All language subtitles for Queers.s01e05.1080p.BluRay.x264-SHORTBREHD

This programme contains
some strong language.

♪ They seek him here

♪ They seek him there

♪ His clothes are loud
but never square... ♪

I love sherry because it's just
a little bit too strong.

I like a small glass, first thing,

just so I can feel my heart
in my chest.

Sip, sip, sip, like an old dowager,

which suits me now I'm respectable.

But we'll come back to that.

♪ He thinks he is a flower
to be looked at

♪ But when he pulls his
frilly nylon panties right up tight

♪ He is a dedicated follower
of fashion. ♪

I love this one.

Bona! Fantabulosa!

Oh, yes, dear. Please and thank you.

Dry sherry. None of your Harveys
Bristol.

Look at all these bright young
things.

Enough to make your head spin.

They're beautiful,
like kittens in a shop

window gambolling and
pushing each other about.

Oh, I could eat them all.

I might, at that.

Me with my handsome face all lined
and my hair all grey.

I call it "distinguished".

I could teach them a thing or two.

If I had a whistle, I'd be like him
in that film, Captain Von Trapp,

bossing around the little virgin
from the convent.

The polone with the butch riah who
does the twirls on the hill.

Some of them like that,
being ordered about.

But they all come into my shop.

They like to flirt a little and hear
me talk the polari to them.

Ooh, vada that great butch lucoddy.

It makes them roar.

It's in Duke Street, my place.

It's cheaper than Savile Row.

I am the Duchess of Duke Street.

Put all my ill-gottens into my
little tailoring establishment,

so I can now spend my dotage
politely touching up young men with

the heating on full blast.
Bona.

And then I come here every day
after I've shut up shop.

Might be some sport to be had.

There's a crackle in the air
this week.

Excitement. The
burden of lily law

has been lifted from
the homosexual.

We may now practise our sexual
offences without fear of prosecution.

Provided it's behind closed doors,

you keep your jacket on and don't
frighten the horses.

One of them comes trolling into my
premises with the good news,

bold as brass but not actual brass.

A beautiful chicken slathered
in cologne.

His trousers are very tight so you
can see his front room.

I made them like that on purpose.

And well appointed it is, too.

His jacket, it's kingfisher blue.

He's got on a polo neck sweater,
cashmere.

Bona. Well,

you would have sworn he'd have got
bored of playing a harp on a cloud

and just bounced down into the West
End for a lark.

And his face, his eek,

the countenance divine.

My arse was snapping like a Venus
flytrap.

He's a chorus boy at the Drury Lane,

spends the interval flashing his bum
at the dressing room window of

The Fortune. Says there is another
chicken on the other side smiles at him.

It's like semaphore for buggers,
I suppose.

This way, dear.
This way.

"So what are you going to do now?"
he asks me.

Well, you know, now that it's
all legal.

Like he's done all the heavy lifting
himself.

"Think how it'll change your life,
Jackie.

"What will you do now?"

Well, I'll do what I'll always done.

I'll praise God.
I will laud and sanctify his name.

I will lift up my voice to the
heavens in constant jubilation.

Alleluia, alleluia,

hosanna in the highest.

"Oh, you're so funny, Jackie,"
says he.

"I'm not trying to be funny," I say.

That is what I'm going to do.

You just don't understand.

Anyway, now you're here,
anything I can do for you, doll?

How about a whisky? Is it too early
for a couple of fingers?

Oh, you bought a hat, didn't you?

If you're here to get your beaver
felt, I'm afraid it's not quite ready.

And he bounces off.

And that's my lot.

Like I say, apparently
I'm respectable now.

It wasn't always thus.

I took the king's shilling in 1932.

I don't want to be indiscreet,
heaven forbid,

so I won't say which regiment,

but it's the oldest regiment
in Her Majesty's Armed Forces,

has a dolly red tunic
and a bearskin hat.

I joined up at a good time.

Well, they knew better than to put
me near a fight,

and the top brass always loved me
for my ability to polish 'em up and

turn 'em out looking like
Cleopatra in her barge.

Corporal Jack Edwards,
best boot polisher around.

In the early days of my career,

I did what I was told
and looked very smart.

But one summer's evening as I was
taking the air in St James's Park,

I was pleased, nay,
delighted to discover

that the meagre income provided
by the king could be

easily supplemented by the
generosity of older gentlemen.

Forgive me, father,
for I have sinned.

I have been a rent boy, a renter.

Or as I prefer to say it,
a rentleman.

I have sucked from the forbidden
cup,

I have whispered the love that dare
not speak its name,

and I could tell you the price of a
wank each year since the abdication.

This generation here, drunk on
possibility and privilege,

will never know the happiness
I did at that time.

I knew exactly where I stood.

Usually that was in
a cottage cubicle

tossing off a judge or
a man of the cloth.

I always loved a clergyman customer.

Well, it was my privilege to step
out with several princes of the church.

We all used to love them.

They'd come quickly and they'd
always pay what they said they would.

That's a very Christian act
in my book.

Five minutes tops,

I'd be a few bob richer and there'd
be spunk all over me bearskin.

I'm only joking, I wouldn't wear
a busby to suck a vicar's cock.

I'm not a monster.

I spent all the war in England.

Never set foot in a foreign field

but by the time it all kicked off,

I was safely ensconced as batman
to a colonel, thank God.

That's a bona job.

I followed him around, making sure
he looked the part.

London may've been burning but at
least we looked dolly while it did.

Don't think me flippant if I say
there are things I miss.

What I really loved was the
darkness, the blackouts.

We're like eels, you see, my kind.

Eels live at the bottom of the lake
where it's coldest and pitch-black.

They slither around and they burrow
in the mud.

Sometimes they bump into each other
down there in the mud

and it feels nice.

They rub their cold,

slippery eel skin against each
other and they love it.

But then they move on, slither on,

and back then, I could find my way
in the dark, you see.

These ogles of mine were already
accustomed to it.

And everybody was moving around all
the time, constant motion.

All in need of comfort, really.

All of them scared, desperate
for some kindness.

And then,

best of all, were Americans.

The Americans saved our bacon.

Well, we would have lost otherwise,

and I would be speaking German
at best.

Now, I've heard many a sermon from
many a pulpit and they're always

very keen to tell you about heaven.

Heaven this and heaven that,

heaven shall be our reward
for living a good life.

By which they mean paying your
taxes and not causing any trouble.

Well, I can tell you, categorically,
they're all wrong.

Paradise, if it's to be found
anywhere at all, is right here on Earth.

For I have seen the face of God
right here in the West End.

Just around the corner from here
is a great big square,

and in the middle of it there's
a statue of a sea captain

and around him,
four bronze lions.

And that day, standing by one
of the lions,

is an American private with green
eyes and curly hair.

Blessed is he that comes in the name
of the Lord.

And the sun is on his face,

hosanna in the highest.

He's looking at me.

A daytime look, full of cigarettes
and advice.

I can't tell the steam from his
breath from the smoke of his cigarette

and he has no gloves and he's
looking at me,

not sizing me up to see what he can
get,

and he has little apples in his
cheeks.

Little apples.

In his cheeks.

And finally I understand why the
Trojans fought their war

and why Orpheus
looked back,

and why the fucking nightingale
was singing in Berkeley Square.

He's looking at me.

He doesn't even know what it means.

I approach him for a light,

he tells me his name, but...

I won't to tell it to you.

I suggest we take a turn around
the square.

We walked around London all that
day.

I bought him some gloves.

He taught me some words in American
and pestered me for fags.

The war had been cruel to him.

Most people had been cruel to him.

But I gave him sips of whisky

to see the apples glow.

As the lights started to fade,
the fear set in.

The dragons come at night,
don't they?

Terrible wail of sirens, and
scrambling haste

to save places underground.

Those with an investment in the
future want to clasp their precious

progeny to their bosom and hunker
down,

exalting God to grant them another
dawn.

But not me.

I was in the presence of my God.

And for once, it was the others that
were subterranean.

And the likes of us
roamed the plains,

and for one night, we were free.

We kissed...

on the mouth in the street.

We went to my room and I undressed
him cross-eyed with excitement,

and for that night we were abandoned
to each other.

I laid him out and worshipped every
inch of his beautiful body by turn.

I was lost in his arms.

But it was easily worth the risk of
staying aloft in an air raid.

Had that been my last night on
Earth,

then a lucky man was I.

Next day he was gone.

Slithered on.

Two things you must always do
before sex at my age.

Cover all the mirrors, and put on
the wireless or whatever you want -

just not silence, but definitely
cover the mirrors.

I once caught a glimpse of myself
going at it.

Looked like one of those lions
in East Africa eating a gazelle,

rubbing his nose in the viscera.

I've seen it on Zoo Quest.

If you care to ogle me for
a moment,

you will see that I am a lesson in
the art of growing old with dignity

and elegance. I have, like the
stately homes of England,

been somewhat in decline since
the end of the war.

My paintwork is peeling, my plumbing
is Victorian,

and my servants' entrance is badly
in need of attention.

I know what I am and what I like.

I make the most of what I've got.

I play the hand I'm dealt as best
I can.

I come here every day and more often
than not, I do well.

I'm generous to renters, pay them
what I say I will.

Maybe even the rentlemen
will dry up now.

Have their heads turned by the
possibility of living together

like Mum and Dad in their little
houses.

Is that really what they want?

Sex is more fun if you do a little
bit of groundwork.

Christ. I've raised it to
an art form.

It's a kind of hunting.

You send out signals, a bit of
polari here and there.

See what's on the radar.

Christ, it's a thieves' cant,
for heaven's sake.

It's supposed to protect you
from lily law.

It's not supposed to be on the
wireless every day for the amusement

of bored polones.

I'd say bona to vada
your dolly old eek, dear.

Come on, doll. Let's go
for a bevvy somewhere

ajax so I can ogle the
dish on that omi.

Understand? No.

Good.

Trust me, homosexuals will be no
better off than they are now

or my name's not Cassandra -
and my name's not Cassandra.

We will be forced to swallow the

great lie that romance
happens only once

and that love is forever.

That's just not true.

Why do you think normal people
are so unhappy?

Because they have unrealistic expectations.

I am what everybody learns to fear.

The lowest of the low.

A dangerous predatory homosexual,

the kind that lurks silently,

waiting to corrupt the healthy
manhood

of this septic isle.

And that's exactly what I am
and they can all fuck off.

I'll be in my tailor shop.

They're walking straight into
a trap, but not me, dear.

No point in that.

Nanti point.

They won't catch me.

It's a short walk from Duke Street
to Trafalgar Square.

I walk there everyday.

I stand in the same
spot, I look over

to the lion, I
make my devotions.

I remember the apples.

Shorter walk still
from the square to this place.

A watering hole where the gazelles
gather, and the hunting is good.

I've been doing it all my life,

I'll do it in my lean and slippered
pantaloons, I hope,

because you never know what's coming
round the corner.

I want to fall into someone's arms,
not someone's hands.

I want to make my devotions to
a teenage god with perfect skin,

hot with life and blushing.

What secret shame...

doth rose thy Ganymede cheek?

I know.

♪ They seek him here

♪ They seek him there

♪ His clothes are loud
but never square. ♪