Travelling to Infinity (61 page)

The weather was so kind during the Easter holiday that northern France acquired a deceptively Mediterranean aspect. The long white walls and low red roofs of the house and outbuildings glowed in
the bright sun against an azure sky, while clouds of white blossom fluttered to earth like silken snowflakes in the meadow and the shrubbery. Even Stephen was impressed, though he complained that
the countryside was as flat as Cambridgeshire. This was not actually true, as Robert was to discover when he set off on a bicycle ride. The house stood on top of a plateau, which was divided by
many a meandering river valley with villages, water mills, ruined châteaux, abbayes, poplar trees and trout streams. Stephen appeared to like it – though, of course, he would never
allow himself to admit it. Whatever his opinions about country life and quaint old houses, he certainly enjoyed the social scene. He and the children went out to buy pink champagne for the
house-warming party, which we gave for all our neighbours and for all the people who had helped me with the purchase or worked on the house. Stephen was the willing centre of attraction: he
demonstrated his computer and its ability to speak a garbled, Americanized version of the French language to everyone’s amusement, and graciously acknowledged the abundant congratulations
showered on him on the success of his book. The children had quickly made new friends, and even Tim was communicating effectively in French with a few well-chosen words and gestures, like
“
football?
” or “
jouer?
”. He did however object to being kissed on both cheeks at every encounter, until Robert remarked to his mystification that in a few
years’ time he would be only too pleased to be kissed on both cheeks by the girls. As for me, in France I could be French, spontaneous and natural and true to myself, neither having to
justify my actions nor apologize for my existence.

The shoots of my budding self-esteem, cultivated in the soil of French society, were to be quickly crushed back in England. Optimistic as ever, I did not anticipate that the
arrival in late April of a Hollywood film producer would signal the opening shots in the next onslaught on our home life. He seemed friendly enough, inspiring my confidence with stories of his
young family, and conveying a genuine sense of purpose in his plan to make a film of
A Brief History of Time
. His would be a serious, informative film of the book, and he liked my idea
that it should take the form of a journey in time and the universe through the eyes of a child. The idea was appealing. So long as the film remained strictly scientific and could be imaginatively
done, using the innovative technology of graphics, his plans augured well.

Hot on his heels came an American film crew, directed by a lively woman who also won my confidence with her sympathetic approach. It had become the accepted routine that film crews would first
wreak havoc in the Department before turning their attention to our home for a reassuring touch of cosiness in the otherwise enigmatic portrait of the disabled genius. On initial acquaintance the
directors would all appear to be pleasant, considerate, ordinary people, effusively promising that any disturbance would be kept to an absolute minimum. Their fly-on-the-wall approach would take no
time at all and would require only a few shots, causing no disruption to our normal activities. Cameras, cables, arc lights and microphones would all remain at a discreet distance; the furniture
would not be moved; we could dress informally and go about our daily business as usual.

The reality bore no relation to these promises. Without exception, in the short interim between pleasantries and filming, the procedures would – before our shocked eyes – become
devastatingly intrusive. Disregarding the assurances they had given, all the producers and directors would plead shortage of time or scarcity of funds in mitigation of their sudden change of
approach as soon as the cameras started rolling. Items of furniture would be shoved around, often damaged, never to be returned to their original positions; blinding arc lamps and glaring
reflective screens on cold metal supports would supplant well-worn familiar clutter, obscuring the furniture and the books and newspapers; lengths of cable would snake hazardously across the floors
in and out of every room; microphones would be hung from any available hook or shelf. We strangers in the harshly transformed landscape of our unrecognizable tubular steel home would be typecast in
our parts: the principle (though untrained) actors in the drama, expected to react with natural grace and aplomb for the eye of the camera, that twentieth-century sacred object of worship. As I
watched helplessly and participated reluctantly, a despairing voice inside me protested. Surely, it complained, there had to be a middle way between this insatiable nosiness and the starkly
impersonal approach of the BBC Horizon film some years before. But an imaginative middle way would demand both more time and more money than any of the directors had at their disposal as they
rushed frenziedly from one project to the next.

For want of any outlet, my silent rebellion at this extra burden rumbled beneath the surface. Despite the complaints of the children, especially of Lucy, for whom the glare of publicity and the
intrusion of the cameras were most distracting as her exams approached, I was in no position to bar the cameras from the house for fear of further antagonizing Stephen, who positively relished the
publicity. He had just returned from yet another trip to America, but the respite did not arm me with sufficient strength to combat the depredations of the film crew at what was always for me the
worst season of the year, when tree pollens settled like pepper dust in my sinuses. The American director, who at first sight had appeared so friendly and likeable, rapidly became assertive, indeed
embarrassingly so, when her cameras trailed us into town to film my usual routine of Saturday-morning shopping. It was unusual for me to be accompanied in this weekly chore by Stephen and his
retinue, even more so that we should all have a fully fledged film crew trailing our steps. There was no possibility of taking evasive action. It might not have been so bad if they had actually
lent a hand with the shopping instead of following us like shadows, poking their cameras and microphones into my face as I loaded the shopping trolley to the rim and dragged its heavy weight home
behind me.

The primary function of this film was supposed to be a portrait of Stephen for an American television news channel; subsequently it was to serve the dual purpose of providing a snippet of
biographical background for the other scientific documentary based on
A Brief History of Time
. Only the thought that this spate of filming would be serving both purposes made that horrible
weekend bearable. By the time that an urbane interviewer-journalist and his wife arrived for drinks that Saturday evening, I was in no mood to welcome any more film or television personalities or
technicians into the house. Scarcely had I introduced myself to them than the journalist’s wife casually asked, just as I was handing her a drink, “Do you have a religion?” Her
enquiry was delivered with an unabashed coolness which froze my frayed nerves. I turned on my vapid interrogator, more or less telling her to mind her own business, but then, instantly overcome
with remorse, I heard myself foolishly inviting the entire team to dinner in compensation for my rudeness.

Alone, late at night, I lay in bed aware that a trap was closing over me. The stress of publicity was forcing me to behave in ways that were uncharacteristic and untrue to myself, yet there was
no clear way out. It was obvious that, in the eyes of the media, I had become an appendage, a peep show – relevant to Stephen’s survival and his success only because in the distant past
I had married him, made a home for him and produced his three children. Nowadays I was there to appease the media’s desire for comforting personal detail while inwardly my spirit rebelled
both at the indignity and at my own helplessness.

Ten days after that bout of filming had come to an end, Stephen gave the Schrödinger lecture in a hot, stuffy lecture theatre, packed to capacity, at Imperial College, London.
Schrödinger’s equation, the fundamental equation for the science of quantum mechanics which he developed in 1926, bears the same relation to the mechanics of the atom as Newton’s
laws of motion bear to the movement of the planets. Stephen’s lecture about imaginary time was as lucid as it could be, and afterwards he was fêted and pursued by representatives from
IBM, the firm that had sponsored the lecture, who hankered for a photograph with him, presumably as one of the perks of their job. I stood diffidently to one side, thinking that I was the only
non-scientist present, until I was introduced to Schrödinger’s daughter, whom I had encountered once before at a similar occasion in Dublin in 1983. She was quiet and unassuming,
informing me for the second time that she was Schrödinger’s daughter by someone other than his wife, but had later been adopted by Mrs Schrödinger. I was sorry for her; she was
uncomfortably pursued by her father’s legacy – as much embarrassed perhaps by his reputation as a womanizer as she was haunted by his scientific fame – and walked in his shadow. I
feared for my children – hers was not a fate that I wanted for them.

The following Saturday, before setting off into town to sell flags for the National Schizophrenia Foundation, I opened Stephen’s mail for him as usual. It contained a letter from the Prime
Minister Mrs Thatcher in which she proposed recommending his name to the Queen as a Companion of Honour in the forthcoming Birthday Honours’ List. The proposal sent us running for the
encyclopedia. It revealed that this singular honour was one of the highest in the land, ranking above a knighthood and discreetly conveyed, without title, simply by the letters placed after the
name. As Stephen was on the point of leaving for America, it fell to me to accept on his behalf.

Since Stephen had already been nominated for an Honorary Doctorate of Science at the University of Cambridge, the summer promised to mark the apogee of his career – though how that, with
its inevitable flood of media interest, was to be reconciled with Lucy’s A-levels and Robert’s Finals, let alone stability and harmony, was not at all obvious. Our priorities were
diverging drastically. Mine was the preservation of the sanctity of the home and the privacy of our family life – or such tatters of it as remained after the nurses had done their worst to
tear it apart and after the media had plundered every corner of it. Stephen was, for all his fame, but one member of a family where no one person had the right to be more important than any other.
Although his medical condition demanded more attention for him than for anyone else, the home had still to cater fairly for the needs of all its occupants, adults and children alike. The children
must never have cause to resent the circumstances into which they had been born.

Stephen, for his part, delighted in the publicity. He revelled in his relationship with the media, who had made his name a household word all over the world. His fame, in the face of a sceptical
and sometimes hostile society, represented the triumph not only of his mind over the secrets of the universe, but also of his body over death and disability. For him any publicity was good
publicity and could always be justified by claiming that it would increase the sales of the book. A case of champagne arrived from Bantam Press later that summer in celebration of
A Brief
History of Time
’s fifty-second week on the best-seller list. In the fifty-third week, it shot back to its commanding position at number one. It seemed that he had succeeded in
reconciling two extremes in the task he had set himself: in his description of his branch of science, the most fundamental and the most elusive of all the sciences, he had managed to placate the
scientific intelligentsia and attract the popular reader.

Although there was no denying that the book was a phenomenal success, I tried to keep the correspondence relating to the handsome royalties confidential. If our sudden flush of wealth were to
become generally advertised, I knew that I risked losing many of my real friends with whom in the past I had scraped and saved to make ends meet, and I was also well aware that any publicity given
to our enhanced financial status would attract exactly the sort of people with whom I did not want to associate. In the past, while Stephen’s mind was focused on weightier matters, I had
handled our financial affairs, always with an anxious eye on that uncertain future when Stephen might be too ill to work and the money might run out. I had run the family budget prudently and had
accumulated sufficient savings to pay Lucy’s school fees and to provide a buffer against the rainy day, which for us could run to months and years. Since the signing of the contract for
A
Brief History
in 1985, I had also dealt with the correspondence on that subject with the agent in New York. Unaccountably, the arrangement whereby I handled the royalties was suddenly
overturned behind my back. It was from the agent in New York that I learnt of this change: he told me that he had been instructed to send all correspondence relating to the book to Stephen in the
Department and no longer to me at home. I had no idea what had provoked this change, and Stephen gave no explanation. It was as if, after many years of mutual trust, my ability to handle financial
affairs efficiently and with discretion was being called into question. In the resulting confusion, even the most casual helpers were allowed to open and read private correspondence; it was spread
out on desks and tables, left strewn around for all to see, as if in black-and-white confirmation of the undisputed supremacy of genius.

Stephen’s second trip to America that spring allowed us all a breathing space from impossible tensions in which to return to those other elements of a more regular lifestyle, the teaching,
the studying, the literature and the music, and to settle into simpler, more relaxed habits without the vain and wearisome distractions of fame, publicity and contentious nurses. Tim fulfilled one
of his passions when we took off for a promised weekend to Legoland in Denmark, and later in May we returned to France for half-term.