How I Escaped My Certain Fate (51 page)

He took control and directed me

A little way, to Skelpsie Bay,

Some way south-west of Rothesay.

I parked the car above the beach,

In the distance I saw Arran,

And in the rain I helped Malcy

Get all the props that we could carry

And take them to the shore.

He handed me a pint glass that he’d

Brought with him from Bangor,

And told me to keep it safe

As he would need it later.

Across the sand he dragged his bags

And set them up upon some rocks,

That stretched some way into the sea,

A small performance promontory.

And as I watched him from the beach

He got down on his knees and reached

Into his pocket and pulled out

His old harmonica.

The wind carried the notes away,

But I assume he started to play

And as he did so little heads

Began to break above the waves.

Malcy was surrounded on three sides

By dolphins bobbing on the tide,

Clicking, waiting, watching him,

Wondering when he’d begin.

‘I’ll test my theory,’ he cried,

‘On these far superior minds.’

And in-between the wind and spray

I think I heard Malcy say

The first lines of his tried and tested set.

The story of a gherkin boy who lived inside a burger,

The suicide note of a mouse or something or other,

A funny kind of lullaby sung to a sleepless child,

I knew the pay-off, but before he spat it out

Malcy called, ‘Throw the glass, throw it at me now.’

‘What?’ I answered him, appalled,

As Malcy stuck an orange wig upon his sodden hair,

And blew a last harmonica blast that cut the soggy air.

‘I’ll only go if you throw glass,’ he shouted.

I threw it towards the waiting rocks. It shattered with a crash.

The sea grew calm and duck pond still and then there was a splash.

The dolphins dived beneath the waves.

Skulls cracked smiles in ancient graves.

A shadow fell across my face.

The Super Moby Dick of Space!

But not a cloud had crossed the sun.

I looked back.

Malcy?

He was gone.

And lying there upon the rocks,

His harmonica, alone, unloved.

I hung around the beach till dusk looking for Malcolm Tracey.

If he had come back across the beach footprints would have betrayed him.

If he’d swum underwater out to sea he’d have to have swum a mile from me

Without breaking the surface.

I had to confront my fear.

Malcolm Tracey had disappeared.

I drove back to the ferry and phoned the promoters

To tell them my support act had spontaneously combusted.

But back in London they pre-empted me.

There had been a complaint.

Malcy’s poem had made a student cry.

This wasn’t what comedy was for.

Admittedly in any other form of art,

Tugging the strings of someone’s heart

Would be considered worthy.

But not in stand-up comedy.

Malcy was sacked and there would be

A new support waiting for me

When I arrived in Glasgow.

There’s nowhere to hide in the University of Strathclyde.

The venue’s on the top floor of a tower.

You’re crushed into a backstage room that doubles as an office.

And it was there that I met Malcolm Tracey’s young replacement.

A local lad, slotted in, new to the game, hungry, keen.

He was playing Jongleurs gigs up and down the country

And storming every one, he told me.

He wasn’t interested in doing the Glastonbury,

How was that gonna help his career?

But would do a couple of Edinburghs to snag

A Perrier nomination and blag a TV deal.

I felt old and irrelevant, like someone cutting peat

While dreaming of electric fires and cursing their wet feet.

I offered him a cigarette, but he didn’t smoke.

I said the rider was no use to me, and he packed it away

In his sports bag.

A pretty young girl flounced in and said it was time.

My support act stood and left the room and I went out into the hall

And watched him walk onto the stage.

The crowd applauded his entrance but his opening line,

Something about how he resembled an Australian soap star,

Hardly caught fire.

It shrivelled in the spotlight and then curled up and died.

He tried a condemnation of the students’ refusal to laugh,

And then flipped onto his belly, begging for their love.

But the tricks of the trade were just tricks of the trade.

The emperor stood naked.

The crowd were betrayed.

The boy floundered, dry-mouthed, then looked around,

And bent his head, and bit his lip and bedded in for a battle.

Something was different.

Something had changed.

I felt Malcy’s harmonica in my pocket and put it to my mouth.

It might have been seawater, or it might have been spittle,

But as I ran my tongue along the openings I could feel that it was wet.

I pursed my lips and filled my cheeks and blew the liquid out. 

When
How I Escaped My Certain Fate
first appeared, the comedy writer Tom Neenan published the following on his
Too Much Culture
blog (http://tneenan.wordpress.com)
.

Tony Blair’s memoirs were recently published to a wave of press attention and controversy. A great deal of this criticism has come from Stewart Lee, who believes the ex- premier copied his idea of annotating his stand-up routines. But are the two publications actually that similar? Take a look at this extract from
A Journey
and make your own mind up …

RELEVANT WEBSITES

www.stewartlee.co.uk

www.myspace.com/stewlee

www.gofasterstripe.com

Everyone who encouraged with me during the period described deserves great thanks. So thanks to The
Managements
– Avalon and Debi Allen Associates; The Promoters and venues – Brett Vincent for Underbelly, David Johnson and John Mackay, Tommy Sheppard and The Stand; The Bookers – Charlie Briggs and Dave Mauchline; The
Opening
Acts – Josie Long, Stephen Carlin, Henning Wehn, Greg Fleet, Simon Munnery and Kevin Eldon; James Hingley for the website; the DVD and audio teams at Avalon, and
especially
Chris Evans at Go Faster Stripe and Colin Dench at Real Talent; The Public Relations – Daniel Bee at Avalon, Mel Brown at Impressive, and the guiding hands of Sally Homer; and to Richard Thomas and the hundreds of talents that shaped
Jerry Springer: The Opera
; and at Faber, thanks to Stephen Page, Julian Loose, Ian Bahrami and every one who worked on this book. Special thanks to my publisher Hannah Griffiths for her enthusiasm and support; and to Adrienne Connors at the
Sunday Times
Culture, Christine Gettins and the Manchester International Festival, the Bush Theatre, and Tom Morris and Battersea Arts Centre; and to Richard Herring, for the unused introduction and for the superb book-launch stage invasion. And thanks for their patience and advice to the wife, Bridget Christie, and the editor, Andy Miller, who is a Mod.