When the Feast is Finished. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ would hold her and kiss her. We told each other that, now we were getting old, we needed less sleep. Indeed, it was difficult to distinguish the natural pains of growing old from more serious pains, or a sense of feeling old from a sense of feeling ill. It seemed then that we were both ‘getting on a bit’, and so we were inclined to regard Margaret’s heart problem as part of a process in which we were both involved.

      Nevertheless, there was a new development. For several years, I had been taking a post-lunch siesta in the study, whereas Margaret said she could not sleep during the day. Now she began to rest on the sofa in the living-room, her beloved cat Sotkin beside her, and often would sleep for a whole hour or possibly more.

      She could not think herself well again.

      It was on the 14th of April that Margaret wrote the letter to her cardiologist.

      Dear Dr Hart,

      I came to see you in October last year, and we discovered that I have an enlarged left ventricle. I gather from my GP, Neil MacLennan, that I am not due to see you again for a year, but I really would be glad to have another appointment with you now. I don’t know whether I should make it direct with you, but in any case I am sending Neil a copy of this letter.

       It seems to me that things are really not much better, and I am disappointed I suppose – you said it could be ‘cured’, and I hoped for good things. But I still get short of breath very easily, and tired, and find I am not up to doing a great deal of gardening, for instance – by which I mean digging up shrubs and transplanting them, carting round bags of manure, restoring our newly acquired garden, etc.!

      I have had regular appointments with my GP, and my blood pressure is reasonably normal; but my cholesterol level is very high at present. I have chosen to improve my diet rather than go on more pills, since I am aware the diet has slipped over the winter. I have the odd ‘pale day’, after a night when my heart seems to have been extra cramped up, and then I feel unable to be particularly active – this is something I have experienced over a few years. I would also like to discuss with you why I have this condition, something I really didn’t ask your opinion about. It seems to me I have trouble at night, and again over the years I have had ‘struggling’ dreams which wake me, it seems, on purpose to get my breath back. Anyway, I am worrying about it at present and would be glad of a check-up with you.

      I have found a note written in Margaret’s elegant hand, dated the 2nd of May 1997. It reads mysteriously: ‘7.2 chol. Liver slightly abnormal. Neil lipid doc’.

      During this period, of the early summer, we tried to live as normal and enjoy our usual pleasures. These included our contacts with countries overseas. A party of musicians came to Britain from Turkmenistan to play. They performed in the Holywell Music Room in Oxford. In the programme interval, I was presented with a hand-woven rug into which was woven the name of the Central Asian poet Makhtumkuli, together with my name. This was by way of honouring my versification in English of Makhtumkuli’s poems, first started when I was in Turkmenistan in 1995.

      On the following day, Youssef Azemoun, the great unsung ambassador of all things Turkmen in this country, came to tea with Margaret and me. He brought with him two Turkmen ladies, Mai Canarova, a descendant of the eighteenth-century poet, and Orazgul Annamyrat, a pianist trained in the Moscow Conservatory.

      Margaret served tea in the garden, in the helix. Afterwards, Orazgul came inside and played to us (Margaret was delighted she had just had the piano tuned). She had a clear attacking style, beautiful both to hear and to watch and was a remarkable person who briefly entered our lives, very friendly and quick. She quite won our hearts.

      That May, as reported, Margaret and I flew to Greece for a holiday. To begin with, we took life easy, staying on Aegina in the House of Peace with Clive and Youla. We had had some concern about the heat, which was why we went early in the month.

      We were back home in time for Moggins’s birthday on the 23rd of May. It was to prove her last birthday.

      In the middle of June, Margaret and I opened the garden to the Friends of Old Headington, and many amiable people wandered round our garden and others nearby. Among them were Jeremy and Margaret Potter. Jeremy, brave and jovial, announced that he was dying of cancer, hale and hearty though he looked. Moggins too looked so bonny that day, and radiated happiness. Yet we both knew that she was under par, and feeling weak.

      On the 4th of July, we drove out to Kidlington – well, Margaret drove us to Kidlington; she usually did all the driving – to a dinner party under the hospitable roof of our friends Felicity and Alex Duncan and children. We always looked forward to visiting them. I suppose about sixteen or more people sat down to dine in their hall. During the first course, Margaret, who was sitting down the table from me, rose, and excused herself; she said she was feeling unwell. Anxiously, I went outside with her, into the cool dark. She said her heart was bothering her, and her pulse was fluttering; I was to stay and enjoy myself, because she would be fine once she got home and could lie down.

      Her casual manner in part reassured me. I went to the car with her, protesting that I would go with her. No, no, she would be fine. I must go back to the party; she was sorry to leave, etc.

      So I went back, but was too anxious to remain at table. I told Alex I would have to leave. Alex came with me into the night, and saw me into a taxi. I believe that that was the first moment when my anxiety broke through into full consciousness and I realised that my wife might be seriously ill.

      So, while Margaret underwent various tests, still centring on her heart problem and cholesterol levels, we still tried to live as we normally did, enjoying the summer, the garden, and our orderly little house. And, of course, continuing White Mars.

      We had both been reading Anna Karenina in different editions. I enjoyed the fateful love affair; Margaret, impatient with Anna, was more sympathetic to Levin’s dealings with his serfs, and his love of the countryside.

      I wrote my wife a letter at this period:

      Tolstoy says that Levin and Kitty, during the early years of their marriage, wrote each other two or three notes every day. They did this even though they were constantly together, as we are.

      It seems a good idea! So I send you a little note for a change.

      I go on to thank her for her assistance in getting together the sprawling manuscript of Twinkling, saying that there must be passages in it which were not agreeable to her; nevertheless, she did not complain or attempt to act as censor. I admired her restraint and thanked her.

      To this I received a bouncy answer. It must stand against the criticisms of my behaviour I happened across later, which we will come to. Meanwhile, her letter is worth quoting in full, as proof of her affectionate and optimistic outlook on life. And on her husband, for that matter …

       Hello my darling,

       You sent me a lovely note at the end of last year, and it’s about time I answered it!

      We don’t write to each other much these days, do we? But we do express our love in so many happy ways, and in our support for each other. I am so grateful for your care and concern when my heart seems to play up and make me rather feeble. And I am very worried about the state of your legs – let’s hope the tests and X-rays will show up what is causing the pain. Soon, the weather will make life easier for us, when we can get out and move around, and get more exercise in the garden.

       I wish Malcolm would come through with some decent enthusiasm for your autobiography. It СКАЧАТЬ