Travelling to Infinity

by Jane Hawking

  Over lunch on the top floor of the Hilton we recounted the details of the audience to the family, whose movements had been restricted to the Empire Room, not omitting the carpet episode, which appealed to their irreverent sense of humour. We described the subsequent conversation as somewhere between an oral exam and an interview with an intense but well-meaning headmistress, both equally terrifying. I had little doubt that the Queen had found it pretty difficult as well. Did we give the right answers, we wondered, as we looked out over the London skyline? There, directly beneath us, was the Palace, surrounded by the Elysian Fields where, after the audience, we had just walked. Stephen complained that he had not been able to converse as much as he would have liked because of a problem with the setting of the hand control of the computer, disturbed by the contretemps with the carpet. Be that as it may, the overall impression was that the occasion had gone well, and Stephen had yet another impressive medallion to add to his already extensive collection.

  Just as we were leaving the restaurant, I was surprised to be presented with an enormous bouquet of orange and yellow lilies by the management. Although it came from a commercial institution, one of the chain of Hilton Hotels, the gesture was quite affecting. It reminded me of the pearl that Ruth Hughes had given me in California when Stephen was awarded the Papal medal in 1975, and it told me that somebody had noticed me.

  14

  Dies Irae

  A week later Tim and I were in France again. The Moulin blinked sleepily in the evening sun as we drove towards it up the track and as I opened the gates. The crisp, fresh air penetrated deep into my asthmatic lungs, reviving my spirits, for I was physically tired after the long journey and emotionally taut after the recent peaks and troughs. The inner courtyard was quiet and still, enveloping us like a soft blanket and protecting us from the tyranny of the outside world. The silence was broken only by the chirruping of sparrows, echoing off the white walls. Then Tim added his piping voice to theirs, impatiently urging me to open the door so that he could get in and clamber up to his attic to check the state of his model aeroplanes, which swooped vertiginously over the stairwell, suspended from the banisters by an intricate web of thread and Sellotape. Inside we ran from room to room, inspecting every nook and cranny and renewing our acquaintance with every old beam. To our astonishment, the dusty black barn had undergone a Cinderella-like transformation and was ready to accommodate Stephen’s entourage of nurses. The rubble, cobwebs and rotting rafters had disappeared, and in their place downstairs there was a large room with a tiled floor and a kitchenette, and upstairs two large bedrooms and a bathroom. A blend of solid new beams and usable old ones held up the structure, so confident in their age-old tradition that were it not for the sheen of newness on all the fittings, they could have been there from time immemorial. Then we ran out into the garden, anticipating more discoveries. Some strange enchantment had been exercised in our absence. Tim gasped, “It’s just like Buckingham Palace!” – and indeed he was right. The plants and seeds in the herbaceous border had leapt to maturity, and where in May there had been small isolated clumps and diminutive seedlings, now a riot of densely nodding flower heads and dancing colour shouted ecstatic greetings. There were still things to be done, walls to be painted and floors to be covered, but the essential work was completed. The Moulin was ready to receive not only us, but the whole crowd of our summer visitors as well. My brother was to bring his family of four children at about the same time as Tim’s friend Arthur, and his parents would be arriving for a weekend visit. Jonathan would be bringing my parents and Stephen would be coming out by air to Le Touquet, attended by Pam Benson, a most trusted nurse, and by Elaine and David Mason and their family.

  Despite my mother’s misgivings, I had in my optimism invited the Mason family, hoping that the experience of living with us in the same house but in more relaxed circumstances than in Cambridge would encourage a greater respect for the self-discipline which was basic to our routine. While I had no intention of interfering in any fond attachment that might have developed between Elaine and Stephen, I thought that, as a professional nurse, she might be persuaded to see that the success of our task depended on finely balanced teamwork. There was no room for troublemakers in this situation. Naively I trusted too that if she realized that Jonathan and I did not, as a matter of course, sleep together in the same room, she would learn to respect the modus vivendi which enabled us to go on caring for Stephen and the children indefinitely, come what may. Surely only the most bigoted fundamentalist could be blind to what we were trying to achieve and the effort and restraint that we put into that endeavour? It was ironic that in days gone by Stephen would have been scathing in his intolerance of fundamentalism and would have laughed to scorn anyone who tried to preach it.

  We – that is me, Tim, my handyman Claude and a very helpful girl from the village – were still energetically applying white emulsion to the walls of the new part of the house downstairs when my absent-minded brother and his family of four children arrived a week early. Chris more than compensated for their unexpected arrival, however, by taking over the cooking. In his opinion, the best tourist attractions of France were the supermarkets, where he would happily spend his days browsing along the shelves in search of ever more extravagant ingredients to add to his cooking pot, the aroma of which, wafting from the new kitchen, made our mouths water every evening with the promise of gastronomic delights.

  By the time Stephen and his motley crew flew in to Le Touquet in the middle of August, the new wing of the house had been well and truly tested by successive waves of visitors, including my parents, who had pronounced it entirely satisfactory both for its charm and its convenience. But a perceptible tension reigned among the new arrivals. My delight at seeing Stephen met with a cool response, arousing my suspicions that the underhand mutterings about his dislike of the French countryside had struck home, persuading him that he really did not want to spend any time on holiday in France, let alone in the country. All efforts to interest him in the glorious views from the house across sun-drenched fields to the distant blue line of hills and forests encountered the same bored, disdainful expression. Day after day, the truth forced itself remorselessly on me that his smiles and his interest were reserved for Elaine, and I had no doubt that he was being encouraged to despise me because I was flawed and did not conform to the image of perfection with which he was constantly being tantalized. He was being persuaded that I was no longer of any use to him, that I was good for nothing. Elaine was in a position of strength: her responsibilities were minimal and she could indulge Stephen by doing anything he asked; she could wheedle and coax, and her specialized training enabled her to attend to his every whim. Since his work and his physical condition were his two principal preoccupations, my role was logically much diminished, and hers was ostensibly greatly enhanced. The familial and intellectual bonds which I had valued and through which we maintained a semblance of normality had apparently become insignificant. Probably with her he had found someone tougher than me with whom he could again somehow have a physical relationship, whatever the other dimensions of their affair. I could not deny him this, and was prepared to accept it in our scheme of things – in the same way that he had generously accepted my relationship with Jonathan – provided that it was discreet and posed no threat to our family, to our children, to our home or to the running of the nursing rota achieved at such wearisome cost. It was also essential that it must not negate my relationship with Stephen, because I was convinced that without me he would be like a lost child, an unruly, assertive child but a helpless and naive one as well. My fate had been bound up with his so closely and for so long that I could never be indifferent to him, however difficult his peculiar set of circumstances – those of a disabled genius – had made him. Care for his well-being had become second nature to me. Whether it was the slightest sign of distress, discomfort or disapproval that his mobile features betrayed, I could not ignore him. The truth was that I still loved him with a deeply
caring compassion. In that emaciated body, despite the power of the mind, his suffering was all too painfully apparent, and it was through that suffering that my feelings for him were constantly being aroused. These feelings were never intended to be patronizing; indeed often they could lead me onto an emotional tightrope, where despair and frustration at his stubbornness and unreasonable demands had always to be reconciled with deference for his dignity and respect for his rights as an extremely incapacitated person.

  Our marriage, and the large and complex structure that it had become, was the definition of my adult life, summing up my most important achievements: Stephen’s continued survival, the children, the family and the home. It was the long history of our joint battles against his illness and the story of his success against all the odds. I had dedicated most of myself to it – even if I had accepted help to allow me to persevere without becoming suicidal. True, I sometimes longed for more freedom of movement and resented the strict limitations it imposed, but I had never thought of running away from it except – when driven to utter despair – by drowning myself. The structure may have become dangerously top-heavy and unstable, but it was unbelievable that all that the marriage represented might now be swept away in a flush of passion. The fact that Elaine had an able-bodied husband and a family of her own was beyond the scope of my comprehension: that was a matter for her conscience in which I could not become involved.

  The situation might have resolved itself peaceably had the personalities involved been different, had they been more considerate, less determined, less self-centred, less bent on the fulfilment of their own desires to the exclusion of all else. Perhaps, if I had been stronger and less confused, I could have handled the situation differently and with more assurance. As it was, the holiday was a disaster. Various mishaps combined to intensify Stephen’s distaste for the country, even for the Moulin, which was so unlike his enthusiasm in the spring, and he became increasingly hostile to both the family and to Pam, the other nurse. When eventually I took it upon myself to point out to Stephen that his and Elaine’s behaviour risked losing Pam from the rota, I inadvertently set fire to the conflagration which would consume us all. It engulfed the old house that day and the following night, shattering the cherished silence and shaking the aged beams, as it raged up around me. Flames of vituperation, hatred, desire for revenge leapt at me from all sides, scorching me to the quick with accusations – the unfaithful wife, the uncaring partner, the selfish career woman, work-shy and frivolous, more intent on singing than on looking after her frail, defenceless husband. I had had things my own way for too long, they said. I should “put Stephen first”.

  I faced the attacks alone. I would not demean Jonathan by bringing him into this uncivilized fray, but nor could I douse the flames. It was hopeless to try and point out that, throughout all the alienating distractions of physics and the grinding, ceaseless demands of illness, I had honestly tried to be a good wife to Stephen; that through the paraphernalia of medicines, medical equipment and nursing rotas, through the plethora of scientific papers, equations and meetings, I had honestly tried to do my best, however distorted my own life had become. That Jonathan’s love and help had preserved us and saved me from ultimate despair would never be countenanced as a valid defence. My best was not good enough, and now I was being cast aside in favour of someone who beguiled the sick man with the flimsy straws of extravagant promises and unrealistic expectations. It was the beginning of the death of our marriage.

  Alone in my room after the first wave of attack had finally subsided, helplessness reduced me to hot, angry tears. My spirit rebelled at the shallowness of so many of the people who had recently come into our lives. They had never come face to face with successions of multiple crises. They had never had to confront the overwhelming trauma of living in the face of death, day in day out for more than a quarter of a century. They had never plumbed the depths of emotion or been torn apart by moral dilemma. They had never been stretched to and beyond the utter limits of their physical and mental capacities. Their experience of these issues had been facile, skimming the surface of reality, motivated by self-gratification, dictating absolute values to others that they themselves could not observe. Indeed in their eyes I was a mere automaton with no justifiable claim to any human reactions at all. My need to be loved for myself alone was dismissed as preposterous.

  After this fiasco Stephen and the Masons returned to England, and Tim and I stayed on at the Moulin. The lovely old house and garden gathered up my spent body and charred mind into the comfort of their embrace as the calm of rural France descended once more. If Stephen really did not want me, I reasoned, I could make a good life for myself in France. I could support myself by teaching English and Spanish, and Tim could become completely bilingual. At the beginning of September he started going to the village school, where he quickly made friends, unperturbed by the demands of the language. He would cycle off down the road to the village every morning while I stood waving and watching as he climbed the hill opposite and disappeared under the trees. At home we often spoke French. English and England had become alien to me, a country and a language which harboured and expressed extreme personal torment – not to mention the widespread political injustices of the Margaret Thatcher years – while France offered a new lifestyle, new friends and a sense of equality. Moreover France, a predominantly Catholic country, worshipped and prayed to the Mother of Jesus, the feminine intermediary to the masculine figures of the Trinity. There a woman had a recognized place in the divine order of things. Mary had a human presence which was tragic, loving and comforting. Often, in French country churches and cathedrals, I would be drawn to the figure of the Virgin Mary – a crudely painted plaster saint perhaps – who offered the solace of shared suffering.

  Tim and I quickly settled into a routine which I was confident of being able to sustain. We could live in France permanently if need be, or eventually we could return to England when Stephen had resolved his problems. Jonathan, who had gone back to Cambridge to play a series of organ recitals, kept in touch regularly, urging us to stay in France if that was where we felt at ease.

  Stephen also telephoned almost daily, but he urged us to return to England. He missed us, he said, and he needed us. He was so persuasive that I trusted that he really intended to restore some harmony to our lives and keep his nurses under control. Later that September, believing that my lost child really needed me, we set out for England across stormy seas, determined to avoid confrontation. The family, that is my parents and Robert, were delighted to see us when we arrived home late at night after long delays on the motorways. The reception I, but not Tim, received from Stephen was distinctly frosty. It was not the lost child who came to greet us, but the despot. At once I knew that I had made a grave mistake in coming back to England.

  15

  Too Much Reality

  The following Monday, Tim returned to his primary school and I took up my teaching again, committing myself at least for the term if not for the whole academic year. Then, exactly a week after our return, Stephen gave me a letter announcing his intention of going to live with Elaine Mason. That evening, by a sorry coincidence, Robert was dealt a broken jaw by muggers who attacked him on his way home.

  The execution of Stephen’s decision was considerably delayed for the extraordinary and eminently practical reason that he and Elaine Mason had nowhere to go. In the meantime we lived in a maelstrom of chaos and confusion, while I clung like a limpet to the belief that the storm would eventually wear itself out and that, despite his present sad emotional disarray, Stephen would choose to stay with his family. As if blown along like a dry leaf in a gale, he came and went, often without any notice. Extreme pressure from outside was exerted on him, and each explosive episode would be succeeded by a period of calm as if nothing had happened. Those periods, though, were just the eye of the storm, only presaging further unforeseen elements which blew in at hurricane force. Reports reached me that the nurse was already announcing her fo
rthcoming marriage to Stephen. I lived with the constant fear that there might well be a battle to gain custody of Tim, and Jonathan was banned from West Road under threat of a court injunction, so he had no choice but to keep to his own home. Open discussion was impossible, because an insurmountable barrier had arisen between Stephen and me and, the more he appeared to lose control of his own situation, the more I felt he sought to control me, as if I was simply a piece of property. The duty nurses posted unpleasant letters through my car window just as I left for work each day, and impossible demands were made of me each evening. Unpleasant remarks and false motives were attributed to me. I was told to give Jonathan up and “put Stephen first in everything”. I even found myself reluctantly drawn into clashes about money, not just with Stephen but with Elaine Mason as well. Through the concentration required by teaching – especially by teaching the absorbing, intellectually teasing novels and short stories of Gabriel García Márquez – I managed to preserve some sanity, while among my colleagues in the staffroom I found a quiet sympathy and supportiveness which brought a sense of stability to the few hours each day that I spent away from home. At other times music soothed and solaced my battered emotions, though often its intensity caused my voice to falter and fade. Otherwise bedlam reigned and our home became the scene of unprecedented violence as other people’s madness forced its way into our household and left Tim and me terrified, with not the least gesture of support from the two professional nursing bodies, the Royal College of Nursing and the UK Nursing Council, who refused to become involved.