I watch as Sharon stumbles out of her back door with a huge bowl of seafood salad. We're already two gin and tonics in, it's a really hot afternoon, and drinking in the blazing heat at my age can turn a man to jelly. Today was the day I was supposed to be having lunch with Tanya Parker but, not for the first time recently, she's been admitted to hospital. She's hinted that it may be due to complications from the Covid vax but we've got no further than that.
So, date cancelled, it was fortuitous that Sharon had phoned yesterday and suggested she and I meet for lunch. Since her husband and kids were away on a camping trip in the Lake District to compensate for the England football team losing in the Euros last weekend Sharon proposed I repair to her Brighton Town House on the South Coast and we chew the cud as only two old lags could.
Consequently Sunday afternoon sees Sharon tottering in her hee hiles down the path, an ice-cold bottle of Chardonnay in her armpit the likely explanation for the erect nipples on her braless breasts which are fighting to get out of her grandad t-shirt. It never ceases to amaze me why some women still choose to wear high heels in this sort of heat. (Don't get me wrong, I like the line they create and the sexual allure but at my age - and I would have thought Sharon's - it's all about comfort.)
As if reading my thoughts she kicks off her shoes before spooning the salad into bowls and pouring two glasses of wine. 'What are you staring at Eastwood?' she grinned, observing my eyeline. 'It's not as if you haven't seen them before.'
'When?'
'Frog Eyed Sprite.'
'That was another lifetime, they were a different size and my attention was directed elsewhere. Namely to the excruciating convulsion around my L3 vertebrae.'
'Eyes front mister.'
Back in the day, when she first started her agency, Sharon was famous for flirting. It was not unknown for her to greet male clients with her feet on her desk so that the lucky sitter opposite had a great view up her skirt. Since it was in the days before shaving one's pubic hair was all the rage it was how most people learnt she wasn't a natural redhead.
That all came to an end when she married Maurice Gilchrist, an ex England rugby international. Maurice was a 6'8" lock forward and no-one wants to get into an altercation with someone that size once he hears you've been gazing up his wife's skirt. Since Sharon is only 5'4'' I often wondered how the wedding photographer got them in the same frame. Yes, and I do confess I had speculated at the logistics of the more carnal aspects of the relationship. But, hey, they've got three kids so something must have worked. And all this stemmed from Sharon, who couldn't tell a rugby ball from a football, being taken to a game by a client whose brother played in the same club side as Maurice.
'So apart from the taxi driver bringing you here from the station wearing a mask, I'm presuming your journey from Chislehurst was uneventful?'
'It's only sixty miles away Sharon. Pity I have to travel into London to come out again.'
'So terribly inconvenient.' Sharon wiped her forehead with the back of her hand to emphasise her sarcasm.
'I know you're having a dig at me because I have this thing about masks - '
'You were ranting before I got to open the front door to you.'
'Well, it's July - '
'Look on the bright side: the Fat Controller's lifting all restrictions from tomorrow.'
'Boris Johnson has never been in control of anything. Least of all his wizened penis which had no restrictions placed upon it as far as I can tell.'
'You speak from personal experience?'
Sharon grinned but I didn't rise to the bait.
'There shouldn't have been any restrictions in the first place Sharon! They never closed the pubs in The Blitz, but today the whole world stops for flu. In peacetime!'
'Bit more than the flu.'
'No it's not. You know, in a hundred year's time they'll have public holidays commemorating this nonsense. 2020, the year the world went bonkers. People will dress up in masks as fancy dress and have socially distanced Morris dancing around a Covid-themed maypole.'
'And bonfires across the land with Anthony Fauci effigies astride the tops,' Sharon chimed in, warming to the exercise.
'Fauci will only feature,' I tempered, 'If people come to their senses before this thing has run its course and realise the whole thing was a scam to bring about a global coup and had nothing to do with a pandemic and health.'
'One can always guarantee Eastwood will go over the top, even on a blazing hot Sunday afternoon.'
'Come on Sharon, this is not about a virus. It's propaganda with the singular aim of breaking the world apart, and remaking it in a new globalist image. Build back better.' Every time I heard that alliterative phrase I wanted to throw up. I know Sharon mostly agrees with me, but like many others, she has a lurking doubt because she can't quite bring herself to think that the world is run by people with such malevolence. 'Covid is a deceptive means to a malignant end. They want to control every facet of our lives.'
'Well we agree that all is not what it seems, but who exactly are "they"?' Sharon replenished our glasses generously as if preparing for the big answer. Sadly she was going to be disappointed.
'Not sure anyone can answer that. The World Economic Forum maybe, though I get the impression they're the front guys. Maybe David Icke was right all along, the world is being run by shape-shifting lizards.'
'Bit far fetched. Sci-Fi was never my metier.'
'Well, whoever "they" are, this plan has long been in the making. It wasn't some novel opportunity provided by a new renegade virus. Why has Bill Gates been persistently donating millions to the most significant media outlets? What's the first thing that happens during a military coup? The rebels take over the broadcast networks and the media. Why has Gates been doing this systematically for years? Remember AIDS?...'
'Do I? It pitched up just in time to ruin my teenage sex life.' Sharon's tone had a sardonic edge designed to put me off my stride. I was undeterred.
'When Rock Hudson, Liberace got stricken it was front page news. Now if someone famous dies - of the vax of course - it's either ignored or it's put down as SADS. Sudden Adult Death Syndrome! A term that was unheard of before this year. Because Gates has bought the media, lock, stock and barrel.'
Sharon raised her eyebrows at my intensity. 'I was expecting something a little laid back from today Anthony. Do you mind if we just have a relaxing afternoon listening to the seagulls, falling asleep pissed in the July sunshine whilst pretending we're in some kind of heaven?'
'I can't fiddle while Rome burns Sharon.'
'Nobody's fiddling!' Sharon's sudden shriek eclipsed the seagulls and set my teeth on edge. To be on the receiving end of her wrath was akin to the discomfort Edward II might have felt on his demise. According to Martin anyway. I gazed as nonchalantly as I could at the back wall of her extremely expensive four storey Regency Town House on the seafront in Brighton. 'I've had a really crappy week negotiating for and representing clients who comprise at least 90% card-carrying Covidians with a permanent affliction of wokery. I am getting heartily sick of my profession which provides me with all this!' She made a sweeping gesture with her wine-carrying hand resulting in half the contents smacking me squarely in the face. 'Oh God, I am sorry. But it is a Baletto 2019. I bought it to impress you.'
'It's a veritable hit,' I said, wiping the grape-laden residue from my eyebrows.
'Yes, and I know it's damn mercenary, but how do I drop my business just like that? Besides, I feel beholden to my clients. I'm not responsible for the religion they adopt. It's been an exhausting week and I can't live and breathe Covid.'
'Martin reckons it's the biggest crime ever committed in the history of mankind. And when they've taken away all our rights and made us slaves they plan to take away our humanity. They call it Transhumanism. '
'Talk about Martin all day and we'll end up slitting our wrists.'
'Martin is usually right, just ten years ahead of everyone else as a rule.'.
'God, can we talk about something cheerful?'
'It's true though.'
'Anthony! Let's talk of better things.'
'Of shoes and ships and sealing wax?' I presumed Sharon was referencing ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’.
'Of cabbages and Kings - '
'Rumour has it we're about to get a king. '
'Rumour had it that Michelle Obama was a bloke and Donald Trump was pregnant.'
'She is pretty old and she's just lost her husband. '
'Rumour's travelled half the world whilst truth is putting its socks on. To paraphrase a saying.'
'The heir to the throne is a serial adulterer who will become head of the Church of England. We don't do things by halves do we?'
'Of cabbages and kings!' Sharon shouted in frustration. 'And why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings! Are you steeped so much in negativity and bad news that - ‘
' "I am in blood stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, returning was as tedious as going o'er. '' That's their response to people dying of the vax. They can't go back, they can't admit they're wrong, so go on. Kill more.'
'You're addicted to the negativity of it all Anthony. You're so fixated on, and so fearful of, the dystopia we might be sleepwalking into that you are in danger of creating it. You create your own reality friend.'
'Oh bollocks Sharon.'
'Chicken Little. The sky is falling!'
'Pollyanna!'
'You can't see what this might be a harbinger of! Crisis can present opportunity! In fact the Chinese define a crisis as an opportunity on a dangerous wind. All the astrology points to a new paradigm, to a universal shift in consciousness. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. And that's been going on for over fifty years. My God, you sang about it in ''Hair'' for six months! Sure, at the moment it's painful. It's outrageous. It is criminal. It is evil. Childbirth is painful too. But you have no idea of the glories that could come out of this! We just have to be mindful as to what we are creating. And we are creating it! It doesn't have to end badly if people wake up. Nothing's going back to what it was, but it could be great! Has it never occurred to you that light might be winning?' Sharon's passion rather took the wind out of my sails. 'In the meantime can we have a happy, relaxing Sunday afternoon?'
I conceded. 'After Katie left me I used to call them Shundays. On account of it being a day when I didn't have to see anyone and could shun all and sundry. Chardonnay Shundays.'
Sharon grinned, apropos of nothing and sat back in her chair. 'Joe Bachelor's got Covid. Oh the irony.'
'What?'
'Bachelor's got Covid. You mentioning Katie reminded me. His wife's name is Kate. He does the biggest ad promoting the vax that the world has currently seen and he's got the pox. He's an actor and he doesn't see the irony. Funnily enough no media has published anything. There was masses of coverage when he fronted the ad and now, when he's got sick from the very thing the vax was supposed to protect him from, nada. Diddly squat. I asked him why he thought there was not one word in the media about it. He had no idea what I was getting at. If my clients comprise a network of wokery then Bachelor is woke central. He's that unaware he'd search for a leak in a gas pipe with a candle instead of a torch. You and I, Anthony, are a minority in this business. And you're far more out there than I am.'
'Then think how marginalised Martin Spangler must feel.'
'Talking of Martin - '
'I thought you didn't want to talk of Martin - '
'How'd it go with Tickler?'
'You mean Martin hasn't told you?' I remarked somewhat provocatively.
'Who hasn't told me what?' Sharon feigned innocence about as skilfully as a bad actor on an even worse night.
'Martin's already told me you told him about the possible offer before I'd had the chance to mention it.'
'Anthony, yes, well…' Same bad actor now fluffing their lines.
'He's not your client Sharon, so why are you speaking to him?'
'I had to explain why SKA couldn't take him on.' Sharon trying her best to be apologetic. ' Tessa representing Martin might present a bit of a conflict. No more appropriate than Goebbels taking on Anne Frank.'
'I'm not sure that remark is in entirely good taste.'
'Since when have you cared about good taste?'
'He's not your client!'
'Nor yours according to Kieran. So I told him about Tickler to cheer him up.'
'What do you think protocol is, Sharon? The name of a horse running in the 2.30 at Epsom?'
'You know, I would have considered taking him on personally if Tessa didn't share the same geographical space.'
'You don't know anything about writers - '
'As it is, I couldn't risk Martin cracking bad lesbian jokes every time he came into the offices. Anyway, not to worry. Jerome seems happy with him.'
'Eh?'
'Jerome seems okay with it. He's never heard of Martin but I said he was one of yours and had more integrity than anyone I ever knew. Which he has, despite his faults.'
You've spoken with Tickler? As well as Martin? ' I sat there open-mouthed, as if I was expecting someone to spoon feed me chocolate ice cream.
'Of course I have. He was one of my father's closest friends. He was also - once - one of my clients.'
'How many ways do you want to find to undermine me Sharon?'
'Poppycock my little Anthony. How long have we been friends?'
'So why did you pass Tickler on to me in the first place, why didn't you just deal with him yourself?' I said more agitated than I expected to be on a hot July Sunday afternoon.
'He approached me to get advice on an agent, you fool. And I suggested you - in spite of Notso - because a) you are a literary agent, der, and I'm not and b) you were showbiz buddies.'
'Hardly.'
'He knows you didn't like him. But the show must go on.' Sharon waved the back of her hand dismissively as if signalling the end of that bit of the conversation. ' Talk amongst yourselves dears, we need more wine. ' And with that she picked up the empty bottle and tottered back to the house.
I am mindful that nowhere in these diaries have I gone into detail about my former relationship with Tickler and Tickler's connection to Sharon through her father. That's because, as yet, I don't know how much Sharon knows of her father's past and why, for example, he and Tickler became the greatest of friends. I don't want her to see it first in these diaries, I'd rather she was forewarned.
That said, now's not the time to delve into the history. I know that makes me a big fat tease but I'll save it for an entry devoted to Tickler, if we ever get round to meeting. I did however, gently broach the matter of Michael Ronson's private life when Sharon returned with the next Chardonnay and a corkscrew for me to uncork it with.
'I'd heard all sorts of rumours Ant, of course I did. But I never talked directly to dad. You wouldn't, would you?'
'Why did you not keep in touch with Tickler?'
'I didn't know him that well. It was my father who persuaded me to take him on as a client. I always wondered why. Being a great actor dad must have known Jerome wasn't any good.'
'You never knew for certain that your dad and Tickler were, erm, having a thing?'
'My relationship with my father was ambiguous, to say the very least, you know that.'
'You know I introduced them? When Tickler and I were in Jericho'?
'No.'
'You know I knew your dad before you were born?'
'Yeah, I remember you mentioning it.' Suddenly she looked anxious. 'You didn't. You and dad didn't…' She trailed off, apprehensive of the answer.
'No. We just worked together. My first job.' Though it was a close shave if I recall. It was the seventies and all sorts of weird stuff went on.
'Well, thank Fortinbras for that.'
Sharon's affectation for substituting swearwords never ceases to amuse me, particularly when her office atmosphere can be blue with them at times of contractual stress. Apart from her famous Tuesdays Sharon has no compunction about the most fundamental vulgarities. Perhaps it's in deference to the rarefied surroundings of Brighton Regency Housing.
'So are you going to write about it? Dad and Tickler?'
'I probably can't avoid it. By way of explaining some stuff. Which is why I needed to know what you knew.'
'And if you do, you'll want me to forgive you for it?'
'Think of it as reciprocation. In respect of me forgiving you for interfering with my relationship with Martin.'
'We're not back to Martin again? You two should get married. Or at least get a room.'
'Ha ha.'
'Did he mention ''Eyes Wide Shut'' to you?'
'What?'
' ''Eyes Wide Shut.'' When I phoned him he said he was watching it. For the third time he claimed. '
'What of it?' I said, but hardly nonchalantly since it was now triggering alarm bells.
'Didn't you say that you and Pattie talked about it extensively the night before she died?'
'Hardly extensively. But now, when I think back, she did mention it as if it was part of a trail of breadcrumbs she was dropping. '
'Could just be coincidence of course.'
'Maybe he was watching it because he couldn't understand what Pattie saw in it? Nor can I. But it's a bit weird. '
'What's weird?'
'I was supposed to be meeting Tanya Parker for lunch today.'
'What's that got to do with the price of fish?'
'She blew me out. She went to hospital for tests on Friday and they kept her in. Do you know Tanya?
'Of course I know Tanya, everyone in our business knows Tanya. Twenty years ago my dad made a move on her. He would have been in his seventies, she in her twenties. He didn't know she was a ferocious gay. She was chasing up on some gossip about him so he made out he was some sort of Lothario. That was in her Daily Mirror days. Now she's the first string Guardian critic everyone has to be nice to her. '
'I can't be certain, but I think she might be softening a bit.'
'Why are we talking about Tanya Parker all of a sudden? Am I supposed to be jealous because she had first refusal on you for lunch today?'
'No, because you just mentioned ''Eyes Wide Shut''. And when Tanya phoned up to cancel on Friday she said, apropos of nothing, had Pattie ever talked to me about ''Eyes Wide Shut?'‘ She'd wanted to talk to Tanya about it, but never got the chance before she died.'
I’m sorry I missed this when you posted it! What a fun episode!
“I don’t fiddle while Rome burns.” -- I’m stealing that.
Also, I’m fully convinced there’s some kind of metaphysical black hole pinching going on. Every play you mention, I’ve worked on in some capacity in my theatre past. I didn’t have to look up how Edward II died at all. It’s my favourite Marlowe play.
Also, bras suck. If I wasn’t afraid of knocking myself out if I go down stairs too fast, I would never put one on.