At My Mother's Knee (42 page)

Marlene was not in the mood for pleasantries with strangers.
She was complaining about her dressing room to a woman
who was carrying a huge bag. This was her daughter Maria.
I'd hoped Marlene would be swathed in furs, exuding wafts of
some heady perfume as she glided by, a sultry smile on her lips,
before vanishing mysteriously into the night. I hadn't banked
on an ordinary-looking pensioner in a blue trouser suit and an
odd Baker Boy-style cap holding a carrier bag. She could have
passed for one of the well-heeled older ladies who sat in the
coffee bar of Beatties of Birkenhead and drank frothy coffee
from glass cups. I could hear the tail end of her conversation
as she walked towards us. 'It's enough to make me take up
smoking again,' she said before turning to me.

'Give me a cigawett,' she demanded.

Since I had only half a crushed packet of ten Cadets in my
back pocket and a dog-eared penny book of matches and
didn't want to embarrass myself by getting these out in front
of her, I told her that I didn't smoke.

'I thought all you Liverpool boys smoked,' she said, slightly
mocking. 'How old are you?'

'Eighteen in June,' I answered, feeling, much to my annoyance,
that my face was turning a bright red. I couldn't quite
comprehend that the nice old lady I was talking to was the very
same woman who fought Jimmy Stewart in a bar in
Destry
Rides Again
.

'What's a young boy like you doing watching a silly old
woman like me?' she cooed playfully. 'Go home to your
momma,' she added, pinching my cheeks.

I did just that, but Momma wasn't very impressed.

'Never mind hanging around that old Kraut,' she said, 'you
wanna get out and kick a ball.'

One night after a concert at the Philharmonic Hall, Tony had
literally bumped into the conductor
John Pritchard
. When he
first mentioned this John Pritchard to me and told me that he
was a conductor, I assumed that he meant on the buses. I had
no idea who he was and why would I? They had met as they
both attempted to get in the same taxi and Tony, ever the
gentleman, insisted that John Pritchard take the cab. In return
JP
invited him back to the Adelphi Hotel for a drink. Tony was
no shy, retiring violet and, recognizing a golden opportunity,
didn't hesitate to accept.

They became great friends. Tony was fanatical about classical
music and they had a lot in common. Tony was also the type
who would never embarrass JP in public; he was discreet
and smart and could slip in among the
Glyndebourne
set
without inviting comment or gossip. Theirs was never a sexual
relationship. JP liked having a bit of eye candy around him but
it was very much 'look but I don't want to touch'. Tony was
crazy for opera and enjoyed the trips to Glyndebourne and
Covent Garden
, and now he wanted someone to share the fun
with him so he thought it was about time I was introduced to the great JP. I was dubious at first. I didn't want to find myself
in a compromising situation with an old man (old man! he
was in his early fifties) in return for board and lodging with a
bit of fancy singing thrown in, no matter how plush the venue.
Tony reassured me that there would be nothing like that and
rang JP up there and then to engineer a date.

'JP, do you remember that friend I was telling you about? . . .
That's right, the funny one with the long legs. Well, would it be
OK if I brought him with me to
Glyndebourne
? He's never
seen an opera.'

And nor did I want to either. Opera was my mother warbling
'One Fine Day' or Mario Lanza and Kathleen Ferrier on
Sunday afternoon radio.

'Here, have a word with him. He'd love to say hello.'

I didn't want to say hello and expressed this by jumping up and
down, flapping my hands and mouthing NO like a demented
mute. Tony ignored me, shoving the receiver into my hand.

'Hello?' My voice annoyingly adopted my mother's halfcrown
telephone voice and it came out as 'Hilla'.

'Hello, my dear,' JP said breathily, 'I've been hearing all
about you from Tony. When are you coming down to visit us?'

And so it was arranged that we were to spend the weekend
with him and attend the opera. 'With the Friday night spent
in London on the pull,' Tony said gleefully. He threw away
his fairy godmother hat, replacing it with his Professor
Higgins.

'If you don't mind me being brutally honest, we have a lot of
work to do,' he said, sizing me up. 'For a start, those clothes
have to go.'

'These are brand new,' I protested, holding out the folds
of fabric that made up my emerald green Oxford bags. The
waistband came up to my armpits and they were twenty-two
inches wide at the bottom with a four-inch turn-up. 'They're
the latest fashion, everyone's wearing them.'

'Exactly, that's my point. Who wants to be a member of the
common herd?' Tony said grandly. 'You must throw them out
or give them to a beggar with no taste, and while you're at it,
ditch the shirt and those awful boots.'

I secretly agreed with him when it came to the trousers. They
had been an expensive impulse buy and I was determined to
get my money's worth out of them, regardless of the fact that
they flapped noisily around my skinny legs like a tarpaulin
caught on a flagpole at the merest hint of a breeze. But the
boots and shirt? This was blasphemy! My red platform boots
and candy-striped shirt in varying shades of green were the
ultimate in up-to-the-minute fashion. Tony was a square, he
dressed like an old man and was trying to get me to do the
same. This new look he was recommending sounded very
much the same as the old look, the one that I was spending
every penny that I earned trying to get away from.

He went on, ignoring my protests. 'For this weekend at least,
you are going to be très chic. The look will be public-school boy:
grey trousers, casual black sweater – preferably cashmere, crisp
white shirt and an old school tie worn loose at the neck. The hair
has to go. We'll have to get that Maggie May red cut out.'

I stopped him mid-flow. 'D'ya want me to have elocution
lessons as well?' I was laughing in spite of myself at his sheer
gall and the outrageousness of this proposed makeover.

'Unfortunately not, I'm afraid,' he continued, really getting
into his role of Svengali. 'Elocution lessons would be pointless
at this stage, given the limited time available. I can do nothing
with the voice. Just try not to swear and remember to keep it
down to a respectable level.'

I gave in and made my debut at Glyndebourne looking, as
Tony had remarked, 'like a choir boy'. I'd even had my hair
cut. I wasn't keen on it as it made me feel like the old Paul
O'Grady, but looking around at the Glyndebourne crowd I
was grateful that I wasn't wearing the Oxford bags and capped-sleeve T-shirt. I'd have stuck out like a sore thumb and
died of mortification. Instead I was feeling quietly confident,
knowing that I was soberly dressed head to toe by
Carson's of Birkenhead
, a transaction made financially viable courtesy
of the Provident Cheque Company.

John Pritchard was what Aunty Anne would have called 'a
real gentleman'. He was charming and generous and extremely
kind to me. There were no embarrassing advances made, no
unexpected lunges while strolling round the garden and
no fumbling in the drawing room after dinner. He had a soft
spot for long legs, and wanted little more in the way of a thrill
than to gaze adoringly at my long skinny pins as I lay selfconsciously
in the garden in a minuscule pair of speedos
provided by the house. Tony, totally unabashed by nudity,
would parade around naked, his enormous schlong nearly
giving JP, and most of the staff, a heart attack.

I was determined not to enjoy the opera. It was the first production
in the UK of
The Visit of the Old Lady
by Von Einem
and JP was conducting. However, I soon forgot my prejudice
and was completely blown away by the magnificence and
spectacle of it all as the story unfolded of the single mother
banished by her village as a young girl and returning years later
to wreak her revenge. I mentally rewrote it imagining Aunty
Chris in the part, arriving on the stage not by steam train but
on the back of a 42 bus.

In the interval we sat on tartan blankets spread out on the
lawn, eating smoked salmon sandwiches and drinking
champagne from a Fortnum and Mason hamper by the side of
the lake. It really was idyllic and a lifestyle that I could've got
used to, but I realized that such pleasures were transient and
tried to enjoy the moment for what it was.

JP liked me because I made him laugh and I was happy to
play the court jester. He loved to hear about Tony's and my
sexual exploits, both real and imaginary, and we were frequent visitors to
Carter's Corner Place
, his beautiful house in
Herstmonceux, Sussex. He had some very interesting parties in
the summer of '73. I remember streaking across the lawn with
Tony, butt-naked in the middle of a garden party, in front of
Lord Snowdon
and Dame
Joan Sutherland
. Embarrassing now
when I think about it but exhilarating and liberating back
then, and JP loved it. Having a pair of rough-arsed scrubbers
charging around naked in among the flower beds and ladies in
big hats made him feel daring and deliciously disreputable.

He had a flat in King Street which he generously, if not
foolishly, let us use on our visits to London. BR had recently
introduced a new weekend deal and for three pounds you got
a return ticket from Liverpool to London. We certainly made
good use of it and, arriving in London, would go directly to the
flat, get changed and head for the
Coleherne, a gay pub
in
Earl's Court, popular with the leather fraternity. We'd stand at
the bar smoking Sobranie Cocktail Cigarettes to show that we
were sophisticated.

When JP was in town he took us to the theatre. We saw
Gypsy
with
Angela Lansbury
and an extremely young Bonnie
Langford at the
Piccadilly. I'd seen the film years earlier on
telly, but watching the stage production I saw for the first time
the dark side to the story: the tatty dressing rooms and
crummy hotels, the whistle-stop tours and one-night stands
and the struggle to succeed in a notoriously cruel business –
none of which put me off the idea of a life treading the boards.
Quite the opposite, it made it sound all the more interesting.
The old longing to get into showbiz that had lain dormant
stirred in my gut again. What I was actually going to do when
I got there God alone knew, but I mentioned my secret
ambition to JP over dinner in Mr Chow's in Knightsbridge.

'With legs like those you should be a dancer, my dear,' he
said. 'I have a friend with a studio around the corner from the
flat, I'll take you over tomorrow. You'll be a marvellous dancer.'

I neglected to tell him that I had two left feet, I was so caught
up in his enthusiasm. By the time I left the restaurant I was full
of confidence that I was going to be the next Nijinsky. The
friend turned out to be
Lindsay Kemp
, the avant-garde
choreographer and dancer. He'd recently choreographed and
appeared in
David Bowie's
show at the Rainbow and it was
said that he was responsible for Bowie's metamorphosis into
Ziggy Stardust. He ran a class at the Dance Centre in Floral
Street, Covent Garden, long before it became a fashionable
venue.

I felt stupid. I had no desire to be a dancer, I only went along
to please JP and Lindsay Kemp knew it.

'Have you ever had lessons, dear?'

'No.'

'Did you dance as a child?'

'No.'

'Why do you want to be a dancer then?'

'I don't really.'

'Fuck off, dear, and stick to whoring.'

Thus ended my interview with the great Mr Kemp. I had no
idea who he was and put him down as a crabby old queen, but
seeing the sheer genius of his performance a year later in his
unforgettable production
Flowers
I realized just what a fool I
must have seemed at that interview.

Tony and I guarded our entry to the finer things in life like
Scylla and Charybdis, keeping him well out of range of any
pretty young fortune hunters and constantly on the lookout for
threats to our position as head catamites. We'd been invited to
tea at the Ritz by an old friend of JP's called . . . well, let's call
her
Lady J
.

Milady never went anywhere without her houseboy. None of
them ever stayed very long in her service as she wore them out,
going through them at the same speed as she went through a bottle of Gordon's Gin. She was a demanding hypochondriac
who enjoyed her imaginary ill health. Her latest houseboy, a
good-looking blond Dane called
Stefan
, seemed to be made of
sterner stuff. He knew exactly which buttons to push and
could play his mistress like a Stradivarius. He flirted with her
and flattered her and the silly old goat revelled in his constant
attention – as, to our horror, did JP.

We hated this Stefan on sight. He had JP wound round his little
finger in minutes and we were more than slightly concerned when
we heard him inviting Lady J and, of course, 'this charming boy'
to stay at Carter's Corner for the weekend. We were going back
up north and wouldn't be around to protect our patch. 'You'll be
greatly missed, my dears,' JP said, not quite convincingly enough
for our liking, his eyes glazing over with lust as he gazed at
Stefan, 'but I'm sure I'll find other distractions.'

'If we don't do something quick to get rid of that ponce we
can say goodbye to halcyon days,' Tony muttered as we stood
outside the Ritz watching Stefan help Lady J into the car while
JP gushed adoringly.

Our chance came a couple of months later. Since the arrival
of Stefan, phone calls and invites had been few and far between
from JP, who was captivated by him. We'd heard that JP had
invited Lady J to the flat in Covent Garden and, unable to
attend, she'd sent Stefan in her place.