Ben Elton - Inconceivable

Brenda was not doing a proper sound check because she was performing to a tape, but obviously a rehearsal was required so that the director of the concert video could ensure that Brenda’s body would be well covered by the cameras if by nothing else.

Brenda’s voice thundered out of the sound system as she strutted and pouted, miming the words.

It was all a bit too much for me. More of that and I’d have had to have a lie-down. I wandered off to have a mooch around the hospitality section. I can’t be standing about in vast empty arenas ogling young girls like that. It’s not good for me. Besides, what would Lucy have thought? I always feel very close to her when I’m away, absence making the heart grow fonder and all that. It made me a bit sad to think of her sitting at home, probably having a solitary bowl of soup or something in front of EastEnders . I called her, but she sounded a bit distracted. She said she was tired and was going to put the answerphone on and go to bed really early.

Dear Penny

We met at Quark. I’ve never been there before but I know Sam goes quite often on his numerous important lunches. It’s very posh and they give you little plates of nibbles the moment you arrive. I got there first (of course!) and sat there feeling like an absolute slut ! I mean of course I hadn’t actually done anything wrong but it just seemed to me that everybody knew I was there for a clandestine dinner with a man who was not my husband.

I knew the rash on my neck was coming up. No red wine, I told myself, in fact no wine at all. My God, if I got pissed there was no telling what would happen.

The next thing I knew was that this dashing maitre d’ was opening a bottle of champagne in front of me.

“ Meester Pheeepps ’e ’as call to sigh ’e will be a leetle light. ’E sigh to geeeve the liedy shompine.” Well, long story short, as they say, I’d had two and a half glasses by the time Carl turned up. I didn’t want to but when one is just sitting there like a lemon, one does.

Carl looked incredible. Everybody turned to stare. He’s grown his hair and sideburns again (for a part, Dick Turpin, American cable movie, silly script but fun) and what with his dark curls and big coat he looked as if he’d just come back from writing epic poetry and fighting duels in Tuscany. Anyway, he strode straight across to me and without so much as saying “hello” or anything he kissed me on the mouth ! I mean he didn’t try to slip me the tongue or anything but it was quite lippy and totally took me by surprise. Then he stood back, stared at me with his smouldering coal-black eyes and said that I looked absolutely ravishing, which I did not, although I must admit that I was wearing a new silk blouse with no bra (silk does rather flatter the smaller bosom like mine).

Anyway, he was full of apologies about being late, rehearsals or something and terribly important meetings. He said he already felt cheated because he knew that my husband was only away for the evening and that he’d already wasted forty precious minutes of it.

Well, that made me think, I must say.

“ How did you know Sam was going to be away?” I asked.

Carl looked me in the eye. “I’m ashamed to say that he wrote to me on behalf of His Royal Highness asking me to read a poem at the Prince’s Trust Concert and instead of agreeing, as naturally I normally would have done, I… Well, it seemed like fate.”

I was amazed. He had waited until he knew my husband was out of town and had then brazenly asked me out to dinner!

“ This is a planned seduction!” I exclaimed and he continued to stare me in the eye and replied that he certainly hoped so.

God, I must have been the colour of a shy beetroot.

“ Carl, I’m married! I… I love my husband. You can’t possibly be serious! I shouldn’t even be here.”

“Then why did you come?” he asked, and I’m afraid to say he had me there. I mean I could have protested that I had accepted his invitation entirely innocently, but after what had gone on between us before? Hardly. And me sitting there with my hair done and a breast-flattering new silk top on? The truth of the matter was that there was no way that this meeting could be innocent. I was just avoiding the truth because I was scared of it.

Carl answered his own question. “You’re here because you’re lonely, Lucy. Because you need tenderness and passion and you’re not getting it. I can see the longing in your eyes.”

I tried to protest that it wasn’t true, but I’d lost the power of forming a coherent sentence, what with the champagne and the fact that in some ways… Oh God, he was right.

“ I’ve tried to do the honourable thing and keep away as I said I would,” Carl said, “but when this chance came along I couldn’t fight it any longer. I’ve wanted you from the first day we met, Lucy. You fascinate me. I don’t know any other women like you.”

This couldn’t be true, surely? I mean Carl Phipps is a star, a heart-throb. He could have the pick of the bunch. I put this to him but he insisted that I was different, that he really did want me above all others. Before I knew it, there we were holding hands again. I really don’t know if I encouraged this but I do know that I had left my hand lying prone between us upon the table and when he elegantly rested his hand upon it, I did not withdraw.

Therefore, I suppose I’m as guilty for what ensued as he.

The hospitality backstage was really buzzing. Charlie Stone was doing some interviews to be cut into the broadcast whenever any of the old rockers got into a particularly long guitar solo. I hung around with him and his recordist for a while, partly to let people know that I did have some status and also, let’s face it, because he was interviewing absolutely gorgeous girls, including Brenda.

“So, Brenda,” said Charlie. “What do you say to people who call you a sexist stereotype?”

Brenda drew herself up to her full height, which was about five feet nothing, and answered the charge.

“Well, I think they’re the sexists because they don’t understand that me being proud of my body and getting my kit off is actually all about being strong, and female empowerment and the me I want me to be.”

“Well, it certainly gives me the horn,” Charlie said, getting to the point, so to speak. Brenda smiled a gorgeous smile as if her point had been proved and honour satisfied.

Next I found myself in Joe London’s dressing room. Woody Monk was there, of course, and Wally, the drug-addled lead guitarist of The Muvvers and Joe’s sidekick for nearly thirty years. Wally looked quite extraordinary, like a mummified corpse. He reminded me of that Stone Age hunter they found after he’d been frozen for twenty thousand years in the Alps, except Wally had a feathered haircut with a spiky top which had only been preserved for about thirty years. They were rehearsing one of The Muvvers’ early hits and Joe and Wally seemed to be having a little trouble remembering exactly how the song went. Joe said, “Nah, man, you go fahkin’ da da da dum after the second line when I sing, ‘Youngest gun, dream won’t stop’ awight?”

This threw Wally completely. “Is that the lyric?” he mumbled with apparent surprise.