Everyone was having a marvellous time. Maybe this was salvation after all, and heaven was nothing more than a giant flapping marquee in the sky. God ambling over, tipsy, slightly overweight, a bottle of red in one hand, white in the other, saying nothing complicated like, ‘I am who is,’ just ‘Aren’t we lucky with the weather? Chablis?’
I left them all talking and wandered around the tent, meeting people I had not seen for forty years. I found myself chatting to a man I had known in France, where, according to rumour, he had systematically pilfered the collection box of his local church. Now he drawled that he was taking orders and becoming a professed monk.
‘God, how will you manage, Kieran? You were always such a bon viveur.’ I was impressed, remembering him from the old days at the Club Sept.
‘Well, obedience and chastity are really not a problem. One hasn’t bonked for yonks. As for poverty, I’ve worked that one out too.’
‘Oh, how?’ I asked, intrigued.
He leant in, speaking softly. God looked around from across the tent. St Bernadette shook her head and sighed.
‘Offshore company. Sole beneficiary.’
And we laughed. Extra hard in my case, because I knew it to be a giant double bluff. He was famously penniless, from penniless stock.
That night, my dad and I had a dinner party in a restaurant near our hotel. The cast included Kirsten, a neighbour of ours, and an Anglican, her friend Jo, Colin our local vicar and one of the more magnetic priests on the Catholic circuit.
Enter Fr Alexander Sherbrook. Tall and swarthy, with the soul-saving eyes of a Jesuit, straining slightly from their sockets at the horror of the world, under the bushiest brows in Christendom, Fr Alexander was the parish priest of St Patrick’s, Soho Square. He had been posted there from a rather genteel living in Twickenham. Now he was in the centre of Sodom, and I used to be his neighbour in the days when I lived in Frith Street. He worked tirelessly in that rundown parish of junkies and queens, particularly with the homeless, who all washed up there at some stage or other.
Because underneath the rattle and roar of modern Soho, with its constant change, its amnesia, its facelifted bars and brothels, its tink ling rickshaws and wrangling trannies, it is still the ancient parish of St Giles, the great slum of London from time immemorial, where Les Mis was a reality show and not a musical. The lanes and yards still have the same names, but otherwise all that intensity of living has left no trace. St Giles has been bricked up, burnt, bombed and rebuilt and the howls of the poor have been drowned under the rainsplashed asphalt of Shaftesbury Avenue, but at least their gravestones are written in lights. The names of theatrical battleaxes reflected in puddles, splinter and spray into oblivion, driven over by time and a taxi cab on its way to Cambridge Circus. But old St Giles is still there for those who have the eyes to see. The poor, the struggling, the escapees of Bedlam still wander the streets, watching us listlessly or begging for change, and Fr Alexander is their friend. Apart from anything else, he produces sixty free dinners, twice a week, in the basement of the church.
We met thanks to Frith Street’s most famous tramp (not me), a Moroccan boy called Omar, with whom we were all friends. Omar made his bed each night in the stage door of the Prince Edward Theatre, surrounded by the books he had nicked from the secondhand shops along the Charing Cross Road. His days were spent laughing on the steps of Ronnie Scott’s or having a shower up at the Regent’s Park Mosque. Until he discovered cider. Then he began playing up and was about to go to prison. Father Sherbrook went to court and spoke up for him, and he got off. On that note the priest and I became friends.
I loved to sit in his dilapidated church with its peeling walls, and its damp musty smell of incense and floor polish, for hours sometimes, lulled into a kind of trance by the odd snore of a pilgrim taking his morning nap in the confessional, and the distant roar of Tottenham Court Road that rattled the old windows. A noisy lady arranged sad bunches of flowers on the altar, clattered down the aisle and chatted in an exaggerated whisper, or hoovered just as you were about to have a vision, but St Patrick’s was a lovely humble church, and many a troubled soul unrelated to the incomprehensible religion passed its doors and went inside. There we sat in the dusty shafts of light, heads in hands, trying to figure out the latest checkmate in the game of survival thrust upon us in Soho’s jungle outside. Soon we drifted off into the void, only to awake to find ourselves surrounded by small Chinese ladies in black trousers and pumps, grimly chirping the Mass in Cantonese. It was multicultural at St Patrick’s.
Fr Alexander was a fearless man, a modern Friar Tuck, prepared to go to war for God. On certain feast days I used to watch from my window as he took to the streets, all in white, under a makeshift awning held on poles by Poles, grasping the monstrance containing the blessed sacrament like a riot shield, through the throngs of weekend queens on come down, up Frith Street, through Old Compton Street, and back down Wardour Street, followed by the faithful, singing hymns. Sometimes the procession collided with the Hare Krishnas coming in the opposite direction, and on one occasion they got caught up in Satan’s own Gay Pride March.
After that Fr Alexander realised that he needed informers on the inside and made friends with a body-builder called Cinders who worked in a bar called the Admiral Duncan, which was famous for, among other things, being nail-bombed in ’92. Together they compared diaries and plotted routes to avoid further confusion, until Cinders and his boyfriend were savagely murdered – kicked to death, actually – on the South Bank a couple of years ago. Fr Alexander was terribly upset.
Like most serious Catholic priests, he is utterly intransigent on all the usual subjects. For the Church, an unrepentant queer is marked for hell and brimstone, and there is no getting away from this fact. He is worse really than a murderer, because at least a murderer kills once or twice and, done with his sin, repents. But as everyone knows, we poofs are remorseless and are at it 24/7, so while Fr Alexander is not exactly judgemental – he is, in fact, quite fond of me, as I am of him – our friendship under God’s light is a lampshade fringed with tension. The priest is always waiting for you to change, praying that you will, because God, it seems, is very busy turning a blind eye to every sin but buttfuckery.
All this can be very irritating for the poor poof at the receiving end, particularly when this kind of passive harassment has gone on, in some shape or form, since he was very young and utterly suggestible. The innocence of childhood is systematically abused by the Church, as it fiddles with the brain, if not the genitalia, as soon as it can get its hands on it. Debate and enquiry are forbidden – everything must be accepted without question – and priests are scandalised when confronted, dismissing the enquirer as angry and evil. Actually, poor dears, they are blissfully unaware that anyone could be angry with them, because, as far as they are concerned, even if they have fondled a choirboy in a foxy moment years ago, they are still the anointed mouthpieces of God. Thus they have ridden roughshod over us all for millennia, and apparently we love it.
At dinner that night I was drunk on the local wine and also the local attention. Apparently I had mentioned on a French chat show that I was coming to Lourdes, so I was expected wherever I went. This is the fabulous bonus of stardom, and it felt absolutely marvellous to come into a restaurant in Lourdes and be greeted like an old friend of St Bernadette. And so dinner began congenially. Fr Alexander was in a jovial mood.
‘Can you believe it?’ he said. ‘Someone has one of those flashy silver cars with the number plate RUT 12. Unbelievable!’
It was ours.
‘What?’ asked my father.
‘We’re just talking about your number plate, Daddy. Fr Alexander thinks it’s rather immoral.’
‘Oh, really?’ said my dad, concerned, leaning in close to the padre. ‘Rou-tee-too. Rather amusing, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Fr Alexander, unconvinced.
The wine was strong and the conversation inevitably drifted towards the pilgrimage and
religion, which was probably a mistake. By the fifth bottle I was losing control, and all the years of pent-up fury surged and spat across the table at poor Fr Alexander, who defended the Church’s position, irritatingly unflappable. My father sat between us and sank into himself, sensibly deciding to go extra deaf. Colin Fox, across the table, turned red and remained silent. The rest of us were flushed and raucous, but the axe I was grinding sparked and burnt with a vicious glow and was probably quite unpleasant.
We staggered back to our hotel, ominously named the De la Grotte, for a nightcap and to hammer a few extra nails into the coffin of my friendship with this extraordinary priest. Kirsten and I called various mutual friends and apparently left incoherent messages, screaming with diabolical laughter. In the morning I woke in my tiny room and opened the curtains, only to find the window looked straight onto a cliff face. I was up against the wall with one of the worst hangovers I have ever had, but Fr Alexander had contrived a brilliant revenge.
The pilgrimage had a rendezvous to visit a rehab clinic in the hills, and because it was such a beautiful day, he suggested that we all walk. So, in the baking sun, I pushed my father in his wheelchair three miles up the mountain, as the padre strode ahead, his black cassock flapping in the breeze, the panting faithful dotted in twos and threes behind him. At one stage I thought I would be sick all over my dad’s straw hat, as we bumped across a steep field towards a road high above. Suddenly I was Robert De Niro in The Mission, clambering up the sheer cliff, dragging my sins behind me. I couldn’t help smiling at the genius of Fr Alexander, although Fräulein Maria was indignant. The sins of the son were being visited on the father, whose poor legs were getting tired, continually on point as they were without their footrests. Perhaps Fr Alexander was punishing him too for having such a slutty number plate.
After half a mile on the road, we crossed a railway track. Now Lourdes was a fairy castle below us, and we were in a woody suburb, still climbing, past funny French bungalows with names like ‘Ça Me Suffit’ (this is enough for me), which stood in pretty walled gardens guarded by lunging Alsatians.
Two hours later we arrived at the centre, which was a kind of farm high up in the woods. It was an amazing place, built by its inmates, young men mostly, all with terrible tales of addiction and depravation, which we listened to in a large chapel. My dad, in the front row with the other ‘malades’, quickly dropped off. Fr Alexander sat like The Thinker, his chin on his hand, his eyebrows reaching towards the addicts over eyes burning like coals. The addicts themselves sat before us, in a row, relating the intimate details of their tragic lives to the assembled Knights and Dames.
It was a peculiar entertainment for these Telegraph and Mail readers, whose mantra concerning drugs and users was ‘String ’em up’. For this reason, probably, not many of them had come. On the other hand it was hard for them not to be charmed by these young men, all busy cooking, washing, ploughing and building. Their earnest commitment was touching and there was a special atmosphere in the place. They had made it themselves, and they ran it. There was no sign of a ghoulish monk or a grinning nun lurking in the shadows. Just the old hands watching out for the beginners who came from all over the world, not necessarily Christian, although after the initial struggle they all seemed to be fervent Catholics, addicted now to prayer. Some had been there for three years. You could see how hard it might be to tear yourself away from a place like this and return to a small-town bedsit where the past jumped out from every corner. Could they ever leave, or was this another Magic Mountain? They would have to become priests.
I looked over at Fr Alexander, fiercely listening – a sixteenth-century Jesuit in the rainforest. Maybe he had a master plan to replenish the flailing priesthood with these rough diamonds. What a brilliant idea! After all, there is no one more steadfast or compassionate than a thoroughly reformed drug user. Like Jesus, he’s been to hell and back, and maybe that’s the only qualification a priest needs, rather than the endless rules they learn like parrots in the seminary cage. Even the barbaric act of confession becomes more exciting with some fabulous, suffering, still-raw ex-junkie on the other side of the grille.
With all these thoughts exploding in my head – a new priesthood, an AA pope, condoms for Africa, credibility for queers – I wheeled my dad out into the sunshine.
‘What on earth was all that about?’ he asked.
‘I’m not quite sure.’
‘It was very moving,’ said Fräulein Maria.
‘Yes, it was. It makes you want to stay here.’
‘Not me,’ said my dad. It was Latin Mass followed by drinks for the major.
‘I need to go to the loo, Marianne. Would you do the honours?’
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Shroud of Turin
Towards the end of the summer, Melody suggested a trip to Turin. Bruno and Tom would stay with her and I would stay with Alfo. It was endlessly discussed and planned over lunches on the beach as the season wound down. Alfo did return the next weekend, but otherwise he called me most nights from the central station in Turin – he had no telephone at home – and during our broken conversations I could hear announcements for night trains to Brescia and Milan, Ventimiglia and Naples, adding to our union another thrilling dimension. We were nowhere. At a terminus and a departure point, disembodied voices crackling along the wires, or bouncing back and forth from outer space. Dark thoughts and projections flew alongside our words on the sea of static, and our romantic conversations were tinged with that panic that drives many a boat onto the rocks.
Melody took on the role of matchmaker and chaperone, suddenly prim and matriarchal, and she played it to the gallery, which was full on a good day, so that by the time we left the whole beach could tell one another where we were for each meal on the trip and what we were doing after. So, one Friday morning in late September, we set off in my Renault 25X, leaving the dogs with two girlfriends who were staying from London.
Things would never get better. The funny French pop hits of the summer blared through the ropy speakers of the car. Tom lounged in the back and Bruno drove. The windows were open, and we took the road from Ste Maxime towards the autoroute at Le Luc. This is one of the great roads, gliding like a snake through a magical range of hills called Les Maures. They are low and round, a child’s drawing, covered with forest, umbrella pines and scrub oaks, full of wild boar and the ruins of long-abandoned villages. I wanted to show the others one I had recently discovered, called Val d’Enfer. The Valley of Hell. It was for sale.
We clanked three miles down an abandoned track until it became overgrown and then we walked. The forest cooked in the heat, smelling of cork and earth. Cicadas croaked an endless deafening vigil. The path curved around the ridge of a barely perceptible valley and ducked into it. Hidden under a roof of pines was a narrow gulley, and five or six dilapidated houses nestled either side of a path that wound through it. It was an astonishing sight, hidden under the trees, like jumping inside an aquarium where a ruined castle bubbled at the bottom. The dappled light swayed with the branches above. It was cool and dark and far away from everything.
Not so long ago these forests were scattered with little hamlets. Cut off from the outside world, inhabited by wild, inbred humans, half animal, with unfathomable guttural accents. They surfaced from time to time in the market places of La Garde-Freinet or Draguignan, but they lived and died in the wild, collecting mysteries and legends around them. Blue murder must have gone on, as they roamed the Valley of Hell, day in, day out, year after year, doing just enough to make ends meet, fucking their daughters and killing their wives.
Bruno appeared at a window, leaning on the sill and acting like a local girl. Actually he fitted right in. He looked like a miniature witch, with his beaky nose and long hair. Soon he and Tom were playing houses while I rolled my eyeballs and explored the rest of the gulley. The last house had a roof. A big oak tree was squeezing it to death with its roots. Soon it would be dragged back into the earth, this village, and there wa
s a strange deadly atmosphere that couldn’t be budged by Bruno’s shrieks or Tom’s caustic replies from the top of the hill. Down at the bottom, huge mosquitoes with the longest legs danced in the shafts of light. I imagined being with Alfo there.
Suddenly I shivered; someone was walking on my grave. I felt one of those weird surges of foreboding, and adrenalin shot through my body. The oak groaned in a gust of wind and I ran from the house, terrified, only to find Bruno laughing hysterically at his windowsill, and Tom marching furiously up the path, towards the road.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, running to catch up.
‘Nothing,’ said Tom, white with rage. Bruno’s laughter bounced around the valley.
‘Imagine waking up next to that every morning,’ I ventured naughtily.
‘Precisely,’ retorted Tom, giving nothing away.
Back on the road, we hit the autoroute with a tangible atmosphere in the car. Tom glowered in the back and Bruno stared crazily at the road ahead, eyes like saucers, hair flying in the wind. Occasionally manic giggles bubbled from his mouth, and Tom snorted in the back. Soon the Alpes-Maritimes appeared through the morning haze and, with them, the promise of Italy. They became clearer and clearer, and what at first seemed to be jagged clouds were in fact their snowy peaks, high above the mountains themselves, suspended and barely distinguishable from the hot white sky. On the plains below, the vast cities of holiday flats, pink and beige, stretched from the sea to the hills, occasionally crowned by an ancient fortified village climbing out of the urban sprawl, a sinking ship in a sea of roofs and windows with a castle on the top.
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