When the Feast is Finished. Brian Aldiss

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      I may have taken the many things Margaret so cheerfully did for granted, but I never took her for granted. I had had a taste of worse things, and rejoiced in my good fortune and her delightful presence. On the 22nd of October:

      Ill or not, our days here pass pleasantly with the two of us together. They could continue thus for many a year and I’d be happy. We had the additional pleasure this afternoon of Wendy’s company for a couple of hours. She sat on the chaise longue in our (new) study, and chatted amiably of her plans, which include buying a seaside cottage at Morthoe.

      While Wendy was here, Harry [Harrison] rang. He attended the memorial service for Kingsley [Amis], to which I was too under the weather to go. There he had the pleasure of seeing Hilly and Jane exchange a kiss.

      With Margaret’s aid, I despatched the final version of The Twinkling of an Eye to HarperCollins, then my publisher. Life went on light-heartedly. Margaret enjoyed the literary life, with its struggles and excitements. She had perhaps had early preparation for it, since a book had been dedicated to her when she was a small girl. This sweet little book, of which ours must be one of the few surviving copies, is Bubble and the Circus, written and illustrated by Josephine Hatcher. It was published by the now defunct firm of Hollis & Carter, in 1946.

      Margaret and I had known each other for forty years, and had been married for most of them. We had not always been as absorbed in one another as was later the case. We had both taken other lovers, brief joys that are followed by the storms of jealousy and fury which such events generally bring. Although I am not without regret that we behaved then as we did, I can see it as an episode in our maturing process. When we were reconciled, we became more dear to one another.

      We drove down to Brighton, where Tim worked, met up with him, and dined with Marina Warner and a jolly crowd after the opening of Marina’s exhibition, ‘The Inner Eye’, in which I took part. Meanwhile, I began to make plans for White Mars with Sir Roger Penrose. Roger and his wife Vanessa had bought Woodlands, whereupon we became friends.

      On the 11th of December in that year, 1996, Moggins and I celebrated our thirty-first wedding anniversary. We had no inkling that it was to be our last anniversary. Nevertheless, there were discomforts.

      My dear faithful and true wife and I hug and kiss each other, and rejoice. We warmly remember that happy day of our marriage, and the celebrations in the Randolph Hotel with all our charming friends present. Plus the flight to Paris after, and the plush double bed in the Scandic Hotel.

      But – Margaret’s celebrating with an hour in Stephen Henderson’s [our dentist’s] chair. She has to have a crown removed. Because of her heart condition, she had to take penicillin first thing. I shall go and collect her in half an hour.

      By the 17th of December I report Margaret as being ‘almost over her little dental op’. Christmas was on the way. She was cooking mince-pies, and preparing to serve Christmas dinner for the whole family, as she had been doing for many a year.

      Malcolm Edwards, my editor at HarperCollins, had by now had the typescript of Twinkling for two weeks, and uttered no word on the subject. My American literary agent, Robin Straus, phoned though, full of praise and excitement regarding Twinkling – ‘A unique book – I know of no autobiography like it’, etc., etc. Good.

      Margaret and I gave each other a Macintosh Performa 6400/200 for Christmas. We had not yet emerged from our Mad About Computers stage.

      On the last day of 1996, my spirits seem to have been low, to judge by the diary entry.

      A low grade year. Margaret’s sad heart problem, the long drag of having this building enlarged, the drab political situation, the sorrow of BSE and slaughter of so many cattle, and so on … The hell with the boring Eurosceptics.

      Let’s hope next year will be better! For one thing, Twinkling will be published, although already I dread the insensitive reviews with their crass headlines, ‘Life of Brian’. But a little welcome income might trickle in.

      Clive and I drove down to BBC Thames Valley, where I went on air with Colin Dexter in a New Year Resolution Show. Uri Geller said he wished everyone to get down on their knees and pray for peace in the Middle East. I suggested, ‘Why not try bending a few Kalashnikovs? It might be more effective.’

      I failed to note down, but still vividly remember, Margaret saying, ‘I don’t like the sound of l997. I don’t think it is going to be the best of years …’ Intuition again?

      After the difficulties of the previous year, I made a resolution to accept no more invitations to other countries, although my customary visit to the US remained on the agenda. It was as well I did so. The temptation most difficult to resist was an invitation from Yang Xiao, one of our powerful friends in China, to a conference taking place in Beijing and Changdu. China – and indeed that remarkable lady – always had a special place in my heart.

      Unlike our usual bouncy state, we were depressed in January 1997. Margaret developed a persistent sore throat. But we smiled and said, ‘So this is what growing old is like!’ At least we were content together; the old assumption still prevailed, that I would die first, while Margaret had at least twenty more years of life to run.

      By the end of the month, I heard from Robin Straus that my American publisher, Gordon Van Gelder of St Martin’s Press, ‘adored’ Twinkling. He accepted it without talk of cuts or fussing. Still there came no word from HarperCollins.

      So the year began dismally. Daughter Wendy’s little son, Thomas, had sickness problems, Antony, my sister Betty’s husband, was asthmatic and had difficulties with food, Betty was on pills, and Moggins was definitely under par. She stayed at home while I had to attend various events in England on my own. I also went to the John Radcliffe for a spell under the Magnetic Resonance Scanner. Taking a look afterwards at the shots of my spine, I saw that most vertebrae were well padded and separated, but some of the lower ones were a bit shaky. They could be causing the leg pain I was experiencing.

      Until I referred back to my diary, I had forgotten that things weren’t so good at that time. Unwell or not, we enjoyed each other’s companionship. In the evenings, after supper, we sat and read or watched television, too lacking in energy to go out.

      I had a little excitement to spur me on. Sir Crispin Tickell, then the Warden of Green College, had invited me to lecture as final speaker in a series of four lectures on the future. I spoke as the president of a largely fictitious body, APIUM, the Association for the Protection and Integrity of an Unspoilt Mars. It pleased me that apium was the Latin word for a white vegetable, celery. I had become sensitive to the vulnerability of things, from the quiet decency of most English people, the cultivation of truth and learning in our children, to the sacredness of environments, as well as Margaret’s health. Beauty lay everywhere, even on our desolate neighbouring planet, Mars.

      My argument was that while I was eager for mankind to visit Mars and explore it, plans to terraform it were a different matter. Terraforming seeks to change a planet into a semblance of Earth, with breathable atmosphere, better climate, etc. Such engineering dreams are an extreme example, however well meaning, of mankind’s disastrous ambition to dominate the world, to exert power, to ‘conquer’ every environment.

      Margaret’s environment was itself under threat. And I was planning to build a utopia … I spoke feelingly at Green College concerning this hypothetical just society, and was well received by the learned audience. Happily, Margaret was in the hall with friends, looking marvellous in a long red costume. One of the friends was the literary agent Felicity Bryan. Someone asked СКАЧАТЬ