by Kika Markham
A year and a half later, when Corin’s treatment was finished – and in a break from rehearsing No Man’s Land (directed by Pinter himself) – we went to Sweden for a little holiday for Corin to recuperate from the radiotherapy. I wrote a short story about it.
Mauvais Goût (Bad Taste) May 2003
The sunlight forced his eyes open. He’d had another bad dream about Pinter scolding him and him not being able to explain why he had chosen a particular gesture.
He got up for a pee, a wearisome activity, although of late, a little easier. He was in the recovery period from radiotherapy, but the improvement felt slow. He noticed his wife’s bed – empty – the duvet in a tossed heap of fury. Perhaps she’s gone for a walk. He looked at his watch. 4.00 a.m. Christ! The room was bathed in light, burning through the flimsy cotton curtains. They were in Sweden, where the sun came up at 3.30, for five days to recuperate from the radiotherapy. It was needed after the trauma of not just having cancer, but the after effects of the so-called “cure”. Not that he wasn’t optimistic – he was. He believed in the doctor’s positive prognosis. It didn’t keep him awake at night. And even if he felt the presence of gloomy, even morbid thoughts, he was able to divert them before they struck with full force, and drift into sleep with images of country lanes, actresses he had worked with, his children, sandy beaches, his father, the book that he’d written about his father, and finally his last two stage performances. Not so his wife. He didn’t even bother to ask how she’s slept because he knew the answer. Oh the punishment inflicted on those who sleep by those who don’t. To fall asleep was a skill he’d learnt since childhood, but however he’d tried, had failed to pass it on to her.
He rarely complained, but sometimes a sharp stabbing pain, low down, made him gasp and immediately she would turn a worried frown toward him, “What’s wrong?” And he’d have to reassure her. As he did with his mother and his sisters. It seemed that he was forever doomed to be resolutely cheerful, brave, paternal, fraternal – even light-hearted about his own illness.
His wife’s constant worrying was exhausting for both of them. Anyway, here they were in Sweden on Midsummer’s Eve, June 21st. The sky was bulging with black clouds. The fjord in front of their cottage window was an expanse of white with a dull skyline of brown rock and scrub. Little more than a third-rate Scottish loch. Nothing moved outside and now it was raining. They’d eaten Swedish meatballs (frozen) and baked potato for lunch and she was attempting to hang out some washing on the wet clothes line. He was staring at his text in the pretence of learning but inwardly seething with pain and anger.
Turning over her notebook he’d read something she’d written about him. It wasn’t complimentary. A close friend of theirs, Suzanne Schiffman, had died two weeks ago – his wife had been in Paris for the funeral. The Independent wanted a personal memoir, and as he couldn’t locate her he thought he should do the next best thing and write some words in the spirit that she would like. He had had to read it over the telephone and, typically, she had objected to several things about it (typically because, of course, she hadn’t got around to or wasn’t capable of writing it herself!). Only she could turn something that he’d done, out of a genuine wish to help, into something rather cheap and even “sensation seeking” making him feel dirty and dishonourable. She did it with such a deft sleight of hand – like flouring a fish before carefully putting it in the frying pan. Later on, she re-read the piece, and gave it her approval and apologized. But now the wound had opened again seeing the words, “…it was good copy [for him] to write about me and an ex-lover, unnecessary for an obituary, mauvais gout!” and a whole lot more in the notebook about how unfair it was that he would once more, using the famous family name, obliterate her with his own elegant style of writing, seizing that chance yet again to see his name in print. “It’s made me quite upset.” He started rather quietly.
“What has?” Her voice shot up in a querulous, over-defensive way, so familiar to him.
“The way you describe me as ‘my dear husband’…and ‘such good copy’…‘mauvais gout’… As if you see me through a telescope or a mirror.” He meant, as if you’ve stopped loving me.
“I told you at the time I didn’t like what you wrote.”
“How would you feel if I referred to you as ‘my dear wife’?”
“Look,” she said. “You know I get quite jealous of you – that you’re much more articulate and fluent than me. And what’s more you even get asked to write about things that can only concern me. I get resentful.” A subject she never tired of, his famous family, his career, his education and the lack of hers. He went upstairs and put his hands over his face. She thought that maybe he was crying. He had been wiping his glasses but it could have been the steam of the baked potato. Lying on his back he was asleep in two minutes.
Later, as a small chink of blue appeared, they went for a walk to see if they could meet – well – their neighbours or even just a friendly person who might invite them to their house for a midsummer drink. They had made friends again but felt horribly lonely and excluded from the festivities. And a sadness was between them.
At the end of the lane they saw a garden full of people. They were sitting at a long table with little children playing nearby. There was a huge maypole covered with branches, leaves and flowers and ribbons. A very large seagull or albatross stood on a chimney overseeing the proceedings. It was an enchanting sight. “I’d love to take a photo of them,” she sighed. “Go on then, they won’t mind.”
“Oh no, we can’t. We shouldn’t be going past their garden anyway – it looks pathetic, so intrusive…” As she spoke, a friendly woman waved to them from the table.
“There you are. They don’t mind at all.” He took a photograph of them and she smiled once more. They walked on round the corner. “You know it was you that told me to write down what I was feeling in the first place, and so I did.” She decided not to risk any more. “I’ve got over it now.” He smiled magnanimously.
They walked back past the blue lupins and yellow buttercups, sounds of the midsummer party receding like an offstage recording in a Chekhov play. At home they opened their first bottle of schnapps. “It’s when it reaches here that you can taste it.” He touched his chest…
CHAPTER ELEVEN
2004
Perugia
In May 2004 Corin and I went on holiday, to stay with Michele and Charlie in Tuscany. After a quiet week, Corin and I decided to go to Perugia for a night, to see the jazz festival and have a romantic supper in a taverna.
Perugia is built on hills. You have to park your car at the bottom and walk to the top. We were both breathless when we reached the beautiful old square but I remember we had a pleasant meal and that Corin seemed to be fine. On the way back, though, he said he didn’t feel up to going to the concert and we should go to our hotel instead. This meant climbing some more and I could see that he was beginning to feel really bad. By the time we found our hotel he was shivering and shaking like a leaf – I could tell he had a high fever and was also talking nonsense very rapidly, which was most alarming. I got the hotel receptionist to call a doctor, fearing that on a Saturday night with a jazz festival in town we’d never get one, but this being Italy they found Dr Mario, who promised to come soon.
Never had two hours gone so slowly. Eventually the doctor arrived and examined Corin, who seemed to have reached a peak and was starting to pour with sweat. Dr Mario was elegant with beautifully kept white hair. He looked kind but grave. He explained in his excellent English that he couldn’t tell if it was very bad flu or whether it might have been a heart attack. And then he said (and I never forgot his manner, words or how he said them), ‘You must watch him, keep a good eye on him, signora, and get his heart looked at when you return home.’ He gave me a pill to put under Corin’s tongue if he felt ill. He also gave me a prescription. ‘You will find a pharmacist open, even at this time of night.’
I ran up the hill against the streams of people singing and
shouting. The beautiful piazza was teeming with life and a jazz band was playing on stage. I didn’t hear it, I was trying to find the chemist but there seemed to be nobody that knew the town – they had come from all over Italy to experience the festival. I must have passed it three times and was sobbing when I suddenly saw it and collected the pills. Corin was better when I got back, he took some pills and fell asleep. The next morning he had a large breakfast and said he felt fine. Going down the motorway my heart was in my mouth but we sailed along back to the little hamlet in the hills and nothing more was said until we got home to London. We went to see our GP, who picked up some irregularities with Corin’s heart and suggested we went for a further examination at the hospital. We saw a top cardiologist at St George’s, who found nothing to be concerned about. We didn’t seek a second opinion.
That summer Corin opened as Lear at Stratford and after a short interval began working on Tynan with Richard Nelson. Either part, taken one at a time, would be extremely challenging for an actor, but to do both at once was physically and emotionally demanding. He was also very involved with the Guantanamo Human Rights Commission that he had formed the year before. At the same time we were busy founding the Peace and Progress Party, and campaigning for the release of Babar Ahmad, who was wrongly imprisoned in 2004 and was then in Woodhill Prison, under threat of extradition (he was extradited to the USA in 2012 without ever having been formally charged in Britain; another disgraceful act by a British Home Secretary).
After a regional tour, I was playing at the National Theatre in The Permanent Way by David Hare, directed by Max Stafford-Clark. This is a play based on the privatisation of the railways and the true accounts of people involved in the train crashes which followed from 1993-2002. It included politicians, train company representatives, policemen, lawyers, and the victims themselves. It was a hugely compelling project and the first time that Hare and Stafford-Clark had collaborated for some years. It was also the first time that I had worked with either of them. Max asked me to audition for the part of Louise Christian, the human rights lawyer, which I did, and then I asked him if I could read the part of the author Nina Bawden, whose husband died in the Potters Bar crash. In the end Max gave me both parts, which was an honour because I liked and admired both women very much. When Corin died I had cause to re-read Nina’s writing about grief which, although I had tried to interpret it as truthfully as I could at the time, was something I had not yet experienced.
Part II
CHAPTER TWELVE
JUNE 2005
Corin Collapses
On 8 June 2005 our morning began with a press event at the Houses of Parliament to draw attention to the imminent eviction of the Dale Farm travellers from their site near Basildon in Essex.
During this time there had been an ongoing campaign to help the Roma people at Dale Farm. Whenever he could, Corin went down to visit them and we both took part in press campaigns. We had first got to know of their case through Rose Gentle, who had done some cleaning for me, and become a friend. I had given her daughter some reading lessons and had visited them on their site. She was very keen for me to see how clean their way of living was. They had been put onto a site which was next to open sewage, with little children running about. It was very unhealthy for them, but their caravans were spotless inside. Their great spokesman was Grattan Puxon who had been at Westminster School with Corin.
As we were leaving the hall after the press conference, one of the leading campaigners asked Corin to come down to Basildon to speak at the town hall; ‘It will make all the difference to have you there in person,’ she said. Corin had a great gift for speaking. He didn’t use notes and he was articulate and passionate. He was always getting asked to speak at meetings. Sometimes there were two a week. That evening was a night off from Pericles which he had just opened at The Globe, so even though I supported this cause wholeheartedly I wasn’t overjoyed when he told me he was going to Basildon Town Hall. We were due to have dinner with a new friend, Bill Bingham, at Rick’s Café in Tooting. Corin was tired. Pericles had opened straight after Tynan and the rehearsals had been very demanding. But he never liked to say no so we went our separate ways, Corin to Basildon, and me to Tooting.
Coming back from the restaurant my mobile phone rang. It was a reporter from The Independent. ‘Corin has been rushed to hospital after collapsing at a meeting in Basildon. Do you have a quote?’ They didn’t know if he was alive or not. Bill, who I’d been having dinner with, heroically drove me down to Basildon. We picked up Arden on the way. Corin was in intensive care, unconscious and on a life-support machine. One by one the other children arrived, and we camped in a little room outside the intensive care unit. While I didn’t take it in, it seemed that Corin had suffered a heart attack, which left him without oxygen for more than three minutes. One of the travellers gave him mouth-to-mouth until the paramedics came, and most likely saved his life.
Later on the President of the Gypsy Council, Richard Sheridan, told me that before the meeting a local pub had refused to serve them, which had angered Corin. There was a heavy police presence at the town hall, and the atmosphere was highly charged. In the middle of an impassioned speech, Corin fell to the ground, unconscious.
There were several travellers from Dale Farm who were highly affected by what had happened, and who came to the hospital and waited in the corridors for news, as did our friends Sead and Bina Taslaman.
Kika’s diary
Thursday 9 June 2005
Corin remains sedated all day and night. Harvey, Arden, me, Luke and Jemma stay all night in the little room. Pema, Lynn’s eldest daughter, sings to him heart-rendingly.
In the morning his eyes open but don’t see anything. Horrific.
He is not there.
Dr Lowe tells us that it’s not a good outlook, the longer he doesn’t recognise us, the worse the brain damage.
Some of the Pericles company: Kathryn Hunter, Marcello Magni and Patrice Naiambana arrive and join the family. Patrice sings his African song from Pericles; the one which he had sung to Corin to wake him from his sleep. Everyone claps, including nurses from other wards and some bemused patients.
Friday 10 June 2005
In the little room Dr Lowe tells me that there is no hope. There is a silence. I say, ‘I hope you’re wrong’. He says nothing and leaves. Jem puts her hand on my knee and I sit between the boys and we all sob hopelessly. The nurses say not to give up hope. I love them.
After two days of camping out in the little anteroom I come home to change my clothes. Barbara and Maggie, our kind neighbours, come round and bring wine. It wasn’t till I unpacked the bag given to me by the nurses, and found his old brown wallet that I heard myself howling. Sally Simmons has taken time off work and is staying the night. I cannot believe I’ll survive in this world without Corin.
Saturday 11 June 2005
This morning, when I go into the ward, Corin smiles at me like the sun in the sky. No inhibitions. From the soul. Naked. Not Corin, not anyone. No civilized grown-up could possibly smile like that. The smile takes over his face. A baby. I am horrified.
Roger Kirby, Corin’s prostate specialist, and Peter Amoroso, Kirby’s anaesthetist colleague, visit. They call themselves ‘Batman and Robin’ and encourage Dr Ekbal to remove the tube that makes Corin breathe. It’s a life or death decision. As we stand around the bed and Corin manages to breathe naturally, without the life support, we all applaud.
Roger and Peter arranged for Corin to be moved to the Middlesex. Later we found out it took huge negotiations to do this because although Roger was his cancer surgeon he was not in charge of his heart treatment. I include here Roger’s account of his experience of that time.
Professor Roger Kirby’s Story
The call came through around 5.00 a.m., just as I disembarked at Athens airport to attend a meeting on prostate cancer.
‘Roger, it’s Kika. Corin has had a heart attack and is on a ventilator in Basildon Hospital. Can you help?’
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‘I’m in Greece,’ I explained, ‘but give me some more information and I’ll see what I can do.’
Kika tearfully described Corin’s cardiac arrest while addressing the gypsies in Basildon, followed by his prompt resuscitation by the St John’s Ambulance team and then the transfer to hospital where a dire prognosis was given. What could I do? I was chairing a meeting of 1,000 invited delegates in the Intercontinental Hotel. I called Dr Peter Amoroso, my anaesthetic colleague. He rang the Intensive Care Unit at Basildon and spoke to the consultant-in-charge, who happened to be one of his former trainees, and who expressed a view that Corin had suffered severe brain damage from lack of oxygen to the brain after the cardiac arrest and that recovery was unlikely. The family, including Kika and Jemma, were by now at the bedside, but distraught with grief and disbelief.
I decided to ask a colleague to stand in for my last talk and leave the meeting early. I took an early morning flight back to Heathrow, stopped in briefly at my house in Wimbledon to pick up the car, and then drove hell for leather into the depths of Essex to Basildon, picking up Dr Peter Amoroso en route. Basildon hospital is a pretty unprepossessing place. A 1960s concrete monstrosity with a drab and untidy entrance manned by a surly porter who seemed disinclined to direct us to the Intensive Care Unit, but offered no objection to us proceeding in that general direction.
When we got there we found Kika and the family in despair. There were also some of Corin’s friends and fellow actors from Pericles at the Globe where Corin was at the time playing the main role. There was an all-pervasive atmosphere of deep gloom, not lightened by the drab and gloomy ICU waiting room that we found them in. ‘Don’t despair’, I said, ‘let’s see the patient and take it from there’.
