17
THE LONG HOT SUMMER OF 1976
I think the man who designed Pimlico School really loved windows because he put them everywhere. He must have realised that with so many windows it would end up costing a fortune to clean them. So he made them all slope, and when it rained the water would run off them and that would make them clean. It sort of worked, but he forgot about the sun. When it was sunny, it was like being a tomato in a greenhouse and you couldn’t sit at your desk without overheating and turning bright red. He must have then thought, ‘I know, I’ll put roller blinds in all the windows.’ Another good idea, but I don’t think this man had ever met the type of kids who went to Pimlico School. If he had, he would have known that if you put blinds in a classroom full of these kids, the first thing they do is swing from them until they fall down. So now all the blinds were either broken or had to be removed.
During the last month of the summer term of 1976 we had a fierce heatwave – the sun shone every day and the temperature rose to well over 90 degrees. Thanks to all those sloping windows with no blinds, the sun shone right down on us as we sat at our desks, with the temperature in the classrooms rising to over 110 degrees. Someone in the Inner London Education Authority decided that with temperatures this high it was too dangerous for us to stay in the classrooms. So they came up with a brilliant idea: open the school an hour earlier and close it at one o’clock and send everyone home for the rest of the day.
At one o’clock on the dot we poured out of the school into the searing London heat and headed home, where we would start our long lazy afternoons by climbing over the garden walls to get to each other’s houses. Back doors were thrown open, and as the afternoons wore on we would wander in and out of each other’s houses and gardens. We moved across the walls until we found a shady spot and then spent hours sitting around chatting about school, the summer holidays and who fancied who. Above the gardens, as we played and gossiped, the clatter of typewriters carried on from the open windows as the grown-ups struggled with their deadlines. Eventually, a mum or a dad would call us in for supper. By then the typing had stopped and the gardens started to fill with the noise of adults laughing and clinking glasses. Every now and then there would be the louder sound of a party coming from one of the gardens.
I’ve always liked going to the grown-ups’ parties in Gloucester Crescent, whether I get invited to them or gatecrash. That summer, with all the good weather we were having, there were lots of parties in the Crescent. There was a big one at the Haycrafts’ which I went to, as did many of Mum and Dad’s friends. It was for a book that Colin Haycraft was publishing by a man called Professor Dover – I remembered his name only because that’s where we got the ferry from to go to France. I heard Dad tell Mum that the book was all about homosexuality in ancient Greece, so I knew it wasn’t a book I was likely to read. The Professor was very drunk and sitting in the corner of the room, where people were patting him on the back and congratulating him. He looked a little alarmed and like he’d been locked away in his study for years trying to finish his book and had forgotten what it was like to be around so many people. My godfather, an American poet called Robert Lowell, was at the party too. I’d only met him a few times, so Dad brought me over to say hello. He seemed very shy and wore little round glasses and had a twangy American accent like the men in Gone with the Wind. I don’t think he knew what to say to me except ‘I’m so sorry, my boy’, and keep telling me how hopeless he’d been as a godfather. He’d given me a present once, when I was four, which was a box of coloured plastic tiles which you could lock together to build shapes with. This time, as he stood there apologising, he started searching around in his jacket pockets and pulled something out which he pushed into my hand, saying, ‘Please my boy, go and buy yourself something nice.’ I waited until he was out of sight before I opened my hand to take a proper look at what he’d put in it. It was a very crumpled and slightly damp bank note, which I carefully unfolded and held up to the light. It didn’t look like anything I’d seen before, and when I showed it to Oli Haycraft he decided it must be Dutch. The next day Dad took it to the bank and changed it into British money, but it didn’t turn out to be worth very much.
Claire Tomalin likes having parties too, but hers seem to be a bit more serious. The food’s a lot better than the Haycrafts’, and everyone stands around talking about things they’ve written about or read in the newspapers. There’s a lift in the Tomalins’ house as their son Tom has spina bifida and has to get around in a wheelchair. I’d been in lots of lifts, but never one in a house. The Tomalins’ lift goes to each floor of the house and is only big enough for one person and Tom’s wheelchair.
That summer they had a party and Mum and Dad said I could come along to the beginning of it to say hello to my uncle Karl and aunt Jane. They’re good friends of Claire and had been at university with her and her husband, Nick.
I’d always wanted to have a go in the Tomalins’ lift, even if Claire had told us never to play in it. She explained that if it ever broke they wouldn’t be able to get Tom up or down from his bedroom on the top floor. With a busy party going on, I felt certain no one would notice if I had a go in it. I waited until I thought no one was looking, then slipped down to the basement, got into the lift and shut the door. Not sure which buttons to press, I decided to try all of them at once. From somewhere high above the lift came a terrible grinding noise and then the lift started slowly going up. I could hear the chatter and laughter from the guests as I passed each floor. Thinking it must have finally reached the top of the house, I hit the buttons again. The grinding noise came back, but this time it was closer and the lift came to a sudden halt. I tried the door, but it wouldn’t open. I tried pressing the buttons again, but nothing happened. I waited, but the longer I waited the more I could feel myself starting to panic. After some time I heard the voice of a small child somewhere below me. It was clear I was stuck between two floors and I needed to get help. If I was going to be rescued it was now or never, so I started shouting to attract the attention of the child below.
‘HELP!’
‘Hello lift, who’s there?’ came the voice of a little girl.
‘It’s not the lift, it’s William. Can you get my dad?’
‘Who’s your dad?’
‘Jonathan, tall with curly hair and a big nose. He’ll be the one talking.’ I waited and eventually heard the child’s voice again.
‘Sorry, lift, I can’t find your dad, would you like me to get Claire?’
‘No! Don’t get Claire! Please find my dad, or a man with a Scottish accent called Karl.’
I was now desperate for her to find my dad or Karl. I knew neither of them would be able to fix the lift, but they might get someone who could. But the girl decided to go straight to Claire and tell her someone was stuck in the lift. The next voice to come from below was Claire’s.
‘Who completely disobeyed me and went in the lift?’
‘It’s William Miller, I’m so sorry, Claire. I was, umm, looking for Tom’s wheelchair. Can you get my dad so he can get me out?’
Silence again, and after a while I could hear voices coming from right above me. The first one was the familiar but angry Scottish voice of my Uncle Karl, who had opened a hatch door and was half hanging into the lift shaft as he shouted down at me.
‘For Christ’s sake, man, what a squalid circumstance. What were you thinking? Claire is not a happy woman.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m here, we’ll get you out,’ came the more concerned voice of Dad. Somehow, I didn’t feel comforted by his words. He could barely change a light bulb, let alone mend a lift.
After another half an hour, a crowd of know-it-all dads had gathered at the top of the house, and I could hear them debating how to wind the lift down to the basement. It was obvious that no one knew what to do. In the middle of these voices was Claire instructing Karl on how to use a winch handle to wind the lift down. An hour later, with a lot of cheering, I was released. Standing at the
door was my dad, looking relieved, and Claire, who was furious and banned me from ever going in the lift again. At that moment I was upset with myself for letting Claire down. I felt terrible that she could end up hating me like Freddie Ayer did. The last thing I needed was for the Tomalins to start thinking of me as that ‘bloody William Miller’.
Mum and Dad had a small family party for their wedding anniversary which was mostly relatives, but I was allowed to invite the Roebers. There were also parties we weren’t allowed to go to, but we got to see some of those from our hiding places in the gardens, like bushes or hanging out of trees. From here we could get a good look at what our parents did when they got together without their children. I could always spot Dad at these parties as, being taller than most people, he stood out, and it was no surprise to see that he did most of the talking while everyone else stood around him nodding and laughing.
When the Mellys were still living in the Crescent, they had lots of parties. As they didn’t have a tree or any bushes in their garden, there was nowhere to hide and watch them, but Mum and Dad would go and then we’d hear about them the next morning over breakfast. What I most liked hearing about was George Melly’s favourite party trick, which he called ‘Man, Woman and Bulldog’. According to Dad, what George did was take all his clothes off and stand in the middle of the room and tell everyone he was a ‘Man’. Then he’d push all his bits between his legs and squeezing them together shout ‘Woman!’ Finally, he’d turn around, bend over and bark ‘Bulldog!’ For a long time I didn’t know why that was funny, but I do now, and I’m glad Dad hasn’t ever done that trick at a party.
Our back garden at Gloucester Crescent, 1976: Alan Bennett, Karl Miller, Dad, Mum
One thing I’ve noticed is that there has always been a big difference between the parties in the Crescent and the ones in Regent’s Park Terrace. In the Crescent, the mums and dads spend ages getting them ready, moving furniture around, making salads and putting out the taramasalata, French bread and cheeses. Then the dads walk around holding bottles of wine, filling glasses and making conversation with all their guests. In the Terrace they get special people in uniforms to work at their parties. These people take the coats at the door, serve the drinks and make the food, which is handed around on shiny trays. I think I prefer the parties in the Crescent as they seem less uptight. Something I’ve noticed about the people who live in Regent’s Park Terrace is that, although they’re all pretty much the same kind of people as the ones in the Crescent – with similar political beliefs and doing the same kinds of job – they think they live in a smarter street, and in a better area. Everyone in the Crescent says they live in Camden Town, whereas everyone in the Terrace, which is one garden away, says they live in Primrose Hill. I think that says a lot about them.
18
FOR YOU, THE HOLIDAY’S OVER – SUMMER 1976
After our long and lazy summer term of afternoons off school, I went to the south of France with the Ayers. I’d always longed to go with them, and this was the first year I was invited. I was going with Dee, Nick, Hylan and his daughter, Alex, for the first half of the summer, and would then go off to join my parents in Scotland when Tom came out with Freddie and the Lawsons for their half. The Ayers’ house, La Migoua, is in Provence, on the edge of a hill surrounded by woods and vineyards. It isn’t a very big house, and as it doesn’t have that many windows it’s dark and cosy inside. It felt good to finally get away from the heatwave in London, which by now had been going on for six weeks or so. France was hot, but a least we were in the countryside, high up in the hills, where there was a breeze. I’d only ever been to France in the Easter holidays, but in the summer it felt completely different. When we got out of the car at La Migoua, the first thing that hit me was the constant noise of the invisible cicadas and the intense dry heat, which filled the air with a wonderful smell of pine trees and herbs. As you looked out across the valley towards the vineyards below, everything seemed to shimmer in the heat.
We soon settled into a routine of long, leisurely meals on the terrace along with visits from old friends of the Ayers. There was the Guirey family, who we all knew from London, as well as friends of both my parents and the Ayers, like Bill Deakin, who did lots of exciting things in the war, and Nicky Kaldor, who Dad says is a famous economist.
It was a few days after we arrived, on our first trip to the beach, that Nick decided my enthusiasm for being on holiday needed to be knocked on the head. The journey to the beach was along winding roads, which made it one of the most uncomfortable ever. The car wasn’t really big enough, with Dee and Hylan in the front and me, Nick and Alex squeezed into the back. The rest of the car was filled with cold boxes of food, towels, beach kit and skateboards, which would all be required for a lazy day at the Ayers’ favourite spot – the Bikini Beach Club at Les Lecques. Even with all the windows open it was unbearably hot in the car, and being squashed between Nick and Alex, the skin of our bare arms was starting to stick together. Nick has this mean pinch he likes to use when he wants to get his own way and started doing it on my legs to get me to move over. Once he’d got me to squeeze half onto Alex’s lap, he started talking about his plans for another holiday he was going on with friends later in the summer. I felt like we’d only just arrived in France, and I was surprised by his lack of interest in the holiday we were on.
‘We’ve only just got here,’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t we be talking about this holiday, when there’s so much to do and it’s only just started?’
There was a pause before Nick said, ‘For you, the holiday’s over mate.’
He kept a completely straight face, but everyone else in the car burst out laughing. This soon became the most overused phrase of the holiday, with Dee and Nick reminding me whenever they could that for me, the holiday was over. As she often does, instead of defending the person Nick was attacking, Dee took sadistic enjoyment in his bad behaviour, and encouraged it. He seemed to feel this gave him the right to be as mean as he could to anyone who didn’t play by his rules. My other friends sometimes asked me why I bothered being friends with someone as nasty as Nick. Maybe the answer is that the two of us grew up together, and for most of that time I felt close to him and we had fun. I also felt sort of protective of him, knowing that his mum didn’t seem to give him the kind of love and support that mine did. I could see why sometimes he might want to get her attention by being cruel, and I was an easy target. It didn’t mean it hurt any less.
As fond of me as Dee was, she obviously felt that, for an easier life, it was better to be on Nick’s side while on holiday. It was also part of the ‘sink or swim’ strategy that she had towards most children. At that moment, squeezed like sardines into the back of the car, I felt like I was sinking and that Nick’s spitefulness was getting close to the kind of bullying I was used to at school. It was clear that no one was going to support me and that I would have to develop a thick skin to get through the next few weeks. This proved to be harder than I thought, as I was now very sensitive to any kind of bullying wherever it came from, and the last place I’d expected to find it was on holiday with friends.
After two weeks of relentless teasing from Nick and Alex, I decided to teach them all a lesson. One afternoon I took myself off to the edge of a wood on the other side of the valley, where I sat on a rock in the shade of a large cypress tree. I felt a calmness come over me as I breathed the warm herb-scented air into my lungs. I also had a perfect view of the front terrace at La Migoua. As the time passed, I could see the situation slowly go from a casual ‘Has anyone seen William?’ to serious concern and then to panic mode: ‘Jesus, where the fuck has William gone?’ First Nick and Alex came out of the house and I could tell they were laughing together. They looked up and down the terrace and behind the bushes and then went back inside. Hylan appeared next and searched the car and the lane up to the house. The next time Nick and Alex came out, they were looking worried and clearly arguing with each other. Finally, it was Dee’s turn and I could just about make
out the words ‘Jesus fucking Christ’ echoing across the valley. One by one, they all came out, and like a camp commandant Dee had them lined up in front of her. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but it was obvious with all the arm-waving that she was giving them a dressing down.
Over supper the night before I had casually said to everyone that if Nick carried on being such an arse I would leave and make my own way back to London. Now, out on the terrace, this had started to sink in and was no doubt the cause of all the panic. When I finally strolled up the lane they’d all gone into the house, where Hylan had taken control of the situation. I could hear him shouting and telling everyone off for their bad behaviour, including Dee.
Through the kitchen window I could see Dee, Nick and Alex standing in front of Hylan as he carried on telling them off. They were all looking at the ground and trying not to laugh, but the more their shoulders shook, the angrier Hylan got. When I came through the door, Hylan went silent and then everyone’s eyes followed me as I walked past. Not a word was said about my disappearance, but for the remainder of the week Nick and Alex decided to back off and Dee went back to being kind and paying me some attention.
When the changeover day came, Freddie, the Lawsons and Tom arrived from the station in a taxi, having taken the overnight train from Calais. Vanessa Lawson’s two very cool and beautiful daughters, Nigella and Thomasina, came with her. They are a little older than us and considered themselves to be young women, whereas Nick, Tom and I were just kids who should be ignored. By the end of the day I had failed to make any impression on either of them and gave up, but I knew Nick and Tom would carry on showing off and making complete fools of themselves as they tried to impress them. By the time we drove away from La Migoua, it was clear that Nick had met his match with Nigella and Thomasina – and that, for him, the holiday was well and truly over.
Gloucester Crescent Page 12