Einstein, I think, who used to speak of work as 'the great
anodyne'. That melancholy autumn, however, I myself found
work to be only one constituent of a general demand upon
my whole being not to let things slide: if they did, I knew,
it would only be harder, later, to clamber back. When I was
a little boy Jack Cain, our jobbing gardener who came in
odd days, used to have a well-worn joke, no doubt a souvenir
of the army: 'Fall out for a smoke. Those without a cigarette
will go through the motions.' (I'd no idea what he meant,
but I used to laugh, since it seemed to be expected.) Without
even a fag-end, I went through the motions, at first with
reluctance and wretchedness; but after a time less drearily,
as they themselves began to sustain me. I answered the
letters of condolence, checked and even queried an item in
the undertaker's heavy bill (I carried my point, too), dug up
the asters and manured the bed, persuaded my mother to
come to a concert in London (or did she persuade me?), explained
to Mrs Taswell what a gross was and how a regular
wholesaler differed from a private person who wanted to dispose
of a no-longer-wanted breakfast-service; dropped in on
Mrs This to thank her for the flowers, returned the book
which Mrs That had lent me six months before and remembered
to ask after Mrs The Other's arthritis after church on
Sunday morning. It took a weary lot of doing - anyone who
has ever had to set himself to do it will know what I mean
55
There is a continuous, underlying feeling of the triviality, the
uselessness of all activity, and one is obsessed by memories
of the cruel, pointless suffering of the loved one. If this
seems a too deeply-felt reaction to the loss of a father, I can
only say that I knew not seems - it was. Like Guy Crouchback's
to him, my father remains for me the best man I have
ever known. If he had not died when he did things might, perhaps,
have turned out differently.
The early chrysanthemums bloomed. The clocks went back.
The leaves fell. Little by little, normality returned. I began
to grasp that I had succeeded to a solvent business, with a
large stock and a good deal of capital at my disposal. With
its organization I had, of course, been familiar for a long
time - our debtors and creditors, investments, overheads,
accounting arrangements and so on. There were no surprises.
What was new was the sense of being in full control. My
father had been admirably sensible in his running of the
business, and I doubted whether I could run it so well. And
yet - and yet it depends on what you mean by well, said the
inner voice. Ceramics are Man's gift to God. They are what he
renders back from the earth he has been given. It had now
become my responsibility to play a serious part in seeing
that Man, at all events, got the best; and also, that he had
the opportunity to learn what was the best.
It was not until the following spring, however, that I took
the plunge and embarked upon my grand design of gradually
turning over a full half of our space and capital to the sale
of antique and fine modern ceramics. This was no light project,
and before coming to my decision I discussed the whole
scheme in detail with my mother and asked for her agreement.
She had, of course, already known what I had in mind,
but now I told her, carefully and responsibly, my reasons
for feeling sure that I could make the idea work. She replied
that since, clearly, my whole heart was in it, she believed I
would. She only begged me to be prudent and not to forget
all I had learned about running the day-to-day side of the
business. Her trust in me - for after all, it was her living, too,
that was at stake - increased my own confidence.
Nevertheless we both knew that the step was going to in56
volve nothing less than a fairly long struggle. In terms of new
business methods and altered ways of thought and work,
I might almost as well have been changing over to estate
agency or motor-cars. For one thing, when you deal in fine
porcelain and earthenware you can't order in bulk, or return
a line that doesn't sell. For another, your sources of
supply are altogether different from those of a normal retail
business, the kind of people you deal with are different
and so are the ways in which you go about selling. Purchases
tend to be individual and often a single item can constitute
a hazardous venture of capital.
In spite of my determination to succeed I could not help
feeling anxiety. It would have been worse, but early on my
mother, of her own accord, took a step which had never
entered my head and which removed at a stroke one of my
major sources of worry.
'Alan, dear,' she said one evening, 'I've been thinking that
one difficulty you're up against is how the ordinary retail
side's going to go on running while you go off to places like
Christie's or Phillips. Have you decided what you're going
to do about that? You can't just leave it to Deirdre and Mrs
Taswell, can you? They'd never cope. Either it'll be a cornplete
cat's cradle in six months or you're going to have a
breakdown from overwork.'
'I know, Mummy,' I said. 'I'd thought of that too and I
must admit it's bothering me rather. I've been seriously
thinking whether I couldn't find a manager - someone with
a bit of tact and business sense who can take control without
upsetting the girls. But the salary of anyone worth having
would be more than I've got to spare - enough to put
the whole plan at risk, I'm afraid. It can't be done - I'll just
have to try and run twice as fast, that's all.'
She didn't answer at once but, almost absent-mindedly,
picked up some catalogues which I had left lying on the
floor, piled them together and put them tidily on the windowsill.
Then she came over, sat down on the arm of my chair
and began stroking my head in a way she used to when I was
small. It had remained a kind of private joke or sign of affection
between us, meaning - well, meaning, I suppose, 'You're
57
still a little boy and I'm looking after you'. She used to do it,
for instance, when she saw that I was depressed about something
like having to go back to school; or more delightfully,
when she was about to disclose something exciting, like an
unexpected present or an expedition to the river at Pangbourne.
'I think I know someone who might do,' she said. 'A
widow, who doesn't really want to be sitting about all day
by herself. She's had some previous experience, even though
it was more than thirty years ago. I don't think she'd need
paying: you see, she rather likes you - oh, Alan, don't be
silly, darling! There's no need to start shedding tears!'
It seemed to me that all she had ever done for me was
not to be compared with this. I realized, too, that she had
known all the time wha
t I, in my passionate determination,
had been blinding myself to - that with all the resolution in
the world, I could not have carried the load by myself.
Single-minded people can go a long way and overcome big
obstacles. The Holy Ghost, as it were, teaches them what they
ought to do (which usually amounts, more or less, to another
favourite phrase of Jack Cain, 'Bash on regardless!'). I began
to advertise regularly, not only in the Newbury Weekly News
and other local papers, but also in Country Life, Apollo and
The Antique Dealer and Collector's Guide. I started the
Newbury and District Ceramic Society and paid people like
Bernard Watney and Reginald Haggar to come and address
it. I saw to it that people in general, from Reading to Marlborough,
knew that I was interested in buying (and some
funny things I was offered, too, as well as several startling
and exciting ones). I engaged an agent in London and took
pains to get him genuinely on my side. After a time he knew
my mind and means so well that he could seize a going
opportunity and buy for me on his own initiative - to say
nothing of the Americans he steered in my direction. Several
of these were charming people, whom my mother and I entertained
at Bull Banks; our name began to be known among
American ceramic enthusiasts, and I received invitations from
Colonial Williamsburg and the Rockefeller Collection at
Cleveland (which I was far too busy to accept). Unexpectedly,
58
one of my most far-reaching and successful strokes was the
building-up, not for sale but simply for display and the edification
of potential customers, of what is called a 'study collection'
in English blue-and-white. Each case contained an
explanatory card, but in addition Deirdre - who was taking
to the business - was taught to hold forth on the collection
to any visitor who seemed of sufficient importance. ('And
this 'ere lot's called Moth-and-Flower, see, 'cause you looks
close, that's what they got on 'em.') The Americans loved her,
and their generous tips she split with Mrs Taswell. One day
I remarked, 'We'll have to dress you in historical costume,
Deirdre.' 'What, like them waitresses round the Tudor Caff,
Mistralan? I never reckoned a great lot to they.'
What happy days they seem now! When an enterprise has
turned out successfully we not only forget, in retrospect, the
anxieties, disappointments and costly mistakes; we also forget
In memory the whole Stimmung changes and our recollections
become like a story we have read before and whose
ending we know. Aware, now, that our fears were illusory, we
recall only what seems like our own courage and skill. The
first two years were, in fact, a severe strain, partly because
of the work itself and the continual pressure of important
decisions, but chiefly because of the unceasing fear that I
might fail, that the money spent would show no worthwhile
return and the capital not hold out until the ships came
home. If it had not been for my mother - and heaven only
knows what worry she too underwent, for she never showed
any -1 believe I might have given up. I went through a period
of irritability, sleeplessness and nervous indigestion, and at
one time my dreams became so insupportable that I seriously
thought of seeing a psychiatrist.
One of these I have never forgotten. Appallingly vivid, it
preyed on my mind for days afterwards, so that I would
start up from my chair or desk, uttering aloud meaningless
phrases - 'Wait a bit, wait a bit!' or 'Come on, now, come
on!' - as though by main force to interrupt my intolerable
thoughts and to shatter, like a mirror, the dreadful image obsessing
me.
59
I dreamt that I was swimming in the sea, diving and corning
up again in calm water. At first I seemed to be alone, but
then I made out, in the distance, someone else also swimming
- a woman. I drew close and recognized Mrs Cook
(whom in fact I had not seen since leaving Bradfield). She was
naked, and as pretty as I remembered her, but now there
seemed about her beauty a more disturbing quality; a kind
of eager, acquisitive voluptuousness, glittering from her face
and body like the water itself.
'Hullo, Desland!' she called. 'Do you think you could do
one more dive - just for me? You needn't if you don't want
to, but I hope you will.'
With the same sense of simultaneous excitement and misgiving
that I had once felt in her drawing-room, I dived
again.
'Deeper!' she cried. 'That's right! Oh, you're marvellous!'
As she spoke I found myself on the bottom. It was littered
with all manner of debris, like a vacant shop when the owners
have sold up and gone. There were broken plates and cups,
smashed china figures and fragments of pottery and earthenware.
Papers, too, I could see - old invoices, receipted bills,
catalogues and bank statements - all crumpled and dirty,
strewn about the sea-bed. 'I don't reckon much to this,' I
thought. 'I'm going up again."
Then, in the cloudy mirk, I made out another figure - not
Mrs Cook - apparently crawling along through the mess. It
was a little girl, perhaps three or four years old, groping her
way among the shards on hands and knees. As I went closer
I could hear her crying bitterly.
'What's the matter?' I asked. 'Who are you?'
'I'm Phoebe Parr,' she answered. 'I'm looking for my
mother: only it's such a long way across the sea.'
Til take you,' I said. 'Come on!' and I grasped her hand.
As she turned to me I saw, with sickening horror, that she
must have been in the water for weeks. Her face, not yet
entirely destroyed, was more dreadful than that of a skull.
The rotten, spongy flesh of the limbs was almost soaked off
the bones. Her little body was streaked with dark-blue lines
of decay, like the bruises of some savage beating. The hand
60
I held in my own was no longer attached to the wrist. She
tried to speak again, but could not, only reaching out, groping
blindly and stumbling towards me.
I woke screaming, and found my mother sitting on my bed,
clutching my hands. 'Alan,' she was saying, 'wake up! You
must wake up!' I had woken her, it seemed, but having
rushed into my room she had had some difficulty in fully
waking me.
I told her the dream, sobbing like a child myself. She said
all the things a mother ought to say, shook up the pillows
and brought me some hot milk and rum. 'You mustn't let
dreams worry you, darling,' she said. 'They're not real, you
know. All the same, I think you ought to take more care of
yourself and not work so hard - for a few weeks, anyway.
You're thoroughly over-strained, and you mustn't risk a
breakdown. I'll tell you what - why don't you come and
, just for a night or two? After all, there's
no one here to laugh at us or think we're silly.'
And so I did - actually for three nights, for I found myself
sleeping a great deal more easily and soundly. And I
may add that we used to read Beatrix Potter (that admirable
stylist) together before putting the light out. There is a lot
to be said, in times of stress, for old, well-tried favourites of
childhood.
The nicest thing that happened that summer was Flick's
wedding. To borrow a phrase of Deirdre, she had been going
steady for some months before my father's death, and would
have married earlier if it had not been for that. Everybody
liked Bill Radcliffe ('I'd marry him myself for two pins,' said
my mother), a popular and able teacher, a first-rate cricketer
and as certain a future headmaster as could well be discerned.
Even I found myself thinking that while nobody, of
course, could be good enough for Flick, I didn't see how in
this imperfect world she was going to come across anyone
better. She, too, had been very hard hit by my father's death.
I sometimes think that not even my mother was more devoted
to him, while she had always been his beloved darling,
the lass with the delicate air. Now, in the midst of my own
worries and heavy exertions, it was splendidly encouraging
61
to see her truly happy once more. I sold the best piece of
my private collection to do the wedding in style; and style
we certainly achieved. The weather was perfect and Tony
not only made a first-rate and very moving job of the service,
but also spoke well himself, without embarrassing everybody
as wedding addresses so often seem to. Unconventional
as ever, he departed from custom on this occasion too by
taking a text - Revelation xix, 9. Everyone seemed to enjoy
it.
As Flick came out through the west porch of St Nicholas,
with Royals rocking the tower above to tell the world that
my dear sister was married (on a still day you can hear St
Nicholas bells beyond Hamstead Marshall) and the cars
lined up along the Roary Water (our nursery name for the
outfall of the Kennet from West Mills) to drive to the reception,
I whispered to my mother, 'You're lucky; you're allowed
to cry.' Flick was honouring us. She had honoured us all her
life, by condescending to be born in our home and become
Florence Desland.
That evening, after everyone had gone and we were eating
a snack supper, my mother said, 'I hope your wedding'll be
every bit as nice as that, Alan'; and then, pulling herself up
as she always did when she felt she had said something that
might seem like trying to influence me in a matter properly
for my own decision, added, 'I mean - you know - whenever
it is."
She was slipping, I thought. She had not contrived to suggest
her equanimity in the probable event of my never marrying
at all.
IT was early this year - 1974 - some four and a half years
after my father's death, that I began at last to feel that there
were solid grounds for believing myself out of the wood. To
say 'the gamble had paid off' would not really be appropriate,
for at the bottom it was not a question of money. I
62
was after something more valuable and important than that.
Our turnover was a good deal less than formerly, not only
because we were carrying a smaller stock of ordinary household
china, earthenware and glass, but also because it had
become generally known in the district that this was no
longer what we were principally going in for. I was as
secure as an antique dealer ever is. I now wore old clothes
and didn't buy new ones much. The two cars had become one.
('Melted down?' inquired Flick, in reply to my expressing
myself thus in my fortnightly letter to Bristol.) It had been
a little extravagance of my father to buy new dahlia plants
every year. Now, I lifted and stored the tubers in autumn,
like Jack Cain or any other villager. To be sure, I had
capital - a fair amount, actually - but I kept it like ammunition,
and made every shot tell. I knew a lot more than before
about pottery and porcelain, and to enter the shop gave me
renewed pleasure every day. (I was so eager to get inside that
one morning my mother, giggling at my ardour, said that