Part 18 (1/2)

'Chou Lai's?' he asked Everyone on board nodded

After half an hour's chugging through choppy waters he was dropped off on an island Nothing He thought he had been (alhaied After what seemed an eternity another junk phutted its way to the jetty

'Chou Lai?' called the skipper, and once more my friend hopped aboard

An hour followed in which he ploughed deeper through the South China Sea, beginning to fear for his life At last he was deposited on yet another island, but this tihts and vibrating with music Chou Lai himself came forward, a bonhomous felloith an eyepatch that completed the superbly Condradian feel of my friend's adventure

'hello, very welcolish as a lish!+ Ah! You know P B-J?'

One wonders how lish custohtest idea who or what a 'P B-J' ht be My friend did know but doubted Chou Lai could possibly mean the same one It turned out he certainly did

'Yeah! Pe'er Be'ett-Joes!'

My friend had a free dinner and a ride back to Kowloon in Chou Lai's private launch

There you have Peter Bennett-Jones: with his long lean frame, a line in crumpled linen suits and a ripely old-fashi+oned 'dear old boy' manner, he looks and sounds the part of a superannuated colonial district coer than Mick Jagger and as sharp, clever and powerful a force in London's media world as you could find

I was fortunate or unfortunate enough toat the Zanzibar when Keith Allen, one of the pioneers of alternative comedy and a an to throw bottles back and forth, destroying s Keith did get arrested and on his return from a short stretch found himself permanently banned, or Zanzibarred as I preferred to put it The owner, Tony Macintosh, was good-natured enough not to exclude him from his new establishe were on the point of opening in Soho

My years of hurlinginto the world of Soho Boheures like Keith Allen with a kind of aded with fear They seemed to own the London in which I still felt like a shy visitor, a London which was beginning to vibrate with enorhtclubs like the titanic and the Li but dancing and getting drunk, neither of which I was very interested in, and even the Zanzibar was not a place I would ever drearoup, but a de but aout words 'You owe it to yourself to live a little, Harry' as Clint breathes to himself in Dirty Harry Dirty Harry

Who was I at this time? I still found that people were bothered by my front, my ease, my apparent oh, I don't know effortlessness, invulnerability, lack of need? So in me riledno not riled, soued or baffledsoered a mixture of exasperation and curiosity

How could soainst the cruel winds of the world, so arreat to see theuard down Find out what uard down Find out what makes them tick

I really do believe that there are those ould like and trusta fool of ressive, maudlin and drunkenly out of control I have never found those states in others anything other than tiring, aard, e and fantastically dull, but I am quite sure that people would cherish a view of me in that condition at least once in a while As it happens I am almost never out of control no matter how much I drink My liin with that it is hard to tell the difference But I certainly never becoressive or violent or weepy This is clearly a fault

Back then I could see that outsiders looking in on the Stephen Fry they encountered saw alottery ticket I did not seem to have it in me to project the vulnerability, fear, insecurity, doubt, inadequacy, puzzlement and inability to cope that I so very often felt

The signs rit large for those with the wit to read The cars alone screauar XJ12, a Wolseley 15/50, an Austin Healey 100/6 in concourse condition, an Austin Westnette, an MGB roadster

People saw ht them the automobile equivalent of the tweed jacket and cavalry twills in which I still dressed myself 'Good old Stephen He's frolish Old-fashi+oned values Cricket, crosswords, classic cars, clubland Bless' Or they thought, 'Poues and snobby cars What a git' And I thought, 'What a fraud Half-Jewish poof who doesn't really knohat he's doing or who he is but is still the saer he ever was, never quite fitting in Destroyed by love, incapable of being loved, unworthy of being loved'

Till the day I die people will always prefer to see ood leather club chair I have learned long ago not to fight it Besides, and this is ood h), why should anyone bleat on about what they feel inside all the ti and it isn't attractive

Any arist can see that soe Stur (the needy sugar addiction, alienation, wild , expulsions, fraud and iar addiction, alienation, wild , expulsions, fraud and iiven a new lease of life and the chance to work and ht well respond as I did and make a series of silly and self-conscious attempts at display, to prove to himself and to the family whose life he made such a ed belonged Look, I have cars and credits cards and club membershi+ps and a country house I know the naland like Connollized leather into the seat of an Aston

If asked, I would have told you that I was happy I was happy I was content, certainly, which is to happy what Pavillon Rouge is to Chateau Margaux, I suppose, but which will have to do for ed a hit, and perhaps as a result of our appearances on it Hugh and I were sumgle our cocks in the air and get soether', as other, lesser coed a hit, and perhaps as a result of our appearances on it Hugh and I were sumgle our cocks in the air and get soether', as other, lesser coht have put it

After the BBC's lack of interest in The Crystal Cube The Crystal Cube, ere leery about high-concept progra to screen e knew best, sketch coe 'You can do that next year But first Stephen ' He rubbed his hands together, and his eyes gleamed 'Broadway'

Clipper Class, Cote Basque and Choreography Mike Ockrent and I flew to New York together in clipper class, PanAm's equivalent of business, where you could eat and drink and ss bubbled We had a few days, and our job was to dazzle Richard's potential financiers and co-producers Robert Lindsay was already there This was ging myself I had often fantasized about Aot there, I should find that I already knew it and love it all the more for that

I shan't distress you too hts about the Manhattan skyline If you haven't visited New York City yourself, you have seen it in film and television and you know that there are a lot of very, very tall buildings crowded together on a relatively s tunnels and rattly bridges There is a central oblong park, wide avenues that run arrow-straight down from one end to the other, rhythmically intersected by numbered streets You will know that the avenues also have nuton, Amsterdam or West End You will know there is just one exception, one daring diagonal thoroughfare that carves its way down fro the sy squares, circuses and slivered scalenes of open space as it slices its way south-west Verdi Square, Dante Park, Columbus Circle, Madison Square, Herald Square, Union Square You will know that this outlaw diagonal is called Broadway You will know too that where Broadway meets 42nd Street at Times Square, the heart of New York theatre beats and has done so for a hundred years

I walked around the theatre district, rubbernecking the neon, bowing to the statue of George M Cohan ('Give ards to Broadway' it says on the plinth, and to this day I get a lump in my throat every tiney's ie of Cohan hiie Deli to write postcards, subjectingtoin New York is exactly exactly what you expect and yet it still astonishes you Had I co and bendy, the buildings low and squat and the people slow, drawling and kindly and that there was no trace of that fabled charge of energy that you drew from the very pavements as you walked on them, then I would have had cause to blink and shake my head in wonder As it is, the toas precisely what I kneould be, what legend, fable, literature and Tin Pan Alley had long reported it to be, down to the clouds of steae chequer cabs as they bounced and flipped their tyres on the great iron sheets that seeiant on to the surface of the street and the strange smoky whiff at every street corner that turned out, on inquiry, to be the smell of new-baked pretzel Just what I had always known Yet every five steps I took I could not but stop and grin and gasp and stretch my eyes at the theatre of it all, the noise and rudeness and vitality Affirmation of e absolutely expect comes as more of a shock than disaffirmation what you expect and yet it still astonishes you Had I co and bendy, the buildings low and squat and the people slow, drawling and kindly and that there was no trace of that fabled charge of energy that you drew from the very pavements as you walked on them, then I would have had cause to blink and shake my head in wonder As it is, the toas precisely what I kneould be, what legend, fable, literature and Tin Pan Alley had long reported it to be, down to the clouds of steae chequer cabs as they bounced and flipped their tyres on the great iron sheets that seeiant on to the surface of the street and the strange smoky whiff at every street corner that turned out, on inquiry, to be the smell of new-baked pretzel Just what I had always known Yet every five steps I took I could not but stop and grin and gasp and stretch my eyes at the theatre of it all, the noise and rudeness and vitality Affirmation of e absolutely expect comes as more of a shock than disaffirues for the Broadway production were two Americans, James Nederlander, who seemed to own half the theatres in America, and Terry Allen Kramer, who seemed to own half the real estate in Manhattan They were serious and hard-boiled business people They had it in their heads that the British couldn't choreograph, and when an A can shi+ft it, not Mr Muscle, not TNT, not electric-shock treatment

Jiood otta have heart,' he told me over lunch at the Cote Basque on 55th Street, with Terry, Mike and Robert 'I saw your show in London and I said to ot fucking heart, we should do it” She agreed'

'It's gotta have proper choreography too,' growled Terry

Terry Allen Kramer liked to say that, while she wasn't the richest woman in America, she certainly paid more tax than any woman in America She had at one time owned e quantities of oilthe block on which the Cote Basque, made famous by Truman Capote, stood

When I had arrived there for the lunch appointment I had found myself almost paralysed by the snootiness of the waiters New York is an infinitely ritzier and loved, liveried and top-lofty elevator attendants, doormen, chauffeurs and maitres d' maitres d' can make life hell for those without social confidence Adrift on an alien shore, all the ease I had amassed over the years that allowed me to meet a headwaiter's eye squarely at the Ritz or Le Caprice now deserted e VI liked to say Abroad, no h you have climbed the ladders at hoain can make life hell for those without social confidence Adrift on an alien shore, all the ease I had amassed over the years that allowed me to meet a headwaiter's eye squarely at the Ritz or Le Caprice now deserted e VI liked to say Abroad, no h you have climbed the ladders at hoain

'Yessssss?' hissed the waiter who floated up to lanced with overdone nonchalance around the dining-roo a casual proprietorial air betraying all the illness at ease and inferiority I was feeling

'Oh, u some people for lunch, I'm afraid I'm a little earlyshould Iersorry'

'Name?'

'Stephen Fry Sorry'

'Let me seeI find no reservation under that name'

'Oh Sorry! No, that's my my name, sorry' name, sorry'

'Uh! And in what name is the reservation?'

'I think probably in the name of Kramer Sorry Do you have a table in the name of Terry Allen Kramer?'

It was as if the current had suddenly been switched on A se transfor abase attention and hysterical respect

'Sir, I'm sure sure Mrs Kramer would Mrs Kralass of cha to read while you wait? Mrs Kramer is usually ten minutes late, so perhaps solass of cha to read while you wait? Mrs Kramer is usually tenAnything? Anything at all? Thank you, sir'

Lordy And indeed she had been tenup Jimmy Nederlander, Mike Ockrent and Robert Lindsay, who by this time had joined me on the uncoht to the table and plugged into a socket by the wall for her as we sat down Through this she had hollered instructions tothe course of lunch

When it ca she looked around the table 'Who wants dessert? You guys want dessert?'

I nodded with enthusiaset the pastry cart'

Le chariot a patisseries was duly wheeled before us loaded with exquisite was duly wheeled before us loaded with exquisite delices delices Terry Allen Kramer pointed at one lazed pastry and crystallized fruits 'What's that?' she barked