wasjinito .
“I only know him a leetle,” she said.
29 JUNE 1946
S aturday morning and I take a taxi to 53 Via Appennini. Toni meets me, smiling, at the door. Why she smiled at doors, I don’t know.
“Ello Terr-ee.”
I had dressed in my battledress with all my medal ribbons on. I wanted her to present a heroic liberator-of-her-country image to her mother. So to Mother in the lounge, a homely chintzy loose covers affair. This was the first time I’d had a loose covers affair.
Her mother is tall, fair-haired and blue-eyed and I was soon to know she was French by descent, like parachuting from the Eiffel Tower. She is very pleased to meet me as is her younger sister, Lily, who is the living image of Ingrid Bergman! The maid, Gioia, is introduced and she is a giggle of shyness. She curtsies to me.
I am to have a lunch of soup, then pasta and a fish course with a white wine – the latter must have been made from stewed guardsmen’s socks, mixed with vinegar. Apart from that, it was a delightful lunch with me acting up to Toni’s mother. I think as I was the first Allied soldier they’d met, they were all excited, including Gioia who giggled every time she served me. I tried to avoid an amorous glance to Toni so her mother didn’t worry about what was going to be a real love affair.
That night I stood in the wings and watched Toni pirouetting to Ponchielli’s ‘Dance of the Hours’. It was all so romantic. It had echoes of Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms , though I doubt if anyone would have judged the man with the clip-on moustache, long white nightshirt, holding a candle and singing ‘Close the Shutters, Willy’s Dead’, was the boyfriend of the stunning petite ballerina on the stage. Toni liked Johnny Mulgrew and Bill Hall but (a) didn’t like Bill’s scruffy appearance and (b) Mulgrew’s drinking habits. It was her fear that I, too, would become like them.
Bill Hall is still disappearing for twenty-three out of the twenty-four hours, only appearing – shagged out – minutes before the act is due on stage. Where does he go? Bornheim knows.
“He has to hop it sharp after the show. If daylight touches him, he turns into a werewolf and raids NAAFI dustbins.”
Mulgrew shakes with silent laughter.
“I tell yew if he did turn into a werewolf no one would notice the difference.”
Mulgrew has an evil sense of humour i.e. Hall rolls his cigarettes, so Mulgrew manages to mix magnesium powder with hall’s baccy. With blackened face and singed eyebrows, Hall walks the hotel corridors with a stick shouting “Orrite ‘oo fuckin’ dun it.” Worse to come, Mulgrew, who by damping brown paper had made a realistic ‘Richard’* places it in Gunner Hall’s bed with the note ‘The Phantom strikes again’.
≡ Richard. Richard the Third = turd.
Oh, dear! Maxie has overdone it, he thinks he has fractured his arm! I watched from the wings as it happened. Maxie, for a start, looked like Neanderthal man, his forehead was every bit of two inches and his arms reached below his knees. I think in his paybook it said ‘Place of birth: tree’.
He is telling the audience, “Laddies and Gintzleman, hai makada act zo, I tak dees hiron barrr and I mak bend bye hitting special muscle hin mie arm.”
Then he used to start this terrible Thwack Thwack Thwack on his forearm, mixed with grunts and occasional screams. This night, he staggers off clutching his arm and moaning Oh Fuck in Hungarian. He was off the show for weeks; I think he convalesced in a zoo.
After the show, I take Toni for a glass of wine at the trattoria next to the theatre. We sit at a table on the pavement and talk, what about? Anything , it’s just lovely being with her, looking into those eyes, at that waspish smile and listening to her small childlike voice. I am falling head over heels.
PADUA
SUNDAY, 30 JUNE 1946
A ll packed up and on to the Charabong. This time, I sit next to Toni. Our destination, the ancient town of Padua. We are
“I only know him a leetle,” she said.
29 JUNE 1946
S aturday morning and I take a taxi to 53 Via Appennini. Toni meets me, smiling, at the door. Why she smiled at doors, I don’t know.
“Ello Terr-ee.”
I had dressed in my battledress with all my medal ribbons on. I wanted her to present a heroic liberator-of-her-country image to her mother. So to Mother in the lounge, a homely chintzy loose covers affair. This was the first time I’d had a loose covers affair.
Her mother is tall, fair-haired and blue-eyed and I was soon to know she was French by descent, like parachuting from the Eiffel Tower. She is very pleased to meet me as is her younger sister, Lily, who is the living image of Ingrid Bergman! The maid, Gioia, is introduced and she is a giggle of shyness. She curtsies to me.
I am to have a lunch of soup, then pasta and a fish course with a white wine – the latter must have been made from stewed guardsmen’s socks, mixed with vinegar. Apart from that, it was a delightful lunch with me acting up to Toni’s mother. I think as I was the first Allied soldier they’d met, they were all excited, including Gioia who giggled every time she served me. I tried to avoid an amorous glance to Toni so her mother didn’t worry about what was going to be a real love affair.
That night I stood in the wings and watched Toni pirouetting to Ponchielli’s ‘Dance of the Hours’. It was all so romantic. It had echoes of Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms , though I doubt if anyone would have judged the man with the clip-on moustache, long white nightshirt, holding a candle and singing ‘Close the Shutters, Willy’s Dead’, was the boyfriend of the stunning petite ballerina on the stage. Toni liked Johnny Mulgrew and Bill Hall but (a) didn’t like Bill’s scruffy appearance and (b) Mulgrew’s drinking habits. It was her fear that I, too, would become like them.
Bill Hall is still disappearing for twenty-three out of the twenty-four hours, only appearing – shagged out – minutes before the act is due on stage. Where does he go? Bornheim knows.
“He has to hop it sharp after the show. If daylight touches him, he turns into a werewolf and raids NAAFI dustbins.”
Mulgrew shakes with silent laughter.
“I tell yew if he did turn into a werewolf no one would notice the difference.”
Mulgrew has an evil sense of humour i.e. Hall rolls his cigarettes, so Mulgrew manages to mix magnesium powder with hall’s baccy. With blackened face and singed eyebrows, Hall walks the hotel corridors with a stick shouting “Orrite ‘oo fuckin’ dun it.” Worse to come, Mulgrew, who by damping brown paper had made a realistic ‘Richard’* places it in Gunner Hall’s bed with the note ‘The Phantom strikes again’.
≡ Richard. Richard the Third = turd.
Oh, dear! Maxie has overdone it, he thinks he has fractured his arm! I watched from the wings as it happened. Maxie, for a start, looked like Neanderthal man, his forehead was every bit of two inches and his arms reached below his knees. I think in his paybook it said ‘Place of birth: tree’.
He is telling the audience, “Laddies and Gintzleman, hai makada act zo, I tak dees hiron barrr and I mak bend bye hitting special muscle hin mie arm.”
Then he used to start this terrible Thwack Thwack Thwack on his forearm, mixed with grunts and occasional screams. This night, he staggers off clutching his arm and moaning Oh Fuck in Hungarian. He was off the show for weeks; I think he convalesced in a zoo.
After the show, I take Toni for a glass of wine at the trattoria next to the theatre. We sit at a table on the pavement and talk, what about? Anything , it’s just lovely being with her, looking into those eyes, at that waspish smile and listening to her small childlike voice. I am falling head over heels.
PADUA
SUNDAY, 30 JUNE 1946
A ll packed up and on to the Charabong. This time, I sit next to Toni. Our destination, the ancient town of Padua. We are
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