NOTES
There are no notes for this chapter yet. Some of the notes on other pages are based on info YOU send me. |
As expected, the Simpsons were not at all surprised or put out when I turned up on their doorstep for the second time in a few days. Indeed, things carried on as before, except that one of their transient quests who had been using the spare bedroom had now gone, so it was given to me. After a few weeks of living entirely off the Simpsons, with no sign of resentment on their part, I noticed that the nearby Royal Sussex Hospital was looking for a washer-up for the kitchens of the staff canteen. I decided that I ought to apply for the job, in order to be able to give the Simpsons some rent. The catering supervisor gave me the job just for the asking. They had no washing-up machines, so everything had to be washed by hand. Of course, they hadn't enough crockery or cutlery, so many items had to be used many times over during each meal session. This meant there was no time to do anything other than dip the items briefly in a trough of filthy water and detergent, giving them a quick rub over with your hands in the process. Rinsing happened only in the slacker periods. As a result, there were quite often complaints about dirty plates and knives. |
| I made friends with two kitchen workers who were generally given a hard time by the others, especially the supervisor. One was Rachel, a girl of 17, who had a limp due to a club foot. She also had very slow speech and a permanently vacuous expression. Due to these outward appearances, she was taken to be of low intelligence and treated accordingly, by which I mean that she was frequently shouted at, accused of being useless and made to work harder than anyone else. It didn't help that she was rather clumsy and often broke crockery, and was also totally submissive. For me, the irony was that the others were themselves too stupid to look beyond these outward attributes of the girl. Five minutes of conversation of a political, philosophical or theological nature was all it took to discover that she was brighter by far than any of her tormentors. I tried sticking up for her once, when she was being shouted at by the supervisor for something she hadn't done, but she seemed to be embarrassed by my interference. |
| The other person I befriended was Manuel, who was remarkably like his namesake in Fawlty Towers, in stature, looks and mannerisms. Like his fictional counterpart, he had very little English and was treated rather like a performing monkey. He was a performer alright - a fine Flamenco guitarist and singer. I invited him back to the Simpson's one night, and he entertained us all evening, assisted by plenty of home-made mead. I seemed to be regarded as some kind of pervert or traitor by the other kitchen workers for befriending Manuel and Rachel. |
| One day the supervisor decided that my talents were rather wasted as a washer-up, and that I should become a waiter on the doctors' tables. Having heard from the other waiters that this was a terrible job, because of the propensity of the doctors to complain about everything they could think of, including the efficiency of the waiters, I was greatly alarmed by the prospect of this promotion. I tried to refuse the job, but the catering officer, a solidly built woman with an authoritarian style, had made up her mind and that was that. As a result I behaved in my usual way and simply stopped going to work. The job had lasted two or three months. Unfortunately, I bumped into the supervisor in the street one day and she gave me a terrible dressing-down at great volume, blocking my path with her ample form, to prevent escape. She was accompanied, as always, by her second-in-command, a much younger woman, who tended to repeat everything her boss said, like a faint echo. I can still picture the rage-reddened slab of a face roaring condemnation, with the obedient sidekick looking on smugly and repeating the key words. |
| While I was still working at the Royal Sussex, I met Angela again in the street. You may recall from Chapter 72 that I had been seeing quite a lot of Angela the previous Autumn, just before my temporary absence from Brighton. We now resumed that peculiar friendship, in which we never agreed about anything. One day, she reported that she had been turned out of her latest bedsit. I suggested she should come and stay at the Simpson's, knowing that they wouldn't mind. She moved in. It turned out that Angela and Pauline Simpson already knew each other. Angela was now working as a life model at Brighton Polytechnic, and Pauline was attending evening life-drawing classes there. When I walked out on the Royal Sussex and was in need of money again, Angela talked me, with great difficulty, into having a go at life modelling myself. She even fixed me up with a single session at a private life drawing club in Bond Street (it's still there). In those days, male models were still allowed, and sometimes expected, to wear a 'posing pouch' - the male equivalent of a G-string - so I didn't have to be completely naked. I found to my surprise that I was exceptionally good at keeping very still for long periods in difficult positions, and was much complimented on this. Unfortunately, while I was getting dressed behind the screen afterwards, I overheard one of the elderly ladies complain "you'd think they could have found us a better-looking model this week." I didn't realize at the time that life models have to get used to hearing that sort of thing - and worse - if they wish to make a career of it. For the time being, I stoutly resisted any further attempts by Angela to fix me up with modelling jobs. However, I posed a couple of times for a private group run by Pauline herself, in her own flat. It was customary in that group for male models not to wear anything. It was already beginning to be thought of as old-fashioned to 'cover oneself' as the phrase went, but I think I insisted. |
| Before long, Angela and I were sharing the spare bedroom. We had become a couple. Forty-two years later (in 2013), we are still together. |