Cumming - Not my fathers son: a family memoir

Published in Great Britain in 2014 by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

www.canongate.tv

This digital edition first published in 2014 by Canongate Books

Copyright Alan Cumming, 2014

The moral right of the author has been asserted

First published in the United States in 2014 by
HarperCollins Publishers, 1985 Broadway, New York, NY 10007

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain their permission for the use of copyright material.
The publisher apologies for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Photograph on p. 14 courtesy of Getty Images, photographer: Francois Durand; photograph of map on p. 169 courtesy of iStock, studiocasper; photo still from The Good Wife on p. 178 courtesy of CBS Television Studios/photo by Justin Stephens. All other images courtesy of the author.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 78211 544 1
eISBN 978 1 782115 45 8

FOR MARY D, THE TWO TOMS,
AND GRANT SHAFFER

CONTENTS

Part One
THEN AND NOW

Part Two
CANCEL, CONTINUE.

Part Three
MOVING ON

Part Four
POSTSCRIPT

THEN

Y ou need a haircut, boy!

My father had only glanced at me across the kitchen table as he spoke but I had already seen in his eyes the coming storm.

I tried to speak but the fear that now engulfed me made it hard to swallow, and all that came out was a little gasping sound that hurt my throat even more. And I knew speaking would only make things worse, make him despise me more, make him pounce sooner. That was the worst bit, the waiting. I never knew exactly when it would come, and that, I know, was his favourite part.

As usual we had eaten our evening meal in near silence until my father had spoken. Until recently my older brother, Tom, would have been seated where I was now, helping to deflect the gaze of impending rage that was now focused entirely upon me. But Tom had a job now. He left every morning in a shirt and tie and our father hated him for it. Tom was no longer in his thrall. Tom had escaped. I hadnt been so lucky yet.

My mother tried to intervene. Ill take him to the barbers on Saturday morning, Ali, she said.

Hell be working on Saturday. Hes not getting away with slouching off his work again. Theres too much of that going on in this house, do you hear me?

Yes, I managed.

But now I knew it was a lost cause. It wasnt just a haircut, it was now my physical shortcomings as a labourer, my inability to perform the tasks he gave me every weekend and many evenings, tasks I was unable to perform because I was twelve, but mostly because he wanted me to fail at them so he could hit me.

You see, I understood my father. I had learned from a very young age to interpret the tone of every word he uttered, his body language, the energy he brought into a room. It has not been pleasant as an adult to realise that dealing with my fathers violence was the beginning of my studies of acting.

I can get one tomorrow at school lunchtime. My voice trailed off in that way I knew sounded too pleading, too weak, but I couldnt help it.

Yes, do that, pet, my mum said, kindly.

I could sense the optimism in her tone and I loved her for it. But I knew it was false optimism, denial. This was going to end badly, and there was no way to prevent it.

Every night getting off the school bus, walking through the gates of the estate where we lived, past the sawmill yard where my father reigned, and towards our house was like a lottery. Would he be home yet? What mood would he be in? As soon as I entered the house and changed out of my school uniform and began my choresbringing wood and coal in for the fire, starting the fire, setting the table, warming the plates, putting the potatoes on to boilI felt a bit safer. You see, by then I was on his territory, under his command, I worked for him, and that seemed to calm my father, as though my utter servitude was necessary to his well-being. I still wasnt completely safe of courseI was never safebut those chores were so ingrained in me and I felt I did them well enough that even if he did inspect them I would pass muster, so I could breathe a little easier until we sat down to eat.

My father was the head forester of Panmure Estate, a country estate near Carnoustie, on the east coast of Scotland. The estate was vast, with fifty farms and thousands of acres of woodland covering over twenty-one square miles of land. We lived on what was known as the estate premises, the grounds of Panmure House, though by the time we lived there the big house was long gone. In 1955, as one of many such austerity measures forced upon the landed aristocracy, its treasures were dismantled and then explosives razed it to the ground. All that remained were the stables, where on chilly Saturday mornings during hunting season Id report, banging my wellies together to keep the feeling in my toes, to work as a beater, hitting trees with a stick in a line of other country boys, scaring the birds up into the air so that drunk rich men could shoot at them.

Attached still to the stables was the building that had been the houses chapel. Now it was used for the annual estate Christmas party and occasional dances or card game evenings for the workers. We lived in Nursery House, so called because it looked out on a tree nursery where seedlings were hatched and nurtured to replace the trees that were constantly felled and sent back to the sawmill that lay up the yard behind us. My father was in charge of the whole process, from the seeds all the way to the cut lumber and everything in between, as well as the general upkeep of the grounds.

It was all very feudal and a bit Downton Abbey, minus the abbey and fifty years later. I answered the door to men who referred to my father as The Maister. There were gamekeepers and big gates and sweeping drives and follies but no lord of the manor, as during the time we lived there the place was owned by, respectively, a family shipping company, a racehorse owners charitable trust, and then a huge insurance company.

I didnt know it at the time, but I was living through the end of an era of grand Scottish estates, as now, like Panmure, they have been mostly all dismantled and sold off. Looking back on it, it was a beautiful place to grow up, but at the time all I wanted was to get as far away as possible.

I had seen my fathers van parked by the tractor shed as I walked by. So he was home. But maybe he wasnt actually in the house, maybe he was talking to one of his men in the sawmill or in one of the storehouses or sheds. It was the time of day when they were coming back from the woods and cleaning their tools before going home. I couldnt see my dad, although I didnt want to be seen to be looking for him in case he spotted me and hed know that my fear was guiding my search. That would be his opening. Maybe there would be someone in the yard whod come to see him, a farmer or even his boss, the estate factor (or manager), who would allow me to get by him without inspection.