:02:49. > :02:53.That's why there were some news stories and in that selection as
:02:53. > :03:02.well? Yeah. Can I ask you something, why do you think people are so
:03:02. > :03:12.curious about you? Well, I try not to be aware of that. I don't know
:03:12. > :03:14.
:03:14. > :03:16.why. I think maybe... Have we "...one of our most foremost
:03:16. > :03:19.writers, someone once described as a scandalous woman writing
:03:19. > :03:21.scandalous novels." "Her books were instantly banned in the country of
:03:22. > :03:31.her birth." "...a reputation for being something of a playgirl of
:03:32. > :03:33.
:03:33. > :03:36.the western world." Ladies and gentlemen, Edna O'Brien. Hello, on
:03:36. > :03:38.tonight's programme we go to Abu Dhabi with Edna O'Brien. "A
:03:38. > :03:40.successful novelist, Ms O'Brien is full of frank and provocative
:03:41. > :03:44.ideas..." "Ireland's top-selling lady novelist." Which personal vice
:03:44. > :03:54.gives you most satisfaction? think occasional adultery. Like
:03:54. > :04:00.once a year. I was longing to go with you, but I wasn't brought by
:04:00. > :04:06.you. If I'm referring to my mum and I say, "Oh, she's writing a book or
:04:06. > :04:09.something." People go, "What does she do?" And I say, "She's a
:04:10. > :04:13.writer." Then they always go, "Would we have heard of her?" So I
:04:13. > :04:16.say, "Well, it's Edna O'Brien," and they either go, "Oh right, or they
:04:16. > :04:22.go no! No! You quite threw me by that for a moment. There's a
:04:22. > :04:26.question lurking in the back of my mind. Usually, they ask me the
:04:26. > :04:36.question and I say yes and then they look at me and they go, "Is he
:04:36. > :05:00.
:05:00. > :05:03.I like this part of London, Chelsea. It's smaller. It's on a scale.
:05:03. > :05:10.They're costly houses. I couldn't buy one, but they are costly houses.
:05:11. > :05:14.But it's shabby enough as well. And you see people, older with walking
:05:14. > :05:17.frames and small shops, it has that terrible cliche, it has the remains
:05:17. > :05:21.of a village life. I know my neighbours across the road in No 1
:05:21. > :05:31.and they come and have a little drink every four or five weeks. I
:05:31. > :05:31.
:05:31. > :05:34.know a lovely neighbour next door to me who's quiet. Very important.
:05:34. > :05:39.My mother had a great fear of landlords. Well, I have inherited
:05:39. > :05:46.not only the fear of it, but the actuality of it. I believe there
:05:46. > :05:49.are happy houses and unhappy houses. This is a very happy little house.
:05:49. > :05:54.It's not that I have not shed the odd tear in this house, but that's
:05:54. > :06:04.different. It's a little nest and the world outside, when I want to
:06:04. > :06:11.
:06:12. > :06:17.meet it, I meet it and when I want I don't love living in London. I
:06:17. > :06:24.feel lonely in London. I would perhaps feel lonely in Ireland, so
:06:24. > :06:29.let me say that also. I don't feel part of any literary scene, to tell
:06:29. > :06:32.you the truth. You see, literary scenes can be very over-rated, to
:06:32. > :06:42.put it mildly. Joyce said it, "Don't talk to me about literature,
:06:42. > :06:46.
:06:46. > :06:49.'They were driven a few miles north to where a group of young men were
:06:49. > :06:53.digging a long trench for the electricity cables to be put in
:06:53. > :06:56.later on. At first sight, it was hard not to imagine those young men,
:06:56. > :06:59.young though they were, destined for all eternity to be kept digging
:06:59. > :07:05.some never-ending grave.' I was given the inspiration by Sasha, who,
:07:05. > :07:08.I suppose, knows me better than anyone in the world. And Sasha said
:07:08. > :07:12.he thought I would have both a curiosity and an empathy with these
:07:12. > :07:20.men who had come around the same time as I did, or a bit earlier or
:07:20. > :07:30.a bit later. And lived in their own sort of ghettos and they also had
:07:30. > :07:36.
:07:36. > :07:40.'I thought of the Shovel Kings and their names suddenly materialised
:07:40. > :07:42.before me, as in a litany. Haulie, Murph, Moleskin Muggavin, Turnip
:07:42. > :07:52.O'Mara, Whiskey Tip, Oranmore Joe, Teaboy Teddy Accordion Bill,
:07:52. > :08:03.
:08:03. > :08:13.Rafferty and countless others, gone to dust.' I have to say that since
:08:13. > :08:19.
:08:19. > :08:22.Sasha is an architect, I've taken The one thing I didn't want to do
:08:22. > :08:25.was be a writer. When my mum moved to Ovington Street, there were a
:08:25. > :08:29.great number of books. The books were all over the place, piled up
:08:29. > :08:32.on tables, so I said, "Well, if you're moving into this house, what
:08:32. > :08:37.you need is a library and so we're going to design you a beautiful
:08:37. > :08:40.library." Then obviously we had all the shelves made and the walls and
:08:40. > :08:48.the floor painted red. commemoration of Anton Chekhov and
:08:48. > :08:58.Russia. I always hope and endeavour to work as soon as I get up. Once I
:08:58. > :09:02.
:09:02. > :09:05.go to my desk, I'm there. And if I'm lucky, I can start. I write in
:09:05. > :09:11.my little notebooks, this is Stage One, and then that is so illegible,
:09:11. > :09:16.that is like... I don't know, as if it was written by an animal or
:09:17. > :09:24.scrawl, scrawl, scrawl! I transfer that to the clean sheet of Merrion
:09:24. > :09:27.Hotel paper. For a time, I used to take a few pages and eventually,
:09:27. > :09:35.Bernie O'Meara, who is a wonderful woman there, she said, "Why don't
:09:36. > :09:39.we give you a bale of it?" So I came home with the bale, and this
:09:39. > :09:42.is true, the Merrion Hotel paper. I also have one from over in
:09:42. > :09:47.Connemara, Ballynahinch, but I didn't steal as much of that. I
:09:47. > :09:54.didn't get the chance, really! And that's very important. The paper,
:09:54. > :10:04.the pen, the silence. When I do sit down to write, I am very tense.
:10:04. > :10:14.
:10:14. > :10:24.An abiding memory of childhood is her writing by hand and talking as
:10:24. > :10:26.
:10:26. > :10:29.she writes. Steps to Parnassus had The verbal articulation and the
:10:29. > :10:37.transmission of material from the psyche out through the fingers and
:10:37. > :10:45.onto paper are all inextricably bound up. Scarrup...that's the word.
:10:45. > :10:55.Then revision takes place and she's a fiendish and obsessive reviser.
:10:55. > :10:58.
:10:58. > :11:01.I remember lying in bed going to sleep when I was very small and I
:11:01. > :11:04.could hear the clicking of the typewriter, and the ching! And it
:11:04. > :11:14.always was a very comforting sound. Yes. Also, I cooked a bit of dinner
:11:14. > :11:14.
:11:14. > :11:18.and things. Oh no, you did all that 'She wanted to go home, not to
:11:18. > :11:20.London to the pipes of light, but home to the race to which she
:11:20. > :11:23.belonged. And then she shivered uncontrollably, knowing that their
:11:23. > :11:30.thoughts were no longer hers. She had vanished back into childhood
:11:30. > :11:33.and the dark springs of her terrors.' I was born in a blue room
:11:33. > :11:36.in our house, which is Drewsborough House, and it was equi-distant
:11:36. > :11:43.between two small hamlets, or villages. One was Tuamgraney and
:11:43. > :11:49.the other was Scariff, County Clare. I thought of Drewsborough as being
:11:49. > :11:52.a bit of a mansion when I was growing up. They had been to
:11:52. > :11:56.America, so it had some of those influences - the bay windows, a
:11:56. > :12:01.vestibule. No-one else had a vestibule. I'm still not sure what
:12:01. > :12:10.a vestibule means! And the tiled floors and stained glass. Oh, yes,
:12:10. > :12:18.it was grand and it was also beautiful. In the house was my
:12:18. > :12:26.mother and father, my brother, John. I think who saw himself as a bit of
:12:26. > :12:30.a toff. My sister Patsy, my sister Eileen, me. I think I always felt
:12:30. > :12:35.the ghost of a child that died before me who was called Mary. I
:12:35. > :12:43.always felt she was somewhere, in a wardrobe or something. Well, I was
:12:43. > :12:46.a bit loopy. But most lovingly of all, there was our workman Torpey.
:12:46. > :12:56.And I loved Torpey and I used to say, at a very young age, "I'm
:12:56. > :12:59.
:12:59. > :13:03.going to marry Torpey and we will live in the chicken run." I thought
:13:03. > :13:10.our dining room, which, by the way, no plate ever was set down on the
:13:10. > :13:15.table there, I used to call it heaven. I was very fanciful and I
:13:15. > :13:20.would sit in that dining room. That was the happiest room, because no-
:13:20. > :13:23.one ever went into it much. Then across from it there was what was
:13:23. > :13:27.called the vacant room. My mother stored apples there, all along the
:13:27. > :13:37.kerbs of the fire and the room always smelt that sort of cidery
:13:37. > :13:37.
:13:37. > :13:47.smell, even when the apples were gone, of apple. Every room contains
:13:47. > :14:00.
:14:00. > :14:04.I was with my agent, Ed Victor, one day and the question was what to
:14:05. > :14:13.write next. I'd finished Saints and Sinners. And he said, "Why don't
:14:13. > :14:19.you write a memoir?" A memoir is a hard thing to do. We'reloudly. No,
:14:19. > :14:29.actually, try, "With triumph". Edna, it's all-consuming, really.
:14:29. > :14:30.
:14:30. > :14:33.Oh, Edna will delete pages sometimes, paragraphs and
:14:33. > :14:36.paragraphs and I'll say, "No, I want this," and she'll say, "Keep
:14:36. > :14:39.going, keep going," and she'll just... You're very sure what
:14:39. > :14:43.doesn't work. I think I'm probably very unsure, that I have to work so
:14:43. > :14:46.hard to get it right. Yeah. These are photographs, a bit of a collage,
:14:46. > :14:50.that Faber, my publisher, put together as to see what would be an
:14:50. > :14:52.ideal photograph for my memoir, on the cover. I never look the same in
:14:52. > :15:02.any single photograph, which must be an indication of a mental
:15:02. > :15:03.
:15:03. > :15:10.condition. This one of Mama and Dada, as I called them, my mother
:15:10. > :15:17.and father and myself, I'm delighted to have found. We found
:15:17. > :15:21.it this morning. It is one of the few photographs I have of home.
:15:21. > :15:24.Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling, from glen to glen and
:15:24. > :15:34.down the mountainside. # The summer's gone and all the leaves
:15:34. > :15:34.
:15:34. > :15:42.have fallen # Ah, my father. Who was my father?
:15:42. > :15:48.A tall man, a wounded man and a yearning man, I would say. He had a
:15:48. > :15:58.sort of wild streak and also an untameable streak probably. He did
:15:58. > :16:04.not want to be tamed and was, all his life, a fanatic about horses.
:16:04. > :16:10.He also was a drinker. He wasn't what you'd call a genial drinker.
:16:10. > :16:13.He was a very angry drinker. I was afraid of him. I was the last child
:16:13. > :16:16.and maybe because I was the last child, or maybe because of my
:16:16. > :16:25.nature, my mother was almost affixed to me, if you know what I
:16:25. > :16:35.mean. And I was her little protectress when there were rows or
:16:35. > :16:36.
:16:36. > :16:39.scenes. And naturally, he hated that. And I think, if you were to
:16:39. > :16:46.ask my sister, he was very fond of her, she was his favourite, he
:16:46. > :16:50.called her Whitehead, my sister, Eileen. With me, he was harder on
:16:50. > :17:00.me and maybe part of it was my character in that I saw everything
:17:00. > :17:11.
:17:11. > :17:16.She was always very cute as a little girl. And would ask you a
:17:16. > :17:21.lot of questions. She was very quick to spot anything unusual.
:17:21. > :17:24.I think he did not like that. Ironically, when the books were
:17:24. > :17:34.published and the brouhaha scenario came on, he wasn't particularly
:17:34. > :17:34.
:17:34. > :17:38.cross about them at all. Because he wasn't as religious as my mother,
:17:38. > :17:42.you see. And there's one story he was very proud to tell. He moved
:17:42. > :17:49.from the horses to the cattle to make a few bob and this buyer said,
:17:49. > :17:55."Did your daughter write August Is A Wicked Month?" And my father said,
:17:55. > :18:04."Yes she did." And your man says, "I bet you had a page out of that,"
:18:04. > :18:14.meaning a few bob. And my father said, "No, I had two." It was his
:18:14. > :18:19.
:18:19. > :18:22.way of saying to me, "I stood up 'Suddenly one rainy day, as we
:18:22. > :18:26.walked down the side of the Liffey towards the Customs House, he said,
:18:26. > :18:29."Have I ever kissed you?" And he kissed me quite abruptly. I felt
:18:29. > :18:33.faintly sick and giddy and have no idea whether that kiss was quick or
:18:33. > :18:43.prolonged. I loved that part of Dublin then, and forever, because
:18:43. > :18:43.
:18:43. > :18:47.it was there that I had laid my lips to the image of him that I had
:18:47. > :18:52.created.' Everyone moved to Dublin when they were 18 if they could, or
:18:52. > :19:02.17 I think I was. I thought Dublin would open me up to all sorts of
:19:02. > :19:07.excitements, giddiness and literature. I came to be an
:19:07. > :19:14.assistant in a pharmacy. It was my parents' and my brother's decision
:19:14. > :19:21.for me. In those days, you worked for free in a chemist's shop to
:19:21. > :19:28.learn the trade. To learn to pack the shelves, put Glauber salts into
:19:28. > :19:32.tiny bags, boric powder, weigh babies that were brought in. I was
:19:32. > :19:35.always afraid I would drop these babies. So you learn that and you
:19:35. > :19:44.go to lectures at night, where you are supposed to be really learning
:19:44. > :19:50.about the medicines and the properties of the medicines. I was
:19:50. > :19:55.telephoned by a journalist called John Ross. He said he was with some
:19:55. > :20:04.people in a pub in Henry Street and one of them was a writer. A writer!
:20:04. > :20:08.Oh, a writer? Meeting a writer was like getting a plenary indulgence.
:20:08. > :20:13.You become a writer. And I went on my bicycle and Ernest Gebler was
:20:13. > :20:23.there. He was a very engaging man, a very good-looking man. And a very
:20:23. > :20:26.persuasive man. And, to me, he was a very...um... He was an
:20:26. > :20:30.intellectual, that is the truth, he was, but he also seemed very
:20:30. > :20:36.cosmopolitan. He'd been to Hollywood, he'd been to New York.
:20:36. > :20:46.He'd been to places and he spoke very fluently. I was bedazzled, I
:20:46. > :20:49.
:20:49. > :20:55.My mother was informed by an anonymous letter that I was going
:20:55. > :20:58.out with a married man. He had been married. Who was also a communist.
:20:58. > :21:06.And if you read the Irish papers of that time and the dictums of
:21:06. > :21:11.Archbishop McQuaid, communism was mentioned every minute. Sex and
:21:11. > :21:20.communism were the two things. So that I very hastily and nervously
:21:20. > :21:23.left the chemist's shop in my white coat, with no money in my pocket. I
:21:23. > :21:26.had qualified, so I could have taken my salary, but I literally
:21:26. > :21:29.walked out of the chemist shop, down the back garden and out
:21:29. > :21:39.through back streets to get a bus to where Ernest Gebler lived, which
:21:39. > :21:47.
:21:47. > :21:52.I was with a man who was 20 years older, Sigmund Freud would say a
:21:52. > :21:57.father figure. That would be true in some part. I was happy with the
:21:57. > :22:07.man that I, in a sense, had run towards. But I was also frightened
:22:07. > :22:12.
:22:12. > :22:16.of. He was a quite controlling man and I saw that very early on. He
:22:16. > :22:19.knew that I wanted to write, but I don't think he thought I would
:22:19. > :22:28.achieve it, because again I was a little bit flowery and quoting bits
:22:28. > :22:35.of poetry and all that. But he gave me a subscription to a library,
:22:35. > :22:45.which was in Switzer's in Dublin at that time. And that was the first
:22:45. > :22:48.
:22:48. > :22:51.time I read Scott Fitzgerald, with It was a beautiful book, but sad.
:22:51. > :22:55.It was called Tender Is The Night. I skipped half of the words in my
:22:55. > :22:58.anxiety to read it quickly, because I wanted to know if the man would
:22:58. > :23:04.leave the woman or not. All the nicest men were in books, the
:23:04. > :23:07.strange, complex, romantic men, the ones I admired most.' My mother was
:23:07. > :23:13.writing and sending people. My sister came to know when I was
:23:13. > :23:17.going to get married. I was also pregnant. My son Carlo is not
:23:17. > :23:24.ashamed of that. I'm his mother - whether I'm in marriage, in wedlock,
:23:24. > :23:27.in or out. Well, it wasn't a white wedding! It wasn't a June wedding.
:23:27. > :23:32.It was in Blanchardstown. There were men building, men on ladders,
:23:32. > :23:39.they were doing the roof, and they were the witnesses. Then I went to
:23:39. > :23:44.the Bailey restaurant with my husband and my sister Eileen came.
:23:44. > :23:54.And he had invited Valare Monger and his wife, Sheila. So that was
:23:54. > :24:11.
:24:11. > :24:21.Ernest was a writer himself and I think he felt he had failed or
:24:21. > :24:24.
:24:24. > :24:27.disappointed himself in not becoming a more poetic writer.
:24:27. > :24:34.Ernie was writing, or commencing, on a book called The Love
:24:34. > :24:37.Investigator. And he wanted to come to England. Subsequently, he said
:24:37. > :24:46.it was of my doing, but I had not really that much influence or
:24:46. > :24:49.authority over him, and that is the truth. I was delighted. I mean,
:24:49. > :24:53.when I heard we were coming to England, I envisioned Mayfair. Not
:24:53. > :25:03.that I knew what Mayfair was but I did envision something a bit more,
:25:03. > :25:14.
:25:14. > :25:20.My first memories of London were a crowded, hectic place, sooted,
:25:20. > :25:23.because it was Waterloo Station and the glass roof was all sooted. And
:25:23. > :25:33.even the pigeons waddling around, they were not sleek like birds in
:25:33. > :25:36.
:25:36. > :25:40.the country. And it was November 1958. I was with my little children
:25:40. > :25:50.and their father had come a few days earlier to install us in what
:25:50. > :25:52.I call outer-outer suburbia, in SW20. It was called Cannon Hill
:25:52. > :26:02.Lane and it was a little house, semi-detached, mock-Tudor I think
:26:02. > :26:07.
:26:07. > :26:14.is the name given to it. The cut from Ireland was so fierce
:26:14. > :26:24.internally. It was just like an inner cosmic loneliness of having
:26:24. > :26:31.
:26:31. > :26:35.cut off from what I had been and where I had been. I was very helped
:26:35. > :26:39.by a publisher, Ian Hamilton, who liked me very much, I can say that.
:26:39. > :26:43.I did not have a love affair with him. I can also say that, it's the
:26:43. > :26:52.truth. I liked him and I was grateful to him for giving me an
:26:52. > :26:55.advance of �50 to write a book. I sat down in my children's bedroom
:26:55. > :27:02.after I brought them to school each morning and began to write The
:27:02. > :27:11.Country Girls. And felt more emotion than I realised I was
:27:11. > :27:21.capable of. Yet the book itself - the language and the story - is
:27:21. > :27:27.
:27:27. > :27:31.volatile and has an energy which 'The black underwear was Baba's
:27:31. > :27:34.idea. She said that we wouldn't have to wash it so often and that
:27:34. > :27:38.it was useful if we ever had a street accident or if men were
:27:38. > :27:41.trying to strip us in the back of cars. Baba thought of all these
:27:41. > :27:45.things. I got black nylons too. I read somewhere that they were
:27:45. > :27:48.literary and I had written one or two poems since I came to Dublin. I
:27:48. > :27:51.read them to Baba, and she said they were nothing to the ones on
:27:51. > :27:54.mortuary cards.' I wrote the book very fast and in this severed state,
:27:54. > :28:04.severed from all my previous associations of rain and wind and
:28:04. > :28:10.
:28:10. > :28:15.smell and prayer and so on. And the book wrote itself. I gave him the
:28:15. > :28:25.manuscript and he read it and he said, "You can do it. And I will
:28:25. > :28:34.
:28:34. > :28:38.never forgive you." I didn't reply. My reply was that I remember it.
:28:38. > :28:41.Even here in London, if I take a taxi, if I go out at night, which
:28:41. > :28:48.is occasional, but I do seldom but sometimes, they always say, "Did
:28:48. > :28:51.you write The Country Girls?" They never say they read it. It's always
:28:51. > :28:57.their wife or their mother. It's usually their mother now. But it
:28:57. > :29:00.was a bit of a success and my husband could not take it. It was
:29:00. > :29:08.something, it was as if by doing it, I had taken his talents from under
:29:08. > :29:10.his feet. And he was both very shaken internally by it and very
:29:10. > :29:20.annoyed that, for all my flibbertigibet and idiocy or semi-
:29:20. > :29:25.
:29:25. > :29:28.idiocy and my cowering, that I was able to do it. I walked away from
:29:28. > :29:38.that marriage on that day, September 24th, 1962, because it
:29:38. > :29:38.
:29:38. > :29:48.was undeviatingly punishing and grim. I suppose I had reached a
:29:48. > :29:51.
:29:51. > :29:54.situation where I would either go 'She pictures her children, halved,
:29:54. > :29:57.quartered, torn between her husband and herself, her children asleep in
:29:57. > :30:01.her mother's house at that moment, oblivious of the rupture that is to
:30:01. > :30:11.come and powerless to stop this influx. She gets out of bed and
:30:11. > :30:12.
:30:12. > :30:19.kneels and prays. "Oh God, let me not crack. Oh, please God, let me
:30:19. > :30:29.not crack." There was a lot of tears at railway stations, bus
:30:29. > :30:41.
:30:41. > :30:47.stops, school gates, and fighting He asked me to sit down on the sofa.
:30:47. > :30:50.He gave me a bit of paper and a pencil. "Now, write a letter saying
:30:50. > :30:54.whether you want to go down the road marked Ernie or you want to go
:30:54. > :30:57.down the road marked Edna. You can either go down this road, which is
:30:57. > :30:59.the road of your father, which will mean you'll be normal, well-
:30:59. > :31:02.adjusted, psychologically balanced and a number of other virtuous
:31:02. > :31:06.things. Or you can go down this road, which is the road marked
:31:06. > :31:09.'your mother' and you will be a liar, corrupt, weak, you'll have a
:31:09. > :31:12.squint, you'll have no rigour, you'll be a mess. Those are your
:31:12. > :31:17.two choices and this is the time that you're now going to make the
:31:17. > :31:21.choice." Of course I want to be with my mother. It's much more fun
:31:21. > :31:27.being with her in Putney. We just are able to be boys. Whereas, when
:31:27. > :31:34.we were with my father, we were...erm... Well, there was an
:31:34. > :31:39.atmosphere of control and coercion. I said I wanted to go to my
:31:39. > :31:49.mother's house and be with my mother. There was no alternative.
:31:49. > :31:49.
:31:49. > :31:52.Oh, I think he was furious. Coldly furious. I did get the custody and
:31:52. > :32:00.I'm amazed I got it, because he had marshalled evidence against me that
:32:00. > :32:10.was like a ton of bricks. When I left him, I left whatever money I
:32:10. > :32:11.
:32:11. > :32:18.had earned - and it was quite a bit in those days. I never took it,
:32:18. > :32:27.because I never was allowed to take it. I very seldom saw Ernest Gebler
:32:27. > :32:31.after that. I saw him once in a taxi in Bond Street. And I saw him
:32:31. > :32:36.and it took me a second to recognise him. And I saw him two or
:32:36. > :32:46.three times in a nursing home in Dublin. And I wouldn't be phoney
:32:46. > :33:04.
:33:05. > :33:09.enough to pretend that there was At that time, London, it was
:33:09. > :33:13.actually the 1970s but it felt still like the 1960s. It was like a
:33:13. > :33:17.village. I knew a few actors, TP McKenna from Ireland. He introduced
:33:17. > :33:22.me to Sam Peckinpah. I go to a party of Sam Peckinpah's. I see
:33:22. > :33:25.Judy Garland. I invite these people to my house and then they brought
:33:25. > :33:29.other people. It was like a chain letter. It wasn't difficult at all.
:33:29. > :33:36.In fact, too many people came to these Saturday night parties. Judy
:33:36. > :33:39.Garland was brought by somebody, I can't remember who. She looked
:33:39. > :33:43.around this room and Sean Connery would have been there and Diane
:33:43. > :33:46.Cilento and RD Laing was there and Vadim and Jane Fonda. She looked so
:33:46. > :33:53.scared. And she came in, she took one look at this gathering and she
:33:53. > :33:57.put her arm on the escort who had brought her and they went out again.
:33:57. > :34:03.From my mother, oh God, I inherited this thing that the whole thing was
:34:03. > :34:09.best if I do it. I'd cook goose and make these things and blancmanges
:34:09. > :34:13.and all sorts of wonderful things. And I loved it and Carlo and Sasha
:34:13. > :34:15.loved it. They'd carry up these crates of drink. And I remember one
:34:15. > :34:20.night, the Tynans, whom I knew, Kenneth Tynan, they brought
:34:20. > :34:25.Princess Margaret and there was also another man with them. It
:34:25. > :34:27.wasn't Alex Douglas-Home, it was a brother. And I was sort of opening
:34:28. > :34:35.the door, seeing to two fires, opening bottles, having cooked all
:34:35. > :34:38.day. And Douglas-Home was very offended with me for not curtseying
:34:38. > :34:46.to Princess Margaret, because she did like being curtsied to, but
:34:46. > :34:53.really it's not possible if your hands are full. And I also feel
:34:53. > :34:58.that it's probably not necessary. I welcomed her and she had a lovely
:34:58. > :35:02.time and came again. I felt very at ease with Richard Burton. He was
:35:02. > :35:05.very engaging and he was a bard, there's no doubt about it. He was a
:35:05. > :35:15.living bard. Elizabeth Taylor was more - she was quite formidable
:35:15. > :35:17.
:35:17. > :35:20.with me. I was at a dinner of Leslie Caron's because she was
:35:20. > :35:26.going to do August Is A Wicked Month, in fact, with Laurence
:35:26. > :35:29.Harvey. Marlon Brando was at the dinner and he said he would drive
:35:29. > :35:33.me home. And Marlon Brando dismissed his chauffeur and I said,
:35:33. > :35:37."Don't dismiss your chauffeur, you won't get a taxi back." He said, "I
:35:37. > :35:43.don't want a taxi back." And Marlon Brando stayed, in my kitchen I
:35:43. > :35:50.would like to say and not in my bedroom. But he was a magnetic man
:35:50. > :35:59.and he was... So...animate. He was so full of stories and gifts and
:35:59. > :36:09.anger and beguilement. He was amazing. He was an amazing person
:36:09. > :36:10.
:36:10. > :36:20.to talk to. Yes, Robert Mitchum was also a wild man. I'm leaving it at
:36:20. > :36:21.
:36:21. > :36:23.It's upon her novels that her reputation largely rests. We have a
:36:23. > :36:27.unique introduction to her latest work published last month and
:36:27. > :36:30.called Night. A 'trip' she called it, and it is very worthy, which
:36:31. > :36:33.makes it all the more surprising a choice for a silent film, but
:36:34. > :36:42.that's what her son, Carlos Gebler, has been making during the school
:36:42. > :36:45.holidays. Night was a very deranged book, I think, for me to write. It
:36:45. > :36:55.was the dividing line between a particular kind of writing and a
:36:55. > :36:59.
:36:59. > :37:06.'The silences here are powerful. I can hear my own hair splitting.'
:37:06. > :37:15.had taken LSD with RD Laing. He was a maverick as a doctor and very
:37:15. > :37:19.gifted, but slightly mad himself. And I took the odd LSD with him.
:37:19. > :37:24.That I would not call therapy. It was a jolt to the mind and that's
:37:24. > :37:34.for sure. And to the brain. It was an axe going through the brain, it
:37:34. > :37:36.
:37:36. > :37:39.'And another thing I can hear is the salt, the little shiver salt
:37:39. > :37:49.gives as I sprinkle it onto my fork full of cabbage, or whatever I
:37:49. > :37:56.
:37:56. > :38:02.happen to be eating. I'm a divil I would say I know the first person
:38:02. > :38:09.that I was totally in love with was my mother. I was totally in love
:38:09. > :38:12.with my mother. I thought she had the most beautiful face. When she
:38:12. > :38:18.was young, I'd sit on her lap and write, because I thought the lines
:38:18. > :38:23.on her forehead were like the lines of a ruled copybook. And I would
:38:23. > :38:33.write little odes to her on her forehead. I mean, complete love.
:38:33. > :38:36.
:38:36. > :38:39.Affixiated love, or is that the I remember once she said, after
:38:39. > :38:43.coming from being out in the field, she says, "Oh, I was admiring those
:38:43. > :38:46.cows," she said. "Why, I said, what do you see in them?" "Oh, I think,"
:38:46. > :38:49.she said, "they're so happy. They have nothing to trouble them. I
:38:49. > :38:53.wish I was a cow." Because my brother and my sisters were older
:38:53. > :39:01.than I by a good bit, they were away at school when I was seven and
:39:01. > :39:10.eight and things began to, if you like, hit home. I was very much
:39:10. > :39:16.with her and I slept with her, in fact. We did have fear. We did have
:39:16. > :39:23.this fear hovering over us. And I remember once when we felt in
:39:23. > :39:28.danger from Dada and we went to her mother's. Rather stupidly, I went
:39:28. > :39:38.around the bus telling people the trouble we were in. My mother was
:39:38. > :39:40.
:39:41. > :39:48.furious with me. So she had that She was a quiet child, a rather sad
:39:48. > :39:57.person, I would think, but a very observant girl. While I was
:39:57. > :40:01.biddable and her child, she was... She was happy. But when I began to
:40:01. > :40:11.show signs of wanting to break away, not that one every fully does, to
:40:11. > :40:13.
:40:13. > :40:21.tell you the truth, she was very suspicious and prying. She felt,
:40:21. > :40:27.with cause, because I was so close to her, that she owned me. She did,
:40:27. > :40:30.till the day she died, love me so much. But she didn't understand
:40:30. > :40:40.that love has to have, with your own child, also you have to let
:40:40. > :40:40.
:40:40. > :40:50.them loose a bit. So that my subsequent history, like eloping,
:40:50. > :40:52.
:40:52. > :40:59.da, da, da, was very much the result of that. When I wrote, began
:40:59. > :41:03.to write, The Country Girls, of course it's set in that place. And
:41:03. > :41:09.it's steeped in the emotions and the feelings and the soda bread and
:41:09. > :41:16.the everything else of that place. Even if it had never been banned,
:41:16. > :41:23.even if it hadn't been banned at all, she just didn't like it.
:41:23. > :41:31.Because she confused openness with betrayal. She thought I had
:41:31. > :41:41.humiliated them. And she never tackled me too much, although I was
:41:41. > :41:49.
:41:49. > :41:52.very aware of it. I still went home, I'd like to just point out, my mum
:41:52. > :41:55.never sought to impose either a nationality or religion. It was
:41:55. > :42:01.like, "You decide". My grandmother was not quite like that and she was
:42:01. > :42:06.a very devout Catholic. Very. We would go on Sundays. To Mass.
:42:06. > :42:10.wouldn't go the twice a day that she went. No. And I would say,
:42:10. > :42:13."Don't go up to the front seat. We have to be back a few seats to see
:42:13. > :42:17.when people are standing up and getting down," because they were
:42:17. > :42:22.leaping up. Yes. And then, eventually, in her older years, my
:42:22. > :42:28.mother mellowed and so long as I went to Mass with her. Part of it
:42:28. > :42:34.was to do with neighbours as much as with God or Christianity. She
:42:34. > :42:38.would say, "Ah, we'll let them sleep in, aren't they princes?"
:42:38. > :42:48.She did like them very much and she allowed them not to go to Mass,
:42:48. > :42:48.
:42:48. > :42:52.even while fearing that their souls Edna, your idea of a night out.
:42:52. > :42:55.night out. A perfect night out. It would be to go out with the man I
:42:55. > :42:58.love, who was quite generous and bought some champagne and didn't
:42:58. > :43:08.say, "Oh, it cost 1.80 a glass," and, above all, didn't tell me how
:43:08. > :43:14.
:43:14. > :43:21.much he loved his wife. The money I got from the movie that wasn't good,
:43:21. > :43:27.Zee & Co, XY & Zee they called it somewhere else. I got �39,000 and I
:43:27. > :43:33.decided to move. I lived in Putney at that time and I had a lovely
:43:33. > :43:37.house on the river. But after Carlo and Sasha went away to school, I
:43:37. > :43:43.felt very cut off. In short, I wanted to move to Chelsea. Not
:43:43. > :43:47.because it was so fashionable, but because it was so full of life. We
:43:47. > :43:57.drove around and I came to this house in Carlyle Square and I said,
:43:57. > :43:59.
:43:59. > :44:02."Ah, this is the house I want." And I lived there for 15 years and,
:44:02. > :44:05.through my own improvidence, being a romantic in matters of love and I
:44:05. > :44:15.think somewhat mentally deficient in matters of money, I lost that
:44:15. > :44:17.
:44:17. > :44:25.house. And it was my stronghold. And every time I go by there, I
:44:25. > :44:31.look in at it. Talk of exile! I look in at it with such yearning
:44:31. > :44:41.and such passion and such anger and so on. So I did own that house. I
:44:41. > :44:45.
:44:45. > :44:49.It takes one at least two years, but it's usually four, to write a
:44:49. > :44:59.book. During that long and, for the most part, anxious stretch, there's
:44:59. > :45:01.
:45:01. > :45:05.no income. Unless you win a prize. So I haven't been all that lucky at
:45:05. > :45:09.winning. I did get one lately, but they haven't been showering in. I
:45:09. > :45:15.need money and I love to have my hair done and I love a nice drink
:45:15. > :45:18.and I love some of the things that money brings. Of course I do.
:45:18. > :45:21.Unfortunately, my thinking isn't directed in that way and the only
:45:21. > :45:31.things I can write are the stories that don't really have "Hollywood"
:45:31. > :45:41.
:45:41. > :45:48.written on them. Oh! Thank you very much. Hmm, this looks peculiar.
:45:48. > :45:54.Moscow! What can be coming from Moscow? But there's always these
:45:54. > :45:57.lovely things. It's a fairytale moment. I often say to Nadia when
:45:57. > :46:06.we turn on those old e-mails, or those new e-mails, "You never know,
:46:06. > :46:16.this might be an offer, a movie, a prize, a play." But in terms of
:46:16. > :46:17.
:46:17. > :46:20.just the everyday realities, it is hard. But then I say to myself, "OK,
:46:20. > :46:30.you chose this life, now you make what you can of it, because
:46:30. > :46:34.
:46:34. > :46:44.grumbling is no good." People say to me, "Well, your books have a
:46:44. > :46:46.
:46:46. > :46:56.darker hue now than they had." I would have to agree with that. I
:46:56. > :47:06.also find that you learn from each book you write. It's like a ladder
:47:06. > :47:10.
:47:10. > :47:13.and you start at the bottom of the 'Gardai in the Killaloe and Scariff
:47:13. > :47:16.areas are following up a number of reported sightings of Miss Riney.
:47:16. > :47:20.She was seen driving through the village with a man in her car last
:47:20. > :47:26.night' 'The wood is no longer the harmless place it once was, marked
:47:26. > :47:28.now as a human can be, marked by its violation, its wood memory. The
:47:28. > :47:31.habitation of their frightful pilgrimage, their hapless cries,
:47:31. > :47:41.three bodies soon to be wrapped in plastic and brought down to the
:47:41. > :47:42.
:47:42. > :47:50.waiting hearses. It was about eight years after the actual tragedy that
:47:50. > :47:53.I sat down to write the book. Well, I went back and back and back to
:47:53. > :48:03.that forest and imbibed what it would be on a warm day, carrying a
:48:03. > :48:07.
:48:07. > :48:17.child with a gun to your head. I mean, it's Calvary. It is the story
:48:17. > :48:20.
:48:20. > :48:24.of Calvary. And that's why I was 'I heard the voice of the devil
:48:24. > :48:29.saying. "Kill her, kill her". I said, we have to go to the woods.
:48:29. > :48:33.She tried to defy me. The gun was hid outside behind a tree. She
:48:33. > :48:36.didn't like it. She didn't want a gun around the child. I said, I'm
:48:36. > :48:46.only after getting it. I didn't think of killing her before that. I
:48:46. > :48:50.
:48:50. > :48:56.had no reason to.' People had a great fear. They had a great fear
:48:56. > :48:59.of the young man, as if somehow he had supernatural or demonic powers.
:48:59. > :49:09.Rather like in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, where suddenly this
:49:09. > :49:25.
:49:25. > :49:33.contagion of terror hits a whole I re-examined the wound and there
:49:33. > :49:36.were many people who felt hurt by that. And there were many who were
:49:36. > :49:39.not hurt by it within her circle, and that is the truth. The telling
:49:39. > :49:43.of something, if you tell it with some, I hope, feeling and, forgive
:49:43. > :49:53.the awful word but, some dignity about it, I don't think that's an
:49:53. > :49:56.
:49:56. > :50:06.act of harm or villainy. I don't. I think what I did was to commemorate
:50:06. > :50:15.
:50:15. > :50:19.something very terrible and not I love this street. Yeah? I love it.
:50:19. > :50:26.I come many Saturdays and I sit here, so now we know each other.
:50:26. > :50:33.Yes, I remember you. I had a burst appendix in the 1980s and I almost
:50:33. > :50:43.died, in fact. In short, I was brought by emergency by someone in
:50:43. > :50:47.the street and I was saved. I was saved. And ...touch wood. One of
:50:47. > :50:52.the visitors who came to see me was Desmond Davis, who had directed The
:50:52. > :50:55.Country Girls and Girl With Green Eyes. And he told me about Dr
:50:55. > :51:02.Alexander Newman, who was a Jungian, although these terms Jungian and
:51:02. > :51:05.Freudian are loosely thrown about. So I went to him and his very first
:51:05. > :51:14.words to me, in his rooms in Primrose Hill, were "Why did you
:51:14. > :51:20.burst?" And I said, "Probably rage, the rage of a long time." And one
:51:20. > :51:25.day I said to him, "What do I most fear?" And he said, "What you most
:51:25. > :51:33.fear is madness." And when he told me that, calmly and tenderly, I
:51:33. > :51:36.felt... A great weight. As if a chain had been taken not off my
:51:36. > :51:44.chest, but from inside my chest, and cast off - because I didn't
:51:44. > :51:52.fear it any more. And that was something huge. Both that and the
:51:52. > :52:02.experience of having sons changed my whole attitude to men. I wasn't
:52:02. > :52:08.
:52:08. > :52:11.so afraid of men and I wasn't drawn 'Love is like nature in reverse.
:52:11. > :52:14.First it fruits, then it flowers. Then it seems to wither. Then it
:52:14. > :52:17.goes deep, deep down into its burrow where no-one sees it, where
:52:17. > :52:27.it is lost from sight, and ultimately, people die with that
:52:27. > :52:31.
:52:31. > :52:37.secret buried inside their souls.' People ask me, for instance, why
:52:37. > :52:44.did I never marry again and my glib answer is, "Well, no-one asked me."
:52:44. > :52:52.It's a glib answer, it's half-true. I am the wrong disposition for a
:52:52. > :53:01.sensible marital love. I realise that now. I'm the wrong disposition.
:53:01. > :53:07.Well, it's not the end of the world. What's your biggest regret around
:53:07. > :53:17.love and in your life? That's my secret, which I'm not going to tell
:53:17. > :53:24.
:53:24. > :53:27.When I go back to Drewsborough now, I think of the very early days. I
:53:28. > :53:33.think of frightened days. I think of when my mother made jam and the
:53:33. > :53:41.smell of it and licking the jam from the back of the wooden spoon.
:53:41. > :53:45.I think of rows, scenes, in that house. I think of the excitement of
:53:45. > :53:49.visitors. I think of when I left it and would go back on holiday. I
:53:49. > :53:56.think of it when my mother died and her will was read out in the vacant
:53:57. > :54:05.room. I think of my father too frightened to live in that house
:54:06. > :54:11.after she died. And getting some boy to come up at night to mind him.
:54:11. > :54:20.The father of whom I'd been so afraid. I think of the house shut
:54:20. > :54:26.up and the house having to inhabit the ghost of itself. I think of it
:54:27. > :54:30.deteriorating down the years. First wildcats and things came around and