The Elephant to Hollywood - Michael Caine [27]
Unfortunately there was one lesson I didn’t teach Terry, which is never to reveal a friend’s whereabouts. I was in bed one morning in Harley Street sleeping off a hangover when I was roughly shaken awake. Two big men in ill-fitting suits loomed over me. ‘Maurice Joseph Micklewhite?’ It had been a long time since anyone had called me that; it must be serious. ‘You are under arrest for the non-payment of maintenance to Patricia and Dominique Micklewhite.’ ‘How did you know where I was?’ I asked as they escorted me to Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court. ‘A Mr Stamp was very helpful,’ one of them replied enigmatically. If I got out of this mess, I vowed, Terry would be sorted out.
In fact, the policemen were surprisingly sympathetic. They could see I had no money, and they could see I was hungry and they treated me to a real English breakfast on the way. It was the best meal I’d had for months. When I got to the cells, however, reality struck. I was put in with a man who, I assumed, was a psychopath because he just sat staring at me intently until he was taken up to the court. All around me was the sound of nutters and drunks yelling and swearing and sobbing and occasionally letting rip with monumental farts. This was it, I said to myself. I am never, ever going to get myself in a situation like this again.
As I sat there, feeling sorry for myself, a warder shouted: ‘Who wants the last bit of cake?’ He was drowned out by the nutters and drunks all clamouring. I wasn’t going to demean myself further, so I just sat quietly and then I heard the warder outside my cell. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Didn’t I see you in Dixon of Dock Green the other night?’ ‘Yes,’ I said and waited for him to take the piss out of me for it. Instead he opened the little window and pushed a plate with the last slice of cake through it and went off without another word.
When I finally got to the courtroom, Pat and her lawyer were there. We had been divorced for some time by now and I hadn’t seen her for several years. She looked good – expensively dressed in a fur coat and impeccably made-up. I, on the other hand, looked terrible. It wasn’t just the hangover – my clothes were shabby and crumpled where I’d slept in them. But I had nothing to lose and as I looked round the court I realised that this was just another audience. Dixon of Dock Green had gone down well with the warders downstairs, so I launched into an impassioned plea to be allowed to go free so I could take up my (non-existent) part in the next episode. Most of those present were fans of the programme because I sensed a slight defrosting of the atmosphere and I warmed to my theme. I had only got through about half of my speech when I realised that the magistrate was shouting, ‘Shut up!’ It was the third time he’d tried to stop me. I paused for breath and he leapt in. ‘How much do you have in your pockets, young man?’ I turned them out: three pounds ten shillings. ‘Then that is what you shall pay each week in maintenance,’ he said. ‘And if I see you back here again for this offence, I will send you to prison.’ No chance, I thought. As I left the court I risked a smile at Pat. To my surprise, she smiled back. I only saw her a few times after that, with our daughter Dominique. We remained on friendly terms but eventually she disappeared from my life altogether and she died of cancer in 1977.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that court case in 1960 marked the lowest point of my life. Things could only get better – and they did. I began to pick up some more TV work and for the first time had a more or less steady income. Terence Stamp (I’d forgiven him for being so helpful to the police) and I moved out of Harley Street into a small mews house behind Harrods. Although work was coming in more steadily for both of us, Terry and I agreed that if one of us were ‘resting’ (that great actors’ euphemism), the other would cover the rent. It was a great location but a little on the cramped side – there was only one bedroom, which caused us a few