On Valentine’s Day 2002 I gave him this card:
Darling husband,
I hope you know how much I love and cherish you. I am so grateful for my love for you. It is the very centre of my life and has been since I first set eyes on you. You are my husband, my lover and my friend.
Guess who?
He gave me two teddy bears to add to the collection he had given me over the years. His card said:
I love you more than I can say. You have given me more than any one man deserves and I know I’ll never be able to repay you. BUT I’LL TRY.
You are the love of my life.
Me!
Seven days later he was dead.
7 July
Found in the bedside table drawer the notebook I gave John to write his dark thoughts in. It had only one entry, written when we were in France:
It’s so beautiful here and peaceful and I think healing. For the last two days I have had long moments of feeling normal (i.e. forgetting that I have the cancers). If only my bloody voice was stronger because it’s that that reminds me I am not myself. Poor Sheila has to listen very hard when I speak as she is having a problem with one ear so we’re a right pair!
We went to Saignon for morning coffee and it was lovely up there. Sitting there with Sheila outside the church was very, very healing I know. I am full of love for my wonderful, wonderful wife. What would I do without her? Don’t ask! I’m a very, very lucky man.
19
A Single Woman
IT IS INEVITABLE WHEN someone is an addict or suffers from depression that you seek for reasons. Some schools of thought maintain that it is genetic and I am inclined to agree but I was tormented with guilt that John’s problems were somehow my fault. Certainly my ignorance of the condition for a long while contributed to its progress.
8 July
Keep wondering if my ordinariness kept John back, stopped him from reaching his full potential. Or was it a welcome sanctuary? There is no doubt he could have achieved more, Hollywood, more stage work. Would some other woman have pushed him harder? But he used to say, ‘I’d rather be a big fish in a small pool.’ Can’t really imagine him coping with the rat race in LA but then he coped with worse. Did I stunt his growth because I was as fearful as him? Perhaps he needed someone bold and brave.
It is a good ploy to blame everything on our mothers until we too become mothers and find ourselves behaving just like them. John would seldom talk about his. When asked he usually replied, ‘I have no mother’ in a way that brooked no further discussion. What little he told me made me angry. I felt contempt for a woman who could just walk away from two little boys; it was not a feeling I enjoyed. It was a weeping sore that continued to fester because it was covered up. I wanted to expose it to the light and see if it would heal. There is no doubt that her inexplicable desertion deeply affected John and, indirectly, myself and his daughters. I felt I had the right, when he was no longer here to be hurt by my curiosity, to find out more about her. It was not easy. She had been erased from his life.
I start with Beattie. The blood of Mary Veronica Mullen (John’s grandmother) flows through the veins of his Auntie Beat. A lifetime joyfully dedicated to the service of others is an old-fashioned concept but with her it continues now she is over eighty, an apple-faced, smiling woman. It is impossible to get her to say a bad word about anyone, so she is reluctant to criticise Dorothy, despite her disbelief that anyone could desert their children. Similarly Mildred, Jack’s second wife, still glamorous at eighty with black hair and beautiful skin. When the boys had left home she married Jack who, together with Dorothy, had worked in her fish and chip shop. Dorothy was ‘a good worker’, ‘very clean’, ‘well turned out’. Apart from the Ablott nose, a bit too large for the rest of her face, she was ‘very attractive’. Because they felt protective of Jack and his boys, she and her then husband severed all connection with the Ablotts when Dorothy had gone. Nor did she ever discuss Dorothy with Jack when they were married as ‘it was in the past tense’.
I discover from John’s old schoolfriend Harvey Bryant that John had visited his mother when she worked at the Shakespeare Pub in Manchester and he was at Ducie Tech. On the several occasions Harvey went with him, they seemed relaxed together in a way that signified it was a fairly regular occurrence. Keeping these visits secret from his father and brother must have been torture, but then he was used to keeping secrets for his mum. Then there was the visit in 1960 with Barry J. Gordon and again in 1969 at my insistence. I am fairly sure he never saw his mother again after his marriage to me. Which is significant.
In December 2002, as I approach the first anniversary of John’s death, I decide to visit Manchester to try to get some sense of the woman. I do not have much to go on. A Christmas card from a Mr and Mrs Calland, purporting to be an aunt and uncle, and a copy of the decree absolute of Jack and Dorothy’s divorce from the Family Records Office that gives me nothing except the date and place of their marriage and that the Respondent had ‘deserted the Petitioner without cause’. No records of the custody proceedings exist. After John died I found a bill for the administration of her estate in his drawer. It mentions paying some debts, correspondence with a Mr B. H. Welsh, and personal effects to be collected from Llandudno by a Mrs C. Simpson. None of it means anything to me.
10 July
Friends Helen and Hattie to stay in France. They love it. It is a beautiful place. Why can’t I enjoy it for myself? First it was for John and the family, now it is in danger of being for my friends or the kids. Must I always live my life through others? Hattie and Helen have learned to live well on their own. So must I.
I find Mr and Mrs Calland in a pleasant sheltered housing estate on the edge of the Peak District. Terrie Calland had been a singer with Bonelli’s Band for fifteen years at Belle Vue. Dolly’s brother Alan, ‘a lovable rogue’, had wooed her away from her first husband and eventually married and then divorced her. Those people who knew Dorothy best called her Dolly, and that is how I now begin to think of her. It seems to suit her better.
The Catholic Terrie obviously found Dolly a bit much. No surprise there then. She was ‘flighty’, had ‘a bit of a mouth on her’ and ‘used language’. Terrie is still a twinkly woman born, unbelievably, in 1917, whose memory is beginning to fail, but she prefers to forget her brief marriage to Alan anyway. She does remember Jack as a lovely man and thinks Dolly was a fool to leave him. Did Jack really tell Terrie that he wished he’d met her sooner? Was he a bit of a romancer? Or is it wishful thinking on her part?
I move into central Manchester and stay there, as I have many times on tour with shows. Despite the rain, Manchester has always appealed to me. It was built by ordinary men with vision. There is no aristocracy or ruling family, just bluff nouveaux riches making money by the sweat of their brows and, of course, other people’s. It was the Dissenter Churches, mainly the Unitarians and the Quakers, that pushed forward social reforms, and the city was accepting of anyone from anywhere who had something to offer, accounting for the diverse mixture of Germans, Jews, Armenians, Turks, Austrians, Portuguese. Since the rebuilding after the massive IRA bomb in 1996 and the holding of the Commonwealth Games it has cleaned itself up and is very perky. Those early intellectuals would be thrilled at the refurbished art gallery, the imaginative use of the Royal Exchange to house one of our leading theatre companies, and the new, perfect concert hall, the Bridgewater Hall. The city feels alive and kicking, as it must have done to John as a boy, even though it was coated with grime then and usually seen through a thick smog. The trams are back. How John would have loved that. Now they are sleek, purring beasts, so he might have missed the rattling and shaking of those childhood journeys.
20 July
Really laughed with Hattie and Helen today. We got lost somewhere near Bonnieux looking for the Gare Café. Also trying to buy a screw to mend the chair. Saw a group of hefty half-naked workmen doing the road. Hattie, demure in cotton sunhat, wound down the window and in rather posh fra
nglais asked the way. One spoke a little English so she followed up with ‘Do you think we’ll get a long screw in Bonnieux?’ The double meaning was possibly lost on them, but our raucous laughter was not. They obviously thought, ‘These old English biddies are game.’ Lots of nudging and leering ensued. We set off on our quest – a long screw being a very inviting prospect – but kept getting lost and passing them again. God knows what they thought.
I set about getting someone to drive me around and I land on my feet. Shaun is short, pink-faced and shy. He has never met a ‘superstar’. I quickly disabuse him of that idea and it isn’t long before he comments – with some disappointment – how ‘ordinary’ I am. When I invite him into the Malmaison Hotel to have a coffee while we map out our journey, he says he can’t, look at him. Oh Lord, do people still feel they have no right to enter the portals of the posh? If unworthiness is bred in you, how do you convince yourself you are as good as the next person? I assure Shaun that I think his bright anorak and jeans are great and, of course, the trendies and businessmen having their breakfast meetings don’t turn a hair. It’s all in the minds of the cowed. Shaun and I get on like a house on fire. I say I want him to park in various areas and I will go for a walk, knock on a few doors and come back to the car. He will not hear of leaving me alone. Although he only comes up to my shoulder I assess he will be a more ferocious bodyguard than any real superstar’s big bruisers.
Our first stop is the rough triangle that encompassed Stowell Street, now a desolate wasteland. A few prefabricated car auction places and tin huts stand where once was that teeming working-class area, full of suffering and love. The old living conditions were shameful, but to destroy the community and replace it with nothing seems mindless. Similarly, where the beautiful Belle Vue gave gaiety to these hard-working folk, there are a few rather nasty housing estates and yet more undeveloped sites. The multiplex cinema provides some non-participatory entertainment, and a huge hypermarket caters for our modern recreation of shopping. There is still a greyhound track and a snooker hall, but gone are the elegant walks and meeting places that brought the people together and the enterprises that provided much-needed employment for the locals. Only the old remember the place now.
On to Daneholme Road, and this is depressing. What must have been a showplace of an estate is now neglected and bleak. I ring the bell of No. 2 and the flat above, but there is no movement apart from the rubbish blowing around in the garden. The other doors I knock on are opened with much clanking of chains and bolts. One front-door window is boarded from a recent break-in. This old man comes to the door looking neglected and grubby and is obviously too frightened to undo the chain. Peeping through the small gap, he tells me that he and his wife knew Jack but now he lives alone. He would not have been so isolated in the days when the neighbourhood rallied round to watch over John and Ray.
Another two houses I visit welcome me warmly with mugs of tea. I have the usual battle recording my chats over the background of continuous daytime TV. These homes of the old residents are immaculate little havens in this wilderness. Full of knick-knacks and crocheted cushions and homemade rag rugs, they are, I imagine, unchanged since the fifties. The TV makeovers have not influenced them. They tell tales of the decline of their district. How it is the dumping ground for those needing a short-term stay, who naturally take no pride in their temporary homes. Some are refugees and it is easy to understand how incipient racist attitudes have arisen.
22 July
Hattie and Helen have left. Alone in the French house for the first time. I felt him around me – a benign presence. It felt comfortable. Went to a recital of the Goldberg Variations on a clavichord in the church at Saignon. Chatted to a few people. The concert started with shafts of sun lighting the church and ended with candles flickering. It was quite lovely. But still I am thinking I wish he was here to be thrilled with me.
Shaun is getting worried about his car. He reminds me that the Gallagher brothers lived in Burnage and I think that colours his judgement somewhat. All I sense is a numbing apathy. We pass the Burnage cinema, scene of John’s former glories, which has been a supermarket at some time but is now boarded up and falling into ruin.
The old Victorian building of Green End Junior School is intact, but surrounded by forbidding high wire fences and padlocked gates. Inside it is brightly painted and warm and cheerful. One little boy has been reported for ‘using language’. Does he have a mum like Dolly, I wonder. I am told that broken families are now the rule rather than the exception. All the notices are in four languages, demonstrating the extra skills needed by teachers in a school like this. The Deputy Head produces an ancient form photo, and at the end of the back row, a bit on his own, is a sad, fat little boy – recognisably John.
As we leave, Shaun bristles at the sight of a large group of youths in a huddle, lighting a suspicious-looking cigarette. One looks over and begins approaching menacingly. Then he leaps about shouting, ‘It’s Steve’s mum.’ They know every nuance of EastEnders. Shaun is thrilled as I sign autographs for the growing crowd. He later describes his trips with me as the ‘highlight of his life’. He deserves more.
I have one more call to make. I do not hold out great hopes for it, but it turns out to be pure gold. The will solicitors can only give me one document – the grant of probate for Dorothy’s will, dated 14 June 1974. It says that she had died intestate as a ‘single woman’. The resonance of that phrase strikes me as so lonely. There is an address for Dorothy at the time of her death on 2 February 1974 in Longsight. It is a forlorn hope that anyone will remember her in 2002, but on Shaun’s insistence – he is now totally involved in the quest – we go to Leedale Road. I knock on the door with little expectation. A gaunt man of about fifty opens it: ‘Hello Sheila. Come in.’
24 July
Am in Belfast having agreed to do a radio play with an all-Irish cast in a Tipperary accent. Am I mad? But with their help I got there. And over the many drinks after the recording, they christened me Sheila O’Hancock. I do love Irish actors. I’ve enjoyed it. Feel guilty saying that. But it has been good to be Sheila, who is quite a good actress, rather than the grieving widow of a famous man.
It is not the usual ‘I’ve seen you on the telly’ recognition. This is the son of Dolly’s favourite sister, Cissie, short for Cecilia, same name as my only aunt. This house is where Dolly had been living when she died in St Anne’s Hospice. Stuart Simpson (the name on the bill being Mrs C. Simpson) has personal memories, some from conversations with his mum who died recently, that fill in numerous gaps in my knowledge of John’s mother. He also has some photographs that tell me more than anything.
Up until now I have only seen one photo of John’s mother. In it she looked oldish, plump, with stiff-lacquered hair – a fairly ordinary woman. Now here are two of the young Dolly. A slim figure striding along the wall of the vinegar factory, critically eyeing the chubby queen of the Whit-walk. In front her two boys wearing their best grey flannel suits. She is wearing an elegant, long-jacketed suit, teetering heels and maybe a velvet bow on the back of her long blonde hair and gloves. She looks a knockout compared with the rest of the women. Poignantly, judging by the ages of the boys, it was taken just before she left. In another family wedding photo she has on the same suit, but this time with sexy ankle-straps, a witty bow-tie and a cheeky hat. It is not her wedding but she has taken centrestage. She is the star and the bride is nowhere. John is in the corner being held affectionately by one of the men. What a wrench it must have been to lose touch with this huge family of Ablotts. Significantly, John Senior is in neither picture; nor is Ray, but he was probably playing football which would take precedence over a soppy wedding.
There are later photos of the older Dolly that I have seen before, but this time I notice she always has her shoes off. All that standing behind bars in unsuitable shoes? Or a gesture of abandon? The most poignant photograph is one found in her handbag after her death. It is a faded, crumpled Polaroid of herself and John on the vi
sit I persuaded him to make. She is wearing a jaunty aquamarine blouse with ruffled neckline and bare, aging arms. Her still-blonde hair is stiff from the hairdresser’s. Her hand is loosely linked in John’s arm for the photo. His hand holds a cigarette and does not touch her. His handsome face is unsmiling and haunted and she looks tentative. They do not look like a mother and son, although their features show that they are. It was taken in the garden of the house I am now in.
There is also a photo of John as a toddler in Stowell Street perched on the handlebars of a tricycle, playing on the cobbles with four other more typical ragamuffins.
John looks like the child of an aristocrat. An immaculate smock suit such as you buy in Belgravia, clean white socks and a shining, well-cut head of hair. She really turned him out well. So why on earth did she desert them all?
3 August
Braved the Proms. Took poor Jo. It was Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. We sat there sobbing. Out loud. Will I not be able to go to concerts any more? It was such a shared thing. Elbows pressing against each other at the best bits, orgasmic experiences, dissecting the perf afterwards, trying to understand New Music, ‘Oh noo not for me.’ Obviously Jo and I are useless together. Embarrassing to behold.
An actor has to fill in the details of a role that the script does not give. We piece together, or invent, our character’s back story before the play begins, to deepen the interpretation of the particular moment in their life that we are showing. However unpleasant that character may seem to the audience, the actor has to empathise, if not sympathise. I will attempt to get inside Dolly’s skin as if I were going to play her and try to understand what John never could or would.
The Two of Us Page 25