William Nicholson's Blog, page 2

My father’s death

On Tuesday my sister called to tell me our father died that morning. He was 94, and his death has been expected. It seems he died peacefully, in the nursing home to which he’d only recently been moved when it became impossible for my step-mother, also 94, to continue to care for him. When I last saw him in hospital in Holyhead, near his Anglesey home, he told me that he was fully ready to die, and wasn’t afraid. He had become tired, the business of going on living was just too much. He was a man who made modest demands on life, and even in his dying wanted to be no trouble.

So now both my parents are dead. My father was always a distant presence in my life, but I knew him to be a kind, gentle man of absolute moral integrity; a man unable to hurt another creature; a man who always put the needs of others before any desires of his own; and yet, through the tragedy of an unhappy marriage, a man who lived with the knowledge that he had destroyed the happiness of his first wife, my mother. For forty years, in which he was able to build a strong and loving relationship with his second wife, my mother never recovered from the catastrophe of his departure. I saw, as a young man, how entirely unsuited they where to each other, and how miserable they made each other. I supported him in his decision to leave. But it’s just one of those bitter truths about life that sometimes one person’s survival is another person’s destruction. He lived with that knowledge. He didn’t deserve the grief it must have given him.

In the battlefield that becomes of a bad marriage, the children inevitably take sides, and I sided with my mother. This was not because I saw her as the injured party, but because she was the one hurting the most. But all the time I felt my father’s presence in my life, even if I rarely saw him. When we met we were awkward with each other, not quite strangers, but there was a clumsy kind of love between us. I remember as a child his scratchy cheek when he kissed me, and the game he played of Sleeping Lions on the sofa, and the bicycle he so laboriously painted for me, and the fort he laid out with two armies of toy soldiers for my Christmas present; and then he fades into a misty presence as he played less and less part in our lives. He never struck me, or reprimanded me, and yet I dreaded his disapproval. I felt, I think, that it would hurt him more than me. His quietness when he was there, and his absences later, made me grow up sooner than I wanted to. I was never a rebel, I was too busy filling the gap he left in the family: I became hard-working, high-achieving, ever responsible, refusing to allow myself to admit hurt. Not a bad heritage if you want to get things done, but there’s a price to pay, and I’m still paying it.

And now he’s gone: the father who formed my idea of what it is to be a father, the man who formed my idea of what it is to be a man. We were so different, and yet he’s inside me still. So much of me has been built up in a kind of opposition to him, out of a determination not to be him, and yet so much of me is him after all. He knew I never blamed him for the shipwreck of our family, but I don’t think he knew how much I loved and valued him. I wrote a play about my parents’ marriage, and he saw it performed, but he never was able to tell me what he felt about it. The shyness between us never abated. But when I last saw him in hospital he looked at me with such love – I can still hear his delighted cry, his hands clutching his bald head, ‘Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill!’ – as if it was me who had returned from near death, not him – and I felt so strongly that I was important to him, and knew that he was important to me. I’ve been a neglectful son, God knows, but I’m truly happy that he found peace and love with a second family. His step-daughter Hilary was with him through his last night, by his side as he died. I’m deeply grateful to her, and to Joan, his second wife, for all they gave him. Now Joan is widowed, and will feel his loss far more intensely than I will.

Rest in peace, Pa. You’ve earned it.

The power of attention

I’ve been reading about a book by Paul Dolan, who’s a professor of behavioural science at the LSE, called ‘Happiness By Design’. Dolan suggests that we can affect our level of satisfaction with our lives by controlling where we place our attention. This seems both obvious and revolutionary. Already I find that I limit the amount of time I give to reading about the horrors of our world: it’s so easy to fall into despair about humankind. Perhaps despair is the only truthful stance, but I resist it. On a more personal level, I don’t read reviews of my work, to protect myself from hurt. I feel guilty about this, and presume it to be a sign of weakness. Now, reading Dolan’s theories, it strikes me that maybe there’s something more powerful at work here. Maybe by choosing where to focus our attention we can and should enrich our lives. But can it be done by will alone? Isn’t the habit of feeding on misery something that is driven by some deeper need beyond our control? And anyway, if there’s misery in the world, shouldn’t we face it manfully?

I don’t know the answer, but a metaphor comes to mind. I take care to keep myself clean, and to put on clean clothes, and in general to maintain a certain standard of appearance. This takes effort, but has a real effect on my morale. If ever I’m tempted to stay in my pyjamas all day I always feel a little degraded. None of this is logical, but so it is. Maybe a similar process applies to the psycho-emotional self. Maybe if I impose some discipline on my thoughts I’ll be able to increase my day-to-day level of satisfaction. This sounds robotic, as if I’m to treat myself as a machine. We’re so accustomed to the notion that our moods are out of our control. We almost want them to be out of our control, because then it’s not our fault that we’re unhappy. And yet we accept that wealth, for example, does not automatically bring happiness. Why not? Because the rich man is fixing his attention on those parts of his life that are not as he would wish.

Many years ago I was attacked in my home, tied up, and threatened with a knife. When the ordeal was over – I was unhurt – I experienced an ecstatic rush, and for about twelve hours life seemed to me to be intensely beautiful. Simply to be alive was enough. Then the moment passed, and I returned to my usual levels of dissatisfaction, disappointment, and anxiety that manage to turn a life of relative privilege into a switchback of mood swings. How can one live in that state of joyful gratitude for more than a few hours? Most people will say it’s simply not possible, human nature isn’t made that way. But what if it’s a matter of making the effort? What if it’s all about training ourselves to direct our attention towards what makes us happier?

No more obsessive comparing of our lives with the lives of more successful friends. No more Fear Of Missing Out. No more lamenting the parts of our anatomy that fall short of the ideal. No more regretting the road not taken. No more ghoulish hunger for other people’s pain. No more rage at our own impotence. No more fear of the future. In the place of all these useless ways of beating ourselves up, we give our attention to the life we’re leading, to its purpose and value, to the actual people we encounter, to the world round us, and to now. To the mighty present moment.

Yes, I know. It can’t be done. We’re not saints. But then, I’m also not much of a fine dresser. But each morning I make an effort, and manage not to shame my family. So maybe that same small difference can be achieved when I rise in the morning and dress my mind for the day…

A deeper response to films

Two highly-intelligent articles I’ve read recently make me realise how shallow our public discourse on films tends to be. I suppose it’s because films are there to entertain us that most critics and commentators treat their failings so leniently. Any film that comes along with any complexity or surprise is greeted with wonder. I’m as guilty of this as anyone. But as I read Zoe Heller in the New York Review of Books on ‘Gone Girl’ I realise how casual my response has been. I enjoyed the film, was duly tricked by the twists, and came out saying that of course it was all nonsense, and the characters utterly unreal, but it was clever stuff. Zoe Heller – always so wise in her perceptions – showed me how lazy I’ve been. I don’t know how to be clever with links, but I think this will take you to the article: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/dec/04/gone-girl-hard-work-marriage/?insrc=toc 

The second piece is from the New Yorker, I think maybe the New Yorker blog, as the magazine has a different review. It’s on ‘Birdman’, a film I greatly admire. But read Richard Brody – not a writer I know, but one I will now follow – and again I realise how casual my response has been. Try it here: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/birdman-never-achieves-flight 

The point is not to admire writers who write hatchet jobs, it’s to raise the demands we make of films. Somehow we’ve fallen for the notion that our choice is dumb-but-entertaining, or intelligent-but-pretentious. Both these commentators are asking for something more, for human truth and for deeper wisdom. I want that too. Their critical gaze calls on me to raise my game. Watch this space.

Being honoured

A little while ago a letter arrived, via my agent, telling me I was to be offered an OBE, and did I want it? This came as a total surprise. I still don’t know who to thank for this, or exactly what I’ve done to deserve it. I’ve been industriously turning out plays, children’s books, novels and films for over thirty years now, so maybe it’s a long-service award. It’s a curious feeling, like discovering the Headmaster has been noticing you all along. So should I accept? My late father-in-law, Quentin Bell, a lifelong anti-imperialist, declined his honour. I know, or suspect I know, several distinguished writers who have refused knighthoods. I have always taken the view that the honours system exists for servants of the public, not for egotistical show-offs like writers and actors, who give each other awards on an almost daily basis. But it felt a little churlish to refuse, and the truth is, I didn’t want to refuse. I don’t need to flash it about; so I’m  just saying thank you, and keeping on writing.

After more thought I realise there is a good justification for honouring celebrities from film and stage and so on. It throws a glamorous sparkle over the entire honours system, and that makes the honours more valuable to those who really deserve them, the public servants who toil unnoticed. I’ve no sparkle to spread myself, but the least I can do is support the honours system, in public and private.

PS: A friend assures me that now I have an OBE I’m entitled to have my children christened in St Paul’s Cathedral. None of the three have been christened, so this is very good news…

New films

Just seen ‘Birdman': it’s a virtuoso exercise in directing by Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu. The screenplay too is extraordinary. Every actor in the piece is at the top of their game, most of all Emma Stone. I note that the New Yorker calls it ‘a mighty and churning machine of virtuosity that delivers a work of utterly familiar and unoriginal drama’. Sadly a misconceived or under-conceived ending does let the film down, perhaps even reveals that the film doesn’t in the end know what to say. But my God, what a film! I’m just grateful for so much style, so much energy, so much to provoke thought. Rob Marshall’s ‘Into the Woods’, the Sondheim musical on screen, is also a virtuoso act by a director, and tremendous fun, and is also marred by a last section which leaves me disappointed. This is not Marshall’s fault, of course: it’s Sondheim, reaching for a fourth act to deliver yet another overturning of expectations. Contrast these two fizzers with ‘Selma’, which is a worthy telling of a key episode in the civil rights struggle. An infinitely more important subject, and a far duller film.

Movie watching

I’m both an Oscars voter and a BAFTA voter, so this is the season when I watch a ridiculous number of films in a short space of time. I go to the Picture House in Uckfield, or to industry screenings in London, or sit on our giant sofa with members of my family, and enrage them by predicting the plots as the films unfold; and then when it’s over by pointing out all the ways the film could have been better. I try not to do this, I really do, as I should, given my own fallible record. But so far this does not seem to be a vintage year. I’ve been moved by ‘Boyhood’, (more potent about motherhood than boyhood), mesmerised by ‘Maps to the Stars’, and deeply impressed by Eddie Redmayne’s performance in ‘The Theory of Everything’. I admired the writing in ‘The Imitation Game’ and hope Alan Moore gets the Oscar, though I wish someone had stopped him, or the director, from repeating the ‘deep’ line three times (something like ‘It’s the people you can’t imagine doing anything who do the things you can’t imagine’). So many still to see, but thus far the only perfect film of the year is ‘Paddington’. Don’t be fooled by the child-oriented subject matter: this is an easy one to get wrong, and they got every part of it right. An instant classic.

Unspeakables

I’ve decided to create my own greetings cards that say the things people don’t usually say, hence ‘unspeakables’. The first batch is now ready, and you can look at them, and even buy them if you want, by going to www.unspeakables.co.uk. Soon I’ll have a link on this page that takes you straight there. This venture is an extension of my writing, so it’s personal, and not in any way based on focus group research. It’s just me having fun. But you never know, you might find something there. I hope to get better at creating these cards as I go along.

Dark vision, light blind

I realise this will sound like a fancy metaphor, but it really is a simple fact I’ve observed the last few mornings. I walk to get the paper early, when it’s still dark outside. In fact it isn’t dark – I wonder if it ever is dark – and I can see pretty well. Some glimmer of light from somewhere gives a soft shine to the wet lane ahead, and the shapes of the trees is clear against the sky. It’s a fine time to be out, when all the world is asleep. But then as I round the first bend I am confronted by an outdoor light blazing away on a porch, and suddenly I can see nothing. Its power blinds me. As I come closer, I can see all that falls within its pool of light, but nothing else. It has achieved its goal of lighting up the little region round its own front door, but at the expense of sending the rest of the world into oblivion. Then as I walk on, and the light is behind me, so the world opens up again.

The same thing happens if a car comes driving down the lane towards me. It feels like an act of violence, the attack of the headlights. And the same sensation overwhelms me, that the driver, like the house owner, wants only to see his own immediate way, and nothing else. He has blinkered himself.

So to the fancy metaphor, which I find I can’t resist. All this is so like the way we go through life absorbed in our own affairs, which of course make us anxious and fearful, oblivious to the great otherness that surrounds us and puts our fears into perspective. Turn out the lights, and join the world.

Ebola and me

The current horror stories about Ebola take me back to a project I was asked to write in the days when David Puttman was running Columbia Pictures. Glenn Close, then a big star on the back of ‘Fatal Attraction’, wanted to make a movie set in the Congo, where her father had been a physician. The story Glenn had found was about an outbreak of Ebola that occurred in 1976, deep in the remote heart of the Congo. A group of Belgian missionary nuns refused to evacuate the area, and tended to the sick as best as they could. In the end all were infected and died. A team of scientists from CDC Atlanta flew out to trace the source of the outbreak, in order to stop it spreading. The twist to the true story was that the CDC team discovered the outbreak had been caused by the nuns themselves. They had been running ante-natal clinics, in which they inoculated pregnant mothers; but their sterilisation techniques were faulty, and the needles spread the infection. The nuns, unaware of this, paid with their lives. The outbreak ran its limited course. And everyone relaxed.

The plan was that Glenn would act the lead scientist. I travelled with her on a research trip to CDC Atlanta, to Kinshasa, and to the village where the outbreak had started. Glenn was magnificent: much more than a fine actor, a fine human being. Back home I wrote a draft as planned, with Glenn as the lead scientist. Then Dickie Attenborough’s film about Donald Woods and Steve Biko, ‘Cry Freedom’, came out, and was criticised for telling an African story through the eyes of a white man. The execs at Columbia took fright at making another African-set movie in with Americans as heroes, so the decision was made to re-cast Glenn as one of the tragic Belgian nuns. I re-wrote the screenplay accordingly. Then David Puttman’s reign at Columbia came to an end, and as is usual in Hollywood his successors had no interest in promoting a project they had not initiated. Our movie was shelved.

I’ve often told the story as a Hollywood joke: how I had to turn my heroine from a scientist into a nun. It’s not a joke any more.

Walking in the rain

This morning it was raining steadily as I prepared for my early walk. For a moment I hesitated. But then I thought, If I don’t go now, I’ll never go when it’s raining. I need to know just how uncomfortable it really is. So I pulled on my walking boots and my hi-vis jacket, found a waterproof hat, and set off.

It was dark, but there was a sort of grey visibility. The rain fell straight, there was no wind. The lane was running with water. There were no cars. For a while I paid attention to the sound of the rain, which was soothing and interesting. Then I found I was following its rise and fall, the rain not constant in its intensity at all, but coming and going. I became acutely aware of those parts of the lane where overhanging trees provided respite. When at last, still in semi-darkness, I turned onto the village road and met a car, it was a shock. The brilliant headlights, the roaring engine, the great splash as it passed, were like an encounter with a monster. The eyes adjust quickly to pre-dawn light, and car headlights feel like a hostile interrogation designed to disorient.

By the time I got to the village shop my lower trousers were wet,  but the rest of me was dry beneath my coat. I rather hoped the lady in the shop would express admiration at my great daring, venturing forth in such weather, but she passed over my Guardian without comment. I folded it and tucked it into an inside pocket and set off once more. By now the rain was passing. I met a man with an umbrella who told me so much rain had fallen in the night that the Nevill estate in Lewes was flooded. I felt even more daring.

On the return loop the rain stopped entirely. The trees, formerly my friends, now became my enemies. As I passed beneath them, disturbing birds, they rose up, shaking the leaves, sending cascades of water down on me. Slowly the sky was lightening. The effect was powerful. I told myself Noah must have felt something like this when at last the floods began to recede. Of course I’ve walked in the rain before, but always in the city, and with irritation that I should have to suffer. In the country when it rains I get in the car. This was the first time for a long time that I had chosen freely to walk in the rain. Now I felt proud, invigorated. Meeting Virginia for breakfast I was mortified when she said, ‘I see the rain stopped in time for your walk.’ ‘No, it didn’t,’ I hastened to tell her. ‘It rained very hard for most of the way.’ Then, having established my courage, I had to provide my own virtue. ‘But I didn’t mind at all.’