Dear Fatty (20 page)

I will always be thankful to her for having the enormous courage to make that decision because otherwise we would never have known you. We wouldn’t have had you, that splendid little spudling, in our lives. And although I often think about her grieving and how that must continue, I thank God daily for her choice. She is our link to you and we don’t forget that. Our little triangle has an invisible, important fourth side, which is constantly in my thoughts. I’m sure she must be in yours too. Especially on Mother’s Day. We are related to each other, all of us. In the spirit of that bond, I accept this card to a mother on her behalf too, because as a testament of her love for you, she gave you to me, to my keeping, and thus I am truly blessed. There
is
no greater love than that. You say, ‘I couldn’t ask for a better mum.’ And in the truest sense, you’re right. You couldn’t.

Thanks, Bill.

IT WAS 1973
and I was 16. As you know, I was obsessed with horror films and the most scary horror film
ever, The Exorcist
, was released that year. What a stir it caused! Do you remember watching the local news and seeing reports about the protests taking place outside the cinema where it was showing in Plymouth? I thought people had gone doobonkerslally. The St John Ambulance had set up there to deal with the potential hordes of people who would no doubt faint, or at the very least vomit, in response to this ‘truly evil’ film. There were representatives from many different religions objecting to it, local councillors, mothers’ groups, all manner of moral defenders. It was crazy and of course served to make me all the more determined to see the film. Sorry to tell you, Mum, but I
had
managed to sneak under the radar into a few X-rated films before then; still I knew this one was going to be especially tough since so many people were keeping an eye on who came and went, and I didn’t have much faith in my sad attempts to look 18, which mainly consisted of wearing lipstick and slouching. You gave in quite early on when I begged you to take me. I think you knew I would go anyway come hell or high water, but Mum, I also know how little you would have wanted to see that film yourself. You worked such long hours and always had a long drive home down into Cornwall, so I appreciate the effort you made. Thing is, Mum, you see, I
had
to go. I HAD to see it! Maybe you thought that accompanying me was a lesser punishment than
death
by nagging. Anyway, we went together and because I was with an adult, in we swanned, past the barracking and jeering. You were, apparently, sacrificing your daughter to Satan’s power. Wow. Great. Lucifer, here I come, your willing handmaiden!

The tension was high inside the cinema and I was bursting with excitement and anticipation about the film. All the reports about it had been phenomenal. It was gruesome, vile and downright black, which was perfect.

I don’t think you and I had been to the pictures together since I was a little kid when we went to see Jerry Lewis or Elvis Presley or Disney films. I experienced the strange juxtaposition of feeling very grown up because I was about to witness an X-rated film, but also feeling decidedly junior because I was with you, my mum. My discomfort was exacerbated by the fact that the couple directly in front of us decided to eat each other’s faces off, and you started to mutter your disapproval of that. Then, the man next to them, in front of me, seemed to lose control of his head, it was lolling everywhere as if it were was attached to his shoulders with a Slinky. He was obviously off his cake in readiness for a truly trippy experience of this supposedly shocking and heinous movie. Your grumbling was now building from a low hum to an audible steady rant with occasional snaps at the man to ‘pull yourself together’ and ‘stop being so silly’. Drug addicts
love
being told off, don’t they …? By the time the lights went down, I was a strong beetroot hue, and wanted to be almost anywhere else. It didn’t help that the folk behind started to crinkle their sweet wrappers for which further admonishment from you was apparently necessary. Just when I thought the torture of mum-next-to-you-in-a-cinema-ness was over, there was fresh hell.
Before
the main film, there was a suitable short B movie. You
must
remember this?! Which buffoon was it that sat down and thought, ‘OK, the main film is a sinister and distressing voyage to the dark side, what shall we give them as a warm-up? Oh, I know, nude hippy dancing. Ideal.’ So here I was, in the dark, surrounded by freaks with you, annoyed and pumping away on the verbals, and we are presented with three naked hairy rejects from
The Joy of Sex
via Woodstock, who jumped about, wobbling their genitals for our delight and entertainment. By now the extent of your distaste was clear to the entire auditorium. I know you were embarrassed, both for yourself and for me, but times your embarrassment by infinity and that’s how I felt. Mercifully, the naked jangling was relatively short and at last the haranguing stopped, and we could relax into an hour and a half of soothing evil as we witnessed the noxious possession of an innocent child. Which was lovely.

As we left the cinema you picked up where you’d left off with plenty of ‘Well, honestly, what a load of old rubbish that was. Really. I can’t begin to understand why you like this sort of nonsense. It was just silly. Utterly unbelievable. Pointless’, all the way back up to school where you dropped me off with a kiss and ‘See you on Friday, Moo, night’.

You would think the running commentary and the damning review would help to dilute any fear that film might have instilled in me, but no, frankly. I had nightmares about it for months afterwards, which were unfortunate souvenirs. Nightmares to remind me of the nightmare that evening was.

I love you, Mum, but I’m not going to the pictures with you again. So there.

THANK GOODNESS WE
didn’t get married. I thought we were a perfect match, a couple who complemented each other, like yin and yang, or Little and Large, or Jack Sprat and his missus, but on reflection, that was wishful thinking. Really, we were, and are, like chalk and cheese, and if we’re honest, they don’t go together, do they? I’ve never had a successful chalk-and-cheese sandwich, for instance.

This difference was all too evident when we met that afternoon a couple of years ago, for the first time in, ooh, nearly 30 years. We went for tea at what is, in my opinion, simply the best place to take tea in London, the conservatory in the Lanesborough Hotel at Hyde Park Corner, or, as I prefer to call it, my London office. I chose that place to meet because, firstly, they pride themselves in their amazing choice of fine teas and since you are a tea man by trade, I hoped you would feel comfortable with that. Secondly, the cakes are sublime. What better way to ease the awkwardness of a difficult reunion than with cake? ‘Cake is life’s great moderator. Cake is Kofi Annan.’ Who said that? Oh yes, me. Boy, did we need the mediatory benefits of cake that day. The purpose of our meeting was an apology, from you to me, for making the fundamental error of speaking to a hack about me. No friend or lover or family member had ever done that before, and I was truly shocked that you were so easily tricked by her artifice. She had failed to dupe any other beloved, but I guess you
have
little cause to be wary of sneaky press. Lucky you. Most people around me recognise the warning signs because I have endeavoured to advise people of the depths to which desperate journos of a particularly slimy ilk are prepared to plummet. Here was a woman writing about me, having never met me, resorting to intrusive tactics with, among others, the ladies who run the flower shop over the road from my house, and pestering the staff at my local salon where I get my legs de-fuzzed and used for mattress stuffing. Desperate measures really. All these people, however, took offence at her nosiness and didn’t cooperate. But for some reason I still don’t entirely understand, you decided to talk to her at length, giving her details of some particularly private moments between us. How very ungentlemanly of you. Were you caught off guard? Or were you flattered? Or what?! I was keen to hear why you had made this rather uncharacteristic choice. Within ten minutes of sitting down with you, I was reminded of a key aspect of your personality. You were
annoyed
that your accounts of our time together were so ill reported. You weren’t
sorry
at all. So, the fault lay entirely with the greedy, opportunist lout who apparently tricked you, not with you. Innocent ol’ loose-lips you. In the end, you didn’t apologise at all really. Yes, you were sorry, but sorry for yourself. Hmmmm. You were one part blameless to two parts patronising. As I say, thank goodness we didn’t get married …

The telling aspect about your account of our relationship is how very favourably you depict yourself. I’m not entirely surprised at your bending of the truth. I guess we
all
do this to some extent, remember our past selves with a rosy glow. Woe betide we should reflect on any decisions or actions and recognise moments
of
true cowardice or dismal failure or even regret. That would be something; to own up to and face our mistakes and shortcomings. I include myself in this department of flattering self-delusion. Writing this here book is, in itself, an exercise in trying to remember the
truth
of a moment rather than the edited highlights where I figure as the heroine. It’s so tempting and easy to cast oneself as a tad splendid, but ultimately that would be daft. Since it is so clearly not accurate.

It’s a pity that our reunion reminded me of a tricky aspect of our relationship because I remember so much of it with utter happiness. I
think
we met at a party in Liskeard, is that right? I must have been about 17 or 18 and you were about 21, 22. I was instantly attracted to you. Oh yes, that’s for picking cotton sure. You are a handsome man, David. Properly handsome. Flawless skin, twinkly pale eyes, a strong masculine jaw and the most heavenly mouth. The hands were a crucial factor – could they cup a 38DD? Yes, with ease. Then there was also your easy manner and soft Irish brogue. All systems go! Back then, you were a navy sub-lieutenant. You were recently out of Dartmouth and on HMS
Hermes
, if my memory serves me well. Being a Plymouth girl, I had heard plenty of racy stories about navy chaps, or ‘fish-heads’ as we called you. The navy regularly swarmed the streets of Plymouth on a Saturday night. I would avoid Union Street where the nightlife was a bit explosive, but I sometimes used to go to a club called, I think, the Yacht Club, down on the Barbican. The reason I can’t remember the name so well is that we gave it the nickname ‘GX’ – which stood for ‘Groin Exchange’ …! Dashing young navy officers like you frequented this club and so, when us local girls went there, we knew we would be batting
away
a fair amount of overeager groin activity. Plus, you guys were that bit older than the boys we usually dated, you were exotic visitors, and you had jobs and MG sports cars. We LOVED that!

You and I fell for each other pretty heavily and pretty quickly. You introduced me to your brother Ian and took me on my first visit to Ireland, to your home town, Belturbet in County Cavan, to meet your ma and pa. A tiny clue to our mismatch became evident even way back then. You insisted on buying me an outfit to meet your folks in. I suppressed my hurt and attempted to find the right thing. So, none of my clothes were suitable for the kind of girl your parents should meet, then? I suppose you wished I was a bit more sophisticated or something? My flares and cheesecloth tops weren’t right. So, for the love of you, I went shopping. It’s hard to shop for clothes when you don’t know who you’re supposed to be. I have had similar experiences since, when trying to choose costumes for a character I’m playing. The clothes provide vital clues to the person and it’s important to get it right. The mission back then was to find clothes that would earn me the parents’ approval. What
are
those clothes? Well, I look at the photos now, and apparently the perfect parent-meeting clothes are a white blouse with a Princess Di lacy collar, an A-line flowery skirt, matching bolero with trim and bows in the same floral fabric, tan tights and a good low court shoe. Or two. It seemed to work. Your parents were delightful and I
think
they sort of approved of me. Well, not really me, because they weren’t actually meeting me, they were meeting some strange clothes with a person inside trying desperately to be like the person who was wearing those strange clothes.

Clothes were important on various occasions with you. Being a navy officer meant lots of formal ‘dos’ where everyone dressed up to try and look as grown up as their job suggested. Little boys and girls in grown-up uniforms and long dresses being allowed to play like the adults. I have to admit, the uniforms were pretty spunky. I liked yours most of all when it was hung on a chair at the bottom of the bed … You guys were lucky to
have
uniforms and clear rules about what
you
should wear to those endless balls and dinner dances. They may have been a bit uncomfortable, especially about the neck, but they were regulation and mandatory, so no agonising choices had to be made. As for me, well, it wasn’t as if I had a wardrobe full of long floaty evening dresses. I had one cheap navy-blue empire-line maxi-dress that I wore with beads galore to look hippy and bohemian, but which could, just about, look formal at a push. That one, the ‘Josephine’ which always smelt a bit of the joss sticks from the shop I bought it in however often I washed it, came out a few times on those occasions. However, there was one ball, I think it was actually on board the ship, where a different, special dress was necessary. I couldn’t afford a new one, besides which I’d be unlikely to find anything nice in my bigger-than-deemed-normal size anywhere in Plymouth. Being an absolute devotee of Pan’s People, I had seen my favourite dancer, the perky and petite Cherry, in the most fabulous minidress with floaty gossamer-wing-sleeves and I sorely coveted it. I drew a picture of it, in a maxi version, and begged my Auntie May to make it for me in time for the ball. I hunted for the material and although I couldn’t locate
exactly
the same type I found something pretty close in a beautiful lilac-blue net-curtain fabric. Auntie May was a great seamstress, but she
was
also my auntie (or my great-auntie to be precise), so she altered the design of the dress here and there for the sake of modesty. She censored it at will. Where Cherry’s dress had been plunging and funky and daring, mine was virtually Amish. Where Cherry’s sleeves had been sheer and light, mine were double-layered and extra long. It was a virtuous frock. In yet another stupendous example of the Frenchies getting everything ever so slightly wrong, I took your arm on the night of that important ball in my demure, floor-length, decent-necked net-curtain tent, looking for all the world like Nana Mouskouri’s prim sister. You must surely have been horrified. Sorry about that. Auntie May made me many more similar horrors in her time, like home-made jeans for instance, but she came up trumps one day, much later on, when I needed a graduation dress quickly …