Hayden couldn’t see the audience from the stage. He didn’t want to see the audience from the stage. He wanted to be at home writing his novel – not that he’d started it yet – but there he was, caught in the unforgiving glare of the spotlight.
He’d just launched into an alcohol-related riff about a lost weekend in Scrabster with the bass player from the Clits. An extended shaggy-dog story about picking up all the bacchanalian details from the subsequent court case. He’d told it once too often and the audience fed off his lethargy. Result? A smattering of confused laughter, as if they didn’t quite know why they were laughing.
Hayden McGlynn was good-looking in a louche sort of way. Bit like me. The words dry, laconic, cerebral might best describe his comic schtick. No harm in that, you might say, but it’s not to everyone’s taste. This particular night he was getting away with it. Just. The venue, Old Joanna’s, is situated near Kentish Town tube in one of London’s trendier areas. Bespoke bookshops. Designer charity shops. Greengrocers with hand-crafted okra. With matching audience. Which explained why Hayden hadn’t been howled offstage. Yet.
He abandoned the sorry tale with a heavily edited ending and was about to segue into a routine about discovering he wasn’t Jewish – the only penis reference in his entire act – when a lone voice from the sea of darkness before him interrupted. ‘I’ve just had a great idea,’ it suggested drily. ‘Why don’t you say something funny?’ Cruel but, in the merciless world of comedy, fair. The audience, as if suddenly freed from the shackles of civilised behaviour, hooted. A genuine, from-the-heart eruption of unrestrained glee. And with that eruption, Hayden was cast into the seventh circle of standup hell. Laughter, yes, but the wrong sort. Every comedian’s nightmare. At, not with. The audience stared at him for an eternity. No. Hold on. It felt like an eternity to him. But to them, with their comfy seats, and their safety in numbers, and the womb-like darkness of the room, it was less than the time it takes to read this line.
He leaned into the mic with a professional nonchalance he didn’t totally feel. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s my ad lib writer’s day off.’
Laughter. He’d risen to the challenge – for now. Now, in the best scientific definition available, being one nanosecond on either side of the present. But now moved on. The voice from the darkness was back.
‘Well, what do you think he’d say if he was here?’
Hayden was ready for this. This one was easy. This one was a gift. ‘She’d say “How’s that for a lightning-quick sex change?”’ He rode the wave of laughter and, at exactly the right point, held his hand up for silence. ‘“You’ve never met me,” she’d continue, “so what led you to assume I was male in the first place?”’
Applause. Laughter. No retaliation. He was almost back on top. But where to from here? He couldn’t count on members of the audience giving him feeder lines ad infinitum, so back into the act, that was where! And he’d make it sound like he’d never said any of it before.
‘When I was twelve I was convinced I was –’
‘Jewish. Heard it.’
‘Haven’t we all.’
Laughter reflecting their own cleverness back at themselves, the okra-munching fucks. Hayden’s thoughts, by the way, not mine. They were taunting him now. If Hayden was denied the safety net of his overworked material, he had to match them quip for quip. The audience knew this and had moved in for the kill.
All that would save Hayden now from blood on the floor was a deus ex machina, and at precisely the moment of maximum need, his mobile rang in his left trouser pocket. ‘Ode to Joy’: the ice-cream van version. The timing was immaculate. Had the gods caught on to modern technology? Gods or no gods, it worked.
‘Put it on loudspeaker,’ a female voice called from the distance. ‘We’ll close our eyes and pretend it’s a radio play.’
A burst of laughter gave Hayden time to think. Worth a shot. He glanced at the screen. Bram. His oldest and best friend. Bus driver on the 130 route, City Centre to Clontarf, Dublin 3. He stared into the middle distance and pressed accept.
‘Bram.’
Murmurs of approval. The audience settled in. Imaginary cup of tea. Biscuit. Dagger at the ready.
‘I know,’ quipped the phone in a Dublin accent, the mic catching and amplifying it perfectly.
Audience laughter. Hayden braced himself. He didn’t know where this was going.
The audience remained settled. Sup of tea. Quick biscuit-dunk. Dagger disguised as a cake knife.
‘Listen, Bram, I’m onstage at the moment.’ He draped an arm over the mic-stand and feigned serene.
‘Good man yourself. I’ll tell you something. You wouldn’t get me up there. So, how’s it going?’
Hayden opted for acerbic. ‘Since you ask,’ he said, ‘I was holding it together pretty well till about 20 seconds ago.’
‘Could be your gags,’ said Bram.
The audience tittered. They would have hooted, but they didn’t want to miss anything, because this was good. This was very good.
Bram spoke through the titters. ‘Here’s one you can use, right? There’s this –’
Hayden cut across him. ‘Bad time, Bram.’
‘Fair enough. Leave it to the pros. I take it you’ll be coming over.’
‘No plans at the moment, no.’
Bram’s pause sounded surprised. ‘Ri-i-ight,’ he said. ‘I’ll pass on your condolences so. Catch you later. Oh, and before I go. Might be an idea to call the aunts.’
With that he was gone. The audience wasn’t. You could almost feel them coalesce for the sheer joy of mischief.
‘For pity’s sake, man, take us out of our misery. Call the aunts.’ A single voice.
‘Call the aunts.’ A smattering of voices.
‘Call the aunts.’ The entire, electrified room.
‘Call the aunts! Call the aunts! Call the aunts!’ A metronomic pounding of feet on the floor like one giant foot. This was getting dangerously close to Nuremberg ’38.
Hayden bowed to the inevitable. He peered at the screen. Tapped in a number. Listened to the familiar buzzing sound as the number connected.
The audience settled back.
Pause.
‘Howaya, Hayding.’
‘It’s your tree aunties here. In Dubling.’
‘Course we didn’t need to say that.’
‘Being as how you phoned us.’
The audience erupted. It was something about the tone. Tiny voices. High-pitched. Ancient as history.
‘We’re getting static here, Hayding.’
‘Maybe if you moved a bit closer.’
‘Like the Isle of Man.’
The audience, loving every second of it, shushed.
‘Tanks, Hayding. That’s miles better.’
‘But might we say you’re not easy to get hold of, pardonnez our French.’
‘We tried everyting.’
‘Old address.’
‘Spiritualism.’
‘Divine intervention.’
‘Nutting.’
‘So tanks for phoning. You’re a very good boy.’
‘I think you’ll find that was our idea,’ an indignant voice shouted from the darkness. This heartfelt interjection, followed by laughter, set the three aunts off on a tangent.
‘You’ve got company, Hayding.’
‘A little friend, perhaps?’
‘Only we do be worried about you all on your ownio over there in the great big metropolis.’
‘Wit its mighty beating heart.’
‘And its mighty beating –’
Hayden coughed for dramatic effect. ‘Thing is, I’m onstage at the moment,’ he said.
‘Aren’t you great dough, Hayding. Very brave.’
A round of ironic applause.
‘And popular too, if we may make so bold.’
The audience roared. The three aunts could do no wrong.
‘See, Hayding? You got a big laugh there and you never said a ting.’
‘But timing is very important in comedy, Hayding, and you’re a bit late for the silent fillums. You could’ve been huge.’
Wild, spontaneous applause.
‘See? There you go again.’
‘But we digress.’
‘Do we?’
‘Yes, Dottie. We do.’
‘Florrie. You’re Dottie. We were wondering, Hayding, if you were coming back for the funerdle.’
‘Funerdle?’ The audience was back on a point of information. ‘Ask them who died!’
‘Did we not say, Hayding? Uncle Eddie.’
‘So anyway. Are you coming over for the funerdle?’