A Year of Doing Good

by Judith O'Reilly

  Hintze’s family lost fortunes partly down to revolutions. Fleeing first the Russian revolution and then Mao Zedong in China, his family settled in Australia. Now Hintze has his own hedge fund, CQS, managing £7bn in assets. ‘I’m not saying I have been poor without being able to eat or that I didn’t have shoes on my feet, but I haven’t been able to have everything or anything I wanted. Now I can have everything I want, and one of the things I want to do is give it away. I’d like to change the world for the better. I’d like to be helpful.’

  He wants to give back, to repay good work with his own good work. To that end, he has funded not only the National Gallery, but the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Old Vic Theatre, hospitals, a hospice, a cancer charity and the Vatican Museums – backing those he considers to have a vision, such as Prince Charles and Hollywood star and artistic director of the Old Vic, Kevin Spacey. ‘And we’re not stopping there. There’s a lot more to do,’ he told me. Faith is part of what drives him. He quoted the Bible, ‘For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required’ (Luke 12:48), and the parable of the talents (where a master gives a servant five talents and he makes five more, and another servant two talents and he makes two more, but it doesn’t end well for the servant who was given one talent and who just buried it in the back yard and watched Sky Sports). ‘If you’ve done nothing with your talents,’ said Hintze, ‘you haven’t fulfilled your obligation on this earth or to your God. I am no saint – that said, I do try to do my best.’

  For this hedge-fund boss (who is also a leading Conservative Party donor), philanthropic giving is part of civil engagement and something too which gives him pleasure. ‘I feel good when I can see that I make a difference,’ he said. Bearing in mind he gives a lot and makes a big difference, I’m betting he feels very good indeed. He wishes everybody would become civilly engaged in some way, whether that is donating money, or contributing in some other way. ‘I know I can make some more money. There are certain people who have inherited wealth who don’t give much and the reason they don’t give is that they don’t believe they can make it again. All they are doing is holding on to give it to the next generation.’

  I liked Hintze, and generally I don’t like multimillionaires. They make me feel bad – like I made a wrong turn somewhere in the past. As he was talking, though, I wanted to clap him on the back or shake his hand vigorously up and down, I wanted to say, ‘Good on you, mate’ or pin a medal to his expensive, tailored shirt. I’m glad there are people out there who want to make the world a better place – even if they are Tory donors.

  Good deed no. 166: lent a neighbour a cup of sugar (OK, it’s not £25m, but I’m not getting the sugar back either).

  Thursday, 16 June

  A perk of teaching Cryssie to write is the fact I don’t have to think about what good deed to do – but I had severe doubts that I taught her much today. I’ve been setting homework – practise touch-typing, read a book, keep a journal of ‘moments’ and do a writing exercise. This morning as I drew into the yard having taken my own kids to school, Cryssie arrived with a book on Noah’s Ark that was far too young for her, which she had read any number of times, a pink Playbook-bunny book of ‘moments’ with only one recent moment in it, and absolutely nothing else written down.

  I struggled. I sat with her at the kitchen table, bowls pebble-dashed with cereal and still full of milk slops piled haphazardly and reproachfully in the sink, and seriously wondered who was wasting whose time. Without her having read a proper book, I couldn’t talk to her about the author or the author’s style or the story or the history behind the story, and without her having written very much, I couldn’t talk about how to improve her own writing. I’m noticing this with other people I’ve tried to help – there are some who impose their own limits on the help you give them. Karl never sent me his revised CV to polish, for instance; the arty girl I put in contact with an agent and a professional illustrator never replied to my message asking how she got on. Why? I wonder. Shyness? A reluctance to impose? A decision not to chase down that dream?

  Cryssie and I were still trying to squeeze out ‘Bunny’s Bad Day’. I would cheerfully shoot this rabbit by now, and I’m trying to explain to her the difference between writing ‘It was a lovely sunny day’ and ‘The morning sun felt warm on Bunny’s soft, brown fur’, and it’s harder than you’d think. I said, ‘Try writing something like “a butterfly landed on Bunny’s whiskers and he sneezed, and he sneezed again”,’ and when I looked she’d written ‘a dragonfly’ rather than a butterfly, and I said, ‘That’s great – I love the idea of a dragonfly,’ and she said, ‘I saw a dragonfly on a bouncy castle. The other children were jumping and I was on the edge of it, and they didn’t notice the dragonfly but I did.’ And for a moment, I saw her standing by the edge of a bouncy castle watching whole-bodied children leap and scream and hurl themselves from rubber swell to rubber swell, and I felt her reach to catch the secret comfort of a turquoise dragonfly between her fragile hands and keep it there. And I thought, ‘Fair dos.’ ‘That’s what writers do,’ I said. ‘See things that other hurly-burly people miss and write about them. Now back to Bunny – how’s he doing?’

  Good deed no. 167.

  Friday, 17 June

  Met with a Gazette reporter to drop off the new posters and stickers and discuss this week’s story, but since the Queen is about to visit Alnwick and wipe out the entire paper, there’s little to be gained by agonizing over it. We will be lucky to get a mention. He did say the first four jam jars from the general public have come in from a couple who were collecting for charity anyway and decided to donate via the Jam Jar Army. Plus the local Tory prospective parliamentary candidate, a clever, energetic woman called Anne-Marie Trevelyan, has agreed to get her local party members behind it – which is very Big Society of her.

  I’m such a control freak, though. Who knew? I want to write the reporter’s story, physically slap a poster in every shop window in Northumberland and draw up a Jam Jar Army strategy for the hospice to get them organized, and I can’t, because I’ve got enough on. It’s the eight-year-old’s first Communion on Sunday and he hasn’t got a white shirt, I haven’t got any shoes, there is nothing to eat in the fridge, I suspect at least one of the three kids has nits again so I can’t get their hair cut, and I’m about to be descended on by my extended family, all waving prayer books. What would it be like to have only yourself to please? This year I’ll do good, and next year I’ll do whatever I bloody want.

  Good deed no. 168: picked up a child’s coat and bags after she dropped them in the playground.

  Saturday, 18 June

  In town for coffee after Communion class and the sports shop had a Jam Jar Army poster, as did the café and the tapas bar. Jess has worked six days with me in total, ringing round schools and churches and putting up posters. I’ve paid her £300 for six days on the Jam Jar Army along with some blogging research she did for me. That means I’ve paid out £240 for the Jam Jar Army work she did, plus £30 for the first lot of posters, plus £138.72 for the second lot of posters and stickers, plus £100 for the domain name, plus £170 for the legal fees to establish the intellectual property rights, plus £20 for the ice cream the other day – a grand total of nearly £700. Gulp. To be honest, I wouldn’t have dreamed of writing a cheque of £700 for a charity. But then, the hours I’d have saved. And I don’t resent the money I’ve spent – not a penny, not a dime, not for one minute, no I don’t. What could I have done with £700 after all? It’s not like I could have asked for my name on the wall of the National Gallery. I’d have been forced to spend it on myself. And what is the point of that?

  Good deed no. 169: bought wine for the catechists to say thank you for their work during the First Communion preparations.

  Sunday, 19 June

  We all had this very holy day. Thirteen of us were packed on a wooden bench and watched as my youngest son, dressed in white shirt, smart trousers, red polyester tie and a red sash complete with gold meda
l, took his First Communion. We managed to get haircuts for the kids after an emergency nit comb yesterday afternoon, and he did look very smart and remarkably happy. Children need time to shine all on their own, and this was his day. He made the Communion. He ate up the Communion breakfast (I provided the pizza), and he posed for the hands-together photos afterwards. Back home we had chicken pie, which I made last night, and salad and new potatoes for lunch, and after the kids ate, the adults went out to the garden to eat and talk. It was all very mellow and understated.

  The cause of Catholicism was not helped this evening. Midway through the day, someone rang from London to tell us Father Kit Cunningham was in the papers. Father Kit prepared us for our wedding, concelebrated our marriage, baptized our boys, concelebrated our first son’s funeral service and gave us solace throughout that grim time. The loss of our son, he said, was the suffering of a crucifixion. When we lived in London, we worshipped at his church, going to Mass every two to three weeks – Latin, because Latin was at eleven o’clock and that’s about as early as we could manage. I even cleaned the church with yellow dusters and with polish – my token for what he had done for us – and he said that I was too clever to clean a church and I said that no one was too clever to clean. Father Kit, of course, was himself a clever man, his sermons erudite, the Masses beautiful in the ancient church of St Etheldreda’s in Holborn, all oak – and polished – wood, stained glass and carved wooden Catholic martyrs watching from up high, from plinths that took them closer to heaven than to earth. There’s a tradition in Fleet Street that St Bride’s is the journalists’ and writers’ church, and St Etheldreda’s served a similar purpose for Catholic journalists and writers. I took a certain pride in my attendance at such a place, in the fact that I was known, and I shook the hand of a friend when I shook the hand of Father Kit when Mass was done, felt a simple pleasure when his hand rested on my son’s head in blessing.

  He had died in December. I had found out too late to attend the memorial, but it turns out that the glowing obits had brought out a less than palatable truth: Father Kit had been a paedophile. We liberals do not like to judge – but still, there are exceptions. In a Tanzanian school in the 1960s he had preyed on young boys, and these young boys are now men, and men are not so easily silenced. When Father Kit was confronted before his death, he admitted his guilt in a letter to the victims, and sent back his MBE to the palace – without explanation. To say I am gutted is putting it mildly. The harm done to those boys is horrific, and the betrayal to his congregation pales into insignificance set next to it. But betrayal and wider harm there is.

  How does a man – any man, let alone a man of faith – abuse a child? How does he read ‘Suffer little children to come unto me’ and not fall down dead from shame? How does he gaze upon a crucified and bleeding Christ in private prayer and not weep to know the pain he caused? As years go by, does he forget? Does he confess to himself in a darkened box behind a metal grille, repent, mutter ‘Hail Mary, full of grace’ awhile, till ‘Peace – that’s enough. I was a different man and those were different times’? Sitting old and roly-poly fat in his chair by a fire, does he draw comfort from the tracts that talk of those without sin and stones to throw, the word ‘forgiveness’ written there on his Bible’s page, illuminated by his need? Or does he sleep, the holy book falling from old man’s lap to floor, and wake to find the smell of scorching flesh and sulphur in his red-veined nose? Then, caught between sleep and waking, does he remember all too well his guilt, their childish anguish, thorns he wreathed round each boy’s head, and nails he hammered into each boy’s hands and feet?

  Good deed no. 170: helped my child make his First Communion, thereby making my parents happy.

  Monday, 20 June

  Good deed no. 171: did a radio interview for Jam Jar Army.

  Tuesday, 21 June

  I’ve crashed into a brick wall. Maybe it’s the aftermath of the Communion, or the news of Father Kit Cunningham, but I am suddenly and profoundly bored by the monotony of goodness. Does the deed still count if I resent it? I have spent all day on the Jam Jar business and I’m raving with the dullness of setting up some website that hardly anyone in the Web’s Wide World will read. I talked to the village priest about the fact we have to go to London at the weekend and so can’t make Mass, which we were supposed to go to as the final step in the Communion journey. I like this priest a lot: he is a gentle soul of great humanity. He was as understanding as ever, but he had little to say when I told him how betrayed I felt about Father Kit Cunningham. He advised me to pray to the Virgin Mary. Seriously, that’s it? The Virgin Mary? Does she wash whiter? Will she kiss away the hurt, betrayal, crimes?

  Good deed no. 172: recommended a local singing farmer’s wife who has her own flock of sheep and who is desperate for more bookings as a possible story to Radio Newcastle.

  Wednesday, 22 June

  The Queen came to town. As a republican, I debated whether to go, but I thought, ‘What the hell?’ We stood waiting for her with two other families we know, and I sent Al for flowers because I figured that was our best chance of her coming over to the children, and lo and behold she did. She appeared at the end of the street in a pink coat and an elegant pink straw hat with a green quill, and my eldest said, ‘She looks just like Granny’ (my mother would be delighted). When she got to our part of the crowd, she said to my daughter in her poshest, Queeniest voice, ‘Are these for me?’ Stunned silence, and I bent down and whispered in my child’s ear, ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ thinking, ‘I am the worst republican ever.’

  So the children got to meet the Queen, and do I have a record of it on film? I do not. I was filming on my Flik camera, but I am short so I could not see very much. My eldest son, however, leaning over the metal barricades was also filming on his iPod. A perfect position to film his sister’s brush with royalty. Does he film his sister’s brush with royalty? No, he films footballing legend Alan Shearer (former Newcastle United striker and current Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Northumberland), who was standing in the royal party, clutching a golf umbrella and waiting for it to rain so he could get a knighthood. Great one for my daughter’s scrapbook: ‘Alan Shearer and his brolly on the day I met the Queen.’

  Good deed no. 173: gave flowers to the Queen (they’ll end up in a hospital – so it counts).

  Thursday, 23 June

  The Queen’s visit infected all and sundry with a devout love for the monarchy. Andrea, who was introduced to her as an official carer, arrived to pick Cryssie up from the lesson and was positively burbling with love of the monarchy, and she is normally quite a sensible woman. Cryssie hadn’t done her homework. Again. She had read a Philip Pullman book, which was good, but she brought along last week’s homework, so everything we had learned and I’d hoped to build upon went by the board. I am getting her to lift her game with reading, but I’m unconvinced that anything on the writing is sticking.

  Good deed no. 174: gave away a newspaper (complete with royal supplement) to Cryssie’s mum.

  Friday, 24 June

  Good deed no. 175: helped an old lady and her husband off a train. She had a white stick – next time I help a blind person off a train, I am checking they know which station it is.

  Saturday, 25 June

  Breakfast in London with my little girl and my best gay boyfriend at the patisserie I went to with my publisher after she read the first draft of my novel. It is dark and the tables in this particular French café are very close together. Consequently, other customers went monastically quiet as they listened with interest and some degree of Schadenfreude to my editor list, in loud and excruciating detail, exactly what was wrong with the novel. I’ll always associate the words ‘and another thing …’ with the taste of hot chocolate and shame.

  My best gay boyfriend is a child psychotherapist. His partner is a consultant psychologist. Occasionally they throw each other meaningful glances while I’m talking, which is generally my cue to stop. I asked him why he thought we do good deeds. He sat ba
ck in his chair and smiled dazzlingly at the white-aproned waitress as she placed his Earl Grey tea in front of him, and she retreated blushing. ‘Fundamentally, we are nurturing and we do like to look after each other. We like to be kind and generous, though we also feel guilty and sad and regretful sometimes. Being good to someone else is a way of treating the pain of your own situation as well as demonstrating your genuine appreciation of someone else.’

  As he is talking, I think of my lost son and wonder whether the consolation and comfort I offer the bereaved consoles me, whether the support I am offering the children who are damaged or different is because there is nothing I can do for that missing child of mine.

  My best gay boyfriend’s hand stole over to my daughter’s plate to filch a piece of pain au chocolat and she giggled furiously as he swiped it. ‘You develop your capacity for empathy and compassion working as a psychotherapist, and you need to do that because the children you’re working with can be very challenging. Kids who’ve had difficult experiences become in their turn difficult to look after – for instance they can become more aggressive or withdrawn, or they can be harder to reach. Kindness is important but it’s not enough on its own.’ He held the pastry scrap out to her in the palm of his hand and she took it.