded a bit like Charlie’s.
In a split second she elected to throw away her prepared material and in her amphetamine-befuddled brain decided she could just surf.
‘How many of you blokes in the audience beat their partners?’ she asked. There was a ripple of puzzled surprise and she added, ‘And I don’t mean at pool last week.’