Sprout Mask Replica (16 page)

‘And is
that the end of the story?’

‘Of
course it isn’t. The young girl confides to her best friend what happened. So
the best friend goes to see the wise woman. And word passes amongst the other
teenage girls and in no time at all, they’re all visiting the old wise woman on
a regular basis. And I have to tell you that the village where I was brought
up, was
one happy village.’

I shook
my head. ‘That is disgusting story,’ I said. ‘I mean, those young women were
just using the men as sexual playthings.’

‘Isn’t
that what young men use young women for all the time?’

‘No. I
mean, well, perhaps yes, perhaps some of them.’

‘And
don’t you think that if such a secret tonic existed that could be used on
women, men would buy it?’

‘Well,’
I said, ‘I think they possibly might.’

‘Damn
right they would.’

‘And so
that’s the secret which keeps the village where you were brought up so happy?’

‘Er,
actually no,’ said Uncle Brian.

‘No?’

‘No.
You see the old blind village wise woman was not really old or blind at all. In
fact, she wasn’t really a woman. She was a man dressed up.’

‘A man
dressed up?’

‘And
that certain appliance used for the deflowering was really his—’

‘Stop!’
I said. ‘And what about the secret tonic?’

‘No
such tonic, the young men only pretended to fall asleep.’ ‘But what about them
being sexually aroused, they couldn’t
pretend
that.’

My
Uncle Brian gave me the look that says, Well, they wouldn’t really have to
pretend, would they? What with them having a naked and totally uninhibited
young woman on top of them, and everything.

‘Outrageous!’
I cried. And quite loudly I cried it too.

‘Outrageous?
Why?’

‘Because
the young men were using the young women as sexual playthings.’

‘But
surely it was the other way around. You just said it was.’ ‘Yes, but I didn’t
know the young men were only pretending to be asleep.’

‘So
what’s the difference? The young women were using the young men and the young
men were using the young women, both parties secure in the knowledge that the
other didn’t know. Perfect bliss all round, I’d say.’

I shook
my head. ‘Treachery and deception all round,
I’d
say.’ My Uncle Brian
shrugged. ‘That’s life in a nutshell,’ he said.

‘And
you were one of these young men, I suppose.’ ‘Oh no,’ said my Uncle Brian, ‘not
me.

‘A good
thing too.

‘I
played the part of the wise woman. Ah look, we’re here.’ And we were.

‘Fangio’s
Bar,’ I said. ‘But we just left there.’

‘Yes,
but this time we’re arriving in a limo.’

‘Ah, I
see.’ I didn’t.

‘Now,’
said my uncle, opening a lap-top computer on his laptop, ‘I’ve prepared your
jokes. I’ll give you a print-out.’

‘Jokes?
But I thought I was going to do a song and dance act.’

‘We did
discuss the jokes, didn’t we?’

I
nodded. We had discussed the jokes. But I hadn’t been keen. Uncle Brian had
come up with what he considered to be a most original stand-up routine. I was
to adopt the stage name
Carlos the Chaos Cockroach.
The routine was based,
of course, on our friend the mythical mystical butterfly that flaps its wings
in the Congo basin and causes a run on cut-price baked beans at Budgens in
Birmingham. I would go on stage, briefly explain my persona, then launch into
the gags. These would be bogus versions of the butterfly theory. I’ll give you
a brief example. I produce two ring-pulls and a feather from my top pocket and
ask, ‘What do you get if you push a feather through two ring-pulls? Answer,
sandstorms in the Sahara.’

Not
very funny, eh? In fact, not funny at all. In fact, a complete waste of time.
But Uncle Brian had been going on and on about it being a blinder of an act and
how he had worked out some really great gags on his laptop and got all the
props together and everything.

‘I want
to do the song and dance act,’ I told him. ‘Especially I want to sing “Orange
Claw Hammer”. I’ve got the cherry phosphate line off just so.’

‘Trust
me,’ said the uncle. ‘You’ve six gigs to play tonight. If the gags don’t work
at the first one, then you can sing and dance your way through the rest of the
evening.’

‘Hang
about,’ I said, as one would.
‘Six
gigs? Since when is it
six
gigs?’

‘There’s
been a lot of enthusiasm. I explained about your act and the owners of the
venues were dead keen.’

I shook
my head. ‘Ludicrous,’ I said.

‘Well,
it can’t hurt to give it a try, can it? Remember how
Sony
originally
hated the idea of the
walkman?
Couldn’t see how you could market a tape
recorder that didn’t record? Look how successful that became.

‘I was
thinking more about the cigarette harness,’ I said.

‘Blinder
of an invention.’ Uncle Brian slotted a Woodbine into the one he always wore. ‘Come
on, give it a go.’

He
pressed a button on his laptop and paper came spilling out of it. ‘Here’s your
props,’ he said, handing me a briefcase. ‘Now do it, just as we practised. The
crowd will love you. Trust me, I know these things.’

‘And if
they don’t love me at the first gig—’

‘You
can song and dance it the rest of the evening.’

‘It’s a
deal.’ I shook my uncle’s hand and he shook mine. It was a reciprocal thing.

A crowd
had gathered about the limo. Crowds always gather about limos. Especially those
with blacked-out windows. You always feel sure that whoever’s inside a limo
with blacked-out windows must be making the most of it and having sex. Oh, come
on, you
do,
don’t you?

The
crowd peered into the limo as my uncle and I left it and those of a homophobic
nature tut-tutted and shook their heads, which goes to prove something.

A
number of policemen were already on the scene. These held back the crowd to
either side, allowing us an unhampered stroll to Fangio’s door. Have you ever
noticed how there’s never a policeman around when you need one, but always
hundreds standing about near the pitch at FA Cup matches or celebrity functions?
What is that all about, eh?

We
entered Fangio’s Bar to great applause and, as I may have mentioned before, I
do
like a warm hand on my entrance.

Fangio
came up and shook me warmly by the hand. ‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting
you, Mr Carlos,’ he said.

‘But, Fange,
it’s me. I only left here five minutes ago.

‘Such a
comic.’ Fangio placed his hands upon his ample belly and rocked with laughter.
I shook my head and sighed.

‘Go on,’
said Uncle Brian. ‘Go up to the stage. Don’t worry about me, I’ll just sit here
and tinker with my laptop.’

‘Is
that one of the new ones with digital TV?’ asked Fangio the fat boy.

My
uncle nodded. ‘Instant access to over one hundred channels. I can call up the
stocks and shares, money markets around the world, investment indexes, my own
personal accounts, the lot.’

‘Pornography?’
asked Fangio. ‘What about pornography?’ ‘That’s what I just said.’
[20]

‘I’ll
just get on with it, then, shall I?’ I asked.

‘Go
ahead,’ said my uncle. ‘Knock ‘em dead.’

There was a fair old crowd
in, I can tell you, more than you’d usually expect for a Thursday night. But
then this
was
Friday. The crowd parted to allow me the stage. I went up
the step and I was pretty damn nervous.

I
peered into the bright lights, took stock of the crowded bar:

Fangio
at the back, clapping his hands, my uncle tinkering with his laptop. I took a
little bow, the crowd cheered wildly.

I
explained about my persona as
Carlos the Chaos Cockroach.
The crowd
cheered wildly.

I set
down the briefcase and opened it up. The crowd cheered wildly.

I
checked my print-out, pulled a pair of red shoe laces and a potato from the
briefcase and displayed these. The crowd cheered wildly.

I
launched into the first gag. ‘What do you get,’ I asked, tying the shoelaces
around the potato, ‘if you do
this?’

Hushed
expectancy from the crowd.

‘A tree
falling silently in the New Forest, because there’s no-one there to hear it.’

A
moment of silence and then— The crowd cheered wildly.

I shook
my head in wonder. I knew I had charisma. But I’d never known before just
how
much
I had. I peered in the direction of my uncle. He was still tinkering
with his laptop and he was shaking his head. Ah well, you can’t please all of
the people all of the time.

I
returned to the props in the briefcase. The next gag was, What do you get if
you stick a cocktail stick in a stale British Rail cheese sandwich? The answer:
heavy rainfall in Yorkshire.

The
crowd cheered wildly.

Uncle
shook his head
again.

I
shrugged, took a bow and went through the last two gags on the print-out, they
weren’t funny either.

But the
crowd cheered wildly.

A woman
in a straw hat bobbed up and down. A fat boy in a Motorhead T-shirt made peace
signs and a teenage girl in a village peasant costume waved a small green
bottle in my direction.

I took
several bows, before being carried shoulder-high from the stage.

‘What
do you reckon, Uncle Brian?’ I asked.

Uncle
Brian made a so-so gesture and closed his laptop. ‘OK, but you can do better.’

‘But
they loved me.’

‘They
can love you more.’

‘You’re
right,’ I said. ‘I’ll do the song and dance act.’

‘No,’
my uncle placed a hand upon my wrist. ‘Always leave them wanting more. On to
the next gig. I’ll give you a print-out of the new gags.’

‘But
this crowd loved the ones I told.’

‘Never
tell the same gag twice.’

We left in the limo and
drove on to the next gig. I sang ‘Orange Claw Hammer’ to my uncle on the way. I
think he was secretly impressed by the cherry phosphate line.

The
next gig was at the Sir John Doveston Memorial Gym. The resident
manager/caretaker/trainer Mr Ernie Potts, welcomed us in. I took to the stage
to wild applause and ran through the latest print-out’s worth of gags,
demonstrating with further props supplied by my uncle.

The gig
went down an absolute storm.

But
once again my uncle sat there, shaking his head and pushing the keys of his
laptop.

I was
shoulder-carried from the stage to very wild applause indeed.

A woman
in a straw hat bobbed up and down. A fat boy in a Motorhead T-shirt made peace
signs and a teenage girl in a village peasant costume kept pointing to a small
green bottle and winking at me.

Back to
the limo and on to the next gig.

‘I’d
like you to try these gags next,’ said my uncle, handing me a further
print-out.

‘Why
don’t
you
laugh?’ I asked him. ‘Everybody else does.’

My
uncle made the face that says,
I
wrote the gags. And I said no more.

The
third gig was at The Flying Swan. In the upstairs room. The one usually
reserved for wedding receptions or congresses of the West London Wandering
Bishops.

The
crowd just
loved
me.

A woman
in a straw hat loved me. A young man in a Motorhead T-shirt loved me. A teenage
girl waving two small green bottles loved me. Everybody loved me.

Everybody,
that is, except Uncle Brian. Well maybe he did love me, but he just sat at his
laptop unsmiling.

I was
quite knackered by the sixth gig. And somewhat disorientated. I’d heard about
rock stars who wake up in Holiday Inns and don’t even know which city they’re
in, but I always put that down to the drugs. But I was certainly disorientated
and
I
wasn’t on any drugs.

It was
the crowd. The crowd looked just the same. Same people. Perhaps that’s what
happens to you when you become famous, the crowd just looks the same wherever
you are. Although I suppose it must look different in Japan.

But the
sixth gig was notable for one thing.

My
uncle.

It was
just after I’d told the second gag: What do you get if you stick this safety
pin into this contraceptive? Answer: A record crop of wheat in Canada, that he
began to laugh. He drummed his fists on his laptop and began to go ‘Yes!’ very
loudly.