Any warm feelings I still had left for my father evaporated as I read my mother’s diary. Mum’s experiences resonated so deeply they eclipsed his. I identified with this optimistic, intelligent young woman who was thwarted, dominated and bullied by the men she was involved with and restricted by the society she was born into. A woman whose life was shrapnelled with so many petty injustices that – despite her attempts to remain strong and positive – her faith in people and her mental health were damaged by their accumulation. Just before she died I asked Mum to come back and visit me if ghosts existed. She promised she would, but even as I said it I thought, For God’s sake, give her some peace. I hope she’s having a rest. I hope you’re having a nice rest, Mum. (No sightings yet.)
Two days after the scene in the care home, before I’d read Mum’s diary, I was sitting on the top deck of the 55 bus, staring out of the window, daydreaming, when I got a phone call from the police. The manager of the care home must have told them what transpired that night. Now I’m for it, I thought. The policeman asked if I wanted to press charges against my sister for GBH (grievous bodily harm). I was so surprised it wasn’t me who was in trouble that I said, ‘But I hit her first!’ I was aware I sounded like a child. He explained that as my injury was potentially life-changing and my sister’s wasn’t, mine was more serious and I could prosecute her. As he talked, an idea that had been hovering at the edge of my mind for the last few months crashed to the front of my brain and became a certainty. We were set up. That night was years in the making. It wasn’t her fault, said a voice in my head. I can’t believe it took me so long to figure it out, or that it struck me for the first time on the top deck of the 55 as a policeman gave me the option to take my sister to court. Not only was Mum’s Last Night not Pascale’s fault, the friction between us wasn’t her fault either.
The combined circumstances of Mum and Lucien both being dead and Pascale being out of my life created a place to stand and look back at my life, without the clutter of my family and their baggage blocking the view. From this new perspective I began to form the hypothesis that it wasn’t only a clash of personalities that had set Pascale and me at each other for so many years, like Mum had always tried to make out. It was also our parents, their games, their mistakes, the time that they, and we, were born into, and our family’s mental health status (all on the autistic spectrum).
… in many cases those who trespass against you do so out of a misery that means the punishment preceded and even precipitated the crime.
Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby, 2013
Realising it wasn’t all Pascale’s fault that Mum’s Last Night turned ugly, or that we never got along, was not a comforting revelation. I now had nothing to shield my emotions from the doubt and shame that rose up every time I thought about my behaviour that evening. It occurred to me that I was not being a good mother that night after all, I was just being ruthless. Maybe I just wanted Mum’s death all to myself.
I didn’t prosecute Pascale, and my thumb healed after a few months, but I haven’t played guitar since that night, not even picked it up and looked at it.
That moment of realisation on the 55 bus has helped rekindle the love I felt for Pascale when we were young children. The love I had for her, which was buried for so long under conflicts and rivalries, has resurfaced. I feel such tenderness towards her now, and I wish her well in all she does. I think she may even feel the same towards me.
Nine months after Mum’s death I had another book launch to make up for the one that didn’t happen. Faber organised a party at Natalie Galustian’s Rare Books, a little bookshop in Cecil Court. I was happy and excited. Vida was with me, Eryk was coming, I had my hair up in a French plait. Walking down the narrow street lined with rare book shops and places selling old coins, cigarette cards and first editions (apparently the inspiration for Diagon Alley in Harry Potter), Vida on my arm, not sad about Mum’s death, I felt reborn. The window, dressed by Theresa Boden, was piled with giant gingerbread biscuits iced with chapter titles from my book, and posters, T-shirts, Terry de Havilland shoes and roller skates from the 1970s were strewn about the store. The room became so crowded, hot and sweaty that people spilled out onto the pavement even though it was February. We all looked like we had orange socks, trousers and tights on as our legs were lit from underneath by the pavement lights.
59 I lifted two plates down from the aluminium shelf and put them on the table, wondering why all my crockery is white. I like other people’s floral and patterned plates but never buy them myself. I’d rather not live in old buildings or rooms with cosy furnishings, clutter and cosy little nooks either. I need my surroundings to be simple, I want to know what’s going on in the corners. The scone slid out of the bag onto the plate, unleashing an avalanche of crumbs. I ate them up later, collected them on the pad of a licked forefinger, then scooped all remaining smears of butter from the knife and sucked the whole lot off my finger. It didn’t make up for the scone being gone but it was a consolation.
When I was little my balloon burst as we were walking home from a children’s party one afternoon. I saw a balloon about once a year so it was a huge loss. Mum bent down, picked the flaccid piece of rubber off the pavement, stretched it tight across her lips and twisted it as she sucked in her breath. Then she tied the old piece of string tightly around the little piece of rubber dangling from her lips and pulled a miniature balloon out of her mouth. She said the balloon had had a baby, it was a baby balloon. I stopped crying and trailed it after me all the way home. A baby balloon.
I cut a small triangle off the edge of the scone, gouged a scoop of lightly salted Danish butter out of the tub and trowelled it on like a bricklayer slathering cement onto a wall. Much too much butter, almost the same quantity of butter as scone, but as Nora Ephron’s mother said, ‘You can never have too much butter.’* Then I placed the whole mess on my tongue, closed my eyes – tastebuds on high alert for a fleck of salt – and let the damp earthy sponge, hardly sweet at all, meld into the creamy-cool butter. An unexpected spike of cold, tart apple shocked me. I opened my eyes with a start. I’d forgotten there was apple in there.
Burn the Diaries†
I have my mother’s mouth and
my father’s eyes; on my face
they are
still together.
Warsan Shire, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth, 2011
Kathleen’s little green bag and Lucien’s big brown bag are in my shed now, laid to rest, side by side. The truth isn’t in one bag or the other. In my head or Pascale’s head. The truth isn’t in one bag, one head, one heart or one mind. Truth is splintered. I’m tempted to leave the bags in the shed in case I need them again one day. I’m not going to though, for Vida’s sake. I don’t want her to inherit the diaries and have to decide what to do with them when I’m dead. I want to give her no choice at all. I’m the parent, I’ll take responsibility and make the decision. Enough of the story is written here if she’s interested.
I know, I’ll burn the diaries.
NB: Get Magnus to help, he likes making fires. As soon as this book is finished. Do it.
* Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck, 2006
† Moyra Davey and Alison Strayer, Burn the Diaries, 2014
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Sally OJ (Orson Jones), my first reader and a constant guide and rock throughout the writing of this book. Thanks also to Trace Newton Ingham, my intelligent, loyal and inspirational friend, for the time and forbearance she puts into me, and for the many conversations she put into this book. For his patience, enthusiasm and unwavering belief in me I wish to thank my editor, Lee Brackstone. I also wish to thank Ella Griffiths, Dan Papps, Hannah Marshall, Kate Ward, Dave Watkins, Mitzi Angel, Stephen Page, the talented and patient Donna Payne, the art department and everyone who worked on this book at Faber & Faber. Thanks too to Ian Bahrami for his meticulous proofreading. Thank you to my agent Georgia Garrett for her advice and encouragement and for all the suppo
rt I receive from Rogers, Coleridge and White Literary Agency. Thanks to Alice Fox, who kindly read my manuscript and offered many rigorous and insightful observations, and to Kate Murray-Browne for her suggestions.
Special thanks to Graham Rodgers at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, for tracking down the facts about my uncle Charlie.
For their friendship and interest in this book, I also thank Oliver Curtis, Jet, Lindsay Shapero, Sinead Gleeson, Suzie Robertson and Tom Hunter.
And to my dear daughter, thank you for being you, and for showing me how to love.
*
All photographs are by the author, except pages 95, 184, 260 and 279, which are by Arla Albertine, and pages 16, 84 and 134 (unknown). Back cover photograph of the author by Carolina Ambida.
List of permissions:
p. 1 ‘To be an artist …’: Louise Bourgeois, diary entry, 27 August 1984. © The Easton Foundation/VAGA, NY. Reprinted in Louise Bourgeois: Destruction of the Father, Reconstruction of the Father: Writings and Interviews, 1923–1997, eds Marie-Laure Bernadac and Hans Ulrich Obrist (London: Violette Editions, 1998), 131.
p. 9 ‘Goethe is not alone …’: Maggie Nelson, Bluets. © Maggie Nelson, 2009. All rights reserved. Published by Wave Books, 2009, and Jonathan Cape, 2017. Used by kind permission of the author.
p. 33 ‘I became the receptacle …’: Violette Leduc, La Bâtarde. © Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1964.
p. 35 ‘You are a woman with a man inside …’: Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride. © Margaret Atwood, 1993. Published by Bloomsbury Publishing plc.
p. 48 ‘Bad girls aren’t villains …’: Judy Berman, ‘The Cool Girls, Good Girls and Bad Girls of Modern Books’, Guardian books blog, 28 May 2016. © Judy Berman. Used by kind permission of the author.
p. 50 ‘I am never proud to participate in violence …’: Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter. © Maya Angelou, 2007. Reproduced by kind permission of Little, Brown Book Group and Penguin Random House.
p. 58 ‘I am become a hard …’: extract from Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley. © Agnes Smedley, reprinted by permission of Pollinger Limited (www.pollingerltd.com) on behalf of the Estate of Agnes Smedley.
p. 69 ‘… the amount of maintenance …’: Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck, published by Doubleday. Reproduced by kind permission of The Random House Group Ltd © 2007. © Nora Ephron, 2006. Reprinted by permission of ICM Partners.
p. 71 ‘Body hair, for many of us …’: Aisha Mirza, ‘On Being Mad, Brown, and Hairy’, Gal-dem magazine, 18 October 2016 (www.gal-dem.com). © Aisha Mirza, 2016.
p. 89 ‘recruited him to serve my loss’: excerpt from H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. © 2014 Helen Macdonald. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited.
p. 91 ‘One lie, one broken promise …’: excerpt from The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, PhD. © Martha Stout, 2005. Used by permission of Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
p. 97 ‘… sometimes the key arrives long before the lock’: Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby. © Rebecca Solnit, 2013. Reproduced by permission of Granta Publications. Excerpt from The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit. © Rebecca Solnit, 2013. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
p. 107 ‘For women with autism …’: Nicola Clark, ‘I Was Diagnosed with Autism in My 40s. It’s Not Just a Male Condition’, Guardian opinion section, 30 August 2016. © Nicola Clark. Used by kind permission of the author.
p. 117 ‘For a moment we glared at each other …’: Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl. © Philippa Gregory Ltd, 2001. All rights reserved. Used by kind permission of the author.
p. 120 ‘Suppose you saw your mother …’: Louise Glück, ‘A Fable’, in The First Five Books of Poems, 1997. © Louise Glück. Printed with permission from Carcanet Press Limited, Manchester, UK.
‘A Fable’, from Ararat (as collected in Poems 1962–2012 by Louise Glück). © Louise Glück, 2012.
p. 127 ‘… her death had released us all …’: Nora Ephron, I Remember Nothing. © Nora Ephron, 2010. Reproduced by permission of ICM Partners.
p. 136 ‘Death Is Smaller Than I Thought’: from In Person: 30 Poets, edited by Neil Astley, published by Bloodaxe Books, 2008. © The Estate of Adrian Mitchell. Reproduced by the kind permission of United Agents on behalf of The Estate of Adrian Mitchell.
p. 137 ‘My mother composed me as I now compose her’: excerpt from Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel. © Alison Bechdel, 2012. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
p. 140 ‘I think being a mother is the cruellest thing in the world’: Nella Larsen, Passing. © Nella Larsen. Used by kind permission of Dover Books and Serpent’s Tail.
p. 162 ‘If I was bound for hell …’: Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea. First published by André Deutsch, 1966. Published by Penguin Books, 1968, 1997. Reprinted in Penguin Classics, 2000. © Jean Rhys, 1966. All rights reserved.
p. 165 ‘They are sisters, savages …’: Louise Glück, ‘Confession’, in The First Five Books of Poems, 1997. © Louise Glück. Printed with permission from Carcanet Press Limited, Manchester, UK.
‘Confession’ from Ararat (as collected in Poems 1962–2012 by Louise Glück). © Louise Glück, 2012.
p. 177 ‘while from my mother’s …’: James Schuyler, ‘The Morning of the Poem’. © James Schuyler. Used by kind permission of The Estate of James Schuyler.
p. 208 ‘Children remember things …’: Violette Leduc, La Bâtarde. © Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1964.
p. 217 ‘You don’t have favourites …’: Zadie Smith, On Beauty. First published by Hamish Hamilton, 2005. Published by Penguin Books, 2006. © Zadie Smith, 2005. Used by kind permission of the author.
p. 225 ‘being attracted to that which destroys us …’: Virginie Despentes, King Kong Theory. Published by The Feminist Press, 2010, and translated by Stéphanie Benso. © Virginie Despentes. Used by kind permission of The Feminist Press.
p. 280 ‘When I began to write our story down …’: extract from The End of the Affair © Graham Greene, 1951, published by Vintage Classics, reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates.
p. 282 ‘… in many cases those who trespass against you …’: Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby. © Rebecca Solnit, 2013. Reproduced by permission of Granta Publications. Excerpt from The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit. © Rebecca Solnit, 2013. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
p. 285 ‘I have my mother’s …’: acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint an extract from Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth (2011) by Warsan Shire. © Warsan Shire, 2011. Used by permission of flipped eye publishing.
Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers would be pleased to rectify any omissions or errors brought to their notice at the earliest opportunity.
About the Author
Songwriter and musician Viv Albertine was the guitarist in cult post-punk band The Slits. She was a key player in British counter-culture before working as a director. Her first solo album The Vermilion Border was released in 2012, and her memoir, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys was a Sunday Times, Mojo, Rough Trade, and NME Book of the Year, as well as being shortlisted for the National Book Awards.
Also by the Author
Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys
Copyright
First published in the UK in 2018
by Faber & Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
Published in the USA in 2018
This ebook edition first published in 2018
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All rights reserved
© Viv Albertine, 2018
Cover design by Faber
The right of Viv Albertine to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–32623–5
To Throw Away Unopened Page 24
