Hello my loves,
I’m writing this to you on a beautiful June evening. It’s been one of those glorious days where you feel the long-forgotten sun on your skin, and everything in nature seems to be so glad to be alive. Do remember to top up the birdbath and the feeder while you’re here, won’t you? I wouldn’t want my lovely little blue-tit family to think I’d abandoned them.
I’ve been to the hospital today, and it wasn’t pleasant. They’ve been giving me some treatment that has made me feel absolutely ghastly, so I think that’s the last time I’ll be bothering.
It’s only going to prolong the inevitable, and I’ve decided I’d rather spend my last weeks feeling at least human. There’s a lot left for me to do, and I won’t manage it with my head stuck in a toilet bowl, will I? And don’t fret – Lewis was with me every step of the way. I practically had to kick him out so I could get some work done.
Anyway, on to business. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep going today, and I apologise now for the state of my handwriting. I’ve been spending so much time around doctors I seem to have started writing like one!
I am going to tuck this note inside one of my old programmes, and the subject of conversation tonight is unashamedly all about Me. Me, me, me, me, me. So there.
I’m taking a break from my emotional prodding, girls, to indulge in a good old-fashioned nostalgic wallow. I’ve so enjoyed getting all of this together, chatting to Lewis about it, and reliving a few glory moments. Old luvvies never die, darlings – they live on in celluloid heaven! I mean, Sir Alec Guinness might be long gone, but we still know these are not the ’droids you’re looking for, don’t we?
The programme I’ve chosen – from the many – is forGrease, and that run I had over the school holidays, playing Frenchie. I was exceptionally old to be playing a high-school student, but such is theatre, and it was great fun. You used to come along and sit in the box every night, and saw it so many times you knew all the words to that shama-lama-ding-dong song near the end. Plus you did the cutest ever little duet of ‘Summer Nights’ – you always insisted on being Danny, didn’t you, Poppy?
That was a good time – but it wasn’t always easy to combine my work with being a single mum. Rose, I’m sure you’ll appreciate exactly how tough it was, now, after doing it yourself. I was trying to make life as stable as possible for you two, and that involved making a lot of compromises with my acting.
I tried to work during the holidays when you could come with me – all those days sitting on set with colouring books and dot-to-dots; what I’d have given for one of those Nintendo devices like Joe has! I had to turn jobs down, and of course I wasn’t based in London, which is the centre of the known acting universe, so it wasn’t always easy.
I had to balance the need to disrupt your lives with the need to earn money, and keep you two in Clark’s shoes and fig rolls, as well as all those boring old things like paying the mortgage and the gas bill.
It was always a challenge, and I’m very thankful that Penny Peabody came along in my twilight years and rescued me from a life of cutting out food coupons and rationing my bubble baths. Still, no matter how challenging it was, it was a fabulous career.
I had so much fun, met so many interesting people; I travelled, and saw the world, and enjoyed pretty much every moment of it. I mean, it’s not like a proper job, is it? I may not have hit the heights of some of my contemporaries, but I loved it – and somehow, with a nod and a wink from the big man upstairs, seem to have managed to combine it with raising two little girls on my own.
I’ve put together a little show reel for you, girls – it’s on the video sharing thing that Lewis has set up, but it’s also on a DVD too. I wanted you to have it like that as well so that you can pass it on to Joe without him having to see all the other, perhaps less fun, videos.
It’s a collection of some of my favourite film and TV clips – and you’ll get to see your dear old mama transformed before your very eyes into a collection of tarts with a heart, barmaids, sassy secretaries, yummy mummies, stern head teachers and, perhaps my most favourite of all, the nubile young victim of a dashingly handsome Count Dracula – that was before I had you two, and – if I say so myself – my bosoms in that peasant wench outfit are absolutely magnificent; they could have had a film of their own!
There are a few clips of some of my stage shows, and to prove I’m not a complete egotist, I found space on there for some footage of you two as well. Although you may not thank me for it – it’s of you doing your ‘Summer Nights’ routine, and giving it loads of wella-wella-wella-uh!
In the package there will also be some more theatre programmes, a few old movie posters that have somehow survived the decades, and even some of my reviews. Only the kind ones, of course – the rest were ceremonially roasted over a fiery pit. I hope it’s fun for you, and also helps you see me as someone other than your mother – because while that was obviously my most important role in life, it was far from the only one.
Now, while I’m at it, let’s discuss the letter I. I’m going to ask Lewis to simply put it next to H and leave it blank, because to be honest, girls, I can’t think of anything remotely interesting to go with it. So, I’m choosing I is for Inebriation – please tuck into that nice bottle of Amaretto I’ve left in the booze cupboard while you watch.
Happy viewing, and enjoy!
Mum xxx
Chapter 41
Poppy
‘She was very, very good, wasn’t she?’ Rose says, slurring her words slightly around her amaretto glass. She’s taken Mum at her word on the inebriation front – some instructions are simply easier to follow than others.
I don’t mind. In fact, it’s been perfect timing – things were ever so slightly tense after she read my old letters. I still don’t know if I did the right thing in letting her or not. I guess if she’d come flying down the stairs in tears and we’d had an emotional reunion, I’d be more decided about it.
The reality is that they seem to have knocked her sideways a little, made her even more wary and cautious. I’m trying not to remember too clearly what was in them, and trying not to feel too bitter that she hasn’t been willing to discuss them any further. Perhaps a tiny part of me had hoped that once she read my version of events, things would change – and that she’d realise how much all of this has damaged me as well.
As none of that seems to be happening – like she says, this isn’tBeaches– then the amaretto is some consolation. That and a very entertaining evening of watching my mother prance around the screen in a variety of outfits, using a variety of accents, and snogging a variety of men.
It was a bit of a rollercoaster for me, as I’m less drunk than Rose. Some of it was very, very funny – especially the nubile peasant wench falling under the mesmeric spell of Dracula’s eyes as he fanged her. But I also found myself sitting there, the room dark apart from the flickering of the television, in floods of silent tears – seeing Mum there, on that huge flat-screen TV, but knowing that I’ll never be able to talk to her about any of this.
Never be able to ask how she kept her face straight during the horror film; or how she managed to run away from that knife-wielding maniac in six-inch stilettoes, or why she had such a huge crush on Ian McShane. She’s gone, and seeing her mature and change over the years on screen is just emphasising how much I took her for granted while she was here, and how much I’ll miss her now she’s not.
‘She was,’ I reply, as we both politely ignore the clip of us pretending to be Danny and Sandy fromGrease– it is unbearably cute and unbearably painful. ‘She could have done so much more, couldn’t she? If she hadn’t been trying to look after us as well?’
‘Yeah, but you can’t look at it like that,’ Rose says, trying to pour herself another glass and then looking confused when she discovers that the bottle is empty. ‘She loved us, and she loved being a mum, and when you’re a mum, it doesn’t matter what you have to give up.’
