Patrick O'Brian

by Nikolai Tolstoy

  After his departure in the summer of 1955 Richard never returned to Collioure. The severance arose from purely practical considerations. His service in the Royal Navy, combined with lack of funds and the arduous and low-paid employment in the years that followed, meant that several years passed by without any opportunity arising for another family reunion at Collioure.

  Despite this, relations continued cordial during ensuing years. Richard’s letters are full of the excitement of serving in warships with the Mediterranean fleet, together with eager questions concerning Collioure and glowing expressions of pride in the continuing success of his father’s publications. As has already been seen, there was almost certainly at least one joyous reunion in January 1957, when Richard’s minelayer HMS Manxman put in at Toulon.

  That August when he was discharged from the service, Richard wrote eagerly from his mother’s flat in Chelsea to enquire after every detail of life in the house at Collioure, which by now boasted an upper floor with spacious living room, small kitchen, and terrace overhanging the vineyard below. He was immersed in Patrick’s collection of short stories Lying in the Sun, and longed to return to Collioure, but regrettably he was inextricably ‘tied up in England trying to get a decent job. Thus, although I really want to, I cannot come out. It would have been so pleasant. Please write soon, as I want to know how things in the property are going.’

  Patrick responded with sympathetic advice on career possibilities. As I have reason to know, his was invariably a profoundly warm and perceptive attitude to such problems. Richard promptly replied, explaining further complex difficulties facing a young and unqualified job-seeker, and concluding: ‘Thank you very much for writing, it is a wonderful feeling to have a father that backs one up in such a way.’ Thereafter correspondence continued affectionate, if sporadic, as is frequently the case in such relationships. As Richard concluded a subsequent letter to my mother: ‘I am sorry this [is] so brief, with evening classes and other things, I have no spare time.’ However, he was conscious that his father was also encountering problems at this time: ‘How is Dad? and has he started writing again? In your last letter you say that both he and M. Mucha lack inspiration so they talk every evening.’

  Eager to raise his father’s spirits, he continued: ‘Recently I reread “Lying in the Sun”, and it becomes even more wonderful each time it is read again. Its amazing to think that one man could produce such a book.’

  A month later Richard sent Patrick cheery birthday greetings, accompanied by the filial reflection: ‘I wish you were more accessible; there are so many things I would like to ask you; in a letter they would sound funny. Once you started on reincarnation, after a meal, but you never finished the subject for some reason or other.’

  However, he had aspirations of coming over in the summer, when he hoped to indulge an enthusiasm for underwater exploration: ‘I was hoping to persuade you into using an aqualung and the rest of the equipment. You would be very interested, despite the excuse of grey hairs and old age that you used some time ago.’

  As time moved on, Richard wrote of the acquisition of his car Chloe, in which he hoped to drive to Collioure, in addition to a companionable if ‘rather fierce’ girlfriend. In the spring of 1959 my mother seized the opportunity to see him on her way to Russia. She wrote an enraptured account of their meeting to Patrick:

  Darling P., I had such a happy time with our dear Richard… R. kept making our old family jokes & each time I responded he said he was glad I hadn’t forgotten. He was so kind to me. He said why was I not wearing a short skirt & when I said Because I am too old, he said very earnestly: ‘No, Mary. You don’t look a day over thirty-two [she was in fact 44].’ He takes his exam about the 26th & I shall see him, Pat, on my return from Russia & the Scandinavian ports … how is that Temple, my dear?

  However, financial straits and an arduous workload continued to preclude Richard’s oft-planned return to Collioure. On the other hand, in 1960–61, when they came over to attend on me in hospital, he saw my mother and his father almost every day. By 1961, he was still living with his mother in King’s Road, while encountering worrying obstacles to attaining a worthwhile career. Keen to attend university, he learned dispiritingly that two or three years’ work would be required to pass even the preliminary examinations required for entry.

  On the credit side, his girlfriend, Mimi Parotte, was proving an affectionate and loyal companion. Unhappily, the poor girl suffered from a debilitating nervous affliction (apparently some form of narcolepsy):

  Mimi is not any too well. Now and again it seems that she suffers from nervous and physical exhaustion, when this happens she hibernates; literally, she goes to sleep and does not wake up. On this occasion she is only half asleep; she does things but is not really sure of what she is doing. If she sits down she promptly goes to sleep.

  At the end of 1962 Richard sent their combined best wishes for his father’s birthday. In the following March he apologized for a delay in thanking him and my mother for their Christmas present, explaining that ‘work and study take up an average of a hundred hours a week’. Still, it was never too late: ‘Thank you both very much indeed for the cheques. Mimi and I blessed you for an extremely good supper and we drank your health almost to excess.’

  Increasingly concerned by Richard’s Sisyphean struggle to achieve a career in engineering, Patrick entered into correspondence with my mother’s cousin Sir Richard Paget, a Fellow of the Institution of Professional Engineers. Sir Richard provided detailed advice on various avenues open to the boy, and suggested he get in touch with him directly if there were more he could do to help.

  Everything shows that these affectionate family relations continued unabated, when in October 1963 Patrick and my mother paid a six-week visit to London. One evening I was invited to call for drinks at the flat they rented in Chesham Street in order to meet Richard and Mimi, who had now become engaged.

  As it happened, Richard and I had met only once before, when I was a boy staying at my grandparents’ house in Chelsea after the War. However, there were others present on that occasion, and the encounter has left no trace in my memory. Obviously we had talked about him over the years at Collioure, but this little gathering in 1963 represents our sole personal contact after the fleeting childhood meeting.

  It is for this reason, I imagine, that I retain a particularly clear recollection of the occasion. Dean King, who obtained his information from Richard and Mimi over thirty years after the event, describes the occasion as follows:

  It was probably in late 1963 that Patrick and Mary met Richard’s fiancée … despite the special occasion, the evening with Patrick and Mary at a London apartment was strained. For one thing, Mimi found Patrick cold and intimidating. She was probably not unbiased, for by this time Richard had come to realize fully what a mess his childhood had been and how it had scarred him. ‘My father had been very, very bad to my mother,’ he concluded. ‘You just don’t do this to a woman. And you hope like hell it does not happen in your family.’ In fact, Richard had delayed marrying Mimi for several years to make sure that they would not make the same mistake his parents had.[fn7]

  For what it be worth, my own recollection of the little family gathering is quite different. I found Richard tall, pleasant-looking and friendly, while Mimi appeared attractive and intelligent. As ever, Patrick was generous in plying us with gin and tonic, and the atmosphere was cordial throughout. I sensed that my parents wished to draw me and Richard together, which if so would have been natural. Of course such impressions are subjective, many years have passed since, and Mimi might have interpreted Patrick’s somewhat formal manner as cold and distant. That this was really his attitude, however, seems improbable, particularly in view of the fact that he and my mother had gone out of their way to invite me to meet the future bride. In my case, too, my parents were invariably favourably – I would almost say, uncritically – inclined towards an offspring’s loved one. Nevertheless, whatever the case, Mimi clearly formed an un
compromisingly hostile view of him. Furthermore, she naturally saw much of Richard’s mother throughout their courtship, which may well have confirmed her hostile view of Patrick’s character.

  So far as my parents were concerned, it is clear that throughout this time they continued blithely unaware of any alteration in Richard’s attitude towards them. Whatever Richard came to believe about his father originated, as he himself asserts, in angry reflections by his mother subsequent to her discovery of his infidelity during the War. She had been badly treated by her alcoholic second husband, and after his abrupt departure remained afflicted by poverty and ill-health. She did not marry again, and it would have been natural for her at times to ascribe her continuing tribulations to Patrick’s desertion. Richard has confirmed that Patrick himself never discussed the issue with him, so that inevitably his assessment was altogether partial.

  That Christmas my parents sent Richard their usual cheque, followed by another for his birthday in January. Since what follows has been seized upon by critics concerned to destroy Patrick’s reputation, it is important to establish what occurred as accurately as possible.

  Dean King, drawing exclusively on Richard’s subsequent version of events, describes the unhappy rift as follows:

  In the spring of 1964, Patrick and Mary received a letter from Richard, now twenty-seven years old, telling them that before the wedding he planned to change his name back to Russ. Richard did this, he later said, ‘for the sake of honesty’. He reasoned that he was born a Russ, and he wanted to be married a Russ. He did not make the change out of anger to spite his father, he insisted. Nevertheless, as he had matured, Richard had come to better understand the nature of the breach between his parents, and, in the absence of any conversation with Patrick regarding it, he had drawn his own conclusions. He had not so much sided with his mother as condemned his father’s behaviour in leaving the family …

  Reverting to his earlier surname allowed him to distance himself from his father’s illusion and separate himself from this painful episode in the family history. Mary wrote to Richard, saying that she understood … But Patrick did not respond at all, and he would disown his only child. Inability to express emotion, to work through anger, to swallow pride and then to heal had caught up with the family once again.

  Richard married Mimi Parotte on 1 July that year. Elizabeth had said she would not attend if Patrick did, so Richard and Mimi did not invite Patrick and Mary to the wedding. The breach was complete. Patrick and Richard never spoke to each other again. In this regard, Patrick relived the sad history of his sometimes perverse family, where injured pride all too often clogged the lines of communication.[3]

  Four years after the publication of King’s biography, Richard himself returned to the topic, in an interview timed to coincide with the premiere of the film of Master and Commander in London:

  I had met a man at work, an ordinary Battersea guy, who had been in the army. I asked him how he could settle down in civvy street after all the excitement of war. He said he had three youngsters and that he had come home to find his wife dying of cancer. So he buttoned down and got on with it. He didn’t walk away. And I thought, ‘Good on you. That’s how a man should behave.’ It suddenly hit me that not all men behaved in the manner that my father had done. It gave me a big push to changing my name back to Russ before I got married. I was born a Russ and I wanted to be married a Russ. I didn’t want to be part and parcel of a sham …

  When I changed my name, I wrote to my father. Mary wrote back … She said she fully understood, and she apologised for writing my old name of O’Brian on the envelope through force of habit. She said it wouldn’t happen again and it didn’t, because that was the last time I heard from them. I made no attempt to get back in touch with them myself. It was a clean cut.[4]

  Since Patrick declined to be interviewed by King, and equally refrained from discussing his private life with anyone save presumably my mother, Richard’s version of events is of necessity one-sided.[fn8] Moreover, he was speaking nearly forty years after the event, which presumably explains striking variations in his story. It was not his fault, consequently, that his understandably partial accounts led to Patrick’s being described in the press as ‘a monster’. Most unfortunately, such vituperative attacks have exercised a lasting effect, leaving a lingering public impression that, although a brilliant writer, he was personally despicable.

  Were this the only evidence available, some might consider it reasonable to accept it as an accurate representation of the facts, if tinctured by emotional considerations. Fortunately, it is far from being the only evidence, as will now be seen.

  This is the text of the letter Richard wrote to my mother on 8 March 1964, set forth here for the first time:

  Dear Mary,

  I apologise most humbly for not writing before now.

  Since many things are happening all at once nothing has been decided upon [with regard to his wedding]. Dates are non-existant since I may be in the middle of changing my job. Mimi’s parents seem to be travelling, or confering, quite a bit, but events are in a constant flux. The provisional date is the first week in July. Mimi wishes to visit some place that neither of us have been to before, for many lengthy and valid reasons. The upshot of this is that, unfortuneately, we cannot state any concrete dates, and, as a result, we are unable to fit in with your plans. Both of us feel rather low, since we would have liked very much to come to visit you.

  Mimi wishes to thank both of you very much for her beads, she seems to wear them more than any other necklace she has. Thank you also for the gloves, most comforting in the snow which comes and goes so often; thank you also for my birthday present, now turned into two text books, a drafting pen, and a very good supper, Mimi enjoyed it too.

  When you were in London last, Mimi and I called on you one evening. Time went so quickly that there was no opportunity to mention one subject that is of importance. For some time I have wished to change my name from O’Brian back to Russ, since marriage is round the corner this was accomplished a little while ago. There are two reasons for this, both of us felt that an Irish name was not suitable for two people who were not Irish, whereas Russ is neutral; also, it is difficult to get a job with an Irish name, there seems to be some predjudice against Irish names, now I find that firms are replying to applications more than before. This is not a question of independence, but one of practicality. I hope I have not put this down too bluntly.

  I do apologise for not writing before. Both of us thank you most kindly for offering to have us, and we feel sad to have to refuse.

  Richard.

  As the letter was not posted until nearly ten days after it was written, it seems that Richard pondered his explanation with some care. He acknowledged subsequently that he appreciated the decision would displease Patrick. On the other hand, it may be questioned whether the example of the ‘Battersea guy’ was as decisive as he later came to believe. In his interview with Dean King, he appears to have made no mention of this factor, stating merely that his impending marriage made him wish to resume his original family name – a recollection which accords with the content of his letter. It may be noted, too, that Patrick did not desert his wife, as Richard’s account implies, on discovering that his daughter was diagnosed with a terminal illness, but severed relations over two years after that event, following the poor child’s death.[fn9]

  On the other hand, the reasons Richard gave in his letter to my mother cannot be altogether rejected out of hand as tactful prevarication. He was indeed searching for work at this time. He was now twenty-seven, and his employment continued temporary and precarious. For at least two years he had been working as part-time commentator to tourists on Thames launches, while in the evenings he served as barman in a Soho pub.

  Nevertheless, nothing supports the conjecture that Richard’s failure to invite my parents to his wedding so angered Patrick that ‘he relinquished his paternal role’.[5] By curious chance Richard and Mimi’s predicament was eff
ectively replicated ten years later, when my sister Natasha married. She was obliged to explain to our mother and Patrick that she could not invite them to her wedding, as our father had refused to attend should they do so.[fn10] Although this doubtless caused disappointment at Collioure, my sister’s explanation had no adverse effect on their affection towards her.

  While it may be that his mother objected to Patrick’s presence, Richard never in fact informed his father and stepmother of such a contingency.[fn11] Patrick may well have resigned himself to the fact that a meeting with Elizabeth would be an embarrassment to both of them. Indeed, it appears for some time previously to have been tacitly accepted by all parties that he and my mother would not attend the wedding. Far from contemplating a journey to London in July, they had arranged to receive guests at Collioure throughout the whole of that month. Their old wartime friend Barbara Puckridge was arriving with her son James, followed immediately by my mother’s cousin Brigid and her husband Michael Roffe-Silvester, who were putting in for a stay at Collioure in their yacht Merry Harrier. Lastly, I was expected once again with my friend Jonah Barrington on the 26th.

  As an enjoyable alternative, my mother and Patrick invited the bridal couple to spend their honeymoon at Collioure, where Richard had spent successive happy holidays in the past, and which would cost the indigent couple nothing.[fn12] He states that my mother replied sympathetically to his letter, saying she fully understood his decision to change his name. Clearly, it was not this that primarily caused the rift between Richard and his father, but the former’s decision not to answer my mother’s letter, nor make any further contact for the remainder of their lives: ‘I had been mulling it over for years. I found I was not very impressed with my father. I decided not to spend my life with dishonesty. I decided never to speak to him again. When I stopped, so did he.’[6]