"Life didn't ask your opinion"

TAPE 123 050889

I was bloody furious! Helen didn’t even bother to tell me anything about it until Gérard called and asked me if I wanted to make a statement. ‘About what!?’ I said. Can you imagine?! Your own bloody son allowed to wander off into the woods. And there I was in New York with no way of doing anything about it.

Yes, yes, of course I bloody phoned the hotel. I didn’t give two shits about the time difference I can tell you. For some Godforsaken reason they put me through to Isabella of all people, so I tore her off a strip and told her to have her mother call me back straight away. Nothing for several hours. Nothing! And by the time she got back to me, he’d been found.

“I can’t talk to you for long," she said. “We have a press conference.”

*We* - like she was the bloody Queen.

The whole affair was so maddening. Made me look like a proper Charlie. The New York press ran photos of me in Carolee’s installation, swinging around naked on the end of a rope, alongside the headline about Chris going missing. Made out as if I didn’t give a shit. I was a bad parent. So I had to act, didn’t I?  I had to do something. The good thing about New York is there’s a family lawyer under ever blimmin’ paving stone. So it didn’t take much to fire off a letter. [Peter takes a drink]

That got her attention. I couldn’t get Helen off the phone after that. She didn’t fancy the idea of losing the children at all. Didn’t fancy it  - *at all*. Wouldn’t sit well with her image, you see. Besides, she had a TV series in the offing– very good money. TV people are very twitchy about that kind of thing, as you know. Remember when you tried to get me on ‘Give Us A Clue’. I did warn you. It was never going to wash. It didn’t matter how much they liked my dumb shows, I was too rich for them, wasn’t I? You can’t say I didn’t do a good pilot.

[Martin]: I never said you did! 

Anyway, I knew I had Helen over a barrel. I needed to look like a caring parent. So did she. And we were caring. Those two sprogs weren’t exactly without. In those days, you weren’t expected to be standing over them all the time – what do they call it? – helicoptering. But the Dundee business was killing us all publicity-wise. And I had Ponti breathing down my neck. I’d signed up to do his eye-tie codswallop and he was very thick with the Catholic church, despite his own shenanigans with Loren. So he wanted me to be a good ‘papa’. As for Helen, she knew she was going to be busy in London for a while and wasn’t keen to be reminded of how it had been for her the first time around when I was in Los Angeles and she was stuck with Izzy.

It was an easy deal. I could get Chris into a school in New York and there was room for him in my apartment. Isabella was trickier. There wasn't a school I could sign her up for without a lot of trouble, and to be brutally honest I wasn’t sure I wanted to take on a 14-year-old, especially one who was under suspicion of trying to bump off her little brother. It made more sense for Helen to take on all that, given her own murderous tendencies! Toward me, I mean. (Peter laughs heartily).

You’ve seen what Isabella can be like. Imagine that, but with a gallon of adolescent hormones racing around her body. Both Helen and I felt she was someone who could do with being diluted – two parts Isabella, one part water. I think you know what I mean.

In the end I don't think we even bothered with lawyers. Chris was put on a plane and I agreed to pony up fees for Izzy to go to some fancy school in the Shires. Honour saved. Children berthed. Everyone happy. Well, Izzy as happy as she could ever be, I imagine. Grumpy girl.

[Martin]: And you and Helen?

Eh?

[Martin]: You went on to work together quite successfully - on ‘Mary Magdalene’

Oh! Helen was over a barrel on that one too truth be told. She had to have me. Producers insisted. By then we were both in hock to that lot anyway. It was only when Gérard got the chop that either of us were completely free of any Italian business. Although I do sometimes wonder if I could still get bundles into the back of a car one day and driven off to Epping Forest. Or maybe it's them poisoning me, not you! [Peter laughs]

Funny really. We never fell out about the kids. Not seriously. We always had the same idea about them. It was work we couldn’t agree on.