A Young Man's Passage (30 page)

15 February 1993

Scurrying through Kings Cross [in Sydney] after the gym wearing a hooded sweatshirt and dark glasses, I encountered Mr Jelly. He nearly strolled past me. ‘Didn’t recognise you!’ he laughed as we did the theatrical kissy-kissy business by the fountain. ‘Your disguise is marvellous,’ he said admiringly. ‘It was only the walk that gave you away.’ For the remainder of my journey back to the Sebel Hotel I study manly walks and attempt to alter my own accordingly. By the time I’m home I’m waddling like a horse-rider with piles. Oh, sod it, I think to myself, and mince in my usual fashion through the foyer.

Two days after the tour finished we were to begin filming for
Brace Yourself Roger
, and the Wonderdog troops were already gathering; producers and researchers were holed up in a suite at the Sebel, barking into walkie-talkies with that hard-faced television attitude, devoid of sincerity and only really concerned with their own status and prospects. It all felt vaguely like vultures circling, in that I wasn’t ‘theirs’ until the tour had finished and filming began. Then they would swoop.

More upsettingly, Grazio had a terrible accident. He was in hospital with horrific burns to his face, hands and legs after a box of pyros exploded as he was setting up for the show. He was unrecognisable when I went to visit him in hospital, hands encased in plastic bags full of soggy cream, his face swollen like a football and eyes peering at me from puffy balls the size of oranges. What price camp comedy, I thought? He suffered, and suffers still, so that I may feel the meaningless pleasure of glitter falling gently on my head at the end of my second act.

16 February 1993

Grazio seems a lot better. His face is still bandaged, lips are blistered and fingers are black and brittle but you can see his eyes, familiar and reassuring. He’s fighting jolly hard, but you can see that the realisation of what has happened to him and the constant pain are beginning to get him down. Skin grafts seem to be in order.

Philip and I took to frequenting a seedy club called Bottoms Up in Kings Cross, full of rent boys, lorry drivers and transvestites. It was presided over by Monique, a big-boned gal dressed in white. Hair wafted over her head à la Quentin Crisp, face cracked and caked, she had amazing eyes, slightly bulbous and unblinking, which she’d fix on any intrepid fan seeking an autograph. ‘That’ll be nine dollars,’ she said, menacingly. When the resident midget said hello she said, ‘I was wondering where I’d find a stool to sit on.’ She would peruse the room and point people out to me: ‘She’s a nice queen, he’s a low homo.’ I liked her until she began a prolonged invitation to dinner, suspiciously punctuated with the information that ‘there will be no one there, only us. I know after all the hassle of autographs you’ve been through that you just want to rest, one, two, three.’ I said yes but meant no.

I phoned Stephen often to see how he was doing. ‘I haven’t had a bite past my mouth all day but that’s because I’m twisted.’ He’d suffered three days of vomiting and diarrhoea since he drank a bottle of holy water someone sent him from the Nile. He had a Spanish boyfriend but had taken to faking his orgasms. His body was failing him but he was finding ways to cope. I admired his inventiveness: ‘I just thrash around while he grunts and groans, then grab half of his spunk and cover myself with it. Either that or I pretend to come and then grab a towel straight away and wipe myself although there’s nothing to wipe away.’ I asked him if he could come when he was by himself and he said no. He’d borrowed a porno film and got no results. ‘There’s nine films on this tape and normally I can’t get through the first but I sat through the lot without a twitch!’

9 March 1993

Asian waiter delivered my room-service Sebel burger and fries.

‘I didn’t know you hate me,’ he said.

‘Pardon?’

‘You always have salad. I didn’t know you hate me.’

It took me a while but I finally understood; he didn’t know I ate meat.

Our final show of the tour took place on the eve of the Sydney Lesbian and Gay Mardi Gras (not forgetting transgender folk too), where I’d been invited to lead the parade down Oxford Street, waving at the crowds from the back of a decorated float.

After the interval my entrance music began and I headed towards the stage and fell over. Over the swelling violins of ‘Tara’s theme’ from
Gone with the Wind
I heard the crack of my arm breaking. There was nothing to do but go on.

‘I’m in terrible pain. I’ve just broken my arm,’ I said.

There was silence as the audience waited for the punchline.

‘No, I have. Really. Look, I can’t hold the microphone with my left hand. Helga, have you got any painkillers? These bastards don’t believe me, but it’s true. They think it’s part of a comedy routine.’

Helga trotted on with some Nurofen. I was desperate for a laugh by now, so I spat them out and made Helga bring me more. I struggled through the show, wincing through painful costume changes when I had to twist and turn my arms. I went straight to hospital afterwards, where my arm was plastered with festive pink plaster.

The next day I waved my damaged arm at half a million Mardi Gras revellers. By that evening’s party a rumour was sweeping Sydney. ‘Is it true you broke your arm fisting someone?’ I understood the basic mechanics of fisting, but it wasn’t something I had any desire to try. But I’d like to meet the sphincter that can snap a bone. Nevertheless the mental picture of me fisting someone amused me and I resolved to think of a fisting joke and use it when the opportunity arose.

TEN

I have a poet’s mind but a poor exterior,

What goes on inside me is superior.

STEVIE SMITH

ONE OF THE
advantages of becoming famous is you can make unreasonable demands and people go along with them. It’s almost expected of you. I, for example, refuse to travel in a maroon car. Agents and tour managers have been alerted to the eccentricity. It’s only because that colour vaguely reminds me of school uniform. It’s not a serious aversion, I don’t break out in hives at the sight of such a vehicle, but no one dares to say, ‘Don’t be so stupid,’ so it becomes a vital requisite of Mr Clary’s transportation requirements. There are others. I prefer my driver to be a lactating mother; they seem to drive more carefully and never exceed my 80-mile-per-hour speed limit. I like to travel in the front passenger seat with my hand curled casually around the handbrake. This way I can create my own emergency stop at any time. On tour in the Terago minibus there is also the ‘No Trade In The Van’ rule. Backing singers and chorus girls are wont to pick up fans and are often understandably keen to transport them home for sexual shenanigans. Michael Dalton would invariably drag some floor-sweeper back to his hotel after our post-show disco outings, and I really couldn’t be doing with the small talk and the whiff of bleach in an enclosed environment. Call me old-fashioned, but the rule was created and rigorously imposed.

It was during our five-month tour of Australia that I decided I could no longer pack my own bags. Every week, sometimes every few days, we were on the move and the endless folding, zipping and buckling was too much for someone in my position. The task fell to Helga, the lesbian-in-the-wings tour manager. She would arrive an hour before departure and dutifully fold, squeeze and roll my scattered possessions from around the current suite into the tasteful selection of matching Louis Vuitton suitcases. When the day of our longed-for return to the mother country finally dawned, I didn’t mince my words with Helga. ‘Hurry up and pack,’ I said. ‘Get me out of here. I’ve had enough of Australia!’ I missed my family and friends. The relentless sunshine and partying were getting on my nerves. As was the acidity of some Australian queens: ‘Back in Australia again, I see . . . Things not going too well for you back home?’

I wanted to see the grey skies of home, I wanted to mix with my own sort, moan about everything and absorb some fine British apathy once more. Another day of jolly Aussies and I would scream. When my sundry bags were all piled neatly by the door for the porter to collect, Helga, the ultimate in efficient lesbionic tour management, asked the obvious question. ‘Plane ticket and passport?’

‘Yes, yes!’ I said and produced my ticket within seconds. It took a little longer to realise that my passport had already gone back to the mother country in the side pocket of a suitcase I’d sent ahead with Addison.

I lay on the bed having a panic attack and took the Valium I’d been saving for the journey home. After a few phone calls from a determined Helga, the British Consulate opened its doors for me, even though it was a Sunday afternoon, and clutching my temporary passport I was whisked across the tarmac on a buggy to catch my plane with seconds to spare. Had I been an ordinary Joe Public I’d have missed it, been forced to do things like queue up and get paperwork stamped. It doesn’t bear thinking about. As I relaxed in first class and perused the extensive menu, I thought how marvellously Helga had dealt with the crisis and how grateful I was to her. Everyone should have a bull-dyke problem-solver at their disposal. I wanted to let her know I appreciated her sterling work, but unfortunately she was back in economy and I couldn’t be seen there. I got the air stewardess to deliver a complimentary bag of nuts.

My mother said recently she thought my life would grind to a halt without the support network of cleaners, gardeners, beauticians, managers, agents, personal assistants and personal trainers I employ. She is right, I suppose, but having made the choice not to have anything to do with the practicalities of day-to-day life, all these minions are vital to my well-being. I don’t want to empty bins, poison slugs, discuss fees, pay bills, post letters or book train tickets. Assisted living suits me and leaves me free to spend my days thinking up buggery and oral jokes. It’s what the public would want. Anything more mundane than walking the dog or watering the plants, and reality might raise its vulgar head.

Safely home at last, there was no rest for the wicked.
Aspel
, interviews and meetings, not to mention the unfinished business of Hans. Tours require publicity, as did almost anything it seemed. I recently came across an interview schedule prior to my
Camping at the Aldwych
run in 1991. In three days I did interviews with the
Ham and High
, the
Independent
, William Cook (writing a piece on ‘Life After Thatcher’), the
Pink Paper
, Steve Wright in the Afternoon, John Sachs for Capital Radio,
Dogs Today
magazine, BBC Radio 5, Cathy McGowan for BBC News South East, John Dunn for Radio 2,
Loose Ends
,
Box Office
on Channel 4, LBC and GLR. Plus photo calls. I tried to be friendly and chatty but it didn’t always pay off. I made sandwiches and everything for a
Guardian
journalist once, only to be described (on Christmas Eve, too!) as ‘exotically packaged mediocrity’. The nerve! The only hint I’d had that she was capable of such bad taste was the earrings she wore, which looked like salvage from a recent car crash. She was all smiles when she left.
Dogs Today
were far more amiable, even writing to me afterwards and asking me to host their show. They were undertaking a nationwide search for the best singing dogs. The show was to be called the Paw-O-Vision Song Contest. Sadly I was too busy.

26 March 1993

I said to H: It’s only in the throes of passion that I love you. When you’re being Dutch and I’m being English, I can’t be bothered.