I was working for a venue company at Edinburgh Fringe Festival this Summer and it was my first year up there, so before I arrived I was as excited as a Catholic school boy on his first day of choir practice. And, obviously, just as naïve.
I think I should have guessed early on that Edinburgh might not be as magical as I’d hoped. The first sign should have been as apparent as soon as I arrived: I tottered into the company’s headquarters, teetering on my heels and dragging my numerous bag of luggage behind me. Hair perfectly quaffed, politely smiling, asking where our apartment was, I was told to leave my bags where they were and, “Follow Nancy.” I was told that she was going to give me a tour of the building. Lovely. We descended some old, creaky, wooden stairs and as the walls began to get darker and danker, I started to get confused. This didn’t look like the interiors of the beautiful Victorian building I had witnessed outside. At that moment, we emerged into what can only be described as a dungeon. In here were five other, exhausted, pasty ‘employees’ attempting to paint the dirty brick arches white and managing, at best, a murky grey/yellow. It was honestly like a scene from a horror film – the undead trapped in a kind of purgatory, forever painting and never making any progress. I half expected to turn around and see Nancy’s cackling face cracked and bloody before she locked us in there for eternity.
I was half right.
She ignored my look of horror and said sweetly, “Well if you just want to grab a paint brush and get stuck in,” before she left.
Six hours later I was told that the reason my wall was constantly a slimy yellow was because people outside, on street level, would pee down onto the basement walls and windows when drunk, and urine was a constant feature of this wall’s brickwork now.
No amount of hand-scouring will ever remove that memory.
At 11:30pm we were told we could leave.
To be continued...
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