Berthold: Lucky

Bronwyn turned out to be not nearly as sexy as her voice – tall and toothy, sporting long beige dreadlocks with coloured beads on the ends and rainbow-patched dungarees – in fact my stereotype of a lesbian. Was she or wasn’t she? I studied her carefully, but it is hard to tell nowadays. Anyway, I decided not to pursue matters. But she was nice. She gave me a £20 advance on my stipend, ordered a double espresso and a cup of tea for Eustachia from the relieved bar manager, and led me backstage to meet the rest of the cast.

Then the ten-minute bell rang. Soon that hush of expectation settled on the audience, which hit my blood like a drug. My pulse quickened. My senses were alert. My breath was controlled. I was ready.

When you’re onstage with the lights on you, it’s hard to make out the faces of the audience, even in a space as small as The Bridge. Squinting, I scanned the dark, steeply tiered benches, which were about half full, mainly with young people funkily dressed like arts students. There was a smell of damp socks and patchouli, and you could hear in the background the hiss of the espresso machine, a hum of conversation from the bar, and the rumble of trains passing overhead. It all added to the atmosphere. Then I spotted Eustachia in the front row, smiling with a bemused expression as she watched me shuffling on with the rope around my neck.

I wondered what she made of the play, and of my performance. It isn’t easy to stammer on command, but when I declaimed, ‘P-p-plunged into torment … stark naked in the stockinged feet in Connem-mara,’ I fancied I caught the glint of a tear in her eye. She had never heard me stammer seriously before, but the funny thing is, this time it wasn’t real. I was acting. Even when Pozzo tugged on the rope, I felt a professional calm run through me. I took control of Lucky’s lucklessness and made it my own. I didn’t need anyone to tell me: I knew I was good.

She waited for me as I came out of the dressing room, and threw her arms around me. ‘You were wonderful, Berthold! I’m so glad you brought me to see that, instead of wasting an evening on some George Clooney trivia. It was so profound – a scathing indictment of local government bureaucracy. People hanging around endlessly waiting for something that never appears. Actually – what was it about?’

‘PhDs have been written about it.’ I brushed aside her question as if I knew the answer but couldn’t be bothered with it. ‘Did you really mean that about George Clooney?’

‘Oh, absolutely. Give me Berthold Sidebottom any day.’

I pulled her towards me and kissed her long and hard on her lips. She gasped with surprise, then melted like a warm marshmallow in my arms.

The actors who were Estragon and Pozzo passed us on their way out and gave us a little round of applause.

I settled like a habitué into the passenger seat of Eustachia’s car and we glided swiftly through the near-empty streets of the old East End, close to where Grandad Bob had worked on the docks and Gobby Granny Gladys had ended her days. Even Poplar had become trendy enough to boast its own theatre. This creep of culture can only be a good thing, I thought, spreading enlightenment to the de-industrialised wastelands.

As we approached Madeley Court, Eustachia slowed down. ‘Would you like to come back to my place and meet Monty?’

‘Who’s Monty?’ I imagined some aged relative or lurking lover.

‘Monty the Mongrel. Have you forgotten?’

Indeed I had. ‘There’s nothing I’d like more.’

Actually, there were several things I would like more, including another exchange of body fluids, but you can’t say that to a woman, can you?

Eustachia lived in a one-bedroom flat in the basement of a four-storey house in the almost trendy area north of the Pentonville Road, not far from where my repossessed flat had been. When she had picked me up at the Priory Green Estate and driven me to Madeley Court, she had said it was on her way home; in fact I realised she must have driven well past her destination. Out of fancy, or out of pity? I might ask her one day.

The door to her flat was down a flight of stone steps. You could smell the whiff of damp as you walked in, despite the scented candles and bowls of potpourri dotted about. As soon as she opened the inner door, a scrap of brown fur hurled itself against our legs, yapping hysterically. It was a creature of exceptional ugliness, with short legs, a blunt nose, one eye bigger than the other and a coat the texture of a toilet brush. I felt an urge to kick it, but I controlled myself.

‘Say hello to Berthold, Monty,’ said Eustachia.

‘Yah! Yah! Yah!’ said the dog.

I continued to control myself. ‘He’s adorable,’ I said.

‘Oh, I’m glad you think so, Berthold. I was afraid you wouldn’t like him. You can see why I couldn’t bear the thought of having him put down.’

‘Mmm. You’re a goddess of salvation.’

I felt a sharp pricking in my ankles. Monty’s teeth? Monty’s fleas? Or my imagination?

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked.

My heart sank. What I had in mind was a shot of whisky, or at least a glass of wine – even Lidl sweet sherry would do. Despite the earlier promise of the George Clooney moment, I had a sudden fear that this relationship was doomed.

‘Have you got any …?’

‘I don’t usually keep alcohol in the flat, because of my diet. Not having it means I’m not tempted. Not by that, anyway.’

Temptation. My heart did a little fish-flip. ‘I get it. A cup of tea would be great.’

‘I’ve got redbush, if you prefer?’

‘No, please! Nothing healthy!’

Despite the lack of alcohol, we somehow made it to the bedroom. I guess she had to be more proactive, to make up for the all-round sobriety. Monty, shut outside, whimpered and scratched piteously at the door. His distress brought back a sudden terrible flash of memory of my first day at school, the closing clunk of the heavy safety-glass door; Mother out of reach on the other side. Love, comfort, kindness, protection – all on the other side. I cried and banged my little fists on the door, but by the time someone came to open it, she had gone. The teacher took my hand and led me to meet my new classmates. ‘Don’t be a crybaby. That’s enough blubbing. You’re a big boy now.’ At that moment, I had been cast out from Eden.

Such a desolate flashback would be enough to put anyone off his stride, and I’m sorry to say it put me off mine. That and the baleful stare of the row of teddies lined up on the bookshelf by her bed. The beast had become a mouse. Oh dear. As George Clooney must surely know, performing onstage is not the same as performing in bed. Quick as a flash, Eustachia ducked down under the duvet and popped him in her mouth. He cheered up a bit, but then the mousiness crept back.

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s been a stressful day.’

‘Just a cuddle would be fine,’ she said.

I pressed her against me, and so she fell asleep in my arms with her coppery hair, loosed from its inane ponytail, spreading like autumn across my chest; but I lay awake for a long time listening to the unfamiliar sounds of people and cars passing close to our basement window and the occasional growling of Monty outside the bedroom door, wondering where the current of life was bearing my drifting boat.

Sometime in the small hours, when I made my nocturnal visit to the bathroom, Monty was lying in wait for me, with a strategic sense worthy of his namesake, the hero of El Alamein.

‘Grrr!’ I heard his snarl in the darkness, but before I could locate him he pounced at my bare ankles. His teeth, though small, were very sharp. Thus I too acquired purple stigmata, though in my case human kindness had nothing to do with it.

Worse, I’d somehow managed to leave the door slightly open and the mongrel, smelling his mistress’s bouquet, leaped on to the bed and started to hump her slumbering form through the bedclothes. At this point my self-control snapped, and I’m ashamed to admit I kicked my rival out into the hall.

He yelped, and Eustachia moaned in her sleep.

‘Don’t worry, Stacey,’ I murmured. ‘Everything’s all right. I’m here to protect you.’ My sense of manhood restored, I drew her close. And in a while, groping for trouts in a peculiar river, we made the beast with two backs. My ship entered her harbour. I found out countries in her. I spent my manly marrow, pouring my treasure into her lap. At last, Cupid’s fiery shaft was quenched.

I drifted off into a rounded sleep.