Brenda Monk Is Funny (12 page)

Brenda laughed sharply.

Rossly continued, ‘But a properly good gig, like the kind of gig we all dream about? That’s a conversation. You might do most of the talking but it’s still a conversation. So like when you are talking to someone, you have to listen as well as speak. It’s just the same in comedy, except you have to do your listening at the same time as you’re doing your speaking, you get me? The audience will shift and change in front of you. Not physically, unless everyone leaves, which may and does happen. I mean their non-physical form will shift, like waves of dark matter, and you have to tune your antennae to them so that you can accommodate it. The best comedians can marginally shift their material so they still get to say what they want to say but present it to each audience according to the signals they are picking up, so that every audience has the same but different experience. So if you are open to that you can’t jinx it. Because if you were jinxed you would just tell the audience you were worried about being jinxed and that in itself would become a joke. Do you see what I’m saying?’

Brenda was captivated by him. He had delivered this speech leaning over the back of the sofa, looking into her eyes. His were dark blue with small, uneven yellow flecks in them, so that they seemed like pools of deep water with sunlight playing on the surface.

‘Look, Brenda Monk, I’m not saying you’re going to pull that off tonight. Essentially, whatever happens tonight can be written off. If you have a great one, it’s beginner’s luck. If you have a shocker, it’s because you’re new. So you don’t need to worry about tonight. What you need to ask yourself is, are you planning on doing this for real? Because if you are you need to start thinking about your antennae, not that list of words on the back of your hand. I like the sound of the shaved vagina, by the way.’

And he gave her a look so filthy Brenda felt a dollop of moisture expand in her knickers.

‘OK?’

Marvin indicated that Ludo should get back on and start the second half. Rossly gave him a wall-burning look and Ludo didn’t mess about. He brought Rossly on without too much ado and left the microphone stand at its correct height. Rossly practically jumped the distance between the curtained gap and the centre of the stage, grabbed the mic before the applause for Ludo’s exit could die down and started singing into it in the voice of Elvis Presley.

‘Ah well ah bless mah soul, ah what’s wrong with me, I’m itching like a man on a fuzzy tree, I can’t seem to shake these tiny bugs, I’m in love, I fucked your mum, oh-oh-oh. Oh don’t act shocked, for god’s sakes, grow up, this is a comedy club. If you want a nice innocent evening go and find some nice old kids’ TV presenter to entertain you… Jesus, it’s hot under these lights. Seriously, I’m sweating like a 1970s comedian up here… so this Yewtree thing’s getting a bit out of hand, isn’t it? I was looking for an old episode of
Top of the Pops
on YouTube yesterday and I couldn’t find any ’cos of the new porn filters my internet provider’s put on.’

‘Nurghhwahhhhlngggggoh,’ came a shout from the crowd.

Brenda tensed immediately. Heckling was always awkward.

Rossly stopped and looked out into the room with a curious half smile.

‘Hello friend, I didn’t quite catch that. Care to repeat it?’

Silence.

‘Oh come on now, don’t be shy. This isn’t TV, we can be interactive…’

Silence. And then,

‘WOUHGHHAH!’

‘Awww, look, I’m so glad they’ve let you out for the night. Stay behind at the end and I’ll be happy to sign your straitjacket.’

Big laugh.

Brenda relaxed and made a mental note for the future. Rossly continued.

‘Now, where was I, ah yes, sexual assault, my favourite topic. It’s weird to me though, people keep saying “women didn’t mind it back then”, you know, in the seventies when feeling up females was every old man’s favourite hobby. But I don’t know, surely women did mind, it’s just they didn’t say anything until now, what with feminism and all that. So that means for centuries men have been thinking women LOVE being groped at work. Spare a thought for us poor men, ladies, with our uncontrollable desires and URGES. I’m so frustrated these days I’ve had to start touching up pigs, but it’s OK because they really do love it. Well, they must do, they never say anything.’

Ludo was not watching Rossly, he couldn’t bear to. Ludo was slick and confident but Rossly was the better comedian and he knew it. They both knew it. Brenda felt his restless eyes alight on her.

‘I remember my first gig,’ Ludo’s affectedly wistful tone was far from comforting. ‘God, I thought I’d never leave the house again, let alone do another gig…’

‘Thanks, that’s really helpful.’

‘Oh darling, you’re not nervous, are you? Not down here in this grot-hole. Their IQs are in double figures out there.’

Marvin did not react, even as Ludo’s eyes slid over to where he was sitting to check for a reaction. Brenda shrugged.

‘What kind of comedy are you aiming for?’

‘Funny comedy, I think, mainly.’

Ludo emitted a small, involuntary laugh from somewhere inside his right nostril.

‘Yes, I always think that’s the best kind.’

His attention flew to the stage.

‘Well, good luck, dear.’

And Ludo moved across the room, ready to take over on stage. ‘Thank you, dudes, you’ve been great, and listen, we’ve got a fantastic new act coming on next. She’s a great friend of mine, she’s really hilarious and she’s finally decided to try some of her jokes out here for you lucky people. So please, give a really warm welcome to the hottest new comic this side of Balham, it’s Brenda Monk!’

Ludo froze, one foot on the edge of the stage but still hidden by the curtain. He whipped round to look at Brenda, who was still sat on the sofa.

Rossly called her name from the stage.

‘Brenda Monk, come on out here babe. You’re making me look like more of a dick than I usually do!’

The audience laughed.

‘Well, get out there then,’ Ludo hissed at Brenda, eyes glittering, lip curled.

Brenda leapt up and crashed through the curtain, as Ludo slithered back. Rossly hugged her warmly and quickly and put the microphone straight into her hand. He waved at the crowd, igniting a further round of applause and cheers on his departure, giving Brenda a sound cushion to rest on for a second as she got her bearings.

‘Hi, I’m Brenda Monk and I am trying this to see if I’m better at it than my boyfriend, who is a really successful stand-up comedian who does jokes all about me. Yes, you may well laugh nervously. That’s what I do every time I go to one of his gigs. At the last one I went to, I found out he loves anal sex. And there’s me thinking he just had a really big finger all this time. I tell you, I always face the front now – yup, missionary all the way for me. But I don’t mind him talking about me, I just think maybe I should get paid for it every so often. Not that I’m getting paid for tonight. Yeah, that’s right – I’m exploiting myself for a change. He doesn’t have the monopoly on exploitation of this vagina. He’s been talking recently onstage about the time he shaved his pubes to make his cock look bigger. I thought I’d give it a try too. Yeah, now my vagina looks HUGE! I’m so proud. He seems less keen, though. He’s away at the moment, so I’m cut loose. Thank you, sir, meet me outside in nine minutes.’

‘WOOUUGHHHHHAAAAALLLL!’

Shit, it was happening again – same guy.

The crowd laughed at the idiocy of the incoherent drunk at the back, and then quietened down, awaiting Brenda’s response.

Brenda froze. She just stared into the blackness and all she could think was, ‘I can’t handle this like Rossly.’

And then by some miracle, she found she was saying, ‘Hey, I’m working here – I don’t come to McDonald’s and knock the broom out of your hand.’

A huge laugh that rolled from the front of the room to the rear and back again, like two oceans meeting.

Brenda was delighted and then, on reaching for the next piece of material, found her mind was entirely blank. Free-wheeling in featureless mental space, she simply made noises whilst grasping at anything that seemed solid.

‘Ha. Ha ha ha ha. Ummm… OK, so, so… what was I saying?’

The audience shifted a little.

Brenda became aware of a screaming voice in her head, ‘Hand, hand, hand.’

‘Hand,’ she said, and the audience blinked back at her, as confused as she was. And then she remembered to look at the back of her hand.

Shrek. There it was, Shrek. That was next.

‘Oh, yeah, so I was watching
Shrek
on the TV the other day, and it struck me that it’s basically a right wing allegory. It’s all about race, right? Yeah, I said it – Shrek is a massive racist. No listen, all the displaced fairytale people come and live in his swamp because they have been sent away from their land, so they are basically refugees from an oppressive regime subjecting them to torture. So Shrek, or Shrek W. Bush as I like to call him, does a deal with the leader of the oppressive regime that if he finds him a girl to marry, he can get rid of all the fairytale refugees from his swamp, or what I like to think of as Florida. I mean, it’s right wing propaganda. Yeah, so Shrek is a racist. OK, then I was going to talk about… Jane Austen. YES, sorry, speaking of massive racists, who here likes Jane Austen? Only three of you? Come on, there must be more than that. She’s on your ten pound note, for god’s sake. There was a big fuss about that, of course. Lots of people thought she wasn’t a good person to represent women because she basically ignored the existence of black people. But Queen Victoria ignored the existence of gay people and she was on all the money for decades. I like Jane Austen but I do worry about how white her world was. Although who can blame her. I mean, have any of you been to Bath recently? If I lived in Hampshire and only went on holiday to Bath I probably wouldn’t believe in black people either. Oh, oh – the red light is on, so… So, I had a bit more but… but I have to wrap up now, so thanks very much, I’m Brenda Monk. I said that at the beginning. Oh it’s flashing now so, you can’t see it I know but, OK great, thanks, thanks very much! Goodnight sorry.’

Brenda flew off the stage as Ludo passed her.

‘Brenda Monk, everyone. Isn’t she sweet? Who else is still thinking about her vagina, though? I know YOU are, sir…’

Silence from the heckler but the crowd went nuts.

Brenda’s hands shook as she rummaged in her handbag for nothing in particular, she just wanted something to do with them. Adrenaline pumping through her veins made her legs wobbly and her head light.

‘Wasn’t too bad,’ Marvin said gruffly from his office cubbyhole. ‘You can have another unpaid ten next month, if you want it.’

Brenda thought she might be sick, and could barely take in what he was saying. She looked up a little wildly and caught Rossly’s eye. He smiled.

‘How do you feel about that?’

‘I… don’t know. OK. I don’t know. I can’t remember anything about it… I…’

Rossly pushed a beer into her hand.

‘Drink this, OK? And just calm down. It was fine. It was fine. You have a couple of nice ideas and you got a few laughs and you did your full ten. It wasn’t a disaster, so just chill.’

‘Yeah, yeah. Chill, yeah, just chill. I’m chilling,’

Brenda gulped the beer which fizzed and frothed around her nose. She wiped it with the back of her hand. She felt out of bodied, as if she was looking at herself from above. Every part of her jangled with discombobulation. She could barely feel her hands although she knew one of them held a beer and was not dropping it, so they must still be connected. She was finding it hard to focus on anything at all.

‘It’s just adrenaline, it’ll clear in a minute. Sit down.’

Brenda sat down. Mike was still sat on the other sofa, making his way through a third beer. He was frowning slightly.

‘Does Jonathan know you’re doing this?’ he asked, in a neutral sounding voice.

‘Uh, not really. I’m going to tell him.’

‘That was his heckle put down, wasn’t it?’

‘Uh, yeah, yeah it was. It was all I could think of to say.’

Brenda went hot and cold at the very idea that she might have stolen something.

There was an awkward pause, an unspoken accusation of that most heinous of crimes – joke thievery – hung in the air, before Rossly tutted.

‘Fuck’s sake, Mike. That heckle put down is older than your mum’s cunt. It’s community property by now. When you’re up there and in the shit, you use whatever you can. We help each other out, right?’

Mike nodded slightly, his mouth a straight line. He stood up.

‘Well, I’m going to hit the road. Got to be up early for the kids.’

‘The pram in the hall, Mike, the pram in the hall.’

‘Yeah, thanks.’

Ludo had wrapped up the gig and re-entered the green room, prompting Mike to gather up his bag and leave without particularly wishing anyone good-bye.

Ludo stared out Rossly, fury packed down like ice at his commandeering of the roll of MC.

Rossly simply muttered, ‘Sorry mate – couldn’t trust you to do it properly,’ cracked open a cold can of beer from the tiny fridge and sank half of it in one.

Ludo stood with his arms folded, icily surveying him as he did so.

‘Got a little crush, Rossly, darling? You do always let your cock get the better of you, don’t you?’

‘I am restraining myself from putting it in your mouth just to shut you up.’

Ludo stalked away, and as he opened the door to the green room, a tall, serene looking woman walked in. Rossly went over to her, pulled her to him and kissed her softly. Brenda gawped – she had, in spite of herself, been looking forward to being pursued by Rossly as he tried to make good on his promise to ‘fuck her’, even though she had been planning to turn him down. Now she felt foolish. It had been a joke, it seemed.

‘Brenda, this is my girlfriend, Nina.’

Nina smiled lazily.

‘Oh yeah, you were on tonight, weren’t you? Yeah, well done. You were good.’

‘No, I wasn’t good. I forgot half my stuff and I didn’t finish and people didn’t laugh that much and I didn’t connect it all properly and I screwed up the end.’