Life Worth Living (21 page)

This time Colin did make an effort. He cut back on his drinking for all of a week or so, and stopped all but the prescription drugs. He tried to be an agreeable companion while I regained my strength. He even managed to convince me that he wanted to have sex with me. Ironically enough, this encounter proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I was ill with pleurisy and in pain from my bruises and broken ribs. Colin had been unusually nice to me since I had awoken that morning. He always seemed to be nicer after he had spoken to his brother, and he had done so late the night before. Quite what the connection was eluded me at the time, though I now see that it was his way of allaying any suspicions I might have had about the contingency plans they were laying in case the marriage failed.

Colin came into the bedroom and offered himself with the romantic enticement, ‘I’m horny. How about it?’ He hurled himself down on his side of the twin beds and lay back like a quadriplegic, leaving me to get on with the job of giving him pleasure.

As I looked at this long, passive log of a man, with his slender, lipstick-sized penis waving uncertainly between his skinny, unmuscular legs, I realised I felt absolutely nothing for him. He might have been a block of cement for all I cared. I tried to go through the motions, but, as I moved towards him, the sight that greeted me made me retch. The bounds of taste prevent me from describing in detail the condition of his body: suffice it to say that cleanliness was not his strong point. I fled to the bathroom and was promptly sick. That was it: Colin Campbell would never again get within spitting distance of me, not unless he changed so radically that he was unrecognisable from the dirty slob from whom I had just had to escape.

The following afternoon, Colin came into the bedroom, where I was reading, and said, ‘Since you like sex so much, and I don’t, I won’t mind if you have lovers, as long as you’re discreet.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ I was nonplussed.

‘No, really. I’ve not been a very good husband in that department’ – I wondered in which department he thought he had been a good husband – ‘and if that’s what it takes to keep you happy, it’s fine by me.’

‘That’s very thoughtful of you, but you’ve misread the situation entirely. I don’t want to hive off various aspects of matrimony for different men. The point of having a husband is to have as many of those aspects as possible in one package.’

At the time, I thought Colin was trying to hang on to me regardless of the cost. Now, however, I see it differently. I am convinced he realised that I meant business when I threatened to divorce him, and this, I believe, was his first attempt at setting me up for the sting. He wanted to divorce me the way his father had divorced his stepmother, or his great-uncle Colin had divorced his great-aunt Gertrude. Sensationally, for adultery, and with multiple co-respondents.

Meanwhile, Bill Paley rescheduled our appointment and did offer me a job. I opted to work as an editor at the CBS-owned publishing company, Holt Rhinehart Winston. But I had been more severely affected by the battering than I had realised, and when I had my first meeting at Holt Rhinehart, I was uncharacteristically unable to express myself. Halfway through each thought, I lost the thread. It was apparent to both the editor to whom I was speaking, and to me, that something was wrong. We agreed to end the meeting and resume it when I felt better.

That evening, I telephoned my brother-in-law Ken and told him what had happened. I mentioned that there had been other, less dramatic episodes, but that I had always managed to retrieve my powers of concentration before the problem became obvious.

‘You should go to your own doctor,’ he suggested. ‘But it seems to me you’re suffering from a delayed reaction to what Colin put you through. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you; in the circumstances, it’s an appropriate response, and you’ll get over it soon enough.’

Sadly, I did not recover soon enough to work for Holt Rhinehart. I simply did not see how I could cope with a demanding job as a book editor when my concentration was so impaired that I could not string ten words together without unexpected delays. I telephoned Bill Paley, thanked him for his help and interest, explained that I hadn’t been feeling well recently, and promised to be in touch when he was gracious enough to say, ‘I’m always here when you need me.’

Colin, of course, didn’t care what happened with Holt Rhinehart. All he cared about was the fat salary he had been counting on. He was once again drinking like a fish, and the marriage, I finally accepted, was on its last legs. Soon he would do something to make it keel over and then I would leave with a clear conscience.

We still needed money, so I got a less taxing job as a receptionist with a company on East Fifty-Eighth Street to keep us going in the short term. While I was at work, Colin was supposed to be writing his fascinating travelogue. By the end of the first week, he had written two paragraphs. By the end of four weeks, he had managed only four long-hand pages.

To escape the misery at home as much as to try to find a cure for Colin’s ills, I went to Al-Anon. Of course, they had no magical cure; they merely confirmed my fear that there was nothing more I could do to help Colin. He was suffering from a degenerative condition which affected him mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically and intellectually. Only he could help himself, and if he did not want to, no one else could. I carried on attending Al-Anon meetings, mainly in the hope that Colin would follow my example by going to Alcoholics Anonymous and see the light.

Although I held the programme in high esteem, for someone like me, who had already had to develop strong spiritual and emotional resources, the twelve steps were like teaching Grandmother to suck eggs. Colin disparaged all my attempts to get him to go to Alcoholics Anonymous.

‘I don’t need AA. I can give up drinking any time I want. Why do you want to deprive me of my one little pleasure in life?’

A friend who was a member did convince him to go once. ‘They’re nothing but a bunch of losers sitting around a dingy church hall talking about how drink ruined their lives,’ he said when he got back. ‘Drink hasn’t ruined mine.’

My last attempt to galvanise Colin into action was to warn him that he had pushed me to the point where I wanted a separation. I didn’t want to walk away feeling I had left any stone unturned.

‘If you leave me, I’ll destroy you,’ he said. ‘I’ll destroy you the way my father destroyed Margaret and my great-uncle destroyed my great-aunt. No woman walks out on an Argyll unless we want her to.’

‘There’s no need to be nasty. I’m only trying to alert you to the choice you’re forcing upon us both. And please don’t threaten me. There’s nothing you can do to harm me.’

‘I’ll destroy you. Destroy. Like this,’ he said, snuffing out his lighted cigarette between two fingers and crushing it until the tobacco scattered over the Persian carpet.

What I did not appreciate was that Colin Campbell not only meant every word, but that incapable as he was in a positive sense, he also had the ability to carry out his threat.

‘I
want a divorce,’ I said at last. It was November 1974. The marriage was eight months and an eternity too old.

Colin did not ask why. He knew. The previous evening he had started to shove me around, a precursor to the battering that would ensue if I did not break the cycle. I had bolted for the telephone and called the police, despite his objections, informing him that he’d have to kill me to prevent me. The people at Al-Anon had advised this course of action, and they’d been right. He had backed off. But for how long? I had gone to bed to the accompaniment of a diatribe of abuse and threats about what awaited me in the not-too-distant future.

‘In September I told you if you ever touched me again, except lovingly, the marriage was over,’ I told him now over the telephone, checking the offices adjoining the reception area to make sure that no one could overhear.

I had chosen to bring down the axe from the office because that was the only way of keeping the conversation neat and clean. ‘I’m here looking at my bruised arms. My neck looks as if a strangler has been practising on it. You and I both know that it’s only a matter of time before you savage me again the way you did in September.’

‘Georgie, please,’ he blubbered, genuine panic in his voice. ‘Please don’t leave me. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.’

I’d heard that before.

‘Colin, don’t make this more difficult than it has to be,’ I said as agreeably and politely as I could. ‘My mind is made up. It’s not as if you haven’t had plenty of warning. I want you to pack up all your stuff and have it out of the apartment before I return home this afternoon. Perhaps you could ask Jeanie to put you up until you get somewhere else to live.’

Colin started to cry.

‘Colin,’ I said when he was still sobbing after what seemed an age, ‘I really can’t stay on the line any longer. I have work to do. Just please make this easy for both of us by doing as I ask. I really don’t want to see you when I get home later. I’ve had more than enough of scenes.’

Within the hour, Colin phoned back. (When our telephone bill came in, I was intrigued to note that he had used the intervening time to call his brother in Scotland.)

‘Georgie, I have a proposition. Please listen to the whole of it before you say no. You’re right. I do have a problem with violence, and drink and drugs. I know you want out. I can’t blame you. I’ve treated you appallingly, and you deserve better. But you are the best thing that ever happened to me. Even
though you don’t realise the good effect you’ve been having on me, I have been listening to the things you’ve said. I don’t want to move out to Jeanie’s; her apartment’s so chaotic. If I give up drinking and go to AA, can I stay here with you until I’m fit enough to find somewhere else to live?’

‘How long are we talking about?’ I asked, expecting him to come back with something exploitative like six months.

‘A month, maybe six weeks,’ he said, taking the wind out of my sails and leading me to believe that he was sincere. It was not so much to ask. We were man and wife, after all, and I hoped that we would maintain cordial relations after the divorce, once the strains and stresses of living together were at an end.

‘Only as long as you don’t touch a drop of alcohol or any drugs.’

‘If I’m not drinking I’ll need my Valium.’

‘In AA they say a cross-addict shouldn’t take any mood-altering substance, especially if they’re already addicted to it.’

‘I’ll need something to calm me down. And in any event, why should you care what I take now that we’re not together? Your concern should be that I don’t endanger you.’

‘OK. No drinking, AA, and you move out in the new year.’

‘It’s a deal.’

Sad though I was to see my marriage fail, it was a monumental relief to have acknowledged that the corpse was indeed lifeless. Throughout the previous month, I had felt as if I were carrying the whole world on my shoulders. I hadn’t felt so oppressed since I was a teenager. Now, as I made plans to return to London once my book deal had been finalised, I felt that this huge load had been lifted off me.

Two weeks later, Ian Argyll came to New York. He stayed with his sister Jeanie. The problem of where the brothers were going to get the money to pay off their debts and prevent Colin from being sued by the Priory had not yet been solved, but they both seemed to think that it could be sorted out without sacrifice by either of them. I was perplexed by this new optimism, for I could not see where they would get the money from. As I overheard them talking amiably, and saw that the cloud which had cast such a pall over their relationship had lifted, I was pleased for them. It was genuinely good to see harmony restored. They even travelled by subway together to the offices of Cusack & Stiles, the executors of their mother’s estate, in the Wall Street district, to sort out the problem.

I never did learn what the solution was. When I asked Ian, at a luncheon party Jeanie had for him immediately after their meeting, he replied with the venom that was obviously a family characteristic, ‘You’ve made a big mistake taking me on, Georgie. You’ll pay for it.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I said, puzzled.

‘Oh, you do, you do,’ he said. ‘Colin told me all.’

When I got home from work that evening, I asked Colin what he had told Ian. He denied saying anything, but I had a shrewd idea that since he was so desperate for Cusack & Stiles to get the money from Ian to settle his debt, he had blamed me for all the pressure he had been applying for the previous three months. I asked him about the outcome of the meeting with the executors.

‘It’s been sorted,’ was all he would say.

‘How?’

‘It’s too complicated to go into,’ he replied shiftily, making it clear that the subject was closed.

The next few weeks were odd, especially after I resigned from my job when they did not want to give me time off to attend an important meeting about the publication of my book. Colin spent a great deal of time brooding on the sofa, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Now that he wasn’t drinking, he was even more uncommunicative, albeit much more civil. When he wasn’t lost in his own world, he was on the phone to his brother, who had returned to the United Kingdom. They seemed to have formed a new closeness, for which I was glad. Maybe Colin could go and stay at Inveraray when we separated.

At times, Colin was actually pleasant. Now that the marriage was over, he even wanted to know about my youth. This surprised me, for he had shown no interest when I had wanted to tell him all about it. Not realising that he was gathering information for a big betrayal, I was perplexed by his behaviour, but not suspicious. All the same, I did not discuss the subject – the last thing I was going to do was share raw and distressing emotions with someone who had proved himself to be callous and unreliable.

By this time, I knew from Stephanie Bennett that Warner wanted to publish my book. According to her, Howard Kaminsky had read it and loved not only the ideas, but also the way I wrote. He wanted to meet me for lunch before making a final offer, so we fixed a date for early December. I took to Howard Kaminsky straight away. He was everything I liked in a person: straightforward, dynamic, intelligent, open-minded, adventurous.

Then we hit a hitch. ‘You’re not a doctor or someone with a degree in philosophy. We’ll have a problem promoting the book unless you incorporate the reasons why you’ve reached your conclusions. In other words, you have to put in your past.’

‘That’s the one thing I’ll never do,’ I said. ‘Much as I’d love you to publish the book, it’s not a price I’m prepared to pay.’

‘Any other publisher you go to will tell you the same thing. Tell her, Stephanie,’ he said.

‘It’s true, Georgie. And Howard will be behind you in a way few other publishers will. This is your best bet.’

‘Then I regret to say it has to be no,’ I said.

When I got home, I was greeted by a most interested ex-husband-to-be. I told him what had happened, and he tried to talk me into changing my mind and accepting the offer immediately. But there was no possibility of that. I would sooner have had my legs amputated than violate my own privacy and subject myself to the humiliation of everyone knowing the pain and distress I had been through.

On the morning of Friday 13 December 1974, the telephone rang. I answered it. ‘My name’s Jolyon Wilde. I’m an English journalist working for the
Evening Standard
in London. We understand that you and your husband are planning to return to London. I’d like to interview you about that.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t give personal interviews,’ I said, as Colin gesticulated furiously for me to hand the telephone over to him. He invited the man to come around at four that afternoon.

‘God, those newspapers discover everything,’ Colin said to me as soon as he rang off. ‘How did they know we’re thinking of going back to London?’

‘You’re the one who knows how they function, not me,’ I said idly.

‘Don’t let on that we’re separating,’ Colin pleaded.

‘I’m not planning to be here.’

‘But you must. If you’re not here, they’ll smell a rat. You want us to remain friends, don’t you? That won’t be easy if the press say there’s a wedge between us.’

‘OK,’ I agreed, happy to spare him any embarrassment if it kept things on an even keel between us.

We had not done too badly on that score so far; indeed, Colin was even coming as my family’s guest to Jamaica for Christmas. They still did not know about the impending divorce, and I wanted to tell them face to face.

Jolyon Wilde turned out to be a pugilistic Brit with so much attitude you could have canned it. For about an hour he reeled off the most asinine questions; then he asked if he could take pictures. Colin consented with relish. I went along with it to keep him sweet. It was only after the pictures were safely in the can, and my cooperation could thereby be presented to an unsuspecting public as having been freely given, that Wilde pulled off his gloves.

‘Before I leave, I have a question I’d like you to clear up for me.’ His tone was completely different, and he was looking at me as if he had the right to inspect me naked. ‘We’ve received reliable information that you changed your sex. Is that true?’

I was so enraged by his duplicity and impertinence that I was shaking as I replied. ‘How dare you! Is that what you came about?’

‘Did you or didn’t you?’ he demanded.

‘How dare you! Where did you get that from?’ I reiterated, softly but so angrily that Colin shot me a look of concern. I thought he was charging to my rescue when he said, ‘Mr Wilde, my wife has never changed her sex. She can prove it, too. Georgie, get your birth certificate and show it to him.’

‘Absolutely not,’ I said. ‘He is not entitled to any explanation or proof, and none will be forthcoming.’

‘Lady Colin, if you won’t answer the question, I’ll have no option but to think you have something to hide.’

‘I have nothing to hide. You simply have no right to information of a personal nature. Moreover, you tricked your way into this apartment.’

‘You’ve upset my wife,’ said Colin protectively. ‘You will appreciate that no woman likes having her femininity questioned. But Georgie,’ he continued in so reasonable a tone I could scarcely believe it was the Colin I knew, ‘I’m sure he isn’t trying to be offensive. He’s only trying to earn a crust of bread. Give the guy a break. Go on, show him your birth certificate. It’s the safest way of getting Fleet Street off our backs.’

Against my better instincts, I went to find the document and handed it to Colin, who passed it to Wilde.

‘You didn’t change your sex!’ he blurted out, nonplussed. He seemed so surprised that the person who gave him the information must have sounded very authoritative indeed. When Wilde left, I telephoned Barbara Taylor Bradford, who had been a working journalist from the age of about seventeen. ‘I know Jeffrey Bright,’ she said, ‘who represents most of the British papers here. I’ll ask him to sniff around and find out what’s happening.’

Within the hour, Barbara had crushing news. ‘Jolyon Wilde does not represent the London
Evening Standard
. He is acting on behalf of the
Sunday People
.’

I had never even heard of that tabloid, but it was familiar enough to Colin and his brother: it was the same newspaper their father had used to make himself some money and to smash the remnants of their stepmother Margaret’s reputation.

‘Jeffrey represents the
Sunday People
here, but they brought in Wilde because he has a reputation as a killer,’ Barbara went on. ‘They were going to do a real hatchet job on you. Jeffrey said he wouldn’t touch it. But you don’t have anything to worry about. Showing Wilde that birth certificate was the best thing you could have done. He now accepts there’s no truth in the information they received.’

That would have been the end of the matter had Colin and others not wanted the story published. But they had been beavering away behind the scenes with the aim of dishing up a perverted account of my private life for public consumption. The introduction of the birth certificate had been unplanned, I later learned from Colin. For some reason he became worried that I might suspect he was behind this latest bit of press interest.

Knowing that there were two birth certificates, and that the amended version was accessible to anyone who wished to obtain it from the registrar of births, deaths and marriages in Jamaica, he could point the
Sunday People
towards the proof that I had once been registered in the male gender at the same time as he appeared to be protecting me. It was a diabolic act of deception, but brilliant. And, more importantly, ultimately it worked, for I did not suspect his part in the enterprise for a moment.

But for the moment, of course, by raising the other birth certificate, Colin had thrown a spanner into the machinery of his own plot. Wilde was now so convinced that the rumours were unfounded that he told London they were barking up the wrong tree, and nobody checked the Jamaican certificate. Unbeknown to me, Colin was expecting the story to be published on the very day we were flying to Jamaica for Christmas. When it did not appear, Colin embarked upon a flurry of telephone calls between Scotland and Jamaica, all at my parents’ expense, of course.