it’s too safe. So what’s your idea of hell? Like the most terrifying thing you could do of an evening? Nothing with sharks though, please,’ I said quickly.
‘Why not?’
‘I am really, really afraid of sharks.’
‘You know they only cause about ten deaths worldwide per year? More people die from bee stings. Are you afraid of bees?’
‘Bees don’t come up from underneath you and bite you in half.’
‘Or lightning, that’s pretty dangerous. Are you scared of that?’
‘Again, not likely to chomp me.’
‘Tigers? They can be pretty chompy.’
‘I’d see them in time to run away.’
‘I see. So it’s the element of surprise that frightens you?’
‘A bit. Mostly though, it’s the chomping. Now, pick something scary, that isn’t about sharks.’
‘I suppose … go on a date sometime.’ He said this last very suddenly. Almost shyly. ‘I mean, I don’t want … you know. Your number five.’
He was referring to ‘sleep with a stranger’. ‘Er, neither do I.’
‘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