Read Online Woman in the Making: Panti's Memoir by Rory O'Neill - Free Book Online

was queer Rory and there was nocharacter arc for queer Rory. Queers weren’t expected to settle down with a nice woman, we weren’t expected to get steady, reliable jobs and raise steady, reliable kids. I wasn’t expected to be anyone’s godfather in case I burst into flames or to join the local Tidy Towns committee or volunteer to steward at the Community Games because I’d only make everyone else uncomfortable.
    All that was expected of me was to look nice and not kill anyone.
    For the rest of the summer I would turn up at gay clubs, wide-eyed with the possibilities, and this huge, magnificent creature would greet me with a squeal and encourage me to get into as much trouble as possible. The next morning, after dancing all night, kissing boys and ending up on the night bus, I’d turn up tired but grinning to my summer job as a waiter in a small fish restaurant on Drury Lane.
    The manager there was an outrageous English queen with long black hair that hung in a flatiron ponytail down his back. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge and perfect recall of classic camp movies. On quiet days and between servings he would entertain me (and himself) by acting out the plot and best scenes from his favourites. One day I might be working with Elizabeth Taylor in
Suddenly Last Summer
, shrieking, ‘They devoured him!’ or polishing spoons with Joan Crawford in
Johnny Guitar
, and the next I’m trying to set tables and keep up with the barbed remarks of
The Women
. Later, when I saw thesemovies, I’d often be disappointed because they had been so much better in his telling.
    Once a year he and his boyfriend would drag up to go to an annual party. Months beforehand the photo album of previous years was taken out and pored over before the movie reference was chosen for that year’s production. For weeks beforehand the costumes were being made, the accessories sorted and the makeup perfected, and for one night my fun, sweet restaurant manager was whatever immaculate and perfect screen goddess he wanted to be. It turned out that you could be from Croydon and still be Barbara Stanwyck.
    All that summer of 1989, at the end of the restaurant’s street, the Theatre Royal Drury Lane was a hive of activity as they prepared to open a brand new musical that autumn called
Miss Saigon
. Cast and crew would come in, and much of the talk was about technical difficulties they were having with a helicopter that was supposed to land spectacularly onstage during the show. And when the show finally opened the street was cordoned off and we closed the restaurant so we could stand behind the barriers and wait to see Princess Diana arrive. And when she stepped out of the car and waved, bird thin in diaphanous pale blue, the burst of camera flash was so intense and so bright the whole world was momentarily overexposed.
    That summer of fun changed everything for me, and when I stumbled back to Dublin, tired and gayer thanever, I was absolutely sure I didn’t want to be a graphic designer. It wouldn’t be fair on me
or
design. Instead, I was on a mission to find a new, more fabulous me and I would leave no sequin unturned – but I still had to get through that final year of college
and
I had to do it without being bored to death. So, after thinking about it for all of ten minutes, I decided to spend my final year designing a drag show. At first that didn’t go down too well with my college tutors, but after I’d assured them that I would include enough traditional design elements to pass muster (posters, set, costume, illustration …), they allowed it. I think they already knew I’d be no great loss to the design community.
    So, while my classmates did real work and prepared for careers as designers, I spent the time smoking cigarettes and trying to make a gown out of chicken wire and Copydex. I knew nothing about drag, nothing about making costumes, and nothing about making shows, but none of that stopped me. I
had
made plenty of puppets since I