Page 12 (1/2)

NOVEMBER

The rain ca wall upon Hyde Park and, borne by a light westerly wind, drifted in grey curtains of falling water across Park Lane and through the narrow park of plane trees that divides the northbound and southbound lanes A wet and gloomy man stood under the leafless trees and watched

The entrance to the Grosvenor House Hotel ballroolare of ca before the door was an area of only dalea umbrellas at the ready, as the limousines swept up, one by one

As each rain-lashed car drew up by the awning one of thestar or film celebrity for the two-yard dash, head down, frohten up, plaster on the practised smile and face the cameras

The paparazzi were either side of the awning, skin-wet, shielding their precious equipment as best they could Their cries came across the road to the man under the trees

‘Over here, Michael This way, Roger Nice smile, Shakira Lovely’

The great and the good of the filnly at the adulation, snored the few anorak-clad autograph hunters, strange persistent voles with pleading eyes, and afted inside There they would be led to their tables, pausing to beareet, ready for the annual awards ceremony of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts

The s in his eyes Once he had dreaht be there, a star of the filnized journeyman at his trade But he kneas not to be, not now, too late

For more than thirty-five years he had been an actor, almost entirely in fil as an extra, with no spoken words,cast in a real role

He had been a hotel porter while Peter Sellers walked past and on screen for seven seconds; he had been the driver of the arave Peter O’Toole a lift into Cairo; he had held a Roid at attention, a few feet from Michael Palin; he had been the aircraft mechanic who helped Christopher Plummer into a Spitfire

He had been waiters, porters, soldiers in every known are He had played cab-drivers, police the street, the histling barrow boy and anything else one could think of

But always it was the saoodbye chum He had been within feet of every known star in the celluloid firents and the bastards, the kindly and the prima donnas He knew he could play any part with utter conviction and convincingly; he kneas a hunized the talent he was sure he had

So he watched in the rain as his idols swept past to their evening’s glory and later to their suone in and the lights had faded he trudged back through the rain to the bus stop at Marble Arch and stood, dripping water in the aisle, until he was deposited half a mile from his cheap bedsitter in the hinterland between White City and Shepherd’s Bush

He stripped off his soaking clothing, wrapped himself in an old towel robe liberated fro Peter O’Toole and he had held the horses) and lit a single-bar fire His wet clothes stea they were merely damp He kneas flat broke, skint No work for weeks; a profession vastly overcrowded even with short,in prospect His phone had been cut off and if he wished to speak to his agent, yet again, he would have to go and visit in person This, he decided, he would do on the morrow

He sat and waited He always sat and waited It was his lot in life Finally the office door opened and soed whom he knew He jumped up

‘Hallo, Robert, remember me? Trumpy’

Robert Poas caught by surprise and clearly could recall nothing of the face

‘The Italian Job Turin I drove the cab; you were in the back’

Robert Powell’s unquenchable good humour saved the day

‘Of course Turin Been a long tis?’

‘Pretty good Not too bad, can’t coht have so for me’

Powell took in the frayed shirt and shabby mac

‘I’ain Good luck, Trumpy’

‘Ditto, old boy Chin up, what?’