I’d prepared a slide show of images from the ‘Prostitution’ show for an event at the ICA to publicise Simon’s book. I was fine with that but Nick and his mate Greg had come along with us and I didn’t know how Nick would handle seeing his mum in all her naked glory – or how to explain a film in which I castrated his dad. I needn’t have worried. He took it in his stride and I gave him the nod when the sensitive images were to be shown so he could choose to avert his gaze.
By the time a feature in Bizarre magazine came out featuring similar images to illustrate an article on artists who push the boundaries of art and society by using their bodies, Nick was as comfortable as he could be about my magazine and art actions. His friends at college bought Bizarre magazine regularly – as I found out one day while at the checkout in Sainsbury’s. I saw Nick and two of his mates, who were grinning and looking at me and Chris. We nodded at them and said, ‘Hi.’
They came over carrying a copy of the magazine. ‘Did you really do all that in the Bizarre article?’ one of them asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Cool’ was his reply, and all three smiled and toddled off, waving to us as they went on their way.
20 March 1999
I’m determined to get a book out that puts the record straight.
Well, you’re reading that book now.
Simon’s Wreckers book prompted the diary entry, and the desire to put the record straight was further reinforced by press interviews with Gen and the book reviews, which seemed largely centred around him being the innovator and leader of TG. That misconception of TG and bias towards Gen, who was portrayed as a betrayed victim, angered me, Chris and Sleazy. We’d expected more from Simon – at least impartiality, having given him so much information to work with. Foxtrot had expected more too; he wasn’t best pleased at not being mentioned much in the COUM section, commenting on Gen in an interview, ‘He likes to have this mythic status, you see. He’s definitely got his own view of how it should be perceived. I mean, he is a great manipulator and he likes to retrospectively re-write history. I mean, I wasn’t mentioned much in the book, not that I’m an egomaniac but …’
Me, Chris and Sleazy didn’t attend the official book launch. Two days later, Simon emailed me an apology. I can’t recall whether it was for the book or the meagre twenty-five copies each we were to receive as ‘payment’ – and to be charged the postage.
25 April 1999
I’m fed up with being fed up now. It’s got my heart doing its palpitations again. If only I had the energy to scream and run round I’m sure I’d feel better. Exorcise the frustration a bit. I feel so sorry for Chris, he’s had to put up with so much because of my heart and now something else. It’s potentially so depressing but I mustn’t let it be. I’ll treat it as another chapter in my life, a project to fulfil and put behind me in my archive of life experiences.
My heart problem affected the dynamics of my relationship with Chris. He missed what he called my ‘mad half hours’ and my singing around the house. I didn’t feel myself either. I was used to rushing around everywhere, being so physically active and full of energy, and I worried that Chris wouldn’t love the slow, lifeless Cosey I’d become.
On top of that I’d been recalled after a routine mammogram to investigate a suspicious ‘mass’. By the time I went to the hospital one of the lumps was the size of an egg. They turned out to be cysts. ‘We’ll aspirate them for you,’ the consultant said. It all sounded so routine and harmless but turned out to involve inserting a long needle into the breast to withdraw fluid from the cysts. I felt like asking if they had a piece of wood for me to bite down on to.
I was relieved when it was all over but I was back at the clinic three months later, having found another lump the size of my thumb. Thinking it was just another cyst, I went into the consulting room on my own while Chris waited outside. I was taken from there to have an ultrasound scan. It wasn’t a cyst and they carried out a biopsy, telling me to return next week for the results. I couldn’t contemplate surgery after my last experience of a general anaesthetic. The stress set off my palpitations.
I had a close female support network, especially with Chris’s mum, Rose, his aunt Pat, my sister, Pam, and a wonderful group of caring friends who all talked me into thinking positively. Foxtrot being Foxtrot sent me a large Perspex vital progress hospital sign. I saw the consultant and got the biopsy result – the lump was fibrous and benign. I felt like I had permission to live again.
*
Chris had done some solo shows for Paul Smith’s ‘Disobey’ tour and Paul offered us C&C gigs for the summer, but I couldn’t do them. As everything seemed to be propelling us forward, I felt my health was holding us back. I called Papworth to try and get an idea of when my operation was so we could plan ahead. I was given a date, 19 May. Now I had something we could schedule offers and projects around.
20 May 1999
Oh what a traumatic day yesterday. All so unexpected and even now as I lay here at home I feel traumatised still.
Expectations were high that the cardiac ablation procedure would work and that I’d be free of medication and back to full health with energy to spare. Yeah! Chris stayed at a local hotel, as did his mum and aunt Pat to support me and Chris. They brought love and some light relief to the whole situation, and even a lovely curry for me from a nearby restaurant. I decided on a local anaesthetic, which enabled me to watch the procedure on the monitor above the operating table. The catheters were fed through an artery in my groin and into my heart, then different drugs were injected to try and induce the arrhythmia … to no avail. I was in theatre for over two hours and the ablation was abandoned, catheters removed and the nurse pressed down hard on the incision.
I was taken back to my hospital bed, where the incision opened up, spilling blood on the bed as I shuffled across from the trolley – more painful pressing down. I was exhausted, so even though I was by now laid in a pool of blood I was happy to comply with the order to lie flat for an hour, then two hours to be safe. I eventually slowly sat up but felt faint, then very weird. ‘Get the nurse,’ I said to Chris …
I don’t remember anything of the following ten minutes but it’s burned in Chris’s memory. He hit the panic button, alarms sounded, and the crash team were there in seconds. Apparently I’d gone deathly white, then red, then white, my eyes rolled back, then I had two convulsions and my heart stopped. Chris was stood on the chair in the corner of the room looking down and watching as the team worked on me to restart my heart. I woke up with an oxygen mask on, a drip in my arm and hooked up to a heart monitor, with Chris holding my hand. ‘What happened?’
He just said, ‘You fainted, that’s all.’
I was told that a number of factors could have been the cause of the crash – post-operative shock, or an adverse reaction to iodine, calcium, adrenaline or temazepam. Whatever it was, the doctors and nurses were fantastic. But my poor body had been through a lot. I felt like I’d been in an accident. The bruising on my groin extended down my thigh and I had bad chest pains, which freaked me out until Chris told me about the electric shocks to my heart. Then it made sense. He was emotionally drained. He’d thought I was dying when I had my collapse. I suppose I was dead for the minutes it took them to bring me back.
I’d considered myself to be a spiritual person and the whole incident changed my thinking, especially on reincarnation – I wasn’t going on to another life, I’d just gone. Not that I expected to, but I didn’t see any of those tunnels of white light or have any kind of out-of-body experience. I find it difficult to describe the finality of your own life force other than likening it to turning off a power switch. In some ways, it’s comforting to know it just ends – I felt nothing.
We’d had no reason to think there’d be any problem with the procedure – the family were excited that I’d be cured and it was just an overnight stay, so we told Nick he needn’t come along. We thought we’d save him the worry and he went to stay with his girlfriend. He was
really upset when we told him what had happened, and I regret excluding him. Like he said, ‘What if you’d never come back?’
I did get some good news from the hospital. My heart muscle was healthy – it’s just those damned electrical impulses that were misfiring. I was off medication and told to adopt a sensible approach to avoiding getting stressed or overtired. That’s a tough balancing act at times, especially for gigs, and ours was now just eleven days after the operation. Les thought it was too soon but I’d checked with my doctor that it would be OK and we’d accepted Paul Smith’s offer to perform as part of Labradford’s Festival of Drifting, curated by Carter Burwell at the Union Chapel in London. Consequently my recovery period was a mix of keeping abreast of the gig preps, resting, and appreciating the kindness and affection of the many flowers and ‘Get Well’ cards.
Chris had so much to do: he was writing another Sound on Sound review as well as fielding calls and emails, looking after me and sorting everything for the gig. I did what I could, going through and selecting video footage. We’d reconfigured our set-up for a new approach to playing live and took a lot more gear than before, including our two AKAI samplers and running the sequencers and rhythms off our laptops. Nick and his friend Greg were our roadies and John Lacey came along with his four projectors to do slides again for us to augment our video.
The walls of the chapel were transformed by our visual projections and the space felt ‘ours’. It was an all-encompassing, all-consuming C&C audiovisual experience. We hadn’t played live for seven years and the festival gave us the opportunity to return to performing as what we thought of as a more incidental part of the evening. We were taken aback by the response to our show. It was a full house, with people coming from America and Europe, so many friends, family and familiar faces. Even Fizzy and Foxtrot turned up. Fizzy was now a psychiatric nurse, built and looking like a berserker, with no front teeth and dressed up for the occasion in a leopardskin Lycra jumpsuit. His appearance was at odds with his gentle, sweet, fun self, but perfectly reflected his eccentric style. With John there as well, doing a performance piece that he got Fizzy to join in with, it was like a COUM reunion.
Backstage was crammed and buzzing with so many people, big love and beaming smiles. I was hugging and kissing my close friend Andria, who I’d met through John McRobbie and her work at Mute. I showed her my beautiful bruise from the operation, which was like a painting in constant flux, all shades of blue, purple and yellow, extending across my groin and down almost to my knee. We were in the ladies’ toilet, where we’d retreated for privacy and to count the merchandise takings, having been harassed by a very persistent guy from the Union Chapel production team, who wanted their cut, and was insisting on watching me count the money. I wasn’t having any of that. Maybe he’d been ripped off before, but I’d just finished performing and was knackered as well as annoyed at him following me around. He waited outside the toilets the whole time we were in there, like a sentry on guard duty. As soon as I came out I handed over his cut and went back to join everyone.
Daniel Miller came over to chat and asked me and Chris about the possibility of TG re-forming. That took us by surprise. We didn’t ever expect TG to re-form. Why would anyone? Then he told us that the TG24 release couldn’t happen yet as production costs were too high.
We walked out of the venue to a wonderful sight: an all-laughing, dancing sea of ‘Prostitution’ T-shirts. All those that had bought one at the gig had put them on over their clothes and were heading off into the night for more fun. When we went to load up the car it was covered in notes thanking us for a wonderful show. What an amazing night.
Then the adrenaline high was gone and I slumped in the car for the drive back to Norfolk, exhausted and feeling very ill by the time we got home at 4 a.m.
I’d overdone it and didn’t feel good for months leading up to my post-op consultation. I thought I’d be put back on heart drugs but I was told to continue without medication and see how I got on. But the palpitations came back with a vengeance and I ended up back at Papworth. My case was apparently ‘astonishing’. It was bloody annoying to me but I appreciated the interest in my extraordinary condition. I was told that the options for surgical intervention were limited and not yet developed enough to guarantee a positive outcome. I opted to continue taking medication. I’d previously spent a week in hospital trying different drugs with varying efficacy, but I was put on a different one that I’d never tried before. Those little white tablets transformed my life. My energy window expanded – as long as I respected my limitations.
2 September 2000
So as from today I am represented by Cabinet Gallery. Whoopee!
I approached the year 2000 with renewed vigour and an improved sense of well-being that held me in good stead for the emerging shifts in focus, both personal and creative. I’d worked with Andrew and Martin for four years before we made our working relationship ‘official’. It all took place over lunch in a pub in London, with the details of the arrangement restated and confirmed as we crossed the busy road together on my way back to catch the train home with Chris. I hadn’t been represented by anyone before so was reluctant to commit myself, but they had belief in me and my work. I trusted Andrew and Martin as friends, and admired their unique approach to art and how they operated very much on their own terms within the art world. Working with them and under their guidance has been key to my reinvigorated enthusiasm for and approach to art.
During visits to discuss works for exhibit I was rather amused (but pleased) to see my work being handled with white cotton gloves. I hadn’t been afforded such respect before. It made me smile. Things were falling into place at a good time for me, having sat my last OU exam. I could return to being Cosey again full-time, with space for self-indulgence and reading non-academic material.
Studies and personal problems aside, interest in my art stepped up and I was taking part in panel discussions and doing talks, including at the Courtauld Institute with my artist friend André Stitt, at the Royal College of Art, and at other colleges and institutions. Music and art were overlapping with my and Chris’s ambient albums, E.A.R. One and E.A.R. Two, both being included in the ‘Volume’ exhibition at PS1 in New York.
Then the music took a backseat as I concentrated on my artwork, which was included in group exhibitions at galleries and museums around the world. It was refreshing to meet a whole set of new and interesting people, especially my fellow Cabinet artists Lucy McKenzie and Mark Leckey. I’d returned to the art world at the right moment. My work had had time to find its place and was now recognised as important in the historical timeline of 1970s radical influential art.
The long gap between being trashed by press, Parliament and some fellow artists and the establishment embracing my art had also given me the chance to re-view my past work. I was in a different place now and could look at it from another perspective. I was outside looking in, with the advantage of time having allowed the assimilation of the residual ‘aftertastes’ and intimacies involved, as well as the dreadful experience and familial damage resulting from the ‘Prostitution’ furore. Back in the early 1980s I’d wanted to burn all my magazine works but Chris was horrified at the thought, saying how important they were and he wouldn’t let me do it. It’s not that I was ashamed of them, I just didn’t see a good reason for keeping them. They were taken out of their frames, put into storage and tucked away for years. Retrieving my COUM and magazine works from the boxes in the archive room was like delving into a past that I’d been very happy to leave behind. Considering what it represented, revisiting wasn’t traumatic so much as intriguing. Seeing my magazine works like that, me as I was from the position of who I had become, was an awakening for me. I still recognised and connected with my past self in the photographs and remembered everything – the smells of aftershave and the locations, the feel of the bed sheets, the reasons behind a certain positioning of my body or the look in my eyes, and the happy, heavy or unfriendly atmospheres. Sometimes I’d
smile, sometimes I’d cringe.
Flicking through the pages of the magazines triggered a myriad of emotions and memories, and seeing my model friends again brought back the events hidden behind the procuring of that final printed image. But the shock wasn’t that, nor the graphic detail of crotch shots, but just how much these magazines were a rich visual time capsule of the blatant 1970s sexism that I’d lived through, coped with, and which now looked ridiculous, sometimes shocking and crass. When you’re living in that world you cope, steer your way through, challenging and countering when and wherever you can. Those works have since been presented within a ‘feminist’ context and I can now appreciate why, but for me at the time (and always) it was about my freedom to be me, not about ‘feminism’ per se.
9 November 2000
It all seems to be happening this year. New Millennium (if you go by our calendar) and great shifts in our lives.
Skot had forwarded me an email from Gen (at Gen’s request), informing me that Gen’s mum had had a triple bypass at eighty-three. I didn’t know why he was emailing me after so many years. I’d also been told the week before that Gen wasn’t well, with talk of him allegedly having had a breakdown after taking ketamine and ending up in hospital. If that was true, maybe it had something to do with Gen’s change in attitude towards me, as well as the request from a guy who did his website asking to link it to ours as a gesture towards maybe ‘building bridges’.
Then a letter arrived from Gen, with two Polaroids of his dog, Tanith, in her grave. The letter was so nice and ‘normal’; the sentiment seemed sincere and friendly, wishing me health and happiness. But I couldn’t believe in his words and that was sad. I burst into tears at the sight of Tanith lying dead. The letter was significantly dated 4 November, my birthday – it was a loaded missive.
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