temper!” Mother exclaimed.
Dennis Hopper was out of his gourd on an array of pharmaceuticals for most of the shoot, which led to numerous violent outbursts, and an erratic, often glazed acting performance. It wouldn’t matter in the end because all the film stock was seized by the Spanish censors and banned for being obscene. Originally called Las Flores del Vicio , it found its way to drive-ins and video in the late seventies under thetitle Bloodbath and feels like a loopy cross between Buñuel and Hammer horror.
Soon after Mother’s return to London, bombs started going off again all over the city courtesy of Fergus’s old pals, the IRA. It was the third year of their campaign, but Mother was riding high off the hype surrounding the movie and not paying that much attention to anything but her lunch dates at San Lorenzo, or her latest fling. She had never taken the bombing seriously, so neither did we. Robin and I treated it like a game: we’d hear a bomb go off, run down to the local fish-and-chip shop for sustenance, and hop on the bus or into a taxi to look for the blast site.
This all seemed perfectly normal to me and good fun. It was like an episode of Mission: Impossible where I was Barbara Bain sitting in the back of the car twisting the window handles, pretending it was a safe that I had to open before we reached the target, and Robbie was Lesley Ann Warren secretly talking to headquarters through her Bonne Bell Lip Smacker.
When two separate bomb scares were phoned in to my school, the building had to be evacuated, but I didn’t worry—none of us did. For a bunch of American kids who’d been carted from Cambodia to Syria to Venezuela, it was kind of like a snow day. We just went to the pub.
One morning we were sitting at breakfast with Mother in our little kitchen, which looked out on a lovely rose garden, the back wall of which abutted our tube station, Sloane Square. She was perusing a map of Devon and drinking tea.
“Tristan wants to take us down to Torquay this weekend.” Tristan was her current squeeze—a real toff Englishman who was so upper class Robin and I couldn’t understand a word he said. He’d open his mouth and what came out sounded like “Faw faw faw faw.” He wore a bowler and carried an umbrella and seemed fairly harmless. Mother was also seeing a married TV actor ten years her junior named Terrence, but, understandably, only part-time.
“Are we staying in a hotel?” asked Robbie as she bit savagely into her sausage.
“Mmmm. It’s called the English Riviera, Torquay.”
“The beach. That sounds fun.”
I eyed Robbie for talking with her mouth full.
“Isn’t it time for you girls to go to school?” Mother was tracing the map with her finger. Suddenly we heard this incredibly loud sound—like a gigantic tin can bursting from the pressure inside. We turned to look out the window. From behind the back wall of our garden a huge fountain of orange flame shot up into the air. It vanished almost instantly, and black smoke started churning up into the sky. I heard loud shouts and a woman screamed. Robbie’s sausage-filled mouth hung open, and Mother’s teacup clattered onto its saucer. As we watched pieces of rock and shards of twisted metal fall into the garden and land on the grass in steaming lumps, Mother lit up a Dunhill. Her hands were shaking.
“Perhaps I should drive you two to school today,” she said softly.
That September a bomb went off in the lobby of the London Hilton, where Mother’s chum Mary Broomfield worked. Poor Mary was blown across the room, but the tourist she had been talking to was killed, and all that was left of her desk was a small briquette of charred wood. The explosion caused Mary to go deaf for a few days, and Mother put her in our guest room while she recovered. We brought her cups of tea and industrial-size scotches, both of which she lapped up happily. Even after her horrible ordeal, she remained cheerful, exhibiting true British
Dennis Hopper was out of his gourd on an array of pharmaceuticals for most of the shoot, which led to numerous violent outbursts, and an erratic, often glazed acting performance. It wouldn’t matter in the end because all the film stock was seized by the Spanish censors and banned for being obscene. Originally called Las Flores del Vicio , it found its way to drive-ins and video in the late seventies under thetitle Bloodbath and feels like a loopy cross between Buñuel and Hammer horror.
Soon after Mother’s return to London, bombs started going off again all over the city courtesy of Fergus’s old pals, the IRA. It was the third year of their campaign, but Mother was riding high off the hype surrounding the movie and not paying that much attention to anything but her lunch dates at San Lorenzo, or her latest fling. She had never taken the bombing seriously, so neither did we. Robin and I treated it like a game: we’d hear a bomb go off, run down to the local fish-and-chip shop for sustenance, and hop on the bus or into a taxi to look for the blast site.
This all seemed perfectly normal to me and good fun. It was like an episode of Mission: Impossible where I was Barbara Bain sitting in the back of the car twisting the window handles, pretending it was a safe that I had to open before we reached the target, and Robbie was Lesley Ann Warren secretly talking to headquarters through her Bonne Bell Lip Smacker.
When two separate bomb scares were phoned in to my school, the building had to be evacuated, but I didn’t worry—none of us did. For a bunch of American kids who’d been carted from Cambodia to Syria to Venezuela, it was kind of like a snow day. We just went to the pub.
One morning we were sitting at breakfast with Mother in our little kitchen, which looked out on a lovely rose garden, the back wall of which abutted our tube station, Sloane Square. She was perusing a map of Devon and drinking tea.
“Tristan wants to take us down to Torquay this weekend.” Tristan was her current squeeze—a real toff Englishman who was so upper class Robin and I couldn’t understand a word he said. He’d open his mouth and what came out sounded like “Faw faw faw faw.” He wore a bowler and carried an umbrella and seemed fairly harmless. Mother was also seeing a married TV actor ten years her junior named Terrence, but, understandably, only part-time.
“Are we staying in a hotel?” asked Robbie as she bit savagely into her sausage.
“Mmmm. It’s called the English Riviera, Torquay.”
“The beach. That sounds fun.”
I eyed Robbie for talking with her mouth full.
“Isn’t it time for you girls to go to school?” Mother was tracing the map with her finger. Suddenly we heard this incredibly loud sound—like a gigantic tin can bursting from the pressure inside. We turned to look out the window. From behind the back wall of our garden a huge fountain of orange flame shot up into the air. It vanished almost instantly, and black smoke started churning up into the sky. I heard loud shouts and a woman screamed. Robbie’s sausage-filled mouth hung open, and Mother’s teacup clattered onto its saucer. As we watched pieces of rock and shards of twisted metal fall into the garden and land on the grass in steaming lumps, Mother lit up a Dunhill. Her hands were shaking.
“Perhaps I should drive you two to school today,” she said softly.
That September a bomb went off in the lobby of the London Hilton, where Mother’s chum Mary Broomfield worked. Poor Mary was blown across the room, but the tourist she had been talking to was killed, and all that was left of her desk was a small briquette of charred wood. The explosion caused Mary to go deaf for a few days, and Mother put her in our guest room while she recovered. We brought her cups of tea and industrial-size scotches, both of which she lapped up happily. Even after her horrible ordeal, she remained cheerful, exhibiting true British
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