by Diana Athill
27 DECEMBER 2004
Darling Edward,
Your news about the biopsy is by far the best thing to happen this Christmas. Earthquakes and tidal waves apart (about which I’m terribly under-informed because we’ve had no newspapers delivered for three days, I’ve got no radio and Barry never tells me what he’s seen on the telly).
Things here have been dreary because I went down with a cold on Dec. 21. Managed to control and disguise it well enough to carry out the essential task of cooking and delivering Nan’s Christmas lunch, eating it with her, helping her open her presents and so on, then came home to collapse into bed where I’ve remained until this morning. Much better now, but this is the first time I’ve set foot in my sitting room for what feels like longer than three days, which explains why I’ve only just read your message. Tomorrow (if snow is not bedevilling the roads which is not impossible because they’ve had it in some places tho’ not yet here) I shall drive to my brother for a two-day visit, then on to the cottage where our neighbours there are giving a New Year’s Eve party. It will be a very familiar one because they give it every year, and it is always boring, but it has become something like a family ritual so that one would feel guilty if one didn’t go. Barry will go to Sally’s (if, I gather, football permits – she doesn’t have Sky television so her football coverage is not up to scratch). He cooked a lovely Jamaican Chicken for us, for Christmas, with rice-and-bean accompaniment, so I didn’t have to do any cooking apart from Nan’s, which was a relief. Not that I wanted much to eat. I have discovered a very useful thing now stocked by Safeways (since it sold itself to the Scottish retailer and became Morrison’s). It’s imported from France – a bag of brioches, some with chocolate filling, some with strawberry jam, each brioche being separately wrapped in foil so they don’t go dry. They are v. light and rather delicious, and most useful to nibble at when one doesn’t feel up to eating much.
How maddening about your book’s jacket! They probably won’t make too much fuss about the blurb, because that can be altered without costing much, but I fear you may have a problem over the front of it. I was unable to get anywhere with Granta when I disliked one of theirs, and they are famously obliging compared to most publishers . . . and I have to confess that when I was a publisher we never (as far as I can remember) altered a jacket design once we’d decided on it.
I’m glad you are encouraging about me and my car – because in fact I’ve no intention of giving it up yet. I’m still (I think) within the area of just having to remember to take more care. Did I tell you – no, I can’t have – that at last the Guardian got round to printing their profile of me? I’d given up looking for it, having concluded that it must have been submerged by more newsworthy stuff so I failed to notice my name at the bottom of the cover of the G2 part of the paper – the part which has columns and so on in it. I also flicked through that part rather casually so must have turned over two pages as though they were one. I was reading in bed, as I ate my breakfast. Luckily it slithered off the bed and the pages came apart, so when I reached down to scoop it up . . . There I was! A large photo, not exactly flattering but rather nice all the same, and a very pleasant, friendly text. I’m mailing it to you. It was more fun coming on it by surprise like that than it would have been if I’d known it would be there. It was on the 22nd.
Now I’m going to have a bath and get dressed – resume normal life, in fact. Give Neil my fondest love . . . oh god! I’m so relieved about that biopsy. I’ve been trying hard not to dwell on it, but still I couldn’t help having a fairly good idea of what you must have been feeling. Huge love. Diana
9 JANUARY 2005
Darling Edward,
Horrors! Such a long time since I sat at this machine. First there was Xmas, very exhausting because I had to battle with a cold in order to cook Nan her Xmas lunch, after which I collapsed into bed for two days. Then drove to my brother’s in Norfolk only to find him on the point of collapsing with a far worse cold, but still my two days there were quite fun because three of my nephews were there and they are such good value.
Then to our own house until the 2nd of Jan., and as soon as I got back here I began to collapse again. I’d been congratulating myself that my Xmas bug would have inoculated me against further ills, but of course Bug A is effective only against Bug A, and now I’ve encountered Bug B (a chesty one) and have been feeling really quite ill. Barry at the best of times has never been exactly Male Nurse Material, and is now quite hopeless.
It was when, yesterday, he summoned me from my fevered bed to say ‘What time is it?’ when he had a perfectly good clock ticking away on his bedside table that I snapped, and posted him off to Sally’s. He left this morning, and maybe it’s just coincidence but I do believe that I’m now on the mend at last! Must be, in fact, since I felt quite hungry this evening and now have the energy to write this.
Goodnight now . . . I do really think that I’m on the mend – for instance it now seems quite possible to put clean sheets on my bed before getting back into it, whereas only yesterday such an undertaking was beyond me. XXXX Diana
24 MAY 2005
Darling Edward –
Marvellous about the standing ovations. I trust you are keeping a copy of your speech for me to read when I come to Paris, which I’m longing to do. What do you say to Friday June 17 to Monday June 20, which will overlap with your family? Ted’s flat sounds perfectly manageable. I shan’t be able to go tearing about Paris as I shall yearn to do, but I’m used to gentle pottering by now, and the main object of the exercise, after all, is to see you both.
It doesn’t surprise me that Neil has had relapses, because that seems to be characteristic of the vile bug (tho’ I suspect the stomach thing was something else, probably taking advantage of his weakened state). It is very reluctant to let go. Even though I’ve been up and about for more than a week now I’m still getting attacks of coughing and stuffed up nose and throat . . . but they are diminishing, and are far from being seriously incommoding. No one seems able to give any explanation of the bug, even though it’s so widespread. Can it be some evil thing released into the atmosphere by the tsunami? [The huge Indian Ocean tsunami had erupted on Boxing Day 2004.]
I have done a wild thing – I’ve bought a new car!!!!! My dear little old one, to which I feel very disloyal, had started to enter that state of mechanical decay when If It’s Not One Thing It’s Another. The drive to Norfolk was becoming hard on the nerves, as a result, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it. But then I had a letter from the bank saying ‘Your Fixed Savings Bond will be Maturing at the end of May. If we don’t hear from you we will simply renew it . . .’ Whereupon I remembered that this happened every two years, and they never had heard from me because doing nothing was what I like best, which was why I had completely forgotten that I had such a thing as a Fixed Saving Bond. So this time I looked more closely to see what it added up to, and by god, it was eleven thousand pounds!!!!!!!!! So I quickly instructed them to put half of that into my ordinary savings account, which is one from which I can take money instantly if I want to, and my beloved neighbour-across-the-road Xandra Bingley, who had practically moved in to look after me when the bug was doing its worst, hunted up a Peugeot dealer not too far away for me, and even drove me there to choose a used car. And it turned out that they are having a very hard time selling cars this season, so everything was madly reduced and they all but spread a red carpet for us, and instead of a car just a little less old than my old one (which was what I was looking for) I ended up with a ravishing little car only one year old, which has only ten thousand miles on its clock and is absolutely bursting with Modern Conveniences hitherto unknown to me (tho’ still with manual gear change because that’s what I’m used to). I wish I was brave enough to bring it to Paris, but I’m not. Even when I was young enough to go for a driving holiday in France, I didn’t have the nerve to tackle Paris. But I have just got back from my first Norfolk visit in it, and driving it was bliss.
I’m writing June 17–20 in my diary, but of course if it doesn’t suit you you must say at once.
Love and love Diana
10 JUNE 2005
Have just booked ticket Friday 17th morning, train leaving Waterloo at 10.10. Like a fool, I forgot to ask when it gets to the Gare du Nord, but I gather it takes two hours and thirty-five minutes, so I suppose it will be 12.45. They said no point in giving number of car because meeting on platform not allowed – we have to meet at the exit from same.
I’m feeling such an idiot. Can you believe it, but I thought booking a ticket meant going to a travel agent, as it used to mean in antediluvian times, so I spent most of the day running from travel agent to travel agent only to find half of them closed down, the other half dealing only in flights to Australia or Bangladesh, not in train tickets. This was even more daft than it sounds, because it was impossible to park a car near any of them so I had to foot it far more than I easily can and reduced myself almost to collapse. As I staggered through the front door almost in tears I bumped into Georgia, Adam’s girlfriend, who often goes to Paris. ‘Oh Georgia, where do you book your Eurostar tickets?’ – ‘On the internet, usually, but you can do it by phone, of course.’ Imagine my total mortification at my own idiocy! I suppose it’s minimally less idiotic not to have thought of the internet, given my computer illiteracy, but not to have thought of the phone!
I shall bring with me a signed copy of Peter Smalley’s book [HMS Expedient] – which is very good. Was fully expecting that I’d have to be polite, since I’m not much of a one for sea-going yarns, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. He writes so well that he makes all the life aboard an 18th-century frigate stuff riveting (to me, anyway) and the Count-of-Monte-Cristo-like adventure bit is great fun. What is more, although it hasn’t had a single review it has already sold almost 5000 copies. We are so happy for him, and he himself sounded gleeful on the phone this morning. XXXXX D
[Peter Smalley’s publishing career is unusual. In 1972 André Deutsch Ltd published his fiercely witty novel about the Americans in Vietnam, A Warm Gun, and after that, for years, nothing he did quite came off: always there would be sparks of fierce wittiness, but as a whole the book would go astray. Now he had tried something quite different, a seafaring novel set in the eighteenth century, with a frigate’s captain and first mate who could perhaps reappear in subsequent adventures, and it was a triumph – so much so that it became the first in a series of six books following the fortunes of the two men, and I believe his publishers would like it to go on for ever. His sudden emergence as a master of this specialized craft has been as pleasing as it was unexpected.]
13 JUNE 2005
Darling E,
Time of arrival 13.53, walking ability three blocks or so, and certainly the length of a platform, will be loaded with taxi money (just earned another £500 from Guardian) but what I’m really looking forward to is sitting in cafés engaging in idle gossip. Love. D
16 JUNE 2005
Darling Edward, keep trying to call and getting ‘number not recognized’. So I must trust to your checking e-mails regularly to get this sad sad sad news: my bloody bug has come back. I began to fear as much three days ago, but feeling ill came and went in waves so I prayed that I was fighting it off, but this morning it is clear that I’m not, and altho’ I’ve just been to the doc and got the antibiotics that drove it off last time, I can’t trust to them working like magic overnight and daren’t embark on the visit. If I continued feeling like I’m feeling now it would be no fun for me and a great worry for you and it’s just not on. Damn damn and a thousand more damns. Can I come later when I’ve shaken it off? Don’t suppose Eurostar will transfer the ticket to another date, but that’s secondary. I can at least hope that it will be nipped in the bud quickly this time and not drag on and on like it did before – but still it’s fucked up the good timing with your sister and brother-in-law. Oh darling, I’m so miserable about it I can’t tell you. Love xxxxxxx Diana
29 JUNE 2005
Darling Edward –
Whenever I try to check my incoming e-mails the computer disconnects in a maddening way, so I don’t know whether you’ve communicated since getting home. I think wistfully of you in the delicious cool of your air conditioning, because our heatwave goes on, in spite of a fierce thunderstorm yesterday evening – an extraordinarily metallic-sounding thunder, as though enraged gods were kicking gigantic old-fashioned metal garbage bins about. Can’t remember whether I told you that your speech to Publishing Triangle got a one-woman standing ovation from me? Which it did – I loved it, and could so clearly envisage you standing there in front of your charmed audience. Though still mourning Paris, I’ve now stopped aching about it. I don’t think I shall use the ticket, although I could, because there’d be no point in going just to stay in a hotel unless I could get about to see exhibitions and things, which I couldn’t. I haven’t any other friends there, just to enjoy-being-in-Paris with, as would have been the case with you two.
Guess I’ll have to call in Francis Hughes about the computer’s problem. Hope I can get this out. Love and love Diana
15 AUGUST 2005
Hi! Just back from Norfolk to find Lloyd [Barry’s brother, who was making a long visit to London from Jamaica] crashing on my sitting room floor again because Jess and Tony, to whom he had moved just down the road, have Tony’s dad descending on them for a couple of days. He does sort of cook – but more often likes a discussion about what we will have and how done, and then (not unnaturally) likes to eat the meal properly sitting round a table, whereas I have succumbed to total sloppiness and browsing in the kitchen, on my feet, once I’ve taken Barry’s meal in to him. Utterly deplorable, I know, but so time-saving – I’m always longing to get back to a book or whatever – and I do rather like eating like that. But against that, I’m sure it is really good for me, to pull myself together and take meals more seriously, like a grown-up person . . . Have just eaten dinner with L (Barry not wanting any) and it was good, so am rapping myself over the knuckles for being querulous.
The ward in which Andrew [my brother] is contains five other poor old moribunds, who all looked so alarmingly as though they had died about two days earlier, that he looked positively well. Which he is not. But they do seem to have controlled the confusion, and Mary said that his still very swollen legs were a good deal less so than they had been. So now the consultant wants to keep him there another four or five days as he thinks they may be able to take improvement further before he goes home. So it looks as though they are in for a long haul, poor dears. He was lucid, but extremely depressed, loathing his helplessness, and the hospital (which is state-of-the-art modern and very impressive), and having been confused which he said was terrifying and mortifying beyond words. Some of it sounded quite enjoyable, like flights of wild duck going through the ward, and a helicopter landing in it, but not knowing where he was or what had happened to him except that he had been abandoned somewhere for some unknown reason among probably hostile strangers was very dreadful, and he’s obviously a bit afraid that it might happen again. It might well be beyond even Mary’s managing if that came over him at home, so I suppose the consultant is right in wanting to be sure it’s controlled before they let him go. What I now foresee is that he will get home, to his great joy to begin with, and then he’ll start getting tetchy because of the many things he’ll be unable to do, and that it may be quite a long time before his heart finally gives right out, which is going to be pretty good hell for one and all. But Mary, who will bear the brunt, would certainly rather have him alive than dead at any price, and I think that he, now that his back is against the wall, wants to stay here, so one may be wrong in wishing for him to be over it as soon as possible. One can’t really tell, having never been in that situation (which please god we never will be!). You ought to be able to do a marvellous piece about Tobias – poor poor Tobias! [The anthropologist Tobias Schneebaum, who lived on the floor above Edward’s.] But thank god family has turned u
p so that friends, of whom you must surely be the chief, are being spared a nightmare. Love and love D
