The Elephant to Hollywood - Michael Caine [123]
Doug was always as sharp as a needle, so it was a long while after the silent enemy of Alzheimer’s had made its permanent base in his brain that we noticed there was anything wrong – and it took a lot longer than that for us to accept it as a fact. Alzheimer’s is so slow that you have masses of time to pretend, hope or believe that it’s not happening, but it is unstoppable. Eventually he was diagnosed with the disease and we all started our long farewell as we watched him walk slowly away from us. Over a period of three years, one by one we waited for the time when he wouldn’t know who we were, and one by one our much-loved friend’s brain cut us out of his life, leaving us to watch him make that journey to his eventual lonely but welcome end. Like the others, I waited anxiously for the time when he wouldn’t recognise me and when it came it was quite a gentle blow – although a blow none the less. I had gone up to his apartment above the shop and Doug was watching television as usual. ‘Michael’s here,’ said Audie, his long-standing friend and assistant who knew him better than anyone else. Doug looked up from the TV and mumbled ‘Hello’, before going back to watching a programme he couldn’t understand. I stood there stunned as it sank in that he really was gone from my life forever. I waited until I knew I could speak steadily without crying and then I said in a very clear voice, ‘Goodbye, Doug.’ He didn’t even look up from the TV.
Doug died in 2008, quite some time after this meeting, but I could never bear to go and see him like that again. I spoke at his wonderful funeral in Mayfair and got the chance to say how much I loved him and to say a last quiet ‘Goodbye, Doug,’ as his coffin was carried past. He was a man we would never see the like of again. Hayward’s, Doug’s business, has survived – I still order suits from them – and I feel Doug’s continuing presence in the shop, which was sold but which Audie still runs with the same staff. But Doug’s death broke our hearts and for a while we didn’t want to visit our Mayfair haunts ever again.
The Mayfair Orphans are down, but we’re far from out: the group now comprises club owner Johnny Gold, photographer Terry O’Neill, composer Leslie Bricusse, Roger Moore, new recruit Michael Winner, tricologist Philip Kingsley, and me – and we make the most of our times together. We’ve lost Dennis and his wisdom, Theo and his press contacts, Mickie, our link with the world of rock and roll and constant source of free CDs and concert tickets, and Doug, our heart and soul, but we still have Philip, to save us all from going bald, Johnny, our permanent disco and social connection, Terry, our great official photographer, Roger, to lend us some respectability and Leslie who knows all there is to know about food and wine. Michael Winner is only an occasional Orphan as he travels constantly, but we’re glad to have him around when he turns up, battered and bruised, to recount the havoc he’s caused. He’s also the only one of us who is capable of being both nice and nasty, and he’s the only trained lawyer amongst us, so he’s an essential member of the group: if we want anyone or anything done, we send Michael. As for me, I am the joker and the most travelled, so I’m the storyteller. We haven’t done so badly.
I first met Terry O’Neill when he took my photograph. By the time we met he had already photographed the Queen in her palace at Sandringham and Frank Sinatra in his palace – the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, where he was surrounded by his version of palace guards – and we became firm friends. Terry frightened the life out of us with a bout of colon cancer a few years ago, but he recovered, thank God, and is working as hard as ever.
Leslie Bricusse is another Overseas Orphan like Roger Moore. He, too, has a villa on the French Riviera and he, too, is generous with it. Some of the best times of our year are spent there with him and his wife Evie. They have just celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, so there are no worries that we’ll lose out on another favourite holiday