by Antony Sher
Lady Anne?
CENTRAL MIDDLESEX WORKS CENTRE A small pre-fab building on
a rather bleak hill near Pinner. It's run by Barrie Knight. He is very impressive to meet. Caring, patient, listens carefully. He tells us his own story: no medical training, was an engineer, only got interested in the subject when his own son was born spastic. Eventually led to running this place where his engineering skills are used in adapting machines for the spastics to operate. They come here daily and are paid wages.
He explains what the term `spastic' means: damage to the brain before it is fully developed, causing physical and/or mental disability. The muscles don't behave in their normal way; the voice is often but not always affected. The initial damage is caused either by a lack of oxygen at birth or by the baby falling or being dropped at an early age. He mentions that spastics' hands are very distinctive, they develop extreme flexibility and their grip might be more intense and vice-like than a normal person.
Some of this is feasible for Richard.
Against my better judgement it has been agreed that, if questioned, I shouldn't declare my reason for being here but should say that I'm a friend of Charlotte's, who is a physiotherapist. My natural squeamishness makes me apprehensive as we head for the work area. `And be careful,' Barrie whispers, `they're all very good lip-readers.'
Charlotte's medical training enables her to plunge straight in, going round the benches chatting, asking what they're making. I start to follow nervously when a hand shoots out and grabs my arm. `Good,' whispers Barrie, `now you'll see what I mean about the grip.' And he leaves me.
It's a baptism by fire. The grip belongs to Michael, one of the most severely handicapped people in the room. Scrunched in his wheelchair, head lolling back, teeth gnashing, mouth grimacing (almost grinning) with the effort to speak, saliva dripping freely on to his jumper. I say, `Hello. What are you making?' On his bench is a little machine that presses screws through black rubber washers. He gives me a demonstration. With hands shaking and jerking, mouth biting and chewing, he struggles to get the items into place on the machine. Each time he succeeds he accidentally knocks them away again. I could so easily reach down and do the job in two seconds. At last it's done - a black rubber foot with a screw through it rolls out of the press and joins the little pile that is his morning's work. He sits back panting and smiling. His dark eyes are bright.
I move on. It gets easier. A lot of them smile very readily, their grins are infectious, cheeky. One man works a large noisy machine and has to wear a special mask and goggles because of the dust. `And these?' I shout over the din, pointing at his ear-pieces, `Are they for the noise?' He lifts his jacket to show a Sony Walkman, and grins.
A man in a wheelchair beckons us over, whispers conspiratorially, `I've got a walking frame as well, but I'm back in the wheely today, they say I'm getting too independent.'
But one figure is disturbing. He has been silently following us since we came in, watching from behind the pillars.
Trying to keep any panic out of my voice, I ask Barrie about him. He turns out to be titled aristocracy, or more accurately, has just inherited the family title after his father's recent suicide. The father was a high ranking army officer. The only outings he had as a child were to the barracks - hence the upright bearing. The rest of the time he was hidden away by two aunts in a back room of their house. Now they have died as well and he has come here. But Barrie fears that too much isolation has taken its toll.
He is seated at his place now, head occasionally moving from side to side as if repeating `No' slowly. I glance over his shoulder at the little book which he constantly carries. It's an appointments diary, with no entries. He looks up at me. I risk a smile. Much to my surprise his face lights up briefly, he grins and looks away bashfully.
We get into conversation with a middle-aged man working a much more complicated machine than the others. He is angry: `I'm not mental. Like a lot of them in here. So there's no one to communicate with. Have to keep to myself.' His speech is badly impaired and his movements convulsive, but there is a constant struggle to control it. When saliva threatens to slip out of his mouth he'll toss his head back and swallow it rather than permit any further degradation. He is proud of his blue jumper with red deers which he knitted himself, and of the fact that at home he has to look after his sister who has a bad heart condition. `Life is unfair,' he says.
As we are about to move on he says to me, `I know you. I know your face.'
`Really?' Try to remain relaxed. Ile probably watches television and has seen me in The History Man or something. But I'm hardly ever recognised.
`I can't think where I've seen you,' he says.
`I used to come for treatment at St Vincent's up the road. I had a leg injury a couple of years ago. Perhaps it was round there.'
`Perhaps,' he says, staring hard.
`Anyway, see you, good luck.' I hurry away, wishing I'd insisted on being open about why I'm here.
Run straight into more problems with a lady called Carol. Her job is counting brass plates. `Count 'em in my sleep,' she says grinning. She has large beautiful eyes and a radiant smile. Her small body is strapped tightly into her wheelchair, where it arches and struggles as if independent of her head.
`Did you have a holiday last year?' she asks.
`Well actually yes, I went to South Africa for Christmas.'
`Are you from there?'
`Yes I am, originally.'
`I knew it!' she cries delightedly, 'I knew you weren't English.'
`Oh?' I say, a bit miffed.
`Have you been to Israel?' (My God, she's on to my Jewish past as well.)
`Yes I have.'
`Did you like it?'
`No, I didn't.'
`I want to live there.'
`Really.'
`What do you do?'
`Well, Charlotte's a visiting physiotherapist and I'm a friend of hers.'
`Is that your profession?'
I laugh nervously. 'No, I'm an artist.'
`Where do you work?'
'I ... work at home. I'm a freelance artist.'
To prove my alibi I take out my sketch book, go into a corner of the
room and start sketching. Barrie had said this would be all right. No one takes any notice, except Carol, who keeps grinning at me, almost flirtatiously.
At 12.30 it's lunch time. They file out, a procession of strange walks that I would not dream of inventing. One walks as if treading water; another with splayed feet, the gait as if drunk; one has a walking stick with a splayed claw at the end - I could use that in the play.
Last out is the man who boasted about his walking frame - he has asked to be allowed to go to lunch on it, specially to show us. He moves past painfully slowly but with great pride. We stand nodding and smiling as if taking a salute. He turns into the corridor and we hear a terrible crash. We rush out to find him lying entangled in his walking frame, struggling. Charlotte is calm and professional: `Oh dear - still, probably not the first time, how do you get up best?' He grins and puffs and says `Not to worry', hauling himself up a series of rails along the wall. One of Barrie's assistants comes rushing down the corridor with this man's wheelchair, virtually scoops him into it and drives him off to lunch muttering `Told you so ...'
Barrie comes alongside us smiling gently. Points to another man who is wearing a crash helmet. He has fallen over so often his face is cut and bruised like a boxer's - his hands are twisted in such a way that he cannot break his falls.
Barrie says we're welcome to come back whenever we like. There's a Richard III lookalike whom he feels we should see but who isn't here today. We thank him and leave.
Drive back quite dazed.
Tuesday 7 February
Charlotte comes round to the house before this evening's visit to the disabled games group.
'Was yesterday of any use?' she asks.
`Oh yes. But I don't think Richard is a spastic.'
'No.'
'The co
ndition is too convulsive.'
She explains in detail about hunchbacks. Often the condition doesn't arise until adolescence (and most commonly among girls). There are two types: scoliosis, and kyphosis.
I instantly decide on the latter. It's what I've been drawing. The bottled spider, the bull. And it's different from Olivier.
`Anyway,' says Charlotte, `tonight there'll be a much wider range. Every kind of disability, the mentally ill, the blind, everything.'
`Right,' I say, and down a stiff vodka tonic.
KING EDWARD'S SCHOOL, HAMPSTEAD We wander through the large dark grounds until we find a brightly lit hall with a fleet of ambulances parked outside.
The place is buzzing with activity: bowls, table tennis, badminton and various board games. Also a rather ferocious game of hockey - a crowd of people charging around wielding sticks, some on foot, some in wheelchairs. One of the players stops, grins and waves her stick at us: Carol, from the works centre yesterday, who interrogated me so thoroughly.
Charlotte starts to giggle. `She's going to wonder why we've turned up again.'
I wave back and whisper through a clenched smile, `Careful. Remember the lip-reading.'
The organiser, a friend of Charlotte's, comes bounding over from the game, sweating heavily. Charlotte introduces him by his nickname, Bones. He's a policeman and does this in his spare time. Tall, well built, rugged good looks of a movie star. His manner is rather brusque: `We don't do any molly-coddling here, they have to get off their arses and do a bit.' But he's very gentle with them, reassuring, encouraging, very tactile, pretending to bully, but with a Hollywood smile that makes all swoon before him.
Here comes trouble - Carol's helper is wheeling her over. Charlotte smiles and deserts me.
`What are you doing here?' Carol asks.
`Oh, I'm ... well, it's Charlotte, actually. She's a visiting physio -'
`Will you be coming back to the works centre?'
`Yes, I might.'
'Why?'
`Barrie suggested I should.'
`But why?'
`It was Barrie's suggestion.'
`But what are you doing?'
`I'm a freelance-artist-friend of Charlotte's. Excuse me.'
As I disengage myself I can't help thinking that this has been a perfect demonstration of Mike Leigh's golden rule for research - always tell the truth about why you're there.
My attention is constantly drawn to a group of three who ignore all the games and remain totally private. In the middle is a man of about fifty. His arms are around a young, frail, dark-haired girl on one side, an older red-haired woman on the other. They move around the hall, heads close together, whispering.
Bones suggests a visit to the archery club in another hall. He dons an anorak, lights a cigarette, tells me how the whole thing started as a small venture and has grown and grown. His endless battles to get money from the council, to organise transport, to find helpers. The ratio has to be one helper to two disabled. I tell him that I couldn't distinguish the disabled from the helpers.
`That's because a lot of them are mentally retarded,' he says, `and there's no visible disability. When new helpers start, I make it a point not to tell them who's got what wrong. Let the two sides just meet as people.'
At the archery club they sit in a line of wheelchairs. The skill is surprising. One young man is blind in one eye and severely spastic. He battles to fit the arrow in place and then, as he aims, it weaves around dangerously. I try not to flinch as it strays over his shoulder towards me. But when at last he fires, it is with superb accuracy. Another young man with frail bony features sits in a strange state: he lifts his bow slowly, fits an arrow, considers it carefully, unfits it, lowers his bow, never fires.
Back at the main hall, there are several newcomers. One of the new helpers is a policeman in uniform, a tubby cheerful man who laughs a lot. He twists his cap back to front, does Goon voices, `Hulloooo, I'm Neddy Seagoooon', mimes karate chops at a thalidomide lady passing in a wheelchair. Another new face is a boy called Gordon with a thin ginger moustache and puffy eyes with scars round them. There is a sense of suppressed violence about him. Someone bumps into him and he says in a quiet, clenched voice, `I'm very calm. I'm very calm.' The laughing policeman aims a karate chop at him. I hold my breath. But Gordon just says `Yeah', and moves away.
The threesome sit huddled on a bench in a corner. They share a cigarette, passing it around like a joint. I ask Bones about them. The young girl is the sister of the boy who never fired his arrow. She is partially blind. The man in the middle is completely blind and partially deaf. The red-haired woman is mentally retarded. They each come from different institutions and live for these Tuesday nights. `We get a lot of love affairs starting here,' says Bones, `and why not?'
I can start sketching. Enough time has passed, I've blended in. Clamber up on to an exercise horse, an ideal place because no one can peer over my shoulder. Constantly looking over towards me, smiling, curious, flirting, Carol is the only one who takes any notice of me.
Home time. The red-haired lady from the threesome fetches their coats. They rise and almost as one, weave into the arms, hoods, scarves. It looks like they're climbing into one huge garment that will bind them even closer together. But now comes the time for them to be separated into different ambulances.
I have seen enough. I thank Charlotte and Bones, and leave.
Reading the play in bed, the first scene now seems very familiar. A disabled man sitting in the sun, grumbling to the audience about his lot (the man yesterday who said, `Life is unfair'). Powerless to stop his brother being taken to prison, he makes a few jokes to cheer him up. Passes the time of day with I lastings: 'What news abroad','
I remember now that my first thought of yesterday was: are these people smiling, or are they in pain, or are they bearing their teeth like animals do when threatened? All these expressions are similar. Grinning or grimacing.
I had set out to look for a physical shape, but maybe what I found is something about being disabled.
Thursday 9 February
I am going to have to give up smoking and get fitter than ever. And then keep it up for two years. God.
Jim says I should treat it like an athlete's training for the Olympics, says it's important enough for me to give up alcohol and go on to special foods.
In the meantime, Bill comes to dinner, we drink a lot of wine, smoke a lot of cigarettes, and he prepares to tell me what the Richard III set is going to be. `I'm still a bit nervous about the idea,' he says, `so forgive me if I have difficulty putting it into words.' And indeed he goes into a very long preamble about religion in the Middle Ages while I sit on the edge of my seat stopping myself from screaming `Yes, but what's it going to be?' His eyes are gleaming with excitement and tension. I do know how he feels: it's the moment when you have to speak aloud an idea that you've been nurturing alone and you know the other person's face is instantly going to tell you whether they think it's a very good idea or a very bad one. The two are often separated by a hair's breadth.
At last: the play is going to be set in a cathedral, with tombs of dead kings and high stained glass windows. Obviously it will be a perfect setting for the religious scenes, but he also wants to use it non-realistically, as if the play is being done as a medieval morality play, so that the battle at Bosworth can take place among the tombs - the final duel, St George and the Dragon.
The concept is stunning, it grips my imagination. As we discovered late in Tartuffe rehearsals, the other side of religion is a grotesque world of gargoyles and demons. Perfect for Richard III. For much of the early part of the play he feigns piety; the wretched cripple who is forced out of the sensual world into the spiritual one, a holy fool.
Now it's my turn. I show Bill three sketches: the bottled spider, the head I drew in Hermanus, and Ronnie Kray. I try the crutches idea on him again and find myself describing a concept which is clearly in the spider drawing, but which I hadn't actually realised until now: `W
e play him as a four-legged creature.' In the text there are many animal references - boar, hog, toad, spider, hedgehog, and best of all (given the cathedral setting), `Hell-hound'.
Bill says quietly, `This is terribly exciting.' He reckons that playing Richard as monstrous as this solves in one stroke the biggest problem in the play - why is he so evil? Also he points out that Richard's deformity is only ever mentioned by the others in moments of impassioned cursing, as if it's so extreme that it's normally unmentionable. So when Margaret really lets rip in Act 1, Scene iii, the others can shield their eyes and think, `Oh shit, she hasn't gone and mentioned that.'
Without prompting, Bill uses a description I wrote ages ago in Hermanus: `His appearance should provoke both pity and terror.' This keeps happening in our collaboration - thinking as one.
He stares at my sketch of the bottled spider and wonders whether we could actually create this image, throw a giant shadow on the wall.
I say, `I'm afraid we used it in King Lear - the front-cloth scene.'
`Ah yes. Adrian Noble has already done it. True of so many things these days.' He looks up and grins. It's a source of mild inconvenience, not bitter envy. Bill is not an ambitious man.
He leaves, but the excitement we have generated remains. His reaction to the spider drawing was so positive. Maybe I have found my nightmare creature. And now there is a setting for him - this spooky church.
Monday 13 February
