THINGS FALL APART
In my marriage, it was me who had felt the overwhelming need to have children. I was the driving force behind the hospital treatments, the adoption and the television programme, but when I got the results I gave up. Defeated, I had to come to terms with the fact that I would remain childless for the rest of my life. But then, a year or so later, Amina began mentioning various clinics and treatments she’d heard about. She would do in-depth research into the nature, science and law surrounding the treatments, and then pass her findings over to me at a carefully chosen time.
After all I’d been through I didn’t want to hear any more suggestions from friends and family: the stories about old men in the hills of Jamaica who’d had no kids until they were sixty; the African man who could pray for me and make it all happen, and the woman who would take me into my past lives and clear blockages. I had had enough of the science, enough of the religion and enough of the mumbo jumbo. I was simply unwilling to go through it all again. Anyway, I was touring. Baby time was over. We didn’t have any major arguments but I was beginning to feel some stress, and every now and again Amina made me feel as if I wasn’t quite a whole man. I wasn’t the daddy.
We always took holidays together, mainly to India and Pakistan, but to ease the stress I suggested she have a holiday alone or with a girlfriend, and she did. She went off with a friend to Tunisia, while I stayed at home. When she returned I felt something had changed, but it could have been me, and I didn’t have time to think about such things – remember, the show must go on.
My next tour was to take me to Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. Amina wasn’t coming; even though the option for her to travel was there, she didn’t want to, so I went alone. I was in New Zealand, about to leave for Papua New Guinea, when I got an email from her. She had some information to give me about future gigs. These types of emails were quite normal, but there was something not quite right about the tone of her writing. It was businesslike, it dealt with the issue, but it was like an email from a stranger.
Amina was very professional, but normally when she had done with the business at hand she would end on something personal, but not this time. I called her and asked if she was okay, and she said she was fine, but she didn’t sound fine. I came home a couple of days later, opened the front door, and immediately I could see she was gone. It was sudden; it was out of the blue, but there had been no bickering, and we’d had no arguments. After speaking to friends who had gone through divorces and separations, I thought it would have been easier if there had been arguments, or some obvious deterioration of the relationship; at least then I would have seen it coming, and maybe, just maybe, I could have done something about it.
This was one of the lowest points of my life, not because I’d been dumped, but because it came out of the blue, and at a time when I would have said that life was good.
I closed the curtains and locked myself in the house. I cut myself off from the outside world, only going out once to buy a large can of Guinness. I was never a drinker, so I knew that if I had only a few sips I would get drunk, and I thought that if I got drunk I would forget all my problems. I placed the can in the middle of my dining table but, instead of drinking it, it became the focus of my meditations.
I began thinking about all the people I knew in the world of showbusiness who had drink problems, and all those who hadn’t returned from the dark place drink sends you. I also remembered the actor Timothy Spall telling me that you shouldn’t start drinking if you are feeling down because you will always associate drinking with problems, and that’s not a good way to start a relationship with drink. Fortunately I didn’t drink it. I kept it, and even as I write these words that can of Guinness is in my cupboard with the breakfast cereals, by the bread bin. I guess it’s now undrinkable. Either that or it’s worth millions of pounds.