A Young Man's Passage (33 page)

28 July 1993

‘Don’t worry about Mikos,’ said a sleepy Stephen on the phone after I voiced my fears that I will end up getting hurt. ‘Just use him, then throw him out like a dirty dishcloth.’

8 August 1993

Well, a Mikos-free evening, which is quite a rarity. I’ve been working on some scripts and he’s at home in Turnpike Lane with no electricity because someone forgot to get the key recharged. ‘I’ll have to go to bed early and have a long wank,’ he said.

‘Whatever helps you sleep,’ I said.

He’s been here all week and quite a joy it’s been. He says ‘You LOVE it!’ in cod north London accent after sex and says people are ‘well shaggable’ when we’re out and about. We took Fanny to the park and he ran about shirtless while I felt like an elderly uncle chaperone. Not that he’s childish. Quite full of angst and self-doubt maybe, but bright, perceptive and funny too. He chuckles a lot and says I put a smile on his face. I cry ‘Don’t leave me!’ whenever he gets out of bed for so much as a cigarette. He gets drunk and forlorn and regresses to a one-year-old. We make furious, passionate love at all hours and my legs tingle constantly. We don’t have heavy talks about our relationship.

Money is a somewhat hilarious disparity – he doesn’t have his bus fare home and I receive a cheque for £58,000 from Addison.

11 August 1993

I think I have piles, and I’m not talking about my bank balance. Mikos has gingivitis. So with various orifices off-limits and no kissing advisable, it’s a wonder we’re both still smiling.

When your subconscious is planning a nervous breakdown, the right location is important. Camden Town, as my chosen place of residence, made me happy. I knew I needed to stay right there. It was imperative for the virus of negative thoughts to flourish that I be winkled out of that safe house. The conscious mind must be persuaded. Darker forces alone cannot visit estate agents and contact solicitors on your behalf. I had been looking at bright, sunny flats near to my bright, sunny railway-carriage flat in Camden. ‘For the same money you could have a whole house if you’d only move a couple of miles further north . . .’ said a cold-eyed man in a suit from Hotblack Desiato, estate agents in Parkway. He slipped a photograph of a smart if rather gothic-looking Victorian detached house across the desk: all turrets and towers, teetering on the corner of a junction. ‘Where is it?’ I said, unsure. ‘Holloway,’ he answered, brightly. It was just the location my subconscious was looking for. In a moment of madness I made an offer.

12 August 1993

All set to move to 9 Middleton Grove, Holloway, on September 8th. This is my dream home and I lie awake at night fantasising about living there.

Stephen is home in Deptford and I went to visit him. He wanted to drive to Hayes to see a houseboat but when I got there at 3.30 p.m. he was in his dressing gown kneeling in front of an aquarium getting in a tizzy about the pump mechanism.

‘I don’t want to go to Hayes any more. I want to go to Battersea,’ he announced, but in the end he spent the afternoon having a tantrum with the pump and complaining about the instructions. His cleaning lady was there and his neighbour popped in. His fridge was full and he offered me Madeira cake, walnut cream slices or apple turnovers.

I’m reading Kenneth Williams’s diaries. Fascinating. He could survive for months on a flirty greeting from a tasty road-worker. Times have changed!

Have been invited to speak at a therapists’ conference. They want to know how my counselling at the Red Admiral Foundation has helped me deal with Christopher’s death. I was just going to bed when that old Joan Collins Fan Club line came back to me: ‘How to turn personal tragedy into lucrative image building.’ Have to say no.

Lovely to see Paul Merton yesterday. I don’t just like him, I love him!

‘What are you looking at?’ he said.

‘You!’ I replied. ‘I haven’t seen you for a year!’

‘That’s no accident,’ he said.

15 August 1993

Fidelity has not been one of the topics of conversation with Mikos, so bugger me if he doesn’t go and sleep with someone else. His Thursday night out had involved speed, alcohol, the Black Cap and staying the night at X’s.

‘Was there hanky panky?’ I asked.

‘There was a certain amount,’ said Mikos.

‘What, exactly?’ I asked.

‘I shagged him.’

My upset after that was quite unexpected. Mikos somehow made it seem like an act of kindness. Poor X, ex-boyfriend, sick, pleading and his birthday too . . . why, a Catholic priest would have had difficulty refusing.

‘Don’t blow me out for this,’ he said.

‘The thing is,’ I said, having an idea, ‘it changes the way I feel about you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean it makes me not fancy you any more,’ I lied.

That was quite a bull’s eye: wounded to the marrow he was, and I let him suffer for quite a while before I retracted it with first-degree physical contact that put paid to the lie.

On Saturday we didn’t discuss it much but took Fanny to Kenwood where we wandered through the dappled trees stealing the odd peck and pressing legs together discreetly on the lawn. A choir and orchestra were rehearsing for the evening’s open-air concert, so moving arias and Mozart opera music was seeping through the trees.

‘Sometimes when something is too perfect you just want it to stop,’ said Mikos. I had a painful rectal twinge by way of agreement.

Saturday evening, as I put the finishing touches to roast chicken, potatoes, courgettes and peas, he came into the kitchen and shat himself: sudden unannounced diarrhoea. He shuffled out clutching his behind. Then he felt cold, then hot, then sleepy. I ate my dinner, put his in the oven and put his soiled trousers into a pre-soak wash.

26 August 1993

Saw Stephen on Tuesday as he’s going back to Ireland ‘to be looked after’. I don’t think he’ll be back and I think he’s got his doubts too. Fear of dying made him cry on the phone. He asks me a lot of questions about Christopher and how he handled it. I could only reassure him that morphine would be on hand if he was in any distress at all.

Went to see the Chinese State Circus with my mother. Mother caused a laugh in the seats around us during the snake girl’s act. Watching as she contorted herself into all sorts of amazing shapes, my mother said in a loud whisper, ‘I can’t even put my tights on.’

2 September 1993

Had a lovely five days at the Edinburgh Festival filming ‘Best of Edinburgh’ TV thing. It was a painless experience. The highlights were Jenny Eclair (‘I went to the countryside and came on. There was nothing else to do there’), writing the links for the show with Paul, and Simon Fanshawe’s attempts to organise a ‘Fags on the Fringe’ dinner party. Didn’t go as I’m not . . . on the fringe.

Peter Cook rang to confirm I’m going to the relaunch of
Derek and Clive Get the Horn
. ‘There will be two photographers at the party,’ he said.

‘Well, I’ll try and keep my trousers on then,’ I said.

‘Well, no, don’t,’ said Peter. ‘Nothing comes free in this life.’

7 September 1993

Last night in residence here. Boxes are packed, cupboards cleaned and memories disturbed. Cards from Christopher, backstage passes, postcards, etc. Various bits and pieces from the last four years locked away in drawers or put on shelves to be kept, and each capable of transporting me backwards in time.

Mikos is sleeping off his exertions. I sit, legs up on the kitchen table in my usual place, listening to the hum of the fridge for the last time. I packed Christopher’s urn. Mikos carried it in from the rain and it sits resplendent in its very own box, which I’ve just noticed is from Portugal! Duoro, Murca. Wine, I think. Just packed his Filofax and chest X-rays in the Box of Memories. A candle is burning in the window under the Portuguese terracotta shade.

Had fun last night at the
Derek and Clive Get the Horn
video launch with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Every face was a fascinating one. Mikos asked Ronnie Wood’s wife if she’d ever been unfaithful. ‘Never in 16 years,’ she said. ‘When you’ve had the best, why spoil it?’

Now was the time to come to my senses, but I didn’t. Leaving Camden Town was unwise. I would not be safe outside of NW1. I would not be happy elsewhere. The lid would be lifted. The universe could do nothing to protect me. I would be sorry. A part of me knew this. I was going against nature. I sensed this, but didn’t act on my suspicions. Would that I had. I can hardly bear to relive what happens next. If instinct had been adhered to it would never have occurred. Writing this down for you to read is like watching a video recording of your loved one’s suicide. I have to keep covering my eyes. ‘Don’t do it!’ I want to scream at myself. But it is too late. The fatal step had been taken.