Frankly, I’m too lucky. Filled in a Guardian questionnaire the other day. In answer to the question ‘When and where were you happiest?’ I answered, ‘At the risk of tempting providence, I’m pretty chipper at the moment, as it happens.’ Tempting prov. is right. Even now, in Plum’s immortal phrase, Fate must be lurking around the corner quietly slipping the horseshoe into the boxing-glove. Shit, there goes the doorbell, here are the parents.
FRIDAY, 27 AUGUST 1993 – LONDON
Well, they arrived yesterday, admired the flat and seemed in good order and spirits despite a visit to their accountant. Impossible to imagine how things are with them. They just carry on as always, the business continuing in its gentle way, Mother doing the VAT, Father exercising his extraordinary mind. I am more certain that that man could have been absolutely anything he wanted to be in the world than I am of almost anything else. The gloss of complete admiration may well have worn off in some regards. There’s no question that he seems curiously unsophisticated to me now, but his mind is still a remarkable thing.
Anyway, after tea-ing them and cocktailing them we sallied forth on foot for the Empire Leicester Square. Unbelievable crowds … a greater number, according to today’s papers, than turned out for the opening of Jurassic Park, which says something for Ken and Em. We approached, naturally, from the West, only to discover that the crash barriers were arranged such that we had to walk all the way round and enter from the Charing X Road end. Highly embarrassing. Many cries of ‘Steve!’ and applause as I trotted the gauntlet, parents in tow. I suppose it must have been strange for them, really, to walk with me and know that everyone there was cheering their son and knew who he was. Lot of posing for the paparazzi outside the doors and then I managed to get inside. Naturally, the really smart ones were indoors, including Richard Young, who really is extraordinary. He instantly sidled up and said, out of the side of his mouth, ‘Those your parents, then?’ I said, amused, ‘Yup’ and he asked for a shot with them. I reckon that man could tell, instantly, if two people enter a party, whether or not they are sleeping together. Remember that Greek saying? ‘It is easier to hide two elephants under your arm than one pathic.’
After Richard there were endless TV crews. God knows how many showbiz and local news programmes there are these days.* All wanting pre and post screening comment. (Oh, dear me, on TV as I type this there’s a documentary about a man with cystic fibrosis going on in the background. Sounds of a great quantity of mucus expression going on.) Up at the party there was a sprinkling of theatrical knightage, Sir John Mills and Mary, who both kissed me sweetly. Johnny kissed my mother, which was divine of him. Dickie, now Lord, Attenborough was there and Sir Peter Hall. A couple of Peter’s Friends stalwarts, Alphonsia and Tony S.,* and of course Ken and Em, the latter looking divine, the former surprisingly like Noel Edmunds. Kim Harris turned up with Hugh. Kim looks absolutely zonked. A few months ago, Ken rang up and asked me to rewrite Frankenstein. It was exactly when I was shooting off to Texas to make an episode of Ned Blessing, a new Western series for CBS. (I played Oscar Wilde, directed by David Hemmings of all people). I told Ken I couldn’t do it, but suggested that he try Kim. Well, it seems Kim has turned out well, but is being driven like a dray-horse by Sir Kenward. Just as well I said no, I suppose, though it would have been fun to meet Robert de Niro. I hope Kim is alright. One worries when he gets so tired.
Eventually the reception broke up to go into the cinema and we watched the movie. Speeches by Stephen Evans the Renaissance Films supremo and Ken. The film was even more moving the second time around. Still thought that Michael Keaton and Ben were a little out of their depth, but Em was staggeringly good (of course) and Ken fabulously likeable and witty. I hate the way I’ve been influenced by the critics: as I watched I started to notice flaws in the lighting and background action. Brian Blessed’s heartiness and the general laughing and merriment now grated a little. Nonetheless a wonderful movie and what a reaction! The whole place stood and cheered for ages. A genuine spontaneous standing ovation. It made me cry, I’m afraid to say. Ken really is a mensch and a half.
The party afterwards was at Planet Hollywood, which I hadn’t visited since that bizarre opening party with Bruce Willis, Schwarzenegger et al. Parents still excited and merry. Richard Briers, who is about the kindest man in the universe, stopped and chatted to them for ages. They were the only people in the room for him. I do hope I’m not a starer-over-the-shoulder type person, but give whomever I’m talking to my full attention as Dickie B does. Mother and Father are the same. The only difference was that Dickie toned his language down a bit: normally he starts every sentence with ‘Fucking hell love,’ no matter whether he’s bumming a cigarette or admiring a building. After next standing about with Richard Curtis and Emma Freud for a bit we were invited over to the area where Ken and Em had booked a table. Chatted a lot to Paul Boateng the MP, who was in merry form and wearing rather startling clothes. Cozed a bit with Slatbum* and his boyfriend Mark, who’s just won a Drama Desk award in New York. They met on Me and My Girl years ago.† Rather touching. Dan Patterson turned up, despite a recent operation. Anthony Andrews has absurdly petite hands and feet (sounds like a clerihew) and ludicrous Prince Charles mannerisms, but otherwise seems a very charming cove. There was an unbelievably choice young man with blond hair with whom I exchanged smiles.
At half past one or so I managed to tear the parentals away and we sloped off back home. Still an enormous crowd outside the place when we left. Lots of photography and signing before we could get away.
Now we’re back to today. Arose at nine-ish, said goodbye to M and P and joined Hugh for a VO. Alliance and Leicester radio commersh. In Tottenham Court Road bought a load of jockstraps, trainers and so forth ready for Grayshott. Watched a video when I got home: a film called The Living End, billed as ‘an irresponsible movie’. It’s about a couple of guys, both HIV+, who decide to let the world go hang and jag about the States, fucking and shooting. Sort of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer for the smart gay set. Witty, neatly done, despite abominable sound-recording. At three I wandered about Soho, fetched up at the Groucho where Simon Bell (surprise, surprise) was propping up the bar, had a couple of glasses of wine and biffed off to Magmasters for another VO.
I rang Johnny Sessions to see if he felt like hitting the West End this evening, but he was having another of his old chums to dinner, plus wife, so I’ve decided to stay in with a bottle of Fleurie and some videos. Just watched the original episode of The Sweeney and must now decide on another. But tomorrow, ha! tomorrow sees a new Stephen. A hardworking, concentrating, novelizing, non-drinking Stephen.
Jo Laurie rang to say goodbye. Her new baby will be hitting the straw while I’m away. She told me Kim was okay, just healthily tired. But one day, one day, I am going to hear that he is ill and I am going to know what that ‘ill’ means. It’s impossible to believe. Fuck it, he’s 35 and there’s a time-bomb inside him. It’s all just happening too, the Frankenstein, the relationship with Alastair which seems so good. Makes you vomit, doesn’t it. God blast AIDS.
Spent a merry hour writing notes for my brother Roger, who’s going to be borrowing the flat with his wife and my two nephews Ben and William. Arranged with the manager of Planet Hollywood that they could barge the queue with my special celebrity card (eugh!) which I left for their use.
Showed on the map where it was and where the nearest shops were. Hope they have a good time.
SATURDAY, 28 AUGUST 1993 – GRAYSHOTT HALL, SURREY
Well, for heaven’s sake.
Grayshott Hall, once, apparently, the home of Alfred Lord Tennyson, is now a ‘Health Retreat’, featuring spas, hydros, gyms, golf, tennis, badminton (it’s beginning to sound like that speech of Lucky’s from Waiting for Godot), swimming, snooker, scrabble, bridge and the lord knows what else besides.
I arrived for lunch and found myself in what I subsequently discovered to be the ‘Light Diet Room’, where salads and a gently cooked poussin seemed not uncons
cionable. At 1.30 I had an appointment with ‘Liz’ who checked my blood pressure, weighed me (16 stone and a lot, yuk) and asked me what sort of ‘treatments’ I required. Everything here is a treatment. If you had sex with one of the waiters it would be called an erotic treatment. Drink (alcohol treatment) is not offered here, no bad thing, there is a smoking room, complete with card tables and so forth, which hasn’t been made impertinently uninhabitable, which is something. I haven’t volunteered for any particular treatments, though reflexology is something I’ve had before and is rather relaxing and splendid. I might, for the hell of it, try smoking hypnotherapy too. And there’s some kind of men’s ‘facial’ which teaches you how to shave. Come to think no one has ever taught me to scrape the face and for all I know I’ve been doing it wrong all my life. Included in the price, £150 p.d.* there is a ‘heat treatment’ (steam room, hot box or sauna) and a Swedish massage. Reminds me of Shrublands, the health resort you see in Never Say Never Again† but not quite so grand. I book myself a ‘deep tissue massage’ which sounds potentially painful for 10.00 am tomorrow.
Actually the place is quite pleasant. Mostly women here. Everyone is encouraged to go round the place in dressing gowns and tracksuits all day, so no formality, which is a blessing. I suppose the fellow guests are what you would expect, rich Totteridge Jewry, executive wives and thin girls who certainly have no need of this kind of regime. My room is pretty spartan actually. I applied this afternoon for a suite should it become available. Started work on the novel anyway, which, let’s face it, is the point of being here. I don’t know … I really don’t know. I am going to have to plan it out, and that’s a fact. I know how bad I am at planning. Never did any with articles, with essays at Cambridge or school, but in this instance it’s got to be done. There are so many threads. The novel has to be about the redemption, if that isn’t too ghastly a word, not of the hero, Ted Wallace (that’s his current name, anyhow, though I’m getting annoyed with having to avoid the inelegant ‘said Ted’) which everyone will think it’s about, but rather of those around him. He’s a poet and knows that poetry is chthonic not ethereal. Of earth and water not fire and air. It’s also seemingly about Purity and the Operation of Grace and horrifically dull and off-putting Bridesheady things. But that isn’t my problem, my problem is structural. I have to find a way of pulling together the past and present and getting the characters introduced properly.
At the current pace, the novel won’t get to the half way stage till I’ve written 100,000 words. I’m quarter of the way to 80,000 which is an acceptable novel length, but it looks as if this is going to be longer, which is the last thing I want. And there’s nothing worse than reading a novel where you sense the writer has speeded up towards the end. I’ve got to remain true to the idea of it. One of the problems with The Liar was my lack of confidence that people would be interested enough in Healey and Cartwright and so I shoved in all the spying crap, which, in fact, most people found less interesting than Adrian in love. I mustn’t make the same mistake again.
Anyway, I wrote for a few hours, then dined on plaice and vegetables, washed down with plain water and followed by fruit. Came back to the room, couldn’t work any more, watched some dreadful Brian Dennehy film called The Revenge of the Father. Tomorrow, massage and a quick nine holes before breakfast excepted, must see me At Work.
SUNDAY, 29 AUGUST 1993 – GRAYSHOTT
Not much to report. Up at 7.30, breakfast was a mess of cottage cheese, All Bran and coffee. Whether or not the coffee here is decaffeinated I can’t really tell, which I suppose means that it doesn’t matter. Played 9 holes on the golf course. No hole is longer, which suits me, than 150 yds. Tried out for the first time the ‘Killer Whale’ which John Lloyd* gave me as a thank you for doing his South Bank Show comedy spesh. Sliced it, which is a first for me as I usually slice.†
Had my massage after that. I didn’t realize you were supposed to arrive half an hour earlier for the ‘heat treatment’ so I missed that. Kept my swimming trunks on all the time under my towel. All the fat men with hairy backs (who all resemble Ari Onassis and Picasso) waddled around slapping their bellies and showing their acorns, but I was damned if I was going to. I’m not having some For Women magazine telling the world about my cock length.
Had the Swedish massage, which was nothing special and went back to the room to work. Making some progress, but I need a breakthrough, there’s no question about that. The chances of my finishing this novel for publication in the spring are remote in the extreme.
Spoke to the front desk about changing the room, I’ll be moving into more luxurious quarters tomorrow.
MONDAY, 30 AUGUST 1993 – GRAYSHOTT
Yup. I’m in Room 5, now. It has coffee-making equipment, a mini-bar containing mineral water and skimmed milk, complimentary flowers and fruit basket and all the things one has come to expect in one’s life these days, tee-hee.
They sent me a letter telling me about the new room rate, this suite is £298 per night as opposed to the old rate of £195, but what the fuck. In this letter they said, and I quote ‘We are now requesting all guests to refrain from smoking in the bedrooms however, the functions of the Billiard and Smoking Rooms have not changed.’ What a fucking nerve. Some slatternly skivvy has gone and squealed, by which I mean some plump, curranty sweetness of a chambermaid has informed the management of my ‘in-room self-administered tobacco treatment’ … thing is I’m turning into that character Ted Wallace in my frigging novel, it’s not like me to call chambermaids slatternly.
Another nine holes this morning and then waddled off in my dressing-gown to experience the steam-room effect. Horrific place. Some old boy sweating it out next to me said it was newly installed. He’s a regular, must be rich as Croesus. It’s like a sauna, but to be frank, not quite as unpleasant, as the humidity is exceptionally high. A minute takes a quarter of an hour to pass. Horrifying. Still contrived to keep my bathers on, though. Everyone must be beginning to talk about my strange modesty … much better massage, however. Chap called Pete, I’ll try and stick with him.
Midway through the afternoon I genuinely despaired with the novel. I’ve changed its working title to The Thaumaturge as much to annoy the critics as anything. I came within an ace of packing up and moving either back to London or to some country house hotel where I could drown my sorrows in lonely jugs of claret. Then, two things happened. Firstly a man came in with an ashtray and said I was welcome to smoke in the room, they must have seen me nipping down to the smoking room and billiard room every half an hour and taken pity. And then I had an idea. A whole chapter that I’ve written should be in the form of a letter from Ted to his goddaughter Jane. It may not work out fully, but it’s driving me along a little. Wrote a couple of thousand words after that. Still not enough, but let’s hope it’s a good sign. Have to go to London tomorrow, chiz. A VO for Compaq computers. I’ll drive to Haslemere, get on a train and hope to be back by two-ish. Wonder if I’ll be a naughty boy and guzzle sandwiches on the train. Nothing but chicken and fish and fruit and veg. so far. Night, night.
TUESDAY, 31 AUGUST 1993 – GRAYSHOTT
Well, frankly. Rose with the lark, lark rise under candlewick you might say. Drove like stink to Haslemere, parked the car and discovered that I’d left my wallet back in the room at Grayshott. Fortunately, God knows how or why, I’d got my cheque-book with me. Avoided the queue for the tickets and jumped straight on the 08:06 to London. Sat all of a quiver in a second class smoker wondering what the issue would be. A ticket conductor arrived some time after Woking (Lord, Home Counties place names have such negative evocations, don’t they) and I explained the posish. Thank God for fame, he recognized me and seemed tickled pink (as did my fellow passengers, regular commuters to a man, and I mean man), said something about it being a good way of making his quota (there’s a surcharge, natch) and waddled off.
Fetched up at Waterloo at 0900 precisely and, having not a bean to my name (well 40 odd pence) I walked all the way over the bridge, a
long the Strand and to St James’s. Halfway up the Strand I remembered that Roger, Ruthie, Ben and William were all staying in the flat. Thought they may have left for Norfolk but arrived to find plenty of traces. Assuming they were out for brekker at Fortnum’s or somewhere I left them a note and hared off to Lexington Street where the Voice Over was. The sweet girl at the Tape Gallery, the studio, cashed a cheque for fifty quid, thank God. The VO for Compaq Computers (yah, boo) was booked as a two hour session, but I finished it to their satisfaction in twenty-five minutes. My internal clock going great guns. They wanted each of the VO’s to last 18 seconds and I duly obliged first crack out of the box with each of the seven scripts. Scuttled back to the flat, Breda the cleaner was there, but no sign of R & R. Hung around for an hour in case they showed and then got a cab back to Waterloo.
Car at Haslemere amazingly not towed away, so I was back at Grayshott in time for a nutritious lunch. A chappie told me that Imelda Staunton was staying, so I arranged to meet her at the cocktail hour, 6.00.
Heat treatment and massage at 3.00. Actually took my clothes off this time! Mustn’t do exclamation marks, it’s so Adrian Mole. That’s all Mummy’s fault, she does them in letters to the milkman, everything ‘Thank you!’ and so on.