The Thirty List

‘OK. Dating does scare me, so it definitely counts, but I’d just like a bit of female company. Someone who didn’t want to talk about Thomas the Tank Engine, or whose turn it was to clean the loo, or—’

‘—whether you need to go to the garden centre to buy some trellising, or who was going to call the chimney sweep—’

‘—or the kid, when he sleeps, when he poops, whether his nursery is “pushing” him enough, or—’

‘—if it’s time to change the car and whether you should upgrade to the new Ford Focus this winter.’

He smiled. ‘I guess it’s a while since either of us flirted over cocktails.’

‘Yeah.’ As he went to make coffee, I wondered if he would ever consider me female company. Clearly not.

‘You’re still missing one,’ I said, tapping the pen. ‘That’s only nine.’

‘Who says it has to be ten?’

‘Everyone knows lists have to be in tens.’

‘What are you, some kind of list fascist?’

‘It’s just more … pleasing that way. Anything else you want to do—learn a language, hike the Grand Canyon?’

‘I’ve done that.’

‘Show-off.’

‘It was OK. Hot.’

‘So there’s no number ten?’

‘Put this down for now—number ten equals, find a number ten.’

‘All right. Though just so you know, I disapprove of this meta-list-making approach.’

‘Noted.’

‘So.’

In front of me, the darkened room could have held any number of people—hundreds, even. Part of my brain knew it contained only fifty or so, but the rest of me was trying to run away and hide behind my own back.

I smiled. Always smile, that was lesson one. Don’t seem nervous. Even if you’re afraid to open your mouth in case you’re sick all over the front row.

‘Hello!’ Always say something then wait for an answer. It engages the audience. Lesson two.

‘Hello!’ came back the lusty cry, reinforcing the impression that there really were hundreds of them. I blinked in the spotlight.

‘My name’s Rachel and …’ Oh bugger, I hadn’t done the microphone. You always had to ‘do the microphone’ first. That was actually lesson one. Somehow I found the idea of taking the mike from its holder, in front of all those people, more terrifying than anything else. I wasn’t sure my hands could remember how to perform even the simplest action.

It was a Sunday night, and we were in the back room of a pub somewhere near Camden. Alex was staying with a school friend, which Patrick was apparently OK with. This was the moment I had somehow believed would never take place, even when we’d been on the intensive course for the past two days, even when the event had started and I was waiting in line for my turn to perform.

I had gone on fifth, after Adam, Jonny, ‘Big Dave’ and Asok from our course. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that said ‘Devon knows how they make it so creamy’—the West Country featured heavily in my comedy shtick.

I had been silent for maybe three seconds, but every moment felt at least ten times longer on stage. I took a deep breath and tried to remember my own name.

‘I’m Rachel, and I’m from Devon, as you can maybe tell. I recently became single after a long time.’ I paused. ‘You could have “awwed” there, but I suppose we don’t know each other that well … That’s OK. Anyway, I’m so out of the loop with London dating I feel like a foreigner. I went on a date recently and it was as if we were speaking different languages. He was very into computer games and we don’t really have these in Devon. It took us a while to figure out the iPad 2s we’d been sold were actually just really expensive Etch A Sketches.’

A laugh! Someone had laughed! I knew the gang were here, but I couldn’t see them with the lights, and Patrick was waiting his own turn backstage somewhere, so I couldn’t be sure who it was, but it was for definite a laugh! Either that or someone choking to death on the suspect beer the place served.

‘In order to help me through this trying time, I’ve been listening to a lot of music …’ I did my Sinead O’Connor stuff. There was a mixture of chuckles and groans—I could see the faces of the front row, contorted with laughter. A rocket-shot of adrenaline went up from the soles of my Converse. This was going to be OK. ‘My real favourite though is Beyoncé—I like to think of her as kind of my spirit guide. But I do find it interesting that her name is clearly the past tense of a French verb. I wonder what “to beyonce” actually means. To be totally fabulous? To look great in hot pants? To call your child a really stupid name?’

I took a deep breath. Halfway through.

‘I’m from Devon originally, but my mother is Irish. So if I miss my family when I’m in London, I can always be reminded by going on Facebook, because it’s basically a giant nosy Irish mum. All those questions:

‘Do you know this person outside Facebook? Where were you born? What do you do for work? Have you a boyfriend? Do you know these people? Did you go to the toilet before we went out? Take your coat off or you won’t feel the benefit.’ Here I adopted a sort of cod Irish/West Country accent, which sounded nothing like my actual mother. I prayed she would never find out about any of this.

‘Or else it’s always showing you pictures of people who’re just doing better at life than you. I sometimes think Facebook is like playing popular nineties board game The Game of Life, like you did when you were a kid. You get ten points for an engagement, extra if the question’s popped up Kilimanjaro while you’re in the middle of a charity trek for blind dogs. Twenty points for smug baby pics. If you’re losing at the game of Facebook, it’s even worse than losing at The Game of Life. Turns out, the friends who are super-smug now, with their holidays and babies and charity runs, are the same ones back then who’d boast about having to upgrade their plastic car so they could fit in all their little plastic peg children.’

The end of my routine had arrived suddenly, like the end of an escalator. Oh. I stopped. Smiled. ‘I’ve been Rachel Kenny, thank you very much.’

And I was done, just like that. It was over. I took my seat, hearing actual applause and chuckles. As I did, I caught sight of Patrick, who was on after Gary—the guy off the course who told lots of dodgy Rohypnol jokes. I hurried to my seat so I’d have time to sit down and tut passive-aggressively. Patrick was too busy staring at the floor, mouthing his routine, to catch my eye.

I was pretty sure where Emma was after the end of Gary’s piece, as I could hear her sighing loudly every time he made an off-colour joke about car boots, duct tape, Rohypnol cocktails and many other topics that were about as funny as a colonoscopy. It was this in itself that made me glad I’d tried it—otherwise I and every other woman in the world would spend eternity sitting in the audience listening to men tell jokes to other men about assaulting us. The world was our bad comedy show. At the very least we deserved to get in a few one-liners about penis size and tampons.

Then, thank God, Gary was off, to lacklustre applause and a clear ‘SEXIST RUBBISH’ heckle, I suspected from Emma, and Patrick was shambling on stage in his cords and curls, looking for all the world like a posh TV expert on antiques or civil war battlefields. I almost felt more nervous than I had for myself.

He ‘did’ the microphone with a quick flick and rooted himself at the front of the space. Rule number four—don’t move about the stage too much. ‘Hello, London Borough of Lambeth!’ Some laughs. ‘I’m Patrick, and I recently found myself becoming a single parent.’

Some real ‘awws’ from the audience this time. Whatever.

‘Thank you. When I want to really impress women, I pretend my wife died in a tragic threshing accident on our farm and I have to raise little Billy all alone, but there aren’t that many threshers in North London, so in reality she’s fine. Just not fine with me. Apparently, she thinks I’m not stylish enough.’ Another laugh, as he indicated his brown cords and fisherman’s jumper. ‘She says I’m the only man she knows who thinks the eighties were a genuinely good decade for fashion choice.’ He shifted slightly. ‘I’m getting used to being a single dad. I used to work in a very busy office, and now I do the school run, but you know, I’ve noticed a lot of similarities. For a start, in my office, if people don’t get want they want, they also sometimes lie on the floor and have a tantrum, or pee in the managing director’s shoes. But the CEO didn’t take it too kindly when I offered him nap time and a snack of Dairylea Cheese Slices.’

Laughing. People were laughing. I could see why. He was very natural and appealing on stage, smiling, eyes open, gesturing to people in the front row and addressing them directly. It was all going to be fine. I let out a big sigh of relief.

‘You were amazing! Hilarious! Much better than all those rubbish misogynists. In fact, who do I complain to about that?’

Cynthia bustled past a ranting Emma to hug me. ‘You were great, darling. One of the best, easily.’

‘Thank you!’

‘I just wish Rich had come … We had such fun at the tango class, but since then he’s been working non-stop.’

I wasn’t sure Rich would like it much here. Even though to me, in the grip of a serious adrenaline rush, the grotty pub looked sublime. The flat beer tasted like Dom Perignon, the sticky floor looked glorious and I had never loved my friends more, even if Cynthia had her BlackBerry glued to her hand as usual, and Emma was scowling around her and wearing a T-shirt that said ‘A WOMAN NEEDS A MAN LIKE A FISH NEEDS A BICYCLE’, and Ian was looking decidedly hangdog with jealousy.

‘You know, I think I should give it a go. This.’ He waved his arms around.

‘Comedy? Or opening a smelly pub?’

‘Comedy. Most of those guys were rubbish.’ He was just as loud as Emma. ‘I could do way better than that. I mean, you were OK, I suppose, but the others …’

‘Well, do it, then. It’s not that bad.’ I had conveniently suppressed the entire weekend of gnawing terror beforehand and the fact I hadn’t slept in two days. ‘That’s the whole point, isn’t it? The rest of you are meant to do things with me?’

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