Travelling to Infinity (57 page)

The link between Newton’s personal tastes and music was rather tenuous but, taken with all the other considerations, his theoretical interest was strong enough to justify putting on a
concert of the music of his era to celebrate his tercentenary. Another of the considerations centred on the fact that Newton’s genius was initially fired by the new approach to science coming
from France, while with the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 a wave of enthusiasm for the innovative French style in music came to England with Charles II – inspiring the other great
English genius of the period, Henry Purcell. Since, together with the music of Bach and Handel, the music of Henry Purcell formed the basis of the Cambridge Baroque Camerata’s repertoire,
there could have been no more appropriate way of entertaining the delegates to the Newton tercentenary conference than with a concert of the music of that period. However much Stephen might have
preferred it, a performance of the
Ring Cycle
was hardly feasible. The great advantage of such a prestigious occasion, to be held in Trinity College, was that it attracted commercial
sponsorship for the orchestra at last, not only enabling Jonathan to put his musical enterprise on a secure footing, but also to make a recording of the programme, entitled
Principia
Musica.

Again, Stephen, Jonathan and I seemed to have struggled back to some sort of synthesis of our various talents and interests. Although the modern physics of quantum theory was completely beyond
me, I could research Newtonian physics with some understanding of the concepts if not of the mathematics, and I could make myself useful liaising between the mathematical and the musical aspects of
that summer’s major endeavour. I enjoyed concert organization: it was hard work but, like teaching, it gave me a sense of self-worth. As well as the practical business of concert promotion,
arranging the venue, the advertising, the ticketing and so on, there was the intellectual stimulus of researching the background to the music for the programme notes. In pursuit of information
about the late seventeenth-century musical scene, I found myself drawn back into the precincts of the University Library, where the frenetic tempo of daily existence slowed to a reverent, unhurried
pace. My researches yielded a welcome connection between Newton and Purcell in the writings of an eminent seventeenth-century musicologist and undergraduate contemporary of Newton’s, Roger
North, who concluded that the great “practical diversions” of his life had been “reducible to two heads: one, Mathematicks, and the other Musick”. His delight in mathematics
culminated in “Mr Newton’s new and most exquisitely thought” hypothesis of light “as a blended mixture of all colours”. As for music, there can be little doubt that
“the devine Purcell” afforded him the greatest pleasure as he came “full saile into the superiority of the musicall faculty”.

As in days past, the hours I could spend in the University Library were lamentably scarce. There was time only for dashing in to check a few references before rushing out with a pile of books
under my arm. Before the Newton celebrations in July, there was a flurry of other activities to be fitted into the calendar. I was never at rest, propelled by an inner tension which pervaded every
aspect of my being – physical, mental, intellectual, creative and spiritual. Yet again, I had to prove to myself that I was a worthy companion to Stephen’s genius, and to the world at
large I had to prove that we were still operating as a normal family. Apart from our academic activities, there were more parties and dinners, more work for charities, more concerts and
conferences, more travel and more honorary degrees. Though other families led busy lives, by comparison with theirs ours was not normal: it was insane. I depended for my survival on all the support
and reinforcement that my myriad activities and my family, friends and Jonathan could give me. Stephen’s nursing companions, gifted in neither insight nor imagination, viewed these pit-props
to be counter to Stephen’s interests rather than supportive of them. Soon I, and the rest of the family, were made to feel that we should be apologizing for our presence, for our very
existence, for breathing the same air as the man of genius. More often than not, it was Lucy who helped me keep a sense of perspective and Jonathan who encouraged me to retain some self-respect.
Jonathan’s frequent and comforting presence however had increasingly become the cause of much tight-lipped whispering and drawing-in of breath by those outsiders who, in their shallowness,
sought to govern others by standards which, as events were to prove, they themselves were unable to sustain.

As Lucy was continuing with her Russian studies and was in her first year of A levels, she came to Moscow again in May 1987 with Stephen and me for yet another conference at the Academy of
Sciences. The Academy, like so many other Russian institutions, was quietly dropping its former “Soviet” nomenclature in recognition of the dramatic change which was taking place in
Russian society. “
Perestroika
” and “
glasnost
” were the words dancing on everybody’s lips with an infectious excitement, bordering upon euphoria.
“What do you think of the changing state of affairs in this country?” journalists asked Lucy and me after Stephen’s public lecture. “The very fact that you can ask such a
question is proof enough of the extraordinary change,” we replied. Freedom of speech, freedom from oppression, freedom to travel – these were astoundingly precious liberties to people
who had been restricted to the chilling, grey confines of a shadowy one-party state.

We too were much freer than on previous visits to Moscow. We could go where we liked without being accompanied or trailed, and the entertainment provided for us was not just the obligatory visit
to the Bolshoi but a concert in a church outside Moscow as well. Religious fervour had gripped Moscow. In the church of the Novodevichy Monastery, for example, the air was thick with the smoke of
hundreds of lit candles, around which the faithful were chanting and genuflecting as if to make up for lost time. By coincidence, I had spent the winter months rehearsing Rachmaninov’s
Vespers
with the choir – in Russian – for performance in Jesus College Chapel in March. To my delighted surprise, the concert to which we were taken was performed by a similar
group of amateur singers and consisted of unaccompanied Russian liturgical settings, sounding very much like the
Vespers
in an atmosphere that was tense with the novelty and promise of
reawakening tradition. Against a richly gilded backdrop of icons, the majestic
basso profondo
voices summoned up dark Russian vowels, rolled them on the tongue and emitted them into the
resonant spaces of the ancient church, where their deep-toned sonorities held the audience enraptured.

Through being in Moscow, I missed an occasion in Cambridge which was of profound significance not only to the children, Jonathan and me, but to the whole of the parish of St Mark’s. Our
vicar, Bill Loveless, was retiring. So devastated was the congregation at losing its dearly loved incumbent that the parish went into a state resembling collective mourning for a long period after
his departure. In the spring Lucy had taken the opportunity to attend Bill’s final series of classes, leading to her confirmation. At about that time, in honour of his forthcoming retirement,
the choir put on a concert at which I sang a couple of his favourite Schubert
lieder
, including
Die Forelle
, and afterwards we held a large farewell supper party at West Road.
Even so, I was sad not to be present at his last Sunday service. He had a fund of wisdom of which I had only scratched the surface; indeed, one of his last sermons, on the theme of the search for a
quiet mind, had impressed me deeply. In it he uncovered every aspect of my own lack of peace: my concerns, my fears – for Stephen, for my children and for myself – my inability to rest,
the tensions and the cares, the frustrations and the uncertainties. He also broached that other group of emotional disturbances associated with an unquiet mind, those evoked by guilt, to which I
was no stranger. Self-reproach trailed me like a menacing shadow. I listened for whatever scraps of comfort he could throw in my direction. Live in the present, he said, and trust in God through
darkness, pain and fear. Then, as he quoted the biblical passage from Corinthians, “God will not suffer you to be tested more than you are able”, I felt that his words were aimed at me
alone. Guilt, he went on to say, is the risk that comes from striving always for the highest and the best; love is the only answer to guilt. Only in love can we sustain each other. His words
offered a new resolution to the gnawing dilemma of guilt. Love was most certainly the force that sustained our household. According to that reckoning, I was being true to my promise: I had love for
everyone, abundant maternal love for each of the children, love for Stephen as well as love for Jonathan. Love had many facets, Agape as well as Eros, and I wanted to continue to prove my love for
Stephen by doing my best for him, but sometimes that love became so entangled with the legion of worries generated by the responsibility for his care that it was hard to know where anxiety ended
and love began. Stephen himself was insulted by any mention of compassion: he equated it with pity and religious sentimentality. He refused to understand it and rejected it outright.

With a little help from Shakespeare, Stephen had devised a title for his book; the manuscript had been moulded into a form acceptable to the publisher and a date in June 1988
was set for publication. The American edition was to be published in the spring, before the British edition. That first American edition had to be pulped at the last minute because of the fear of
legal action on account of certain aspersions cast in the text on the integrity of a couple of American scientists. This misfortune allowed a minor omission to be rectified: Stephen had dedicated
A Brief History of Time
to me, a gesture which came as a much appreciated public acknowledgement, but the dedication had been left out of the American edition. The presses were put into
overdrive to produce ten thousand copies of the amended edition within days, the potential libel was erased, my name featured in the dedication and the book was launched in the United States.

While Stephen was in America for the launch, Tim and I went to stay with his best friend Arthur and his parents, who were now living in Germany. The two little boys saw each other rarely these
days, yet neither of them had made other close friends; when they met, they happily settled into their familiar routine, like long-lost brothers. As there had been a late fall of snow in the Black
Forest, Arthur’s father, Kevin, surprised us by asking if we would like to go skiing. I had never skied in my life and never expected to do so, although rumour had it that Stephen used to be
a competent skier and Lucy regularly went skiing with her friends. Indeed, at that very moment she was in the Alps recovering from an arduous run of rehearsals for a play which she and her
companions in the Cambridge Youth Theatre were to perform in Cambridge in April before appearing at the Edinburgh Festival in the summer. Tim and I jumped at the chance to learn to ski. He learnt
quickly, hurling himself down the slopes at breakneck speed, threatening to overshoot the car park at the bottom. I watched helplessly while Arthur’s mother, Belinda, desperately shouted
instructions at him to snowplough – that is, to slow down by turning the skis inwards. The memory of broken arms when learning to ice-skate made me much more wary and nervous – until I
realized that snow was a soft bed, if cold and wet, to fall into or onto. During that weekend in the Black Forest, I recovered some of my lost bravado. High up on the hillside, with the wind in my
face and the sun shining on the glistening white snow, I rejoiced at the release from the treadmill of care and responsibility, and from the divisive, tedious squabbles of petulant nurses which had
made our home life such an unendingly depressing struggle. Skiing demanded one-hundred per cent concentration, both physical and mental: the immediate objective was the bottom of the slope, and the
only question the brain could accommodate was how to get there in one piece.

Stephen was in America for over three weeks. Soon after his return, we were to set off together to Jerusalem, where he was to collect the prestigious Wolf Prize, awarded jointly to him and Roger
Penrose for distinction in physics.

My misgivings about the Israel trip were not solely caused by my reluctance to leave the family or to take time from teaching. Although I was looking forward to meeting Hanna Scolnicov, my
friend from Lucy Cavendish days, I was not much looking forward to visiting the holiest, most ancient city in the world in the company of a party of physicists: I would have preferred a pilgrimage
with more like-minded people, but I had no choice. There was a discernible tension in the air when Stephen said that, if I did not want to go, he was sure that Elaine Mason, the nurse who had
accompanied him to America, would be happy to go in my place.

He had resented my refusal to go to America with him in March when Tim and I had gone skiing and, since his return, the communication lines between us had become brittle and taut. My suggestion
that he should sack some of the troublemakers among the nurses met with the blank, incontestable reply, “I need good nurses”. When I offered to collaborate with him on a proposed
autobiography, a project which I hoped would bring us closer together, his reaction was dismissive: “I should be glad of your opinion.” Only then did I start to perceive the truth of
what other nurses had been trying to tell me for some time, namely that one of their number was exerting undue influence over Stephen, deliberately provoking and exploiting every disagreement
between us. Naturally my relationship with Jonathan featured large in the increasingly extravagant web of wile and deceit that was being woven and, as far as that was concerned, there was little I
could say in my own defence, since clearly in the eyes of the world our relationship was a guilty one.