The Devil Rides Out by Paul O'Grady Page B

got.
    Chris had the biggest LP collection of obscure movie soundtracks and musicals I’d ever seen, some of them extremely rare and worth a fortune. They were his pride and joy. He was very camp, tall and thin with a mop of frizzy hair that he occasionally ‘threw a rinse through’. His partner Billy was a small and officious Scot with the unsettling habit of flying off the handle at the slightest provocation. He’d furiously swish about the flat in a grubby kaftan with the Baby yowling at his feet, leaving a trail of French cigarette smoke in his wake. I usually went for a walk or over to the neighbours’ flat when Billy was throwing a hissy fit.
The neighbours had been a revelation. Chris had taken me across the street to meet them not long after I arrived. The door was opened by a tall friendly bloke who Chris greeted as Mrs Page.
    ‘Hello, dear, nice to meet you,’ he said, extending his hand and inviting me in. ‘Tony Page, singer, compère in or out of drag, available for bar mitzvahs, private functions and cock and hen, especially the cock, dear.’
    As he chivvied me down the narrow hall I noticed every coat peg on the wall had a wig of a different colour and size hanging from it. In a clear polythene bag on the peg nearest to the kitchen door a teased-out wig of frizzy grey hair rested on a polystyrene wig block that someone had drawn a face on. An image of a decapitated pensioner flashed across my mind.
    ‘We’ve got company, Alice,’ Mrs Page sang out as we entered the back room. ‘It’s Mrs Scott come to introduce her niece from the country.’
    Alice, all smiles, was standing in the middle of the room modelling a strapless cocktail gown that had seen one too many parties, the zip of which was undone at the back. ‘Hello, dear, I’m Alistair. I take it you’ve already met my mother?’ he said, nodding towards Tony Page.
    ‘New frock?’ Chris asked.
    Alistair blinked his enormous eyes and went into mock coquette mode, holding the dress close to him, his arms crossed coyly over the bust in case it fell down. ‘What, this tatty old rag?’ he simpered. ‘Just a little something I threw on.’
    ‘And missed,’ Tony snorted, dragging on a fag and coughing violently as he laughed at his own joke.
‘Those things are going to kill you one day,’ Alice snapped back, emulating my ma, ‘hopefully sooner than later. Now give the jaw a rest and let’s have another go at pulling this zip up.’
    Tony squinted and contorted as he attempted to pull up a zip on a dress being worn by a man at least three sizes bigger than its original owner. Alistair was optimistic though and kept up a running commentary concerning the dress’s origins, wincing in discomfort as Tony struggled.
    ‘Got it in a charity shop near Westbourne Grove … Pull it then, dear … Wanted a fiver, got it for three … Careful! Mind the flesh, you nearly had me fucking back off then, Mrs Page … I’ll wear it with that naff wig for “I Hate Men” … Uuugh. Come on, you’re nearly there, dear. Pull it hard.’ Chris went to give a hand and between them they miraculously got the zip to go up.
    ‘There you go, ladies,’ Alistair gasped, unable to breathe or move, ‘a perfect fit.’
    The dress was so tight that two fleshy rolls of his flabby chest oozed over the top of it. Alistair pushed them together so that they met in the middle and looked like a real cleavage.
    ‘Varda,’ he smiled proudly, holding his arms up and bending his knee in an Ethel Merman pose. ‘Look at the size of those balloons.’
    ‘If I were you I’d have a couple of panels put in that frock before you go on stage,’ Tony said, eyeing the bursting seams dubiously, ‘because if you don’t mind me saying, dear, and I know you won’t, there’s simply no way that delicate little zip is going to cope with the tonnage it’s expected to hold in.’
    ‘Go to work, dear, before they see sense and cancel you.’ Alistair grunted, admiring the enormous