Every harsh word was like a drop of poison, leaving its stain, and I had no means of defending myself. Even poor Pierre bore some of the brunt of my wild, irrational behaviour. One day a man called out to him on the street, “You’re nothing but a cuckold.”
The publicity began to distort the way ordinary people saw me. One day, I was introduced to a Canadian man and his wife and stayed to talk to them for a while. As we parted, the man shook my hand warmly and said, “It has been really nice to meet you. I have to be honest. You really scared me. We didn’t know what you might do or say.” When I returned to Ottawa for my weekends with the boys, to be surrounded once again by security men, I felt paranoid. And facing my parents in those days was hard—really, really hard.
I had not, of course, abandoned the boys, and they were always on my mind. Every few weeks I returned to Ottawa, to the top floor of 24 Sussex, which I now made my base. I would give the nannies a holiday and settle down with the children. The days I had with them, whether in Ottawa, where the four of us often spent the night together curled up in my big bed, or up at Harrington Lake, were isolated little periods of sanity and happiness. I cooked for Justin and Sacha and Michel, and up in the attic room under the eaves I made clothes on my sewing machine.
I still have it, still use it—a pale green 1971 portable Bernina, the Rolls-Royce of sewing machines. A wedding gift from Pierre and something I had requested, the machine was Swiss made, and, like a Swiss watch, it was precise and dependable. At least something was.
I began to think of myself ruefully as a character in Charlotte Brontë’s nineteenth-century novel Jane Eyre—poor mad Mrs. Rochester hidden away in the attic.
The boys and I would have our breakfast on trays in bed and play with their new Newfoundland puppy. The boys were growing up with very different and distinct personalities of their own. Justin, the eldest, was always the leader, and though he was at heart loving and good, he could be very rough on the younger boys. Sacha was most like Pierre, very disciplined and hard working. Michel, the baby of the family, had an exceptionally sunny nature.
Pierre and I were always very physical with them, with lots of hugs. I think each generation tries to fill in the gaps from the one before, and if our parents were shy about touch, we weren’t.
Because I was no longer part of the formal set-up at 24 Sussex, there were no social occasions for me to attend, and I was free to be nothing but the mother to these boys. Sometimes I felt like I had never been away, except motherhood was far better now than it had ever been—even if, occasionally, I felt as if I were regressing into childhood again.
To the boys, I explained that I was working and needed to spend time at my job but would return for as long and as often as I could. Most of the staff did what they could to help, particularly Hildegarde, the senior maid, a kindly woman who was never censorious, and Yannick Vincent, the French chef, who would leave meals for me when my plane arrived late into Ottawa. Mary-Alice Mullaley was a sister in a convent in the Maritimes when she applied to 24 Sussex as a maid. Her education, her poise and her general qualifications would elevate her to comptroller of the house within a short time. She was an efficient and compassionate manager, and because of her, the place ran smoothly with or without me.
The most important staff members, of course, were the nannies. We were really blessed in that department. The first one we hired was Diane Lavergne, a country girl from a big family living outside Ottawa. She was a loving young woman and delighted in pouring her heart into caring for Justin and then baby Sacha.
When it was her time to move on, after Michel was born, I put an ad in the Globe and Mail saying something like “Nanny wanted for a family of three boys living in a government residence.” I received more than two thousand responses after an observant editor noticed my ad and put it on the front page. We chose Leslie Kimberley and Monica Mallon, both with extensive training in early child development and play. Leslie’s sister, Vicki, took over from her when Leslie went to get her master’s in audiology.
The work of these young women was exemplary, and they gave our little ones the guidance and affection they needed. They were all part of our family and, as it turned out, a necessary part of my being able to heal my unquiet mind. As a mother and wife suffering from a mental illness, I was unusually lucky to have such support available to me. For that, I am extremely grateful, and I deeply sympathize with all my fellow sufferers who must cope alone. The time would come when I, too, would be desperately alone in my madness.
Each time I knew I had to tear myself away, I would catch the plane back to New York, tears of confusion and uncertainty pouring down my face. My leave-taking was made infinitely worse by knowing that I was regarded throughout Canada—and I suspect by one or two members of our staff—as the kind of woman who would prefer going to nightclubs to looking after her young sons.
The boys would cling to me when I came home, and Sacha wept when I left. One of the maids was quick to tell me one day that she had heard him whimper outside my door. Pierre and I were careful with each other but distant. He made it clear that if I proved I could run a home, then he was willing to share custody, but he was very reluctant to give me more than a minimal allowance. In New York, I had already sold some jewellery to raise a little money. As for divorce, Pierre, as a fervent Catholic, did not consider it an option.
Never had I felt myself so young and vulnerable, nor had I ever found Pierre so stern. Sometimes I allowed myself to dream that we might find a way of resolving our disagreements, of becoming once again a loving family, a dream that part of me knew could never happen. The difference in our ages—Pierre was approaching sixty, while I was twenty-nine—had never seemed so glaring. Even so, a new relationship was developing between us, one more like father and daughter, and I needed him, wanting to keep him informed about how I was growing up. For his part, he seemed to enjoy some of the tales of the outside world I regaled him with.
Some of my worst moments were when Pierre was entertaining at 24 Sussex. I had been forbidden to show myself on these occasions, and was expected to keep to my quarters. Once the boys were asleep, I would perch on the window seat of my room, listening to the voices of the guests as they arrived, and later watch them in their long dresses and black ties as they strolled in the garden after dinner, the lights from the river glowing in the distance. I would remember all the evenings I had been entertaining them myself, forgetting my misery at the time.
I wasn’t always so wistful. When Pierre was not busy, we resumed some kind of family life. Pierre taught the boys to swim while I called encouragement from the side of the pool. At Harrington Lake, we canoed and swam, hiked and had barbecues. Pierre was a black belt in judo and taught the boys how to fall when fighting.
When he started dating, in the autumn of 1977, I was far more jealous than I had expected to be—particularly since many of the women he courted were those who had come as guests and friends to 24 Sussex when we first got married. I noticed that the dinners he asked the chef to prepare for them—lobster and champagne— were the very ones that he had lavished on me in our first days together. Still, I did genuinely want Pierre to be happy, and even tried to find people whom he might like to meet.
My first bunk in New York was with Yasmin Aga Khan. Later, I was given two rooms on Park Avenue in the fifteen-room apartment of a rich Texan; she wanted a house-sitter while she had the decorators in. Here I camped, spending my days working and my evenings in Studio 54.
The apartment was downstairs from my friends Richard and Lise Wasserman, who welcomed me into their home with tuna-fish sandwiches in the kitchen. Lise, especially, was a darling friend. I did a fair bit of socializing with New Yorkers: Andy Warhol for one. He was a friend, and we were often together at the edge of the crowd, watching the spectacle unfold at Studio 54. Andy sometimes had profound observations; mostly he would just say, “Oh gee.” At one point, Fred Hughes, of his team from the Factory (as he called his studio), called and said, “Andy would
like to paint you, Margaret. It will only cost you $33,000!” The very idea of asking my husband for that amount never entered my mind. In hindsight, though, it would have been a great investment.
I also hung out with the revolutionary Yugoslavian designer Zoran, Truman Capote, Warren Beatty and Diana Vreeland, the Vogue icon. I met Lauren Bacall, Gloria Steinem and many other fascinating characters. Barbra Streisand and I sat on the stairs at Studio 54 comparing notes. I attended theatre, opera and ballet and took advantage of the sophisticated mecca that is New York. I would have short romances with men whose company I enjoyed but whom I did not really love.
My phone would ring and it would be Steve Rubell from Studio 54: “Maggie, we’re going to have a party. All the stars are coming. I’ll send a car.” And off I would go with my friends, to dance into the small hours. I loved dancing.
I would spend my weekends in the Hamptons, buying clothes with money I didn’t have. I went to Washington for celebrity galas, and one night hosted a fundraiser for cerebral palsy in one of the big hotels, feeling that this was really something I could be proud of.
For a while I attended an acting school off Broadway, which gave me skills that, paradoxically, only served to make worse what came later. I learned how to put on a mask, to not show my feelings, to appear perfectly all right when underneath I felt myself to be one step from death. “No hunger, no pain, no fear,” I wrote defiantly in my diary. In many ways, I thought I was growing up and learning how to live.
The most important person in my life in New York was Dr. Arnold Hutschnecker, a renowned Park Avenue psychiatrist. He treated people with power and influence. He taught me the one lesson that has proved again and again to be invaluable: know when to exit.
Some days, when I rode the subway, met my friends, planned my work, met the other actors to rehearse, I felt free at last, free to find out who I really was. But when I read my diary now, what catches my eye is a recurring phrase: “under control … in control … out of control.”
Often, too often, I felt used and abandoned, fancying myself in love and then rejected. One night, when I was back in Canada, Pierre and I agreed to issue a statement about a trial separation. He was so angry, and I was trying so hard to appease him.
On May 13 of 1977, word was put out to the press. Pierre, the notice said, was to “take on the major responsibility for the day to day supervision of his children,” while “Margaret was to pursue an independent career and give up all privileges and rights as the wife of the Prime Minister.” The public were asked to respect our privacy. An eventual reconciliation was not ruled out.
There was at least some truth in the press release. I was, indeed, pursuing a career—the question was, in what? I did some work for People magazine, taking photographs for Perrier in France, and for a while I took up with Perrier’s president, Bruce Nevins, a kind and warm-hearted man who tried to smooth my path.
John Dominis, the photo editor of People magazine, gave me other stories to do. I liked John. He and I went on a date once, to the Press Gallery dinner in Washington. John was then fifty-six and he had long freelanced for Life magazine and the Saturday Evening Post; later he was a photo editor at Sports Illustrated. The best assignment he gave me was to cover a professional boxing match—Duane Bobick’s fight against Ken Norton in Philadelphia in May of 1977.
But when editors at People magazine heard of my assignments, they took to sending reporters to follow me around and write stories about me taking photographs. My photographs were good and it was fun going to the office, but the job became a circus: I was simultaneously the assignment and on assignment, so there were these absurd scenes where photographers took pictures of me photographing someone else.
I took acting classes to prepare myself for possible film parts. But mostly I rocketed my way around New York, spending my nights in Studio 54 or—after deciding that Bruce was too cold and uncommitted—going off on dates to places like Las Vegas. When I look back now on those days, they fill me with shame and embarrassment. Writing those words so baldly cannot convey the depth of confusion and unhappiness I felt. Much of the time, I lived in a fog, blindly clinging to a plan—that of making a career of my own—acting out of an unconscious drive to survive, not to go under, not to give up.
I thought my break had come when Good Morning America invited me to appear on the show with a selection of my photographs, the understanding being that this would be a kind of audition for a job of presenter on the program. But this turned out to be a teaser. Halfway through the program, while I was talking about my photography, the interviewer interrupted me to ask “the question that is on the mind of every one of our twelve million viewers: Have you abandoned your children?” I wanted to scratch her eyes out.
“How could you?” I shot back. “How could you possibly ask such a question?”
I began seriously to doubt that I was ever going to make it on my own. My entry for June 5, 1977, is bleak: “I am angry. I hurt. I am disappearing. I want to die. I can’t struggle any more. I feel awful now—alone and lonely.” On June 22 I added, “Stress: boy do I feel it now. On every level I feel vulnerable, alone, pressured … being stretched in every way … Help … I’m not eating, hardly sleeping.”
I had lost ten pounds and my emotions were “roller coasting.” Week after week, the diary contained the same refrain: “God, please please help me to know what to do with my life … help me survive as a good, honest, genuine person who doesn’t lie and fake and run away … I want to be someone I can live for and live with.” By now the highs and lows were coming thick and fast, I was constantly exhausted, kept falling asleep and missing appointments, and was living mainly on vitamins.
More than once, I was on the very edge of packing my bags and returning permanently to 24 Sussex. Slipped inside the pages of the red diary are fragments of paper, torn from a notepad. On each are the beginnings of a frantic letter to Pierre.
“Pierre, please find the time to bring me home. I am begging you, from my heart … All I want is for us to be a good family. I need your love … I will be a good wife.” In February of 1978, just back from a blind date in Las Vegas, I wrote, “Pierre, please help me through this desperation. I am so lonely.”
Pierre, for his part, had weathered our separation, politically at least, extremely well. His approval ratings shot up, and he had never been as popular as he was in the summer of 1977. During the previous January, the Conservatives had been leading with a big enough margin to form a majority government, and polls indicated that John Turner would make a more popular Liberal leader than Pierre. Turner, a former justice and finance minister who had left politics two years beforehand to work as a Bay Street lawyer, was waiting in the wings should Pierre step aside. By June of 1977, however, no one doubted Pierre’s skills any longer.
Though I continued to spend long weekends back in Ottawa, and though I agonized over my separation from the boys, there was something stubborn inside me, some sense of desperation, that would not quite let me capitulate. I kept hanging on to this notion of freedom, though there were many days when I couldn’t understand why—days when I longed for the boys and when I blamed Pierre for what had happened to us, for his coldness, his anger, his hurt pride.
My determination to find my own life and thereby become the mother the boys deserved was greatly strengthened by rare incidents of understanding and generosity. A doctor I had met in New York sent me a present after a bout of particularly bad publicity. With the gift came a wise note: “You must remember, a third of people will love you for what you do, a third will hate you for what you do, and the rest won’t give a damn what you do. You have to learn that what they feel is their problem, not yours, their faulty perception, not yours.”
Easy to say, hard to embrace. I found it impossible to shake my old desire to please. I had tried so hard to please my parents all through my childhood, then I tried to please Pierre. I could not rid myself of the longing to please everyone, to be loved and admired by all.
My mantra was this line from the song: “You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself.”
In the winter of 1977, I got an offer for a film part, to co-star with Patrick McGoohan in a film called Kings and Desperate Men. I was to play the wife of a failed actor and controversial radio talk-show host who is kidnapped with her young son by terrorists. The film wasn’t bad, but McGoohan and I loathed each other on first sight.
He was a big, surly man with a filthy temper, and filming became a series of bruising encounters. I was not sad when it ended, though I had loved the camaraderie of the set and the teamwork, and the acting had allowed me to give rein to all the emotions that seemed permanently to rage through me. I learned how to pour them out, not rein them in.
On the other hand, acting only allowed me to perfect a natural talent—for putting on a mask, for presenting a happy, reliable, dependable outer self, while inside I felt dissociated, as if I lived on the very margins of sanity. Fake it until you make it: that works for a while. I would pretend I felt great and, for a while, I did. But not for long. The pressure, bit by bit, built up, and then I would explode, in misery and mania.
A second film, L’ange gardien (The Guardian Angel), shot in the south of France, had me as the mistress of a wealthy Canadian businessman. She has a series of light flirtations with other men only to discover that her lover has had her followed by a private detective. Not surprisingly, perhaps, this film was not a success. And it would not have taken a genius to realize that I had been chosen to star not because of my great talents as an actress but because it was a fine publicity stunt to have the scandalous wife of the Canadian prime minister running around Cassis on the Mediterranean coast with a lot of men. Gossip columnists and paparazzi flew into town and followed me around shouting out questions, some new, some very old: Had I left my husband? Had I abandoned my children? What did I think about French men?
Changing My Mind Page 14