by Ray Connolly
How can I fight you, Clare, when I can’t imagine living without you now? Now that I’ve got used to your little ways: to the way you mother me, then stand aloof and ignore me: the way you flatter me and love me, then tease me by flirting at parties. The tights on the line in the bathroom, but the prohibited privacy of your bedroom. In six or seven weeks you’ve come into my life: and become my life. With your silly pointless stories of what happened at the shop, your tales of Tibby’s love-life, your amazing ability to assume a surface-deep sophistication. Clare, you’re a silly girl, an enigmatic, selfish thing. Who uses me. But I love you.
Later, much later, at somewhere around two in the morning, while I lay listening to the traffic and remembering the better times, a little figure in white crept into my room and climbed in beside me. And kissing me as I lay quite still she said she was sorry.
The Christmas social season was opened with a fancy-dress party—at Paul’s, needless to say. ‘It’ll be a bit of fun, and make a bit of a change,’ said Paul when he telephoned to invite us. ‘I thought you always wore fancy dress,’ I answered. ‘Be a bigger change if all your rich honkie friends were to turn up dressed like ordinary and sane members of humanity.’ Nevertheless Clare insisted that if a fancy dress party was what it was, then we two weren’t going to spoil things by dressing normally.
‘So what are you going as, then?’ I asked.
‘Let me think about it for a bit,’ she said.
Which she did. For a full week, until on the day before the party she was almost distraught with worry, dreading the thought of being upstaged by all Paul’s rich friends, yet not prepared to upstage them by ignoring the ‘fancy dress only’ section of the invitation.
‘Benedict. Help me! Please.’
‘Clare Rigby. You really are a silly girl. It isn’t worth all this fuss.’
‘Well it is to me.’
‘All right then—go as, um … go as Eleanor Rigby.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, Eleanor Rigby, keeping her face in a jar by the door—you can carry a photograph of yourself in a jam-jar, and then there’s that bit about picking up the rice in the church where the wedding has been, lives in a dream. You could have a little bag of rice or something. I don’t know. It was just a thought. A do like this isn’t worth it.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, what are the rest of the words?’
‘Something about Father McKenzie darning his socks.’
‘Right then, I’ll go as Father McKenzie, with a big darning needle and a big quill pen to write my sermon at night when there’s nobody there. That’ll do. Nothing’s too little trouble for that twit Paul and his cronies.’
Clare wasn’t convinced. ‘But what shall I wear? They’ll all be done up to death in beautiful hand-made things that have cost hundreds of pounds, and I’ll feel like such a Cinderella.’
I was trying to play back an interview from my tape-recorder, and Clare wasn’t making it easy with her constant moithering: ‘Go as Cinderella, then.’
‘No. Perhaps you’re right. It is better not to try very hard, so that it looks as though you don’t really care. Under-dress rather than over-dress, isn’t that what you always say?’
‘Mmm.’
‘So I’ll just go in an ordinary dress or something, and hope that when everyone sees the rice and the face in the jar they’ll get it.’
‘Clare, love. No one will get it. But that doesn’t matter. That lot wouldn’t get it if you walked in singing all the lonely people where do they all come from and had a dirty great picture of the record printed on your left tit.’
Anyway, that’s how we went, me looking like a long-haired priest, with a big whole in my sock, and Clare in a plain dark dress and carrying a picture of herself in a marmalade jar. No one got it, and it didn’t matter. Clare looked so pretty and bright, and once she’d got over her nerves she was the busy little socialite, mingling and chatting and sweetly, if tactfully, advising me not to hang around with her all night because she wanted to get to know a few people, and oughtn’t I to circulate a bit too? I didn’t argue. I knew my possessiveness must be a drag for her and I was quite content to spend the evening wandering round Paul’s flat, admiring, or scoffing at, the various clashes of taste.
We’d arrived about ten. Saturday night before Christmas, and everyone just getting into good-time gear. Straight away Clare was off to talk to Tibby, who had turned up as Nell Gwynn with her dumplings boiling prettily over (so ample for such a thin girl), great compensation for the banality of her choice of costume, so I went off to find a drink. This was my first time in Paul’s new flat, and the opportunity of visiting it had been my sole interest in coming to the party at all. One thing you can say about Paul, he does have style. Sell shoddy junk he may do, but at home he’s a man of taste. Well, sort of.
‘Benedict. Benedict, come and meet Jilly…’
Someone was calling from across the other side of the room. I pretended not to hear, and, without looking up, nipped smartly through the nearest door, and found myself in a bathroom of pale translucent green marble, mirrors everywhere, ornate semi-nude figurines on the taps, and row upon row of tiny assorted after-shave lotions. Over the bath, a sunken affair that Esther Williams might have lost her way in, was a huge blow-up of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire dancing to Top Hat, while from some hidden speaker Frank Sinatra was singing about how it happened in Monterey a long time ago. On a pedestal in a corner, a bright green, four-foot-high statue stood nude, with a piece of stony chiffon draped around her buttocks and a name plaque that said Phoebe, while over by the lavatory Mae West had her skirts pulled up around her waist to reveal a pair of jockey shorts, and was weeing quite calmly into the basin.
‘I’m sorry.’ I’d been slow to notice the lady’s presence.
‘That’s all right, love.’ A voice as deep as thunder. God’s teeth. Mae West’s a man. Must tell Clare. She once told me a joke about Mae West.
As I opened the door to let myself back into the party, Mae West called after me: ‘I say, old man. Don’t suppose you know anything about clap, do you? Think I might have caught a touch. Can’t imagine where. Can’t trust a soul these days.’
‘Eh, no.’
And afraid that Miss West was about to offer to show me the member he thought might be infected, I slipped back into the living room, Mae West following me out, now with his skirts down.
‘Not such a terrible thing, you know. Had it once before. Like trying to pee with a red-hot poker up your shooter, it was.’
‘Dear God.’
‘Oh, no. Went to this doctor. Terribly embarrassed I was, and told him some cock and bull story about dirty lavatory seats. But he wasn’t kidded. Put me straight at ease, he did.’
‘Oh, good.’
‘Yes. He said not to be embarrassed because he had at least two thirds of the people in Debrett on his books, and they’d all come with the same thing. No shame in it any more, you know. Few jabs of penicillin and bungo, the bugs are beaten. Still, doesn’t half hurt to pee for a while.’
‘I see.’
‘You a friend of Paul’s, love?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Well, I always say that any friend of Paul’s is a friend of mine. So if you’re ever in the vicinity of Arundel Court, SW3, why don’t you come up and see me sometime—when this little lot is put right.’ A nudge and a wink. Mae West is flirting with me.
‘I can’t, it’s Lent.’
‘Beg pardon?’
‘A joke.’
‘Oh. I see.’
Just then Paul caught sight of me and my newly-found confidant and threaded his way over to meet us. Taking little mincing steps, knees virtually strapped together by the tightness of his kimono, eyes made up into painted slits, and hair piled on top of his head and held down by a ring and a butterfly clip he looked, shall we say, almost delicate.
‘So glad you could come. I must say that Clare looks an absolute beauty. She really is a deli
ghtful employee. Oh, I see you’ve met Vivien. Don’t believe a word he says, he’s an incorrigible liar.’
By now I was beginning to wonder if I hadn’t stumbled into a Gay Lib meeting by accident: ‘I see that your idea of fancy dress means an opportunity for you and all your ducky friends to camp it up in drag, Paul.’
‘Now now, naughty. What about a bit of Christmas spirit for a change? And, by the way, what on earth are you doing dressed as Ian Paisley? Thought you hated the man.’
‘I’m Father McKenzie.’
‘Who?’
‘Wiping the dirt from my hands as I walk from the grave.’
‘Oh. Have you had a drink? Circulate, love. Come on, Clare’s been round half the men here already.’
‘I didn’t know there were any men here.’
‘I’d keep your eyes skinned, then, if I were you.’
And off he goes, leaving a pall of suspicion hanging over me, while I catch sight of Clare over by the juke box dancing with the Lord High Executioner. And here come the chopper to chop off your … Not yet you don’t.
‘Having a nice time, Clare?’
‘Yes. Meet Michael. He comes in the shop sometimes.’
Looking into two slits in the hangman’s black head-mask, and then self-consciously watching them go, while Tibby comes and stands next to me, smiling in what I imagined to be sympathy, and launching into a conversational diversion:
‘Have you noticed, Benedict, how every room of Paul’s flat is done up in a different period style? The bathroom is the thirties, his study is the forties … have you seen the study? Come and see.’
And she sashayed off down a short corridor while I hurried after. She was right about the study. It was like finding a sudden intimation of a childhood I only learned of later from old newsreels. A blown-up picture of St Paul’s engulfed by the smoke and flames of the blitz (the picture, I should say) covered one wall. Framed ration books hung above the desk, next to a picture of Churchill in his siren suit. It was quite dark in there and we were alone. Tibby pressed a tape-recorder button: ‘Listen!’
‘There’ll be blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover.’
Tibby and me listening quietly in the dark. The tape spinning on. ‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey.’
‘My mother used to sing this to me,’ I said. ‘Somehow it always meant to me that she was singing a kind of prayer, you know, saying don’t let them take me where my father had gone. It’s always made we want to cry ever since, whenever I’ve heard it. She used to call me her little ray of sunshine. I remember that. You know she died when I was eight.’
‘Yes. Clare told me.’
I forced a laugh to disguise my embarrassment. The whole situation was too mawkish for words: ‘Why do you let yourself be called by such a silly name as Tibby? Even Tabitha’s better than that. In fact, anything’s better than that.’
‘I’m used to it now. It’s individual. Even if it is silly. Everything I’ve ever done is silly. My whole life is silly. That’s what you think, isn’t it?’
‘Who’s that bloke Clare’s dancing with? The fellow who looks like an executioner.’
Tibby ducked the question. ‘Oh, he’s an estate agent or something. He comes in the shop every now and again. We hardly know him. Shall we go back now? Don’t want to spend too long in a darkened room with you or Clare will be getting ideas. Did you notice how the living room is decorated like a fifties palais—all neon jukebox, with fifties rock and roll records, and pictures of Marilyn Monroe on the walls. Come and see.’
Tibby led the way back, and the two of us went on a tour of inspection. There was no sign of Clare anywhere, but there were the Warhol prints of Monroe and Presley and a signed picture of Eddie Cochran. That must have cost something. And here’s a statue of Buddy Holly surrounded by flowers. Almost like a shrine.
‘Did you know that John Lennon once asked fifty mediums to bring back Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran for him,’ I said. ‘They couldn’t do it. Couldn’t even get a single hiccup from Buddy Holly.’
‘Clearly there was no message in those mediums.’
‘Shall we dance?’
Tibby moving free of the cluster of dancers dotted around her, knees backwards and forwards as though she’s treading water, eyes fixed firmly on me, who, dressed as a priest and feeling just that bit sacrilegious.
You made me cry, when you said goodbye,
Ain’t that a shame, my tears fell like rain.
Creep that Paul may be, he knows a thing or two about rock and roll. This was my era, and I felt nostalgic for it. For the pony-tails and narrow pants, even for the greasy hair and Tony Curtis cuts, though I’d never been allowed to have one myself. Cathy would have enjoyed seeing a place like this, I thought, then immediately changed my mind, remembering that all Cathy was fit for now was the Cheshire country club scene on a big night out, or more likely a glass or two of gin and orange at the local rugby club social. Somewhere over the other side of the room, Clare was dancing again with the masque of death, but now it looked as though they were just that bit closer than when they started. Quickly looking away, not wanting Clare to catch me spying on her, my eyes met Tibby’s.
‘All right?’ she asked. Her chest was heaving in a way that was attracting quite a lot of attention.
‘Yes, yes.’ But it wasn’t. And a small question mark was born inside me. How long have I got left?
And then the record turned to a slow one. The Platters and ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’, and suddenly I was holding Tibby, not tightly, just closely. She wasn’t complaining. I couldn’t bear to look through the gloom, past all the camped-up gay people, past all the pretty models and cuckolded wives, to see how close Clare was, and so together Tibby and I turned in small, tight little circles.
‘Hello. What’s this, then?’ Clare clapping an arm on each of our backs. ‘No sooner am I away than my best friend gets off with my fellow. Shame on the pair of you.’
No sign of the executioner. Tibby looking slightly embarrassed. Me confused, and immediately going off on a tangent: ‘Have you noticed that Tibby, you and me appear to be the only heterosexuals here. And I’m not that sure about Tibby and you.’
‘Cheeky sod. From what I could see of the way you and Tibby were getting on I’d have said there was no doubt about the sexual inclinations of either of you.’
Crowds gathering round again. And a jester taking Tibby away for a little bit of jesting. While Clare and I finish the record together. Holding each other close.
‘Have you seen the mistletoe, Benedict? It’s the biggest bunch I ever saw. In there in the hall. And everyone kisses everyone else. Men, well I think they’re men, full on the lips. Come and see.’
Clare leading me through the crowd. Boys and men, pretty as girls, flowing in scarves and gowns, standing giggling, and touching arms and hands in the course of conversation, slim young things, outrageously camp tonight, an excuse for excess after all their hours and days and weeks of repression.
‘You haven’t kissed me under the mistletoe yet, Benedict.’
‘I’m not sure that you deserve it.’
‘Please.’
A quick peck, and that’s all she’s getting tonight. The naughty girl.
And so for the rest of the night we stayed together, and I never did see the executioner’s face. And later on when we’d had a few drinks I taught Clare to jive, although I was never any good myself, and she was immediately better, while they played ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, ‘Short Fat Fanny’ and ‘Long Tall Sally’, and it was only later on that I discovered they’d been playing sixties music in the bedrooms. Tape upon tape of Beatle songs, Clare said. And I wondered how she knew.
Chapter Fourteen
The day before Christmas Eve Clare bought a Christmas tree and together that night we secured it in an old, supposedly antique, copper pot that Paul had said she could take home, and dressed it with fairy lights, spray-on glistening stuff, some rusting sil
ver balls that I’d found in one of the cupboards when I bought the house, and a little Father Christmas with a hole in the place where the soles of his feet should have been, and by which he was balanced precariously on the pinnacle of the tree. And then later on, when we’d both had dinner, and were feeling mellower towards each other than we had done for several days, we separately disappeared into our own rooms to wrap up each other’s presents, appearing back almost simultaneously to lay them on the silver foil that covered the half-bricks holding the tree in position in the pot. My present for Clare was very small: a neat little parcel; perhaps only four inches square. Clare eyed it with what I knew to be some trepidation.
‘It’s okay, Clare. I won’t embarrass you,’ I whispered sadly.
‘Can’t imagine what you mean by that.’ Clare was breezy, slightly ashamed of having allowed her thoughts to be so transparent.
Her present for me was big. An oblong box. Some kind of clothing, I was sure. Nothing too personal. That wasn’t Clare’s style.
By the end of the evening the house looked pretty. Every PR and his friend in London seemed to have sent me a card, which seemed strange considering that every year I managed to insult more and more of them, but they made the mantelpieces look pretty, and Clare had tied strings up across the walls, allowing them to hang down like washing lines. Clare had been sent very few cards: one from her mother, containing a cheque and instructions to go out and buy herself something useful, and a regretful note that she wouldn’t be able to spend Christmas with her this year as she was going on a cruise, but she must enjoy herself while she was young. And another from her father, which contained another cheque and a vaguely hopeful invitation to go home ‘once you get tired of swinging London. All my love, Daddy.’ Clare had read that two or three times before examining the cheque and then sticking it into her shirt pocket. The card she had propped up haphazardly and carelessly somewhere in the middle of the two hundred and odd tokens sent by various business interests to me.