It is a spring the older inhabitants of Bryher have never forgotten. For ten unseasonably cold weeks, the island was overrun with caterers, cameramen and make-up artists, not to mention troublesome fibreglass whales that had to be weighted down with rocks before they would swim beneath the surface of the sea. Locals were roped in as extras, or to help with administration. Marian Bennett, in charge of finding accommodation for the cast, kept a giant chart – ‘like a patchwork quilt’ – on which she moved the actors from holiday cottage to sofa bed. If the resulting film was not such a huge critical success, it provided a boost to the economy of the Scilly Isles, and to Michael’s standing with his publishers. Here was an author whose potential lay not only in book sales.
Even Jack Morpurgo was impressed. ‘I can but confess,’ he writes in characteristically pompous fashion in his memoirs, ‘that all my oft-boasted capacity for critical dispassion vanished, submerged by pride, even by a sort of personal vanity, when I sat in the audience at the Royal Première of the film-version of [Michael’s] book, Why the Whales Came.’ The première had been held at the Odeon, Leicester Square, with the Prince and Princess of Wales in the audience. As the film ended Kippe turned and smiled at Michael. ‘It was a beautiful smile,’ he says. ‘She didn’t care about success, or that this was a grand event. She was just very happy in her son.’
Kippe and Jack were now living in London, in a small house in Hammersmith bought on Jack’s retirement. Both were ageing fast. Kippe, inwardly, shrank from social engagement. Even staying at Langlands, she chose to spend long spells in her room alone. But she remained steadfast in her loyalty to Jack. When, in the spring of 1993, he was invited to lecture in Washington, she insisted on going with him.
The day that they were due to leave, a small theatre company put on a production of Jo-Jo the Melon Donkey, Michael’s tale of an ill-used Venetian donkey, in the foyer of the National Theatre. Jack and Kippe came to watch it, and afterwards had lunch with Michael before catching a taxi to the airport. It was to be the last time he saw his mother. A few evenings into their Washington visit, Kippe excused herself early from dinner. She went upstairs, laid Jack’s pyjamas on his pillow, set out his shaving brush and razor in the bathroom, and climbed into her bed where, in the morning, Jack found her lying dead.
On hearing the news of his mother’s death, Michael walked into Iddesleigh and sat alone for some hours in the village church. He felt ‘exposed’. ‘No matter how old you are,’ he says, ‘if you lose a parent, you feel like an orphan.’ He also felt overcome with fresh grief at the wreckage of his parents’ marriage fifty years earlier. ‘Both of them would have had more fulfilled lives if they’d stayed together,’ he says. ‘I’m sure of that.’ Three thousand miles away in Ontario, Tony Bridge received the news from Pieter. For years, he admitted in a letter to Michael, he had persuaded himself that ‘“all that” was behind us and forgotten’. Yet he was devastated to think he would never see Kippe again.
Since Tony’s first meeting with Michael just after Sebastian’s birth, they had stayed in touch, exchanging occasional letters, speaking sometimes on the telephone. Tony was endearingly vague about both geography and time zones. If there was a natural disaster anywhere in Britain – a blizzard in Inverness, a flood in Kent – he would ring, often in the middle of the night, to check that Michael was safe. Three or four times, he came to stay in Devon, and he got on well with Clare and the children, with Seán Rafferty, and with Ted and Carol Hughes. For Michael, however, his visits were complicated. Anyone could see that Tony was his father, but because he had been absent during Michael’s formative years, and because he was a naturally private man, it was hard to know quite how to pitch their relationship. ‘I wanted to be close to him,’ says Michael, ‘but I wasn’t.’
Kippe’s death gave Tony an excuse to express for the first time not only his pride in his sons’ achievements but also his belief that Jack Morpurgo had perhaps given them as fine an upbringing as he could have done himself. ‘There is no proof that I would have been good for you,’ he writes, ‘and it has to be said that in the matter of the lives that you and Pieter have built around you, I could have done absolutely nothing that would have bettered that. So I suppose we grow up the way we are meant to. Fate? I don’t know about Fate, but something in us makes us do what we do, regardless of what and who surround us.’
Kippe’s was the first major death that Michael had had to face, and it was followed, within months, by a second. Soon after dawn on 4 December 1993 he was woken by a hammering on the door of Langlands. David Ward had found Seán Rafferty lying dead, face down, in Burrow Lane. Together, he and Michael hurried in the tractor to where Seán lay, outside his hen-house, his coat stiff with frost. ‘There was a stillness about him,’ Michael remembers. As he waited by Seán’s body for the doctor to arrive, he wept. Peggy Rafferty had died five years earlier and, as a widower, Seán had become even more closely folded into Morpurgo family life, coming to Langlands always for Sunday lunch, and for Christmas and Easter. Yet even at his most convivial and open-hearted he remained, essentially, solitary. ‘We were honoured,’ Michael says, ‘to have been allowed to interrupt that solitude.’
Ted Hughes, too, was deeply moved by Seán Rafferty’s death. For years, Hughes wrote in a letter to Christopher Reid at Faber & Faber, Seán had appeared to be dragging out a ‘frustrating seemingly wasted life’, under the thumb of his ‘powerful little wife’, exhausted by the pub, toiling privately at poems that did not quite hit the mark. But, around his eightieth birthday, it seemed to Hughes that he had discovered ‘a sudden really wonderful musical inspiration, what he’d been looking for all his life’, and had begun to pour out work of rare quality. Three days before his death, Ted Hughes called on him and found him hard at work at his kitchen table.
Seán’s absence, and a shared sense of loss, brought Michael and Ted Hughes even closer together. After dinner at Court Green, while Clare and Carol chatted together in the kitchen, they would sit and talk long into the night in front of the fire. Their conversation was not generally either profound or professional, but one evening it suddenly took a serious turn. ‘It had been an evening of great cheer,’ Michael remembers. ‘None of us wanted it to end. We got talking of writing for children, how little it is valued, the whole issue of its status. It was a hobby horse we’d been on before, but that evening we began to gallop.’ Michael had had an idea batting about in his head for some time, ‘and after a few drinks I dared mention it to Ted. I said, “You know, there should be a Children’s Laureate.” And Ted said, “You’re right, Michael. Let’s make it happen.”’
Fetching pen and paper, Hughes made a list of people whose help they would need to get the idea off the ground. He then swung into action. ‘He masterminded a strategy,’ says Michael. ‘He canvassed support. He wrote letters no one else could write. He drove it on.’ Together, Ted and Michael went to see Princess Anne, who gave the idea her formal endorsement. Lois Beeson, who had run the W.H. Smith Young Writers’ Competition for seven years, was enlisted to manage the administration; and Ted arranged for Michael to see Tim Waterstone, founder of Waterstones bookshops, to ask whether Waterstones might come on board as sponsors. Waterstone was impressed. ‘He was such a courteous man, and very likeable,’ he remembers. ‘Totally admirable. Very comfortable in his own skin. Modest in manner, but with a most considerable drive.’ There are always, Waterstone points out, hundreds of ‘good’ ideas floating around the book world at any one time. ‘But the ones that get through are the ones whose champions are unrelentingly determined, first to get them to the starting block, and then to push them into proper life. Michael did all of that, and in spades.’ Finally, Ted and Michael arranged to meet Chris Smith, newly appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, to secure ministerial support. But when Michael turned up at his offices on 28 May 1998, he was alone.
The previous spring Ted Hughes had sent Michael and Clare a letter, in which he had explained, ‘with mighty reluc
tance’, that he had been ‘foolish enough to get ill’. ‘I hate it being known,’ Hughes writes. ‘Instinct, I suppose. In the animal kingdom the injured one is abandoned or destroyed by its clan – and certainly marked down by the malicious predator. People forget that. I now feel like avoiding everybody who knows I’ve been ill – till I’m absolutely better.’ He looked forward to celebrating over a ‘jolly banquet’ when he was fully recovered.
There was no recovery. Hughes had cancer of the colon, and in the autumn of 1998 he was admitted to London Bridge Hospital. On 29 October, driving home through the rain from Exeter station, Michael and Clare heard on the car radio that he had died. They made their way straight to North Tawton to be with Carol. It was a sobering moment. Ted Hughes was a greater man than any other Michael has known. ‘He was a mighty person; an immensely kind, gifted human being, whose generosity when it came to the welfare of others knew no bounds.’
The following spring a service of thanksgiving for the life and work of Ted Hughes was held at Westminster Abbey. The Tallis Scholars sang the Miserere; Alfred Brendel played a Beethoven adagio; Seamus Heaney read Hughes’s poem ‘Anniversary’; the congregation sang ‘Jerusalem’. Then Hughes’s own gentle, granite voice filled the abbey, speaking lines from Cymbeline:
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wage:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
For everyone in the abbey there was a sense that Hughes was still in their midst; and it was perhaps not altogether illusory. For Michael, he remains present to this day: ‘He continues to enrich all that we do. We can’t walk down the lane, or to the river, without thinking of him. His footsteps are everywhere.’
There comes a stage in our lives when we have to face the death of someone we love. It is always bewildering to me. I think a little piece of me dies each time. But I have the memories. Seán’s death and Ted’s were huge moments for me, but maybe I’d been prepared for them, in a way, by losing my mother. It’s sometimes hard, even now, to accept that Kippe has gone. I think of her still every day, and of my childhood. This story is set in Bradwell, the home I loved best.
The problem with being thought of as a bit of a daredevil, a bit of a Jack the Lad, was that I was continually having to live up to my reputation. That, I discovered, can land you in all sorts of trouble.
We lived in a draughty, rambling old house by the coast, full of ghosts and spiders. Sometimes when the wind blew in off the sea we could hear the whole house complaining, groaning and creaking and sighing around us. On nights like this I knew for certain that the ghosts had been woken up and were not at all happy. I could hear their footsteps on the stairs, and their whispering outside our bedroom door.
I slept with my older brother, Anthony, up at the top of the house in the attic. Ant, I liked to call him, because even though he was older than me, he was smaller. I could be a bit mean that way. We felt very far away from the rest of the family, particularly on windy nights when the ghosts were up and about. To keep my courage up I’d often crawl into Ant’s bed, where we’d tell each other funny stories. I was always much more frightened than he was – although I never told him that – so I did most of the talking, most of the storytelling, anything to keep my mind off the whispering ghosts outside the bedroom door. But sometimes even that didn’t work. And when I found I couldn’t stand it any longer, I’d invent some excuse to switch on the light. I usually told him I wanted to read. I did a lot of pretending in those days, a lot of bluffing.
Anyway, one night I’d just switched the light on, and I was lying there beside him, book in hand, pretending to read, trying hard not to be frightened. I was listening out for ghosts when Ant said: ‘Nothing out there, you know, Mikey. It’s only the wind rattling the windows, only the floorboards creaking. And anyway, if there were ghosts, the light wouldn’t keep them away.’
‘Huh,’ I said, ‘I’m not frightened of ghosts. I can’t sleep. Just wanted to read, that’s all.’
‘All right, so you’re not frightened of ghosts. But maybe you’re a bit frightened of the dark then,’ he went on. ‘Don’t be, there’s no need, honestly. I’ll look after you.’ He was like that, my brother, always kind – so kind sometimes, it drove me mad.
‘I’m not frightened of the dark,’ I said. ‘I’m not frightened of anything. It was me who climbed that tree yesterday. Right to the very top. You didn’t dare, did you? Scared of heights. I mean if I dared you, right now, to climb out of that window, sit on the ledge, and count to a hundred, I bet you wouldn’t do it, would you?’
‘I might,’ he replied.
‘Go on then,’ I said. ‘I dare you.’
‘All right, I’ll do it,’ he said, getting out of bed, ‘but on one condition. Afterwards, I can dare you back. And whatever I dare you, Mikey, you’ve got to do it. Deal?’ He didn’t seem at all nervous, and that worried me. But I couldn’t back out now.
‘Promise,’ I said.
He didn’t hesitate. He climbed up on to the windowsill, opened the window, squeezed himself out, sat there on the ledge, folded his arms, and started counting. He was soon back in bed with me. ‘Cold,’ he said, snuggling down under the blankets. ‘But anyway, while I was out there, I thought of a dare for you. Here’s what you’ve got to do – and without turning any lights on, mind. Go downstairs to the larder, and get us a peppermint humbug each – y’know, from the sweet tin on the top shelf.’
‘That’s stealing,’ I said.
‘So?’ my brother replied. ‘We’re always stealing stuff from the larder, what’s the problem?’ He knew my problem of course. The problem was that everywhere in the house it would be dark and full of ghosts. For me, that was just as terrifying as having to walk through a pit of snakes, or swim across a river full of crocodiles. But then I thought to myself, it’s all right, you can turn on the lights, no one will see, you’ll be fine.
‘Easy peasy,’ I said.
But, as if he’d read my mind, Ant immediately scotched my plan. ‘You’ve got to promise, Mikey. No lights. You mustn’t turn on any lights. Cross your heart and hope to die.’
I had no choice. I promised, crossed my heart. I had to. There was no way now that I could cheat – not that I was honourable, or anything like it, just deeply superstitious.
So there I was a few moments later, scared stiff, standing at the bottom of the attic staircase in pitch darkness. I tiptoed past my mother’s room, felt my way down the winding stairs into the sitting room, past the armchairs towards the kitchen door. And all the while the ghosts were right there watching me – creaking, groaning, rattling. I was sure they were after me. It was all I could do to stop myself screaming. As I reached for the latch on the larder door I couldn’t stand the darkness any longer. By now I didn’t care about my promise to Ant. I didn’t care about all that crossing my heart and dying. I reached for the light switch inside the door, and turned it on, my heart thumping in my ears. No ghosts. But there was something. And it was infinitely more terrible and terrifying than any ghost.
Dangling there, just above my head was a rabbit or a hare, dead. It was hanging by its feet from a hook, blood dripping from its nose, bulging eyes staring down at me. I couldn’t move, I could only scream. The whole house came running. Within moments, it seemed, Ant was there, and then Mum and Dad. Prynne, our black-coated retriever, was barking from the laundry room where he slept. Dad was firing questions at me.
‘What on earth are you doing down here in the middle of the night? Why aren’t you in bed? Were you after the sweet tin again?’
Ant said nothing. I said nothing. That was one thing we were good at, not ratting on one another. I made up a story. I said I’d come down to get a drink of milk and that’s why I’d gone into the larder. Mum had her arm around me, wiping away my tears.
‘You poor boy, it must
have been a terrible shock,’ she said.
‘Lot of fuss about nothing,’ Dad said. ‘It’s only a hare, for goodness’ sake. A bunch of sissies, you are.’
Mum explained all about the hare as she took us back up to bed. ‘Mr Warren brought it in for us,’ she said. ‘You know, the farmer out by the sea wall, big fat chap with mutton-chop whiskers and a voice like a foghorn, the one you hear louder than anyone else in church. He shot it. It was a sort of present for your dad. He told us we’ve got to hang it for a day or two more before we cook it. And his wife has given me a recipe – jugged hare, she calls it. Dad says he’ll skin it tomorrow, and then we can have it for Sunday lunch.’
‘I’m not eating that,’ I told her. ‘It’s disgusting.’
‘Nor me,’ said Ant.
‘I’ll make it delicious, don’t you worry,’ she said. ‘You’ll love it.’
Back in our beds, Ant and I couldn’t sleep, but now it wasn’t the wind or the ghosts that were keeping us awake – all that had been forgotten about. It was the hare. We couldn’t stop thinking about him and talking about him, and the more we talked, the more we convinced ourselves that a murder had been committed. That hare had been a wild and beautiful creature and shot to death for no good reason. We were quite sure of one thing: that neither of us could ever bring ourselves to eat him.
Michael Morpurgo Page 16