The Two of Us

by Sheila Hancock

  ‘Do what? What’s on then?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The Palace, you lummock! What’s on in Manchester then?’

  The most amazing breakthrough was that he was not afraid to show his grief. He wept unashamedly in front of the congregation. Jack’s friends from the pub in their best suits and flat caps must have been a bit embarrassed, especially as I had given them all posies of sweet peas to hold, which they did with good grace to placate the weird southerners. I was relieved that John was not turning his back on his loss. He was even moved by the public demonstration of grief over the death of Princess Diana in the same year. He did not, as one would expect, join the cynics who found it absurd. He wept with me as we watched the crowd throw flowers at her passing hearse. Suddenly the British turned continental and publicly howled with grief and rage at the death of this damaged young woman. And their own private griefs perhaps. It was odd behaviour and we were all surprised at ourselves. We knew she was a mess, that is why we liked her. No one could organise when and to whom we paid respect any more. Suddenly the people dictated when flags were lowered and how queens should behave. It was a strange little revolution.

  John did not feel able to return to Udi. He could not remember the reason why he left so abruptly. There was so much in his life that he could not recall and some of it he preferred to leave unexplored. In 1997 he received a letter from Udi. ‘The lengths I have to go to, to bring some kind of satisfactory – for me and for you – closure to our old but, for me, quite unfaded relationship. What do I mean? Thought you’d like to know and perhaps wish to respond to a shitty development in my life. A few weeks ago I had a relatively advanced stomach cancer diagnosed. Size of a huge brick, so my surgeon told me.’

  They met and John continued to learn from this wise man, who set an example to everyone of how to die well, tidying loose ends and bidding farewell. At the memorial service John read the passage from Primo Levi that Udi had chosen for him:

  To My Friends:

  Dear friends, I say friends here

  In the larger sense of the word:

  Wife, sister, associates, relatives,

  Schoolmates, men and women,

  Persons seen only once

  Or frequented all my life:

  Provided that between us, for at least a moment,

  Was drawn a segment, a well-defined chord.

  I speak for you, companions on a journey

  Dense, not devoid of effort,

  And also for you who have lost

  The soul, the spirit, the wish to live.

  Or nobody or somebody, or perhaps only one, or you

  Who are reading me: remember the prime

  Before the wax hardened,

  When each of us was like a seal.

  Each of us housed the imprint

  Of the friend we met along the way;

  In each the trace of each.

  For good or evil

  In wisdom or in folly

  Each stamped by each.

  Now that time presses urgently,

  And the tasks are finished, to all of you the modest wish

  That the autumn may be long and mild.

  The imprint of Udi and Beechy, friends met along the way, had indeed restored to John the soul, the spirit, the wish to live. Two near divorces, numerous separations, lots of houses, kitchens, gardens and bathrooms later, we were back together for good. It was like the first idyllic days. Of course there were still fights but they were the sort we enjoyed. No cruelty, no fear. We made a real effort to grow up.

  25 May

  Noticed it is a beautiful spring day. And I hate it because he can’t see it. That’s a waste. I have to learn to see the blossom. For myself, not just to tell John. A woman stopped me today and said, ‘I’ve loved your work ever since Sweeney Todd,’ no mention of John. I was grateful. There is a danger of just being seen as his widow. I have always been in his shadow and never minded much when he was alive but now he’s not here in person to cast the shadow and I need to get in the sun on my own.

  18

  You Came Through

  WITH THE FOG CLEARED, John used his new-found clarity to make amends and open up his life. In 1997 he wrote to me when I was on location for a film: ‘I seem to have seen a lot of TV drama about alcoholics since I got back from Greece and it brought to mind the fact that I may not have said that I’m sorry for all the years of misery I gave you. I am truly sorry and thank God that you stayed with me. I love you and need you.’

  He had no need to apologise. The delight in being together had only been deepened by the struggle to achieve it. As Udi had done, I tried to continue to make him value himself, so I was delighted when he faxed me on a trip to America:

  My darling (Hi darlin’)

  I am proud of my family – I am proud of myself (pleased?)

  but most of all I am proud of YOU. You are the love of my life.

  Missing you

  Me.

  4 June

  To St Paul’s for Jubilee service. Bit disappointing. I expected the music to be monumental but it was fairly conventional stuff. Felicity Kendal had instructed me to wear a hat and gloves – she knows about these things – so I rented a rather splendid silver number from Hepsibah. My first public appearance without John or the girls. Crowds held back by barriers shouting greetings to me. Good luck darling. One woman called me insistently so I went over thinking she wanted an autograph but she took my hand solemnly and said, ‘You look beautiful, my dear.’ People are so unbelievably kind. It was exactly what I needed to boost my confidence.

  On Christmas Eve 1998 we celebrated our Silver Wedding. He bought me the Jaguar of my dreams and I commissioned sculptors and artists to make various garden seats for Lucking-ton. My card to him read:

  Darling,

  You will see my present at Lucky. It’s something for us to enjoy together. Because this is a celebration of being together. I am so grateful to you. Not just for all you have given me, love and beautiful homes (and my Jag!!) but what you have permitted me to do. It is a great blessing in life to have someone worth giving love to. Through all the dark times I have always hung on to the absolute knowledge that it was worth hanging on in there. And now after your courageous battle, we are so lucky. It is a tough old world out there but I always know I have you. Let us enjoy our next years together. They can’t be as long, but they can be ever richer. Thank you my darling.

  His to me read:

  My darling,

  You are a very special person – a one-off. You have brought hope, encouragement and love into so many people’s lives (not least your family’s). You have a great talent and a heart as big as an oak. Whatever we have for twenty-five years of marriage is mainly due to your giving, your loving and I thank my God for you. I love you with all my heart.

  Your little husband.

  P.S. you’re also dead sexy!!

  TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, KID?!

  6 June

  God this business. It’s a joke. The humiliation never ends. It’s endemic in the job. Just after being nominated for a BAFTA as Best Actress some young producer wanted me to go and audition for a telly part that was virtually one speech. I know the author and the director so surely they could assess my ability to act or even look at a tape of my work if they needed to? Well, at least you can never get above yourself. Normally I would’ve slunk along and done what they asked but, prompted by my agent, I actually told them to stuff their part up their arse. Taking Holly Bach remedy for anger and bloodymindedness. Think I need it!

  A few years after he had told John to watch his step, Beechy was alarmed when the doorman of his rooms phoned to say he had arrived without an appointment. Beechy was with a desperate patient so he could not see him for over an hour. He expected the worst when at last he went down to the waiting room. He feared that John would have gone or be in trouble. He was still there, looking fit and happy.

  ‘I just came to say thank you. That was all.’ A h
ug and he left.

  Of all our daughters our youngest, Joanna, had probably suffered most from our antics over the years. She had been on the receiving end of rejection by her father followed by overcompensating effusive love, which she learned to mistrust. One day they were sitting together and he said very quietly, ‘I love you, kid.’

  ‘Me too, Dad.’

  And the past was forgotten.

  Our first grandchild, Jack, whose birth John had been too ill to enjoy, presented him with another challenge. In 1999, when he was four years old, he was suddenly diagnosed with a brain tumour and had to have a massive operation at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Simultaneously I was rushed into hospital for an emergency appendectomy. John was left holding the fort. I was beside myself with anxiety. John comforted and supported us all, darting between hospitals, places he had hitherto avoided like the plague. Confined to my hospital bed, all I could do was write Jack a letter:

  Jack,

  When I grew old enough to know better I had an irresistible desire to go on a seesaw. I sometimes wanted to play hopscotch too. Or pull faces at strangers. But I was sixty years old. My hair was going grey and I was respectable. So I had to behave, but I was very very depressed. You see, I didn’t feel old but people, even your mummy, told me to ‘act your age’, which meant taking things slowly, being serious and driving a Saab and feeling very very bored.

  Then a wonderful thing happened. You arrived. Your daddy was holding you wrapped in a blue blanket and I knew then that I loved you not that much (I am doing the arms thing), not that much – but that much (very wide arms). We celebrated with a bottle of champagne and lots of laughter and that’s how it’s been ever since. Because I’ve got you with me I can go on seesaws, go down slides, dance in the streets, go on funfairs, watch Babe over and over, have pillow fights and bite people’s bums. I got a sports Jaguar telling people that I thought my grandson would like it. That was a fib. I like it. I like everything I do with you. Being in the garden in the rain, throwing things in streams, feeding ducks, flying kites, sailing boats, giggling till it hurts, even reading Snow White and the Seven bloody Dwarfs! With you I don’t have to be an old lady. I’m very lucky, mind you, that you have turned out to be such a very nice grandson. In fact, come to think of it, I’m the luckiest Nana in the world.

  Having coped with many crises in my life, I was useless when confronted with the anguish of my daughter and the suffering of Jack. I could think of no words of comfort for Ellie Jane or Jack’s father, Matt, because I was too distraught and terrified myself. Anyway, I was holed up in another hospital. So John took control. My daughter Ellie Jane’s letter, written when Jack had left hospital and was on the road to recovery, says it all: ‘Dad was a very good, calming and strong presence to have in the hospital and a very good messenger one to the other.’

  Calm and strong were not qualities she had been used to from her father. He was proud of that letter.

  22 June

  Lola’s dancing school concert. She was brilliant. Four years old and this little wild child was suddenly concentrated, centred and poised. She did everything double-time but obviously felt the whole thing needed a bit of pace. She was right. When the audience applauded she looked at them in astonishment and then glowed with pleasure. Oh, I know that feeling.

  I loved being a grandparent. John had to work harder at it. He could certainly act it. He was warm and loving with the little girl in Buried Treasure and one of his best performances is of an old man befriending a young evacuee in Good Night Mister Tom, adapted for television from the book by Michelle Magorian in 1998. The part demanded many skills – carpentry, playing an organ, roofing and a difficult East Anglian accent – all of which John mastered. The role was so different from Morse that he needed to transform himself. While we were in France he didn’t bother to shave and I suggested he keep the beard.

  I filled him in with my memories of the Blitz and being an evacuee. With Jack Gold’s usual sensitive direction, Mister Tom has become a classic TV film. John brought all his understanding of loneliness and loss to his growing affection towards the young boy. He could say with passion lines like: ‘The need for love is a priority for a child above all else.’

  The purity of his feelings, devoid of sentimentality, when he comforts William about the death of a friend is profoundly moving. He stands by the grave of his own wife and child and says firmly: ‘Except I didn’t lose them, you see, not really, because they’re still here, inside here [tapping his head] and always will be . . . in every little thing you’ll ever remember about him. And that is something that nobody can ever take away from you – nobody – ever.’

  When his second grandchild, Molly Mae, was born to Abigail and her partner Nigel in 1997 he went to greet the baby. The next day Abigail received this letter:

  I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you and my granddaughter. What a great shame that Grandma Mollie and Grandad Thaw and of course Grandpa Bill are not around to feel as I do. I am certain they are watching from somewhere though. Mollie is a beautiful little girl and I was very touched by the sight of you and Nigel being with her – if you know what I mean. It was pure LOVE! You see, I can see it and know it, when I see it, but sadly for me I find it hard to create it myself. But I promise I will really try to be a proper Grandad to Molly Mae as your Grandad was to you!

  24 June

  The sons-in-law round to supper to choose a suit each of John’s. Ermenegildo Zegna are going to alter them to their various sizes, as a gift. Nigel amazed me by suddenly breaking down and saying, ‘I can’t do this.’ Tough, together Nigel. I have decided to give the rest of John’s clothes to the Actors’ Benevolent Society. I like the idea of some old actor laddie wearing John’s Armani and Italian handmade shoes. Some needy out-of-work actor going to an audition in John’s overcoat.

  When Ellie Jane had her second child, Lola, in 1998, she was a challenge to John. He christened her, as his father had Jo, ‘the little bugger’. He found her quite scary. When she wouldn’t eat her carrots he said: ‘Right, leave her to me. Come on, eat up.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Now come on, Lola, do as I say. Eat up.’

  Slightly louder: ‘No.’

  ‘Lola, do you hear me? . . .’

  Bellowing: ‘NO.’

  Feebly: ‘Oh, all right then.’

  For the grandchildren’s sake John overcame his phobia of being in public. We took them to see The Secret Garden in the West End, featuring my mate Dilys. He cuddled Lola on his lap as she slept through the whole event, only waking to join enthusiastically in any applause. He did not mind at all when strangers laughed and spoke to him as he carried her out of the theatre still sleeping soundly.

  I risked working with him again in Kavanagh, after our disastrous experiences with The Two of Us and Home to Roost. The Scallywags were relieved he was so much happier, although they had not realised until he stopped drinking that that had been the problem. The man who looked after his Winnebago proudly showed me how the fridge was now stocked with orange juice and water. Not that I spent much time in his grand domain. Like all the other supporting players, I was allocated a minuscule caravan. When John asked me to join him for lunch, in front of the unit, I told him not to be cheeky. I make it a rule not to get off with the star. This time we had no rows. Chris Kelly said, ‘He dropped his guard when they were together. They were just like two teenagers really. Obviously in love and obviously very happy to be working together. It was delightful.’ A bit different from Leeds.

  When depression consumed him, John was in danger of losing his sense of humour. Now he enjoyed a joke again. Just like my father had been when relating jokes – he was incoherent with laughter as he told me about Spike Milligan on a doorstep, with a stocking over his face, saying to the person opening the door: ‘I’m a Jehovah’s burglar.’ An actor came to rehearsal with a rather poncey crocodile bag and John went into a brilliant riff about man-eating briefcases. He literally fell out of his chair when told that the
very ladylike Virginia McKenna was in the wings with Frances Barber when Brian Blessed stomped off the stage muttering. Frances asked Virginia what he was saying and in her upper-class, cut-glass voice she replied, ‘I think it was something about cunt.’

  As his drinking had become worse John, and therefore I, had become reclusive. He did not like people coming to the house and was not interested in friendships. Now, when Tom Courtenay agreed to take part in Kavanagh, it was a joy for them both. Tom wrote: ‘Just to say how much I enjoyed being reunited with you. Your warmth, sweetness, humour and talent gave me the greatest pleasure.’

  28 June

  Busy, busy preparing memorial, fighting Carlton to get the long version of the tribute programme shown rather than a cut version. Every now and then I literally double up with grief. He is still so – not real, sadly – but potent. Lovely poem by Raymond Carver from Rufus Norris, young director at Royal Court:

  And did you get what

  you wanted from this life, even so?

  I did

  And what did you want?

  To call myself beloved, to feel myself