Finding Hayley Finding Me

One day in April 1991, having walked into the house laden with full shopping bags, I stooped as I passed the TV and pulled the knob to turn it on. To relieve my aching arms I headed for the kitchen, dumping the bags on the floor, and heard Ray Martin say that tomorrow one of his guests on ‘The Midday Show’ would be “former Disney child-star Hayley Mills”. Can you imagine my excitement when I heard him say her name? What if I had been two minutes later into the house? What if I hadn’t turned the TV on as I passed it? What if I had put the shopping bags down in the kitchen first and then come back to turn the TV on? I wouldn’t have even known she was in Australia! Was this just chance? I didn’t think so. I did spiritual cartwheels and ran around the room exclaiming, “Hayley, my beloved Hayley!” It was then that the reality of the possibility of seeing her in person came to me. Up until now there had only ever been one previous time when I’d had a slight thought of hopefully seeing her in person and that had been ten years earlier in late April 1981 when David and I were in London for him to sit exams at the Royal College of Organists. We were walking around the West End of London on a Sunday afternoon and I gazed at the billings of the theatres as we passed in the hope of seeing her name or photo, but as David had no interest, I knew better than to try to pursue a search for her. We were in London for him, not for me. Other than for that one time, the idea of ever seeing Hayley one day in the flesh had never entered my head as that just seemed so far fetched—such fantasy. However, now she was to be in Sydney. When she had been in Australia in 1981 for ‘Parkinson’ she was on the east coast, whereas I was in Perth on the west coast, but she was now to be in Sydney and I was only a ninety-minute drive away! I ran to the phone and rang ‘The Midday Show’ at Channel Nine to acquire a seat in the audience, but they were booked out and weren’t interested in trying to assist me. I was told abruptly that there was a bus company that organized to bring people to be the audience for the show, and that it was fully booked. The lady on the other end of the phone was dismissive of me, so I hung up feeling angry. She hadn’t understood how important this was to me, but I was in no position to argue. When David came home from work, I told him of my attempt to be in the audience of ‘The Midday Show’. With a screwed up face displaying complete disapproval, he said, “You what?!” He was not very tolerant of things like this, as he couldn’t comprehend why anyone would act in a manner that he wouldn’t. Believing that he saw me as quite ridiculous, I realized how little he actually knew me: he wasn’t interested in me; he never had been. So I resolved that I would do whatever I needed to where Hayley was concerned, and not allow his opinion to influence me. Here were definite signs of my growth; my assertiveness was emerging! It came from my suppressed anger over many years, and now here I was, again with an issue relating to Hayley, which was something far too important to me to let David put a stop to. I had learnt from my past mistake. I was angry, not only with David, but with myself for having allowed him, fourteen years earlier, to intimidate and manipulate me into parting with my treasured ‘Hayley collection’. How I had missed it, how I had missed her, and how I still yearned for her presence in my life. Her place in my heart had never wavered. Never give your power away to another. I had now resolved that never again would I give my power away. It had been a hard lesson to learn and had cost me dearly, but I wasn’t forfeiting or relinquishing anything of Hayley, nor of myself, again. I set up a video in preparation to record Hayley as I watched ‘The Midday Show’ the next day. It was now ten years since seeing her on ‘Parkinson’ and it felt to me as if I were about to see my dearest friend again after a ten-year absence. As soon as I saw her appear on the screen I was completely overwhelmed with emotion and I began sobbing. This was my Hayley—oh, I knew her so well! This unexpected emotional outburst took me so completely by surprise. What was this about? I didn’t understand why I reacted so passionately. But there was nothing I could do about it. Once I had ascertained from her interview that she was in Australia to tour with the show ‘The King and I’, and would be performing in Sydney later in the year, I had something to look forward to and was able to plan to buy tickets for her show. She was, however, touring Australia with this production and I had four months to wait until its Sydney season was to begin. I eagerly watched for the opening date for bookings and pounced immediately to obtain two great seats for Monday 28th October. Monday was David’s one day off a week, and this was to be an outing to celebrate my forty-second birthday, which would have taken place three days earlier. I didn’t ask him if I could book the tickets, I just did it. By asking I would have been giving him the power to say no, and I was not going to give him that power. I was asserting my power over this very important issue. However, I didn’t know at the time just how eventful those ensuing four months would be, with my marriage splitting up for a third and final time in September. So by the time 28th October came around it was my mother who came with me to see the show. Mum was very pleased that this opportunity for me to see Hayley on stage had presented itself after such a very difficult and trying period in my life. It was a precious time for Mum and me, as we very rarely had the opportunity of doing something special like this together. Furthermore, it was an enormous thrill for her to be going to see Hayley—after all, I had made Hayley a household name in my family. With Gemma’s baby-sitting arrangements in place, the evening started with Mum and me catching a bus from her home on the lower north shore of Sydney into the city, enjoying a meal together, followed by the double delight of seeing a spectacular show and seeing Hayley live. It was a wonderful experience to share with my mother, and it was exciting to be enjoying this adventure together. As Hayley made her entrance onto the stage, and ‘Anna’ appeared before us, I impulsively burst into applause. It was solo applause for a few embarrassing seconds and then the whole audience accompanied me with their applause. Although the show, in all it’s spectacular Siamese colour, unfolded in front of me, I spent the whole evening with my eyes firmly-set just on Hayley, soaking up her presence before me. We had wonderful seats—I was able to see her face quite clearly and all of her facial expressions. What a delight! What a dream come true! It was, however, most surprising when, upon the curtain closing on Hayley, I once again found myself sobbing. I was paralysed with tears. We were the very last to leave the theatre that evening. I was trying to stop my sobbing before venturing out in the street to face the world again. I could see that the ushers were looking at me wondering what my problem was. I later realized that my emotion that evening stemmed from the finality of three things. The curtain had closed all right, but not only on Hayley. The curtain had also closed on my fifteen-year marriage, and on any future with Geoff—three endings to three of the most profound relationships in my life. The emotion engendered in me from the curtain closing on my time with Hayley had served as the catalyst for releasing all this other suppressed emotion. I had released the emotional beach balls that I had been holding down under the surface, and out it all came with surprising force. However, with endings come new beginnings. Little did I know what was in store for me in ways of new beginnings! Eileen Caddy wrote: “Expect the most wonderful things to happen in your life, not in the future, but right now”.