Our Time of Day

by Kika Markham

  It was essentially an anaesthetic and intensive care issue so Peter took the lead. First he spoke to the consultant-in-charge then he assessed Corin, who still had an endotracheal tube in place and an intravenous infusion running, but who was struggling and fighting the ventilator, which suggested that he was ready to breathe for himself. It was time for the tube to be removed from the trachea. So we assembled the family, and with a flourish worthy of the Globe, Peter removed the tube and allowed Corin to breathe spontaneously. He took several enormous breaths and then sat up and smiled beautifully at his assembled friends and family.

  We left for London in the late afternoon and set about trying to arrange a transfer to a hospital nearer Kika’s home in Wandsworth, and one with a good coronary care unit. The Middlesex Hospital, at which I trained as a medical student many years ago, agreed to take him and we managed to get an ambulance to move him from Basildon into Central London.

  He arrived drowsy, dazed and confused but still the unmistakable Corin. By this time he was speaking quite well and it was clear that his voice had not been affected by the episode but that his short-term memory was damaged. I told Kika that it would be a long haul and that he would never be quite the same again, but that progressive improvement could be anticipated.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  JUNE 2005

  Different Hospitals

  Roger Kirby was as good as his word and got Corin transferred to the Middlesex Hospital where he remained in the intensive care unit until he could be moved to the Heart Hospital. It was much easier for the family to visit him there. This great hospital was facing imminent closure and was suffering from lack of facilities and staff but despite their grim surroundings we found the nurses’ and doctors’ care quite wonderful.

  On the first evening visit I found him very confused but reassuringly Corin-like. He had already invited his new (and attractive) nurse Jenny, out to dinner with Harvey and his girlfriend, Jodie.

  Kika’s diary

  Sunday 12 June 2005

  He doesn’t recognise me tonight and I can’t settle him. He has not slept and is tired and fretful. Arms and legs turning into tortured positions which become rigid, then lifting them high above his head as if hanging from a tightrope. The symptoms are related to the impairment of the brain, one of the doctors tells me. Very, very disturbing. My sister Sonie visits when I am home and helps me answer calls, makes a soup. Oh my sister!

  Monday 13, June 2005

  In the morning C says to me ‘Lovely to see you… your nose is very nice.’

  Me: ‘Do you know who I am?’

  C: ‘Of course I know who you are.’

  It’s as if we are reading a script (possibly by someone masquerading as Beckett?) playing characters who don’t seem to have a past or future or storyline. Only their tone of voice, the way they speak, gives a clue that they have shared each other’s lives/a history at some time or other. A nurse asks what he would like to eat. ‘Shotgun’, he says.

  Tuesday 14 June 2005

  Corin has soup, mince, pasta, potatoes and ice cream. I fed him by spoon and we managed well. At one point he asked if I’d had anything to eat. He tried to explain some of his memories of the five days. He knew people were helping him to survive. He wanted to ‘press a button’ and make it better. For the first time I had real hope that his intellect would remain intact. He said, ‘It must have been difficult for you to manage.’ ‘It was,’ I said. ‘But we looked after one another.’ ‘It was difficult for me too,’ he said.

  I go to see him late at night. He is hot and uncomfortable and has slipped back. We have been visiting him too much and tiring him out. ‘Slow, slow, slow’ says Peter Amoroso.

  Me at twelve years old with Coo Coo.

  Michael Redgrave and David Markham in The Stars Look Down

  My parents, Olive and David. 1939.

  Petra, Jehane, me and Sonia with our pets at Lear Cottage

  Dad grooming one of the sows for the show.

  Lear Cottage

  Playing Viola in the modern-dress production of Twelfth Night at the Royal Court in 1968.

  One of the images taken by Lord Snowdon, in a photoshoot for The Sunday Times.

  Seen here as Carol the callgirl in Double Dare by Dennis Potter.

  Feigning confidence at the start of filming with François Truffaut.

  With Jean-Pierre Léaud in scenes from Les deux Anglaises et le Continent (Anne and Muriel).

  Dad and Truffaut: laughing with me or at me?

  The Committee of 100 sit down in Grosvenor Square against the Vietnam War. 1968.

  Wednesday 15 June 2005

  Still awake at 4.00 a.m. Dreadful bleakness descends. I miss that cheery voice booming through the door, ‘Hey darling!’

  So tired but can’t sleep. Listen to the Farming programme, which is becoming a comforting pastime. This morning is about the cruelty of intensive milk farming. Cows in their natural habitat produce twenty litres of milk, but now have drugs put into them to produce fifty litres, thus they are just ‘milk machines’, never getting to relax or go into the fields, their lifespan halved.

  Corin tired and uncommunicative. He takes off his glasses to peer at my chin, something annoying he did, if a hair had appeared and I hadn’t noticed... ‘I should pull that out,’ he says.

  I pretend to hit him. He looks pleased.

  I say I must go home and do some phoning. ‘Why, have you had an offer?’ he asks. Arden is sad because of a difficult time with Corin although Corin asked him what his plans were for the week which I thought was pretty good.

  Corin was then moved to the Heart Hospital, to begin the next stage of his treatment. You have to take care of the heart first before they can address the problem of the brain damage. Dr McEwan, attractive, blonde, motherly and Scots, was his consultant. She explained they had found a blocked artery behind his heart, which they couldn’t unblock but that they could put three other stents in and were discussing a defibrillator. They will have to do an angiogram, which is risky as it means being very still while staying conscious.

  Kika’s diary

  Thursday 16 June 2005

  This morning Corin is sitting up in a chair looking a bit deranged but oddly energetic. He has lost a lot of weight. He is staring intently at a box of Kleenex. Jemma and I read a card to him, from Lynn’s daughter Pema. It is very complimentary. ‘Crikey,’ he says, then ‘one gets wonderful lighting in hospitals….’ Later, he asks if Rachel will be coming. A pause. My heart sank. Should I tell him the truth?

  When I say ‘No’ he asks, ‘Why not?’

  A deafening pause. He doesn’t remember. Oh God. Slowly I answer, ‘Rachel died two years ago darling.’

  Corin bursts into tears and cries piteously. This is terrible. I prayed that tears could be healing. That they could help bring some memory back. But no, apparently not.

  This episode repeated itself with terrible freshness of sorrow each time, until an occupational therapist came to my rescue and taught me how to tell Corin about his mother. You have to start earlier on – remind him that she was ill for some time and pretty old, that he had been to see her shortly before she died, when she’d been staying with Natasha and Vanessa in America. When you see that he remembers that, you can gently arrive at the truth. ‘Or,’ as Peter A said, ‘you can change the subject’. Something that hadn’t occurred to me.

  Corin says he is in a production where everything that can wrong, does. He tells the speech therapist he’s been thrown into the scene without any preparation. A long, hot journey back to Balham. I have never felt so forlorn. Petra comes to the rescue and cooks a lovely supper and stays.

  Kika’s diary

  Friday 17 June 2005

  Corin looking thin and wild-eyed. The nurses have asked me to bring him some snacks and drinks as he isn’t eating and is still losing weight. I give him the smoked salmon sandwiches I have made and he eats one straight off. I put them in the fridge. The nurse tells me that Corin remembered to as
k for the sandwiches later.

  Corin asks the nurse for a wine list! He still thinks he’s in some kind of hotel in Singapore because of the beautiful Asiatic nurses. Believing that they’re in a hotel seems to be a common response for people with brain injury. Reassuringly, he shows a fleeting interest in cricket. Bangladesh beating Australia....

  Our chat is very fragmented and it’s difficult to make conversation that isn’t patronizing.

  Monday 20 June 2005

  Nightmare day. I go to see Corin to give him supper. Corin is wearing a gown, which only covers his front. The nurse is trying to get a dressing gown on him but he is trying to get to the loo and doesn’t want to wait. He barely greets me. After twenty minutes I ask how much longer he’s going to be.

  ‘Corin!’ ‘WHAT IS IT?’ ‘How much longer?’ ‘I don’t know.’

  After a little more time he comes out and washes his hands which are red and sore-looking several times. There are wet scraps of paper towel everywhere. He complains that he doesn’t have his make-up or towel or mascara. ‘When do we start the Dress?’ He’s angry at the portable phone being taken away, which he thought belonged to him. His eyes are cold and he’s worried, caught in the actor’s nightmare of having to go on stage without knowing the part, no props, no preparation. I try to get him to eat supper but he snaps, ‘I know what it is, thank you.’ Dave, the Irish nurse, gets him to sit down and tells him unfortunately he’s in a hospital. ‘Oh,’ says Corin. But he doesn’t believe it. In the street I talk to Victor, the hospital caterer, who is Portuguese, and dresses like a waiter with dinner jacket and bow tie (no wonder Corin thinks it’s a restaurant).

  ‘People’s memories go but they always remember what they love. That’s why your husband thinks he’s in a theatre! He will be alright tomorrow!’

  The question I face is that perhaps Corin doesn’t love me any more and won’t ever be able to. He no longer looks at me as the Corin I know.

  His eyes are neutral, cold and afraid.

  Peter A says he has made an amazing ‘physical’ recovery but of the emotional and psychological healing, ‘You haven’t seen anything yet. You must have the patience of a saint and you mustn’t get swamped. Slow, slow, slow....’

  Tonight, Corin much more at ease. Sitting with the nurses at their desk and browsing through other patients’ magazines. He recognised Tom O’Gorman, a long-standing friend, and Sally. Mostly he talked about meeting up with Paul Dehn, my uncle, the poet, screenwriter and critic, who would take Corin to previews as a boy.

  Friday 24 June 2005

  On the phone Corin tells me he thinks he’s in a hospital. I am overjoyed. Perhaps he’s beginning to understand his surroundings, but when I get to the ward after gridlocks, thunderstorms etc., he is agitated and annoyed with the speech therapist who he thinks is ‘crude and amateurish…’

  Rang Mark Rylance to thank him for his generosity in keeping Corin on the payroll of the Globe after he had been so horribly wrenched from the production of Pericles. He says he thinks Corin’s done all this so he can come back and use the experience for his work!

  Monday 27 June 2005

  4.00 a.m. World Service. Listening to a debate on whether whale hunting should be banned. Of course it should.

  At this hour my mind tortures me with question after question. Corin has three stents put in. He tells me I have ‘two faces’ but can’t elaborate. Something that he admires and to do with my acting. He thinks that Rachel is still alive and he is convinced that being in hospital is ‘a rebuke’. I am worried about paying our tax and household bills. Will Corin ever come back as himself or will I have to look after a grown-up child for the rest of my life? He always wants champagne when visitors come. I hate it.

  I try to concentrate on the:

  Rose petal tea that Jemma bought me

  ‘The Man Watching’ – a poem by Rilke, sent by Mark Rylance

  My wombat from Sydney

  Mutchka the cat

  Harvey and Arden, Jemma and Luke

  Sonie, Petra and Jehane, my dearest sisters

  They will, and do… comfort me…

  Tuesday 28 June 2005

  Vanessa flew in this morning and had a joyful meeting with Corin. All the while she and Lynn have been in different shows in New York and we have kept in touch by telephone. In the little room that Corin inhabits she unrolled an enormous length of green and gold cloth that had been worn by Martha Graham – possibly as Hecuba? – the role that vanessa’s just played – and draped it round and round and round me.

  Corin has had a defibrillator put in – a difficult procedure – leaving a sore-looking weal on his right shoulder. He became very agitated that night not knowing where Rachel was. Jemma rang and we decided that one of us needed to go into the hospital the next morning. Harvey says he will go, and I get to bed finally, stress level 100 and climbing.

  Wednesday 29 June 2005

  Corin very subdued and depressed.

  I am awake at 3.00 a.m.

  There is nothing to look forward to anymore. I am worried about mortgage payments and C’s tax in January.

  I am worried about him coming home although he must come home. But I’ve no idea how I’ll manage.

  Very lonely.

  Thursday 30 June 2005

  Corin and I talk about being in King Lear and Pericles and their ‘journeys’ of discovery. Losing themselves, or being lost to the world. How Corin’s journey was a real one and how interesting it would be, he could write about it and tell us what it had been like. At the moment he doesn’t remember anything about either production.

  Jason, the Irish Staff nurse, says Corin is very clever and bluffs a lot of the time.

  Corin had written about King Lear earlier that year, before his cardiac arrest:

  ‘My first encounter with King Lear was at Stratford more than half a lifetime ago. I was thirteen.

  ‘…My second encounter was when I played Lear for Radio 3 in 2001. Remembering that my mother had played Regan to my father’s Lear, the director Cherry Cookson asked my wife, Kika Markham, to play her for the broadcast.

  ‘I had been diagnosed recently with prostate cancer and had begun a course of drug therapy in preparation for six weeks of radiotherapy. Prostate cancer develops from an imbalance of testosterone, and in essence the chemical treatment, which in my case was a drug called Casodex, works by inhibiting the production of testosterone. Over time this enhances a man’s secondary female characteristics. My hair, which had been slowly and steadily thinning since I left university, started to thicken. My chest hair became fine and downy instead of coarse and thick.

  ‘These feminising traits, with others that are even less welcome, are reversed when the treatment is over. But they were only beginning when we started to record Lear. I was aghast. Nothing in the literature, nor in the accounts of fellow patients, had prepared me for the psychological effect of these changes. I hated my drug. It was a large round white tablet, and so powerful that it seemed to kick me in the chest, five minutes after swallowing it. I had heard of patients who were still taking the drug years after the onset of the illness, and I swore to myself that I would stop taking it after the radiotherapy, whatever the consequences. (I did stop, and am still going strong.)

  ‘So at one level, and thanks to Cherry Cookson’s production, I have a deeper and more personal understanding of Lear than I might have acquired at some other time. It is this: Lear has a great fear of the feminine side of his nature. At every critical juncture in the conflict with his daughters, his anxiety and dread are that he will betray his masculinity by crying, and when that happens he is devastated.

  Lear: I’ll tell thee:

  (TO GONERIL.)

  Life and death! I am ashamed

  That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus;

  That these hot tears, which break from me perforce,

  Should make thee worth them. Blasts and fogs upon thee!

  Th’untented woundings of a father’s curse
r />   Pierce every sense about thee!

  ‘Lear is terrified of the mother, i.e. the woman, within him:

  Oh, how this mother swells up toward my heart!

  Hysterica passio, down thou climbing sorrow!

  ‘Scholarly notes explain that according to ideas of anatomy at this time, hysterica passio begins in the womb (hysteria in Greek), and climbs, via the heart, to the patient’s throat, suffocating him. Yes, but Lear’s invocation also describes perfectly how I was hit in the chest by Casodex, and the psychological trauma of being overcome by the woman inside.

  ‘Perhaps it was because of these experiences with Casodex, or maybe because of a son’s inevitable wish to do things differently from his father and establish his superiority, that I found I could remember almost nothing of his performance when I came to play Lear last year at the RSC. Only the wig and the costume, the cursing of his daughters and the final entry with Cordelia in his arms.