Beautiful People: My Family and Other Glamorous Varmints Page 2
“Berkshire born and Berkshire bred, strong in the arm and thick in the head,” snorted Biddie derisively after encountering these contemptible examples of small-town naïveté.
Though feeling insanely more glamorous than everyone within a twenty-mile radius has its obvious benefits, Biddie and I wanted more. We craved fabulousness, mink bedspreads, Beautiful People, and popping champagne corks. Our hopes and dreams were incompatible with the esprit of our gritty, violent hometown.
In a desperate and heroic attempt to unearth a bit of la dolce vita, Biddie and I joined Reading’s only gay club. Located in the “functions room” of a pub called The Railway Tavern, this fortnightly gathering was aimed at the local homosexualists, the majority of whom were shockingly provincial and gin-soaked. Tragic is another adjective which springs uncharitably to mind.
Biddie and I dubbed these men the pre-Wolfendens. This was our sardonic recognition of the fact that they were old enough to have experienced gay life prior to the legal changes resulting from the Wolfenden Report. This landmark document, overseen by an official called Lord Wolfenden, led to the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which finally made it legal for fun-loving blokes like us to have consensual sex behind our Austrian poufs.
Despite the fact that many of Reading’s pre-Wolfendens had suffered through, and survived, years of small-town oppression and police entrapment, Biddie and I were too inert and glamour-obsessed to afford them any respect. In fact, we went one step further. We actually managed to subject them to yet further indignities.
* * *
One hot summer evening, shortly after I had returned from my stint in academia, Biddie and I hit the Railway Tavern dance floor, hard. We were both anxious to demonstrate our latest Bowie “moves.” The very instant we heard “Suffragette City” we went completely bonkers, strutting onto the postage stamp–size disco floor and posing in imitation of our god.
We had no way of knowing that disaster was about to strike.
One of the organizers of the evening suddenly vacated his seat in front of the folding card table where he had been extracting the cost of admission from new arrivals. He began to mince his way, with some urgency, toward the men’s room, via the dance floor.
“ ’ere! I bet you can’t do this!” yelled Biddie, executing a very impressive back bend.
Long-torsoed Biddie held this position for a split second and then resurfaced, at great speed. In his teeth he clenched a ten-inch-long cigarette holder containing a bright pink Sobranie cocktail cigarette.
Suddenly, violently, and horribly, the thrusting cigarette holder speared the pre-Wolfenden.
The victim let forth a searing yelp of agony. Biddie’s white-hot cigarette had burnt a nasty crater in his white, lacy nylon shirt. The vile and distinctively toxic odor of melting synthetic fabric quickly pervaded the room. Friends of the victim rushed balletically to his aid, offering soothing words while simultaneously directing reproachful glances at the perpetrator. As the molten nylon adhered to the skin of the victim, the agonized moaning increased slightly.
I was overheard speculating that, because of his astounding gin intake, the victim could not possibly be experiencing any pain. Reproachful glances became piercing stares filled with white-hot loathing.
We were banned forever from The Railway Tavern.
We knew the time had come. The writing was on the wall. The pre-Wolfendens of The Railway Tavern were not ready for our particular brand of hip sophistication, nor would they ever be. It was time for us to inflict ourselves on a bigger and more worthy audience. As we clomped home in our platform shoes, we began to strategize our conquest of the Beautiful People.
How hard could it be? London was less than an hour away. On that very night, while we were assaulting pre-Wolfendens at The Railway Tavern, the Beautiful People of Mayfair and Kensington were indulging their whims and fancies and amusing each other with their clever bon mots and their outré outfits.
On the following day we would take the train to London and find the hippest, grooviest, dreamiest apartment. Soon we would be lolling and lounging among the Beautiful People.
“You naughty boys! Where on Earth have you been hiding yourselves?” they would ask rhetorically as they forked exotic morsels into our salivating, ever-widening mouths.
* * *
Two weeks later we packed our belongings and ourselves into Cyril Biddlecombe’s tiny automobile.
My memory of that momentous, life-changing, bowel-curdling drive to London is quite vivid.
Despite having driven a jeep across Tunisia during World War II, Biddie’s father was a decidedly iffy driver. As long as I live, I will never forget the furious jiggling occasioned by his atrocious gear changing and declutching. The car convulsed and jolted to a standstill just as every traffic light turned green, adding hours to our trip. It was reminiscent of a violent, drunken, ill-timed sexual encounter.
Hideously hungover and encrusted with smudges of Doreen Biddlecombe’s and Betty Doonan’s maquillage—snagged, without permission, to add pizzazz and sparkle to our going-away party—Biddie and I sat in the backseat trying to control our mirth and our nausea.
On Biddie’s lap sat Happy Harry, a horrid ventriloquist’s doll in a blue striped nylon shirt, matching bright blue pants, and red bow tie. His colleagues had presented Biddie with this hateful object at our going-away party the night before.
Before we had even reached the outskirts of Reading, Biddie had evolved an evil, high-pitched, nasal voice to deliver Happy Harry’s nasty pronouncements.
“I can’t hurt you. I’m just a little doll,” he would say, pausing for dramatic effect while we stared at Harry’s shiny plastic face and buggy eyes. “Trouble is, you don’t know what I’m thinking . . . do you now?”
Happy Harry’s taunting was the last thing I needed.
Unbeknownst to Biddie, I was already a basket case of gnawing anxiety. I had a terrible dark secret which I could not bring myself to share with anyone: I was going insane.
I was completely and utterly convinced that I was about to lose my marbles. Any day now a horrible madness would descend upon me, and I would end up having a lobotomy just like Narg. My uncle Ken had gone bonkers in early adulthood. Now it was my turn.
I was also convinced that I had done permanent damage to my brain and psyche by taking LSD. Biddie and I had dropped acid together on a grim, wet Monday. This life-changing, dreadful experience gave me a window into the hellish hallucinations of my close family members and left me convinced that I was doomed to share the same fate. If the genes didn’t get me, then an acid flashback would. Adding Happy Harry’s demonic exhortations to the mix only exacerbated my fears.
“ ’orrible gray skies,” said Happy Harry. “Wouldn’t want it to rain now, would we?”
Happy Harry was right. We were all anxious to get to London before the rain started. We had valuable unprotected cargo strapped to Cyril’s roof rack.
On the top of the car was Biddie’s massive, rhubarb-colored floor pillow. He had purchased it, with a discount, at our place of employ. This supersize, overstuffed decorative accessory gave our pulsating vehicle the appearance of an experimental automobile prototype. Passersby waved enthusiastically as if they were witnessing the inaugural outing of a new gas-powered car.
Biddie’s floor pillow was critical to the success of our mission. We could not conceive of leaving it behind. The Beautiful People all had floor pillows. We knew they did. We had seen the Beautiful People lolling on their squishy floor pillows in trendy Sunday magazine spreads. Even if a Beautiful Person was photographed sitting on a couch or a tuffet or a poof, there was invariably a floor pillow in the background. If we had any hope of being accepted by the Beautiful People, we needed that floor pillow. It was a calling card of sorts.
Despite the fact that we were quite common and almost completely devoid of Euro-sophistication, we were sure the Beautiful People, once they had the chance to meet me and Biddie, would love us. They would not care that we often dr
ank so much that we became incoherent and belligerent and threw up. They would get used to the fact that we fell over a lot and bored people to death because we never knew when to stop braying through our Rocky Horror Picture Show repertoire.
We knew they would overlook the fact that Biddie lived in a council flat and that I had spent my summers not in Ibiza but in Belfast with my toothless granddad or toiling at the Mars bar factory.
We would conquer the world of the Beautiful People. It would be a home run.
Looking back, I realize that we were suffering from a unique mixture of high and low self-esteem.
* * *
It was raining gently by the time we reached our destination.
A majestic, glass-covered colonnade welcomed us to the front door of our gorgeous five-story, nineteenth-century home. Doreen and Cyril seemed quite impressed by the Masterpiece Theatre façade.
The interior was another story.
Cunning developers had taken this sumptuous Edwardian dwelling and, leaving the exterior architecture intact, turned it into a beehive of one-room apartments, specifically aimed at excitable idiots like us. Our new abode comprised the back half of what had once been the ground-floor dining room. The whole setup recalled Omar Sharif’s town house in Doctor Zhivago after all the paupers and peasants had moved in and carved it up into tiny hovels.
Seduced by the magnificent architecture, we had triumphantly snapped up this overpriced little dwelling as if it was the last apartment on Earth. It was the first and only pad we had seen. We could have found more extensive and affordable accommodation in far-flung neighborhoods like Dollis Hill or Clapham, but we were determined to live in a posh neighborhood. We wanted to be Beautiful People–adjacent. We were very stupid.
* * *
We unloaded Cyril’s vehicle into our hovel.
Biddie and I began to cram our trendy clothes into the worm-eaten closet while Doreen and Cyril looked on forlornly.
The floor pillow occupied most of the room.
Doreen disappeared to make a cup of tea in the communal kitchen.
She returned moments later carrying chipped mugs of steaming tea and looking vaguely disgusted. She had found a mushroom growing through the kitchen floor.
We sipped our tea in silence, sitting on the floor pillow. It was slightly damp.
Mr. and Mrs. Biddlecombe bore expressions of worried incomprehension. Doreen’s seemed to say, “Why would you want to leave the comforts of home for this?”
Cyril’s was slightly different: his seemed to say, “Why are two normal, healthy young men living in one room, as if it’s wartime?”
The Biddlecombes had no idea what was fueling our impulse to follow the yellow brick road. They were genteel working-class folk: Cyril filled shelves at Marks & Spencer, and Doreen was the mainstay of the Reading and Caversham Laundry. They lived a life of low expectations and budgerigars and preferred, with the exception of an annual vacation to Butlins or the Costa Brava, to stay close to home.
“Poor luvs,” said Biddie as we waved good-bye to his parents from the threshold of our new life, “they seriously think we’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”
“And then we’ll marry—bye-bye!—a couple of local slags,” I said, “and live happily ever after.”
“We’re going to—bye!—take this town by storm!”
“We’ll show ’em!”
“Byeeeee!”
No sooner had Cyril and Doreen jiggled and jolted out of sight than the phone jangled auspiciously. The instrument in question was a pay phone located, conveniently, or so we initially thought, in a smelly cupboard in the hallway, next to our front door.
Enthusiastically assuming the role of receptionist, I leapt to answer it. At the very least it was probably a fabulous new showbiz opportunity for Biddie. I braced myself to assume the role of hard-boiled theatrical manager.
“Can I speak to Miss Ping, top froor preese!” said the heavily accented caller. I slogged my way to the top of the house only to find that Miss Ping was not chez elle.
Over the next hour the phone jangled continuously with random calls for the twenty tenants of various nationalities. It wasn’t long before we faced the grim reality that none of the calls were for us and started yelling, “Phone! Top froor frat!” up the stairwell with fatigued hostility.
The phone turned out to be the least of our problems.
The overpopulated building, especially the plumbing, was on the verge of collapse. Shared bathrooms and kitchens did nothing to alleviate the appalling strain on the ancient pipes. At about three o’clock in the morning, the sinks and toilets and baths all began to yodel and thump and gurgle.
The next morning, our enthusiasm undimmed, we hit the streets in search of employment.
Waving his soft-furnishings credentials, Biddie had no problem securing a position at the famous Heal’s home design store on Tottenham Court Road. The beau monde all shopped at Heal’s. Biddie anticipated spending his days guffawing and ingratiating himself with oodles of floor-pillow-purchasing Beautiful People.
Biddie found to his surprise that there was a major national economic recession under way: Even the Beautiful People had tightened their purse strings. The lack of customers meant Biddie’s days were spent napping behind the place mat displays, catching up on sleep lost to our rowdy plumbing and hiding from his colleagues.
He described his co-workers as “posh but brain-dead.” The mostly female staff had all been to fancy schools but no college. They were relentlessly upper class, horsey and incredibly silly. They said very 1920s things like “Doooo come over for mulled wine and Wensleydale cheese! You can meet Nigel and Clarinda. It will be toooo toooo ripping!”
These gals had never met exotically common people like us who wore women’s 1940s Bakelite bracelets, smoked through cigarette holders, and called each other “stupid cunt” without thinking twice about it. We had curiosity value for these Charlottes and Henriettas, who I might add, did not have any floor pillows chez eux and were therefore of very little interest to us.
I was having slightly more luck finding the Beautiful People than Biddie.
I took a job dressing windows at Aquascutum, the snottiest raincoat shop on Regent Street. Here I met a hilarious, well-heeled older gentleman who seemed to have the makings of a Beautiful Person. He did not need his paycheck but chose to while away his days selling trench coats to aristos and Japanese businessmen because it amused him. This petit eccentric was known among the staffers as the Baroness.
The Baroness was so called because of his fancy Belgravia address and his even fancier black-marble-clad basement flat, wherein he entertained regularly.
The Redgraves were neighbors. If you stood on the Baroness’s toilet seat, waited for the flush to stop gurgling, and angled your head a certain way, you could just about hear them on their back patio trying to outrant each other about left-wing causes and the latest theatrical scandals and triumphs.
Even more excitingly, the Baroness lived a couple of houses down from Lord Lucan, the notorious gambling aristocrat who, only months prior, had bludgeoned his children’s nanny to death. He had mistaken her for his wife, the Countess Lucan. When he realized his error, he clobbered the countess as well and left her for dead. With the aid of friends in high places, Lord Lucan then went on the lam and has not been seen since. The Lucan story was the big news of 1975, and the Baroness basked in the reflected tabloid glare. Biddie and I were only too happy to bask in the reflected glare of the reflected glare.
The Baroness was generous, fun, glamorously situated and, most tellingly, he had loads of floor pillows. Despite all this, we were beginning to suspect that he might not be one of the Beautiful People, especially given his habit, during cocktail parties, of slipping off his caftan and standing stark naked in the ornamental fountain in the middle of the living room, spotlit by one of those color-wheel revolving lights. Though he was undeniably in good shape and well-tanned from regular trips to Marbella, the Baroness’s ornamental
years were long gone.
And that light fixture was a bit rusty. It would squeak poignantly while our host stood waiting for a polite round of applause.
No, the Baroness was not one of the Beautiful People. You might say he was Beautiful People–adjacent.
The Baroness notwithstanding, London was hardly the whirligig of fabulousness we had anticipated. It was hardly fabulous at all. Our day-to-day lives were pretty much as turgid as they had been in Reading. We remained, however, insanely optimistic and terminally excitable.
While waiting to be swept into the bracelet-encrusted arms of the Beautiful People, we kept boredom and madness at bay with regular trips to the Malaysian Simulator, an educational installation located permanently at the nearby Commonwealth Institute.
The Malaysian Simulator was a dark, gallery-size room, the walls, ceiling, and floor of which consisted of back-projection screens. Visitors to this little-known, free-of-charge multisensory extravaganza consisted of Biddie, myself, and the occasional homesick Malaysian.
“You will now be transported to Malaysia,” intoned a Big Brother voice as we gazed in awe at the entrancing images of rice fields, painted elephants, and beautiful dancing girls wearing exquisitely applied eyeliner and silver, pagodalike hats.
“You will now experience the extreme humidity of Malaysia,” warned the voice as gusts of hot, moist air rushed into the darkened, magical room via strategically placed vents and up our fashionably wide trouser bottoms. We visited the Malaysian Simulator several times a week. This warm-weather minivacation provided a compelling and addictive antidote to the grim reality of our new lives, our rooming house, and our new neighbor Rita.
As previously stated, Biddie and I were paying an extortionate rent in the hopes of finding ourselves Beautiful People–adjacent. Instead of the Beautiful People, God had sent us Rita.
Mop-headed Rita, with her black roots and split ends, was what Doreen Biddlecombe would have called “a sorry sight.” She was a petite, badly preserved, bitter, thirty-something, exhausted white female. Though she looked tragically depressed, I can’t really comment with any conviction on her moods or feelings since she was profoundly unfriendly and showed no interest in becoming chummy with us.