Outrageous Fortune: Growing Up at Leeds Castle

by Anthony Russell

  For part of our stay David’s friend William (son of my godmother Lady Buckhurst) and my friend Camilla (daughter of my godfather G) beefed up the family complement of our parents, David, James, Vanessa, Nanny, and me. James was disinclined to reveal his reason for not bringing a friend, male or female, but I suspected it had something to do with his not wishing to mix what he saw as the incompatibility of his “hip” new circle of friends with the eccentricities of our family.

  All went well for ten days. We were handsomely looked after by Clive, our charming black butler, and a bevy of housemaids who wore pretty blue-and-white-striped dresses and pressed white aprons. We swam, we sunbathed, we ate, we drank; friends of our parents came over from the mainland for lunches, bringing their teenage daughters, all of whom spent their entire time chatting up and making eyes at James, who successfully raised their temperatures by addressing them with winning indifference.

  We visited Huntington Hartford at his Ocean Club, which he was enthusiastically transforming into a hotel enterprise of elaborate luxury, topped off by his purchase of the Cloisters, a fourteenth-century French Augustinian monastery, from William Randolph Hearst, which was reassembled on the thirty-acre property to startling effect. Mr. Hartford was kind enough, on one occasion, to show us at some length his skill in interpreting our individual personalities with a set of tarot cards. The laboriousness of this display and its ludicrous conclusions rendered that afternoon’s digression a wearisome affair and made me wonder if Hunt was quite all there.

  * * *

  After two weeks James was getting bored and asked David and me if we’d fancy renting a speedboat for a day. I was full of enthusiasm for the plan, David less so. He urged caution, primarily out of concern for our lack of boating experience, not to mention the expense. James informed us that he’d had plenty of experience in handling small boats (something I was unaware of but only too happy to go along with) and that he believed he had sufficient funds for the rental.

  Quite how James knew where to go and what to do was left unsaid, but without David and without informing our parents, he and I set off one morning walking through the Porcupine Club and over to the Paradise Island hotel property, where boat rentals were available at the small marina nearby. My brother signed papers—insurance, no doubt, and other noteworthy legal matters—handed over a large amount of cash, left his British driver’s licence with the man in charge, and in we climbed to a heavy-looking, seen-better-days black wooden speedboat with an enormous outboard motor. Much to my relief, James reversed away from the dock with consummate skill, easing the boat gently into the harbour. He then put it into forward, and we set off on our journey around the island, passing under the new bridge which had caused Granny, and other island property owners, so much concern over the inevitable crowds to come.

  Although the boat felt like an old tub, and each bump on the water resonated like an elephant stomping its foot, the ensuing half hour was exhilarating and almost as charged as a day out with the Galway Blazers. We left the eastern end of Paradise Island behind and headed out to sea before turning in a wide arc and making a run for the north shore.

  “How on earth do you know how to do all this?” I shouted at my brother as he let me take the wheel once we were clear of any other boats or obstacles. “I have friends with boats,” he told me. “I’ve learned a lot with them and done tons of driving.”

  The sight of our beach from far out at sea, and the ragged line of palm trees swaying in the breeze as we approached, was magnificent. “So what’s the plan?” I asked.

  “We’ll gently make our way past the reef up ahead, a couple of hundred yards off the beach, then, when we’re close enough, let’s drop anchor and have a swim. How about that?”

  “Okay. I have a feeling Ma and Pa are going to be pretty angry because we didn’t tell them what we were doing.”

  “I’m old enough to make decisions for myself. Don’t worry. It’ll all be fine.” We approached the beach as slowly as possible, but the current was clearly taking us there faster than we would wish. On top of that, James suddenly shouted, “Shit! I can’t tell how deep it is. We must be too far out to drop anchor now, but if we wait too long we’re going to end up on the beach.”

  “Oh dear,” I said helpfully.

  “Dear-oh-fucking-dear is right!”

  We were fifty yards away from the shore, and I could clearly see the steps and parts of the house through the palm trees when James told me to drop the anchor. Though it was incredibly heavy, I managed to pick up the iron monster from the bow and toss it over the side. It seemed to hit sand before running out of rope, but did nothing to stop our forward momentum. The waves were small but insistent. James put our vessel in reverse, but that had the effect of turning it around and little else, so now we were heading for the beach, backwards. Realizing that he must save the outboard motor if he could, my brother put the boat in neutral, and we both did our best to manipulate the anchor in such a way that it would get a grip on the bottom. To no avail.

  Gently the bow touched sand, we rocked a little, then the stern swung round, becoming parallel with the beach. We were only a few feet from the shore, the propeller firmly wedged. Our boat was going nowhere, and James and I were dans la merde.

  At lunch our father played the role of the hanging judge as only he knew how, silently deliberating as to whether the gallows fitted the crime, while Ma, David, Nanny, and Vanessa made valiant efforts not to give off the unseemly air of onlookers at a public execution.

  James and I sat side by side and stared sullenly at our plates. Only Ma made halfhearted attempts at polite conversation, but there was not a great deal, apparently, to talk about. Not until the end of the meal did my father commence his summation, and it was a real corker, laced with vitriol and withering condemnation. The tone of delivery was measured and calm, but, like his mother, Pa had always been able to be devastatingly forceful without raising his voice. My insides turned to jelly, and I imagined my face turning puce. Stealing a glance at James, whose Ray-Ban sunglasses provided him with a smattering of cover, I noticed that he, too, uncharacteristically, found himself floundering in the eye of the storm. The nursery incident, when I was still in my high chair, returned from out of the blue to dislocate my thoughts, and I wondered if my brother was having unpleasant recollections of that same morning.

  Before lunch and before our dressing-down, James and I had been instructed to contact the marina and do what had to be done. Sixty minutes after the accident our boat had been towed off the sand by a brace of highly amused Bahamians whom I later wished had joined us for lunch and explained to our father the more jocular side of the story. Our parents wrote a cheque for the damage; the amount was never revealed, and the incident was never spoken of again. If James was punished in some way I never found out how. I had my next month’s pocket money withdrawn. This came as a severe blow because the group needed more equipment, and I was obliged to pay my share.

  * * *

  Castle way programming never let up and sometimes produced a surprise. Three months later I was issued a free pass (“Of course you can go”) and tourist-class ticket to fly to still–Communist Yugoslavia for a summer holiday with Max. It never once crossed my mind that my trip to Eastern Europe and my parents’ to the South of France to join Granny B for the same two weeks was anything more than coincidence.

  Images of dark, empty streets, floodlit by night, spooky Communist spies playing deadly cat-and-mouse with dour Western counterparts—lifted, naturally, from the best espionage films of the day like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Funeral in Berlin—filled my head during the flight.

  Zagreb turned out to look as grimy, run-down, and depressing as any of the Russian towns I had seen in films, newsreels, or photographs. Whatever grandeur my hotel once possessed had disappeared. The giant foyer gave the impression of having been ravaged by an occupying force, its columns peeling, its scattered furniture decrepit and sad. My room was large; an exposed lightbulb dang
led from the high ceiling, and the bed’s ancient springs made their presence felt. From my window I looked down on streetlights, tramlines, stationary trams, and lumbering streetcleaning trucks whose hoses and giant brushes were the only soundtrack to the night’s desolation. I actually found myself wondering if my telephone was bugged or a secret camera was watching my every move. Maiden’s Tower comforts seemed far away but the spirit of adventure was intoxicating.

  In the morning I paid my bill in cash and, lugging my small suitcase, set off for the station, which Max had told me was five minutes’ walk from the hotel. I had not gone more than a hundred yards when suddenly I heard a loud yell from behind that made me jump. I turned to see a soldier, carrying a rifle, running directly towards me, his greatcoat flapping around him like a doomsayer’s robe, waving, pointing, manifestly indicating that I should halt. Immediately I pictured sinister men in black leather jackets, interrogation cells, and demands for an admission of guilt. Then, before panicking completely, I racked my brain for clues as to what I could possibly have done wrong.

  Puffing a bit from his exertions, the soldier arrived in front of me, and the fact that he failed to unsling his weapon, point it at me, and order me to kneel on the ground with my hands behind my head brought immense initial relief. He did, though, speak loud and fast in his native tongue about something that was surely of great importance. I replied with the obligatory, “I don’t understand you, I’m afraid.”

  This provoked another lengthy outburst, accompanied by frenetic waves in the direction of the hotel.

  “I paid my bill. Paid … my … bill,” I said, eschewing previous generations’ methodology of “If they don’t understand English, speak louder” in favour of slower and clearer enunciation. Now that I was sure the soldier was not going to shoot me, I relaxed a little and paid attention to his fresh young face, which wore an expression just as confused as my own. He started tapping his pockets and pointing at me, indicating I should do the same. Then he began to mime opening a door with a key. My room key was still tucked snugly away in my jacket pocket, my foolishness laid bare for the soldier’s appreciation. I gave him the key, but before he turned to go back to the hotel he smiled at me again, and to my astonishment and immense pleasure, doffed his military cap. Extraordinary! I thought. It’s as if I’d never left home soil. Without even so much as a nod or a wink, the castle way had accompanied me to dour Communist Zagreb! How daft was that? And how daft was I for thinking it?

  * * *

  After two and a half years at Stowe, all I really was sure about was that when my best friends and I were playing music—Oliver on bass, Max on drums, Peter on lead guitar, me on rhythm guitar and lead vocal—I felt like a different person, joyful and uninhibited. For me it was patently worth the enormous effort which went into it and, I thought, any potential fallout which might come from it.

  Prune thought otherwise. He banned us from rehearsing for the entire 1968 Lent term, which sent me into a paroxysm of rage. He wrote to my parents towards the end of my third year: “It is a very difficult decision to make.… Anthony certainly has the intelligence, but I doubt whether he has the drive or even the inclination to make the University.… It would seem to me that the best plan is at least to start a fresh two-year course.… I have never been popular with his study companions (all of whom are too old for him) because of my continuous opposition to this pop group nonsense.… I remain still convinced that it has detracted from their work results.… Anthony, having deserted his own contemporaries, will not find it easy to return to the fold.… He should be in the 1st XI next year, but that would not be any great pull for him.”

  I saw this letter for the first time almost forty years after it was written. So Prune had thought, correctly, I did not want to go to university. It had been an assumption on his part because we never discussed it. But I did feel that the sooner I was playing in a band professionally, far removed from the halls of education, the better my life would be. I knew Prune thought my friendship with older boys was wrong, but the decision to hold me back a year—again, not discussed with me—in the hope of stirring me to greater efforts and better results in the classroom, had a demoralizing effect of such proportion that I saw only hopelessness stretching far over the horizon.

  I had been headed for the first XI cricket team the following summer. Contrary to Prune’s belief that it “would not be any great pull,” or matter very much, to me, I remained fanatical in my love for cricket and was still reasonably good at playing the game. If any of the authorities at school or at home had asked me for my views, I would have told them they were right about my infatuation with music having a detrimental effect on my work; but they were wrong to think that making me start the year again would solve anything. The one thing I was quite sure of was that if there was an important task before me, I would pull out all the stops to get it done. That included changing gears, reversing priorities, or whatever ad hoc phrases the principals tossed out like spiteful confetti as they sought to address the nature of my shortcomings. Just as at St Aubyns, I was confident I could get the job done, both academically and on the sports field. But the principals either overlooked or were unaware of such capabilities, so the opportunity to prove them once more was denied.

  I was instructed to begin my A-level course (two years of advanced-level studies in three specialized subjects) again in the winter of 1968. Now I was surrounded by boys a year younger than me, in the classroom and in my house, and, as Prune had stated in his letter, it was not easy to “return to the fold.” In fact, with castle way thinking scornfully dismissive of my new “seniors and betters,” the situation at Stowe continued to deteriorate.

  And then it got worse. Thanks to a bout of flu, I turned up two weeks late for the start of the 1969 summer term only to find a pair of opening bowlers firmly ensconced in the first XI. What I had dreamed of for a year, believing it, clearly in error, to be mine for the offering, had gone up in smoke. Merde! Something was rotten in the state of … Buckinghamshire, and I didn’t know what it was.

  18.

  DO WHAT?

  “The time has come,” the Walrus said,

  “To talk of many things:

  Of shoes and ships—and sealing-wax—

  Of cabbages—and kings—

  And why the sea is boiling hot—

  And whether pigs have wings.”

  (Lewis Carroll)

  During the holidays, school tension was replaced by parental tension. I don’t know what my mother and father said to each other when they were alone, but in my presence there appeared to be no limit to my father’s capacity to wound with words. They had separate bedrooms in London and at Leeds; they seldom went on walks together in the country, and I always felt at the lunch or dinner table that my mother was one comment away from receiving an unpleasant, barbed response. My brothers and I were constrained in verbal straitjackets, never daring to confront our father’s quiet authority. Fortunately, when friends came to stay at the Maiden’s Tower, or I met up with them in London, tensions evaporated and industrious pleasure seeking ensued.

  At sixteen, Soames and I were still best friends and not bad looking in a freckle-faced, hair-in-a-fringe, pouty-mouthed, grey-flannel, upper-class sort of way. We were above-average height, slim, and moderately athletic. We shared a profound and character-building appreciation of cricket and popular music. We were both inclined towards exuberance, but whereas I was shy and often hesitant to carry out our mutually conceived plans of derring-do, Soames was bold and brazen and instigated exciting escapades at the drop of a hat, or, indeed, his trousers!

  When we’d gone off to different public schools, I’d feared the separation would change things between us but it didn’t. We exchanged letters during term-time and saw each other a great deal during the holidays. On this particular occasion we were sitting in my parents’ Egerton Terrace drawing room at two o’clock in the afternoon, having just devoured with wolfish enthusiasm a classic example of Miss Preston’s toad-i
n-the-hole, followed by rhubarb fool and washed down by enough Coca-Cola to evaporate a tiger’s front row of teeth, contemplating what to do next.

  “How about a boff?” Soames suggested, chuckling and guffawing like a dirty old man.

  A boff? I said to myself, trying not to appear startled by this suggestion from out of the blue. I was familiar with the word, but not with the actual deed. My brother James talked a lot about boffing. Sometimes I thought he talked about nothing else. I had it on good authority, however, that he was an expert on the subject; I, on the other hand, was not yet out of the starting gate. “Do you have anybody in mind?” I asked, knowing full well the answer but needing time to think. Surely Soames hadn’t gone off and done something drastic without telling me first?

  “Actually, I have,” he said, his face taking on a familiar, conspiratorial sheen. “My brother’s given me the address and telephone number of a prostitute in the West End. He said she was terrific.”

  “But you haven’t been before?”

  “No, don’t worry. I wouldn’t sneak off without you. You’re still a virgin, aren’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “So, me too. Isn’t it time we did something about it?”

  “Since you put it so eloquently, I suppose it is! How much will it be?”

  “My brother said five pounds. Why don’t I call and find out?” Extracting a piece of paper from his pocket, Soames dialled the number. We looked at each other and started to laugh. He had to control himself when someone came on the line.

  “Hello … yes, I’m calling to make an appointment with Yvonne, please.… My brother Mr. Soames gave me your telephone number.… Two … this afternoon. Three thirty is fine.… Yes I do.… Thank you, good-bye. Oh! hang on—I forgot to ask—what’s the … er … yes, that’s it! Okay, thanks, goodbye!”