The Brodsky Touch Read online

  I gave him the key to my apartment.

  Say no more …

  I spotted Scarface at the bar with a spare double gin and tonic in hand and off I went, weaving in and out of tables and gathering more praise (unsolicited this time).

  ‘So … what did you think of my performance?’

  ‘Good,’ he replied, kissing me full on the lips. He kissed so well.

  ‘Only good?’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘Really?’ I do believe it’s a girlfriend’s duty to extract as many compliments as possible from her man.

  ‘Very, very, very good.’

  ‘Say it like you mean it.’

  He blushed.

  And then it clicked.

  I’d had an inkling while I was on stage, although decided that he’d remained hidden in the crowd so as not to put me off.

  ‘You missed it, didn’t you?’ I was outraged.

  ‘I caught the end.’ He’d promised upon pain of death he would watch me perform. ‘Jerry [Scarface’s boss] asked me to have a drink.’

  There was a promotion in the offing. Scarface was imminently going to be declared ‘senior marketing consultant’ as opposed to ‘marketing consultant’, hence his brown nose.

  ‘You could have brought him here.’ I was so disappointed. I mean, was it too much to expect one’s boyfriend to support one on the most important night of one’s life?

  ‘It’s not his type of thing.’

  Scarface’s balls felt soft in my palms. I squeezed hard.

  ‘I did try,’ he yelped, ‘honestly.’

  ‘You bast …’ and before I could finish my sentence, Fat Adrian bounded on to the stage to announce the winner.

  Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, hermaphrodites, syphilitics, socialites, Shiites, Sodomites, midgets, freaks, members of the jury, council, AA, parliament, Opus Dei, IRA, the ex-Busted Fan Club and general public, it is an honour and pleasure to welcome you all to the official opening of The Brodsky Touch, in other words, the opposite of Midas, where everything I touch turns to shit.

  You get the picture.1

  THE END

  Every egg I ever laid went into that basket/competition.

  When I heard Lisa Slater’s name called out I laughed hysterically. Surely it was a joke? Who would seriously believe that Geraldine McIntosh’s girlfriend and latest protégée would get into the next round of the competition instead of me? Okay, so she was a blonde, ditzy, cute, Oxbridge-educated actress-turned-comedienne with everything going for her, but my material was way better than hers and no, I wasn’t just saying that.

  Honestly, everyone could see it was a fix.

  I demanded a recount, a retrial, a rerun. Then I feigned poor hearing and ran up on to the stage anyway. Goddamn, but that prize was mine. The audience loved my little display until they realised it was utter desperation and for real. Yes, I, the saddest clown in the world, shame-faced, walked home that night trophy-less, tail firmly tucked between my legs yet legless, having gulped back the optimistic half of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Scarface came with me and did his best to sympathise. I forgave his non-attendance as a shoulder to cry on became a more pressing priority.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Issy. There’ll be other competitions.’

  Yeah, sure, but I was a thirty-something and that something was getting on. Time wasn’t on my side any more. I mean, we all have our dreams, our youthful ‘look out world here I come’ mind-sets. Hit thirty and those crazy dreams should have either blossomed, petered out or receded into the background of ‘if only’ or ‘could’ve been’ quirks of an adolescent fancy.

  Let’s face it, the life of a comedian tallies not with that of single motherhood, even if that mother has a steady boyfriend. The fact was that most debutante stand-ups spend three to four nights a week on the road, travelling up and down the country to gigs. Is that an appropriate life for a mother? More especially a mother who had to pay for most of the childcare.2 Doing even one gig was costly. Do the maths: six quid an hour for babysitting plus the taxi fare home. Consider also that most comics don’t start getting paid till around gig number fifty, and then it’s usually only petrol money. The brutal truth was that I couldn’t afford it. It was hard enough balancing work and family life, never mind performing as well.

  Scarface tried to console me with, ‘Things will look better in the morning.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise,’ he swore.

  HOW COME MEN ARE SUCH GOOD LIARS?

  In the morning I was seeing double, the hideous outcome of the previous evening magnified by two billion. Mooching about the flat like a lost soul, my spirit shattered, I was the down dog ready to be kicked, pulped, composted. Even Max, my five-year-old son, slapped his hand on to his forehead and made the L sign.

  ‘Loser!’ he chirruped.

  My subsequent tsunami of self-pity freaked him out. I burst into gut-wrenching sobs, ran into my bedroom and slammed the door shut.

  ‘Mum?’ Max eased open the door to my room and stuck his lush curly head around the doorframe. ‘Mum, I really don’t like it when you cry,’ he said.

  ‘I know, Maxy,’ I blubbered, ‘but sometimes people need to let it all out [sob, sob] then things mightn’t seem so [choke, choke] craaaaaaaaaaaap.’

  Max skidded across the floor to my bed. Skidding was his latest craze, a by-product of scootering, though the scooter was now defunct. He’d discovered how to burn rubber by resting his foot on the brake and screeching to a halt. This practice had then been repeated to such an extent that the wheels metamorphosed from circles to curved triangles and the scooter was rendered useless. Hence Max made do with socked feet as the fastest method of interior transport.

  ‘Mum.’ He was looking up at me, his cherub lips curling in distaste. ‘Don’t you remember anything?’

  ‘Like what?’ I asked mid-sob.

  ‘You know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Chumbawamba!’ he declared, like I was an idiot.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘ “I get knocked down but I get up again” … ?’ He began singing the lyrics to a pop song I’d sung to him on each and every occasion he’d fallen over when he was a toddler. ‘ “You’re never gonna keep me down.” You remember?’

  It had become our anthem. A mutual defiant stance at the harsh dealings life threw at Max during his first few years. At the time I called him a tumbler rather than a toddler. He was constantly tripping up, falling over or bumping into things, especially when he learned to run. On and on he would go, and keep going till he met with a wall or obstacle. The pitfalls were ever increasing, as back then he knew no fear and his padded bottom served him well. I tried my hardest not to be one of those parents forever saying ‘no’ to everything, or ‘don’t do that’, otherwise known as child rearing in the absolute negative. I’d try to redirect his attention. Of course, most times I’d fail but hell, the intention was noble.

  ‘Aw come on Mum, it’s boring. “I get knocked down!” ’ His small elbow nudged me in the ribs, urging a response, so I dug deep and in the smallest of voices whimpered,

  ‘ “But I get up again …” ’

  BACK TO BUSINESS

  Fast-forward a couple of months to Parkway, Camden, and a grotty office on the second floor of a dilapidated building. The door to the office had, as in the spirit of all great detective agencies, a frosted centre window, with the following words painted in golden italics: The Honey Trap, Detective Agency, Marital Breakdowns A Specialty. Directly beneath was a Ryman cardboard sign that read ‘Open for Business’. If you were to cast a glance downward to the doorknob, twist it open and enter, you’d find me earnestly bitching to Nadia about Scarface.

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry, Brodsky, it’s a boy thing.’

  ‘All he had to do was call or text. It was four in the morning when he rolled in.’

  Since Scarface’s promotion to ‘senior marketing consultant’ all I ever hear
d was Jerry this, Jerry that, slurp, slurp, lick, lick, fawn, fawn and inevitably, ‘Sorry Issy, I’m working late again tonight.’ Scarface worked late more nights than not.

  ‘Spearmint Rhino, Nads! I hate those places.’

  ‘Don’t take it so seriously, I’m sure it’s just a phase.’

  ‘Phase, schmaze. It’s not on. His boss is the biggest jerk going and it makes me sick. Scarface idolises him.’

  Nadia yawned loudly. I was boring her rigid; besides, she’d heard it all before. She looked at her watch: my ten-minute moaning session was running over. Time up, she signalled, and rang the miniature cow bell I’d brought back from visiting my father in Switzerland. Taking charge of the speaker’s mug, a brown chipped one with the slogan ‘G.K. Garages wish all their clients a very Happy Christmas 1999’, Nadia announced,

  ‘Brodsky, this is top secret and confidential.’

  I was surprised. Friday afternoon ‘mug time’ was strictly for off-loading or moaning.

  ‘Promise you won’t tell anyone?’

  I crossed my heart, swore an oath.

  ‘Absolutely no one.’

  ‘My word is my bond.’

  ‘Tim and I are getting engaged.’

  ‘What?’

  Nadia, mother of two, still in her twenties (okay, so in the twilight zone), stunningly beautiful and with a voice of an angel, had met Tim a month after I got it together with Scarface and was now engaged to be married. How was that possible?

  ‘Bitch!’ I gasped.

  ‘Thanks, Brodsky.’

  I so had to get a handle on speaking my thoughts aloud.

  ‘I mean, congratulations, that’s marvellous news. Really … great.’

  ‘We’re hoping to get married next year. What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Why are you crying?’

  ‘An allergic reaction. It’s nothing, city air pollution. I’m just so happy for you.’ Sob, sob, I mean, Nads was like the younger sister I never had. Younger sisters were categorically not meant to marry first.

  ‘Oh my God, Brodsky, remember when I had that marriage premonition …’

  I sighed. ‘And if correctly remembered, you specifically said it would be mine to Scarface.’

  Don’t get me wrong. I was delighted for Nadia, but I was also seething with envy. Drowning in the green stuff, my heart sank to the pit of my stomach. The state of my own relationship was hardly Elysian, never mind democratic. Actually, it wasn’t really a state. We were like two territorially ambitious, neighbouring feudal warlords, between whom things were generally and fairly rotten. I stared into the mid-distance, savagely biting my nails.

  ‘Issy, are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah, Nads.’ My lips were beginning to pucker involuntarily, then, mercifully, I was saved by the phone.

  ‘Caller on line one, you’re through to the Honey Trap. How can I help end your marriage?’ I droned into the receiver.

  Sure, it’s a cynical business, but someone has to do it. Being an agent provocateur has taught me much about the differences between men and women. There are loads, the overriding one being that men are an ‘other’ species and should be treated as such. From my own hypothesis (and for the record, I don’t consider myself either the bitter or cynical type), it would seem, with respect to relationships ‘in crisis’, a man goes into his cave, but a woman goes into denial and desperately tries to amend her behaviour to suit him. A few years further down the line, post-weight loss, a whole host of new projects/hobbies, counselling, perhaps even a patch-it-up kid, the woman will eventually realise he was actually an asshole and give us a call.

  Of course, it does work the other way round, though not nearly as often. We’re not sexist, but in those cases (ie, men suspicious of their better halves) we just provide straightforward detecting services. The thought of being an agent provocateur in a lesbo situation was a no-go. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t lezzer-phobic. Look, we all have our own moral boundaries and girl-on-girl action lay beyond mine.

  Caller On Line One was slightly taken aback by my apparent non-interest.

  ‘Oh, I see … my situation is different. I’m not actually married yet.’

  ‘Whatever, we deal with all types of relationships.’

  ‘Good, fine, super.’ She took in a deep breath and then launched into her conundrum. ‘Henry, my boyfriend, actually he’s my fiancé, and, well, we are getting wed soon, about to tie the knot, in the eyes of God be joined as one, this summer, a summer wedding, marquee on the lawn. I’m terribly excited, as you can imagine and …’

  I was thinking ‘cut to the chase, lady’, but she didn’t oblige.

  Ten minutes later: ‘… since university. He studied philosophy, I read English and history, which is why we’ve chosen to marry in the college and, of course, he did row for Cambridge, the year they won. All the boys will be there, and you know how boys can be boys.’

  Ah yes, I knew exactly where she was coming from. Flashes of Scarface spending more money on a near-naked stranger in one night than on me in the past three months raced every three seconds like a goldfish’s memory across my mind. I was rankled by his previous night’s activities.

  ‘I’d hate to think of myself as possessive or controlling or insecure but …’ Her voice was soft and squeaky. I imagined pale-pink lipstick and pearls. ‘There is the small matter of the stag weekend coming up and …’

  ‘Ahh, right.’

  I’d always thought the ‘last night of freedom’ a strange conceit and had no understanding why it was that so many stags and hens sought to get laid on that very night. Surely any other night would be better? And in front of all your mates, too. It doesn’t add up: covert behaviour should be exactly that, under cover, as it were. Call me old-fashioned, but if I ever did find myself in the position of a bride, I’d like to think it was a decision made without restraint and a state I’d want to freely enter. Otherwise, why bother?

  ‘Don’t misunderstand me, it’s not that I don’t trust Henry, it’s just occasionally he’s easily goaded into situations he wouldn’t and shouldn’t really be in, especially when surrounded by his peers …’

  ‘I understand, Miss …’

  ‘Lady Ara …’

  ‘Lady Araminta Smythe-What?’

  ‘Higson, she wants me to infiltrate the stag night and …’

  ‘Undercover Brodsky as a stripper? Can’t see it.’ Fiona, the big boss, had flounced in, catching the tail-end of the conversation while hanging up her Burberry mac and fedora (you could so tell she had just arrived back from the Annual Great British Detectives Conference – location top secret).

  Fiona was right: there was no conceivable way I could do it. I could manage burlesque at a push, but there’d have to be plenty of feathers.

  ‘Perhaps someone else should take on the case?’ she suggested. ‘After all, Brodsky, you have been Honey of the Month for the past two.’

  Indeed, my face – for the first time in my employment history – had adorned the monthly scoreboard. By and large it came as a result of my problems with Him Indoors, which had propelled me to focus all my frustrations on other people’s husbands or partners, or just other people in general, but also I’d happened upon a case that had turned into one of the jammiest provocateur scenarios ever. It was a rich seam and one I mined copiously.

  ‘In my opinion,’ continued Fiona, ‘an undercover stripper requires the body of a peachy eighteen-year-old.’

  There’d been recent talk of trying out a work-experience girl. I could just envisage some über-enthusiastic school leaver with sparkling white teeth and pert breasts.

  ‘Perhaps it’s time to advertise for a younger Honey,’ mused Fiona. ‘We are none of us spring chicks.’

  I wasn’t convinced. To be a top agent provocateur one needed more than a good superficial exterior. ‘In this business, Fiona, looks aren’t everything,’ I put forth.

  ‘In stripping they are,’ she contested.

  ‘True … but �
��’

  ‘No buts, Brodsky.’

  I ceded defeat and left the office to go and check up on my …

  JAMMY SITUATION (OR HOW I FOUND MYSELF IN ONE)

  Arthur was a mid-ranking civil engineer with a nice house in Islington. His manner was obsequious, gentle in the extreme and his desire somewhat unusual. (It’s always the quiet ones, hey?) Anyway, he wasn’t your run-of-the-mill sexual deviant, the type who contacted the Honey Trap assuming the name of the company was a euphemism for a brothel. We were constantly hanging up on heavy breathers and, unfortunately, the occasional asthmatic. Clients such as those were strictly forbidden, but in Arthur’s case I’d convinced Fiona to let me take him on.

  ‘Fiona,’ I’d levelled with her, ‘the guy is a paranoiac. He just wants his fear substantiated, that’s all. Nothing sordid, nothing untoward.’

  Distrustful at first, she relented when he paid for 100 hours of surveillance in advance and in cash.

  See, Arthur was my golden cow and how I liked to milk him. It was such easy work. I’d send him shady pictures of himself walking down the road, leaving the office, or standing awkwardly in a supermarket aisle buying tinned peas. Other times I’d plague him with nuisance calls, remaining silent on my end of the phone while he’d shout, ‘I know you’re out there, I know who you are,’ or observe him in his daily routines, take notes, type them up and send them to him with cryptic comments. Basically, he paid me to taunt him with an ephemeral presence. As long as I remained in the shadows it was fine, and that is exactly what I did or didn’t do. I soon realised that the mere threat of it worked just as well. So I’d pretend to watch. For every hour of surveillance I actually did, there were four others I claimed for. Instead of keeping tabs, I left heavy breathing on his answering machine and used the time saved to work on my comedy routine and partake in random openmic spots across the city. Sure it was wrong, totally non-kosher and, I admit, a misuse of Maria the office babysitter (Scarface had proved completely unreliable in the babysitting department).