Freddie Mercury (33 page)

And speaking of Christmases, wherever he was in the world, whether New York, Munich or London, he was always one for the traditional. He insisted on a Christmas tree although very rarely when abroad did he manage to secure the size of the ones we had in Garden Lodge. He had a certain ideal view of what Christmas should be. Whether Zoroastrians celebrate Christmas I don’t know but Freddie had picked up the notion somewhere along the line. Christmas as he celebrated it was a very British thing and he was drawn to what he perceived were traditional British roots.

His active part and involvement in the proceedings was telling everybody else what to do and where to put things and how to hang decorations. At Garden Lodge, Jim always arranged the table centrepiece and kept it a secret until the last minute. A mixture of seasonal flowers and fir cones and Christmas baubles –
Blue Peter
and its yoghurt pots, loo roll cores and sticky-back plastic had nothing on what Jim Hutton came up with.

Not that Freddie would even wrap presents himself. Most of them came pre-wrapped and packaged from the shop because Cartier,
Tiffany and Lalique do that kind of thing. Christmas cards he chose from the selection which I would go out and buy but he would always write the cards himself. He would go through his own address book and write the envelopes although these would frequently not be posted as inside many of them he would also include a cheque. It was how we in the household always received our Christmas bonuses.

The cast list for Christmas day’s lunch would start being prepared at the beginning of December with a basic list being added to, subtracted from and generally changed and swapped around daily. It almost became a tradition that on Christmas Eve he would have open house; Mike Moran would, latterly, always be there to play the piano and everyone would gather to sing carols.

Talk of British tradition! What could be more Victorian than carols round the piano? Freddie used to enjoy the carol singing I think almost as much as all the other parts of Christmas together. I remember one year, he was overjoyed when Stephanie Beacham and her children were there, all singing carols. This communal singing business he always thoroughly enjoyed, often holding impromptu choral harmony sessions, especially when in the company of Straker and Kenny Everett. Whether this enjoyment came from his time at his English boarding school at Panchgani in India, who knows?

Christmastime was always a poignant anniversary regarding Freddie’s friendship with Kenny Everett. Kenny had been extremely influential in ‘breaking’ ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on Capital Radio in 1975, introducing the seven-minute single to a nation accustomed only to the three-and-a-half minute sound bite. It seems incredible and rather farcical now to remember that this intense friendship between two highly emotional people broke up because of a confrontation over drug use. It wasn’t even a head-to-head argument. There was no one-on-one row. It was ‘relayed’ to Freddie (by some kind friend, of course) that Kenny thought that Freddie was quite happy using anybody else’s drugs without providing any himself. When Freddie heard this, he couldn’t believe his ears because it was his own feeling that the boot was in fact on the other foot and that it was Kenny who was always appropriating anyone else’s ‘stash’ other than his own. Freddie’s opinion was similarly ‘relayed’ back to Kenny and the situation then arose, which I think everyone must have encountered, where it becomes impossible to patch up a hole that never was. Polarisation ensued, pride took over and the rest is
conjecture but they never spoke again after Christmas 1980. Drug induced paranoia? What? My personal feeling is that it’s just the way some friendships go. How the newspapers thought that Kenny was one of the last of Freddie’s best friends to speak to him before he died, I really wouldn’t like to say.

At some point in the Christmas week he would go over and see his parents and family and take their presents but they would never be involved in any of his Christmas schedule at Garden Lodge. Freddie never mixed friends and relatives, even to the point where when his parents were invited to Garden Lodge, Joe and I had to go out. Mary would be asked to stay. His parents had grown to like her, having been introduced to her so many years before when he and Mary were sharing a flat and it helped to square the view of normality which he wished to give to his parents. Normality in the strictest sense of the word. Not necessarily ‘straight’ as in heterosexual but merely to allay any fears they might have had for him, to assure them that there was an ongoing secure continuity in his life and that no harm was coming to him.

Christmas Day began at about eleven at night on Christmas Eve. After his carol session, Freddie and troupe would go to the Copacabana which gave me a chance to get on and prepare the vegetables for the next day’s banquet for upwards of about twenty people.

For me Christmas Day would start at about nine in the morning, getting the turkey (or turkeys depending on numbers) into the oven (or ovens depending on numbers). All the traditional vegetables and trimmings were prepared, including home-made stuffing and bread sauce. We made three varieties of stuffing, one of sausage meat, sage and onion, then one of tomato, mushroom and rice and finally the traditional chestnut, of course. Then there were the accessories, Brussels sprouts, a carrot-and-pea
macedoine
, mashed swede, mashed butternut squash, roast parsnips, roast potatoes, chipolata sausages rolled in bacon and lashings of home-made gravy!

All very Famous Five, really.

I would have made the puddings and cakes in September or October when they’re traditionally supposed to be made. I must admit, Freddie did enjoy fresh, home-made food. Whenever Freddie was going into the studio, we would make an assortment of sandwiches for him, although it was Joe’s speciality of home-made
sausage rolls which Freddie carried in with special pride and handed round to everyone, eating perhaps only one himself.

Christmas lunch would start without an appetiser at about two o’clock. Guests would definitely include Mary and her current beau, Jim Hutton, Peter Straker, Trevor Clarke and then it could also include Rudi Patterson, Graham Hamilton, Gordon Dalziel, Dave Clark with his friend John Christie, Yasmin Pettigrew, James Arthurs and his friend Jim, Paul Prenter when he was alive and around and of course Joe and myself.

It wasn’t a necessity to watch the real Queen’s message to the Commonwealth and so after a leisurely lunch, the fun began. One of Freddie’s little foibles was that everybody who came to lunch brought a gift for everyone else who was there. It was a thoroughly sweet gesture for in that way no one would ever feel left out and everyone would have the same amount of presents to open except Freddie who had millions more than anyone else! The sitting room looked like a war zone of waste paper and great care was taken when throwing the paper away that nothing remained hidden inside. One walked through a sea of discarded glitter, ribbons and wrappings.

From about five o’clock onwards, other people would begin to drop by just to wish a Happy Christmas. Generally the company would break into smaller groups in all the rooms on the ground floor and intermingle and catch up on what had been happening in their lives since last they’d seen each other. Freddie’s Christmases were meeting places for people who often didn’t see each other from one year’s end to the next. Geography, work patterns. Showbusiness knows no constant structure other than impermanence.

The Christmas decorations remained in place for the full twelve days of Christmas and were dismantled on January 6. New Year’s Eve was always celebrated by Freddie but in the last few years a pattern emerged where we used to spend the New Year at Gordon and Graham’s apartment high up in Quadrangle Tower in the Water Garden complex. He started to go to Gordon and Graham’s traditional Scottish celebration when Freddie decided he no longer wanted to go to the clubs. A great deal of fun was always had.

I remember one occasion when we brought the evening meal with us and Joe was let loose in the boys’ kitchen to dish up some amazing chilli prawns and rice; huge tiger prawns. The party would consist of Freddie and Jim, Gordon and Graham, Mary Austin and whoever she
wanted to bring, Joe Fanelli and his current beau and myself. I remember another occasion when we had Freddie in stitches when two friends of Joe Fanelli’s turned up. Tony Evans, together with a friend of his and ably assisted by we boys from Garden Lodge, performed a Bananarama routine, they being the big girl band of the moment, the vastly more talented forerunners of today’s Spice Girls. I think everyone surprised each other at how easily we seemed to recall the dance and movement routine. I pitied the neighbours that night.

Prior to these Hogmanay nights, Heaven was a regular New Year’s Eve haunt. A group of people would be rounded up at Garden Lodge at about nine o’ clock for a champagne supper and then the well-lubricated party would sally forth in time to arrive at the club for midnight. Fortunately, Freddie never had to worry about parking and nor would he ever have to worry about being turned away by the security bouncers on any door.

Easter was always another excuse for Freddie to buy presents. He really did get the most intense enjoyment out of giving things to people. Of course he never needed to wait for an occasion but the occasion made him feel better about his indulgent excess. Other people’s birthdays of course were prime examples of these convenient moments.

For any of us really close to him, the birthday present would consist of something special which he’d gone out and bought, perhaps as part of a bulk purchase but always with a specific person in mind. This was always accompanied by a card with a cheque inside it. One friend of Joe’s, Donald McKenzie, whom Freddie liked a lot, was very taken aback when Freddie presented him with an antique Lalique vase, knowing that Freddie had bought it just a short while earlier at auction.

Gifts, for Freddie, meant first and foremost the thought. So many people would say to him, “Oh, what can we buy you? You’ve already got everything and whatever you want you can just go out and buy!”

On the contrary. Freddie on more than one occasion was incredibly bowled over by a gift that might have very little monetary value but the thought put behind it would stand out a mile and make it priceless. Anybody who knew Freddie knew of his pet adorations, ‘pet’ meaning either cats or fish, or ‘pet’ meaning adorations like Lalique and fine porcelain and art. So often he was speechless when he opened
gifts from, maybe, one of the cleaners who had put a lot more thought into her gift than someone with a vastly higher income.

If it was any of our birthdays – Jim’s, Joe’s or mine, even Mary’s – Freddie would invariably decide to ‘give’ us a party. Many of Freddie’s friends recall a telephone call from him saying, “It’s Jim’s birthday next week and I’m having a party and I want you to come… ”

How much say we had in our own guest list was of course limited to being able to invite a friend or two but the parties were always wonderful affairs. Inevitably, they were crowned by some masterpiece of confection in the shape of whatever our current fancy might have been, interpreted and created by amongst other
pâtissières
, Jane Asher and Kim Brown (nee Osborne) and Diana Moseley’s sister, Fiona.

Kim once made a wonderful cake in the shape and form of Garden Lodge and another specific cake I remember for one of my birthdays was in the form of a stage set of
Aida
with a pair of singers on it with numerous orchestra members in a pit in front of it. The last birthday cake which we had made for Freddie was of his Swiss apartment building, made by Jane Asher.

Another legendary and totally eye-catching feature of Freddie’s parties were the prawn trees which we occasionally wheeled out from the kitchen. Very simply, they were cones made of inch-diameter chicken wire with individual whole prawns poked through with bodies facing out. It was almost something Salvador Dali might have come up with. The tiers of pink prawns were occasionally interspersed with springs of fresh green parsley.

Another birthday of mine which I remember was in New York. It started on a Thursday evening and didn’t really finish until we got home on Sunday night, Monday morning. One long round of bars, restaurants, drinks… and of course friends. My present on that occasion in 1981 was a solid gold Cartier screw-bracelet. Cartier was often visited to provide presents. Although Freddie himself never wore a watch, it was as though he would make anything he had to do fit in to the number of hours available. If he had appointments at specific times, there would be others around who had watches to ensure he would arrive on time. Otherwise, lunchtime was when he felt hungry. If he had planned a dinner at home with friends at a certain time. He would always be ready for it as there were clocks all over the place, although never a timepiece on his wrist.

He developed a dislike of giving watches to lovers. After the second
time he gave one, the current lover, like the predecessor, soon became an ‘ex’. He felt that any relationship was cursed as soon as he made a present of a watch. On one occasion, he had picked up a lorry driver, to whom he had famously quipped, “What’s the queen from Queen doing with a queen from Queens?” although whether or not the young man in question really was from the New York borough of Queens is quite another matter. On the journey back to the man’s apartment, he passed Cartier which had already opened. Freddie went in and bought a clock for the trucker. However, I must emphasise that he didn’t buy every stray trick a gift. It just happened that Cartier on the aforementioned occasion was on the way. It was the first time I could remember someone having been bought their present before the sex had been enjoyed!

I think the only special occasion dinner to which absolutely none of Freddie’s friends was invited was one of his parents’ wedding anniversaries which he gave at Garden Lodge before he had moved in. Just his family and Mary of course, who looked very good in a scarlet Bruce Oldfield couture which I had helped her pick out from a large selection and which Freddie bought for her.