Peace Work (10 page)

Greta Weingarten, our German girl, starts to swim out. I follow her. We go about a fifth of a mile; she turns and says, “You are gute swimmer.” How a German girl got into our show was a mystery.

A FORCED LABOUR CAMP IN RUSSIA.

HITLER IS SHOVELLING SALT AND SHIT.

HITLER:

It is not ein mystery! She is there as my personal representative of the Third Reich!!!

She always radiated a sense of aloofness. I suppose after the macho attitude of wartime Germany she found this collection of musicians and poofs a letdown, except that – ha! ha! – she was going around with our chief poof. All very strange: who did what to whom and how? We race each other back to the shore, I just beat her.

Bill Hall greets me. “You put the shits up Johnny, telling him there were sharks here.”

Toni asks me, “What is the shits up?” I roll over laughing, hearing this innocent voice. “What is the shits up?” she says again. I explain, you know in French,
merde?
She does, “So, it is rude?”

“Yes.”

The afternoon is one of running up and down the beach and splashing in the shallows, then lazing in the sun. At four o’clock we open our packed lunches, sit in the sun and masitcate our sandwiches, as eaten by the Earl of Sandwich. But who invented eating? Was it Tom Eating? What a breakthrough. Until then people kept dying of starvation. Then, Tom Eating discovered food! At first, the superstitious said, “Nay, eating food is the devil’s work.” Many eaters died for their beliefs, but in the end food won through and Tom Eating was beatified and became St Eating, Patron Saint of Food. So ended a lovely day out.

That night just after the show finished, BOOM! a bomb explodes near the theatre. We all rush out, some of us still in costume. A crowd has gathered, there are angry shouts, they suspect Yugoslavian extremists. Toni says to me, “Did that give you shits up?” She knows it’s rude and laughs. It’s not as exciting as it should be. There’s no blood, no dismembered bodies. An Italian partisan, smothered in bullets and a machine pistol, stands on one of the bomb-shattered tables and with veins standing out like whipcords makes an impassioned speech. He says no Yugoslav is going to take Trieste as long as he has breath in his body. The table collapses and he is pitched, still shouting, into the crowd. The American police arrive, the Italian police arrive and, true to form, last are the British police. They start to ask questions and are highly suspicious of all of us in costume. Lieutenant Priest explains that we are travelling mummers and all is well. For all his patriotic utterances the partisan is taken into custody and is driven away in a jeep still declaiming that Trieste is Italian.

It had been quite a day, but there was still the night and, with it, Bill Hall’s nocturnal desires. Somewhere in Trieste some old boiler of a woman will get his attention. “Listen everybody,” says Lieutenant Priest. “Tomorrow is a day off, the Charabong is going to Grado at ten for swimming.” We give him a cheer. This night Toni says I can come into her bedroom. Ha, ha. We start snogging on the bed. So far our affair has been quite innocent, but this time it starts to get serious. She pushes my fumbling hands away. “You give me the shits,” she says and it doubles me up with laughter. But we were getting serious – all those little biological bugs inside us egging us on! Helppp! I’m on course to severely seduce Miss Fontana!

GRADO

N
ext day, we are all in the Charabong looking forward to the day at Grado. We are singing, “Why Are We Waiting?”. In this instance, it’s Bill Hall. He finally appears blinking in the unaccustomed sunlight. Luigi lets the clutch in and we are on our way.

Grado is a spit of land accessible by a causeway. It’s apparently a fisherman’s paradise. It’s not much of a paradise for us. The beach is brown and so is the water. It’s all due to a muddy bottom, of which I’d seen a few. However, it’s a clear blue sky and hot. Toni and I hire a boatman who rows us to where the sea turns blue. We dive over the side. It’s like swimming in champagne, you can see the bottom. We sun ourselves and take a few snaps.

∗

We sit in silence, holding hands, watching the wake of the boat. The boatman smiles, he knows we’re in love. “
Buona
, eh?” he smiles. Plimping (yes,
plimping
) on the sea are fishing boats, small two-men affairs – and, let’s face it, in those days two-men affairs were not that frequent. It was all very stimulating – the salt water drying on your body, the tranquillity and being in love.

Toni taken by me in Grado Me taken by Toni, Grado.

Our time is up; the boatman heads for the shore.

Mulgrew greets us. “Ahoy, there. Welcome to Grado.”

“You’re welcome to it, too,” I said.

Mulgrew has buried Bill Hall in the sand and shaped it like a woman’s body, with huge boobs. Alas, I lost that photo. “How much was the boat ride?” he says. I tell him a hundred lire for half an hour. “A
hundred
lire,” he said, his Scots face wincing with pain. “Why you can get three bottles of wine for that!” I agreed but said they wouldn’t float as well as a boat.

There’s a sort of beach café with a straw-matted roof. Toni and I sit on high stools sipping fresh orange juice. Mulgrew has lemon juice.

“It’s got more vitamins in.”

“What is vitamin?” says Toni.

“You know, vitamins A, B, C, D.”

“That’s a funny way to spell vitamins,” I said.

Marisa is coming out of the water saying, “
Aiuto! Aiuto!
” She’s been stung on her bum by a jellyfish, who seemed to know what he was doing. From then on no one would venture into the water. Toni and I walked along the beach about a mile, stopping at any rock pools and looking for fish trapped by the tide. Sometimes, we’d splash our feet in the shallows. It was like being a child again.

The sun is getting the sea on fire as it lowers itself into the Adriatic. Dancing waves catch the deflected light and semaphore in silver gold flashes. It’s been a wonderful day. The beach café wants to know do we want dinner. If so, they can make us sardines and rice. We ask the all-in price and Lieutenant Priest thinks it reasonable – so, OK. We sit eating it as a new moon like a lemon slice appears in the eastern night sky and, blow me, there’s the sound of Bill Hall’s violin. Soon the Italians are singing.

Vicino Mare

Vicino Amore

In the half-light, I lean over and kiss Toni on the shoulder. As I do so, she places a kiss in my hair – that hair that had lived with washing with Sunlight soap, Lifebuoy, Pears, Carbolic (never had a shampoo) and Brylcreem and Anzora hair-goo. Yes, she kissed all that. We quaff white wine. Some of the boys collect driftwood and make a fire. We sit in a circle watching our dreams burn into embers. The tide rises and washes away our footprints in the sand. Sand from a shore that neither of us would see again. Already that sand was running out.

It was eleven when we drove back to the hotel, all pleasantly tired. Tomorrow? Who cared about tomorrow?

A FORCED LABOUR CAMP IN SIBERIA.

HITLER IS SHOVELLING SHIT AND SALT.

HITLER:

I care about tomorrow. You see. Von Rundstedt and the Tenth Panzer Army will break through and rescue me.

I kiss Toni goodnight,
buona nolle a domani
.

So passed the week in Trieste. This morning, we all embark for Austria. Austria, land of Strauss and the naughty waltz – men and women dancing face to face! Land of Franz Josef, the Hussars, the woods and the liver sausage! I massage my clothes into my suitcase, I sit on it and finally lock it. It looks pregnant. I’ve got half an hour to get breakfast. I dash down to the dining-room. Toni and the girls are at a table laughing and giggling. “Oh, Terr-ee, you late. You must hurry.” I wolf down marmalade and toast and a cup of lemon tea.

KRUMPENDORF

KRUMPENDORF

“O
h Terr-ee,” says Toni. “You choke yourself.” What a headline:

Man Strangled by Marmalade

Lieutenant Priest is rounding up the latecomers. “Come on, we haven’t got all day,” he fusses.

Aboard the Charabong, everyone is excited at the thought of Austria, especially Greta Weingarten. “Now I vill be able to speak mein own language,” she says with an air of superiority.

Toni is in her drab khaki clothes, her hair in a bandana. She looks shapeless, but ah ha! I know what lies underneath, heh, heh, heh! She asks, “In Vienna, we see Russian soldiers?”

“Yes, my dear.” But what’s this Lieutenant Priest is saying? “Before Vienna, we have to play Krumpendorf.” Krum-pendorf? Isn’t that a disease of the groin? He goes on, “Then we play Graz and
then
Vienna.”

“You been in Austria before, Terr-ee?” No, I had travelled extensively in Catford, Lewisham and Brockley SE 26, but somehow never Austria. The trams didn’t go that far.

Oh, no! The coach engine is faltering. We pull over and Luigi raises the bonnet. He is joined by Ricky Trowler who is a whizz kid at engines. He tells Lieutenant Priest, “It’s the distributor.”

“Wait until I see the bastard,” says Priest.

Trowler does some minor adjustments and we are on our way again. It’s another sunny day with a few mare’s-tails in the sky, where do they get such a name for clouds? Like mackerel – what was that poem?

Mackerel sky, mackerel sky,

Not long wet, not long dry.

To pass the time, we play noughts and crosses. I show Toni how to play noughts and crosses for idiots.

We are heading north and gradually climbing. On looking, we can see Trieste spread out below us with the Yugoslav coast disappearing in the morning haze. On one side, we have a sheer drop; on the other, vine terraces looking like giant steps. It reminds me of Dore’s drawings from Milton’s
Paradise Lost
. But then anything made me think of
Paradise Lost
. I remember in Lewisham where I was paying some money into my Post Office savings account, I was served by an old dear of sixty with huge ill-fitting false teeth and I thought, “
Paradise Lost
.” Another time I saw a mongrel sniffing a lamppost and I thought of
Paradise Lost
. What a good headline:

PARADISE LOST! POLICE AND ARMY IN SEARCH

We cross the border at Thorl. There is no customs barrier, we just motor straight through. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” says Priest in mock German tones. “Ve are now in Austria,” and gives the Nazi salute. We all give a cheer and Bill Hall, as though on cue, launches into ‘The Blue Danube’ and a selection of cloying German tunes ending with ‘Grinzing’ – that’s another name I am baffled by. What or why is Grinzing?

MOTHER:

Where have you been at this time of night?

ME:

I’ve been out Grinzing, Mother dear.

∗

Mulgrew clips on a prop Hitler moustache, gives the
Sieg Heil
salute and says, “Ve are now in zer Fatherland. From now, all Jews will half their circumstances confiscated!”

Toni climbing a hill to join me and the view, Austria.