by Pippa Wright
Dan leans over to whisper in my ear. ‘I hope your friend is an entertaining one, Miss Moneypenny.’
Oh God, I hope so too.
The compère steps on to the stage, blinking into the lights. He looks surprisingly harassed for a man who’s just introducing the acts, and there’s a piece of paper in his hand which, even from this distance, I can see is covered with scribbles and crossings-out.
‘Ladies and gennelmen!’ he announces, squinting out into the audience. ‘Welcome to the Queen’s Arms comedy night, where we have three wunnerful acts waiting in the wings to entertaaaaaaain – ’ a spotlight sweeps through the audience – ‘you!’ The spotlight picks out Bodders at random from the crowd, pint half raised to his lips; he raises it above his head in acknowledgement as the crowd cheers and whoops.
‘And for the rest of you,’ the compère continues, ‘we have three mediocre acts. Ah, just kidding – we’re following our usual programme. Our first act will be Dave Diamond, a debut act, so I hope you’re all going to be very kind.’ The audience goes awww. Dave Diamond? Surely not. Is anyone here going by their real name tonight?
‘After Dave we have our old friend Stanley Judd (cheers from the audience). I see he’s got his fan club in tonight.’ The spotlight roams the room again and stops on a small Jack Russell perched forlornly on a bar stool at the back of the room. Oh ha-ha, my aching sides. This is going to be a long night.
‘And after Stanley, I’m delighted to say we have a surpriiiiise guest, ladies and gennelmen. I’m not going to spoil it by telling you anything except that he was a regular here once upon a time and, though he’s gone on to greater things, ladies and gennelmen, he hasn’t forgotten his old friends here at the Queen’s Arms.’
Dan leans in again. ‘So which of them is it, Lizzy? Who’s your special friend?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ I say pertly, stalling for time. I’m getting the impression Dan thinks I’m here to see some new love interest, and I’m not about to admit to anything that might incriminate me. ‘Tell you what, have a guess once we’ve seen all three acts and I’ll tell you if you’re right.’
A woman from the table next to us glances over to glare in our direction with a hissed ‘shush’.
‘Such mystery, Lizzy, such mystery. I can see you would definitely be worth spying on,’ whispers Dan with an amused smile.
‘Welcome to the stage, puhleeezzze, ladies and gennelman, in his first appearance at the Queen’s Arms, let’s hope it’s the first of many, the one, the only Daaaaave Diamond!’
The compère leaves the side of the stage as a very large man in a fez enters, patches of nervous sweat blooming under the arms of his blue checked shirt. His short hair is brushed forward and glistens with either hair gel or more sweat; it’s hard to tell at this distance.
Dave shuffles towards the centre of the stage, clutching the microphone with white knuckles, as if it’s a grenade that might go off if he relaxes his grip even a fraction.
Please be good, Dave the Comedy Courier, I think. Please, please be good.
Dave, who has gone an unpleasant shade of grey, gulps and shifts his considerable weight from left foot to right foot.
‘Now then, now then,’ he whispers into the microphone.
Oh God, an irony-free Jimmy Savile impression? In the twenty-first century? There is complete silence from the audience.
‘Now then, now then,’ says Dave again, a little louder. I can feel the mood of the crowd shifting already from amused curiosity to impatience. Loyally, and slightly insanely, I laugh as loudly as I can manage, even though I’m not sure if this is meant to be a joke. Bangers, Bodders, Johnno, Dusty and Paddy all turn round to stare in disbelief, first at me, and then at Dan for knowing such a peculiar person. Dave is clearly every bit as surprised as they are, and squints out into the audience to see his solitary fan.
‘Now then.’ Dave is valiantly, some might say ludicrously, going for a third attempt with the same opener when a streak of denim and flying blond hair launches itself from the wings, wraps its arms round Dave’s legs and pulls them from under him. Dave’s fez falls first, and his eyes open wide in shock as he crashes down on to the stage like a felled redwood.
‘Bloody good tackle, mate,’ shouts Johnno, leaping up from his seat. ‘Bloody good tackle.’ The rugby boys thump each other on the back, impressed for the first time tonight.
The streak of denim springs to its feet like a cat, smoothing its long, unbrushed blond hair away from a face so familiar the audience gasps. The fierce cheekbones are unmistakable. The famously full lips saved from looking girlish by a strong jaw. The dark lashes enhanced with a liberal application of mascara.
Randy fucking Jones. I might have known.
He grabs the microphone from poor Dave, who is still lying stupefied on the floor. The flustered compère has rushed on to the stage and is trying to help Dave up, while another man, I’m guessing act two, Stanley Judd, is gesturing furiously from the wings with a ‘get him off’ hand signal.
‘Sorry about that, mate,’ says Randy, as if apologizing for treading on Dave’s toes or something equally inoffensive. ‘Thought you might need a hand out here. Now, where was I?’ He grins wolfishly into the crowd, who are on their feet cheering and clapping – they think it’s all part of the act. Randy pulls at his tight denim jacket, which just meets the heavy leather belt that holds up his even tighter jeans. On anyone else, the preponderance of denim combined with long hair and cowboy boots would suggest a dodgy Seventies heavy-metal roadie, but somehow Randy’s confident swagger and chiselled face make every other man in here seem hopelessly uncool in comparison. Still, I tell myself, I bet he stinks like a roadie, even if he’s getting away with looking like one.
Behind him, Dave is helped up at last and ushered into the wings, crestfallen. I can hardly look at him for pity. You might argue that Randy saved him from comedy shame, but Dave deserved at least a chance to be crucified on stage in front of all of us. It’s what he would have wanted.
‘Where was I?’ repeats Randy. ‘Ah yes. Rehab, that’s where, gorgeous,’ he says, addressing a statuesque redhead at one of the nearest tables. ‘Ever been?’ He leans forward, trips on the heel of his own boot and nearly topples into her substantial cleavage. ‘Ooops, nearly,’ he laughs and staggers backwards to regain his balance.
‘He’s off his face, mate,’ says Dusty under his breath. And he is.
Randy lurches about the stage, swinging the microphone from its cord and failing to catch it once, twice, three times. The audience laughs, assuming he’s doing it on purpose, but it seems to me he’s actually incapable of anything requiring coordination. I start scanning the room for anyone with a camera; we can’t afford a repeat of last Wednesday’s Hot Slebs photos, but everyone is still too surprised that he’s here at all to bother with taking pictures.
‘Rehab, rehab, rrrrrrrrehab,’ slurs Randy, rolling his ‘r’s for dramatic effect. ‘As you can see, it works like a charm.’ To the delight of the audience, he flings his arms into the air, throws his head back and poses like a rock star, waiting for the whooping to die down. I can’t believe they’re actually applauding him for being shit-faced. Do they think it’s all a joke?
Randy’s head suddenly drops forward and his voice becomes hardly audible. ‘Like a charming little charm, a charming, charming, charm of a charm.’ He hiccups. ‘A veritable Prince Charming of a charm.’ He hiccups again, then belches loudly, and I can see the compère and Stanley Judd exchanging glances at the side of the stage. ‘A charmer of a charm,’ Randy half whispers, half sings into the microphone, staring fixedly at the tips of his boots.
The audience isn’t laughing any more, and nor is Randy. He hiccups for a third time and I realize, at the same time that the compère does, that he’s not hiccupping at all. Randy Jones is crying.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m on my feet at the front of the stage.
‘Randy,’ I hiss. ‘Randy, it’s me, Lizzy.’
He looks up, trying to focus, and sniffs loudly. ‘Lizzy?’ Of course he’s ever the pro and lifts the microphone to his lips first, so everyone can hear my name boom through the PA system. Thanks for that, Randy.
‘Lizzy Harrison from Carter Morgan. I work with Camilla.’ I’m trying to whisper, but the entire front row of tables is hanging on our every word.
‘Lizzy!’ Randy exclaims into the microphone again, looking up gratefully, but, I suspect, none the wiser about who I am. However, it seems the magical name of Camilla Carter has reassured him and he takes a huge step towards me, dropping the microphone and opening his skinny arms wide as if I have come to save him. Unfortunately his step forwards is, like so much of this evening, misjudged. His right foot catches the edge of the stage, and for a brief moment he hovers there on the very tips of his toes, arms windmilling desperately backwards. The audience holds its breath, as if Randy might actually defy the law of gravity and recover his balance. But it’s not meant to be. I see his hands clutching helplessly towards me as he topples forwards, and the next thing I know, I’m flat on my back on the sticky pub floor with Randy Jones lying on top of me, clinging on like a baby monkey to the click-and-whirr accompaniment of a hundred mobile-phone cameras.
It seems I have fulfilled my task of losing control beyond Lulu’s wildest imaginings.
6
On my way into work the next morning (via the appallingly late 9.27 from Peckham Rye, for reasons that will become apparent), I try to reassure myself that having your photograph taken in the company of the famous is an occupational hazard in the world of celebrity PR, even if you’re a lowly personal assistant. Camilla wisely advised me when I first started at Carter Morgan to avoid standing next to celebrities when cameras were around. ‘All the paparazzi want is a picture of the famous person. So as long as they get that they don’t care how dreadful you look next to them, they’ll use the picture anyway. And if you’re really unlucky, they’ll put in a “who’s the ugly friend?” caption. Just get out of the way when you see the cameras.’ But everyone gets caught out now and then; in her former job at a book publisher’s, our account executive Lucy was photographed coming out of a West End nightclub with Peter Stringfellow and subsequently identified in the Sunday papers as the nightclub mogul’s ‘mystery brunette’. Even her own mother didn’t believe she’d been there just to publicize his autobiography.
But the invention of camera phones makes it practically impossible to take Camilla’s advice – you never know when you’re being snapped, which is one of the reasons I usually keep way in the background at any kind of celebrity event.
So, I reassure myself, Camilla will understand that I never meant to get involved in Randy’s latest adventure, let alone photographed as a participant. I’ll confess everything the minute she comes into the office. Once I would have rung her in the middle of the night, but these days I know she needs her sleep; and ever since Cassius dropped her BlackBerry down the toilet, there’s no guarantee she’ll actually pick up an email before she gets to the office. It will be fine, I tell myself. She’s bound to know already that Randy’s checked himself out of rehab, and I’m sure she’ll be glad I did the best I could for him last night. Dan and his rugby friends had elbowed the crowd of gawkers out of the way and pulled Randy and me to our feet, and the compère had led us into the wings.
‘Are you okay, Milo?’ asked Paddy. ‘Do you actually know this character?’
‘It’s a work thing, Paddy, and it’s fine, really,’ I replied, trying to regain my composure, albeit a bruised, beer-spattered sort of composure, while Randy swayed unsteadily next to me, refusing to let go of my hand.
‘A work thing,’ said Dan grimly. ‘They shouldn’t put you in this sort of situation. What are you going to do with him now?’
‘I’ve got it all under control, Dan, don’t worry. I’m going to call Randy’s manager, aren’t I, Randy?’ I lifted his lank locks out of his face and tried to get him to look at me. ‘I’m going to call Bryan, right?’
Randy smiled uncomprehendingly in my direction and murmured, ‘Bryan.’
‘And Bryan will meet us at Randy’s house and we’ll put him to bed and everything will be much better in the morning. Won’t it, Randy?’
‘Better in the morning,’ Randy mumbled into my hair, resting his head on my shoulder with a contented sigh.
The compère had called us a minicab, delighted to see the back of us, and Dan had helped me wedge the semi-conscious Randy into the back seat, securing him in place with a seat belt. Randy sat still, quietly drooling on to the front of his shirt.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Dan asked, bending down to look through the passenger window. ‘Are you sure you’re going to be okay?’
The minicab driver sighed loudly and revved the engine.
‘Thanks, Dan, but I’ve already disrupted your evening enough – I’m so sorry. Randy and I will be fine, honestly. You go back inside and join your friends.’
‘Okay, but you take care, Lizzy, and get home safely.’ Dan cast a final look of disgust at Randy’s sleeping form before straightening up.
The instant Dan’s hands left the car window, the minicab driver hit the accelerator with a screech of tyres. He looked back at us in the mirror, at Randy comatose on the back seat. ‘Your friend better not be sick, lady.’ Then he flicked the radio on at full volume. Belinda Carlisle blasted out of the speakers courtesy of Magic FM, and I opened the window and looked out into the night, letting the cool air flow across my face the whole way across London.
Randy was not sick and, in fact, slept for the entire taxi ride to Belsize Park, where a weary Bryan met us with a set of keys. Together we got Randy undressed and into bed, where he curled himself up like a child, whispering, ‘Night, Mummy,’ as we shut the door on him.
Instead of taking another hour-long cab journey back home to Peckham, I let Bryan persuade me to stay the night at Randy’s. After all, there were three spare bedrooms, and I had to agree with Bryan that Randy shouldn’t be left alone in his current state. Quite why it couldn’t have been Bryan who stayed over I don’t know; I was too tired to argue.
I was woken by the sound of Randy’s housekeeper letting herself in at six-thirty this morning, and took my chance to make my escape. I did the best I could to tidy up my hair and wipe the mascara from under my eyes, but it was a distinctly ropey-looking secretary that looked back at me from the hallway mirror, and I despaired at my life.
Here you are, Lizzy Harrison, l thought, feeling like a horror and looking like one too. You have just spent the night with a man once voted Shagger of the Millennium, and he didn’t even try to lay a finger on you. Even though he hadn’t been in a fit state to lift a finger, let alone anything else, and even though I fancied Randy as much as I fancied hitting myself repeatedly on the head with a mallet, I felt as if it was a reflection on my man-repelling ways. If Randy, Mr Testosterone himself, hadn’t even had a go, my nun-like vibes must be super-strength. You are about to do the walk of shame without having anything to be ashamed of, I berated myself. But why do you actually feel ashamed of that? I was making my own head spin as I stepped out into the bright June morning.
So perhaps you can forgive me for looking rather forbidding and frowny in the paparazzi pictures of me descending the steps of Randy’s house emailed to Carter Morgan by a picture agency at eight a.m. Which is significantly better than the way I look in the mobile phone images from the same agency half an hour later, in which Randy seems to be groping me on the pub floor while a crowd of grinning people cheer us on. With my glasses, chignon and shocked expression, I look like a scandalized refugee from a librarian’s conference. But my uptight appearance is entirely at odds with the fact that my hands, in attempting to grab Randy as he falls, appear to be firmly and enthusiastically grasping his buttocks.
Of course I don’t manage to get to the office until ten, having had to get home, showered and back into town, which has given the staff of Carter Morgan plenty of
time to study all the pictures in minute detail. Thankfully it has also given Lucy of Peter Stringfellow fame time to text me a brief warning:
Where are you???? Pix of you & Randy Jones all over the place this morning. What happened?? Jemima mental (more than usual). Proceed with caution.
‘Nice one, Lizzy,’ says Jemima’s PA, sneering as I pass her. ‘I didn’t know you had it in you. Randy Jones’s cock, that is.’
‘Morning, Mel,’ I reply as sunnily as possible. ‘How nice to see you here before ten-thirty for a change.’ It’s pathetic, but I can’t manage anything better.
By the time I’ve run the gauntlet of post-room boys, secretaries and account executives, I’m in no doubt that everyone, including the office cleaner, not only knows what’s happened, but has invented their own X-rated version of events. Lucy gives me a double thumbs-up from her office as I pass, but it’s clear from her sympathetic grimace that this is a sign of solidarity-in-shame rather than approval. Camilla is at her desk already, and Jemima hovers behind her chair while they both stare, stony-faced, at the screen of Camilla’s laptop.
I stand in the doorway of Camilla’s office.
‘I can explain,’ I offer feebly.
‘Close the door,’ snaps Jemima, stalking towards me on her spiky heels. ‘Close the door and sit down right now.’
‘Lizzy, don’t look so worried,’ says Camilla, looking at me with sympathy. ‘I’ve spoken to Bryan Ross and he’s told me what you did for Randy last night. Golly, it must have been awful. You did just the right thing, and Bryan and Randy are both very grateful to you.’
I’d be surprised if Randy is even out of bed yet, let alone aware that I dragged his sorry arse home from Balham, but it’s nice of Camilla to say so.
‘But the fact remains, Florence Fucking Nightingale,’ says Jemima, viciously flicking a strand of her black bob back into snap-on hair formation, ‘that these pictures of you and Randy are a total fucking PR disaster.’ Guess she’s not up for one of her cosy girls’ chats right now. It didn’t take much for that mask to slip.
