Don't You Forget About Me (Page 54)

… He is the most sexy boy to ever live, I’m sure of it, even though he’s my first and I’ve only been alive for 18 years. He is the personification of sexy and I don’t think he knows how beautiful he is. He says that to me! I keep trying to imagine what actual sex will be like. How are you supposed to know what to do? You have to patch it together from films, TV, the gross magazines that Gary Tate used to bring in to school and the awful ‘How A Baby Is Made’ video we were once shown in biology GCSE, when a man and a woman were smiling at each other, went up to a bedroom and then it cut to a ballet dancer leaping around with a ribbon and the whole class started laughing …

I slam it shut again and feel a wave of shame and disgrace and fury at this invasion.

How? I remember one time, no, maybe more than that, a few times, when Robin stayed in my room after I went to work. ‘Leave by the back door and pull it shut, it’s a Yale, then you don’t need my keys.’

Left unattended in here, he went through my things. He read my diary. Did he copy out sections from my diary? I wouldn’t put it past him, and from what I can tell he’s either got perfect recall (with the amount he smokes? Unlikely) or (so much more likely) took photos of the pages. And he put them into his act.

What did Lucas say? ‘If he has anything he can use against you’? Right now, Lucas doesn’t look smart so much as clairvoyant.

It takes a very large wine and five more re-readings of the preview on Chortle to come up with what I should do.

I may have been able to bounce Robin McNee’s agent into talking to me, but I’m not so Machiavellian as to work out how to get into Robin’s dressing room.

The Last Laugh is at City Hall and I arrive at 6 p.m., an hour before curtain up. From what I knew of Robin’s habits, he will be here, swilling a beer, scrolling on his laptop, eating a tub of his lucky guacamole with extra hot Doritos (I’m not kidding, he did this. ‘Performers have rituals,’ he told me, as if he was Nikki Sixx with a bottle of Wild Turkey).

I could say I’m somebody other than I am, but then that’s not going to help me when I don’t know who that somebody who’d get access might be. ‘I’m a girl who’d like to have sex with the famed wit Robin McNee,’ might get Robin to say yes, but the venue wouldn’t wear it.

I’ll simply have to hope that once again, the unexpected nature of my appearance bears fruit.

‘Got a Georgina Horse Poo here for you,’ says the pallid girl on the desk, into the phone. I am tense with worry. I have no Plan B if he says no. ‘Sure, go on down, it’s on the left,’ she says to me.

I’m vaguely stunned. Robin’s show is called My Ex’s Diary, and he doesn’t think I’m here to tear a strip? Then it dawns: he doesn’t think or care about my motivations all that much. Ironically. My Ex-Girlfriend Who I Was Never That Bothered About’s Diary.

‘It’s good to see you,’ Robin says, after I knock and push the door open. He’s positioned at his laptop, wearing a t-shirt that says You Versus The Guy She Told You Not To Worry About with cartoon characters underneath. A large bottle of chocolate milk is next to his rose gold MacBook. Pretty ironic he’s about to spend an hour and a half ripping the stuffing out of my adolescent nonsense. At least when I was behaving like one, I was one.

‘You look sensational in this lighting,’ he adds, pen in corner of his mouth. Obviously thinking that by being here, I’ve finally come to my senses, and might be up for some preshow warm-up.

Ugh.

‘You read my diary,’ I say, flatly.

‘Had a little scan through,’ Robin says, with a ‘Forgive Me’ teeth grit.

‘You absolutely despicable, evil, morality free, thought rapist,’ I say.

‘Thought rapist!’ Robin puts his pen down. He is half affronted, half whirring about whether he can use this encounter for his act, too.

‘Really. You piece of shit,’ I conclude. ‘I don’t know how you can live with yourself. Reading a woman’s diary, a woman you were in a relationship with. Then putting it in your act, and leaving her to find out by accident, hours before you entertain hundreds of strangers with it. Please at least tell me you know who and what you are?’

‘You left me alone in your bedroom! The drawer was half open! It was practically an invitation.’

Rav’s cookie jar.

‘… I thought it was very sweet, very innocent, and that wonderful wry Georgina voice coming through so strongly … I was so infatuated, I wanted to know how you tick. Then I got jealous. Like, who is this rival who you desired more than life itself? Whose touch you craved like a drug?’

I flinch. Who would want anyone reading their callow erotica, much less hearing it repeated on a stage? If Lucas ever found about this show, he would surely work out it’s based on him. The two other performances he’s seen by Robin were about me, after all.

He’s trying to weaken me, and it won’t work.

‘It wasn’t for you. You didn’t ask to read it, you didn’t tell me you had. Please explain when you thought it was OK to share it, and humiliate me in public? I mean, walk me through the thought process?’

‘Right, a few points. No one’s being humiliated. It’s a very tender, very life affirming …’

‘I’d rather affirm your death.’

‘Hah! No, it’s not in any way vicious and your identity is completely concealed in it. I mean the whole thing even plays on whether you exist! Seriously, watch it. Make a judgement after.’ Robin sips more beer and does a palm up that’s that gesture. ‘I did try to meet you and warn you, but you wouldn’t consent.’

‘Yeah, because your campaign has been about getting me to date you again. Nothing about “oh hey, George I’m about to use your diary, any views on that?”’

‘Er well, sugar pie, last time I saw you, you were telling stories about me making a pissed-up idiot of myself in front of your fam. No application for permission was received by me. So who’s using who here, exactly? Looks like we’re doing exactly the same thing.’

I knew he’d say this, and it makes my hands curl into fists.

‘The diary is completely different. What happened at my mum’s house involved both of us, and what happened in my diary happened to me and me alone. This is a transgression of totally different magnitude and nature, and you know it.’

He shrugged, completely indifferent.

‘Seems like I’m in trouble for simply playing this game better.’

Game.

‘Fuck you, Robin. Have you even thought about the context around what you’re using? What might have happened with that boyfriend off the page? What else might have gone on in my life at that time?’

‘Well if he dumped you, he’s the fool, isn’t he?’

Imagine. Imagine being a man, and thinking your approval has such value, that this sort of oily fob-off compliment can stitch a wound this big.

‘You are a disgusting person. Don’t hide behind this light-hearted, carefree bullshit. What you are doing to me is utterly serious and completely unfunny.’

‘Oh, look. You knew who you were involved with. How many girlfriends do you think end up in acts? Loads. Lots. This is what artists do, we cannibalise our lives. We feed on its flesh. You were very into all that until Lou happened. You were quite the fangirl. Look how we met. Tell me this: on the night we met, who was using who? Who dragged who home? You wanted Robin McNee on your score sheet.’

I feel queasy. I’ve learned a lesson: if someone can justify anything they want to do to themselves, they will do anything. What did Lucas say? People with no boundaries are dangerous people.

Robin’s standing up now, brushing the Doritos crumbs off him, preparing to shoo me out.

‘… And I tell you, I could win the Perrier with this. Imagine. You’re too close right now. Years from now, you’ll look back and be so glad of it. It’s a tribute, it’s a love letter. I go on and on about how … mesmerising you are in it, Georgina. I mean, the person who looks a chump in it, is me. You’re the muse. You think Warren Beatty is still bothered that Carly Simon called him vain?’

I try to contain my rage as I know I won’t get him to listen if I go ballistic, but it’s taking every last drop of my self-control.

‘You have no idea who I am. We spent six months going out and you never bothered to find out. You’re using my diary for cheap ridicule, to burnish yourself. You don’t know what’s happened to me, in the past. Or the present. You don’t know the damage or the hurt caused by using what you’ve stolen.’

‘But then do we ever know anyone? I mean the show explores that exact thing. You should come see it! I think once you get past your shyness, you’ll be blown away.’

I’ve been in control up until now, but calling it ‘shyness’ tips me into full blown warlord mode. I slam my hand on the desk, leaning forward, forcing him to take a half step back.

‘You’re not some great, fascinating artist, Robin! You’re a passable comedian trying to elevate himself with bogus sensitive “insights”, pretending to be New Man Caring Dude, when you’re anything but. You’re a selfish twat, posturing as something more interesting than that by using a woman’s words, against her will.’