Singular life
Leave me alone
Petronella Wyatt
Last week saw the publication of the first national survey on stalking. For the benefit of male readers, we are referring, for a change, to women. The research was carried out by the University of Leicester. Does 'stalking' really count or is it largely the fantasy of hysterical post-feminist des- perados who swig too much white wine? Their cri de foie? In the old days people would have said, witheringly, 'She should be so lucky to have an admirer — what with her legs.' (Does Baroness Jay have a stalker, I wonder, other than every heredi- tary peer?) Actually I know a bit about stalking, hav- ing been a practitioner for many years — in the research department, that is; doing a bit of post-graduate work, you might say. A decade ago one of the first indications of success in the media, like acquiring a Louis Vuitton personal organiser, was getting yourself a stalker. It was the ultimate smart accoutrement. A relatively well-behaved and presentable stalker, that is, with good manners. Not the kind that would issue death threats — such a social error.
But then some girls at TVAM started getting bad stalkers, whose pathetic docility quickly disappeared into violent dyspepsia. The gag went awry. Then I got one, too. Well, actually, one doesn't like to boast, but I got three. Okay, these stalkers were really scraping the bottom of the barrel. I guess they should have stalked on by.
It was summer and I was sitting in the garden at home in London with my elder brother. The gate was open and a man walked in. None of us had seen him before in our lives. Nevertheless, he said he had come to take me out to dinner. His dress was respectable and bourgeois, but his aspect was deranged. He pawed on the damp June grass with the toe of one of his shiny shoes. He said again that he had come to take me out. His name was Peter; he added that we were to be married. This piece of information prompted an enor- mous desire to laugh nervously, but appar- ently this is the wrong thing to do with a stalker. They dislike humour. Can't blame them, it isn't funny. My elder brother threatened the man with the police instead. Doubtless he went on to stalk someone else, for I never heard from him again.
Stalker Number Two was rather more tenacious. Geography was no obstacle: he stalked from no less a place than Hungary, through the post. He was also in possession of a Hungarian wife and three mewling infants. But the third bird was the oddest of the lot. This one, after I had published a column on the Church of England, began by writing letters in praise of — erm — my literary style. He had evidently formed a burning admiration for my theology. Then the letters became gifts: expensive bottles of scent. One day a tape arrived in the post. It was a recording of Rudolph Valentino singing love songs. My admirer had superimposed his own voice on to the recordings. The voice was thick and for- eign-sounding, possibly Central European; it had a hint of menace. The gifts soon took on a dark twist: gold Mont Blanc fountain pens were filled with blood-red ink; strange and arcane symbols were engraved on the sides of pieces of jewellery. (Okay, at least this stalker wasn't on benefits. Maybe it was Chancellor Kohl.) The letters con- tained paragraphs of threatening gibberish (definitely Chancellor Kohl). Apparently, I was to be saved, with violence if necessary, from Sappho and her sisters. There was an old Kremlin saying, another stated: 'Three people could keep a secret as long as one of them was dead.'
I didn't like this saying at all. Telephone calls, often through a mysterious intermedi- ary, increased. He found me at home. He seemed to know my movements in flesh- creeping detail. Every time I left work I looked behind me. I saw evil stares in the innocuous faces of commuters on trains; businessmen in restaurants. His intermedi- ary announced he was going abroad but then my phone kept ringing in the night. It felt like the tightening of a noose.
I went to the police. They told me to make a pile of everything he had sent and bring it to the station; then I was to leave a message informing the man of what I had done. My sterling brother found out his address. After a brief preamble, he per- suaded him to relinquish his little game and leave me alone. He still does. But I don't laugh about stalkers any more — not much.
In here please, Ms Jenkins, and answer my telephone.'
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