When the Feast is Finished

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 makelife 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 is such a wonderfully wide-ranging book, so much experience in it, and so many areas of life included. We will weather the curiosity of our family and friends, who will no doubt appreciate that we have survived many awful times and yet stuck together, knowing that we are the foundation of a great family structure! Lucky old us! And thank goodness for Gordon Van Gelder!

I suppose it’s true and inevitable that we seem to have aged a bit over the last year, with the traumas of moving and building. I hope we will manage to enjoy the garden this year, and that you won’t be too exhausted with too much travel. We’ll try to have some good adventures of the easy kind!

Love you hugely as always, huge hugs – Your Moggins

Well, we did stay and try to enjoy the garden, and I did not travel abroad. Unfortunately, our Tolstoyan correspondence progressed no further, as her sorrows overtook us.

During the summer, I gave my Moggins Lisa St Aubin de Teran’s autobiographical book The Hacienda. She was absorbed by it, and by Lisa’s terrible life, and wanted to read more of her writing. She lent The Hacienda to Betty, who also devoured it.

Friends I had met originally at the Conference of the Fantastic, Gary Wolfe and Dede Weil – now married – were in Europe. They had said they wished to see England beyond London, so Margaret and I planned a short trip for them. It was to prove our last carefree little excursion, and the most valued because of it, for all four of us.

Margaret drove me from Oxford to Tiverton Parkway, a smart little railway halt in the West Country. She seemed in good health again, although it was no surprise when she stayed sitting in the car while I went to the platform to meet our guests. They had come down from London by train, to save them a long car journey.

The weather was beautiful. The four of us drove down to Tarr Steps, where the river flows shallowly through a deep valley. A low stone bridge, little grander than a giant’s stepping stones, crosses the river. Adults paint there, children pretend to fall in. There we stayed for a night, enjoying each other’s company. Gary is witty and humane; Dede is intense, empathetic and affectionate. Time for Dede is rendered particularly special because she has suffered from cancer, has had one lung removed, and has lived to tell the tale.

On the following day, we moved to a more comfortable hotel, the Royal Oak in Winsford. Margaret and Dede drove to Winsford; Gary and I walked up a leafy valley, past a herd of the semi-wild Exmoor ponies, through countryside that has scarcely changed since before Wordsworth’s time. Gaining an upper by-road, we saw Margaret and Dede in the distance, strolling towards us, both looking serene. Dede told me later that they had discussed mortality.

The pleasant scene remains in mind, assisted by the photographs we took.

When the time came to part, we drove our friends to Bath, and lunched with Charlotte in the Pump Room. Charlotte worked as deputy manager of the HMV branch in Bath. Rain poured down that day. Gary and I took shelter in a tour of the Roman Baths while the ladies shopped. Our friends caught the London train from Bath station. Margaret and I drove back to Oxford, with Margaret again at the wheel.

We returned home late on Thursday. Wendy had been feeding our cats while we were away. For our part, we were happy to resume our prized and peaceful home life. But on the Saturday Margaret and I went to the Acland, where she was X-rayed.

Tuesday 29th July

Well, a dreadful day: I am apparently very unwell. I had a liver ultrasound scan at the Acland on Saturday, and the radiologist immediately told me I needed a biopsy, as there were ‘irregularities’, which ought to be investigated further. Neil phoned yesterday, Monday, to say it was rather worrying, as these growths could be evidence of a secondary CANCER. I can’t remember whether he actually used that word, but that’s certainly what he was talking about. But we have no evidence of a primary growth. He seems to think the heart condition might have disguised it. Although I had a colonoscopy which was totally clear two years ago, I may have a tumour there somewhere – though I never pass any blood. Christ! It’s a death sentence. The encyclopedia says that once a secondary growth develops in the liver there’s nothing that can be done.

B and I collapsed into each other’s arms, wept and comforted each other, without really being able to believe it. Immediately, thoughts of all I want to put in order, of how desperate it would be to leave my darling husband to cope on his own, the children without seeing themmarried and without seeing any of my very own grandchildren … I have to stop myself brooding.

Having to stop herself brooding … Maybe. And having to commune within herself and summon up all her inner resources of fortitude.

Although we were to face much misery to come, it was always tempered by Margaret’s wonderful example of courage and concern for others than herself.

On the following day, Sunday, she slept badly and spent much of the day simply lying about. Hardly surprisingly.

Tuesday 29th July

At 3.25 yesterday, Neil phoned to say there was a growth of secondaries on Margaret’s liver, as revealed by her sonic scan on Saturday. Unwrapping this we found it meant cancer.

She will go to Mr Kettlewell for a liver biopsy on Wednesday.

We went into the living-room and held each other and wept.

My darling! – Why wasn’t this me, with my checkered old life, instead of my dear young innocent wife?

O Rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm

That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy,

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.