This Much Is True

After our conversation, she decided that she did like me and would try to help. Margaret and her partner Camilla lived in a top-floor flat on Hamilton Terrace, St John’s Wood. She used to say, ‘Knock on any door in «the Wood» and you’ll find a therapist. «The Wood» is full of therapists’ — and it is. When I first met Margaret, she was in her early seventies, a bird-like little woman, staccato in her speech patterns. Camilla was twenty years older, had a sepulchral voice and would answer the door and usher customers in. Margaret told me that when Camilla went wandering one day, a very nice young man brought her home. He turned out to be Boy George.

Margaret had a lot of clients, or ‘customers’, which is what she called us; if we were in show business, she called us ‘talented toddlers’. She said that I had an emotional age of about four and if I was exceptionally lucky, she’d help to get me to twelve. ‘But that would be a triumph,’ she added. It was a long journey; we became extremely close. She often said, ‘Miriam, don’t be glib! Don’t be glib! DON’T BE GLIB!’ She used to say important things three times. If I got worked up about something, she’d say, ‘Now, Miriam, you’re splashing your yellow wellies in the puddles again.’ And always, after I’d handed her the ‘brownies’, she’d sit in her chair opposite me and stare into my eyes. ‘What about you, what about you, what about YOU?’ she would enquire fiercely. And so the session would begin.

Margaret said that I must be objective about my parents. To make any criticism of Mummy feels like treachery, but I must acknowledge she had terrible moments. I don’t think it was bipolar disorder — she was never calm enough to be depressed — but she was tumultuous, and it seemed there was a blow-up almost every month. She didn’t give any advance warning; you had to gauge her moods, and they were ferocious. She would give my father a terrible time. Their marriage was a loving and intense one, but it was marred by shocking quarrels. Daddy simply became quiet; he didn’t speak; he just stood passively, enduring the full force of her unbridled rage. Those were the times I hated him. I wanted him to stand up to her and be more assertive, but he never was. He just accepted it — I used to run into another room and put my hands over my ears, because I couldn’t stand to hear her shout at him, and see his weakness.

I know that a few of my friends didn’t like Mummy at all. They thought that she was controlling, possibly a rather dangerous kind of woman. Margaret helped me to accept that, in some ways, she may have been. But when you love people, you have to accept them in their totality. Mummy was flawed, but she was also magnificent. Margaret showed me the flaws, and showed me the flaws in myself.

She also asked Heather to come and meet her one day. I was surprised when Heather agreed but, over the months of therapy, I had been growing as a person; Heather thought it was worth it and she found Margaret impressive.

After roughly two years, Margaret said to me, ‘I think I’ve done enough for you now, Miriam. Your emotional age is now twelve.’ She ended the regular weekly visits, but suggested ‘top-ups’ — refresher sessions, when I felt I needed them. ‘Now you’re a friend, we can talk as friends,’ she said. ‘It’s different.’ And so we did talk as friends.

It was at one of the times when I visited her as a friend that Margaret said, ‘I want to tell you something, and I don’t want you to speak about it until after I’m dead.’ She told me that another of her customers had been Jacqueline Du Pré, the renowned British cellist. She asked if I had heard of her, which, of course, I had. Jacqueline was one of the greatest cellists of all time; her great gift was like a meteor flashing across the music world, which crashed to the ground when she was stricken with multiple sclerosis aged twenty-eight; a horrible, slow, debilitating decline. When you have a great gift like that, I can’t think of anything more terrible than not being able to use it.

‘We were friends for many, many years,’ Margaret said. ‘Jacqueline said to me, «Margaret, if I wanted to kill myself, would you help me?» And I said, «Of course I would.» Because I would.’ One day, Jacqueline had telephoned her. She’d said, ‘Margaret, remember what I said? What I asked you, and you said you would…? I want to do it today.’

Jacqueline’s husband, the pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim had left her; he had a new relationship in Paris and had a child and had more or less abandoned her. I think he just couldn’t bear to see what had happened to Jacqueline; how the disease had transformed the beautiful, gifted young woman he had married into someone crippled, shaking and helpless.