Pagan and her parents

by Michael Arditti

  ‘I’m sorry. What is it?’ I play my part with reluctance.

  ‘What’s what?’

  ‘What’s pink and wrinkled and belongs to Grandpa?’

  ‘Granny.’

  Granny … I laugh way beyond the merits of the joke.

  ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? Sophie told me at lunch.’

  Granny … I laugh, and I know that all will be well.

  2

  ‘Why are gay men so sentimental about weddings?’ you ask, as we make our way to Tristan’s and Deborah’s. ‘It’s as bad as liberal Jews and Christmas.’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it reflects a deep desire for assimilation. We don’t burn babies … we don’t want to convert you. Or perhaps it’s the thought of returning to a world from which we’re so often excluded. On the other hand, it may simply be that we’ll grab any excuse for a party.’

  I reflect on the question, as I sit dewy-eyed in the small village church, watching Susan walk down the aisle. Far from shocking her mother-in-law, she wears a dress that would pass muster in St Paul’s. I am so proud of your daughter who carries the train, along with two of the bride’s cousins and the groom’s niece, to the manner born. Apart from one minor accident when the guiding loops on the train tear off and Susan appears to sashay down the aisle and one major affront when the cameraman asks the vicar to repeat the vows on account of a technical hitch, everything runs smoothly. Geoffrey’s fellow officers form a guard of honour up to the porch; and even his stiffest relatives allow themselves to unbend.

  The vicar is an embarrassment at the reception, accosting me over the buffet and making several coded references to the London of his youth and the evenings he spent watching ‘Judy’ at the Palladium, which I affect not to comprehend. I am relieved when his wife, a florid woman called Pansy (did he marry her for her name?), hauls him off to meet Geoffrey’s episcopal uncle. I meander through the marquee, an intruder in an alien world of people who tut and vote Tory. Exploring the garden, I come across Pagan arguing with a page boy about why a meal in the middle of the afternoon is called breakfast. They appeal for adult arbitration, but I am saved by the summons to watch the bride and groom drive away. Pagan catches the bouquet.

  Susan and Geoffrey may be otherwise engaged (‘they’re not engaged; they’re married,’ says Pagan), but, considering the time of year, there have been remarkably few refusals to our party. It is the first that I have given without you, and it is to be a dual celebration of Pagan’s birthday (of particular note after last year’s separation) and my rehabilitation. Jessica’s catering company is in charge of the food (Imogen warns me that she has recently become a fruitarian), while my mother, Una and Juliet are helping in the house.

  Pagan’s return to Thomas’s is marked by the reappearance of so many old friends. Even Stephanie has come with Stephen and Delia; and, if they have any misgivings regarding their last visit, they are too discreet to say so. Pagan’s particular welcome is reserved for Minnie Mouse, alias Shona, whom I have invited along with her new foster parents. ‘I told you you’d come to see me,’ she says, linking arms and taking her up to the playroom, where she talks to her to the exclusion of all others and protects her from anyone who tries to remove her mask.

  William arrives in a wheelchair festooned with balloons and scores an immediate hit with the children, which I suspect has a lot to do with his height. I watch one small boy leap around him in a weird mixture of a war dance and a pirouette, before asking ingenuously, ‘Can you do that?’ I wait with alarm for William’s reaction, which is unusually relaxed.

  ‘No, but can you do this?’ He crosses his eyes and wiggles his ears.

  ‘No,’ the boy says, ‘that’s great.’ He spends the rest of the afternoon gazing into mirrors and squinting.

  William gives Pagan a Victorian clock which he has restored himself. Two friends carry it into the hall. ‘You lucky girl,’ Juliet says. ‘What a beautiful grandfather clock.’ I look in dismay from Pagan to William and pray that the present will not be tainted by the phrase.

  ‘It’s not a grandfather,’ William says, ‘its proper name is a long-case clock. If anything, it’s a grandmother, since it’s under five foot.’ I fear that this may be no improvement.

  ‘I shall call it an uncle clock,’ Pagan says; ‘since it’s made by you.’

  None of her other presents is so impressive, although the competition is strong. My own favourite is an exquisite Edwardian edition of David Copperfleld from Benedict. ‘Do you know who Charles Dickens was?’ he asks her.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Pagan replies with conviction. ‘He wrote The Muppet Christmas Carol.’

  I blush.

  My biggest headache has been the entertainment, much to the annoyance of my mother, who makes a characteristic ex-cathedra (or, rather, ex-chapel) pronouncement that ‘children don’t need entertainment; why did God give them imaginations if not to entertain themselves?’ I reply that, far from trying to destroy their imaginations, I am seeking to nourish them. To which end, I have hired a semi-educational presentation from a Nature Conservation group, which combines clowns and comedy with lectures and animal displays.

  The two clowns, Marmaduke and Coco, are a huge hit, holding the attention of thirty-five children for an hour and a half … well, actually, thirty-four, since I am forced to evict Rory, whose running commentary threatens to destroy the magic. As I thrust him protesting into a world of adults, he waves his credentials like a half-price ticket. I remind him that he is thirteen while the others are eight.

  The remaining children sit engrossed in the tricks, but it is the animals which enthrall them. They are all invited to participate, with the largest part falling to Pagan. At one point, Marmaduke dispatches an owl across the room to land on her shoulder; at another, he pulls a tarantula out of her ear (prompting Juliet to take flight). Then, after by-play with a lizard, a rabbit and a fruit bat, he passes round a meerkat, which allows itself to be universally pawed but takes a genuine fancy to Shona. Twice, it escapes from the circuit and jumps back into her arms. She is overwhelmed by this mark of distinction; her Minnie Mouse grin glows.

  The final exhibit is a twelve-foot python. It takes all of my strength of mind not to bolt. The children, however, sit in a state of rapt revulsion, apart from Pagan, who runs tremulously to me.

  ‘It’s a snake; it’s horrid.’

  ‘No, it’s not. It won’t hurt you. It’s more frightened of you than you are of it.’

  ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘What’s this? It’s your house; you’re the birthday girl, and you’re the one who’s making all the fuss.’

  I appeal to her sense of propriety. With extreme reluctance, she returns to her friends, as they split into groups of five, link arms and pretend to be trees, allowing the python to be draped around their shoulders. The room fills with shrieks and giggles, but no tears (I wish that I had had a similar opportunity at eight; it might have cured me of my lifelong phobia. Instead, I was left to my own imagination and the dusty imagery of Genesis …). The benefits are revealed a few minutes later when Coco makes the children lie on the floor with their stomachs bare and slides the snake over them. I am on the verge of vomiting; but the participants scream with delight. Pagan appears to have conquered all her fears, shouting ‘More, more,’ and running to the back of the line for a second turn.

  ‘I felt its muscles move on me,’ she says, ‘it tickled.’

  ‘It likes the warmth of your tummy,’ Marmaduke says.

  ‘Leo, you know when you asked me what I want for my birthday …?’

  ‘Don’t say it; don’t even think of it; just enjoy it while you can.’ It may sound naive, but I believe that I have reconciled her to far more than a snake.

  After the birthday tea, in which, to judge from the cake, Rapunzel’s tower has been relocated to Pisa, most of the children and their parents leave. It is my six o’clock nine o’clock watershed, and I feel free to turn my attention to the adults. It is so cheering to see so many o
f my old friends, although I wish that they were as well behaved and as easily pleased as Pagan’s (‘She’s my best friend and I hate her’ is no joke when the pair are married). I fear a confrontation between Edward and Melissa. My invitation crossed with the news of their split, and, much to my dismay, both have insisted on coming … Melissa to show off her boyfriend; Edward to plead his cause. In the event, he seems too stunned to do anything but moan. ‘Why now?’ he asks, ‘she’s forty-one. I admit I’ve not always been faithful … at least not in practice. But she knows she’s the only one I’ve ever cared about. Perhaps I should have been more furtive. But to lie seemed such an insult to her intelligence.’ His little-boy-lost act is wearing as thin as his hair. She, on the other hand, looks rejuvenated, strolling like a schoolgirl with Ronald, hand in hand.

  ‘What can she see in him?’ Edward asks, shredding a pile of napkins. ‘He’s fifty-five, overweight and writes books on management consultancy.’

  ‘Security?’

  ‘She has three sons who need her. Hasn’t she thought about them?’ I bite back my reply.

  ‘They’re almost grown up.’

  ‘Rory’s thirteen … at a critical stage in his development. He’ll probably turn out queer. Oh, no offence, old man.’

  ‘None taken.’ I bridle. ‘Still, if he does, at least you’ll be able to blame it on her.’

  ‘That’s true.’ He is deaf to all irony but his own.

  I leave him for more congenial company, moving to the pond, where Imogen, voluminous in a silver wrap and black turban, is making great play for Griffin Lennox, proving yet again that, should there ever be a lost cause, she will find it.

  ‘Would you like to hear my motto?’ she asks him. ‘I stole it off an advert for deodorant: “I smell nice, use me.”’ As she sways towards him, all I can smell is the Pimm’s on her breath. ‘What do you say to that?’

  ‘My nose is stuffed.’

  She looks at him, first in bafflement and then in lust. ‘You’re a very attractive man. Leo, darling, wherever did you find such an attractive man?’

  ‘He’s David Sunning’s Boyfriend,’ I say in capital letters. ‘You remember David?’

  ‘In other words, I’m queer.’ A shadow crosses her face.

  ‘Not to worry, I can accommodate that.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I can.’

  ‘Don’t you like these?’ To my horror, she resorts to the old breast-baring act, which has not improved with age.

  ‘You’ll catch cold, Imogen,’ I say, trying to rewrap her.

  ‘No, Leo,’ she says, brushing me off, ‘I asked him a question. Aren’t you going to reply?’ She juts out her bust; he ponders for a moment.

  ‘Well,’ he replies, ‘since you ask. I quite like that one.’ He points to the left. ‘But I can’t say I think too much of the other.’ She looks at him in silence and then laughs. I am relieved, especially as it licenses my own guffaw. Then, just as I am letting rip, she bursts into tears and runs into the house.

  ‘Why’s Aunt Imogen showing you her bosoms?’ I swing round to find Pagan.

  ‘She ate too much and her buttons burst. So let that be a lesson. Now I think it’s time for bed. All the children have gone home. Run on up. I’ll come and see you later.’

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘Of course.’ She trots off, her lack of protest attesting to her exhaustion.

  ‘Do you turn everything into a cautionary tale?’ Griffin asks.

  ‘No, of course not. But it wasn’t bad for the spur of the moment.’

  ‘I thought I did quite well myself.’

  ‘You were cruel.’

  ‘You laughed.’

  ‘Nevertheless … being oversexed, overweight and over forty is not a recipe for happiness.’

  ‘Don’t expect sympathy from me. How would she have felt if it’d been the other way round and I’d been the flasher?’ I refrain from saying that she would probably have been thrilled.

  I go off in search of Benedict, whom I find charming my mother with carefully edited stories of military life. I wince as I watch the two sides of my life connect – or, at least, make contact – but then anything is better than the self-defeating struggle to keep them apart. Besides, he is very much ‘meet the family’ material … I wish that he could meet you. I feel sure that you would approve. We would spend long, lazy evenings when three would be company, but never a crowd. You would ask me if I loved him. The short answer is that I don’t know, but I do know that the question is no longer the only one that counts.

  I circulate. The party is a great success, although there are a few exceptions to the general geniality. At ten o’clock, I come across Imogen looking glum and William looking lost. I have an irresistible urge to play Cupid and then instantly regret having succumbed. I need not have worried. At eleven thirty, she pulls me aside to ask why I never told her that you had such a dishy brother. At one, he tells me that he has drunk far too much to drive home and is taking up Imogen’s offer of a bed in her flat.

  ‘You can stay here,’ my mother says … an instinctive, if inadvertent, killjoy.

  ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

  ‘It’s no trouble. We can make up the downstairs sofa.’

  ‘No. We can’t, Mother; it has woodworm. Besides, we don’t have any sheets.’

  She stares at me open-mouthed. I order a taxi before anyone else intervenes.

  ‘Killing two birds with one stone?’ Griffin asks as he sees my look of triumph.

  ‘Or setting them free with one key.’

  Benedict is the last to leave. I want him to stay more than ever, but I apply my ‘no men after midnight’ rule as rigorously as a Girton porter. In any case, Pagan is no longer the sole consideration, as my mother catches our doorstep kiss and corners me in the hall.

  ‘Is Benedict a homosexual?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But he was in the Army.’

  ‘Was is the word.’

  ‘And he seemed such a nice man. I liked him.’

  ‘He is such a nice man. And you can still like him.’

  ‘Don’t be hard on me, Lenny. I’m trying.’

  ‘I know you are.’ And I know how confusing it must be for her to have a son who is not a child of the chapel. At least now she is prepared to accept what she does not understand, whereas before she refused to understand what she did not accept.

  I take her arm and lead her up the stairs, thanking her for everything that she has done to make the day a success.

  ‘I couldn’t leave you to do it all on your own.’

  ‘I don’t just mean with the arrangements. The effort you made to get on with everyone.’

  ‘Your friends have some very odd habits, Lenny,’ she says cryptically. ‘I’ll leave it at that.’

  Work continues to progress. I return to the screen like a character in an American soap who discovers that his death was just a dream. I float through Television Centre on a tide of goodwill … I only hope that Susan is enjoying as happy a honeymoon. Kaye Blake calls me in to say how much it means to her ‘personally’ to see me back. She relives the battles that she fought on my behalf like George IV regaling Wellington with descriptions of how he led the troops at Waterloo. When she claims to have come close to resignation, I can barely keep from laughing. On leaving her office, I instinctively wipe the soles of my shoes … it would take a second Hercules to clean out her ‘bullshit-free zone’.

  One result of my rehabilitation is that I am no longer deemed a minority interest. My show has been promoted to BBC 1. But the popular channel need not lead to a gentler style. On the contrary, I am less inclined to tolerate any evasions now that I have abandoned my own. The opening programme is a statement of intent. My first guest is Franklin Polero, an American evangelist of the smarmiest ‘hot line to Heaven’ variety, who hangs himself with each scrap of rope that I throw him and yet refuses to play dead. ‘Kick him, kick him!’ Vicky hisses down my earpiece during his non-stop monologue, w
hich I duly do, but to no avail. I repeat the kicks with increasing ferocity, to the delight of the studio audience and, no doubt, the bafflement of the viewers at home. I come to the conclusion that his flesh is as unfeeling as his church. It is only after his next anecdote, with its reference to a wartime accident, that I realise that he has a wooden leg.

  Making a mental note to murder the researchers, I finally manage to introduce my next guest … in whom you have a personal interest. ‘Best known as Fred Docherty in ITV’s South of the River, he’s about to tackle one of the most demanding roles in the dramatic repertoire: the Captain in August Strindberg’s The Father. He is, of course, Lewis Kelly.’

  The audience applauds loudly as he saunters down the stairs. My own response is more subdued. It will be our first encounter since the family court eighteen months ago. I have always vetoed his appearances in the past, but, this time, I allowed myself to be swayed … although less by Vicky’s assurances of his good value than by my own fantasies of revenge. To which end, I deliberately refrained from my customary pre-show chat. Far from wishing to put him at his ease, I am determined to make him sweat. And, as he walks across and shakes my hand, I find that I have succeeded.

  I assure him that I am not going to waste time by talking about Fred Docherty, as he must be sick to death of him after all these years.

  ‘Hang on. I’m very fond of old Fred; there’s a good deal of me in him. A real rough diamond.’

  ‘Surely more of a rough rhinestone …? I refer to Fred, of course, not you.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He fakes a laugh.

  ‘So what’s made you break away? Boredom?’

  ‘Not at all. There’s a lot of mileage left in Fred, you can take it from me.’

  ‘Then there’s no truth to the rumours that the producers are planning to kill him off?’

  ‘Absolutely and categorically none. I’d like to get my hands on the person who started them.’ The audience is chilled by his change of tone. ‘As Fred would say.’ He laughs quickly. ‘No, but seriously, folks. I’m an actor; I need new characters … fresh challenges.’