...I hit the daylight a chastened and very relieved man. Still determined to make the trip worthwhile, I found the nearest bank machine to replace the money that had just been stolen from me and visited a nearby sex shop where I bought a magazine that promised untold naughtiness. I hid it under my jumper the entire train-journey home convinced I was transparent to everyone in the carriage, who not only knew about my recent humiliation but also knew I had porn stuffed up my front. By the time I got home, I was a wreck, and straightaway threw the magazine into the dustbin. Well, almost straightaway. I'm only human...
Do you know what the most difficult thing about having to use crutches is? Carrying a cup of tea. You need to have various ledges and resting points strategically placed on the journey from kettle to couch or else you're screwed. Sure, you could try hopping on one leg back to the living room, but chances are you'd have most of it on the carpet by the time you got there. The doctors had sentenced me to three months of this tea-spilling hell.
I got back to Norbury Avenue a few days after New Year. Claire was away skiing with her new, impossibly handsome, boyfriend. She'd been seeing him for a few months. He was on the TV. He was unbelievably good-looking. I really tried to like him, but it was very difficult to bond with a guy who caused such a stir whenever he left the front door. To illustrate how pretty he was, every time - and I really do mean every single time - we walked down the street or had a drink in the pub, you actually felt the desire from every girl, woman and granny around us sizzle . It was enough to make you want to throw yourself under a train.
His particular tragedy, if you can call it that, was that he desperately wanted to be taken seriously as an actor. He had appeared in a well-known TV series (serial?) and had made an absolute killing from commercials. One of these ads actually bought his flat outright. Tragic. He just couldn't fight against his astonishing beauty. I have to say he was one of the least vain and nicest men I have known, but, then again, if you're constantly surrounded by swooning women, you don't really need to bother being vain, do you?
Claire was due back a few days after I'd returned home and I was really looking forward to the moment she burst in the door and filled the house with laughter once more. Over the months, Claire had created such an atmosphere of fun and anarchy in the house, whenever she was absent, she left a void. She brought out the best in people, made everyone funnier than they actually were. She was top of the pops.
While I'd been away having my limbs screwed back together, it seemed that Paul and Amanda had developed an understanding: she slept in his bed and Paul didn't tell her not to. She had stopped nursing and was helping Paul to set up a music production company with a view to releasing a CD of Paul's band.
Claire and I had always avoided going down this road, feeling it would put any friendship we had under too much strain. It was difficult at times. She would come into my room with a cup of tea in the morning and we'd have a chat. She would come into my room at night with a glass of milk and we'd chat some more. I loved chatting to her. I also found her desperately attractive so the chats for me were triumphs of self-restraint. But, when she walked into the house after her skiing holiday and told me that she and her boyfriend had had an awful time and had decided to call it a day, I must admit my heart leapt. I would have got up and hugged her there and then, but, seeing as hugging usually involves both arms, I would have just fallen over.
All was not well, however. Not only was she very upset, but she also had to go in to hospital the following week for an operation that had been booked a long while before, which left her exhausted and house-bound. So there we were, two sickies comforting each other. It was only a matter of time...
Claire broke my heart.
A year later, as she drove away from me for the last time, my mind couldn't take in what was happening. I watched as her car reached the end of the road and began to turn the corner still waiting for the brake lights to come on and the car to turn back. It didn't. I walked around a near-by park in the pitch black, retching sorrow, crying uncontrollably. I don't think my motorcycle accident was the punishment for being such a c**t - as the mother of my children would suggest many years later - this was.
The year we'd had together as a 'couple' I suppose hadn't been exactly plain-sailing. Sharing the same house had indeed put a huge strain on us. It put an unnecessary pressure on things working out. That summer, I destroyed a huge bush in the garden through my frustration. It was great fun at the time. I simply marched out and ran into this massive collection of twigs and leaves and went berserk. Didn't hurt anyone - apart from the bush, which was left a little bald - but Paul had to have a word in my little shell-like and persuade me to calm down.
We gave ourselves both a break when I got myself a job that took me away for a month or so. I hadn't worked much for six months after my accident - there weren't many productions of "Treasure Island" around at the time - so was very pleased to be given an extremely small part in "Twelfth Night", directed by Michael Napier-Brown, the then artistic director of Northampton Theatre Royal. I have written very few letters to theatres asking for work, but in this instance, the letter I'd written popped onto his desk at the same time he was casting for this show and, remembering my wading bird performance four years before, gave me another chance. I was glad to do anything. I had been struggling onto the train and getting myself and my crutches into Bush House to record the odd programme for ExR, but that was all that I could really expect to do in my situation. The wooden crutches had long been given back to Orpington Hospital - apparently some museum in Kent wanted them for its exhibition on primitive medicine: they were to be placed next to a saw and a pair of pliers - and I needed to get back to work.
The production was to be the centrepiece of the Ludlow Festival and performed al fresco, within the walls of Ludlow Castle. At the beginning of each show, the entire audience were expected to stand for the National Anthem. Not only that, the actors were told that they should stand too, backstage in the dressing 'tents'. A couple of us did, but only to take the piss. It was great to be on stage again and have a second attempt at a beard, the first being back at college for "John Gabriel Borkmann", and, as you can see, I wasn't the only one in Goatee-land. The strangest thing about Ludlow was that we were treated like visiting Hollywood movie stars and people would fight over themselves to buy us a drink or offer up their daughters for us to sleep with... In the street, people would point and stare, hiding their giggling faces behind their hands. I'd like to think they were overwhelmed at seeing one of the actors from the show. They were probably just pissing themselves at the idiot with the sad facial hair...
To illustrate how difficult Claire's and my situation was, having to live in the same house come rain or shine, when I got back to London, she had begun a flirtation with an actor she had been working with. One night, I had to make myself scarce as this man came over to our house to have dinner with her ( it had to be this particular night, I was told, as he was jetting off on holiday with his family the next day - nice!) What made my discomfort complete was that he was actually quite well-known, well-known as an actor, golfer and family man. I hated him. I borrowed Claire's car and spent as long as I could around a mate's house. At 1:30 am, I was sure it would be safe to go home without having to walk in on them holding hands over the crème brulée. It wasn't. They were on the drive outside saying good night into each others ear lobes as I drove towards the house. I'm amazed I didn't run him over. I drove close enough. Close enough and fast enough for him to realise a quick getaway would be advisable...That night, the bushes and shrubs in the garden were distinctly nervous.
I was a bit of a mess. One afternoon I decided I fancied a bit of porn, so I made my way into the West End to make a purchase. I found myself walking down the narrow stairway of a place offering me live sex for £3. I should have known, I suppose, that £3 was a bit of a bargain, seeing that two people would be essential for such a performance and to give their all for £1.50 each would seem unlikely. Then again, one of the two could have been a donkey, happy to get off the sand for a week or two and working for free, in which case, I would be making a swift exit. A swift exit, though, was looking increasingly unlikely as I was met by a very friendly, unattractive woman in a tiny, tiny, room, empty but for me, her and a younger woman behind the 'bar' - it was more of a 'shelf' really being only about four feet long. This woman steered me into a cubicle-type seat with table attached, like a long desk, with the little pokey bar blocking the other end. She immediately sat down next to me, blocking me in, pointed out the shitty mattress on the floor in front of us as the area where the action was going to take place, and asked me if I wanted some champagne. Thank God I only asked for a Coke because no sooner had my order been taken I was given a bill for £80! £7 for my drink, £25 for her 'company', and the rest just for the hell of it. I panicked and tried to leave. The welcoming manner quickly changed to one that was much more threatening. She raised herself up against me and kept saying, "Don't get aggressive, don't get aggressive". She advised me that, if I did indeed 'get aggressive', there was a very large man with an even larger dog just the other side of the wall waiting for an excuse. I pleaded with her, told her I hadn't enough money to pay and opened my wallet to show her the £30 inside. She unceremoniously grabbed the money and, seeing I was a harmless twit who'd got in far above his head, gave me a fiver back to get myself home.
I hit the daylight a chastened and very relieved man. Still determined to make the trip worthwhile, I found the nearest bank machine to replace the money that had just been stolen from me and visited a nearby sex shop where I bought a magazine that promised untold naughtiness. I hid it under my jumper the entire train-journey home convinced I was transparent to everyone in the carriage, who not only knew about my recent humiliation but also knew I had porn stuffed up my front. By the time I got home, I was a wreck, and straightaway threw the magazine into the dustbin. Well, almost straightaway. I'm only human...
Eventually, I decided to go back on the road to earn some money - literally back on the 'road'. I contacted the dispatch firm I'd worked for three years before and bought myself a bicycle.
Fuck me, it was hard! Over Waterloo Bridge and back, and over and back, and over again, fighting the wind. Luckily, I only had to tackle the bridge for two days as it turned out.
My first day as a cycle courier had been interrupted by a meeting with Bob Carlton, who needed someone to step in to play Cliff in his production of "Cabaret" starting the following Monday. My second day with the walkie-talkie was also cut short by the news I'd been offered the part.
Rehearsals were to be in Kennington and we would open in Preston three and a half weeks later.
I'd cycle to Kennington and back every day with a packed-lunch of sandwiches made with whatever the local supermarket had on special offer. By the time we left for Preston, stick insects were giving me the eye.
Despite the flirting and bush-destroying, Claire and I were thinking of moving out of Norbury to get a place of our own. I decided to use the "Cabaret" tour to move out and put the money I'd save on rent towards a deposit for the new place. The tour was eleven weeks - almost three months - and the morning I left Norbury for the train station, Claire was distraught. She cried and cried. At the time, I thought she was upset I was leaving. Four weeks later, in November, in an attic room in Poole, I found out the truth.
Apart from being lighter than a sheet of grease-proof paper and having to deal with being far from home as my partner decided to remain living there without me, there were some great laughs to be had.
During theatrical tours, unless you're a sociopathic hermit, you always find a mate to travel with and share living accommodations with. This tour, my mate was an actor on his first job, Tony Hunt. His early promise as a karate entrant for the Olympics had been ended by dodgy shoulders. By 'dodgy', I don't mean puny - they were four foot wide and narrowed to a 27 inch waist - they were prone to injury. His four foot shoulders were also on a five foot seven inch frame, so he looked very handy, if you get my drift. Wide or not, his injured shoulders forced him to have to make a life-decision around the age of fifteen and he chose to train as an actor. Along with us as "tour-mate" came Tony's complete opposite, Michael Lunts. Michael, or Michaela as we called him, played Chopin all day and was artistically very talented and physically very fey. So there we were the three of us, Wendy, Tina and Michaela - we'd joined in on the camp names idea - lying in a row, in our three single-bedded, Preston hotel room - a 'family' room - facing the little colour portable TV, watching "The Hitman and Her" at four in the morning. We'd finished celebrating the opening night of "Cabaret" and were all very tired and emotional. (Tony had had a particularly trying time of it. This was his first acting job and, on his first entrance as a professional, he fell flat on his arse carrying a tray of drinks) Michaela had just got into his little winceyette jimmies -sky blue, little flowers - causing much giggling. While we were lying there watching cretins fighting over themselves to be cretinous on live TV in some night club, I lazily said, "Christ, I'm glad I'm here and not there." From the little bed to our left, Michaela piped, "Oh, yes! When I'm at home, there's nothing more I like than getting to bed nice and early with a 'Mills and Boon', a cup of tea, and a ginger finger..."
The tour went on from Preston and took in Middlesbrough, Winchester, Poole, Harlow, Scunthorpe, Rotherham, Taunton and a few more. This kind of tour is called a "Number Two", not because of the smell in the dressing rooms, but the size of the venues. There was so little room in Winchester theatre, to get to the other side of the stage, actors had to leave the building in their Nazi uniforms and walk round the back - that got a few local pace-makers ticking. Rotherham was a converted church, Scunthorpe was annexed to the fire station, and they'd actually named the theatre in Middlesbrough "The Little Theatre" to avoid any disappointment on arrival.
After Poole, and Claire's visit of doom, Taunton was a bit of a trial. We were there over Christmas (1988) and New Year (1989) and I spent most of it waking up at dawn sweating, losing even more weight and bursting into tears listening to "Our Tune" on the radio. Some nights, it was touch and go whether I had enough energy to walk onto the stage let alone act on it. Sharing digs with Tony "Jackie Chan" Hunt didn't help. In Taunton, we found ourselves sharing a room with bunk beds in some god-forsaken farm in the middle of nowhere. Tony had a tendency to sleepwalk and also 'sleepfight'. One tossed and turned night, I was rudely awoken in the top bunk by Tony karate kicking the bottom of my bed and then calmly getting up and eating a Mars Bar in front of me in the darkness while staying completely asleep. It wasn't particularly relaxing knowing you had a kick boxer underneath you with superhuman strength who could get up and be halfway through strangling you to death before waking up and seeing his hands round your neck.
My health was deteriorating so I decided to take myself in hand and get down to the gym. Every other day, I'd gently work out and have a lie down on the Costa Del Sunbed. It seemed to work and, when I returned to London for a week off between dates, I hoped Claire could be persuaded to change her mind. She didn't, so I went back on tour, a homeless, sad man with a great tan.
There was one unforeseen and double-edged advantage to all this upset. At the end of the show, Cliff is told by Sally Bowles that she aborted their baby and is leaving him. He is left on the train platform, surrounded by a load of Nazis, feeling pretty damn sorry for himself. Unlike the all-male "Richard II" in Edinburgh where I used a muscle rub to produce tears, during this tour, I would break down each evening with no menthol at all! In fact, during rehearsals, my grief was so powerful, I had to leave the room and recover. This was not at all pleasant. It was like being given the key to Pandora's box and having to open the thing every night whether you wanted to or not. By the time the tour finished, I was exhausted.
Things were to change, though...for the better!