The following is a true story. The actor concerned may not be a household name, but he has certainly had an accomplished film, television and stage career. It was related to me many years ago by an old, heavy-drinking acquaintance in a pub in South London. For the purposes of the story itself, I will make him the narrator.

I know it to be true because, of the numerous stories he recounted to the various willing and unwilling listeners over the years, this was one of the few in which the essential elements of the tale remained unaltered with each telling.

The names of the characters have, of course, been changed to protect their identities.

*   *   *

“Many of you out there will be well acquainted with that feeling of the morning after the night before. Some of you will experience it almost every day of your teenage and adult lives. I fall into the latter category.

It isn’t just about the sheer physical effort of starting to move around and focus each morning, it's the eternity it takes to get your brain to remember extremely basic information. I usually make it home every night, but I always wake up posing myself the same questions. “Where am I?” Followed by “Where’s the bathroom?”, “The kettle?”, “The nearest station?”, “How do you tell the time?”.

Sometimes people greet me in pubs with a handshake and a smile. I have no idea who they are, but it appears we had an in-depth conversation two days earlier on French cinema, women in New York, racing at Leopardstown. And they seem to owe me a drink. Others greet me with a scowl. Apparently I’ve been lucky that they didn’t punch my lights out the night before. And I owe them a drink.

I don’t remember precisely where I met the actor Greg MacRae, but it must have been in a pub. I seem to have been very complimentary about his work, and promised him something, to the extent that he invited me to a friend’s wedding. He called me on the Friday afternoon two hours before we were due to leave. Having no idea what he was talking about, but realising the event would last several days, with unlimited free drink, I bluffed it. To the point where he promised me the loan of a suitable jacket and tie.

He picked me up in London and we drove out to a village in leafy Surrey. It turned out not to be just any old wedding. It was the daughter of some influential aristocrat. You know, Lady Zara Montescue Willoughby-Smythe, or some such person. It took a full fifteen minutes to drive from the gateway of the grounds to the door of the huge mansion itself.
 

The estate was enormous. Acres of perfectly manicured lawns as far as the eye could see. Interspersed with paths, along which waiters drove little green buggies piled high with bottles of champagne, canapés, cigars, etc., which they dispensed to the various groups of people huddled together in the pale evening winter sun.

It was never clear to me who had actually invited Greg. No-one seemed to recognise him as we wandered further and further away from the house in our attempts to mingle, or rather latch on to at least one unsuspecting party of the hundreds of guests available.

At some point during the transition from champagne to vodka, I lost Greg… and met a girl, I think. By this time it was dark, although a fairly extensive area of the grounds had been artificially illuminated.

It must have been several hours before I bumped into him again. He seemed nervous, edgy, and naturally a little the worse for alcohol.
 

“Gerry!” he whispered, motioning with his head that he wanted a private conversation. I obliged and walked over to him.

“You all right?”

“Gerry! I need to go to the toilet. The house must be miles away."

I looked at him somewhat bemused and said,

“Just go over there, man, where it’s dark, behind a bush.”

But he insisted.

“No! You don’t understand. I don’t want a pee. I really need to go to the toilet."

I couldn’t quite fathom out the problem. One of those old Billy Connolly "wee jobby" stories flashed across my mind, one which ended with something along the lines of "Don't worry, son! It's not as if it’s got your name on it or anything!”
 

“Just go anywhere, Greg. There's acres of garden. No-one’s going to see you."

And with that, he disappeared.

It froze hard that night. The icy dew on the lawns the following morning crackled underfoot, glistening in the faint rays of sunlight. I stood outside the house, lit a cigarette and watched the various guests emerging into the open air, sniffing the cold and turning up their collars. Some of them looked irritatingly fresh and alert as they attempted to organise the black limousines that had begun to arrive.
 

Thankfully Greg looked like I felt. I sensed a certain kinship as he greeted me with his bloodshot eyes. He was getting looks from some of the guests. Looks which said “the gentleman has not bothered to shave this morning” and “a comb would not have gone amiss”.

“We’re not in these,” he said dismissively, pointing to the limousines.

A few smaller cars arrived, and Greg and I clambered into the back of one of them.

The long line of vehicles eventually set off along the drive. On reaching the gateway, the front car stalled. Neither of us were aware of the delay, since Greg had launched into some lengthy story about a friend of his and an Ibsen play. Suddenly, he stopped in mid-sentence and looked beyond me, an expression of alarm spreading across his face.

I turned to try and see what it was that had caught his attention.

Imagine an expansive perfectly-mown stretch of lawn, immaculate in every respect, with a large, frozen dark brown mound sitting conspicuously in the very centre. You couldn’t miss it. It looked like a horse had done it.

And then, slowly, I began to recall our late encounter the previous night. Greg gave me a faint, slightly embarrassed smile.

It had caught the attention of several other people, however, one of whom was the old lady who owned the entire property. Not only had she seen it, she had got out of her car and was now marching towards it, looking not unlike the Queen Mother waving a walking stick in pursuit of an errant bottle of gin.

Greg heaved a short sigh, and smiled a little nervously.

The old lady stood over it, aghast. And then announced:

“Good God! Someone appears to have relieved themselves on my lawn!”

I looked at Greg. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "She's hardly going to trace it back to me, is she!"

The old lady prodded it with her stick, adjusted her glasses and, turning to the entire convoy, proceeded to bellow:

“Who is Gregory MacRae?”

Greg froze, momentarily. Then he reached into his inside pocket, and raised an eyebrow as a sudden realisation spread across his face. A daunting realisation. A realisation that he’d forgotten to visit the Post Office on his way to the wedding, and in the absence of toilet paper, had used his gas bill.

Suffice to say, there are some moments that remain indelibly etched on even my dilapidated, fading memory.”