Miss Wrong and Mr Right

by Robert Bryndza

  ‘So, Ryan Harrison is an alcoholic?’ asked Xander, picking up a newspaper and flicking to the article.

  ‘It seems so,’ I said.

  ‘And is this where your parents live?’ he asked, pointing to the pictures of the farm. I nodded. Xander went on. ‘Was Ryan drinking at this christening?’

  I started to tell them about the trifle, but Nicky interrupted saying,

  ‘Listen, everyone. It doesn’t matter if Ryan had nothing to drink, or one liquer chocolate, or a bottle of whisky. These. Pictures. Show. Intoxication,’ she tapped the paper to emphasise each word. Craig started to unfold the stand for the A1 flip chart.

  ‘You’re so lucky to have grown up on a farm. I grew up in Rainham, in a little two-up two-down…’ said Xander. ‘Are your parents rich? I’d love to live in Soho! This flat must have cost millions?’

  ‘Xander, honey, stay on topic,’ said Nicky.

  ‘Natalie’s flat is owned by the Peabody Trust, vat you call social housing,’ explained Gran. ‘Have you heard of Mr Peabody?’

  ‘Is he like Mr Bean?’ asked Xander.

  ‘Okay people. Enough about Mr Bean and Mr Peabody, we need to brainstorm,’ said Nicky. With a squeak of her marker pen she wrote Brendan’s name in the middle of a clean sheet of A1 paper. Craig sat beside Xander. Gran ignored her and went on.

  ‘Mr Peabody vas a very rich American business man…’

  ‘Okay, what do we know about him?’ asked Nicky.

  ‘He set up a charitable foundation to provide affordable social housing for all,’ explained Gran.

  ‘Not Mr Peabody, Brendan O’Connor,’ snapped Nicky. Gran shot her a dangerous look,

  ‘My friend Pedro vas a fine musician vith the London Symphony Orchestra, ven Natalie first came to London, ve stayed here vith Pedro…This vas his Peabody Foundation flat.’

  ‘Nat, can you…’ said Nicky but Gran cut her off.

  ‘Pedro became very ill, and Natalie helped me nurse him until the end. He passed the tenancy over to Natalie in his vill, so she could afford to live in London and vork in the arts…’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Nat, you never mentioned this,’ said Craig.

  ‘It’s not something that you just drop into the conversation,’ I replied quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry about your friend,’ said Nicky.

  ‘That’s such a sweet, sad story,’ said Xander. ‘So, you’re not rich…’

  ‘No, I am not rich. But who is who works in the arts?’ I asked.

  ‘Ryan Harrison,’ said Xander., ‘I worked out that he’s getting paid more than all of our salaries combined. I’d give anything to have his life…’

  We all looked at the pictures of Ryan throwing up in the pond, and me with my arm around his shoulder. I could see my personal life was colliding with work, and it wasn’t a good feeling.

  ‘Okay. Here’s what I think. I’ll make us all a cup of coffee, and when we’ve settled down, we can properly discuss how to move forward,’ I said indicating the flip chart.

  When we had our coffee, we sat round Nicky’s board, giving it our full attention.

  ‘Okay, what do we know about him?’ asked Nicky, pointing at Brendan’s name, written in felt tip, as if we were all on a corporate training weekend.

  ‘He is a man, yes?’ asked Gran.

  ‘Yes… And?’ said Nicky, as if Gran were stating the obvious.

  ‘You’re not listening my darlink,’ said Gran. ‘Men are easy to manipulate. You need to find a way to push his buttons, kick him in the balls.’

  ‘That’s not really the most mature option,’ said Nicky.

  ‘I speak metaphorically of course. You must humiliate him,’ explained Gran.

  ‘How, Gran?’ I asked. She went on.

  ‘Someone did a survey recently. They asked many voomen vat scared them most about a man. Guess vat they all answered?’

  ‘That he’d leave the toilet seat up?’ said Xander. Gran gave him a look.

  ‘That he’d leave them for a younger woman?” suggested Craig.

  ‘No. That a man might attack or kill them,’ said Gran. She went on, ‘Guess vat the men answered ven they ver asked what most scared them about a vooman?’

  ‘That she might do a Lorena Bobbitt? Chop his dick off?’ asked Nicky.

  Gran shook her head.

  ‘Vat men said they ver most afraid of about a vooman, is that she might laugh at him…’

  We took that in for a moment.

  ‘And this is true?’ I asked. Gran nodded.

  ‘Let’s ask the guys what they think of this?’ suggested Nicky.

  ‘I’m as bent as a butcher’s hook, so you can count me out,’ said Xander, sipping his coffee.

  ‘Craig?’ I asked. He looked uncomfortable and squirmed in his seat.

  ‘It’s a crude generalisation, but sort of true in many ways. The thought of a woman’s mocking laugh directed at me is one of the worst things I can imagine,’ he said.

  ‘So you think we should all go and stand in front of Brendan O’Connor and laugh mockingly?’ asked Nicky.

  Gran shot her another look.

  ‘Darlink, you are not taking this in. Vat is most precious to Brendan?’

  ‘His reputation,’ said Xander.

  ‘His work,’ added Craig. Gran indicated that Nicky should write it down. She did, her pen squeaking.

  ‘Brendan’s main client right now is The Big O,’ I said. ‘He’s launching this new venue, I heard Tuppence Halfpenny say they were all taking a big chance…’

  ‘We could go negative, put out some stories to counter what’s been written about Ryan,’ suggested Craig.

  ‘Would that hit him in the balls?’ asked Nicky. ‘He would enjoy parrying them, and come back stronger.’

  ‘Do we know what he’s got planned for today, for Gay Pride?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s got Tuppence Halfpenny back performing on her swing in front of the video wall, and they’re running a text promotion on the wall. Text this number to get 20% off tickets… blah blah blah,’ said Nicky.

  ‘I’m not doing anything with pigeons and bread rolls again,’ said Xander.

  ‘If we think about it, Brendan’s balls are the video screens,’ I said ignoring him. ‘And Jamie’s balls too…’

  ‘And Tuppence Halfpenny’s too,’ added Xander. ‘She’s such a feisty, strong, independent woman…’

  ‘Okay honey, she’s not Judy Garland,’ said Nicky. She wrote VIDEO SCREEN at the top of her paper. ‘That’s it! We pull the plug on their screens!’

  ‘How? We’d have to break in, which would be illegal, and they’re a pop-up venue. They have all their own power. And what do any of us know about electrics?’ asked Craig.

  We reflected on that for a moment. Suddenly an idea popped into my head.

  ‘I’ve got it!’ I said. I jumped up and grabbed the pen from Nicky, and started scribbling.

  ‘So let me get this straight,’ said Nicky a few moments later. ‘You want your brother-in-law…’

  ‘Dave,’ I said.

  ‘Your brother-in-law, Dave, from Devon, to hack into the video screen at The Big O?’ asked Nicky.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We’ll take down their video of Tuppence Halfpenny, and replace it with the YouTube video we’ve got of Ryan as Macbeth.’

  ‘The yummy one with his shirt off?’ said Xander.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘So it’s like we turn their venue into our billboard!’ added Nicky.

  ‘No. We turn their venue, into our venue,’ I said.

  ‘And there you hev it, that’s his balls,’ said Gran.

  ‘And this Dave guy, he can do this?’ asked Nicky.

  ‘Yes, he spent ages droning on about his job at the christening,’ I said. ‘He’s hired by banks and big corporations to hack into their computer systems, so they can anticipate weaknesses.’

  ‘Let’s phone him,’ said Gran, pulling her little gold address book from her purse. I dialled Dave’s n
umber and put the phone on loudspeaker.

  ‘Hello, Dave?’ I said.

  ‘Who is this?’ asked Dave.

  ‘It’s Natalie… Nat… Your sister-in-law?’

  ‘Hi Nat,’ said Dave’s tinny voice. He covered the phone shouting, ‘Micky it’s your sister, I dunno what she wants?’

  We heard Micky in the background shout, ‘I’m up on the loo! What does she want? I’m not going all the way up to bloody London to watch bloody Shakespeare, so you’ll have to make up an excuse!’

  Gran looked at me and rolled her eyes. Dave came back on the phone.

  ‘Sorry Nat, Micky’s…’

  ‘It’s you I wanted to talk to,’ I said. I then went on to outline the plan. Dave sounded intrigued and promised he would check it out and rang off. I made some more coffee and we sat in silence.

  ‘Sorry, how long do you think this meeting will take?’ asked Xander bashfully. ‘It’s just, I promised to meet my friends Tim, Tim and Tim before the Gay Pride parade begins. We’re on the Wonder Woman float, and I’ve got their capes and gold crowns in my rucksack.’

  I went to answer him, but my phone rang. It was Dave. I put him on speaker again.

  ‘Hi Nat, it was pathetically easy to hack into,’ said Dave. ‘People spend all this money on software and hardware but don’t think to protect it. I’m in their system now. Do you want their email and phone records?’

  Nicky shook her head.

  ‘We don’t want to steal anything. We just want to disrupt things,’ I said. ‘But before we do this. We need to know if it’s illegal?’

  ‘Technically yes, but what you’re planning isn’t necessarily malicious. You’re not proposing we steal any data?’ replied Dave.

  ‘Could you lose your job?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m freelance Nat. And I might be a fat bastard in real life, but in online terms, I never leave a footprint,’ he laughed. I looked at Nicky and Craig, they nodded their heads.

  ‘What do you want to play on the big screen?’ asked Dave. ‘Revenge porn? A sinister message?’

  ‘No! Nothing like that, we’ve got a video trailer for Macbeth we’d like to have playing on the screen,’ I said.

  ‘Find out Dave’s email. I can send it over now,’ whispered Nicky pulling out her iPad. Dave gave me his address, and Nicky emailed him the video to upload.

  ‘And Dave?’ I said. ‘Can you make it that they are completely locked out of their computer systems until this evening, that’s when the Gay Pride parade will be over.’

  ‘They’re not going to be getting back into their computer systems any time soon,’ said Dave. ‘I can get this up and running in the next hour, maybe sooner,’ he finished.

  We grabbed a late lunch of Gran’s leftover goulash, and then Xander went to get changed into his Wonder Woman outfit.

  ‘How do I look?’ he asked coming back into the kitchen. He wore a long black wig, gold tiara, and the all-in-one bodice of red, gold and blue. I’d never realised how skinny he was.

  ‘It’s a Cher wig, do you think it scans?’ he asked.

  ‘You’ve got such skinny legs,’ said Gran.

  ‘Thanks,’ grinned Xander.

  ‘Like two cigarettes poking out of the packet…’ she added.

  His face dropped.

  ‘You look great,’ I said encouraging the others, who all nodded and cooed appropriately.

  ‘I’ll look out for Ryan, our float is raising money for injured servicemen,’ explained Xander.

  ‘Oh darlink, I thought you ver just dressing up vith a load of poofs to look for sex?’ said Gran.

  ‘No! Gay Pride is about more than that. It’s about equality and charity,’ explained Xander, pulling at strands of the Cher wig, which had caught in his mouth.

  Gran rummaged in her handbag.

  ‘There, I donate,’ she said tucking a twenty pound note into his Wonder Woman bodice. We all scrabbled around for our purses and wallets and thrust notes at him, ashamed we’d been thinking the same thing.

  ‘Thanks everyone,’ he grinned. We left Xander on the corner of Beak Street where he joined an excited group of lads big and small, fat and thin, all dressed as Wonder Woman. Gran had decided to stay at the flat, saying she was feeling very tired.

  ‘Give them a good kick in the balls from me…’ she said.

  Raven Street had been blocked off to traffic with crash barriers, in preparation for the afternoon’s Gay Pride parade to pass. We heard whistles and drums banging a few streets away, and realised this was the calm before the storm.

  Our huge Ryan Harrison billboard towered above the street and I looked up at him as we approached the theatre. I couldn’t quite equate it with the guy I had spent last night with.

  I looked across at The Big O. The video was playing of Tuppence Halfpenny on her swing, trailing back and forward with glitter. A ‘text this number for tickets’ message flashed up on the screen at intervals. Jamie and Brendan emerged from the doorway and lit up cigarettes. They saw us standing on the other side of the road.

  ‘Afternoon chaps!’ I said defiantly. They looked at me warily.

  ‘Afternoon Natalie,’ said Brendan. ‘What did you get up to this weekend? Oh sorry, we read about it in the paper!’

  Tuppence Halfpenny emerged in a red corset and matching fishnets.

  ‘Natalie, hello,’ she smirked. ‘Are you here to turn a straight man gay?’

  ‘I like those vintage knickers, where did you manage to tuck your penis?’ I replied.

  Nicky and Craig started to laugh. The sound of the drumming intensified. The Gay Pride parade had entered the top of Raven Street, and was advancing towards us.

  ‘You guys should watch out. There’s plenty more to come, isn’t there, Brendan?’ snarled Tuppence.

  ‘You’re underestimating us,’ shouted Nicky. On cue, Tuppence and her swing disappeared. The giant screen above us went blank and a multi-coloured test card image covered the building. All three of them looked up and frowned.

  With a crackle of distortion Ryan Harrison appeared on the screen. Twirling his sword, flexing his biceps, clouds roaring across the mountains and then ‘RYAN HARRISON IS MACBETH’ swirled into view above his head. Their mouths actually fell open.

  ‘Sorry, we haven’t got time to count your fillings,’ I said, having to raise my voice over the advancing crowds. And then the parade was suddenly on us, filling the street, surging past with a happy colourful roar. A float full of men dressed as Spartacus, flexing their muscles cheered and whistled at the giant Ryan Harrisons on either side of the road. Brendan and Jamie rushed back inside with Tuppence in tow. A look of utter dismay on their faces.

  We went up to the roof to watch the parade pass.

  ‘I love this country!’ shouted Nicky above the roar and the drums banging. ‘Look at this: banks, major supermarkets, politicians. They’re all part of Gay Pride, celebrating equality and raising money for charity. It’s so positive!’

  I went to answer but Tuppence and Brendan came out of The Big O, angrily peering up at Ryan on their screen. Nicky went on.

  ‘And look at those bastards. They’re screwed. Ha!’

  I stared down at Brendan and Tuppence gesturing angrily at Jamie who had joined them on the pavement. Why on such a positive day, were we embroiled in something so horrible? This wasn’t the reason I wanted to work in the theatre.

  Xander’s float of Wonder Women went past blaring out the Wonder Woman theme. We cheered and Xander waved up at us.

  Ryan appeared on a float towards the end. The boys from the Macbeth cast were all dressed in kilts, and they had made a throne for Ryan, which he sat on, and waved to the crowd. The roar was deafening as he passed, and the parade actually ground to a halt as everyone wanted selfies with the real Ryan and the two massive Ryans either side of the street.

  We waved from the roof, and some of the guys from the cast looked up and waved back. For some reason I really wanted Ryan to look up and notice me, but he didn’t.

 
; ‘Look!’ shouted Craig thrusting his phone in my face. ‘#RyanHarrison is trending on Twitter!’

  ‘Yes! Our fight back continues!’ shouted Nicky pumping the air with her fist. Brendan emerged again on the street below, and Nicky took the opportunity to give him the finger. He gave her the finger in return, then drew his finger slowly across his throat.

  The parade started to wind down and despite our victory, I wasn’t feeling victorious. Nicky and Craig said they were going on to watch what was happening on the stage in Trafalgar Square. I was exhausted and realised Gran was at home, alone, so I said I was going to head back.

  ‘Amazing work today hun,’ said Nicky as I hugged them goodbye. ‘We should put your grandmother on the payroll!’

  I headed home, and still felt uncomfortable about how things were going. I looked forward to seeing Gran, she could always cheer me up…

  A river runs through it

  Gran was waiting for me when I came home. She was looking uncharacteristically nervous, and handed me a large glass of brandy.

  ‘Natalie, I need to talk to you…’ she said. We went through to the living room, and I perched on the sofa bed. Gran remained standing in front of the TV, leaning on her stick.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down? You look in agony with that foot,’ I said.

  ‘Natalie, my darlink. Do you remember receiving letters addressed to me from the National Health Service?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I forwarded them on to you in Spain,’ I said. She moved to the big arm of the sofa bed, and perched on it awkwardly.

  ‘I assumed they were about checkups… What were they for? Gran? You’re scaring me…’

  ‘I hev to go into hospital,’ she said dramatically. I went to her and took her hand.

  ‘Are you ill?’ I asked. She nodded.

  ‘Is it serious?’ I asked quietly. She nodded again and pressed a tissue to her mouth. My blood ran cold.

  ‘Just know I’m here for you, Gran. Whatever you need, I’ll stand by you,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you my darlink…’