Brenda Monk Is Funny Read Online Free PDF Page B

same twenty minutes, collecting his money and going home. He was just up for a long weekend to ‘see what’s happening’ and do a few late night gigs in the compilation shows that hoovered up time and audiences from midnight to around 3 or 4am. Hannah, his wife, looked exhausted and Brenda sympathised. It took a while for a person’s body-clock to adjust to the nocturnal Edinburgh time zone, and it was not helped by the fact that she was clearly bored out of her mind. Brenda let her mind wander, imagining the decade over which Hannah had heard these same conversations happening around her, and although she sat quietly, patiently, pleasantly, she had also grown used to being entirely ignored for hours at a time.
    The TV girl, whose name no-one seemed to know, was draped around Matt, her chosen target for the night – a fact that had not gone unnoticed by Linus who was trying to conceal how painfully aware he was that there would have been a time when she would have been draped over him. Joan stifled a yawn and stood up.
    ‘Well guys and gals, it’s been emotional but I can’t do it like you kids anymore. Linus, good to see you again. I have to say, I honestly thought you were dead.’
    Linus smiled thinly.
    ‘And Jonathan, I will call you in the morning, we have much to discuss. Lloyd, we’ll talk, yes?’
    Lloyd nodded and Joan left, walking through the crowd and out of view.
    ‘She’s such a bitch,’ Linus murmured reverentially, watching the space her departing back had just occupied.
    ‘Actually, that’s one of the words I wanted to talk about in my new bit,’ Matt started again, ‘how come women can say bitch, but men can’t?’
    ‘Well, I’m a man and I just said it, didn’t I?’
    ‘Yes, but it’s OK for you to say it here, around comedians. We’re not going to get offended, but if you said it to normal people, I bet all the women would call you a misogynist.’
    ‘Young Matt, I am a misogynist. My mother taught me everything I know.’
    Brenda laughed and Linus turned his eyes to her, full of warmth. Hannah tugged at Mike’s sleeve again and he turned to her, irritably.
    ‘What?’ he hissed.
    ‘I’m tired. It’s nearly one in the morning.’
    ‘Well, this is when things start to happen. Do you want to just go back to the hotel and I’ll join you later?’
    Hannah shook her head miserably. She doesn’t trust him, thought Brenda, with a burst of MDMA fuelled clarity, and then recalled Jonathan telling her that Mike had been unfaithful once many years ago and though they had stayed together, it haunted their marriage. So, for now and forever, Hannah would rather be here with him, exhausted, than sat in the cheap, depressing hotel where she wouldn’t sleep anyway until he returned.
    Brenda watched this interaction with interest. Somewhere in her drug-addled mind a connection fired, but it wasn’t one she wanted to look at directly, so she allowed the MDMA to push it to one side – a useful drug indeed. She hadn’t come all this way to feel depressed. She decided to concentrate instead on Matt and the TV girl who were now kissing, oblivious to everything. His hand was already inside her skirt. Brenda watched them as if through a fish-eye lens, the rest of the world falling away at the edges. Lloyd was now snoozing lightly, his head tipped back on a cushion. She could dimly register voices but they were fuzzy.
    ‘So, old Joanie’s going to be your earthly representative in LA, is she?’ Linus was already rolling another joint.
    ‘I think so. I mean, she seems the right person for me at the moment.’
    Jonathan stretched luxuriously and then settled back into position with his arm around Brenda, his fingers resting very near the top of her cleavage, stroking her skin with micro-movements designed to turn her on. Which it was.
    ‘What’s your view of her?’
    Linus shrugged.
    ‘She’s connected to the hilt, and if she likes you, she really likes you. If you try to leave though… I