We waved until the train turned a corner and our brief friendship was gone for ever. The beds in our compartment had already been made up and looked very inviting. An attendant came by and asked me for our passports and documents which I was happy to give him, knowing that we would be in Holland by morning. We all slept well – perhaps the crêpe suzette had something to do with it. By the following evening we were back home in Croydon.
A friend of mine recently told me that he had once read Kirsty’s contribution to an article about celebrities and their earliest experiences of foreign holidays. In typically forthright fashion, she had said that I had taken her and Hamish to Poland by train because I was afraid of flying. I’m not sure that statement is quite true; or if it is, I might have wanted to modify or qualify it.
I suppose I was, at that time, slightly anxious about the whole business of flying, but that was because of something of a lucky escape earlier in my life when Ewan and I had been offered a flight back from Moscow after I took part in a dance competition. We had refused, since I preferred (or perhaps simply thought it was better form) to travel back with the others in the company by train. By the time we arrived at the Channel port, however, I noticed that many people in the British contingent had bought the newspapers and were crying over what they were reading. It seems that the Aeroflot flight that we would have taken had been due to land in Copenhagen, but had overshot the runway and plunged into the sea, with the loss of the Russian crew and their passengers.
• • •
Safely back home in England with my children, I brought up my concerns over Kirsty’s health with our GP, who referred her to a chest specialist. Over the next few months she had a number of further attacks and was monitored regularly by our doctor and the specialist. It was only after several months, however, that she was formally diagnosed as asthmatic. This was surprising for all of us, as none of my family had ever suffered from the disease. It was then that I remembered Ewan’s father.
We nevertheless wondered whether the condition might be psychosomatic: could there be a link with her high IQ and the frustrations this caused her? The consultant found us a psychiatrist and Kirsty took her black-and-white Dalmatian pyjama case to the first appointment. ‘That’s a nice Dalmatian,’ said the psychiatrist to her. ‘What do you call it, Kirsty?’ Kirsty’s voice rang out quite clearly: ‘His name is Alfrige Hitcock.’ The other patients, who had been silent up till now, began to titter. The psychiatrist was taken aback, and so was I. I had no idea where she had heard that name and she certainly hadn’t seen any of ‘Alfrige Hitcock’s’ films. There were a few further visits, each of which ended with Kirsty going to sleep. Later she told me that she had only pretended to go to sleep since that was what seemed to be required. She had really only wanted to get on with other, more important things.
The results of Kirsty’s tests were no real surprise to me. I was told she was very bright, which I already knew, and when I pressed them for more information about her asthma attacks, was told that they might ease by the time she was seven years old. (In fact it was much longer.) I would meanwhile simply have to grit my teeth.
Over the next few years she became a regular patient under the care of Mr Norman, head of the asthma clinic at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. Kirsty started primary school, but she was only able to attend for three days before once again becoming ill and being rushed to hospital. She didn’t return that school year. Indeed, her total attendance during the second year amounted to only three weeks and in the third year three months.
This time, the oxygen tent in the hospital distressed her. A Nigerian couple who had been standing by the cot next to Kirsty’s, looking at their beautiful little boy, left silently. This waiting period is so hard; one never gets used to it. I sat next to Kirsty, improvising more adventures for Horatio and his friends until dusk. The little boy with the black curly hair quietly died, the sudden flurry of urgent activity all to no avail.
I moved my chair to a position where Kirsty would only be able to see me and I continued with the story while the dead child in the next cot was laid out. Later, leaving to go home to collect some essential belongings for Kirsty, I saw the little boy’s parents dragging themselves so wearily up the stairs to the ward that I wanted to say something, anything. I said nothing, however, afraid of intruding on them; I didn’t even know if they had been informed of the news.
That evening, a telephone operator at the hospital gave me a sort of priority on incoming calls. At midnight there was ‘no change’. The following morning, Ewan joined me at the hospital and the doctor told us that Kirsty was suffering from asthma and pneumonia: it was ‘early days yet’. Both our cars had collected parking tickets. Ewan and I said our farewells and went our separate ways. I sent off an explanation to the car parking authority for both of us; Ewan would never have remembered.
Kirsty’s condition slowly improved, and in time she came home. It was clear to me that my theatre work and movement classes at the East 15 Acting School would have to take second place from now on. The children got on very well with my mother, who had recently moved down to Croydon. She was a reliable babysitter but there were occasions when I would ring home on my way to work, learn Kirsty wasn’t well and turn round and come home to spend the day trying to amuse her. My mother also had some good ideas, like buying a bag of coloured wooden beads and getting Kirsty to make necklaces and bracelets.
One Christmas many years later, when Kirsty was healthy, successful and herself a mother, I wrote to Mr Norman, a lovely caring man, to thank him for all his help and support during those difficult years. A letter came back in a spidery hand: now semi-retired, he thanked me for my letter, said it was probably one of the nicest presents he could hope to receive and that he remembered Kirsty very well. Rejoicing in her recovery, he also reflected on his less successful cases, adding sadly, ‘It’s the failures you know that haunt one.’
1963–1968
JEAN: Do go to sleep.
KIRSTY: I can’t.
JEAN: Well, count sheep.
KIRSTY: All right. One, two, three… thirty-five… forty.
Oh, there’s a sweet little black one. He can’t get over the hedge to join the others. He’s running away.
He’s going to get… oh, now I’ve lost count.
JEAN: There aren’t any black ones, and they can all go through the gate.
KIRSTY: The black one couldn’t.
BEDTIME CONVERSATION, C. 1965
In the early days of my separation from Ewan and, before my second trip to Poland, I read in the local newspaper that a large area of Croydon, including my road, was due for demolition. The large old Victorian houses and their mature if somewhat unkempt gardens would give way to smart new estates for London commuters.
Numerous architects’ sketches showed that the detached properties would be surrounded by communal gardens comprising mostly of lawn and a few carefully arranged shrubs – a ‘tasteful’ look that would require all the old fruit trees to be cut down and disposed of with the rest of the rubble. One thing was plain: the available properties would be too expensive for me, and I would have to start looking for alternative accommodation for the three of us, near enough for Hamish to travel to his new grammar school. After living in a sizeable flat which, although very difficult to keep warm, had the great advantage of a large garden, I was looking for a smaller place but still with a garden. After weeks of looking at various properties, however, I realised that not only did I not particularly like what was on offer