Travelling to Infinity (3 page)

It was some time before I saw or heard of Stephen again. I was busily engaged in London following a secretarial course in a revolutionary type of shorthand, which used the alphabet instead of
hieroglyphs and omitted all vowels. Initially I accompanied my father to the station at a sprint to catch the 8 a.m. train every morning, until I discovered that I was not required to be at the
school in Oxford Street quite so early. I could travel at a more leisurely pace than my dedicated, hard-working father, so I ambled to the station for the nine o’clock train and met a
completely different commuting public from the jam-packed, harassed-looking, middle-aged breadwinners in dark suits. Rarely did a day go by when I did not meet someone I knew – unhurried and
casually dressed, either going back to college after a weekend at home or going up to London for an interview. This was a welcome start to the day, because for the rest of it, apart from a short
break for lunch, I was confined to the classroom, surrounded by the clatter of massed old-fashioned typewriters and the chatter of ex-debs whose main claim to distinction seemed to be the number of
times they had been invited to Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace or Clarence House.

The revolutionary form of shorthand was easy enough to pick up, but the touch-typing was a nightmare. I could see the sense of the shorthand, for that was going to be useful for note-taking at
university, but the typing was tiresome in the extreme and I was hopeless at it, still struggling to reach forty words a minute when the rest of the class had finished the course and mastered all
the additional skills of the secretarial art. Actually the shorthand would be of short-term value while the typing skills would prove themselves over and over again.

At weekends I could forget the horrors of typing and keep up with old friends. One Saturday morning in February, I met Diana, who was now a student nurse at St Thomas’s Hospital, and
Elizabeth Chant, another school friend, who was training to become a primary-school teacher, in our favourite haunt, the coffee bar in Greens’, St Albans’ only department store. We
compared notes on our courses and then started talking about our friends and acquaintances. Suddenly Diana asked, “Have you heard about Stephen?” “Oh, yes,” said Elizabeth,
“it’s awful, isn’t it?” I realized that they were talking about Stephen Hawking. “What do you mean?” I asked. “I haven’t heard anything.”
“Well, apparently he’s been in hospital for two weeks – Bart’s I think, because that’s where his father trained and that’s where Mary is training.” Diana
explained, “He kept stumbling and couldn’t tie his shoelaces.” She paused. “They did lots of horrible tests and have found that he’s suffering from some terrible,
paralysing incurable disease. It’s a bit like multiple sclerosis, but it’s not multiple sclerosis and they reckon he’s probably only got a couple of years to live.”

I was stunned. I had only just met Stephen and for all his eccentricity I liked him. We both seemed shy in the presence of others, but were confident within ourselves. It was unthinkable that
someone only a couple of years older than me should be facing the prospect of his own death. Mortality was not a concept that played any part in our existence. We were still young enough to be
immortal. “How is he?” I enquired, shaken by the news. “Basil’s been to see him,” she continued, “and says he’s pretty depressed: the tests are really
unpleasant, and a boy from St Albans in the bed opposite died the other day.” She sighed, “Stephen insisted on being on the ward, because of his socialist principles, and would not have
a private room as his parents wanted.” “Do they know the cause of this illness?” I asked blankly. “Not really,” Diana replied. “They think he may have been given
a non-sterile smallpox vaccination when he went to Persia a couple of years ago, and that introduced a virus to his spine – but they don’t really know, that’s only
speculation.”

I went home in silence, thinking about Stephen. My mother noticed my preoccupation. She had not met him, but knew of him and also knew that I liked him. I had taken the precaution of warning her
that he was very eccentric, in case she should come across him unannounced. With the sensible assurance of the deep-seated faith which had sustained her through the war, through the terminal
illness of her beloved father and through my own father’s bouts of depression, she quietly said, “Why don’t you pray for him? It might help.”

I was astonished therefore when, a week or so later, as I was waiting for a 9 a.m. train, Stephen came sauntering down the platform carrying a brown canvas suitcase. He looked perfectly cheerful
and pleased to see me. His appearance was more conventional and actually rather more attractive than on past occasions: the features of the old image which he had doubtless cultivated at Oxford
– the bow tie, the black-velvet jacket, even the long hair – had given way to a red necktie, a beige raincoat and a tidier, shorter hairstyle. Our two previous meetings had been in the
evening in subdued lighting: daylight revealed his broad, winning smile and his limpid grey eyes to advantage. Behind the owlish spectacles there was something about the set of his features which
attracted me, reminding me, perhaps even subconsciously, of my Norfolk hero, Lord Nelson. We sat together on the train to London talking quite happily, though we scarcely touched on the question of
his illness. I mentioned how sorry I had been to hear of his stay in hospital, whereupon he wrinkled his nose and said nothing. He behaved so convincingly as if everything were fine, and I felt it
would have been cruel to have pursued the subject further. He was on his way back to Cambridge, he said, and as we neared St Pancras, he announced that he came home quite often at weekends. Would I
like to go to the theatre with him sometime? Of course I said I would.

We met one Friday evening at an Italian restaurant in Soho, which in itself would have been a sufficiently lavish evening out. However Stephen had tickets for the theatre as well, and the meal
had to be brought to a hasty and rather embarrassingly expensive conclusion to enable us to make our way south of the river to the Old Vic, in time for a performance of
Volpone
. Arriving
at the theatre in a rush, we just managed to throw our belongings under our seats at the back of the stalls when the play began. My parents were fairly keen theatre-goers, so I had already seen
Jonson’s other great play
The Alchemist
and had enjoyed it thoroughly;
Volpone
was just as entertaining, and soon enough I was totally absorbed in the intrigues of the old
fox who wanted to test the sincerity of his heirs but whose plans went badly wrong.

Elated by the performance, we stood discussing it afterwards at the bus stop. A tramp came by and politely asked Stephen if he had any loose change. Stephen felt in his pocket and exclaimed in
embarrassment, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I have anything left!” The tramp grinned and looked at me. “That’s all right, guv’,” he said, winking in my
direction, “I understand.” At that moment the bus drew up and we clambered on. As we sat down, Stephen turned to me apologetically, “I’m terribly sorry,” he said,
“but I don’t even have the money for the fare. Have you got any?” Guiltily aware of how much he must have spent on our evening, I was only too happy to oblige. The conductor
approached and hovered over us as I searched for my purse in the depths of my handbag. My embarrassment equalled Stephen’s as I discovered that it was missing. We jumped off the bus at the
next set of traffic lights and fairly ran all the way back to the Old Vic. The main entrance to the theatre was closed, but Stephen pressed on – to the stage door at the side. It was open and
the passage inside was lit. Cautiously we ventured in, but there was no one to be seen. Directly at the end of the passage we found ourselves on the deserted but still brightly lit stage.
Awestruck, we tiptoed across it and down the steps into the darkened auditorium. In no time at all, to our joint relief, we found the green leather purse under the seat where I had been sitting.
Just as we were heading back towards the stage, the lights went out, and there we were in total darkness. “Take my hand,” said Stephen authoritatively. I held his hand and my breath in
silent admiration as he led me back to the steps, up across the stage and out into the passage. Fortunately the stage door was still open, and as we tumbled out into the street we burst into
laughter. We had been on the stage at the Old Vic!

Some weeks after the Old Vic episode, as the speed-writing course was officially coming to an end, my mother met me on my return home one evening excitedly waving a message
from Stephen, who had telephoned to invite me to a May Ball in Cambridge. The prospect was tantalizing. In the Lower Sixth at school, a girl had been invited to a May Ball, and the rest of us were
green with envy lapping up every detail of a gala occasion which seemed to be the stuff of fairy tales. Now, unbelievably, my turn had come. When Stephen rang to confirm the invitation, I accepted
with pleasure. The problem of what to wear was soon solved when I found a dress in white-and-navy silk in a shop near the speed-writing school in Oxford Street, which was just within my means.

The May Balls, which with typical Cambridge contrariness take place in June, were still some months away. In the meantime I had to start replenishing my funds, depleted by the purchase of the
ball gown, for my travels around Spain later in the summer, so I signed on with a temporary-employment agency in St Albans. My first assignment was a one-and-a-half-day stint – Thursday
afternoon and the whole of Friday – in the Westminster Bank in Hatfield, where the manager of the branch, Mr Abercrombie, a patient, kindly man, was a friend of my father’s. I was first
directed to the telephone switchboard, but with no inkling of what to do, I panicked at the flashing lights and frantically pulled out some leads on the board while desperately trying to push
others into the vacant holes. I succeeded only in cutting off all outside callers and in connecting up the telephones of people who were sitting opposite each other. After that, I gradually settled
into a variety of temporary jobs as the spring advanced into early summer and the night of the May Ball approached.

When Stephen arrived one hot afternoon in early June to take me to Cambridge, I was shocked by the deterioration in his condition since that evening of the Old Vic escapade, and I doubted that
he was really strong enough to drive his father’s car, a huge old Ford Zephyr. Built like a tank, it had apparently forded rivers in Kashmir when the family – minus Stephen who had
stayed at school in England – had lived in India some years earlier. I feared that the snorting vehicle might well go much too fast for the present driver, a slight, frail, limping figure who
appeared to use the steering wheel to hoist himself up to see over the dashboard. I introduced Stephen to my mother. She showed no signs of surprise or of alarm, but waved us away as if she were
the fairy godmother, sending me off to the ball – with Prince Charming – in a runaway glass coach.

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.