Many Lives (18 page)

A week later I heard a much more gentle fluttering sound coming from the same room. I went to see what it was. A beautiful little hummingbird was hovering around the room. Hummingbirds rarely fly into houses; they stay outside, flying where there's nectar. There was nothing in my living room that might have attracted it. When I went into the room to say ‘hello', it flew around for a moment or two and then flew out. I looked it up. Hummingbird is joy.

Once when I was in China I saw two old men at opposite ends of a street sweeping in perfect rhythm and total harmony. They were carrying out a simple task, but with such beauty and grace.

The same food can be slopped onto a plate or presented well and with grace – it makes such a difference. Grace is another of those words that needs to be taken off the ‘Only for Saints' shelf, scrubbed down with a bit of Ajax and allowed to live brightly in all our lives.

Grace is about attitude; it's in the detail and is very practical. Grace includes gratitude; it's a blessing, and it involves doing things with good intention. To do something with grace means
doing it with awareness. Grace could have all these words flowing in her skirt. It's one of those things you know when you see it. Lucifer's angels were banished from heaven in disgrace.

Working with Bill Roache on
Coronation Street
in 2009 was a lesson in grace. It was an extraordinary period for both of us, and I sincerely believe we were put together to ride out that particular time in our lives. While we had a very gentle story line together on
Coronation Street
, our lives away from work were quite challenging.

I started the job in the depths of a personal crisis. My daughter Phoebe wasn't well and my grandson Jude's situation was uncertain. Everything felt rather insecure. It was great that I was working in the UK, but my personal circumstances were difficult. Bill was a very good person to be working with – very solid and stabilizing. Then his wife died, very suddenly and quite unexpectedly. Although we share a belief that death is not the end, it was terribly sad. The whole
Coronation Street
family shared much unspoken communication, empathy and, in the nicest sense, love.

Over the years I've worked with a host of international stars, and I can truly say that the quality of Bill's spirit is as bright as any I've met in that time.

Apart from her offering Earl Grey tea to Ken Barlow a little too often, I felt quite an affinity for Martha, the character I played in
Coronation Street
. She was educated, not demanding and a good, strong, independent woman. As I've got older, different aspects of my life have come closer together.

In one of my earliest interviews, when I was just starting out as an actress, I said I'd been born in Casablanca. That established the distance I've maintained between how I've chosen to represent myself and who I am. Since the Casablanca story, rather than continuing to stretch the truth, I've tended to limit it. My private persona has always been very different to my public persona. I'm an actress. I've developed a character I use when I turn up for interviews and publicity. Though it's meant I've been tarred with my own brush. I'm most happy remaining anonymous and just being left to play. It's easy for people who know my work to imagine me very differently from who I really am. That's why my true friends are so important to me.

A lot of the characters I've played have had a toxic energy, with inflated and wounded egos. So I always enjoy being able to play a really nasty piece of work as comedy. For the most part, that's what Amanda Barrie and I did with our characters in
Bad Girls
. We didn't take our Costa cons seriously; they were a wicked pair of con artists but we were far more interested in lying on our backs listening to Radio 4 in our dressing room. And our characters seemed to work. We never knew why, never bothered to find out. We just got on with it. We didn't get too engaged.

Sometimes you have to get engaged, however. The energy you have to use is strong, but not necessarily good. It's why having a spiritual practice is so valuable. It allows me to deflate, to re-align and find harmony again – to breathe out those false, damaged characters. Making sure I remove my make-up has always been part of the ritual. Katharine Ross' daughter Cleo used to call it ‘make-muck'. Washing off the make-muck has always been important. I really don't want to take home the characters I play.

I don't understand longing for fame, but I do cherish being good at something. Talent isn't mine, it's a gift for me to hold and treasure, and to feed with what it needs. We should feed our gifts like little birds who've alighted on our hands. Feed and house them; they've been given to us to care for. It's so easy to squander our talents, but they're like flames that should be built into a big fire, not left to burn out or be doused with drink.

Don't look sideways; just know what you want and go for it. We are not in competition with other people. We all have different challenges, different demons. Enjoy being inspired by others' success stories.

In my experience the universe gives us more of what we're paying attention to, so it's a good idea to want what that is. Go for what you want and work until you get it. If you didn't get the job you went for today, you'll get something else. All you can ever do is to be fully prepared and fully open to all possibilities, and if you don't do so well this time, make up your mind to do better next time. You might not be able to change your circumstances, but you can change your attitude.

Eventually, the pieces all join together – it all becomes one in the end.

It's like our lives: they all join together, too. We're all in the same struggle, and we're all part of the same perfection. Though, like sunshine and clouds, we often become temporarily disconnected from our purpose. We know the truth but then we fall away, flawed species that we are. The joy and love on the face of a baby is complete – before they have ego, before they individualize, before they fall away, before they separate out and adapt to the deep loneliness of atomized existence.

Before we fall away we know there is one life that runs through you, me and everything that exists. That life is what we call God. One life; one energy. It's also called love. It was the truth I realized on the rooftop at RADA. It has little to do with religion.

We are spirit in body, and our spirit is the perfect gift of God. We
are
love.

I believe our souls leave an energetic imprint – a record of this lifetime. Imagine a vast data-bank in which you could find the records for every human life that has ever been. In the same library you'd be able to access detailed information about the history of the universe. Constantly being updated, it's an information repository for each of our many lives. It's there, somewhere out in the ether.

Rising from the Pacific Ocean and sweeping to the heavens above, the Santa Monica Mountains form the scenic backdrop to my life now. When I wake, their sharp ridges and deep canyons frame the rising sun; and at dusk, together with my dogs we watch a golden disc drop into the horizon far beyond the rolling surf.

If I could lay out my life along the water's edge and soar in the sky like the mountains' eagles, I'd see a jigsaw; no longer messy pieces of a puzzle but a remarkable tapestry. Our lives are a blessing we stitch together, from moment to moment and life to life.

I love to sew, to paint, and to play with clay. Sometimes I make clay jigsaw puzzles and fire them. Sometimes some of the pieces go a bit awry in the corners because they're clay, and unpredictable. That's how my life would appear as I soared over it: unpredictable, and with tricky edges, but joined up perfectly in God's grand scheme.

I came into this life in Southgate, North London, in 1947; emerging from the ashes of the Second World War and born on the cusp of a new age.

I can remember my amusement at having feet, of wearing shoes, of walking and running – of being in body. I loved the whole experience, my appreciation heightened by a lingering memory-trace of what it was like to be without body. If there was a wall, I had to walk on it. If there was a window, I had to climb out of it. My friend Heather and I would never do the simple thing and just go to the cupboard where my mother kept the biscuits. That wasn't enough. We'd go round to her house and sneak into the living room where her mother kept a glass canister full of biscuits. We'd help ourselves and then escape with our loot by climbing through the lavatory window, jumping onto the garage roof and sliding down a drainpipe. It felt glorious to be physical, to have a body, and to play.

I've already mentioned my flying angel friends. I've always known about angels and I've always loved them. Before falling asleep I'd say a prayer: ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, bless this bed I lay upon, two angels at my head, two angels at my feet, now I lay me down to sleep.' The Virgin Mary had angels, and my mother had an angel that looked after her, too.

She was going to visit a friend who was in trouble and needed her help. She was at a railway station, very weary and struggling with her suitcase. She was about to faint. Suddenly, a tall young man with blond hair appeared at her side. ‘Let me help you with that,' he said, taking her suitcase. She didn't utter a word, yet he knew which platform, which train and which carriage to take her to. Then he disappeared. The next time she saw him it's possible he saved her life. She was travelling on a coach, sitting very close to the driver. What happened next took place in an instant. The driver had a heart attack and slumped in his seat. Mummy saw him drop and prayed hard. Suddenly, the young man who'd helped her at the railway station was there. He brought the coach to a halt and disappeared.

I used to make spirit puppets for the charity Free Arts for Abused Children. I'd spend a day with young children who'd been put in institutions because their parents were constantly at war with each other, or on death row, or for some other reason that had led to them being taken away from their home. They're bitter children. There's nothing better than meeting a grumpy kid at the start of the morning and then, at the end of a day of art, getting a big painty kiss and a hug.

A spirit puppet is just a clump of newspaper wrapped in Plaster of Paris bandage on top of a stick, with another stick going crossways for arms, dressed with bits of scrap material and painted over. It's a guardian angel. When we start making them, the children usually think their angels have to be white with blonde hair. I'd explain otherwise. We've ended up making yellow angels, green angels, turquoise angels, angels that look like Diana Ross and angels that look like Michael Jackson. I'd ask them what their angels did. Some were angel doctors who could mend mummy and others were angel astronauts who could take them far away. We'd stick them in the ground and I'd get them to make a wish. You're not there to be a psychiatrist; you're there to do the dirty work of painting, gluing and sticking-together. Give a child the idea that they have a guardian angel and, guess what, they have one. Tell them they can talk to it, and they will. Introduce them to the realm of possibilities and they'll fly with it. Making guardian angels with children for the day; that's practical spirituality. Free Arts is a beautiful thing; it's one of my favourite charities. I've done lots of fundraisers for them. I get a lot more out than I put in. Be really selfish, go and do a Free Arts day.

I knew about angels before I came here. When I was under hypnosis, during a session of ‘soul memory research', I experienced a memory-trace of grey-and-white wings and of being in the middle of a discussion. I was saying that I didn't want to go back to being in a body. I didn't think I needed to go back and lead another life but was being gently told I must.

The hypnotherapist I worked with is based in North Hollywood. She believes we carry memories that go way beyond this life – memories we can draw on to make better sense of the life we're living now. She studied with Dr Michael Newton, the original pioneer of ‘soul memory research'. Through his work as a hypnotherapist Dr Newton helped clients uncover memories of a dimension beyond, or parallel to, the physical one we inhabit. Uncovering more and more evidence of a spirit world from which souls pass into life in the physical dimension, he started outlining what he called the ‘interlife' – a realm of ‘life before life'. Under hypnosis, I discovered that I came into this life with a contract. It's ironic that I've signed contracts for each job I've ever done in my life – hundreds of them – signing up for a few hours a day, a week, or a year; sub-clauses initialled after the back and forth of negotiation of fine points. I've never been on a permanent contract with the RSC, National Theatre or a film or television company. I've had so many contracts; some brilliant, some fun, some a big compromise – all individual jobs, one after another. I've been a negotiator and a barterer, I make deals; it's how I came into this life. I didn't want to come in at all. I didn't want to leave the realm of spirits and angels. So I made a deal. I'd only go back to the physical realm if I was born into comfort; with all the necessary ingredients of living to make it a happy and good life – good parents, a good family, good looks and success. They were the terms agreed. But what would be the point if not to learn? My contract had an unexpected twist.

Under hypnosis, I felt myself slip into a collection of cells, vessels and tissue. Blue angels were laughing and darting across my vision as I fitted into a transparent shell that sheathed me
in opaqueness. My transition to the corporeal was heralded by jokes and kindness, sweet peals of laughter and bells. The angels were celebrating.

At first it was warm and comforting, then it changed and the host body became a vile place to be. There were spots in the liquid I was floating in. It felt disgusting and contaminated. Something was wrong. The host body was unwell. My mother had chicken pox. As a result I was born with no hearing in my right ear and only 80 per cent in my left.

In one version of my story I have an idyllic childhood, cocooned in the secure and predictable environment of an English middle-class suburban life. In this version my mother loves me unconditionally. When she was very old I realized there'd been another version. It was closer to the truth. The reality of her unconditional love had been otherwise. Towards the end of her life I started to see how extremely controlling and judgemental she was. I realized she'd always been like that. It made me think that the unconditional love that I'd thought I'd given to my own children was just as conditional as my mother's had been to me. I'd probably been just as controlling, too. I remember wanting to go to tap-dancing lessons and wear a wrap-around angora top – I wasn't allowed. My mother had too much good taste.

Needing to be able to maintain tight control, if anything slipped beyond her grasp – including when she encountered something she couldn't do anything about, as far as she was concerned – it would cease to exist. And that's what she did with my hearing impairment.

I only have mono hearing – I don't hear in stereo. I've no sense whatsoever of where sounds come from, so I nearly get run over on a daily basis. A specialist explained it in terms of painting. He explained that my hearing is similar to a primitive painting. There's no perspective, it's a flat canvas; an object at the bottom of the canvas is on the same plane as an object in the middle. In hearing terms, it means a faraway sound enters my perception without sounding far away. Parties are hell. If I'm on the telephone and the person I'm speaking to has noise in the background I can't continue with the call, and if someone in the room speaks to me while I'm on the phone, I can't hear them.

Working in the theatre brings a whole set of challenges. Working out the acoustics of a new venue is just one of them. Working out how much projection an auditorium requires takes the assistance of another person. I usually ask one of the cast to speak to me from the back of the theatre, and then to listen to me delivering a line or two. I learned an invaluable technique from my wonderful voice teacher, Kate Flemming, at RADA; I still use it today. She taught me what's called ‘rib reserve breathing'. Basically it involves keeping your ribs out the whole time and grabbing breath to fill your lungs without moving them. When the person listening to me from the back of the theatre thinks the level of my voice is right, I repeat the line using the same amount of breath. If they say it sounds good, I know how much breath to use to produce the right level of sound for that auditorium. A voice check in a new venue is important to all actors; to me, it's vital. When I'm being fitted for a corset I have to remember to swing my ribs out while I'm being measured. On film it's different, then I just say, ‘Torture me, I don't care, I want to look thin.'

When I was a child it took a while for my parents to notice that something was wrong with my hearing and, when they realized it wasn't right, they did what they could. I had test after test, then I had my adenoids out. After that, my parents didn't know what else to do. As far as my mother was concerned, I wasn't deaf any more and the subject was closed. I still had to live with it. Reciting the ‘Hail Mary' at the convent school, instead of, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, The Lord is with thee, Blessed art thou among women, And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus,' I heard, ‘Hello Mary, full of grease, blessed is your fruity womb.'

My classmates thought it was hilarious when it was my turn to recite the prayer. I was teased terribly at school.

In some ways, maybe my mother's approach was brilliant parenting. My lack of hearing was never used as an excuse for not achieving at school, but it had more of an effect on me than was ever realized – particularly its denial. It was as if I wasn't accepted for the person I really was.

It took me years to stop being ashamed of being deaf. I hid it. When I couldn't hear, I would pretend to be bored with the conversation and, rather than lean in and lip-read, I would try to look aloof. I excluded myself. I left myself out. I didn't want to be part of the deaf community, either. Deaf people had speech impediments, were the brunt of jokes and were thought to be slow on the uptake. I refused to learn sign language, too, even though I was warned I might lose all hearing by the time I was 21. I was in as much denial as my mother.