Mercury and Me

by Jim Hutton

  A few minutes later, as he showed them around The Mews, I overheard them asking who I was.

  ‘He’s my gardener,’ Freddie said.

  ‘Where does he live?’ they asked.

  ‘He lives here, of course,’ he replied.

  I didn’t get to speak to Freddie’s parents that day, but I met them many times after that and we always got on well. I would drive Freddie over to their small terraced house in Feltham, Middlesex, to visit them. We’d both sit down with them for tea in the kitchen.

  Mrs Bulsara always got the tea at her own pace – she never rushed around. She was very independent and still drove herself everywhere in her little car.

  The Bulsara home was very homely. Freddie had lived there since the family first came to Britain. (They were originally from Zanzibar, and moved first to India before settling here in 1964.) I don’t think they kept a bedroom for him there, nor did they have any photographs of Freddie on display. Freddie had once offered to buy them a bigger house, but they said no. They were clearly very content with what they had.

  Freddie’s dad was very proud of his garden. One day he took me out to look at it. He had a fabulously shaped eucalyptus tree and many beautiful old roses. When we reached the roses he said, with a hint of regret in his voice, that he was sorry the roses were reaching the end of their natural life. I wondered whether he was telling me he knew that Freddie was reaching the end of his life.

  I can’t remember Freddie telling his parents that he was ill, but as time went on it was difficult to disguise from them the fact that something was terribly wrong. Freddie’s physical appearance was beginning to change and he looked thinner on each visit. Freddie’s mum knew he was very ill. I have a feeling Freddie did eventually tell them the truth, but he did not do so in front of any of us.

  Freddie went to see his mum every Thursday afternoon for tea, and he rarely came away empty-handed. His mum made wonderful cheese biscuits and packed them into a little lunch-box for him. In fact, in one of the last photographs the newspapers published of Freddie he was outside Garden Lodge with a box of his mum’s cheese biscuits under his arm.

  That same year I met Freddie’s sister Kashmira for the first time when she and her family came to stay for a few days at The Mews. You could see at once that she and Freddie were sister and brother – they had the same big, dark brown eyes. Her daughter, Natalie, was a sweet, boisterous kid and she also had a baby son.

  Freddie’s family was important to him. Whenever he was away, no matter where, he always made a point of sending cards to his parents and his sister.

  He was also in love with beautiful furniture. One day he fell for a beautiful wood and glass coffee table made by a master craftsman. It was made in the Japanese style, which of course Freddie adored. The only problem was the price: about £2000. In the end Freddie thought it too expensive and decided not to buy.

  Shortly afterwards he said: ‘You could make one of those, couldn’t you? If you make one for me I’ll pay for it.’

  My family back in Ireland are builders and carpenters, so I guessed that if I sent them photographs of the original they could make the frame in kit form; all I’d have to do was order the glass and assemble the wood at Garden Lodge. But then I decided to have a go at the whole thing myself, so I started searching for books on making furniture.

  I bought some tools and set to work in the workshop. The first table was about three feet square and made from pine. When the frame was finished it didn’t look bad for a first attempt. Next I went to the glazier’s and ordered the plate glass. When it arrived, heavily packaged, at the house Freddie got excited. Then he realised my mistake. I still worked in imperial measurements, but the thoroughly modern glazier had gone metric – my confused calculations were incorrect. I’d shrunk my order to a piece of glass just nine inches square.

  ‘Silly fool!’ laughed Freddie. I went back to the glazier, who rushed the order. When it arrived this time it fitted perfectly, and Freddie was delighted when he saw the result. But he didn’t like the plain pine, so he asked me to paint it a dark reddish maroon. I mixed the paint myself, and in the end spent more time painting the table than I had making it. Freddie derived great pleasure from the fact that I’d made the table especially for him.

  We returned to Ibiza for a holiday, and this time Freddie was hyperactive; he just couldn’t be restrained. It was ‘shop till you drop!’ time again. He was particularly looking for ceramics for The Mews, which he’d now decided was to have a Spanish flavour.

  Miles out in the country on Ibiza we found a huge place with bulging shelves of ceramics. As we went in, Freddie asked what I thought of the stuff.

  ‘All tourist tack!’ I replied flippantly, not realising that the British owner was just behind me. Actually Freddie found several lovely things there, so I was a little hasty. They were glazed terracotta lamps in yellow, one of his favourite colours. Back home, Freddie took the lamps over to The Mews but couldn’t find anything to put them on. ‘You couldn’t make two tables for these to stand on, could you?’ he asked.

  So I soon got cracking on them. They were made from pine and MDF, medium density fibreboard, then painted and finished off with glass tops. I took them into The Mews and was positioning them when Freddie came in.

  ‘What have you been doing?’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen you for days.’

  I pointed to the tables and said: ‘Those!’

  ‘You didn’t make those, did you?’ he said and went over to inspect them.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I did.’ He looked at them closely, then kissed me.

  Soon he was asking if I’d make an occasional table for our bedroom. I needed a lathe for my workshop, to turn the legs, so Freddie bought me one. The table legs were a nightmare. I tried turning them several times and each time went wrong, so I cheated and bought four thick banister rails. Then I spent a good month French-polishing the table.

  When I gave it to Freddie he was thrilled. He said he knew exactly where he wanted it to go – just inside the bedroom door, to put photographs on and to show off a few knick-knacks, too. Making things for Freddie gave me the answer to the question – what do you give the person who has everything? My presents of hand-made furniture became one of Freddie’s greatest pleasures.

  But my first love remained the garden and making it as special as possible for him. One Sunday I was weeding the lawn just before lunch. Freddie was waiting for the lunch guests to arrive and came over to see what I was doing. Soon he wanted to try digging some weeds out of the lawn as well. The two of us were on all fours looking for small weeds in the lawn. Then the guests started arriving and, one by one, Freddie commandeered them to join us. By the time lunch was ready everyone was on all fours weeding the lawn!

  Freddie kept to his word and always left everything to do with the garden to me. He made the odd suggestion, but I retained the power of veto over him. My quest was to keep improving the garden, and each year I would experiment with new plants and new colours. Freddie was always delighted with the results, but as he was the world’s most impatient man he expected everything to be in flower after one day of sunshine.

  Only once did he manage to get one over on me in the garden. He came to me one morning and asked me to plant an indoor azalea among a bank of outdoor azaleas all the same colour. It would look incongruous, so I refused to transfer it. A little later when I was having coffee in the kitchen, Freddie came in laughing. I knew he’d been up to something, but he wouldn’t tell me what. A few days later I found out, when I discovered the newcomer among the azaleas. He had planted it behind my back.

  That summer we went to Montreux in Switzerland for a break. Freddie was no stranger to Montreux, for he had often worked in a studio there in the years before I met him. He always rented a lakeside house called The Cygnets, because of the number of swans on the lake you could see from the windows. Freddie nicknamed the place The Duck House and Roger Taylor went one stage further, dubbing it Duckingham Palace. The house was l
ike an elegant bunker, half underground with glass panels all along one side and a stupendous view of the water.

  Freddie was very relaxed and I think the clean mountain air did him some good. Montreux felt a much healthier place to live in than London. As in London, we spent most of the time cuddled up on the sofa watching television. We could get out most days for a walk around the lake to look at the swans.

  When we got back to London a new addition to the Family was imminent, and Garden Lodge was in a flurry of activity. Mary had found a lovely tortoiseshell cat and although Freddie already had a tortoiseshell, Delilah, the coat of this one was quite different. We all fussed over the new baby kitten, though she didn’t get such a warm welcome from the other cats. Goliath was so timid he’d run away if he spotted her, while Delilah would hiss. Oscar and Tiffany simply ignored her.

  The kitten was named Miko, and in the end she won over Goliath and even Delilah. We’d come down some mornings to find the three of them snuggled up in the basket together. Before long they were such friends that Delilah would even clean Miko, licking her all over.

  Like the New Year, Freddie’s birthday party in September was a quieter affair than in earlier years – just a small garden party at the house. Before it started I gave Freddie my present, an antique silver jewellery box.

  Freddie set his heart on an antique kimono stand – and, Freddie being Freddie, he got one in the end.

  Freddie and me between two sensational Japanese works of art; even Freddie admitted they’d be too big to ship back to Britain!

  Singer Peter Straker with Freddie in the kitchen – more than once they stayed up screaming hysterically all night.

  Peter Straker and Freddie trying out the new jacuzzi in The Mews.

  Gay as a daffodil – Freddie showing off a camp little basket one Christmas to Peter Straker.

  What do you give the man who has everything? Quality Street never went amiss – and even played a part in the Christmas decorations.

  Travelling in style – for trips to Ibiza and Switzerland Freddie often hired a private jet. Left to right: Graham Hamilton, Freddie, Terry, me and Phoebe.

  My Blue Moon roses for Freddie on Valentine’s Day 1988. ‘My husband gave me those!’ he told everyone.

  A sleepy Freddie, wearing the wedding ring I gave him, sipping the first cup of tea of the day.

  Miko.

  Oscar.

  Goliath in that sleeping place.

  Romeo – and Freddie.

  Lily.

  Freddie’s favourite cat, Delilah, in her favourite soft spot.

  Freddie loved his birthday cakes; this one with it’s oriental flavour was typically over-the-top.

  Winter Wonderland at Garden Lodge – snow on the ground and lights twinkling in the tree.

  Freddie’s beloved koi – plus the visiting ducks.

  Freddie and his people. Left to right: Mary, me, Mary Pike (one of the maids), Phoebe, Freddie and Joe.

  Phoebe with a birthday cake for Joe – a ski scene, as he was about to head off to the slopes for a holiday.

  For my 40th birthday Freddie threw a surprise supper party, and I was given this amazing icing creation – of the conservatory at Garden Lodge.

  Freddie gave me the cake – then a big kiss.

  For Mary’s birthday in 1990 Freddie cooked up a feline surprise.

  Among the guests were Roger Taylor and members of his band The Cross, part of his new solo career. The lads from The Cross were fairly rowdy and their slobbish behaviour irritated Freddie a great deal. When they eventually left, Freddie was clearly glad to see the back of them.

  ‘What a pain they were,’ he said. ‘They’re never coming here again.’

  Some time later, we went out for supper one night to Pontevecchio’s with Mary and Dominique Taylor. Towards the end of the evening a woman came around selling single roses and I bought three. I gave one to Mary, one to Dominique and the third to Freddie. He was terribly embarrassed because I had shown such a public show of affection. But later, in the bedroom, he thanked me for the rose and kissed me passionately.

  On 8 October 1988, Freddie and Montserrat Caballé appeared at Barcelona’s La Nit Festival to welcome the Olympic flag to the city. They topped the bill of the star-studded gala which included Spandau Ballet, Suzanne Vega, José Carreras, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dionne Warwick and Rudolph Nureyev, who was also dying of Aids. The show was being staged in front of the Son et Lumière Fountains in Castle Square, in the presence of the King and Queen of Spain, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia, and their daughter Princess Christina. Freddie and Montsy sang ‘How Can I Go On’, ‘The Golden Boy’ and ‘Barcelona’, backed by the Barcelona Opera House orchestra and choir. But despite the rapturous applause, Freddie did not consider the night a success. He found himself in the nightmare all singers dread – he had lost his voice.

  The British press had been flown over and had been promised an interview with him. But on the day of the show, not for the first time, Freddie had big problems with his throat nodules. He was in a terrible state and clearly wasn’t in a mood to give an upbeat, in-depth press interview. So reluctantly he called it off. Inevitably this added fuel to the press speculation about Freddie’s poor health.

  All day Freddie worried about whether his voice would last the show and, with great reluctance, at the very last minute the decision was taken that he and Montsy would have to mime their songs. There seemed no alternative, short of cancelling the show completely. As he got into his three-piece dinner suit and bow tie in the dressing room, a tent backstage, he was the usual bag of nerves.

  We had some time to kill before he was on. During one interval Freddie was taken to meet the Spanish royal party, and he returned in a slightly more cheerful frame of mind. And he was cheered further when we met Dionne Warwick backstage. He told me she had been an idol of his since childhood and he ranked her as one of the great female vocalists of all time. He was totally in awe of her.

  When Freddie and Montsy stepped out on stage together things at once went terribly wrong. The playback tape was running slow and had to be stopped. Then there was silence as the tape was rewound to the beginning. It was a terrible giveaway and spelt out to everyone in the audience that they were miming.

  Freddie was wild about the mistake. He wrestled through the first song, then darted into the wings to wipe the floor with anyone he could find. He was still fuming back in the dressing room after the performance and slammed a large vodka down his throat. He was furious at the sound technicians for letting him down so badly. Wisely, they kept well away from him.

  Freddie emerged from his tent in a tracksuit and put a brave face on the catastrophic evening. He had to meet some notables and representatives of the Spanish Olympics committee. And the night ended, as always, with fireworks. ‘The Spanish love their fireworks!’ Freddie said to me. Back at the hotel we had our own private party. Later, when we fell into bed, he couldn’t stop talking about his meeting with King Juan Carlos.

  Two days after appearing in Barcelona, Freddie was back in Britain for the launch of the Barcelona album and the single ‘The Golden Boy’ taken from it. Montsy was flying in on the day of the lunchtime launch party, to be held at Covent Garden. There was a story that Freddie had arranged for the album to be advertised on the M4 to welcome Montsy, but it wasn’t true. He said later he wished he’d thought of it, and he would have done.

  Freddie met Montsy in the foyer of Covent Garden. Joe, Phoebe, Terry and I slipped into the crowds to soak up the atmosphere on the pavement. There were press photographers everywhere; when she arrived Montsy ploughed straight through, scattering them in all directions.

  I returned to Ireland for a fortnight to see my family. While I was away Freddie got bored and flew to Munich for a few days with Phoebe and Peter Straker.

  I arrived back at Garden Lodge on the Sunday to learn from Joe that Freddie was in a great state about the garden. While I was away a blanket of fallen leaves had covered the garden and Freddie wasn�
�t pleased.

  First thing the next day I set about raking them up. Then I was told that Freddie wanted me to join him in Germany. When I got there Freddie had the beginnings of a cold and was in a bad mood. He blasted me out.

  ‘What’s this I hear about you not doing the garden?’ he demanded. ‘It’s in a state, a dreadful mess, with leaves all over the place.’

  I replied: ‘You know I’ve been to Ireland for two weeks. I can’t rake leaves up from Ireland, can I?’

  ‘Well, I just heard that you haven’t been doing your work,’ he added. Someone around Garden Lodge had clearly been stirring things. Then he calmed down and we all went for supper at the hotel. The plan had been to meet Barbara Valentin afterwards to go drinking in bars in the Bermuda Triangle, my old stomping ground with Freddie. But Freddie didn’t want to go out, because his cold had made him feel lousy. Instead, he decided he wanted to turn in early. At first Phoebe and I were reluctant to leave him, but he insisted we all went to meet Barbara.

  We had a great evening. We weren’t particularly late, but there was plenty to drink and by the time we returned to the hotel we were all fairly well gone. I fumbled around trying to find my key card and was so drunk I tried to open the door with my Visa card.

  Freddie was woken by the terrible racket outside, and went into a great tirade. We made our apologies, but he didn’t seem to want to know. Once I was in the bedroom, he snorted: ‘I’m not feeling well. You’re all out enjoying yourselves and I’m not well. At least you could have had the decency to stay behind.’

  ‘It was offered,’ I said. It cut no ice.

  He was in a foul mood and I think, looking back, it was because his illness was getting to him. In frustration he was trying to take it out on me. But at the time I didn’t realise that and I took it all very personally. A vicious argument followed.