The Two of Us (30 page)

28 October

Dreamt John and I were making love. Woke with my body
aching for him. It is chilling to think I will almost certainly
never have a lover again.

6 November

Since John died I find myself looking back all the time –
something I have seldom done. I feel a bit wobbly about
it – the way time and life passes so quickly. I still get a
shock when I see myself in a shop window reflection and
I am old. But face it, when I was young I would have been
thinking how awful I looked so it’s no worse now really.

12 November

To Cosby Hall in Cheyne Walk. Ancient palace being
restored by a man called Christopher Moran. He is wonderfully
vulgar about his wealth, like Carlton’s Michael Greene
– oh I do like that – as John would say, if you’ve got it,
flaunt it.

17 November

Papers full of vilification of Myra Hindley who has died.
I’ve never been able to read the details of the case, it so
horrified me at the time. But why are we reluctant to think
people can repent? Why do we need hate figures? On TV
now we have wretched people in so-called reality shows,
who have done no harm, that the press and the public relish
hating. To read some of this stuff about them you would
think they had murdered someone. It does us no credit,
this organised hatred. It is either that or blind worship of
celebrity. All very odd.

20 November

To St James’s Palace to a reception given by Prince Charles
for the Actors’ Benevolent Society. I think he really feels
at home with actors. I suppose his whole life is a performance.
He made a funny speech. If he wasn’t lumbered
with being the heir to the throne people would think him
a nice man. Two old guys came up to me and whispered
that they were wearing something of John’s. They looked
very smart.

27 November

Lovely concert with Richard Digby-Day. Mahler’s Sixth
Symphony. Never liked Mahler before, all a bit too
Death in Venice
for me, but this blew my mind. Helped by Richard’s
advice before it started about what to look out for.
Thoroughly enjoy concerts with my new friend. It’s a different
experience than with John. In a way more grown-up as he
is so informative, although still an enthusiast. A very pleasing
step forward. Two girls just started at RADA came up to us
in the foyer, asking for an autograph. All wide-eyed and
bushy-tailed. Lovely, lucky girls, just starting.

28 November

John will be forgotten. There will be occasional reruns of
his programmes, but they will start to look dated. There’s
a wonderful website dedicated to him
*
. Someone has
worked really hard to get it together. The message board
is becoming less busy already. If he had done films they
would last longer. Does it matter? Isn’t that the virtue of
TV, that it is of its time? Then it moves on. Like life. When
Margaret Fox, one of the founders of Quakerism, died she
wanted no marked grave. She is buried somewhere in a
field in the Lake District. That field encircled by a stone
wall vibrates with energy but there is nothing there. When
we redid the garden in Chiswick for my fiftieth birthday,
we had a mosaic fountain put in with the inscription, ‘The
best in this kind are but shadows’. Maybe someone will
deduce a couple of actors lived there once. Then again,
maybe it’s already been bulldozed, like my dad’s garden.

29 November

Saw Ken Parry at the rather staid University Women’s Club.
We had a riotous lunch. He wore black slacks and T-shirt
with gold necklace and bracelet and jaunty black leather
Beatle cap. The retired lady professors and writers were
enthralled. Particularly when he announced that John
thought that he was the only man who could make the word
‘cunt’ sound funny. ‘Cunty wunty,’ he trilled for me over
the hors d’oeuvre. The song from
Bitter Sweet
that John
liked went down well too. He knows everyone in the profession.
When he attended John’s memorial, ‘which we could
have done without, dear’, Barry, who was sitting next to
him, observed he was doing the same thing in St Martin-in-
the-Fields as he used to in the Seven Stars, waving at all
the pros. He had tears in his eyes when he said, ‘Yes, he
was having a bloody good laugh at us, up there, couple of
old poofs together.’ This lovely man does not seem to be
hurt that John and a lot of his other ‘Alices’ have lost touch
with him. ‘I’m lucky – I’m still here, pussy.’ And he still has
John’s ironing board and an A to Z that has written inside:

This book belongs to Tom Courtenay.

This book belongs to Vic Symonds.

No it doesn’t it belongs to Kenny.

No it doesn’t it belongs to John Thaw.

As he left, he asked, ‘Do you think I was important to
them? Very? Oh, I’m glad to hear that. It’s the end of a
puzzle.’

30 November

Saw Barry J. Gordon in his sheltered housing in Ealing. A
dapper, smiley man, he has transformed a rather dreary
building into a haven of good taste. Actors are divine. You
could be in a flat in Eaton Square surrounded by the beautiful
pictures, ornaments and antique furniture collected
throughout his life. There is Earl Grey tea in bone china
cups with homemade cakes. Yet the tales of his childhood
make John’s seem like an episode of
The Darling Buds of May
.

1 December

Thank God for the press. I never thought I’d say that, but
without them this whole Iraq business would go unchallenged.
All the opposition to Blair’s mad rush to war has
come from his own party or the press. The Tories have just
rolled over lest they should be thought unpatriotic.

6 December

Women in Film luncheon. Great day. Everyone lets their
hair down, knowing that it’s not exposed on TV. Germaine
Greer got huge reception. Jenny Eclair said, ‘We owe it all
to you’ and the room rose to its feet. Germaine was obviously
moved. One actress said to me, ‘I hate bloody men.
You’re different. Yours was a real partnership.’ A real partnership.
Yes, that’s it.

10 December

Took Lola and Jack to Santa’s World in Wembley. Got
stuck in hideous traffic jam so Lola had to wet her knickers.
We took them off and she greeted Santa with a bare bum.
I was worried about her sitting on some out-of-work actor’s
knee, knickerless, but beneath the beard Father Christmas
was a girl anyway.

18 December

Jo phoned to ask if she could come round. I thought it was
going to be bad news but it was – a tiny black very scared
kitten. ‘He’s no substitute for Dad, but he might help a
bit.’ He spent the day cowering under the sofa with me
lying on the floor trying to coax him out.

19 December

Getting to know Benjamin. He is very sweet if a bit wild
– so he should fit in then. Had some friends round. Spent
the evening talking about illness and dying. We used to talk
about sex and life. Ah me.

21 December

Felt very low shopping surrounded by couples preparing
for Christmas together. Newspapers full of those awful end
of year lists. John in Dead National Treasure List. ‘Not a
very good actor, but probably the most popular.’ Stupid
bastard. He was a superb actor. His range enormous and
his subtlety and utter truthfulness beyond compare. (This
guy thought Stratford Johns was better. Perlease.) The thing
was you couldn’t see the wheels turning so they couldn’t
tell how skilled he was. Some of them. Did this schmuck
think that all the people that made him ‘probably the most
popular’ for four decades were complete idiots?

24 December

Our wedding anniversary. Jo and I went to a St Martin-in-
the-Fields service and then supper at the Savoy. It was
very ordinary, full of lost foreigners and I suspect, part-time
waiters, but it was different. Took our minds off what
we would have been doing with him.

25 December

Ellie Jane laid on a lovely Christmas Day but it was total
agony. I felt detached and dead and guilty that I couldn’t
be more gracious. It’s the going home on my own with no
one to talk to about the day’s events.

31 December

In Lucky. Family gone back to London. Felt wretched and
sorry for myself while the rest of the country celebrated.
I’ve been invited to a lovely party by Amanda Redman,
but chose to be miserable with my sister. Am I finding
comfort in my grief? This feeling that wells from the pit of
my stomach, tightens the back of my throat and contorts
my face into a parody of a Greek tragic mask. Is the pain
beginning to be a substitute for you? I think of you – you’re
not there, but the pain is. So something is. Better than
nothing. It is proof of your non-existence. If that goes what
is left of you?

3 January 2003

John’s birthday.
Dear God, how these anniversaries come round. I’m not
usually one for birthdays – I’ve been known to forget my
own children’s and I never know how old anyone is, but
suddenly since John’s death I’ve started marking events.
This time last year, etc., etc. It’s pointless and negative and
I’m going to stop it. The two biggies are looming: his death
and my 70th. Not looking forward to either. Jo and Matt
came round and did some DIY for me and Ellie Jane came
with the kids. New life, new focus.

8 January

Lola’s first day at proper school. She looked like Little
Orphan Annie standing on the doorstep in the snow in her
uniform, which Ellie Jane has bought to last – till she’s
sixteen, by the look of it. We are on the brink of a war
with Iraq. Poison gas found in Wood Green. These bastard
politicians had better watch their step and not ruin the
world for the Lolas, Molly Maes and Jacks. Or I’ll . . . I’ll
what? God knows. On top of that I discovered that our
little local Hammersmith Post Office has been held up by
armed robbers for the umpteenth time. What a world. No
wonder Auntie Ruby said before she died that she would
be happy to go, she didn’t belong any more. I used to want
to take on everyone. Wave banners, write letters, make
speeches, but like my parents I see the patterns repeating
over and over and I have lost heart.

14 January

Party for the tenth year of
Breakfast with Frost
. Hell of an
achievement. He has had every top person on his show. A
lot of them were there looking rather grey and small. Why
are most ‘great’ people a disappointment? I went into my
usual mode of being rude and discourteous. What is it with
me that I have to insult important people? Is it an engrained
inferiority complex, an I’ll-show-you mentality? Or years,
generations, of ordinary people being shat on by the likes
of them, that I want to get even for? Whatever it is, it’s
singularly unattractive. Went for supper with Esther
Rantzen.

15 January

Extraordinary coincidence. I described the restaurant I went
to last night to Billie and she told me that during the war
she had come back from a tour with a friend and went
down this self-same passageway, to find the pub that this
girl’s parents owned had been destroyed by a bomb. They
went on a frantic search, finding her parents alive, but her
brother dead in a temporary morgue. Billie must have been
about sixteen or seventeen. The actual fact of war is so
awful. This generation, including Blair, has not experienced
it first hand or they would move heaven and earth to avoid
it, instead of being drawn to it as they seem to be.

18 January

A lovely day (never thought I’d say that again). Wrote in
the morning then went to see Mnemonic at Riverside
Studios. An extraordinary, beautiful show. Then on to a new
– to me – restaurant, the Patio in Shepherd’s Bush with
Geraldine McEwan and Alan Rickman and their friends.
All new to me, but we stayed until 1.30 a.m. I really laughed.

22 January

The German Ambassador says that Germany will not fight
Iraq, as they have started two world wars and will not be
involved in another. Amazing. People are really standing
up and being counted on this issue. I’m terrified for us all.
I do not see how this war against terrorism can possibly
be won.

23 January

Went to lunch with Chris Kelly and Ted Childs in the place
in Charlotte Street where they used to go with John. It was
curious. I had a lovely time with them, but I’m sure they
were aching for John instead.