A Young Man's Passage (32 page)

Last night I emerged from a dream that began at the Civic, Leeds on May 11th, 1989. I saw, for the first time since that evening, how things really are. Thank you for being so straight with me. It’s time for change, time to move on, maybe. So it’s no more crazy trips just for a smile and a kiss. I think what I’m trying to say is – you may not see me quite so often waiting at stage doors. There are people in my life who have gone without love and attention for too long. Yes, they are the ones who really matter to me. So, Julian, I’m letting go just a little bit and giving myself and my life some time. I’ll be seeing you. Take care.

As ever, Susan

10 June 1993

Les Dawson died today. Very sad. His daughter was only born in October. They kept on about his ‘funny face’ on the news. Bit more to him than that, I thought.

Wrote and dispatched a completion letter to Hans, which I think makes me feel better. I said I didn’t like the loose ends of our relationship fluttering about in the breeze. It was a friendly enough letter; I didn’t have the knives out. Even hoped we could be friends one day. Miss him though. Keep thinking, I’ll give the Dutchman a ring, then remember – Oh! It’s all off.

Cheered myself up by going to the Black Cap for a drink with Michael Ferri and promptly met a hilarious Greek Cypriot with Marxist leanings called Mikos. He’s an unemployed welfare worker and said, ‘I want to be the saviour of the underprivileged!’ He’s hilarious. When asked to explain the difference between a wasp and a hornet, he said, ‘A wasp is a mother but a hornet is a mother-fucker.’ He’s only just left, and I’m in a very good mood.

13 June 1993

Played the London Palladium. Friends, family and punters galore in.

Up and out of bed again as I can’t sleep and was having potted shrimp fantasies. Luckily I had some in the fridge. There’s a whiff of Greek Cypriot about the duvet which I’m rather enjoying.

I’m fed, watered, nourished and I even have the warm glow of the recently traded about me. Now all I need is rest and gym tomorrow afternoon. The end of
My Glittering Passage
is in sight . . . Soon will start looking at houses as it’s time to move from Albert Street. The local kids here are a worry. As I got in the car today a seven-year-old screamed, ‘Stay away from me, you fucking poofter!’

Bernard Bresslaw dead too. Heavens!

20 June 1993

Didn’t get to my last-night-of-tour party until 12.30 a.m. Was having champagne with Lily Savage and Bob Downe in my Palladium dressing room. Sir Ian McKellen had gone by the time I arrived. Addison was frantic, drunk and wired. In no time he had my head in an arm lock and in a loud fierce whisper was telling me how he ‘loved me to death’. Then Mikos arrived late and we sat with a competition winner from Kent who didn’t know who to make eyes at first. That was the third night for me and the Greek Cypriot. Might even give him my phone number if there’s a fourth.

After the British tour finished, Philip and I decided to go on holiday together to a Greek island. We booked a package holiday to Thassos. It was cheap and cheerful, a bit like us. Philip calls me ‘sir’ on stage and off. Having been working together for so many months we easily slipped into our on-stage personas when confronted with ‘punter alerts’, as we called them. There were so many requests for autographs and photos that we became quite skilled at warning each other. ‘Punter alert approaching from the left, sir!’ Philip would gently inform me, and sure enough a woman from Stoke-on-Trent would be walking determinedly towards me clutching a camera. ‘Sorry to bother you while you’re on holiday, but do you mind if we have a photo?’ We nearly always said yes, and then a flurry of requests would ensue, those too polite to ask before suddenly emboldened by our cooperative manner. We only refused once, when we were dozing on the beach and a man boldly poked Mr Jelly awake and said, ‘Do you mind . . . ?’ as he waggled his Instamatic. ‘I was asleep! Go away!’ said Philip.

My holiday reading was B.D. Hyman’s ‘candid’ biography of Bette Davis, and for a while I took on the personality of that wonderful actress. I found the book stupid – a jealous daughter’s dreary monologue – but hilarious gems of Bette’s behaviour shone through. Thus ‘Jesus, brother!’ became my new catchphrase, and when a cheery Mancunian asked if I was enjoying Thassos, I said, ‘No. Jesus, brother!’ I did, in fact, quite like it but it was tourist land, and fiercely straight, too. Its saving grace was Lisa, a big bright girl from Kidderminster and our rep, who said, ‘What are you like?’ all the time and told us the holiday reps referred to us tourists as ‘the Billys’. There was also Tim, a penny-wise but good-value theatre director, there to unwind and soak up the sun and Metaxa. In fact, he directed Sara Crowe and Joan Collins in
Private Lives
.

One day we hired a Fiat Uno and caught the ferry to the mainland, in search of some fun and gay life. We braved the heat and mad Greek drivers and settled eventually at the ABC Hotel in Thessaloniki. That evening we went to a bar called Tabou and I met Yiannis, who spoke very good English and had a big nose. I knocked a few years off and told him I was 29. ‘I’m older than you,’ he said. ‘I’m 30!’ After more chat and finger entwining we moved to his car and he drove me up a mountain to the ‘place of a thousand trees’, a sort of Lover’s Lane forest where we had marvellous sex in the back of his car, complete with condoms, wet wipes and simultaneous orgasms. ‘If you lived in Greece, I would fall in love with you,’ he said. He complimented me on my sensual performance. ‘Usually the English have sex as if they are taking something from the fridge.’

A cucumber, perhaps.

30 June 1993. Thessaloniki

The door clicks shut and Yiannis takes his leave. On this, our third night, we graduated to the hotel room. A sober encounter this time and frankly without the Metaxa and the forest and the stars it wasn’t as exciting. The long lingering goodbye and brooding Greek eye contact were trying.

‘You will remember me?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘As what?’

‘As my Greek lover.’ Funny, I’ve got one of those at home.

My uncanny knack of booking into noisy hotels hasn’t abandoned me. Each morning at 8.30 a.m., drills, hammering, shouting and smashing have woken me from next door. Renovations. This morning when I rang reception to ask them to stop they said I could move rooms. I said, ‘I’d have to get up and pack first!’

‘Then the noise will continue.’

We returned to Thassos and Lisa our rep made us spaghetti Bolognese and fruit salad. Later we met Tim at Blue Bar. After several Brandy Alexanders and four complimentary vodka/schnapps concoctions from Stefan the waiter, Philip went home while Tim and I drove to Club Bolero. There we tucked into Metaxas and watched Greek boys. Stefan appeared and Tim asked him, ‘Where are the men who like men?’ He wasn’t sure how to handle such a direct approach.

Tim went to the toilet and a Greek boy approached me: ‘You go with my friend?’ I said. ‘Yes, OK,’ and off we went in my ‘auto’, Tim abandoned, me off on an adventure. He was called Something-opolis and was 20. Fortunately he drove (as it were). First we went to Island Club, then home to Limeneria, stopping en route at a charming Greek church for unorthodox sex.

‘You AIDS?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said with grave expression.

After a while we got out of the car. ‘Moment,’ he said, and flipped me over a raised flowerbed for some attempted Greek penetration. It wasn’t happening there so he settled for something less strenuous. He stretched out on the paved surround to an olive tree, not 20 feet from the church entrance and whispered, ‘Yes, baby . . .’ I looked up from my task, saw his face twitching with lust, the full moon reflected in the sea, the sacred place of worship and the olive tree and thought: I am so glad to be me.

On our last night we dined at Palomo’s restaurant. The waiter, alerted by a family having chicken in a basket, asked if I was a television star. I nodded. ‘Are you Luke Perry?’

‘Photographer alert!’ said Philip as we emerged through the Green Channel at Gatwick airport, and indeed he was right. As the photographer did the clever walking backwards trick he flashed away, while I tried to cover the mosquito bite on my cheek and the love bite on my neck with my one available hand.

‘Can I ask where you’ve been for your holidays?’ enquired a young pup of a reporter.

‘A package holiday in Thassos,’ I said.

‘How was it?’

‘What are you like?’ I answered.

18 July 1993. Albert Street, London

Another weekend featuring Mikos. Yesterday he said, ‘You really like me, don’t you?’ He made it sound like an accusation. He asked about my wedding ring so I told him about Christopher. He picked up my hand and kissed the ring. ‘That’s for Christopher,’ he said.

Later that night, post-coitally, he said, ‘You can certainly take a good battering.’

When I return from the land to which he transports me, I lie there murmuring with pleasure. Tonight we found out he’d been mistaking this noise for a request for more. We’d both been too polite to do anything but oblige the other.

We were awake again at 5 a.m. Mikos was having a panic attack. Eyes searching the room, he was full of fear for five minutes and I did my best to calm him.

I went to visit Stephen this afternoon. He was glad to see I had a smile on my face. ‘I’ve got KS on mine,’ he said. He’s sick of being sick. He’s sorry he’s so strong. But he was chatting away at his normal pace.

One never knows exactly when or how things start to go awry. Life is rarely plain sailing from one year to the next. The pendulum swings. Contentment is fleeting. We are centred and serene one day, our judgement unwise and our mood fractious the next. The HIV virus that lurked quietly in Stephen’s blood took years to make itself known. A passing thought, planted innocently enough by a casual remark, may erupt months later in serious mental disorder. We must be careful what we say and how much gravitas we give our thoughts. The universe is always listening. One evening in the Laurel Tree pub, Mikos said, ‘Have you worked out what game I’m playing yet?’ There and then I had the thought that he would leave me soon and this would break my heart. The thought came and went, but I remembered it and called it back. Learn to disregard negative thoughts and the rot cannot set in. I didn’t know that then. I toyed with my imagined abandonment like a cat with a sparrow.