An exhibition at the Eye Film Museum in Amsterdam devoted to the multi-talented and award-winning actress Tilda Swinton, runs until February. Reading about it prompted me to think back to the mid-2000s, when I got to know her slightly. Through work, her then partner, the artist and playwright John Byrne, came down from Nairn to stay in Glasgow for a few days. I’d first heard of him when I was a teenager – he was responsible for his friend Gerry Rafferty’s 1970s album covers, and later went on to write The Slab Boys trilogy and the 1987 TV series Tutti Frutti, which starred Robbie Coltrane and Emma Thompson.
Because Tilda was away filming one of the Narnia films and their nanny was due days off, John brought their twins, a boy and a girl. They were about six. Both were adorable with their solemn, elven faces and tangled hair which fell in waves to their waists.
John was by then in his sixties. He was tall and arty-looking, with longish hair, a carefully coiffured moustache and beard, round glasses and interesting, expensive-looking, well-worn clothes. He was also the nicest man I’d ever met: modest, quietly spoken and calm. When I offered him a second glass of wine at dinner, he refused. ‘No thanks. In the old days me and Gerry could tan a bottle of vodka on the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh, but I hardly drink now.’
There was usually an American Spirit roll-up between his fingers or lips, and he was grateful when I told him that he was free to smoke in the house, although we didn’t. ‘I was born tae smoke,’ he said. When the Scottish government banned smoking in interior public spaces in 2006 he insisted that his image, which was at the time all over the arrival corridors in Glasgow and Edinburgh airports, be removed.
My childhood was impoverished. It was also neglectful and at times dangerous
The next time he and the children stayed, Tilda was on a break from filming and came along too. She was pleasant and friendly but otherworldly and theatrical. She was also funny, sometimes unintentionally, and I liked her a lot. They were down to view a bust that was being made of John. Tilda knew about sculpture. She told me: ‘I was a sculpture once. In 1995 I lay in a glass case in the Serpentine Gallery for eight hours a day for a week…’ When she went to see the clay model of the bust in progress, she said: ‘Oh John, look, isn’t it exactly like my very best drawing of you?’
The following morning I took her, the twins and two of my daughters up to Glasgow’s West End to visit Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. As we were driving along Dumbarton Road, my middle daughter, who was 12, piped up from the back: ‘Tilda, Tilda…’ Tilda answered in her velvety sonorous voice: ‘Yeees…?’ ‘Tilda, you know Leonardo DiCaprio?’ ‘Yes, yes, I do.’ ‘Tilda, have you met Leonardo DiCaprio?’ ‘Yes, I have.’ ‘Tilda, have you hugged Leonardo DiCaprio?’ ‘Yes, I have hugged Leonardo DiCaprio.’ ‘Have you snog…’ Tilda interjected: ‘Have you SEEN The Beach?’ (The film, which is rated 18, examines themes of selfish hedonism, betrayal and the fragility of a beach paradise. It includes sex scenes between the characters portrayed by Leo and Tilda.) I hadn’t seen it and had no idea my young daughter had. Before I could find out more, Tilda’s phone rang. She answered it: ‘Keanu, darling, how are you?’
Some months later I took a plaster copy of the finished bust up to Nairn as a gift for John and Tilda. She and I went to pick up the children from their Steiner school. As we bowled amicably along in the family’s lime-green Fiat Multipla, she told me she really loved fast cars and was an occasional and enthusiastic gambler. We exchanged fragments of personal history. My childhood was impoverished, albeit spent in a large farmhouse. It was also neglectful and at times dangerous. Hers was aristocratic and chilly. She hadn’t felt appreciated and her brothers were sometimes unkind. Like me, she generally ran wild in the countryside, but one day was told to put on a posh frock for a party. As she self-consciously descended the stairs wearing the dress, one of her brothers said: ‘You look pretty… pretty awful!’ Not wanting to be rude and enquire if that was the worst thing that had ever happened, I feigned sympathy.
When Tilda first visited, my eldest daughter had recently suffered a severe post-viral illness which affected her mobility and put her in hospital for a week. The doctors told us we might have to adapt our house to accommodate a wheelchair. We were beside ourselves with anxiety and beyond thankful when she recovered fully within a few months. Tilda had been sympathetic and advised massage, from her chair demonstrating on her own legs how this might be done. Hands running up and down a lifted leg, she said: ‘What you need is lovely, lovely, loooovely massage.’ My daughter accepted this display and counsel politely but with a sceptical look and the standard adolescent raised eyebrow.
As we were approaching the school, Tilda asked after my daughter and told me she was in a bit of a state herself. Concerned, I asked why. She told me it was because she had to go to the Venice Film Festival with her friend George Clooney the following week.
‘Oh you poor dear,’ I said just before she stopped the car, and we both properly corpsed: shaking shoulders, tears, snot.
Comments