Mick Jagger. Philip Norman

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СКАЧАТЬ S: ‘We phoned you up’

       J: ‘Yes, I hope you don’t mind us coming round here like this, you remember we phoned you up about that party.’

       M: ‘Yes, I remember’

       J: ‘Well, we went to it & then went to another one over at Blackheath – the second one was at Blackheath, wasn’t it?’

       S: ‘Yes’

       J: ‘Anyway, we landed up at Hampstead station this morning & we knew you lived round this way so we thought we’d pop in. I hope you don’t mind. I s’pose it’s a bit of a cheek really but it’s typical of us, we’re always doing mad things.’

       M: ‘How did you know my address?’

       J: ‘Oh we’ve known it for ages. I’ve forgotten who gave it to us.’

       S: ‘Which is your bell, you haven’t got your name on it.’

       M: (evading question) ‘Oh, we always put different funny names on it.’

       J: ‘I think you thought we were Bridget before, you know, about the long skirts.’

       M: ‘Oh, I knew you weren’t Bridget – I thought you might be some of her friends. Someone sent me 2 dolls the other day, with long skirts on – very nice. I appreciated it.’

      Crosses over to mirror having got up from sitting on stairs.

      ‘I must look awful, haven’t shaved or anything. A bloke came to see me once & took a picture of me like this.’

      Arranges hair.

       ‘Sent them to me afterwards. I looked terrible – it was the flash.’

       J: ‘I’d kill anyone if they did that to me.’

       M: ‘Oh, we’ve got to go away again soon.’

       S: ‘Where to?’

       M: ‘Oh, Sunbury or some stupid place like that. We’re playing at Greenford tonight.’

      Comes over to us.

       ‘Gosh, aren’t I small? Why aren’t you at work or anything.’

       J: ‘Oh we got the day off, hadn’t got much to do. Where’s Keith, is he upstairs?’

       M: ‘Yes, he’s, uh, busy’ (laughs)

      Phone rings

       ‘Excuse me.’

      Answers it.

       ‘Hallo, hallo, hallo – press Button A – git. Hallo, who’s there?’

      Puts it down

       M: ‘You were saying?’

       J & S: Inordinate mumbles

       M: ‘I thought you were the bloke coming to see me s’morning about some script.’

       J: ‘Oh, is that for the Rice Krispies advertisement?’

       M: ‘No, but how did you know about that?’

       J: ‘Oh we were there when that bloke asked you.’

       S: ‘We were in your dressing room at Wimbledon.’

       J: ‘Yes, it was Brian that wanted to do it, wasn’t it?!’

      No answer. Various other topics of conversation, then

       M: ‘What’s the time?’

       J: ‘Twenty past twelve.’

       M: ‘Oh, he’ll be here soon. I’ve got to go & have a bath & get some clothes on. I’d invite you up but it’s a bit awkward – you do understand.’

      Giggles

       J & S: ‘Yes, we understand.’

       M: ‘And I’ve only got a little room to myself. Can’t very well invite you in there, people might get ideas.’

       J & S: ‘Uh . . . yea.’

      Shows us the door

       M: ‘Oh well, give us a ring sometime, when we’re at a theatre or dance hall & come and see us.’ Mumble Mumble ‘Come into the dressing room. Cheerio.’

       J & S: ‘Cheerio.’

      Exit

      Door slams shut.

      We trail around Willesden miserably – we return to Wimbledon & make dinner at around 3.30. We feel choked up & a bit silly.

      GOING OUT WITH Jean Shrimpton’s younger sister was not Mick’s automatic passport into the upper echelons of Swinging London. Jean had always done her best to keep Chrissie at arm’s length and, besides, was still far from certain about the ‘ugly’ young man who sometimes decorously occupied her bed at her parents’ home in Buckinghamshire while she was away. Far more important to Mick’s initial social rise was David Bailey, the East End photographer who had put Jean into Vogue, made them both international celebrities and was now going out with her. Bailey, indeed, was to become a friend outlasting the era of both Shrimpton sisters; perhaps his closest ever outside music.

      When the two first met, they could not have been much more unequal, one a nineteen-year-old LSE student, the other five years older and at a seemingly unsurpassable peak of celebrity. Mick was frankly awestruck by the glamour and sophistication of Bailey’s lifestyle – the Lotus Elan sports cars, mews studios and cowboy boots he had made a photographer’s essential accessories in place of potted palms, black cloths and ‘watch the birdie!’ Of no small influence either was the delighted frisson Bailey’s unreformed (and totally genuine) Cockney accent created among the debs and high-born female magazine editors who lionised him. Such was Mick’s admiration that he even allowed Bailey to tease him, as few others dared to do openly, about his appearance. When Eva Jagger took him shopping as a boy, Bailey used to joke, there would have been no problem about going into places where small children weren’t welcome. She could leave him outside, securely clamped to the shop window by his lips.

      Early in their friendship, rather like Pip with Herbert Pocket in Dickens’s Great Expectations, Mick asked Bailey to take him to a posh restaurant and teach him how to conduct himself. They went to the Casserole on King’s Road, not far from the World’s End village where three hard-up Stones СКАЧАТЬ