Pussy’s gone? queried Bow. Whereabouts unknown, confirmed the barman without taking his eye off the tip jar. Estimate for the night so far: £10/7/6. Very nice indeed. Seemingly, every queer in London was sardined into the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, ordering Babycham, draught Carlsberg or Blue Nun, shouting “cheers” and “bottoms up”.
Straightening his skirt before craning his neck, Bow tried to see over the heads of the hooting crowd. He certainly wasn’t going to climb back onto the bar’s countertop for a better view. As Pussy and Bow, the pair had just finished their set with an encore of “All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor” and Bow, unscripted, had paused. A likely lad had beckoned with a waved business card. Purely to be sociable, of course, Bow had tucked it into his garter, turned and realised Pussy had gone.
Why? Each night the two would accept glasses of bubbles from the manageress after singing music hall ditties while strutting the wide bar. The highlight: watching punters frantically scooping away their booze in case the performers’ high-heeled shoes kicked the glassware towards the rafters.
But no bubbles on that summer’s night, 26 July 1967. Ignoring drinks offered by too-handsy Stagedoor Johnnies, Bow pushed his way to the Tavern’s concept of a dressing room – a cramped space near the men’s loos. He changed out of a silk blouse and a-line skirt into a blue suit, achieving a dour Clark Kent effect. From super drag queen to being a drag. Off stage, Bow was a creased-brow worrier.
A voice below his shoulder said in Polari, the gay slang: “How bona to vada your dolly old eek again.”
Bow wasn’t in the mood for banter. “I can’t find Pussy.”
“Women?” said the dandy little man with a shudder. “You never struck me as the type, darling.” He resembled Truman Capote without the matching bank balance. Capote chose Moscot Eyewear. Clive Johnson had to rely on National Health spectacles. During a moment’s pause, Johnson, usually indifferent to others’ feelings, sensed Bow’s concern. “Well … I saw him coming out of the loos, still in full drag and on the arm of a dashing young man of, and I imagine Pussy knows this already, very athletic build.”
“Nonsense …” began Bow before Johnson’s hand came up.
“This evening’s different. Look around. Everyone’s been following the
Sexual Offences Act debate in parliament. The wireless says the politicians are
still at it and tomorrow, with luck, we too can get at it without having our
collars felt.” Raising an empty glass, he swiveled around, hoping a passing
mary would fill it.
In the warm South London night air, on the curving footpath wrapping around the front of the venue, customers avoiding the crush inside stood drinking and chortling. High up and only yards away, trains clattered on an overpass’ tracks. Bow now had a lead. A few of the revellers had seen Pussy climbing into the back seat of a plain, dark car with a man in a suit seeming to push him.
A Tube ride ate up more time, however Bow couldn’t afford a taxi. Thirty minutes later he stood to attention at the Kennington Road police station’s front desk. The building was as blank-faced as the sergeant studying him.
“You mean the pansy in the frock?” asked the sergeant.
“Hamish McMahon,” repeated Bow.
Picking up a fountain pen, the policeman scrawled a note on a large ledger. “And you’re his boyfriend?”.
“Heavens, no. We’ve performed together for five years. We started off dressing as singing nuns but found …”
“It says here he’ll be charged tomorrow with committing an act of gross indecency in the toilets of some poof pickup joint in Vauxhall.”
“Why’s Hamish being kept in a cell?”
“So we know where to find him in the morning.”
The station clock above the sergeant’s desk read 8.25. Bow calculated if he caught the Number 59 bus he’d reach Fleet Street in 10 minutes. El Vino’s would still be open.
Open and doing a high-spirited trade. Given the street, there were journalists from the broadsheets and tabloids who flicked him knowing looks as he entered and lawyers from the surrounding chambers who ignored him. Except one. At the far end of the wine bar, away from customers plopped on high stools or propped against the dark wood counter, a tall man in an unbuttoned, pin-striped, double-breasted suit which may have been fashionable two decades earlier seemed to sense Bow’s presence. He certainly sensed a chance for a refill. “I’m drinking the allegedly Good Ordinary,” he called out.
Bow stopped at the bar, ordered and paid in coins.
At a small table wedged into a corner, Damian Wordsworth lifted the proffered glass of claret out of Bow’s hand, nodded thanks and gestured at a chair. Bow drank half his glass of hock before blurting out: “They’ve snatched Pussy.”
Wordsworth didn’t raise his long nose away from the rim. “It’s always
hard to tell if it’s corked.” A final sniff then a lengthy pull. “I’m afraid if
this involves a brief, old chap, you’ll need to go through the clerk of my
chambers.” He saw Bow’s face fall. “But,” Wordsworth added, “I’m always
delighted to chat with half of my favourite double act.”
The following morning, the barrister regretted both the claret and his curiosity. With the Act to decriminalise homosexual acts in private scheduled to be passed that day, why would the police bother?
Wordsworth was standing in a small holding cell which smelt of equal parts urine and despair. There was a steel bucket in the corner, probably holding both. Facing the lawyer, the still-uncharged Hamish Alfred McMahon, aka Pussy, wig off, makeup askew, sat on a bed bolted to the wall. He retold the story. Needing an urgent leak after his performance, he’d sprinted into a toilet cubicle, left the door open, hoisted the lid and his dress and, seconds later, heard the door close behind him and felt a tap on his shoulder. Then came a muttered offer “to lend a hand.” Pussy had turned and said: “I beg your pardon?” The shoulder-tapper, Constable Alan Radcliff – undercover and in his best suit – later alleged Pussy had sighed “Look at my hard-on” before thrusting himself forward.
Pussy gave a tired smile. “Untrue. I would’ve peed all over his boots.”
A steel gate clanged. They heard those same boots – and another pair – in the corridor outside. The cell door was yanked back and, in Keystone Cops style, Constable Radcliff and the front desk sergeant collided in the narrow space before stopping inches from Pussy’s stockinged knees. Radcliff, after checking his watch and smirking at his colleague, read out the charge and then recited the caution: “You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention ...”
Neither Pussy nor his barrister said anything.
In El Vino’s that evening, Wordsworth sipped claret and grimaced. On the wine bar table lay a fresh copy of the Sexual Offences Act 1967. Although passed by Parliament at 11.10am, it did not receive Royal Assent from the Queen until 2.45pm. As Pussy had been charged after the Act was passed but before the crucial Royal Assent for a crime allegedly committed the previous night, could he be tried? Potentially. The Act did not state whether the new emancipating law applied to offences committed prior to the legislation. Taking another tentative sip, Wordsworth made a pragmatic decision. He was acting for Pussy on a pro bono basis, so – bugger it – he didn’t plan to spend time in court.
As he lit a long, filtered cigarette, he saw Bow approaching.
“Do you have a plan?” asked Bow.
“Plan might indicate I know what I’m doing.”
It was Friday – to Sir Anthony Barrett, the Director of Public Prosecutions, a day more sacred than Sunday. Ahead lay two glorious days of shooting startled birds out of the sky at his estate. In the distance Big Ben struck the hour. Barrett squinted at the stiff white card bearing the club’s luncheon menu. Perhaps the baked turbot with potato crust plus a small carafe of Sancerre.
“Do you mind, Tony?”
Barrett looked up as Wordsworth drew back the chair opposite. “And if I did, Damian?”
“Such an enviable sense of humour and what a coincidence seeing you at the club. I couldn’t miss the opportunity to pick your brains about a delicate matter.”
“If this involves one of your beastly clients, you can sod off and take your chances in court.”
“Tsk, tsk, Tony … if only life was that straightforward.”
By the time Wordsworth finally pushed back his chair, Barrett had lost his appetite. The DPP’s notes on a slim leather-backed scratch pad resting by the untouched fish knife read: “Claimed entrapment. No witnesses. Charge laid was two-fingered gesture at high-profile, history-making Act. Charge’s timing relied on slowness of Royal Assent process. May reflect poorly on Her Majesty. Also, Act unclear on prior offences. Positions me (he’d underlined ‘me’) as meanspirited, out-of-touch zealot. Salacious press stories destined to run and run.”
“Can I get you anything before I go?” asked Wordsworth.
“Get the waiter to bring a phone to the table. I need to make a call to Kennington Road police station.”
# # #
Copyright 2023 GREG FLYNN
