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  She furiously admitted that all the text messages and emails she had sent me had been dictated to a friend at the hostel where she lives.

  It turned out she had approached a college about literacy classes but they had offered her special tuition 'with a load of spassies', her charming word for people who were in the same difficulties as herself. She was inordinately worried that that would lessen the respect of her friends. I insisted that she must persevere if she wants to get a job or training, even suggesting she get some work, however menial, to give her something to do other than drifting around the streets and getting into trouble.

  'If I get a job they'll cut my assistance. It'll all go on housing and eatin' and fings.'

  'Yes, that's what a job is for.'

  'That's stupid, I'd rather sell drugs. Then I'm free.'

  'But what about all the kids you are harming like you've been harmed?'

  Shrug. 'That's the way it is, in't it?'

  'Where do you think the money comes from for your assistance?'

  'The fucking government.'

  'No, me, my taxes. That I pay from my wages.'

  Shrug. 'That's your fault, you're stupid.'

  I was also considered stupid that I didn't leave the café without paying,whilst the waiter wasn't looking. As I settled the bill I could see her outside having a quick drag of a spliff and talking aggressively on her mobile. When I challenged her about the gun I overhead her discussing, she said she needed it to protect herself.

  A lot of her chat is bravado to impress. Her desire for respect is real, but she only knows how to earn it by the values of the street. The old ethics of work, achieving success in your career, creating and supporting a family – a big laugh, that – serving society, don't enter her thinking. Why would they? She has never been exposed to them.

  She was pushed from pillar to post as a child, through various care homes and hostels, so that she never settled at any school long enough to learn the basics of education. 'They didn't like me because I was trouble.'

  She beat up her mum because her mum beat her, and had allowed Sandra's father to do the same to them both. He sexually abused Sandra as a child, as did his friends. Her various siblings, by different fathers, don't keep in touch with her, because of her violence. One sister is now in prison and Sandra was thrilled that she had been in touch to ask her to send a blanket to her. 'Maybe she'll be nice to me now.'

  Running out of things to suggest that might help or motivate her I asked, 'If I could give you anything in the world, what would you like?'

  'To die.'

  Someone with no aspirations, other than to hang around the streets doing nothing much, who would, not surprisingly, prefer death – which she has made several attempts to achieve – is well nigh impossible to help. Certainly not by an overworked, ill-equipped social service that works to the bureaucratic rules. It is useless to lock Sandra away in one of the youth prisons in which children have been further brutalised. Several have been injured and two died as a result of legalised rough handling, one tactic of which is euphemistically called nose restraint. Which actually means punching in the face. This is just normal adult behaviour in Sandra's world, and she wouldn't turn a hair, let alone suddenly become a well-behaved member of the society they represent.

  After childhoods of abuse, it is no wonder that children like her react so violently to supposed threats and sabotage every attempt to help them. Yet still the likes of Pat Stewart, with her On the Streets initiative in Manchester, and the saintly Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder of Kids Company, persevere. It is only at places like these that no one ever gives up on them, however impossible they are. And neither will I. Sandra will give an impish, vulnerable smile, after the turmoil of her life has provoked a frantic outburst, and I melt with love for her.

  As my daughters had been with their in-laws for Christmas, we spent New Year together. John had an obsession with cameras. We always accused him of taking very boring photos and complained bitterly when he insisted on wielding his video camera at family events. Abigail had secretly found his old films and had them converted to a DVD for each of us. It took me a long time to pluck up the courage to watch mine. It filled me with remorse. Firstly, a lot of it was filmed when he was on his own, presumably not to annoy us. Although it was always in fun, I was bitterly sorry for all the mocking. He seemed to be having a lovely time doing the recording. There was sound on the camera, and so he is chuntering away doing a running commentary. In one sequence the whole family, including his father, can be seen having a whale of a time through the doorway into the next room, whilst he quietly chats to his baby grandson in a pram.

  He was usually rather awkward with the grandchildren, but here he is loving and sweet. 'Hello, little Jackie. How are you?'

  Raspberry from Jack.

  'Oh, I see. Fair enough.'

  Then he wanders around his 'estate' as he called the garden. Focusing on one drooping rose he says, 'Here's a rose I planted. Doesn't look too happy. Come on, little mudger. Perk up.'

  Panning across the house, his voice is full of pride. 'There – beautiful, I tell you.'

  Not being a country girl, I never had quite the passion for our house in Wiltshire as him.

  Two days before he died there he said, 'Do you like it here now, kid – a bit?'

  To my deep regret I said, 'I love anywhere with you.'

  Which if, as I now suspect, he knew he was dying, must have been heartbreaking for him. Why didn't I tell him that I loved it? How amazing it was, that he had achieved this wondrous place? After the slum he grew up in. How grateful I was, and how comforted I would always be by this home we had created? But I was in agony. I knew he was about to die and thought he didn't. Or if he did, he seemed not to want to discuss it. But did he? Maybe I got it wrong? Perhaps he was desperate to talk, and I prevented him. 'Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that.' All the words unsaid, the appreciation not voiced, the overwhelming love not expressed. Too bloody late now.

  Regret is a pernicious emotion. And a waste of time. Just don't do it again. Which is why I shower my grandchildren, and Karen and Sandra, and any child who needs it, with paeans of praise, to the point of embarrassing gush. Unconditional love is not easy all the time. But grandchildren are there in short bursts and I can last those out without being mean as mothers sometimes have to be.

  My other regret danger area is the anniversary of John's death, which falls on the day before my birthday. In 2007 it was part of an extraordinary week of sunlight and shadows. It started by me winning a prize. When it comes to awards I am the eternal runner-up. I have been in the final four for numerous BAFTAs and SWETs and Oliviers over the years but I am always the bridesmaid. This year, nominated for Cabaret, I went along to the Olivier awards ceremony out of duty to the show, ready to do my good-loser act – a little shrug of the shoulders, a moue of regret and then vigorous, happy applause for the worthy winner – and lo and behold, I won. What is more, the year before I had already won a prize for my book. Suddenly I care less, and it all happens.

  I remember Thora Hird telling me that if I hung on till I passed seventy, I would get given awards for surviving and managing to struggle up on to the stage to receive them. Whatever the reason I was thrilled. I had a great night. Award ceremonies, I discovered, are much more enjoyable if you win.

  I was at one of these functions when I was herded into a queue to pose for the press in front of the sponsor's logo. Alan Bennett was standing there on his own looking bewildered. Anxious for him, despite not knowing him very well, I grabbed his arm and said, 'Stick with me.' The result was a terrible photo in the Evening Standard of a frightened cringing man with Cruella de Vil. I wrote apologising for my presumption and had this letter back which sums up modern ideas of celebrity with Bennett's customary wit and gentleness:

  Dear Sheila

  No need to apologise, as I never saw the picture and was just thankful to have someone to accompany me past that terrible rank of photographers. The on
ly photo I saw was of me and somebody (name unknown) who was a girlfriend (or a former girlfriend) of someone who was in (or used to be in) Westlife. Such is fame!

  The Cabaret company and friends, the night following the ceremony, showered me with flowers and cards. I felt very special. Then embarrassed. For my birthday was the same week and they had to do it all again. It was a good excuse for some parties and I relished every minute of them. On the anniversary of John's death, I did not allow more than one quick thought of how much more wonderful it would have been if he had been there with that look of pride I loved so much. I was pleased for me. That would have to do.

  The same week, my dear friends Richard and Annie Briers celebrated their golden wedding. It was a sweetly nostalgic event. They held it at Julie's, one of the first trendy restaurants in London. In the sixties and seventies it was a haunt for people working in the theatre and films. A friend of ours, Barry Krost, who is now in Hollywood, would hold a salon during Sunday lunch, around a huge round table. In winter there was a roaring fire. All the papers were provided, and we devoured the latest critiques, Tynan being our most feared and revered protagonist. We were also very political, from all sides of the spectrum, some quite nutty, but passionate. As we began to have children, they too were brought along. I remember bundling my daughter and Alan Bates's son into my car, and driving around the block to get them to sleep, in between the roast beef and treacle tart.

  Now, here we all were, older and greyer, celebrating Richard and Annie's fifty years together. Some, like handsome brilliant Alan, were dead. It was a bittersweet occasion. Remembering when I was young and lusty and full of plans for the future, and how we would change the world. I didn't have to assume a dining character here, they knew me too well as myself. The Briers girls, Lucy and Katy, made charming speeches in praise of their parents that ruined my mascara.

  When John was alive I lost the habit of friendship. We only needed each other. Without him, I had insidiously become demanding of my daughters. Why didn't they ring? Why no visits? I might be lying dead at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck and no one would know. Or care. I spent Christmas alone. How neglected am I? After all I've done and do for them. The worst thing about being alone is how obsessions escalate, especially at four o'clock in the morning. With no calming 'no, wait a minute, wait a minute', small irritations erupt into volcanoes.

  A crisis was reached when one of my daughters didn't buy me a birthday present or card. Actually she was away and got caught in a cyclone and was sick as a dog, having just discovered that she was pregnant with Louis – but that was no excuse! When I confronted her, a blazing row ensued in the course of which certain truths dawned on me. The starkest of these was that I had no God-given right to demand love from anyone. Or company. Or respect.

  As the show came to an end, I made a resolution to enjoy my friends more, and lean on my family less. I had started going out after the show with friends. And enjoyed it. I stopped waiting to find out if my daughters wanted to see me on my Sunday off, and arranged lunch out with one mate and tea with another. It was good. I can't gossip with my daughters as I can with my friends. Botox and hip replacements hold no interest for them.

  We have such rigid expectations of family relationships. Most are based on sentimental misconceptions. My forty-year-old daughter's wail of 'I want a mother' broke my heart. What she wanted was the all-loving, placid, selfless supportive mum of the tabloids and storybooks. Or indeed my own darling dedicated mother. Not the cantankerous, moody, working, unreliable reality. But, and here is the breakthrough – this is who I am. My friends see other sides of me. Dammit, there are other sides to me. But they are not a lot of use if you want an archetypal mother. Nor am I fair to want storybook daughters who care for their ageing mum like the woman on the Solo tour. They have lives to lead. They are all leading them productively and well and I am deeply proud of them. During my journey of the last few years they have struggled to help me but it was a road I had to travel alone. They are always there if I really need them, but they are not responsible for my entertainment. So, as I heard every night in Cabaret, 'What good is sitting alone in your room?' I need to 'come hear the music play'. It takes a gigantic effort. But it can be done, as I had begun to prove. As soon as I stopped whining and demanding, our relationship became much better for everyone. Not the stereotype in women's magazines, but richer and more realistic. Breaking free of the supposed duties of a mother/daughter relationship, we moved on to something more relaxed and enjoyable. Being together was no longer an obligation – it was a delight.

  To mark this step forward, I gave a big party on the day of the Boat Race, which passes my house. When writing the invitations I was aware of how many new names had been added to my guest list since John's death.

  At one point during the party, my daughter whispered, 'Who are all these people?'

  And I was able to say, 'My friends.'

  Things were very definitely changing in my life. The last year had given me confidence. I was feeling quite grown-up. About bloody time.

  Look thy last on all things lovely,

  Every hour. Let no night

  Seal thy sense in deathly slumber

  Till to delight

  Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;

  Since that all things thou wouldst praise

  Beauty took from those who loved them

  In other days.

  From 'Fare Well' by Walter de la Mare

  12

  Venice · Fontenay Abbey · Milan

  I DECIDED TO GO to Venice. I had crossed a few bridges in coping with life on my own, mostly by branching out into new experiences. I was living in a new house in London, had new friends, had a new more profound relationship with my daughters, and had visited new places. I had endeavoured to move on from my life with John, eschewing nostalgia. Fear of looking back on our lives together was beginning to limit my horizons. Examining my wartime childhood had been beneficial. I now needed to venture to a place where in the past I had been supremely happy with John. It was a risk.

  No one was around to come with me and I figured I would need some company on my first visit without him, so I enlisted for a tour with a lecturer on the Genius of Renaissance Venice. I thought sharing a common interest might help me overcome my groupitis.

  It started well. The approach by sea to Venice was, as always, so gobsmackingly beautiful that there was no room for any other reaction but awe. My fellow tour members seemed friendly and the hotel, on one of the smaller canals, was a fifteenth-century merchant's house. No palace, but up-market enough to have its own ornate well, fed by the guttering on the roof, and a grand stone staircase to the upper level.

  The first gulp of memory was the square near the hotel, which I recognised as a place where John and I had watched two white-masked figures in flowing peacock-blue and green robes, dancing a stately, impromptu silent gavotte, away from the exuberance of the main carnival. It mesmerised us, and I recalled it now with pleasure not pain. So far, so good.

  St Mark's Square was the next challenge, and here again, sitting on my own in the sun, sipping a coffee, listening to the music, and reading my study books for the tour, I smiled as I watched people feeding the thousands of pigeons, remembering John's snarled 'rats on wings'.

  It is not as perfect as it seems, this exquisite city, built on stilts in the sea. It is proud of being a republic, although of course government involved only the patrician class, led by some decidedly dodgy doges. The palace is pink and shiny and beautifully proportioned, yet it houses a soundproof torture chamber. St Mark's Basilica next door is a complex oriental/Gothic/you-name-it-they've-got-it-type building in which there are untold treasures, many of which were pinched from other countries. Even their patron saint was stolen when they decided that such a grand city needed someone more impressive than poor old St Theodore and his rather odd crocodile, who were banished to a very tall pillar in the Piazzetta, where no one can see them. In fact it may not even be St Mark in
the sarcophagus that everyone venerates, or indeed anyone at all, but never mind, it is a sumptuous cathedral. I was going to look on all things lovely and enjoy them for John.

  Our tour started in earnest the next day. The lecturer, Joachim, was German, tall and rangy, with the vague air of a university don until he started talking about his subject when he became focused and brilliant. Not just because he was extremely erudite and he knew Venice well, having lived there for several years, but because he was in no way blasé or jaded about its beauty. In fact on several occasions he was moved to tears by sights he had talked about many times. I liked him for that.

  There were several of his groupies on the journey. They repeatedly go on his tours and hang on his every word. Venice is such a cornucopia of delights that it is easy to miss the detail. My appreciation was made more profound with the guidance of his knowledge. Most of my fellow travellers were much better informed than I, so, once more, I had to bite my tongue, lest I bored them with my naïve questions.

  The rebel in me sometimes wanted to challenge the accepted view of what was a masterpiece. I don't like following the party line (that's why I could never go into politics). In the Scuola di San Rocco I dutifully gasped at the decoration on the walls and ceiling by Tintoretto that took him twenty years to complete, but they made my neck ache and I preferred the trompe-l'œil wood carving that Francesco Pianta had done on a side wall. I loved the pair of spectacles on the mock bookshelf and the wicked caricature of a bug-eyed Tintoretto, which I hope made him laugh.

  I became intrigued by the lives of these genii that lived and worked in Venice. I speculated on the personalities of the men behind the masterpieces. With all the scuolas and churches vying with one another to get the most fashionable artist or sculptor to do up their building, was there rivalry? Tintoretto may once have worked for Titian. Was Titian pleased at his pupil's success? Or a bit miffed to see the younger man getting jobs that he might have done? What did Gentile Bellini, no mean painter himself, feel about his brother Giovanni getting the lion's share of the praise? Or did he recognise his superior talent? Did they all get fed up with being used as upmarket interior decorators? For several of the days we were there, the weather was freezing and the buildings felt icy. How wretched was it to clamber up scaffolding and lie on your back painting a ceiling in a cold echoing church? Did they wear gloves on their frozen hands, as they covered the stone walls with radiant colour?