I Am What I Am, John Barrowman [smart ebook reader .txt] 📗

the fresh air for an hour or two. After shopping in a few used bookstores, and stopping under the Bridge of Sighs – where, to be different, I laughed loudly – we then meandered aimlessly for a while, until we found ourselves deep in the heart of the medieval part of the city. I couldn’t help myself. I ducked into a private courtyard at Exeter College, where I dashed onto the pristine lawn, threw my arms into the air and burst into song.

‘The hills are alive –’

Carole cut me off. ‘Sssh! Listen. Can you hear that?’

It wasn’t an order of nuns calling from over the hill. It was a college choir rehearsing Handel’s Messiah. For a beat, I thought this was part of the Oxford tourist experience and that pretty soon I’d see a riot of robed graduates, preferably hot and male, swooping across the courtyard, or Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews climbing from a second-floor window carrying bottles of champagne.4

I snuck into the chapel with Carole close behind me, and we stood at the rear of the building and listened to the choir rehearse for a few minutes. They sounded amazing, but once one or two of them began to recognize who was watching from the back, I became a distraction, and so I left. Plus, I was bored. We’d been wandering for close to an hour now and the only things I’d bought were a couple of posters and a pack of Post-it Notes for Carole that said: ‘I’m the Queen of Fucking Everything.’5

Before heading back to the centre of town and returning to the bookstore, Carole insisted6 that I take a picture of her in front of the historic Radcliffe Library. Of course, asking me to take a quick snapshot is like asking Cole Porter to hum only a few bars, or Madonna not to call attention to herself, or Jensen Button to drive under the speed limit.

I suggested three scholarly positions for the picture.7 The first was a typical pose, as in Rodin’s The Thinker; the second a more reverential one, as in gazing up at the library in awe; and the third a traditional Barrowman pose, as in dropping your trousers and mooning. Carole’s no fun and she refused to flash her bum outside the Radcliffe Library, so I had to settle for a lame number-two pose.

Not surprisingly, the process of picture-taking took a while, and involved a lot of laughter and general silliness. I’d just snapped some shots when this sturdily built woman in tweeds, brogues and a bad perm marched up to us, a book bag over her shoulder and a bicycle by her side. She didn’t even wait to chain up her bike. She started to berate us immediately.

‘You people can’t go in there. This is a private library. Move along.’

I handed Carole the camera. ‘Excuse me?’ I said calmly. ‘What “people” would that be, exactly?’

I’m not sure what I expected her to say. You tourists? You famous people? You siblings? Oh, it was none of the above.

‘You, you Americans,’ she blustered, ‘are everywhere and you don’t seem to respect the privacy of our historic institutions.’

Well, that was all I needed.

‘Listen to me, you auld woman,8 if it wasn’t for a few brave Americans, this place might be run by Nazis and you’d be reading a few lines scribbled on toilet paper instead of yer books.’

I was just warming up, but luckily Carole was watching the time and pulled me away. We had to get back to the bookstore.

The woman’s mouth had dropped open and it stayed open. She stared at us for the longest time as we walked off across the courtyard and back out into the main streets.

‘Why is that woman still watching us?’

‘Maybe she recognized you?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Before Carole could come up with the answer, I knew why. Because I was hanging out with my sister, I had let the ‘auld woman’ have a tongue-lashing in my Scottish accent, and I had completely upset her perceptions. We looked like Americans to her, I guess, but we sounded like we were Scottish.9

When we finally made it back to the square of shops across from the bookstore, I realized I’d made a bit of a tactical blunder. By now, it was mid afternoon and the streets were filling up with schoolchildren. One, and then two, and then three and then more began to recognize me. When I counted a posse of seven of them following close at our heels, I stopped, turned and faced them, raising my umbrella out in front as if it were my lightsaber.10

‘I feel a tremor in the Force.’

The boys behind us were as into the whole lightsaber routine as I was, and pretty soon the crowd had grown considerably and we were all brandishing pointy things at each other.

‘Run!’ I yelled to Carole, who by this time was laughing so hard she could barely keep up.

We sprinted across the street and into the bookstore, with the Stormtroopers fast on our tails. I rushed us upstairs, spotted the back of a big cardboard display, and darted in front of it to block the view from the stairs as our enemy closed in on us.

After we’d caught our breath and stopped laughing, I turned to see what we were hiding behind.

‘We are so busted,’ I laughed.

It must have been instinctive, a different kind of force that drew me to this hiding place.

I had ducked under the protection of a giant cardboard display of the TARDIS.

CHAPTER THREE

‘WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?’

★

‘Since we’re telling stories, there’s something I haven’t told you.’

Captain Jack Harkness ‘The Sound of Drums’, Doctor Who

Twelve things I admire most about Captain Jack Harkness

1 His loyalty to his friends.

2 His friends.

3 His bravery.

4 His coat (I own an original bought from BBC wardrobe1).

5 His unwavering humanity, despite all he’s witnessed.

6 His ability to find humour (and aliens) in almost every situation (me too – except for the aliens).

7 His bold and honest sexuality.

8 His