My Story

by Jo Malone

  Doctors described her condition as ‘critical but stable’, and I was scared that she wasn’t going to make it. I said a silent prayer by her bedside, talking to my new-found God.

  Dad turned up that evening and looked as shocked as anyone. He never said much that gave away his feelings, but the lack of his usual talkativeness said enough. I’m sure he felt a degree of guilt that he hadn’t been there for her – when she fell and across previous years – even though every one of us knew how much he loved Mum, regardless of his flaws.

  He and I, together with Dot and her husband Gordon, took it in turns keeping vigil. Tracey, then fifteen, visited a couple more times but found the lack of responsiveness too distressing so tended to stay away. I stayed with her at Airlie Gardens, making sure she was looked after and went to school.

  I don’t think Tracey took kindly to me moving back in, insisting that she was old enough to look after herself. But she didn’t understand the predicament – no one knew how long Mum would be ill and, with no insurance to cover a long-term absence, it was down to me to keep the clinic going. Frankly, Tracey was a rebellious nightmare and we clashed a number of times. Looking back, I can understand her resistance. How confusing it must have been to see me being sister one minute and playing ‘Mum’ the next. She had mostly received parental instructions and discipline from me, which made it hard for a true sisterly bond to deepen. I cannot know how she felt, but I can guess that she now wanted to be her own person.

  Another thing she didn’t appreciate was the state of Mum’s finances. I hadn’t realised how dire things were until Dot and Gordon sat me down to work out the way ahead. We didn’t uncover the entire picture but there was an onerous VAT bill and a maxed-out Harrods account, which explained some of the recent shopping sprees. Gordon said we’d have to sell the car to free up the cash flow.

  ‘But Mum loves that car,’ I said. ‘She’ll kill us if we sell Emmy.’

  ‘Jo, your mum won’t be driving again, love,’ said Dot.

  We sold the car, paid off some of the debt and bought some new stock. Having gone through the finances – details that Mum had kept hidden from me – I knew that I had to keep the clinic busy, otherwise we’d go under in no time. The monthly amount she owed on the Harrods account alone was as good as a second rent. So, my new routine was treatments until 6 p.m., visiting Mum in the evening, going home to cook dinner for Tracey, popping back to see Mum and then returning home to make some product for the next day.

  Someone outside the family clearly felt for us because every few weeks we’d open the front door to find a box filled with basic food provisions and home-made meals in Tupperware containers. No note. No label. I asked Vivian. I asked Dot. No one had a clue who it could be, so we assumed that it was one of Mum’s clients who wished to remain anonymous. Whoever the food fairy was, they were a godsend at a difficult time.

  There was no change in Mum’s condition for two or three weeks, but I kept sitting with her, talking to her, believing she could hear me, telling her about the food fairy and how the orders were coming – anything to keep it positive. One evening Gary turned up after 9 p.m., urging me to go home and rest.

  When we walked outside, the rain was tipping down so he gave me his jacket, which I held above my head while he got drenched. As soon as we got into the car, I burst into tears. I hadn’t cried properly since Mum had first been admitted, and I couldn’t keep up the strong act any longer. I can still hear the sound of the rain and hailstones beating down on the roof.

  Gary allowed me to have a good cry, waiting until I had composed myself. As I dried my eyes, and sat there snivelling, he decided now would be a good moment to propose to me.

  ‘I really love you, Jo. Will you marry me?’

  I burst into tears again. ‘Yes, please,’ I said.

  It wasn’t Mills & Boon, it wasn’t Paris, it wasn’t planned, and there was no ring, but that was the most romantic thing he could have done in my eyes. Marriage is about ‘for better or worse’ and, at my worst, with no make-up, reddened eyes, and feeling desperately low, he was essentially telling me that he wanted me to be his forever, and that he’d be there by my side. For me, romance is about the intensity and meaning of a moment, and his strength and love had never meant more. I adored every aspect about this man – his heart, kindness, and compassion – and still do. From that day forward, his love would be the most constant thing I would ever know – unwavering and unconditional. Without it, without him, I wouldn’t go on to achieve anything.

  After three weeks of little improvement in Mum’s condition, she was transferred from St Stephen’s to the psychiatric ward at the Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell, south London. For me, that place was scarier than any A&E ward, because it was a closed unit where we had to be buzzed in each time. There was a ‘lock-down’ feel to the place and I hated the fact Mum was there but the hospital had a brain injury unit, which specialised in treating patients who had been involved in road accidents or suffered strokes. When we arrived, we had no idea whether she’d be in there for days, weeks or months because she still hadn’t regained consciousness.

  As things turned out, we only had to wait another three weeks. Mum, ever the fighter, recovered consciousness one day when Dot was sitting with her. Slowly, over the following week or so, her faculties and memory returned and she was allowed to go home. We were obviously thrilled but the sad reality was that she would never be the same. The Mum I remembered would actually never return home, even if it would take a while for that realisation to dawn. I’m not referring to her slurred speech or restricted mobility – her gait and co-ordination had been badly affected – because we had been braced for that. I’m referring to the altered state in behaviour, which wasn’t immediately obvious. As will become apparent, though, the change would be stark and test me to the hilt.

  In the initial weeks of Mum convalescing at home, I remained blissfully unaware of what lay ahead, and both Tracey and I wanted to do everything we could possibly do to assist her recovery. One thing was clear from day one: she wouldn’t be doing treatments for a while, and would struggle to make face creams again. I think that devastated her, not only because she was prevented from doing what she loved but also because Airlie Gardens was meant to represent a new beginning. Within a year, that fresh start had been snatched away. I suppose it’s no wonder that her light dimmed, and I saw how easily upset she would become, first with herself and, later, with me. The times she got most frustrated – probably out of embarrassment more than anything – was when I had to help her in and out of the bath. Mum was a proud woman, and that pride mattered even in front of me.

  It was a challenging adjustment for everyone, and I can’t say that I found it easy either. I often felt inadequate as a teenager trying to run the business and be a carer at the same time, but there was no other way. It’s not as if we had the luxury of choice. I had to get on with it, for all of our sakes.

  TEN

  Gary and I became husband and wife on Saturday 15 June 1985, one year to the day after we started dating. We got married at his local church, Beckenham Baptist, in front of about forty relatives and friends.

  The fact the day went without a hitch was down to no one else but Aunty Dot, who essentially became chief wedding planner, ensuring that I was given the best sendoff. ‘I want your day to be so special, Jo,’ she said, stepping into the role of mother because Mum was still a little slow and none of us wanted to add extra stress. For the same reason, I didn’t leave for church from our home but from Dot and Gordon’s in Kingston.

  Due to limited funds, it was very much a wedding on a shoestring. Alcohol wasn’t allowed in the church hall for the reception, so there was no booze to pay for; the disc jockey was one of Gary’s swimming friends, Angelo; a friend of Dot made my dress; and the morning suits for Gary, his dad, and his brother Cliff, his best man, were hired from Moss Bros.

  Dad, wearing tails and a cravat, was unusually quiet in the car during the forty-five-minute journey to B
eckenham. Normally, he was a right old chatterbox, but he preferred to gaze out of the window, uncharacteristically lost for words. For a moment or two, I thought he was thinking of something profound to say, but it turned out that he was more twitchy about the ceremony than me. ‘I’m so bloody nervous!’ he said, blowing his cheeks as we neared the church. ‘All I’ve got to do is walk in, wait for the cue, and walk you down the aisle, correct?’

  ‘Dad, relax! You can’t go wrong – everything is going to be fine!’ I said.

  I thought it was hilarious that even on my wedding day, I was the one having to hold his hand and put him at ease. The vicar was waiting on the pavement as the car pulled up. Dad got out, spun round to my side and opened the door. As I stood and smoothed out the creases in my dress, he took me by both hands, took one good look at me, and his eyes brimmed with tears. He didn’t say anything – I think he was too choked – but I knew that he felt the moment, and it was probably the closest I was going to get to him expressing his emotions.

  He wasn’t the only man to get emotional that day. At the altar, Gary’s voice cracked as we exchanged vows. We would relive that moment on VHS tape as the cameraman zoomed in on the solitary tear rolling down his cheek – a moment that no amount of builder’s bravado could deny. It was only a simple ceremony but its meaning left me walking on air.

  At our reception, everyone danced the night away to the hits of the era, including Walking on Sunshine by Rockers Revenge; Feel So Real by Steve Arrington; and Rhythm of the Night by Debarge; though our first dance was to Make Us One by Philip Bailey. Cheek to cheek, Gary and I couldn’t stop grinning. We were so happy, and, together, we truly felt that anything was possible.

  Once we returned from a week-long honeymoon in Greece, we settled into a furnished flat in Kingston – a temporary place because, over the next eight months, we would save like mad for a deposit to buy our first marital home. Gary worked overtime and I filled up the appointments book at Airlie Gardens. Although I hadn’t officially acquired any beauty therapy qualifications, I had mastered the art of the facial and even started pulling in my own clients to add to the roster.

  Eventually, Gary and I bought a one-bedroom flat in Crystal Palace. This investment drained our building society account, meaning we could only afford the bare essentials when it came to furniture. We purchased a thick piece of pale blue foam to make do as a bed, which, with the addition of sheets, pillows and a duvet, proved comfy enough. Now we had found more space, it felt important to me that my mum and sister could, too. Mum had started to feel cooped up in that basement flat and, with me there Monday to Saturday mornings, everything started to feel cramped.

  After searching all over for the right kind of place that could double up as a home and skincare clinic, I found a lovely white-fronted, three-bedroom Victorian terrace in Balfern Street, Battersea, off the busy Battersea Park Road. With Mum’s agreement, the business put down a five per cent deposit on a mortgage, and Dad, Dot and Gordon helped us move in. Mum, happier in a more spacious home, would have the master bedroom, with its own ornate fireplace, and Tracey had a good-sized room of her own. The third double bedroom, overlooking a compact, paved garden, was where I’d do the treatments. I felt that domestic and business life would gel well here: the bay-windowed living room at the front would be the private family area where Tracey could hole herself away, watching television; the large kitchen at the rear, with its wooden floor and white cabinets, was big enough to be a dining area as well as lab.

  Sometimes, while working there, I would catch myself and think about how I was the sole breadwinner for Mum and Tracey. It seemed almost ironic. But instead of inducing pressure, I realised how much I was thoroughly enjoying the work, interacting with clients under Mum’s ever-watchful gaze. Even her mood lifted, as if the move had proved just the tonic she needed. Business was good, we were breaking even, and life generally felt like it was on the up.

  One of my favourite clients, who had been coming to Mum for a few years, was a spirited redhead who bounded into our clinic full of the joys of spring. Sarah Ferguson lived in Clapham when we first met, but that was before she became Prince Andrew’s fiancée and moved into his quarters at Buckingham Palace.

  Sarah and I had struck up a rapport from her first appointment, and she had a wicked sense of humour that often left me in stitches in the treatment room. The transition from regular London girl to soon-to-be HRH Duchess of York didn’t change her personality one bit. She remained who she’d always been: kind, down-to-earth, and good fun. But, as much as we got along, the last thing I expected was an invitation to her wedding in July 1986.

  If ever there was a moment when it felt like life had picked me up from one world and dropped me into another, it was now, especially when I read the official invitation – a single piece of white card embossed with the gold ‘EIIR’ initials sitting beneath a crown.

  The Lord Chamberlain is commanded by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to invite: Mr. & Mrs. Gary Willcox to the marriage of His Royal Highness the Prince Andrew and Miss Sarah Ferguson . . .

  Sarah really didn’t have to invite us. After all, I was only the girl who did her face, but the fact she included us in her big day tells you a lot about who she is. Mum, Dad and Dot shared my excitement – it’s not every day you are asked to be a guest at a ceremony where the bride arrives in a Glass Coach pulled by two bay horses, cheered on by one million people in The Mall.

  Gary and I, dressed in our finest outfits, couldn’t believe that we were there, at Westminster Abbey, among a congregation of two thousand guests about to witness a royal wedding officiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie. I’m like the next person, I love a good wedding, but this was something else.

  My overriding memory of the day is walking out of the abbey at the end of the ceremony and seeing the hordes of people across the street. We were blown away by the noise of the cheers and the sight of hundreds of handheld Union Jacks being waved in the air. At any other time, we would have been among those crowds, on the outside looking in, and yet, thanks to Sarah, we had been among the privileged few, witnessing one of my founding clients make royal history.

  Mum had faced difficult moments during her slow rehabilitation but her mobility improved markedly, so much so that she was able to resume some of her treatments. That said, she got easily upset or snapped over the smallest thing. Doctors had forewarned us about the possibility of her temperament changing, as a consequence of the stroke or the brain injury – I never was clear on the cause. But what I wasn’t prepared for was the more hostile change in character, which seemed to unfurl overnight. And, as it unfurled, I detected a subtle cooling between us, as if we had transitioned from mother-daughter to boss-employee, rather than partners.

  It was bizarre. The more skilled I became and the more clients I brought in, the more she found fault with my work and with tasks I performed around the home. I put the sheets in the washing machine ‘on the wrong cycle’. I ran her bath ‘too hot’. I mixed face masks that ‘weren’t to standard’. Worst of all, when I didn’t react to such criticism, she started putting me down in front of clients. ‘I’m so sorry, madam,’ she’d say, interrupting a treatment. ‘Jo didn’t do the facial quite as I would have expected, but I do hope you’ll return.’ Sometimes, she’d do nothing but stand in the doorway and glare, as if to say, ‘I’ve got my eye on you’, which I found the most unsettling because the client would be lying there and I’d be trying to concentrate.

  And then, the next day, like dark clouds dissipating to make way for sunshine, everything would be fine again, as if nothing had happened. I could never get an accurate read on her mood, and I arrived at work each morning never knowing what kind of day lay in store. I didn’t talk to Mum about it. I didn’t feel able to in that kind of atmosphere. Instead, I focused on not putting a foot wrong, but that’s not so easy when placed under a microscope. I wish I could say these incidents were occasional but they happened regularly, to the point where I
started to dread going in.

  My attitude has always been that if you don’t like something, there are three choices: change your mindset, change your situation, or accept it. I couldn’t accept it because it made me so unhappy. I couldn’t change anything because Mum was pulling the strings. So I tried to alter my thinking, because I’m sure my face conveyed how much this whole thing was getting me down. I told myself that if I adopted a positive attitude and approached each day with an upbeat, cheery manner, then I could manage. But it was futile, and my skin wasn’t thick enough. Nor was my patience. I don’t profess to be a saint, and I started to give her a piece of my own mind, which only made matters worse, causing arguments.

  Gary asked why I couldn’t leave – a question that I wrestled with most days. On some level, I understood that frustration over her limitations had turned to an anger that she could only deflect outward. And, as miserable as it made me, the kid from Barnehurst still clung to the thought that I should be there to help my mum and sister, and that if I wasn’t around, everything would implode. There’d be no one to do the treatments. The business would go under. Then what? Plus, it wasn’t Mum’s fault, I told myself; it was a consequence of her illness; it was not who she truly was.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘then you have to take ownership for staying.’

  Gary has this way of shooting arrows that go straight to the heart of the matter, keeping things black and white, and we both knew I was hanging in there out of a sense of obligation – roots that would hold me in place for the longest, unhappiest eighteen months. I never felt strong enough to leave, to sever the attachment. Not until the day Mum crossed the line.

  I had arrived at the house around 8.30 a.m., as I did most mornings, and donned my white lab coat, resolving to start the day with my best foot forward, without ill-feeling, and be focused on the clients. My 9 a.m. appointment arrived – a beautiful model called Helen – and I greeted her cheerily before leading her to the treatment room upstairs.