Travelling to Infinity Read online

  The journey was terrifying. It transpired that Stephen’s role model for driving was his father, who drove fast and furiously, overtaking on hills and at corners – he had even been known to drive down a dual carriageway in the wrong direction. Drowning out all attempts at conversation, the wind roared through the open windows as we sped at take-off speed past the fields and trees of Hertfordshire into the exposed landscape of Cambridgeshire. I scarcely dared look at the road in front while Stephen, on the other hand, seemed to be looking at everything except the road. He probably felt that he could afford to live dangerously since fate had already dealt him such a cruel blow. This however was of scant reassurance to me, so I secretly vowed that I would travel home by train. I was definitely beginning to have my doubts about this supposedly fairy-tale experience of a May Ball.

  Defying all road-accident statistics, we actually arrived in one piece at Stephen’s lodgings, in a fine Thirties-style graduate house set in a shady garden, where the other revellers were busy with last-minute preparations. When I had changed in the upstairs room allotted to me by the housekeeper, I was introduced to Stephen’s fellow lodgers and research students, whose seemingly contradictory attitudes towards him baffled me. They talked to him in his own intellectual terms, sometimes caustically sarcastic, sometimes crushingly critical, always humorous. In personal terms, however, they treated him with a gentle consideration which was almost loving. I found it hard to reconcile these two extremes of behaviour. I was used to consistency of attitude and approach, and was perplexed by these people who confidently played devil’s advocate, arguing ferociously with someone – that is Stephen – one minute, and the next not only treating him as if nothing were amiss, but attending caringly to his personal needs, as if his word were their command. I had not learnt to distinguish reason from emotion, the intellect from the heart. In my innocence I had some hard lessons to learn. Such innocence, by Cambridge standards, was boring and predictable.

  We all went off to a late dinner in a first-floor restaurant on the corner of King’s Parade. From where I sat, I gazed out at the pinnacles and spires of King’s College, the Chapel and the gatehouse, darkly silhouetted against the vast, luminous panorama of an East Anglian sunset. That in itself was magical enough. We returned to the house for last-minute adjustments before setting out on the ten-minute walk across the watery green spaces of the Backs to the old courts of Trinity Hall, Stephen’s College. He insisted on taking his tape recorder and collection of tapes across to the College to install in a friend’s room, put at our disposal when we needed a break from the jollifications, but he could not carry them himself. “Oh, come on,” one of his friends grumbled benevolently, “I suppose I shall have to carry them for you.” And he did.

  Relatively small, unpretentious and tucked away from public view, Trinity Hall consists of a motley collection of buildings – very old, old, Victorian and, most recently, modern – enclosing lawns, flower beds and a terrace which overlooks the river. We approached the College from the other side of the Cam, standing briefly on the high arch of a new bridge which, Stephen seriously impressed upon me, had recently been built in memory of a student, Timothy Morgan, who had died tragically in 1960 having just completed his design for it. From that bridge we were regaled with a fairy-tale spectacle: it reminded me of the mysterious country house in one of my favourite French novels, Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier, where the hero, Augustin Meaulnes, chances across a brightly lit château in the dark depths of the countryside and, from being a bemused observer, finds himself drawn into the revelries, the music and the dancing, never quite knowing what to expect. Here in Trinity Hall, bands were sending their strains out on the night air, the lawn leading down to the river was decorated with twinkling lights, as was the magnificent copper beech in the centre, and couples were already dancing on a raised platform under the tree. In the marquee at the top of the lawn I was introduced to more friends of Stephen’s, and together we made a beeline for our ration of champagne, which was being served from a bath, then on to the buffet and to the various entertainments: to the tightly packed Hall where on a distant stage an inaudible cabaret was taking place, to an elegantly panelled room where a string quartet was attempting to compete with the Jamaican-steel band out on the lawn outside, and to a corner by the Old Library where chestnuts were being served from a glowing brazier. Our companions had drifted away, leaving us sitting up on the terrace by the river, watching the dancers writhe to the hypnotic rhythms of the steel band. “I’m sorry I don’t dance.” Stephen apologized. “That’s quite all right – it doesn’t matter,” I lied.

  Dancing was not totally out of the question however, because later, after yet another buffet and more champagne, we discovered a jazz band secreted away in a cellar. The room was dark, apart from some weird blueish lights. The men were invisible except for their cuffs and shirt-fronts, which shone with a bright-purple luminosity, while the girls could hardly be seen at all. I was fascinated. Stephen explained that the lights were picking up the fluorescent element contained in washing powder, which was why the men’s shirts were so visible, but that, as the girls’ new dresses would not have been contaminated with Tide or Daz or any other detergent, they did not show up with the same ghostly light. In the darkness of the underground room, I persuaded Stephen to take to the floor. We swayed gently to and fro, laughing at the dancing patterns of purple light until, to our disappointment, the band packed up and went.

  In the early hours of the morning, the other colleges which had been hosting May Balls traditionally opened their doors to all-comers. As day dawned, we staggered down Trinity Street to Trinity College where, in a spacious set of rooms, somebody’s extremely well-organized and mature girlfriend was preparing breakfast, but I just sank into an armchair and fell asleep. Some kind person must have led me back sleepwalking to the lodging house in Adams Road, where I slept comfortably until midmorning.

  The day’s programme for the May Ball partners had been planned with the efficiency of a modern tour operator, except that it was much more stimulating. As well as researching their PhDs in Chemistry, Stephen’s friends, Nick Hughes and Tom Wesley, were much involved, as editors, in the production of a guide to the post-war buildings of Cambridge, Cambridge New Architecture, which was to be published in 1964. Stephen shared their interest and acted as a part-time consultant in the project. They were all anxious therefore to show the objects of their deliberations to any interested parties. However sceptically these buildings are viewed today, in the Sixties they were the cause of great excitement, the assertive excitement of post-war development and expansion, unconcerned for old properties, meadows or trees which might inhibit the new wave of roads, buildings and university development. Conservation was not yet a popular concern.

  With a zealous, pioneering fervour, our guides pointed out to us – their impressionably ignorant female guests – the features of a selection of new sites, either recently finished or still under construction. These included the Hugh Casson development of the Sidgwick Site, and Churchill College – the memorial to Sir Winston, whose concern at the lack of provision for scientists and technologists in this country led to the foundation of the College in 1958. We were also taken to Harvey Court, the Gonville and Caius development, which left even the contributors to Cambridge New Architecture lost for words. They described it hopefully as “an experiment which may eventually bully its occupants into enjoying the pattern of life it imposes”, and added in its defence: “and it is Cambridge’s most courageous attempt at finding some new ideal solution to the problems of college residence”. Little did I know that some twelve years later I would be living next door to this particular experiment in modern living. Finally, as a sop to tradition, we visitors from less richly endowed universities were allowed to take a quick peep inside King’s College Chapel.

  After lunch we all went out for a ride in a punt, and then the question of the return journey loomed. “I think it would be better if I went by train,” I hesitan
tly suggested to Stephen, but he would not hear of it. Anxious not to offend him, I took my place once again in the passenger seat of the dreaded Zephyr. The journey home was every bit as terrifying as the outward journey, and by the time we reached St Albans, I decided that, much as I appreciated the May Ball, I did not want to subject myself to that sort of dodgem ride ever again. My mother was in the front garden when we drew up at the gate. I tersely said “thank you and goodbye” to Stephen, and, with never a backwards glance, marched into the house. My mother followed me in and reprimanded me severely: “You’re not going to send that poor young man away without even a cup of tea are you?” she said, shocked at my indifference. Her words pricked my conscience. I ran out of the house to try and catch Stephen. He was still there, parked at the gate, trying to start the car. Slowly the car began to roll back down the steep hill, because he had let the brake off before getting the engine started. He jammed the brake on and, with alacrity, came in for tea, sitting with me in the sun by the garden door. As we excitedly recounted the events of the ball to my mother, he was attentive and charming. I decided that I really rather liked him and could forgive his road madness providing I did not have to experience it too often.

  4

  Hidden Truths

  A couple of weeks later we temporarily acquired an addition to our family as my parents had responded to a call for accommodation for visiting French teenagers and were taking care of a sixteen-year-old girl whose best friend, by an uncanny coincidence, was lodging with the Hawkings. One Saturday in June, not long after the May Ball, Isobel Hawking invited the two French girls and me to join her on a visit to Cambridge. To my relief, she drove sensibly, talked in a jovially concentrated intellectual fashion and brought a splendid picnic – “a cold collation” she called it – which we ate on the veranda of Stephen’s ground-floor room in Adams Road. Thus my family and I were brought into closer and more regular contact with the Hawkings, and when Stephen came back to St Albans for a weekend, my parents invited him to dinner. They treated him with faultless hospitality, outwardly unperturbed by his appearance. He had reverted to his old Oxford ways. His lank, straight hair was longer than ever, and the black-velvet smoking jacket and the red bow tie had become a uniform, adopted to defy the very conformity which my parents represented. They, for their part, may have taken comfort from the fact that this was to be our last meeting for some time, as I was on the point of setting off yet again for Spain.

  Early one morning in July 1963, my father drove me to Gatwick for a student flight which was due to leave at 9 a.m. and arrive in Madrid at one o’clock, but take-off was delayed while repairs were carried out to an engine. I was not at all concerned by the delay, nor by the need for repairs, nor by the fact that, after take-off, water – which eventually turned to icicles – dripped through the roof of the aircraft. Nor was I worried by the discovery that the captain and his co-pilot were happily enjoying a glass of beer when we students were invited to look into the cockpit. Bill Lewis, an acquaintance of our local GP, who was meeting me in Madrid, was much more anxious. “I thought you must be coming via the North Pole!” he joked when, at last, I emerged from customs at five in the afternoon. He took me home to meet his wife, who assured me of a warm welcome at their apartment every evening from six onwards, and then he delivered me to the lodgings he had found for me. Pilar, the landlady, was a small, vivacious, sharp-nosed, black-haired single lady who lived in a extraordinarily large, well-appointed flat just round the corner from the Lewises. Pilar’s other lodger, Sylvia, was also English and worked at the British Embassy. Sylvia was not happy about some of Pilar’s friends, who would turn up at all hours of the day and the night, and when she told me her concerns I hastened to lay my plans for leaving Madrid at the earliest opportunity, but not before taking advantage of every precious moment in the capital city and its environs to visit the Prado Museum and join many a tourist bus to the royal palaces at Aranjuez and the Escorial. Of course I also went to Toledo, the medieval city perched on a rock above the river Tajo, where in the thirteenth century Jews, Arabs and Christians had worked in perfect harmony in the pursuit of learning, and where in the seventeeth century El Greco executed some of his finest paintings. With a group of students I went on the pilgrimage to the Valley of the Fallen, el Valle de los Caídos, supposedly the monument to the dead of both sides in the Civil War but in fact a burial place only for the Fascists – and eventually Franco himself – constructed by Republican prisoners of war. I began to realize that the many mutilated beggars on the streets of Madrid were the tragic, living remnants of the Civil War, revealing an ugly, schizoid streak to Spain. In the mid-twentieth century, the country still bore out the disturbing contrasts depicted by Goya in the eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century paintings and drawings I had seen in the Prado.

  Back in Pilar’s establishment, Sylvia and I had the uncomfortable sensation that things were coming to crisis point. We had persistently refused to go out with her in the evenings and, just as regularly, saucepans were now clattering through the air in the kitchen, while meals and mealtimes became a matter of chance. Feeling slightly guilty at leaving Sylvia in the lurch, I took evasive action and set off by air-conditioned train for the safety of Granada, where I settled in for a protracted stay at an international student hostel which housed a stimulating and unpredictable crowd, particularly the Spaniards among them, whose discussions could range from politics to poetry in the space of a single breath. To preserve my own sanity, I would sometimes have to escape from the intensity of their arguments to wander the streets of Granada in the heat of the day, watching the gypsy children at play in front of their caves, or to stroll through the Moorish palace, the Alhambra and the gardens of the Generalife, astounded at the sheer extravagant beauty of the place.

  Lulled into a dreamy slumber by the perfume of the roses and the playing of the fountains, I would sit alone for hours under the arches in the courtyard of streams, in the Generalife, and from there would gaze across to the forbidding walls which concealed the intricate, creamy lacework of the inner courtyards of the Alhambra. Dazzling in the sun, the city lay at my feet, its glare broken only by the tall bottle-green spikes of the cypresses and the violent purple and pink patches of bougainvillea tumbling over reflecting white walls. A beautiful city but also a very cruel city. What other city could claim to have murdered its own most famous son? It was in Granada at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War that the rebellious right-wing Francoist forces slaughtered the greatest Spanish poet of the twentieth century, Federico García Lorca, the poet who, through the colour, rhythm and vision of his verse, had introduced me to Andalucía long before I had set foot on its soil.

  During these long periods of solitary contemplation in a setting of such dramatically haunting beauty, I found myself overcome by waves of loneliness. In the past I had known moments of extreme dejection without being able to identify a precise cause. The reason for them was now becoming apparent and it was natural enough: I longed to have someone with whom to share my experiences. Moreover, I realized that the person I most wanted to share them with was Stephen. The early rapport between us had held much promise of harmony and compatibility. Because of his illness, any relationship with him was bound to be precarious, short-lived and probably heartbreaking. Could I help him fulfil himself and find even a brief happiness? I doubted whether I was up to the task, but when I confided in my new-found friends of all nationalities they urged me to go ahead. “If he needs you, you must do it,” they said.

  Competing against this inner turmoil, the strong pull of adventure finally tore me away from the brooding magic of Granada and deposited me on a hot, smelly bus, crowded with market vendors and their wares – mostly still alive and flapping and squawking – on the slow crawl over the hills to Málaga. I was waiting in the bus station for the connection to La Línea, the last Spanish outpost before Gibraltar, when a man came up to me and asked if I would like to train as a Spanish dancer. To my surprise he explained that I had th
e right looks and figure. Although I was by now an old hand at fending off the predatory Spanish male, I was flattered. Despite my misgivings, the man appeared genuine. He was neither oily nor ingratiating, but quite straightforward in his approach. He handed me a card bearing the address of his dance studio. I was weighing up his offer when the bus for La Línea lumbered into view and hauled me out of temptation’s way. Sometimes I have a faint twinge of regret at how that bus broke all known records for timekeeping in Spain by arriving on schedule. Who knows what my story might have been, had it arrived just a few minutes later?

  From La Línea I passed through the very physical border between Spain and Gibraltar, a barricade of green iron railings about twenty feet high with a gate at the customs post. Gibraltar, with all its incongruous trappings of British colonialism, was a convenient stepping stone for my one and only trip to Africa, to Tangiers for my first encounter with the descendants of the people who had invaded Spain in 711 and stayed there for more than seven hundred years – the Arabs. I liked them. They treated me, a young English girl travelling alone, with great courtesy and, unlike the Spaniards, who automatically harassed any passing foreign female, they showed no such disrespect. They were a dignified people, proud of their artistic skills, which were everywhere on display in the booths of the Kazbah. They were also gentle and hospitable, curious to learn about life in Europe, as I discovered over many glasses of the hot, sweet mint tea with which they plied me whenever I bought the smallest item in their shops.