One Last Lunch

by Erica Heller

  So that’s where I’d have my lunch with Newman. At a long table filled with singing campers. Probably just pasta, cookies, and lemonade. Nothing intentional or fussy, for sure. I guess if I brought salad there would be salad dressing. He’d have his dark glasses on, and the baseball cap. You do get used to the eyes, but it takes a while.

  I would keep talking on and on about injustice and poverty, and I suspect he’d find me boring with all my agita. He’d talk to the kid on his left. I would remember to thank him for teaching me about living an authentic life, separate from what the world needs me to be. I would tell him that virtually everything I now know about using a huge public platform to ask others to be active repairers of the world, I learned from him alone. Mostly, I think I would want to thank him for letting me see in my early twenties that marrying the absolute love of my life and doting on my children is an authentically and deeply lived life; that living a relatively small life but doing meaningful things is much more important than fame.

  And when I can stop talking, I want him to persuade me again of his weird and elusive philosophy—the inversion of what psychologists call the fundamental attribution error—his abiding belief that people are all basically pretty good, and they all mostly just want to do good, and that errors and frailties aren’t character so much as quirks. I want him to remind me that we all have more in common than we ever supposed. I want him to tell me again that there is no global problem that can’t be fixed if a bunch of people allow themselves to believe in solutions.

  I would say something about how this country needs genuine moral wisdom and leadership now more than ever, and he would laugh at me and say he has neither. I would say once again that he always seemed more kid than grown-up to me, except that he got things done so quietly, effectively, without fanfare, that I think he was, in secret, the only grown-up I saw for a long time. I am ravenous for humility in public life, and he was the last, best version of that I ever knew.

  I have been planning this lunch with Paul Newman for more than a year. I think it would break his heart, knowing what this country has done to the kids—especially the poor kids—he thought about all the time. Perhaps because he always seemed to live his life so close to the seam of childhood, he would be the person most apt to understand that a whole generation of American children are being poisoned and polluted not just by toxic air and water but by filthy ideas about race and religion and violence that we believed we had left behind in the 1950s. He would be the one to ask what is really happening to this cohort of children raised in this moment of mass public shame and bullying and Twitter-terror. I like to think that he would have an answer or at least know who to call for the answer, by the time we set down our forks.

  Maybe because the two qualities I most prized in this man were his optimism and his capacity to listen, I actually hate the idea of telling him what we’ve done to the world he unspooled for me, right out of college. I can’t even imagine reporting what his beloved country has done to American childhood. This makes me hope that he doesn’t show up for lunch. But oh, I hope he does.

  Dahlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate, and in that capacity, she writes the “Supreme Court Dispatches” and “Jurisprudence” columns. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, the Washington Post, and Commentary, among other places. She won a 2013 National Magazine Award for her columns on the Affordable Care Act. She has been twice awarded an Online Journalism Award for her legal commentary and was the first online journalist invited to be on the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press. Ms. Lithwick has testified before Congress about access to justice in the era of the Roberts court. She has appeared on CNN, ABC, and The Colbert Report and is a frequent guest on The Rachel Maddow Show. Ms. Lithwick earned her BA from Yale University and her JD from Stanford University.

  — 36 —

  “Come on, my Kate. Let’s have a pissy lunch, shall we?”

  KATE O’TOOLE (DAUGHTER) AND PETER O’TOOLE

  Strangely enough, I had been invited to have lunch with my father, my dead father, in London, where we used to live. The instructions were to pick him up in a minicab from his creaking Georgian house near Hampstead Heath.

  My father died many times before he died, of course. I was at his bedside when he drew his final breath, but mostly I watched him die on-screen. As a ten-year-old in Venezuela during the filming of Murphy’s War, I learned how to make fake blood from cochineal beetles for Daddy’s “wounds.” When I saw the results of my handiwork up on a big screen in the cinema, the trickery of it delighted me. It’s safe to say that at a tender age I well knew the difference between reality and make-believe.

  I’m not so sure my father did. He inhabited his roles so completely they became entwined with his DNA, where reality and shape-shifting became indistinguishable. It wasn’t a case of my having to live with a different personality whenever Dad was playing a different part; it was nothing that exotic. It was the more ordinary fact of his relaxed, off-duty self being inaccessible while his mind was absorbed in his work to the exclusion of all else. For that reason we’re going to enjoy our last lunch together while gloriously unemployed, as actors often are.

  A long lunch with my funny, affectionate father was usually a lateish affair to begin with and very late indeed to finish. It was known to us as a “pissy lunch.” Peter was appalled by the concept of a working lunch, looked askance at people who spoke of “breakfast meetings” and pronounced the odious word “brunch” with as much withering disdain as his tongue could extract from each unfortunate consonant.

  This being the special occasion of his temporary resurrection, we shall enjoy luncheon at Rules, the oldest restaurant in London. One of his and my favourite rooms to dine in, Rules sits in Covent Garden, in the heart of Peter’s spiritual home, his cherished West End theatreland. The stews of Soho are within walking distance for a jar or seven afterward.

  It’s the first week in November, the month my ailing father faded from my sight. The poor man was still alive until December, technically speaking, but not really. The life spark was absent long before he breathed his last. I like to think it was the thought of Christmas that finished him off entirely.

  Happily, with characteristically superb timing, the real anniversary of his passing coincides with the very best time of year to eat at Rules. The menu is strictly seasonal, coming into its own during autumn. A preponderance of furred and feathered game is on offer, accompanied by a casual warning that “gamebirds may contain lead shot.” We’re agreed the possibility of great balls of lead crashing into our gnashers halfway through lunch beats the more modern hazard, “traces of nuts.” The food here is unashamedly red-blooded and hearty, the star attractions sourced from carefuly managed herds and flocks reared on private English estates in time-honored, traditional ways now known as sustainable.

  While he was still alive, I’d typically arrive over from Ireland and make myself at home in Dad’s large, light-filled sitting room while he busied himself upstairs, preparing to be seen in public. When he did make an entrance, he was always impeccably well-dressed and ready for action in one of his exquisitely cut bespoke suits, of which he owned dozens. Mr. O’Toole never went shopping for clothes; he only went to fittings for clothes. When ready, handmade shirts, shoes, and suits would be delivered in sturdy cardboard boxes so large I used to hide inside them and wait for my chance to jump out and give an unsuspecting grown-up a heart attack. Daddy’s appearance would be heralded by the unmistakable sound of his eager footsteps leaping down the stairs two at a time before the heavy sitting room door would swing wide open and a tall, pale figure would stand in the doorway, rooted to the ground, crackling with energy and beaming with delight at the sight of me. I’ll beam back at the sight of him.

  For lunch Daddy would be wearing something not too dark, perhaps a suit of pale green Irish wool with a fine ivory silk shirt and a perfectly chosen waistcoat with a heavy jacquard silk weave. Pinned to his lapel, the discree
t, pea-size, green-and-white-striped rosette signifying his title as a Commandeur of France’s Légion d’Honneur, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. At his neck, a psychedelic silk scarf from the ladies’ department at Hermès, worn as a loosely knotted cravat. This is Peter’s casual daytime look. As usual he’ll be wearing well-kept Lobb’s brogues of the softest, most supple leather. The ensemble is topped off with a beaten-up old felt hat that gives Peter the raffish air of being the bookmaker’s son that he was.

  After the mutual beaming, I’ll receive a shower of featherlight kisses on the crown of my head and a bear hug that makes me aware of how fragile his ribs feel. Always a delicate creature, it’s extraordinary that he, the least robust looking of his friends and colleagues, should have lived to bury every single one of them, from Robert Shaw to Richard Burton and many, many more. Too many; how solitary he must have been as they all left the party long before he did.

  After hugs, kisses, grins, and fussing with heavy overcoats, there’ll be an enthusiastic cry of, “Come on, my Kate. Let’s have a pissy lunch, shall we?”

  Into the waiting minicab we get. Peter never sat in the back; he liked to ride up front so he could see where he was going while giving terrible directions to the driver. He scorned GPS systems as being useless devices for idiots and insisted they be switched off, with the result that no one, including him, could ever know where on earth he was leading us. The peculiar directions had something to do with how he knew a secret, lateral-minded route into the West End that avoided all traffic at any time of the day or night. Perhaps that was true when he first came to London as a drama student in the fifties, but never since then, I shouldn’t think. Nowadays we have things like one-way systems and bus lanes to contend with; I have zero confidence that he knows what they are. Having no sense of direction myself, though, I have no contribution to make and am happy for him to take control. Inevitably we soon come to a complete standstill, mired in heavy traffic and roadworks. Outraged that his clever plan has been thwarted Dad will shout over his shoulder to me, “Camden fucking council are at it again, baby! Look at the state of these roads; it’s like living in downtown fucking Lagos!”

  Eventually the odyssey ends just as we’re about to die of traffic fumes and thirst. We arrive at our destination in Maiden Lane and enter the faded Edwardian plush that is Rules.

  The maîtresse d’, Josie, is a stout, cheerful, down-to-earth Yorkshire woman who adores Peter, not like a film star but like a son. More bear hugs, more gentle kisses on the head. Josie leads us to our usual table; we settle into a red velvet banquette and take in our surroundings. Dark wooden partitions, etched glass, gas lamps, great carved swords, antlers, old playbills, bronze racing figures, taxidermy, a bust of Shakespeare. The aged décor and cozy atmosphere suit our tastes for the unfashionably welcoming and comfortable.

  It’s quieter nowadays, but Rules was once the place to be, the Sardi’s of its time. Like my father, it’s had a rich and colorful part to play in London’s theatrical history. In its heyday, the place was positively ablaze with the glittering scandals of its A-list clientele, led in large part by Edward VII. When he was still Prince of Wales, Edward had a private room upstairs where he used to tryst with the actress Lily Langtry. The staircase to their chamber is narrow and rickety, its carpet worn thin, its walls lined with ancient menus. I like to stop and imagine Charles Dickens, once a regular customer, trying to decide what to eat, an oyster the size of a dinner plate or perhaps some pease pudding and saveloy.

  Like all good friends of similar minds, our conversations flowed freely; today’s is no exception. We have a tsunami of stories to exchange and topics to catch up on. We’ll discuss what we’re reading, or thinking about, our love lives, current political events, and how things are treating us in general. Naturallly, Dad wants to know what’s been going on in the world since he died. I’ll tell him that the weird hotel guy we had drinks with in New York years ago is now the president of the United States; that’ll render him speechless for a minute or two. I won’t have the heart to tell him about Syria, a country he knew well and was extremely fond of. News of its desperate plight would wound him deeply.

  I’d prefer to tell him about things that’ll make him smile, such as the memorial I held for him at the Old Vic Theatre, told through my frazzled eyes as the exhausted producer of the event.

  We order the house pale ale served in pewter tankards and survey the menu. As a child it struck me as odd that the fare includes both venison and deer. I remember asking my father what the difference between them was and him explaining, “Deer is Bambi’s mother, and venison is Monarch of the Glen.” I’ll order the wild boar today; I like how it’s similar to steak but with a delicious hint of rasher about it. Daddy will have his favorite dishes, lobster bisque and Dover sole. His choice of seafood notwithstanding, we both prefer red wine to white and order a rich Merlot; one bottle each should see us through to dessert.

  Given that he’s been dead, I’ll be compelled to quiz Dad upon the existence, or not, of the afterlife. I’m sure his considered and entertaining opinion on the matter will clear up any questions to my satisfaction. We’ll expand upon the themes of deaths, friends’ funerals, fondly remembered memorials, and the like. I could go for hours on the subject of his wake alone. He’d especially like the part where his old black cat jumped into the open wicker coffin to be beside his human. To amuse him I’ll add that perhaps it was only because cats, like children, just like being inside boxes.

  After port and Stilton for dessert we’ll thank Josie for her longstanding hospitality, wrap up warm against the November chill, and step out into Covent Garden where I want to show Daddy something I know will please him greatly. Late-afternoon sunlight is setting low over the damp, gray cobbled streets. We link elbows and amble the short distance to the Actors’ Church, St. Paul’s. We take our time, our shadows lengthening as we stop to remark on points of interest along the way. We pass through the nighttime world of grand old theatres and their stage-door alleys, twinkling pubs, and secret gambling dens. We stand under the portico of the church, in the spot where Bernard Shaw places Eliza Doolittle’s flower stall. We look up to admire the gorgeous lines of Inigo Jones’s elegant creation before entering its sacred space. Neither of us are religious, but this is a very special place of worship. The Actors’ Church is where the great and good of our profession lie buried or are commemorated in plaques that line the interior walls from top to bottom. We enter and absorb the tangible presence of this great tribe of performers, Peter’s true brethren. One can see familiar names placed side by side as if talking to each other across the generations, wanting to be together. After he died I inquired about having a modest wooden plaque erected there in my father’s honor. This was readily agreed to, partly because of his stature in the profession and partly because he’d already had a funeral there once before, during the filming of Venus. It would have been churlish not to let him have a real ceremony there as well. As Dad heads farther into the darkness of the silent, candlelit church, I whisper to him that I managed to secure top billing for him by placing the plaque stage left of the altar, not down the back end of the pews like Vivien Leigh. Billing is everything, after all, even in death. Daddy chuckles and nods in agreement; then I bring him to the place I chose beside Jack Hawkins, one of his dearest friends ever. My pulse had quickened when I first saw the space on the wall next to Jack’s name. The Hawkins and O’Toole families had been very close in the sixties. Jack appears alongside my father in Lawrence of Arabia, where he gives a memorable turn as General Allenby, playing him to British Bulldog perfection. Sadly, he died forty years before my father did. Without hesitation I knew this was the perfect place to leave Peter.

  It’s almost completely dark in the recesses of the church now; it’s time for Daddy to slip away and join the ghosts of all those great actors who’ve gone before him. We won’t move on to continue our pissy lunch in Soho as we used to do, bar-hopping and running into reprobates. “We’ll never get home n
ow, baby, phone the house and tell them we’ve been captured by banditos!” He’ll take his leave of me, quietly. Saying goodbye isn’t necessary; we both know he’s already vanished into the velvet blackness of the church’s wings. He’ll be in the best of good company, here with his comrades. In a way it feels as though I’ve been through this before. Whenever my father died or was hurt on-screen, I flinched. Knowing it was only make-believe in no way diminished the truth always at the heart of his acting, truth that simply couldn’t be denied. It pained me to see him play dead. When the time came for the real thing, I found the practice of having already experienced it a few times was something of a blessing; I, too, was ready for us to part. Having said that, the vacuum left after losing the most hilarious person I’ve ever known is perfectly horrid. Whatever about the grief of losing our loved ones, for me the absolute worst is when the funny people die. Every time it happens it feels as if an endangered species is closer to extinction. There’s a vast silence where my best laughs used to be.

  On the plus side, film stars really are immortal. Anytime I want to hear Peter O’Toole’s voice or see Peter O’Toole dance, or fly a plane, or fall in love, all I have to do is press play.