Back in Malta, things were not so great. I could feel the disappointment of my family members, particularly my mother and aunts but, as far as I can remember, not from my dad. Personally, I just ignored it and got on with deciding what to do next. With no income, trade or profession or visible means of support, at age 20, this was not an ideal situation. Another family pow-wow got under way and the result was that I was encouraged to go into the other family profession; accountancy. Several members of my family were in accountancy the most notable being my grandfather, Joe Gat Rutter, who was one of the Government’s auditors. My mother was also an accomplished bookkeeper and looked after the accounts of the Phoenicia Laundry for many years. So, with no further ado, and since I did not see any other course of action which would get me out of Malta again, I was packed off to the U.K. to become articled to, Oldham Holland & Company, a firm of Chartered Accountants in the City of London. In those days, it was counted as training and no salary whatever was paid to the apprentice. Not only that, Foulkes Lynch, which provided the tutoring, was due a course fee. All these fees and my living expenses were met by my family in Malta while I settled down to work and study in the big city. After a while, articled clerks like myself, were paid a pittance.
I shared a room and board in a house, just off the High Street Kensington, with my cousin Peter Apap Bologna, who was also studying to qualify as a Chartered Accountant. Like most students, there was another side to this life of work and, supposedly, study. Friends from Sandhurst and Malta started visiting me in Kensington. Peter’s cousin, Mabel Strickland, would occasionally phone and our landlady would yell out “There is a gentleman on the line for you!” We would smile, knowing it was probably Peter’s aunt Mabel, whose voice was so deep and powerful that many mistook her for a man.
Mabel, the daughter of Lord Strickland, was herself a skilled politician and not a person one could easily say no to. So, when she sent her chauffeur, Mario, to collect us in her Rolls to take us to the theatre, or the ballet or whatever else, we certainly did not refuse. Then there was the time she asked us to take a huge bag of oranges on the plane back from Malta to London and to give them to Rab Butler in the House of Commons. We did so, though with some embarrassment. After a while, she delegated the task of looking after our social well-being to Charles Murland, who wrote some of her speeches. Charles, it turned out, was rather an interesting character of his time. An influential banker and Treasurer of the Royal Ballet School who was also on the board of the Festival Ballet, his friendship and close ties with Rudolf Nureyev are well documented and he is generally portrayed as being a protective doting patron. He was in his middle age and to me he was simply a kind man, full of charm. This introduction proved to be a fortunate, or depending on how you may look at it, an unfortunate, entry into a whole other way of life.
His world was another universe. I was often asked to the Wigmore Hall to see plays where we were joined by Peggy Ashcroft and many other celebrities. Then to the ballet with Svetlana Beriosova, our seats picked by Michael Wood, a director of Covent Garden. We were always accompanied by very important members of the Royal Ballet. This would be followed by dinner at Mossop Street with many more famous people including, Rita, Nuber Gulbenkian’s sister. The fact that I never entered any deeper into Charles’ private cliques and inner circles, is only now showing me how, even when I was not aware of it, God’s grace was working somewhere inside me.
In those early days Charles Murland kept his homosexuality a secret from his City colleagues and, no doubt, Mabel Strickland. It did not take me long however to realise the true facts and towards the end of my time in accountancy, I slowly moved away from his influence and remained friends at a safe distance. Meanwhile, while all this was going on, accountancy was fading into oblivion and seemed like a ball and chain that I was being forced to drag along.
Needless to say, there was not a lot of studying going on and Peter, who needed some peace and quiet went off to live on his own. Cecil, another friend, who was also living in the same place, also decided to move into his own flat and I moved into a room on my own in Elvaston Place. At last I also had some peace and quiet. At least for one or two days before the visitors and partying started all over again.
Towards the end of my days in accountancy, I became friendly with Jean Leyris. Jean and I got on well together right from the moment we met. His flat, under artist Annigoni’s flat, in Edward’s square, just off the High Street Kensington was where I met another new circle of friends, playing cards and going out partying with them. His aunt Jeannie Courtauld, lived in ‘Cook’s House’ in Pullborough; a rather grand house set in some lovely grounds. I went there with Jean and sat down to eat with them in her beautiful dining room. I looked slowly around at the paintings hanging there, impressed by their quality – most of them by well known impressionists. We were just the three of us, and we chatted together as we ate. The conversation came round to Jean. “I could do so much more for Jean,” she was saying, “as I pay 19/6d in the pound in tax but he is such a spendthrift, I would only do him more harm than good.”
I could not resist myself, I half jokingly said “You could pass it onto me Miss Courtaulds.” Her reply was unexpected and has always stayed with me. “David,” she said, “if you ever chose to, you could make all the money you want.”
I was sent out to work on the accounts of clients all over England and, as far as it went, I did a good and thorough job. I played my part in the various team jobs that were assigned to me and no-one complained about my work. Trouble was, I was bored stiff and life at work was one long dull, grey and monotonous session. For the next two and a half years, I soldiered on, flying back and forth to Malta fairly often, returning to London to dig in my heels and handle the boredom of the day and then living an empty frivolous life with my friends at night. Something had to give, and it did. Although I was successfully completing the every day accountancy work, I was not completing the necessary course work. Without such completed papers, there was no way I was going to receive the final qualification. My attitude did not help much either. It soon became obvious to them that I was not happy in the profession and I was not trying to hide the fact that I regarded it as a dead-end job. Truth was, I regarded the whole of my life in the same way and, although I seemed to be living the high life, I just did not care about anything anymore.
My Mother came over to London to check out the situation and had a meeting with the accountancy firm. “You’re wasting your money and our time,” they told her and advised her to withdraw me from the firm.
I was only too pleased to leave and returned back to Malta once again.
I busied myself by taking various jobs and tried to take no notice of the growing concern of my family members. I had no intention of staying very long in Malta, especially being based at home, and had set my sights on returning to London as soon as I had figured out what to do there.
If there was any faith flickering beneath my fake ‘devil may care’ attitude, it was so feeble and inconsequential, that it failed to break through. I melted into the local social scene, going out with my friends, meeting in their homes for drink parties, cards or just to chat. To everyone who knew me, I was the typical ‘man about town’.
Life was about to change. I was about to raise my clenched fist to the God I never really knew. I was about to challenge him with a cry from a place inside me, a forgotten place that I had tried my hardest to ignore.