A Young Man's Passage

by Julian Clary

  12 August 1993

  All set to move to 9 Middleton Grove, Holloway, on September 8th. This is my dream home and I lie awake at night fantasising about living there.

  Stephen is home in Deptford and I went to visit him. He wanted to drive to Hayes to see a houseboat but when I got there at 3.30 p.m. he was in his dressing gown kneeling in front of an aquarium getting in a tizzy about the pump mechanism.

  ‘I don’t want to go to Hayes any more. I want to go to Battersea,’ he announced, but in the end he spent the afternoon having a tantrum with the pump and complaining about the instructions. His cleaning lady was there and his neighbour popped in. His fridge was full and he offered me Madeira cake, walnut cream slices or apple turnovers.

  I’m reading Kenneth Williams’s diaries. Fascinating. He could survive for months on a flirty greeting from a tasty road-worker. Times have changed!

  Have been invited to speak at a therapists’ conference. They want to know how my counselling at the Red Admiral Foundation has helped me deal with Christopher’s death. I was just going to bed when that old Joan Collins Fan Club line came back to me: ‘How to turn personal tragedy into lucrative image building.’ Have to say no.

  Lovely to see Paul Merton yesterday. I don’t just like him, I love him!

  ‘What are you looking at?’ he said.

  ‘You!’ I replied. ‘I haven’t seen you for a year!’

  ‘That’s no accident,’ he said.

  15 August 1993

  Fidelity has not been one of the topics of conversation with Mikos, so bugger me if he doesn’t go and sleep with someone else. His Thursday night out had involved speed, alcohol, the Black Cap and staying the night at X’s.

  ‘Was there hanky panky?’ I asked.

  ‘There was a certain amount,’ said Mikos.

  ‘What, exactly?’ I asked.

  ‘I shagged him.’

  My upset after that was quite unexpected. Mikos somehow made it seem like an act of kindness. Poor X, ex-boyfriend, sick, pleading and his birthday too . . . why, a Catholic priest would have had difficulty refusing.

  ‘Don’t blow me out for this,’ he said.

  ‘The thing is,’ I said, having an idea, ‘it changes the way I feel about you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean it makes me not fancy you any more,’ I lied.

  That was quite a bull’s eye: wounded to the marrow he was, and I let him suffer for quite a while before I retracted it with first-degree physical contact that put paid to the lie.

  On Saturday we didn’t discuss it much but took Fanny to Kenwood where we wandered through the dappled trees stealing the odd peck and pressing legs together discreetly on the lawn. A choir and orchestra were rehearsing for the evening’s open-air concert, so moving arias and Mozart opera music was seeping through the trees.

  ‘Sometimes when something is too perfect you just want it to stop,’ said Mikos. I had a painful rectal twinge by way of agreement.

  Saturday evening, as I put the finishing touches to roast chicken, potatoes, courgettes and peas, he came into the kitchen and shat himself: sudden unannounced diarrhoea. He shuffled out clutching his behind. Then he felt cold, then hot, then sleepy. I ate my dinner, put his in the oven and put his soiled trousers into a pre-soak wash.

  26 August 1993

  Saw Stephen on Tuesday as he’s going back to Ireland ‘to be looked after’. I don’t think he’ll be back and I think he’s got his doubts too. Fear of dying made him cry on the phone. He asks me a lot of questions about Christopher and how he handled it. I could only reassure him that morphine would be on hand if he was in any distress at all.

  Went to see the Chinese State Circus with my mother. Mother caused a laugh in the seats around us during the snake girl’s act. Watching as she contorted herself into all sorts of amazing shapes, my mother said in a loud whisper, ‘I can’t even put my tights on.’

  2 September 1993

  Had a lovely five days at the Edinburgh Festival filming ‘Best of Edinburgh’ TV thing. It was a painless experience. The highlights were Jenny Eclair (‘I went to the countryside and came on. There was nothing else to do there’), writing the links for the show with Paul, and Simon Fanshawe’s attempts to organise a ‘Fags on the Fringe’ dinner party. Didn’t go as I’m not . . . on the fringe.

  Peter Cook rang to confirm I’m going to the relaunch of Derek and Clive Get the Horn. ‘There will be two photographers at the party,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I’ll try and keep my trousers on then,’ I said.

  ‘Well, no, don’t,’ said Peter. ‘Nothing comes free in this life.’

  7 September 1993

  Last night in residence here. Boxes are packed, cupboards cleaned and memories disturbed. Cards from Christopher, backstage passes, postcards, etc. Various bits and pieces from the last four years locked away in drawers or put on shelves to be kept, and each capable of transporting me backwards in time.

  Mikos is sleeping off his exertions. I sit, legs up on the kitchen table in my usual place, listening to the hum of the fridge for the last time. I packed Christopher’s urn. Mikos carried it in from the rain and it sits resplendent in its very own box, which I’ve just noticed is from Portugal! Duoro, Murca. Wine, I think. Just packed his Filofax and chest X-rays in the Box of Memories. A candle is burning in the window under the Portuguese terracotta shade.

  Had fun last night at the Derek and Clive Get the Horn video launch with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Every face was a fascinating one. Mikos asked Ronnie Wood’s wife if she’d ever been unfaithful. ‘Never in 16 years,’ she said. ‘When you’ve had the best, why spoil it?’

  Now was the time to come to my senses, but I didn’t. Leaving Camden Town was unwise. I would not be safe outside of NW1. I would not be happy elsewhere. The lid would be lifted. The universe could do nothing to protect me. I would be sorry. A part of me knew this. I was going against nature. I sensed this, but didn’t act on my suspicions. Would that I had. I can hardly bear to relive what happens next. If instinct had been adhered to it would never have occurred. Writing this down for you to read is like watching a video recording of your loved one’s suicide. I have to keep covering my eyes. ‘Don’t do it!’ I want to scream at myself. But it is too late. The fatal step had been taken.

  ELEVEN

  ‘What stars fear most is the death of their fame, and most

  would rather be infamous than go back to anonymity.

  The worst thing you could possibly say to a star

  would be, “Didn’t you used to be famous?”’

  TRUMAN CAPOTE

  THE DAY I moved to 9 Middleton Grove, London N7 saw relentless torrential rain. Mikos, by coincidence, had moved into a flat round the corner, so he and his flatmate came to help unpack. Everything was soaked and muddy. It felt damp and cold. Later that night local youths chucked some gravel over the wall and it clattered menacingly on the conservatory roof. Fanny looked up, but she was deaf and didn’t bother to bark, just gave me her ‘told you so’ look.

  29 September 1993. Middleton Grove, N7

  I have a tradesman at the rear. A plumber, to be precise, fixing the broken outdoor tap, mysteriously broken off on my return from Los Angeles, and water gushing everywhere.

  Frances is here to stay for a few days and she’s a boon, washing down paintwork and cleaning cupboards. The ‘settling in’ process here at the mansion is well under way. Every now and then I think, Gawd, what have I done? But I wander from room to room rubbing my chin and Fanny keeps discovering new bedrooms and is cautious but wide-eyed. It’s going to take a while.

  Went to Deptford to collect Stephen yesterday, brought him here then took him to Heathrow airport where he’s off to see his mother in Belfast. He was very thin and petulant and given to panic attacks. He disappeared in the terminal to find a cash point but was gone half an hour. Came back breathless and manic, snot running down his face, saying, ‘I’m having a heart attack.’ There was a terrible smell
and he said he’d gone to fart and shat himself. We dashed to the check-in and he was whisked through, holding his side with fingers covered in too many silver rings. Again, as I watched him disappear through the tunnel and the check-in woman said gravely, ‘He doesn’t look well,’ I thought: That will be the last time I see him. I’ve been thinking that for six months or so. He’s so frightened of death that he’s hanging on every inch of the way. Swigging from a bottle of morphine in the car he said, ‘Go on, have some. It won’t do you any harm.’

  Meanwhile, I’ve been to Los Angeles to record a Travelog programme. Mikos flew out when I’d finished filming and we went to San Francisco for a week. Stayed at the Inn on Castro in a bedroom full of papier mâché parrots and wandered along the Castro hand in hand.

  I have inherited a cleaning lady called Jackie from the previous owners. ‘I know the house, you see,’ she said, mysteriously. This house is like a big baby and needs lots of attention. Someone called Fred is coming to clean out the guttering. That should do Housey the world of good, I reckon. The dwelling equivalent of a thorough colonic irrigation.

  1 October 1993

  Stephen died at 9.05 a.m.

  I didn’t find out till this afternoon. I had been on the phone to the hospital in Belfast this morning and thought it was just Irish officiousness when they said they couldn’t give me any information as I wasn’t next-of-kin.

  So sudden for him, no morphine required.

  Last night Penelope and Barb came over and we burnt incense and carried it through the house, wafting at doorways and cleansing every corner. We burnt ‘double happiness’ candles in every room (including the garage) and Barb incanted under the bay tree in the garden. They left cooing at the full moon and we did a three-handed kind of salute to it as clouds skidded across its face and it hovered over the house. Then I got embarrassed in case any of the neighbours were watching and scuttled indoors to Mikos. ‘Oh, you’re so lovely,’ he exclaims quite often. He melts my heart.

  God bless Stephen. What great adventures are you having now, I wonder?

  24 October 1993

  It’s 2.40 a.m. Can’t sleep. Just put the lights on and there is Fanny asleep on her chair, and Gloria, my new kitten, asleep by the radiator. She is such a sweet cat. Loves to be in the room we’re in and purrs as soon as I touch her. Mikos is asleep beside me. He turned over a while ago and said, ‘Don’t leave me!’ This may refer to the fact that I sometimes retreat upstairs when the snoring gets too much.

  4 November 1993

  ‘It’s like living with Widow Twankey,’ said Mikos. And it must be. I shuffle around the house in my dressing gown, slump in front of the TV and talk endlessly about bedside cabinets.

  Had the My Glittering Passage video launch at Madame Jojo’s last night. So I went dolled up and tucked into the cheap white wine. Then a crowd of us went to the Yard where we drank Champagne, then on to Substation briefly where we moved into beer mode. So today was mainly hangover, although I did nip into Channel 4 where Jo Brand and I recorded some trailers. Planning our links at the bar we invented some cocktails. The Putney Towpath was one: ‘It’s smooth and dark and creeps up on you from behind.’ In the interests of light entertainment we pretended we were two supermodels. I was Claudia Shafter and Jo was Linda Vaginablister.

  19 November 1993

  Addison rang me from a taxi in Soho and shouted down the phone the details of his Italian restaurant lunch with Seamus Cassidy. ‘I told him, my lad don’t know what’s going on. I told him I’ve got to get you on the box next year or you’re finished. I was straight with him. I worry about your career as much as you do, you know.’ Then he was cut off. I was busy feeding the cat so I didn’t mind. I have a sense of impending doom.

  20 November 1993

  Tony Kushner: ‘Life is about losing. I don’t believe that as human beings we can do anything other than struggle to face the loss with grace.’

  21 November 1993

  Mikos just arrived from his first day at work – cable TV computer doings. I thought he was coming for his dinner (chicken, rösti and leeks) but I was wrong. ‘I want to finish it,’ he said, and he wasn’t referring to the meat and two veg. I felt immediate relief, like squeezing a spot. Something about an ‘Andrew’ he met at the Black Cap and went to Heaven with. He asked for a photograph and hugged me. I managed two tear-filled eyes and one tear escaped as he departed.

  ‘Was it a bolt from the blue?’ he asked as he left.

  ‘No,’ I said, although it sounds like an interesting effect. So there we are. Divorced.

  2.30 a.m. Couldn’t find Fanny just now. She had gone to sleep in another bedroom. She’s never done that before. Double abandonment!

  23 November 1993

  Recording Camp Christmas at London Studios all day. I was the voice of Whitney the Reindeer, thrown out of Santa’s pack for wearing nipple clamps that jingled too much for the sleigh bells.

  Somehow it was dire, despite a brilliant set and a cast that included Lily Savage, Stephen Fry, Lea deLaria, Colin Bell, Justin Fashanu, Quentin Crisp and Armistead Maupin. Even Derek Jarman was there looking poorly, and made me cry during the finale song when he waved to the camera and mouthed, ‘Goodbye!’ I was hovered over all day by Amanda, a journalist from the Independent and quite agreeable. She’s got to write 3,000 words on me. She doesn’t know the half of it.

  Feeling quite sad today. Missing Mikos, his warmth and affection. Fanny is now completely deaf, so consequently doesn’t run to greet me when I get home. I have to go and find her. Tonight she was asleep in a bedroom I never use on the top floor, and was confused and bewildered when I woke her.

  28 November 1993

  Mikos has just left after a tearful prolonged hug. His final words were: ‘I still care for you. I’m not laughing at you.’ Just what you want to hear as a comedian, but he meant well. He seems to think I’ll be fine without him. There was lots of ‘But I do love you’ talk, but the ‘I’m doing this because I love you and I don’t want to betray you’ didn’t really convince, any more than the ‘I’m only doing what I think is right in the long run’ tack.

  Now I need to reframe myself on this matter. Enough tears, I must relish my solitude. I’m free. I’m single. I’m 34. I’m living in a big house in Holloway. I’m wealthy. Why does it all sound so dismal and depressing?

  30 November 1993

  Gave Mikos rather a hard time of it tonight on the phone, prolonging the conversation long after he’d tried to terminate as politely as possible. Rang him twice yesterday but they were cheery. Tonight was back a few steps. I think I have to stop now. Agonising, compulsive phone calls is not something I should get addicted to. I have to accept that it’s over.

  ‘For your own good. For the sake of your self-esteem,’ said Barb. She was sweet. She was my friend and she hadn’t left me, she’d always be there, she said. The house is gloomy and ridiculously large for one homosexual, his kitten and his deaf dog. We keep losing each other. Unless they are avoiding me.

  2 December 1993

  Rohypnol is taking effect so this will be brief. After recording late-night links with Jo Brand all day went to do the Clive Anderson Show then came home and took a sleeping pill. Put Mariah Carey on and had major tears, thinking there is so much wrong with my life, Mikos was the only thing that was right. Tears were squeezed out and I overcame my fear of crying. Then, as Mariah screeched out, the phone rang: Mikos, thanking me for my card (‘Deep Devotion’ by Saudek), which I sent to apologise for my dreary phone marathon of the other day.