by Rupert Smith
‘So, how long have you and Nutter lived here, Anna?’ I asked.
‘He moved in last year, babe. Before that it was just me and my old man.’ (I assumed she was referring to Howard.)
‘And the others?’
‘They come and go. There’s no hassle here.’ She beamed woozily and continued chopping. There was a minute’s silence.
‘And what does Nutter do these days?’ I asked, trying to be friendly.
‘Mostly grass, a little acid. I’ve got him off the booze.’ Again, the beam split her face and she chopped in silence.
‘It’s so good to see him again after all these years.’
For the first time, Anna seemed interested in something I’d said. ‘You’ve met him before, have you?’ she asked.
‘Of course. Let me explain. I’m his oldest friend. I . . .’ (I paused for effect) ‘ . . . am Marc Lejeune.’ I laughed, anticipating her amazed reaction.
‘Great, babe. Could you pass that jar of miso?’
She had never heard of me.
The meal, when it was finally ready, was a strange textureless soup that tasted vaguely of onions. This was my first experience of vegan cuisine, an acquired taste. There was so much about this strange new world that I found incomprehensible, even disgusting – not least the food. Their domestic arrangements, their casual approach to sex . . . all of it I mistrusted and even feared. Little did I know that in a few short months I would be sharing their tastes, living their life – living it more fully, perhaps, than any of them had ever dared.
I returned to Holland Park late that night to find Nick up in arms. He railed at me for my ‘unprofessional behaviour’ in storming out of Claridge’s in a ‘queeny tantrum’ (his vicious phrase). Janice, he reported, had reacted so badly to my departure that she had spontaneously leapt across the bar, wrested a bottle of whisky from the wall and pumped the entire contents down her throat by rhythmic applications of the optic to her lips. Even now she was recovering in hospital after a stomach pump (‘And the cost of that little escapade will come out of your account, I assure you’).
‘Don’t hassle me, Nick,’ I said, softly.
‘I beg your pardon ?’ He folded his arms across his chest, pulled himself up to his full height (just over five foot six) and puffed his chest out, looking like an absurd little duck with a pom-pom hairdo.
‘You crack me up, man.’ I could see that my new tactic of nonviolent resistance was enraging Nick. He looked ready to explode. ‘Chill out.’
That was the final straw. He stormed across the room, his dressing gown falling open to reveal purple caleçon. ‘What is this shit, Marc? What silly little ideas have you got into that tiny mind of yours now? Will you be good enough to inform me? Or do I have to phone my friends in Scotland Yard and see whether they can find answers to these and other questions?’
‘Go ahead,’ I drawled. ‘I’ve just spent one night in the pig pen. I don’t suppose another would hurt me.’ With that I drifted off into my room and shut the door, laughing too much to hear the familiar litany of threats and abuse that continued for a good ten minutes before the ringing telephone summoned Nick back to his usual chilling politeness. That was the end of that – for now.
Nutter was never the best of correspondents. I’d given him my number, my address, but true to form he failed to get in touch. Good old Nutter! He hadn’t changed. Fortunately, I’d taken a note of his address. (There was no telephone in the house. Howard had described it, with one of his beatific grins, as ‘The Heart Attack Machine’.) So I dropped Nutter a line explaining how happy I was that he had met such a great group of friends and that I would be paying him a call on the following Thursday.
I turned up as arranged and was glad to discover the house ablaze with light. At least they were in, a fact that could be easily discerned from the thick vapour of marijuana that drifted down the street. There was no door bell – no doubt Howard had a good reason for avoiding that engine of Satan as well – so I let myself in. Music was blaring from the front room, I had a brief vision of an enormous red dress flitting across the end of the hallway before I made my way to the kitchen. The lights were on, the smell of Anna’s cooking gave stiff competition to the sweeter smells of intoxication, and I assumed it was safe to enter.
And there was Nutter, sitting with his back to me, helping himself to a generous ‘toke’ on one of the joints that were permanently on the go in this Liberty Hall. He threw his head back and exhaled a great groan of pleasure: it must have been particularly good grass. I waited until he seemed to have come round a little, then gave a discreet cough. Nutter looked round with a happy, stoned smile, recognized me and practically jumped out of his skin. ‘Oh shit! Anna, get up!’ he yelped, leaping to his feet then thinking better of it and hiding himself behind the table, but not before I had noticed that he was in a certain amount of personal disarray. As he righted his trousers, Anna emerged from beneath the table to welcome me with her usual grin.
‘Hello, babe!’ she said, as if nothing had happened. ‘Why don’t you make us all a drink?’
I turned on my heel and marched smartly out of the room. I would have slammed the door, had there been one to slam. I was upset – I have always believed that sex should be an intimate act between two people, not the kind of ugly public show that Anna made of it. But as I stood leaning against the wall, trying to control my breathing, I had little time for reflection. Once again there was a flash of that red dress across the hall, disappearing for a second then just as quickly returning to confront me. Here was a new apparition, half woman (the crimson lake skirt was buoyed up on a crinoline, the feet exquisitely shod in silk court shoes), half man (the torso was bare apart from a ruff of red feathers around the neck).
‘Oh it’s you,’ it said. ‘Come and help me with my eyelashes.’ It was Julian.
I followed him behind the blanket curtain, whence I had heard the sounds of carnal abandon on my first visit. In the middle of a chaos of clothes, beads, books, records and what looked very much like a pair of feet sticking out from under a sheet, there was a large, gilt-framed mirror artfully arranged on the floor to reflect the light from a single bedside lamp back into Julian’s face. ‘I can’t get the fucking things on straight. Come on, you’re an actor. Give us a hand.’
At last I felt on home ground. I forgot my recent shock and became the professional. If there was one thing I had learned about in my years in the business, it was stage make-up. ‘You’re not letting the glue dry enough before sticking them on,’ I said, whipping the errant lashes off his face (they’d slid half-way down his cheek), ‘and you’ve powdered too soon. Where’s your cleanser?’ Julian lamely proffered a jar of Vaseline. ‘Cotton wool?’ I demanded. An old sock. It would have to do. I’d achieved miracles with less in the dressing rooms of certain provincial theatres. With gentle strokes I removed the haggish make-up from around his eyes, reglued the lashes and fixed them with a deft precision that left him gasping. As I knelt before him, I could feel an exploratory hand roaming around my lap, which I deterred with a knuckle-crushing twist of the thighs. ‘You’ll do,’ I snapped, all clinical authority ‘Now will somebody please tell me what’s going on?’ I was aware that my voice sounded high, strained, like a schoolteacher who knows she’s under threat from an unruly fifth form.
At that point there was a stirring from beneath the pile of sheets, and the feet scrambled into life. Moments later a tousled head appeared, opened its eyes, mumbled, ‘Fuck!’ before disappearing beneath the bedclothes. None of this Julian noticed.
‘It’s the big night tonight! Every freak in town will be there! You’ve got to come, it’ll be a scream!’
‘What will be a scream?’
‘It’s the Release benefit at the Roundhouse, man!’ said Julian, then ‘Tally Ho!’ as he leapt across the room, heedless of his expertly applied lashes, and joined his friend beneath the sheets. I withdrew and decided to leave them – all of them – to their own devices. But I encountered Nutter in
the hallway, lurking sheepishly outside Julian’s room. He greeted me with an interrogative smirk. ‘That’s cool,’ he said. ‘That’s cool.’
‘What is cool?’
‘You and Jools getting it on. Great.’
‘Nutter, I see that the gap between us is greater than ever. I have not been “getting it on”, as you put it, with Julian or with anybody Now I’ll say goodbye. Don’t try to find me.’
And with that ironic echo of his own words I turned for my grand exit from a house that had become repulsive to me. But the spark of an old friendship hadn’t died for Nutter; he wouldn’t let me slip through his fingers again quite so easily. He grabbed me, roughly but firmly, by the upper arm.‘Cool it! Hey, I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry I didn’t know you were . . . watching. Look, it’s okay Don’t go.’
I wavered. How dare he think I was ‘watching’ him and Anna?
‘Please. Don’t go, Marc. Stay I want us to . . . talk. You know, old friends, man . . .’
That was the limit of Nutter’s articulacy, the fullest extent of his ability to express emotion, and tantamount to a declaration of everlasting love with a bouquet of red roses thrown in. I stopped in my tracks.
‘Very well. I’ll stay We’ll talk.’
There was no turning back now.
The Roundhouse was the legendary venue in Chalk Farm, once a mundane tram terminus but now, in 1968, the throbbing heart of London’s underground scene. It was thither that we – Nutter and I, followed by the whole rag-tag household – made our way by bus (to the tight-lipped horror of the other passengers, one or two of whom obviously recognized me from the telly). The crowds were dense. Where did they come from, these creatures of the night? But it was with them that my destiny lay. This was youth on the march! And how soon they would look to me for leadership.
Release was a voluntary agency devoted to helping those poor souls who had got into trouble with drugs, particularly those who were being persecuted by the law. To celebrate this fundraiser (I doubted whether the collective mass between them could raise much over £100) everyone had decided to get riotously stoned. I was to see much puke, many near-deaths, that night. Two sturdy matrons in St John Ambulance uniforms prevented any actual loss of life, and coped with the worst of the mopping and swabbing. Little thanks they got for it! (‘Nazis,’ muttered Howard, who took exception to any kind of uniform.)
There was no formal programme for the evening’s proceedings, no seating, in fact very little that I recognized from my own professional background. What passed for entertainment was a rolling smorgasbord of performance, some of it on the stage, some of it in the audience and in the quieter, darker nooks and crannies of the old building. There was a self-destructiveness, a seeking after oblivion, in these crowds of young people yearning for louder music, stronger drugs, new ‘kicks’ of every description. Did I see danger in the dark corners of the Roundhouse that night? And if so, did I heed the warning?
At first I was stunned – literally – by the volume, the light show, the sea of writhing bodies. I stuck close to Nutter, unwilling to lose him in this amorphous, stoned mass. Someone handed us a drink (was it spiked?) and we made our way through the crowd, hoping to find a sheltered spot where we could discuss old times and our plans for the future. But everywhere we went Anna popped up, kissing Nutter or embracing me and telling us what a good time we were having. She was making me ‘uptight’, I felt out of place, de trop. But gradually I relaxed, let go of my inhibitions and allowed myself to ‘go with it’, as Nutter kept advising me as he massaged my shoulders. Eventually we escaped the attentions of Anna and found ourselves on the edge of the stage, revelling in the lights and music and telling each other how happy we were to have found each other again. ‘I love you, man’ admitted Nutter, as he flung an arm around my neck, missed and slumped in my lap. They were the words I’d waited many years to hear.
While Nutter succumbed to whatever had been slipped into our drinks, I took time to survey the scene. I’ve always been an observer. Even when I’m up to my neck in a situation, there’s a cool, detached part of me looking down and taking notes. So while the madness and the music swirled around me, I took stock. There was a freedom here, not just in the crazy clothes (or lack of them) and the free-love games of kiss and grope. This was a greater freedom – from the pressures of work, of business, of boy-meets-girl. I realized what had happened to me – what I’d allowed to happen to me – since I’d moved to London. I’d become a commodity, a product, while my real talents went unrecognized. And it wasn’t just since I’d moved to London, I understood with a sudden flash of insight. Even as a child, my parents had forced me to be what they wanted me to be, not what I wanted to be. I was their only son, their hope for the future, the father of their grandchildren. Everybody I knew – Mum and Dad, Phyllis, Nick, Janice – had used me to fulfil their own needs. And here I was, surrounded by people who were pursuing their own fantasies, their own appetites, in a loving, caring environment. Why shouldn’t I be part of it?
So lost in thought was I that five or more hours slipped by before I was roused from my reverie by a gentle hand on my shoulder. ‘You looked so sweet, the two of you,’ said a familiar voice, ‘like two little fluffy bunnies. Was it a good trip, darling?’ I looked up, peering back into reality from the bottom of a well. (Like many deep thinkers, I often find that I literally lose myself in thought.) There was Julian, his dress in tatters, his feathers but a memory, but his eyelashes still glued securely to his drooping eyelids. And look at Nutter!’ he continued. ‘Beautiful! You lucky thing. I’ve been trying for years!’
Something was being insinuated. ‘Firstly,’ I replied, ‘I am stone-cold sober, and have been all evening. Secondly, my friendship with Nutter is far too serious and adult for someone of your obvious limitations to understand.’ I rose to my feet, but my legs must have gone to sleep, for I staggered and almost plunged headlong through a massive bass speaker.
‘That’s right, darling,’ drawled Julian, deftly righting me and helping the still semi-conscious Nutter to his feet.
‘We’ll be quite all right now, thank you!’ I said, dragging Nutter towards the door. I wouldn’t trust any of this gang of vultures to take care of him in his condition. I knew how vulnerable he could be when ‘under the influence’, and intended to protect him by spending the night in a comfortable hotel where he could recover unmolested and enjoy a decent bath and breakfast before returning to his squalid ‘pad’. But wouldn’t you know it! There, blocking our path with arms outstretched was the large, floral form of Anna.
‘There’s my baby boy!’ she cooed, practically snatching Nutter from my side. ‘Time for beddy byes! Was he tripping? Was it beautiful? Did he see nice things? Come on, lover, home we go.’ She bestowed on me one final, patronizing smirk. ‘See you on a pink cloud some time, babe!’ And with that they were gone.
The Roundhouse was a sorry sight, filthy in the daylight, almost silent save for the rhythmic sound of a few unconscious revellers being slapped around the face by the stalwart St John Ambulancers, still cheerfully working their way through this sea of human debris. I stumbled into the morning, crawled into a taxi (what Howard would have made of this shameless materialism I neither knew nor cared) and thus ended my first night in the deep, deep underground.
When Nick got wind of my new life and my new ideas, he became genuinely scared. And there’s nothing more dangerous in this business than an unscrupulous small-time manager who sees his meal ticket slipping away He became devious in his determination to keep me sweet, to keep me working. But it wasn’t just me he was fighting, it was the whole course of history. There was revolution in the air – you could feel it every time you opened a newspaper or stepped into a London street – and nothing Nick Nicholls could do was going to stop it. He offered me more money (a reasonable rate for the amount of work I’d been doing) and I accepted. He gave me presents – clothes, meals, jewellery – things I no longer craved. His promises became wilder and wilder: ‘Your
own TV series next year, I think, don’t you?’ ‘A major motion picture deal!’ ‘Front cover of every edition of Vogue!’ The empty words of a desperate man. Nick knew that he was losing me, and that no amount of bribes would keep me.
Then there were the threats, Nick’s favourite business tactic. He was shameless, saying openly that he would tell the police I was a murderer (as if anyone would believe such a bizarre story), that he would release to the newspapers certain photographs that would put an end to my career. I simply smiled. After all, if Nick revealed me as a murderer and a pornographer, he revealed his own complicity in the very same ‘crimes’.
One day, he summoned me to dinner at the Ivy with greater gravity than usual. He was at his most masterful and charming, plying me with the best wines on the menu, ordering the things he knew I loved – lobster, asparagus – and complimenting me on my appearance. He was witty, urbane, flirtatious – far from the raging, threatening little tyrant who, I knew, lurked beneath that dapper exterior.
‘I was speaking to dear Bernard Delfont the other day,’ he announced breezily. ‘You know, he’s a very big fan of yours. He says you’re the brightest talent on the scene at the moment. He says you should go far.’
It was good to see that someone had been paying attention. ‘Tell me more,’ I said, licking the butter from an asparagus spear.
‘He said, and I agree, that you’re the only artist who really bridges the generation gap, who appeals to the kids but who also gets the mums and dads. He says, and I agree, that you’re uniquely gifted. What were his words? Talented, exciting and beautiful.’
‘I see. And to what, pray, is this leading?’
‘But he stresses the danger, and I really couldn’t agree more, of compromising yourself by meddling in things you don’t understand and that can only harm your public image.’