Dear Roger,
As you can see from the address, things aren’t going according to plan. I’m afraid I’ve had a bit of a heart scare – chest pains that had me admitted here last weekend. I’m still having tests, and it looks like I’m going to be in here for a while yet. A bypass seems to be on the cards, so one way and another I’m going to be out of action for a while. A hospital book is looming, but I don’t know how it ends yet.
Pete McCarthy’s letter came as a nasty shock because we’d met only the week before at Ottaker’s Bookshop in Putney when he turned up at a reading I was doing, followed by a book signing to promote my new Collected Poems. Recognising Pete, the store manager had come over all excited and persuaded him (not a difficult task) to sign all available copies of McCarthy’s Bar and The Road to McCarthy which, unlike my collected poems, were both in the top-seller list, and I was delighted to note that Pete sold more copies of his books that evening than I did of mine. (Did I say delighted? What I meant was nauseous, splenetic, embittered, peeved, incensed, in a fraternal sort of way.)
Later, in a tapas bar down the road, Pete, as ebullient as ever, was looking forward to returning to the States and promoting the paperback edition of his new book.
After a busy and successful career in television, which included writing gags and scripts for Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones and presenting Travelog, the Channel 4 guide for independent travellers, he settled down in 1998 to write the first of his two big sellers. I used the word ‘fraternal’ earlier and there was something of that in our relationship, as there is between Brian Patten and me, although a different kind of one. Not only were Pete and I from similar backgrounds, but we shared the same birthday, 9 November, and because I was fifteen years older and he’d been a fan of mine since the days of the Scaffold, when as a schoolboy he’d come up on stage at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre to have the piss taken out of him and receive a badge from PC Plod (aka John Gorman), Pete never saw me as a rival but as someone who would take pride in his success. And I did.
Although his habit of ringing me twice a week to bring me up to date on the meteoric sales figures of McCarthy’s Bar and divulge details of the huge advances for his next book did put fraternity to the test, I was chuffed that a mate of mine was well on the road to becoming an author of international repute. His wife and his three young daughters loved horses and the countryside, and in 2003 Pete felt secure enough to move into a beautiful manor house in the Sussex Downs. The future could not have looked brighter.
Dearest Roger,
Well, they finally let me home from hospital on Sunday, after fixing me up with an angioplasty last week. So far, the heart seems fine. It was good to talk to you on the phone, and thanks again for the delightful letter you sent.
Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t end there. Routine bloodtests during my time in hospital showed up some irregularities, and I’m afraid they have now confirmed the presence of cancer in my system. Diagnoses are continuing, but it seems likely I will begin a course of chemo in two or three weeks’ time. They haven’t written me off just yet, and rest assured I will be fighting with every fibre of body and spirit.
In August 1986 McGough & McCarthy opened at the Assembly Rooms during the Edinburgh Festival and was well received despite our blurb in the programme: ‘Imagine a stage on which there are two people (well, one some of the time) saying things. This gives you just some idea of the sort of whacky, way-out antics these two popular performers get up to. Entrances, exits, slow fades and blackouts, this show has got the lot. The jester and the muse in flagrante.’ The conceit of the show was the interplay between the stereotypical sensitive poet and the pushy stand-up comic, which gradually revealed, through a series of sketches, a scheming poet and a gullible, innocent comic. Probably the best material was co-written and based on our experiences as teachers, and as pupils at the hands of the Irish Christian Brothers.
(Enter Brother McCarthy interrupting McGough’s routine about life in a monastery) ‘So, McGough, is this the best you can do, sneering at the religion that made you what you are?’
‘Just a bit of fun, sir.’
‘Too clever for religion now, are we? It’s all those non-Catholic authors you’re mixing with.’
(Shamefaced, McGough regresses to boyhood) ‘I can still remember everything I was taught, sir.’
‘Ah, we’ll see about that. And what country did the Virgin Mary come from?’
‘Ireland, sir.’
‘Correct. And Jesus?’
‘The same, sir.’
‘And what religion was he?’
‘Jew, sir.’
‘What sort of a Jew?’
‘A Catholic Jew, sir.’
‘And what religion was the Good Samaritan?’
‘Catholic, sir.’
‘Catholic.’
‘Cain and Abel? … It’s a trick question.’
‘Cain was a Protestant and Abel was a Catholic.’
‘Very good. King Herod?’
‘Protestant, sir.’
‘Pontius Pilate, Judas Iscariot, Attila the Hun, and all the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah?’
‘All Protestant, sir.’
‘Very good. And Adolf Hitler, President Marcos and the Yorkshire Ripper?’
‘… Er, I think they were all Catholics, sir.’
(Producing black leather strap) ‘All Protestants, McGough. And do you know what you are? A snivelling little guttersnipe. What are you?’
‘A snivelling little guttersnipe, sir.’
We played each night to packed houses and reviews were good, so we were faced with the pleasing problem of where to take it next. A transfer to the West End would have been nice, but we had a better offer, three weeks at the Melbourne Comedy Festival.
The Troubadour on Brunswick Street, a folk club that always seemed to be recovering from a hangover, was in retrospect not the ideal venue for the show. Appearing on the same bill were two other artists, Joe Dolce, who had lobbed an oddball number one hit into the UK charts in 1980 called ‘Shaddap You Face’, and a rotund gentleman who recited uncomical ‘Jolly Swagman’ verse. ‘Dingo’ Rawlinson was one of those performance poets who suffered from a syndrome known as ‘the-next-poem-will-be-the-one-that-grabs-them’, an affliction that affects many people faced with an increasingly restive audience. They start off badly, and instead of retreating to the safety of the dressing room they wag their tails and scamper into a billabong. In his case, each heckle, yawn, or jeer was a challenge, a bone tossed into the water for him to retrieve. Consequently, Pete and I invariably started late and had to soothe an audience too often tired and emotional, including, on the second night, twenty undertakers. (And what would be the collective noun? A dirge of undertakers? A dispatch? A moribund? An unction?)
Most nights there would be a percentage of poms who knew us from the UK, or at least had heard of us, and it was like playing at home, but often the locals were nonplussed, wondering when these two guys on stage were going to sing a folk song for godsake. One night I was in the middle of a poem when a voice barged in from the darkness: ‘Ay, mate, who wrote them poems yer readin’?’
At this point I realised that I wasn’t Billy Connolly or Ken Dodd, armed with a quip that would fell the heckler and bring the room to its knees in a gale of laughter. But I needed time to think … ‘Pardon?’
‘I said who wrote them fockin poems?’
‘Erm, I did.’
‘Then why are you reading them out of a book?’
‘Er, well, because I haven’t learned them off by heart.’
‘Oh, I see, OK, mate, yer can carry on now.’
At 12.30 on Friday the official launch of the Comedy Festival was held at the town hall and I had to reply to the Mayor’s welcoming speech on behalf of the overseas visitors, or ‘Ovies’ as we were known. Barry Humphries on his home turf dropped aphorisms like Oscar Wilde after a good lunch, and there was a dinkum sprinkling of local and national comedians. The ‘Ovies’ included Pam Ayres, Mel Smith and the Comedy Festival’s guest of honour, Peter Cook, and we were encouraged to enjoy the unlimited grog until 5.30 when tequila sunsets would appear at a cocktail party fifty yards down the road. Unfortunately, this was an invitation Pete and I couldn’t take up as we had a show that evening, so we stuck to water and drank like fish.
A good friend of ours, William Burdett-Coutts, who had produced our show at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh was also in town and he came to the Troubadour that night with Peter Cook and his wife Lin, and Mel Smith and his lady Pam. Now Mel was an old pal who had worked with both Pete and me, so we rather hoped for a few kind comments from him after the show. Peter Cook, however, was an altogether different proposition for, although I had been a huge fan of his since Beyond the Fringe and continued to be in awe, I was pretty sure we wouldn’t get along. For a start he couldn’t remember that we had met three years earlier at the First International Nether Wallop Arts Festival, a wacky concert party devised by Stephen Pile and filmed for LWT, which featured local turns performing with the likes of Michael Hordern, John Wells, Rick Mayall and Jenny Agutter. Recalling that weekend, I think mainly of Jenny Agutter, but I also remember my comic hero in someone’s sitting room, breaking the leg off a Queen Anne chair for a laugh (and not a cheap one). Of one thing we could be certain, if Peter Cook hated the show he wouldn’t shy from telling us. Now it is certainly possible that their critical faculties had been marred by an early Riesling in the mayoral parlour, followed by Chardonnay, Shiraz and a rainbow of cocktails to ease them into the warm glow of evening, not to mention the one and a half bottles of vodka and three bottles of champagne they’d consumed during the show notwithstanding (and they did have problems in that area), they were fulsome in their praise. ‘Brilliant,’ said Peter. Suddenly we were all luvvies.
William, knowing when he was beaten, called a cab, but Pete and I were starving and, having missed out on a day’s drinking, had a lot of catching up to do, so Peter Cook invited us back to the Regency Hotel. When it comes to room service I am not very good at ordering. I ring the number and, grateful when someone answers, beg and grovel for whatever scraps might be available. Mel Smith, however, is very good at ordering and in no time at all we were tucking into Regency Burgers, crayfish omelettes, oysters (three dozen), four bottles of champagne and two bottles of brandy, as Peter Cook wisely pointed out ‘just to be on the safe side’.
At about 2 a.m. came the rock’n’roll moment when Peter suddenly picked up the large cut-glass goblet containing sweets from a side table and ran towards the window. He’s going to throw it at the moon, I thought, but I hope to God he opens the window first. He did, and then poured out hundreds of sweets that fell like foil-wrapped snowflakes on to the pavement seventeen floors below. The goblet was filled with the remainder of the brandy and champagne, then passed round. But Captain Cautious could not be tempted and, leaving Pete, Peter and Mel to carry on doing what Ovies do best, decided to forgo a cab and walk back to our more modest hotel, the Travel Inn. The street outside the Regency was surprisingly devoid of sweets. Had the hotel cleaners been alerted? Had the ‘garbos’, the city’s proud garbage collectors, already swept the streets? Had a kangaroo with a sweet tooth, unable to believe her luck, stuffed her pouch and hopped back into the bush? The answer, more prosaically, was to do with convection and wind currents, and for half a mile I followed the milky way, silver-wrapped sweets, like stars on the black tarmac guiding me home.
Saturday was a day of glorious technicolor and at the invitation of our friendly Oz promoter, John Pinder, the two Petes, Mel and I went to the races at Moonee Valley, where I couldn’t wait to mix with the crowds, take in the atmosphere and enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. On arrival Peter Cook led the way. To the VIP enclosure, I assumed, no doubt, as being the Festival’s Lead Ovie probably he had a ministerial marquee at his disposal, or at least a box overlooking the track. Instead, he located a noisy, smoke-filled bar, where he and Mel found a table within sight of a black-and-white TV screen showing the afternoon’s races, ordered the first round and placed their bets. Having never been to a race meeting before, I left them to it and went out to watch the real thing and turn a flutter into a small fortune. After all, I was of Irish stock and for sure, wouldn’t I be able to spot a winner by the wild look in the eye and the twitch of a neatly turned fetlock? And that’s only the jockey. Approaching the Tote while reading the race card, I was gripped by an uncontrollable desire to put all the money I was carrying, $250, on an accumulator: Roger’s Cert in the 2.20, Summer with Monika in the three o’clock, Lily the Pink in the 3.30 and Said and Done in the four o’clock; but on reaching the window, it seemed like a bit of a gamble, so instead I placed $2 on the favourite and $2 on the outsider with the highest odds. The favourite romped home and, beginner’s luck, I was already only a dollar down. My good fortune continued throughout the afternoon and, by employing extreme caution and careful management, I ended up $15 in the clear. When it was time for the last race I couldn’t wait to join my fellow high rollers in the bar to buy a round of drinks and explain my sure-fire method of punting for geeks, called ‘Wagers without Fear’. Peter Cook had already won $500 and had lost interest, but Mel was losing, so he dug deep into his wallet and placed $700 to win on an outsider.
‘Don’t, Mel, don’t.’
It came second, and whereas I might have screamed and hurled myself through the window like a large cut-glass goblet, Mel said ‘Bugger’ and asked if he could borrow $20 to buy a round. I lent him fifteen with pleasure, and over a vodka and orange explained my method of carefree gambling, pointing out gently that to risk so much money on an outsider …
Mel turned towards me, that face like a wonderfully expressive pudding, and took my arm: ‘Roger, you don’t understand, do you? You just don’t understand.’
After three weeks at the Troubadour, McGough & McCarthy transferred to the much larger Universal Theatre as part of a programme called enticingly Wogs, Dykes and Poms. The Wogs were a comic trio composed of an Italian, a Spaniard and a Greek, known as Wogs out of Work, the Dykes were five ladies, light-hearted and gay, and the Poms were two very tired Brits who wished they’d resisted the invitation to exceed their welcome in Melbourne. One in particular, whose wife Hilary was eight months pregnant. Although I have dwelt on drink-related escapades, obviously with an eye on tabloid serialisation, I valued most the quiet times that I spent with Peter Cook and Lin, a coffee on Lygon Street, lunch in a Chinese restaurant, when madness was on hold and wit became the man, and there was loose talk of keeping in touch once we were back in dear old Blighty, but almost inevitably we never did. It had been very much an Ovies sort of thing.
On 15 May 2004 I saw Pete McCarthy for the last time when I went to visit him at the recently acquired manor house. He showed me round the former abbey, the paddock and beautiful grounds, but with little enthusiasm: ‘I spent twenty happy years in a three-bedroomed house in Warrington, so what on earth possessed me to buy this? Ego, bloody ego.’
‘No, Pete, you bought it for the family, and you’d worked hard, and … well, at the time …’
But there would be no time. The cancer had spread to the liver and even though Pete said there was no pain, only the fatigue brought on by the chemo, he was depressed and bewildered. Sitting on a bench watching Irene playing with the girls across the lawn, we talked about transiency, the belief in God that he was trying to rekindle, and the inevitable: why me? If he could work out a reason for the cruel visitation, perhaps he could find a way of getting rid of it. Should he continue to fight with every fibre of body and spirit, or resign himself to the fate at which doctors hinted? It was an afternoon of spring sunshine and the scene held a terrible beauty by knowledge of its swift and inevitable passing. The leaves would not fall from the trees, there would be no roaring fires in the drawing room, he would not see his daughters growing older. When it was time to leave, Pete walked me across the forecourt to the five-bar wooden gate where we said goodbye and, wearing a grey fleece, even though it was still warm in the late afternoon, the lad from Warrington walked slowly back into the shadow of the beautiful house that haunted him.
November the Fifth
As I write this, a bonfire is being lit in the garden next door.
While above, planes filled with strangers I will never meet,
are flying to places I will never visit. Tonight is Guy Fawkes night,
and rockets fail in glorious technicolour on their journey to the moon.
I am wearied of writing eulogies for friends who have gone too soon.
News of a sudden death pulls the earth from under our feet.
Unprepared, we are crushed and bewildered.
But when dying is a slow and painful inevitability
we look on helplessly, and hope for miracles.
We either choke on prayer, or else we rage
and refuse to imagine a future without them there.
I am wearied of writing eulogies,
and this is one I thought I’d never have to write. It’s so unfair.
Midnight now, and still a smell of burning in the air.
The bonfire has been put out, and for a few hours at least,
the sky, free of planes can settle down for the night.
Cheers mate, and God Bless.