The Varnished Untruth

by Stephenson, Pamela

  We fell in love very quickly; in fact, as I have already implied, we had probably became (somewhat unwillingly) enamoured of each other the second we met. When I wrote my husband’s biography, Billy, I naturally put the focus on his early story of abuse, and on his courage and survival. But now you know that I too was an abandoned child, you’ll understand how fitting it was that we should have met. Joined at the wound, we were. But there was one really big problem; the man drank. In a way, it was impressive; I had never seen a man imbibe as many whiskys as he did that night and still be able to make a girl happy. At first, I thought his excessive drinking was just nerves, but I soon discovered he was not only adorable, loving and delightfully vulnerable, he was also anxious, traumatized and bent on self-destruction. I kept flip-flopping between thinking, ‘This man is a nightmare’ and ‘I want to have his babies.’ As a cautionary message to self, I copied a passage from the Buddhist scripture the Dhammapada into my notebook:

  ‘There is no fire like lust, and no chains like those of hate. There is no net like illusion, and no rushing torrent like desire.’

  Fortunately, my early illusory state gave way to a slightly better grip on the reality of Billy Connolly. I became aware that my attitude towards him waxed and waned depending on whether he was drunk or sober when we met up. He was highly unpredictable and, most alarmingly, under the influence of quite a lot of alcohol he seemed to undergo a personality change, becoming a rather mean version of himself. I jokingly referred to that dark alter ego as ‘beastie’ but, to be honest, it was no joke. I suppose, to some extent, I found his complexity fascinating, but it was also scary. Sometimes I even worried for my own safety. Eventually, I decided he was too hard to handle and ran away to Bali to try to forget him. But, predictably, that didn’t work.

  Bali 27th December 19??

  Slowing down slowly

  Maybe I’ll go to Ubud tomorrow. Take too long today.

  I like not talking.

  The gecko and I have an interesting form of communication.

  Mutual surprised fear . . . familiar feeling.

  Is it true that I don’t have one friend?

  Hungry ghost. Neurotic craving for . . . once it was success . . . now it’s more success . . . but solidly linked to specific human need . . . which has no real future. I’m losing my own strength to that craving.

  Meditate. Get strong again.

  I’m still thinking only of my return. I can’t really think beyond next meeting (with Billy). This is totally destructive and negative. Problems foreseeable? 1. His drinking. 2. My ego. 3. Both tired a lot from working. 4. His guilt about his family. 5. Fears of Press discovery.

  What’s the answer?

  It would be better to break it off now. THIS KIND OF ROMANTIC CRAVING BELONGS TO THE WORLD OF THE HUNGRY GHOSTS. CAN ONLY LEAD TO UNHAPPINESS.

  And . . . how did that resolve work out for you?

  Ha! I just could not stop thinking about him. And Bali was a disappointment on this, my second visit. See, I hadn’t just fled from Billy.

  For the first time on my life, I’d escaped Christmas. Narrowly. Collapsed onto a 747 on the 23rd December and woke up 30 hours later in a full-stop in the Indian Ocean where Christmas is a mere myth from the World of the Tourists. Arrived just before midnight at the Bali Beach Hotel in Sanur. Crawled to my bed in a concrete bunker high above the palm trees, and woke with the surf pounding away below. I’ve done it! No tinsel, no carols, no Noel hype . . . NO CHRISTMAS TELEVISION!

  I didn’t write down the worst thing that could happen to me at Christmas – a family get-together – but I imagine that was uppermost in my mind. My parents were now living in Epsom, Surrey, and wanted me to turn up for festive fun and fake familiarity. Awful. My sister Lesley was now an opera singer, living relatively nearby in Zurich, so I guess they had a fantasy of playing happy families in their retirement years. Hmm. Not on your nelly . . .

  Again, such bitterness. And you know, your prolonged anger towards them hides deep, continued sadness that you’d be a lot better off without . . .

  Yep. I know, it would be wonderful to be able to let it go. If only insight alone were enough to release it. Hopefully, one day . . .

  Actually, I tell a lie. A family get-together was not the worst thing that could happen at Christmas. I’d already experienced the ultimate disappointment, and I’m not talking about a crap present. One Christmas Eve . . . I must have just turned six or so . . . I was lying awake trying to figure out something. See, my bright little logical brain just couldn’t figure out certain things I’d been told. For example, when that footman went around with Cinderella’s slipper, looking for a girl who might fit into it, I knew it was highly unlikely that no one except Cinderella could slip it on . . . unless, of course she had a foot the size of a pencil sharpener. It simply didn’t make sense. Why, oh why, I wondered, hadn’t the writers of the story thought that through? Couldn’t they have come up with something like: ‘She had a very unusually shaped foot, with seventeen toes’? Then it would have made sense. But anyway, this particular Christmas Eve I was unable to sleep because, by now, I was fully aware of the size of the world population, and – even allowing for time changes – I just couldn’t figure out how Santa was going to get around to every child’s chimney in the same night. I called my mother and asked her to explain. ‘Well, he doesn’t,’ was her blunt reply. ‘What do you mean, “He doesn’t”?’ I asked. ‘He just doesn’t do that,’ she said again. I still couldn’t understand – or perhaps I just didn’t want to. ‘Look,’ she finally said, somewhat impatiently, ‘you know all those Christmas cards and pictures of Santa? Well, they’re just made up. He doesn’t really exist.’

  How’d you take that . . . ?

  Very, very badly. It seemed like the end of my childhood. To be honest, she might as well have ripped my heart out with her sensibly short nails. It actually took a while to sink in, but once it did, I was devastated . . . Seriously? Christmas Eve? I mean, something like ‘Because he’s magic!’ would have sufficed. A mug of cocoa . . . a hug . . . I would have been asleep in no time. But as it was, I was going: ‘Well, what else is fake? Is my real mother the Ice Queen?’

  What do you think was her reasoning?

  That’s beyond me. I mean, they still expected me to believe in that ‘loaves and fishes’ thing, not to mention people being turned into pillars of salt, and even raised from the dead . . . So why, oh why, couldn’t I have hung onto Santa just a bit longer?

  But I suppose, in a way, my mother was giving me a compliment. Her scientist’s brain valued logic above everything else, and she obviously thought she was providing me with what I needed at that particular moment . . . But, traumatic though it was, I definitely learned from it; even when my children became adults I was still saying: ‘If you don’t believe in Santa, he won’t fill your stocking!’

  So you see why – for me – Christmas was best avoided? But in Bali, my best attempts were thwarted.

  Christmas morning

  I leapt out of bed and wrenched open the curtains, gulping lungfuls of balmy air, and expecting to see the Bounty ad paradise stretched out before me . . . no such luck. Despite the fact that this is largely a Hindu island, the biggest bloody Christmas tree in the world was sitting right below me on the jetty. I repacked my bags and fled, aided by dozens of obsequious Hindus bleating Christian slogans and advising me of Mass times. I saw just enough of this vast hotel to motivate me to return when feeling stronger, just for the curiosity value. Exactly what kind of hotel-planning genius inspired someone to include, on this site of rare and luscious natural beauty, a SWISS restaurant (Rosti and Appenzeller music in the tropical heat) and a penthouse club, ‘featuring Buddy Loren! Impressionist Extraordinaire! Special Christmas Show with Traditional Turkey Dinner only 30 Dollars per head Black Tie!’

  In fact, I returned to that hotel sooner than expected to get myself jabbed by the resident doctor, having finally bothered to read the small print on a leaflet handed to me at the
airport: ‘IF YOU HAPPEN TO CONTACT TYPHOID, CHOLERA, OR MALARIA DURING YOUR VISIT TO BALI, PLEASE CONTACT THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES. HAVE A NICE STAY.

  I hadn’t been inoculated against anything at all (last minute rush – hard-hitting impersonation of Princess Anne for the Mike Yarwood Christmas TV Show, personal life in tatters, usual stuff!) but I decided that, on chance of hepatitis from the needle beat the deadlier alternatives. I questioned whether maybe my karma might have been good enough to arm me against the wrath of the gods, but then I thought about Angela Rippon, Princess Anne and other well-wishers back home back in Britain, and I thought, ‘No . . . Go for that jab!’

  Actually, that Christmas Princess Anne skit, in which I wore really large fake teeth made from orange peel and neighed like a horse, inspired a wonderfully bitchy response from a member of the public. At least I think it was a member of the public; it was so witty, it might just have been the royal victim herself:

  Dear Miss Stephenson,

  When I saw a programme where you were, as I thought, mocking Princess Anne, I thought how very cruel and unkind it was of you but I must apologize to you profusely as when I saw you in Barry Norman’s show I realized they were your own teeth.

  Yours sincerely,

  Kathleen Williams

  Although I had nothing personally against the Princess Royal, I definitely deserved that. And as for my dentition, erm, it’s true that I have fairly . . . substantial teeth. All right, I have bloody enormous choppers. My husband calls them ‘the fridge doors’. Even the late Leonard Rossiter remarked: ‘Young lady, you have far more teeth than you’re entitled to.’ Funny, funny man.

  Anyway, I had my jabs, although probably the worst diseases on the island of Bali were to be found among the Western colony at Kuta Beach. After its famous postcard sunset, the bars along the main drag wailing tinny, bootleg disco sounds, would fill up with lascivious young beachcombers – all Piz Buin and herpes – Swedes, Germans, Dutch, but mainly Australians. Everywhere Australians.

  I am beginning to think I am prejudiced against my own kind. At the ver least, I want to persuade them to stop using Bali as their very own Costa del Sol. Overheard on a local bus (please recite with flattened vowels): ‘What, is that rice over there? Is there meant to be all that water?’ There are plenty of Americans too, who tend, of an evening, to gravitate to Poppies Bar and Restaurant. For a dive that does you a magic mushroom omelette on request, the proprietor’s notice seemed a little superfluous: ‘PLEASE DON’T GET LOADED AT POPPIES.’ I sidled onto a bar stool, my corn-rope plaits zinging round my neighbour’s ears. ‘Hi Bo!’ he winked, absurdly linking me to Bo Derek in the movie Arthur. ‘Oh piss off,’ I hinted. We made friends later, though. An accountant from Santa Barbara, who seemed to be having a good time. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I reckon it’s a great place to just veg-out!’ Well, I must admit, he did remind me of a radish. Bright crimson forehead, and a white patch on top where his hat had sat. Bound to be a sick boy tomorrow. But if you sun too much, drink too much, anything too much, all you have to do in the morning is make it to the beach. There you can be massaged, soothed with coconut milk, dog-haired, coked up – whatever it takes. But as soon as you come round it’s time to move or you will definitely be sold something: ‘You want a bikini? I give you good price. You buy bracelet? Wood carving? What about dope? I give you cheap!’ Yes, regarding the latter, I know for a fact you can buy the best Harpic in the Southern Hemisphere right there on Kuta Beach.

  But I tire easily of such an excess of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll – cheap though they all were – so I went to visit my eccentric English friend Victor, who lives in Pennestan Village with a Balinese stunner and their two children. ‘Oh, hello,’ he said, not particularly surprised to see me, ‘I’ve just been listening to you on the Private Eye record.’ Now, is that fame? Or is that Fame? I just hadn’t previously thought that the world went as far as Bali . . .

  The Balinese, on the other hand, believe that Bali IS the world – actually a giant tortoise that sits on a rock surrounded by sea – and that beyond it lies a different place, the World of the Tourists, populated by travellers of all nationalities who do nothing but fly round in aeroplanes with their suitcases, occasionally dropping in on Bali. Six years earlier I had spent three idyllic months on the island, and I hated seeing how much it had changed. I considered it a tiny precious jewel, a magic place with a unique and astonishing culture. Why, I wondered, wasn’t someone doing something to preserve it? The first time I visited Bali I stumbled on a gathering at night in a remote village, where I saw a dance in which some young girls, wearing ornate sarongs and gold leaf jewellery entwined in their hair, were put into a trance by village priests. They were not trained dancers, and only people who had practised since the age of three could do the challenging Legong, but nevertheless they danced it, after a fashion, for several hours. The explanation for this phenomenon was that ‘heavenly spirits’ were instructing them through the medium of trance. I had been riveted by this extremely powerful event, and felt privileged to have witnessed it, but now, six years on, anyone could catch a ‘Trance Dance’on Tues. or Fri. in Bona Village . . . Bus leaves Kuta 5pm, 7,500 Rupia. Alternatively, you could get a ‘Quality Cremation’ for eight dollars Australian. Yes, I hated seeing that amazing culture being destroyed so quickly.

  I tried to go to the island of Komodo, which had always taken my fancy because it was inhabited by giant ‘dragons’. Tour operators said the seas were too rough to complete the crossing, but I discovered that was just a cover-up. Apparently, on a recent expedition, one of those fascinating monsters had eaten a Japanese tourist. I met quite a few Japanese tourists while I was staying at Kuta – my diary entry reveals a tongue-in-cheek awareness of my apparent sexual power.

  These intriguing individuals arrive regularly in large groups, all neatly kitted out with Louis Vuitton surfboard covers and Gucci First Aid kits. My problem is simply one of popularity – and nothing to do with Not The Nine O’ Clock News. Every morning, as I sit alone on the verandah of my bungalow, there’s a steady stream of requests from these little Asian studs, that they should be photographed, one at a time, sitting at breakfast beside me with smug, toothy smiles – the morning-after mock-up routine. They seem so pathetic I usually agree. So I’m now famous in Japan, not as a comedian but as the holiday squeeze of hundreds.

  That became boring after a while, so I moved inland, to spend the rest of my stay in a remote hut in the middle of a rice field. On New Year’s Eve, instead of disco-dancing on the Kuta strip, I was catching eels by firefly light. Lovely. I rested, I became serene, I discovered that it does a girl good to go to bed early.

  As for my plan to forget about Billy – I really struggled with all my might, but after a month or so of agony I returned to his side. I’d had no experience of alcohol addiction, and I needed a crash course. I read Alcoholics Anonymous’s The Big Book bible from cover to cover, from which I learned that it would be foolish to imagine I could stop him drinking if he didn’t want to. I gave him an ultimatum: ‘It’s drink or me.’ I was prepared to give him up – OK, I know what you’re thinking . . . but at least I would have given it a darn good try.

  Fortunately, Billy decided that he was going to plump for personal happiness and changed his life to a sober one. It didn’t happen all at once; ‘one day at a time’ was very much the way it went, but he was essentially strong and resolved and, to this day, has not touched alcohol or drugs for nearly thirty years. Billy never entered a rehab programme. He tells people, ‘I decided to quit drinking while it was still my idea.’ And that’s pretty much the way it was.

  But while I was teaching Billy about his inner beastie, he taught me things about comedy. He never actually sat down and said, ‘This is how it works’ – he’s the last person you could ask to analyze how comedy is constructed (in fact, he would vehemently resist that) – but he was enormously generous about other people’s work, if he thought it was good, and scathing about what he disliked, so I w
as able to internalize his comic taste. Billy admired my other heroes at the time, Robin Williams and Steve Martin (‘wild and crazy guy’).

  I didn’t mind being irreverent myself, and I went through a phase of performing truly outrageous comedy stunts, such as the time I conspired with Bob Monkhouse’s producer to destroy his set. Have a look on YouTube and you’ll see me pretending to have a broken leg and walking on that show to do something very different from what we’d rehearsed. Bob Monkhouse truly had no idea. With the help of a brilliant special effects team, his producer John Fisher and I rehearsed it when the star of the show was absent from the set and that’s why it works – no pretence. I just love the look of panic in Bob’s eyes when he thinks he’s on live television with a crazy, fully armed nutcase. He even covers his genitals in case I destroy his manhood. At least I think that’s what his hands were doing there; he confessed later: ‘I had to change my underwear.’