Lemmy In London
When he was back at home Tom continued to disappear, out drinking on a pretty regular basis. There was no use arguing about it. It was never going to change, but I came up with a delightful scheme to get a bit of my own back (even if he didn’t know it) and it would be an adventure too!
I had been working with Commonwealth Opera for a few years now, costuming such opera and musical classics such as “Oliver,” “Gianni Schichi,” “Tosca,” and “The King and I”. We did an opera in the autumn and a musical in the spring. I decided to escape to London for a long weekend to see Motorhead, without telling Tom, immediately after the show closed. He was off drinking somewhere that night, as I expected, since he knew I was preoccupied with the work of costuming 45 people. I had booked a flight for that evening from Boston, and after the costumes were packed up and arrangements made to return them to where they’d been borrowed, I left the theater. I was “flying by the seat of my pants” having made no arrangements for accommodations, instead counting on something to work out when I got to London. The band always took care of me somehow, and I’m always up for a travel adventure anyway. I was excited about this secret plan, secret only to Tom. After all his lying it felt like the thing to do. I called Tom and said that I was going to meet with my sister because she was feeling down. Later, from the airport, I called and said I was going to spend the night with her at my mother’s house. Of course I was well aware that he would have no problem with this because then he was free to drink with his buddies with wild abandon. The “ole ball and chain” wouldn’t be asking where he was.
The next day I called him from the green room at the Hammersmith Apollo in London and said I went with my sister to Maine for a couple of days and I’d be back on my birthday, just a few days away.
“How about I take you out for dinner at Spoleto for your birthday?” he suggested. “Perfect” I said, knowing I’d be flying in that afternoon.
A few days in London was just what I needed considering how things were going lately with Tom. Seeing Lemmy was always the reason for going to see Motorhead. It had little to do with the music, though I had come to love Motorhead music and seeing them play. While in the green room before the show I’d been talking to a woman named Suzanne who’d also gone out with Lemmy when she was quite young. She asked me where I was staying, and when I said I’d made no plans, she invited me to stay at her flat on Charing Cross Road.
Together we went to the after show party at a swanky hotel in London’s West End. Lemmy sat at a table surrounded by a bevy of tall blond women who looked like clones of one another. When Suzanne and I were leaving I could only yell across the table over the sea of blond.
“I’m going now. I love you,” and he yelled back “Love you too”.
I told Suzanne of my never ending, unconditional love for Lemmy since I met him in 1968 and she kept urging me to go to his hotel the next day. I was feeling shy, afraid I might be bothering him knowing that in London he’d know lots of people, unlike when I’d visit him in the states, mostly in small towns where I’d be the only one visiting. Suzanne left a note on a lime green post-it before leaving for work that said “CALL HIM!!” in capital letters.
I took a deep breath, and did just that and he said invitingly “Sure, come on over”. So off to Kensington High Street I went, nervous, as I always was, on my way to see him. My mouth would go dry and I’d start to stutter the closer I came to him. In the elevator at the Royal Kensington Hotel, I turned to a man in the elevator with me and said “I’m here to see my first love. I can hardly breathe around him!” He just smiled.
Lemmy was lovely as always. I asked him what he thought of my hair. I had just cut it short and stopped dying it so it was very different from the long jet black hair I had for so long. I wore an ivory silk shirt and trousers with a soft leather coat, which accented the short hairstyle in my mind. A Katharine Hepburn look.
Never one to mince words, “Interesting choice”. was his only comment.
I told him I’d become very allergic to the hair dyes and I had resigned myself to letting it grow out in its natural color. I had no idea how much grey hair I might have, but I had no choice. He, on the other hand had committed to keeping his hair dyed till the end of his days.
Lemmy wanted to share with me his current favorite album “Fallen” by Evenescence. “This will break your heart Cyn” he said as we sat on the end of his bed and he played “My Immortal” on the little portable cd player provided by the hotel. We listened to the entire album in silence.
He signed my paperback copy of his autobiography that I just bought on Charing Cross Road that morning. He wrote” To Cyn, She’s smarter than she thinks, love Lem.”
I looked at it and said to him “She’s shorter than she thinks?” looking at him quizzically. “Smarter” he said sharply, and took the book from my hands to make his handwriting more legible! On my hardcover copy he wrote “To Cynthia, who knew me long before. Love Always, Lem”
I told him how nervous I was on the way to seeing him.
“Must be because it takes you back to your youth” he reasoned. “Aw Cyn” he said, “You can never go back”.
I said no more but I thought to myself “Well, I’m here in London with you again, so I’m not so sure of that”. But he was right. “He was alway right,” I thought with a sigh.
So, back I went back to my life, such as it was. As planned, I drove into Northampton just in time to meet Tom. We had a beautiful dinner and then he let me know that he didn’t have any money. I had to pay for my own birthday dinner and his, too. I kept the secret and he never suspected a thing, even when I gave him the T-shirt I bought for him in London that said: “Harley Davidson, England “ on it.
