Brenda Monk Is Funny (29 page)

This particular green room was cut off from the actual stage, meaning its occupants could not listen to one another’s sets without moving out to the audience seating area. Brenda decided she would watch the MC do his warm up, just to see what the crowd was like and what they responded to, and then creep back to the green room to get her mind right to perform. The show began, and as ever took on its own life. Everyone in the venue became elements within its body – organs, arteries, parasites – each with their part to play.

From the moment Brenda walked on stage, took the mic out of its stand and turned her smiling face to the crowd, the room was hers.

She could feel it immediately, something warm emanating from the darkness, a molecular shift in her favour. Unconsciously she carried herself with confidence and the walk from the side of the stage to the centre was as casual and unaffected as moving from her kitchen to her living room. Every joke she made she timed to perfection, every piece of meticulously prepared material that came out of her mouth sounded as though she had genuinely just thought of it. The rhythm was right tonight and she pictured herself with the audience in space, embedded in Quantum Foam, waving and curving as they were held together, pushed towards each other from within a soft cushion of mutual understanding. Every move she made was received with openness and loving warmth as though it was always meant to be, that it was simply the natural progression of a conversation between minds and she was in complete control. When she did something, everything realigned to her advantage – she controlled it. It was her space, and the audience became a part of her, until she was the space itself. It was as close as Brenda had ever got to a religious experience. She didn’t believe in God; she was God. The pure exhilaration of becoming one with her audience was enough to obliterate any other concerns. She had come close to this a couple of times in the past, and had heard other comics describe it, but this was her first direct hit. She had worked hard for it too and now she knew what it truly meant to be in the magic zone.

It was golden and powerful and she was dizzy with it as soon as she re-entered normal space/time. The green room appeared to be sparkling, the very molecules around her like glitter. This was some kind of drugless high that no amount of money could buy.

Perhaps, thought Brenda, this is my reward for loneliness, for leaving Pete, for never seeing my friends, for having no money, for giving it everything I’ve got – I made the sacrifice and the comedy gods are pleased.

If that was true, she mused, it was worth it.

Brenda went through to the final on the judges’ vote. No other outcome was possible, and Brenda had to remind herself to look surprised when her name was called. She grinned so widely she felt her lip might split, and then floated away, unable to properly focus on anything and anyone for the following half an hour. The other finalist was chosen by the crowd, and Brenda congratulated him mistily. She knew she would have to re-introduce herself at the final in Edinburgh as she had forgotten him instantly.

Edinburgh – and now that little shockwave hit. She would be going to the Edinburgh Festival not as a student, not as a punter, not as a girlfriend, but as Brenda Monk, comedian. That was a pretty astonishing feat in itself. Not yet one year on from her first gig, and here she was. The vertigo forced her to sit down on the sofa. Yes, sitting was good. Why had she not thought to sit before? She would sit for a while.

The door flew open and in walked Rossly. Brenda’s heart leapt – this was her instinctive reaction to the sight of him, and that was a surprise to her. He pulled her up and hugged her hard, and she felt a tingle of arousal in her body. If there was ever going to be a night together, it was going to be this one. That’s what Brenda thought as he pushed her away from him and smiled into her face, those blue and gold eyes full of pleasure.

‘Jesus, you were fucking great. Jesus. All that new stuff too… I mean, great. And the Shrek bit’s working and it’s real and interesting, and just fucking great, Brenda. Just fucking great. I’m gonna stop saying fucking great.’

Brenda felt beside herself, as if she really had split into two people in order to accommodate this much happiness.

‘Did you feel it?’ Rossly said.

‘Yeah,’ said Brenda. ‘I can still feel it.’

‘Fucking great. Let’s get out of here.’

Rossly took Brenda to a bar he liked down a narrow side-street in Soho. It was decorated like a Moroccan souk, with wall hangings and a tented ceiling and low leather cushions the colour of fire to sit on. He ordered a bottle of champagne.

‘Steady on. I haven’t won the thing.’

‘But it’s your birthday.’

‘Is it? Shit, yes it is. How did you know that?’

‘You said it on stage.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yes, you said you were excited about getting older because it meant you could stop pretending you don’t masturbate.’

Brenda laughed.

‘I did, didn’t I? God, I’d completely forgotten that. I just thought of it on stage, it wasn’t planned.’

‘You were so fucking on it tonight, Brenda. Just beautiful to watch.’

Brenda was glad of the dim red light because she blushed. And the more she became aware of the blushing the worse it got. And Rossly was not the kind of man to miss the moment when it arrived. He put his hand behind Brenda’s head and pulled her towards him. She happily acquiesced and his sharp face was suddenly out of focus. Their lips met, and his were soft. He made a tiny moan as they both rose into the kiss, the coal suddenly lit within, the heat jumping up. Brenda broke away and sat back into her cushion.

She blinked a couple of times and took her champagne. Rossly did the same.

‘How old are you today?’

‘Thirty.’

‘S’good age. I liked being thirty…’

But he couldn’t get any more out because Brenda, warm and full of bubbles, wanted to kiss him again. And as she did so, he ran his hand up her back, so that every vertebrae became electrified under his touch.

They kissed in the taxi all the way back to Brenda’s flat, breaking off momentarily for Rossly to pay and Brenda to get the door open. They kissed all the way along the hall and into the bedroom where they fell onto Brenda’s unmade bed and continued kissing. It was as if they needed to get ten months’ worth of kissing done as soon as possible before they could move on to second base. In time, Rossly’s hand slid under Brenda’s black V-neck jumper and over her breasts, pulling the lace of her bra down as he did so. His other hand undid her top button, pulled down her zip and slid into her knickers to find a slippery opening inside. Her hand ran down the front of his shirt and cupped over his crotch to find… Nothing. Flaccid.

Brenda pulled back and looked at him quizzically. He looked down and shook his head quickly.

‘Don’t worry about it, it’ll come,’ he said.

And continued kissing her, pulling her top over her head and unclipping her bra in an impressive display of expertise.

Half an hour later, and still nothing. The kissing had stopped, as had the blow job Brenda had begun, only to be halted after five minutes by an apologetic Rossly. They now lay side-by-side in an uneven state of undress.

‘It’s not you.’

‘OK.’

An awkward pause.

‘It really isn’t.’

‘I said OK. Don’t worry about it.’

‘I’ve wanted to fuck you since I first saw you.’

‘Well, here I am…’

‘It’s not you.’

‘OK.’

Rossly sighed in frustration.

‘Want me to go down on you? I mean, I’d like to…’

‘Oh, no thanks. Don’t worry about it.’

‘Shit.’

Rossly stood up abruptly, ran his fingers through his hair and kicked the skirting board. Brenda stayed where she was, trying to think of how to manage the sexual frustration raging inside her. She burned for him now, she burned for straight hard him inside her. She clenched her internal muscles to try to lessen the discomfort.

‘I’ll get us a drink.’

‘Do you want me to leave?’

‘No, I don’t.’

Brenda rolled out of bed and found the bottle of Jack Daniel’s she had been eking out since Christmas. She poured them a large shot each and they sat on her sofa drinking.

‘So, you really don’t mind?’

‘Of course I mind. I was horny as fuck by the time we got home, but I’ll get over it.’

‘You do believe it’s not just you, don’t you? I mean, I’ve had this problem before. It did for me and Nina. She wasn’t hanging around to chat once it happened with her, I’ll tell you that.’

Brenda nodded.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve always had it in some way or another. I think it’s tied to my family life when I was a kid.’

‘You seem remarkably sorted about it. Most men would rather eat their own balls off than talk like this.’

Rossly pulled out some joint-making equipment and started skinning up. The activity alone made it easier to talk, let alone the contents of the spliff he was creating.

‘Yeah, well… I’ve had a long time to think about it. And in any case, I believe in no bullshit. I practise what I preach, babe. I’m trying to be a better human.’

He licked the joint shut.

‘So, what have you concluded?’

‘I don’t know for sure. But my best guess it that it’s because sex was off-limits in my house when I was growing up. In all senses, you know… With Mum being in a wheelchair, Dad wasn’t getting any but he was too Catholic to go elsewhere, so you know, I always felt guilty about it if I got a piece of nice pussy, which by the way, was
rare
back then. Whenever I had a wank as a teenager, I’d cry after I came.’

‘That’s fucked up.’

‘Yeah. Hey Brenda… Are you going to talk about this on stage?’ ‘Uhh, god, that hadn’t even occurred to me. No, I shouldn’t think so. It doesn’t really fit with where I’m going at the moment, jokes wise.’ She sipped her drink. ‘Are you?’

‘Probably. It’s all good stuff. Do you mind? I won’t identify you. No-one will know. I’m always having one night stands that go wrong.’

‘Thanks.’

‘That came out different to how I planned. I meant to say, I’m always having one night stands that go
right
.’

Brenda laughed but then was quiet. Did she mind if he talked about it in his set? She could see how it would fit Rossly’s style of comedy perfectly – it was honest and self-deprecating and slightly taboo, and that was what he did.

‘No, I don’t mind. You’ll do something good with it.’

They sat in companionable silence. Nothing was off-limits with Rossly and it was relaxing.

‘I thought about doing some stuff about my mum dying,’ Brenda said, out of the blue.

‘Really? That’d be interesting.’

‘Yeah. I don’t know though. I can’t make up my mind.’

‘When did she die?’

‘When I was twenty.’

‘What was she like?’

‘Quiet, that’s what I mainly think of when I think of her. She was just… Quiet. She never really expected anything to happen, she never really wanted anything to happen.’

‘Maybe she was just happy with what was already happening.’

Brenda was ashamed to find that this had never actually occurred to her. She had always assumed that her mother must be desperate to escape the humble, settled life she had with her dad, but had given up trying. Brenda had certainly been up and out of it at the first possible opportunity. The idea that her mother had simply been happy was a revelation.

‘What did she die of?’

‘A brain tumour. They didn’t know she had it for years, and then she started having mood swings and bumping into stuff. And when she finally went to the doctor it was too late. Inoperable. She was dead three months later.’

‘That’s rough.’

‘Yeah. It was rough on my dad.’

‘He still around?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You get on?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ll get my coat.’

Rossly mimed getting up to leave as Brenda laughingly asked why.

‘Rule One, babe. Never date a girl who gets on with her father, they won’t put up with any shit.’

Brenda glowed a little.

‘You’re dating me now?’

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘Good. Because I’m not up for that stuff at the moment.’

‘No, you’ve got more important things to be getting on with. I get it, babe. Don’t panic.’

They talked, swapping stories and experiences on and off stage, until they fell asleep on the sofa.

Brenda woke first in the afternoon light and saw Rossly’s erection as he slept. Careful not to startle him, she unzipped his fly and removed her jeans and knickers. He woke just as she was swinging her knee over his body and smiled sleepily at her as he figured out what was going on.

‘I hope you were going to seek consent, Miss Monk, otherwise I’d have to report you.’

‘May I?’

‘Would you?’

He allowed her to slip him into her warmth and they started moving together, softly, softly, then harder and harder until they shuddered to a stop.

Brenda bent down to kiss him.

‘That was a very nice way to wake up,’ he said.

‘Yes, lovely,’ Brenda replied.

‘And there was I, thinking your favourite position was the reverse cowgirl.’

Brenda laughed out of habit, and then examined the laugh. Jonathan’s Edinburgh show of last year felt so long ago, it seemed that he must have been talking about someone else. The detachment she was experiencing now was eerie – that Brenda Monk was gone.

Rossly seemed to read her mind.

‘Hey, you wanna hear something funny?’ he said.

‘You think you can manage it?’ replied Brenda

And then Rossly offered her a golden nugget of gossip he had heard on the comedy grapevine. Jonathan and Lloyd had acrimoniously parted company following the double-gig double-cross and Lloyd was now executive producer on the TV pilot version of the show, starring two up and coming American comedians as ‘the couple’. Joan had found Jonathan a semi-regular part in a mid-range American network-syndicated studio sit-com, in which he played an eccentric British guy who was a failed rock star. Jonathan had made a fuss when he had accidentally seen the casting memo asking for a ‘Russell Brand type’ insisting that he was only interested in parts that called for a ‘Jonathan Cape type’, but had quietened down when Joan told in him uncompromising tones that there was ‘currently no such thing as a fucking Jonathan Cape type.’ Jonathan had shut up and taken the part, scared there was nothing else around for him and unwilling to return to the UK without having conquered Hollywood.