Becoming Nancy

by Terry Ronald

  ‘All I can see is a fat lady behind a booth reading a really, really big book,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’ I felt slightly disenchanted. ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘I think it’s War and Peace,’ he said. ‘It’s very big.’

  ‘I mean, should we go in? Are we going to risk it? We need to make a decision, cos I’m not standing out here all fucking night.’

  I fished around in my satchel for a stray cigarette, to no avail, and as I did I noticed a few young men gathering around the door and then stepping inside. I felt envious.

  ‘I know what we’ll do,’ Maxie said, suddenly sounding vaguely self-possessed. ‘We’ll wait till a largish crowd of people go in, and then we’ll sort of tail along in behind them – how does that sound?’

  ‘Mildly feasible,’ I said flatly.

  Then a voice from behind us made us both jump.

  ‘Hello, my dears, and what do we have here?’

  We turned around quick and discovered a slight man in a pastel-green pants suit with a sequin-trimmed collar that had clearly seen better days – as had the gentleman himself. Fifty-ish, I’d have said he was, with a greying, coiffured barnet and a kind smile. He was carrying a small metal briefcase in one hand and a pair of burgundy slingbacks in the other, and his fingernails were painted to complement the colour of said shoes.

  ‘And what are you two divine young men doing outside a place like this of a Friday night, might I enquire?’ he said. ‘You’ll not get through that door, that’s for a positive – look at you, you’re mere chickens, and it’s more than the boss’s life’s worth to let you in – he’d lose his licence.’

  Then the man stepped forward and presented us with his hand as if we might kiss it. There was at least one fancy ring on each of his dainty fingers and his nails were manicured to unqualified perfection. I noticed his violet eyes: just like Elizabeth Taylor’s, I thought, though these were jewels in a rather tarnished crown, set above his slightly mottled, jowly cheeks, and the kind of lines around the mouth that smokers get after forty years of dragging on ciggies.

  ‘I’m Jeanette,’ he said delicately. ‘And you two are?’

  I stepped forward and smiled bravely.

  ‘I’m David,’ I said, ‘and this is Maxie. Is your name really Jeanette?’

  The man laughed, and pinched my cheek softly.

  ‘No, silly,’ he chuckled. ‘My mother named me Arthur McDonald but to everyone else I’m Jeanette. Anyway, enough about me, what are you two handsome young fellas doing out here? You’re not rent, are you? Cos if you are, you’ll get nothing coming out of here till gone midnight at least, and even then I should imagine it’ll be fairly slim pickings. You’d be better off staking out the ‘Dilly.’

  Then he studied us both absorbedly for about fifteen seconds, while we just stood there, mouths half open.

  ‘You don’t look much like rent boys,’ Jeanette finally said, his voice crisp and well presented. ‘Where do you come from?’

  ‘East Dulwich,’ I blurted proudly.

  Jeanette smiled.

  ‘I thought you had a whiff of the provinces about you, dear,’ he said. ‘And what brought you both up to London?’

  ‘We got the 176,’ Maxie said. ‘We’ve just come up to town for the day, and we saw this place in a magazine, so we thought we’d try it out.’

  ‘We like to dance,’ I added as more and more people filed past us into the club.

  ‘Do you now?’ Jeanette said, putting down his briefcase. ‘Well, you’ve got to be twenty-one to come in here, boys, and besides that, do you know what sort of a club this is?’

  Then he nodded towards me.

  ‘I bet you do,’ he said. ‘But your pal here looks reasonably innocent – does he know what he’s likely to be up against in there?’

  ‘It’s a gay club,’ Maxie said with authority.

  Jeanette laughed.

  ‘Is it now, my darling? And you two want to go in and see what it’s all about, do you?’

  Maxie and I both nodded ardently.

  ‘Are you going in, Jeanette?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Jeanette said. ‘I work here, don’t I? But—’

  ‘Doing what?’ Maxie interrupted. ‘Are you a barman?’

  ‘No, I’m not a barman,’ Jeanette laughed. ‘I’m an entertainer!’

  And he gestured histrionically with both arms.

  ‘I pop on a few records sometimes, if Philip the disc jockey moseys up to the office for a wank, and I do the cabaret at eleven – any more questions?’

  ‘Take us in,’ I said. ‘Take us in with you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go on. We’ll be no trouble, Jeanette,’ I pleaded, and I helpfully scooped up his briefcase from the pavement. ‘We could be your assistants, and carry your bits and pieces. Just for half an hour. We both look a lot older than we are.’

  Jeanette shook his head slowly and chuckled to himself.

  ‘Do you know what? Just for brass neck I think I might. I think you boys need to know what you’re letting yourselves in for – how old are you, by the by?’

  ‘We’re eighteen,’ I said.

  Jeanette, however, didn’t look especially persuaded, and he waved a finger at me.

  ‘It’s not that long since I’ve seen an eighteen-year-old boy, dear heart,’ he said. ‘How old?’

  ‘Sixteen!’ Maxie confessed haughtily. ‘We’re sixteen, actually.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Jeanette said, looking Maxie up and down. ‘I know your type as well: more inches on the cock than miles on the clock.’

  And he handed Maxie the slingbacks and pushed past him.

  ‘Follow me, the pair of you.’

  So as Jeanette breezed in through the door of the club, Maxie and I followed him swiftly and with our heads down.

  ‘These two chicks are with me, Lil,’ Jeanette shouted to the large rosy lady in the booth behind the curtain – and she never even glanced up from her Tolstoy. We were in!

  Behind that blue velvet curtain, as it turned out, lay a supernatural and exquisite world that I’d hardly dared believe could ever exist. Red-carpeted stairs drew us down towards a swirling throng of dancing, thrusting men of every size and silhouette, the piquant smell of their varied colognes rising up around us as we descended further and further until we were finally swallowed up in the dancing crowd. Pastel lights flashed on–off–on, lustrous and bright against the white shirts and tanned skins of the beauteous men that encircled us. Maxie and I gawped and glared around and about us as Jeanette marshalled us through the near-rapturous multitude who, hands in the air, were chanting along with the sweet and glorious mantra that was soaring out of the speakers.

  ‘Am I ever gonna fall in love in New York City?

  Will I ever find a home so far from Tennessee?

  There’s no future in the single bars, nothing but the one-night stars,

  Am I ever gonna fall in love in New York City?’

  I stopped for a moment in the middle of the floor, in quiet disbelief beneath the spinning disco ball. This place was spectacular.

  ‘Fuck me, this is amazing,’ I said to no one in particular. ‘Where did they all come from?’

  A striking blond in a black vest, with collar-length hair and a moustache, danced past me languidly and brushed my face with his hand.

  ‘Paradise, baby,’ he said with the longest of Southern drawls. ‘That’s where they all came from, Paradise!’

  Then he put his arm around my waist and encircled me, before spinning me around and pulling me close to him from behind, rocking me back and forth to the music.

  ‘What is this music?’ I said, half enchanted, half terrified, and looking around for Maxie and Jeanette, who were by now all the way across the other side of the dance floor.

  ‘Grace Jones, baby!’ he said. ‘She’s a fuckin’ goddess!’

  Then he turned me around to face him, kissed me softly on the mouth and evaporated in the crowd.

  When I fi
nally caught up with Maxie he was following Jeanette towards a door by the side of the stage, which was at the far end of the room.

  ‘Come in, darlings,’ Jeanette commanded.

  And we wandered into a petite but gorgeously bedecked room.

  ‘This is my domain, dears.’

  The room was festooned with paper and silk flowers in yellows and reds, and Chinese lanterns hung from its low ceilings. There were boxes everywhere, and a table to one side below a square mirror surrounded by light bulbs, only three of which were currently functioning; atop the table sat an old-fashioned mannequin’s head that was wearing a larger-than-life Marilyn Monroe-style wig. The walls above the mirror were adorned with snaps and Polaroids of Jeanette with various luminaries from the world of show business.

  ‘Here’s me with Kenny Williams and Babs Windsor,’ Jeanette said, pointing. ‘And this one’s a bit blurry, but it’s actually me with the Aga Khan at Windsor Safari Park.’

  He suddenly looked forlorn. ‘I think we might have had a real future together if he hadn’t taken up with that fashion model.’

  Then he turned to us and smiled, sitting with his hands in his lap in front of the mirror.

  ‘I’ve wined and dined with all the greats over the years, boys,’ he said. ‘Dorothy Squires, Bob Monkhouse, him off Stars on Sunday – all of ’em. Judy Garland once told me I had the cheekbones of Garbo.’

  ‘Who?’ Maxie said, and Jeanette rolled his eyes.

  ‘Oh, so young, so young,’ he cried.

  Then he snatched the wig from the mannequin head and started brushing it through, vigorously.

  ‘Now, I’ve got to tong this before I go on and I’ve not had any sort of a beverage yet. There’s a bottle of Campari lurking about in one of those cupboards with some tumblers. Why don’t you boys see if you can lay hands on that, and pour us all a glass? Then you can pull up a box each and tell Auntie Jeanette what the hell it is you’re both doing roaming around London this late on a Friday night.’

  I parked myself on one of the boxes, which appeared to be full of shoes and frocks, and looked directly into Jeanette’s eyes, wondering if I might trust him.

  ‘It’s a bit of a long story, actually,’ I said, while Maxie poked around in the cupboard.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Jeanette said. ‘Not until I go on at eleven, anyway. Spill!’

  Well, by the time I’d finished, Jeanette was quite ashen, and he stuck his glass out for Maxie to replenish.

  ‘I need another drink, dear,’ he said, so Maxie did the honours.

  ‘I can scarcely believe it,’ he went on, knocking back the ruby-red liquid. ‘What a story! This Mr Lord sounds like a complete monster, doing everything in his power to stifle and cut down a young, fragile love as it starts to bloom. He’s most likely a bitter old queen himself if you ask me – how perfectly frightful! And what with your dad catching you in flagrante delicto! Well, it’s like the gay diary of Anne Frank, my darlings, or Love Story without the cancer.’

  Maxie and I both nodded silently in agreement, and I sipped at my drink, which was tepid and quite disgusting.

  ‘And are you in love, my darlings?’ Jeanette asked pleadingly. ‘Do you ache to be together whatever the cost? Is that why you’ve run away to London?’

  Maxie poured him yet another full glass of Campari with a dash of flat lemonade.

  ‘We’ve not exactly run away,’ Maxie said. ‘We just came up to town for the day to get away from it all. And we do actually live in London, so we couldn’t have really run away to it anyway, could we?’

  ‘But we are in love,’ I jumped in, eager not to throw cold water on Jeanette’s rather agreeable Mills & Boon take on our story. ‘Aren’t we, Maxie?’

  Maxie nodded nervously, and then said, ‘It’s just all been a bit much really.’

  His voice was shaking slightly, and he gulped down a glass of the foul-tasting Campari.

  ‘My mum and dad went nuts. I expect they’ll be even angrier now I’ve disappeared. Do you think I should phone them?’

  He looked at Jeanette dolefully, and then at me, and it suddenly dawned on me how much shit we would both almost certainly be in now. Jeanette put a painted fingernail up to his lips and looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he stood up, taking first my hand and then Maxie’s.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘I’m off at half eleven. Why don’t you two boys go watch my tired old act, have a little disco dance and enjoy yourselves, and then take a black taxi over to my place in Pimlico. Nothing untoward, mind, I’ve got a spare room and I’ll be home by half past midnight. But that way you could spend a nice night together before going back home to face the music tomorrow. You could even phone your parents from my flat, though I’m sure they won’t be best pleased, but at least they’d know you were safe. Tell them you’re at a friend’s or something.’

  Maxie and I stared at one another, bemused.

  ‘You’re going to be in trouble, come what may, boys,’ Jeanette smiled, ‘but this way you could have some time together. What do you think?’

  When we exited the little room and went back out into the vast resplendency of the disco, there was yet another euphoric disco record playing that I’d never heard, and the beautiful people were spinning wildly.

  So Maxie and me dashed into the throng to join them … and we danced our arses off!

  ‘Did you see that?’ Maxie panted as we fell sweating against the bar afterwards.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s him that reads the regional news on the telly, and he was kissing another man – it really was him!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Right there, look!’

  ‘Where?’

  I peered through the cigarette smoke back to where Maxie was pointing: a booth table just to one side of the dance floor.

  ‘Shit, you’re right,’ I said. ‘Well, I never knew.’

  ‘Well, you don’t, do you?’ Maxie said. ‘Nobody says it out loud, do they?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘They don’t, but they should. It would be a damn sight easier if people did say it out loud. Like Hamish.’

  ‘What do you mean, easier?’ Maxie said, and he turned to face me and he put his arms around me, pulling me closer to him, his face and hair gleaming with sweat.

  ‘Well, you’ve got a choice, haven’t you?’ I said gravely. ‘You can be some kind of fucking wonderful … like Hamish, or … Jeanette, or you can be scared and sad like my old French teacher Farrah Fawcett-Majors, or a closeted lunchtime newsreader.’

  Maxie blinked at me, and I knew he didn’t truly understand, so I moved in closer to him, as close as I could get.

  ‘Farrah Fawcett-Majors was your French teacher?’ he said, swallowing hard.

  And I shrugged and nodded, unable to explain properly with him pressed up against me. Then he leaned towards me and we kissed, and he tasted like Campari, but I liked the taste now. Loved it, in fact.

  ‘Shall we go to Jeanette’s?’ he said after he’d kissed me for a very long time.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We shall.’

  Eighteen

  Au Fait with Pimlico

  So now I’m banging, seemingly to no avail, on the exceedingly dusty door of an apartment up on the third floor of a huge and relatively shabby Victorian house … in Pimlico … at half past midnight, for God’s sake!

  When I bang once more and much harder, it swings open at last. Maxie’s looking somewhat fretful so I squeeze his elbow, and then I smile at him in the most reassuring manner I can manage, given the circumstances.

  ‘You found it all right, then,’ Jeanette says in a soft voice. ‘This end of Lupus Street can be a bit of a bitch to negotiate if you’re not au fait with Pimlico.’

  He’s wearing a sea-green, floor-length silk kimono that’s billowing in the breeze from an old-fashioned tabletop fan set on a chest of drawers behind him, and he is puffing on a bright-blue cigarette set in a Holly Golightly cigarette holder.

  ‘Well, do co
me in, boys,’ he says, grandly sweeping his arm out into the room before us. ‘I’ve made it nice for you.’

  When Jeanette swings the door shut behind us, Maxie and I shuffle shyly into the centre of the room, which is lit by a red bulb set in a pretty art deco glass lamp.

  ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d be here already, Jeanette,’ I gush. ‘We loved your act, by the way, especially the Andrews Sisters section; it was terribly clever how you did all three of them just by switching wigs. Anyway, then we danced a bit more – for about half an hour – and then we got a taxi like you said. The driver wasn’t very pleased that we paid him all in coins, though, but I suppose money’s money, isn’t it?’

  Jeanette surges forward and gathers us both in his arms.

  ‘Now, darlings,’ he says, clearly sensing my apprehension. ‘I don’t want you to feel uneasy or uncomfortable about coming here. Auntie Jeanette is going to make herself scarce, and you won’t hear a peep from me. As I said, you can phone your parents from here, and I’ve made the sitting room all nice for you. There’s a lovely comfy divan over in that corner where I usually sleep, but I’ll be in the boudoir on the lilo – truth be told it’s more of a walk-in wardrobe than a boudoir – but I’ll be quite cosy in there, so you two just enjoy yourselves.’

  ‘Thank you, Jeanette, you’ve been really kind,’ I say softly. ‘Why have you been so good to us?’

  Jeanette steps back and throws her arms open spectacularly, taking in the sight of Maxie and me with a toothy ‘Miss World’ smile.

  ‘Dear things,’ he says, tilting his head to one side and clasping his hands to his chin as if in prayer. ‘You’ve had an odious time of late – très difficile – that much is clear to me. I just want to give you two boys one unforgettable and beautiful night of l’amour. That much, you deserve.’

  Then he glides towards a door, which I assume leads to the other bedroom, snatching his cigarette holder from the ashtray as he goes.

  ‘I’m going to get off to bed and let you two … get on with it, so to speak,’ he says, ‘and I shall cook you a nice full English in the morning. Bonne nuit!’

  ‘Good night, Jeanette,’ I say.