Hartbreaker

I was born to an affluent family in 1960, in London, United Kingdom. My parents, Victoria and Arthur Hart met some time in the late 50’s, he was a Hart, a man of wealth and power, and she was a Sterling, a woman of class and a social climber. I’m not really sure if their marriage was one of convenience or love, regardless, they wed just a few months before our birth. Much like you and your brother, I was a twin myself. My brother George and I were only five years old when our younger sister, Valerie, was born.

It didn’t take me long to realize that I was different from my family. I always felt different. I felt…misunderstood. In my own family, I felt like an outsider. My parents didn’t seem to like me much. Every time I tried to get into their good graces, I only seemed to push them further away. I remember being a child, giving my mother a yellow rose from our garden for her birthday, only for her to crush it in her hand with such utter disdain and contempt. “Boys shouldn’t play with flowers, Darcy.” She had said. Feeling dejected, I hid in my room, where George found me. He told me mum had liked his gift; he couldn’t understand why mum had rejected me so vehemently. After all, he was only a child himself. When I asked him what he had given mum for her birthday, his reply only cemented the fact that the same rules did not apply to each of us. He had given her a flower. A flower she treasured and loved. The problem had not been the flower. The problem was me.

As a young boy, I was lonely, my only friends were my brother and sister. Though even in their company, I felt alone. George was a special child, and our parents knew it. They loved him more than anything. To them, George could do no wrong. I, on the other hand, was a tremendous disappointment. I felt too much, I emoted too much, and according to my parents; Harts did not emote. I was a sensitive kid. I used to lie at night wondering what was wrong with me. Wondering why I couldn’t be normal like the rest of my family. Why was it that my parents seemed to hate me? Now I know I was just autistic. I didn’t find that out until my seventies. My parents never had me tested, but they always treated me as if they knew I was different.

George was the complete opposite of me. He was a prodigy. Naturally gifted in everything he attempted; sports, school, it didn’t matter what it was. If he tried it, he excelled. I suppose to my parents I simply wasn’t the son they had wanted. George was. Though for the first fourteen years of my life I attempted to be perfect, I attempted to win my parent’s love, I never achieved it. Eventually, all that treatment hardened me. I went from being a sensitive child to an angry, sullen teenager. I was bitter, I was hurt but mostly I was a depressed child trapped under a mountain of emotional neglect that began to solidify into a hatred that ran as deep as the river Styx.

Then came 1975, I was fifteen years old. It was during this period that George and I discovered horror movies. Horror movies gave me some reprieve from my never-ending teenage angst. George and I became obsessed. We got our hands on every horror VHS we could find. Even some banned movies. It was our favorite pastime. It was around this period that we decided we would go to university for filmmaking. We wanted to make our own movies. I was eyeing a career as a writer and director. Meanwhile George liked the idea of becoming a cinematographer.

When mum and dad found out that George was not going to school to become a doctor like they had planned, they blamed me. They said I had filled George’s head with ideas of a life that they didn’t approve of. They tried to steer him in the direction they wanted, however George never relented and, in the end, mum and dad had a hard time ordering George around. It was one of the benefits of being the most beloved son. His transgressions were either always forgiven or passed on to me.

In 1978, after many arguments with our parents, George and I became students at Westminster University of the Arts as film students. During this period, I became neurotic. I had never been academically gifted—or gifted in any way—so I studied like a madman. The first two years, I focused solely on university. I worked hard and eventually, for the first time in my life, I became one of the top students in my class, second only to George.

My academic life was going well, but despite this achievement, my relationship with my parents was worsening by the day and I began to rebel.