Brenda Monk Is Funny (27 page)

Brenda’s back was really up now, and she stalked out of the kitchen with her tea and stood in the tiny garden, inhaling the fresh country air. She wanted desperately to leave but she’d have to wait for Pete to wake up. Once he did though, she had no doubt they would be on their way fairly quickly. And then there would be a four-hour journey in which to sort out their own relationship. Brenda asked herself if she could be bothered. The next round of the competition was next week, and now she had had her epiphany about the kind of material she wanted to perform, she really needed to get to work.

An hour later, and after muted goodbyes all round, Pete and Brenda were on the road.

‘I don’t want a row,’ Pete said as they joined the motorway.

‘Nor do I,’ said Brenda, with a slightly combative tone.

‘Good, then can we just forget last night? I support you completely. You know that. Please don’t make me work so hard.’

‘OK.’

Pete genuinely seemed happy to drop it after that and Brenda wasn’t going to pick a fight. As he automatically drove them both back to his flat, his clear assumption being that Brenda would be staying the night, she once again marvelled at this new, grown-up relationship she seemed to be having. A relationship where every argument did not result in one or both of them threatening to end it, or leaving or one even actually dumping the other, only to return at some later date for a completely draining chat and then over-heated sex. It seemed that Pete had just absorbed the row and moved on – Brenda thought it might actually be a miracle, but realised she had never experienced life as a real couple, so what did she have to compare it to? Nothing – she was learning as she went along, throwing down track ahead of the speeding train she was driving all by herself. Perhaps it was time to let someone else help.

It was the fifth weekend in a row that Pete was spending alone in London. As March turned to April Brenda worked ever harder, driving around the country to any gig she could find, consuming service station sandwiches, pasties, all night fast food and developing the attendant constipation known as ‘Comedian’s Dodgy Gut Syndrome’. She was managing one paid gig a fortnight now, but still nowhere near enough to support herself, or even a small hamster. She had told an increasingly frustrated Pete to stop nagging her, that she was spending all her free time with him. To which his response was that if all her free time basically amounted to the hours between 3 and 6am on Sunday nights, then she might as well not bother. Brenda couldn’t stop gigging, though. Her need was manifesting itself as something like an addiction and Pete clearly knew that if he forced her to make a choice she would choose comedy and so he never pushed it that far. She had, after all, begun the two relationships around the same time and was not ready to give up either one. In fact, in some respects, the relationship with comedy was less complicated and more rewarding. For though Brenda knew she didn’t currently make much of a girlfriend, she was improving as a comedian with every gig that passed. She had a solid twenty minute set and more material to rotate in as and when she felt like it. She had plastered her
Guardian
quote across her website, joined Twitter and set up a Facebook page. People were starting to notice her.

The hard work she had done in the weeks since that night with Josephine was paying off. There had been days, of course, where she sat staring at a blank computer screen all afternoon or doodling in a notebook creating great cityscapes of interlinking, carefully shaded cubes, unable to think of a single word in the English language let alone a fully-formed joke. The monstrous self-loathing that accompanied these apparently wasted afternoons (mornings were a distant memory now) could only be managed by telling herself everyone experienced it, there was nothing wrong with her, even that it was creatively necessary. But still, the impotence and pointless frustration that engulfed Brenda when nothing was forthcoming was lonely and miserable. A walk around the block sometimes cured it but not always, and that was when she could even be bothered to leave the house (which of course meant getting dressed). Brenda wondered what people had done before Twitter, Facebook and the million and one blogging sites you could while away several hours continually reading and re-reading, driving yourself half mad, wondering if time had slowed down. Brenda found that a really bad day could be defined by the sense that the MailOnline’s TV&Showbiz section was not being updated often enough.

But it was a necessary process and once she adopted a new method she had read in an interview with a favourite comedian of hers of thinking of topics that interested her or she felt strongly about and then trying to make them funny, rather than just writing lists of potentially hilarious scenarios, it had come a lot easier. Be interesting first, then add the funny – this was her new mantra.

Since she had ditched all the material about her specific relationships she had felt more at peace with herself, too. She liked her comedy, that was the difference now. Before she had felt at war with her material but now it came out of her as if it had always been there. Not all of it worked, of course, but the process felt good and that was half the battle. And the more she wrote, the more she found that Holy Grail, her ‘Voice’ – the sound, the attitude, the way of viewing the world that was uniquely hers. She knew the total realisation of this ‘Voice’ was a long way off, would be years in the making, in fact. But the suit she was tailoring for herself was slowly moving from off the peg, to fitted, to bespoke. Brenda was getting acquainted, then comfortable, with her particular type of funny.

She knew she was neglecting Pete, but felt unable to do anything about it. She’d been open to him coming to her gigs now, but he’d decided against it. The comedians just talked shop all the time, including Brenda, and pretty much ignored Pete. The punters just wanted to buy Brenda drinks and also pretty much ignored Pete. It wasn’t much fun, and Brenda sympathised – she had been in that position once herself, she just wasn’t going to slow down to make more time for him. Her attitude was that he could either like it, lump it or leave. He was lumping it. For now. ‘When stand-up comedians start earning loads of money, you know touring and stuff, they often end up employing their partners as like a PA, or manager or something,’ Brenda had said idly one night, as she ate pasta in Pete’s flat at 4am, having driven straight back to London from a gig in Leeds.

‘Yeah. I’m not going to be your fucking PA, Brenda. As you may have noticed I have my own business. And identity,’ Pete had replied tersely, red-eyed and scratchy with need for sleep, and that was the end of that.

Brenda had to push any niggles she was having with Pete to one side and concentrate on the next round of the new act competition. It was imperative that she made it to the semi-final. Failure was not an option. She could see from the success of previous winners that it was the fastest and most efficient route to an agent and paid gigs. The competition was sponsored by a large chain of comedy clubs that would then invite the winner to six months’ worth of regular gigs at each of their venues around the country. This was the ticket to a more stable existence, at least from a financial point of view. Brenda was well aware that she was now halfway through the money she had available to live on, and already knew that there was no way she could remain in the flat she had rented for the past five years. She had opted to stay there based on the fact that it was home, and it was affordable, as long as everything went to plan. However, as she was learning, almost nothing in the comedy world ever went to plan. Any money she did make from gigs went straight into buying petrol for the next one. Pete had suggested on one occasion that she might move in with him, but her horrified silence had nipped that idea in the bud.

The second heat took place in Birmingham, and when Pete said he wanted to come along, she felt too guilty to say no. He had been patient and easy-going for the most part, and how could she refuse him what was a very simple request? She still recalled the misery of being excluded from Jonathan’s gigging life as and when it suited him and didn’t want to emulate the worst of his behaviour, at least as far as she could help it. Into the deal Pete had offered to drive Brenda to Birmingham in his grown-up car and even pay for a hotel so they didn’t have to rush back afterwards. Brenda had agreed, and so they drove away from Pete’s flat on a beautiful, sunny spring afternoon.

Blossom frothed the trees and that special English light that clarifies made every shade of green known to the human eye softly glow. The countryside looked radiant as they drove past it, and things felt more hopeful. Arriving in Birmingham was something of a comedown, but the hotel was smart and the room was high up in the building with a view that lifted their spirits. The door had barely closed before Pete had pulled Brenda down onto the crisp bed and gently lifted her T-shirt to kiss her breasts. They hadn’t had sex for a while and as Brenda ran her hands up Pete’s thigh, he was already unzipping his fly. He pushed her skirt up around her waist and she sat on top of him, rocking back and forth as he kissed her neck.

Brenda showered smiling. Maybe she had just been sexually frustrated and that had led to a general irritability that had now vanished. She felt better disposed towards Pete than she had in weeks and suddenly she felt full of confidence and vigour, certain of victory tonight and a place in the semi-final assured.

She dressed quickly in what was now her stage uniform of all black with patent red lace-up brogues, and applied her make-up with the dexterity that comes from experience. She had a routine now, and though she was not superstitious like many comedians she knew, she still liked things to follow a certain pattern. Pete was good at making himself invisible before gigs and she felt flooded with sudden warmth for him as she came out of the bathroom to find him calm, quiet and ready to go. She had taken him for granted and she felt sorry for it. Amazing what five minutes of reasonably satisfying sex can do.

They arrived at the venue – one that belonged to the competition sponsors – and made themselves known to the organisers. After being ushered backstage, Pete made his excuses and said he would see Brenda later. He was not wild about green room dynamics and had now found that he preferred to sit at the bar reading a book until the show began, rather than listen to a load of neurotic comedians (including Brenda) jangle themselves and each other into a frenzy that could only be remedied post-performance by alcohol or drugs or both. Those comedians who were teetotal had other ways to relax that took place away from the prying eyes of their peers, and were, it was speculated, less healthy than intoxication rather than more so.

Brenda helped herself to a glass of wine and sat down to skim over her notebook. Brenda checked the running order and found that she was going on first, a fact she was not delighted about as she would now effectively be warming up the crowd for her rivals. She had planned to hover at the back for the first couple of acts so that she could get the measure of the crowd and adapt her material a little if necessary but she would have no such opportunity now. She could listen to the ten or fifteen minutes the compere did at the top and try to get a sense of it but it wasn’t much to play with and she was still effectively going out there cold. The five other comedians in her heat were unknown to Brenda but were all, like her, now veterans of countless open mic spots, thrumming with ambition, vibrating at a higher frequency than the average person in the street.

Brenda noted the names of the judges, and had a momentary flashback to a brief confrontation Jonathan had had with one of them at a party a few months back. Brenda had hovered quietly next to him as Jonathan jabbed his finger. But the now-judge had looked her right in the eye as she had left in Jonathan’s turbulent wake, and she hoped he did not remember her. Would he penalise her for having been with Jonathan? Or reward her for putting up with him? Brenda tried to shut down this most unhelpful of internal monologues, but she was in the eye of the storm now and it was weirdly still and silent and desperate to be filled.

There was not much chat to be had – this meant too much to everyone in the room. And whilst green rooms were never usually a nursery for collaborative work, this was an actual competition, rather than merely a perceived one, and so there was never going to be much love. They were all polite though, and civil, apart from one very young-looking girl Brenda had noticed as she walked in. This girl couldn’t have been more than nineteen years old but she was trying to look older, or at least wiser. She was affecting a jaded air and with dyed black hair, heavy fringe, thick glasses and pierced sulky mouth, she was not exuding approachability. Brenda stuck out her hand in any case, not wanting anything more than a brief introduction. She was surprised when the girl just stared at her outstretched hand and sniggered nastily.

‘Sorry, I don’t do hand-shaking, because I’m not a fucking banker.’

‘Oh, OK, fine. I’m Brenda Monk.’

‘Yeah, I know who you are.’

‘Oh right. I don’t know who you are.’

‘Why would you?’

‘Well, yeah, I’m not claiming to know everyone in the world.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘So, what’s your name?’

‘Cody.’

‘Cody what?’

‘Just Cody.’

‘Just the one name for you, is it?’

‘Well, I was in care til I was fifteen and I don’t want my real parents finding me when I get famous.’

‘Oh right. Fair enough.’

Cody scowled at Brenda.

‘So, how come you know who I am?’

‘Because you’re Jonathan Cape’s girlfriend. So we might as well all go home now, ’cos obviously you’re going to win.’

Brenda felt two other nearby comics prick their ears up at this. ‘Actually, I’m not Jonathan Cape’s girlfriend.’

‘OK, you were then. Whatever, sorry I don’t know every detail of your life, I’m not your stalker. You’re not that interesting, you know.’

‘I didn’t say I was.’

‘Well, anyway…’

‘My relationship with Jonathan won’t have any impact on the result of this competition.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘He’s not here. He’s in LA.’

‘Yeah, but you know all the judges, don’t you?’

‘No. I’ve met one of them once, and I can guarantee he won’t remember me. He barely looked at me at the time.’

‘That’s 100% more than I’ve met.’

‘Well, I can’t help who I’ve met.’

‘No, but they can help you, can’t they?’

Brenda had not immediately disliked anyone as much as she immediately disliked Cody for a very long time. They were now glowering at each other, both clearly hoping the woman standing opposite her would crash and burn and be sent home with singed wings.

‘I haven’t had a leg up from anyone. I’ve done it all myself.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Well, who else says so?
You?
You know fuck all about me.’

‘I know more about you than you know about me.
A hell of a lot more
,’ Cody replied with an infuriating smirk.

Brenda knew she was talking about Jonathan’s Edinburgh show and controlled an urge to smack her in the mouth.

‘You might know what I like in bed. You have no idea what kind of comedian I am.’

‘You’re no kind of comedian. You’re a comedian’s girlfriend trying it out for a hobby to get his attention.’

That struck a nerve. The gloves were off it seemed.

‘Oh I see. You’re one of those silly little emo girls who thinks they’re “so fucked up”. What do you do every night? Masturbate over your Bill Hicks poster and fantasise about getting raped by the ghost of Lenny Bruce?’

‘At least I know about comedy.’

‘Listen you
child
, I know about comedy.’

‘Only by sucking its dick.’

‘Who made you the fucking comedy police? You think you get to say who’s a comedian and who isn’t just because you did a bit of self-harming when you were fourteen?’