Nerd Do Well (3 page)

Meredith’s mother, Mrs Catsanus, had accompanied us as a volunteer helper and her presence bolstered my old-boy boldness. I found it very easy to make her laugh by being mischievous and cheeky in a charming way. Wonderfully for me, Meredith found this skill endearing (we were at that age prior to parental validation being the kiss of death). My mother-charming antics took the form of various impressions and jokes, including my reciting of the tongue twister, ‘The cat crept into the crypt and crapped’, although I didn’t say the last word because it was way too rude for an ecclesiastical field trip. Besides, Meredith’s mum responded to the innuendo with a fit of giggles, whereas I suspect if I had actually said ‘crapped’ I would have been reprimanded on the spot.

This device was something that in later life I would employ in my stand-up routines and then in my film and TV work. Not the joke itself, although it’s a stone-cold classic, but the idea that an audience were capable of putting the constituent pieces of a joke together themselves, arriving at the punchline before it is delivered, if indeed it is delivered at all. This perhaps was my first experience of collaborative comedy. Allowing Meredith’s mother to know where I was going without actually going there and thus getting away with using a naughty word having inferred it rather than actually said it.

It’s interesting that the memory of entertaining Meredith’s mother remains so clear for me while countless other childhood events have evaporated. Perhaps its significance as one of my earliest comic devices is the reason it still twinkles in my reminiscences.

It certainly connected Meredith and myself in a pre-flirty flirty way and led to a relationship that would extend almost into adult life, depending on your definition of the word adult. Although I was thrilled and fascinated by girls, I was far more inclined to run across a building site, making the noise of a
TIE
fighter. All the juicy stuff wouldn’t start happening until after
Return of the Jedi
.

And so, jump forward with me six years to 1984 (a year after the release of
Jedi
). I was fourteen years old, and living in a small village called Upton St Leonards in Gloucestershire. Actually, I’m lying, I didn’t so much live in the village as in a newly constructed extension to it, which would eventually sprawl itself into the centre of Gloucester. Fortunately for Gloucester, much of the area is broken up by hills, on which it would be impossible, not to mention sacrilege, to build. At the time, the quaintly named Nut Hill and an area of farmland adjoining industrial grounds owned by the chemical company
ICI
separated Upton St Leonards from the neighbouring village of Brockworth. For the fit young boy in a hurry, the short cut was easy. A few fields, a number of fences and a seemingly disused airstrip, and I was in a whole new village, where a raft of new possibilities easily outstripped the meagre offerings available in my own leafy hamlet.

If one were feeling really daring, there was a treacherous bike ride down a winding two-lane road which was as exhilarating on the down as it was exhausting on the way back. I chose the second option that day and mounted my faithful Raleigh Grifter, knowing its heavily treaded wheels would be delivering me to something more than a kiss.

I had lived in Brockworth for four years as a youngster, so I knew it well. I was schooled there and continued to be schooled there into secondary education, after we had moved to a different area, delivered to the door of Brockworth Comprehensive by the Bennetts coach, which picked up the catchment kids on weekday mornings. To go there during leisure time felt adventurous and exciting. The village is bigger than Upton and the youth population was almost entirely comprised of school friends, acquaintances and bitter enemies. Meredith lived in Brockworth as she had always done and it was for Meredith’s company that I cycled to Brockworth on that stifling summer’s day.

By this time Meredith and I had experienced several on again/off again moments. In 1982, she’d had her hair cut like Lady Diana for which I teased her mercilessly. I realised during my persistent barrage of jibes, which included the stinging but covertly affectionate moniker Lady Doughnut, that I fancied her and subsequently I asked her ‘out’.

Meredith turned me down, probably I realise now because of the whole Lady Doughnut thing; and a year later, probably out of pique, I did the same when she asked if I wanted to go ‘out’ with her. It was another year before we buried the hatchet and started ‘going out’ – that widely used euphemism for tentative teenage relationships. A relationship that generally involved ‘hanging out’ and occasionally ‘getting off ’ with each other (what is it with these euphemistic prepositions?).

The degrees of what it was one actually got ‘off’ were in equal parts uncertain and legendary in the retelling from the more confident, sexually liberated boys. Tales of fingering and even blow jobs would filter back to the slightly naive kids (of which I was one) at the back of maths, and not always just from the boys. One particular girl used to regale me with stories of how she would ‘gobble off’ her boyfriend, leaving me slightly breathless and dry-mouthed as I tried in vain to understand quadratic equations.

Meredith and I finally succumbed to each other; indulging in a mammoth snog session on a sofa at some party, where guileless parents had abandoned their house to their teenage children, thinking it would never amount to anything more than pass the parcel and pop music, rather than the bacchanalian love-in it would inevitably become
³
.

Eventually, Meredith and I agreed that we were going steady; although, once again, neither of us was entirely sure what ‘steady’ was. We had been friends for so long we often just fell back into each other’s company when we weren’t with other people.

On that fateful day in ’84 she was wearing a sleeveless tigerskin-print T-shirt and was all of thirteen years old. We disappeared off to a remote part of a field which I’m pretty sure was part of the
ICI
empire, making it so much more daring. Not only could we have been caught, we could also have been prosecuted. Although most likely we would have been chased away by a grumpy security guard, imaginatively nicknamed Hitler by the local hoods. Canoodling plus trespassing certainly added that extra bit of exhilaration, and both of us knew, through an unspoken understanding, we would be progressing on from what usually constituted these little trysts.

We kissed for a while and nuzzled each other’s necks, copying what we had seen people doing in films and TV shows. Almost as though the needle had stuck on the LP of grown-up sexual activity, limiting us to the first few bars, a never-ending prelude to a song we weren’t quite ready to sing along with. That day, however, I decided to nudge the record player and touch her boobs. Not just honk them seductively but actually lift up her T-shirt, undo her bra and feel them, skin on skin. After the fortieth lips-to-neck cycle I changed rhythm. She didn’t resist.

I remember her skin smelled like Boots. Not the footwear, that would be off-putting, rather the popular high street pharmacy. The Gloucester branch boasted a sizeable perfume and make-up department, where I had loitered many times waiting for my mother to finish buying toiletries. I appreciate that implies some odd collision between the Oedipal and the Pavlovic but now really isn’t the time to get into that.

Meredith had sprayed herself with one of those aerosol perfumes for young girls that supposedly inspired men to go to enormous lengths to deliver flowers with breathless, dopey smiles. Flowers were possibly the last thing on my mind as she permitted me access to her bra strap, which I had no idea what to do with. I had never even seen one on a girl my age, let alone touched one. Meredith obligingly took over with an awkward smile and facilitated our blushing journey to whatever base boob contact qualifies as.

Afterwards, as I cycled home up over Nut Hill, I was suddenly racked with a sense of shame and regret. I don’t know why I felt so bad about what I had done. Maybe I was worried about what my mother would think if she found out (there I go again, skipping through the psychoanalytical minefield), or I was just disappointed with the slightly embarrassed cessation of activity once we had travelled the distance we were prepared to travel at this point in our sexual growth. Whatever the reason, it was with a heavy heart that I pedalled up the difficult hill back towards Upton St Leonards.

About halfway up, the road becomes uneven, requiring a hazard sign at the roadside to warn motorists of the possible danger of tackling road humps. The sign is a red triangle with two symmetrical bumps in the centre. I had seen it many, many times on my travels to and from Brockworth, but today it proved a stinging reminder of my tentative step towards sexual maturity. As it loomed towards me over the hill and I spied those two suddenly significant mounds framed in that scarlet triangle, I closed my eyes and uttered the words: ‘Oh God, what have I done?’

I’m not sure why I felt that way. It lasted only a few days and I never felt like it again as I progressed towards adulthood. It makes me laugh to recall it. My guilt and penitence in the face of this (hazard warning) sign from God seems hilarious to me now. God uses lightning and seas of blood to administer lessons, not the Department for Transport.

I actually waited for the feelings of guilt and remorse to return many months later, after the girl who lived in the house opposite mine came round one night and helped me fully understand what those conversations at the back of the maths room had been about. It was something of a shock. A year before, she had visited the house for a quick snog and protested angrily when my hand had found its way up her jumper (I must have been ready to get back on the proverbial tit bike). Now she was round again, and within a few minutes of necking on the bed, yanked my trousers down around my knees. Twenty-eight minutes later, I waved her off, shut the door and waited for the shame and regret to creep through me. It never did. I felt pretty good. Well, I would, wouldn’t I? I’d just got gobbled off.

I know what you’re thinking. What an absolute hypocrite! I open the book by railing against the notion of pimping my private life, then immediately don a felt fedora with a feather in it and whore out my secrets for cheap laughs. Intimate stuff too. Details of childhood sexual exploits, involving bras and fellatio. Truth is, I’m feeling my way along; it’s a learning experience for me as much as it is for you and it’s helped me understand something key. It’s not talking about personal details that unsettles me, it’s filtering personal details through someone else that makes me want to talk about Minnie. A stranger with a different agenda and priorities might distort, misinterpret or misuse the information, but if this information comes straight from the horse’s mouth, that being the definitive subject – brain zero, me, me, me – it’s not so bad.

‘I’m supposed to be writing a book, you mongrel!’ roared Pegg at the shrunken figure sat before him in the reclaimed dentist’s chair.

‘What’s stopping you?’ sneered Needles, a twitchy little informant who often featured in Pegg’s adventures. ‘Writer’s block?’

‘Gah!’ inarticulated Pegg, betraying a frustration he had dearly hoped to conceal.

‘Excuse me, sir.’

Pegg spun round, fire in his eyes. The black glove clutched in his manicured hand hung in the air like a floppy bat, ready to swoop down and give Needles another slap in the cake chute.

‘What is it?’ Pegg insisted through gritted teeth. ‘I’m kind of in the middle of something here!’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ trilled Canterbury, failing to subtract an air of haughtiness from his computerised vocal nodes. ‘I know you don’t like to be disturbed when you’re interrogating a potential informant. Hello, Needles.’

Needles leaned out so he could see Canterbury beyond Pegg’s hulking mass, which was muscular but nimble, like Oliver Hardy if he worked out.

‘Hi, Canterbury,’ said Needles with an apologetic smile.

‘I was wondering if I might provide some refreshments?’ Canterbury enquired with the kind of immaculate poise that could only issue from an
ACH
(automated cybernetic humanoid, designed by Pegg).

‘Do you still have the SodaStream?’ enquired Needles.

‘I think so,’ replied Canterbury. ‘Although I fear it has been secreted in some high cupboard, along with various other novelty food-preparation devices.’

‘That’s a shame,’ lamented Needles.

‘We don’t have time for this!’ Pegg blustered, silencing them both. ‘He can have a can of Fanta Orange and that will be the end of it.’

‘Yes, sir,’ conceded Canterbury, with a slight inclination of his thoracic servos. ‘Coke Zero for you, sir?’

‘What do you think?’ Pegg growled with a throaty rumble that surprised even him (although he didn’t show it for fear of losing credibility in front of Needles). Almost imperceptibly, Canterbury’s neo-carbon-fibre shoulders sagged as he registered the disappointment in Pegg’s velvety Patrick Stewart-style voice.

‘Very well, sir,’ he offered, with a hint of self-admonishment. He was almost back in the transit tube before Pegg stopped him.

‘Canterbury?’ Pegg blurted.

‘Yes, sir,’ he replied.

‘That lasagne you made last night . . .’ Pegg’s voice faltered slightly. His internal monologue cursed his weakness, then for some reason reminded him to get more bottled water for the cave and to tape
Mythbusters
.

‘The lasagne, sir?’ offered Canterbury with just a hint of concern, bringing Pegg out of his personal reverie.

‘It was . . . It was delicious,’ Pegg admitted, eyes fixed on the floor. ‘I thought it was Marks & Spencer’s, until later when I went to the kitchen for a Tunnock’s Tea Cake and noticed you were steeping a dirty baking dish.’

‘That was washed and stowed immediately after you retired, sir. I had to soak it,’ assured the worried service-bot.

‘It’s OK,’ Pegg reassured him with a smile. ‘That doesn’t matter. The point is, you made an amazing dinner last night, that, if I hadn’t discovered to the contrary, I would have assumed was shop-bought. Impressive, most impressive.’