by Julian Clary
‘Oh, yes, you owe them all. That awful cold bitch of a mother, and your respectable father who is, after all, a pillar of society. You must follow in his footsteps. It’s your duty. Provide an heir, pontificate in the House of Lords and keep your sordid proclivities hidden from the world. Like father, like son.’
‘I don’t know why you’re suddenly reacting like this. We’ve always known the score.’
‘I don’t think you know the score at all.’ For a moment I hovered on the brink. Then, fired up with fury, I jumped — what did I have to lose, after all? ‘Suppose I told you the truth about your father?’ I turned to look at Tim, sprawled on the bed, his glass in his hand.
He looked at me calmly. Posh people are often too polite to respond to provocation. He said lightly, ‘The truth? Oh, I’m always interested in that. Go ahead, make my day.’
‘All right,’ I said, moved over to the bed and perched on the end. I didn’t want to miss any of his facial reactions to what I was about to say. They always fascinated me. He would make strange puckerings with his lips when he was nearing his orgasm, and on the few occasions I’d seen him asleep, I’d watched his secret smiles for hours.
‘When I first came to London,’ I began, ‘destitute and broken-hearted, thanks to you, I was a bit of a boy about town. I survived by prostituting myself. Yes, that’s right. I was a rent-boy, and a rather good one at that. You had taught me well. I was rather accomplished for one so young. In demand.’ I paused to let the full meaning of my words sink in. Tim put his empty glass on the bedside table. He paled a little.
‘Your father, the mighty Lord Thornchurch, was one of my regular clients.’
Tim’s hand darted out of nowhere and slapped me hard across the face, his signet ring crashing against my jawbone. I jumped out of his reach and went on: ‘Quite a surprise, isn’t it? Naughty Daddy, having his cake and eating it, paying his son’s lover for sex! Leaves quite a nasty taste in the mouth. When he smacked me, spat at me, beat me, whipped me, fisted me, came on me and pissed on me, I often wondered which of us was thinking about you. Now I think I know. He was.’
Tim leapt forward and grappled with me, clearly attempting to stop the torrent of unwelcome words flowing from my unlocked mouth. We wrestled for a while, falling from the bed to the floor, but the tumble gave me the advantage. I pinned his shoulders to the ground with my knees and my hands grabbed handfuls of his lush blond hair. I held tight and pulled his head still. I hadn’t intended to embellish the story — the facts were shocking enough. But I needed to turn Tim against his family in order to have him for myself.
‘Your father told me he had always been gay, or “queer”, as he termed it. He used to cry in my arms and tell me he had wasted his life. He doesn’t love your mother and never has. He calls her the “mare” and you the—’
I didn’t get any further.
‘Shut up!’ roared Tim. ‘Don’t say another word!’
With a furious grunt, he pushed me off him. Suddenly we were both on our feet, circling each other. He charged at me like a rugby-player and dragged me to the floor, crashing into the table and sending the plates flying with the remains of our food. He grabbed a lobster pick and held it to my throat. ‘Shut your filthy trap! I would never have believed such disgusting words could come out of your mouth!’
‘But don’t you see, Tim? It’s all been a lie, everything you’ve ever known. Your father’s gay, just like you. He’s had to live a sordid double life, just like you’ll have to. Break the chain, Tim. Seize your chance of happiness.’
He stared at me, his blue eyes as cold and hard as flint. Then he said, in a tight voice, ‘Idiot. Do you think I could ever be with you after this? Don’t you realize what you’ve done? You’ve destroyed everything.’
‘No, no!’
‘Yes! I can’t love you after this. I can’t even see you again. I wouldn’t want to! You bloody idiot. You filthy, low, disgusting, vile …’
Each word was a knife to my heart. ‘I wanted you to know the truth!’ I protested. This had all gone horribly wrong.
‘No, you didn’t. You want revenge on me and my family because we won’t do what you want. You’re the most selfish man in the world. Well, I’m not going to let you get away with this. I’ll make sure that everyone knows exactly what you are.’
‘You can’t do that,’ I bleated. ‘Besides, I’m about to come out. I’m going to tell the world I’m gay.’
‘Well, bulky for you. Gay is fine, no doubt, in your world, if not in mine. But how many people want to watch a former rent-boy on television? How many like the idea of a prostitute, and all the filth he got up to for money, swanning about getting rich and famous? Your career will be over, matey. Finished. You’ll be all washed up.’
‘You wouldn’t do that, Tim …
‘Why not? I consider it my duty as an upstanding member of society.’
‘I’ll take you and your father with me! I’ll tell everyone about how I slept with you both, tell them what you’re really like. I mean it, Tim!’ Hysteria had gripped me. I started to shake. ‘You don’t know what I’m capable of.’
A look of disgust passed over Tim’s face. ‘I’m beginning to realize. God, you make me sick. All right. Do your worst.’ He stood up and looked down at me contemptuously. I thought of that night in the summerhouse when he had broken my heart for the first time. ‘A bit of boy action will hardly single out my father in the House of Lords. They’ll all be slipping him hot skater lads who can be rogered for a very reasonable price . No one would have the bad taste even to discuss the matter. No, it’s only you who will suffer long-term. It’s not the kerb-crawler who disgusts society. It’s the vile whore plying her trade on the street corner. How did I ever think I could love you? I don’t know who you are. You’re not the sweet boy I once knew. All the fame and success has turned you into a monster. You’re crazy! You try to ruin my career and destroy my father, and you’ll only dig your own hole deeper. Sophie will stick by me. She loves me, you see. But who is there for you, Johnny? Who will love you now?’
I said nothing. I had nothing left to say.
Five minutes later he left, silently and with no goodbye. I had a small cut just below my Adam’s apple and a bruise the size of a sixpence on my jaw. I didn’t mind. I felt strangely calm. So, now I knew the truth. Tim and I would never be together. And he was determined that I would suffer for what I had told him. My life, as I knew it, was surely over.
A few hours earlier, I had skipped out of the flat I shared with Catherine, believing that quite soon I’d be leaving it to set up home in the country with Tim, my first step towards a blissful new future.
Now I dragged myself through the door, wilted and despairing, my dreams turned to dust.
‘Holy fuck, Cowboy! What’s wrong?’ Catherine came rushing over to me, concerned. ‘You look like you’ve been run over by a wheelie-bin.’
‘Where have you been?’ I asked. She was dressed to the nines as usual, her slender frame showing off her beautiful black dress. It occurred to me how different she looked from the crazy but lovable nurse I had met in the corridor outside the bedsits in Brownhill Road.
‘Wheeling and dealing, of course . Feathering our nest a bit more. How do you feel about being the new face of Old Spice? Here, let me help you.’ She put an arm under mine and supported me to the sofa where I sat down. She poured some brandy and handed it to me. ‘Drink this. You kook like you need it.’
I sipped, enjoying the burn as it coated my mouth and throat.
‘After I’ve told you my news I’ll be lucky if I’m offered the face of rat poison.’
‘Come on.’ Catherine curled up on the sofa next to me and put her hand on my arm. ‘Tell me everything, Cowboy. What’s happened?’
‘It’s Tim.’
‘Oh.’ Her expression changed to one of boredom. ‘That dismal posh git. I thought it was something important.’ She opened her bag and took out a nail file.
‘It is. You don’t understa
nd. It’s just about as important as it could be.’
‘Oh?’ Her eyes glinted and she put the nail file on the coffee-table. ‘Go on.’
I told her about my visit to Grandma Rita and the revelation that my life had to change. ‘I wanted to get clean, start afresh, make some changes …
‘Get clean?’
‘No more drugs.’
‘No more drugs!’ she exclaimed, as if I’d told her oxygen was to be rationed or clothes outlawed. ‘Have you had a bump on the head? And what kind of changes, exactly?’
‘You know — get some independence. We’ve lived together all these years and I thought it might do us good to have a bit of space …’ I faltered a little.
‘Hmm. How does Tim fit into this?’
I told her about my decision to let the world know the truth about my sexuality.
‘Oh, how fucking boring! You’re not having a good day, are you? Why don’t you just go to bed and stay there? I don’t know how many people you thought still didn’t know, Cowboy,’ she said rather heartlessly. ‘You might be the grannies’ favourite but everyone else who’s female and over the age of puberty isn’t exactly sitting by the phone. What else? Are you going to reveal to the world that you’re white, too? I wonder how they’ll take it. The Riot Squad had better be standing by.’
‘Well—’
‘Tim,’ she said impatiently. ‘What about Tim?’
In a few words, I painted for her the picture of my future that I had seen so clearly: a proper relationship, a big house in Kent, a new beginning, free of drugs and drink.
‘Sounds like hell to me, but go on.’
‘But Tim wouldn’t do it. He insisted he was going to go through with his marriage to Sophie, that he owed it to his family and his heritage — all of that terrible, life-destroying nonsense.’ As I thought of it, my eyes stung and despair welled up in me. ‘So I lost my head. I told him something I thought would change his mind.’
‘Which was?’
‘That his father was one of my most regular clients all the years I was a rent-boy.’
‘No he wasn’t!’
I nodded sadly. ‘Yes, he was. Mr Brown.’
‘Well, fuck me. Mr Brown was Tim’s dad? And you carried on seeing him all that time? No wonder Tim was upset. He took it badly, then?’
‘Just about as badly as he could.’ I gulped. The memory of his face when I’d told him made me shudder. ‘In fact, he’s vowed to destroy me.’
‘What?’ Catherine’s voice was sharp as a knife.
I nodded. ‘He says that someone like me shouldn’t be allowed to go on fooling everybody. He’s going to let the world know about my rent-boy past.‘
‘This is serious,’ said Catherine, getting up to pace about the room.’ Why would he do that? You’d just tell all about him and his dad in return, wouldn’t you? It’s like a nuclear war. One strike each and then it’s over for everyone.’
‘He says he doesn’t care. He told me to do my worst.’
‘Oh dear. Oh, dearie dear. Hell’s bells, Cowboy. We’re in the shit.’ Catherine turned to me. ‘I can’t manage us out of this one. The press will love it. It’ll be front-page splash for days. They’ll dig up clients who’ll tell them all about what you did — and once it starts, how many more will be climbing out of the woodwork, selling ever more lurid stories for cash? Mild cocaine abuse will only be the start of it.’
‘But the producers love it when I’m naughty,’ I ventured hopefully. ‘At least, they always have before.’
Catherine shook her head. ‘There are standards, Cowboy. Public decency. Regulatory authorities. As long as there was no proof of your darker side — no photos, no witnesses, no stories — it was fine. Once it’s out in the open, they’ll drop you like a hot potato. You won’t even get work demonstrating electric vegetable peelers in Selfridges.’
I buried my head in my hands. ‘How could he do this to me?’
Catherine came to stand in front of me. ‘He hasn’t yet.’
‘But he will. I don’t think I’ll be able to persuade him not to. He won’t take my calls.’
‘Course he won’t. But I’m not thinking of ringing him. No doubt he intends to get hold of the papers first thing in the morning. We need to act fast.’ She went to the cupboard in the corner. ‘Cowboy, we need a lift.’ She took out a bulging mini cellophane bag of cocaine and started to prepare some lines.
‘Not for me,’ I said piously.
‘Oh, Jesus Christ! You have tea with some old bag of bones and suddenly you’re moving into an oxygen tent.’
‘I’m just not sure that’s the best thing for us at this particular moment.’
‘Of course it is. It makes us invincible.’ She passed the little mirror to me. I looked at it. ‘Go on.’
I shook my head determinedly.
Catherine wagged a manicured nail at me. ‘Do as you’re told.’
Suddenly I craved that feeling of power and self-possession. ‘Just one more won’t hurt.’ I hoovered it up obediently.
‘Good lad. Now. There’s only one way out of this.’
‘Yes?’ I looked up at her, hope in my eyes. Was there really an escape from this ghastly mess?
‘You have to stop that maniac before he destroys everything. You have to kill Tim.’
It took a moment for her words to sink in. Then I gasped with horror. ‘You can’t be serious, Catherine! Kill Tim? I couldn’t!’
‘Yes, you could. You must. Don’t you see? He’s going to ruin us. We’ll lose everything. I’m not prepared to let that happen. We did Juan in for less. Why would we stop at Tim?’
No. Not that. Never. She was asking too much this time. I’d rather lose everything than kill the man I loved. I’d rather kill myself.
‘You don’t have a choice,’ she said bluntly. ‘You have to.’
‘No!’ I shouted. ‘Stop it, Catherine. I’m not going to listen to any more of this.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘No.’ I stood up. The cocaine was rushing through my bloodstream now, energizing me. ‘If you’re so keen to see Tim dead, you do it.’
‘Don’t be stupid. How would I be able to kill him? He’d overpower me easily. We don’t have time to lull him into a false sense of security and drug him. It has to be quick and decisive. Let’s see … She frowned. ‘We could shoot him — but we don’t have a gun. My dealer might. I’ll think about that. We could stab him, but it would have to be fairly frenzied, or he might still have the strength to fight back. I think it’ll have to be the unexpected blow from behind. It’s quick and relatively easy. I’ve got an old hockey-stick in the cupboard. I once broke seven girls’ legs with it in one afternoon.’
‘I bet you won that game,’ I said, happy for the digression.
‘We didn’t, actually. I broke their kegs in the dressing room afterwards. Anyway, listen. Thwack. Hard as you can. He goes down, you finish the job off. Plop the hockey-stick in the Thames after, and it’s thank you, good luck to you and your family.’
‘This is madness!’ I cried. ‘What about witnesses, forensic evidence, DNA?’
‘Cowboy, don’t you see? We’re immune to all that stuff.’ She was busy cutting up more lines as she spoke. ‘We have this thing called divine guidance. It’s never let us down so far. High time we had faith in our infallibility. Tim won’t have told a soul he’s fucking you. Why would he? And who on earth is going to connect Johnny D with the mugging and murder of a City lawyer? No one.’
‘But … where would I do it?’ I couldn’t help myself. I was being pulled into Catherine’s world, just as I always had been. She made everything sound so easy, so convincing. Without her I’d be lost, I thought. Without Catherine, I’d no longer have the superpowers I’d enjoyed for all these years. Maybe the secret of my success lay with her. But she would only stay with me if I did as she said. It had always been an unspoken part of our pact that I obeyed her orders — I could see that now. I had been her instrument all these years, first a
s a rent-boy when she’d wanted a partner who would help her get away from her nursing and the bedsit; then as a killer when she’d wanted the money on offer, or the freedom from an irritant; and finally as a hugely successful star who could give her the wealth and power she craved. How could I stop? I couldn’t get off the train, even if I wanted to.
Now Catherine had set me the most momentous, unthinkable task she could ever have devised. To kill my beloved Tim. But I thought of the look on his face when I’d told him the truth and knew he was lost to me for ever. And why should Sophie have him? Why should his life go on in the way he had always planned, with his inheritance intact? Why shouldn’t he lose everything, just as I would if he had his way? After all, I was Johnny D, a man who had carelessly swept obstacles out of my way when they threatened me. I could do anything I wanted. I thought of The Importance of Being Earnest and Miss Prism’s line when she hears of Ernest’s death: ‘What a lesson for him. I trust he will profit by it.’
Killing Tim would teach him a lesson he’d never forget.
Catherine consulted her watch. ‘It’s late. Almost midnight. Where does Tim live?’
‘In a mansion block in Cadogan Square.’
‘Portered?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Then you must go and wait for him inside the block. There are always places to loiter and hide in those old buildings. When he gets back, whack him on his way into the flat — as long as there’s no one about. Take his wallet. Off you go. We’ll burn your clothes, just like before with Georgie.’
The plan seemed full of holes. ‘What if there is someone about?’
‘Then you’ll have to wait till they’ve gone, knock on Tim’s door and get him when he answers it. And if he’s already inside, you’ll have to do that anyway.’
‘And what if Sophie’s there?’
‘I don’t frigging know, do I? Kill her as well, if you like. What if the Queen of Sheba’s popped in for tea and muffins? Use your fucking loaf! Now, have another line and stop putting obstacles in the way.’
We stopped talking to snort.
Catherine’s eyes kit up. ‘I’ve just had an idea! Forget the hockey-stick — it’s too big and noticeable. Besides, it has sentimental value. Use a brick in a sock. Next door are doing a loft conversion and there’s a pile of bricks in the garden. We can help ourselves to one of those. Now.’ She looked pleased with herself as she chopped out another line. ‘Let’s give you a little more magic dust for the road and off you go. That’s another fine mess I’ve got us out of.’
