‘I really don’t know what you’re complaining about. You live a great deal better than a Saxon king.’
Cigars were his one real extravagance. They were bought in their hundreds, at auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Until he was in his thirties, Father had chain-smoked cigarettes, but then he contracted hepatitis. He said the taste of the cigarette became foul as a result so he switched to cigars. He like old Havana ones, the larger the better. They had to be Havana. He said someone should tell cigar sellers that the illusion of grandeur could not be maintained if foie gras and champagne were followed by a cigar from Jamaica, or worse, allegedly made of Cuban tobacco and rolled in England. They should, ideally, be kept in a shiny humidor, made of walnut. This regulated the moisture and stopped the cigar drying out.
He started smoking them at breakfast and finished puffing only when he went to sleep. He was rarely without a cigar in his mouth, even if it had gone out, and never without one in his hand.
Early in their marriage, Mother gave him a solid gold cigar cutter with one tiny ruby in its centre. He took it with him everywhere. The cigar had to be lighted, if possible, from a candle. The candle should be held so the flame just brushed the end of the cigar. It should then be removed. The tip must never be burnt. Once in a restaurant in Sicily, he yelled for ‘Candelo’. They misunderstood. The manager turned off all the electric lights and brought out a birthday cake with fifty candles.
Father said there was a snobbery about cigars. Many who didn’t know much about them believed it was common to smoke a cigar with the band on, presumably because the band might reveal its costliness, which would be vulgar. Consequently Father was often thought common, which he said he may or may not have been, though not for that reason. His delight was great when he was once triumphantly vindicated. While Father was waiting to appear in a television programme with George Brown and Randolph Churchill, Brown condescendingly said,
‘Woodrow, don’t you know you should take the band off a cigar when you smoke it?’
Promptly Randolph Churchill remarked sharply, ‘My father never did, and what was good enough for him is good enough for Woodrow.’
Indeed. For those not knowledgeable about cigars he would go on to explain. The most important part of a good cigar is the outer leaf, which should not be damaged. If a band had been stuck on it by the manufacturer, trying to prise it off must make a hole in it. The risk was senseless.
Despite the care he lavished on his cigars, Father was not averse to placing small exploding devices in other peoples’. The child was always there, lurking behind the adult, brandishing paper hats and absurd jests.
In his more antic moods Father frequented a joke shop near the British Museum. There he purchased itching powder and exploding cigarettes with which to torment his friends. Poor Lord Harris of Greenwich, a pillar of the Liberal establishment, was invited to spend the weekend at our country house in Wiltshire and found himself the butt of one of Father’s pranks.
Father and I put itching powder in his bed. This substance, that resembles little brown bits of fuzz, is not so much ticklish but excruciatingly painful, like having leeches stuck onto one’s body. What a night Lord Harris must have had. He came down to breakfast looking quite worn and weak.
The more self-important and pious the person, the more they were mocked. One politician Father found particularly ridiculous was John Redwood. Before launching his leadership bid against John Major, Redwood visited Cavendish Avenue. I felt that the man was in for it because Father had been chuckling to himself for hours. The joke came in the form of the impish Charles Spencer Churchill, the younger brother of the Duke of Marlborough. The following week both Redwood and Charles Churchill were invited by Father to dine.
Feigning utter ignorance of his real identity, Churchill called the MP Wedgwood and asked him again and again about the family pottery business. The wretched man deflated like a lanced boil.
For celebrities Father had his own aphorism, ‘With the rich and famous try a little indifference.’ In the summer of 1994 he was asked to the house of some friends who had film star acquaintances. One of the guests, the host informed Father, was Michael Caine.
On his being introduced to the world-famous actor, the conversation went as follows;
Father: ‘What did you say your name was?’
Caine: ‘Michael Caine.’
Father, baffled: ‘What do you do?’
Caine, evenly: ‘I’m an actor.’
‘Never heard of you. Are you famous?’
‘Evidently not.’
His victims did not have to be well known. On aeroplanes Father generally travelled economy, eating awkwardly from his plastic tray and spilling most of the contents. He would read the newspapers and then dispose of each read page by throwing it at his feet until it covered the aisle and someone tripped over the paper. Sometimes ennui had alarming consequences. Father would wait until we had reached the cruising altitude before blowing up a large paper bag. It was easy to suspect what he was intending to do.
‘No, no, Father, please.’
He looked at one with his hangdog expression that meant, you think I shan’t but I shall. He then popped the bag. It made a sound like a bomb exploding.
When Father became tired of the bag trick, he pioneered a new entertainment. During a period of turbulence he would begin to talk, con forte, about the pilot’s career. He would fabricate a series of horrible crashes for which he had allegedly been responsible. He would say that we would be lucky to leave the aircraft alive. At best we would probably be maimed.
Father was a firm believer in biology. He used it to explain away many of his delinquencies.
‘I can’t help the way I’m programmed,’ he said to Mother when she scolded him. ‘You can’t fight thousands of years of biology.’
You couldn’t mock Father. You couldn’t make him crumple with humiliation or defeat. This earned him a more than grudging affection and respect from the man on the street. A year before Father died, we flew together to the Arc de Triomphe horse-race at Longchamps. As we walked through Charles de Gaulle airport to catch the return flight, a group of drunken English racegoers began to point at Father and me.
‘There goes that Woodrow Wyatt,’ one of them yelled. ‘Always with a new bird. He’s got himself a real bimbo this time! Good on yer, Woodrow.’
Father beamed beatifically: ‘Thank you, my dear fellow.’
3
My Father, Caligula
FATHER TOOK A direct interest in my education. He hoped secretly that I would emulate Evelyn Waugh’s monstre sacrée Josephine Stitch, the eight-year-old prodigy in Scoop who construed a passage of Virgil every day before breakfast. As Mrs Stitch would urge the child, ‘Show him your imitation of the Prime Minister . . . Sing him your Neapolitan song . . . Stand on your head.’
Father encouraged me to talk to his distinguished friends whenever they came to the house. Heaven knows what such cerebral colossi as Kingsley Amis, Hugh Trevor-Roper, John Kenneth Galbraith and Bernard Levin thought of me. My conversation must have seemed like the incoherent chattering of monkeys. But one established the veracity of the following maxim: the more enlarged the brain, the more intensified the generosity of spirit. One evening in 1980 I had been struggling with a school essay on an epic poem of Tennyson’s. Father found me hunched miserably over a pile of foolscap.
‘What are you doing there?’
‘I’m trying to write an essay on “The Lady of Shalott” and I can’t think of anything to say about it.’
‘Why don’t you ring up Kingsley Amis?’ suggested Father. ‘He’ll help you.’ Kingsley Amis? The breadth of this ambition was astonishing. One might as well have been asked to get in touch with Charles Dickens.
In any circumstances Kingsley was a terrifying prospect. His mind leapt and whirled at a pace only the superhumanly touched could begin to comprehend. For another he was frequently bad-tempered. Father said that all geniuses were bad-tempered (he included himself
, naturally, in this equation) but I suspected that the cause of Kingsley’s dyspepsia was not common to all people of parts. It seemed to have a direct connection with alcohol.
‘Well, yes,’ was all Father would say, ‘Kingsley drinks, but no more than a gentleman should.’
And yet? The chance to impress my peers with a startling talent they would not suspect was another’s . . . Egoism and renunciation vied in the recesses of my soul. With trembling fingers I dialled the number. After what seemed an eternity it was answered by the great man himself. ‘Is that Mr Amis?’ one faltered. ‘Who wants him?’ said the voice. ‘It’s Petronella Wyatt.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Petronella Wyatt, Woodrow’s daughter.’ ‘Oh yes, what do you want?’ One pressed on. ‘Father said that you might help me with my English homework.’ ‘Oh he did, did he, the old bastard? He had no business to.’
This comment left no room for contradiction. ‘I’m really sorry.’ My apology must have disarmed him for he replied, ‘What is it then?’ ‘Tennyson.’ Fortunately the name was like a magic password. ‘Well why didn’t you say so at once?’ Amis was obviously something of a connoisseur of the poet, for allusions and ideas poured forth. Half an hour later I thanked him humbly and hung up. ‘Well, they’ll be very impressed at school,’ Father said. Indeed. How could they not be, with Kingsley Amis’s thoughts passed off as my own. How they would marvel! How they would repent of their earlier harsh judgements. ‘We really got that Wyatt girl wrong,’ they would say to each other over coffee and biscuits in the staff room. ‘Quite a talent you know.’
Some bozo or other once said something along the lines of happily the children play, ignorant of their fate. Custom was in the English class to read out the best essay of the week. Was it not mine? Should it not have been mine? Well it wasn’t. There I sat, my face contorted by a grimace, as the teacher read out a prosy piece of work by a whey-faced girl called Mary. When the lesson was over each essay was returned with a few words to its author. When it came to me the woman looked pained.
‘You appear to have tried hard this time but I am afraid that your ideas are lacking in originality. I’m afraid the best I can give your work is a B-minus.’ Lacking in originality! A B-minus! For Kingsley Amis! The outrage of it! I longed to tell the truth. I longed to exclaim, ‘You stupid, wooden-headed thing of straw. It’s brilliant. Kingsley Amis wrote it.’ For some reason I thought better of it.
At the parents’ evening a few weeks later, the woman approached Father like a missionary ticking off a junior colleague for indulging the savages. ‘It’s very commendable that you want to help Petronella. But I do think that fathers shouldn’t impose their ideas on their children.’ ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ ‘Petronella’s essay on “The Lady of Shalott”.’ ‘Oh, no,’ said Father. ‘Kingsley Amis.’ ‘Tennyson,’ corrected the teacher, bemused. ‘No,’ insisted Father, becoming cross. ‘Kingsley Amis. He wrote it.’ ‘I think you will find, Mr Wyatt, it is Lord Tennyson.’ ‘Oh my God,’ said Father. ‘What sort of education are you giving these girls? How could Tennyson help Petronella with her homework? He’s been dead for a century.’
Father had his revenge. It was on the occasion of the annual school sports day. After a decade or so of holding it in a small arena in Holland Park, it was so contrived that the athletics events be lent the verisimilitude of a real sponge track. Hurdling being the only physical pursuit at which I excelled, I had been entered for the 100 metres race. The night before this momentous day, Father remarked casually, ‘I think I’ll bring Robin Day to your sports day – just to keep me company.’ I gulped. Robin Day was then at the zenith of his fame. He was a man whose charm found most people extraordinarily susceptible, particularly members of the female sex. But to say he could be overpowering was like saying that Attila the Hun could occasionally lose his temper. He and Father amidst a crowd of excitable girls, anxious mistresses and febrile parents, would be a combination devoutly not to be wished. But once Father had made up his mind, trying to deflect him was like throwing oneself in the path of an armoured car.
Most of the school was already at the track when I arrived. The odour of two hundred perspiring girls made the atmosphere distinctive and individual. The fond parents of Young England were beginning to take their seats in the grandstand, which was grand enough even for Father’s exacting taste, decked out as it was in flags and coloured ribbons. By 11.30 it was time for the first race, a 100 metres sprint. Father had not yet arrived. I tried to brush aside my fears. Maybe he had changed his mind. Perhaps he had been called to the office for an urgent meeting. Hope sprang in my heart. It was shortly crushed. ‘Girls get ready for the hurdles,’ spoke the reedy voice of a mistress. Then someone else piped up, ‘What’s that? Over there.’
I gave a start and looked long and earnestly. It was Father. He was walking across the grass swinging his head from side as if it were a trunk. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Father never drank before lunch, I would have said that there were fair amounts of liquor splashing about behind his teeth. He was accompanied by Robin Day in a bow tie that shone like neon. They were not alone. They were carrying folding chairs decorated with green and gold vertical stripes. They looked like a procession of maharajahs making a progress across the interior, except that Father had one of his largest and most pungent cigars clamped between his lips.
Eventually they unfolded their chairs. The site they had chosen was not fortuitous. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ shouted one of the mistresses. ‘You can’t sit there. You’re on the finishing line.’ Father would not be drawn by these stratagems. He waved his hand contemptuously. ‘It has the best view. I want to see little Petronella win her race. Mr Day has come all the way from Birmingham.’ Three hundred pairs of eyes swivelled to where I was crouching. A weak spirit would have been overwhelmed – I was that weak spirit. Everything seemed to go black and swim before my eyes.
When I was able to see clearly again I perceived that Father and Robin were still occupying the finishing line. The games mistress began to plead with their sense of fair play. ‘We can’t start the race with you there, Mr Wyatt. Don’t spoil the hurdles race for the girls.’ Father lit his cigar and looked as if he had settled in for the duration. Robin had begun to hum. I felt something on my cheek. A tear, perhaps? A facile fancy. There was another drop of moisture. Then a wild hope. By heaven, it had begun to rain. Providence was in a merciful mood after all. Discouraged by this sign from the heavens, Father and Robin picked up their folding chairs and repaired to the Ritz for lunch.
A year later, Father sent me to St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith. St Paul’s was less of a school than a way of life; in this it resembled the Roman Catholic religion. In some ways it was also similar to an ancient Athenian school for hetairai (those cultured courtesans of the classical world). It was not that sexual activity was encouraged, rather that the social polish acquired by its pupils was unusual among academic establishments.
By custom the headmistress was referred to as the high mistress. During my first term at St Paul’s the position was occupied by Mrs Heather Brigstocke. Mrs Brigstocke was almost unique among members of her profession in that her favoured sartorial choice was leather. She presided over the school assembly like a dominatrix with brains, making frequent appearances in glossy magazines such as Tatler and Vogue. It put one in mind of the Lerner and Loewe song from Pal Joey about an intellectual stripper. ‘Zip. I was reading Walter Lippmann today. Zip, will they make the Metropolitan pay?’
Most of the fathers including my own were a little enamoured of Mrs Brigstocke. Unfortunately her rapport with the unfair sex did not extend to females. She was what is called a man’s woman. From the beginning she found me sallow and tiresome. My conduct was admittedly erratic. One term I broke all the school records for tardiness, having been late for classes thirty-two times. On top of this I had a problem with mathematics. The problem is sometimes referred to as idleness. I didn’t see it as such but Mrs Brigstocke, quite correctly, did.
One evening she summoned Father to see her. I remember that evening well. A gentle summer rain was pattering against the windows of our house and the trees, new in foliage, gave the aspect something of the appearance of an enormous salad bowl. I didn’t know why Mrs Brigstocke wanted to see Father but I suspected that it wasn’t to discuss the state of the nation. At about seven o’clock, Father returned. I heard voices in the hall. But instead of sounding angry and despondent they rang with triumph – at least Father’s did. He was waving a wad of paper on which I recognised my own handwriting. ‘That bloody stupid woman. She wanted me to take Petronella away from St Paul’s. She said she wasn’t up to it. Can you believe that?’ Father went on. ‘How obtuse of her not to realise how brilliant that child is.’
‘Yes, Woodrow,’ said Mother.
‘Anyway I took the precaution of showing her this.’ Father brandished the wad of paper. ‘That stopped her in her tracks.’
It turned out that Father had shown Mrs Brigstocke a letter I had intended to send to the Dictionary of National Biography. This concerned its entry on Richard III. The Wyatt household was strongly Plantagenet and Ricardian. The letter I had written was an attempt to prove historically that Richard was unlikely to have been the boys’ murderer. It was not very distinguished, and indeed if a grown-up had written it it would have been rightly derided. But in its way it had the glitter of enthusiasm, and Richard III was an unusual hero for a thirteen-year-old girl. Mrs Brigstocke had apparently been taken aback by the document. If she did not hail one as a prodigy she at least acknowledged that I must have some apparatus with which to think.
Father Dear Father Page 3
