Peace Work (5 page)

“Not long now,” says Lieutenant Priest in a cheery voice.

Lots of things aren’t long. Mulgrew wasn’t very long, Maxie at five feet five was even less long. There was indeed a great shortage of longs.

PADUA

L
et’s see, what do I know about Padua? There was St Anthony’s, and ‘Fred’ Giotto had some murals in the Palazzo della Regione. So I didn’t know much about Padua. If only the coach stopped in Catford. I knew a lot about Catford. There was the Fifty Shilling Tailors, where I had ordered a dreadful suit that made me look deformed. It was like something you get on prescription from a doctor.

It’s evening when the dusty Charabong with its passengers singing ‘Hey, Girra, Girra, Girrica’ shudders to a steaming halt outside the Leone Bianco Hotel.

“Ah, Leone Bianco,” says Bornheim, “The Blancoed Lion.”

“
Che stufa
,” says Toni.

It’s her twentieth
che stufa
of the journey. We sort out our luggage. Mulgrew says, “Oh fuck,” the handle of his suitcase has come off.

“Ah, now you can join the knotted string brigade,” I say.

We lollop into the hotel which is soon echoing to the sound of lollops. Blast! I am sharing a room with Mulgrew and his second-hand clothes store. Toni’s bedroom is the next floor up, blast again.

“It’ll never stretch that far,” says Mulgrew.

“Will you stop making suggestive remarks about me and Toni,” I said. “Our love is pure,” I said with hand over heart and the other raised heavenwards.

A tap on the door and enter a pretty girl with tea trolley.

“
Signori
tak tea, yes?”

Yes, please! We sipped our tea and smoked.

“Sooo,” says Mulgrew. “This is New York.”

I unpack.

“You know, Johnny, you look taller in bed.”

“What are you suggesting? I only meet people lying down?”

“Well, yes. You can get up for shaking hands and then lie down again.”

There was a silence and Mulgrew blew smoke ceiling-wards.

“I wonder where that silly bugger Hall is.”

It was a worry. Hall had this horror film visage – he was lucky no one had tried to drive a stake through his heart. We were to open in Venice tomorrow. Would Hall make it?

“I mean, the streets are made of water. No good trying to run,” says Mulgrew, scratching his groins.

“Is it the old trouble?” I say.

“That was a wee smasher who brought in the tea,” he said.

More groin scratching. Aloud, he starts to read the notice on the door – anything to save buying a book.

“Dinner between eight and ten-thirty, unless a late meal is requested.”

There it is at the bottom…Arghhhhhhh Cold Collation! It’s followed me, there are special Cold Collation units that are following me.

“Sir, he’s heading for Padua.”

“Quick, send a despatch rider with several Cold Collations, and hurry.”

I run a bath; I undress in front of the mirror. The more clothes I remove, the more I look like a Belsen victim. I immerse what is called a body in the bath. I sing merrily, adjusting the taps with my toes.

I spruce up and take the lift down to see Toni, who is walking down the stairs to meet me. I go down to meet her, she comes up to meet me, and so on until we make it. A lovers’ stroll through the town: being a university town, there are numerous book shops and the cafés are full of students talking excitedly. Toni stops at a sweet shop and buys coloured sugared almonds.

“Thee blues ones are for your eyes.”

Gad, I must have been lovely then. One thing for sure, she must never see me naked. I had a body that invited burial, that and my ragged underwear.

We walked and talked. Sometimes, we stood still and talked – that’s like walking with your legs together (eh?).

Back to the Blancoed Lion and dinner.
Gnocchi?
What’s a Gnocki? Who’s that Gnocking at my door? It was the first time I’d had it.

“Eeet is a Roman speciality,” says Toni.

She asks me if I’ve ever been to Venice. I say no, but I’ve seen it in a book. “All the city built on – how you say?”

“Piles,” I said.

Yes, the whole of Venice suffered from damp piles. She doesn’t understand.

Lieutenant Priest approaches, “Is everything all right?”

Yes,
molto buono
.

He tells us that Chalky White has gone forward with the scenery, which will be transported to the theatre by barge. Priest laughs at the thought.

“My God, he had difficulty unloading on dry land.”

We repair to the lounge bar where most of the cast are drinking.

“What will you have?” says Bornheim.

“I will have a Cognac and Toni will have a lemonade.”

“Well, I’m sure the barman will serve you,” he laughed – the swine! “Sorry, Spike, I’m broke. You’ll have to lash out.”

“You sure Bornheim isn’t a Jewish name?” I said. “So, what’ll
you
have?”

Of course, it’s double whisky, isn’t it. Wait, what’s this? Through the door, covered in dust, unshaven, his fiddle case under his arm, is the late Gunner Bill Hall.

“Ere, they didn’t bleedin’ wait for me,” he says. “I bin cadging lifts all day. My bloody thumb’s nearly coming off.”

He wants to know if dinner is still on. I gaze at my Aztec gold watch and, holding it in a position for the whole room to see, I tell him he is just on the right side of ten-thirty. He departs, him and his reeking battledress – the jacket is open from top to waist, over a crumpled shirt (off-white shirt). Because of his thin legs he wears two pairs of trousers – they billow out like elephants’ legs. God, what a strange man, but a genius of a musician. When he died a few years ago, I realized that a genius could die unsung.

So, as the surgeon said, we’re opening tonight. All excitement – we’re on our way to the Theatre Fenice in Venice. Toni gave my arm a squeeze but nothing came out.

“Now,” she says. “Theese is for you.”

It’s a small tissue-wrapped package.

“Oh, how lovely! It’s what I’ve always wanted, a tissue-wrapped package!”

I remove the tissue. It’s a silver cigarette case. I look for the price tag.

“Now you throw away dirty tin, eh?”

“No, no I can’t throw it away. That tin has been under mortar and shell fire with me, danced with girls with me, even had an attack of piles with me!” From now on, I’ll have to keep it out of sight.

A FAG SHOP IN CATFORD SE6

CUSTOMER:

A packet of out-of-sight cigarettes please.

SHOPKEEPER:

There, sir.

CUSTOMER:

This packet is empty.

SHOPKEEPER:

Yes, sir. That’s because they’re out of sight

VOICE:

Yes, get the new out-of-sight cigarette!

Maria Antoinetta Fontana swimming from the knees down in Riccione.

VENICE

VENICE

T
he Charabong is taking us through medieval Mestre and on to the causeway. The sun bounces off the yellow waters of the Lagoon. On the right, the blue-grey of the Adriatic, neither of which looked clean. We de-bus in the Piazza Roma where a CSE* barge is waiting – oh, the fun!

≡ Combined Services Entertainment.

Barbary Coast Co. on the Grand Canal. Bornheim reading the Union Jack.

“Hello sailor,” I say to a deckhand.

I lift my guitar case carefully on board, then turn to help Toni – blast! A deckhand is helping her. I’ll kill him, he
touched
her, my Brockley SE26 blood boiled. He’s lucky to be alive.

We glide down the Grand Canal: on our right, the magnificent Palace Vendramin Calergi, its mottled stone catching the sun, pigeons roosting along its perimeters. We slide under the Ponte Rialto and look up people’s noses – the sheer
leisure
of water travel. Toni and I are in the back of the barge by the rudder; I look into the brown waters to see romantic discharge from a sewer. Slowly, we come to the landing stage for the theatre.

Our pier – at 86 Area HQ, Venice.

Our dressing-rooms are wonderful: red plush with gilt mirrors, buttoned furniture.

∗

“Och, now! Och, this is more like it,” says Mulgrew.

What it is och more like, he doesn’t say. That bugger Bill Hall is missing again! Will he turn up? Mulgrew shrugs his shoulders. Suddenly, he notices my new cigarette case.

“It’s from Toni,” I tell him.

An evil grin on his face, Mulgrew says, “Is that for services rendered.”

How dare he! Now he wants to borrow a fag.

“God, Mulgrew, you’re always on the ear’ole. What do you do with your fags?”

“Didn’t you know I smoke them!” A pause, then, “Are you thinking of marrying her?”

“Hardly, I mean my worldly savings are eighty pounds.”

Mulgrew claws the air like a beggar.

“Rich- RICH,” he says.

“I can’t take Toni from all this to a steaming sink in Deptford.”

“Why not? It’s good enough for your mother.”

“My mother’s used to it, but this girl is upper middle class. They’ve got a maid.”

“Then,” he laughs, “marry the maid. She’s used to it.”

As he speaks, he is undressing – he’s down to his vest when there’s a knock at the door.

“Just a minute,” he says, and pulls the front of his vest between his legs. “Come in.”

Lieutenant Priest sticks his head round the door.

“Any signs of your vagrant?” he says.

“We need notice of that question,” says Mulgrew. He releases his vest and lets his wedding tackle swing freely in the night air.

“He is a bugger,” says Priest, and departs.

Another knock on the door.

“Just a minute,” says Mulgrew, again tucking his vest between his legs. “Come in.”

It’s buxom dancer Greta Weingarten. She wants to know would we swop our chocolate ration for her cigarettes. Alas, we have eaten it all. She departs and again Mulgrew lets it all swing free.

“Ohhh, Rita,” groaned Mulgrew, making a well-known sign.

“I must change,” I say.

“What’s it this time, Dr Jekyll?” says Mulgrew.

It’s an hour to curtain up. I’m on first, playing trumpet in the band, then a nightshirted singer in ‘Close the Shutters, Willy’s Dead’, then on guitar in the Bill Hall Trio – or the Mulgrew-Milligan Duo. The show starts with no sign of Hall: the entire cast are on-stage singing ‘San Francisco’. This is followed by our MC, Jimmy Molloy, with a dreadful American accent.

“Howdee folks,” he says, “welcome to
Barbary Coast
. For the next two hours we will be…” etc. etc., as the girls go into the can-can.

The Barbary Coast Belles heavily posed with Keith Crant.