The criminal lawyer and novelist Frances Fyfield, 55, lives alone in North London and Deal, Kent.
MY FATHER was wise, witty and fun, but he was also a depressive and an alcoholic. Drink didn’t interfere with his work as a consultant anaesthetist, but it meant that life for us was unpredictable. He would come through the door looking nonchalant, whistling, thinking we didn’t know about the drink.
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In the early days, my mother was terrifically angry. My bedroom was above the kitchen and I heard her throwing things at him. Later, she ignored him, but the more he was disdained, the more attention he wanted. He would pick a fight and could be verbally cruel. He was desperately ashamed of his alcoholism and felt he hadn’t done enough for us four children. Actually, he was the greater influence on me, but I wish I’d understood him better at the time.
My parents didn’t talk a lot. There were explosions but I think she gave up trying to change him, although she never stopped looking after him. Her first husband, an RAF squadron leader killed in the war, was a difficult ghost for my father to live up to.
My mother never had low spells, which made her an unfortunate combination with my father. She was manic, getting up to decorate the living room at 1am, which left me with a great sense of deficiency. She showed love, but there wasn’t much in the way of hugs. She was very controlling and wanted me to wear false eyelashes and look glam. I wanted to walk around barefoot.
In her late fifties, my mother fought the onset of Alzheimer’s with iron willpower. In retirement, without work to distract him, father retreated into himself. It was a hideous household: one parent had too much insight and the other had none. Mother was cross when father died. I think she did love him. After setting the coal house on fire and being burgled twice, she had to go into a home. She would tell me about her “awful daughter in London who never visited”. That was me and I would join in, saying: “What a bitch she sounds.”
The love of my life was my boyfriend during my last year at school. Innocence made it more intense. I was devastated when, in grown-up fashion, he said we were too young for this and called it off.
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At university I was a swot, with no interest in serious relationships. Later, in my twenties, I went to get the Pill and allowed myself to be ticked off by the doctor for being irresponsible rather than admit that my student days had been a hotbed of innocence. I had three or four long relationships after that, but they never wanted to marry me at the time I wanted to marry them.
I did want children, which was why I married in my mid-thirties. It was a hormonal disaster. I wanted to be needed and found someone who needed every kind of support: moral, mental, financial. A lot of love is selfish. I wasn’t getting anything back from him and that drove me mad. It was probably the least important relationship of my life and I knew that within a couple of months. It was over within a year.
As an adult I was most in love with a doctor, but he didn’t respect my need for space. He wanted me to be more ordinary, look more feminine, not talk about my rape cases over dinner with friends. My childhood taught me to make too much of a virtue of independence, of not wanting to be disappointed. Men find it threatening when you say you love them, but you need to go home now.
Living alone has become a way of life that is difficult to reverse. I don’t recover from rows and never forgive anyone who shouts at me; I go a bit catatonic. I have had fewer but more sustainable relationships since my marriage. There are all sorts of ways to live and love. A relationship is precious in its own right, irrespective of longevity, and doesn’t have to follow conventional lines. Wives have always trusted me with their husbands. They know I’m safe, as I wouldn’t countenance any disloyalty. I don’t rely on men so much now and they don’t try to move in with me.
There’s satisfaction in being older, in knowing and being able to explain yourself. The realisation my childhood gave me was that you are on your own, buster.
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Looking Down by Frances Fyfield, Little, Brown, £17.99