Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Julian Clary
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Dramatis Personae
Prologue
Act I: Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
Scene Four
Scene Five
Scene Six
Act II: Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
Act III: Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
Scene Four
Scene Five
Scene Six
Scene Seven
Scene Eight
Scene Nine
Scene Ten
Interlude: Scene One
Act IV: Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
Scene Four
Scene Five
Scene Six
Scene Seven
Scene Eight
Scene Nine
Act V: Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
Scene Four
Scene Five
Scene Six
Scene Seven
Scene Eight
Bibliography
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Copyright
Also by Julian Clary:
A YOUNG MAN’S PASSAGE
MURDER MOST FAB
DEVIL IN DISGUISE
To my nephew, Christian
‘I believe, the more you love a man,
The more you give your trust,
The more you’re bound to lose.
Hey-Ho. If love were all …’
Noël Coward
Whoever said the afterlife would be easy…?
Noël Coward is the toast of twenties society… a brilliant playwright, composer and entertainer whose witty songs and pithy lines don’t quite tell the full story. Goldenhurst, his house in Kent, provides a place where he can be himself. And more importantly where he can be with his lover, Jack, without fear of arrest or judgement...
But their romantic idyll is ruined, first by the arrival of Noël’s demanding relatives and then by a mysterious death…
Many years later, film star and Coward fan Richard Stent buys the house from its current owner. But Richard has problems of his own. Goldenhurst is supposed to be a respite from all his worries but this is a house with a very rich and not always pleasant history. And more than one thing is about to go bump in the night…
A haunting tale of love, obsession and a house full of spirits, not all of them blithe…
Julian Clary is one of Britain’s most loved entertainers. His memoir A Young Man’s Passage was a Sunday Times bestseller. He lives in Camden and Kent.
He is the author of two critically acclaimed novels: Murder Most Fab and Devil in Disguise.
Richard Stent |
a famous actor, handsome but slightly past his prime |
Fran Chilman |
Richard’s long-term partner. Clever, independent and considerably younger |
Jess Campbell |
Richard’s efficient and loyal personal assistant |
Albie Campbell |
Jess’s son |
Marcia Brown |
Richard’s eccentric, blousy agent |
Gary Lucas |
Richard’s best friend, an out-of-work and out-of-shape actor |
Julian Clary |
annoying camp comic and renowned homosexual |
Paul O’Grady |
TV personality from Birkenhead |
Cheryl Dawkins |
a beautiful model-turned-actress. No stranger to the party scene |
Noël Coward |
actor, playwright, composer |
Jack Wilson |
his American lover, a chisel-jawed jock |
Violet Coward |
Noël’s adoring mother |
Aunt Vida |
Violet’s troublesome sister |
Arthur Coward |
Noël’s moody, neglected father |
Lorn Loraine |
Noël’s loyal and long-suffering secretary |
Mrs Ashton |
the housekeeper, big boned and all knowing |
Alice Creyse |
the maid, timid and rather clumsy |
Stanley Lewis |
the gardener, a man of few words, if any |
Jude Perkins |
the young, good-looking under-gardener |
DI Cecil Keaton |
a middle-aged, balding, tenacious policeman. Might as well be northern |
Natasha Paley |
a Russian princess and Hollywood starlet |
Graham Payn |
Noël’s partner in later years |
And sundry spirits
Scene: a beautiful, idyllic manor house in Kent. Present day.
I’ve been lying here under the mulberry tree, spread-eagled on a sunbed for hours. But if anything I’m paler now than I was a few hours ago. I can’t move. I feel as if I’m in a painting, positioned just so, the dappled evening light catching my cheekbones and giving my blond-and-grey-speckled hair an ethereal glow. The house lies a hundred yards or so to my right: a serene, knowing presence. It looks smart and well kept now but this wasn’t always the case.
Fran is inside, reading the Guardian. He says there are too many flies about in the garden today. Occasionally he looks out of the window to check on me. We both need some quiet time after all the awful events that we’ve been through lately. He is probably savouring the calm of the two of us, alone at last, in the house’s restful embrace. We deserve some peace.
It was such a different house when I first saw it, on a summer’s afternoon two years ago: crumbling walls, sagging ceilings and knackered guttering. It whimpered at me like a whipped puppy, pleading for help. This house knew I had cash to spare and a rebellious personality that would ignore the surveyor’s doom-laden report. Indeed, while I paid for the report, received the thick package that contained it, I never read its many gloomy pages. I knew what I had to do: like a wealthy businessman under the spell of a beautiful Jezebel, I signed the papers and prepared myself, willingly, to be fleeced. I accepted my fate: that I would be the one to bring the house back to life, to restore her to her former glamour and magnificence.
The house is very old. In fact, during their exertions, the builders uncovered a hitherto boarded-up fireplace, which has the initials PB and the date 1742 carved into the wooden beam above it. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep (and as you shall learn there has been a lot on my mind lately), I lie awake listening to the creaks and groans the house makes. If the mice are being frisky in the rafters, instead of counting sheep I attempt to calculate how many generations of mice have lived and died here since 1742. If mice have six babies every few months then it’s somewhere in the region of billions. Equivalent to the population of China, probably. It is admittedly a rather highbrow way of getting to sleep but each to their own.
People have lived here for centuries. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book: Falconhurst – residence of the King’s falcon keeper. Then it became Goldenhurst Old Manor, and it stands to reason that the lord of the manor lived here, bossing around the lowly serfs and drinking brandy for breakfast. This is smugglers’ country, part of Romney Marsh, so no doubt masked men on horseback roamed everywhere; gold, silver, copper, lace and brandy were brought in by boat under cover of darkness and hidden in houses such as this one. There were all manner of dodgy types and I’m just the latest.
I bought the house from Julian Clary (of whom more shortly. I’ll try to keep his appearances in this book to a minimum, but we must bite the bullet and give him the odd name check at least. Let’s just say that, when it came to the house, I think the poor old queen rather overstretched himself). He changed the name to Priest’s Hole House – no doubt something he and his louche friends considered humorous. I restored its dignity by giving it back its name, or at least part of it. I settled on the Old Manor and so it has remained. It was my duty of care to bring the old place back to life, and, at a price, I think I have succeeded.
First I had a new roof (original Kent peg tiles, a pound each) and lived for months under steel scaffolding. The ancient oil-fired boiler dwelt in the basement like a mad old dragon, flames licking dangerously out from under its rump. That had to go. The electrics sparked and fizzed whenever I turned on a light switch, so re-wiring was essential.
The window frames were so rotten you could push your fingers through them like putty. A clever, old-school craftsman came, nodded sagely and in his own, Kentish time, replaced them with new sturdy oak, blonde and brash when first fitted, but within a year aged and organic, melting into the original brickwork like butter into a wholemeal crumpet.
Meanwhile I employed a visionary gardener who set about thinning out the endless Michaelmas daisies that had taken over every flowerbed. Delphiniums, lupins, hollyhocks, iceberg roses and rambling rectors were cultivated.
After a merciful break that allowed me to refill the coffers by means of any acting roles that came my way, the interior was tackled, ceilings rebuilt, walls re-plastered and bathrooms modernised and created where once evil asbestos tanks lurked.
Now, at last, it is all rather perfect. Inside and out. I’ve got antique napkins and everything. But please believe that the house rules my life like a domineering lover. My friends tut and raise their eyebrows, smile benignly and frown when I look away but what can I say? What can I do? I am under its spell and at least I’m not spending my money on cocaine or heroin. Not that I’m telling you, anyway. Anything is possible and we all have our secrets.
But enough. Tired as I am, I quiver with anticipation as I take a deep breath and begin to tell you the story sired by this extraordinary dwelling. It’s not a house, bear in mind, but a monument, host to all who have dwelled within its walls, a saturated rag of damp, breathing spirits. And my tale is one of ghosts …
IN BUYING THIS house I set off a chain of events that otherwise would never have happened. I have found myself at the epicentre of strange, sordid, violent, dangerous happenings. But finally, after everything, I am enlightened. That’s a relief.
Why this house? Why move to Kent at all, you might well ask? Well, a famous actor in his mid-forties whose career is fading as quickly as his looks is often inclined to get out of town. I’m not the first. There were, after all, certain facts to be faced. Although I had more than a few quid in the bank from my golden years on the big screen, the parts were drying up. The last call from my agent, the formerly respected Marcia Brown, was a tentative offer of a walk-on part in a TV drama about sex rituals on the Isle of Wight called The Silence of the Limbs. I, who was once cast as a young Michael Hutchence in the multi-award-winning Disney spectacular Dead Man Wanking, had lost my sex appeal along with my trim waistline. Goodbye, rock-star parts. (Unless, of course, the Duran Duran bio-pic idea takes off. Which seems unlikely.) Moving to the country was already an idea floating around my mind when a number of things happened in quick succession that led me to this particular house at this particular time in my life.
I had always felt a connection with Noël Coward. By pure coincidence, I was born in Waldegrave Road, Teddington, Middlesex, in a flat right opposite the very house in which Noël was born, one of those square-fronted, red-brick Victorian villas with a pointed gable roof and white trimmings everywhere. Years later, after I’d long moved on, they put up a circular blue English heritage plaque in his honour that read:
NOËL COWARD
1899 – 1973
ACTOR, PLAYWRIGHT AND SONGWRITER
BORN HERE
As a boy, though, I heard of our famous former neighbour from my mother. She played me his songs and we watched his films. Noel took hold of my imagination. As I skipped down the garden path at seven years old, I would picture a seven-year-old Noël skipping towards me, on his way to his destiny as a famous actor and writer. I wasn’t sure what an actor was, but it sounded impressive and clearly made one loved and revered. No doubt my own desire to become an actor stemmed from those childish daydreams about Noël.
In my final showcase performance at RADA at the age of twenty-one, I was cast as Elyot in Private Lives and I was a smash – a he’s-the-best-thing-since-Michael-Crawford genuine hit. Marcia Brown, the most impressive agent in London at that time, signed me and the rest is history. It was perhaps a rather romantic notion, but I began to feel as if Noël was watching over me. I just felt blessed.
Blessed by Noël or not, ever since I’d left RADA, equipped with my piercing blue eyes, cheekbones to die for and a rather shining talent, I’d never stopped working. I started out in the theatre, then starred in art-house films that got me critical respect, did a season at the RSC, and a few, well-received cameo parts in more mainstream flicks, usually playing the British baddie. I’d arrived. Then, when I was established, well-reviewed and thirty, Marcia advised me to shock everyone and take a role in the Hollywood blockbuster, Wolfman. We knew it was rubbish but said yes. It turned out to be the kind of unpredictable world-wide phenomenon that no one can explain, and I was screamed at everywhere from Tokyo to Taunton. It was exhausting. Fame was something I’d craved but this was a little too full on, even for me.
‘Go with the flow,’ Marcia advised. ‘It will only last a couple of years and then you’ll be lucky to get a guest role in Midsomer Murders.’
And so I persuaded myself to reprise my role in Wolfman 2, 3 and 4. I made unspeakable amounts of money and was what you call ‘global’. After that, much to Marcia’s horror, I had another complete career change and returned to serious theatre.
Obviously, some in the profession were aghast at the way I had sold out and then tried to return to the fold, theatre’s very own prodigal son, but they had to admit when I toured Chekhov’s The Seagull to packed houses all over Britain, that I had brought art to those whose real interest was in seeing Flay Claw, the Wolfman’s deadly foe, in the flesh and who would not have otherwise have considered watching nineteenth-century Russian drama.
For my part, I loved my taste of Hollywood stardom and the mighty pay cheque it brought with it. Freedom from financial worries meant I could take my pick of roles, not minding if it was a minimum-wage gig or even a labour of love. Theatre was where I belonged and I knew that.
Then, just five years ago, my agent told me that Channel 4 were making a big-budget three-part series about Noël Coward called Noël, The Vegas Years dramatising the Master’s remarkable comeback in the 1950s, and that the starring role was up for grabs. My heart beat faster. I was prepared to do anything for this part and made Marcia signal my interest to the producers. They were far from sure about casting me as Coward: I was younger and better preserved than Noël at the age I was required to portray him, and, some would say, considerably more handsome. But they agreed to a meeting and I went along, determined to show them that I was born to play this part. My passion must have impressed them – the role was soon mine, and with some clever prosthetics, vocal coaching and the adoption of a slight stoop, I managed to be almost eerily convincing. I would stare at myself in the mirror before I went on set and I swear I could feel Noël fluttering inside me.
I prepared for the role with great fervour. I read Noël’s published diaries and letters, immersed myself in his plays, songs and films and felt, during the six weeks of filming, that I was channelling him, night and day. Fran sighed with exasperation during our nightly chats when I spoke in witty epigrams, called him ‘my dear boy’ and took to carrying an ivory cigarette holder. He cautioned me that my stoop would become a permanent feature if I wasn’t careful.
During my research, my personal assistant Jess had made a few discreet phone calls on my behalf and I had been permitted access to the Waldegrave Road house in Teddington where Coward was born, and also to 17 Gerald Road, Belgravia, where he would preside over exclusive soirées. I was allowed to prowl both premises, inhaling his ghostly presence. Yet phone messages and letters to his country refuge in Kent, now called Priest’s Hole House, had produced no response. One morning, just before filming was due to start, Jess handed me a torn-out page from Woman’s Own magazine. Grimacing slightly, she said, ‘This might explain a thing or two.’
There was a full colour picture of Julian Clary, the camp comic and renowned homosexual (as he liked to call himself), standing in front of a beautiful Elizabethan-ish farmhouse, arms wide open as if to say ‘all this is mine’. The place was none other than Noël’s old residence. To add salt to the wound, the headline was ‘Homo of the Manor’.
Noël would be turning in his grave, I thought. My professional path had never crossed with Clary’s, which was hardly surprising. But back in the early nineties, I had once visited a gay club called the Phoenix in Cavendish Square. I was standing innocently at the urinal when several bouncers burst in and banged furiously on a cubicle door. Aghast, I just managed to zip myself up as a red-faced, white-nosed Clary was escorted off the premises with not one but two wild-eyed youths whose appearances might best be described as dishevelled.
After that, I was not all that keen to be introduced, and once I discovered that this was the very man who was now in possession of Goldenhurst Old Manor (I couldn’t quite bring myself to call it by its new name), I didn’t pursue a visit there any longer.
That year, to my great delight, my performance as Noël was nominated for the Best Actor award at the BAFTAs. It was a typically stellar evening, with the brightest lights of film and television gathered in their finest gowns and dinner suits, and I was feeling excited and confident. The only downside was that, to my dismay (and I wasn’t alone), the presenter of the award was none other than Mr Clary himself. (One can only imagine he was standing in for someone at short notice.)
‘I’m thrilled to the marrow to be here this evening,’ he began. ‘How lovely to be amongst so much talent. But enough about the security guards.’
When he opened the gold envelope, he raised one eyebrow, simpered and said, ‘Oh, bona! It’s the divine Richard Stent.’
I was delighted to win and with the cameras on me, I made sure that I received the award with a smile and accepted the kiss he dropped on my cheek with good grace, but inside I couldn’t help feeling a tiny sense of resentment that I hadn’t been allowed to visit the Old Manor as I’d desired. Later, at the post-ceremony party, Julian pranced up to me and apologised for ignoring Jess’s letters.
Jess, who was my escort for the evening, stiffened beside me and butted in before I had the chance to reply. ‘I expect you were busy rehearsing for panto in Crawley,’ she said haughtily. ‘Now if you’ll excuse us, Dame Judi Dench is taking Richard to supper.’
She pulled me away by the arm, leaving Julian staring after us. Jess had a tendency to be overprotective on my behalf, especially if she felt someone had slighted me. Soon, I was surrounded by people offering their congratulations and in the excitement, Julian slipped from my mind.
The next morning, however, as we placed my award in the glass cabinet with the others, Jess told me she’d had a private chat with him before she left.
‘He’s selling that house,’ she said casually. ‘He now has the nerve to wonder if you’d be interested.’
‘Selling? Really?’ I replied, immediately roused by the idea. The pictures I’d seen of the house had made the place look delightful: a romantic country idyll of weathered brickwork, old timbers and a lush green garden. But more than that, I felt the familiar flutter within – maybe Coward wanted me to rescue his home from Clary’s unsuitable clutches. Perhaps the ghostly seven-year-old Noël who had waved at me across the road had been preparing me for this opportunity. Knowing how cynical Jess was about fate and suchlike, I did my best to keep my tone calm.
‘What did he say?’ I enquired casually.
Jess raised her eyebrows. ‘He’s barely been in it for five minutes. Reading between the lines I think he’s broke. Says it’s too big for him.’
‘Not something Miss Clary often complains about,’ I said.
A few days later, without even telling Fran of my plans, I drove down the M20. I don’t know why I didn’t want to tell him – after all, we’d been together for six years now and he knew everything about me – but I felt that this would be my secret, just for a while. He was away on business anyway, as he so often was. I enjoyed the thrill of something almost forbidden as I drove into Kent, a part of the world I knew hardly at all, and through the village of Aldringham. I was already half in love with the soft green countryside and the mellow brick houses before I arrived at the Old Manor, and I suppose I was ready to be entirely seduced as I pulled my Jaguar up to the white five-barred gate.
There it was – an old country farmhouse, kooky and rambling, with three upstairs dormer windows jutting out of the sagging brown-and-terracotta roof like a sleepy serpent’s eyes. Below that the walls were faded vanilla-cream plaster, frequently crossed with ancient, uneven timbers, all bearing the scars of summer sun and winter rain endured over hundreds of years. And everything was speckled with living lesions of pale yellow moss, like the bristly warts on an old crone’s chin.
I got quietly out of the car, as if frightened of waking the old girl, but a couple of the small latticed windows glinted in the sunlight and I guessed she was awake and contemplating me.
I imagined I heard a quiet, high-pitched sigh, but it was only the side gate opening. Two excited, rather unfortunate-looking mongrels came dancing towards me, followed by the familiar features of Julian Clary as he swanned over the gravel to open the gate for me.
‘Park over there on the lawn!’ he commanded, gesturing towards a spot, and I obeyed. When I climbed out of the car again, he greeted me with a kiss to each cheek and the words, ‘You’re the most interesting guest I’ve had since Denise van Outen, and she had a hangover!’ and led the way back into the house. ‘Mind the fig tree,’ he said, as we brushed past some exotic foliage that seemed to be growing out of the side of the house. ‘It’s a magnet for wasps.’
The first room I saw was a kitchen, very dated and with more Cath Kidston polka-dot curtains than strictly necessary but notable for the original flagstones and a 1920s Rayburn range.
‘A present from Paul O’Grady,’ Julian said, following my gaze to the Rayburn. ‘Bit of a gas-guzzler, but a comfort on a winter’s evening. Now … some Lady Grey tea after your journey? And can I interest you in a chocolate finger?’
I managed a weak smile and nodded.
‘I’m so glad you’ve come to see the house, I’m sure you’ll love it. And it’s a very friendly village,’ he continued. ‘They’ll all make a fuss of you but they won’t intrude. That’s what we celebs want, isn’t it, at the end of the day …?’
I winced at the way he managed to place himself in the same category as me – had he ever starred in four blockbuster Hollywood movies and been photographed on the Kodak Theatre red carpet between Catherine Zeta Jones and Jennifer Aniston? I very much doubted it. I zoned out his witterings and instead tried to imagine Noël pottering about here in days gone by, while Julian boiled the kettle and filled a green-spotted teapot, then loaded a tray with cups. When all was ready, he led me through to the reception room, but walked swiftly through the low door via the lounge towards a study at the back of the house, where the sun was streaming through the open French windows. I caught glimpses of low ceilings dissected by beams and huge soot-stained fireplaces.
‘Mind your head,’ he said. ‘Come through to the garden and we’ll sit down.’ When we were settled at the table on the paved terrace that overlooked a long stretch of green lawn, he said, ‘I suppose you’d like to know a little about the house. Um … it’s very old. Fifteenth century. But it’s thought there has been a dwelling of some description here since Roman times. Just think, all those leather skirts!’ He giggled suggestively, before assuming a more reverential tone. ‘And then, as you know, Noël Coward lived here for thirty years from 1927.’ He gave me a meaningful look. ‘Imagine the goings-on. If walls could talk! Parties with Gertrude Lawrence and Joan Crawford, though I think I read somewhere that she didn’t care for country life and left early. I expect it was raining. I won’t lie to you, it can be terribly miserable here when it rains. The lawn turns to mud and the skies bulge with grey, tangible misery.’ His face took on a poetical look. ‘I rather like such moodiness,’ he said dreamily. ‘I embrace it, inhale it.’ He paused for a moment and then snapped back into life. ‘But the spring! Oh, it’s just glorious. First the snowdrops, then primroses, daffodils, bluebells, and narcissi. They were planted by Noël himself, as was the fig tree.’
I interrupted him before he could get too lyrical. ‘That’s Coward’s Jaguar on the drive.’ It was true. I’d bought it in auction only the month before, as reward to myself for finishing Noël, the Vegas Years. I’m not sure why I felt the need to share this information with Julian – one-upmanship perhaps – but it did the trick.
‘No!’ he exclaimed, his eyes widening. ‘That’s really strange and weird! I expect the car knew the way here, didn’t it? Home at last after all these years. I didn’t have the chance to tell you the other night at the awards – your escort seemed rather keen to spirit you away from my presence – but your performance as Noël was quite remarkable.’
‘Thank you.’ I nodded, accepting his compliment.
‘You looked and sounded just like him. Uncanny. You wouldn’t do a little bit now, would you?’
‘Oh, I don’t think—’ I protested, but Julian was insistent.
‘You doing your Noël turn here in Noël’s house would be too much. Stephen Fry came to tea last year and launched into “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” but between you and me, it was a little bit Stars in Their Eyes. You’re much classier. Go on. Say something. Anything.’
‘Very well,’ I sighed, then adopted my best Coward voice. ‘You’re looking very lovely in this damn moonlight, Amanda.’ I added in my normal voice, ‘That’s all I can manage without costume and make-up, I’m afraid.’
‘Brilliant!’ said Julian, apparently satisfied. ‘Do you do anyone else?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ I said firmly, finishing my tea. ‘Would you mind if I had a little wander around? Alone.’
‘Of course,’ said Julian. ‘You need to soak it all up without me chipping in. I’ll stay here and you go inside. Take as much time as you like. The dogs might follow you but they’ll be fine. If Albert rolls on his back it means he wants his scrotum tickled. Don’t we all!’
By the time he’d finished laughing at his own joke, I was through the French windows and almost out of earshot. There was a stillness inside. I could almost feel the house pressing me to its heart, urging me to come to its rescue. Big, rectangular rooms led one from the other, sometimes with a step up or down between them. The light was different in each but the atmosphere the same: peaceful, almost holy. I went upstairs and stood at a window, looking out towards the front lawn and the gate with paint peeling off it like a snake shedding its skin. I looked at the vintage Jaguar sitting happily there, like a big hippo resting in the sun. Of course I could see that the windowsills were rotten and the ceilings were holding themselves up with great effort, like a duchess about to burst out of her corset. But everything seemed to whisper to me, thanking me for coming, tearfully hoping I would stay.
By the time I returned to Julian in the garden – who was picking at a bit of skin on his knee and muttering ‘Folkestone gay fun night. Never again’ – my mind was made up. As a matter of urgency, I had to get him out and myself in. I couldn’t be bothered to play the games you are supposed to play in such situations. I wanted it and that was that.
‘It is a very beautiful house,’ I began in my most business-like voice. ‘And I think I would like to buy it from you.’
‘Oh. Good,’ said Julian, looking somewhat stunned. ‘But …’ He seemed to be struggling to find the words.
‘But what?’ I asked impatiently.
‘Well, it isn’t all Douglas Fairbanks Junior and Mrs Worthington’s Daughter, that’s all,’ he said in a strange voice.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘And I ought to warn you, it needs a lot of work. I’m afraid I’ve quailed before it, but no doubt your surveyor will tell you everything so there’s no point in hiding it. You’ll need a new roof, and—’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘That’s all perfectly obvious.’ I stood up. ‘Now—’
‘You slipped into Noël then!’ exclaimed Julian happily. ‘You didn’t even realise it!’
‘My PA Jess will call you first thing in the morning, if that’s convenient? And I suppose my solicitors will need to speak to your solicitors and so on.’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said, clearly delighted to have made such an easy sale. He dictated his number and I typed it into my mobile phone.
‘I just love it when things happen as if pre-ordained,’ he said, as I slipped my phone back into my jeans pocket. ‘By the way, I ought to let you know that I’m buying a bungalow just by the village green. So I won’t be far away.’
That should be worth another ten grand off the asking price, I thought to myself.
The summer of 1926
‘LET ME KNOW if I’m talking too much,’ said Noël, driving with careless speed through narrow country lanes, leaving hedges trembling in his wake. The little black motor roared as he made it fly around corners and swoop up hills, and he had to raise his voice to be heard over the engine. ‘Although it’s only fair to point out that what I say is quality and quantity combined. A rare thing, I think you’ll find.’
‘You go ahead,’ replied Jack, smiling. ‘I’m not glazing over.’
‘Well, we’re about to enter Kent. I can feel the sap rising in me like mercury up a thermometer. Take a deep breath. That is England’s garden. That’s hawthorn blossom,’ Noël said, heedless of the road while he was pointing out the flora. ‘Isn’t it too lovely?’
The pair of them were motoring from London to Kent in a convertible Crossley with the roof down, Noël at the wheel, Jack in his shirtsleeves sitting beside him.
‘Are you going to tell me where we’re going?’ asked Jack in his easy New York drawl, which somehow managed to squeeze an ‘r’ sound into every word.
‘Certainly not. But I can tell you that our destination is also our destiny. Which rules out Chatham.’
‘What’s Chatham?’
‘Do be quiet. If you’re going to interrupt me constantly it will be a very dreary journey. I need to be left to chatter away like a parakeet if we’re to have a memorable drive. A deaf mute would be my perfect travelling companion. If I could trouble you to smile and nod occasionally, like royalty, we’ll get on terribly well. Otherwise I shall leave you at the roadside like a squashed hedgehog.’
Jack held one finger to his lips to indicate that he would not say another word. Noël moved his hand from the gear stick to his friend’s knee and gave it a squeeze.
‘This is all so thrilling, dear Jack. That is the long and the short of it. I’m taking you somewhere special. Our very own Utopia where we can have fun and then fun, followed by more fun. What do you say to that?’ Noël’s fingers made a little tinkling run up Jack’s thigh, as if it were a keyboard.
‘I’ve been told to shut up, haven’t I? But it sounds like …. fun,’ said Jack, giving his lover a wry, sexy smile and flexing his leg muscles as an indication of his willingness to provide as much fun as Noël could take.
Noël inhaled and was uncharacteristically silent for a moment, staring ahead, before he said dreamily, ‘I haven’t been this excited since I attended the opening night of Ivor Novello’s Fifty-Fifty club in Wardour Street. Light me a cigarette, would you, darling?’
His eyes flickered from the road ahead to Jack as the American turned to reach into his pocket to find his cigarette case. Jack looked back at Noël as he lit the cigarette, and the two of them shared a moment as he took it between his thumb and finger to Noël’s mouth, his finger brushing Noël’s lower lip as it completed the transfer. A shiver ran through them both simultaneously.
‘How about we pull off the road for a bit?’ said Jack huskily, as quietly as an American can.
They had met for the very first time in London, where Noël had been starring in his own play, The Vortex, a scandalous portrayal of drug addiction and an uncomfortably intense mother/son relationship, and naturally a huge hit. Jack Wilson, an American stockbroker, had been brought back to his dressing room to meet the toast of theatreland. Young Noël Coward, only twenty-six, was being hailed as a bright new genius of the stage, and the good and the great flocked to see not only the witty, amusing play, but the man himself; after every performance, there was a queue of celebrities, film stars and lords and ladies outside Noël’s dressing room.
It had been a brief meeting but Jack had made an impression. He was just Noël’s type: handsome and masculine, with a hint of a cruel streak about his mouth. Jack, well-connected and a theatre enthusiast, was visibly nervous to meet the great man but managed to suggest lunch if Coward should ever find himself in New York. Noël was very taken with the elegant, athletic American with shiny black hair and deliciously dark eyes, and when he did arrive in New York that autumn to open The Vortex on Broadway, he was secretly thrilled to receive an invitation to lunch, though he said carelessly, ‘Jack who? Oh yes, that rather uppish American who wore his evening shirt with the collars turned down. But I think I may be free …’
Noël had scribbled a reply, and then on the day waited in vain for Jack to appear. He was enraged at being treated in such a manner until he discovered his reply had never been posted. A contrite note was sent, and then Jack came to the first New York matinée of The Vortex and was invited back to dinner. Jack’s first love was theatre and he only practised finance because his acting had come to nothing – he was witty and clever and well read. Rather pleasing in every way, Noël thought. They were both instantly smitten, the false start to their relationship only serving to heighten the thrill when they did eventually meet alone. Soon they were living it up in New York, drinking in clubs and bars, every door open to Noël’s celebrity, both enjoying the hedonism and the liberalism of the cosy world of art, fame and money.
When the run in New York and then a tour had come to an end and it was time for Noël to return home to England, love and lust had him in a headlock and the idea of being separated from Jack was torture. He suggested his lover come back with him and it hadn’t taken much for Jack to be persuaded. He, too, was in love, and besides, he had no ties to keep him in the States. His work as a stockbroker only occupied him when he chose that it should.
‘Will I get to see Buckingham Palace?’ he asked.
‘See it?’ said Noël. ‘I shall buy you a Buckingham Palace paperweight and a tea towel. Does that settle it?’
‘I guess so.’ Jack put his hands in pockets and smiled. ‘England, here I come.’
They had travelled back together in adjoining first-class cabins on board the SS Olympic and the three-week crossing had cemented their relationship, for they could spend almost every hour together. Noël loved to stroll along the decks with his handsome companion, receiving admiring glances from the ladies sitting under their sun hats. They took lunch privately in their cabin, served by a knowing waiter who refilled their glasses and retreated discreetly after laying out the cheese board. The afternoons they would spend in bed, doors locked in case of interruption. Afterwards they dressed for dinner and appeared in the champagne lounge for cocktails at eight. Here, with a secret look of longing, they would part, Jack to flirt with the ladies and Noël to work the room, flitting from one titled couple to the next. At dinner, though, he made sure he and Jack sat with their own little set: Lady Diana Cooper, Syrie Maugham and Rebecca West. They were apart from the rest, their little group marked out by talent, high birth or exceedingly good looks.
Noël and Jack might exchange a few words after dinner in the smoking lounge, possibly, but they wisely kept their distance during the dancing or a concert in the ballroom and more cocktails. Occasionally Noël would take command of the piano and sing three or four of his popular ditties to an enthralled audience, all knowing how lucky they were to enjoy the company of the terribly famous Noël Coward, whose plays dominated the West End, whose songs were on gramophones in every parlour. Noël, ever the showman, would always judge his departure perfectly, leaving them wanting more. He would make a point of saying goodbye to everyone in the room, and then, pausing by the door, he would give a wave, deliver one final bon mot, smile affectionately and bow, trilling, ‘Goodnight, my darlings!’
If he had one complaint about Jack, it was that he didn’t follow him soon enough to the privacy of their adjoining cabins. Noël would return to his room, enter the day’s events in his diary, pour himself a brandy and wait. One hour, two hours. He would pace up and down. Here he was, the darling of society, being kept waiting by his American stockbroker! What could Jack be doing? No doubt that strumpet Lady Whatever-her-name-was was making cow’s eyes at him again. It was positively vulgar. Once he summoned the bellboy and had him deliver a terse note to Jack.
Ten minutes later Jack flew through the door. Noël had arranged himself seductively on the bed in his dressing gown but Jack was having none of it.
‘You little shit!’ he said, scowling, his eyes glittering dangerously with a mixture of anger and Scotch. ‘Who the fuck do you think you’re sending notes to? I’m not some absent schoolboy and you’re not my master!’
Noël sat up, clutching his chest. ‘There’s no need to overreact. I thought you may have needed rescuing.’
‘I can rescue myself, thank you, Florence Nightingale.’ Jack was slurring his words. He ripped off his jacket and bow tie and poured himself another drink from the decanter.
‘Haven’t you had enough to drink, darling?’
‘Maybe I have. Maybe I’ve had enough of you, too.’ Jack downed his whisky in one gulp and poured himself another.
Noël was instantly penitent. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be petulant. I was missing you, that’s all.’
Jack’s shoulders relaxed and his expression softened. ‘That Amelia Field is a fucking leech. She kept standing so close to me I could see all the hairs up her nose. She wants a man so badly Cecil Beaton would do.’
Noël laughed. ‘Poor, dear Cecil. I doubt he could rise to the occasion. Sit down and I’ll rub your shoulders for you.’
The row had passed. Peace was restored. But Jack had made sure that Noël knew he wasn’t to be treated like a plaything. No matter how famous and influential Noël was, if there was a master in their relationship it was to be Jack.
*
In London, Jack had set about meeting – and charming – Noël’s family and friends with his easy style and his obvious good looks.
‘Jack is the real thing. That’s all I can say. He fulfils all of my requirements,’ Noël told his devoted secretary Lorn Loraine one morning. They were in his sitting room, Lorn at the ready with his diary of engagements.
‘How nice for you to be fulfilled,’ replied Lorn, staring at him through the glasses perched on her nose as she sat at the table by the French windows. She was a solid, dependable woman with sharp intelligence and a honed wit, and she doted on Noël. ‘And I’m so glad to hear he’s real, and not some apparition.’
‘You’re making fun of me, Lorn, which is wicked of you.’ Noël pouted.
‘Please accept my humble apologies and strike my last remark from the record book,’ said Lorn, bowing her head in supplication. ‘If you’re happy, I’m happy.’
‘I am happy,’ replied Noël, with a sparkle in his eye. ‘So happy that I shall very probably write an elegant new three-act play before elevenses.’
‘I’ll inform the Lord Chamberlain and have him clear his afternoon appointments,’ returned Lorn.
‘My only desire is to make enough money to pay your extortionate wages,’ Noël retorted, reaching for his cigarette case. ‘A constant worry, I’ll have you know.’
‘And my only desire is to receive them,’ said Lorn, raising an eyebrow.
Noël lit his cigarette and exhaled a long stream of smoke. ‘By the way, you shall have to do some organising for me. Basil Dean is bringing Easy Virtue over from New York to open at the Duke of York’s, cast and all. There’s nothing for me to do. As my coffers are full to bursting …’ He smiled at Lorn, who gave him a warning look … ‘I think that Jack and I will do a little travelling in the next few months. Paris, Palermo, Venice – and some gorgeous hot places where we can feel the sun on our skin and turn dark mahogany.’
‘Sounds dreamy,’ Lorn said, smiling. ‘You deserve some time off. You’ve been working frightfully hard. I worry about your health sometimes. You’re looking all thin and pale.’
‘I may well break in two like a cheese biscuit,’ said Noël, sighing.
‘If you don’t rest, you’ll never be able to write.’
Noël leaned forward. ‘That’s why Jack is so good, darling! He looks after me.’
‘Yes, dear, he’s a saint and we must erect a statue of him in St James’s Park without further ado,’ his secretary said, making a note of it.
Noël and Jack embarked on a wonderful, languid holiday, playing with high society when they weren’t alone together in Sicily and Tunis, admiring the bronzed bodies of the local youths. In Venice, they partied with Cole Porter, the three of them sunbathing in their belted trunks while Porter thought up clever rhymes and Noël began conceiving his new play, This Was a Man. It had been depressing to return to London, so sunless and joyless compared to the sparkling Mediterranean and without the delightfully relaxed attitudes to two men enjoying each other’s company. They had been forced to remember to man up, drop hands, refrain from kissing one another’s cheek, to pretend they weren’t in love.
It was then that the idea of the house had come to Noël: a secret retreat for just himself and Jack, where they could simply be themselves without worrying about anyone watching. Before long, he had found the perfect place and had signed an open lease so that they could go there whenever they liked.
‘So where are you taking me?’ asked Jack as the roads got narrower and the trees either side grew older and wilder, meeting above their heads so it seemed they were driving through a sumptuous green tunnel.
‘I have rented a cottage in the country. Somewhere we can be alone.’
‘How come you know where the fuck we’re going?’
‘This is a part of Kent I am familiar with. Full of childhood memories for me. It’s a magical place I’d like to share with you. The Romney Marsh.’
‘A marsh? Jesus!’ Jack looked worried, as though he half expected the car to sink immediately into the bog and for them both to be lost forever.
Noël nodded, and narrowed his eyes. ‘Witches live on the marsh, so they say. And ghosts on horseback. I have found the most divine house. Darling little latticed windows, low wooden beams, a cat-slide roof.’
‘A what?’
‘A roof that doesn’t stop until it reaches the ground. You’ll see. It’s rustic heaven, trust me. I’ve taken it with an open lease. We can make it ours for as long as we want.’
‘Can we get gin there?’
‘I have a boot full, silly. Is that all you’re concerned about?’
‘We’ll be alone?’
‘Completely.’
‘No socialising? No parties and cocktails? No at homes and dinners? No rehearsals, no first nights, no theatricals? No dressing up in bow ties?’ Jack said suspiciously. Their time in London had been marked by the same frantic pace and social obligations that they had known in New York and then on board ship. Noël never seemed to stop. Jack loved parties and could drink with the best of them, but even he found that unceasing socialising took its toll.
‘Nothing more troublesome than a stag beetle to disturb us for two weeks,’ Noël replied with satisfaction. ‘Darling Lorn has arranged it all. My diary is completely clear. Only your name is in it, in thick black ink. This is Jack and Noël time.’
‘Who’s gonna cook and do the dishes?’
‘Well, I have provisions for a few days, but we can hire a cook and a maid from the village once we’re settled. Won’t it be blissful? Just think – no pretending.’
They were driving slowly now, along a bumpy track through woodland. Suddenly the track left the woods and sunny fields spread on either side of them. Involuntarily they both tipped their heads up towards the sun and smiled contentedly. Noël let the car roll to a stop.
‘There it is,’ he breathed, and they both gazed at the house, looking comfortable and mellow under its speckled slate tiles. It seemed to gaze right back at them, just as a beautiful, tempestuous stallion might contemplate its new jockey.
‘Well, just look at that,’ said Jack approvingly. ‘As pretty as a kitten up a Christmas tree.’
‘A snowy white kitten wearing an emerald collar,’ corrected Noël. ‘Now, go and open that gate, there’s a dear.’
Jack leapt out to obey and Noël watched admiringly as his lover wrestled the gate open, letting it swing back so that the way was clear for them to enter. He sighed with pleasure, got out of the car and headed for the dear little door that led, he felt sure, to a new, happy chapter in his life.
WHEN I TOLD Fran about my impulsive decision to buy the house, he was in favour of the whole thing. I’d feared he might think I’d been hasty and rash, but it seemed to appeal to him.
‘Maybe it’s time we had a country pad. Tweed jackets, Wellington boots,’ he said down the phone from Cologne, where he was away on business. ‘I’m rather taken with the idea.’
‘And, of course,’ I enthused, ‘we wouldn’t have to wash or shave. Country folk don’t bother with personal freshness.’
‘Of course they don’t,’ agreed Fran. ‘They even drink tap water. Imagine!’
I was glad that Fran was behind my plan, but Jess had to be on my side if the project was going to meet with any success at all. And at first, she had been firmly against my move to the country. She liked London and the order and convenience of my Chiswick house, where everything was at her fingertips. Although I hadn’t been bothered with the surveyor’s report, Jess had read it and been aghast.
‘You can’t buy it. It’s going to cost you thousands. Hundreds of thousands!’ She looked truly appalled. ‘And think of the time it will take! And I’m not prepared to commute down there every day, I’ll tell you that now.’
‘You don’t have to,’ I said. I’d already put a plan in place to deal with her resistance. ‘The house comes with a little cottage – the old chauffeur’s place. I’d like you to have it. You can live there in the week and go back to town at weekends if you like. Or stay there the whole time. There’s room for you and Albie. Just think, won’t it be lovely? All of us in the country? Don’t you feel ready for a change, Jess?’
I watched her face carefully, knowing that the next few seconds were decisive. Once Jess made up her mind, it was hard to change it. But the mention of the little cottage had given her pause for thought, and my invocation of Albie’s name had been a masterstroke. I was certain that Jess was picturing herself and her son together in rural bliss; perhaps she was in a gingham apron pulling a tray of freshly baked scones from the oven while outside young Albie chopped logs for the fire. I leapt in to push home my advantage.
‘I’ll get the cottage done first,’ I coaxed. ‘You can choose everything and have it done just as you like. Wouldn’t that be nice? Roses round the door, a fire blazing in the hearth, a budgie snoozing on its perch.’
‘If there’s any snoozing to be done, I expect it will be Albie lazing in bed,’ Jess said, but her face had softened. ‘Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Perhaps Albie can grow some vegetables. My own choice of everything?’
‘Down to the last tap!’ I declared. ‘Just think, a wonderful new stage in our long and happy relationship.’
Jess was convinced, despite her misgivings. She made short shrift of Mr Clary and the deal was signed and sealed in record time. Priest’s Hole House was mine.
*