by Kika Markham
You stood in shorts holding Kika’s hand,
The sea was cold you had no plan
To swim and nor did we, we craved the crab
In spongy bread, and as we put it to our lips,
A seagull plunged and made a grab,
And took our lunch which frightened us to leave
And have ice cream beneath a brolly
You bought a card for Tom,
Then, loaded down with plastic bags,
We caught the bus, you bought some fags,
And suddenly, the sun was gone,
The fields in mist where once it shone.
Corin’s holiday with Luke
Saturday 10 March 2006
With Luke – in Malta! We’ve just had a really marvellous dinner – in Sliema!
Coming home – listening to beautiful classical stringed music. Oh! Ah!
Sunday 11 March 2006
A peaceful night. Luke woke me with a cup of tea at 11.00 a.m. One look out of the window convinced me that I wanted to stay here for at least another week. One more week in Malta! Aaah!!!
This morning we’re heading for a restaurant highly praised in the guidebook, specialising in rabbit! It’s called ‘Bobbyland’, and is to be found on Dingli Cliffs!!
Lunch, 2 p.m. on Dingli Cliffs
We’re having lunch at the romantically (well... actually rather murderously named)
It fully persuaded me that rabbit is one of the most delicious dishes you can cook and eat.
Monday 12 March 2006
This heavenly morning began with a visit to beautiful Mdina. Once inside we found a delightful bar, and had a lager!! Haha!!
And then, a little later, Luke showed me an absolutely brilliant short film he had made... Strangers!!
CHAPTER NINETEEN
FEBRUARY 2007
Our Mother Dies
Corin’s diary
February 2007
Kika went down on Friday to take Olive to hospital. Alone in London, I got up in the morning and made breakfast. Do it for Kika! Alone, I looked after myself. Encouraging!
Mum is getting noticeably more frail with each week that passes. She’s looking forward to meeting up with my dad again, although she’s not sure where that would be. When she was younger and fitter, her grief over his death was profound. I tried hard to help her. I wanted her to feel better. I tried to ‘argue’ her into cheering up... and if that failed I would write lists of things that she could do when feeling blue.
I would scold her for saying how lonely she was, didn’t she know she had her daughters? I would shake my head in frustration when she would say finally ‘it’s just not having him to talk to at night...’ I understand now Mum.
Mum was brave. Deported from Germany in the 1930s, she was later arrested with my father in the Soviet Union for distributing leaflets for the Campaign Against Abuse of Psychiatry. When told by the KGB to strip in the prison cell, she famously replied that she had never minded taking her clothes off.
She felt like a stranger to me at times, yet a stranger I knew better than anyone else in the world. Has she left me finally? I think not. Five years after her death, struggling into my Lois Selfridge black Edwardian dress, I caught sight of myself. My mother stared straight back at me. It seems I have also inherited her furrowed brow, anxiousness, a secret ‘showing off’ look and heavy Jewish eyelids. My mother is Jewish, so therefore I am, but I grew up unaware of it as my parents were against all religions, and I was ignorant of all faiths. All that I know about the Bible was taught to me by Corin.
She wrote a story about me called ‘The Green Veil’. It was about a little girl, Erika Sarah Louise (my name), who was afraid to walk the one-and-a-half miles to school (which I was) because some boys used to lie in wait for her and threaten to put her in their cooking pot – so the hedge that grew along the lane, and that had become her confidante, told her a story to distract her until she reached the school. It is a charming story, which I treasure, and look forward to reading to my grandchildren.
Later, when I was sent to weekly boarding school at seven years old, Sundays were coloured with the dread of going back. Even now, waving goodbye to a close friend, sister or any of my children brings on an embarrassing rush of tears.
Kika’s diary
February 2007
‘I’m waving goodbye to you!’ Mum announced as my sisters and I arrived at her bedside in the hospital. She has, of course, been preparing us for her death for at least twenty years, much as one would warn a small child that a pet has a limited life. She carried her will in her handbag and would provocatively wave it in the air... ‘See, I’m prepared,’ she would say to shocked visitors. ‘I’ve lived too long. Even the trees are telling me that.’
That night someone had brushed her hair the wrong way and her skin was yellow and white. My heart lurched. ‘You look better,’ I lied. ‘I’ve been very worried about you... and upset’. ‘Oh really, Kika, I haven’t shed a tear’. She looks, horrified and fascinated, as a very old lady with long hair scraped back, no teeth and stick legs, clambers very slowly on to the bed next to hers. ‘Is that me? Is it a mirror? How’s Corin?’
My eyes fill up. I look away.
‘Oh it’s a mess,’ she sighs.
On an earlier visit, after settling her down with the Guardian crossword, I headed for the exit, but suddenly I was overcome by an ancient grief and ran back to hug her. She looked up, pleased. ‘Why did you come back?’ in a roguish tone.
‘Because I missed you. Bye Mum.’
On the train going back to London I thought about her ‘Why did you come back?’ Did she mean ‘do you really love me then?’ or ‘why did you bother...?’
An old theme.
Kika’s diary
March 2007
My mother is now in a nursing home. We drive down to see her. Corin and I sing ‘Oxygen’ to the tune of Edelweiss. ‘Oxygen, oxygen, left my brain in a hurry / Oxygen, oxygen, come back soon or I’ll wor--ry.’
Sunday 4 March 2007
At the nursing home Mum is sleeping, chin on hand, sitting in the chair by the window. Corin, Christina – our kind Italian friend who had once looked after Mum – and I wait a little in the ‘waiting area’. I go in alone and kneel down by her chair. ‘Mummy.’ Her eyes open wide and see nothing. Morphine. Then they see me and soften. She seems to glow. She folds her arms round me and kisses me softly over and over. It’s more than a hug, it’s comfort and need and love, and I want it to last forever. It’s all there is to do really, the rest is filling in time.
‘What’s the theatre news?’
‘We’re not in a play right now, Mum.’
‘Look at the colours.’ She points to the red, yellow and purple tulips on the window sill.
She reads Arden’s latest poem very slowly and carefully with a magnifying glass. Corin’s making a beeline for the bed, lies down and has a nap. She closes her eyes in the chair. I sit between them. ‘Comb my hair,’ she murmurs.
‘You are so beautiful Olive,’ says Corin, waking up. She smiles, pleased, but with the old disbelieving, ironic smile.
Friday 9 March 2007
Peaceful scene. Mum is tucking into fried egg, bacon, fried potatoes, beans, with quiet enjoyment. Sitting next to the window.
I don’t disturb her.
She says later, ‘I am happy here.’
And
‘I’m alright here. You can leave me here and go and be happy together.’ To Petra and me.
Petra and I go outside to the car. Petra is very upset.
Wednesday 21 March 2007
I got up and saw there were lots of missed calls on the mobile. I rang Jehane. She sounded normal. I was relieved. ‘I thought something must have happened.’ Her voice changed.
‘You don’t know?’
‘Oh God, Mum, did she die?’
‘Oh Kika, yes.’
It was the first day of spring. The same day, though not year, as Michael Redgrave had died: 21st March.
Wednesday 21 March 2007
We meet at the Llama Park coffee shop. White faced, pink eyed. We went to see Mum. She was lying too straight on her back, hair back on the pillow. Mouth a bit askew, one eye a little open, still focusing. I kissed her forehead. So cold and damp. An unnatural cold I’d never felt before. From the bottom of a deep black lake. She didn’t look peaceful or unhappy but enigmatic and like a Rembrandt painting of a death mask.
‘Her skin’s going waxy,’ Sonie says. ‘Do you have to use that word?’ I say. ‘What’s wrong with waxy?’
We busy ourselves in the small room packing her clothes. That wasn’t so bad, but seeing her spotted red hankies was.
What a silence in the room. I got acquainted with death. I became a little less frightened. I worried about her hands and arms. Too straight under the heavy counterpane, I stroked them and rearranged them to be more comfy.
Bon Voyage
Oh Mother, you have gone
Down the dark corridor
Where rose pink worms live.
We sit round like sacked staff
Chewing the cud,
Railing against your impossible conditions.
All the gifts that we brought you
Still cannot compensate
For the loss we are about to inherit.
You sailed away on a cloud
Of morphine and flowers and love.
We hope, we almost pray.
Jehane Markham
May 2007
The inability to control events began to disable me. Corin’s recovery was stagnant. There were only good days and bad days. My sisters were intent on selling the cottage only four weeks after our mother’s death. Apparently I had been the one to suggest ‘upmarket’ estate agents. Our voices cracked at one another. Could it be that after her death we would grow apart? We ached for our Mum.
Thursday 19 April 2007
Joely and Daisy sent a wonderful bunch of multi-coloured roses. Petra came and brought a box of ripe mangoes. I felt better. Besides the real world was galloping on with arrangements for Harvey and Jodie’s wedding day. Menus, placemats, flowers, guests, the DRESS, the present list...
On 27 May the Great Day finally came. We travelled down to Chilham where Jodie’s parents lived: Tom and Jacquie Reed – we always had fun staying with them and Corin was particularly impressed that they lived opposite a pub. Jodie and Harvey had been married formally at Islington Town Hall and now they were going to have a humanist ceremony. My school friend, Suzannah Stack, was the Registrar for both ceremonies, which made it even more special. In Chilham it poured with rain, so the entire wedding had to take place in a little village school, under wooden eaves. Jodie and Harvey had written their own vows, beautiful and romantic. Later, under the marquee, Corin recited ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ to them, Tom Brind, the best man, gave a wonderful speech, and I sang ‘Our love is here to stay’.
CHAPTER TWENTY
AUGUST 2007
No Future?
Kika’s diary
August 2007
We were listening to King Lear on Radio 3, Corin playing Lear and me Regan. Corin looking puzzled. He shook his head. ‘Who’s written this? It’s not Shakespeare’ (although earlier he’d said ‘I did this before Stratford’).
It was distressing. Well I was sad, he didn’t seem to be. ‘It’s normal,’ he said.
‘Yes, it’s normal,’ I agreed.
‘Thank you, you’re so helpful,’ he said.
He just didn’t recognise any of the text that he heard. I found his old copy of the play and he read it for a bit and said he thought it was a little more familiar, but that he wasn’t convinced. We continued listening to the play.
‘Who’s written it?’ he asked when it ended.
One of the few pictures Corin ever took of me at Nelson Bay, South Island.
Almost a honeymoon, except we weren’t married, in New Zealand. Corin in his Sir George Grey costume.
3 February 1979. Harvey at three days old.
Our wedding day, 5 October 1985
On holiday in Belagio. I was telling them to enjoy the view but they all insisted on looking tragic.
Jemma and Luke with their dad in New York.
Harvey in full Arsenal kit.
Arden with pig bat in our field adjacent to Lear Cottage.
At our favourite café in Jardin du Luxembourg.
Corin as Oscar in De Profundis.
Corin’s first visit to Lear Cottage since his heart attack.
At a rally in Trafalgar Square against the bombing of Gaza. January 2009.
Corin and Jemma at the Globe after seeing Pericles, the production he was in when he was taken ill. Going back was emotional. The audience gave him a standing ovation.
Reading the names of the dead in ‘Voices of the Lebanon’ in Trafalgar Square with Simon Callow and Bill Patterson.
Arden’s graduation day – a moment of triumph!
Corin holds Edie, four days old
Corin at peace in Jehane and Roger’s garden in Norfolk.
Jodie and Harvey and Edie Redgrave a couple of weeks after Corin’s death coming back from the Isle of Wight on the ferry. We decided to go there for a weekend, to stay at the Royal Hotel, where Corin and I had many a happy weekend.
10.30 a.m. Friday 31 August 2007
Corin stands in the garden. He has just peed there. He holds his hand strangely behind his back and I realise it’s because he is holding a cigarette.
‘I won’t smoke any more. This will be my last.’ He sees I’m crying. He gives me the cigarettes.
I go back to the computer to finish off an email. An awful cry comes from the garden. Corin is sitting at the table (still smoking) and his chair is giving way slowly under him.
‘Hold me! Hold me up!’ As he’s only six inches from the ground and very heavy, I’m finding it difficult.
‘Just sit down, I’ve got you.’
‘No, don’t let go of me, GET ME UP!’ he yells. Amazingly I manage to get him to his feet, still with the cigarette. I cry on the telephone and Hyu Jong, Arden’s girlfriend, holds me tightly, ‘Shush, no, Kika, Kika don’t cry.’ I gently detach her and tell her it’s making me worse.
Meanwhile, Corin has been to the shops and brought back a bottle of champagne, which he opens and we all dutifully drink.
Later he explains that when he falls he feels as if there is no ground, only space.
Corin continued to get intermittent work – after Krapp’s Last Tape he recorded another radio play Life After Scandal, by Robin Soans, playing Jonathan Aitken, the disgraced Tory MP, brilliantly. He went to Sheffield with Jemma for a workshop on Pinter, playing the part of Hirst, a distinguished poet, in No Man’s Land, which he’d done at the National before his heart attack.
But it was in 2007, in the summer after my mother’s death, that Corin and I had a very painful, truthful conversation. We were facing up to the fact that we had come to hate the roles we had become used to playing: Corin in the role that constantly needed to be ‘monitored’, me the monitor, forever on the lookout for a misdemeanour. That he was becoming a scapegoat for everything. All my disappointments. No wonder he was turning to drink, I thought. He was due to go to Stratford-upon-Avon to a poetry recital to read the poems of Louis MacNeice and W.H. Auden the following day, and began to get very emotional. ‘I am very depressed. You don’t know how near I am to the lid coming down. I HAVE NO FUTURE!’
This cry from the heart was deeply upsetting.
I had to answer him as carefully as I could: ‘Your life may not be the same as it was, or you would like it to be, but you do have a future. You have proved you can work professionally, so much so that you’re going to play Tynan again in New York. Your creative power has not diminished one bit. You can write about how it feels to be an actor who has lost his memory. You’ve been wanting to do that for months. You almost died, but you came back. You mustn’t waste this chance.’
The fact is there were parts offered from time to time but sometimes the director or producer didn’t know that Corin had a heart attack or its effects on him. Together Helen and Lisa, Corin’s excellent agents from Feast Management, and I had to make the difficult decision as to what Corin could manage to do. We would discuss the role together. How many lines were there? How much stamina would he need? Would the fact that he was working be so enjoyable to him that he would overcome any risk he might encounter emotionally and mentally?
In the end I had to make the decision. A few times Lisa and I would have to turn down work as it would be too physically demanding for him. Saying no to work on my husband’s behalf and not telling him was nothing less than an unspeakable crime. That’s how it felt. Terrible.
So I show him the email that Vanessa has just sent with all the details of Tynan in New York, as I know he thinks that I’m just trying to keep him happy. He cheers up and we kiss. He helps me lay the table, and goes to the shop to get sparkling water and bread.
His high spirits last, and the next day he gets up early and bravely goes off to Stratford for the recital. I join him later. His reading is beautiful. Every word counted. At the end he left the last poem hanging in the air, looking into the audience with an expression of defiance and acute sadness. Huge applause. Azmat Begg, Vivian and John Blizzard, his dresser from Stratford (whom he adored), were there. He didn’t ask for a drink. On the way back he could feel the memory of the recital fading. He was conscious of it going, like a receding dream. The next morning I was looking for the nail scissors, as usual they were never where they should be. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen them?’ I wasn’t expecting an answer. ‘Actually, I think you’ll find them in the fruit bowl in the kitchen. I saw them there a week ago.’ He was right! They were!