Lexi was running around the garden being her usual, happy self. I was so proud of how she digested the news those months ago and carried on normally. We had striven to keep everything just as it was. Sometimes Mama was sad that the baby had gone back to heaven but I never broke down in front of her. We had both stayed strong and carried on for her. (I joked that I didn’t want her piercing a body part and getting tattoos at twelve and then saying to me it was because she was emotionally wrecked because of our loss!) I know everyone is different, but in my opinion it is selfish to involve young children in terrible events like this. They can be dealt with when they are asleep. Our overwhelming desire was to protect Lexi and we had succeeded.
That day, she was picking daisies from the garden all morning and collecting flints she thought looked pretty. Unbeknown to her I placed the daisies in the box, along with some stones to weigh it down and make it sink once we had thrown it into the sea. At the last minute I unwrapped the box and kept some ashes so that I’ve always got a little bit of him. I couldn’t fully let him go.
Chris was such a tower of strength. He was hard, he was brave, he was a rock (and all the clichés of hard and brave things you can think of!). In my mind he went to battle for his family. He didn’t once cry but he fought to hold me up and keep us pushing forward. He battled against the darkness, taking us all by the hand and dragging us back into the light. He was amazing. I will be honest and say I had underestimated his strength in our relationship. I’d always considered myself to be the strong one; the calm one who dealt with stuff. I kept things from him so as not to worry him. But he proved to be a better human being than I could ever hope to be. I now respected him as much as I loved him.
We drove to the beach and parked. After weeks and weeks of being scared together, being emotional together and talking together we had come to this place to start the healing process.
Chris and I walked hand in hand with Lexi and Fudge in front. I kept my other hand on the tiny wooden box in my pocket. As we made our way through the dunes and over the heather we came upon the most stunning view and I knew that this was the spot where we would have to let go and put the pain and torture of the last few months behind us.
We walked across the pools of water the sea had left behind when the tide went out (Chris joked that if we threw the box into the waves we might find it back again the next day). When we reached the sea, we told Lexi we were going to see how deep our wellies would allow us to go before water came in. She, of course, wanted to join in with her little pink ones! Even so, I was confident she wouldn’t get far enough to see what we were doing.
We carried on walking as far out as we could as the water lapped against our boots. We could hear Lexi behind us, moaning all the way that she was cold and the sea was freezing. Chris and I were trying to be reflective and loving in between promises of chips and hot chocolate for Lexi if she could just be quiet for a bit and see if she could find some fish! When she had occupied herself, Chris threw the box out to sea as far as he could. We held each other tight and kissed as we watched it float further and further out. It went on and on. It soon became clear that it wasn’t going to sink. (I mean, if we had wanted it to float, it would have sunk!) It was endless. We joked it would probably reach Belgium by sunrise. We carried on watching it go – a little pea-green boat floating away in the distance.
We started to get the giggles and then suddenly we heard a splash and a scream. We turned to see Lexi sitting on her bum in the sea. ‘Mama! My blinkin’ knickers are soaked!’ Chris and I lost it completely. I laughed and laughed as we ran back to pull her out. Months of heartache suddenly dispersed.
Life goes on. And so would ours.
Chapter 21
It’s Good Being Green
It’s no exaggeration to say that Shrek saved my life. Rehearsals were due to start almost six weeks to the day after we lost our baby and I told Chris that I would be there for them. He was angry with everyone who told me not to and said, ‘You don’t know Mandy.’ He understood completely that I needed something to focus my mind, and Shrek was it.
DreamWorks made it quite clear I didn’t have to do it if I wasn’t ready, but they were exceptionally supportive of my choice. And I wasn’t just doing it for me. One of the main reasons I did Shrek was that I’d wanted Lexi to see Mama on stage and for her to go backstage and be a part of the buzz, to see the costumes and understand about the make-up and the fantasy. I had promised and I wasn’t going to let her down again! I was going to ‘deliver’ Fiona.
On the first day of the Shrek rehearsals in Belsize Park, I was very scared and Chris came with me for moral support. He was so embarrassed. Being shy of any public attention, his worst nightmare is to walk into a room where there is the whole cast and the director of a West End show standing in a line waiting to greet him! We walked into that huge, busy room together and shook hands, smiling outwardly at everyone, but I was dying inside. It was the first time I had really stepped out of my bubble, and it felt like walking out of the cinema and into the cold light of day.
We stood in a circle and awkwardly introduced ourselves – it was like being back at drama school! The introductions went along the line. Chris said he mentally was counting down – five people before him, four people, three, and then he murmured to me, ‘I’m not saying anything!’ So when it was my turn, I said, ‘I’m Amanda and this is Chris my husband. He’s here for me but he’s not in the show unless you’re desperate! He’s also too shy to introduce himself. Oh, and he does his own ironing and is very good at foot massage.’
Rehearsals started the next day. It was the toughest thing I have ever had to do, but out came my mask and I got on with it – and dancing, singing and being painted green ended up being very cathartic for me. Shrek pulled me from a very dark place, and to all those people who do not understand my decision to return to work so quickly, I would say you can never judge until you’ve been in that situation yourself. Chris says it was like I was cured. It wasn’t closure, but it did refocus me, and I definitely turned a corner that day.
Those six weeks of rehearsals were indeed the best kind of therapy I could have had. But I look back and even I am not sure how I got through the long days, trying to keep up with the talent surrounding me. I would often blush and feel myself get sweaty when I knew people were watching me do my stuff. It might surprise you to know how embarrassed I felt, but it’s a hard thing to prove you’re worthy when you go into a show like Shrek, however much you bring with you professionally. Once you’re established as a television ‘personality’ your experience in the theatre is immediately overlooked, your twenty-year CV is forgotten and you arrive back in the West End billed as someone ‘off the telly’, someone who might (possibly) put ‘bums on seats’. The scrutiny is harsh (life on the stage doesn’t get easier with recognition and money). But the attitude and determination I learnt on day one at drama school has always stayed with me, and it was that that got me through it.
I couldn’t have done it without that wonderful cast and crew, though. I told them, ‘Please don’t tiptoe around me, I want to get on with it. If I’m crap, then tell me. Talk to me properly and don’t give me any special treatment.’ They showed they cared not by outlandish gestures, but by an occasional little hug or squeeze of the hand, or a compliment thrown my way every now and then. They were the most loving, funny people with no in-house fighting or bitching (very unusual for this business!).
Before I started Nigel Lindsay, who was playing Shrek, had written me a touching letter in which he said, among other kind words, that he was looking forward to the rehearsals, a family member had also experienced what we had been through. We spoke about that privately later and it was very moving. At Shrek, I didn’t want top billing or the number one dressing room. (Besides, I only thought it fair that Nigel should have the biggest dressing room because of the three hours he had to spend in prosthetics each day!) I didn’t want any star treatment at all – I even requested that the posters were designed w
ith my name having middle billing so the show didn’t become all about me. There is sometimes a weird hierarchy in theatre and I am happy to be no part of it. I only asked the producers for one thing, and that was for there to be no gossip magazines or newspapers in the rehearsal space. I didn’t want to see anything about myself, and still to this day have no idea of the newspaper coverage of that awful time.
Instead of the biggest dressing room, I chose a cosy dressing room up three flights of steep winding stairs. I had signs made up: ‘This way to the tower!’ I had it refurbished into a purple boudoir with a chaise longue, soft furnishings, feather boas and most importantly a fridge stacked with bubbles and my old-fashioned bowl-shaped champagne coupes. I filled it with candles and flowers and bowls of sweets. It was gorgeous. There is also a pair of small green footprints on the ceiling where Chris and I painted Lexi’s feet and held her upside down – against her will! – to make her mark for ever. I hope no future Princess Fionas or Willy Wonkas ever paint over it!
During those first days I was still in moderate pain from my C-section (I realised it may have technically been a little early to go back to work one night when I was dancing and had to jump over the bed I’d just been lying on – I felt a trickle and realised my Caesarean scar was opening . . .) but it was my emotions that were really all over the place. I felt a mixture of elation, guilt at feeling happier and thinking I shouldn’t be, and this weird feeling of having lost something. Whenever I remembered it was my baby, I would feel a gut-wrenching stab. I still get this feeling now. Everybody was respectful and kept out of my way, but going back to work so soon was much harder than I thought it would be. I had underestimated how much I needed head space. I lunched alone for the first few weeks, as I felt too shy to join the others and wanted to be on my own. I found a secret fire exit and cried a lot over my sandwiches there, before finally pulling myself together and arranging lunch dates with my own friends near by, my new friends in the cast, or Divs (who was written into my contract as my dresser from the off – I rescued her from Wicked where she’d worked since the opening night).
I never talked about our baby with anyone in the show apart from Nigel. I just wanted to put it behind me and move on. The rehearsals were going great, and the producers and choreographers would give me a pat on the back if I picked up a new tap routine. I’m not a natural dancer – I really had to apply myself – but I don’t know what the word ‘no’ means. I exhaust every possibility before I give up, to the occasional annoyance of other people! The only problem was, I didn’t think I was funny enough. I wasn’t in the right place mentally for humour. That is, until one day when Ben Cooke and his friend Joe met me for lunch before a performance. I don’t normally drink when I’m working but I had a glass of wine and got a bit squiffy, ran back to the rehearsal space, and did the show. I was able to let go and relax, and got a huge round of applause. It was an epiphany for me. It had given me a new insight into my character and I suddenly knew what I had to do to make Fiona funnier. (But obviously that wouldn’t involve wine.)
Early on in the previews, I was doing a scene set at sunset where I turned from a princess into an ogre. I stood centre stage as a net was lowered behind me and then the ‘magic lights’ came on. I had to look at my hands as they appeared to turn green. As I went to exit the stage, out of the corner of my eye I saw a man standing where I was heading. Instinctively, I moved out of the way and said, ‘Oh, sorry excuse me.’ When I came off, I said to Davina, ‘Who was that, getting in the way of stage directions when I’m meant to be leaving the stage?’ Divs told me there wasn’t anybody there, and looked at me as if I was going mad. The weird thing is, I couldn’t describe him to her, but I was adamant there’d been someone there. Davina laughingly told me I must have seen a ghost (the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is one of the world’s most haunted theatres).
About a week later, we did the first orchestra rehearsal, which is when you first get to sing with the orchestra (it’s an amazing experience). In the bar in the break, I was chatting to some of the boys and they started to talk about the resident ghosts. Stage crews and casts always love seeing one, as it is meant to signal good luck for that production or that person. The most famous one at Drury Lane is the Man in Grey, who appears dressed as a nobleman of the late eighteenth century: powdered hair beneath a tricorn hat, wearing a dress jacket and cloak or cape, riding boots and a sword. Legend says that the Man in Grey is the ghost of a man who was stabbed to death and whose skeletal remains were found within a walled-up side passage in 1848.
Apparently, there is another one, Lavender Man, who had such weeping sores before he died that he used to wear lavender tied to him everywhere to disguise the rotten smell. Now he haunts the theatre in wafts of lavender. (All cleaning products or toiletries that smell of it are banned, so that if you smell lavender anywhere in the theatre you know that it’s definitely Lavender Man.)
Actor Charles Macklin is also supposed to appear backstage, wandering the corridor which now stands where he killed fellow actor Thomas Hallam in 1735, in an argument over a wig (he pierced his left eye with a cane, which wasn’t very friendly at all!). The comedian Stanley Lupino also claimed to have seen the ghost of Dan Leno in a dressing room.
None of these seemed to match the description of the man on the stage, so I remained convinced he was a real person, until someone mentioned the ghost clown Joseph Grimaldi, who appears on stage. I immediately got goosebumps and went a bit cold. ‘What kind of performer?’ I asked. It turns out Grimaldi guides actors around the stage or makes them move out of his way. I said, ‘Oh my God, you are not going to believe this, but I met him!’ So, I can confirm that he does move people out of the way – and typical me, I even apologised to him! After that I would sit in my dressing room and be like, ‘Come on, Joseph, I don’t mind if you want to come in!’ Mad.
Often my lovely midwives Jackie and Pippa would come over to see me, which is when we started plotting my future pregnancy. It sounds unprofessional to have been thinking about it in the middle of a job, but I knew I had to have another baby. Chris wanted to wait until Shrek had finished, but I had other ideas. In fact, Chris thought I was on the Pill – and I certainly looked like I was. I kept them by my bedside and I made a big show of taking them – but in reality, they were being spat down the toilet religiously on a daily basis. Meanwhile, he thought it was his birthday in the bedroom department – I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing him at every opportunity. I can only now put it down to the primal need to have another baby that had overtaken me, but poor Chris had no clue.
There will be some of you reading this and thinking, poor bloke – how could she dupe him? As dishonest as it does sound, he is married to me – he knows better than anyone that I am a nutter and control freak, and I did eventually come clean to him. All I can say in my defence is that I could not have lived through that time without the knowledge that I would get myself pregnant again as soon as possible. I could not have done Shrek, I could not have been a mum, I could not have been a wife. I felt I owed it to myself. As awful as it is for griefstruck husbands or partners when a baby dies, only a woman can possibly understand what it’s like to feel the baby inside you and then have it born dead. I had seen how strong Chris had been with me and for me, and I knew he would be again.
I was also getting my body in prime condition for conceiving – eating fruits and nuts, taking lots of vitamins and visiting the extraordinary Zita West, who took me under her wing for therapy, hypnosis and acupuncture twice a week after rehearsals. She advised me, hugged me, dosed me up and told me stories of families who had been through the same (not naming them, obviously) and she started to make me feel it was possible for me to become pregnant again. She was a godsend – I credit her clinic for making me believe in my body again.
The opening night of the preview shows could not have gone better. Ben Elton came backstage to congratulate me and was so over the top with his praise I didn’t know what to say. It was definitely one of the be
st things I’ve ever done. On a personal level I learnt so much about myself. The reviews were good apparently (I didn’t read them) and the theatre was fully booked for months to come. DreamWorks (specifically Jeff Katzenberg) said it was the best production to date and we were all euphoric. I knew I’d made the right decision to carry on.
The first song I sang every night was called ‘I Know It’s Today’, and in my head I made it about when I would get pregnant! I had ovulation kits hidden away in Lexi’s drawer where Chris wouldn’t find them and peed on sticks left, right and centre. Every third Saturday of the month during those preview weeks of Shrek I would find out I wasn’t pregnant. It was always a tortuous day, as I would also normally find out between the matinee and the evening show. Poor Divs would often walk into the room having left a cheerful Mandy applying her red lips, only to return to one looking like Alice Cooper with her mascara running down her cheeks. Normally a chocolate brownie and a Nespresso coffee would rally me, Dr Footlights would take over and I would just get on with it, but there was one Saturday when I felt I couldn’t take any more.
There had been an outbreak of chickenpox and shingles. My midwives knew I’d never had either so they pumped me full of white blood cells in case it jeopardised me getting pregnant. Even Lexi had a jab against it. Unfortunately, Chris didn’t, and because he had been pushing himself so hard he came down with a serious case of chickenpox, which doctors put down to all the stress he’d been through. With him out of action, I had to do the school run and then get a motorbike to the theatre six days a week. It was a gruelling schedule. I longed to spend at least one day with Lexi and would have loved Sundays off, but I had to take Tuesdays like everyone else, so on Sundays I’d finish at five and rush off to have tea with Lexi after the theatre.
No Holding Back Page 23