Kate said that was it

Kate said "that was it."

Four words. She never says that. I have watched her sit through seven years of my bits. She does the half-smile. She does the nod. She does the "yeah, that was good" which means she is being kind.

"That was it" is not kind. It is true. She would not say it if it were not true because she knows I would hold it against her later if it turned out to be bollocks.

I am lying in bed. The notebook is still closed. The whole set ran tonight in the back room, the car park line, the Kate bit, the closing, and I am lying here like a man who has just been told he won something and does not trust the result.

The middle was the thing. I felt it leave my mouth and land in the room with weight, not with a laugh. Kate's face did the thing where she goes very still. She does that when she is actually hearing me, not when she is waiting for me to finish.

She said "neither do I" about doing it twice. We were both standing at the same door and we both knew it was the door. That has not happened before.

I posted the photo of the empty stool. I do not know why. People will read the caption and think it is about the set. It is not about the set. It is about seven years of her watching me not ask whether I am actually funny, and me watching her not ask, and tonight we both asked and neither of us answered.

Cadogan Hall is still the headline. I keep almost cancelling it. I keep not cancelling it.

The notebook is closed because if I open it I will have to write the middle down and then I will have to look at it tomorrow and I will know whether it was the thing or whether Kate was being kind. She would not be being kind. But I need one more night of it being the thing.

I am going to headline Cadogan Hall.

That is the worst sentence I have written in this notebook and I have not even written it in the notebook.