The man who commissioned “Double Act” likes my second draft, but apparently it’s 10 pages too long, so rather than driving to Manchester for my
ménage à un show I decided to get the train. The theory was that I could do some work as I travelled. This turned out to be almost completely sensible as I was staying overnight and the journey is only two and a half hours, rather than the four or so that it would take me by car. The only slight complication was that I needed to take a box of programmes with me, but I figured I could cope with the walk to the tube.
But the box was very heavy. I had already been to the gym today and so after initially starting out striding and full of beans, I quickly tired and my stops to rest the box on top of a bin or bike rack became more and more frequent. I started to curse my own charitable nature. Why had I agreed to give out these free programmes for SCOPE? This almost half a mile walk was a living hell for me. I began to hate everyone with cerebral palsy. If only they didnÂ’t exist then I wouldnÂ’t have had to endure this twenty minutes of mild discomfort. Some people are so selfish.
Finally with about twenty metres to go to the tube station I gave up the ghost. Yes, I was so nearly there, but IÂ’d have to change trains and carry the box up stairs. I decided to get a cab. My dedication to others was going to cost me an extra ten to twelve pounds. DonÂ’t email me to thank me disabled people. I donÂ’t do my charity work in order simply to make myself look like a nice and caring person. But just remember that I spent twelve pounds of my own money to help YOU. You owe me big time disabled-os. No-one has a harder life than me. If I was disabled I would probably worship someone like me like a kind of god, but like I say, thatÂ’s not what I am doing this for. And I would be embarrassed if anyone understandably decided to do this.
So the journey was fine as it goes. I managed to get rid of about five pages of script, but ground to a halt a bit when I realised IÂ’d need to re-write the denouement of the drama in order for it to make sense. This is no bad thing. The end is a bit rubbish at the moment. I rushed it a little in my haste to get finished in time for my holiday. The rest of it is pretty good though. There was some new stuff that IÂ’d forgotten.
I wasn’t quite in the mood for that amount of work and in any case there were a lot of distractions in the supposedly “quiet” coach that I was sitting in. Most notably an unpleasant family group a couple of rows in front of me were making quite a racquet. It consisted of an ill-tempered, quick to anger mother and three children in their early teens. I believe they could make a good living hiring themselves out to prospective parents to show them what Hell awaits them in a decade or so. Yes babies do look so cute don’t they, but then they grow up into unpleasant and possibly unattractive and stupid teenagers. I think they were having a bad day, but they were very loud - though occasionally the mother would hiss with impressive volume “For God’s sake, this is the quiet coach.” She did not seem to appreciate any implicit irony.
But because of their inability or reluctance to control the level of sound they were emitting, the rest of the passengers around them were treated to a quick potted rundown of their private lives. They were on their way to Manchester airport and had missed the earlier train that they were supposed to be getting. The children’s father (who was in the army) had walked out on the family at some point in the past, though why he would not want to be with this foghorn voiced misanthrope and this gaggle of bulldog-faced spawn, God only knows. The gawky and frankly quite stupid son (early in the journey he has asked, “Are we going forward or reversing?” and when an alarm had briefly sounded five minutes into the trip, he had commented, “If there was a fire they would stop the train wouldn’t they?”, to which I was tempted to respond, “Well they might just really speed up and try and get to Manchester before trying to put it out” ) blamed his mother for the split, but she was typically vociferous in her own defence and seemed to harbour little affection or kindness towards her speccy son, who quite evidently was the kind of boy that even a mother would have difficulty loving.
Yeah having kids is all well and good, but what if you just end up with one who is stupid and unpleasant? YouÂ’d have to pretend you loved him, but in your heart youÂ’d know you were embarrassed and ashamed of him. To give her some credit this woman was at least honest enough to demonstrate her total contempt for this idiot to everyone within shouting distance. I mean Christ Alive, he couldnÂ’t even tell that the train was going forwards! Even if you mistrust the evidence of your eyes, how likely was it that the driver had decided to reverse all the way to Manchester?
I am not going to have kids, but if one accidentally gets up there and turns out to be stupid (I will make it sit a written general knowledge test at the age of 1, I am not so ungracious to judge it the minute it pops out from up there and will allow it 12 months of stupidity) I will leave it on a hillside for the wolves to either eat or adopt, as they see fit. If you are my child and are reading this some time in the future, well done, you are not stupid. Unless you are reading this surrounded by wild dogs, in which case I hope you will understand why I had to do what I did, thick-o.
So I was in quite an irritable mood as you may have picked up and yet if I had gone up to this feral brood and told them to shut up because this was the quiet coach then they no doubt would have momentarily united and turned on me. I donÂ’t think the woman would have thought twice about telling me to fuck off in front of her children. She spent the entire journey essentially telling them that anyway. I bet she wished sheÂ’d thought of the test and the hillside. You can choose your friendsÂ….
My hotel was some way from the venue and I had to walk through the pissing rain carrying my heavy damp box of programmes as I couldnÂ’t find a cab. And will any of the disabled kids I am helping write to me and thank me for being probably the greatest and most self-less person who has ever lived? Will they fuck? I give this world nothing but love, but it gives me only pain in return. Jesus on the cross would have felt grateful that he didnÂ’t have to suffer as much as me, with my box of self-promoting programmes, dragging my jeans in the puddles of Manchester.
But once inside in the warm embrace of the Frog and Bucket the fatiguing journey all seemed worthwhile. It’s a terrific club and as with last year I had a large and enthusiastic crowd and had a whole lot of fun. Yes I have a harder life than anyone else in the world – by miles – but sometimes the rewards justify the box carrying hardship.
