Brenda Monk Is Funny (24 page)

‘I never asked for anything on Valentine’s Day except a card and a kiss. But my boyfriend?’

Jonathan pointed comically to himself from behind and got a bonus laugh off it.

‘My boyfriend assumes I want the full works, and then gets grumpy with me for apparently demanding something I never even wanted. Then he goes out and buys a big, expensive bunch of flowers and says he’ll take me for dinner. I’m a grown woman. I’ll get my own fucking dinner, thanks.’

The crowd laughed a little, but not with any enthusiasm. It had come out too hard, and too charmless. She had misjudged the tone and the pacing was off and she’d forgotten a bit in the middle so it didn’t quite make sense.

Jonathan shrugged behind her with a ‘see what I mean?’ look and got another laugh.

Brenda was floundering. Jonathan was getting laughs off the back of her fuck up. She tried again.

‘And what is it with diamonds? Who wants diamonds? Diamonds are just hundred million year old dinosaur turds, packed down over centuries…’

Brenda caught sight of the sparkling rings on the fingers of the mother and daughter and knew this wasn’t going to work, but it would be even worse not to finish the joke.

‘So why would I want that on my finger?’

A small laugh, polite more than anything. She decided against doing the follow up gag which suggested that if she wanted a turd on her finger, she’d be willing to tickle his prostate during sex – it didn’t seem like that kind of crowd. She needed to change pace and very, very fast. She had to use one of the tried and tested jokes she was trying to keep back in order to retain ownership. But needs must and if she had to sacrifice one or two in order not to lose the gig entirely, it seemed a small price to pay at this juncture.

‘I know I sound bitter,’ she admitted and the room silently adjusted in her favour. She felt it – good – always acknowledge what’s happening in the room.

‘But I can’t help it. When I asked my boyfriend if this outfit made me look fat, he said, “no babe, it’s your fat that makes you look fat”…’

Big laugh. Massive laugh. She had them back, she mustn’t lose them again. If in doubt, be self-deprecating, another lesson she had learned over the previous six months. She turned to look mock-accusingly at Jonathan and caught his flash of annoyance just before he covered it up.

Jonathan took his next turn with ease, and there was no indication that he was rattled by Brenda’s unflattering joke at his expense. After all, what else had he expected? He may not be used to being challenged on stage but he wasn’t an idiot and he squashed his instinctive reaction and continued like the consummate professional he was. He launched into a funny bit about how you have to pretend your girlfriend’s bum is small even when you prefer big bottoms and got the crowd back onside. Brenda followed with some material about how men can be any size but women have to look the same, which she then deftly reversed by offering her sympathies to all men who were now being battered by the beauty industry in the same way women had been for years. This took the ‘tub-thumping feminist’ sting out of the tail and brought the more conservative men and women round, including the mother and daughter on the front row who were perhaps naturally averse to female comedians but were warming to her. Jonathan would always be their favourite, but she was making good progress. Jonathan countered this with a rundown of the average woman’s bottles in the bathroom – a bit he’d been doing for years and was always popular – and then began the segment they had roughly titled ‘Bedroom Politics’ with his material about Brenda’s sexual preferences.

As Brenda sat and listened, she could practically feel Pete wince through the dimmed room. She nodded along with Jonathan and even put two thumbs up at the mention of her favourite position. That elicited a wolf whistle from the dark, which in turn got its own laugh.

Brenda stood to say her piece. The show was drawing to a close now, and she had also agreed to let Jonathan close it. This would be her final segment and she knew she had to yet really make an impression. Some kind of nascent professional pride was rising in her, along with a sense of injustice at the ease with which Jonathan created his own laughs and then took hers, too. He was so smooth, so confident, so unflappable and now he would walk off with this gig in his perfectly distressed £200 denim pocket, loved by all but those who knew him best. Brenda couldn’t bear it – when would something, anything get to him? When would he have a real, honest, in-the-moment reaction to something he couldn’t hide from, or turn to his own advantage with a loveable, floppy fringed shrug? When would there be consequences? And who would deliver them?

Brenda knew, and she knew just how to do it. A joke, somewhere, back there, written on a page, with a line through it, dormant but with a faint pulse, was about to be brought to life.

Brenda smiled coolly at Jonathan and turned to the crowd.

‘Unfortunately, my boyfriend’s favourite sexual position is anything that will get me pregnant.’

A laugh.

‘On our first night together, he asked me how I wanted eggs in the morning, and I said “fertilized”. It was meant to be a joke, but unfortunately he took me seriously. You know the worst place to find out your boyfriend is indecisive? An abortion clinic car park.’

This achieved that particular type of laugh which included shock – an aspirated laugh, equal parts gasp and giggle – pleasure and pain, and what could be sweeter?

The woman and her daughter exchanged a glance and looked uncertainly at Jonathan.

Brenda followed their gaze and looked him straight in the eye. She laced the punch with an extra shot just for him.

‘Talk about a Terrible Mess…’

He visibly froze and they tumbled into a wide abyss, falling down and down with nothing to hold on to but each other. Except neither was reaching out.

Everyone was looking at Jonathan now, expecting his response. With an almighty wrench he pulled himself back through the years and into the room. He shook his head twice, and then forced that smile up his cheeks. She’d got him, that was for sure. ‘Nothing’s off limits with relationships and comedy,’ that’s what he’d told her a year ago, never expecting it to be reciprocated. But even still, he was too practised to miss the next beat. He did not stand up, perhaps fearing a tell-tale wobble, but spoke from his spot on the sofa.

‘And you know the worst place to find out your girlfriend’s been cheating on you?’

The laugh anticipated the punchline.

‘You got it. An abortion clinic car park.’

A respectable sized laugh, but not the kind Jonathan would usually be happy to end a show on. Nevertheless, before Brenda could say anything more, Jonathan was walking towards her, towering over her, an arm firmly round her shoulders.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he had abandoned his closing set and was wrapping up now, eager to get off, ‘we have been Jonathan Cape and Brenda Monk. And remember, don’t believe every-thing you hear in a comedy club. Happy Valentine’s Day!’

And he led her off stage, giving her just enough time to catch the appalled looks of the mother and daughter. Brenda, a little wild, managed to wave at them and then was bundled into the black.

His cold fury was quite something. He looked at Brenda with a mixture of fear and disgust, and walked away, murmuring, ‘I’ll deal with you later.’

Brenda walked shakily to her dressing room. She sat down in the chair in front of the mirror and tried to process the show.

She looked at herself – who was in there? Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were impenetrable. She hardly knew how she felt, and her reflection gave no clue.

There was a loud knock at the door, and anticipating a visit from Pete, she rose to greet him. She barely had time to stand up before Josephine was at her, a hand round her throat, propelling her backwards until her head hit the wall with a crack. So much strength in that tiny body. Josephine kept her hand round Brenda’s neck and pushed her face right in close. Her eyes were dark and hard and full of fury, like chocolate covered espresso beans. She breathed hard through her nostrils and Brenda, noticing a small amount of foam at the corners of her mouth, remembered her cocaine habit and wondered if she might actually kill her. When she spoke, her jaw was so clenched she could barely push the words out through her teeth.

‘Don’t you ever fucking use my life as material again, do you understand?’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were coming…’

‘Don’t you ever fucking use my life as material again. Do. You. Understand?’

‘Yes, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please…’

Josephine pressed her thumb against Brenda’s throat, cutting off the air for a moment. She began to choke.

‘If I ever hear you do that again I will find you and kill you. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, yes. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I just wanted him to know that…’

Brenda was trying to speak, but it came out gargled and scratchy.

‘I don’t care what you wanted him to know. Use your own sorry little life if you want something to talk about, OK?’

‘Yes.’

Thumb pressed harder.

‘OK?’

‘Yes…’

Josephine let her go.

Brenda dropped to her knees, coughing and spluttering and desperately trying to catch her breath. Josephine stood over her for a moment.

‘You stupid little cunt,’ she said softly and walked out.

Brenda stayed on her knees until Pete entered the room and found her there. She looked up, still profoundly shocked and shaken to the bone.

‘Hey,’ he said, ‘well done, why are you down there? Do you have to make a sacrifice to the comedy gods, or something?’

‘Something like that,’ said Brenda in a voice that sounded very far away.

Pete held out a hand and she got up unsteadily.

‘Are you happy with how it went?’

‘Mostly,’ replied Brenda faintly.

‘That last joke was a bit near the knuckle.’

Brenda gave a hollowed laugh at the unintended irony, and felt her neck. She wondered if it would bruise, and then hoped she would be able to pass it off as a love bite.

Lloyd stuck his head round the door.

‘Great show, Brenda. Just what we were after. Hope you enjoyed it,’ he said rhetorically. ‘Jonathan wants to shoot off as he’s got some friends in, but he said he’d catch up with you before we fly back to LA.’

‘OK.’ Relief flooded Brenda. She couldn’t be bothered to account for herself to Jonathan tonight. She couldn’t believe she had been so stupid as to think the abortion gag was a good idea. And she really couldn’t believe that she had been so naive as to think that Josephine might be pleased she’d done it. Writing jokes at four in the morning with no opportunity to test them first had been a huge gamble and she wasn’t sure it had paid off. It had certainly lost her a friend, although in truth, she had never really thought of Josephine as a friend. There was danger about her, and that coke habit was not to be trifled with. She felt bad though. She knew she had walked all over some basic stand-up etiquette. In fact, forget stand-up etiquette – she had trampled on basic human decency. She felt like shit.

‘Are you alright?’ Pete said, obviously realising that this was not just post-show wobbles.

‘I don’t know.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I said something I shouldn’t have said.’

‘Oh don’t worry about it. I don’t mind as long as people think you’re talking about him. And like you said, most of it isn’t true anyway.’

‘No, not about you. About someone else.’

‘Who?’

‘Someone Jonathan used to go out with.’

‘Which bit?’

‘The last bit.’

Pete let this sink in and Brenda saw the change in his eyes. It was something like disappointment and she couldn’t bear it.

‘So, that was true, about the car park?’

He couldn’t bring himself to say abortion – oh god, why did he have to be so decent?

‘Yeah.’

‘Shit.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Does the real woman know?’

‘Judging by the fact that she just tried to strangle me, I’d say she does, yes.’

There was a long pause.

‘Is this stand-up, Brenda? I mean, is this really what it’s all about?’

‘I don’t know anymore,’ Brenda replied truthfully. She leant against her dressing table. ‘Listen, please don’t take this… I… I think I want be on my own tonight. I need to think about it all.’ Pete did not protest, which was sickening in its own way. He put his arms round Brenda, kissed her head and left her alone in the dressing room.

Around 2am, whilst Brenda was still curled up on her couch staring blankly at the wall, she received a text from Rossly. It contained only a link to gag.com, and Brenda braced herself and clicked through. ‘Comedian couple dance around the blurred lines of reality’, the headline read. In an exhaustive review that detailed and analysed almost every word that had been uttered, and evaluated it until the frog was well and truly dead, the writer concluded that it had been a draw. He wrote that though Jonathan was clearly the more accomplished comic, Brenda had a raw energy that that particular crowd did not always warm to, but held a promise of things to come. ‘While Jonathan had charm, Brenda had punch’, the reviewer concluded, with the clear meaning that he found the punch more exciting than the charm. Amongst the deep shame Brenda was experiencing, a small shoot of hope pushed through. She texted Rossly.

‘Thanks for that. I needed it.’

The reply came right away.

‘You OK?’

‘Yeah, just glad Josephine didn’t actually kill me.’

‘Yeah, she was pretty furious – Fenella filled me in and then went off with her.’

‘I feel awful.’

‘Oh come on kid – you ever seen her set?’

‘No.’

‘She slags off everyone she’s ever met.’

‘So why won’t she talk about the thing with Jonathan?’

‘I don’t know – she’s ashamed?’

‘No, don’t think it’s that.’

‘Well, we all have our blind spots. You know mine.’

‘I totally violated her though.’

‘She’ll get over it – nobody knows it was her.’

‘Yeah, but I still shouldn’t have said it.’

‘Maybe not, but you’ll know next time. And to be honest, it was fucking dynamite comedy.’