Soon after the dinner at the Kew Rendezvous, my father takes possession of a ‘brand spanking new’ (his words) Metallic Blue, Silver Shadow II Roll Royce. It is a tank of luxury. It glides over 80’s reality like a tank over WWI no man’s land. He decides he still has time to take us on a short holiday.
Gloria and Dad decide to glide the new car down to the South of France. We are going to Nice! We drive through the French Alps. The entire way my father has one hand on the wheel, the other he holds like a horse blinker against the side of his face. It prevents him from contemplating the vertiginous drops. In some places, the road narrows, but the car remains wide. Parts of those huge white-walled tyres are gripping nothing but thin air and wing mirrors float out over nothing like jet engines.
Despite being married to my mother for a decade, my father speaks little French, but when we arrive at the Hotel Majestic, it is enough to impress the concierge at the door, and Gloria too. She is glad to have turned down Brian Ferry.
To me, France seems old and knackered compared with Britain. I don’t understand it. I observe it from the outside.
The hotel is a dream of vast ambition, like an entire Parisienne Quarter, we have to stand back from it like we're chefs admiring a wedding cake. The Majestic is of such white that it turns the swimming pool into a precious stone. The table cloths in the dining room are crisp, almost wooden. The glasses sparkle. The chandeliers dazzle. I order more chocolate mousse in that week than any other 7-year-old in the world ever has. Nothing is denied. When my serviette falls out of shape I climb under the table onto the floor and try and fold it back to what it was before. Waiters come and remove chocolate-stained table cloths and it sounds like sails snapping in a gust of wind.
In the pool, I begin to learn to swim. I stand afraid, at the end of a diving board and my father offers me 100 Francs to jump off. I leap. I am proud he is watching me. When I ask him for the money he does not give it. I feel let down.
We go on a shopping spree. We end up in an underwear shop. The whole family tries on new pants and bras. I spend ages looking at myself in the infinity of mirrors in the changing room. We spend thousands of francs and walk out like the Bournemouth Moomins in Monte Carlo.
At night we sleep in soft clouds of bedding. Breakfast is wheeled up and given to us on silver platters. The Majestic still can’t make an omelette like my mother, but the omelettes arrive with Oranginas so that’s okay. We get fresh flowers delivered to our room each morning.
Gloria notices strange bobbles on my shoulders. A doctor is called. I am diagnosed with the beginnings of scurvy. I lack vitamins. Scurvy!
My mind boggles. Whatever it is, I don't like it.
Thea laughs at the bobbles and calls them fungus. I am fungus features and I believe it The doctor says in English that I need to eat some fruit and vegetables. Gloria and Mike respond by taking me to a toyshop, I am surrounded by a fruit salad of colourful boxes. I choose a gigantic Robot called Golderak, it has missiles that shoot out of his nipples and a fist that shoots off that hurt if it hits you. At dinner, the chocolate mousse keeps coming. No link is made. I spoon it up with salad on the side.
Whilst we are in France, my father’s tyre warehouse is robbed. A lorry had pulled up in the middle of the night, men get out and load up everything and they drive away. He loses all his stock. They were probably his friends.
My Dad’s kind of insurance is simply to smile and I imagine that after getting hammered in the pub all the next day, he would have taken three Veganin hangover killers, picked up the phone and started selling again.
There was no change whatsoever in our level of prosperity. But now we had an American chauffeur called Hank to drive us around. He takes us to school in South Kensington, he drives us home to Richmond. Hank is tall with grey black hair and a moustache. Thea and I grow to like him. When Gloria is busy he drives for treats all around London. He takes us to the Hard Rock Café for burgers, we go to Trader Vic’s for smoking cocktails sipped out of skulls, we go to Peppermint Park for more burgers, we go to Wendy’s, even Macdonald’s was glamorous at the time, and we have more burgers.
One day my father notices that Hank has left greasy Bryl-cream stains above the driver’s seat. It is because he is tall. Hank is soon replaced with a shorter chauffeur and life goes on.
It is decided that we were going to leave Richmond. Perhaps it is to do with the robbery, perhaps to get further away from my mother. The three years mandated in the divorce settlement that Thea and I should go to the French Lycee was up and we were free to leave.
Mother which had once meant once a fortnight now meant once a month.
My father glides to court in his Roller. His exceptional hardship plea is rejected, and Gloria glides the Roller back. Peter Black couldn’t cast doubt against the breathalyser in the same way that he could against my mother. My father has a years driving ban. My father is in a terrible mood for a year.
Why my father swapped places with Gloria in Richmond Park, I can’t be certain. He was a show-off. He likes to be the centre of attention. He was besotted by Gloria. Even when she later divorced him, he kept Polaroids of her. I came home and he had fallen asleep drunk and snoring, with a picture of her in her bra held in his repaired hand. I stare from the doorway on the way to my room. His hand is like Quasimodo and the polaroid is Esmerelda I think.
We don’t return to our house in Richmond after coming back from the Majestic. We move straight into the Warren Lodge Hotel in Shepperton. The house in Richmond has been sold and for a time we are to live in this 18th Century hotel. Adjoining rooms are procured. They both have large patio doors, and with a firm tug, they glide open to reveal the Thames a few feet away. I share with Thea. Gloria and Dad sleep in the next room. We can go from room to room either via the Thames or a dark corridor in the hotel. Each morning seven fluffy ducklings waddle past the patio doors on the veranda following their mother into the brown water. I am delighted with them. We also have a mini-bar with tiny bottles of Teachers, like my Dad.
My father is driven each day to his office in Kingston, but Gloria stays with us. Gloria is full of enthusiasm for life. We go on bike rides. We go up and down the river on motorboats. She takes us to libraries. She teaches me to read and opens the door to a room with hundreds of children’s writers that have been waiting for me, they clap my entry.
We go on excursions. Thorpe Park is a short ride away in the Rolls. It is so new that it isn’t quite sure what it is. It is inspired by Americans and has a great space age hall, yet that is as far as the money goes, there are no rides. You walk through recreations of historical periods. A sandy-coloured Roman Fort is followed by a Viking Longship with striped sails, which leads to an Iron Age roundhouse with a smoking fire in the middle. All I have to do is pretend I have a sword in my hand and I feel at home. By the lake on the way out, a 1:72 scale version of the Titanic. It floats! Whaaa! I love it.
Then one day, Gloria finds a receipt on the carpet of her room. They are for a set of knee-high leather boots from a boutique in Knightsbridge called Crocodile. There is only one person in her life with a set of new boots. It is her best friend. When my father arrives home that night she demands to know where the receipt comes from.
I have no idea. It’s nothing to do with me.
For crying out loud, Gloria. What’s this about?
I have no idea!!!
I AM looking at the price. He says. I AM looking at the date
I hardly know her.
Of course she’s pretty.
No, I don’t fancy her.
You’ve gone mad.
I don’t know!!
Gloria hands me the receipt and asks me to read the date, but I can’t do dates. I try and crack my knuckles as my father does except nothing cracks, I push hard, but my knuckles just hurt. I haven’t been able to stop doing this recently. I want to stop but I can’t.
For crying out loud I don’t know!!
The argument builds in proportion to the confusion.
Don’t make me angry.
Please don’t make him angry.
Gloria decides to leave. She packs a bag in front of us. She throws expensive underwear into a leather Gladstone bag like it is bunting. There’s so much, it's like she’s cancelling a street party. She grabs her jewellery and a full-length Mink from the wardrobe.
I’m having your baby!
My father stands with his hands by his side, like he’s recovering from having belted out a huge number to a massive crowd. His hands flex from fist to star and back again.
She throws the receipt at him but it flutters to the ground. She turns and I see her baby bulge for the first time properly. I hadn’t connected to it before.
The Hotel room door doesn’t slam. It closes slowly, controlled by a silver arm at the top.
I feel the leaden sickness again.
I look down. I am playing with a huge plastic Millennium Falcon (445.9873). I take the cover off of the cockpit and look close up at Chewbacca and Han Solo. I then close the hatch over all three of us. Where to? They ask
I want to follow her, but she’s not my mother and my dad is safer.
Go and get the Teachers Whiskey bottles from your room, my Dad tells Thea.
With the gold screw-tops.
I know, she says.
My dad hands Thea a key.
The little bottles in your fridge, and the cokes.
It is the key to our minibar. I often try and pull it open. I never knew it had a key.
Whilst Thea is next door, Dad orders burgers from room service. He asks me to get his fags from his black leather jacket.
Thea comes back with three miniatures and three tiny coke cans, like the ones we had on the 747. He cracks them open and fixes us all drinks.
Is she coming back? Thea asks.
My father shrugs.
Comme ci, comme ca.
Thea and I both know he’s used the French wrong.
Come here you two.
We sit on the edge of the bed and eat and watch TV and sip whisky and cokes. The Saint comes on. The star is played by Roger Moore. He drives the same car that my dad drives, a white XJS. His has a halo on the bonnet.
Thea asks if she can light dad a cigarette. She takes his packet, takes out a Rothmans, she puts it in her mouth and lights it and sucks at the end wetly and blows out thick smoke. She stares at the cigarette the whole time.
The food arrives with a knock at the door. We eat while watching TV. No one speaks. My dad has one mouthful and leans back against the headboard, he is full. He begins to breathe more slowly and heavily. His head lolls. He wakes himself up again. His head lolls again. The snoring starts and he is dead to the world. Thea takes the cigarette from his hand and crunches it into the ashtray. She curls up next to him.
I carry on watching. The Saint is better than the police. More powerful. He’s James Bond too. But not as good as him. I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. I feel cosmic loneliness and desolation. I tug open the patio door and go to my own room carrying the Millennium Falcon carefully so that the mini figures don’t fall out.
Where to they ask me?
Planet Dissociation my brain says.