I am basically a big custard heart. I don’t know these people at all. I’ve watched them for three decades, notebook in hand, but I don’t know them or know anybody who knows them. But I am interested in their love story. I think Charles is arrogant and selfish, but the roots of that lie in his upbringing. I think Camilla is basically a decent and horsey cardigan who loves Charles and is prepared to go through all this (like she has gone through so much already) from the sheer accident of falling in love with him. And really, I don’t think she cares what she is called. She isn’t even trying to be ‘queen of hearts’, and it must be painful and hurtful when she is compared to her beautiful, warm, but deeply unhappy predecessor.
The young have no interest in the affairs and doings of such elderly people. The Diana activists may feel that somehow Camilla triumphed in the end, and perhaps they will dislike her for that. I can’t be the only person in the world who doesn’t think hereditary monarchy is a good idea but who still does genuinely wish these two confused middle-aged people a great wedding day and a good time together.
My Part in the Movies
17 September 2005
They say that handing over your story to film-makers is like sending your first child to school. The book, like the child, still belongs to you in a sort of a way, but it’s not the same way. Now there’s a different life, with a lot of other people involved. But a child can’t stay at home forever, and a book is better when it gets a further life, so I am always delighted when someone thinks that one of my stories is good enough to make into a movie.
I know, of course, that not everything will fit in. Tara Road is a long story, with many characters, so some have to go if we are to make sense of it in an hour and a half of cinema. I don’t write the scripts myself; I have tried, but I’m not good at it. I prefer to tell a story in big, swooping terms, pausing to tell you what someone’s thinking about, worrying over, hoping for. You can’t do that in a screenplay. It’s very brief, with lots of short sentences and plenty of white space on the page. That’s not my scene at all.
You have to suggest things in a screenplay, so the director and actors can take it up and make sense of it. I find it much easier to tell things. So I have great respect for those who can write a script and then for the others who can turn a short screenplay, of about 100 pages, into a whole film.
The author has no say in casting, finding locations or choosing music. So you wait with an eager face to see what they will do. It’s as much a surprise for the writer as it is for the audience.
Sometimes people have very unhappy times watching their beloved book transfer to the movies, but I enjoyed it all so much and had such good times on the set that I thought I would share it with you.
I have been lucky before. I enjoyed so much the filming of Circle of Friends, with Minnie Driver and Chris O’Donnell, the television version of Echoes, with Geraldine James, and the TV movie of The Lilac Bus. But Tara Road has long been one of my favourite stories. It’s about two women who exchange homes and, in doing so, find more than a place to spend two months and lick their wounds: they discover redemption.
Many years ago we exchanged our London property for a house in Sydney, and it was a great experience. Tara Road is not our story, because nothing would be duller than reading about two happily married, settled couples, which is what we and they were. Still, it was fascinating living in their home, knowing their secrets and realising that they knew ours. They had no corkscrew; we had no cereal bowls. By the time I left their house, with its wonderful bottlebrush trees and exotic birds on the garden fence, I felt I knew them more than I knew neighbours of 20 years at home. And so I wrote the story.
I can’t remember what I thought my characters Ria and Marilyn looked like, because all I can see are the beautiful, strong, sensitive faces of Olivia Williams and Andie MacDowell registering hope and grief and triumph when it is called for. I don’t think I ever saw in my mind’s eye all the other characters, either. I just had a feeling for them, and now they are brought to life for me: the strong-willed Mona, played by Brenda Fricker; the elegant and faithless Rosemary, played by Maria Doyle Kennedy; the sexy, feckless Danny, played by Iain Glen; the handsome Stephen Rea, playing Colm, the restaurant owner; and the children, who behave just like Ria’s children would have behaved. I will never see any of them in any other way.
As for the house, I had a road in mind in Dublin for which I made up the name Tara Road. The film company asked where I was thinking of, and I told them. It wouldn’t work, they said, as it was much too narrow. They would hold up traffic with their huge generators and all the crew. So the location people went out and found another house to film it in, which is perfect. It’s almost as if it had been built for it, exactly the kind of road I had in mind, with those big, high-ceilinged rooms where Ria had been once so happy, then so lonely; where Marilyn tried to look for peace and found half of Dublin passing through to interrupt her.
So I approached the filming with great optimism. I have always known that film-makers hate the author around the place. They always fear that he or she is going to say that it wasn’t at all like that. We are looked at with fear and mistrust. Yet it isn’t human to expect us to stay away, especially when it’s being filmed down the road. So I asked politely if my husband, Gordon, and I could come along and watch. Quietly. I stressed the word.
And that’s what we did. We peeped in at the huge Tara Road house, the apartment where Bernadette lived; we watched astounded while our marvellous local fishmonger’s was changed into a US delicatessen over a bank holiday weekend. We were very polite to Gillies MacKinnon, the director, and to his camera and sound people; we admired all the actors and told them they were just the part.
Eventually they realised we were just ageing groupies, loving everything and therefore no trouble. And they sensed that Gordon and I were dying for little walk-on parts. So it was arranged that we were going to play Martini drinkers in Colm’s restaurant.
I wish I could tell you how excited we were. We went to bed early the night before, because the limo came for us at seven a.m. Then we went to make-up. We didn’t have to go to costume, because they asked us to wear anything of our own that was not black or navy. For some reason now forgotten, I wore lilac. Then it was time for our scene. We would be sitting on high chairs at the bar in Colm’s restaurant. Stephen Rea was to serve us with two triangular Martini glasses, each with an olive in it. We were to say nothing aloud but to mouth thank-you words at him.
Just before they said ‘Lights, camera, action’ I said to Gordon that I could murder this Martini. I felt we had been up for hours. He said he wouldn’t hold his breath about its being a real Martini, but I am an eternal optimist. I said we should look at the way there was condensation on the glass; they wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble to chill a glass of water.
‘It’s twenty past nine in the morning,’ Gordon said.
He was right. It was water.
I ate the olive resentfully. Each time during the three takes. Then the camera moves inexplicably from us to the stars. But we are there. You wouldn’t want to blink or look down to choose a sweet or anything, or you would miss us, but we are part of it.
In the last cut I saw of the film we are still there, sipping delicately, mouthing our thanks and, in my case, wondering why on earth I wore lilac, which is the most enlarging colour in the spectrum.
It’s a terrific, moving and touching film. We have all had losses in our lives, we have all loved foolishly and been lonely. The film tells very clearly, as the book tried to do, that the solution is in our own hands, that we have to make ourselves better. There is no cavalry waiting on a cliff to rescue us. We have to do it for ourselves.
Marilyn and Ria do that on the screen as much as they did in the book, played by two wonderful actors who, with the rest of my cast, told this story as well as I could have hoped and better. I was lonely when the film crew packed up and went away, as they do. But at least we have the book, and the movie is out
there to be seen as well.
Striking a Pose for My Country
25 October 2005
When the National Gallery of Ireland first suggested it, I had the very real fear that it might be some terrible practical joke. That it could be a Candid Camera style television programme watching people making fools of themselves by accepting huge honours like that and then having to bluster their way out of it.
But they seemed serious. So I was utterly delighted and waited for the artist to arrive.
She was Maeve McCarthy and had been at the same school as I had, though admittedly a quarter of a century later. We talked animatedly about loved figures and less-than-loved figures in the place, and had a great bond.
I had looked her up and seen how successful she was, as well as all the competitions she had won. She had painted a self-portrait which everyone had said was very good, but in real life she was good-looking, and the self-portrait had made her look a lot less attractive than she was. If she’s so tough on herself, I thought, what is she going to do to a subject? And I sort of hinted that.
But she explained that there were various conventions about a self-portrait, which I thought was all very well in theory but going to be a bit tough on me if she was into too much gritty realism. Still, we were into it now.
She told me the bad news was that she couldn’t paint from photographs, but the good news was that I didn’t have to sit still. I could move about and talk and drink mugs of tea and everything.
So I was busy then trying to look for nice bits of our house to be painted in – near the one good piece of furniture maybe, with some tasteful glass arranged on it?
She said she would like to prowl about the place looking for a setting and could I just get on with my life so that she could observe me?
So I chose a day when Gordon would be out and I got on with life, trying to ignore her. For a whole morning I yacked away on the phone, typed with my four-finger typing, looked things up in the dictionary, stroked the cat who had settled in the ‘Action This Day’ basket, and had a script conference about a project with Jean Pasley where McCarthy was most helpful and came up with some good ideas.
After a day of prowling she had chosen the location. It was to be upstairs in our study where you can see Dalkey Castle in the background over the roof. And she wanted Gordon to sit in on the roof terrace – sort of out of sight but with his legs in the picture. His legs? Yes, just his presence around the place apparently, and he would be reading The Irish Times. What? Product placement? No, you would only get a hint that it was The Irish Times. Right. Right.
So we had the first sitting; there was some discussion about the colour I would wear, and eventually I settled on blue. Maeve McCarthy set up her easel and I sat down nervously and waited for it to begin.
We talked about everything under the sun – life, death, hopes, disappointments, friends, family, travel. And then the sitting was over.
I had heard you must not look at your own portrait until it is finished. But she shrugged. Of course I could look at it, she said.
Interestingly, there was no face.
Lots of Dalkey Castle, and the roof, and the desk I was sitting at, and big, blue shoulders, but no face.
I managed to say nothing. After the fourth sitting, when there was still no face – only pixelation like they put in a newspaper to hide the face of the Accused or the Suspect – I thought I would mention it.
‘Oh I won’t do your face,’ she said, at which I felt dizzy and wondered had I entirely misunderstood the whole thing.
‘Not until much later,’ she added to my relief, and the blood returned slowly to my veins.
After the sixth sitting, still no face as such. She asked me if I liked the picture. We were such friends now, I had to be honest. ‘I spend over €20 each time you come getting my hair done and it doesn’t really show. I wonder does the hair look a bit flattened in the portrait?’ I said nervously.
‘You’re very lucky you didn’t have Gwen John painting you – she made subjects put Vaseline all over their heads so that she could see the shape of the skull,’ Maeve McCarthy said unsympathetically.
And then the pixelation went and I saw my face, and the lovely picture of our cats, and a picture of our friends on the wall, and a mug of tea with Nighthawks on it. And best of all the reassuring presence of Gordon outside the window, reading a paper, which could be The Irish Times. And then it was all over.
Maeve McCarthy packed up her easel and her brushes and her little jars of whatever it was and left.
And I missed her like mad.
She made it all very painless, she was great company and I am as pleased as anything that it was done.
It is a huge honour to be chosen by the national gallery of your own land to hang in its halls, and to be lent a talented portrait painter for a summer of friendship and insights.
I will of course be hovering a lot about the gallery for some time pretending I have come to see something else, or that I am taking some overseas visitors for a tour. But really I will be there to make sure they don’t take it down.
Ten Things You Must Never Say to Anyone with Arthritis
30 January 2009
‘Cheer up, nobody ever died of arthritis.’ This statement is, oddly, not cheering at all. We have dark, broody feelings that if people did die of arthritis there might have been huge, well-funded research projects over the last few decades, which could have come up with a cure.
‘It’s just a sign of old age, it will come to us all.’ No, it’s not a sign of old age. Even toddlers can get arthritis, and some old people never get a twinge of it. The very worst phrase you can use is ‘Haven’t you had a good innings?’
Remember that marvellous radio series about disabilities called Does He Take Sugar? The message of that title means you should never ask, in the hearing of someone with arthritis, ‘Do you think she’ll be able to manage the stairs?’ Arthritis can make us many things, but it certainly doesn’t make us deaf.
Avoid mentioning magic cures, as anyone with arthritis will already have heard of vinegars, honey, mussels, berry teas, and so on. We will probably have tried them too. It is dispiriting to be told of someone else who was once bent double but now climbs mountains before breakfast.
Don’t ever say, ‘That walking stick is very ageing – I wouldn’t use it if I were you.’ Did you think we thought of the stick as a fashion accessory? Of course we know it’s hardly rejuvenating to be seen bent over a stick, but when the alternative is a knee or a hip that could let us down, or pitch us into the traffic, then the stick is a great help. It is sad when people give us the impression that it makes us look 100 years old. At least we are getting out there, and that should be praised and encouraged.
Never let the phrase ‘a touch of arthritis’ pass your lips. You don’t say someone has a touch of diabetes or a touch of asthma. It is denying sympathy and concern for people who have a painful and ever-present condition to minimise it to just ‘a touch’.
Don’t suggest a healthy walk to blow away the cobwebs. People whose joints are unreliable don’t want to get further proof of this when they are halfway down the pier. Unless you are a physiotherapist, don’t impose exercise on others.
Don’t tell arthritis sufferers to go and live in a hot, dry climate like Arizona. We know it might be easier on the joints, but some of us are very happy here with family and friends, and we don’t want to be packed off like remittance men.
One time you shouldn’t stay silent is when your favourite restaurants, theatres or galleries are difficult to access for a friend with arthritis. Before you turn your back on them, be sure to tell the owners or proprietors exactly why you will not be making a booking. You can be very polite and praising (‘I hear such good things about your place’), but just confirm that there isn’t a lift and that the cloakrooms are up or down a flight of stairs?’). If enough people were to do this, it would not take long to improve facilities. If we don’t tell the offenders, how will they
know there’s a problem?
Don’t ever say, sadly, how tragic it is that nothing has been done for poor arthritis sufferers. Plenty is being done. Just contact Arthritis Ireland, or phone its new helpline. Then you will have an idea of how much is happening and you can be a true and informed friend rather than a false and frightening one.
What’s It Like to Have a House Full of Film Crew? Let Me Tell You All About It
24 December 2010
Well, I did say from the very start that there was a problem. There was no extreme poverty in the tale, no family discord, no feuds, no emigration. Nothing to hang a good story on. But they said they knew all that and they still wanted to go ahead.
So Gordon and I had a working party on it and listed the arguments for and against. Against doing the whole thing were the fact that the story was too tame to hold people’s interest and the fact that I love talking so much that once I get started I can’t be stopped. And in favour of it was that it would be good to have something that would confound my enemies, but we couldn’t think of any enemies we wanted to confound, so that one didn’t really work. But also in favour of it was that we know Noel Pearson, whose company would be making it, and we knew it wouldn’t be a dull and glum sort of thing.
I checked with my sister and brother to see whether they would be horrified by it all, and they said nonsense and I should go ahead. So I said yes, because I’m as easily flattered as the next person, and I thought it would be great to be made much of and for people to arrange flattering lighting and tell me they were ready for my close-up. And of course this was all at the end of the summer, when autumn seemed miles away.
But, the way things do, the day arrived. I met the director, Sinéad O’Brien; I actually knew her mother and her father and her grandmother. I wondered mildly was she old enough to be directing documentaries, but she assured me she was, so we got that out of the way early on.
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