Glorious Gloria

Shattered, after paying a birthday visit to my favourite septuagenarian stripper, Gloria, who I met four years ago in a late night drinking hole in Camden. Once a child star, her latest venture is Hollywood look-alikes, including Marilyn Monroe, Dolly Parton, Pamela Anderson and Caprice, which is not an easy thing to pull off at seventy-three. She lives just off the North Circular, together with several dozen Barbie dolls and various large stuffed toys.

I ring the bell. She comes to the door in her usual outfit of hotpants and housecoat.

‘How marvellous to see you, my darling! You’re so exquisite, it’s not normal! I couldn’t leave the house like that, without a scrap of make-up. They’d take me in for questioning!’

I blush lightly and hand over her present, a dozen red roses and a copy of Vogue. Gloria is thrilled. She leads me into the kitchen.

‘I’ve got a card for you too. But I haven’t written in it yet. I thought it might be nice to do it together. You could tell me what to put.’

‘Lovely,’ I say.

I sit at the table and she perches on a small stepladder. She has made me dinner, vegetarian spaghetti Bolognese, followed by jelly and ice-cream, washed down with Nescafe coffee.

‘I’m so pleased you don’t eat meat either,’ says Gloria. ‘We’re so alike.’

‘?’

‘We don’t eat meat, or drink, or smoke, or take drugs, or sleep around, do we?’

She gives me an enormous wink.

‘Well, not any more….’

I keep quiet and munch on my spaghetti, which is somewhat beyond al dente, whilst she tells me stories of her husband, Harry and her lover, Joe.

‘Problem was, babe, they were both a bit boring, God rest their souls. Joe went on about boats all the time and Harry could only talk about taxis and chiropody. Men! But what can you do? They didn’t want me for my conversation. But you know, they were wrong. I didn’t just do the modelling and what not. I did classical too, you know.’

‘Really?’

‘Lady Godiva, in Stratford. I had a horse, and everything!’

‘Stratford-upon-Avon,’ I ask, trying to imagine Gloria at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

‘Durr! No, silly, in the East End. It was some sort of festival thing. I wore a wig of course. Anyway, I’m going off on a tandem again.’

I go to the toilet, trying not to giggle at the thought of Gloria on a bicycle made for two. When I come back she is looking at the pictures in Vogue through a magnifying glass and tutting to herself.

‘All this size zero nonsense. We’re never going to look like that, thank god, you and me. Of course, they all have that procedure, you know, that cleans you out, like Diana.’

One of the problems with Gloria is that she talks about celebrities in the same way as she talks about her friends. Luckily, I’ve known her long enough to understand.

‘Colonic irrigation?’

‘Yes. Didn’t do her any good in the end though, did it, poor thing, even if she was a princess. Shocking.’

There is a small pause, whilst she looks off into the distance, misty-eyed.

‘Speaking of which, I’ve got something for you. Come upstairs.’

I follow her to her bedroom. 15 polystyrene heads, each with wig and full make-up are staring at me.

‘Have a seat, babe, ’ Gloria says, flicking a switch. A picture of a Mexican desert scene lights up so that stars appear to be twinkling in the sky.

I sit on the edge of the bed whilst she rummages through some bin bags, finally pulling out a leopard print top with a plunging neckline.

‘I thought of you as soon as I saw it!’ she says. ‘Try it on.’

I know from past experience that it’s easier just to say yes. I take off my t-shirt and replace it with the top. Gloria is delighted.

‘I knew it would suit you!’ she shouts, clapping her hands. ‘I’ve got to have a Polaroid of that.’

She takes a picture and holds it under a lamp until it develops.

‘Hmm, you need to be holding something,’’ she says, critically. She puts a toy gorilla in my lap. I hang onto it for dear life while she takes another photo. This time she’s ecstatic with the result.

‘Know what?’ she says. ‘If only you were wearing a fur bikini you’d look just like that girl, you know, in that film with that monkey.’

I think hard. ‘Er, you mean Fay Wray? In King Kong?’

‘That’s it! That’s exactly it.’

‘Nobody’s ever told me that before,’ I say truthfully.