Christy
Brown's sudden and tragic death in October, 1981 left his wife Mary (an agency
nurse) devastated. The film of his autobiography is nominated for five Oscars.
Her sense of pride is mixed with a sadness. The film only touches on their
relationship, but it does capture their instant mutual attraction. Christy had
been invited to appear on the David Frost show, and his brother had thrown a
party to celebrate his visit. Christy was sitting alone and bored in a corner,
a bottle of Bacardi by his side. When they met in 1969 in London she was 23 and
he was 13 years older. She admired his painting but knew little of his writing.
As they talked they realised how much they had in common, not least a love for
Dickens. She never had any difficulty understanding what he was saying, she was
actually tuned in to his speech. (overdone C's speech difficulty - understood
so well) Every time she sees the film she sees something new in it, something
she had missed before. At the premiere in Dublin it was completely
overwhelming. She didn't really take it all in. In the opening sequence it is
as if Christy himself is there. It was his honesty, his gentleness which drew
her to him. He was a very vivacious person, very amusing and he had a great
sense of humour. They had known each other for two years when he asked her to
marry him. There were objections to the marriage because Mary was a divorcee
and the couple received a stream of anonymous letters and phone calls. C's
mother would be turning in her grave, they were told. They found it too suburban
in Dublin, because there were just women and prams. You couldn't bring C for a
nice walk anywhere without bumping into a pram. A constant flood of visitors
also made it difficult for Christy to work. People thought it was open-house
all the time. They thought C was on a permanent holiday. Mary has seen greater
prejudice against disability in Ireland than in England. They can't cope with
the fact that there is something out of ordinary. C brought out an instinct in
men and women to love and nurture him, not because he was handicapped, but
because he was so gentle. Life with C meant handling his bursts of frustration
and anger. He used to get terribly bored. If he did so he would go on the sauce
or get frustrated and write something stupid, for the crack. he would get
frustrated with other people and angry at himself. He was always angry about
his disability. C's drinking was legendary. He got very depressed towards the
last 6 months of his life. It was a terrible effort for him to write because
his heart wasn't really in it. Towards the end the novels were so tiring. He
couldn't write short sentences. The adjectives just flew out of him. He wasn't
proud of his book ("A promising career") What he was looking forward to was his
collected poetry coming out. After his death Mary was on tranquillisers and
sleeping pills, more or less walking around like a zombie. They had been
watching a video when some food became lodged in is throat. To see someone die
in front of you, it's terrible. The full realisation of his loss hit her later.
She bursts out crying in the middle of the street, suddenly thinking of him.
There is just nothing that can fill the void. They never had children, but that
wasn't on the cards really. They were too caught up in each other to have
anybody else around. It's unlikely that she will ever remarry. The
self-contained, private woman prefers to be alone with her thoughts of Christy
and would rather be at home with her pets. If C were still alive they would
gave travelled to India, because C was always looking at different religions
and got quite interested in Zen Buddhism.
C was
a high-profile figure. "My left foot" had been published and had attracted
enormous media attention. Not just
because it was a book which a hopelessly crippled person had written, but
because it was a book of unusual literary merit. Connoisseurs looking at the
painting at his exhibition (ooh-ing and aaah-ing) used the term "primitive
talent" to describe Christy. C loved the lionisation because, after all, he was
totally human. But he hated the patronising, pretentions comments on his work.
His intellectual integrity told him that he was not a painter. So he forsook
painting and concentrated on writing. He was a compulsive communicator, there
were hidden volcanoes that erupted within his wasted body. He was a happy
person, but he also had his fits of despair. He learned to cope with the fact
that he was a cripple. He was all-giving when being interviewed. He desperately
wanted to communicate to tell the world that he was not just an impossibly
crippled person but a living, thinking, creative human being. He had a
desperate urge to communicate. Most creative people have that urge, but the
physical thing has made him more determined. C hated malicious people,
pomposity and hypocrisy. He hated being regarded as a cripple rather than a
writer. What he wanted was to be regarded as a creative being, not a freak.
