Goodbye Soldier (5 page)

“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.

∗

Interval and Hall appears. “Wots orl the fuss I’m in time for the act aren’t I?” We are again the hit of the evening. The applause was longer than normal; we do an extra encore and busk ‘Undecided’.

PADUA AGAIN

“A
h Ter-ee, today we go see Basilica St Anthony of Padua.”

She is a little bossy boots.

“OK. Mulgrew wants to tag along.”

“OK.”

Ah! That basilica! Built in the eleventh century!! And looking fresh and magnificent. Seven weathered bronze cupolas are its roof; it looks like a multiple Santa Sophia. As you approach the entrance, there is a Donatello, a magnificent bronze equestrian statue of Erasmo di Narni (Rasmus the Nana). Inside is a treasure house of marble statues and paintings. Suddenly, the outside noise is subdued, voices become sibilant. Toni has covered her head with a black lace shawl; mine is covered in Brylcreem. Catholics all, we cross ourselves with Holy Water that looks like a breeding ground for typhoid. I recalled how a priest at St Saviour’s, Brockley Rise, a hygiene fanatic, used to add Dettol to the Holy Water. When we returned from mass, my father asked: “Have you been to church or had an operation?”

Here, mass is about to be said. Holding candlesticks, a chanting string of choirboys with faces like cherubim precede a grim-faced priest and retinue. He is mouthing the words, but not singing. He’s heard it all before.

“You want stay for mass?” whispers Toni.

“OK, just a little.”

We slide our knees into an empty pew. The chanting echoes round the vaulted ceiling like trapped birds trying to escape. The gloom of the interior is punctured by a poin-tillism of candles flickering before statues with sightless eyes and marbled brains. The waft of stale incense is being topped up with fresh ignitions. Old ladies in black eschew older prayers. They pass the Stations of the Cross, each one jostling with her neighbour for a better place in heaven. Why are the poor so rich in religion? Do the godless rich rely on St Peter taking bribes? “
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus
,” intones the priest. The communicants, heads hanging like condemned murderers, scuffle to the Communion rail, their heads jerk back to receive the Host. It’s rather like a petrol station, each one being refilled for their spiritual journey.

It was nice to hear the tongue of the Romans still in use. There’s the final blessing –
Dominus vobiscum;
we reply,
Et cum spirito tuo
, and Ta raaaa…that’s the end. We walk out into the bright sunshine. Mulgrew is gasping for a fag, especially one of mine. I open my silver case, he takes one, I snap the case shut like Bogart. I tap my cigarette on the lid. With a flick, I send the cigarette up my nose.

“That’s the first time I’ve been in a Catholic church,” said Mulgrew (a lapsed Scottish Presbyterian).

“I promise I won’t tell anyone,” I said. Toni wants to tidy up her hair, “That lace shawl catch my hair.” She got Mulgrew to hold her mirror.

Mirror, mirror! Toni fixes her hair with the aid of Mulgrew.

I drop these photos in from time to time so you don’t think I’m making this all up.

The occasion is marred by rain. We run for the covered walkways by the shops and finally make a dash for the Blancoed Lion. Ah! There’s some more mail. My folks have sent me a parcel of books and magazines, so I settle down for a good afternoon’s read. I read we now have a Labour government with Clem Attlee as Prime Minister. After having that wonderful man Churchill, we now have someone who looks like an insurance clerk on his way to a colonic irrigation appointment. I ask Mulgrew what he thinks of Attlee.

“I never think of Attlee.”

“Do you think of any politicians?”

“I sometimes think of what Bessie Braddock looks like with her clothes off. It’s therapeutic! Something else, politicians should only be allowed to make speeches with their trousers down. It would be a test of their sincerity.”

Is Mulgrew mad? Could Churchill have made his ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears’ speech with his trousers down?

SPEAKER:

Will the honourable gentleman lower his trousers and answer the question.

CHURCHILL:

I’m sorry, Mr Speaker, but I’ve forgotten my underpants…