by Paul O'Grady
‘Wot turm uz a, Lully?’ translates into ‘What time is it, Lily?’
Anyway, Diane had a bottle of wine which I convinced her to crack open and after a few glasses we all became quite matey and jolly, eventually convincing Vera (the artist formerly known as Alice) to come to the fancy dress with us. ‘I’ve never dressed up as a woman before,’ he protested. Bloody hell, you haven’t got far to go, I thought Vera, confident after a couple of glasses of Blue Nun, confessed that he’d never liked me and had always referred to me as ‘that long snotty streak of piss who always swept into Sadie’s, nose in the air, with those two other long streaks of piss trailing behind’. By the two other streaks of piss I assumed Vera meant Nina and Ron. We buried our past loathing for each other and proceeded to get on like long-lost brothers, or should I say sisters?
We came from totally different backgrounds. He’d been born in a tenement block in the Chinatown district of Liverpool, the second youngest of a large family, and as a boy to earn a few coppers he’d minded the car of a Chinese prostitute called Miss Wong while she visited one of the Chinese gambling dens. He was very bright and extremely funny and worked at a place called the Rod Mill, making pillowcases on an industrial sewing machine and then stuffing them with feathers. What really sealed our friendship was the discovery that we shared a mutual obsession in life – going out clubbing, preferably seven nights a week and, in Vera’s case, seven afternoons as well. Yep, you’ve got to hand it to Vera. No, I mean it, you really do have to hand it to him, he’s as blind as a bat and would drop the glass otherwise.
Diane rooted out one of her sixties monstrosities for Vera to wear for the fancy dress and so, clad in a hideous full-length floral dress and straw hat complete with umbrella, he went as Mary Poppins and came second, the bastard. Diane and I were flaming, after all the effort we’d gone to we’d come nowhere. I knew from the start that we shouldn’t have gone as a couple especially in these nasty costumes – me in my cheap sateen leotard with sagging net tutu dotted with fag burns slung around my waist, wrinkled tights and scuffed ballet slippers, a child’s plastic tiara that I’d bought in Woolies pinned to an ash-blond ball of frizz that I had the nerve to call a wig; Diane in her brown and orange velvet tunic with a Coke bottle that I’d shoved down the leg of her tights, despite her many protestations, as a crude representation of Rudolf’s masculinity. During the course of the evening the Coke bottle slowly slid down her leg, finally settling at her ankle, causing people to think she had a peculiar deformity. Vera won five quid for coming second and promptly spent it all across the bar. Say what you like about Vera, he’s always first up to the bar when it comes to getting the bevvies in, providing he’s in funds.
We went out on the town more or less every night of the week whether or not we had any money. There was always a ‘mush’, to quote Penny, who would see you right for a couple of halves of lager. The phone would ring.
‘Are you there, Lily? What you doing tonight?’
‘I wouldn’t mind going out.’
‘I’ve got no money though.’
‘Well, I’ve got about a pound. That will get us into Sadie’s, buy us a few drinks and a packet of fags. Can’t you borrow a couple of bob off your mam?’
‘I can’t, I still owe her money from last week.’
‘Go on.’
‘Oh all right, I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Meet you outside James Street Station at half eight, we’ll have one in Kingston House first.’
‘Bollocks, me jeans are wet, I’ll have to iron them dry. Oh, there’s the pips, see ya later.’
Kingston House was a sailors’ club on the corner of James Street, supposedly for the use of merchant sailors only, but if you cracked on that you’d just docked and wrote down the name of your ship when you signed in the doorman would turn a blind eye, even though Vera and I were the most unlikely pair of sailors ever to set foot inside the door. The club was subsidized so the booze was extremely cheap, ideal for two queens with only £1.75 between them. Invariably once inside we’d find Josie, a world-weary sea queen, perched on a bar stool nursing a pint of lager. Josie had worked for the Blue Funnel Line as a steward since the days when Odysseus had set out from the Trojan Wars on his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca. There wasn’t a port in the world that Josie hadn’t docked in over the years. He was a solitary figure, thin as a whippet and always dressed in the same ensemble of skin-tight jeans and black leather jacket, his bony fingers adorned with a startling collection of gold rings and an enormous pear-shaped gold earring hanging from his right earlobe. Considering he’d spent so much time at sea he was a gentle soul, softly spoken and rather delicate. I was envious of what I considered was a fabulous lifestyle and wished that I could sail into Hong Kong Harbour instead of Woodside Ferry or the Pier Head.
If there were no sailors in the bar interested in buying a couple of chirpy scrubbers a drink we’d move on quickly to Paco’s Bar in Stanley Street or the Lisbon before hitting Sadie’s Bar Royale in Wood Street, providing Sadie, the fearsome chatelaine of this establishment, would let Vera in. Sadie hated Vera as he had got it into his head that Vera had once tried to make a pass at the boyfriend of one of his trusted cronies in the gents’ lav. It was obvious that Vera had done no such thing because picking men up in lavs wasn’t his forte and the boyfriend was a grubby piece of pier-head rent with a mean face and the sallow complexion of an undernourished maggot who Vera, even in the most advanced state of intoxication, wouldn’t have touched with surgical gloves and a gas mask on. Once you’d rung the bell on Sadie’s door you’d have to wait for him to stick his head out of the second-floor window to see if you were suitable enough to enter the premises.
‘Hiya, Tony,’ (for this was Sadie’s real name) I’d shout up feebly, my voice trailing off into the night at the sight of Sadie’s gimlet eyes scrutinizing us in the manner of a carrion crow eyeing up roadkill. The window would slam down in disgust and the testy old troll would make his slow descent down the long flight of stairs that Vera had tumbled down once or twice in the past before flinging the door open with a cheery greeting.
‘Is she pissed again?’ mine host would bark, glaring at Vera.
‘No I’m not, honest to God, on me life,’ Vera would splutter, swaying slightly.
‘She’s not pissed, we’ve just come straight from work,’ I’d plead. ‘We haven’t had a drink yet, honestly …’
‘Get in then,’ Sadie would snap at us grudgingly, holding his hand out for the admission fee, the princely sum of twenty pence each which we thought was daylight robbery.
‘And if I catch you anywhere near that cottage with Bertha Bucket’s affair you’ll be down these stairs and out that fuckin’ door before you can fart, d’ya hear me?’
I’d try and make polite conversation as we followed Sadie up the stairs.
‘Is the club busy?’
‘Well, you’ll be able to find out for yourself in a minute when you get in there, won’t you?’
Small talk with the clientele was not Sadie’s finest quality.
Midweek, Sadie’s could be a bit grim. A dimly lit bar with only a handful of the usual suspects dotted around the place staring into their drinks, glancing up momentarily at each sound of the doorbell in the vain hope that it might herald the arrival of a customer who could just turn out to be ‘the one’, or at least a quick grapple for the night. The overpowering stench of Jeyes Fluid emanating from the gents’ toilets caught in the back of your throat and you secretly wondered why you bothered making the effort as you drank your warm bottle of cider and stared at the lone drunk dancing with himself to the New Seekers’ ‘You Won’t Find Another Fool Like Me’ on the tiny dance floor. Vera and I made the best of it. We were out on the lash and that was all that mattered. We never went out with the intention of ‘pulling’, we much preferred to get hammered and go in search of the elusive ‘good time’. If a lift home or a promise of a tumble in the sack came along, so much the better, but it certainly wasn’t
at the top of our list of priorities.
At weekends Sadie’s was packed to the rafters and full of characters. Big Carol, the ten-foot tranny, dressed head to toe in mini skirt and polo neck courtesy of Littlewoods’ catalogue, would sip a pint of bitter as if it were a cut-glass schooner of sherry. A male nurse, known affectionately as the Queen Mum, who stood at the end of the bar with a rabbit-fur cape draped around his shoulders and a cheap diamanté tiara wedged in his hair, would wave regally at passing customers as he knocked back the Babycham. He committed suicide by jumping out of a window and through the glass roof of the ear, nose and throat hospital, or so we were led to believe until he turned up years later in a Blackpool disco very much alive and well.
The local comic, Pete Price, former compère of the famous Shakespeare Club until it burned down, would sweep in with a retinue of followers. Talk about the circus arriving in town. Pete was quite a sight – not in the least bit camp – three-inch platform shoes peeping out from under the turn-ups of a pair of Persil-white flares, a vivid pink paisley-patterned shirt unbuttoned to the waist to reveal a deeply tanned chest and an assortment of gold chains nestling among the hair. A diamond ring that would’ve knocked the breath out of Elizabeth Taylor flashed on his little finger and an enormous pair of designer sunglasses sat on top of his peroxide-yellow head. To complete this eye-catching wardrobe a full-length wolf-fur coat hung casually from his shoulders. He could’ve been the love child of Dick Emery and Cruella de Vil and made Liberace look like a member of the Amish. I was terrified of him at first until I got to know him and found that underneath this flash exterior lay hidden a compassionate man.
Penny could be found in a corner draped across some hapless ‘mush’ that he’d managed to lure into his net. Flushed with success (and large gins), he’d tip Vera and me a sly wink and beckon us over as we mooched past on our way to the dance floor for a jive.
‘This is John,’ he’d say proudly through pursed lips, introducing us to the elderly drunk he was hanging off. ‘He’s just going to the bar, aren’t ya?’ John nodded vaguely in our direction while Penny mimed the words ‘Fuckin’ loaded’ at us behind his back. ‘Get them a drink, John,’ Penny said grandly as he forcefully assisted his hapless prey to his feet. ‘And while you’re up there get us a large gin and tonic and twenty Number Ten, will ya.’
Sadie’s was a melting pot of good girls and slappers, butch dykes and screaming queens, students and sailors, gangsters and rent boys, sad old drunks and imperious trannies, with the odd respectable queen who’d come over for the night from Knutsford and wondered just what had hit him thrown in for good measure. By the time Sadie threw us all out at closing time (‘C’mon, you shower, I’ve had your money now sling yer’ook and gerr off’ome’) and I got home, it would be gone two thirty. I had to be up for work at the Conny Home by six but even after only three hours’ sleep I’d nearly always manage to drag myself in to face a fourteen-hour shift. If after the alarm clock went off I rolled over and went back to sleep, as I was very much inclined to do, I could always rely on my ma to give me a wake-up call from her bedroom next door.
It was purgatory to get out of my nice warm bed as it was always freezing in that house. Even in the summer there was a distinct chill in the air. I’d charge downstairs and crouch, shivering in front of the gas fire, waiting for the bloody thing to warm up before I could even contemplate facing the Siberian draughts of the back kitchen to put the kettle on. There was never any time for breakfast, just a swallow of tea, a quick swill in the sink, dressed and out of the door and down the hill to catch the train. Once there, the smell of wet beds, leaking colostomy bags and fourteen little boys crammed together in one room would’ve brought tears to the eyes of a sewage worker. I used to spend the first few minutes dry-retching, particularly if I was a little hung over, but I got used to the early morning smell after a time and could rinse lumps of shit from a soiled sheet in the sluice without even flinching. Fourteen hours a day looking after a gang of handicapped kids would have Mary Poppins reaching for a stimulant, but fortunately for me I had more energy than I needed.
Occasionally once I’d got the boys off to school and could feel my eyes burning from lack of sleep I’d try and sneak a quick kip on one of their beds, not so comfortable when you’re over six foot tall and the bed you’re attempting to have a sly zizz on wouldn’t look out of place in a production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I’d wait until Mrs Dickie was on her coffee break before I’d attempt an illicit snooze but invariably I’d oversleep, only to be woken up out of my coma by a sharp prod in the ribs. Mrs Dickie would want to know exactly what I thought I was doing and if it wasn’t too much trouble would I care to come down to the office and explain my behaviour? Eventually the penny dropped that I couldn’t burn the candle at both ends and for a while I only went clubbing when I knew I had the next day off, even though it was torture for me to have an early night when I knew that over the water Sadie’s and the Bear’s Paw were jumping, and somewhere in the crowd was a millionaire who would take me away from a world of nagging women and shitty sheets.
CHAPTER 7
London Calling
‘BARKENHEAD SEX IT DABBLE TU.’ AS ALWAYS, MY MUM PUT on her Mayfair voice when she answered the phone. ‘Heng orn and arl get him for you, Tony.’ She put her hand over the mouthpiece and hissed, ‘Paul! It’s Tony on the blower for you. Get a move on, will you, he’s ringing from London and this must be costing him a bloody fortune … Heng orn, Tony, he’s jist caming.’
Tony was still living in Southend-on-Sea, working for the Customs and Excise, hating every minute of it but sticking it out so he could get his promotion. He was ringing because he wanted me to go down to London as one of his wealthy ‘gentleman friends’ had given him the keys to his pied-à-terre in Mount Street, Mayfair, for the weekend. Tony attracted wealthy men of a certain age like moths to a flame; he should’ve been living in the lap of luxury under the patronage of these old geezers instead of rotting in a crummy bedsit in Southend but he was hopeless at playing the whore. Instead it was Tony who spoiled them with gifts of expensive wine and opera tickets out of his paltry civil service wages. The idea of being a kept man was anathema to him. A few meals in fancy restaurants or a weekend on the country estate in Yorkshire was one thing but to actually accept a cash handout was out of the question. I despaired of him.
I jumped at the chance of a couple of lairy days in London. It was my weekend off and I’d just been paid so I arranged to meet him on Saturday morning at the address he gave me.
‘We’ll have a ball,’ he promised and I didn’t doubt him.
The pied-à-terre turned out to be a four-storey mansion stuffed full of priceless artworks and antiques, and there was even a self-contained flat for the staff just off the vast kitchen. My room, which had a real air of tranquillity about it, was beautifully decorated with a vast antique bed, an Aubusson rug on the parquet floor, oil paintings on the walls and a vase full of fresh flowers on the highly polished dressing table. The real selling point for me though was the white marble en-suite bathroom complete with a shower in which I spent the best part of the morning.
Showers were a novelty to me. A bath in Holly Grove meant sitting in three inches of tepid water dispensed from the smallest, most miserly immersion heater on Merseyside. You sat hunched up with your knees under your chin, clutching a grainy bar of Lifebuoy soap in one hand and an ancient flannel with the texture of woodchip wallpaper in the other, dodging the icy droplets of water that fell repeatedly from the pulley of wet washing hanging over the bath. It wasn’t a particularly joyful experience.
On the bedroom wall over the dressing table hung a small pencil drawing of a woman’s head. It wasn’t even properly framed. ‘What’s this bit of old tat?’ I asked Tony, highly unimpressed. ‘All the other paintings are lovely but this thing spoils the look of the room.’
‘That,’ he replied, ‘is a Leonardo da Vinci etching. Now stop tapping it, you’ll crack the parchment. Come do
wnstairs and we’ll have a glass of champagne.’
We sat in the immaculate drawing room drinking Dom Perignon, which Tony assured me was the only bubbly that Dietrich ever drank. I would’ve been quite happy to drink bleach for breakfast if it meant staying in somewhere like this beautiful house for the entire weekend without once having to venture outside the door, but Tony was having none of it.
‘Get your backside into gear, we’re going to the Salisbury,’ he said.
The Salisbury was a gay pub on St Martin’s Lane, full of etched glass, ornate mirrors and polished wood. It was very cruisy and hardly anyone spoke to anyone, preferring instead to communicate via furtive glances and knowing looks. The predominantly Irish bar staff were dismissive to the point of rudeness and one got the feeling that they were more than a little homophobic. Despite the pub’s beautiful interior it wasn’t one of my favourite places to go for a drink, thanks to the naff bar staff and cruisy old queens, although this was years ago and the staff and pub owners have now changed. The clientele is no longer gay these days; they sensibly moved on long ago to a boozer that appreciates their custom.
I sat down while Tony got the drinks in and as he was waiting to be served he started to chat to a podgy little guy who was wearing a bespoke suit that in its heyday had obviously been extremely smart but was now grubby and shiny with age. Tony, being Tony, bought him a drink and then brought him over to our table.
