Catherine O' Brien

You Magazine 'From the Heart' feature on Saturday 20/11/03

Susie Boyt, 34, is the author of three novels and is currently working on her fourth. Her father is Lucian Freud, the celebrated portrait artist and grandson of Sigmund Freud; her mother is his former Slade pupil and mistress Suzy Boyt. The youngest of their five children, Susie also has four half-sisters, who include Bella Freud, the fashion designer, and Esther Freud, also a novelist. Susie's husband Tom Astor, 41, is a film producer. They have been married for eight years and live in London with their two year old daughter Mary.

All my life people have said to me two things: you are going to have to toughen up and you think too much. I have toughened up a bit, but I still think too much.

Everyone tells me how unconventional my childhood was, but I went to Brownies every Monday, had roast chicken every Friday and always had a clean white shirt for school. I definitely felt well taken care of.

My mother was known as Big Suzy, I was Little Susie. Most of the time, she was on her own with the five of us. That is something I often think about now when I am having a difficult day with my one child.

Mum has the ability to walk into a building site and within 20 minutes, make it feel like home. We moved house often when I was growing up - every time we ran out of money - but wherever we went, ours was always a warm place that people flocked to.

I was 16 when I started sitting for my father. Although I had seen him throughout my childhood, it was then that we went through our getting-to-know-you thing as adults and it was pretty life-enhancing. I felt a lot of tenderness that I was quite surprised by and very happy about.

As a child, I felt love was a tragic, dangerous thing best avoided. That is probably because Mum's love life always seemed rather complicated and not very satisfying. I remember thinking from as early as five years old how absolutely terrible it would be if I fell in love with someone who didn't love me, and it ruined my life.

I was what you would call a late developer. My sister Rose left home at 15 to share a flat with her boyfriend, but I would never have been able to do that. Throughout my teens, boys seemed like Martians - I wouldn't have considered having any dealings with them.

The love of friends can make the difference between survival and going under. I learnt that at Oxford, when a very close friend died in a climbing accident. In an instant, my world changed, and I became more fearful than I was before. It was thanks to the consistent love of my friends that I came through.

I have spent a lot of time in some very seedy places. They were part of my delayed adolescence that came after I left university. None of the relationships I had were substantial or serious, but I did hang out with various playboys and eccentrics - people who were just a bit ridiculous really.

Tom is the perfect person I had never allowed myself to hope for. At my sister's wedding in 1994, I caught the bouquet, turned around, and there he was. We have been together ever since.

If your beginnings are a bit uncertain, it needn't mean that your endings have to be. I have always had a strong feeling that life gets easier as you get older.

In love, timing is crucial. Tom and I had known each other vaguely for years - he is the brother of my sister's best friend - but when we met, it was the right time. I'm not sure that I would have been ready for him earlier.

Meeting Tom has enabled me to become more myself. Something in me very strongly relaxed when we got together. I took a big exhalation and thought: 'Everything is going to be all right now.'

I can occasionally tend towards hysteria, but Tom is very good at knowing exactly how seriously to take me. He is also very kind. With one of my books, he read the whole thing out loud to me, because I wanted to see if the dialogue rang true. It took him 11 hours.

I am not a confident mother. Whenever anyone pays me a compliment on my mothering, it means masses - much more than anything to do with my work or the way I look.

I am absolutely a Freudian. I don't feel strongly either way about not having the Freud name, but I do believe absolutely in the power of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and I will admit to having had some help myself.

We may not be a conventional family, but we are more "family" than most. That includes my half sisters. Whenever it is someone's birthday, we all meet up, and gossip goes round in a flash. We are very close-knit, which is why, when outsiders talk about us being weird and chaotic, it doesn't ring any bells.

Having money doesn't make love easier. I felt badly about being poor as a child, and I'm glad I don't feel badly now about being comfortable because that would be the worst of both worlds. But when it comes to love, money doesn't form part of the equation.

Conventional things can seem very exotic when you live in haphazard circumstances. Because my parents didn't have a house together, I used to wander around department stores looking for tips on how normal people lived. I would see patio furniture or prams and think, 'maybe, one day, they could be part of my
life.' What I have with Tom is what I was always longing for, but even now, I can find myself in Selfridges during times of uncertainty.

I don't have an attitude towards my father's relationships. I don't feel they are my concern. I have just always felt very protective. I want the best for him, which I suppose is what you normally hear a parent say about a child.

I hate it when people think the only valid way of being a grown up is settling down and having a family. Marriage has always seemed rather daring and original to me.

Susie Boyt's latest novel The Last Hope of Girls, is published by Headline Review, £6.99. Her next novel, Only Human, will be out next year.