A Dog's Life(14)

David’s oldest and staunchest friend, Bill Pashley, told me recently of their first meeting in the late 1950s. David was working as a barman in a gay club called The Calabash, which was situated – until it was raided by the police and closed – in a back street in South Kensington. Bill was sitting in the club one evening chatting to an acquaintance when he saw that the voluble young man behind the bar was making everybody laugh.

‘Who’s he?’ Bill asked.

‘I wouldn’t have anything to do with him, if I were you. He’s dangerous.’

It was that single word – ‘dangerous’ – that drew Bill to David. He went across to the bar and introduced himself. Bill’s self-deprecating humour and gift for recognizing and then mocking pomposity and pretentiousness greatly appealed to David, whose own talent for trenchant piss-taking was similar to his.

Bill, who now makes wedding dresses for the daughters of the titled and wealthy, only once shared a workroom with David. That once was more than enough. David created an atmosphere about him that was electric, nothing less, and Bill’s placid temperament couldn’t cope with it. Others could, and for them it was a source of inspiration, a challenge to give of their best.

‘Are you always so charming, or is today a special occasion?’ This was his standby question, delivered with an ingratiating smile, in the face of downright rudeness. He employed it for as long as I knew him, and I delighted in watching the reactions of those to whom it was addressed. People who make a habit of being insulting to their supposed inferiors tend not to have a capacity for self-deflation, and it was with a certain keen pleasure that I became aware how many of them actually thought they were charming, believing what David had said to be true.

David and I went about our different sexual ways eventually, but continued to live together. I still laugh when I remember his simple, but invariably successful, seduction technique. ‘Have you ever thought of having your trousers hand-made?’ he would remark, en passant, to the policeman – he specialized in policemen – or taxi driver, or labourer he had invited in for the ubiquitous ‘quick coffee’. The reply was always the same. ‘I couldn’t afford it, mate. Don’t have that kind of money.’

‘My prices are very reasonable. Why don’t I measure you anyway?’

Then he produced the tape measure, rather like a magician surprised to see a rabbit in his hat, and a few minutes of careful measuring would lead to the desired goal.

I was alone in the house when a woman from the wardrobe department at BBC Television phoned. She needed a piece of material urgently. She described it to me – the precise colour and pattern – and I went into his cluttered workroom to search for it. I did find it, and the woman said she would send a courier to pick it up. I also found something else that day – the evidence of his serious, private drinking. Underneath the scattered piles of silks and cottons were dozens of empty gin bottles, mostly miniatures. Why hadn’t he thrown them out with the rubbish? Had he wanted me to discover them?

He lived in fear of contracting Huntington’s chorea, and steadily killed himself in the process. It took a long time for his work to deteriorate, and when it did he was too blinded by gin to understand why no one was phoning him, apart from a couple of loyal friends who gave him the odd, relatively small, commission.

He had money troubles, too, even when he was in constant employment. Organizations like the BBC, the famous opera houses and theatrical managements seldom pay on delivery, and he often waited weeks or months for his cheque. I recall that once, exasperated beyond the limit of his limited patience, he made himself some sandwiches and mixed gin with tonic in a bottle and set off for the offices of the theatre company that owed him thousands of pounds. He arrived there at nine-thirty in the morning and sat himself down opposite the secretary who had been assuring him for six months that the cheque was on her desk ready to be signed by her boss, who seemed to be permanently absent.

‘I am going to sit here until he signs it. I’ve brought my food and drink. If I have to go to the lavatory, I shall do it on the carpet. That’s a promise.’

The secretary made a series of frantic phone calls before she located the head of the company. She told him that things were desperate. The man appeared at noon and observed that he regarded David’s behaviour as beneath contempt. He signed the cheque.

‘May I use your telephone?’ David enquired, with feigned politeness. ‘What’s the number of your bank? It would be so inconvenient if this bounced.’

David learned that there were sufficient funds in the account, while the terrified secretary and the apoplectic manager looked on. And with the words ‘Quoth the raven’ he left the premises.