The murkiness of middle-class morality is frightening. They, of course, level similar charges at me. They write that I adopt a cynical attitude to Pagan’s development and take no care of her personal hygiene or toilet training … if my image of you were not ashen-faced already, it would be now. I know exactly the reference, I can quote you chapter and verse; or does that sound too biblical? Pagan told me that, when she wet her bed one Friday, your mother pressed her nose to the sheets in a primitive aversion therapy. She consoled her by saying – oh my darling, why did you never tell me? – that she had done the same to you. When Saturday brought no improvement, she was smacked for being wilful. On Sunday, she came home and her sheets were bone-dry. Terrified of your parents’ injunction, she made me promise to say nothing; any adult conversation sounds to her a form of collusion. So I used the Welfare Officer as an intermediary. Heaven knows what construction they have put on her words!
‘Who has a personality without being a person and a lifestyle without a life?’ might not head any list of the world’s great riddles but, as a description of yours truly, it has a piquant truth. According to your parents, it is my lifestyle that puts Pagan at risk. I appear to be simultaneously working late, painting the town and filling the house with people. I neglect her by at once sending her off to classes, dragging her round to my friends and dumping her on hers. I both treat her too much like an adult (inappropriate activities, mealtimes, bedtimes and consultation) and baby her (lack of discipline, overindulgence). How I manage to reconcile such contradictions defeats me, but no doubt my master the Devil shows the way.
The animals come in two by two … your parents’ attitudes are antediluvian. This is 1992; homosexuals can police the streets but are barred from nurseries. For heterosexuals, the only qualification for parenthood is puberty; for homosexuals, pre-pubescents must be kept at bay. Your parents and their friends and newspapers decry the teenage pregnancies and single mothers who, to them, lie behind every evil from the budget deficit to the rise in crime; and yet they still locate fatherhood in the genitals. Parentage requires no more than a drunken fumble, so long as the right organs are used; but anyone who turns them – dare I say it? – arsy-versy is ruled out of court. No, not court, that is just a figure of speech. Court is where sanity will prevail; court is where integrity will be acknowledged; court is where justice will be done.
Until then, your parents prefer to take the word – or rather, affidavit – of a convicted murderer: Lewis Patrick Perjury Kelly … ‘I was crossing my fingers, Ma, so it don’t count.’
I hear you raise your voice in his defence; at least I do ten years ago. He has hit you and I remind you of his history; whereupon you cry foul prejudice. ‘Can people never change? So much for your so-called liberalism.’
‘Liberalism isn’t blindness; it means seeing every angle, not closing your eyes.’
‘The past is dead and buried. After fourteen years, he’s earned a fresh start.’
‘The past is dead and buried; there are fourteen years of weeds on the grave.’
‘Since when have you joined the hanging, shooting, flogging brigade?’
‘I quite agree that his previous convictions shouldn’t be mentioned in court … although, if you showed those bruises, I’m sure you’d have a case. But you’re not sentencing him, you’re living with him, and you can’t ignore the violence in his blood.’
‘But you don’t hold with blood; according to you, we’re all free agents.’
‘His blood, his; not his South London criminal genes. He’s a strong man … and not just with his fists. Anyone with the strength of mind to land a place at the Drama Centre six months after leaving jail should be able to defeat his background. We are not our parents’ prisoners.’
I shake myself by the hand; so often my youthful sentiments sound callow; these hold true. I look again at Lewis’s affidavit. I never thought to come across him again, except at the Variety Club and BBC parties, where he conceals his hostility behind a practised smile. He now has the perfect excuse to vent his resentment. I little imagined that an evening at Wormwood Scrubs would have such lifelong repercussions. I should have taken Struan’s advice – and Struan – instead of you. And yet it was through you that I gained the job on Light Waves; so the responsibility – and the memory – runs full circle.
We are walking through the suburban slough of West Acton on a dull November day, heavy with dankness and gloom. We reach the prison precincts and an incongruous group of playgoers, all anxious to pretend that Wormwood Scrubs is as familiar a venue as Stratford or the Old Vic. Disdainful guards take our names and herd us through the gates. We negotiate a network of electronic doors, to be greeted by an affable young man with his ear pressed to a walkie-talkie. He apologises for the delay with a winning smile. You decide that he must be kept on permanent front-line duty, buttering up the public, while the old guard are beating up the inmates inside.
I try to reply; but my lips are frozen. I fight for breath as my imagination runs riot. This is no innocent invitation, but a deliberate ploy. Some young man has lied to me about his age and to the police about my behaviour. They have struck a secret deal with my producers to avoid any scandal touching the BBC. I am to be incarcerated without a trial … Look, the walls are closing in; or is it just that the doors are closing …? Even you are implicated; there is no one I can trust. At any moment, the guards will drag me away. I will be segregated with the sex offenders and assaulted in the showers. My tea will be poisoned with piss and my food gritted with broken glass. My family and friends will disown me … I am the prisoner of my paranoia; my guilt has found the perfect home.
‘Wake up,’ you say, ‘you look miles away.’
‘I feel that I’m here for life.’
We process through the prison proper and a confusion of brutal brick buildings. Mayhem breaks out in a cell block. Arms squeeze through grilles and bang on tin plates, followed by piercing shrieks of ‘they’re killing us’ and ‘get me out of here’. The young guard genially explains that the show has already begun; the entire cast deserves Oscars. Unconvinced, I think back to the painful day I spent locked in a Cambridge cage on behalf of Amnesty. A harsh shout warns me away from the walls, just in time to avoid a parcel of shit that explodes at my feet. A corduroy man asks if I was at the Roundhouse when the Brazilians pelted the stalls with offal. I shake my head. Howling dogs begin a running commentary on our visit.
‘Are they adequately fed?’ demands a tweedy lady.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ the guard replies. ‘We let them loose every night in the punishment block.’ He looks hurt when she takes him at his word.
We are led into a very makeshift theatre and told that, owing to a lunchtime disturbance, the planned performance in the main hall has been cancelled and the play is to be presented in private before the governor and guests. The director courts sympathy by listing his complaints. While the men themselves could not have worked harder, a number of hostile guards have sabotaged rehearsals from the start, withdrawing privileges, imposing duties … indeed, he has no doubt that they were behind the trouble at lunch. Added to which, two of Sergeant Musgrave’s gang were transferred, without warning, to Parkhurst, leaving him five days to train professionals in their place.
Against all the odds, the play begins and, against all expectations, it triumphs. We are both impressed by the flinty intensity of the actor playing Musgrave and by the magnificent musculature of Attercliffe, whose shoulders and chest suggest hours of sweaty sit-ups in his cell. The applause is thunderous, and, for the first time in the evening, it succeeds in drowning out the dogs. The actors disappear and the governor tells us that they will be allowed back for a fifteen-minute discussion. They return, to a new round of cheers, slapped backs, slipped cigarettes and a kissing ovation from several women.
‘Nostalgie de la boue?’ I ask.
‘They wouldn’t say boue to a goose.’
The only two who do not re-emerge are Musgrave and Attercliffe … no oth
er identification is permissible by law. We each devise explanations which reveal our particular bias. I feel sure that Musgrave is a professional who does not wish to outshine the prisoners, while you insist that Attercliffe is considered too dangerous for social contact; his every movement containing the threat of GBH. In the event, we are both mistaken; Attercliffe is a last-minute replacement whose abs, pecs and lats are the product of days at the gym and nights at the disco; and Musgrave is Lewis, serving a life-sentence for murder, who is too overwhelmed by his reception to return.
He is finally coaxed out of hiding and kissed on both cheeks by an opportunistic young director fresh from Sloane Square. He flinches in fury; and it is only when he raises his fists that we see that his wrist is handcuffed. Your face is a palimpsest registering excitement, compassion and lust in swift succession. ‘Simon Smith and his amazing dancing bear,’ you breathe, before walking slowly towards him, assuming potency with every step. I watch, powerless to prevent a meeting that I know will prove fateful. Is it second sight or déjà vu …? If time is standing still for you, it is spinning for me in all directions. I desperately search for a diversion that will send the prisoners back to their cells.
It is too late. It is not that his face relaxes – his skin is too taut on the bone – but his body acknowledges yours in such a way as to suggest a future. I fail to read your lips, but your intentions are clear. You beckon me over and I mumble my practised plaudits. I am taken aback as he makes no attempt to interrupt or to deflect the flow; and yet I see that it is not from the usual actor’s vanity – the ‘that’s enough about me, so what did you think of my performance?’ egotism – but from a desperate desire to learn. We are joined by two middle-aged women who twitter and touch him; but his eyes remain fixed on you. I note how slowly he speaks, which I attribute to years in solitary confinement, until I realise that it signals the regard in which he holds words.
The governor calls for silence and congratulates everyone involved in the project, not least, if he may so, himself for resisting the sceptics both in the Home Office and on his staff. He praises the vision of the director and the dedication of the men, which is all the more remarkable considering that there are several who have never set foot inside a theatre. The play has given them a rare sense of achievement, endorsed by the generous response of such a distinguished audience; indeed, his emphasis suggests that the real achievement lies more in the audience’s indulgence than in the actors’ skill. He concludes to loud applause. Lewis alone remains silent; until his guard yanks his hand with such a resounding smack that I fear for their return to the cells.
‘Right, say your goodbyes now, lads, please.’ The head warder shatters the illusion more cruelly than the most insensitive stage-manager.
‘Got any smokes?’ Lewis asks, as the prison regime takes over.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t …’ I stammer.
‘You should still know to bring some to a nick.’
‘Come on, lad,’ the guard pulls him away. You grab him back.
‘Thank you so much for a wonderful performance. I shall never forget it,’ you say, clasping his hand for just a moment too long. Suddenly, the prisoners are gone and we are back in the Barbican buffet, scoring points and comparing productions. Intimacy dissolves as we wait impatiently for our escort. We are ushered out of the gates to a final blast of the canine chorus and retrace the dismal trek to the Tube. There, we discover Attercliffe, or rather Peter, sitting on the platform. His distressed leather jacket and faded jeans emphasise his ersatz toughness, more YMCA than GBH. We introduce ourselves and you press him for details of Lewis. He knows very few, having only been involved with the group for five days.
‘I had my mind full of a part which I last played at drama school. The most I could hope was to remember the lines and not trip over the furniture.’
‘No one would know. You had real presence. I shan’t forget that look of horror when you realised you’d killed Sparky.’
‘Really? At least someone noticed. Those guys are so undisciplined; you never know how they’ll come out with a line. Talk about Best Supporting Performance. I had to carry the play.’
We suppress a smile. As we rattle back from West Acton to the West End, we make an equivalent journey from Lewis’s untutored passion to Peter’s professional pride. Having elicited that he will be returning next week for a second performance, you persuade him to take a letter to Lewis. I add that we should send him some cigarettes; it was stupid not to have thought.
‘Don’t worry, it wasn’t like turning up empty-handed to Melissa’s dinner party. Besides, as he left, I slipped him a gram of cocaine.’
‘What?’ We both look aghast.
‘I had it in my bag. It seemed only fair. His need was greater than mine.’
‘We might have been kept there ourselves.’ I check the carriage to make sure that no one has heard.
‘That might have had its compensations. You know: new kid on the block.’
‘New head more like.’
‘Or new meat,’ Peter grins.
I find that I am sweating; dogs are howling at my heels. You avoid further discussion by feigning sleep. Peter leaves us at Tottenham Court Road to go clubbing.
‘Why didn’t you go with him? He could hardly have made it any plainer.’
‘How would he know I was gay?’
‘Oh please.’
‘Well, how do you know that he fancied me?’
‘Short of undoing your flies and fellating you between Marble Arch and Bond Street, what more could he do? Why do you think he gave you his number?’
‘That was so you could give him your letter.’
‘You can’t really be that naive. You complain that no one’s interested in you, but what do you expect when you always push them away?’
‘Anyway, there was something thuggish about him.’
‘Is, not was. Don’t use the past tense so dismissively.’
‘He’s probably into whips and chains and things.’
‘So? Live dangerously.’
‘I leave that to you.’
My words rebound on me as you and Lewis become increasingly involved. My request to interview him for Light Waves is refused, while yours to photograph prison life for the Criterion magazine is granted. I am bemused by the distinction, until you explain that Brian Derwent is not a governor of the BBC.
‘He went straight to James Merfield and won his backing. In return, he agreed to ease off on some story about MI5.’
‘But that’s dreadful.’
‘That’s life. Arm-twisting, back-scratching, horse-trading are second nature to Brian. I just hope he thinks that the pictures measure up.’
A ten-page spread says that he does. The images are as exciting as they are unexpected. In place of grizzled figures in grainy monochrome, all hand-rolled cigarettes and death’s-head tattoos, are the radiant friars of a Renaissance fresco. The light comes courtesy of Fra Angelico and the cells belong to St Dominic or St Jerome. It is as if you find in them – and, in particular, in Lewis – a liberation. He shows a sensitivity that I never anticipated … and am never to see again.
He declares that, on his release, he will use the portraits to make up a portfolio. As you continue to visit him, first in the Scrubs and then in Leyhill, you discuss his future.
He is determined to act, despite many reservations, not least about the prevalence of ‘poofs’ in the profession.
‘Charming.’
‘You can’t blame him. If you’d been born into his family, you’d say the same.’
‘I thought that Catholics were supposed to believe in free will.’
‘He’s lapsed.’
You encourage him to apply to the Drama Centre, where the intensity of his acting and the notoriety of his past combine to create a lycanthropic legend. You introduce him to Melissa who is wrestling with the book that will take her from indifferent ingénue to hottest young novelist of her generation. She, in turn, introduces him to variou
s directors. Although you insist that her motives are self-serving, you cannot argue with their success when, six months after leaving the school, he is offered a lead at Stratford.
‘East, not on Avon, but then you have to start somewhere,’ Melissa smiles blithely. ‘As you, of all people, should know.’
You bite your tongue. For three years, you smart under the obligation. When, however, she puts a thinly disguised version of your affair with Lewis at the heart of her second novel, you consider the debt erased.
‘I despise her. She stores up gossip like a housemaid … and writes like one too. Less roman-à-clef than à-keyhole.’ You take your revenge in her bed – or rather by the side of it when, renewing your acquaintance with Edward, you leave your knickers prominently discarded. But revenge is as risky as love. Marriage has toughened Melissa, who sends them to Lewis with the simple message: ‘I believe that these belong to you.’ At first, he is outraged by the imputation; later, he takes out his rage on you.
Throughout his career, he has been desperate to avoid any breath of scandal … read every profile, watch every chat show except mine, and you will find the same story: a man who made a fatal mistake in his youth but who paid the price and now asks only to put the past behind him. The wisest decision he ever made was to forestall the tabloids when he landed the part in the soap. And yet the conversion is unconvincing. He can boogie and floozie his nights away in clubs; he can jog around Queen’s Park for an hour the next morning; but he still cannot curb his temper … What do you consider your greatest asset as an actor, Mr Kelly? Your fists?
Pagan and her parents Page 16