When Mark Birley and I first fell in love I think we both envisaged an old age surrounded by dogs and laughter. It didn’t work out like that; but over the years, despite going our separate ways, we remained incredibly close, and I loved the intimate little lunches and dinners during which Mark would tease me mercilessly and try to persuade me to take a glass of whatever lethal liquor he was drinking, saying: “There’s nothing more boring than a woman who doesn’t drink.”
I was in Spain on a family holiday in August 2007 when I heard that Mark had suffered a massive stroke. India Jane, our daughter, rang me from the hospital to say that the doctor thought he would not live more than a few hours but had reminded her that the last sense to go is the hearing.
India Jane put her mobile phone on loudspeaker and held it to his ear. “I love you more than anything, you silly old bugger,” I told him. “I have always loved you and I will miss you dreadfully.” As I said these words Jane saw a change appear on his face, then suddenly he stopped breathing.
One key to Mark was perhaps his mother, Rhoda Birley. She was not a maternal woman, often causing Mark and Maxime, his sister, confusion and emotional turbulence when they were children; but oddly she was a wonderful mother-in-law to me.
Rhoda was a fascinatingly complex woman — an Irish eccentric, a gifted artist. She had married Oswald Birley, the leading portrait painter of the day, in 1921 and despite a 20-year age gap they seemed to have had a reasonably happy marriage.
To my knowledge Rhoda had only one big love affair outside her marriage, but the well-known peer of the realm to whom she temporarily lost her heart would not leave his wife. Mark recalled the end of the affair, when his mother would make dramatic and miserable appearances at the top of the staircase, her face covered in thick white powder, emphasising the tragic effect, before walking down the stairs very slowly, dragging her feet as she descended.
Rhoda was an inspirational cook. Her food was the stuff of legends and she would famously feed lobster thermidor to her roses. As Maxime once explained: “She would make fish stew and sometimes forget that she was making it for the garden, so she would add a bit of cognac, some garlic and spices. The roses would almost cry out with pleasure.”
When I first came to know her in the early 1950s Oswald had just died and the romantic drama of her life was well in the past, but her eccentricity and passionate strength of personality had not dimmed at all. During the early days I was a little scared of her. But from the outset Rhoda made me feel good about myself, and when, at the beginning of my marriage, I was insular and shy and shut-down at times, she showed me great warmth.
She was rather sweet with all her grandchildren and a much better grandmother than mother. Oddly for one so gregarious, she seemed to have had no maternal instinct at all for Mark and Maxime, sending them away when they were very young and paying them very little attention on their return. As a result, when I first met Mark he was, understandably, lacking in family feeling. Gradually, through our marriage, the arrival of his own children — Rupert, Robin and India Jane — and a sequence of much-loved dogs, he began to learn how to show the affection he had been denied as a child.
Even when Mark was an adult, however, Rhoda would behave in a bizarre fashion towards her only son, convinced, she said, that sometimes he had the devil in him. Whenever they had an argument and he turned his back, she would silently make the sign of the cross as if to exorcise the demons in him.
On her frequent visits to Pelham Cottage, our home in Kensington, in the evenings after the children were settled and Mark was at Annabel’s, his club, Rhoda and I would sit together and talk. She would settle down only once she had a glass of her much-loved Dubonnet (I had to get this in especially for her and stop Mark adding gin to the bottle).
Much later, when my marriage began to disintegrate and I had started my affair with Jimmy Goldsmith, Rhoda loved nothing better than a good session alone with me to discuss the whole thing. Sometimes she would get perilously close to making frank inquiries about the precise detail of Jimmy’s and my sex life, but to her disappointment I would swiftly change the subject. The idea of discussing something so intimate with Rhoda, the mother of my husband, was for me quite out of the question.
We were polar opposites in our attitudes to motherhood. From day one I adored my children and could never spend enough time with them. The children were always top priority, even when I met Jimmy and my personal life became a little complicated. They never thought Jimmy was anything other than a great friend, and they adored him. Their own naivety, that trusting quality of childhood, as well as Mark’s impressive discretion when around the children, preserved their innocence.
When, years later, Jimmy went to live in America, I decided to remain in England with our three young children — Jemima, Zac and Benjamin — and, although the three, older Birley children had left home, I did not want to be away from them either.
Five years ago I was interviewed on television by our friend David Frost, who asked about my marriages to Mark and Jimmy. I meant to say that I was really a one-man woman, instead of which, through sheer nervousness, I said, “I am basically a one-woman man.”
David did not seem to notice my gaffe, nor did he flinch when I nearly knocked down a lamp as I got up from the sofa, but when I arrived home the children roared with laughter, pointing out my mistake.
The other key to Mark’s life was his dogs. Anyone who has been to Annabel’s or Mark’s Club will remember that they are filled with paintings of dogs, some valuable, some simply paintings that captured Mark’s unerring eye and moved him. I gave him a picture that became one of his favourites and he hung it in the dining room of Mark’s Club; it depicts a dog, balancing on a raft, looking very concerned as two puppies struggle in the water below.
Mark’s passion for dogs began with our marriage. When we met, there had been only one dog in his life, a mothy black poodle that belonged to his mother’s fierce, dour Scottish housekeeper, Girvie. But my sister’s wedding present to us transformed Mark’s life.
Jane gave us a hopelessly un-house-trainable smooth-haired black-and-tan dachshund puppy. Noodle slept deep down between us in our bed and as we weren’t intending to have any children at that stage we lavished our love on him, little knowing that within a year our first-born, Rupert, would appear.
Mark was not by nature paternal, preferring to have had only one child rather than the three I imposed upon him. All his paternal instincts for young dependent creatures were concentrated on dogs. We both treated Noodle, a highly intelligent animal with an unerring instinct for the geography of London, like a child, and I said to Mark one day when a row between us was getting very heated: “Please don’t swear in front of Noodle.”
One summer in the early 1960s Mark and I rented a small holiday house in the south of France, which we shared with Mark’s friend Mark Brocklehurst and a host of guests who came and went throughout our stay. Both Marks used to go out clubbing, and one night very late when I was fast asleep Mark appeared in our bedroom carrying a tiny brown dachshund puppy that he had found in a nightclub, fallen in love with and persuaded the owner to sell to him on the spot.
Waking up with a start to see a new small dog on my bed, I was initially furious and stormed off to the spare bedroom. However, the next morning I crept back along the passage to find the puppy wrapped protectively around Mark’s head; she growled when I came in and I instantly melted. Seeing my change of heart, Mark told me he had already named her Midge and fully intended to keep her.
After Noodle, Midge became the second big canine love of Mark’s life; he had found her, rescued her, and he adored her and she him. Immigration rules were very strict regarding pets but we found a co-operative French vet who gave Midge a mild sedative and an anti-rabies shot. We packed her into Mark’s airline bag and, after a heart-hammering journey to London, undetected by the customs officers, Midge began her new life in England.
She soon settled into Pelham Cottage, bonded with Noodle and became the centre of Mark’s life. His love for her was so great that even when he came home from work and was greeted by Rupert and Robin all soft and ready for bed in their pyjamas, it was Midge that he would grab and make a big fuss of and sit on his lap. Many years later, after Mark and I were separated, we continued to live opposite each other, sharing Midge at the weekends.
Noodle and Midge eventually had a daughter called Minnie. Unfortunately she was completely rejected by Midge, who refused to feed her or pay any attention to her at all, but my vet found two amazing women who hand-reared her. Happily she survived and was able to come back to us after a month. She was small and comical-looking and Mark and I had a delicious time fantasising about what she got up to. She had a whole nefarious existence involving bank robbery, murder and Russian spies invented for her by Mark and me, which would be discussed by us in conversations and in letters in as serious a tone as if it were all fact rather than fiction. It was a lovely, mad running joke that can develop only between two people who love and care for each other and share a common ground in their love for animals.
I recently found a letter that Mark wrote to me from London one summer, just after he had launched Annabel’s in 1963 and while we were still living together; I must have been abroad at the time:
“I suppose you must have heard the news by now if the London papers reach you. Minnie was taken away by the police for questioning at about 4.30am. I was woken up by a lot of banging and noise and felt Minnie creeping down one of my legs — a second later three detectives with revolvers rushed into the room and turned the lights on. I tried to bluff it out but they weren’t having any and Minnie was quickly handcuffed and dragged away. She let out a low moan and showed the whites of her eyes. I know she had committed a terrible crime, probably the worst ever, but I couldn’t help feeling a pang as I saw her small face pressed to the window of the police car. Mr Battle is helping and we are going to get a really good lawyer. BUT three policemen!”
I wonder now whether Mark wrote me such letters with a subconscious intention of reflecting the special early relationship he knew I had with my father. At boarding school I used to receive marvellous letters from him all about our four scotties and the Tail Waggers’ Club he had invented for them, with detailed day-to-day accounts of what they got up to at home at Wynyard Hall in Co Durham.
I showed Mark these letters and he loved them. In a sense he had assumed the role of father to me; I was only 19 when we married — Mark was five years older — and with the early death of my mother from cancer when I was 17 and four years later that of my father, Mark seemed to feel a need to protect me. He always signed his letters to me “Dad”, which I found very touching and reassuring.
In the early 1970s, when Midge was terribly ill, lying on my bed looking quite pathetic, on a little drip, Mark came in to say goodbye on his way to New York. The sight of this small sick dog, the last one which, through Noodle, linked us to the early years of our marriage, was almost too much for him to bear and he burst into tears.
While Mark was in mid-flight Midge died and I dreaded making the phone call to tell him the news; I knew all he wanted to hear was that she was better.
Even when I cried for nine hours without stopping after Robin was attacked by a tigress at John Aspinall’s zoo in Kent, Mark did not weep; much as he minded, he was too angry with me for allowing Robin into the cage and too shocked to respond with tears. But the death of Midge represented a severing of a particular link between us, and in that moment his heart was broken.
AFTER Mark and I had separated amicably at the end of the 1960s, and he had moved into one of the houses opposite Pelham Cottage, he decided that he wanted a dog of his own; perhaps then, as at many other stages in his life, he found a real source of comfort in the companionship and faithful nature of a dog. On a visit to Battersea Dogs Home he noticed a golden-brown animal, a mixture of God knows what parentage, a dog with golden eyes who gave him his paw through the bars of the kennel. Crossing the room to look at the other inmates, Mark turned round to see that the golden dog had once again put out his paw and was following him with those riveting eyes. Mark knew that this was the one, and he named him Help.
This latest love was uncontrollable. With Help there was never any question of successfully imposing discipline. I was always made to take him for a walk and felt quite ridiculous as I tore around Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, looking absurd and provoking an equal mixture of mirth and concern in hopeless pursuit of this large misfit, shouting, “Help! Help! Help!”
The moment we got to the park he was off, and without missing a stride he would typically snatch the sandwiches out of the hand of some poor workman having his lunch — who would then yell at me, “Oi, I’ve lost my lunch!” And I would say: “I’m frightfully sorry. Can I go and buy you some more?”, by which time Help was down by the Serpentine, gobbling up the package, brown paper and all, even happier if there was a jam doughnut inside as well. “Bit late now,” the man would mutter, shuffling back to work still hungry.
Help was so agile, with his long legs, that if he was in full pelt he never stopped to see what was in his way and frequently jumped straight over prams; I became used to nannies looking at me in fury, and, much as I loved him, I dreaded taking him out. He even chased horses and would run round and round, driving both animal and rider mad, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. Mark, though, would not listen to my complaints. Occasionally Help would go missing and there would be a desperate search for him, but we soon learnt that he would make his way back to Victoria coach station and sit there till we turned up. We used to wonder whom or what he was looking for there. Despite his naughtiness I felt huge compassion for this abandoned dog and admired Mark in his devotion for him.
Tara, an alsatian, and George, a black labrador, were his last two dogs. Every night George slept on Mark’s bed on the Tempur mattress that guarantees no backache and costs a fortune, but Mark preferred to sleep in his reclining chair as George seemed happier on the Ritz of all mattresses; as always, dogs came first. Inscribed on a cushion in the house were the words, “This house is maintained for the comfort and security of my dogs. If you cannot accept that then you cannot accept me — so go away.”
About four years ago Mark fractured his hip and spent a long time in the Wellington hospital in north London. Although it was not allowed, Don, his Scottish chauffeur, used to try to smuggle Tara and George into his room to cheer him up. Once or twice he even managed it, much to Mark’s delight.
During his final illness both Tara and George slept in Mark’s room at home every night up until the very end; after his death they refused to go into his bedroom, their own grief as apparent as ours.
The day before Mark’s funeral India Jane and I went to St Paul’s Church in Knightsbridge to receive the coffin. On our way into the church I had spotted what looked like an abandoned trolley from Sainsbury’s parked at the foot of the steps. The head undertaker, already sporting his top hat, approached me with what must have been his permanently solemn face.
“I’m afraid, Lady Annabel, that the floral tributes on top of the coffin have made it too heavy for my men to carry,” he said apologetically. “This means we will have to bring the coffin in and out on a trolley.”
Although I knew Mark would have been highly amused at this suggestion, there was no way I was going to agree to him being trolleyed in and out of his own funeral service.
When I arrived at the church the next day I was deeply touched to see that the many “floral tributes” had been arranged on the ground around the coffin, while the small bunch of white roses, the last of the summer blooms that I had picked from my garden the previous day, lay alone on top of it with a little note from the children and me.
The church, decorated with a mass of roses — the flowers always chosen by Mark to fill the vases at Annabel’s — was packed with his family, friends, lovers and admirers. I had made a vow with the children that we would try not to cry, and although the service was astonishingly moving we managed for most of the hour to keep our promises to one another. Only at the end of the service did we find it impossible not to weep.
As the bagpipes sounded out Amazing Grace and the coffin began its final journey down the aisle, the sight of Tara and George, held on their leads by Don the chauffeur, following their master, was too much for anybody to bear. The floodgates opened.
In a way, those final moments summed up Mark for me. There were so many facets to his character that would have been familiar to the hundreds of people in the church that day: his immaculate taste, his elegance, his humour, his loyalty, his perfectionism, his bad temper and his hospitality.
On that sunny September day of Mark’s funeral, however, it was the sight of the devotion of his two last dogs which reminded me how his relationship with his dogs revealed the most endearing and the sweetest side of the man whom I had known and loved for more than 50 years. I still miss him dreadfully.
© Annabel Goldsmith 2009 Extracted from No Invitation Required: The Pelham Cottage Years, by Annabel Goldsmith, to be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on Thursday, priced £16.99. Copies can be ordered for £15.29, including postage, from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0845 271 2135
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