Читать книгу As Luck Would Have It - Derek Jacobi - Страница 13

One day I went back to Aunt Hilda’s house after school. Quite often I would go there for lunch in Poplars Road while both of my parents were still out at work. I was a bit ruffled by what I’d heard, for I had just been told something at school and was deeply intrigued.

Hilda was out, and I was met by Grandpa who was downstairs with Grandma.

‘Make the boy a cup of tea, girl,’ he said. He always called Grandma ‘girl’. They were devoted to one another and she used to call him ‘mate’.

‘Don’t do that, mate.’

‘All right, girl.’

He, like Dad, was undemonstrative and very mild mannered.

‘Grandpa, a boy in my class came up to me in the playground and said, “My Dad says you’ve got a Jewish name.”’

Grandpa’s face grew stern, creased and angry. I had never seen him like this before. ‘What? What does he know about it?’ He became very upset, and it was an ugly moment. ‘Let’s not mention it again, boy!’

I had recovered by now. ‘But it’s only a name, Grandpa. It’s nothing. Anyway who cares if it’s a Jewish name or not, or if we are Jewish? I don’t care.’

It was my turn to calm him down. That was all that was said on the thorny subject. But I knew there was a little more to it.

Sometimes it used to be mentioned in the family that my great-grandfather Jacobi came from East Prussia. I could never be sure. Jacobi is generally a Jewish name, while in America they pronounce it Jacóbi, as opposed to Jácobi here, but some maintain it is not exclusively so. Jacoby with a ‘y’ is almost always Jewish. I can find no trace of Jewish blood or religious practice in my family; but then my family was undemonstrative. They didn’t want to be anything in particular, but quiet, unseen, placid and accepting, just getting on with the job in hand.

When my ancestors left Germany in the middle or late nineteenth century they were probably fleeing from pogroms or persecution of some kind. Like many Jewish and non-Jewish immigrants they settled in the East End of London. Neither Dad nor Grandpa discussed this or delved into the past, and it made Grandpa, a mild man, uneasy to be questioned. Our doctor, the one who brought me into the world, was Jewish. But Dad and Grandpa didn’t like to be probed about whether they were Jewish, or where they came from. They were reserved anyway, not only about whether or not they were Jewish, but about their politics and just about everything.

It was a time when no one complained – or rather, those who did stood out like sore thumbs. I’m the same. I should have asked more questions, but never did. I shy away from analysts or faith healers even when I’ve been in crisis or deeply unhappy, although I went once to a hypnotist in 1979 to cure me of smoking. Successfully!

But, Jewish or not, I do have a touch of the Boche, this is for sure. It came in handy when later I played Dietrich Hessling, a Teutonic louse – my first big television part in Man of Straw, from the novel by Heinrich Mann, Thomas Mann’s brother. It must have helped when I played Hitler, another Teutonic louse, in one of the many films made about the Führer: my take on Hitler was to show him as an actor and performer – Hitler as written up in that multifaceted portrait of him by Albert Speer. So you could say the German blood would in the future sometimes come into its own!

My father never read books and wouldn’t have known who Thomas Mann was. I wasn’t surrounded by any of that, while my mother never used to say to me, ‘I think you ought to read.’ I never had stories at bedtime. I never missed them because there was nothing around to suggest that I should’ve been read to. They didn’t love me the less for not doing it. To read to me, to open my mind, wasn’t in their method of bringing me up.

My grandparents never used to read either. As a result, I lived much more in a pretend world, where I fantasised according to my own dreams, and did so when playing with my friends. Where did that world come from? I don’t know, it’s a mystery, and perhaps ironic when I recall how many ‘Books at Bedtime’ I’ve read on the radio.

Was it nurture, or was it nature? I was born an actor, so where did that gene originate? There were no laptop screens, iPhones or television sets to influence my early years. There was, of course, the cinema, and radio was the main influence, for I could sing all the old chestnuts. In that sense I was just like an old man, for I knew all the words to the songs.

When on holiday in Devon, on the coach for an outing, our routine was always the same. We’d play a round of miniature golf on the putting green after breakfast, and have morning coffee with a doughnut. Next down to the beach, then on a trip out – it was always settled, predictable, no hassle. There was the beautiful abbey at Buckfast, and then the wonderful coastline up through Teignmouth and Dawlish, with the red cliffs. On the coach I’d organise a singsong, and they’d all be amazed that I, this kid, knew all the words. I was a bit of a show-off, cocky, and even bossy.

Dad’s passion was his garden. Nothing made him happier than tending his flowers in the garden with love while smoking a cigarette (always Players No. 1). He wouldn’t talk much, but when the subject was flowers I could see that this was where his heart was.

He was medium in build – a bit like me – and was shy, rather sharp-featured, not aggressive in any way, quite good-looking and with the sandy hair I had when I was a child – although mine was more ginger. His eyes were strong, with an element of fear or uncertainty in them. He kept his good looks all through life. He was very backward in coming forward, so to speak. Like me, he’d never argue, and as a reticent sort of man he never took offence. We got on fantastically well, and I did rely on him. If I’m honest I’d say I used him, for if anything went wrong I would immediately call him. The habit was there even as a small child.

The garden was not very big, and much later as a teenager I used to play tennis in it with my friends. We would knock over the flowers, but even with his precious tulips flattened, ruined by the tennis balls, Dad never lost his temper: the most he would ever say was, ‘Don’t do that, son.’ In his later years he would come out to France where I had bought a country house near Toulouse. He was very proud of France. He would call it ‘Derek’s villa in the South of France’, and he’d just sit there in the garden, staring for hours and hours. One thing is for sure: he was composed in his own head.

But one night when I was very young there was an incident with Dad, which made me feel very ashamed.

I was going through a stage of waking in the middle of the night and coming downstairs – to Mum and Dad’s great annoyance. There was no apparent reason, but it had been going on for some time.

On this particular night I woke up all of a sudden, left my bed, and then descended the stairs. When I arrived at the bottom my father was standing there with a ruler in his hand; he had never hit me before – ever. But now he brandished it, threatening me with this ruler.

‘Do that again, son, and I’ll have to use this on you!’

I fled upstairs immediately. I couldn’t believe it – nothing like this with Dad had ever happened before. I was so shocked with this threat of Dad hitting me with the ruler that I went upstairs and, to my everlasting shame, shat on the floor of my bedroom. I kept this all to myself, cleaned it up as best I could. They would never know it happened – and I never went downstairs in the middle of the night again!

They did find out next morning, inevitably, and again nothing happened. I think Mum told me off in the gentlest way. This was such an isolated episode of Dad becoming strict, and he never mentioned it again.