Important to Me

by Pamela Hansford Johnson

  John Betjeman, that fine and still underrated poet, knows all about this. He has never said so – or not to me, since I have never had the fortune to be an intimate friend – but just you read certain of his poetry, and feel the fear and horror behind it.

  Still, my deeply depressive moods are comparatively rare. ‘What a piece of work is man! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!’ At Stratford-on-Avon, when I am not being maddened by some director’s gimmickry, I am always happy. I was always happy in Venice – except, one night, when a fit of depression coincided with a reading of that most depressing of all novels, Madame Bovary.

  With Charles, I am always happy, if he is free from professional worries, or when any of the children are causing serious anxiety – which is uncommon. But when I am alone, I am always afraid the dog will spring, on foot, or shoulder, where he pleases. So – Shakespeare, Proust, or detective stories: or crossword puzzles, the great panaceas. I do not know what I should do without The Times.

  Spring, however, is coming. I dread the winter; I suffer abnormally from the cold; I have a deplorable circulation. I feel rather like Proserpine, though it is plain that she fell for Pluto when he abducted her. I expect it was warm down there, in any case.

  This winter has, up till now, been pretty mild. (February 1973.) But still, it is winter. With the first outbreak of almond blossom, my spirits rise. A. E. Housman says I have about ten years to go if I am lucky – to see the cherry-tree in bloom. So I shall endeavour to do so, the first crocuses, the dwarf iris, the forsythia over someone else’s wall – these give me a tremendous lift. For ever, generations will be able to rejoice in them, unless dust and destruction descends all over the earth: which I do not think it will do. The daffodils will begin to peer, and the doxy will be patiently waiting over the dale, skirts raised in joyful anticipation. There is only one thing to threaten both her and the daffodils: pollution. But I do not propose to write an essay on this. Let others get on with it.

  Postscript. During the past year these depressions have largely disappeared. When I do get depressed there is a reason for it: it is no longer illogical. I mention this since it may bring comfort to others.

  30. A Happening in Los Angeles

  During our time in California, Charles and I were invited to take part in a two-night public discussion, upon some more or less benevolent subject, with Aldous Huxley and Harold Urey. If I could remember what that subject was, this story might make more sense: but whatever does make sense in Los Angeles?

  If I could also remember whether it was to be televised, this would also help. But this I do remember, and it is important, that we on the platform were almost totally blinded by arc-lights – and Aldous was, totally. Charles’s sight has never been of the best, but I could only clearly see the front row: and not the space between this and the platform.

  In the morning papers, there was a private advertisement of the fact that Jesus Christ II was coming to disrupt our meeting. When we arrived at the hall, which was packed, there was a leaflet on each seat to confirm this interesting fact. It didn’t bother us much, though we did notice an abnormal number of campus police. This time, the Pretender’s name was given, but I don’t recall what it was.

  From the beginning, I think we all sensed an atmosphere of tension, but it did not worry us, since we were all experienced at this particular kind of public utterance.

  Charles spoke. I spoke. Dr Urey spoke. Aldous spoke. And then came the drama.

  From a seat in the front row – I could, as I say, see this pretty clearly – there arose a broad-faced, flat-faced young man, somewhat above middle height, sturdily built and formally dressed. He announced himself, with complete conviction, as Jesus Christ the Second. He could understand Snow and Urey – he had expected no more – but Aldous and I, professing to be Christians – (I am not sure that Aldous did) that was too much. If he might be permitted …

  He was not permitted. The campus police descended. At this point the scuffle began to appear general: several people, students, I suppose, joining in. Now, I could see little, but a sort of brown and dusty rumpus. Urey, nothing. Charles nothing. Aldous nothing. I took it that something pretty rough was taking place, and that the audience was excited, but so far as we on the platform were concerned, we just had to sit it out.

  There was a brief interval to clear up this brouhaha, and then we were requested to continue.

  But when we did, a good third of the audience left, in obvious dudgeon. What on earth had we done? We watched them trooping out, and drearily we went on to the end.

  Afterwards, however, Aldous and I were united on one thing: Charles and Urey definitely were not, but they were not listened to. We had found out that Jesus Christ II had been taken to a police station. There had been a pretty fierce struggle and ejection. Aldous and I were convinced that injustice might have been done, and that we must find out to which police station the young man had been taken, see him, and offer him what help we could.

  Charles and Urey shrugged wearily, but let us have our way. (How could we be quite sure – this was in the forefront of Aldous’s thoughts and mine – that the young man was not just conceivably who he said he was?)

  Then began the long drive through the night. Nick after nick – he might have been to any one of them, but he had been passed on. It was very late. Harold Urey tried to while away the time by saying that he, at least, could explain to me the Second Law of Thermodynamics. So, for a time, he seemed able to: he was a marvellous expositor. But eventually he lost me. He had begun to talk about the ‘engine’ – what engine? My lost and exhausted soul past any sense, I could only think of a puff-puff. Mrs Urey said, ‘Oh stop it, Harold. Can’t you see she isn’t with you?’

  At last we came to a police station where the young man seemed to be held, and where his supporters were milling around. On seeing Aldous and myself, they rounded upon us. I suppose there were thirty of them, but there seemed to be hundreds. Amid their denunciations, I heard just one thing: Jesus Christ II had come to denounce the Atom Bomb. We had, at least by not supporting him, all spoken in its favour.

  Against such nonsense, reason seems powerless: but a certain degree of nonsense will expel fear. I got silence somehow – Aldous could hardly see anyone, and was completely bewildered – and announced the following: that under the arc-lights, not one of us had been able to see what had happened. So, we had come to interview the young man if possible, and help if we could. With regard to the Bomb, the boy was no serious protester, but a religious crank. This quietened some of them somewhat, but others continued to clamour.

  I approached the station captain. I told him who the platform party were. If Jesus Christ II was available, we should like to see him. The captain replied, with, I think, a hint of relish, that he was no longer there: he had been conveyed to another police-station, a good long way away.

  That broke me, and I think it broke Aldous. Charles and Urey, with what strength they could summon, were both smiling like Cheshire cats. The protesting students announced that we should all be subpoenaed for something or other. I found this worrying, as I needed to get back to Berkeley and the children.

  However, we were so tired that an exploration of more police-stations was out of the question. We all went back to bed, and slept the sleep of the just – for no one could possibly be juster than we were.

  In the morning, a sober body of students came to make their apologies. They realised that we were at fault in no way. They had made enquiries through their lawyers. They appreciated what we had done in an attempt to help. They now realised that Jesus Christ II was a crank, a by no means unfamiliar phenomenon in Californian society.

  The second evening of our discussion passed off quietly. After the adventures of the night before, it was incredibly tame.

  The sequel came a year or so later, when Charles and I were at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

  It was a misty blue day, warm and quiet, and we were having tea, when a visitor was
announced. The name seemed only vaguely familiar, but the flat, cordial face was, to me, very much so.

  He advanced cheerfully, ‘I don’t suppose you remember me!’ ‘Oh, yes, I do,’ I replied, none too pleasantly. ‘You are Jesus Christ II and you bust up our discussion at Los Angeles.’

  He nodded, beamed, and simply shrugged the whole thing off. It had been kind of us all to come and look for him: but in fact no charges had been brought, and the police – some time in the small hours, I gather – had let him go. All that was old history.

  He accepted a cup of tea. He wanted to tell us what was happening to him now. Decorously dressed, as usual, well scrubbed, shoes well shone, he seemed as rational a young man as one could wish to meet. He was, in fact, in Ann Arbor itself, not as an undergraduate but under the guidance of a theologian on the faculty.

  He was happy: all was right, nothing was wrong. He did not stay for more than fifteen minutes. He had just come to pay a courtesy call. He went off into the radiant afternoon, out into the Earthly Paradise. We never saw him again.

  This was nearly thirteen years ago. I have often wondered what happened to him since. I think he had even then given up being Jesus Christ. Did his bliss persist? Dotty or not, I am sure he was harmless and good. I hope the Earthly Paradise did not fade or grow sour for him, and I think that, if Aldous were still alive, he would feel the same as I do. But then Aldous and I were not altogether devoid of a sentimental streak.

  31. Two Eye Operations

  These, endured by Charles, have been described so poignantly in The Sleep of Reason and Last Things, that I have nothing to add from his point of view. But I should be omitting one of the great importances of my life if I did not add something of my own.

  One morning, early in March 1962, Charles woke me up. He was in distress. He said he had a dark veil covering one half of his left eye – never, in any case, a good one. We got to an ophthalmologist, as quickly as we could, our minds filled with the fears we dared not express. Brain tumour? He saw us at once. What was wrong was a detached retina: he urged an immediate operation to pin it back into place.

  Here Charles was in a quandary. He was due in three days to travel to Scotland, to be installed as Rector of Saint Andrews. He argued this with Lorimer Fison. If he went, what risk would he be taking with the success of an operation afterwards? The answer, after much hesitation, was this. If the operation were done at once, there might be an 80 per cent chance of success. If it were delayed, perhaps 60 or 70 per cent. Charles decided to fulfil his obligation, and to go into Moorfields Eye Hospital immediately upon his return.

  We had difficulty in blacking out the afflicted eye: this was to have a certain repercussion later. He could not wear an ordinary black patch, since it so depressed his glasses that it was impossible for him to see out of the lens over the good eye. So I contrived a black bandage that covered the eye afflicted, this going right round his head, and slanting over one side. It looked odd, but it worked.

  The journey to St Andrews was agonising. Lindsay, Philip and I went too: it was our task to see that he did not make the least stumble, let alone fall. The children were anxious, and very sedulous. Somehow we got through the ceremonies, sometimes uproarious, for the Rector is the representative of the student body, and at last were able to return to London, where Charles went straight into hospital.

  Now, to replace a detached retina is an extremely tricky, but not obviously a dangerous, operation. But the aftermath was miserable. He had to lie for days in darkness, motionless, both eyes covered. He refused to allow anyone to feed him, but insisted on being given sandwiches, which he could put into his own mouth. He has described the wretchedness of his hallucinations, and to this I will not add.

  Every morning his secretary helped me to deal with his mass of correspondence. Then I got to the hospital as quickly as I could, to talk to him, tell him all the news, read him the newspapers and the novels he fancied. (You cannot read Jane Austen successfully aloud, but both Dickens and Trollope are splendid for this purpose.) In the evenings I stayed as late as I could, arranging for a series of visitors to take my place. But his nights were dreadful.

  At last the day of final inspection came. Lorimer Fison said at once, ‘I’m sorry. We’ve failed.’ It was a terrible blow: it meant that the sight of the left eye had completely gone. ‘But,’ he added, ‘you may as well have the comfort of seeing with the good one.’ And he removed the bandages.

  In the meantime, when Charles was still totally blinded, a cartoon appeared in Private Eye, never one of the kindest of periodicals. It was a malicious cartoon by someone whom I shall not name, depicting Charles, cavorting naked, wearing the black bandage I had made for him to wear during his quixotic journey to St Andrews. Underneath was the caption, ‘In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.’ Not just insensitivity: staggering cruelty. Naturally, Charles was not told about this until a long while afterwards. (One of Private Eye’s regular contributors resigned in disgust.) I have never met this cartoonist: I hope I never shall. We are told to forgive our enemies. I can usually forgive mine (as I cannot forgive myself for many things) because I tend to forget even who they are: but I cannot forgive Charles’s.

  Only a few days after his discharge from Moorfields, something miraculous happened – or it seemed so at the time. It was straight out of Jane Eyre, where the blinded Mr Rochester sees that Jane has on a blue dress and is wearing something glittering round her neck. I was at the dressing-table. Charles said suddenly, and I saw that he was covering his good eye, ‘I can see your shape against the window.’

  Lorimer Fison came, and agreed that this was indeed an extraordinary phenomenon: somehow the retina had floated back into place.

  In June, Charles and I paid one of our periodic visits to the United States. He was recommended to go by sea, where the risk of jolting would be less than in the air. This pleased me, as I am fond of ships. We had, in fact, a very pleasant trip. Charles still was unable to read without undue strain, so I took up again my habit of reading to him. We both became so absorbed in Trollope’s The Duke’s Children, the most charming, probably the most perfect of his books since it contains little tiresome extraneous matter (though it lacks the sombre, rather dotty grandeur of Mr Crawley, in The Last Chronicle of Barset) that we could hardly wait to finish our lunch, go down to our room, and take it up again.

  Things went well until October, when again the retina became displaced. Lorimer Fison insisted that Charles go back to Moorfields, without delay this time, for a second operation.

  On the day it was to be performed, I was due for a ‘Critics’ recording. I did not wish to go. ‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ Charles said, ‘you know it’s quite a trivial thing. You go to “Critics” and come straight on to me when you’re through there.’

  I never made that recording. Towards the end of lunch, the telephone rang: it was Lorimer Fison. Charles’s heart had stopped for three and three-quarter minutes on the operating-table. It was going again now, though external massage had failed and he had had to be ‘opened up’. (I later learned that the emergency was so great, that Fison had done this himself.) He seemed quite all right, but perhaps I could get along straight away?

  The shock was blinding. I explained as best I might what had happened and someone put me into a taxi. Of the ride, I can remember nothing at all. But I remember waiting for five minutes – was it more, or less? – it seemed like half an hour – by the hospital lift, waiting for someone to fetch me. I dreaded to hear that Charles was dead. I was taken at last into the anteroom of the operating theatre. Charles was still on the table, just conscious. He recognised me, and smiled. I sat for a long while holding his hand. I realised that his chest was bandaged, and that there were tubes in his ankles. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said at last. He was already suspicious. I said that ‘Critics’ had finished very early. He frowned. Something didn’t seem to fit.

  At last they were able to wheel him back to his room and put him to bed.
Outside the door, Lorimer Fison and the heart surgeon spoke to me. Should they tell him what had happened, or should they not? I said, ‘Of course you must tell him. He’s not a fool. He knows something’s up already. And he will soon find out that he’s covered in plasters.’

  They went to break the news. A few minutes after, I was able to see him. He was perfectly conscious now.

  I said, ‘Well, old boy. You’ve given us a time of it.’

  He replied, ‘Listen, my girl. I’ll tell you what happens on the other side. Nothing.

  I said this was no time to discuss theology.

  He has written himself of what that shock meant to him. It is, to me, almost unbearable reading.

  Eventually I went home. I slept little that night. The sister had told me that I might telephone as often as I chose. I did. At midnight. Two o’clock. Four o’clock. Five o’clock. I was at the hospital in the morning, as soon as I could get there.

  I will pass over those horrible days. It was wonderful when, one day, I went to his room, and saw that all the equipment necessary, in case of a relapse, had been removed.

  But he made an excellent recovery, and the operation on the retina was this time successful. He has only peripheral vision in the left eye now, but that is better than monocular vision only. At least it restores the sense of balance. He is now able to read and write easily, go to the theatre and cinema, and watch television.

  It was about a month after his cardiac arrest, that reaction set in really violently for me. I found myself crying uncontrollably, at the most inconvenient times. I managed to conceal it, because Charles was markedly cheerful, more so than he had been, I think, for months, and this wouldn’t have been much fun for him.

  But the real nightmare, of course, was his alone, and in Last Things he has made it imaginable – or nearly.