by Tot Taylor
The CP failed to read the witticism.
‘It’s a guy Nancy Reagan’s been seeing for years’1
‘Apart from Ronnie?’
‘Astrologer guy… they plan all the White House official duties by it.’
John folded and unfolded the LA Times. The CP laid her Amex card on the saucer without looking up from the print. ‘Everything’s divided into “good” and “bad” days. Well…’ She looked directly at her patient. ‘I’ve heard that one before…’
The psychiatrist eased herself back onto her stool, adjusting her reading glasses as she peered further into the page. ‘Everything’s arranged according to… nan… sha…’
‘Nakshatras.’
‘…nan-shatras… and the… twelve lunar mansions.’
‘Loony-bins, yeh. They’ve got that bit right… that’s certainly where the pair of ’em oughta be.’
The boy thought the news hilarious. Having watched the Reagan puppets be put through their paces enough times on the local cable as rulers of the seaside principality of So-Cal, this was hardly a very shocking ‘revelation’.
‘What is this record?’
‘The song? “Rhiannon”… Fleetwood Mac.’ Johanna turned to her companion: ‘Where have you been for the past… fifty years?’
‘Fleetwood Mac?’ he squinted. ‘Doesn’t sound like Fleetwood Mac. Not any Fleetwood Mac I know…’
John took the waitress’s pen from the counter and doodled over a photograph of former Governor Reagan. He traced a tiny cylinder around Ronnie’s head, as in the astral diagrams of medieval astronomers.
Today was an extremely ‘good’ day for Ronald and Nancy Reagan. On this day, 5 November 1980, Ronnie completed his 32-year-long journey from President of the Screen Actors Guild to President of the United States. In keeping with that bare political fact, it was an unusually confident day for John Nightly.
All in all, it ranked as a very happy day, a most unusual, most convivial day. Outside, that is. Inside, things weren’t quite so convivial. But they weren’t impossible either. The ex-patient was experiencing quite a cylindrical day. Particularly at the moment, due to this hilarious newspaper report. It was certainly an abnormal day. To find this incongruous couple, she in bikini top and wrap, flip-flops and car keys, he with his multi-layers of fleece on this atomically hot morning, sitting at the bar of the old Regal Diner, downtown Santa Monica, amid the moms, dads and kids, traffic cops, florists, security guys and garden designers – the itinerant local workforce – and other consultant-psychiatrists from the local centre, being just… completely, absolutely ‘normal’, everything the boy had always fought against, was a most unusual and quite wonderful thing.
There was little point in John Nightly trying to behave any more politely or be any more responsive or ‘nice’ in general than he felt like being. Johanna had told him not to do that. Not to bother. His keeper wanted her charge to be himself. Absolutely real from now on. As real as John thought he could manage. As bad or good as he felt like behaving within the confines of this public space – ‘out of the cage’, so to speak. So as not to upset the toddlers and teens and delivery boys and PR men and pretty young actresses and pool guys and drivers and cops who frequented the old Art Deco dining car.
What SUMMER had achieved was to make John Nightly real again. Broken down all those layers. Stripped away and banished forever the easy charm, the well-meant smile, the fine, measured manners; the old-fashioned way of going about things drummed into him by Frieda which had initially lifted him above the competition, helped make him sophisticated – much more so than the other kids – and helped make him a star. Along with his talent of course. Although that was gone too. John no longer felt the need. The boy had no gumph or spunk left in him to create anything anymore. Nothing to get out and nothing to get up about. Pills, dope, acid, alcohol and the ensuing ego-loss and paranoia resulting from their prolonged use had seen to that. Creatively John Nightly was impotent. He just wasn’t able to ‘receive’ musical ideas any longer. And did not expect to either. No longer a fount of creation, a guru, mystic or Master to anyone. John was just… ordinary now. As ordinary, or normal as they come; the one thing he’d spent his life fighting against.
‘You know, Johanna… I used to have a very good, functioning, or “well-functioning” brain…’ He took a breath as if about to say something profound. ‘At least I think I did. But now… Reagan and all those guys? How do they – not “get away with it”… but get through it?’ John shifted closer to Johanna. ‘With me, it’s not… Well, it’s not… not as important as it used to be.’
He remembered his toastie, picked up a knife and cut into a square of butter.
‘Pills… and other… all that stuff…’ John took a bite. ‘Must’ve… messed me up more than…’ he swallowed. ‘What it destroyed, you know?’
The patient cupped his hands around his coffee mug. He continued on the same tack, Johanna wishing they’d have stuck with astrology.
‘What I ought to be saying is… I won’t try it on, you see.’ He looked directly at her. ’cos we’ve been… well… “seeing quite a lot of each other”, I guess you… might say…’
Johanna affected an uncertain smile, not knowing quite how to deal with what might be coming and also embarrassed by her companion’s turn of phrase. A gag? Just kidding? His idea of fun? Johanna hoped not. That would really be too unkind, after all this progress and her deciding to open herself up to him like this. Something she’d never allowed herself to do with any patient before. The CP put down the newspaper and squinted in the sunlight. John continued…
‘What I mean is… maybe you’ve been seeing quite a lot of me… and I… I haven’t actually been seeing so much of you.’ John looked directly at her as the scene seemed to run out of juice and slowly grind to a halt.
He took a gulp of coffee, as if he were gulping for air. ‘That’s it really. What I’ve been meaning to say for some time…’
Johanna took a moment. She seemed relieved. ‘You’ve helped me,’ he droned on. ‘And I haven’t always been that… appreciative, have I?’ He put down his cup. ‘I know you got paid for it… I paid the bill, so I know it was… well-paid work. What you trained all those years for. You put me down for going back. I’m grateful to you.’
The consultant psychiatrist needed to get out of there. This kind of development being literally the last thing either of them needed right now. Johanna sought ‘reality’, but not actual emotion – not the ‘from the heart’-type stuff flowing from the patient today. The kind she herself found difficult to deal with. And the way he played it. She still wasn’t certain. She picked up her magazine.
‘John…’
‘I really thought that was “the route”, Johanna. Getting high was… we all did. “God in a pill”… as someone said.’
Johanna felt sympathy for her veteran. She was moved by what he was trying to convey and found herself, against all professional instincts, feeling sorry for him.
‘Maybe a pill is a kind of a guru,’ he smiled. ‘Or there’s a weird “religion” pill – or whatever it is. It doesn’t have to be a tab of speed, because “getting high” was… “getting low”, really, and… I guess I went lower than most.’
‘But most of them don’t usually come back.’
‘That’s right.’ The boy nodded. ‘They don’t… but that’s because…’
It really was too much. Johanna didn’t want it, and she certainly hadn’t expected it. What she needed was for the patient to be kept on an even keel, although this quite tempered outburst was a further sign of John Nightly being in touch with his emotions again. Able to emote, express something; appreciation, in this case… love even. But though John himself had opened up, seeing himself – and themselves – in this situation as off duty, for the CP it wasn’t like that. Johanna was still very much at work. Still getting paid. To sit there and listen to it.
For her, coffee and toasties at the Regal was no different to being in the
consulting room. Johanna had a vested interest in John Nightly. A successful ‘return’ meant a significant financial gain for any consultant at her level. Not only from the patient directly, but also from the authority. Success in terms of the resident being weaned off the system and actually leaving the establishment brought rewards of donations from former inmates and their families. Almost uniquely for a business in any field, the SUMMER Center hoped their regular clients would leave them. One more success story, and excellent accumulative PR for the business.
At times, neither Hank nor Johanna believed the boy would ever actually ‘come back’. But somehow, because of their individual skills and training and their adhering to the rules, John was at the point he was today. He lived and breathed, and retained what they calculated to be at least 85 to 90 per cent of former brain function. John Nightly was unaware that he was the longest long-stay patient the Center had ever entertained. Top of the Pops in ‘psycho’ hours.
The CP noticed the boy’s eyes follow a pretty young college type as she moved along the aisle between the tables the entire length of the restaurant, attracting looks from every male diner. For a moment Johanna caught a glimpse of the young John Nightly, the boy who wandered the back streets of Cambridge seeking companionship and company. Eventually finding it in music and the gaggle of friends, personalities and hangers-on that came with it. Those interested in John because of his star potential and social potential, rather than his gift. It had been quite a journey. John and Johanna smiled at each other and got up. ‘Rhiannon’ was still going strong. They slid their seats neatly under the counter, put on their shades and walked out into the blazing heat.
1 Nancy Reagan was a well-known user of astrologers, as most young players were during Hollywood’s golden period. In its May 1988 issue, People magazine revealed that Nancy had consulted with socialite and Vassar-educated star-reader Joan Quigley, who had mapped out predictions based on both Nancy and Ronald’s natal charts and advised on matters such as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ dates for world summits, congressional legislation and the bombing of Libya.
Ref: What Does Joan Say?: My Seven Years as White House Astrologer, Joan Quigley (Birch Lane), 1990.
‘The memory of space is fleeting. When you get back, all you have left are your mind pictures’
John Pattern, astronaut
John Hinde postcards
The Cornish Gardener. July 2004. ‘Weather Notes’ by Martyn Davies.
The long-term maximum mean temperature in the South West in July is between 19°C and 21°C. In Exeter, the hottest July day in recent years was on the 21st in 1990 when the temperature reached 30.3°C. That’s hot, although it has a long way to go to beat the hottest July on record in Devon on the 12th July, 1923 when 34.4°C was recorded at Killerton. But neither of those beat the national record of 36°C which was recorded at Epsom in Surrey on 22 July 1911. however, even if we don’t see temperatures like those, with temperatures between 19 and 21°C you have to keep a watchful eye on the condition of your garden. With an average of 190 hours of bright sunshine a month in South Cornwall make sure you utilise that light, which is a vital part of summer gardening.
The black Jaguar made its way along the coast road heading eastwards – inland – as it left the ocean behind. A long, open carriageway, trimmed with gorse and ling, its contours following those of the cliff edge. With gleaming, translucent water on one side and a clear blue sky all around, the driver relaxed into his frayed leather seat and, using only one hand to steer the car, checked the time on his wristwatch before indicating to overtake a horsebox in front, the only other vehicle on the road this morning.
As he approached the junction to the A30, the dual carriageway that takes you over to the south peninsula, two hippie kids, dwarfed by their 9-foot longboards, waited at the roundabout ahead. The dudes stuck out their thumbs in a mocking gesture, never for one moment expecting a lift from the shiny black saloon. The driver acknowledged them with a nod as he cruised past, picking up speed now that he was on a proper road. RCN accelerated sharply, pulled down the sun guard to block out the harsh sea-reflected rays, and turned on the radio.
On the passenger seat beside him lay a pink-and-white-banded paper bag containing sweets. Shop-soiled sweets. Part of Mrs Peed’s flood-damaged stock from a tobacconist in St Ives. Endy had bought twelve large jars of ‘shop-soiled boiled’: aniseeds, humbugs and sherbet rocks, along with a couple of boxes of waterlogged Toffee Crisps and Kit Kats. The wax wrappers lay strewn all over Trewin.
The news came on. Freddie Mercury had died of AIDS. The back streets of Kensington, where the singer lived, overflowed with grieving fans. RCN remembered going there once, to some party or other. Couldn’t remember when exactly. Or what the occasion was. Maybe it was a different place altogether. It was becoming hard to recall very much from the old days, particularly detail, and dates, now that his head was full of propagation, cultivation and irrigation… and – much worse than that – the other thing that was on his mind this morning, the dreaded V-A-T. Tax-ation.
BANG!
A gull hit the car full-on. Slammed right into the windscreen. A deadening thud. Its oily trunk suckering the glass before it slid off the bonnet and onto the road. John flinched, fixing the steering wheel tight with both hands. He slowed, checking for traffic behind, pulled over onto the left-hand verge and stopped.
A glorious morning. Funnels of yellow light flooded the saloon. The driver wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, took a deep breath and loosened the fabric around his neck. What the hell was the damned thing up to? It was lucky he had his wits about him today.
Sudden death, bird-wise, was of course not that unusual an occurrence in these parts. The previous time it had happened, in the middle of the summer, a black crow, disturbed by squirrels in the cypress trees, collided with the outside phone line connecting Trewin House to the rest of the world. The bird shot straight into the cable and pulled it down, more or less cutting itself in two in the process. The event put Trewin Exotics out of business for the remainder of the week, until BT engineers came over to fix it once they had managed to locate the heavily camouflaged entrance.
‘Suicide mission?’ the man had asked.
RCN turned off the engine and with it the radio, and the usual nauseating stock platitudes about Fred.
He got out, left the door ajar to let some air in the car, lit a Rothmans and allowed himself a moment to mentally return to where he had been just minutes before. The impact had squeezed a slick of black fluid from the filthy bird right across the windscreen; John took a duster from inside to wipe it off, then tossed the rag into the ditch.
It was actually chilly outside. As he looked back across the undulating rocks, the gorse fields and the ocean beyond, a flock of black-headed gulls flew overhead, searching for their friend. The nurse turned and gazed back in the direction of home. He wandered over to the dead animal, checked for any visible sign of disease, bent down, pulled a leather gardening glove from his pocket, picked the bird up by its tail and slung it into the bracken.
The onset of rheumatism and a tendency to travel even the shortest of distances by car meant that RCN’s physical mobility was not what it used to be. As he lowered himself down into the beaten-up seat his knee cracked like a gun. A potato-lorry rumbled past as he prepared to get back on the road, the freight looking rather too casually tied as its pink-knotted ropes blew about in the wind along with a Cornish flag provocatively displayed atop the driver’s cab. Coming up behind, a Cadogan Tate removal van transferring the worldly goods of some burned-out hedge-funder to the peace and relative calm of a coastal town. Another unwelcome foreigner from ‘up country’ having bought property that the locals could no longer afford. A home that would probably save a life in the way that lives had been saved at Trewin. The nurse waited for the road to clear again before he pulled back off of the verge and continued on his way.
It was always difficult to find a place to park in Penzance. And in Chapel Street more or less
impossible. So RCN left the car down by the harbour and walked up the hill past the Wesleyan chapel towards the old town. Outside the Abbey Hotel a gasjet-blue coupé and a white scooter were parked precariously on the kerb. The hotel’s breakfast room looked out onto the sunny street. Sitting at a table in the high recessed window he could see the outline of a woman in a shawl, her hair tied in a loose knot, almost like a living painting. There was a hairdresser opposite – Beachcomber – and John thought he might have time to pop in later on for a trim. He took off his cap and made sure to rub his boots rather furiously on the thick stubbly mat before entering the establishment. This unnecessary piece of business indicated that he was nervous, as there had been no rainfall at all in the region for five weeks. The whole of the West Country was dry as a bone.
item: ‘Fifty Years’: a weekly insight into people and their times.
This week the philanthropist Contessina Rafaella de Weyden speaks about living in London during revolutionary times. A presentation for Arté Channel Online by David Quickly-Jones.
Rafaella van der Weyden, we’re delighted that you’ve been able to find time to come in and talk to us.
It’s all my pleasure.
One of the things that comes across in your book as important in your life is your meeting and subsequent relationship with the singer John Nightly, who sadly passed away this week.
Perhaps you can tell us how the two of you first came to meet?
This was because my father was the associate director of the Berliner Concert Orchester; and John had come to Berlin to give a concert and we were using the same concert hall and there was a cocktail… and I saw that my father was talking to this… extremely good-looking man! [laughs] And I remarked that my father wasn’t bored! [laughs again] which he almost always was. And then I was introduced to this man and, and I think that, then, something happened and… [giggles]