6

One second, Johnnie Cullen was standing there with us, the next he was nipping across the room towards the bar. In moments, he had hopped up onto the counter, using a wooden stool that seemed to be there as a step-up for himself.

He did a brief, not too bad, jig on the bar, somehow managing not to send glasses and bottles flying in every direction, before he unleashed a sort of wild Indian whoop, and landed back on the floor.

He began to pour whiskey and pull pints like a man in a hurry, all the time carrying on a one-sided conversation, a weird, half-rhetorical flood that was pure gold to listen to, at least, I thought so.

‘Whiskies all round for me friends from Gay Time, Two Shows for The Price of One! And in keeping with the principle of the house of Cullen, the first round is on me and my name is Johnnie and I’m not asking you or any other man for credit, and you Mickey boy, you wanted a pint of porter and no questions asked, and I don’t blame you one little bit, and a Powers Gold Label for your heart, which, if the truth were known, is really a swinging brick, may the lord and St. Anthony preserve us...’

The time I spent there could have been heavy since I wasn’t drinking - doctor’s orders - but it was one hell of an experience and I found myself writing down what I could remember, filling my mind with the rhetoric that had such a natural flow to it, that it had to be used someday in some kind of story.

It was nothing new for me to scribble things down, due to becoming hooked on scribbling as a serious pastime ever since I’d had a poem on Irish Radio and had published one article in a newspaper that died the death of all inadequate print offerings.

‘He’s a chronic piss-artist,’ Jimmy, sitting beside me, said laconically. ‘A one man show really!’

I didn’t go to the pub after work for the rest of my first week because I was on medication and I was scribbling all and everything that happened to me into the notebooks I carried with me everywhere. Yes, I might have gone back to gather even more material but, in all honesty, when, on that first night the publican began to repeat his act, without realising he had already been On, I felt he was in serious trouble with booze, and god knew what else, and I just didn’t want to be around it.

He did linger on my mind even though I tried not to concern myself with him and his problem. He was a colourful character, interesting to the scribbler manqué in me, but I had sympathy for his wife - a woman I never met - besides which, I was in no position to give advice even though I knew he was really a sick person in need of serious help.

The doctor, Villiers, not a nice man, had told me to leave drink alone for a while and, though I did not like this man at all, I was keen to do exactly as he had ordered. His direction to put the block on anything sexual was no hardship. Whatever my VD infection did to the mind, there was no way I was interested in

sex even though I was conscious of the way May Mitchell looked at me whenever we had reason to talk to each other. Sure, I could have been kidding myself but, I didn’t think so.

On Thursday afternoon, I had my final injection and, believe it or not, another lecture from this doctor who, was a prude with a stiff poker up his rectum, but, who, once he had enjoyed his moment of chastisement, assured me that all infection would have disappeared within a couple of days.

Meanwhile, I was rehearsing a couple of Dublin songs with my beautiful piano player, Pauline, who had turned out to be some kind of wonderful actress, stealing three of the plays - remember a completely different show every night - and I was so happy with her at the piano that I could have rehearsed eight hours a day and enjoyed every minute of it.

That night, free of the medical ban on alcohol, I joined the others in another trip to the pub that did all its real business after closing hours, the local cop being fed jar which kept him happy and off the streets, when bad things were happening in towns and villages all over the Six Counties. It interest me that nobody seemed to mind a Constable sitting jarred in an after hours pub with a revolver on his person, but, on Jimmy advice on my first day with the show, that the less said or even commented on was the route to survival. Loose lips, he said, could earn you a wooden overcoat, and I didn’t need to be told twice.

Thursday night, Jimmy had given me my first play part which I was to perform on the following Tuesday, with rehearsals over the weekend and, on Monday morning, with word calls in the afternoon of my acting debut.

When Jimmy handed me the play script he suggested I read it through first and let him know what I thought of it and the part I was going to be filling.

There’s no denying that I was excited and I have to allow, nervous, but, I felt good about getting the chance, and as I read the part of Paddy O’Leary in the play script of ‘Noreen Bawn’ I honestly felt that I could handle it, and give a good performance.

I don’t know where the confidence came from and I never gave much time to wondering about it, it was just there, as it had been when I spoofed my way into the Top Hat gig in the Dublin suburb of Dunleary, the publicity of which resulted in Jimmy offering me a berth in his touring show, and as it had been when I offered a poem to radio that was broadcast, and an article to a paper The Times Pictorial that was published and earned me my first money outside of milk rounds as a kid and later the office job wages on a Friday that had helped my mother through some tricky years, money-wise.

When I was about to open the script as Jimmy handed it to me, he put his hand on my arm: ‘Forget it for now. Read it when you wake up in the morning, then drop over to my wagon and we can kick it around, see what you think.’

I wanted to tell him that I wouldn’t let him down, that I’d be better in the play than I was in Variety, but he was so busy rushing around as he dealt with his responsibilities, that I didn’t get the chance.

When Jimmy paid me on Saturday morning, I offered him ten bob as a start of paying him back for looking after the bill that my venereal interlude has cost. He said no, to keep it, and he grinned as he told me that I could do the same for him some time.

That morning he was in very good mood as he told the cast that we were staying put for another week. Business had been great all week and he felt sure we could do another before they got fed up with us. His description of the scene, delivered with a smile that lit up his handsome face.

The news cheered up everybody, because, it meant that, apart from an easy Saturday night - there would be no stripping the show down for a Sunday morning departure.

Normally, the show played a week in each place, and this meant that the stage frame had to come down after the show on Saturday night, and that everything had to be packed up and ready to go into the truck before anybody left the hall. Instead of which, we could all now saunter down to Cullen’s for a jar, and forget the show until the eleven o’clock call on Monday.

As I was leaving, Jimmy handed me a script. ‘I’d like to put this on Tuesday, if you think you can handle the lead.’

The play was called The Prodigal Son and I began to open the manuscript. Jimmy put his hand on my arm. ‘Forget it for now, Tony. Read it when you’ve had your breakfast in the morning, then drop over to my wagon and let me know what you think.’

I wanted to tell him that I wouldn’t let him down, that I’d be better in the play than I had been in variety but, he was so busy rushing about attending to this and that, that I didn’t get the chance.

It being Saturday night, I let go of my need to go to bed, agreeing to join everybody, except the Maguire’s, mother and daughter, who led a very sheltered life, in the walk down the street to Johnnie Cullen’s, and though I knew I’d be drinking orange juice, it was a great feeling to be in the party with my first weeks salary as a Pro in my pocket.

May Mitchell got friendlier as the week went on. Something to do with the fact that I didn’t react the way she expected me to, I suppose, but little did she know, her white sweater being a coat of paint that hurt to look at without the opportunity to give her breasts the attention such beauties deserved.

In Cullen’s pub, I sipped an orange juice while Johnnie Cullen put in a request - that was an order, really - that Jimmy entertain the company, this being backed up by the men that were lining the counter. The young copper was sitting at his usual table, looking more alone that ever, apparently unaware that there was anybody else in the bar.

Jimmy obliged by hamming it for a bit and Denny sang a couple of songs while Johnnie stood with his back to the counter, his eyes on our table all the time and a blind man could have seen that he was out of what was left of his mind about our lovely May.

The way May moved was enough to give you an ulcer, with every man in the room captured by the blatant sex thing she emitted. Even Jenny and Pauline were silent as May wriggled through the song before sitting down to huge appreciation.

As she sat down, Johnnie scurried in response to a loud banging on the front door, and I allowed myself to be pushed into doing some bit of a turn. I found the idea daunting since I had sipped just one Club Orange but I thought, to hell with it, and I chanted a parody on the old chestnut ‘Like a Golden Dream’ and it went down very well with the company. I was pleased about that, knowing for the first time in my first week as a pro that I had truly reached the audience.

As I sat down, Pauline leaned into me with a smile of appreciation. ‘You learn fast, don’t you?’

I grinned until I realised that Villiers, the obnoxious doc was standing at my elbow. In fact, he was leaning against my chair, though his eyes were glued to May’s white sweater.

‘I told you not drink,’ he said in chastisement, and I realised he was already drunk when his grip on my shoulder developed its own muscles.

‘Take your hand off me, will you?’ I asked, trying hard to keep my voice casual.

‘Take your hand off me, will you?’ He was mimicking me and it got a laugh from Peter Hunter who was half jarred at the table.

Then Villiers said with a drunken laugh. ‘You weren’t so particular about my hands the other day, were you?’

Jimmy moved in quietly: ‘Come over to the bar, Doc, and I’ll get you a drink?’

Villiers looked at Jimmy. Then his eyes came back to me. His grip tightened on my shoulder and I ground my teeth to prevent myself from punching him in the mouth, thinking that if I could just ignore him he might just get bored and wander off. But, he merely moved slightly around the back of my chair so that he was now between Pauline and me.

‘Is this your bit for the week, is it?’

He touched Pauline’s face with his right hand. She drew back and he moved to touch her again. Jimmy was beside him in a flash but I got there first, hooking Villiers hard enough that he tumbled back, falling down over a chair at the next table.

‘Are you alright, Pauling?’

She nodded, smiling. ‘You and your timing,’ she said, and I wanted to hug her so badly that the May Mitchell and her great breasts had faded from the moment.

Jimmy, along with Johnnie Cullen had Villiers on his feet and they walked him carefully to the counter.

I sat down, my legs shaking and I picked up Pauline’s glass and down the whiskey in one gulp.

‘Do you mind?’ I asked, she shaking her head with a smile as she said: ‘There’s another round on the way.’

I was looking right at her and crazy as it might seem, I knew that I had fallen in love with her.

That was the end of the fun for that night, not just for me but for everybody at the table. And I felt the old guilt thing stand up inside me. Maybe I should have let Jimmy handle it. If I hadn’t punched out the doctor, Jimmy would probably have got him away from our table without any fuss. And there was this thing of me hitting the drunken medicine man. A large part of the force in my punch had been to do with the way he had treated me all week. Like, sure, he did his job by giving me medication that dried up my infection, but he had been really unpleasant about condition, which, in reality, was a hint of VD which all your whore masters were likely to run into sooner or later.

I got up and said my goodnights, wishing that I could just find whatever it would take to lean over and kiss Pauline on the lips, but apart from the lack or courage, I had no idea who in the company was involved with who else, and that last thing I needed was to step on the trip of those who were now my workmates.

Johnnie Cullen let me out and when I apologise to him, he laughed. ‘What? Are you having me on? Sure, if the doc had a shilling for every poke in the gob he’s had down the years, wouldn’t he be the richest quack in County Fermanagh!’

This helped me feel a little better, but as I walked back to Molly Dale’s, I wondered how many of them around the table could add two and two. I guessed that Tom and Gary and Denny probably knew why I’d gone to the doctor. Probably Pauline too, since she had this worldly thing about her that made her even more attractive. But, there it was. If they knew, they knew - and there wasn’t a lot I could do about it.

When I got into bed, I found that Molly had placed a hot water bottle between the sheets for me. It was too much, if only because it was unexpected, but, on top of everything else, powerful enough, that I ended my first week in show business by crying myself to sleep.