NO ONE LIKE ME

WRITER'S POV: (When I was sixteen years old a dog changed my life. A dog which I encountered only briefly and scarcely noticed. The incident was quite unspectacular,and the vital link which it Forged in the chain of events was unrecognizable until much later. (But perhaps I had better go back to the beginning.) ***** CHAPTER 1/5 EPISODE 1 : "I was born,illegitimate in a fiercely respectable neighborhood of Pretoria,My dear ingenuous mother had lived there blamelessly with my mildly Victorian grandmother for twenty eight odd years, most of which had been spent at a sewing machine earning a living. Literally a living. No more,no less. The calamity was a direct result of my mother's unworldliness, for so much of her time had been spent in keeping the wolf from the door that she had learned little of what lay beyond it. The outcome might have been happier had it not unexpectedly transpired that my father, a bandmaster of the 2nd Johannesburg High-landers, was already domestically over- equipped. His wife and assortment of children could not easily be disregarded. I was undoubtedly the last straw on a mountainous and crushing load, for on receipt of the happy tidings he vanished for ever into the woods, leaving the lot of us , legitimately and otherwise. The military authorities were alot more concerned over his dissapearence than my mother,for she had implicit faith that he would make his fortune and return home safely, while they laboured under no such illusions. And he had apparently financed his venture with their brand funds. They did not succeed, however, in tracing him further than Nairobi. But as long as my mother was left holding the baby she was naívely delighted. She had always wanted a child. My grandmother, with her large and loving heart, accepted me immediately,in spite of the severe shock the whole business had given her. But the primly corseted females and bowler-hatted, city-trekking males of our self righteous community were not quite so reasonable, and my mother shrank from parading me undully before themn . Thus until five years of age I knew little more of the world than the glimpses I caught through the south lace curtains which shrouded the windows of the small semi-detached house. Theatrical people were, as everyone knew, extremely broad minded. They would accept No One Like Me. I was aware, from the beginning, that I was different from the other children whom I often saw playing carelessly beyond the stylized tulips of the protecting lace curtains, for my mother's inherent honesty precluded any deception. But her old fashioned inhibitions rendered her incapable of supplying me, even in later years, with any details of the situation. Meanwhile, as I was dressed like a princess and treated like a queen by my adoring mother and grandmother, I laboured under the illusion that the state of illegitimacy must be rather special. I once heard them refer to me as love child. It sounded a very nice thing to be. Later I grew to realize that the condition was strongly connected with my mother's single status, and came to the foggy conclusion that the process of conception and birth, when experienced outside wedlock, was an extremely different function. I begun to wonder just exactly what this made me. Acting upon her convictions regarding my future career, my mother sent a cute 'dimples and goldilocks ' snapshot of me at the age of four to a London theatrical agent. A Mr. George Jay. It was my beginners luck and I was chosen to appear with several other children in a very tiny scene in a certain silent film called Nairobi, starring Judith walias, the celluloid queen of those days. That peep through the looking -glass into the unreal, over emotional, light-hearted, tawdry,yet beautiful land of entertainment infected me with a disease from which I have never,to this day, completely recovered: a desire to spend my life under the revealing glare of hot, white lights. I was overawed by the unfamiliar of the other pretty little girls in the studio,who were constantly being instructed in bahaviour and pushed forward by their fiercely determined mothers; but they all feel aside suddenly,and there was hushed whispering when the loveliest doll of a child entered with her petite but queenly mother. ' That's Kelly Hay, the new child wonder.' ' She's leaving for Hollywood soon' Thereafter Kelly Hay, that long forgotten little actress of the 1930s, was my guiding star, and every photograph of her which appeared in the newspapers was cut out and pasted reverently into my scrap - book. I returned home from the film studio with the first earnings of my life, one whole, glorious guinea. This easy success boosted our family morale immensely. The neighbours no longer appeared such bogies, and at last I made my local debut, walking the streets with my tiny nose higher than a giraffe's. But my fame was short-lived. No further theatrical opportunities were granted me, and also I had to go to school. One child ventured a partial explanation of the situation which was evidently puzzling her as much as it was me. 'My mummy says you haven't got a daddy at all," she informed me." She says I'm not to talk to you because you're a bad girl. I'm Scots." The only information I had gleaned of my father was that he came from Glasgow and wore a kilt. And that much at atleast I intended to lay claim it. But the children were unimpressed, and in time I grew idiotically terrified of speaking to anyone. I developed a deep, unhealthy, nagging fear of the coldly hostile life which I could ever cope with curious, staring world. "Don't you worry" my optimistic, dotting mother would cheerfully reassure me. "When you are discovered and become a big all star they will all be clamouring to know you. Lots of famous people were like you." I believed her because I had to. Safe within the armour of fame and wealth I would no longer be afraid I just had to be Discovered. I could see no other solution. But as I grew older I also grew thinner, taller,paler and generally less attractive,and my chances of achieving this end grew increasingly remote From the age of twelve to sixteen my mother took me to London religiously every Saturday and presented me to innumerable theatrical and film agents, with the air of one unveiling a statue. Some were kind, some were quite rude. But the outcome was always the same."Not today, thank you." One cold winters day my mother and I had done the usual round of London agents, with the customary lack of success,and had fetched up in Oxford streets demoralized, footsore, and ready to give up and go home. I was beginning to face the fact that my chances of entering show business were remote. But my indomitable mother, standing in the thick of the jostling London crowds scrutinizing the "Artistes Wanted" section of The Stage. "We haven't tried this one yet," she said, passing me the paper. I read that a Mr.Herbet De Vere sought juvenile dancers for his troupe of babes. Applicants were asked to attend a rehearsal room room in Poland Street between 12 noon and 2 p.m. It was already ten minutes to one; Poland streets was a bus journey away and the rush-hour had commenced in earnest. We took our places in the bus queue without much hope. With frustrating slowness we inched forward. Eventually..."on top-tew inside only thank yew," chanted the conductor, allowing the man and woman in front of us to squeeze on to the platform, and bringing his arm decisively across in front of our faces. His thumb was poised to press the bell when a sharp, undeniably canine yelp attracted his attention. The couple in front of us had a dog with them. The dog. A large, nondescript animal, which was busy getting it's paws trodden on. ' ' "Ere,yew tew- wote this? Dawgs on top only. And it's full on top. Yew'll ' ave to get off.sorry. . . . Next tew, please thank yew. . . " There was nothing about that unremarkable moment to offer even a hint of the momentous change in my life which was mongrel had unwrittingly effected. Nor did the change become apparent for the icy path which was to take me so far from the lace curtains,the pointing fingers,and the mundane, thankless existence in a suburbia which could atleast accept No One Like Me. I often wonder what my life would have been like if that couple had not liked dogs... We arrived at Poland streets just in time to see the tail end of the familiar crocodile of scarlet clad children undoubtedly the De Vere Babes - dissapearing round the corner. My mother sprinted smartly after them, made a grab at the rearguard child, who in turn ran ahead and secured Mr. De Vere, while the whole troupe crowded curiously round us. In spite of their cute, diminutive appearances( the tallest 'babe' only just reached my shoulder), their bright young eyes were worldly and sophisticated. I was suddenly acutely aware that I still did not know the facts of life. And I was sure that they did. Meanwhile Mr. De Vere was shaking his head gently at this towering travesty of Shirley Temple. So I did not get into the De Vere Babes either. But, during the course of the conversation with their proprietor, my mother's dress-making abilities came to light and, as a result, Mr. De Vere recommended her for the position of wardrobe mistress to a summer show Liverpool called Jarina Accordingly, one sunny day in June 1936, feeling quite over- whelmed with the enormity of the venture, we all embarked on the Southdown coach. In Liverpool we rented a large room in a lodging house, the windows of which were quite innocent of lace curtains and shamelessly open. A defeated looking balcony sagged ominously outside the glass expanse, and by pivoting on one's hip-bones against the railings, and leaning suicidally far out, one could just see the sea at the end of the road. Accustomed as I was to the messy, complicated contours of the town,the clean, simple, ruled precision of this sea horizon was a thing to marvel at everlastingly. Leaning out over the street to I stared and stared at the shimmering glory of that impossibly straight line until at last my grandmother noticed me and cried: "Come in, child, do! Mercy me, you'll tip over and break every bone in your body." She was always making gruesome predictions of this kind, and as I took them very seriously I was a most uventuresome child. The letter confirming my mother's appointment had been signed 'claude Langdon,' and had asked her to report at the M.M Liverpool. "What a funny name for a theatre!" I remarked, as, leaving my grandmother to solve the problem of cooking a meal for three on One gas ring , we set off to find it. "Perhaps it's kinda of concert - party place," suggested my mother. But it proved to be a large, impossing building just off the promenade. Apprehensive, now that we were on the brink of entering the magic portals of show business (inside which my mother felt confident that I should be discovered), we took the steps of the front entrance and swing doors almost at a run, before we lost our courage The sight which met our eyes within stopped us very abruptly. ''We've come to the wrong place!" exclaimed my mother, turning on her heel. "look!" I was saying,in a hushed, spellbound voice. "look!" My mother appealed to an officious - looking commissionaire who was approaching. "Excuse me sir. is this the M.M. Liverpool?" The uninformed gentleman was not very helpful. "What does it look like?" he demanded sourly. A blinking fish and chip - shop?" "Actually it looks like an ice rink to me ," said my mother, reasonable enough.