Out of a Misty Dream

By James Gregson

Autobiography of my time living abroad and growing up with fame to the present day,

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781626758032

Book preview

Roses,'

Preface.

I once had a dream about dad and the family in my teens. He was a famous actor in the forties and fifties and is still Prime Time today. True stars never fade. There's too much to say about the guy and it would require a seperate novel. He was John Gregson and was in all of the old war films and comedy blockbusters of the time, as well as all the Ealing stuff, T.V and the West End. His most famous film was ofcourse Genevieve with Dinah Sheridan, Kay Kendall and Kenneth Moore, the comedy classic about the vintage car race to Brighton, the one that made them all stars. This is the one everyone knows. No-one had a bad word to say about him and everybody loved him. But as I say to write about dad would require a novel in itself, and is not really why I wrote this particular work, which is meant as a kind of autobiography, in which I seem to have lived several different lives in one! In the dream we were all sat around one of the tables in the School Diner, dad, the girls and I, with the waitress standing by ready to take our order. This was before dad died. She was scribbling down our order as dad gave it to her and as she did so, she cried a single teardrop of blood. The significance of this was that the order was to do with all of our futures, and then dad died and our world fell apart. I've never forgotten that dream. We grew up in an old mansion house on a creek by the river Thames.......

Creek House,

Shepperton, Surrey,

Early '70's

JOHNNIE

Out through the open French Windows, into the balmy English sun, steps Johnny, with his arms crossed, wearing a mischievous expression, directed immediateley ahead of him. Without looking at me, he asks me look at his eyes, the small pupils. I've just come down from an acid trip, he tells me, and walks back into the house.

I turn to look at the creek, enjoying the sun on my shoulders, the pleasant surroundings of our big, luxurious English garden with the giant fir tree as tall as the house. Back indoors, some of the family are rushing excitedly through the porch into the hall; Mary knocks a bike over, Tango the Golden Retriever barks madly away from behind the sliding glass doors, and all but knocks us over as they slide back with a dull roar. Ahead of me, the kitchen door slams twice as the girls go in, and I stroll in afterwards and sit across from Johnny. Hi, he say's, smoking away. Two sophisticated looking society women are with him, smoking also and looking abstractedly around....

2.

Down the road beyond Shauna's house, are the corner shop, the village church and the three old pubs that make up The Square, behind which is the River Thames, the Manor House and the Island opposite. Also the Yacht Club and further down river, at the bottom of Dockett Eddy Lane, the Wier. From the garden the other side of the wall at the back of one of these pubs, The King's Head, with the assorted sounds of drunken abandon floating upon the still, Christmas evening, a party's going on at Julian's house next door, and it is to this house I am making, down the moonlit patio'd path that leads to his back door under their trellised archway, later that evening. Through the door on the left of the kitchen and I'm greeted by a kind of lazy abandonment in a dreamy half-light. As I'm sitting between Laura and Elaine from South Africa, the 'Society Women,' who were with Johnny the other day, Julian Paltenghi opens a door to the side, laughing childishly as he trips on a footstool. Shit, he say's in passing, dropping ash on the carpet. From a portable stereo, a familiar refrain colours the atmosphere with the supernatural: President Joe, once had a dream..... weaving a dark circle. Elaine offers me some red wine. He frightens me, Jim, and I turn and see Johnny in the corner, on a stool against the wall, his hands working together in the air, holding an imaginary conversation with a figure in the middle of the room....

BLUE AND HELEN

I breeze into Shauna's dining room wearing an afghan coat and tie-dye. Like our house, this is also a medium-sized mansion, just on one level and better kept, it's sense of opulence reflected in the gleaming oak table, with it's silver candlestick holders and red roses, silky white wallpaper and silver framed impressionist watercolours. Shauna steps out of a passage on the left, blue jeans on, hands in pockets, dishevelled black hair. Jim, hi, come in and have a drink, I was just going for some ice. Entering the lounge, a plume of smoke funnels up from the sofa, as a figure in tight jeans and a T-shirt flicks the end of his cigarette, the ash just catching the ashtray, then laughs at the TV screen in a grate just touching tenor, while his right hand scratches his thigh. His face, unshaved with shoulder length, wavy brown hair and piercing blue eyes, gapes a cheerful smile to me before he say's 'allo Jim, as he changes channels on the TV and turns it down. Santana are playing on the stereo. Hi, Blue. I walk over to the drinks cabinet and take out the whisky bottle. The door opens and Shauna re-enters, followed by Helen, Blue's girl, fluffy aubern hair to her breasts, bare feet and bangles, draped in an ankle-length, violet cotton dress, coughing from a cigarrette, breaking into hi Jim, between coughs. Hello Helen. Shauna is at my side with a bowl of ice she is gazing into. Excuse me, she says. Sorry, I reply, stepping back.

4.

Helen's slim frame falls parallel to Blue on the sofa, as she puts her arms around his neck and whispers into his ear. Shauna sniffs. How's John? Well as ever - has Blue got? Yeah, we're going over there in a minute.

I sit on the chaise at the back of the lounge, next to the open French Windows, the river and the dark garden. Credits are rolling on the TV screen. Blue and Helen are standing, holding hands. Hmm? Come on, says Helen, nodding at the door, and we walk out, back through the dining room and out the front door, to the caravan on the other side of the gravelled courtyard, now covered in snow. Inside, there are just a couple of places to sit, so leaving the bed to Blue and Helen, I sit on the bench across from Shauna, as she leans back against the stove, smoking abstractedly and looking around. Blue hands me a small package, wrapped in Christmas paper, as he comments gave you a little bit more than a quarter, there, Jim, and I hand him a five pound note. Helen finishes rolling a joint. Shauna tells us, in her cool manner as she exhales, that she's just joined a Socialist group in London. We have some influence in Government, she tells us, we raise issues. Right now we're campaigning against Tetley Tea, for using cheap labour in Ceylon. That's the kind of thing we do. Then to me: Come to one of our meetings next week O.K?, passing me the details on a scrap of paper as she stubs out her cigarette...

5.

'Scuse me, Shauna, says Blue, crouching in front of her. He starts rummaging through cupboards. Hendrix is playing. Helen passes me the joint and asks me if I like the music, as Blue pulls out a hubbly bubbly, placing it on the kitchen counter, now unwrapping newspaper. Shauna peers over his shoulder at the black, muddy looking substance, as he mixes the opium with some tobacco. Jim, breaks in Helen, sitting cross-legged on the bed, a cigarette a few inches from her mouth, looking at objects around her as she speaks. "I have a freind who'se really into Hendrix, yeah? but he's such