Angus Mackay Diaries Volume IX (1989 - 1990) ANGUS MACKAY DIARY NO. 90 April 17 1989 - June 18 1989. Monday April 1989 Oh dear, the sentimentality and muddle-headedness over the football disaster! Because it is sacred football. How grateful I am that I know nothing and care less about it, any more than motoring! I shall wait, I expect patiently, for both activities to fall apart from the inside, and perhaps, become rational. But oh, how I bleed for those poor dead young people. Tuesday April 18 1989 Now Liverpool Council are offering complete financial support for all the families of the dead, funeral expenses, everything. I wonder if the same would have been if ninety-five people had been suffocated on the stairs after a semi-gala at Liverpool Playhouse. Odd peoples’ love of crowds. I think I must have as little of the herd instinct as anyone. Last night I thought I might go to see A. Hopkins in M. Buller fly which is previewing. When I got there, the foyer was so full at 7.30 for 8.0, that I didn’t even enquire whether there was a ticket, - I turned away and came back home. Another aspect of the whole thing, is the lower middle class male being very very reluctantly dragged into reality. I hope he’s not too upset about it to work. Later. It seemed like next day! Out at 2.15 to buy some summer pyjamas, 3 prs. £41 M and S, Oxford St. Then to buy coffee beans, Gourmet Noir. Then to film Au Revoirs, Mes Enfants. Moved me very much. You might say that it summed up the war through the eyes of a schoolboy. Well, yes, I was a schoolboy. School not at all unlike mine. A perfect little film. Louis Malle. Back here, rang Tim, as he had not rung, to say not Thurs. because of the tube strike, and he seemed to have ‘sort of’ forgotten. ‘Friday’s no good, curses’. ‘Oh, but I thought Mark wanted me to see that play’. ‘He’s in Manchester’. Ah, so let them ring me. Or not. Will they learn that arranging ahead a bit is a good idea? I – think of him in the studio, going well – I hope. No bother Wednesday April 19 1989 Now they’ve set up counselling telephone lines for fans and people who were watching it on TV, to come to terms with their grief. Does nobody come to terms with their grief by themselves and their friends anymore? To film Karri-Kaze. Good little thriller much better than some better noticed films. No overcoat. Tim rang, irony, he’s up for the Nicolson prog. with John Sessions. I’m sending him Portrait of a Marriage. Very warm. Poor dears, they have such low standards of friendship. Sue Dodd, Roy’s forensic pathologist friend, rang for news of his new address. Nice chat. How useless my life is. Thursday April 20 1989 No, it isn’t, not when I get a wonderfully funny card from Simon suggesting lunch on Tues, Wed. And a phone from him tonight at 9.45. Music session obviously v. tiresome ‘cos of client. He didn’t compare last time, this time he did, and of course the client is worried. Three more days, after up all night, sleep all day on Wed. Sharron at Covent Gardens with her English master tonight The Dream. See him Tues? All lovely. Friday April 1 1989 More irony. Tim W. is going for an interview for the Nicolson TV prog and asked to borrow Portrait of a Marriage. Well, of course he’s not insensitive and not at all to blame – after all, I didn’t even know him till after. Saturday April 22 1989 I’d said to Dick Come to dinner on Sat. He’d left a message on the machine, not saying he’d come or not come, one of which I suppose, he had decided on, saying he’d ring when I was in. Very unlike him. I haven’t heard another word. I’ve left a message saying how little it matters. But it is so unlike him, - he is always punctual to the minute – that I am quite worried. To ICA to a South American film, was it? in French. Rather good and sensual, ‘La Senyora’. Sunday April 23 1989 Still no news of Dick. And there was a row and arrests at Millwall, when some M. fans chanted during the minute’s silence for the Hillsbro’ accident. K rang at 5.0 to say How long do pigeons need? And his mother had rung him for a long time before she rang me. 20 mins. (Later Ernie rang for 15 mins. – I had nothing new to say to him, of course!) told K. of Sue Bird’s wedding invitation. Oh dear, lower middle-class taste, inside the invitation was a list of suggested w. presents, with their prices marked. Also RSVP and a phone number! Rang and a voice said ‘This is the Birds Nest’. Crikey! How humdrum our relationship is now and how surprised I suppose, some people would be to know what keen satisfied pleasure that gives me. Cold! The temperature. Monday April 24 1989 Cold, cold, grey and wet, wet, wet. I don’t know what I’m going to do about money. Simon’s Sec. rang to say perhaps not lunch, but tea. I’ll ring back after I’ve seen him at 5.30, when he’s supposed to be dropping in here! I know he’s busy, but I do suffer from his lack of imagination in not knowing how much I want and need to see him, as all my real friends. I hung a bird seed jar – niceish terra-cotta jar with a little feeding-dish – as they eat, the seed mixture falls down - and for at least three weeks not a bird came on it, tho’ it was hanging on the trellis against the wall, with plenty of birds very near it. After all, I’ve only seen S. once since before Christmas. And yet the card started Dearest. Dick rang to say he’d been away for the weekend, to Lulworth Cove and ‘It had been a bit difficult’ Ah well, I don’t care enough to ask, thank god. Is there any point in going on? Surely the most prudent thing would be to sell up and settle for loneliness? After all, I only see K once a week at the most and that can only get less. And yet I can’t leave him. Can I? Tuesday April 25 1989 Always mean to write of him and the evening at once but can’t. Complete happiness precludes it. Wednesday April 26 1989 Well, the happy family has no history. There is nothing much to say, except that! Two things about Sharron. There is a garden with a pond in it and frogs at her digs! Fancy. And she’s more or less staying at the flat ‘because there’s fungus on the walls, which is bad for her nose. But she’s still got only one drawer’. I expressed mild interest and wondered to myself what effect that would have on him - and them. It all seems to go very smoothly; in fact they never seem to have a tiff at all. But will he like her living there all the time? Perhaps he will. I described the bedroom after Roy left, for five weeks away, leaving dirty shirt on the bed and a big bag open, a suit uncovered and so on for five weeks. In one of that tiny throwaways which are so precious in what they reveal, he said idly, ‘Well, it’s the incredibly relaxed atmosphere here’. Well, he created it, after one or two bitter tussles! Today nothing happened. Thursday April 27 1989 To Joan’s to lunch. It is difficult to describe, or perhaps account for the pleasure I get out of these lunches. By about 1.45, or perhaps 50, I am bored out of my mind. But at first it is the superficiality, the cultivated undemanding chat. Yes. The undemandingness. Oh, dear, I’m making use of her, I fear. And the rectory we go to matches her exactly. Mild, constant. English nursery food, deliciously bland and tasty to me as well. I had chicken and mushroom pie and banana and lemon cream. English wine! She paid. Told me of her Australian hol. with Sally. The beaches sound wonderfully empty. Her hotel at Manley was £10 a night, br. and evening meal. All the meals were twice as much as she could eat. Later. Hilarious evening. With Ben and Paul. I think Ben may never change, wry sardonic people don’t much. Paul got very high, - he is certainly a little confused. He loves showing off his body and rushed across at an exciting moment, quite irrelevantly, to say Give us a kiss. Ben was on the phone and we’d all been very funny - and rather drunk. He is very sex starved – I wonder if I can think of anyone. They’re very good company, and asleep downstairs. Ben takes the bed by native right. Friday April 28 1989 What a lovely surprise Simon rang from H’Smith to say he had a space between his reh. at Lyric and his driving lesson at 4.0. Lovely. There he was and out it poured ‘I’ve been spending a lot of time with very glamorous people so I thought I’d come and see you’.