So now I’m banging, seemingly to no avail, on the exceedingly dusty door of an apartment up on the third floor of a huge and relatively shabby Victorian house … in Pimlico … at half past midnight, for God’s sake!
When I bang once more and much harder, it swings open at last. Maxie’s looking somewhat fretful so I squeeze his elbow, and then I smile at him in the most reassuring manner I can manage, given the circumstances.
‘You found it all right, then,’ Jeanette says in a soft voice. ‘This end of Lupus Street can be a bit of a bitch to negotiate if you’re not au fait with Pimlico.’
He’s wearing a sea-green, floor-length silk kimono that’s billowing in the breeze from an old-fashioned tabletop fan set on a chest of drawers behind him, and he is puffing on a bright-blue cigarette set in a Holly Golightly cigarette holder.
‘Well, do come in, boys,’ he says, grandly sweeping his arm out into the room before us. ‘I’ve made it nice for you.’
When Jeanette swings the door shut behind us, Maxie and I shuffle shyly into the centre of the room, which is lit by a red bulb set in a pretty art deco glass lamp.
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d be here already, Jeanette,’ I gush. ‘We loved your act, by the way, especially the Andrews Sisters section; it was terribly clever how you did all three of them just by switching wigs. Anyway, then we danced a bit more – for about half an hour – and then we got a taxi like you said. The driver wasn’t very pleased that we paid him all in coins, though, but I suppose money’s money, isn’t it?’
Jeanette surges forward and gathers us both in his arms.
‘Now, darlings,’ he says, clearly sensing my apprehension. ‘I don’t want you to feel uneasy or uncomfortable about coming here. Auntie Jeanette is going to make herself scarce, and you won’t hear a peep from me. As I said, you can phone your parents from here, and I’ve made the sitting room all nice for you. There’s a lovely comfy divan over in that corner where I usually sleep, but I’ll be in the boudoir on the lilo – truth be told it’s more of a walk-in wardrobe than a boudoir – but I’ll be quite cosy in there, so you two just enjoy yourselves.’
‘Thank you, Jeanette, you’ve been really kind,’ I say softly. ‘Why have you been so good to us?’
Jeanette steps back and throws her arms open spectacularly, taking in the sight of Maxie and me with a toothy ‘Miss World’ smile.
‘Dear things,’ he says, tilting his head to one side and clasping his hands to his chin as if in prayer. ‘You’ve had an odious time of late – très difficile – that much is clear to me. I just want to give you two boys one unforgettable and beautiful night of l’amour. That much, you deserve.’
Then he glides towards a door, which I assume leads to the other bedroom, snatching his cigarette holder from the ashtray as he goes.
‘I’m going to get off to bed and let you two … get on with it, so to speak,’ he says, ‘and I shall cook you a nice full English in the morning. Bonne nuit!’
‘Good night, Jeanette,’ I say.
We cross the room and sink down on the divan with its ridiculous gold lamé headboard and black silk sheets. Above it are even more framed snaps of Jeanette partying with the glamorous and purportedly famous, though I only manage to identify one actual famous person, that being Danny La Rue, who is posed – rather awkwardly – next to Jeanette, and is wearing a more expensive-looking wig. The room, as I said, is suffused in a reddish glow, and the dimness of it seems to camouflage a multitude of sins, decor-wise: threadbare faux-Persian rugs and a pair of stern 1940s utility armchairs, one of which is piled high with dusty back issues of Harpers & Queen and Vogue. But Jeanette has sweetly gone to the trouble of lighting some little candles and putting them on the cabinet next to the bed, and he has garnished the bed’s two pillows with a few red rose petals. I turn to Maxie – who has been ever so quiet since we got out of the taxi – and smile, giggling nervously like I imagine one of the girls at school might, when about to lose her virginity.
‘Look how romantic it all is,’ I say. ‘Our first proper night together as …’
‘As what?’ Maxie whispers.
He is staring at me in the flush of the candles, but it is not a stare that I especially welcome. It is not the gaze, for instance, of a yearning lover, nor is it even that of a horny football captain. No. It is the cheerless glower of a confused and terrified adolescent, and I know the look well. I had seen it in our bathroom mirror at home, on my own face, just a few short weeks back.
‘What?’ I say softly to him, and I notice that there are tears in both his eyes.
‘All this,’ Maxie says.
‘All what?’
‘The room, the candles, the rose petals,’ he says, ‘all of it. I’m not sure it’s right. I’m not sure it’s for me … no … I am sure. It’s not for me, David.’
I suddenly have a tennis-ball-sized lump in my throat.
‘You’re different to me,’ Maxie goes on. ‘You’re brave and sorted and properly gay and …’
‘And what?’
Maxie’s eyes drift downwards to his lap, in which his hands are clasped tight.
‘My mum is a very tidy lady,’ he says. ‘Everything ’as to go in its proper place as far as Vi’s concerned; in its rightful and designated space or little nook. The ironing board ‘as to go in the utility cupboard in the kitchen, but the iron goes under the sink. The books have to go in the posh bookcase, but not all of them: the cookery books have to go in the larder, and God help you if she finds an A–Z or a car manual in the posh bookcase – that sort of literature goes in the garage with Dad’s things. I’m surprised, actually, that she doesn’t make Dad stay in the fuckin’ garage as well; she always says he makes the place look untidy.’
I’m not entirely sure where Maxie is headed with this little family-themed discourse, but he looks so very solemn that I’ll stick with it and keep mum anyway.
‘Mum’s a bit like that with people, too,’ he goes on. ‘My sister Jessica was the clever one, so she was always pegged to go to university – it was never even discussed whether I would go or not, no. I was the sporty one. I would do football or swimming or athletics or all fuckin’ three at the same time if she ’ad her way.’
And he laughs, but only fleetingly.
‘Anyway, a few years ago, when my sister decided she wasn’t going to go to the uni that Vi had picked out for her – that in fact she wasn’t going to any bloody uni at all, and was actually going to move out of home and live over the brush, as Vi would say, with her boyfriend, who was a panel-beater from Billericay – Vi started buying things.’
‘Buying things?’ I say, glancing at the carriage clock on the bedside cabinet – it’s pushing one by now.
‘Buying things,’ Maxie says again, slightly dreamily. ‘It started with an electric kettle, and some new net curtains for the upstairs landing. Then she had another row with my sister and she bought herself the same velour tracksuit in four different colours and a set of Carmen heated rollers, followed the next day by a rotisserie and a four-berth tent, even though she hates camping. Over one weekend, just before Jess was due to leave home, Mum bought a cine-camera with projector, a nest of tables, a music centre – even though there was nothing wrong with the one we had – and a full set of Osmond dolls, including little Jimmy. It was like a fucking episode of Sale of the Century in our sitting room most of the time. Geoff – that’s me dad – reckoned it was best not to mention it, and as she had just bought him a Black & Decker Workmate and me a Raleigh Tomahawk we decided to keep shtum and not look a gift horse in the mouth.’
Maxie is now looking me directly in the face.
‘On the Sunday after Jessica actually moved out,’ he says, ‘my dad went into the garage and found 147 pairs of American tan tights in his screw drawer, and seventy-six packets of cotton buds stuffed in the glove compartment of his car. And then on the Monday when Dad got his Access bill it turns out that Vi had spent three and a half fuckin’ grand in less than a month. She’d even booked a fuckin’ Mediterranean cruise without tellin’ poor old Geoff.’
‘But why?’ I ask. ‘Why did she? And what’s all this got to do with you and me?’
‘Doctor Krol said that it was a mild nervous collapse,’ Maxie says distantly, ‘but she just did it because things weren’t in their proper place and she couldn’t take it. My sister was supposed to go to university, and then meet a nice man and get married with a lovely posh wedding at St John’s; she wasn’t meant to fuck off to Billericay with a panel-beater called Derek, and Mum just couldn’t stand the untidiness of it. Jessica was just like the A–Z in the posh bookcase as far as me mum was concerned, but the difference was you can take the A–Z out of the bookcase and put it where it belongs, in the garage. You can’t do that with people, David.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘You can’t.’
‘I’m meant to be the sporty one,’ Maxie says firmly. ‘Not the gay one. There isn’t a gay one. It would just fuckin’ kill her.’
And then he stands up and kisses me on the top of the head.
‘You are fantastic, David,’ he says. ‘But I’ve got to go ’ome. I’m gonna get the night bus.’
He walks towards the front door and I stand up quickly, as if on springs.
‘All right,’ I say, and he turns around. ‘We’ll go home.’
As I pull on my bomber jacket and head towards the door behind him, a bleary-eyed Jeanette appears from the bedroom with chaotic hair and a cigarette – not in a glamorous holder this time. Maxie disappears down the stairs and I turn to face Jeanette, who is leaning in the doorway blowing smoke out in tidy rings.
‘Are you off, then?’ he asks, sounding mildly surprised.
‘We have to,’ I tell him. ‘We weren’t in the right place, apparently.’
‘Oh,’ Jeanette says matter-of-factly, and he crosses the room to his sink and starts rinsing out some mugs that have been sitting on the draining board.
‘And shall I see you boys again?’ he says, looking down into the washing-up bowl and scrubbing hard.
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ I reply gently. ‘As you say, we’re not really all that au fait with Pimlico. Anyway, thanks and all that …’
But Jeanette doesn’t look round. So I close the door quietly behind me.