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About Why Not Say What Happened?: A Memoir
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1 I have recently started going to a new shrink. She is the latest on a list of many. She is British, straightforward, and cozily plump. The sort of woman you want to sit down with, have a nice cup of tea and a bit of a chat. "You have been so bumped and knocked around," she told me after hearing just a little of my history, "that it's a wonder you survived at all." I certainly don't feel like a "wonder." In fact, I feel that I have fucked up my life. I have spent so long trying to avoid feeling the pain and anxiety that lie so close to the surface of my skin. Alcohol, antidepressants, and stints in rehabs have done little to alleviate the feelings of desperation. The worst thought I have is that it is too late, that perhaps I am too damaged ever to be fixed. I have spent so much of my life floundering. Now that I am a mother, however, I have grown up a bit and become brave enough to look back and try to make some sense of the past. Dysfunctional does not even begin to describe my family and upbringing. Anyway, that is far too easy a word to use-who doesn't come from some kind of dysfunction? But what part of my history has so ill-equipped me to function in adulthood? "You do know who your real father was. Don't you?" Maybe I had been given a clue to solve a puzzle that I never knew even existed. on paper it all looks so perfect, so glamorous, so privileged, and interesting. I come from a fabled background. My mother was born into a family that was wealthy, aristocratic, and good-looking. My grandmother was one of three sisters whom the society pages dubbed "the glorious Guinness girls." All three were beautiful, charming, and, thanks to the popularity of the black stout beer whose name they bore, very rich. They were also spoiled, selfish, and uneducated. They were born during an era when it was deemed unnecessary for a young lady to be equipped with anything other than nice manners and good child-bearing hips. Education was considered unimportant. My great-grandfather the Honorable Arthur Edward Guinness was by all accounts an unattractive character. I have heard many stories that illustrate his extravagant and boorish behavior. My mother's favorite was when "Granddaddy" purchased his own private airplane. He knew very little about flying but on a whim one day decided to take the plane out for a little spin. Unfortunately, when he jumped into the cockpit he failed to notice that the plane's mechanic was still working on top of one of the wings. The mechanic was killed immediately after the plane took off, but my great-grandfather ignored this little inconvenience and continued his flight undaunted. Because of his great wealth some of these more despicable acts were labeled as merely eccentric, and as far as I know he never suffered any repercussions or consequences. At that time he also owned one of the largest yachts ever built. He decided that his girls should see the world, and so he embarked with my grandmother and my two great-aunts on a sailing trip that lasted most of their formative years. Their lives up to that point had been untouched by reality, and the long sea voyage only removed them further from any semblance of normality. As a young girl my grandmother was waited on hand and foot, a practice that she made sure continued until her death at ninety-four. If she needed to go to the lavatory, a maid would warm up the toilet seat before "Miss Maureen" was allowed to sit down. When the girls came out as debutantes, they were in possession of cash and good looks, but they needed class to be accepted at the highest level of English society. My grandmother found it in the form of the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava. Basil Dufferin was young, handsome, and eligible. His grandfather the first marquess had been viceroy in India and governor general of Canada. He had arguably been Britain's most accomplished diplomat of the nineteenth century. Basi
