Something was in the air. I whispered the occasional nothing to her, managing to put my lips very near her and smell her hair at the same time. It's very basic isn't it, this attraction lark? It's only a couple of steps away from dogs sniffing at each other's bums in the park...
"Each time I see you,
You seem more beautiful than the last,
And my eyes gorge themselves to overflowing.
Will they ever contain all of your beauty,
And look on you as they would an ordinary thing,
Or will it never end,
This starbursting rush of emotion,
That seems to blush them wide,
Each time you open the door?"
I wrote that a few weeks after meeting the woman who was to become the mother of my children. Getting back to London from Somerset, I felt confident, fit, relaxed. The sun was out and I lay in it most afternoons in Holland Park, drinking Stella Artois and fooling about with Danny and his mates, who all seemed very easily impressed with Danny's skill on the skateboard, bike or whatever else he took his fancy to. It was a strange time in some respects. I found myself surrounded with a sort of Ladbroke Grove in-crowd of middle class white boys and girls who desperately wanted to be black and cool. It didn't really suit. I was never particularly laid back and tepid, and struggled to keep interested in a life where the main ambition seemed to be the desire to pull 1) the sexiest girl and 2) the perfect wheelie. There were also a lot of hangers-on who hoped a bit of Danny's fame would somehow rub off on them if they laughed a lot in his presence, as if being in his company somehow affirmed them and their social coolometer.
One sunny afternoon, I was lying on the grass in the sun and noticed I was being 'eyed up' by a girl on the other side of the green. She was pretending to read her book but I knew she was grabbing every opportunity she could to throw a glance my way. After being in Danny's company for so long, a little bit of his bare-arsed cheek had rubbed off on me and I thought what the hell, I'd go over there and say 'Hi'. Thirty minutes of mental tussel and another tin of Stella later, I decided to make my move. The area we were all lying in was a huge circular clearing of close-cut grass. Everyone sat and lay around the edge of this lawn like teens at a disco where no-one wants to be the first to dance. She clocked me again from the opposite side. I swallowed hard and stood up in my brief swimming trunks and T shirt and began to walk towards her. I felt very exposed. I could feel everyone's eyes on me as I cut a lone semi-naked figure walking through the empty middle. There was no turning back now. As my Speedo'd journey progressed, it became more and more obvious where I was heading. The girl must have known I was on my way because she concentrated harder on the book she was reading so as not to look too keen. After what seemed like four minutes, I arrived and said, "Would you like a bit of company?" sounding like some Birmingham brass. She looked up from the book, said, "No, thanks" and got back to her reading leaving me standing over her like a lemon. I stood there in shocked embarrassment for a millisecond and turned back to begin the long, long, long walk back. I don't think I've ever set foot in that park since.
On one of these sunny afternoons, I threw sartorial caution to the wind and cycled up the Bayswater Road to attend a casting in Percy Street for a Birds Eye "Healthy Options" campaign in surfing shorts and not much else. I threw on a T shirt when I got there and began to flirt with the receptionist at the front. As I was chatting, out of the corner of my eye I saw the most incredible pair of legs I have ever seen in my life walking towards me. The legs belonged to a production assistant from the film company. She took me in to the casting and I did my stuff, "This one's Chicken Chasseur!"
A day or two later, I was called in again to do it again with the two other actors they'd provisionally chosen to play the parts. The PA with the legs was there. Something was in the air. I whispered the occasional nothing to her, managing to put my lips very near her and smell her hair at the same time. It's very basic isn't it. this attraction lark? It's only a couple of steps away from dogs sniffing at each other's bums in the park...
Thirteen months later she would be giving birth to my first child.
During the Birds Eye shoot ( "I'm a couch potato and the only exercise I get is picking up the phone to dial for a pizza"; "I'm a gerbil, and I eat nuts and berries for health"; "Me? I break into the [ahem] occasional sprint for a low fat meal...this one's Chili con Carne!" ), I plucked up the courage to ask her out. By the end of our five days in Pinewood, we were seeing each other. After the eclectic madness of the previous six months, it was wonderful to find someone I felt settled with.
A few weeks later, I went over to Jersey to give two lines in a Christmas edition of Bergerac. The acting was pretty forgettable but the week-end in the Hotel de France was great. I then had a casting for Vidal Sassoon's 'Wash and Go' , where two guys in the changing room swap beauty tips after playing a manly game of squash or football. The final line was, "Ok, so you're beautiful. Let's go!" This commercial quickly became known as 'Wash and Gay'. The interview was a hoot. I was a very happy actor and enjoyed myself so much, the guy I went in with thought I was mad and taking the piss. He wasn't offered the job; I was. The transatlantic phone lines were buzzing with what to do with me. Vidal Sassoon's New York office decided to use me in another of its campaigns for an entire range of new products they were launching. 'Wash and Gay' would cast Harry Van Gorkum as its hirsute heterosexual hero.
In a strange twist, the incredibly good-looking man Claire had gone out with before me was to be in the campaign too, as was Dominic Keating, another rather good-looking individual who still graces our screens selling things. There were to be three separate commercials shot at the same time for three different products. My product was a hair-spray with extra-firm hold, but "soft to the touch". I began to feel pretty damn handsome myself as part of this trio of tastiness. We all met up at the Brook Street Barbers branch before the shoot and were 'Vidalled'. We were all to wear the same Sassoon uniform of the black polo-neck with the logo on the front and lots of gel. They bussed in a load of models, one of whom was so incredibly vacuous, I thought she must be doing it for a bet. But, no, she actually was like that. She was very bubbly and very pretty and very stupid, behaving like an innocent, naive, air-head because she was one. The shoot felt very glamorous as only a shoot with models in it can. For some reason, directors seem to think that a model can only act to music, so they will always stick on the latest track at high volume so they have to shout out every instruction to everyone all the time, even if the instruction is to ask a runner for a cup of tea. It gives everything an exciting edge apparently. It gives me ear-ache and makes my acting vaguely hysterical.
Maid Marian 2 was being broadcast and getting top viewing figures, the four commercials for Birds Eye were ready to roll, and Vidal Sassoon was to be the icing on the cake. I was also asked to be in a very funny play at Cheltenham Everyman theatre, "Relatively Speaking" by Alan Ayckbourn, starting rehearsals after the New Year. Things were getting busy.
Personally, I was also very content. Legs Eleven and I - I shall continue not to use her name to protect her privacy - had begun to spend most of our time together. I was living at the time in a loft conversion next door but one to my Mum's house - David Bell's flat had sold - but spent many evenings with Super Pins getting drunk, eating out, watching movies, the usual stuff. We seemed very suited to each other and I was constantly having to pinch myself that this woman, who I felt was in another league, chose to be with me. She worked in commercials, I worked in commercials. She wasn't an actress - very important, that. We seemed to compliment each other perfectly.
It never ceases to amaze me when thumbing through the latest edition of Hello in the supermarket queue, how men choose partners who are their physical doubles, their feminine reflection. I blame Mick Jagger. He started the whole thing off by marrying Bianca, who looked like a version of him with lip-stick. When you see the wedding photographs, I find it hard not to suspect that the man had chosen the woman in order to continue to admire himself on those occasions he found himself in rooms without mirrors. The latest hum-dinger was the wedding of Jonathan Davies. Now, I'm not suggesting for one minute that Mr. Davies is at all vain and self-obsessed, but look at his new bride! She is his absolute double. Look at Kate Winslett and Jim Threapleton. That fat bloke out of that boy band who married that chubby bird from another girl band. Sadie Frost and her first husband, Gary Kemp. Henry Dent-Brocklehurst and Lili Maltese! I instinctively mistrust these siblingesque marriages. It's as though, by picking your physical double, we all hope they will also think like us, want the same things as us, agree with us. I suppose I believe a marriage should be founded on the blending of personalities and outlooks and ambitions. When I see yet another identical twin couple marching down the aisle, marrying the image of their father or mother, my heart sinks. It seems to be a union based on shaky foundations.
There is another factor in the mad couplings arrangement. Like attracts like. It's a chromosome thing. It's our basic urge to choose someone familiar - literally 'familiar' as in 'family'. It's the first port of call on the long cruise to life-committment. (I tend to hit something nautically terminal pretty soon after that first stop.) When I see these hall-of mirror wedding photos, I can't help but feel they've made a rash decision. I hope not, and I wish them all the luck - the one's that haven't divorced already, of course.
The leggy one and I were happy, as only two people with absolutely no responsibilities can be. There were a few hiccups during those first six months, but, generally, we were happy. I spent New Year in North Devon with her and a few of her friends in a rented cottage with a huge open fire.
In Cheltenham, I had the chance to use my new mobile phone. Over the New Year break, one of our fellow rentees had brought down two suitcases, one for his clothes and one for his mobile phone battery. At the time, it was rather swish to be able to have a phone with you, even if you had to be inducted into a gym to be able to carry it. I was very impressed and, after we got back, went to find one for myself. Technology was coming on apace, and by the time I had bought mine three weeks later, phones had already shrunk to the size of a large house-brick. It was a bargain at £440 and £25 a month rental and I snapped it up. Calls were around 50p a minute so when the moment came to use it in the green room at the theatre, my fingers- and my credit cards - were trembling. I called my Dad and rushed through the conversation pressing 'end' maniacally and mentally working out if I'd just spent my first week's wages on the call. It was sitting outside the theatre on a bench across the street, with the girls from the estate agent next door pointing at me and laughing at the absurdity of the phone I was struggling to maintain at ear height, that I received a call from home telling me that things were late... 'late' late.
That week-end, we both lay on sofas trying to take it all in. By Sunday morning, we had embraced our new future and excitedly rang our parents to tell them they were to gain a prefix!
The show went well. Rehearsals were funny and the performances even funnier. "Relatively Speaking" is fairly bullet-proof as a script. It's so well crafted, it's hard to mess it up. Having said that, I went to see a production of the play a few week's after finishing ours, in Worthing. The actor who was playing my part insisted on looking at the audience whenever he wanted them to react. Awful. It has to be true to be funny or else it's just an actor up there trying to get laughs. Michael Keating, who'd spent several years in space under Blake and his seven-strong crew, was very aware of the need for accuracy within the script. Most nights, we managed to get to the end only having had "four faults". To continue the analogy, we both had a "clear round" twice. He was perfect to act with: precise and funny.
Tania Hamilton seemed to be on her way out. She had a French boyfriend who was completing his national service and was just biding her time until she could go out there and never come back. She was already very French in her appearance and lived on a diet of black coffee and Gitanes. Acting is a leap of faith. You just pray that the person you're on there with doesn't freak out and run off. We're all just a step away from losing it and, if one goes, everyone else goes with them. Despite the nicotine, caffeine, and the slightly troubled personality, Tania never let us down.
The only hairy moment was when, in the name of authenticity, we decided I should actually be naked at the beginning of the first scene where Greg wraps the sheet around him for a joke and remains in it for ten minutes or so before getting dressed. On the dress-rehearsal, I tried this out. It was impossible. All I could think about was whether my rapidly shrinking member was out or in. The first scene was 23 minutes long and needed concentration. All I could concentrate on was whether the breeze I felt meant that my little tadger was joining us on stage. We decided he'd wear white Y-Fronts...
After a fun holiday with my beautifully pregnant partner, I was asked to go to the Anglia TV offices in London to see them about a new series - actually I think this really was a 'serial' - written by Fay Weldon called "Growing Rich". Maid Marian was not scheduled to be filmed that summer. I suspect they had commisioned only two series unaware of what a huge success it was going to be, so the Merry Men and Ladies had nothing to do. The part was for a long-haired, flirtatious, innocent bumkin yokel called Ronnie Cartwright. The casting director screamed, "Oh, my God! You are this part!" Filming started in June...