Читать книгу Kenneth Williams Unseen: The private notes, scripts and photographs - Russell Davies - Страница 12
Оглавление‘Two rooms, kitchen and a bathroom. The walls were white, there were no pictures, he had a bookcase with all his books, a record player and a Roberts radio which would always sit on the floor next to his Parker Knoll chair’
Paul Richardson
In his later years, the home life of Kenneth Williams became the subject of some discussion and even wonderment, at least within the acting profession. Everyone in the business seemed to know, though few at first hand, that he lived on a small scale, in a barely furnished ambience that offered very little to a visitor and not much more to the occupant himself. Derek Nimmo, for example, never visited Kenneth’s flat, yet he had worked up in his mind an elaborate image to account for what he knew to be the monastic rigour prevailing there.
Derek Nimmo: ‘Stanley Baxter made him put some pictures up once, but I think he took them down again quite soon. I remember once in the Escorial in Spain I went to Philip of Spain’s cell, and I use the word advisedly because it was a bedroom really, but just beside this great baroque altar. And Philip of Spain had a little window which he could open and see this extraordinary opulent, rococo-baroque world outside the great high altar. But he lived in a kind of white, spartan room. And I think that was Kenny’s way. He liked to look out on this extraordinary world he’d created or would observe, but he didn’t want to be part of it, he went back to his little whitewashed cell.’
Paul Richardson: ‘Two rooms, kitchen and a bathroom. The walls were white, there were no pictures, he had a bookcase with all his books, a record player and a Roberts radio which would always sit on the floor next to his Parker Knoll chair. And that was it in the room. It was a galley kitchen, nothing in there. It’s true there was cellophane on the oven stove. All the cupboards were full of medicines, no food at all. In his bedroom was one single bed, with his desk – where he’d write all his diaries – and a small wardrobe, and that was it.’
Yet Kenneth wasn’t quite alone in his little flat. There were times when he could have wished to be more solitary than he was, according to his older sister, Pat.
Pat Williams: ‘He’d come up here sometimes, and he’d drink cup after cup of tea. “Oh put the kettle on again, make some more tea.” And he said, “You know what, Pat, honestly and truly, I can’t fart without she hears me.” I had to sit here and laugh. “It’s all very well for you to sit up here in your grandeur of Camden Town. I’m the star! I ought to be livin’ here, and you ought to be livin’ in that flat down in Osnaburgh Street, next to Mum. You’ll have a bash of her.” I said, “But she doesn’t want me, she only wants you.” “Yes, aren’t you lucky. You don’t care about me.” I said, “I do, Ken, I do, honestly I do.” “What are you laughing at then?” “Well, you make me laugh.” And I just couldn’t help laughing.’
The presence of his mother, Louie Williams, across the landing offered him some kind of companionship, most of all in the evenings. But it must also have constantly refreshed his memories of a fretful inner-city childhood, not many streets away. There was an anger in those memories that couldn’t always be kept down. And it was shared by his sister, who gave her only extended interview to the BBC in 1994. Fragments of it were broadcast in a Radio 4 programme called I AmYour Actual Quality, part of the Radio Lives series, where listeners were quite startled by the basso growl of Pat Williams. She sounded at moments like one’s idea of the father she had so roundly detested.
‘Nobody got on with Charlie Williams. He was a real old-fashioned Victorian bully’
Pat Williams: ‘Nobody got on with Charlie Williams. He was a real old-fashioned Victorian bully. You know the Charlie Chaplin walking stick? He had one of them. Canes. He used to hang it on the side of the mantelpiece. In the flat where we lived we had an old-fashioned range, you know, the fire one side and the oven the other. And as he came in for his meals he’d take the cane down from there and hook it on the side of the table, near where he sat. And we weren’t allowed to speak, and we were only allowed to eat whatever was on our plate. Weren’t allowed to move until it had all gone. Well, Ken loathed cabbage, spinach, sprouts, anything that was green he hated. And of course me, I’d eat anything, I was the dustbin of the four of us…And Dad used to have the sauce bottle, you know, the Daddie’s sauce. And he’d have his paper folded so that he could lean up and see what the day’s racing was, and he’d be so intent on watching his racing tips or working it out, I’d slide over the left, Ken would slide over to the right, and when I thought the old man wasn’t looking, as quick as you like I’d pop the fist out, grab a fistful of sprouts and eat it. And do you know, that old bugger used to see me every time. I got to think, well, he can see through paper. He wouldn’t say a word. Just pick up the cane, whish! And under the table he’d give me a whack across both legs. And I used to think, Ooh you rotten swine, one of these days I’ll get the better o’ you.’
Pat Williams had the habit of relating a particular incident and making it sound like a regular occurrence. It was just her way of narrating things. But from what she said, you do get the sense that these individual scenes could indeed have stood for many more of the same type. How many times, for example, did Charlie Williams favour his son like this, in hopes of making a conventional man’s man of him?
Pat Williams: ‘And Dad would come home with his present, you see. “Present for you, son, ‘ere yar, mate.” “Ooh good. Where’s mine?” “You ain’t got no present. It’s for the boy.” And Ken would open this parcel, see a pair of boxing gloves. And he’d hold ’em out in each hand. “What am I supposed to do with these?” “Put ‘em on yer bleedin’ fists and have a fight! Get in and fight yer own battles. Don’t rely on yer sister.” “No, thank you.” And he’d just drop them in father’s lap and walk out the room. And the old man would go mad.’
Other vignettes seem to have exactly the same flavour, without the pugilistic props.
Pat Williams: ‘Well, he would talk to Ken. “How’d you get on at school today?” “Why?” Ken gave as good as he got. I would stand and argue with the old man, defy him if you like, and Ken used to just look at him with utter contempt. I knew he was going to be an actor. Dad would say, “I wanna know how you’re gettin’ on at school, mate.” “I fail to see why you’re interested in me. I’m not in the least interested in you.” And he walked out of the room! I’d die laughing, and the old man would go mad.’
Within the family there was a particular reason why Kenneth seemed to be spared the worst retribution, in spite of his disdain for traditional norms like male aggression. The fact was that he and Pat Williams were not full brother and sister. Louie, unmarried then, had been ‘knocked up’, as the saying went. In the Williams diaries (though not the published version) there is a glancingly sour allusion to the conception, which apparently took place in the hallway of a tenement. The honourably old-fashioned role of Charlie Williams in this crisis was to step in and ‘make an honest woman’ of Louie, to use another phrase that has mercifully expired. So all through life it was Pat Williams’s bad luck to remind her mother of a painful indiscretion, her father of his entitlement to self-righteousness, and Kenneth of his status as the one true child of the union and the household. It was a difficult selection of prejudices to confront, and taken together they left Pat’s life – and her views of her brother – uneasily poised between humour and bitterness. The semi-siblings were at their closest in infancy, where Kenny was already the dominating spirit. He it was who organized the children’s remarkably effective escape fantasy, which they called ‘Our Game’.
Pat Williams: ‘Ken and I used to share a bedroom. Mind you, we were only little. I should have known then what I know now, oh dear! I’d run a mile. And we had little iron beds, you know those little iron beds? We used to have to be in bed early, gotta get your sleep, you must have ten hours’ sleep, or whatever. And then on Saturday night we got to have our bath, wash our hair, in the zinc bath in the scullery, as it was. And we had to be in bed by five. My mum used to go and meet my dad from work, and they’d go out to the pub and have a Guinness and a gin. So we used to sit up in bed and Mum used to read ‘Little Nell’ to us, and all these little stories. Then she’d go, you see, now we gotta be good children, don’t let anybody in, don’t get out of bed…So we used to play Our Game, and Ken was every other voice, I was only ever me. And if I said the wrong thing
I got bawled out, “You’re supposed to say” and then he’d give me the next thing. “Oh, sorry.” “Right, you ready then?” And these stories he’d cook up. He would make them up. And they could be anything. “Today we’re going for a picnic.” “Oh, are we?” “You can use the red MG today, the little two-seater red MG.” “Oh, thank you very much.” And he would describe exactly where we were going, what we were going to have to eat, how long it was going to take to get there, who the other people at the picnic were, and home again. And he’d say, “That was good, wasn’t it?” “Yeah, I enjoyed that day out in the country.” And I really felt as if I’d been in the country! Ridiculous! Ridiculous. Because we’d be somewhere, you see, bored out of our minds, and he’d go “O G”, and he’d just mouth it, not say the words. And we’d nod and wink, and just gradually sneak out, and if it was anybody’s house that had a garden we’d go and sit in the garden, if it was another room we’d go and sit in the other room, and they invariably came and found us. And they’d say, “What are you doing in here? Come on out in the sunshine!” “We are quite happy here, aren’t we, Pat?” “Yes, thank you, Ken.” I’d do anything the boy said. I mean if he said go and lay down in the middle of Piccadilly Circus for a half-hour, I would.’
But that was Saturday. It was typical of this mercurial and outspoken family that Sunday brought different feelings altogether.
‘You rotten stinker. I gave you my penny, you bought the sweeties, you’ve eaten all the sweeties, you didn’t even give me one’
Pat Williams: ‘I’ll tell you what the little bugger used to do. We used to go to Sunday school every afternoon. Mum used to give us a penny for the collection. And we’d get round the corner, you see, out of sight, and I would say to Ken, “I’ll give you my penny so you can buy sweeties, and I’ll meet you here at four o’clock, and you can tell me what the story was, and then we go home.” And he said, “All right.” So I’d part up with my penny, go and play football with the boys, and then I’d meet him at four o’clock and he’d tell me whatever it was, all about Noah and the Ark or whatever. And as soon as we got home, Mum used to say, “Right, come and sit down, tell me what it was about. Did you get a text this week?” Sometimes they’d give us a little text. And Ken would say, “No, I didn’t get one, but she got one, didn’t you, Pat?” I’d say, “Yes, thank you, Ken.” And she’d say, “Right, now you can get the tea ready,” and we always had to get the afternoon tea ready. And wash up afterwards. And he’d say, “Pat’ll wash up.” And I’d say, “You’ve got to do your share.” “If you don’t wash up, I’ll tell Mum you didn’t go to Sunday school.” And he would hold it over my head all the bloody week, true as I’m sitting here.
Pages 56-60 ‘Feel in a strangely reflective and autumnal mood this afternoon—Dvorak on the radio, the October fog coming down—at 5 o’c. it is too dark to see without electricity—and I am thinking wonderful possibilities—I could write a play, I could be a mad success.’ (Diary, 29 October 1958)
