Read by Peter Kenny - Listen to full podcast
I heard an almighty scream and the battle cry, ‘Oh my word!’ That was the first sign we had of our day centre’s impending doom. It was Cockney Doris who was screaming from her soft chair in the lounge, I recognised the sound. I’d been tidying the kitchen, belting out a Donna Summer song for my drag act, when I’d heard all the commotion. I ran to her side, as soon as I’d finished the second chorus.
Doris was, and still is, part Romani on her left-hand side, and has always had the gift for tea-leaf reading. Loose tea is a choking hazard and therefore banned in our day centre, but Cockney Doris still gave good premonition from a cup of Fybogel or any other non-hazardous lukewarm beverage. In the sandy, unstirred lumps of Ovaltine that congregated at the bottom of her beaker, she’d seen a man with a mono-brow and a clipboard closing the day centre down and selling the building.
There was often some truth in Cockney Doris’ premonitions. Once, she’d predicted that the Virgin Mary would appear in the day centre and lo and behold, just before that Wednesday afternoon’s bingo, one of the African carers had gone into a tiswas because she’d noticed the Virgin Mary staring up at her from the stewed apples and custard she was feeding Betty Dimnock.
A few days after the Ovaltine incident, some official looking men came to our centre, looking around and inspecting the premises. I asked our manager, Carole, who they were and she said it was just a health and safety check. I got the feeling she was lying. I watched the men, but there wasn’t a clipboard or mono-brow in sight. I had to find out more. Meadow View Lodge was in danger, perhaps.
I told one of our service users, Aberystwyth Tom, that, in fact, he’d been right all along and the centre was indeed a prisoner of war camp and with the Germans fast approaching, we needed him to patrol the outside of the building. Tom took up his duty in seconds, marching past Carole’s office and on through the fire exit, where I’d directed him. As the fire exit opened and the alarm sounded, Carole ran out after Tom. I snuck into her office closing the door behind me. Outside, I could hear Tom calling Carole a Nazi as she tried to capture him.
I searched Carole’s computer and it didn’t take long to find what I wanted. Stored within her anal folder system, under “Very Important Issues” was an email about the day centre not being used to its full potential and not offering anything unique. And there was a proposed plan for the council to sell the building and filter the service users and staff across the borough.
I couldn’t let that happen. I’d not long been in the job, but I loved it, and they loved me, I knew that. It was a wonderful place. The thought of our service users being shipped off to other centres like Hedge House, with its smell of piss and absence of laughter, broke my heart. We needed to get a spotlight on our centre and we needed it to have something unique, something only we could offer. They couldn’t touch us, then. A plan was forming…
I called a meeting with our emergency committee; Cook, some of the other support workers, two of our volunteers, Cockney Doris, Aberystwyth Tom and OCD Syd. Initially, there was an idea to occupy the occupational therapists’ suite and Doris said she’d chain herself to her commode, but I explained we needed to think bigger. We needed to do more than make a statement, we needed to protect Meadow View’s future.
I told them my idea; we’d have a big open day, we’d get the media involved, get some coverage and local politicians and show them how full of life and fun Meadow View could be. Their reaction was lacklustre, to say the least.
‘Open day,’ Cockney Doris said, ‘a fucking open day? They’re gonna be moving in lively with bull dozers and you think a couple of vol-au-vents and some bunting is gonna get us out the shithouse?’
OCD Syd was equally anxious. He’d got up to turn on, turn off, turn on, turn off the lights – 1, 2, 3, turn around, touch the ground – and for a while, it felt like we were having our meeting in a disco.
I told them the next part of my plan. Most of them knew about my extracurricular activities. By evening I was Lulu Malone; female impersonator extraordinaire, at several semi-frequented establishments. I could do a big show to celebrate our diversity and draw the eye, get a couple of the girls I knew from the drag circuit to come and lend a hand. And we would exaggerate the diversity of our day centre; pretend we were an entirely LGBTQ population. That would be a unique service for a minority group and we’d have a rainbow-coloured, high-heeled leg to stand on, then.
‘Yes,’ Aberystwyth Tom said, hitting the table, startling us all. ‘I like the sound of that. LGB&Q you say? There was a lot of that in the war, mind. I saw a thing or two in Berlin — lemme tell you.’
‘O-mo-sexual?’ Cockney Doris said, turning towards me. ‘You want us to be O-mo-sexual? You’ll be asking us to black-up next.’ I interrupted her before she began her ode to Enoch Powell, but to my surprise, she said she loved the idea. ‘Oh, Lamb. Ere, will Alan Carr be coming? I do love im. Got his book, what’s about giving up the fags.’
I swore them all to secrecy. There was a lot to plan and we had to get this right. If this worked, we might just save Meadow View. This would need my full, undivided attentíon.
In the weeks leading up to our big day, we all pulled together and planned everything out. I schooled everyone in gay culture and trans counterculture, whilst Cockney Doris worked on the service users, honing their stories. One after the other, the sweet old dears and ex-army men lined up to come out to Carole, our manager, telling her that they were lesbian, gay or bi, intersex, trans-gentrified, or Thai.
OCD Syd had nearly slipped up telling the chiropodist that he was homosapien and proud, when she’d refused to paint his toenails. He had to tell her another three times and by the end she’d stopped asking questions. Harold and Margaret, the born-again Christians, had refused to be a part of this ‘Heinous act,’ so Cook began sedating them with heavy doses of Tixylix.
A few days later Carole went sick due to stress. It was all coming together. I put an advert in the local paper announcing the official opening of our brand new LGBTQ day centre. I invited the mayor and even went on the local radio to promote it. Everyone in town was talking about it.
Our big day came around in no time. We decorated the centre with rainbow flags and balloons and all-inclusive macaroni art from the local comprehensive. Cook laid on a buffet in the main hall and we served juiced-down Buck’s Fizz. We had little market stalls and pop-up workshops all over the place and had organised a mini concert.
I was waiting in the wings of the stage, which was really an art cupboard next to the hoisting table, when Cook knocked on the door and said it was time for the show to begin. I wore my second skin; the wig, the lashes, the red dress. I opened the door, stepping out onto the stage. Smoke billowed around me, which was really jugs of bi-carb and vinegar that Cook had mixed to give a theatrical flair. The rainbow light ball from the relaxation room was my spotlight, the indoor bowls mat my walkway. The show was about to begin...
I looked out and saw the Mayor sat next to Cook, looking like he was enjoying himself. My backing singers and fellow drag artists, Ruddy Martian and Venus Envy were by the piano. Cockney Doris winked at me, saluting me with her glass of cooking sherry.
I started off with a complex yet timely rendition of Love is a Battlefield.
The crowd went… vaguely interested. Ruddy Martian took the second song, one from his 80s pop musical that he’d had great success with at the Jewish retirement village - I Drove All Night: The Michael Schumacher Story. Venus Envy finished off the first set with an urban rendition of We’ll Meet Again (Use Da Hoist remix).
We stopped for the raffle, tombola and bingo, and then I proceeded with my pièce de résistance. In a bid to secure media attention, I recreated Sinéad O’Connor’s finest hour, and in a move people hailed as unnecessary, I shockingly ripped up a picture of, not the pope, but Piers Morgan. It was very taboo. I’d ripped it out of that week’s TV Times, taking with it the Gloria Hunniford interview on the back.
There had been a bit of a mix up with our next act, but the Lebanese woman’s choir seemed to go down quite well. Out on the lawn, there was a dance workshop led by Venus Envy and everyone with full working hips was partaking in a dub-step Hokey Cokey. I walked through to the activities rooms. It was like a festival, everyone laughing and speaking and singing. Cockney Doris had a stall reading star signs out of a year-old Sunday supplement. The Mayor was taking part in the gay slang Polari-to-English workshop. There was a shaman circle too, led by our very own Phyllis, 89. She’d acquired her online priestess qualification especially for the launch. Aberystwyth Tom was over the moon to learn that his spirit guide was in fact a Welsh rarebit.
Everyone had a lust for life again. In the library, there was a gay book group with Mildred, the ex-civil servant. She discussed Queer theory and literature. I wasn’t sure where she’d got her information, but people loved the reading list, which included; A Man for Some Seasons, Pride with Prejudice, Girl Intercepted, and Boy in the Flannel Pyjamas.
I made my way back into the hall, where the mayor was now saying a few words. ‘I’ve really enjoyed myself today and I can see the great work that takes place here. There’s a lot of love in the air, of every kind, and I will be backing the centre.’ Everyone cheered. I realised then, that this might actually work.
To my surprise the Mayor then said, in perfect Polari, ‘Could all omee palones, and heartfaces, follow your lallies and kindly mince to your seats, where we’ll varda the bona encore on your actual stagette.’ Everyone began congregating in the hall and taking their seats for the final set.
As the first chords of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy played out, I looked across the hall. I saw smiles on happy faces. I saw rainbow flags and the hue of victory. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope; the colour spun a carnival calypso. Our centre had been in danger and we dressed her up and made her work. On the darkest days, wear the brightest colours. That’s what we’d done. Who said that? Was it Maya Angelou or Little Mix?
I started to sing and held the eyes of every man, woman and non-binary. If there was a part of me that felt bad about getting people to lie, it was put to rest by the fact that we might just keep our centre. And isn’t that real diversity? A closeted, straight LGBTQ centre. Imagine the funding. It wasn’t so much a little white lie, more a blazing, rainbow-coloured fantasy.
(c) Dane Buckley, 2017. Dedicated to the LGBTQ community of Chechnya.
Peter Kenny has worked for A&BC, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the BBC Radio Drama Company. An award winning recorder of audio-books, he has read over 100 titles, everything from Iain M. Banks, Neil Gaiman, and Andrzej Sapkowski to Jonas Jonasson and Paul O'Grady “...from the sublime to the cor blimey!” www.peterkenny.com
One of those great pieces of writing that manages to take an every-day setting and inject some wit and laughter, all while drawing the audience in. A gem both on the page and spoke aloud.
Posted by: Pete Billiet | May 03, 2017 at 11:36 PM
Hi Raymond, I believe this is Dane Buckley's first published story, but you can find/follow him on Twitter - @daneacle
Posted by: Liars' League | May 03, 2017 at 11:11 AM
This was a total joy from start to finish. Great work from the actor. Had me laughing all the way through it! Such cracking dialogue that any director could turn into a riotous comedy. The writer really knows his characters and has a talent for sharp, observant comedy. Do you have links to his other work?
Posted by: Raymond Reece | May 03, 2017 at 11:03 AM
Loved it ... really LOL stuff.
Nice pace, great quips and imagery, and I can relate to several of the characters in real life.
Peter does a great character interpretation job too !
Well done Daney
Posted by: Howard Evans | May 02, 2017 at 11:10 AM
Fantastically funny but also heart felt story. More please!
Posted by: Sarah Goodalk | May 02, 2017 at 08:27 AM