He lowered the pillow gently onto Emma’s face.
Her hands and legs twitched for a few moments before she fell still, but he continued to press down. When he finally lifted the pillow, there was a smile on her face as if she was enjoying her first rest in months.
Harry held her in his arms as the first of the autumn leaves began to fall.
* * *
Dr. Richards dropped by the following morning, and if he was surprised to find that his patient had died during the night, he did not mention it to Harry. He simply wrote on the death certificate Died in her sleep as a result of Motor Neuron Disease. But then he was an old friend, as well as the family doctor.
Emma had left clear instructions that she wanted a quiet funeral, attended only by family and close friends. No flowers, and donations to the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Her wishes were carried out to the letter, but then she had no way of knowing how many people looked upon her as a close friend.
The village church was packed with locals, and others who were not quite so local, as Harry discovered when he shuffled down the aisle to join the rest of the family in the front pew and passed a former prime minister seated in the third row.
He couldn’t recall a great deal about the service, as his mind was preoccupied, but he did try to concentrate when the vicar delivered his moving eulogy.
After the coffin was lowered into the ground and the rough sods of earth had been cast upon it, Harry was among the last to leave the graveside. When he returned to the Manor House to join the rest of the family, he found he couldn’t recall Lucy’s name.
Grace kept a close eye on him as he sat quietly in the drawing room where he’d first met Emma—well, not exactly met.
“They’ve all gone,” she told him, but he just sat there, staring out of the window.
When the sun disappeared behind the highest oak, he stood, walked across the hall, and slowly climbed the stairs to their bedroom. He undressed and got into an empty bed, no longer caring for this world.
* * *
Doctors will tell you, you can’t die of grief. But Harry died nine days later.
The death certificate gave the cause of death as cancer, but as Dr. Richards pointed out, if Harry had wanted to he could have lived for another ten, perhaps twenty years.
Harry’s instructions were as clear as Emma’s had been. Like her, he wanted a quiet funeral. His only request was to be buried beside his wife. His wishes were adhered to, and when the family returned to the Manor House after the funeral, Giles gathered them all together in the drawing room and asked them to raise a glass to his oldest and dearest friend.
“I hope,” he added, “that you’ll allow me to do one thing that I know Harry wouldn’t have approved of.” The family listened in silence to his proposal.
“He most certainly wouldn’t have approved,” said Grace. “But Emma would have, because she told me so.”
Giles looked in turn at each member of the family, but he didn’t need to seek their approval, because it was clear that they were as one.
HARRY ARTHUR CLIFTON
1920–1992
52
HIS INSTRUCTIONS couldn’t have been clearer, but then they’d been at it since 1621.
The Rt. Hon. the Lord Barrington of Bristol Docklands was to arrive at St. Paul’s Cathedral at 10:50 on the morning of April 10th, 1992. At 10:53, he would be met at the northwest door by the Very Reverend Eric Evans, canon in residence. At 10:55, the canon would accompany the Lord Chancellor into the cathedral, and then they would proceed to the front of the nave where he should land—the canon’s word—at 10:57.
As eleven a.m. struck on the cathedral clock, the organist would strike up the opening bars of All people that on earth do dwell, and the congregation would rise and sing, the dean assured him. From that moment until the final blessing by the dean, the memorial service would be in the safe hands of the Rt. Reverend Barry Donaldson, the Bishop of Bristol, and one of Harry’s oldest friends. Giles would only have one role left to play on the ecclesiastical stage.
He had spent weeks preparing for this single hour, because he felt it had to be worthy of his oldest friend and, equally important, that it would have been approved of by Emma. He had even carried out a practice run from Smith Square to St. Paul’s at exactly the same time the previous week, to make sure he wouldn’t be late. The journey had taken twenty-four minutes, so he decided he would leave home at 10:15. Better to be a few minutes early, he told his driver, than a few minutes late. You can always slow down, but London traffic doesn’t always allow you to speed up.
* * *
Giles rose just after five on the morning of the memorial service, as he knew he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. He slipped on a dressing gown, went down to his study, and read the eulogy one more time. Like Harry with his novels, he was now on the fourteenth draft, or was it the fifteenth? There were a few changes, the occasional word, one added sentence. He felt confident he could do no more, but he still needed to check the length.
He read it through once again without stopping, just under fifteen minutes. Winston Churchill had once told him, “An important speech should take an hour to write for every minute it took to deliver, while at the same time, dear boy, you must leave your audience convinced it was off the cuff.” That was the difference between a mere speaker and an orator, Churchill had suggested.
Giles stood up, pushed back his chair, and began to deliver the eulogy as if he were addressing an audience of a thousand, although he had no idea how large the congregation would be. The canon had told him that the cathedral could hold two thousand comfortably, but only managed that on rare occasions, such as the funeral of a member of the royal family, or a memorial service for a prime minister, and not even all of them could guarantee a full house.
“Don’t worry,” he had added, “as long as six hundred turn up, we can fill the nave, block off the chancery, and it will still look packed. Only our regular worshippers will be any the wiser.”
Giles just prayed that the nave would be full, as he didn’t want to let his friend down. He put down the script fourteen minutes later, then returned to the bedroom, to find Karin still in her dressing gown.
“We ought to get going,” he said.
“Of course we should, my darling,” said Karin, “that is, if you’re thinking of walking to the cathedral. If you leave now, you’ll be there in time to welcome the dean,” she added before disappearing into the bathroom.
While Giles had been going over his speech downstairs, she had laid out a white shirt, his Bristol Grammar School tie, and a dark suit that had come back from the cleaners the previous day. Giles took his time dressing, finally selecting a pair of gold cufflinks Harry had given him on his wedding day. Once he’d checked himself in the mirror, he paced restlessly around the bedroom, delivering whole paragraphs of his eulogy out loud and constantly looking at his watch. How long was she going to be?
When Karin reappeared twenty minutes later, she was wearing a simple navy blue dress that Giles had never seen before, adorned with a gold portcullis brooch. She’d done Harry proud.
“Time to leave,” she announced calmly.
As they left the house Giles was relieved to see that Tom was already standing by the back door of the car.
“Let’s get moving, Tom,” he said as he slumped into the backseat, checking his watch again.
Tom drove sedately out of Smith Square as befitted the occasion. Past the Palace of Westminster and around Parliament Square before making his way along Victoria Embankment.
“The traffic seems unusually heavy today,” said Giles, once again looking at his watch.
“About the same as last week,” said Tom.
Giles didn’t comment on the fact that every light seemed to turn red just as they approached it. He was convinced they were going to be late.
As they drove past the mounted griffins that herald the City of London, Giles began to relax for the first time, as it now looked as if t
hey would be about ten minutes early. And they would have been, but for something none of them had anticipated.
With about half a mile to go and the dome of the cathedral in sight, Tom spotted a barrier across the road that hadn’t been there the previous week when they’d carried out the practice run. A policeman raised his arm to stop them, and Tom wound down his window and said, “The Lord Chancellor.”
The policeman saluted and nodded to a colleague, who lifted the barrier to allow them through.
Giles was glad they were early because they were moving so slowly. Crowds of pedestrians were overflowing from the pavement and spilling onto the road, finally causing the car to almost come to a halt.
“Stop here, Tom,” said Giles. “We’re going to have to walk the last hundred yards.”
Tom pulled up in the middle of the road and rushed to open the back door, but by the time he got there, Giles and Karin were already making their way through the crowd. People stood aside when they recognized him, and some even began clapping.
Giles was about to acknowledge their applause, when Karin whispered, “Don’t forget they’re applauding Harry, not you.”
They finally reached the cathedral steps and began to climb up through a corridor of raised pens and pencils, held high by those who wished to remember Harry not only as an author, but as a civil rights campaigner.
Giles looked up to see Eric Evans, canon in residence, waiting for them on the top step.
“Got that wrong, didn’t I,” he said, grinning. “It must be an author thing, always more popular than politicians.”
Giles laughed nervously as the canon escorted them through the northwest door and into the cathedral, where those who had arrived late, even if they had a ticket, were standing at the side of the nave, while those who didn’t were crammed at the back like football fans on a crowded terrace.
Karin knew that Giles’s laughter was a cocktail of nerves and adrenaline. In fact, she had never seen him so nervous.
“Relax,” she whispered, as the dean led them down the long marble aisle, past Wellington’s memorial and through the packed congregation, to their places at the head of the nave. Giles recognized several people as they made their slow progress toward the high altar. Aaron Guinzburg was sitting next to Ian Chapman, Dr. Richards with Lord Samuel, Hakim Bishara, and Arnold Hardcastle representing Farthings, Sir Alan Redmayne was next to Sir John Rennie, while Victor Kaufman and his old school chum Professor Algernon Deakins were seated near the front.
But it was two women, sitting alone, who took him by surprise. An elegant old lady, who bowed her head as Giles passed, was seated near the back, clearly no longer wishing to be acknowledged as a dowager duchess might have expected to be, while in the row directly behind the family was another old lady who had traveled from Moscow to honor her late husband’s dear friend.
Once they had taken their places in the front row, Giles picked up the order of service sheet that had been prepared by Grace. The cover was adorned with a simple portrait of Sir Harry Clifton KBE that had been drawn by the most recent winner of the Turner Prize.
The order of service could have been chosen by Harry himself, as it reflected his personal tastes: traditional, popular, with no concern about being described as romantic. His mother would have approved.
The congregation was welcomed by the Rt. Rev. Barry Donaldson, the Lord Bishop of Bristol, who led them in prayers in memory of Harry. The first lesson was read by Jake, whose head could barely be seen above the lectern.
“1 Corinthians 13. If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels…”
The choir of St. Mary Redcliffe, where Harry had been a chorister, sang Rejoice that the Lord has risen!
Sebastian, as the new head of the Clifton family, walked slowly up to the north lectern to read the second lesson, Revelation 21 to 37, and only just managed to get the words out.
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea…” When he returned to his place in the front pew, Giles couldn’t help noticing that his nephew’s hair was starting to gray at the temples—which was only appropriate, he reflected, for a man who had recently been elected to the court of the Bank of England.
The congregation rose to join all those outside the cathedral in singing Harry’s favorite song from Guys and Dolls, “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.” Perhaps for the first time in the cathedral’s history, cries of “Encore” rang out both inside and out; inside, where the Salvation Army were led by Miss Adelaide representing Emma, while outside were a thousand Sky Mastersons playing Harry.
The dean nodded, and the choirmaster raised his baton once again. Giles was probably the only person who didn’t join in when the congregation began to sing, And did those feet in ancient times … Becoming more nervous by the minute, he placed the order of service by his side and clung on to the pew, in the hope that no one would see his hands were shaking.
When the congregation reached, Till we have built Jerusalem … Giles turned to see the dean standing by his side. He bowed. It must be 11:41.
Giles stood, stepped out into the aisle, and followed the dean to the pulpit steps, where he bowed again, before leaving him with In England’s green and pleasant land echoing in his ears. As Giles turned to climb the thirteen steps, he could hear Harry saying, Good luck, old chap, rather you than me.
When he reached the pulpit, Giles placed his script on the small brass lectern and looked down on the packed congregation. Only one seat was empty. The last line of Blake’s masterpiece having been rendered, the congregation resumed their places. Giles glanced to his left to see the statue of Nelson, his one eye staring directly at him, and waited for the audience to settle before he delivered his opening line.
“This was the noblest Roman of them all.
“Many people over the years have asked me if it was obvious, when I first met Harry Clifton, that I was in the presence of a truly remarkable individual, and I have to say no, it wasn’t. In fact, only chance brought us together, or to be more accurate, the alphabet. Because my name was Barrington, I ended up in the next bed to Clifton in the dormitory on our first day at St. Bede’s, and from that random chance was born a lifelong friendship.
“It was clear to me from the outset that I was the superior human being. After all, the boy who had been placed next to me not only cried all night, but also wet his bed.”
The roar of laughter that came from outside quickly spread to those inside the cathedral, helping Giles to relax.
“This natural superiority continued to manifest itself when he crept into the washroom. Clifton had neither a toothbrush nor toothpaste, and had to borrow from me. The following morning, when we joined the other boys for breakfast, my superiority was even more apparent when it became clear that Clifton had never been introduced to a spoon, because he licked his porridge bowl clean. It seemed a good idea to me at the time, so I did the same. After breakfast, we all trooped off to the Great Hall for our first assembly, to be addressed by the headmaster. Although Clifton clearly wasn’t my equal—after all, he was the son of a docker, and my father owned the docks, while his mother was a waitress, and my mother was Lady Barrington. How could we possibly be equals? However, I still allowed him to sit next to me.
“Once assembly was over, we went off to the classroom for our first lesson, where yet again Clifton was sitting next to Barrington. Unfortunately, by the time the bell sounded for break, my mythical superiority had evaporated more quickly than the morning mist once the sun has risen. It didn’t take me much longer to realize that I would walk in Harry’s shadow for the rest of my life, for he was destined to prove, far beyond the tiny world we then occupied, that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.
“This state of affairs continued after we left St. Bede’s and progressed to Bristol Grammar School, when I was placed next to my friend once again—but I must admit that I only gained a place at the school because they needed a new
cricket pavilion, and my father paid for it.”
While those outside St. Paul’s laughed and applauded, decorum allowed only polite laughter inside the cathedral.
“I went on to captain the school’s first eleven, while Harry won the prize for English and an exhibition to Oxford. I also managed to scrape into Oxford, but only after I’d scored a century at Lord’s for Young MCC.”
Giles waited for the laughter to die down before he continued.
“And then something happened that I hadn’t been prepared for. Harry fell in love with my sister Emma. I confess that at the time I felt he could have done better. In my defense, I wasn’t to know that she would win the top scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford, become the first female chairman of a public company, chairman of an NHS hospital, and a minister of the Crown. Not for the first time, or the last, Harry was to prove me wrong. I wasn’t even the superior Barrington any more. This is perhaps not the time to mention my little sister Grace, then still at school, who went on to become Professor of English at Cambridge. Now I am relegated to third place in the Barrington hierarchy.
“By now I had accepted that Harry was superior, so I made sure that we shared tutorials, as I had planned that he would write my essays, while I practiced my cover drive. However, Adolf Hitler, a man who never played a game of cricket in his life, put a stop to that, and caused us to go our separate ways.
“All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.”
Harry shamed me by leaving Oxford and joining up even before war had been declared, and by the time I followed him, his ship had been sunk by a German U-boat. Everyone assumed he’d been lost at sea. But you can’t get rid of Harry Clifton quite that easily. He was rescued by the Americans, and spent the rest of his war behind enemy lines, while I ended up in a German prisoner-of-war camp. I have a feeling that if Lieutenant Clifton had been in the next bunk to me at Weinsberg, I would have escaped a lot sooner.
“Harry never talked to me or anyone else about his war, despite his having been awarded the prestigious Silver Star for his service as a young captain in the US Army. But if you read his citation, as I did when I first visited Washington as a foreign minister, you’d discover that with the help of an Irish corporal, a jeep, and two pistols, he convinced Field Marshal Kertel, the commanding officer of a crack panzer division, to order his men to lay down their arms and surrender. Shortly afterward, Harry’s jeep was blown up by a land mine while he was traveling back to his battalion. His driver was killed, and Harry was flown to the Bristol Royal Infirmary, not expected to survive the journey. However, the gods had other plans for Harry Clifton that even I would not have thought possible.
This Was a Man Page 38
