Outrageous Fortune: Growing Up at Leeds Castle (26 page)

Puffing a bit from his exertions, the soldier arrived in front of me, and the fact that he failed to unsling his weapon, point it at me, and order me to kneel on the ground with my hands behind my head brought immense initial relief. He did, though, speak loud and fast in his native tongue about something that was surely of great importance. I replied with the obligatory, “I don’t understand you, I’m afraid.”

This provoked another lengthy outburst, accompanied by frenetic waves in the direction of the hotel.

“I paid my bill. Paid … my … bill,” I said, eschewing previous generations’ methodology of “If they don’t understand English, speak louder” in favour of slower and clearer enunciation. Now that I was sure the soldier was not going to shoot me, I relaxed a little and paid attention to his fresh young face, which wore an expression just as confused as my own. He started tapping his pockets and pointing at me, indicating I should do the same. Then he began to mime opening a door with a key. My room key was still tucked snugly away in my jacket pocket, my foolishness laid bare for the soldier’s appreciation. I gave him the key, but before he turned to go back to the hotel he smiled at me again, and to my astonishment and immense pleasure, doffed his military cap. Extraordinary! I thought. It’s as if I’d never left home soil. Without even so much as a nod or a wink, the castle way had accompanied me to dour Communist Zagreb! How daft was that? And how daft was I for thinking it?

*   *   *

After two and a half years at Stowe, all I really was sure about was that when my best friends and I were playing music—Oliver on bass, Max on drums, Peter on lead guitar, me on rhythm guitar and lead vocal—I felt like a different person, joyful and uninhibited. For me it was patently worth the enormous effort which went into it and, I thought, any potential fallout which might come from it.

Prune thought otherwise. He banned us from rehearsing for the entire 1968 Lent term, which sent me into a paroxysm of rage. He wrote to my parents towards the end of my third year: “It is a very difficult decision to make.… Anthony certainly has the intelligence, but I doubt whether he has the drive or even the inclination to make the University.… It would seem to me that the best plan is at least to start a fresh two-year course.… I have never been popular with his study companions (all of whom are too old for him) because of my continuous opposition to this pop group nonsense.… I remain still convinced that it has detracted from their work results.… Anthony, having deserted his own contemporaries, will not find it easy to return to the fold.… He should be in the 1st XI next year, but that would not be any great pull for him.”

I saw this letter for the first time almost forty years after it was written. So Prune had thought, correctly, I did not want to go to university. It had been an assumption on his part because we never discussed it. But I did feel that the sooner I was playing in a band professionally, far removed from the halls of education, the better my life would be. I knew Prune thought my friendship with older boys was wrong, but the decision to hold me back a year—again, not discussed with me—in the hope of stirring me to greater efforts and better results in the classroom, had a demoralizing effect of such proportion that I saw only hopelessness stretching far over the horizon.

I had been headed for the first XI cricket team the following summer. Contrary to Prune’s belief that it “would not be any great pull,” or matter very much, to me, I remained fanatical in my love for cricket and was still reasonably good at playing the game. If any of the authorities at school or at home had asked me for my views, I would have told them they were right about my infatuation with music having a detrimental effect on my work; but they were wrong to think that making me start the year again would solve anything. The one thing I was quite sure of was that if there was an important task before me, I would pull out all the stops to get it done. That included changing gears, reversing priorities, or whatever ad hoc phrases the principals tossed out like spiteful confetti as they sought to address the nature of my shortcomings. Just as at St Aubyns, I was confident I could get the job done, both academically and on the sports field. But the principals either overlooked or were unaware of such capabilities, so the opportunity to prove them once more was denied.

I was instructed to begin my A-level course (two years of advanced-level studies in three specialized subjects) again in the winter of 1968. Now I was surrounded by boys a year younger than me, in the classroom and in my house, and, as Prune had stated in his letter, it was not easy to “return to the fold.” In fact, with castle way thinking scornfully dismissive of my new “seniors and betters,” the situation at Stowe continued to deteriorate.

And then it got worse. Thanks to a bout of flu, I turned up two weeks late for the start of the 1969 summer term only to find a pair of opening bowlers firmly ensconced in the first XI. What I had dreamed of for a year, believing it, clearly in error, to be mine for the offering, had gone up in smoke.
Merde!
Something was rotten in the state of … Buckinghamshire, and I didn’t know what it was.

18.

D
O
W
HAT?

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,

“To talk of many things:

Of shoes and ships—and sealing-wax—

Of cabbages—and kings—

And why the sea is boiling hot—

And whether pigs have wings.”

(Lewis Carroll)

During the holidays, school tension was replaced by parental tension. I don’t know what my mother and father said to each other when they were alone, but in my presence there appeared to be no limit to my father’s capacity to wound with words. They had separate bedrooms in London and at Leeds; they seldom went on walks together in the country, and I always felt at the lunch or dinner table that my mother was one comment away from receiving an unpleasant, barbed response. My brothers and I were constrained in verbal straitjackets, never daring to confront our father’s quiet authority. Fortunately, when friends came to stay at the Maiden’s Tower, or I met up with them in London, tensions evaporated and industrious pleasure seeking ensued.

At sixteen, Soames and I were still best friends and not bad looking in a freckle-faced, hair-in-a-fringe, pouty-mouthed, grey-flannel, upper-class sort of way. We were above-average height, slim, and moderately athletic. We shared a profound and character-building appreciation of cricket and popular music. We were both inclined towards exuberance, but whereas I was shy and often hesitant to carry out our mutually conceived plans of derring-do, Soames was bold and brazen and instigated exciting escapades at the drop of a hat, or, indeed, his trousers!

When we’d gone off to different public schools, I’d feared the separation would change things between us but it didn’t. We exchanged letters during term-time and saw each other a great deal during the holidays. On this particular occasion we were sitting in my parents’ Egerton Terrace drawing room at two o’clock in the afternoon, having just devoured with wolfish enthusiasm a classic example of Miss Preston’s toad-in-the-hole, followed by rhubarb fool and washed down by enough Coca-Cola to evaporate a tiger’s front row of teeth, contemplating what to do next.

“How about a boff?” Soames suggested, chuckling and guffawing like a dirty old man.

A boff? I said to myself, trying not to appear startled by this suggestion from out of the blue. I was familiar with the word, but not with the actual deed. My brother James talked a lot about boffing. Sometimes I thought he talked about nothing else. I had it on good authority, however, that he was an expert on the subject; I, on the other hand, was not yet out of the starting gate. “Do you have anybody in mind?” I asked, knowing full well the answer but needing time to think. Surely Soames hadn’t gone off and done something drastic without telling me first?

“Actually, I have,” he said, his face taking on a familiar, conspiratorial sheen. “My brother’s given me the address and telephone number of a prostitute in the West End. He said she was terrific.”

“But you haven’t been before?”

“No, don’t worry. I wouldn’t sneak off without you. You’re still a virgin, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“So, me too. Isn’t it time we did something about it?”

“Since you put it so eloquently, I suppose it is! How much will it be?”

“My brother said five pounds. Why don’t I call and find out?” Extracting a piece of paper from his pocket, Soames dialled the number. We looked at each other and started to laugh. He had to control himself when someone came on the line.

“Hello … yes, I’m calling to make an appointment with Yvonne, please.… My brother Mr. Soames gave me your telephone number.… Two … this afternoon. Three thirty is fine.… Yes I do.… Thank you, good-bye. Oh! hang on—I forgot to ask—what’s the … er … yes, that’s it! Okay, thanks, goodbye!”

For a second or two neither of us said a word. A momentous decision had just been made: One minute we were guzzling rhubarb fool and discussing goodness knows what; the next, we were embarked on a life-altering mission. This was what best friends were for. You did things together you wouldn’t normally think of doing with anyone else.

“It’s a fiver,” Soames said, putting the telephone down. We both leapt to our feet and dived into our jacket and trouser pockets looking for the all-important cash.

“No problem,” I announced, fishing out two five-pound notes and an array of singles. “I’ve got fourteen, no, fifteen pounds. Wow! Three goes!”

“But we’ve got to get there and back, and I’ve only got six pounds.”

“Okay. One go, and I’ll take care of the cab.”

“Cabs.”

“Cabs. I say, serious money.”

“Serious business.”

Soames went off to pee, and I rushed upstairs for a brief chat with Nanny. Taking the stairs two at a time, I reached the fourth floor in seconds. Nanny was in the nursery knitting and listening to the radio, as was her custom. “Nanny, we’re going out. I’ll be back around teatime, in case somebody wants to know.”

“All right, dear. Now, don’t you get up to any mischief,” she said, peering over her half-moon spectacles and smiling.

I rejoined Soames downstairs in the hallway, checked for keys, and we left. It was a fine day. We walked up Egerton Terrace with a spring in our steps. I was experiencing a mixture of intense excitement and mild apprehension. I knew Soames felt the former because our conversation was loud and animated. I wondered about the latter.

We hailed a taxi, and Soames instructed the driver in his deepest, most dulcet tone, “Thirty-one Maddox Street, if you please.”

“Righto!” the driver said, returning his sliding window to the closed position.

“Are you worried about coming too quickly?” Soames asked me with a constipated grin.

“Of course,” I replied, “but what can one do? I shall close my eyes and think of England.”

“I’m going to have a wank right before.” Again the dirty-old-man chuckle. “That should do the trick.”

“Good grief. Where?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to see.”

This idea struck me as a little extreme, but I let it go. I had my own mental preparations to make, and as we drove round Hyde Park Corner a few pertinent questions came to mind: “Who’s going to go first?” I couldn’t decide which was preferable.

“You go first.”

“So you have time to…”

“Exactly.”

“I may not take very long.” The closer we got, the more anxious I became.

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s just see what happens.” Soames’s right knee was shaking uncontrollably. Clearly he was as nervous as I was.

“Are you nervous?”

“Not at all.”

The cab stopped. We climbed out, and I paid. It was a narrow street, less salubrious than most in this neighborhood. Mainly four-storey buildings that had been converted into offices or flats, or both. There was a coffee-and-sandwich shop two doors down. A few steps led up to the black door of number thirty-one. We walked up, and Soames pressed the appropriate bell. We waited. About one minute later a grizzled and grey-haired old lady, wearing a battered blue gingham summer frock and cook’s apron, with a cigarette dangling out of one corner of her sagging and heavily lined mouth, opened the door. She stood there, the door wide open, smoking her cigarette but saying nothing. We took this to mean we should enter. We lingered in the cramped hallway while she shut and bolted the door. Everything was dark red—the striped wallpaper and the carpet—and there was a smell of joss sticks. Directly ahead was a staircase and two wall sconces which cast a dim and shadowy light. Still saying nothing, the lady hobbled past us, indicating with a wave that we should follow.

At the top of the stairs was a twenty-foot-long corridor with three closed doors, two immediately facing each other, and one at the end. Hunting prints adorned the red-striped walls. The lady opened the door on the right and showed us into a living room. There was a mantelpiece and fireplace with an electric fire turned off. A hunting print hung above. Matching sofas, in dark red material, were positioned on each side of the fireplace. Bookshelves, full of paperbacks, lined the walls, occasional tables were dotted about, and the floor-length curtains, in darkest red, were drawn and had the appearance of heavy silk. It was not your standard doctor’s waiting room.

“Wait here, please.” The old lady’s voice was cracked and smoky. She left, closing the door.

Soames immediately went behind the far sofa and crouched down. I sat on the near sofa and attempted to relax and keep my mind off premature ejaculation. I tried to picture what Yvonne would look like, and what she would say.

“Are you doing what I think you’re doing?” I asked Soames, not quite believing what I was seeing, or rather not seeing since only his head and shoulders were visible.

“I am,” he grunted back, darting furtive glances at the door, praying, no doubt, that it would not open until he completed his task. “Do you have a Kleenex?” he gasped.

“No, but there’s a box on the table straight ahead of you.”