“So?” I said. “How much did you enjoy seeing Henry? Did you stay long at my place?”
“Here it is,” she said. She had on her most serious, if not tragic face, which disconcerted me. But it was too late now. “Did you set this up on purpose?”
“Henry asked me to get some dope from you. That’s all I did.”
“Don’t come in!” she screamed into the rest of the house, before shutting the kitchen door and jamming a chair under the handle, a rare cry for privacy. “What happened? Henry wanted the dope, but he doesn’t even know how to make his own joints. While I was rolling a few, teaching him, he said, ‘It’s the most useful thing I’ve learned for years.’ You know how he talks, for England and for his own benefit, as if he expects to be listened to. Even I had to shut up. That’s authority for you. I get hot just thinking of it.”
“What did he say?”
“I was telling him from the off I was poor. I said I’ve never had nothing, not for want of trying. I’m no good at anything but the small stuff, so don’t think I’m a catch, but I might inherit a bit.
“He said he lived with his wife, Valerie, in luxury, for ten years. There were houses, cars, parties, holidays. They were friends with famous artists, politicians, actors who stayed in their houses, drank their champagne, swam in their pools. When she needed more money, she’d sell a painting.”
“Henry did some excellent work during those years.”
“Without making much money, he claims. It was she who supported him. His nose was in her trough. Well, as he talked about it, he became more and more upset, calling it ‘an untrue life.’ I didn’t know what to do. In his mind he’s a crazy man. You spend the day with such people.”
“It was all talk?”
“I gave him the joint. It’s special stuff. I knew it would draw out the subject for him.” Now Miriam came and sat next to me, lowering her voice. “I’ll tell you how he seduced me into love.”
“Love already?”
Henry had asked Bushy to drive them to his flat by the river at Hammersmith where he lived on the first floor. I often went there: the living room had a long window overlooking the Thames and the trees on the towpath opposite. The other three flats in the house were occupied by ageing theatre queens with whom Henry was always arguing, either about the dustbins or the number of rent boys or, more likely, young actors, stamping up and down the stairs. Or they’d have long discussions on the landing about productions at the Royal Court in the mid-1960s.
Apart from the large living room, Henry’s place was composed of a number of small and medium-sized rooms filled randomly with theatre memorabilia as well as the “artworks” he’d begun to make himself in the last few years. Sitting on worn carpets were his “sculptures” made of wire and plaster, or of egg-boxes mixed with Polyfilla; on the walls, among the broken mirrors, posters and sketches for costumes from numerous shows, were his drawings and watercolours.
Like a lot of people, he was prouder of his hobbies than he was of his work. His son, Sam, had told the Mule Woman, indeed any woman who passed through, that if you praised Henry’s photography you were in with him, if that’s what you wanted. In fact, the Mule Woman had been so in love with the idea of living near the river, which she watched constantly, that she attempted to dust a little, soon realising it would take a team of people several days to make an impression. Nevertheless, she’d honoured the pictures and received some kindness in return.
Henry had a large armchair by the window, and a radio on a table next to it. Here he read newspapers, poetry, plays and Dostoevsky, while watching the river. He liked to claim that at night he could see, among the trees, his gay friends participating in open-air orgies.
Miriam said, “I liked the pad. The history of his life everywhere, awards, photographs of him with that famous French actress, Brigitte Bardot.”
“Jeanne Moreau.”
Miriam said, “We wanted to get the sex done with straightaway. Both of us were starving for physical love. He was like some madwoman, talking about how his body would disgust anyone who saw it. He wouldn’t take his clothes off. He actually put his jumper on. You know I’m used to odd things, but it got bizarre, lying naked in bed with a completely dressed stranger who wouldn’t stop telling me how frightened he was. Anyway, you don’t need to hear about it.”
“Why not?”
“It might make you sad about yourself.” I laughed. At times she sounded as sentimental as Rafi, who would say, “Oh, Dad, I don’t want you to feel sad.” Now she went on, “Well, after the love, he got this book out. We were on the vodka, smoking another joint. He made me read to him. She was called Sonya.”
“From Uncle Vanya? The last speech?”
“He put a chair in the middle of the room and watched how I sat. He had the cheek to give me instructions.”
“What did he say?”
“He made me do it slower. He told me when to look at the book and when to look up. At the same time he wanted me to do it naturally, as if I were at home. The speech was about work and the angels and the heavens, full of emoting. Too much about work for my liking. He got very involved in it, dashing about here and there. I had no idea he could be so light on his feet.”
Now and again over the years, I’d sat in on Henry’s rehearsals for both his modern and classical work. I’d particularly liked his workshops with ordinary people and his appreciation of what he called “naive” acting, which, he said, had its own beauty. “Bring me only the worst actors. What could be more depressing than talent?” he’d say. “I hope never to meet anyone talented again!”
If, when he was doing a production, there was an actor he couldn’t get along with, he’d ask me to come in and have a look at them, and Henry and I would talk in the bar later. Henry was different at work; I’d heard he’d been a bully, particularly with women, but he seemed to have grown out of that. In the rehearsal room, I was impressed by his assurance and intense concentration, by his concern for the actors and his interest in their ideas, as well as his firmness when he wanted something. I saw that this was where he was meant to be, what he was alive for. But it also made me wonder why this self, so alert and vibrant, was separated from the anxious, daily self which I knew.
Miriam said, “He told me he might record me saying the speech for television. Was he lying or just winding me up? I’m used to that stuff from men. Married men always adored me.”
“They did?”
“I swallowed everything.”
“Indeed.”
“I don’t even mind him lying, but-”
“Henry wouldn’t do that. He is supposed to be making a documentary about acting. If you’re not careful he’ll put you in it.”
“Really? I’ll have to get my hair done and cover my tattoos. I wish I had some money.”
A few years back I introduced Henry to one of my ex-girlfriends, Karen Pearl, sometimes fondly referred to as “the TV Bitch.” About eighteen months ago, she had agreed to produce a documentary that Henry wanted to make. But instead of shooting it over a ten-day period, as most people would, Henry had decided he would make his film “over a couple of years,” with his own camera, while doing other things, like teaching, travelling and lecturing-his “retirement” activity, though he hadn’t retired, of course.
Karen wanted celebrities in the documentary, by which she meant soap stars, while Henry wanted talented, well-known actors with whom he’d worked before, as well as amateurs attempting pieces from the classical repertoire.
Henry had become annoyed with me for putting the two of them together in the first place, and Karen claimed his obduracy was helping to bankrupt her, though even he can’t have been the sole cause. She’d invited me to one of her pop things recently, in a warehouse full of barely dressed and over-made-up semi-children. She’d turned into Hattie Jacques in the Carry On films: matronly, patronising, foolishly grand.