There's Something I've Been Dying to Tell You (6 page)

There was one stark reminder of nature, still standing tall and proud after being stripped of greenery by lightning. ‘We like to keep it because it is as much a part of the landscape as its brothers, and is still useful to other wildlife.’ Talking to men like that, who are just so into nature. Their complete love and dedication just makes one so grateful because without them we would lose so much of our heritage.

When we were there his lordship and his workers were dredging the lake, which lies at the bottom of a gorgeous sloping lawn. A painting depicting the same scene hundreds of years ago would have looked the same. But I did find a new spot to try something that may not have been around quite so long, but is delicious and should be kept going for posterity. A Devon cream tea! This lovely local lady does cream teas in her shop and makes everything and so much of it. She had a beautiful china cake stand piled with the biggest array of sandwiches you have ever seen. It was like a cream tea for a giant!

‘Oh we don’t like to stint our customers,’ she said in her rounded Devon brogue. ‘We never have any complaints. Now try one of my scones, and tell me, what is the correct way to eat your scone, cream first or jam?’

I knew this was a tricky question because in Cornwall they do it one way and Devon another but I couldn’t remember which way round it was.

‘Cream on first,’ she pronounced, as I was just about to spread some jam across this enormous scone.

‘Oh OK,’ I murmured, salivating at the sight of the pot of clotted cream.

‘Cream comes from our herd and I make all the jams myself,’ she told me proudly.

Well I forgot I was going to be watched by millions as I spooned, nay heaped, my scone with cream and jam, and stuffed it into my mouth. I was just reaching a higher plane of existence in the joy department when I heard my director call out, ‘OK, Lynda, close the scene please and make your goodbyes.’

She must be joking; I could not speak for five minutes!

I loved doing
Country House Sunday
and I so wish there had been another series, but sadly it was not to be. But, dear reader, if you want a lovely day out, search all these stately homes on the web and take your pick, they really are worth a visit.

Now back to the other story which is not quite so sunny I am afraid to say.

4

A PASSIONATE WOMAN

June–July 2013

The previous two years had been spent setting up my career again after four years on the road. I had loved every minute of
Calendar Girls
and although the touring was hard, and very tiring, Michael and I had made it our own sort of road trip. Looking back, timing had been everything. There was no way I could have spent so much time away from home and family if Michael had not been with me. Those four-and-a-half years gave me the confidence to push on towards the other ambitions I still had left in me but, more importantly, I realised just how happy I was to be in a loving relationship. I was killing the myth that sometimes lingered in my head that an artist or an actor has to live a tragic life of poverty in an attic to realise their talent.

I have seen so many marriages fall apart because the couple are not together enough, and Michael and I were never without each other in those four years. I don’t know how we survived without a cross word, but we did. He was able to work from a laptop so had his own agenda and I spent a good deal of time doing work for the various charities I support. It was fantastic to get out of London and see how things really work in our society. We tend to think London is the centre of the universe, but it is only like every other capital city around the world. Oh yes it is diverse and multicultural, and exciting, but it is not remotely connected to the rest of the UK.

When I had finished touring
Calendar Girls
, I had to think about the next step for me. David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers were the producers of
Calendar Girls
, and David Pugh and I had discussed several times what I should do next. I did not want to go back to
Loose Women
as I felt I had no more to talk about. The problem with being on TV week in week out is that one runs out of stories about one’s life; and the day-to-day stuff is not always thrilling and exciting and worth discussing. I also had the feeling that my career as an actress was not being taken very seriously. It is all very well having a high profile but if one is not careful these days you can become famous for being famous, which is not something I had ever wanted in my career. Television did not seem to beckon so I looked to the stage, and there was David one day, sitting in the alleyway outside Sheekey’s restaurant in Covent Garden, which David uses as a second office, with a fantastic suggestion. He still owned the rights to
A Passionate Woman
by Kay Mellor. He had produced it in the West End nearly twenty years ago, starring that wonderful actress Stephanie Cole, and this would be the play to set me back on course. It is a brilliant piece of writing, a very dark comedy about a woman in her late fifties on the day her son is getting married. She is in a loveless marriage, and the thought of life stretching before her without her beloved son produces some surprising reactions from her, and everybody around her. I was so excited about this production.

I had an action-packed day when we auditioned five Polish actors to play opposite me. We already had Christopher Timothy onboard to play my husband, so that was great as we had been married before in
All Creatures Great and Small
and he is just so lovely. We had also auditioned for the role of my son and cast Peter McMillan, who gave a very impressive audition. The plot involves Betty, my character, having had a passionate affair, many years ago, with a young Polish immigrant who then gets shot and dies. During the course of the play he appears to Betty and brings back so many memories, not least how attracted she was to this very passionate young man. David Pugh decided he wanted a Polish actor who spoke English, rather than an English actor trying to speak with a Polish accent, so instructed the casting director, Sarah Bird, to come up with some names. Being the brilliant woman she is they duly arrived at Luton, by easyJet, one May morning. I then had the onerous task of spending a morning snogging five young handsome Polish actors. I didn’t mention this to hubbie at the time!

Kay Mellor, who wrote the play and was to direct it, and David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers, the producers, all sat in the stalls and watched with great glee as I grappled with my would-be lovers. I can’t remember whether Mateusz Demięcki came in second or third, but it was one of those theatrical moments where, when he opened his mouth to speak, we all just stopped and watched, completely caught up in his performance. He had learned the lines for the scenes instead of reading them, which is always very impressive, and he had no inhibitions at all – and just swept me up in his arms and made love to me there and then. Well of course when I say “made love to me” he was acting! But he was fantastic. After he had left the stage we all recovered our breath, especially me. I was having a hot flush, frankly!

David said we must see all the other actors before we made any decisions, and of course that is absolutely right. We did so and then we broke for lunch and went to sit at a table in the alleyway outside Sheekey’s. There really was no contest and David rang Mateusz and told him to come back at two o’clock to go through the scenes again. All those other poor lads had all day to wander around until their flight back in the evening. Two o’clock duly arrived and we all trooped back into the theatre. I had had a glass of wine to fortify myself against another onslaught of passion. Who am I kidding? I couldn’t wait! Sorry, hubbie, I’m only joking.

After we had gone through the scenes again David came up onto the stage and announced that Mateusz had got the job. The young man looked absolutely stunned and said, ‘Please don’t make joke with me. Is this candid camera?’

David was so excited. He told me later that one of his most favourite things in life is when he gets to tell someone they have got the job, which I thought was so lovely of him. We all went back to Sheekey’s in the alley and had a glass of champagne to celebrate, and as we were sitting there a man came over and asked Mateusz for his autograph. They had a conversation in Polish and then the man left happily clutching his piece of paper.

‘I am so sorry, Mateusz,’ I said. ‘Are you very famous in Poland?’ It had not occurred to any of us, I don’t think, that maybe this very talented young man had a great career in another country.

‘No not really,’ he replied modestly. ‘I did a series for TV and everyone got to know me a little bit.’

A little bit?! It turns out he is the sort of David Tennant of Poland and his whole family is in the theatre. He works for their National Theatre and is feted wherever he goes. Not great news for our producers, who could see the wage bill rising in their mind’s eye! But great news for the play and, as we waved goodbye at the end of the day and agreed we were all looking forward to the read through in a few weeks’ time, I was on cloud nine.

The day of the read through did indeed arrive on 28 June 2013, a day I will never forget. I had been told there was a problem with a shadow on my liver that morning, and that I must cancel my holiday to Greece, starting that Sunday, and go and see a colon specialist on the Tuesday.

By the time I got to the read through I was in pieces. I told no one except dear Chris Timothy, who just gave me a big hug and said to try not to think about it until Tuesday. Just enjoy today. I took his advice and threw myself, heart and soul, into that read through. When we had done I was on such a high but as I gradually came down to earth while we sat celebrating the successful read through, I could no longer push the negative thoughts aside. Thank God my wonderful, special husband came round the corner in the nick of time and whisked me away.

We decided to meet our dear friends Angie and John Chandler for lunch on the Saturday and we discussed the holiday that we had had to cancel. They had been intending to join us for the last week. It was not a very jolly lunch, I have to say, and by the end of the weekend Michael and I had run out of positive things to say to each other, we just wanted to get the meeting on Tuesday over with, and done and dusted. The day finally came and those unforgettable words resounded round the surgeon’s office, ‘Now about your cancer, Miss Bellingham,’ and, well, you know the rest by now.

With
A Passionate Woman
I had finally found a project that was exciting and would set me off again on the road to acting glory! I joke, but believe me, acting is a very tough and cruel business to survive in, and I intended to survive to my dying day.

Yet now suddenly, ironically, I faced my dying day, and I was going to have to give up my dream. I was devastated when I realised that I would have to cancel the tour. The Monday after my first chemo I spent hours on the phone to my agent Sue Latimer. She also happens to be a dear friend, and so I could talk honestly and freely with her. David and Dafydd were prepared to postpone and wait to see how I got on with the chemo.

I asked my oncologist if there was any way I could have my chemo sessions at different hospitals around the country when I toured. Or maybe I could come back to London every fortnight and have the chemo on the Monday morning before travelling to my next theatre date. I was clutching at straws and I knew it. Although I had no terrible side effects from the first chemo I was experiencing fatigue already, and flu-like symptoms which I tried to disguise with painkillers. It would be impossible to hold a performance together night after night.

The final nail in the coffin (if you will pardon the expression) was insurance. There was no way the producers would be able to insure me for a nationwide tour. So that was that. My career was to end, just like that. Oh I could maybe do the odd appearance in a TV drama. Or maybe some reality things and documentaries, but as to any more life-changing career roles?

Well it now seemed that I was destined to create my role as a cancer victim. The bloody disease had beaten me before I had even started. I cried my heart out. I know it must seem very odd to some people that I seemed more upset about my career than my family. Believe me, that was not the case, but the weird thing about death or the idea of leaving one’s loved ones, is that somehow it’s easier for the person with the problem. It is the thought of leaving them alone that is so awful. For them it is a terrible loss in their lives, but for me I would be off wherever, and out of it.

But in the meantime to live without working was just unbearable to me. I have been an actress for forty-five years. It has saved me from disaster so many times. I am defined by my work, in a way, as so many of us are in life. Yes, I have my sons, but they are grown men, and although I know they love me, they have their own lives to lead. My marriage to Michael has been so wonderful and such a surprise, and I am only too aware that I would be leaving him just as we were embarking on the twilight of our lives. We had so many plans to travel and enjoy ourselves. Michael also understood I needed to work as well. Everything was set up to move forward to a happy ending. But as we all know life is not like that.

I only found out my prognosis two days before the news was announced in the press. I had really had no time to digest my situation myself and, to be honest, I was still in a state of disbelief.

It is so hard to explain – although I wasn’t in denial, I could not help but think there had been a mistake. I kept asking Justin Stebbing whether I would be able to cope with eight shows a week, and all the travelling. I think he too wanted it to be OK, so he never really gave me the definitive ‘No’ that had to come. David and Dafydd wanted me to take my time and make absolutely sure that I could not combine the play with the chemo sessions, but for them it was about the nuts and bolts of salvaging any funds, so they had to go to the insurance company which, in turn, left no option but to tell the press and the people who had already bought tickets that the deal was off.