Authors: Kate McCann
The awful sense of Madeleine’s fear I once experienced every waking hour has, however, eased a little. What remains is a lasting awareness of the terror she would’ve felt in the disorientating moment she first opened her eyes to find herself with a stranger. I cannot imagine this will ever fade completely.
It was a long time before I was able to allow myself to take any real pleasure in anything. I couldn’t watch television, read a book, listen to music or follow the football, as I might have done to relax in my old life. I couldn’t go to the cinema or out for a meal. I couldn’t browse in shops. Madeleine was in my thoughts when I woke up in the morning and as I battled to fall asleep at night. I couldn’t even sit down unless it was for a purpose, to eat or to work at the computer. How could I possibly take pleasure in anything without my daughter?
It was partly the feeling that I had to be doing something to help Madeleine every moment of every day, partly that so much of what I used to love reminded me of the life we should still have been leading and now made me sad. Sometimes the most innocuous and unexpected triggers can set me off: the smell of newly mown grass, or a song I associate with happier days. The hymn ‘On Eagle’s Wings’, which Gerry and I chose for our wedding, gets me every time. It was over two years before I could bring myself to play music again. In the end it was the thought of how unfair it would be to deny Sean and Amelie, who loved singing, something I’d loved, too, that got me over that hurdle.
Gerry, meanwhile, was able to switch off from time to time and I’m sure that was a great help to him. I felt guilty for his sake that I couldn’t do the same. He was desperate to share his moments of relaxation with me, to have his old Kate back, even if only briefly. He would suggest doing something nice – and I would cry.
Despite his inner strength, determination and capability, Gerry has his own down days, of course. He’s been such a rock through so many long and testing times that when he crumbles, it is all the more concerning. There’s something particularly distressing about seeing a strong man reduced to a heap, crying like a baby. Especially when he is the most important man in your life. I remember finding him on the couch one day, with Sean and Amelie sitting on either side of him, watching TV. When he looked up at me there were tears rolling down his face. I glanced at the screen to see what they were watching. It was
Doctor Who
: Madeleine and Gerry’s favourite episode.
At times it has taken Gerry everything he’s got to fight for his own survival and there’s just been nothing left to give me. Occasionally, when I’ve been as low as it’s possible to be, or afraid I was losing control completely, I’ve longed for a chance to talk it through, or even just to feel Gerry’s arm around my shoulder, but he simply hasn’t had the strength. He knows or fears that if he allows himself to be sucked into my despair, he might be brought crashing down, too. I understand this awful predicament only too well because I’ve experienced it myself with other relatives when I’ve been struggling. It sounds selfish and it feels selfish, too. But our lives remain precarious and sometimes it is all you can do to keep your own head above water, let alone anyone else’s.
Fortunately, Gerry’s worst days don’t usually coincide with mine and for the most part we’ve been able to buoy each other up. We also know it is essential that we somehow make time for each other if we are to keep communicating, avoid growing apart and escape becoming another marital breakdown statistic. I say ‘somehow’ because since 2007 our life has been hideously busy as well as traumatic. The relentless workload of the search for Madeleine, organizing and participating in fund-raising events, Gerry’s full-time job and the general demands of family life have left us with little space for anything else.
I took a cognitive approach to getting our sexual relationship back on track, concentrating hard on what Gerry means to me, as a husband and as a friend; on the love we have for each other and the three beautiful children we created together; on our unity as a couple and as a family of five. It seems to have worked. If my mind ever starts to wander down dark alleys, I fight against that, focusing on what I have that is good and important. And I tell myself that I cannot, and will not, allow this evil person to destroy anything else in our life.
I’m sure Alan Pike was right and it helped that I was gradually,
very
gradually, able to allow myself some pleasure and relaxation in general. Whether this was just a matter of time I don’t know: it certainly took well over a year. I remember very clearly the first brief moment of peace I experienced. It was on our first holiday since Madeleine’s abduction in the summer of 2008, in that wonderful isolated cabin in British Columbia. Gerry and I had been for a run together through the forest and returned to find that Auntie Norah had prepared a fabulous lunch for us. After we ate I went for a long soak in the bath, taking a glass of red wine with me. I lay back, completely immersing my head and letting the burning hot water wash over my face. My mind was at rest, my body calm . . . and suddenly I felt the weight of our life lift temporarily. It was fleeting, but it was good.
Just acknowledging this slow personal ‘improvement’, however, brings a wave of guilt over me. My life is weighed down by guilt: guilt for what happened to Madeleine, guilt at surviving this whole horror, guilt that our family, especially Sean and Amelie, have had to experience any of it, guilt for not being quite the person or wife I once was and guilt about taking even five minutes for myself. Perhaps being a mother and a Catholic is a double whammy when it comes to guilt. It is certainly a heavy load to carry around with you. It preys on your conscience and when you weaken it can pull you down.
That said, the knowledge that I am a stronger and more able woman now than I was a couple of years ago helps me to shake off a little of that guilt: I recognize that this is a positive development, for me, for Gerry, for Sean and Amelie, and for Madeleine.
4 December 2010
We went to the Leicestershire and Rutland Irish Golf Society dinner dance last night [the proceeds were being donated to Madeleine’s Fund]. It was a really good ‘do’ – lovely people and great music. We definitely felt ‘safe’ and most importantly, among friends. Gerry and I danced for a large part of the evening. We hadn’t danced since Madeleine was taken. We actually enjoyed it. It felt a little strange but I wasn’t consumed with guilt as is often the case in these situations. Gerry looked really happy, almost glowing. It felt good to share some smiles and laughter with my lovely husband.
Our pain might be the most acute, but our whole family, as well as our closest friends, suffer it to some degree, too, every day. Fiona, Dave, Russell, Jane, Rachael, Matt and Dianne live with the additional trauma of having been with us when the abduction took place. So many people miss Madeleine – their granddaughter, sibling, niece, cousin, godchild and friend – and of course they worry about Gerry and me. We all have our own needs and cannot always deal with each other’s. This has been very hard for us – especially given the incredible support our family and friends have been throughout the last four years.
Several of my friends have had their own problems in recent times: events that in our old life we would have classed as pretty major. ‘It’s nothing compared to what you’re going through,’ they say, sounding almost guilty for even mentioning their difficulties. But deaths in the family, marital breakdown and cancer are not ‘nothing’. We appreciate that knowing somebody else is going through something worse doesn’t lessen your own pain. Having a child abducted would be way up there in any hierarchy of human ordeals, but it would be nonsensical and unfair to try to measure anyone else’s tragedies against such a yardstick. We have tried to support our friends as best we can, but sometimes our depleted reserves of time and strength have prevented us from doing as much as we would have wanted.
I own up that my expectations of others have sometimes been too high. Early on, friends and relatives were there for us constantly, devoting their time and resources to anything that might help find Madeleine. Inevitably, as time moves on, motivation wanes, priorities change and people have their own lives to lead. This is only natural. But while I understand that, at times it makes me sad that anyone else is capable of switching off when Madeleine is still missing. And I suppose I envy them their freedom to do so. However, I don’t have the slightest doubt that if ever we ask friends or relations to do something for us, or need them with us, they will be there like a shot. Compared with other families who’ve suffered equally horrific events, in this we have been fortunate indeed.
Alan Pike warned us that we would lose some good friends as a result of our tragedy. On the plus side, new people would come into our lives, and we might unexpectedly grow closer to friends who had previously been more peripheral. He was 100 per cent right. Some relationships have drifted for reasons which haven’t always been apparent. As upsetting and surprising as this has been, we’ve learned to accept that it’s not unusual in such circumstances, and there is every chance these friendships might be rekindled in the future. From the start it was difficult to talk to anyone who hadn’t been intimately involved with what happened. It felt as if they didn’t really understand or, in some cases, simply had no concept of what our life was like now and, perhaps just because we were so exhausted, we struggled to reconnect with them.
Certain reactions to our situation have been hard to deal with (though they can be interesting from an anthropological point of view!). For some people it seems too painful to bear. It’s as if they are almost pretending Madeleine’s abduction never happened. Perhaps by not mentioning it, or even acknowledging it, they are trying to reassure themselves that the world is still a good and safe place. While this is difficult for us to handle, living as we do with our pain every single day, we realize that everyone has their own way of coping with their feelings. It doesn’t mean they don’t have them. In the case of those we know less well, we understand that sometimes people just don’t know what to say. For Gerry and me it feels easier, and right, to talk about Madeleine and we are relieved when others do so, too. We cannot behave as if she doesn’t exist.
One of the big changes in our life has been the loss of our anonymity – something I’d always taken for granted, as I suppose most people do. It had never occurred to me just how far-reaching the consequences would be. As Kate Healy, I could do what I liked, when I liked, talk to whoever I wanted to talk to, behave naturally without feeling I was being judged by those around me. Suddenly, in the cruellest of circumstances, people the world over recognized us and were au fait with all kinds of personal details about us.
Cynics will argue that we ‘courted’ the media (God, how I detest that expression). If by this they mean that we enlisted their help to spread the word that our daughter had been stolen and we were desperate to find her, then we hold our hands up. Every decision we have made in the last four years, and every encounter with the press, has been undertaken in Madeleine’s interests, not in ours. What would these critics have done if it was their child? Hidden away and hoped for the best? What would
you
do?
What we have always needed, and still need, is the help of the public to track Madeleine down, and we believed, and were advised, that this was the best way of reaching them.
Our relationship with the media remains finely balanced and uneasy. We are dependent on them to keep Madeleine in people’s minds and to publicize requests for information related to any new developments in our investigation. At the same time, engaging with them is like riding a tiger. As for their attitude to us nowadays, we typically see a flip-flopping approach, in both the UK and Portugal. One day they will report our public appearances reasonably soberly and factually, the next they will be finding fault. And the day after that the anti-McCann commentators, the ones who criticize everything we do, will wade in, harking back to how we left the children unattended, or opining that we should go away and give up.
As a direct consequence of becoming known (I can’t bring myself to use the word ‘famous’), I am now very self-conscious in public places. Some people will come up to me and wish me well, others just stand and stare, or nudge their companions and whisper, ‘Look, there’s Kate McCann,’ whereupon five heads will swivel towards me. I’ve seen shop assistants run over to tell their colleagues, and three more heads pop up behind a counter. I am left wondering, What are they thinking? Do they believe what has been in the newspapers? I’ve never been that interested in shopping, but these days I find it even more of a trial. When I have to do it, I fly in and out as quickly as possible.
On one of my first expeditions after our return from Portugal, I went to collect a
Jungle Book
DVD I’d ordered for the children. As soon as I stepped out of the car I began to feel very anxious. I didn’t want anyone to see me but the arcade was busy. I hurried inside the store, looking down at the floor to avoid any eye contact. Waiting in a queue at the till, I fought an urge to run out of the shop. It was all taking too long, I felt exposed and the tears were welling up. Served at last, I was rushing out of the arcade clutching my DVD when somebody grabbed my arm. It was a former colleague. I burst out crying and she hugged me tightly as people manoeuvred their way round us. ‘Kate, you look so scared,’ she said. ‘Hold your head up. You have
nothing
to feel bad about.’
I worried that if people saw me smile or laugh, they’d think it inappropriate. After all, I thought it inappropriate myself. I worried that if they noticed me out and about they’d be saying, ‘How could she? I just couldn’t if it were me.’ I even worried about silly things like shoppers spotting me buying groceries in Marks and Spencer or Sainsbury’s and frowning on me for not going somewhere cheaper like Aldi and putting the pennies saved into Madeleine’s Fund. None of this seemed silly to me at the time, though. It really bothered me.