Story Frame 35 – Cloudy with a Chance of Expletives

After wrapping the Istanbul shoot, Martin and I flew to London, a city of many good memories for me.

Having spent a bunch of my growing-up years there, it was a homecoming of sorts for me. Even my enunciation skewed slightly British when I was in London, an accent I’d acquired as a childhood defense against classroom bullying in one of the many British schools I attended. Those years as an outsider also laid the base for a lifelong interest in learning other languages. Learning to do that at just eight years old turned into a life skill of opening myself up just a little in order to fit into what would become a lifetime of changing environments.

Back then, it was the London of the Swinging ‘60s – the Beatles, the Kinks, and the Rolling Stones. It was during those years that Mary Quant took the fashion world by storm with her invention of the mini skirt. ‘Dedicated Followers of Fashion’ prowled Carnaby Street looking for hip clothes. Julie Christie dominated the movie screens. Mick Jagger even paid a surprise visit to our flat overlooking the Thames, hoping to purchase it so he could be close to the home of his then girlfriend, Marianne Faithfull.

(I used to think it was fun to say that Mick Jagger had once been in my bedroom, just for the shock factor. Eventually, it occurred to me that there were likely quite a few women who could make a similar claim, and that it wasn’t as sexy as it sounded because I was, after all, only ten years old at the time.)

Jagger’s visit was a foreshadowing of what Cheyne Walk was soon to become. Marianne Faithfull bought #48 Cheyne Walk from friends of my parents, Ron Wood lived at #103 and Keith Richards also moved into Cheyne Walk a few years later. Even for a little kid, it was an incredibly exciting time to live there.

Our home on Cheyne Walk was more associated with writers than musicians. We lived in a block of lovely and gracious flats overlooking the Thames River called Carlyle Mansions. Built in the 1880s, it was named after the writer, Thomas Carlyle, who’d lived around the corner on Cheyne Row. Its nickname was the “Writers’ Block for the many writers who’d lived there, including Henry James, T. S. Eliot, Somerset Maugham, and Ian Fleming. Fleming is said to have written his first Bond book there, Casino Royale.

At the time, those names had no meaning for me. I did, however, enter my first poetry competition while living there. It was rejected. At the naive age of nine, I thought that was surely a mistake. Against my mother’s better judgement, I sent it back for re-consideration. The second time the editors, quite rightly, didn’t even bother to respond. Where on earth did that little girl’s confidence go, I often wonder.

And now here I was back in London. It sounded and smelled like childhood. Were I to have been blindfolded, I would still have known where I was by the pings of the bells and the sound of the busses moving away from bus stops, the taxis, and the smell of exhaust fumes.

In an effort to be budget conscious, I’d booked us tiny rooms in a tiny hotel just off Sloane Street. Accurately described as a ‘dolls house,’ it was only a few blocks from both Harrods and the high school I went to in nearby Lennox Gardens. The hotel’s lift opened up on the sidewalk. Upon arrival, Martin and I stepped in and took it up a flight to check in at the little hotel lobby. We had the afternoon free and did some Christmas shopping at Harrods and along the Brompton Road, happy memories pinging me nearly every step.

Our interview with Lord Norwich the following day was to take place at his home, which was not far from St. John’s Wood, where I went to the American School in London for 6^th grade.

As luck would have it, the evening before our scheduled interview, John Julius Norwich was speaking at the Royal Albert Hall on behalf of the “Venice in Peril” organization, of which he was chairman. And so Martin and I went to listen to him.

During the evening, Norwich spoke about the history of Venice and made a compelling and poignant case for helping the city’s flood mitigation efforts. In his lifelong passion to understand and help the city, he’d visited Venice more than two hundred times.

“The Italians are totally crushed by the weight of their artistic heritage,” Norwich explained. “Every town and every village in Italy has got so much to be preserved – the list is endless, and they can’t do it all by themselves. And, after all, it’s we who go there for our holidays and enjoy them.”  

Even though we’d be asking him questions about Byzantium and not Venice, watching his presentation gave us a pretty good idea of what to expect when we interviewed him.

When the lecture ended, it was still too early to call it a night and go back to our hotel, so Martin and I decided to put in for a pint at a nearby pub along the way. As Martin opened its front door, we were greeted by the warmth and noise of a lively crowd of individuals, beery voices vying with one another to be heard over the general hubbub.

Martin persistently worked his way to the bar, his height helping him make progress through the layers of chatting professionals recently liberated from their workplaces. He returned with a pint in each hand and offered one to me. We toasted and I took an appreciative sip; it was cool and crisp, a lovely footnote to the day.

There were no available seats, so Martin and I stood side by side, not saying anything. I drank my beer, watching the happy crowd around us and yearning to be a part of it all. I wanted to enjoy this night as a grown woman in the city of my childhood. I wanted to mingle and chat with its interesting mix of patrons as if I was a local and this was my regular stop on the way home from work.

How could we start a conversation, I thought, pondering the possibilities. Especially, how to do it with Martin – a towering introvert – standing awkwardly and somewhat ill at ease by my side. After some moments, inspiration hit. No longer terribly concerned with what Martin thought of me since he changed his mind about everything six months ago, I tilted my head up to share my thought with him.

"I have an idea," I whispered loudly to him. "I want to get into conversations with people here. We can start by introducing ourselves and tell them we're conducting a little research for a project.”

"What project?" Martin asked, ever the straight guy in the room.    

"Just for grins, let’s ask them what expressions and euphemisms there are here in the UK for making love or having sex," I said enthusiastically. “Let’s ask people how many languages they know how to say that in!”

I have no idea where this idea came from. And Martin was, understandably, a bit skeptical. Or perhaps appalled – it was difficult to judge from his face. Either way, he did not look enthusiastic.

“Tell them we’re documentary filmmakers,” I laughed, ignoring his expression. “Say we’re doing some research. As we’re Americans, I’m sure we can get away with it. You don’t have to worry;” I added. “It’s likely we’ll never see any of them again!”

“Here, give me your notebook and pen,” I said when he made no move. “Let’s go have some fun!”

Looking extremely uncomfortable, he handed both over to me. I nudged my way into the crowd.

“Pardon me,” I said to a couple of guys discussing football. “We’re American journalists and we’re researching a story on how to say, ‘Will you have sex with me’ in different languages. Can you help us out?”

Conversation stopped. They all looked at one another and grinned, as if they could hardly believe what they were hearing. Then one of them laughed and responded immediately with some British slang.

He called his mates over.

“Vamos a follar,” one said. “Spanish!”

I wrote down his words.

“Baisons,” another said. “That’s French for ‘let’s fuck.’”

Others chimed in, calling out to friends for additional phrases. Pretty soon I was in the middle of a dozen men and women who crowded around me, offering phrases enthusiastically as I tried to scribble them all down on the pad. Everyone was laughing, everyone wanting in on the fun and pretty soon it seemed the entire place was shouting out terms and expressions in a cacophony of languages.

Eventually Martin decided to join in the fun. I handed him back his pad, keeping a piece of paper for myself, and watched as he tentatively approached a couple to make his first ask. Within moments, he was at the center of a large group, laughing, easy to spot above the crowd. Writing furiously fast, he was engaging with people, his face lit up. He was enjoying himself.

Pub patrons – men and women – trying to outdo one another in their knowledge, tossed words and expressions at him in many languages. More invitations for conjugal relations came flying through the air.

“Lass uns ficken! German!” shouted someone.

“Déanaimis fuck! Irish!” shouted another.

Both of us were now scribbling as fast as possible.

“Scopiamo!” said someone.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Italian!”

“Davay yebat. Russian!”

I was right. This was an international crowd. Or at the very least, a well-traveled crowd.

“Seikōshiyō. Japanese!”

“Prod’me do prdele – Czech!”

“Dē cudā’l karīē” someone said.

“And that language is?” I asked, having no idea how to spell it.

“Punjabi!” came the response.

Eventually, we exhausted the impressive knowledge of the pub patrons. While the game had played itself out, it seemed to have also sparked a lot of tangential conversations and who knows, perhaps even new friendships among the crowd.

"There," I said to Martin with a smile as we eventually eased our way out of the pub, several drafts later. "That's one way to start a conversation with complete strangers!"

We left the pub and walked slowly back through Knightsbridge, quietly window shopping in the dark along the way to our doll’s house just off Sloane Street. At the hotel, we got into the little lift on the sidewalk, then parted ways to get a good night’s sleep in preparation for the next day’s interview at the home of John Julius Norwich.

Much as I would have like to have kept the list as a souvenir – it had been my idea, after all –Martin put it in his pocket and I never saw it again.

Coming up next … A Man of Many Enthusiams & What I Discovered Inside His Loo