Singular life
Rooms without views
Petronella Wyatt
Iwas at Covent Garden a few days ago for a performance of La Boheme. Only I missed some of it. Actually, I missed all of it. This was despite the fact that I arrived half an hour early.
I don't suffer from many phobias, except the usual run-of-the-mill kinds to do with work, work and work, etc. But there is another one. Remember Hitchcock's Verti- go? James Stewart played a San Francisco cop who was afraid of heights. His girl- friends kept falling off ledges because he couldn't get up the stairs in time to prevent them jumping off.
With some women this may be a bonus, but one sees how it might soon become inconvenient. The trouble is that when people I know see Vertigo they find the premise slightly risible. A six foot three man stands on a chair and becomes para- lytic with terror about the drop. The thing is, it is not only true it's worse.
I have had vertigo for as long as I can remember. I shall now contradict myself by saying that I can't recall what caused it, but it may have been a visit I paid, aged 11 years old, to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In those days it had no sides. What I mean is, when you climbed up the outside there were no rails attached to the circular ledges. Most people, therefore, sensibly walked up the stairs inside.
Who wants to be most people? The full horror didn't hit me until about level seven, 75 feet up. Then I realised I was standing on a high ledge with no rails and that the stone under my feet felt as if it had been sluiced in soapy water. Recollections more or less end there, but I believe I had to be scraped off an outside wall, to which I was clinging on all fours, by four Italians whose usual occupation was driving horse-drawn carriages around the Piazza del Miracolo.
Ever since then I have lost out on the view. I just cannot look at one without feel- ing sick. Whenever I check into a hotel I make sure they give me a room without a view. I admit this is inconvenient for oth- ers. Other women yearn for Manhattan penthouses, I yearn to escape from them. A few years ago I was invited to a New York book launch that took place in a penthouse overlooking Central Park. Although it was May, the terrace was deco- rated with Christmas trees. There was not much else but terrace. I found myself being introduced to Lauren Bacall. As she turned around she exposed to the eye a whole stretch of Central Park. I stared at her in horror and started to back away. My hands fumbled, knocking over glasses. Vertigo doesn't do much for one's social life.
What happened at Covent Garden, though, really illustrates the plight of suf- ferers. My seat was in the lower amphithe- atre. I therefore expected it to be low — low-ish at any rate. It wasn't. It was in the middle of the ceiling. The thing about ver- tigo is that you don't feel dizzy because you look down. Dizziness doesn't come into it. The thing is that the ground rises up to hit the ceiling in one enormous smack. Thus the stage shot up and hit me on the chin. It was two minutes before curtain up and I was rooted to the spot.
A woman was trying to get by me to her seat. 'Would you excuse me?' she asked. `No, I wouldn't,' I snapped. Then to no one in particular, 'I can't stay here.' The woman chose this moment to start to engage in insulting conversation. She bared her well- capped teeth. 'Seat not grand enough for you?' The other people in the row turned around. Meanwhile, the ceiling was spin- ning like a wheel cascading down a hill. I was seized with a blind panic. I had to get past the woman. I knew what it was like to want to kill. The urge for survival rose up. I am ashamed to say that I pushed her. The stairs made a clattering noise as I ran down them and on to the street. Two attendants at the entrance asked where I was going. When push came to shove, I couldn't even answer.
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