The Varnished Untruth (36 page)

‘Come along, too!’ I pleaded. During the various voyages that took the best part of the next two years (I wrote about them in
Treasure Islands and Murder or Mutiny
) Billy did join me as often as he could. But it wasn’t easy for him. Not only was he extremely busy making movies and touring, he had a very unfortunate attitude to maritime matters. ‘Boats are like prison,’ he complained, ‘with the possibility of drowning.’ He was relieved when I became a landlubber again.

When Scarlett became our second daughter to attend school in upstate New York, we moved to New York. Daisy was still enjoying her college experience there and we wanted to be closer to her. Cara had settled in Glasgow with her partner, Jonnie, and young son, while Jamie and Amy were enjoying independent lives in LA, so as new empty-nesters Billy and I could see no real reason to stay in California. We found a loft-style apartment in Manhattan and became residents of the city that never sleeps. Well, duh! Not if the constant sirens, over-amped, in-car sound systems and East Village party-goers have anything to do with it. After my maritime adventures were over, I did not immediately return to psychotherapy. I had planned to open a practice in New York at some point but, in the meantime, I accepted offers to do a few British TV shows – notably
Shrink Rap
in which I interviewed well-known people in a deep, psychological fashion. The programmes, which were shown on More4, were well-received and I was proud of them. In particular, I thought my interviews with Joan Rivers, Salman Rushdie, Sharon Osbourne, Stephen Fry, Carrie Fisher and the late Tony Curtis helped tell the truth, not only about who each of them truly was, but also about the state of celebrity generally – that it is traumatic, fails to meet expectations, and is essentially a hollow victory.

Tony Curtis spoke particularly movingly about many things he’d had to overcome in his life – prejudice, ridicule for his lack of formal education, and especially the death of his brother, who was hit by a truck at a very young age. It was hard to believe that a man could reach his eighties still erroneously believing that he had been responsible for a sibling’s death, when all he had done was refuse to play with him that one fateful day. I felt so much compassion for him, and wished he’d had the opportunities I’d had to receive help and healing. As Thoreau wrote:

Billy quoted that line to me well before I understood he was actually telling me something about himself.

In sharp contrast to Billy’s jolly, extravagant parties, my own sixtieth birthday celebration in 2009 was a terribly lonely one in a grubby hotel on the seafront in Apia – not the nicest end of Samoa. The island had recently experienced the tragic loss of life in the tsunami that hit the southern beaches of Samoa – including several busy tourist resorts. In a horrid
déjà vu
of the LA earthquake, I had been rudely awakened in my pied-a-terre by a massive shaking that pitched me, whimpering, back and forth on my bed. That earthquake was rated 8.1, so no wonder I cried and screamed and, once more, thought the house would fall on me. I thought that early-morning quake was the end of the problem but, shortly afterwards, I learned about the enormous, freight-train of a wave that took so many lives. I drove down to the beach, saw that people were frantically searching for loved ones, and tried to help. The next few weeks were filled with mourning, funerals, making sandwiches and delivering them to medical teams. I was also asked to help both locals and visitors deal with the loss of family members, property and businesses, by providing grief counselling. Roughly 189 people lost their lives in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga – and many of them were children.

That kind of crisis counselling is never easy . . .

It’s especially hard to help parents through the loss of a child, because you put yourself in their shoes. People who were holding their child’s hand one second, then searching for them after the wave swept them away the next tended to blame themselves: ‘If only I’d hung on tighter!’ But tsunamis can travel at seventy-five miles per hour. There was no way to save them. One father I knew who happened to be on higher ground actually witnessed his wife and daughter being swept away. Just terrible. I am still haunted by the sight of those two sweet bodies embracing each other in one open coffin.

Talking therapy tends to be easier when patients are fully articulate, so for youngsters psychotherapists often use non-verbal methods of helping them to express themselves. When I encouraged the smallest children I worked with – tots who had lost family members – to draw what happened from their perspective, their pictures were utterly heart-wrenching. They depicted themselves as tiny dots in a wild, paper-ripping scribble of a sea that engulfed the whole page. It really gave me a sense of just how overwhelmingly terrifying that wave must have been, annihilating so many villages; the whole nation was in an acute state of mourning.

After my birthday, I left Samoa, and I have not returned. I was both glad and sorry about that. Things had not gone well for me on that island. I had fallen in love with the place from the moment I first set foot on it. It felt like home. In its calm, welcoming villages; by its clear, green water; on its soft sand; in thatched
fales
fanned by cooling sea breezes; by its sweeping harbour, or under its peerless canopy of stars, I felt I could truly be myself. And the people there felt like family . . . at first. But eventually I began to feel . . . misunderstood . . .

Well, that’s a familiar feeling for you . . .

I know. It was so complicated. I tried to be a good member of my adopted community, to be helpful to children with special needs, to families who had lost almost everything in the tsunami, and to a number of other groups who I felt were deserving of support, but I realized too late that, for most people, my white face carried with it a reminder of colonial oppression and I would never be accepted. I had tried to be culturally aware, but I made mistakes I was unable to fix – notably, my efforts to create a local language TV company utilizing and training local talent failed to thrive. Despite my many wonderful memories, friends and feelings about the place, it was time to leave. Waiting for my flight home to NYC on my birthday, I lay all alone on dirty sheets and, through my tears, watched the cockroaches roam around the floor. Even though I’d chosen to be there, rather than with family and friends, I (irrationally) wanted them close. ‘Where’s my party?’ I sobbed, or rather, ‘Where’s MY party?’ It was pathetic.

Licking my wounds, I returned to New York and almost immediately took off again for the Congo. I’ve already told you how brutal that was. And the fact that I had felt physically inadequate to protect myself sent me straight back to the gym when I got home, where a lovely but slightly sadistic trainer called Chad began to whip my body into something resembling fitness and health. Boy, it was hard. I felt terribly depressed about the loss of Samoa, and what I’d witnessed in Congolese rural areas. And, as ever, I struggled with my eating habits.

I tried to concentrate on my latest book, a psychological ‘how to’ called
Head Case
. I worked hard on it for many months, barely venturing out of the apartment . . . Well, I tell a lie. See, my adorable husband has no regard for peace and quiet. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t seem happy unless he is surrounded by at least three noise sources. He will turn on the TV in the bedroom, then leave it on while he wanders out to the kitchen. He’ll turn on the radio there, then leave it on while he picks up his banjo in the living room and has a good strum. And this is on top of the New York sirens, cars honking and NYPD helicopter noise pollution! So, much of my writing is done in my local Starbucks. Well, frankly, the ebullient NYU students, histrionic dancers from the NY City Ballet company, floridly hallucinating homeless people and amped-up drug pushers are a lot quieter.

Anyway, there I was in New York, trying to finish
Head Case
and every now and then, for a bit of relief in the evening, I’d switch on the TV. It was the season for the American
Dancing with the Stars
and I caught a few episodes. ‘Wow!’ I said to myself. ‘They seem to be having a lot of fun!’ I was envious. Not only were the stars enjoying themselves, but they were all losing weight and gaining physical efficacy so fast. Would I ever be fit? Would I ever feel happy again? I was so depressed I couldn’t even imagine it.

I decided to seek the help of a famous weight loss doctor who had been recommended by my GP in Los Angeles. It was nighttime when I arrived at his plush Manhattan office – apparently he only sees patients after 5pm. I was ushered into his consulting room and sat waiting for his arrival in a soft armchair facing his desk. I looked around me. It was unusually dark in the room – I presumed that was a strategy to make people relax. Then I noticed something disturbing right in front of me. There was a dinner plate sitting on the desk, filled with . . . oh my Lord, was that . . . human fat? It was definitely fat of some sort – a huge mound of yellowy globular stuff. It had to be human. I was almost cured of over-eating right there and then.

‘Pamela?’ An apparition seated himself at the desk. Let’s call him Dr Cadaver. The man’s skin was shiny and white, and his face was weirdly immobile. ‘Little too much Botox, perhaps?’ I thought to myself. The only other time I’d ever seen that was when I first visited a dermatologist in LA and, with zero expression in his face, he told me he performed his own Botox treatment. Yes, people, he STUCK NEEDLES IN HIS OWN FACE! I ran screaming from that surgery, and I was considering doing the same this night. But Dr Cadaver’s whole set-up was strangely mesmerizing. He liked to make motivational tapes for people, and mine was a beauty.

‘Pamela . . .!’ he boomed slowly into the microphone. ‘You’ve sailed the seven seas. You’ve raised five children. You’ve reached the top of your career in three different fields. But you’re LOSING . . . to a COOKIE!’ It was so shocking, it actually worked. For a while . . .

I sought some proper psychotherapy, but found I couldn’t talk with my therapist about the Congo. I still can’t. The things I saw there, the stories I heard – I feel I can’t burden anyone else with them. The abuse and cruelty – especially the particular style of it – is so extreme that it seems abusive just to discuss it. And then there’s the sickening feeling that no one really cares. The Western world worries about Greece and saving tigers, while in that vast, war-ravaged, land-locked country in Africa the unspeakable is occurring and no one seems to give a toss. As a matter of fact, many people have much to gain by keeping things the way they are in the Congo – so it can be exploited for its precious metals and mineral wealth.

In the midst of all this, I got an email from the
Strictly
people. Would I take part in the show in the coming autumn season? My first thought was, ‘I’m not a celebrity – why on Earth are they asking me?’ But they seemed serious, and I began reasoning with myself that, even though it was entirely contrary to who I was now and could be very risky professionally, what I truly needed at that moment was some lightness in my life, some frivolity. So I continued to talk with the production team, discussing dates and parameters.

It was spring, 2010, Daisy was graduating from college and Billy and I were enormously proud of her. At her graduation ceremony she gave a fantastic, articulate speech, and it was a truly wonderful afternoon. Afterwards, I walked out into the car park, and had my scheduled phone meeting with Moira Ross, the
Strictly
producer. I decided during that conversation that I had nothing to lose but my sadness. ‘I love dancing,’ I said. ‘I’m in.’

‘You what!’ thundered Billy. ‘Pamela, beware. What are you thinking?’

‘Well, what’s the worst that could happen?’ I replied. ‘I’ll be kicked out after the first week, but it would still be fun for a bit.’

‘You’ll make a total arse of yourself,’ hinted Billy. ‘You can’t trust those reality show pricks.’

I ignored him and the other people around me who very understandably tried to persuade me that making such a move would be foolish, even dangerous, for my professional reputation. Perhaps I was listening to a deep intuitive sense that it would be OK. ‘To be honest,’ I confided in Sharon, ‘I feel as if I’ve got very little to lose. I just . . . need something that’s all-consuming, amusing, and physically challenging.’

‘Of course, darling,’ she nodded. ‘Go have yourself some fun!’

‘Have you had a do-it-yourself lobotomy?’ inquired my pal Kathy Lette.

Chapter Fourteen

S
TRICTLY
L
OBOTOMIZED

I was still a big fat lump. Not a good way to approach the land of short, spangly mini dresses, cut-out midriffs, and sequined unitards. But I was continuing my gym workouts with Chad, my unrelentingly and savage trainer, so at least I was getting a bit fitter. And there was an Indian dance class taught in my local gym that I’d started to enjoy – Sarina Jain’s Masala Bhangra – a combination of traditional, high-energy, north Indian folk dancing with Bollywood-style dance. Frankly, you wouldn’t have wanted to witness me attempting those difficult, alien moves, but it was fun and kept my body in motion.

Anyway, just the thought of having to appear on TV in
Strictly Come Dancing
was enough to keep me off the
pain au chocolat
. I began to lose weight. It was actually nice to focus on my body in a positive way again, after so long. I had forgotten how good it makes me feel to bend and sway to music, to be lost in the rhythm. That had been sorely missing from my life, and when it came back I greeted it warmly, enthusiastically – like a precious old friend.