by Dawn French
I sometimes wonder how it works after death – does this notion of a welcoming committee exist? If so, were you on Momma’s welcoming committee? Was there a heavenly reception for her with a soaring celestial gospel choir, where she was offered her favourite drink, Guinness punch, made with Guinness and condensed milk and nutmeg, where she could sip on Saturday Soup and eat hot peppers from the jar and where she would have her beloved Jesus? And legs! And she could look down and say, ‘Oh good, I’ve got legs again – I haven’t had legs since Whoppie killed Philip. It’s very nice.’ I do hope so.
The day I missed you more than any other day, Dad, was our wedding day. It was bloody fantastic! By then we were living in Sinclair Road, Shepherd’s Bush, in our first ever joint home, a little basement flat that backed onto the nuclear train track. We had a brass bed and a cat called Aretha who was the Greta Garbo of cats. Gorgeous but unavailable. Len bought her for my birthday, which was a selfless thing to do since he openly loathes pets, especially cats. I very much enjoyed teasing him about ‘the correct way’ to introduce a cat to its home. I told him that a tried and tested way to stop her running off was to smear butter on her bum and lick it off. His face crinkled into a rugose mask of horror, as he digested this information. I explained that it was just replicating what the mother cats did, that it would be over quickly, that everyone who had a cat did it and to hurry up. He considered it for a good minute and was about to do it, but I couldn’t keep a straight face long enough to see it through. I also knew I wouldn’t want to kiss him if he did that.
Anyway, the day of the wedding drew close and the excitement mounted. I had, stupidly, decided to embark on a ridiculous diet. For some reason, I didn’t think it was OK to be a fat bride. What was I doing?! Another momentary lapse of judgement, due to insecurity I guess, but anyway, I had started a rigorous regime which involved paying a fortune to a Harley Street charlatan, getting injections of what I later realised was probably speed, taking orange and green pills (probably more speed – I didn’t ask) twice a day and only eating meat and citrus fruit. By the day of the wedding, 20 October 1984, my body had really eaten itself. I was down from a bonny size 20 to a starving size 12, and my breath stank like a decomposing cadaver from all the rotting meat inside me. Yeuch. Len had asked me to stop and questioned who I was doing it for. He reassured me that he loved me the way I was and was concerned for my health. Still, I continued till the actual day, and my friend Sue who made my dress (an inspired combination of shepherdess and whore, realised in champagne satin, net and ribbon – well, it was the eighties) had to take it in twice. The whole time I dieted, I was obsessed with thoughts of food, and I couldn’t wait to get to the reception to EAT.
On the day, I got ready at our flat. The mums, so different, tall and short, chalk and cheese, went off in a big car, the BF and the bridesmaids – Len’s nieces Babette and Donna – went off in another, and I was left for the last few single-girl minutes with my lovely brother, who was being you, Dad. He poured us both a gin and tonic and urged me to have a few calm moments to gather my thoughts. He wisely reminded me to clear my head of all extraneous fuss and clutter (of which there is plenty for any bride on her wedding day), and to focus on what it was really all about. It was about me and Len, and he told me to concentrate only on that, to look at Len and to be in the moment and remember what I was saying and why and how very important it all was. It was such good advice, which I always try to pass on, because otherwise my memories of that day would have been full of unimportant nonsense about arrangements and shoes and buttonholes, and veils and napkins and cake deliveries. Instead, I remember Len. And his face. And how happy I felt, how in love.
Before we left the flat, Gary made one last, vital check – ‘Do you want to go through with it, Moo?’ ‘Yes. One hundred per cent,’ I said. We raised a toast to you, Dad, and off we went, with him at my side walking me up the aisle in St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, towards my old school chaplain, Reverend Gordon Cryer, with the soaring, joyful strains of the London Community Gospel Choir ringing around the beautiful Christopher Wren building. I was aware of all that was happening, but all I saw was Len.
Yes of course a pigeon flew in and shat on people. Yes of course the price was still on the bottom of Len’s shoes for all to see when he knelt down, yes of course we were interrupted by the din of the street performers and fire-eaters in the piazza outside, and yes of course Len stood on the train and ripped the dress. That’s us, we always get it a bit wrong. We don’t do perfect, but I tell you, Dad, that day was as near perfect as I ever want a day to be.
I stored my bouquet, with its traditional sprig of myrtle from the Bishops Garden at St Dunstan’s, in the freezer at home while Len and I went off on honeymoon to Kenya. On our return I brought it down to the Blue Monkey church in St Budeaux in Plymouth, and I quietly laid it on the tiny little plot where your ashes are, for you.
Dear Alla,
THIRTY MINUTES AGO I was on my feet clapping like a greedy seal at SeaWorld, celebrating your encore at the Hammersmith Apollo. Who would have thought that 25 years on 4,000 people would roar for the triumphant return of Yazoo! It was so touching to see you hand in hand with Vince, lappin’ up the love, and what a bloody lovely night it was. I was expecting a comforting retro meander down electro-pop lane among a bunch of my-agers, only occasionally straining our middle-aged knees and rising to our feet to bop along to favourites. Not a bit of it. I’d forgotten how sharp the art is when you two are together. Of course, being a techno freak, Vince is on it with state-of-the-art music technology. It was cutting edge and performance art-y. Something about his cool mastery brings out the supreme soul mistress in you, to cut across his electric soundscape with your vocal supernature. There were extraordinary moments when the booming bass was so loud that the vibrations were commanding my own heart to throb to their more urgent and syncopated beat. The walls were thumping and my ears were full of swirling noise. Everybody was dancing and sweating and remembering. It was fabulous. We all tried to sing back at you the songs you gave us, singing so loudly you would be in no doubt how much we know and love them. Some particular songs we wanted you to sing only as the backing track for our tribal rendition, like ‘Only You’.
I watched you in the environment where you are most at home. So easy in front of a mike, being a sexy mofo and exploring the extraordinary shining excellence you are blessed with – your phenomenal, phenomenal voice. Are you ever as amazed with the sound it makes as I am? Does it surprise you when you reach so far inside and find those notes that no one else can make? You are a vocal archaeologist, finding treasures in hidden places and digging them up for our pleasure, then parading them in a bravura display. Is it right that notes are made up of three other notes? Someone told me that once, and tonight it struck me that what I hear with you is all three parts of each note. The top, the middle and the bottom are all there in one glorious whole, a consummate resonance.
Quite besides the utter pleasure of the gig, I watched you with awe. I feel massive pride when it comes to you, and I am properly honoured to be your pal – maybe because I admired you before I knew you.
We met, I think, at a party at the Wag club in Soho in the eighties. I don’t know why I was there, though I have a vague memory of the party being something to do with Elvis Costello, who we both knew a bit. Anyway, I remember spying you across the room and getting very overexcited at the nearness of you. After much unsubtle staring, you eventually returned my glance and then we sort of flirted with each other by having a kind of competitive funny-dance-off from a distance. (If I remember it rightly, you started it with your rendition of a silly dance I’d done in Dirty Movie, the porn parody we did as one of the Comic Strip films.) How divine it was to enjoy those surreptitious moments with a kindred spirit. No one else was aware of what was going on, just us, in our own little bubble, displaying our comedy feathers to each other like peacocks while carrying on conversations with our individual groups, behaving for all the world like we had
n’t just had the synchronised epiphany of finding a fantastic new friend. It wasn’t long before we spoke and we haven’t stopped speaking since really, have we? Two forceful birds with plenty to say, that’s us. A clash and a jangle and a whoop of insistent, persistent friendship. Our time together is so limited that sometimes we speak simultaneously so’s we can cover more ground. I speak, you speak; I also listen, you also listen – just all at once! We don’t always agree, and we aren’t afraid to flesh out a difference of opinion at considerable volume. I love that. The thrust and parry. You find beauty in the small, the detail, the nuance, the insinuation. You are often fascinated by people’s carelessnesses and oversights and equally by their generosities and abundances. You are moved by much that happens around you. Maybe that’s why your lyrics are so insightful – you notice everything. I am less precise, more of a bletherer, keen to experience everything quickly, soon, now – usually without thinking enough about it first. I am a doer, you are a thinker.
We have been good counsel for each other through many phases, I think. There have been so many times where you have been the one who says the key, opinion-changing, intelligent thing which provides the pivotal moment. The start of the new thinking process. The change of the mindset. When Len and I went through a rough patch, I talked endlessly with my mum, my BF, Fatty, my brother, all of whom were supportive and helpful, in so many ways. But you were the one who spoke to me about what forgiveness really means. How it isn’t something you withhold for power purposes if you truly love someone, about what a weight it is, how much lighter you feel the more of it you give away. Give it freely, you said. Not recklessly, make sure to learn from what’s happened, but don’t amass a backlog of fury because it will kill you. Be generous and understanding and kind. That’s what you told me. Don’t judge, just heal. Help each other to heal. It was the only thing that made sense to me. It was right, and good advice. You also reminded me of what a remarkable man he is, just at the moment I could have tipped myself, for an inviting wallow, into a vat of Len faults. You nipped that in the bud, which was a tad frustrating at the time. We all enjoy a good self-pitying moan, don’t we? But you knew it wouldn’t help and would only serve to extend the unforgiving time. The dangerous time in any conflict where one person takes a higher ground from which to do their superior judging. A waste of crucial time when both of us needed to be together, equally, making decisions about how to move on. You reminded me how much Len loves me and you cited literally hundreds of instances when you had witnessed that love. Again, of course, you had noticed the small things, the detail, the numerous subtle gestures, as much as the showy overtures of which there had also been many down through the years. You drew a picture for me of a man I adore, a family I belong in, a world I’ve invested my life in. Then it was obvious that I should fight to keep it and make it stronger. To concentrate on the important stuff and to ignore the crap. And that’s what I did.
We continually share a lot about our kids, you and I, and help each other by reminding ourselves that we are benevolent, well-meaning women just trying to do some good parenting in the face of the frightening tsunami that is teenagehood. On many occasions, we have come to agree that teenagers are selfish little buggers who are, for all their faults, the fundamental point of our lives, the basic underpinning of our reason for being here. They are what has made us different and better. They are the leaven that has raised us up from being the selfish big buggers we were before they came along! Shit – we realise they are vital and amazing, and we have to be annoyed by them because any minute now they will be gone. If we still over-loved them like it was easy to do when they were teeny, the inevitable separation would be so traumatic we would surely collapse and die from utter grief. This way, their behaviour forces us to create a distance, to slacken the ties and allow the disconnection. Let it happen now, so that the eventual uncoupling is gentler, not so much of a heartbreaking tear. They will still be moored to us, just by a long, long, long, long rope.
We often spoke of how much we would love to work together. Work together properly, that is. We had already had a few little jaunts, like the time Fatty and I appeared in your video for ‘Love Letters’ and when I shook my tailfeather on your ‘Whispering Your Name’ video. One of my greatest thrills was coming onstage with you at the Albert Hall and shoogling around you like a demented eejit. (I am your comedy dancing puppet, use me as you will, any time.) But as well as all these daft times, we wanted to find a proper opportunity to work together, didn’t we? On reflection I’ve got a feeling that we were simply taking a rather circuitous route towards the basic fact that we wanted more time together. We could have booked a holiday for God’s sake, but instead we embarked upon an extraordinary adventure which resulted in us both appearing in a West End play called Smaller.
Do you remember the brief? We wanted to commission a piece from a tip-top writer, something that gave us both a chance to flex our muscles (if only we had muscles … I haven’t had sight of a muscle on this Mr Bumble-ly spherical body I live in for years!), and operate slightly outside the ol’ comfort zones. You had done a bit of acting when you did Chicago and I had never done any proper singing, and was unlikely to start tormenting an audience with that this late in the day. We knew that the play had to mean something and, without being pretentious, it had to speak to people our age about the complex nature of the relationships women have inside a family. This was a recurring theme in our history and an area we had foraged about in before, fully aware that it was hazardous, stony ground.
To begin with, we imagined it would be a two-hander. Simple and stark. Very early on I called Kathy Burke, my great friend and the most knowledgeable person I know about new writers. She always has her ear to the ground for formidable new talent. Her first instinct was the person we eventually approached, Carmel Morgan, who was part of the award-winning writing team propelling Coronation Street towards top plaudits at the time. Kath is a Corrie addict, and said that every time Carmel’s name was on the credits, the episode was extra muscular, that she seemed bold and unafraid, and properly funny. So, I met up with Carmel, who, by the way, wins the prize for best swearer I’ve ever met. What a potty mouth. Top. She told me straight away that she had an idea for a play that had been brewing for years, involving two women, a mother and a daughter. The mother, whose life was becoming slowly ‘smaller’, was in the grip of a powerful degenerative disease, and the play explored the claustrophobic relationship between the mother and her daughter, the carer. Carmel suggested that she could well add a sister into the mix, your part, and that would bring another dimension she hadn’t considered before. Plus you would be providing the music for this play. Not a musical but, rather, a play with music. This meant that you had to write songs specifically for the piece. Songs that would inform the play, and would combine with Carmel’s words to give it a raw emotional thrust. Songs that your character would, naturally, sing. I know it takes you time to write and I know it was a tall order, but Alla, the songs you brought to that first rehearsal were unbefeckinlievable. The best I had heard you sing or write for ages.
To begin with, I was reticent about asking Kathy to direct. She has a powerful, clear idea of the work she likes to do, and I know she often likes to be involved in the initial development of an idea, so I feared that this project might be too advanced already for her to want to be a part of it. I called her and reminded her that Carmel had been her suggestion. Both of us were delighted when Kath agreed to oversee the writing process and direct the play.
And so we all started on an equal footing of shared risk and overwhelming excitement. Kathy is a careful and thorough director, who encouraged us to sit and talk about the play for a whole week or more before we got to our feet. By that time we had June Watson on board to play the mother, we had classes on lifting a disabled person, we learned about the wasting disease our mother character had, and we talked endlessly about the confines and the freedoms of this explosive triangular relationship. I watched Kathy slowly and surely
convince you that you could act by making you aware of the natural skills you have, and your powerful presence onstage. She winkled you out of your shell of self-doubt with such maternal care. And sometimes, like all good mothers, she was strict with you, with us, insistent that we face our worst fears and deal with them in what was a truly emotional roller coaster of a play.
I remember the day we realised that there was need of an extra song. A really important song that you would sing in the funeral scene when finally the two warring sisters are united in grief for their dead mother. Initially we had thought the music in that part of the play would be something that already existed, some Bach or perhaps a liturgical chant. Kathy knew instinctively it would be better if it was original. Your face on realising that you had to write another song was a study in frustration and fear. It was the very thing you had asked us not to do. To put you under pressure to write a song quickly. You left on the Friday with an air of grump to propel you into the weekend. On the Monday you played us the Catholic funeral hymn you had written in two days, with your buddy Pete Glenister. Alla, that was one of the most splendid moments of my life. What talent. The hymn, a quiet then soaring paean of exquisite love and beauty, a gift from a daughter to a mother, and most importantly a holy and sacred song, reduced me to tears every night I stood next to you and heard it.