Read Online Still Standing: The Savage Years by Paul O'Grady - Free Book Online

‘Does it look like Burnished Amber to you, lass?’
    I wasn’t sure what Burnished Amber was meant to look like, but I was damn sure it wasn’t the vivid Day-Glo orange sludge that Sid’s thin lips were dripping with. His face was caked in a tangerine panstick that ended at the jawline, contrasting sharply with the deathly pale flesh of his razor-burned neck, and there was a blob of kingfisher blue on each eyelid and a dab of carmine rouge on his cheeks. As this look was meant to be au naturel he’d not bothered with false eyelashes, opting instead for a lick with the mascara wand on his own stubby lashes. The evidence of this attempt at beautifying his eyes was written all over his face as there were little flecks of mascara splattered everywhere and you could’ve been forgiven for thinking that a very small child in a dark room wearing boxing gloves had applied Sid’s slap during an earthquake.
    ‘I can’t do me make-up like you,’ he said, as if reading my mind. ‘Me hands shek because of me nerves, you see.’ He heldhis shekkin’ hand out again. ‘Eeh, I don’t know why I put me’sen through it, I really don’t.’
    ‘Why don’t you ask Miss Hush to do your slap for you?’ I offered before I got roped in to assist. I liked Sid, liked him on sight. He was blissfully unaware of just how funny he was and if Fellini had known of Sid he’d have undoubtedly cast him as a tart with a heart in Nights of Cabiria .
    ‘Who’s Miss ’ush?’ he asked.
    ‘Sandra Hush, the one I work with?’
    ‘Why’s she called that then?’
    ‘Well, it started out as Sandra Hutchinson and was then shortened to Hush by a friend,’ I started to explain.
    Sid stared at me blankly.
    ‘Well, originally he was called Sandra Hutchinson after the posh, glamorous one in The Liver Birds , y’know? Not that Hush is posh, he’s from Wolverhampton, used to be known as Miss Saltley Gas Works in her day.’
    ‘I heard that, Miss Savage,’ Hush said, sashaying into the bathroom in full slap and a towering flame-red beehive. ‘Never heard of glasshouses and stones on the Birkenhead dock road then?’
    ‘Fookin’ ’ell,’ Sid gasped, open-mouthed in awe at the vision in front of him. ‘You’re a big lass.’
    Hush liked to take his time putting his slap on so he could enjoy a packet of fags and a few bevvies as he teased and tortured the wigs till they matched his high standards.
    ‘I’m Sid, love,’ said Sid, taking a slurp of my pint of cider. ‘The bag in drag.’
    ‘And from what I hear you’d like me to do something with your make-up,’ Hush said, wincing at the amateur daub smeared over Sid’s face.
    ‘Oh, I wouldn’t dream of bothering you,’ Sid said, puttingthe toilet seat down quickly and sitting on it, holding his face up to the light in readiness. ‘But if you’ve got a second I wouldn’t mind a bit o’spit and polish. If you could try and do me up like Elkie Brooks I’d be right chuffed, lass. Folk say I’ve already got a bit of a look of her so you’ve got a head start.’
    More like Mel Brooks, I thought, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t know Sid well enough yet to indulge in a bit of bitchy but friendly banter.
    Sid was delighted with Hush’s ministrations. ‘Eeh, lass,’ he kept saying as he preened in the mirror with the enthusiasm of an excited budgie, ‘I look fookin’ lovely.’
    He certainly looked a lot better than when he first came in.
    ‘Here!’ he shouted suddenly. ‘What time is it? I best get down to that bar before he sends a search party out. You’re working the Keighley Fun House after here, aren’t you? Her from Coronation Street is on, i’n’t she?’
    She was indeed and I was very excited to be meeting Liz Dawn who played Vera Duckworth as I was a huge fan both of the Street and of the lady herself.
    ‘I might come down later,’ he said, taking one last glimpse in the mirror at his freshly unearthed loveliness. ‘If I hang on in here much longer I’ll