Back Story Page 0,146

further. Even in my memories of my racy encounter with the girl at Cambridge who was keen to bed a Footlights president, it’s only the initial realisation that’s an exciting memory – after that it fades to drunkenness and guilt.

I suppose, if you do decide to shag groupies – and I’m not saying those who do are necessarily wrong as I’m sure it can be done in a fun and mutually satisfying way – you have to deal, as soon as it becomes clear that you’re up for it, with your sudden lowering in the groupie’s estimation. It’s like what I get when someone realises I’m not the novelist. Suddenly you’ve become attainable to the groupie – the excitement of fancying a star from afar evaporates and they have to deal with the reality of a stranger’s body – usually an older man’s.

There were lots of things about my life that seemed to baffle interviewers. Why did I still live in an ex-council flat in Kilburn? was a very common question. Why did I show no interest in some of the trappings of fame: expensive cars or clothes or giant TVs? Perhaps I came across as some sort of weird ascetic or the kind of person who ‘keeps himself to himself’ and is later discovered to be dwelling on a pit of human bones.

I think people thought I had something to hide. Maybe he’s gay and can’t admit it, they may have thought. Or spends all his money on morphine. Or, as the Heat photo might have suggested, he’s as promiscuous as Russell Brand but is somehow managing to do it on the quiet. What is his secret? was the implied question I feared. So I tried to be honest, when I went on Desert Island Discs at least, about the bare facts of my life and how I felt – that I was single and unhappy.

I resented the interest. I didn’t think – I don’t think – that the specifics of my private life were anyone’s business. I was just a purveyor of comedy. If people liked it, they could keep watching. If not, they should stop. I didn’t want to encourage people to buy in too much to ‘what I was really like’. They couldn’t know me personally and I didn’t want to be trapped into creating the illusion that they could – an illusion that might subsequently be shattered if I was caught on film strangling a cat.

But mainly I resented it because I was hiding something. I couldn’t stop thinking about Victoria. I was hopelessly in love in a way that wouldn’t go away. That’s why I had no private life to speak of – because I didn’t want one, couldn’t face one without her. I told no one about it. Never mind interviewers, I didn’t tell my closest friends or my parents of the enormous sadness that over-shadowed my life. I didn’t tell them because I was ashamed and I knew what they’d say. ‘Stop indulging yourself in these hopeless feelings. Snap out of it. She doesn’t want to go out with you – she said so. She’s going out with someone else. It’s not the end of the world – it happens to people all the time. It’s happened to you before. Deal with it.’

They would probably have put it more gently than that. But I’m sure that’s what they’d have said I should do. So, if I already knew that, what was the point in telling them? It was stupid to have such an all-consuming crush at my age. So I couldn’t talk about it – and without doing so, I couldn’t adequately explain my life.

I didn’t want to move from Kilburn, partly because my friends lived there but mainly because it would be a sign of my life moving on without her. I didn’t want to change any major aspect of my existence on my own – I wanted to do it as part of my future with her. I couldn’t let go of that hope even when I told myself that I should.

And my career just went from strength to strength, as if taking the piss. I had a successful sitcom and sketch show on the go at once, I was a sought-after guest for panel shows, I was a praised columnist in a fine newspaper, everyone wanted to make a programme with me, everyone seemed to be saying I was the next Stephen Fry. And, because of the walking coupled