Free The Devil Rides Out by Paul O'Grady

brick shithouse, thick neck with an Adam’s apple the size of a King Edward potato and a masculine face, cowpat craggy, that made Ernest Borgnine look cute. When this was covered with a thick application of greasy cosmetics it could be quite startling to the uninitiated.
    Despite her intimidating appearance we treated Carol like a lady. It wasn’t just the knowledge that a punch from one of her Desperate Dan-sized fists might put you in hospital that stopped you tittering in her face, it was her quiet dignity and almost regal composure that commanded respect and consequently we treated her with the reverence she deserved. Even so, I was still a comparative neophyte when it came to the world of cross-dressing but I was learning fast.
‘Wait till I tell her you thought she was a real palone,’ Phil chuckled, violently shaking out an Afro wig before putting it on his head. He bent down to get a better look in the minuscule mirror propped up against the piano, an instrument recently made redundant by the arrival of the Bontempi organ that now proudly sat on the other side of the curtain.
    ‘She’ll be delighted, absolutely bloody delighted,’ he said, tucking his hair into the sides of the wig. ‘Now do us a favour, love, get lost and leave us to get changed, will you? We’re on soon.’
    Shane was indeed absolutely delighted on hearing that I thought she was the real McCoy, and consequently made frequent use of me during her opening act by gently sending me up.
    I stood rooted to the spot, a fixed grin on my burning face, wishing I were somewhere else. Shane didn’t have a bad singing voice. She seemed to prefer ballads and torch songs to up-tempo numbers, probably seeing herself more as a sophisticated chanteuse than a raucous pub drag act. She reminded me of the Gladys George character in the movie The Roaring Twenties and both terrified and fascinated me at the same time.
    Eventually she finished her spot with a dramatic Shirley Bassey ballad that had the devotees in the audience cheering the roof off and, satisfied that she had the crowd warmed up sufficiently, she introduced the Harlequeens. They opened with the tarts routine. Alistair was the battered old bag with a fag hanging from her mouth wearing a short plastic mac and tatty wig and miming along to Marlene Dietrich’s ‘Lili Marlene’, while Phil played the lip-smacking, sly-eyed sexy little scrubber. They were very funny. Alistair galumphed around the tiny stage to Joyce Grenfell’s ‘Stately As A Galleon’ while Phil, dressed in a bonnet and romper suit, mimed to Helen Kane’s ‘I Wanna Be Loved By You’ sung in her poop-doop-a-doop baby voice.
Reality was temporarily suspended. For a time I forgot that the precocious brat on stage was in reality the grown man I’d been speaking to a moment earlier. There was more to this than just standing there miming to records, I reasoned, as I watched them both at work. You had to act the number out, make the audience believe that the disembodied voice you were mouthing along to was really your own.
    By the time Alistair dropped me off back at Formosa Street it was past midnight. I helped him unpack the wigs, costumes and equipment and carry them into the flat.
    ‘I’ll have to go for a slash, Sadie, I’m burstin’,’ he shouted, making a dash for the lav. ‘Put those wigs on the hooks in the hall, will you.’
    I looked at the blond crash helmet of a wig that I was holding and felt an overwhelming urge to put it on. I couldn’t resist wigs and still can’t, if I see one it has to go on my head. Alistair was audible through the wall, groaning with relief as he peed. It sounded like it was going to be a long one so I was safe for the moment. Going to the mirror and gazing at my reflection, I was amazed to see how different a wig could make you appear. Tugging the fringe down further so it just sat over one eye, I pulled the same face that my aunty Chris called her Marlene Dietrich, letting my fag