Theatre Toilet Tale

Hysterectomied, wiry white-haired dame wobbles on her medical sandals as we wipe away the spilt wee wee on the toilet seats. The octogenarian has nowhere to go now so she goes everywhere. Tails me. I take an unexpected step back and she is booking an appointment with the osteopath. Follows my interests like a teenager having one last sorry attempt at a Blue Peter badge. The act is as fake as her bionic hips and left knee cap. When Im not looking she is at it like a sprinter on steroids. See her leaning on me in the cleaning cupboard during the interval, its causing my ankles to drop, but do I get any time off sick? Do I eccles cake. I am NOT paranoid, even though I drink a lot of coffee, work in the theatre and rarely sleep at night because of house cooling down noises but I swear she is sabotaging my every move.

-Would patrons kindly switch off all mobiles for this afternoons performance of Alan Ayckbourns: If I Were You.

We work as ushers under the proscenium arch of a plush burgundy seated theatre with no leg-room of course, some baby changing facilities and bags of nuts that cost a fiver. The man from IT dry roasts them somewhere in the building when the website's not playing up. I make like the bandy legged wonder is my pal but I spit in her tea where I can. It is brewed in a toilet anyway. Why trust one bodily secretion and not another? I remember days when I could sell my job of peddling ice cream tubs to wealthy senior citizens at matinees as a state of the art, cutting edge creative career. We man fire doors. So what I write as an occupation on my passport is what some coffin dodger does to get out of the house. It is a little crushing but I am the one who will get the last laugh if it takes my final breath.

This morning I come to work and theres a postcard crammed with the sites of Vienna on it. Marigold goes there for her two days off this week. Vienna! The same week the box office misplaces a bag of petty cash. One poor sod gets a P45 but no one thinks of dear old jet-setting Marigold.

Im stood in the corridor with two boxes of Revels under my arms and people only care that Marigold gets the poster from last weeks dance show for her granddaughter. My ovaries are pharmaceutically challenged and all people want to know about is Marigold's offsprings' offsprings pregnancy. If a toilet leaks during the show, I get to stand next to it with my stringy mop and bucket of bleach as every person I have ever felt in awe of decides to pee. Sweet as.

- We apologise for the delayed start to tonights performance of If I Were You.

We are putting back the melted ice creams. None sold. We are stood alone in the freezer cabinet. My mind is somewhere else but I hear the frozen breath from Marigold. Her carbon dioxide stinks of onion and is held captive by the sub-zero of the walk-in cooler. I want to push her in, close the door and jimmy the lock. But her breath is shorter and it doesn't seem fair. Every breath she takes is audibily shorter than the last and I wonder how long she can go on like that. I can almost feel life loosening its grip on her bandy bent-up frame.

- Patrons may use the free bus waiting for them at the back of the Theatre. We apologise for the inconvenience of tonight's cancellation.

So it transpires that a bottle of brandy and a box of aspirin is not an aid to performance. I help the ladies who lunch onto the coach. They give me a tenner. Maybe it is not so bad being the one who is standing by, waiting with the last laugh all ready prepared. In biblical times those sort of folk often live longer. I clear my throat ready for the day I let rip.

I try not to choke on the bag of complimentary dry roasted peanuts supplied courtesy of the IT department. I see Marigold stuffing her rucsac full of them. With her back to the world she thinks no one can see. She has forgotten her drooping surgical stockings and prescribed arch supports. She has squeezed her bunioned feet into a pair of sling back red stilletos, gleaming with a patent finish. Finally, after three summer seasons, a show worth watching.