The journalist's idee fixe is that I must have been sexually abused because I slept in my father's bed
Published 12 June 2000
Truro to London, for the launch of my novel Charlotte. I have to take an indirect route, changing at Bristol, because Great Western no longer permits smokers our ghetto of half a coach. I'm sure Virgin (Penzance-Edinburgh) will soon follow suit; but at least today I can puff away for two-thirds of my journey. I reread Charlotte for the very last time, and quite enjoy it. I've had to read it many times in the course of revision and proof-reading, and my feelings keep changing. Sometimes I warm to it, sometimes it leaves me cold. So I'm nervous about the reviews. I couldn't predict how I would review this book if I weren't its author. And I can't help feeling (paranoia or experience?) that there are people out there gunning for me. The fairly frequent sex is deliberately unsexy and unengaged, because that's the way my neurotic heroine is. The "alternative ending" of Jane Eyre will offend many.
Feel vulnerable; wish this week were over. Fantasise about being able to reject reviewers, as advocates can reject jury members. I think I'd read out to them the proposed EU "Charter of Rights" and ask them whether they find it a breath of fresh air or chokingly liberal-fascist. Those who feel choked I'd allow on the jury. Because an underlying theme of Charlotte is that every age finds its own attic-room for its unique madness.
A profile in the Mail on Sunday irks me. The journalist, Marianne Macdonald, seems intent on an idee fixe that I must have been sexually abused as a child. Formidably well prepared, she reminded me in the interview that I'd slept in my father's bed often; and, of course, I write about sex a lot; not in a healthy Jilly Cooperish way but, well, weirdly . . .
She invited me to admit the obvious truth. It would absolve me of my manifold sins; I would be simply another of our time's myriad victims. It was a persuasive theory; it just happened not to be true.
I sent her a friendly e-mail, pointing out some factual errors. She wrote her piece honourably, so I don't feel any animosity. She e-mails back her regret that a sentence, praising Charlotte, had been omitted from the published profile - she is sure by oversight. Life is full of oversights and errors. How hard it is, we agree, to get at the reality of a person. It's hard to get at one's own reality.
My daughter, Caitlin, rings me. She is upset by the references to her in the profile. She can smile at the journalist's mistake in describing her as a chiropodist rather than a chiropractor; what is painful is my statement that she has two children. She has two children alive, but her eldest child, Alex, died a few years ago following a tragic drowning accident.
My omission of him seems to discount his life, she says. Remorseful, I explain that I didn't know if she wished the tragedy to be aired in the media. But she assures me yes, she wants him acknowledged. We agree that the profile shows a good photo of Tasmin, my dog, perched unnaturally on my lap as I sit at my desk. Actually, she writes the sex bits. My endearing, sex-starved cairn has a rampant imagination.
My publishers, Duckworth, host a splendid launch party at the Arts Club. I'm drawn to the colourful, flamboyant elegance of a woman who looks like a young Molly Parkin; and she turns out to be the novelist Sophie Parkin. I commit the crass mistake of asking her what it's like being Molly's daughter, and the weariness that flits across her face reminds me of how I feel when people ask, "What's happening about the film of The White Hotel?"
I spend an enjoyable hour in my hotel bar, with a nightclub hostess I met on the night of the party. My hospitable editor, Tom Hedley, took me to the club for a nightcap. This particular hostess - charming and, she said, a lover of reading - had offered to come to my hotel after the club closed. We'd had no late-night liaison; but now I welcome this chance to talk to her about her work and mine. She proves an interesting and glamorous companion. I really prefer this frivolity to being quizzed by a solemn critic. I don't think I'm very professional.
Morning session at the Cheltenham Festival, billed as a celebration of Jane Eyre. With me are two Bronte biographers. The chairwoman, calling on us each in turn, addresses me as David. I correct her. "It's Don, actually."
Next time round, she repeats: "David, I'd like to ask you about . . ."
"Don."
She's embarrassed by the repeated error. A third time: "David . . ."
"Don."
Much laughter - welcome, as it lightens the holy-Haworth atmosphere. When it comes to audience questions, a woman says: "Don, could I ask you . . ." I clap her, and everyone joins in.
Read loads of abandoned Sunday papers on the long train journey home. I come across a repellent caricature of me in the Sunday Times, above a foul review by Peter Kemp. He is an ancient enemy who unfortunately - from my point of view - never seems to pass up an opportunity to review me. One of my questions to the would-be critical jury would have to be: "Is your name Peter Kemp?"
D M Thomas's Charlotte: Bronte revelations is published by Duck Editions (£14.99)
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