Read Online The Devil Rides Out by Paul O'Grady - Free Book Online Page B

said, ‘ Comedy, mime drag. Not to be missed! ’
    There were lots of photographs of drag queens pinned to the wall of the bar, the majority of them sporting enormous wigs and huge eyelashes. A few were dressed in corsets and negligees trying to look like fifties sex kittens, candyfloss wigs, one leg in front of the other, knee slightly bent, heavily painted lips pouting as if blowing a kiss at the camera. An act called Derek Reece was even dressed as a pregnant bride.
    My attention was diverted by the arrival of a woman behind the bar. I was transfixed by this glamorous creature in an elegant full-length, low-cut black velvet gown dispensing drinks and holding court. She was extraordinary, her features chiselled and hard yet not unattractive, her movements slow and deliberate as she daintily poured a gin into a glass from one of the optics.
    ‘Ice and a slice, love?’ She weighed me up from behind a heavy blonde fringe as she popped an ice cube into the drink. ‘Are you waiting to be served,’ she asked in a husky voice, ‘or are you just gonna stand there gawping at my tits all night?’
My face slowly turned scarlet as I realized that I’d been staring at her chest. It was hard not to, they were hanging out of the top of her dress. I muttered my order.
    ‘You one of the act’s bit of trade?’ she asked casually, pulling a pint of lager. ‘How far do you go for a quid then?’
    I wanted the floor to open up as she took the money Alistair had given me out of my hand and glided off towards the till laughing.
    ‘Who’s that woman behind the bar?’ I asked Phil, taking the drinks behind the curtain and trying to find somewhere to put them in the cramped space.
    ‘What woman’s that then, love?’ Phil asked in his strong Welsh accent, quickly moving a ratty-looking feather boa before I spilled the drinks on it.
    ‘The blonde one behind the bar in the long black frock.’
    ‘You mean Shane?’ Alistair pulled the curtain back so he could take a look. ‘She’s not a woman,’ he laughed, ‘Shane’s a drag queen.’
    ‘But she’s got tits and real hair, and she’s hardly got any make-up on,’ I protested.
    ‘The tits are taped up but the hair’s her own. She pins it up and backcombs it,’ Alistair said, laughing at my ignorance. ‘Didn’t you twig that she was drag? Honestly, Sadie, open your eyes, dear. This is London, you’re not in Berkhamsted now.’
    ‘Birkenhead.’
    ‘If you say so, dear.’
    I hadn’t had a lot of experience when it came to drag queens. The first time I ever saw a man in a frock was on the Royal Variety Performance , when I must have been about eleven.
    ‘Paul, leave your homework for a minute and come down here and have a look at this on the telly,’ my mother shouted up the stairs to me. She was ironing pillowcases in the front room. ‘What do you think of her then?’ she asked, pointing to a voluptuous woman on the screen with lots of hair and a very fancy dress. I leaned on the ironing board and watched her for a moment. She had a strange voice and was flamboyant, painted up like one of the elegant mannequins in Robbs’ windows.
‘Is it Fanny Cradock?’
    ‘Of course it’s not. Have a good look. Can’t you tell what’s different about her?’
    ‘She’s very tall?’
    ‘No, soft lad, she’s not a she, she’s a he. He’s called Danny La Rue. He’s a man! And stop picking that asbestos at the end of me ironing board, will you.’
    I remember wondering if he dressed like that all the time, and if so, did people mind? How did he do his shopping? I couldn’t imagine him running around Birkenhead dressed like that or anywhere else for that matter.
    I’d since run into trannies in Sadie’s and the Bear’s Paw. There was a six-foot-six heterosexual builder by trade who called himself Carol and liked to drink in Sadie’s dressed in the tiniest of miniskirts and the highest of heels. Carol was not the prettiest girl in the chorus. She was built like a