Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

repaired his nails gave him a sense of being noticed for the first time since his arrival in London. “Have you done this long?” he asked eventually.
“Oh … about fifteen years, I suppose.”
“And before that you were Simon’s nanny?”
“Mmm.”
“Did you do nanny work for other families?”
“No. Just the Bardills. Let’s have the other hand, love.”
He obeyed as she repositioned the stool. “Did you always want to be a nanny?” he asked. As soon as he had spoken, he wondered if the question was too personal. He had never stopped to think about what career opportunities were open to a midget.
“Oh, no!” she answered immediately. “I wanted to be in show business. I was in show business.”
“You mean like a …?” A circus was what came to mind, but he knew better than to finish the sentence.
“A musical revue,” she said. “A traveling show. A bit of song and dance. Readings from Shakespeare. That sort of thing.”
“How fascinating,” he exclaimed, captivated by the thought of a miniature Lady Macbeth. “Why did you give it up?”
She heaved a sigh. “They gave us up, love. The audience. The telly killed us, I always said. Who wanted Bunny Benbow when they could have Coronation Street for nothing?”
“Bunny Benbow? That was the name?”
“The Bunny Benbow Revue.” She giggled like one of the mice in Cinderella. “Silly, isn’t it? It sounds so old-fashioned now.”
“I wish I’d seen it,” he said.
“Simon’s mum and dad took me in after we folded. Their friends thought they were daft, but it well and truly saved my life. I owe them a great deal, a great deal.” She finished filing a jagged nail and looked up at him. “What about you, love? How do you put bread on the table?”
“I’m a nurseryman,” he told her.
“How lovely.” She stopped her work for a moment and stared misty-eyed into space. “Simon’s mum had a splendid garden at our country place in Sussex. Hollyhocks. Roses. The dearest little violets …”
He noticed that her lip was trembling slightly.
She sighed finally. “Time marches on.”
“Yes,” he replied.
When she had gone, half an hour later, his spirits had improved considerably, so he decided to follow through with his original plan and check out the gay bars in Earl’s Court. The tube brought him within a block of Harpoon Louie’s, a windowless bar which flew a Union Jack in an apparent effort to show that poofters could be patriots too.
Inside, the place was self-consciously American: blond wood, industrial shades on the lights, Warhol prints. Perhaps in deference to the current occupant of Kensington Palace, the tape machine was playing Paul Anka’s “Diana.” The barmaid, in fact, looked like a chubbier version of the Princess of Wales.
The crowd was decidedly clonish—tank-topped, Adidas-shod, every bit as inclined toward altitude as a standard Saturday night mob on Castro Street. They smoked more, it seemed, and their teeth and bodies weren’t as pretty, but Disco Madness (circa 1978) was alive and well in Earl’s Court.
Finding a seat at a banquette against the wall, he nursed a gin and tonic and observed the scene for several minutes. Then he read a story about Sylvester in a newspaper called Capital Gay (“The Free One”) and wandered into the back garden, where the smoke and noise were less oppressive.
He left as a clock was striking ten somewhere and walked several blocks past high-windowed brick buildings to a gay pub called the Coleherne. These were the leather boys, apparently. He ordered another gin and tonic and stood at the bulletin board reading announcements about Gay Tory meetings and “jumble sales” to benefit deaf lesbians.
When he returned to the horseshoe-shaped bar, the man across from him smiled broadly. He was a kid really, not more than eighteen or nineteen, and his skin was the same shade as the dark ale he was drinking. His hair was the startling part—soft brown ringlets that glinted with gold under the light, floating above his mischievous eyes like … well, like the froth on his ale. In his white shirt and bow tie and sleeveless argyle sweater he came as welcome relief from the white men in black leather who surrounded him.
Michael smiled back. His admirer kissed the tip of his forefinger and wagged it at him. Michael lifted his glass as a thank you. The kid hopped off his barstool and made his way through the sullen throng to Michael’s side of the bar.
“I fancy your jeans,” he said.