Vanished Years (4 page)

‘But Mummy, I’m famous now.’

‘I know, darling. Isn’t that super?’

How can I go and live in a dormitory with other boys?

‘You’re boring me now, darling! Pull yourself together. You’ll love it when you get there.’

Dreams do come true. This was the first day of school. There were the big boys, with their untucked shirts and terrifying testosterone levels, the friendly matrons and misses, sympathetic but distant, and finally, appearing out of nowhere, everyone’s hero, our very own scoutmaster, Mr Curtis.

‘Gather round, everyone!’ he said.

‘Hooray!’ we all roared. We jostled in, eager scouts and cubs. Richard was rather like a big blond schoolboy, a white rat. He had that confidence one loves in the school’s most popular prefect.

‘Sir. Sir. Sir.’

We all put up our hands in worship, hoping for a nod, a wink, a wank even.

‘Now you all know the form,’ he continued, arms akimbo. Only his toggle was missing. ‘It’s going to be tough. But a lot of fun, I think. I believe you’re going to the hotel now, and the sooner you all get started the better. There’s a lot of work to do. Any questions?’

‘Yes. I have one,’ drawled Jo Brand. ‘Couldn’t we just click our fingers like they did in Los Angeles?’

Polite giggles. Mr Curtis threw back his head and laughed.

‘No, Jo, we can’t!’ he said.

I wanted to ask when dinner was, but didn’t dare.

‘Well, good luck everyone. Have a smashing time.’

Everyone picked up their suitcases, signed their release forms and braced themselves for the next circle of the inferno.

I was bundled into a car with Alastair Campbell. It was already nine o’clock. Alastair and I were squeezed onto the back seat while two camera sharks and their pilot fish squatted at our feet, pointing
their various tools in our direction. There was obviously going to be no off-camera time. We were both rigid with performance as we scrolled through our phones, pretending to look for people to call and ask for money.

‘I don’t know anyone,’ I moaned.

‘Of course you do,’ encouraged Alastair, looking over my phone. ‘Who’s Joe Escort?’

I took a moment to think. The camera’s black hole rounded on me enquiringly, dilating into a close-up.

‘Um. An escort called Joe?’

‘Any money?’ replied Alastair without missing a beat.

‘Tons probably. Cash too.’

We drifted off into our own thoughts. I tried to think of some ingenious way to escape, because I knew I could not spend four days with these people and their cameras in our faces 24/7. I had arrived at my charity Waterloo. Here I was, sitting in a car with the man who sexed up the dossier that took us to war in Iraq. Actually he was rather nice in person, but so was Hitler. Alastair was discreet and world weary, like a retired gym teacher. He seemed big, badly dressed and sexy, and his sad eyes looked medicated. Maybe taking us to war had exhausted him. Being too close to power had eaten a chunk out of him. At any rate he wasn’t going to headbang anyone on this gig, although he did have a big knobbly nose that was made for aggression or at least cunnilingus. It was going to get bigger as he got older. But the old Blair thug was no longer there. Not even a whisper. Thank God. Hopefully the camera was not reading my thoughts because my shark looked briefly from his eyepiece and winked. He seemed exhausted too.

We finally arrived at some West End hotel in a suite that reminded me of Tutankhamen’s tomb. The bedrooms had been stripped of furniture and crammed with all the apparatus of reality. Behind their closed doors, directors and assistants huddled over banks of screens, whispering instructions on walkie-talkies, while in the large sitting room Piers and Ross were warming up, lobbing chit-chat back and forth. Thank God for the painkillers I had stolen
from my mother’s bathroom. A couple of Tramadol and a large vodka in the bar on the way up, and the flooding panic began to subside. Sort of. I sat down. A little round make-up lady scuttled from a cupboard to powder me down and then ran back in, slamming the door behind her. Cables coiled across the floors, dragged by unseen forces round the furniture and under doors. Piers paced the room talking at length to Philip Green, another bright light on the charity scene, while Alastair Campbell called Tony Blair’s office. Maybe I should phone the escort called Joe and liven things up a bit. I began to feel sick.

‘Tony’s going to try and come down,’ said Alastair. Cameras U-turned and screeched to a halt at our various faces to catch the ecstatic reaction.

‘Wicked,’ said Ross, making a thumbs-up sign. (Big hands, incidentally.)

I have never been a very ‘interior’ actor, but I learnt fast. Vomit was about to explode from my mouth (Tramadol OD, vodka and Tony) but I managed to make it look as though I were simply blowing my cheeks out in orgasmic disbelief. Meanwhile I swallowed hard and raised my eyebrows. Luckily I could that month. When I got the puke back down to my stomach, I added a little knowing giggle. I must have been purple under the powder because the make-up lady elbowed aside the camera that was three inches from my nose and shoved hers right up close.

‘Look at you,’ she whispered, placing a Kleenex over my face.

‘Just leave it there,’ I said.

‘What, dear?’

‘Nothing.’

This make-up lady was a giant lazy bee, buzzing around the table with her little bag of tricks, bumping into a camera, bouncing back, and hovering over her blooms as she patted and primped and sprayed us down before zooming at a sedate pace back to her hive.

We were each given a writing pad and a pencil, and sat around the table to start our first meeting.

‘When you want. In your own time,’ shouted a voice through a door, which then slammed, and we were off.

‘OK,’ ordered Piers. ‘Let’s get organised.’

How much longer could I look constantly intrigued without having a stroke, I wondered. My camera looked at me accusingly. ‘Do something!’ it seemed to be saying, so I scribbled frantic doodles on the pad.

‘Philip Green is providing
all
the champagne!’ bellowed Piers. I wrote that down, just in case I forgot. I’m sure they’ll all be thrilled to pieces down at the sweatshop in Bangladesh. Maybe Lucifer could bring the nibbles.

‘Now. What about the hamburger stand?’ asked Alastair.

‘Ah yes. We need to make ten thousand quid on it if we’re going to beat the girls,’ replied Piers.

‘That’s not going to be easy,’ said Ross. ‘Ten thousand pounds’ worth of hamburgers! That’s a thousand hamburgers.’

‘And stars don’t eat, remember,’ I ventured.

Suddenly I saw a chink of light.

‘What about if I leave the show, and come back and buy one hamburger for ten thousand pounds?’

Everybody and their lenses turned to me.

‘What?’ said Alastair, thrusting slightly. He glanced at Piers, who raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

‘Yes. I was thinking. It could be quite good. Why don’t I leave? And then you don’t even need to buy the burgers. Or cook them, for that matter.’

‘You’re not serious,’ said Piers. It was a statement, not a question.

‘Deadly. It could be a solution. I really don’t think I’m cut out for all this.’

‘For God’s sake, pull yourself together,’ boomed Piers.

‘OK,’ I replied meekly.

‘You can do it if you pay a hundred thousand,’ was his generous last thought on the subject.

‘No, I don’t have that kind of money.’

‘Then stop whining and get on with it.’

‘OK. Right.’

Piers then went upstairs to try to sell me to the girls’ team, but unfortunately they weren’t buying.

I went to the loo, so that the others could have the bitch about me I could tell they needed. As I came out I passed a small door. It was ajar. I peeked through. Outside was a service staircase. I felt like the character from
Midnight Express
. I looked around. There was no one in sight. I slipped through and shut the door behind me. I leant against it, my heart racing so hard, my vision throbbed. Did I dare? What would everyone say? Someone walked past talking loudly. Probably Philip Green had arrived with the champagne. Fuck it.

I ran down that staircase three at a time. I crashed against the emergency door. An alarm screamed inside the building, and I ran across the road. I have rarely felt so exhilarated in my life. I sprinted all the way to Piccadilly, crossed the street and nearly crashed into Richard Curtis getting out of a taxi. I swerved into the Ritz. It was a narrow escape. In the Ritz everything was going on as usual. I collected myself, looked back to make sure the scoutmaster wasn’t following and about to blow his whistle at any moment. What a stroke of luck that I was wearing a suit. There seemed to be only one thing for it. I straightened my tie, did up my jacket, smiled at the receptionist, and breezed down that beautiful long corridor, with its cream walls and gilt mirrors, its sconces with their wonky little lamp-shades, past the Palm Court, where a fat bald man played the violin accompanied by a grim spiritualist on the piano, and straight into the restaurant.

‘Do you have a table for one, by any chance?’ I asked the maître d’.

‘Of course, Mr Everett. This way, please.’

He led me through the half-empty room to a table in the window. I sat down and stroked the crisp pink linen. I was in heaven. The restaurant at the Ritz was one of the most beautiful dining rooms in the world. At night it had a soft pink glow and a slightly religious atmosphere. Conversation was hushed, delicate, and broken only by the sound of corks being drawn from bottles. Candles fluttered in
the breeze from the waiters’ tailcoats, and ghosts of a thousand dinners could be heard under those ceilings of pink and blue skies if you listened very carefully. Outside, Green Park stretched down towards the Palace. Lamps shone in necklaces laced through the bare winter trees.

I called my agent.

‘Michael. I left. You’ve got to tell Richard. Say I’m sorry. I couldn’t take it.’

‘What happened? Why are you whispering?’

‘I’m very upset. It was just hideous. I can’t talk.’

I had a delicious dinner and then went home.

I never slept so well in my life as I did that night. When I woke up it felt like the first morning of the school holidays. I went out with my bike to get the papers and have a leisurely breakfast, but on my front doorstep was the lady who had collected me the night before.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, without stopping, panic suddenly exploding through me again.

‘They want you to come back,’ she said.

‘No. I can’t.’

I got on my bike. Another lady appeared. Christ, maybe they were going to abduct me. The second lady grabbed my handlebars.

‘Look. I’m sorry. I’m very late. I am not coming back. Ever.’

‘They just want you to do a scene on London Bridge, with the others, of you leaving.’

‘Sorry.’

I took her hand from the bar and set off as fast as I could round the corner and didn’t stop until I reached King’s Cross. I went into the station. Now I knew what it felt like to be a spy on the run. I was seeing Apprentice folk everywhere. What should I do? How could I escape?

‘The train leaving from platform five is the eight-eighteen for Ely and King’s Lynn.’

There is a God. I ran towards platform five and jumped on the train. Within five minutes the guard had blown his whistle and the train was straining laboriously into action. I looked out of the window
as the station receded, half expecting to see the two lady producers burst onto the platform, but the guard turned and ambled back towards the barrier and I settled down in my seat, sighing with relief. I would get off at King’s Lynn and cycle all the way to Burnham Market. My grandmother lived there. I hadn’t seen her for at least ten years. I could hide out until the storm blew over.

There was another man in the first-class compartment. He was older and dressed rather lavishly for an English train journey in a bottle-green corduroy suit, with a brightly patterned silk handkerchief gushing from his breast pocket. His face was obscured by an extravagant black fedora. Two fleshy lips – framed by stubble, hanging slightly – were all that could be seen under its rim. After about three minutes I nearly screamed. It was Clement Freud, Emma’s father. My life was turning into
The Lady Vanishes
. Any minute now I would disappear without trace.

We chatted cautiously during the journey and he left the train at Ely. I laughed all the way to King’s Lynn, but was still looking nervously over my shoulder as I arrived exhausted at Burnham Market after twenty miles on my bicycle. Thank God Norfolk is flat.

S
napshot. A tall freak in a tracksuit rides a bike down a bumpy track towards a farmhouse on the edge of a vast marsh. It is the late afternoon of a brilliant December day. The tide has turned and the sea is threading her way back, like blood coursing through veins, into the winding estuaries and creeks, overflowing their banks until, quite suddenly, the land has been reclaimed by the ocean. It is biblical. The only noise is the bike’s jangle, the freak’s breath, gusts of wind and the lonely screech of the sandpiper high above. The huge billowing sun spills pink on the low cloud, gold on the disappearing marsh, silver on the incoming tide, and a weird out-of-body experience on the freak.

In middle age the tide turns and the genes drag one back to the beaches of one’s youth. All the parading and playing, lying and cheating, heartbreak and disappointment have been nothing more than a strong spring tide that drags one out into life, sometimes too far. In the deep relentless roll of the ocean, dreams and illusions dissolve as slowly one succumbs to the irresistible pull of the current, back
towards the long-forgotten edges of memory and the Norfolk marshes where I was born.

Nothing has changed. There’s the windmill at Burnham Norton and the round flint tower of Deepdale Church. The gables of ‘the Old Rec’, the house where I was born, peek over the poplar wood my grandfather planted after the flood of ’51. This view is the frame to my whole life. The rest will be a reaction. And yet, standing here now, it feels as remote as an old painting, black with varnish, under a dim picture lamp, seen for the first time in years, by chance, in an unfamiliar place.