Pamela Stephenson - The Varnished Untruth

T HE V ARNISHED U NTRUTH

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.

Muriel Rukeyser, American poet

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2012
A CBS COMPANY

Copyright Healthy Mind, Inc. 2012

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
and 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

The right of Pamela Stephenson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

HB ISBN: 978-1-84983-921-1
TPB ISBN: 978-1-84983-922-8
eBook ISBN: 978-1-84983-924-2

Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

For Sharon

I NTRODUCTION

I dont really know how anyone can have the gall to write a memoir. To do so implies an assumption that people will be interested to read it and, right from the start, doesnt that single fact make you a prize ass? Isnt there always a dirty little secret lurking at the back of the writers mind, an agenda along the lines of: When youre finished this, youre gonna love me. Youre gonna laugh with me, cry with me, get to know me, and then youre going to buy one for everyone in your family for Christmas and youll write inside Hope she inspires you too! XXX? Now, I know being this honest doesnt make me loveable, and that being loveable sells memoirs, but I really cant lie about where I am on the endearment scale: Im not simply a lovely person, purely a delight to know or any of that B.S. I definitely have an edgy side, and I cant even fake it for fifteen minutes; sooner rather than later Im going to say something a bit raw, mention the unmentionable, or be betrayed by my wicked laugh.

And, anyway, Im always suspicious whenever I hear someone being described as a lovely person especially when theyre in show business. I always think, How clever, to have been able to present graciousness so consistently... What a sneaky, undesirable talent! Yes, I dont like a persons apparent loveliness, and I certainly dont trust it. I much prefer the dark side. When a chink appears and out flies a second or two of sheer brutality, meanness, envy, savagery or fury, thats when I smile inwardly and think, Now I can like you; I know a bit about who you really are.

Were all multi-faceted. I like to think I can truly accept whatever a person despises in himself. Its usually the thing that makes us close the core of intimacy. My acceptance of someones dark side is also something that helps me in my work as a psychologist; I try hard to avoid being judgmental of anyone for anything they might have done. Were all just frail human animals and, given the right circumstances, we might all make similar choices. Being capable of a warts and all relationship has meant that I have had some pretty interesting encounters with all sorts of extraordinary people. Some of those encounters have imbued me with inspiration, some have made me gasp with envy. Others have left me feeling uplifted, thrilled, protective, sad, mortified, furious, conspiratorial, confused, and even downright terrified and thats just outside my therapy office.

Along with my own personal story, Im going to write down a few things about people who have touched me one way or another things that may amuse you (or even take you down some other emotional path) and Ill let you in on a few so-far-unrevealed aspects of my life. Ill try to leave out the boring bits. And Im going to name-drop a lot because you want me to. Oh, dont start... you DO SO!

But dont be thinking this is easy for me. Im darn good at getting under other peoples skin, but opening up about my own life is quite a different matter. And since I truly hate to be misunderstood, how am I going to communicate the gestalt of who I am? People who have come to public attention are portrayed in fragments, and I would be quite afraid to discover which particular aspect of me you had already gleaned. Was it the woman in the American Express sketch? Or Billy Connollys missus? Or simply wacky, zany Pam? Being reduced to a three-word phrase turns one into a one-dimensional being and the impression thats created is very hard to shift. So how shall I portray myself? There are choices, you know. Wife, mother, psychologist, writer, comedian, actor, dancer, diver, gypsy, dreamer, rich girl, poor girl, beggar girl, thief... I am all of those and more. Tell you what, YOU decide. You decide exactly what I am.

American poet Muriel Rukeyser once mused, What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split apart. No ones personal story is ever the whole truth. Ones history is reflected through the filter of years of self-forgiveness and necessarily so. Its just too painful to carry the rawness of all ones faults and mistakes from decade to decade. But self-forgiveness can be elusive; I still wince when I think of stupid, unkind or embarrassing things Ive done many years ago, last year, and even yesterday. The most terrifying thing is, Im still capable of being a complete idiot. Some people think psychologists are wise beings who never put a foot wrong themselves but, in reality, even the best of us can be wonderfully helpful to others yet, occasionally, utterly imprudent in our own lives. Or maybe thats just me...

It may be partly due to my sense of shame about certain things that Ive chosen to write this book in a similar manner to the way I get to know someone. When I meet you, I might say something rather bold to get your attention and make you think Im that confident, articulate, slightly outrageous person from the telly, but if you hang around for a bit youll see me pulling back and getting quieter and more reserved. Ill put the focus on you instead, draw you out. Eventually it might dawn on you that Im really rather shy, fairly quiet and extremely private about my life. If I trust you enough to meet you again I might be chattier, but Ill choose subjects you probably already know a bit about my husband, Strictly Come Dancing, Not The Nine OClock News, books Ive written. As we get to know each other more, I might begin to reveal more in stages, natter about my family, perhaps, but always being quite wary and Ill watch carefully for any small sign that you cant be trusted (and if I see one, Ill snap shut like a spring-box). But if you can tolerate my prickliness, you may eventually get to know who I really am, and then if I feel you accept me, warts and all youll be my friend for life.

I suppose Im a bit of an anomaly. Human beings go through different stages and at my current age I should probably be taking it easy and reflecting on the past. To a certain extent I can manage the latter, but theres no way Im ever going to settle gently and gracefully into my final decades. Youre about to learn just how vigorously Im railing against natural physical decline but, actually, Im ambivalent about the challenge of facing the years ahead. In many ways, growing old gives us licence to be who we really are and, in the past, I suppose I have often felt I needed to hide parts of myself for fear of not being accepted, or in order to try to impress. But theres just no point in pretending any more. And there have been many instances when Ive been presented to the world by others, in whatever way they saw me even times when I had to live meekly with blatant untruths and that has left me with a magnitude of shame that I would like to assuage. I have also lived through other people from time to time and, although this often goes with the territory of being a wife and mother, its not necessarily something I intend doing forever. Yes, I wrote my husbands biography and a follow-up book about him, which took the best part of two years of my life, but its high time I told my own story. Discovering who I really am now and being unafraid to let it be known is a daunting but delicious task.