I Must Confess

by Rupert Smith

  Pinky had pulled no punches this time. There, in the centre pages, was a full-length cut-out of Rita posing seductively under the headline BOYS WILL BE GIRLS!. ‘ “I was Marc Lejeune’s sexy surprise,” says man-about-town Crystal DeCanter, hostess at a saucy London Club,’ ran the first paragraph. It was my first experience of kiss and tell – but this one had a sting in the tail. Rita/Crystal, my lover of a night, had betrayed me – and lied to me. My mouth filled with bitter-tasting bile as I realized with disgust that I had been tricked into bed by some kind of sexual freak, a hermaphrodite, a cheap drag queen.

  ‘He was a fantastic lover, inventive and uninhibited,’ says statuesque Crystal, 6’ 1“ in his stilettos. ‘Sometimes he was aggressive, almost violent with me,’ he purrs, ‘sometimes he was so soft and tender, like a little boy.’

  It ran on in this revolting vein for several more column inches, and only mentioned my triumph in Meat at the bottom of the page.

  Marc Lejeune’s checkered stage career hit an all-time low this week when he opened in the sex revue Meat at the Travesty Theatre. Lejeune’s decision to pull out of the million-pound musical Danish Blue has backfired badly : not only is he facing legal action from former manager Nick Nicholls, but also has the exquisite torture of knowing that the show is now London’s top box-office draw without him! Read more about Danish Blue’s new star in tomorrow’s News !

  Now I understood Nutter’s hostility, Julian’s embarrassment: they had realized what I had failed to see, that my lover of a night was a parasitic whore who was using my success to further her – his – own tawdry ends. It was a bitter blow. I had only just learned to trust my fellow man. Must I unlearn that lesson so soon ?

  I had to face Nutter; his good opinion was all that mattered to me. I found him sitting in the kitchen brooding over a can of beer. ‘Have you had lunch?’ I greeted him, intending to soothe his temper with food.

  ‘This is my lunch,’ he growled, draining his beer and scrunching the can with his fist.

  ‘Oh, you must eat . . .’ Nutter shot me a look of such contempt that I dared not go on. ‘Please, Nutter, we have to talk.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to say. I’ve had enough of this shit. It’s time to move on.’ He drummed restlessly on the table.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I wanted so badly to reach out and touch him, but in his current frame of mind I dared not.

  ‘Everything! This stupid fucking play! That bastard Moska touching me up every night! Anna trying to castrate me! And the worst thing of all . . .’ He was silent, opening another can of beer and drinking deeply.

  ‘What, Nutter?’

  ‘The worst thing of all is that . . . I . . . I fancied that fucking drag queen!’

  So that was it. No care for my pain, for the trauma that I’d been through. No: selfish Nutter was frightened by the fact that he had come so close to having sex with a man, had actually found another man desirable. I pitied his narrow-minded ignorance.

  ‘Well, it’s a good job I saved you then, isn’t it?’ I tried to make a joke out of it. ‘From a fate worse than death . . .’

  Nutter was in no mood for jokes. ‘I can’t take it, Marc. I’m leaving. I’ve got to find myself. There’s nothing for me here.’

  ‘What about the show ?’

  ‘You’ll do fine without me.’

  ‘What about Anna ?’

  ‘She’s all yours, mate.’

  ‘But Nutter . . . What about me?’

  He looked into my eyes. What was it I saw in his soul ? Love ? Pain ? I would never know. For a moment, he held out a hand as if to ruffle my hair, the way he used to when we were schoolboys. I closed my eyes, awaiting his touch. When I opened them again, he was gone.

  Nutter’s disappearance seemed to affect only me. Anna was philosophical. ‘They come and they go, babe, like free spirits,’ was her only remark. Moska was pragmatic, rewriting a few scenes in the show (I now had a new back end in the infamous abattoir scene). Life in the house went on much the same as usual. But I was left with a terrible, empty craving. I filled that void with drink, drugs and transient love affairs.

  Meat ran its course at the Travesty, and failed to transfer. It had been just too far ahead of its time. But Moska regarded it as a triumph, despite the paucity of reviews (the few that had appeared were mostly bad). ‘This is not show business, Maaaahhrrrrk,’ he said to me one dull winter afternoon. ‘This is revolution. We are soldiers in an army of love. We must fight on.’ I agreed to be in his next show; I had little else to do. Since splitting from Nick, I’d had no other offers. Life at the house was comfortable enough, and there was always something or someone to take the pain away. Moska promised me an even better part in his new ‘piece’, and once again we began the endless round of classes and workshops and trust exercises.

  Nineteen sixty-nine was the shadow of 1968, a dark year, full of death and disillusionment. One afternoon, while shopping in Camden Town with Julian, we were accosted by a bunch of skinheads who pushed us down an alleyway and beat us up. How much of that violence was simple sexual curiosity ? How much of it was the primal desire to destroy beauty ? We repaired ourselves and continued, proud if bloodied, on our way. But the fun had gone.

  Moska’s next show was even more extreme than Meat. We had a better venue this time – a professionally equipped theatre, with proper dressing rooms and a pleasant foyer bar. Moska, somehow, had chased up a fistful of grants and gained the all-important backing of the Arts Council. We opened in July with a piece entitled Shitface, a violent meditation on the death and destruction that characterized the time. I played several roles, martyrs all: Brian Jones, Jan Palach and, most memorably, Judy Garland, who had just died. The climax of the show featured me in full Dorothy Gale drag, staggering downstage clutching a bottle of booze and diving head-first into a toilet which swallowed my entire body, leaving only the ruby slippers tapping desperately above the rim. As I died, Moska and the rest of the company appeared from the wings in full moon suits miming weightlessness before ‘Captain’ Moska saluted and planted an American flag right up my arsehole.

  Shitface was not a happy production, although this time the reviews were more widespread, and the hippy press at least gave us raves. But the backstage dramas reached ridiculous levels. Practically every night someone walked out, while Moska alienated everyone by bringing in his latest discovery (often alarmingly young) to fill the place. By the end of the run, I was almost as damaged as Judy Garland herself. Every time I lurched towards that toilet bowl – a welcome sight, as it spelt oblivion – I was haunted by the image of Janice Jones.

  We closed at the end of November, and I badly needed to get away. Julian and some of his friends were going to Amsterdam for the Wet Dream Festival, a celebration of the ‘erotic arts’ that promised ‘sex and drugs galore!’ I had nothing better to do, nothing to stay in London for, so I went with them. They returned in time for Christmas; I stayed.

  I’ll draw a veil over my Amsterdam experience for one very good reason: I can’t remember a thing about it. I recall a ghastly ferry crossing. I remember marvelling at the beauty of the city, its narrow houses and bridges, its endless canals. I remember sitting down with Julian in a cafe and ordering ‘cake’. I remember nothing else for the next nine months. I survived – somehow. That’s all I can say about Amsterdam.

  When I returned to London at the end of 1970, I found an angry, divided city. Where once we had spoken of ‘happenings’ and good vibes’, now all the talk was of ‘actions’. Anna and Howard happily plotted one action after another, each more violent and dangerous than the last. They recounted with glee their recent antics at the Miss World competition, which they’d picketed dressed in the cow costume left over from Meat. They boasted that they were going to ‘get’ various leading industrialists, and hinted darkly at involvement with European terrorist organizations. Howard had taken to wearing a beret, dark glasses and a flak jacket, and adorned his room with photographs of Andreas Baader and Che Guevara. Anna had
cut her hair short and was wearing dungarees: she was among the first to go for ‘radical feminist chic’.

  Of course, I got dragged into their dangerous games. I didn’t care about my career; if anything, I wanted to destroy the part of my life that seemed only to have brought misery and despair to myself and those I loved. So I joined in their merry pranks, as they called them. We started making bombs at home – pitiful affairs that would only cause a little fire damage, and were completely uncontrollable and unpredictable. For reasons that now escape me, we planted one of these in the world-famous Biba boutique in Kensington, a place where, once upon a time not so very long ago, Anna, Julian and I had loved to shop. It went off and caused considerable damage to a rack of velvet loons. A few months later, I was roped into a ‘zap’ on the Festival of Light, the ill-timed moral cleanliness campaign attended by Mary Whitehouse and Cliff Richard. Dressed as a Church of England vicar (my long hair and beard looked just the part) I mingled with the good folk in the Central Methodist Hall until, at a prearranged signal, I leapt on to the stage, ripped off my dog collar and the rest of my clothes while Anna ran around the auditorium screaming, ‘Suck my tits!’ We escaped before the police arrived.

  All of this had cut me off completely from the world I’d once known: the world of my parents, of Nick Nicholls and his ‘discreet’ clients, of the closeted Pinky Stevens and his tight-lipped showbusiness buddies. But it made me a celebrity in London’s radical underground, who heralded my every appearance (whether ‘scheduled’ or otherwise) with rapturous write-ups in the free press. It was a strange sort of fame, an exact inversion of what I’d known before. The worse I behaved, the more they loved me.

  Public acclaim demanded that I do one more show with Moska. Our names were inseparable; we had been called ‘the Dietrich and von Sternberg of the fuck-you generation’ by one journalist. And Moska was desperate to milk our association to the very last drop. But I could see what his admirers couldn’t: that this was a man utterly bereft of new ideas, who would flog the dead horse of avant-garde shock theatre until it dropped in its traces. ‘Today’s revolution’, I said to him as we started rehearsals for our final collaboration, ‘is tomorrow’s convention. You’ve got to move with the times, Moska. Find new ways of expression.’ He couldn’t understand me. It was sad to see this man, undoubtedly talented, so blinkered in his ideas. But what was wonderful and liberating in 1968 was tawdry in the cold light of 1971.

  Just as I was ready to move on, the theatrical establishment began to catch up with me. Ironically, Moska was now the darling of the Arts Council, wreathed with awards and raking in grants hand over fist (I never saw any of the money). For his next show, he had gone into partnership with the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the famous ICA on the Mall, a radical venue just a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace. In recognition of his august surroundings, Moska had decided to go highbrow, and planned a radical reworking of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, poignantly retitled The Bell End. Tragic Plath’s masterpiece was a favourite of mine, but once it had been through Moska’s artistic mincing machine, there was little left but the hollow shock imagery of gas chambers, razor blades and the usual chorus of dragged-up ballet dancers covered in his signature stage blood.

  Rehearsals plodded on through the long, hard winter months of 1971 and 1972. By the time we were ready to open, I was so confused and exhausted that I hardly knew what I was supposed to be doing. I was weary of Moska and his foolish working practices, weary of the uncertainty of the underground. I’ll admit it: I was awash with drugs, embarking on one doomed affair after another, promiscuous in my choice of partners. I couldn’t see any escape. ‘Deadening and corrupt’, Moska had called his theatrical rivals – how quickly that had come home to roost. As we approached the opening night, I was desperate.

  First of all, there was another party to live through, a launch for the ICA’s Festival of Underground Theatre, of which we were the main feature. The beautiful regency rooms were packed to overflowing with a curious mixture of London’s freaky fringe community, respectable figures from the artistic world and, of course, the ever-prying press hoping for a story I moved through the crowd, all smiles, ready with a juicy quote (a ‘soundbite’ we’d call it today) for the newspapers and TV crews. But my heart was dead. I’ve never felt less joy, less euphoria, about a first night – that night that all artists live for. Yes, I could play the star, but mine was a hollow glitter.

  Suddenly, I spotted Pinky Stevens across the room. My heart skipped a beat: it was our first face-to-face meeting since he had started his hate campaign against me. How dared he come to the party ? Of course he was hoping that I’d make some horrendous public scene and provide him with the copy for tomorrow’s column. What appetite drove this vulture to feed on my misfortune ? I had to confront him – not in anger, but in sorrow and bewilderment.

  Silence fell as I walked through the parting crowds to where Pinky stood chatting and laughing with his intimates. Soon his was the only voice audible in the room. He sensed something wrong, looked to his friends for guidance and saw all eyes staring in my direction. He swallowed hard and faced me, his expression impenetrable: fear? Or was it desire?

  ‘I think we need to talk.’ That was all I said. I turned on my heel and walked out of the room; Pinky followed. No sooner were we out of the room than the hubbub of voices exploded louder than before, each one of them discussing the ‘showdown’ that was doubtless imminent.

  Without looking back, I led the way downstairs to the dressing rooms. Pinky stuck to me like a shadow. I knew there was a scenery dock where we would be undisturbed. Thither I took him. All around us was total silence.

  ‘So what happens now?’ he asked, laughter playing round his mouth and eyes. ‘Are you going to kill me too ?’

  Inside I was shocked, but I was an actor, and knew how to dissemble my emotions.

  ‘Why do you hate me, Pinky?’

  ‘It’s my job.’

  ‘But why me?’

  ‘You’re just irresistible, Marc.’

  ‘You mean . . .?’

  ‘You’re such an easy target.’

  ‘Have you no shame? No integrity? Is there nothing to which you won’t stoop?’

  ‘From you, Marc, that’s rich.’

  It wasn’t going the way I had planned. I wanted Pinky to see me as a fellow human being, a brother; instead he hid behind a sneering professional mask. I changed tack.

  ‘I wish we could be friends.’

  ‘With pleasure!’

  ‘No, I mean more than that . . . When I first met you, I was attracted to you. But you turned on me. Why is that, Pinky ? What drives you to such cruelty ?’

  ‘I’ve really no idea. Now, if you don’t mind, I must get back to the party.’

  ‘You know what they say – that love and hate are two sides of the same coin.’

  ‘Do they, indeed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a long silence, our eyes locked in mutual exploration. Pinky was not an unattractive man : horn-rimmed glasses concealed penetrating, intelligent eyes, and his mouth was made for kissing as well as for sneering. I felt his desire for me beating in hot waves. I pulled my shirt off and pressed myself against him.

  ‘Oh Pinky! Take me!’

  In trying to steal a kiss, I wrong-footed him and brought us both crashing to the floor; Pinky hit his head on a pipe. He swore loudly, pushed me off and staggered to his feet. I lay there, my clothes in disarray, trying to look seductive. Pinky, the cold-blooded, uptight Englishman that he was, brushed down his trousers, adjusted his glasses on his nose and was gone.

  How I got through the performance I will never know. Doctor Theatre again, I suppose. But even his sweet balm couldn’t cure me completely When the show was over I hung up my pig mask (for some reason, Sylvia Plath metamorphosed into a pig woman), rubbed a little Savlon on to the barbed wire wounds on my arms and legs and left the theatre alone. I walked for hours in St James’s Park. I strolled along the river,
contemplating suicide at every bridge. But life was still stronger than death, and my feet led me home at dawn. I couldn’t sleep. One question went round and round in my brain: What have I done ? What have I done ?

  The aftermath of that night was swift and far-reaching. Pinky, true to form, had ignored the olive branch and turned our poignant backstage meeting into the most lurid copy. ‘Marc Lejeune threw caution to the winds last night at the ICA,’ it began. ‘How far will an actor go for a good review ? All the way, it seems . . .’ I couldn’t be bothered to read any more. For once, I felt I only had myself to blame.

  It was a turning point in my life. I realized just how far a man would go to protect himself – even to the extent of betraying his fellow man. Pinky and I had so much in common – far more than he would admit to his editors or readers – but was desperate to maintain his position as the pampered pet of the West End, the harmless eunuch who would flatter and fawn on those who fed him scraps. But on those, like me, who threatened to blow his cover he squandered his real talent, a talent to abuse. How much of that vicious copy was really directed against himself?

  For there was one big difference between us. Whereas I had always lived my life in the open, heedless of what people thought, Pinky was condemned by his own fear to a life in the shadows. I was one of the brave ones: those who loved and fought for the freedom to love. But privileged Pinky couldn’t bear the idea of freedom. He chose to be half a man, assuaging his guilty conscience by punishing me for his own shortcomings. And it had worked, so far. His editors had their suspicions about Pinky (he was, after all, living with another man, and enjoyed secretive liaisons with boys many years his junior) but, as long as he kept churning out columns that held me up as the last word in sexual irregularity, they turned a blind eye. But now he’d overplayed his hand. True, I came out of the incident looking foolish. I’d tried to seduce a journalist, it seemed like the last resort of a desperate man. But Pinky had compromised himself as well. What, after all, was he doing in the ‘sordid cupboard’ with a ‘half-naked, drugged-up degenerate’ in the first place ? From that moment on, Pinky’s stock at the Evening News began to fall dramatically