Patrick O'Brian

by Nikolai Tolstoy

  When I reread The Reverse of the Medal some years after its publication, I assumed for a time that he must have drawn extensively on proceedings during my own trial in the High Court for libel during the latter part of 1989. For that event notoriously included all – and more – of the machinations, judicial and extrajudicial, which characterized Jack Aubrey’s ordeal so vividly depicted by Patrick five years earlier. There was the same element of a Tory government’s covert interference in the judicial process, with evidence vital to the defence case suppressed on ministerial instructions, and deceptive last-minute submissions of false evidence by the prosecution – all presided over by a blatantly biased little judge who insulted defence witnesses and throughout openly espoused the case for the prosecution, while taking care to conceal the fact that he and the plaintiff (Lord Aldington) were close neighbours in Kent, where they belonged to the same small private Rye Golf Club. After the verdict sought by Judge Michael Davies on Aldington’s behalf had been obligingly delivered by the jury, my highly experienced counsel Richard Rampton QC (whose character markedly parallels that of Lawrence in the novel) passed me a note stating simply: ‘You have been the victim of a corrupt system.’

  Or, as the Reverend Nathaniel Martin put it to Stephen Maturin at the outset of Patrick’s next novel The Letter of Marque: ‘It was a very gross miscarriage of justice.’

  Like Jack Aubrey, I had been blithely confident that overwhelming evidence in particular of Lord Aldington’s perjury in order to escape personal responsibility for the worst war crime in British military history would be bound to secure victory in court. Patrick followed the case and its protracted aftermath with close attention and profound sympathy, but like Stephen Maturin avoided attendance at the hearing. As Stephen explains: ‘There are cases, I believe, when friends should be present only in the near-certainty of victory … onlookers are strangely out of place.’

  Ironically, Patrick had appended to his great novel an historical note, which concluded with the reflection that: ‘The reader may therefore accept the sequence of events [in the story], almost unbelievable to a modern ear, as quite authentic.’

  Unfortunately for me, the sequence of events was unexpectedly to become all too believable to a modern ear. Nor was the irony lost on Patrick when the event transpired.

  In the middle of August 1984 he received from his publishers a ‘pamphlet of praise from various reviews, which pleased me. (M finished the book [The Reverse of the Medal] & praised it too, which pleased me even more).’

  Meanwhile in Collioure terrible fires ravaged the region, as Patrick reported to Richard Scott Simon:

  We have had two. The first came sweeping over the maquis driven by a strong north wind, and as we saw the clouds of smoke we thought it must overwhelm our mountain vineyard [Manay]: but no – when we went up we found that the firemen & the planes had stopped it on the very edge. Not a leaf was hurt. But then the second burst out some days later, when an even stronger wind was blowing from the south, and this time everything went including the cork-oak forest & all our high stretches of cistas and genista, and of course the entire vineyard. The green silence where I work in the summer is now quite flat, a uniform black.

  As the year drew to its close, Patrick found himself dwelling on his long-lost past. He began reading ‘N’s book on Oxford, which has some fine things in it & which makes me v sad’. This melancholy reflection almost certainly arose from wistful memory of his youthful ambition to enter the University, a longed-for project aborted by his irresponsible father’s failure to provide him with adequate educational qualifications.[fn19] Although his unaided talents had enabled him to equal (or even outstrip) the erudition of many academic scholars, his lack of formal qualification bestowed an ingrained insecurity which never entirely ceased to trouble him.

  Now encouraging news arrived out of the blue of a lucrative Japanese contract for the first nine novels in the Aubrey–Maturin series. This amounted to a gift for which no labour was required: one, moreover, which arrived at a juncture when their income required a substantial boost. But money was rarely the prevalent issue with Patrick. Like most authors, he found it a gratifying material measure of success, but otherwise so far as there was sufficient for daily needs he was content if required with a modest reward for his work.

  Finally, on 7 December came an anniversary which had for some time caused him increasing anticipatory disquiet. During the summer he had received affectionate letters from his brothers Bun and Victor, commiserating over my mother’s continuing ill-health, and now he heard again from them and his sister:

  Bun & Nora sent me congratulations on my 70th birthday, & Vic on Xmas card … Going to bed I reflected ‘It has happened at last: I am 70’ but with an odd mixture of belief & disbelief.

  XII

  Travails of Existence

  Having up to that time lived but very little among men, having known hitherto nothing of clubs, having even as a boy been banished from social gatherings, I enjoyed infinitely at first the gaiety of the Garrick. It was a festival for me to dine there … I think that I became popular among those with whom I associated. I have long been aware of a certain weakness in my own character, which I may call a craving for love. I have ever had a wish to be liked by those around me, – a wish that during the first half of my life was never gratified … The Garrick Club was the first assemblage of men at which I felt myself to be popular.

  Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography (London, 1883), pp. 157–9

  On 2 January 1985 Patrick received a formal letter from the Secretary of Brooks’s Club informing him that he had been elected a member. This was to afford him continuing pleasure during the ensuing years. His accruing wealth enabled him to entertain there in style, without exorbitant expense. Membership of the historic Whig club also provided him with insights into the late Georgian period, for like the other old London clubs it provided evocative embodiments of earlier more elegant and colourful eras. In due course Patrick became a familiar figure among members, and in May 1990 he was invited to contribute to a handsome history of the Club published by Constable.[1]

  Meanwhile he was immersed in his fresh commission: the biography of Sir Joseph Banks. By 8 January: ‘I finished Ch III moderately well I thought & showed it to M, but I am afraid she did not think much of it – polite, of course.’ At the time I remember wondering what induced Patrick to undertake the task. Happening upon a recent bibliography of works relating to Banks in the London Library, it seemed to me that to write a fresh book likely to supersede its predecessors would require long years of toil which Patrick could scarcely wish to set aside. That he lived far from convenient access to libraries and other archival repositories represented another material disadvantage. However, what I ignored then was the fact that Patrick’s novels had yet to attain their deserved extent of acclaim, particularly in the United States, leaving him with involuntary time on his hands. In consequence he was occasionally diverted into attempting some other genre, which about this time ranged from a history of the Merchant Adventurers to a biography of Sir John Barrow.[fn1] At Collins, Stuart Proffitt suggested his writing a Companion to Catalonia, another project long nurtured by Patrick, but in the event never achieved. What I also did not then appreciate was Patrick’s hope, nurtured since his youth, of establishing a reputation as a scholarly historian.

  Nevertheless, despite the daunting nature of the task the completed account was to prove a polished and well received piece of work. Besides, the research required (which his voluminous working notes show was indeed considerable) added substantially to his already profound knowledge of late Georgian history in its broadest aspects. Finally, Banks is clearly the primary model for Patrick’s Sir Joseph Blaine, Stephen Maturin’s intelligence mentor and fellow enthusiast for natural history.[fn2]

  Patrick’s daily round was almost invariably busy, his deep-rooted desire for self-sufficiency drawing him into recondite tasks other successful authors might well have eschewed: ‘The upstairs lavator
y v thoroughly blocked, & my countless buckets ooze into the cave [below, beside his little study]. Carrying them (or perhaps something else) started my wretched back again.’

  At a more aesthetic level, while he might readily have bought tapes of musical works he enjoyed, he gained arcane pleasure by painstakingly recording them from the admirable French classical music programme France Musique.

  Despite his determination to work steadily on Banks, Patrick could not prevent his thoughts from wandering back to his naval tales: ‘my head full of book & indeed of Aubrey to some extent – SM & D[iana]V[illiers] floating away in a balloon, away & away – higher & higher over cloud – eagle passes, with wren on wing – told myth, sound of trumpets.’

  It is perhaps a pity that this extravaganza features only in much muted (albeit more plausible) form in the finished version of The Letter of Marque. However, he had at present no contract for the next tale, which in the event proved unforthcoming for well over a year, while he had to wait a further three for an American publisher.

  As ever, Patrick maintained contacts with his family. In March 1985 he received a request from his brother Bun in Canada, asking whether his daughter and her husband, who were honeymooning in Europe, might pay him a visit. Alarmed, Patrick ‘wrote at once saying that it was impossible, & later sent him a book’. The impossibility arose from my mother’s continuing poor health – a contingency at once appreciated by his brother, and Patrick was relieved to receive ‘A pleasant letter from Bun, not resenting mine – no invasion [i.e. by Bun’s daughter].’ Bun reported the reason for Patrick’s diminished communicability to their sister Joan, whose shared concern Bun clearly took for granted.

  In May came further family news. Patrick learned shortly after the event that his brother Victor had died, aged eighty. This was particularly distressing, as the brothers had been close in their boyhood. Victor’s schoolboy diaries, now in my possession, record the extent to which he had as a child cared for his vulnerable little brother. It took some time for Patrick to come to terms with the unhappy news. On 28 June: ‘At last I wrote to Bun about Vic’s death: strangely painful.’

  Despite frenzied accusations levelled against him following his death, it is indisputable that Patrick nurtured a strong sense of family connection. Geographical dispersion meant that the Russ siblings could meet but rarely, their correspondence being probably no more sporadic than that of most families in their situation. Nevertheless, throughout his life Patrick considered himself very much a member of the Russ family. Three weeks after Victor’s death he happened to be in Oxford, where: ‘On the war-memorial in the cloister of New College I was strangely moved to see my cousin Rupert’s name.’ This was his first cousin Charles Rupert Russ, son of Patrick’s uncle Sidney, who died in 1944 at the age of twenty-four while serving with the Royal Navy in the Far East.

  As the summer drew on, Patrick was alarmed by my mother’s increasing debilitation, frequent inability to eat, and subjection to occasional fainting. She was diagnosed with a polyp, which to their immense relief was found not to be cancerous. On 2 August she was admitted to hospital in Perpignan to have it removed, but another was discovered which required a further operation. Their good friends Pierre[fn3] and Rirette de Bordas provided him with a room at their home in town, enabling Patrick to visit the hospital daily. A little later, however, driving outside the town, his attention was momentarily distracted by a crashed car at the wayside, in consequence of which he ran his own into another oncoming vehicle. Fortunately the driver (a German girl) proved understanding, and drove him to the de Bordases’ house.

  Returned to the hospital, he saw the surgeon, ‘who spoke of no cancer but low tension, fragility, great shock of v long operation. He said the tension was so low that at times the operation had to be interrupted – no blood flowed – & that I think is why it was so v prolonged’. In her delirium my poor mother was proving an unconsciously difficult patient, managing to tear off her bandages and pluck out a needle, which left a pool of blood on the floor. Next day there was some improvement, but she was plagued by hallucinatory dreams. The hospital arranged for Patrick to be brought a bed beside her for the night.

  During the days that followed my mother veered between momentary recovery, severe loss of appetite, and bouts of sleeping ‘sometimes so deeply that I was alarmed’. At the beginning of the next week Patrick went to recover another less significant but nonetheless cherished patient: ‘2 CV being ready, the slow, noisy old creature with v poor brakes after the others, but homely.’

  Now, however, my mother’s release from hospital was postponed in consequence of a partial heart attack. Fortunately, the cardiologist reassured Patrick that the failure ‘concerned only a small, unimportant part of her heart but she must follow the treatment – she may smoke her 4 cigarettes a day – kind, talkative man’. At the end of August he learned that ‘M’s heart will not bear an operation before 3 months: from his grave expression I had been afraid of hearing something v much worse, so this seemed acceptable.’ Next day, despite suffering from ‘colic, nausea and general discomfort’, she managed to read the proof of The Reverse of the Medal. Patrick was impressed by the fact that, despite her sorry state, she ‘had picked up a wonderful number of literals, missed by me in 2 readings’.

  On her release from hospital, my mother returned home under strict instructions as to diet and the necessity for constant rest. In October she was told that she must continue lying on her back for a hundred days. Although she insisted on helping Patrick with proofs and other editorial tasks, she found herself frustratingly unable to type, still less lend him any material assistance with daily work in the garden and vineyard.

  At the beginning of November my mother’s condition continued little if at all improved: ‘Still v hard beating of her heart nearly all the time now, with tension at 14. [Dr] Manya spoke (much more vaguely than could have been wished) of the need for rest – nothing but the gentlest movement …’

  All this was necessary to regain strength for continuation of the operation. Meanwhile Patrick cooked all their meals, shopped, tended the garden single-handed, entertained sympathetic visitors, and struggled manfully to keep his work on Joseph Banks moving forward. With the coming of winter, he found himself prey to sickness: ‘My cold, which has been hanging about for a day or so, suddenly came on at the same time [when my mother was “obviously feeling v ill”]: for about ½ hour I could scarcely breathe, a most surprising onset.’

  Not long after, a momentary memory lapse left Patrick worried that he might have suffered a slight stroke. Their only (invaluable) assistance came from the faithful Ana, who came regularly to clean the house.

  On the 14th: ‘Manya came, bringing good news: Mailly [the surgeon] had telephoned about M & after talking it over they decided she could be operated upon under local anaesthetic in January. M apt to tremble, almost speechless with amazement.’

  Attempts to lighten the gloom were not helped by their tiny television (Patrick was convinced that a small room required a minuscule set), on which, to his continuing mystification, ‘much of the action was, as usual, filmed in darkness, so we gave up fairly soon’. As though this were not enough, a cassette player ordered from Harrods, when switched on, produced only ‘a dull flat moaning’. Although electronic machinery regularly delighted in outwitting Patrick’s best efforts, he never abandoned the struggle. Shortly before Christmas he ‘arranged (more or less) the wilderness of flexes behind my chair’ (part of Patrick’s wiring system for the house). His seventy-first birthday on 12 December was cheered by ‘a lovely card’ from his brother Victor’s widow Saidie, together with a letter from the faithful Bun. Nor was he displeased when my mother rallied sufficiently to beat him at backgammon, ‘although I had borne off 9 men’.

  Christmas Day raised their spirits considerably. Patrick relaxed with ‘dear Chaucer, an even more considerable high poet than I had remembered’.

  Dinner was hard labour for M, but it was quite remarkably good – a succ
essful great bird & a 2 year old pudding, perhaps the best we have ever eaten – a pudding saved from a v nearly disastrous fall. Washing up was heavy going alas particularly the huge lèche-frite [dripping-pan], deep in grease, but after it we sat peacefully & contented till late for us, perhaps 11 o’c.

  The New Year of 1986 began promisingly:

  A pleasant beginning to the year, with a calm blue sky (at least in the afternoon) & quite a warm sun. Writing went well too: only 2 pp apart from some typing but they knit things together just as I had hoped & bring me handsomely towards the end of the chapter.

  Next day they received a telephone call from the clinic in Perpignan, explaining that my mother was to report there on Sunday, while the operation would take place the next day. Patrick was ‘moved, excited, happy, but (& I imagine it is the case with M too) silently & at some depth terrified’. However, my mother telephoned next morning with dismaying news that the anaesthetist had declared that the operation could not take place for another six months without a cardiologist’s assurance. Patrick drove her to the cardiologist, who after close examination under an advanced ultrasound machine pronounced that there was no reason not to proceed. ‘Lord, the relief of my heart!’ wrote Patrick that evening. ‘M quite transformed.’ On Wednesday a temporary breakdown of the car prevented his arrival in time for the operation, and he found her back in bed, ‘Weak, dozey, perfectly lucid.’

  My mother’s recovery was inevitably slow but nonetheless fitfully evident. The strain on Patrick was throughout acute, and he recorded grimly ‘a clear perception of myself as old. This has scarcely happened before on anything but an intellectual plane.’ On 16 January he was relieved by my mother’s return home, though continuing pain from the wound inflicted by the surgeon and acute stomach problems caused him deep concern.