His father threw him a look of contempt. “It’s a blunt razor that cuts you, idiot, not a sharp one.”
That ended their conversation. So, with no other recourse in that pre-internet age, the kid smuggled the foam and razors into the bathroom. Through trial and bloody error, he taught himself how to be a man.
He left home soon after that. He ran away, a few days after his seventeenth birthday.
He went to London, like Dick Whittington, in search of fame and fortune.
The kid wanted to be an actor. He assumed all he had to do was appear at one of the cattle-call auditions advertised in the back pages of The Stage, and he would be discovered and catapulted to stardom. It didn’t work out quite like that.
Easy to see why, looking back. Never mind that he wasn’t a very good actor—too self-conscious and too unnatural—he wasn’t handsome enough to stand out in the crowd. He had a ragamuffin look, more unkempt with each passing day.
Not that he could see this at the time. If he had, he might have swallowed his pride, gone home with his tail between his legs—and come to much less grief.
As it was, the kid reassured himself success was just around the corner. He just had to tough it out for a while longer, that’s all.
Unfortunately he soon ran out of what little money he had. He was now penniless and kicked out of the youth hostel in King’s Cross where he’d been staying.
That’s when things got really bad, really fast.
You wouldn’t think it, now it’s gentrified and cleaned up—all gleaming steel and exposed brick—but back then, my God, King’s Cross was rough. A shadowy place, full of danger—a Dickensian underworld, populated by drug dealers, prostitutes, and homeless kids.
It makes me shudder now, to think of him there, alone, so spectacularly ill-equipped to survive. He was now destitute, and sleeping on benches in parks—until his luck changed, during a rainstorm, when he found refuge in Euston Cemetery.
He climbed over the wall into the graveyard, looking for shelter. He discovered, along one side of the church, a subterranean bunker—a dug-out concrete space—big enough for two or three people to lie down comfortably. Well, as comfortable as you can get in an empty crypt—for that’s what it was. But it provided a level of protection. For the kid, this was a minor miracle.
He was a little unhinged, by this point. He was hungry, scared, paranoid—and increasingly cut off from the world. He felt dirty, like he stank—he probably did—and he didn’t like getting too close to people.
But he was desperate—and so he did some things for money that he—
No, I can’t bring myself to write about that.
I’m sorry—I don’t mean to be coy. I’m sure you have a few things you’d rather not tell me about. We all have a skeleton or two in our closet—so to speak. Let this be mine.
The first time he did it, he felt entirely disassociated and blanked it out, as if it were happening to someone else.
The second time it was much worse; so he shut his eyes and thought of the madwoman who lived on the church steps, shouting at passersby to fling themselves into the arms of Jesus. He imagined throwing himself into Jesus’s arms, and being saved. But somehow salvation felt a long way off.
Afterward, feeling overwhelmed and afraid, the kid sat up all night until dawn; clutching a cup of coffee in Euston Station. Trying not to think, trying not to feel.
He sat there through the early-morning rush hour—a depressed waif, ignored by the sea of commuters. He counted the minutes until the pubs opened, and he could get a drink.
Finally, the dingy pub across the road opened its doors, offering sanctuary for the lost and disheartened.
The kid went inside and sat at the bar. He paid cash for a vodka—it was the first time he had ever tasted vodka, come to think of it. He knocked it back, wincing as it burned in his throat.
Then he heard a husky voice at the end of the bar:
“What’s a pretty thing like you doing in a shithole like this?”
This was—on reflection—the first, and last, compliment she ever paid him.
The kid looked up, and there was Barbara West. A lined older woman, dyed-red hair, an excess of mascara. She had the darkest, most piercing eyes he had ever seen; penetrating, brilliant, and scary.
Barbara laughed—a distinctive laugh, a throaty cackle. She laughed easily, he discovered, mostly at her own jokes. The kid would grow to hate her laugh. But that day, he merely felt indifferent. He shrugged—and tapped his empty glass in answer to her question.
“What’s it look like?”
Barbara took the hint, nodding at the barman. “Give him another, Mike. Me, too, while you’re at it. Doubles.”
Barbara had gone to the pub that morning direct from signing books in the Waterstones bookshop next door—because she was an alcoholic. Character is fate; and without Barbara’s need for a gin and tonic at 11:00 A.M., she and the kid would never have met. They were from two different worlds, those two. And were destined, in the end, only to cause each other harm.
They had a couple more drinks. Barbara kept her eyes on him the whole time, sizing him up. She liked what she saw. After one more drink for the road, she called a cab. She took the kid home with her.
It was only meant to be for one night. But one night led to another, and another—and he never left.
Yes, Barbara West used him, taking advantage of this desperate child in his hour of need. She was indeed a predator; even if, unlike her alcoholism, this was not immediately apparent. She was one of the darkest human beings I ever encountered. I dread to think what she would have done with her life if she hadn’t had a knack for writing novels.
But let’s not underestimate the kid, here. He understood perfectly well what he was getting into. He knew what Barbara wanted, and he was happy to supply it. If anything, he got the better deal. In return for his services, he received not only a roof over his head—but an education, which he needed just as urgently.
In that house in Holland Park, he had access to a private library. A world full of books. “Can I read one?” he said, staring at them in awe.
Barbara seemed surprised at his request. Perhaps she doubted he could read. “Take your pick.” She shrugged.
He randomly chose one book from the shelf: Hard Times.
“Oh yuck, Dickens.” Barbara pulled a face. “So sentimental. Still, I suppose you’ve got to start somewhere.”
But the kid didn’t find Dickens sentimental. He found him wonderfully entertaining. And funny, and profound. So he read David Copperfield next; and his enjoyment grew, along with his appetite. Not just for Dickens, but for whatever he could find on Barbara’s shelves—devouring all the great authors he could lay his hands on.
Every day spent in that house was an education—not just from her books, but from Barbara herself; and from the circle she moved in—the literary salon she ran from her living room.
As time went on, and the kid was exposed to more and more of her life, he kept his eyes and ears open. He tried to absorb as much as he could from her guests’ conversations; what all these sophisticated people said, and how they said it. He would memorize phrases and opinions and gestures, practicing them when he was alone, in front of a mirror; trying them on, like uncomfortable clothes he was determined to squeeze into.
Don’t forget the kid was an aspiring actor. And, frankly, this was his only role, which he tirelessly and meticulously rehearsed over the years—until he honed it to perfection.
Then, one day, staring at himself in the mirror, he could see no trace of the kid.
Someone else was staring back at him.
But who was this new person? The first thing he had to do was find a name for him. He stole one from a play on Barbara’s shelf, from Private Lives by No?l Coward.
Barbara thought this was hilarious, of course. But despite mocking him, she went along with it. She preferred this new name, she said, as it was less hideous than his real one. But between you and me, I think the idea just appealed to her sense of the perverse.