It was the beginning of some sort of very early chemistry there.

Julian Barratt

June 1996

Julian is watching the kid on stage. He's never seen him perform before, although he's seen him around. He's come to a few of Julian's gigs, always sitting up the back, usually surrounded by a group of girls. This gives Julian a sort of envious admiration, although he doesn't try to analyse whether he's envious of the kid, or the girls, let alone which he admires more.

Julian can see why girls would flock to the kid. He's pale and pretty as a pointy-faced goth angel, with a mass of spiky home-dyed reddish hair. Slender, painted on black jeans, startling blue eyes. He lounges amongst the girls like a slouchy prince, but also chatters with them eagerly, so that Julian is unable to tell if he has a harem, or is one of the girls. He finds both ideas oddly exciting.

The kid's eye-catching enough to have caught Julian's eye, but they've never spoken. Once or twice he's thought the kid might approach him, looked at him as if he might, but never did.

Julian's watching the performance with a critical eye, and is chagrined to discover that, contrary to his initial expectations, the kid is good. So, not just a pretty face, then. 

The kid's humour is based on surrealism and fantasy, like all Julian's own favourite comedy, and almost every line goes somewhere completely unexpected. In fact, he has the audience laughing so wildly that Julian doesn't relish having to take the stage after him.

When Julian comes off, the kid's hanging around backstage, and says, "Hey, genius set."

Julian pretends he's only suddenly noticed that the kid exists, and steps back slightly as if in surprise. "Oh ... thanks." A pause. "You were very good. Um, good wordplay."

"Yeah, I'm like the king of words," the kid says, with a lack of modesty that amuses and intrigues Julian in equal measure. "I was up there, on stage, flinging my words for people to catch."

He flails about as if throwing things madly into the air, looking surprisingly athletic as he does so. Julian laughs, and mimes running around frantically, pretending to catch Noel's words in a butterfly net, bringing his wrist down on each stroke as if playing tennis. It's so hard for people to get past Julian's barriers, and this kid has done it at once.

"Well, I enjoyed catching your iridescent, peacock coloured words as you threw them at me from the stage," Julian says with a shy smile.

"Yeah, thought you might like it," the kid says easily. "We're a bit the same, aren't we? My stuff's like yours."

Julian leaves a beat as he flicks a flame to a cigarette, then he says, "Um, it's ... Noel, isn't it?"

The kid's face lights up with a luminous smile at being recognised. "Yeah, that's right," he says, tugging at his tawny hair, his first show of nerves. "I know who you are. I've been to a few of your gigs now."

"Yeah, I think I remember you," Julian says, a teasing smile already on his lips. "I have a vague memory of an ominous white face at the back of the room. Someone like a hedgehog, all spiky on top."

"Oi! That's my look," Noel says with a laugh. "I worked for hours on my hair."

"What, by putting it on backwards?"

"I thought about coming over to say hello to you a couple of times," Noel says. "But I never did."

"Yeah, by the time I'd finished you'd be gone. I'd go backstage and ask, Who was that mysterious stranger?"

Noel giggles, saying, "I'm a comedy Nosferatu. I want to suck all the knowledge out of your bones."

"Oh, so that's what this is about," Julian says, giving Noel a shrewd look. "Well, the master doesn't give up all his secrets for free." He raises one eyebrow, and blows smoke at the floor.

"I'll follow you around and give you gifts of small monkeys I've carved out of Ryvita," Noel offers, wide-eyed and pleading. He licks his lips hopefully.

Julian huffs out a laugh. "I might need a bit more than that before I let you suck my bones dry."

"Can I buy you a drink or something?"

Cheeky little titbox, Julian thinks to himself, taking a last drag on his cigarette. He leaves two beats, looks the kid slowly up and down, and says, "Where's your entourage?"

"I sent them home early," Noel says, making a lordly gesture. Then he smiles and says, "They're just a bunch of friends come to support me. They've all gone on to a club that's much cooler than this place."

Julian stubs out his cigarette into an ashtray, and says offhandedly, "Alright, then. I'll see you in the bar a bit later."

**********************

When Julian comes down the steep stairs into the bar, Noel is already making his way in his direction, as if he's been waiting for him.

"Our boots have fallen in love!" Noel announces excitedly. A few people look up in mild interest.

"What?" Julian asks, slightly rattled by this greeting.

"They're walking towards each other as if overtaken by an irresistible force," Noel continues. "That means it's love at first sight."

Julian wonders what on earth Noel's high-heeled black leather boots would see in his own clumpy old brown hiking boots, but cracks a toothy sideways grin at Noel that makes the kid flush faintly.

"Oh well, can your boots lead mine over to the bar, then, because they need a drink," Julian says, making his way through the crowd hunch-shouldered, instinctively shielding Noel with one arm.

Most of the people in the bar are either performers from earlier, or their friends come to watch, and the place feels more like a private club than a pub. Julian greets various people he knows with a nod of his head, or a muttered hello.

His friend Simon gives him an offensively meaningful look, which Julian ignores by simply fixing his gaze over Simon's head – one advantage of being tall. He and Simon had a bit of a thing once backstage while Julian was in a fit of post-performance euphoria, and ever since he's acted like he's Julian's long-suffering wife.

All the seats seem to be full, so Julian and Noel end up pushed into a corner together, propping up the bar. Noel buys him a pint, as promised, and gets himself an orange juice. Julian doesn't say anything, figuring the kid's probably broke. Most comedians are.

Julian stoops so that he can be heard, his mouth almost against Noel's ear as he says, "Want a fag?" while extracting a cigarette from its crumpled packet.

Noel nods yes, and Julian lights him one, placing it between the kid's lips. Julian half expects him to start coughing and spluttering like it's his first time, or swishing his fag around like a girl, but he doesn't. The kid smokes like a back alley tearaway, fast and shifty, like he's expecting a teacher to catch him, and he has to be in Domestic Science any minute, ready to make apple crumble.

"So when I do start sucking on your bones of knowledge?" Noel asks.

"Easy there, little man," Julian says with a grin, taking a sip of his pint. "You can't go in there halfcocked, slurping up knowledge like a Hoover. Just start off with a bit of gentle bone-sucking, get the taste of knowledge in your mouth."

"You were having a good watch of my set," Noel says slyly. "I could feel your beady little eyes like a shrew's all over me while I was out there."

"Mm, I was thinking perhaps I could turn you into something halfway decent," Julian says. "Make something out of you."

"What from, out of scraps?"

"Yes, in Pakistan."

Noel giggles. "Pakistan, I love that word. Why is that so funny?"

"Ah, well. That's the secret to comedy," Julian says in a conspiratorial whisper. "Suddenly saying Pakistan at the end of a sentence."

"Yeah, but why Pakistan?"

"Cheap labour," Julian says promptly. "We'll get ten-year-olds in factories to write our jokes. A comedy sweatshop."

There is a stunned silence, and then Noel says, "You said our jokes."

There's a pause as Julian realises what he's said, and then recovers. "Uh, yes. That's right. I could take you on as my apprentice. Show you the ropes. The er, ropes of comedy."

"Apprentice? Get stuffed," Noel says with a grin. "I want an equal partnership. Fifty-fifty."

"Oh, you're not ready for that yet," Julian says dismissively. "I'd start you off on a seventy-thirty partnership to begin with, then take it from there."

"How about I start off as thirty percent your equal partner, and seventy percent your comedy wife?" suggests Noel with a giggle.

And Julian finds himself unable to say no to that. In fact, he can feel his eyes and smile saying yes, as if they would agree to a lot more if Noel wanted it.

**********************

It takes Julian by surprise, how professional their conversation is. Performance techniques, favourite comedians, influences. 

There's a hard, even obsessive, note in Noel's voice that Julian likes. Behind all the teasing, jokes and giggles, he can tell Noel is deadly serious about being successful, believes that he can make it, and is willing to work for it relentlessly. 

That answers something in Julian's nature, a northern toughness that's up for the challenge and knows his own value to the dot. It's shoptalk, the best talk for people who happen to like their shop.

When it's Julian's turn to buy a round, he is surprised that Noel asks for another orange juice, but doesn't question it. It doesn't matter whether Noel gets drunk or not. He has a strand of hair damp with sweat, his cheeks are pink from the heat, his eyeliner's smudged. He smells like sugar and musk and leather. He feels warm and alive.

Julian's enjoying them being pressed up close together in the crowd, lips against each other's ears to be heard, secretive looks at each other. Their fits of laughter turn a corner of the bar into their own private world, Julian using his shoulders to shut everyone else out.

It's while Noel is in the bogs that Simon comes over, saying, "What are you up to?"

"It's business," Julian says in the flat voice that means he doesn't want to discuss the subject further.

"Oh yes, Business Barratt," mocks Simon. "Taking on a willing pupil, are we?" He gives Julian another meaningful look.

"As an old hand, I am simply imparting a few of my pearls of wisdom to a newcomer," Julian says with a 'fuck off' smile.

"Old hand!" Simon scoffs. "Well, I hope he knows what your old hands are like backstage, that's all. What is he – your acolyte that you'll initiate into the divine mysteries?"

"Girlfriend," Julian mutters warningly.

"He's your what?" Simon yelps, before Julian says smoothly, "Clare, your girlfriend." He gives a nod to her over Simon's head.

Clare waves, and comes over to them accompanied by Noel, with whom she has been talking and laughing on her way back from the ladies'.

"Hi, Julian," Clare smiles. "I was just telling Noel how good he was. It wasn't like watching a performance, it was like meeting a mad new friend."

"I like making friends with the audience," Noel says with a grin. "I mean, they've come out and paid money to see you, they already want to like you. I think an audience should be a bunch of mates you take on an adventure with you."

"I was saying to Julian, I can't tell if young Noel here is his new friend or his protégé," Simon says to Clare. He gives Julian a slightly malicious smile, and adds, "Or his girlfriend."

"I'm his comedy wife," cries Noel with a triumphant grin, "and don't you forget it."

He smiles up at Julian in a possessive way. It somehow feels so familiar that Julian unconsciously holds his breath for a moment.

Julian doesn't bother looking at Simon and Clare to see their reactions, for he has just discovered he no longer cares very much what his friends think. And when he smiles back at Noel, they are the only people in the room. As if everyone else has winked out of existence, or been swept away to a distant star.