Bert

Bert by Tim Parker



“You said turn right, then left, not left, then right!” said Erika,

“Now we are at a dead end. I’m fed up with driving, you can drive”, and with that she stopped the car and got out, slamming the car door behind her. Keep her calm I thought, gotta keep her calm, and I slid clumsily into the drivers seat, banging my knee against the hand-brake, the gear-stick, and then the steering wheel. She got in the passenger side, folded her arms, and glared out the window.

It had a been a long drive, five hours in fact. From the Suffolk coast to the West Sussex coast. Most of the time we’d been stuck on the M25. The radio weatherman had announced with glee that it was one of the hottest days on record, and it was going to get hotter.

We were a musical entertainment duo, travelling from one Holiday camp to another as a cabaret act. Erika sings and dances, and I play guitar and keyboards. That night’s venue was a new one to us, and now we were lost, and running a little late. It was through an agent, so we had a proper contract and all that.

“Pass me over the contract, its in the glove compartment” I said.

“There’s usually a venue contact ‘phone number”. And there was. So anyway, I give them a ring and a woman answers. She’s the cleaner at the club she tells me. I tell her who we are, and the name of the road we’re in. Luckily the holiday camp is just two minutes away.

“Off we go” I say, and Erika just hurrumphs! “ “We are so close, it shouldn’t take long”.

We find the holiday camp situated right behind a large industrial estate. The main club was built in the early Fifties and carefully designed to look like a big grey square block reminiscent of World War 2 anti-tank defences. We park the car and walk into the main hall which was freshly painted - thirty years ago - in institution green, it’s large enough to house a jumbo jet or two.

There is no air conditioning or ventilation, and the heat is stifling. The room stinks of stale sweat and stale beer. A blue haze of smoke drifts lazily towards the high ceiling, and hangs there defiantly, trying to form its own micro-climate.

We approach the stage. Its huge, it could easily hold a full size orchestra, plus another jumbo jet. We mark out where to set up our equipment, then the we unload the car and lug the gear onto the stage. and start setting up.




(2)

A scruffy little bald man jumps up on to the stage as though he owns the place. He’s wearing round wire framed glasses, (the lenses look like the bottom of Coke bottles), and a suit that’s probably the one he was given when he was demobbed. He was a funny shape too, he looks like a beach-ball. He was whistling a vaguely familiar tune.

“Which one of you sings” he shouts.

“I’m the singer” Erika replies.

“Oh God, not another bloody female vocalist. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s bloody female vocalists, they all sound the same to me, and none of them can sing” he says to Erika.

“By the way, I’m Bert, I’m the clubs’ Entertainment’s Manager.”

We just stare at him What can you do? If you upset him, he will do all in his power to destroy your performance. And... he’s got that power. He’s in charge of the in-house PA, the lights, performance times, and ultimately he pays you at the end of the night.

We did what we always did in these types of situations. We carried on with setting up, treated his comments as a joke, and smiled sweetly, thinking of the cash in our hands at the end of the night.

Bert pointed to a door at the back of the stage.

“That’s your dressing room” he said, and in a vague imitation of John Cleese’s funny walk, strutted away.

We opened the door, clicked the light switch, but nothing happened. We repositioned one of our footlights and wedged the door open with a fire extinguisher. There.... now we could see into the dressing room.

Dressing room! It was more like a dressing cupboard! It consisted of three empty beer barrels, and an overflowing ash tray. On a small table there was a variety of glasses containing discoloured cloudy liquids, with some very interesting fungal growths on top.

“You always said stick with me, and you’d show me some culture”. Erika quipped.

The floor was ‘carpeted’ with old posters advertising long gone entertainers. A triangular shard of mirror glass defied gravity and clung on to the wall, as did the plaster in some places. There was nowhere to hang our stage clothes. Here’s the fame and glamour at last I thought!




(3)

A previous entertainer had scribbled under the mirror:

“GOOD LUCK ! YOU’LL NEED IT !”

As we were getting changed the door burst open, no knock, no nothing, just straight in. Bert looked a little disappointed, perhaps he was hoping to find Erika in a state of undress.

“Need to see your set list for the night” he commanded. This is standard practice, so clubs can avoid playing your set list songs during the interval. It’s a kind of a courtesy thing. I passed it over for inspection. He shook his head and tutted as he read it. I asked him what was wrong.

“None of these songs suit a bloody female vocalist do they? all they do is screech” he replied. We continued to smile sweetly. I was feeling rather proud of Erika, she continued to be professional, and refused to rise to the bait. As he left she sweetly muttered under her breath, “Basted”.

We waited in the stage wings and watched as Bert climbed up some steps to a raised podium next to the stage Bert switched on the in-house PA system and proceeded to play every song he could from our set list. He sat like a prison guard, watching over us and the audience. I kept expecting him to switch on a searchlight and train a machine gun on individual club members.

I climbed up the steps to Bert’s watchtower and I asked him what time did he want us to start.

“Now, and by the way I know it says on your contract you only play forty five minutes for the first set, but that’s a typing error, you do an hour and a half, then take a break...OK?”

So began the first set. During our performance music would every now and again burst out through the in-house PA, and Bert would hold up his hands to us in a gesture of apology. On two occasions all the stage lighting went off and we floundered around in complete darkness until Bert realised he’d ‘inadvertently’ pushed the wrong switch.

The audience were more concerned with drinking heavily than taking any notice of us. We completed our first set and I asked Bert how long the break was before the second set.

“Fifteen minutes or so” he said.






(4)

We went to the crowded bar to get a cold drink. I was standing next to a radiator and realised it was on full. I mentioned it to a man standing next to me.

“Yeah, it’s broken, can’t turn the dam system off. It’s one of the items on the agenda for the committee meeting next month”

The combination of the weather and the heating was making the atmosphere intolerable.
Bert played ‘Shout’ by Lulu, our next set opening number, then announced-

“Ladies and Gentlemen, would you put your hands together and welcome back your entertainment for this evening.”

We hadn’t had time to get a drink, so pushed our way back through the crowd to the stage.

“That wasn’t more than five minutes” I said.

“I can’t be bothered to play any more tracks” replied Bert.

“When do we take our next break?” I asked.

“You don’t have another break”

“But there’s another hour and three quarters to go” I complained.

“Yeah, tough at the top innate?” Bert said with a smirk.

We staggered on to the stage for the second set. After an hour and a half we’d both taken our shoes off and Erika was beginning to sound like Barry White. Bert just sat in his watchtower grinning. One hour and fifty minutes later we finished. We were desperate just to sit down and rest our aching feet. As I switched our PA off and put my guitar down, Bert’s voice boomed from the in-house PA-

“Weren’t they great! Would you like another couple of songs?”

Two very drunk blokes in the audience half-heartedly shouted “more”, in case Bert unleashed the Dobermans.

We chose two of our shortest songs, increased the tempo on the keyboard and cut the endings. A two hour set straight through. We came off stage hot, bothered, and aching. We sat on the beer barrels in the ‘dressing room’ and both lit a cigarette. We knew there had to be an easier way to make a living, but couldn’t quite think what it was.



(5)

Bert went into overdrive, screaming through a radio mike at the club members who still had a drink in front of them.

“Well over time, down it in one now or I’ll take it!”

Bert turned his beady eyes on us.

“Come on come on! You haven’t got time to sit around, I pride myself on clearing the club in ten minutes, and being locked up in twenty”

“Yes...” I thought to myself, “I wouldn’t mind seeing you locked up in twenty.”

We wearily left the ‘dressing room’ and packed the gear away. Bert stood in front of us, rattling his keys and whistling the same tune as before. I recognised it now; it was the theme to ‘The Great Escape’.

It took us fifteen minutes to pack up and load the car, much to Bert’s displeasure. He looked at his watch, tapped it, put it to his ear, looked at us and sighed. He started muttering, and pacing up and down.

“I’ll lock the car up whilst you do a quick idiot check on the stage” I said to Erika.

“I can easily find one” Erika said under her breath.

“What the hell are you doing now!” Bert shouts at Erika.

“We just wan have a quick look and make sure we haven’t left anything behind, if that’s OK with you” she replies.

“Well it bloody isn’t” said Bert. “I’ve already put the alarm system on, so goodbye”.

“ER... we haven’t been paid yet” I said.

“Oh I can’t sort that out now, I’ve locked all the tills in the safe. Give me a ring tomorrow and I’ll post you a cheque”.

The door banged shut, and we heard the key turn in the lock.

I phoned the next day, but there was no answer. I phoned for a week, still no answer. I phoned the agent, he suggested as we were giggling in the same area the next weekend, we should drop by the club and pick the money up. He told me we weren’t the first or probably the last act that Bert had done this to. So we left home earlier than usual, intending to call at the club on the way, to try and collect our money.




(6)

I turned a corner expecting to see the club. The club was gone, as was any hope of ever receiving our money. Just two fire blackened walls remained

We discovered the club had caught fire a few hours after we had left. And Bert has not been seen since.

To this day, I still wonder if either of us put that cigarette out properly, when Bert dragged us out of the ‘dressing room’ to pack the gear away.

Ó Tim Parker