list.co.uk/festival Alan Warner | FESTIVAL FEATURES
had recovered enough or – more distressingly – had been pacing his moment for good timing. Using the aural authority of the microphone, he spoke into it.
‘Give my regards to Archie.’ An extremely rarei ed sample of the audience laughed. I raised all my i ngers from the armrests and Tidy obeyed the signal so we stopped dead. I turned around in the wheelchair much more lithely than should have been credible and I crossed my legs in support of this inauthentic gesture. All eyes were now upon me. I told him, ‘Watch out I don’t sever your top and bottom lip pal, then make you swallow each through your crying mouth. You’d have what you want then – an eternal smile.’ Tidy drove me onward through the pretentious burlesque curtain pinned up around the doorway, as if what was going on within there deserved coveted hush and appreciation.
‘I’ll kill ya,’ I screamed. The curtain caught on some part of the wheelchair mechanism and we ripped it out with us till Tidy had to slap it aside and away from her, leaving it abandoned in the middle of the church hall l oor like a shroud.
*
Outside on the pavement I stood up and removed the spectacles. They were sheer murder. Tidy i red up two fags and passed one to me. She was chuckling. No, she was laughing. ‘Don’t do that, you know it bugs me.’ She shut up and said, ‘It was funny.’ Suddenly a i gure leaned out of the doorway to the main church hall – I recognised her as the sort of usherette to the venue – she probably referred to herself as Assistant to the Artiste; maybe she was rubbing his noggin to get the stiffness out? Or in. She frowned at our steady smoking and of course, at me standing up straight. Tidy said, ‘ You best no bother him, love. He’s just had chemical castration and has terrible mood swings.’
‘Oh.’ ‘Still. Want to come to our place and party?’ Gamely she ignored Tidy. ‘Are you alright?’
I blew smoke towards her. ‘You never answered the
question.’
Tidy added, ‘We’re both junkies on Invalidity. We’re
bone idle and never worked in our lives.’
I informed the usherette in a mournful tone, ‘It’s really in contemporary affecting our social advancement society.’
Tidy put her hand out, ‘Lend us a few quid will you?’ ‘I really don’t know what to suggest,’ she told us, then added, ‘Please don’t come back here,’ and she returned within the church hall. Both Tidy and I made an, ‘Awwww,’ call.
Tidy looked at me and she said, ‘I bet you’ve got three more Uni degrees than the frigid cow. He wasn’t right was he?’
‘Nah. Not worth the risk. Though there’s not much risk
any more.’
Tidy had the large Fringe guide book out of the pocket in the back of the wheelchair and she was l icking through the remarkable number of pages dedicated to Comedy. She murmured, ‘Amazing they never call the police when you say stuff like that. A cracker. Not as good as that simple thing. When you smiled at the couple in Starbucks then just spat a big gobber on the window. I laughed for a week at that.’ ‘It happened in Kieslowski’s A Short Film About Killing,’ I reminded her. I like to acknowledge my sources. I said, ‘Let’s go back to the VW, change into something else,’
‘Want to go to Lochearn or do you want to check out
another?’
‘Another aye, but the pub i rst.’ I began folding up the wheelchair into the l at pallet it formed so that I could carry it into the pub under my arm.
*
It was a similar venue for our afternoon reconnaissance. Almost identical; white plastic seats! Yet the arrangement had been reversed – the little stage was in the far left corner – you could argue the scene of the action was now changed around to a North South West coni guration. Or aspect. Or was it a West South East? Depended which way you were facing.
14–25 Aug 2014 THE LIST FESTIVAL 23