Travelling to Infinity (51 page)

In his absence, Robert was the source of the sole piece of good news that summer. Bernard Carr, always a loyal ally in extremis, flew out to Geneva to take over from the students as the
situation began to change. He brought Robert’s A-level results, which were excellent, the only glimmer of light through the blackest of clouds. Those results assured Robert a place at
Cambridge, at Corpus Christi College, my father’s college, to read Natural Sciences.

If the comparative triviality of Tim’s passport took an inordinate amount of time to resolve, it was in the topsy-turvy nature of things during that period that a far
more serious matter was resolved in seconds. Two days after our arrival in Geneva, the doctor in charge of Stephen’s case asked to see me as a matter of some urgency. He took me into a bare,
grey side room. At first I thought that he simply wanted to verify the facts of Stephen’s exceptional existence. The nursing staff had begun to accept that Stephen was no ordinary patient,
nor was he the victim of neglect by his family. Having ascertained various details about his phenomenal longevity and his self-management, the doctor came abruptly to the point. The question was
whether his staff should disconnect the ventilator while Stephen was in a drugged state, or should try to bring him round from the anaesthetic. I was shocked. Switching off the life supply was
unthinkable. What an ignominious end to such a heroic fight for life, what a denial of everything that I, too, had fought for! My reply was quick and ready. I did not need either to think about it
or discuss it with other people, as there was only one possible answer. “Stephen must live. You must bring him round from the anaesthetic,” I replied. The doctor went on to explain the
complications of the procedures that would ensue. Stephen would not be able to breathe unaided, and when he was stronger he would have to undergo a tracheotomy operation. This would be the only way
of weaning him off the ventilator, as it would bypass the hypersensitive area in his throat, which had been giving him so much trouble. The technicalities of the tracheotomy, a hole in the windpipe
below the vocal chords, would require permanent professional care. I did not pay much attention to this gloomy, if realistic, prognosis. I had made the decision that was required. The important
truth was that Stephen was alive and would remain alive as long as I had any power to influence events.

I emerged from the interview room to a remarkable sight. There, standing in the corridor, was a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, though not someone whom either of us knew at all well. James
Fitzsimons and his French wife, Aude, had been on holiday with Aude’s family in Geneva when word had reached them from the College that Stephen was ill in hospital there, and they had come to
offer help. They could not have arrived at a more propitious moment. I was profoundly shaken by the events of the past week and was disturbed, though defiant, at the interview. I realized that the
crises were by no means over, and indeed a worse crisis could be looming, for it was not at all certain that Stephen would even survive resuscitation from his drug-induced sleep.

James and Aude brought fresh energy and buoyant, though sensitive, resolve to bolster our resources. As Stephen was slowly restored to us, James joined our long vigils, taking a share in the
rota, which consisted of Bernard, Jonathan, the remaining students and myself. We were not there to act as nurses – there were plenty of those in the hospital – but to strengthen
Stephen’s fragile hold on life and reawaken his interest and his curiosity from their unprecedented state of inertia. James was a fluent French speaker and was able to relieve me of some of
the pressures of communicating Stephen’s every indistinct request to the nursing staff. His attempts to mouth those requests were impeded by the tubes and masks covering his face. Those of us
close to him had to try to anticipate his needs and ask the right questions; he would respond in the negative or the affirmative by means of his painfully expressive eyes, now open again, and by
raising his eyebrows or frowning.

To alleviate the tedium, we read aloud from whatever holiday material we happened to have with us. With my student, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, I had begun to explore the works of the blind
Argentinian multilingual polymath Jorge Luis Borges, whose ideas excited me: I was particularly fascinated by his preoccupation with paradox and ambiguity, time and timelessness and the cyclical
nature of historical events. His writing appeared to mirror in literary, even poetic, form much of the substance of scientific discovery in the twentieth century, and might be conceived as literary
versions of Escher’s spatially irreconcilable drawings, themselves artistic representations of a mathematical concept, the Möbius strip. I had intended to read Borges’s
El
Libro de Arena
(
The Book of Sand
) over the summer holidays, so, hoping that its conundrums and enigmas might appeal to Stephen, I commissioned Bernard to bring an English translation
to Geneva with him. Whether Stephen appreciated the rather complex, cerebral games of Borges’s writing, I did not discover. I relished the stories for the intellectual escape they offered
from the nerve-racking tension and clinical monotony of the intensive-care unit. But my fascination was even stronger when I found that I was being absorbed into the puzzle of the literature
myself, especially through the first story, ‘The Other’, an apparently autobiographical story set in Geneva. Borges is seated on a bench in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1969, looking out
over the Charles river. A young man comes to sit beside him and the two converse. The young man, however, asserts that they are sitting on a bench overlooking the Rhône in Geneva in 1914. He
is, of course, Borges’s youthful self, and he recounts details of his home life at number 17 Route de Malagnou in Geneva. The ideas in the story – of identity, time travel, dreams,
prediction, of history repeating itself and of knowing the future, were stimulating in themselves. But the coincidence that I had, unknowingly, chosen to read this story to Stephen in Geneva gave
me the startling impression that I had entered it myself and become a part of it, adding yet another dimension. Bernard, still engaged on parapsychological research as an antidote to physics,
enjoyed the coincidence. One afternoon, as Jonathan and I were leaving the hospital, I suggested driving out of the city to catch a brief glimpse of the Alps. Our route took us along the Route de
Malagnou. On the way out of the city and on the way back, we scoured the street for number 17, the house in Borges’s story. We could see 15 and 19, 14 and 16, but of number 17 there was no
trace.

Once Stephen had regained consciousness, the pace quickened. As soon as possible an air ambulance, paid for by Caius, was commissioned to bring us back to Cambridge. Carrying an enormous amount
of luggage, Jonathan set out for home by car on the same day that Stephen and I – accompanied by a doctor, paramedics, portable ventilators and other equipment – were loaded carefully
into an ambulance, whisked to the airport, decanted into a small, red jet and sent hurtling into the sky the moment the hatch was closed. Had it not been for the circumstances of our flight, I
might rather have enjoyed it – even Stephen roused himself sufficiently to peer out of the window as we soared above the clouds. This was the way to fly: our private plane was given priority
over all the other airliners queuing up for space on the runway; there was no time for anxiety, none of the usual hassle and no delays. At Cambridge airport, John Farman, the head of the
intensive-care unit at Addenbrooke’s, was waiting to meet us with an ambulance on the tarmac.

Although Stephen had undeniably received excellent treatment in Geneva, there was an irrepressible sense of relief at being back home, where we and our situation were well known. Many a familiar
figure appeared in the intensive-care unit that day, including Judy Fella, Stephen’s former secretary. She had already been active on his behalf and was ready to give whatever help was
needed. There were no gasps of surprise at Stephen’s ambitious travelling schedule or incredulity at his domination of motor-neuron disease from the staff at Addenbrooke’s. The minimum
of general explanation was needed. Nevertheless, detailed explanation was required of the management of his case, of the routines that he himself had developed, of the precise quantities and
frequencies of the medications he took, of the positions he liked to adopt when lying in bed, of his insistence on a gluten-free diet, even when being fed by tube. Each and every one of these
matters, and many more like them, became the subject of lengthy discussions and investigations.

Three days after the flight, by which time Stephen’s condition had stabilized in intensive care, John Farman thought it might be possible to ease him off his dependence on the ventilator;
he was keen to encourage him to breathe unaided in the hope of avoiding the threatened tracheotomy operation. By Tuesday 20th August, Stephen seemed to be making good enough progress for the
experiment to be tried. He was comfortable and gaining strength, and we – that is, as many friends and relations as could be mustered – had devised a rota, mounting guard over him by
day and by night. Usually the long-suffering students, or our team of nurses or physiotherapists, including Sue Smith and Caroline Chamberlain, would sit with Stephen by night, and the family and
other friends took turns by day. The nurses promised to ring if Stephen needed me that night, as they embarked on the delicate process of detaching him from the ventilator.

The telephone rang in my bedroom in the early hours of the morning. The ward sister said little, except that she thought I should go to the hospital straight away. She offered no explanation. As
my parents were looking after Tim, I had only to dress and leave a note before slipping out at first light. Stephen was very ill: a blotchy grey pallor had taken the place of his whitish
complexion, and his bulging eyes were drained of all colour. His limbs were rigidly frozen in spasm, while a brutal cough had returned to torment his throat, like a cat toying with a mouse, letting
it go, then pouncing with sharpened claws. In between each attack, he desperately tried to draw breath. Fear was written large all over his face.

The expression on the nurses’ faces gave me to understand that they thought that very little could be done for him, and that the end was near. I thought differently. That the old demon was
back and currently had the upper hand was obvious, but I detected a familiar element in the choking. That element was Stephen’s own understandable tendency to panic. But it had been
controlled before, and there was just a chance that it could be brought to heel, using the simple relaxation techniques that I had learnt in yoga classes and which I had practised successfully on
him at home in past crises. I sat at the head of the bed and put one arm round the back of his neck. While I stroked his face, his shoulder and his arm with the other hand, I slowly whispered
soothing words into his ear, as one might when calming a fretful baby. I chose my words carefully, and tried to create a gentle, rocking rhythm to ease away the panic. I conjured up scenes of calm,
blue lakes and balmy, clear skies, rolling green hills and warm, golden sands. Gradually, over the next few hours, as the tension subsided and as his body relaxed, the paroxysms yielded to a
quieter, more regular breathing pattern. Finally he dozed off. I was exhausted but jubilant: my homespun attempt at hypnosis had worked! There was no escaping the fact, however, that Stephen was
still critically ill.

I went away for a rest, leaving the telephone number of our good friends, John and Mary Taylor, who lived close to the hospital. As well as being regular visitors to Stephen’s bedside, the
Taylors had offered me the use of their house. That morning I took up their offer at 7 a.m. Mary offered me a bed, but I preferred to sit for a while in the garden to breathe in the fresh morning
air, so welcome after the sterile, dry atmosphere of the hospital, and to let the early sun caress my weary frame. Mary brought me some breakfast and we sat talking. I was incoherent with tiredness
but I had one overwhelming desire, and that was to speak to Robert. It was so long since I had last seen him and so much had happened in the interim. I had to assume that he was well and that no
news was good news. According to the schedule he was due to be back at base camp before setting off on the final expedition, and was therefore no longer incommunicado
.
I felt that the time
had come to warn him that his father was critically ill, though I did not intend to ask him to come home. “Phone him from here,” Mary suggested with her customary generosity. I had not
the will to protest: I did as she said, and dialled through to Iceland with trepidation. When I heard Robert’s voice, my resolve crumbled and I broke down. Whatever my intentions, they were
overridden by a cry from the heart which escaped before I could suppress it. “Please come home!” I heard myself pleading into the phone. “Right!” he said, without the
slightest hesitation. He came home the next day and was met by the Taylors at Heathrow. I did not realize that, had he completed the expedition, he would have qualified for a Queen’s Scout
Award. When later I heard about the canoe-capsizing episode, he laughed it off as a triviality.

My return to the hospital revealed the sort of variations on the theme of illness that had become familiar over the past two interminable weeks. Stephen’s life still hung by a thread, new
strains of bacteria had been found in his lungs and the medication had been changed. He was breathing through the ventilator again, but cheered up considerably at the news of Robert’s return.
I discussed with John Farman the possibility of bringing in a professional hypnotist to encourage him to alleviate the panic attacks and relax those muscles which went into spasm when he tried to
breathe. John readily agreed and brought in a GP of his acquaintance who was also a trained hypnotist. She had moderate success, using the same techniques that I had been using, but not enough to
warrant parting Stephen from the ventilator for any extended period. There was, it appeared, no alternative to the tracheotomy, the operation which would allow him to breathe through a hole in the
windpipe, bypassing the troublesome membranes and muscles in his throat.