Time to Be in Earnest

by P. D. James

  I later learned that the evening raised £16,000, enough to build three bedrooms: a remarkable result for a literary evening.

  FRIDAY, 12TH JUNE

  I am tired, having returned from participating in a session of Any Questions at Devizes. As I travelled by train from Paddington to Chippenham where I was to be met, I wondered why I had agreed, for the first time, to take part. I suppose it is an example of my often unwise and sometimes disastrous disposition to say yes to something new which I am far from certain I can carry off successfully. The other guests—if that is the correct word—were Paul Foot, David Puttnam and Bernard Ingham, and we met first at a local hotel for a buffet supper and drink before going on to the venue in the Corn Exchange. Paul Foot and Sir Bernard are old hands at the game; indeed Paul Foot has been taking part, he said, for over thirty years. Nevertheless there is always a sense of slight apprehension before a public performance of any kind, and we would have been happier with a meal after, rather than before, the event.

  Over supper Paul Foot and I discussed the Hanratty case* and his book on it, published some years ago, in which he seeks to convince the reader that Hanratty was innocent. I said that I had read it but still believed that the verdict was right. Paul said, in that case I couldn’t have read the book, but David Puttnam interposed to say that if I said I had read it, then I had. I remember that it was very cleverly argued and certainly raised questions which still remain unanswered. The case is often quoted as demonstrating the differences and the respective merits and demerits of our own accusatorial system of justice and the investigatory system of, for example, France. Under the latter the question would have been addressed as to why a small-time London crook who had never been known to handle guns would be in a field in Slough holding up the lovers Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie, and why he came to be so far from his normal haunts. The prosecution, naturally, did not address this question and the defence did not do so since they were putting forward the case that he was not there. The explanation I heard later was that he had been hired to frighten the two lovers, but that what had been meant merely as a warning had gone dreadfully wrong and had ended with murder. Then there is the ambiguous part played by Peter Louis Alphon and the fact that the jury were out for nine and a half hours before they returned a verdict of guilty. In some minds a discussion which needed nine and a half hours surely proves that there must have been reasonable doubt. I can’t help wondering whether, if Hanratty had been brilliantly defended, a reasonable doubt might not have been established. But none of this affects my own view of his guilt. As the case continues to be controversial it would seem right to exhume the body and establish the truth once and for all by DNA evidence. I find it strange that this hasn’t been done.

  There was the expected large audience, who were warmed up before we filed on to the platform. The questions were predictable: the recent case of a prisoner released after twenty-three years for a murder which he not only didn’t commit, but which was now considered not even to have been murder; how could one deal with the problem of the Balkans; would we employ the Chancellor of the Exchequer to advise on our private finances? I didn’t disgrace myself, but nor did I feel at the end that I had said anything either original or useful.

  I was driven home with Paul Foot. In the programme he vigorously promoted at length his own preoccupations and seemed rather like a left-wing propagandist who had become permanently stuck in the 1960s. But I found, as so often happens, that I liked him more as I understood him better, and we shared the drive to London, if not in agreement, at least in amity.

  SUNDAY, 14TH JUNE

  I was lucky in the House of Lords draw for tickets to watch yesterday’s Trooping the Colour and was particularly pleased about this as I’d hoped to invite Miss Lowe to see the parade with me. The weather forecast was depressing and rain was falling heavily as we joined a queue to go through the security barrier before taking our seats. We were directed to the wrong stand and later had to move, but couldn’t have been better placed, in the front row of Stand Five. I had warned my guest to be warmly dressed and this proved very wise advice as, although the rain cleared, it was an exceptionally cold day. The parade took place under grey and lowering skies but no rain fell. The guards marched on wearing short grey cloaks and there was a moment of orchestrated drama when a command was barked out and simultaneously they swept off their cloaks to reveal their scarlet uniforms. The precision of the marching never fails to raise one’s spirits and I suspect this must be so even with those who have no sympathy with any military spectacle. But somehow Trooping the Colour lost part of its magic when the Queen substituted a carriage for riding sidesaddle to review her guards. The sight of that small figure wearing a summer hat, being slowly paraded like a mascot along the lines of the guards in what I think is a phaeton, looked incongruous and even slightly ludicrous.

  Afterwards we went to lunch in the restaurant of the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery. It seemed to me a good idea since it gave time for the large crowd to disperse and we were then able to find a cab without too much trouble. I got home in good time to collect my overnight bag and to take the Central Line to Liverpool Street, where I caught the 5 p.m. train to Colchester.

  Grey Gowrie had written a few months previously to ask if I would be the speaker at a literary luncheon at the Clare Arts Festival. After ascertaining that he meant Clare, Suffolk, and not Clare in the Republic of Ireland, I agreed—mainly, of course, because Grey had asked. But it proved a happy decision as I enjoyed myself greatly. I was a guest for the night of Countess Benckendorff and felt immediately at home. We had drinks at Cavendish House, were guests at a small dinner party and went early to bed. The weather still continued very unsettled but I was glad to see Cavendish and Clare, the former a particularly lovely village.

  Before the luncheon I visited Clare church. It is typical of the best of East Anglian churches, beautifully proportioned, light and airy with the windows and columns closely set and an interesting sixteenth-century lectern. We went up into a galleried pew which I thought at first must have been a Victorian innovation to provide comfort and privacy for the local squire, but is, in fact, much earlier. The parish priest said that the church was considering how best this gallery and the space underneath could be used, perhaps to provide an area for private prayer where people could sit in quiet and be unobserved.

  The luncheon was in the old schoolroom. We ate salmon in a very good sauce followed by strawberries and cream and a lemon tart. The service by volunteers, mostly young, was very slow and I found I had transported into Suffolk my London preoccupation with time. When coffee still hadn’t appeared at a quarter to three I murmured that guests would find their afternoon gone by the time I had finished speaking; I was assured that they expected their afternoon to be gone and the only worry was whether I would be too late back in London. It was certainly half-past four before the questions were finished and they could have gone on for much longer. One of the visitors was driving back to London and offered me a lift. I was particularly grateful as I had forgotten that the Tube strike had started and I could have been stranded at Liverpool Street.

  In Berlin with Ruth Rendell before the Wall came down

  Speaking at Chatsworth after presenting the Heywood Hill literary prizes, 19th June 1998. The Duke’s dog showed a flattering interest throughout.

  OPPOSITE: At home with Polly-Hodge, 1998

  (Photograph by Miriam Berkley)

  With my sponsors, Baroness Blatch and Lord Butterfield, before taking my seat in the House of Lords, 19th February 1991

  (Photograph: Universal Pictorial Press)

  OPPOSITE TOP: St. Paul’s Cathedral, 28th June 1995. My largest and most attentive audience. Reading the Bidding Prayer I was asked to write for the thanksgiving service to celebrate the centenary of the National Trust

  (Photograph courtesy Philip Way)

  OPPOSITE BOTTOM: With the Board of Governors and the Board of Management of the BBC at Lucknam Park
/>   (Photograph courtesy BBC)

  Photographed by Jane Bown at Blythburgh

  With my fellow honorary graduands Pat Barker and Richard Griffiths, and the Chancellor Sir Peter Ustinov, Durham, 30th June 1998

  (Photograph courtesy University College, Stockton)

  A young painter and an elderly subject. My portrait by Michael Taylor in the National Portrait Gallery, painted in 1996

  (Photograph courtesy National Portrait Gallery)

  On the beach at Southwold, planning murder

  (Photograph courtesy Alixe Buckersfield de la Roche)

  I had been worried about leaving Polly-Hodge and expected to find her hungry and aggrieved. Happily, although glad to be fed, she seemed reasonably content. I had left her enough to see her through until this afternoon but was later back than I had planned. I expect that, like most of her devious kind, she has a second and secret source of supply for such an emergency.

  TUESDAY, 16TH JUNE

  This evening I went to the reception and prize-giving of the Society of Authors, which this year was held at the Roof Gardens, Kensington High Street, which I hadn’t previously seen. The choice of venue was a happy one as the rain had momentarily ceased and we were able to stroll outside, thus avoiding the congestion and high level of noise which one usually gets at these events. I was surprised at the gardens. There weren’t many flowers but a great deal of green, and it seemed amazing that the building could support such a weight of trees, earth and water. The two flamingoes looked rather depressed, as if aware that they were in the wrong place. Michael Palin presented the prizes and made a short, eminently appropriate and very funny speech. Afterwards I was invited by Mark Le Fanu to a small dinner party with Maggie Drabble, Michael Holroyd, Diana Shine, who is shortly, alas, to retire from the Society, and Michael Palin and his wife.

  The Society of Authors awards ceremony is a cheerful event, largely because it provides an opportunity for writers to get together. The prizes, except for the Betty Trask Award, are not large and there is no shortlist and no formal dinner where prospective winners have to endure the probing eye of cameras. The Betty Trask Award has, however, always been controversial. It is awarded for a novel of a romantic or traditional nature by a writer under the age of thirty, and one knows perfectly well what Betty Trask, herself a romantic novelist, hoped to achieve. But judges through the years have tended to concentrate on traditional rather than romantic novels and sometimes, I suspect, Betty Trask would be surprised if not a little aggrieved by the choice of book.

  WEDNESDAY, 17TH JUNE

  Macmillan are planning to reissue two novels by Nicholas Blake, The Beast Must Die and A Tangled Web, and have asked me to write an introduction suitable for both books. The reissues will be part of a Classic Crime series aimed at bringing back those old favourites which have been allowed to go out of print. I sent off my introduction this afternoon. Nicholas Blake (pseudonym of the poet Cecil Day-Lewis) was one of the writers I most enjoyed during my adolescence but, like Dorothy L. Sayers, he was an innovator of style rather than form. Most of the novels are written within the accepted contemporary conventions of an exciting narrative, a credible and tantalizing mystery and an amateur detective who combines creativity with ratiocination. He based his sleuth, Nigel Strangeways, on his friend the poet W. H. Auden, who was himself a lover of detective fiction and who wrote one of the defining essays on the genre, “The Guilty Vicarage,” published in 1948. In this Auden examines the obstinate appeal of the classical detective story in the light of Christian theology.

  In The Beast Must Die Nigel Strangeways is married to his second wife, Georgia, a world-famous explorer who contributes her own insights and theories to his cases. It is interesting how many of the 1930s writers who created highly individual detectives married them to successful professional women. Lord Peter Wimsey finally wins popular detective novelist Harriet Vane, although there are differing opinions about whether this wish-fulfilment fantasy on the part of the author was entirely wise. Some readers find Harriet an irritating woman, although she does become more human after marriage. Albert Campion marries Lady Amanda Fitton, whom we are supposed to believe is an aeronautical engineer although we never hear of her with even a spanner, while Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn is the husband of a famous painter, Troy. At least two of the writers, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh, were able to make use of their own professional expertise. We can believe that Harriet is a detective novelist and Troy a painter. I think this tendency on the part of women writers to equip their detectives with a successful and distinguished wife is particularly English. Georges Simenon is content to have Mme Maigret happily busy in the kitchen. It is a difficulty I have avoided by keeping Adam Dalgliesh a widower.

  SATURDAY, 20TH JUNE

  Yesterday to Chatsworth to present the Heywood Hill Literary Prize. It was a perfect day, to the satisfaction of organizers and guests alike as the event is held in the garden. I had Andy collect me at half-past nine to drive me to Derbyshire as I was worried that the one-day strike of maintenance men on the railways might mean a delay on the train. In fact it did, as the train and coach party were late in arriving, but not so late as to put the event seriously out of timing. I hadn’t seen Chatsworth before, largely, I suppose, because I don’t drive and many of the great houses aren’t easily accessible except by car. Superlatives become platitudes in the face of such beauty, such riches of art and architecture and such ordered perfection of nature.

  The prize-giving itself was fun. There was a marquee and tables set both inside and on the lawn, and a red-jacketed band played the kind of jolly music one used to hear as a child at the end of piers, adding greatly to the air of slight frivolity. This was not a string quartet affair. It was planned to coincide with the annual party for mayors, so that my first impression was that the local authorities were astonishingly fond of literature. Then there were the literati from London, customers of Heywood Hill, and others who were there presumably because of friendship with the Duke and Duchess or with John Saumarez Smith, who manages the bookshop. So it was a strangely assorted party, but one which went remarkably well, although the mayoral chains sat gently clanking together and there wasn’t a great deal of mingling. I envied the confidence which could mix two such discordant groups in the happy assurance that a good time would be had by all, as, indeed, it was.

  No one, including me, spoke for too long, which is always an advantage. The two prize-winners were Richard Ollard, whose biography of Pepys I had re-read before travelling, and a writer new to me, Norman Lewis, travel writer, diarist and novelist. He is nearly ninety, and in his speech after the presentation described how, as a boy, he had become enchanted with the written word. He was sent to spend long holidays with three maiden aunts, one an epileptic and subject to constant fits, another who spent the day weeping and a third who was manic. They wouldn’t let him out of the house so he watched other children at play from the windows. However, they had a library and he was able to relieve the lonely hours of his imprisonment with reading. From this grew a lasting love of books and his own career as a writer. Of all the reasons given by writers for that first spur to creativity, being imprisoned by mad aunts is the most intriguing.

  After lunch guests were able to see the house—particularly the library, where special books had been laid out—or to walk in the park. Then, when the coach had left for the station, I relaxed in the drawing-room until tea was served. I had been invited to stay the night and the room into which I was shown was called “The View.” It was appropriately named; the view was magnificent. I gazed out of the immense window with its twenty-four panes at the garden and, to the horizon, grasslands, hills, woods, and the summer sky. There were enough books in the room—carefully chosen to suit all possible tastes—to keep one happily reading for a month.

  I went to rest before dressing for dinner and picked up Enid Bagnold’s autobiography. What a complicated, not entirely likeable, woman she must have been. One passage: “Who wants to become
a writer, and why? Because it is the answer to everything, to why I am here, to uselessness. It’s the streaming reason for living; to note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life even if it’s a cactus.”

  Who wants to become a detective novelist and why? To impose order on terrifying chaos? To bring justice out of injustice? To give the illusion that we live in a moral and comprehensible universe? To make money? To provide a structure within which writer and reader can safely confront terror, violence, death? To show that to some things at least there is an answer? To distance the atavistic fear of cruelty and death? To make a pattern? To explore men and women under the trauma of a police investigation for the ultimate crime? To create a modern morality play in which truth is at least established even if it doesn’t prevail? To celebrate justice? To get the better of one’s enemies? To gain the illusion of power? To advise and entertain, solace and delight? Because it’s the thing one does best?