Patrick O'Brian

by Nikolai Tolstoy

  Enterprising as ever, he ignored his mother’s apprehensive objections, cycling all the way from Dieppe, to whose Poste Restante my mother transmitted 5,000 francs for travelling expenses.[fn4] Equipped only with a school atlas as guide, Richard arrived cheerful and excited at the beginning of August.

  Collioure proved particularly lively and sociable on this occasion. Within days of Richard’s arrival he made a memorable contact. Two schoolmistresses from England came to stay in the town, accompanied by four of their pupils. One of the pair, Mary Burkett, met my parents and became a friend for some years (she had an aunt living near Collioure). It was not long before Richard became friends with the schoolgirls, and one in particular attracted his close attention.

  One evening my mother invited the girls to dinner, after which Richard and another boy named Pat entertained their new friends:

  All day preparing dinner (Spanish rice). V. successful, whole school. They are wonderfully pleasant young things. After dinner Pat came, & he & Richard escorted Susan, Wendy, Anne-Louise & Jill to fair. R. home at midnight. He prefers Susan, & Pat Wendy. Susan is the best.

  Thereafter romance blossomed, and Richard and Susan were together every day until 26 August, when sadly the school party returned to England. No sooner had they been waved off at Perpignan railway station than ‘R. wrote to Susan: says he is going to see her the day after he reaches London.’ They continued in touch, until on 10 September Richard himself returned to England:

  R. had one [letter] from Sue & ever since (2 pm) has been writing back to her. P. took R’s bike to P. Vendres & sent it off. Saw R. off at Port-Vendres very sadly, in great wind & with black & purple sky. R. said this has been his best holiday. The house is so sad without him.

  Richard had always loved his holidays in Collioure, but this time there had been especial reason for enjoyment. On his return to London, he wrote: ‘Thank you both so very much for the best holiday that I have ever had. And it really was the best.’ He and Susan had now become fast friends:

  The [Cardinal Vaughan] school’s secretary stopped me and asked whether the Mr O’Brian that had written The Catalans[fn5] was my father. With huge pride I said ‘Yes’. Susan has shown me a revue of the Frozen Flame [the book’s British title] and it looked very good …

  Now I am going to begin. Susan sent me a card saying that would I like to hear a lecture on ‘Everest’. Well Susan brought her two brothers and there [sic] two friends to hear the lecture … Her brothers are extremely pleasant to say the very least. And the lecture given by Hunt, Edmund Hillary and Low was absolutely superb …

  Susan also invited me down to their house for lunch and tea. Was I scared, as at the last tea-party I sat down on the tea-pot. Her parents are wonderful, they really are. Their house, gee. Susan had told me that it was a small thing. Sixteen rooms and grounds that have a tennis court, flower garden kitchen garden, goat-house and hen house and a tool shed.

  Susan’s father, Paul Hodder-Williams, a director of the publishing firm of Hodder & Stoughton, was editor of Sir John Hunt’s bestseller The Ascent of Everest, which he was shortly to publish. The parents’ wealth and status in no way inhibited their friendliness to the shy but enthusiastic sixteen-year-old boy. As for their pretty daughter:

  Seeing Susan again was terrific only her hair is a bit darker. She has gone back to school today. Ah. I asked her parents if I could take her out during the Christmas holidays, and to my delight they immediately said ‘Yes’, so that’s quite all right. Quite where to take her I don’t really know. Please could I have every suggestion however mad? She likes her bracelet. Soon she will be sending some of those photos that the girls took of her, they should be marvellous. She is still the same. What a wonderful girl she is.

  In December my mother stayed with her parents in Chelsea, when she saw much of Richard. For him the outstanding moment was when she took him to see Richard Burton and Claire Bloom acting in Hamlet at the Old Vic. This was Richard’s first visit to the theatre, and he was enraptured by the ‘perfect’ production. Two days later he took my mother to the cinema, and a couple of days were spent in hunting down his first grown-up suit.

  At Christmas Susan sent my parents a copy of Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Verses on behalf of her friends and their two schoolmistresses, thanking them again for their kindness throughout their stay at Collioure. Nothing more is recorded of this charming romance, which graphically illustrates my mother’s and Patrick’s talent for empathy with the young, especially in their amours. Within a few years they were to evince similar sympathy for me and my occasionally troubled youthful love affairs.

  It was in August 1953 that ‘Mary [Burkett] took photographs of P for H[arper’s].B[azaar]. (only one came out, but it is very good).’

  Eventually, as tended on occasion to occur, Patrick took mysterious offence at something Mary Burkett may or may not have done. In later years I came to know her, when I was able to reassure her that it was unlikely to have been in consequence of any particular offence on her part. Patrick’s writing was not going well at the time, and it was clearly in large part the strain which frequently made it hard for him to sustain close friendships at a remove. A chapter of Mary Burkett’s privately published biography is devoted to their friendship. Unfortunately, it includes much factual misrepresentation, despite the fact that when in August 2005 I stayed at her lovely home Isel House in the Lake District, we talked nostalgically of those long-departed days.[1]

  A gift Mary had brought from England to Collioure long outlasted their friendship. On 21 July 1954 my mother cryptically recorded that ‘Mary Burkett arrived about 10, she brought us book-binding stuff.’ This was a parcel of early legal documents, which she had saved at a solicitor’s office clearance. Patrick tended to make heavy use of his beloved leather-bound books, with the result that their spines often became badly worn. In later years he replaced the damaged ones with strips cut from the sturdy paper used by seventeenth-century lawyers.

  Patrick, photographed by Mary Burkett in 1953

  Books so repaired, reposing comfortably on the bookshelves looking down upon me as I write, include his much-loved set of Johnson’s Lives of the Poets (1824), Camden’s History of The most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth, Late Queen of England (1675), Cowley’s Works (1681) and Thomas Stanley’s History of Philosophy (1743). Of particular interest is Patrick’s copy of William Burney, A New Universal Dictionary of the Marine (London, 1815), upon which he largely relied for his understanding of the workings of the Royal Navy in the eighteenth century, before he subsequently acquired the yet more apt Falconer’s An Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1769). Normally such amateurish repairs would detract greatly from the collector’s value of the books. However, in this case I find them enhanced, being constantly reminded of the pleasure they afforded their impassioned owner.

  The year 1954 opened with an accruing worry inflicted on the hard-tried couple, whose financial situation remained precarious as ever. Patrick’s son Richard had always encountered difficulty with academic work. He would be seventeen in February, and the time had approached when he must consider a career. His ambition to enrol at the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth having proved sadly abortive, it became essential to find a satisfactory alternative. It was a worrying prospect, not alleviated when on 15 January my mother noted: ‘R’s report came: very sad.’

  However, their overriding concern was with his well-being. Richard and his friend Bob Broeder had become cycling enthusiasts, which involved them in many adventurous exploits – of which their parents fortunately remained unaware. On occasion they would ride as far as Brighton, a hundred-mile round journey, and took to recklessly hurtling at some 60 mph down precipitous Reigate Hill, after removing their brakes. Bob recalls that:

  One of our many dangerous [feats] and in retrospect foolish to the extreme, was to slip stream motor vehicles on our bicycles – normally lorries. Our favourite was to sit in wait for a BOAC coach coming from Heathrow to the air terminal
in Gloucester Road. We would tuck in behind it and travel the length of the Great West Road at great speed and then overtake it at the Chiswick roundabout!

  Eventually Richard became involved in a serious accident. Cycling home one day in the rain from games (a mode of transport conveniently enabling them to pocket their bus-fare allowance issued by the school), he crashed when making an awkward turn in the middle of Hammersmith Broadway. Skidding, he shot beneath a car ‘and cut myself to ribbons’. His prime concern was for the precious bicycle, whose frame was badly bent. The insurance company proved uncooperative, on grounds that the car was stationary at the moment of impact.

  The repair was estimated at £10 13s. What could he do? Without his bicycle, he explained, he would have to start spending money daily on buses: could he possibly be sent £10? Patrick despatched a cheque by return of post, but the worry about Richard’s school progress – or lack of it – remained. Along with the cheque he sent practical advice to his son on mending his ways: he must apply himself consistently to his studies, answer correspondence by return, and generally become more self-disciplined. Richard responded with touching promises to mend his ways.

  Although his intentions were good, school progress continued its downward slide. Towards the end of April, a letter arrived from his mother ‘enclosing a complaint from school about poor R’. By June he was agonizing over the imminent School Certificate examination (GCE), as his work became increasingly demanding and difficult. Alas, struggle as he might, the task proved too much, and he failed disastrously.

  This unhappy news was not altogether unanticipated, and Patrick and my mother urgently discussed what was to be done. There was also the question of which branch of national service (the compulsory two years’ military service) would be suitable. Richard suggested: ‘Perhaps the Marine Commandos but one has to volunteer for five years and my mother does not like that. Then a friend suggested the engineering side; there to learn about mechanics. But please send your advice, because in the past it has always worked out well.’

  Having himself, through little fault of his own, failed miserably in his own school studies, Patrick was determined that Richard should not suffer likewise. By the end of July my worried mother noted: ‘R. breaks up: what to do about him?’ As early as his return from holiday in Collioure in the previous year, Richard had urged that ‘if Dad is willing, I would like him to teach me Latin and Greek so that I could pass in them. I have got to pass.’

  A swift decision was made that Richard should indeed come out to Collioure, where he could work undistracted to retake the examination. Hitherto the required subjects had comprised history, geography, and two English papers. They were not his strong fields, and he now enrolled in a correspondence course focused on mathematics and science, for which he had much greater aptitude.

  On 12 August my mother and Patrick, accompanied as ever by Buddug, drove across France, camping on the way, to meet Richard at Dieppe. A week later they were back home in Collioure: ‘Got R’s hair cut & bought him respectable trousers. Dear R.’ There was no rush for the boy to begin work, since the examinations would not take place for a year. Initially, pleasant weeks were spent as before, swimming, walking, flying Richard’s new kite, and playing cards and draughts. My mother told him about her own children, to which Richard replied that ‘he saw Nik. at The Cottage [her parents’ house in Chelsea] & that he is good-looking and tall’.[fn6] Hitherto my mother had not seen any photographs of my sister and me subsequent to the time when we were small children living at her parents’ home in North Devon during the War.

  A modest upsurge in their finances about this time spurred my parents to think seriously about buying a house in England or Wales. In February my mother lamented: ‘Oh for a quiet home for P: it is a shame.’ Now they received particulars of a house in Cornwall, which sounded perfect for their needs. On 30 September 1954 they departed, together with Richard and their pets, ‘after sad and tearful goodbyes’ to all their faithful Collioure friends. So confident were they of finding a new home, that they had decided never to return.

  Alas, the expedition proved one of those disasters by which they were intermittently afflicted throughout their lives. From the moment of their landing in England, everything went wrong. On disembarking, they attempted to smuggle the sedated Buddug and Pussit Tasset through customs in a suitcase. Unfortunately, a passenger informed on them, and the animals were impounded in quarantine. From Dover they drove seventeen hours through the night to Boskenna, in deepest Cornwall. Once installed there, my mother found that ‘Slugs got down St Loy taps & into marmalade. No beach, only sinister, slippery great rocks with bits of wreck everywhere & one crushed fish … Hated Boskenna … Cold, foul weather.’

  The little family settled into dreary lodgings, ceaselessly battered by winter gales and drenching rain. They were cold, miserable, and badly missed their pets. Although Patrick tried to cheer Richard with tales of smugglers and a proposal to buy a small boat, the reality was too grim to be lightly overcome. A brief visit to my mother’s parents in London also went badly for some reason (‘Very, very painful week’), and by December they had had enough. On the 8th all three embarked at Dover for the return journey to Collioure.

  Their troubles were not over. At Dover their trunks disappeared, and they missed the Boulogne boat. They finally caught a train ferry to Dunkirk, where their animals were returned to them. Then they experienced a ‘Nightmare drive from Dunkerque to St Omer instead of Calais through dark & rain & mud & detours & sugar-beet’. Near Toulouse the radiator fell off, and the car seized up. They left it at a garage, and continued the disastrous journey by train.

  Back at last in Collioure, the family appreciated what they had nearly lost. So far as their house-hunting expedition was concerned, ‘England was bad, we got too unhappy to keep up diary.’ In striking contrast, ‘Home looking perfectly beautiful & the most welcome thing I’ve known I think. Village so pleasant – everyone welcomed us.’

  The Mediterranean climate helped, too: ‘For two days now it has been too warm for the Mirus [stove] even in the evenings – & in England there are tempests & snow-storms & hideous cold. We lunch daily on the beach.’

  Normal routine was resumed at once, to everyone’s satisfaction. Patrick returned contentedly to his writing, and ‘R. works hard too’. At the end of the year Patrick had written to the Ministry of Labour and National Service in Penzance, requesting that Richard be permitted to postpone his national service until he had taken his GCE in June of the following year. Fortunately, this was granted.

  That Christmas (1954) little presents were exchanged, but sadly the festival was marred by the underlying burden of ‘Horrid anxiety for money’. The lost luggage finally arrived, but there were hefty bills – including a couple of unexplained punctures to new tyres. As will grow more and more clear as their story unfolds, cars and my parents were not always happily matched.

  Shortly after their return Patrick wrote his short story ‘The Thermometer’, which under very thin disguise depicts his unhappy childhood relationship with his father.[2] On 15 January 1955 he recorded in his diary:

  I finished a story – broken thermometer – 5000 [words] nearly – very heavy going. It felt dubious – a little embarrassing; self-quaintery is always to be feared in anything at all autobiographical about childhood – approving self-quaintery – own head on one side – oh so unconscious simper – poor one. M did not like it. This makes me hate her, which is monstrously unfair. Dread of losing grip.

  My mother, who I do not doubt appreciated its autobiographical character, was indeed depressed on reading the story. However, Patrick now turned to a synopsis of a book for children based on Anson’s voyage around the globe from 1740 to 1744. This my mother found ‘quite beautiful and very exciting’. Three days later it was posted to his literary agent Curtis Brown, accompanied by high hopes.

  On 2 February Richard’s eighteenth birthday was celebrated in style – the last they would ever enjoy together. Pres
ents were bestowed, after which they set off for a jaunt in the car. The weather was beautifully sunny, and they ate a delicious picnic (‘stuffed olives; Tante’s pâté; camembert; cake [baked the previous evening by my mother]; meringues; lemon-curd tart’) in an olive grove beyond Banyuls. After supper at home, they went to the cinema in the square, where they watched The City under the Sea, dismissed by my mother as ‘an idiot film’, but which probably appealed to the youthful Richard as much as it did to me about the same time.[fn7]

  Life had belatedly begun to look up. A few days earlier a local peasant named Azéma had offered to sell them 300 square metres of vineyard and garden for 125,000 francs: i.e. about £110. Hitherto this would have been well beyond their means, but the final payment for The Road to Samarcand (of which more in the next chapter) and now an advance on signing the contract for The Golden Ocean could now be imminently counted upon.

  My mother enquired of a neighbour whether the price was fair, and was reassured to learn that more had recently been asked for a similar parcel of land, which in contrast lacked a water supply. Everyone was very obliging. Azéma agreed that the money could be paid in instalments, beginning in April. Meanwhile they could work the property. In the event they managed to pay the whole sum in April.

  After the disastrous two months wasted in Cornish house-hunting, they now found themselves landowners! On 12 February my mother wrote triumphantly: ‘We lunched on our earth.’ Patrick had longed for this moment ever since their arrival in France. He loved the sense of security and self-worth which came with ownership of even so modest a parcel of land. Despite unfortunate consequences of his initial insistence on following the advice of his seventeenth-century guide to agriculture, his four years’ gardening in Wales had afforded him considerable experience. Finally, the ability to grow their own vegetables and fruit promised a material saving on monthly outgoings.