Travelling to Infinity (63 page)

Robert had enlisted the help of muscular undergraduate friends to lift the wheelchair and its occupant up the long, winding staircase to the Combination Room in the Old Schools building, where
the other honorary graduands, including Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, were assembling. Stephen just had time for a sip of apple juice before
Prince Philip, the Chancellor, arrived. Good-humouredly he came over to talk to us and recalled coming to West Road in 1981. He teased Tim about his hat and stayed to watch Stephen’s
demonstration of the computer before being whisked away to meet the other dignitaries. We passed the royal personage as we made our way out to prepare ourselves for the procession in advance of the
rest of the party. “Self-propelled, is it?” he asked. “Yes,” I replied, “watch out for your toes!”

The procession, which had already formed by the time we joined it, began to move forthwith. The four of us – Stephen, Robert, Tim and I – walked slowly round the Senate House lawn at
the tail end of the line-up, watched by the crowds outside the railings and the cameras within. The clouds of tension, friction and confusion evaporated in the fierce sunlight, and for a fleeting
moment it was hard to believe that they had ever existed. In the Senate House all was cool, dark and solemn. The assembly of red-robed Masters of Colleges and Professors and the Chancellor in his
gold-braided black robes took up their positions, and the audience of families and friends, dressed with the formality befitting an occasion of such pageantry, sat waiting in silent expectation. As
the great oak doors closed on the midday brilliance and the thronging informal crowds of T-shirted tourists outside, the combined choirs of St John’s and King’s opened the proceedings
with an anthem by Byrd, followed by a twentieth-century piece, and then the presentations began. A German theologian, the Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay, Pérez de Cuéllar and then
Stephen, were all introduced by the Public Orator, and in a witty Latin delivered with such panache and such flourish that when he concluded his oration in honour of Stephen, Tim – not
renowned for his Latin scholarship – burst into spontaneous applause. Pérez de Cuéllar was described as “having brought peace to the Persians and Mesopotamians”
while the substance of Stephen’s encomium was adapted from the first atomic theory as described by Lucretius in
De Rerum Natura
.

Amid much bowing, handshaking and doffing of hats, the Duke of Edinburgh conferred the degrees one by one, each presentation ending with a round of applause, which when Stephen’s turn came
attained rapturous proportions. Some of the graduands, such as the diminutive and frail figure of Sue Ryder, looked as nervous as young undergraduates; others, such as the opera singer Jessye
Norman and Stephen himself, were old hands at the game and received their ovations with confidence and style. The ceremony came to an end with more anthems and two verses of the National Anthem.
Leaving Tim with his grandparents, Robert and I processed out with Stephen, sedately walking round the green again before heading down King’s Parade in the blazing sun. Crowds cheered,
smiling and waving, and cameras clicked.

When we reached Corpus Christi College – which by coincidence was Robert’s college and the venue for the luncheon – we found ourselves surrounded by the nation’s great
and good, all wilting visibly in the heat inside the marquee, where champagne was being served, followed by lunch in another equally sweltering marquee. To add to Stephen’s discomfort, the
food was not suitable for him apart from the salmon. He was well entertained by his neighbour, but I had a fairly hard time with mine, a well-known authority on French history who seemed to have
nothing to say for himself until I mentioned our house in France. Then he came to life. His wife had just bought a property in Normandy, he said, but he was a city man and did not much care for the
country. Whereupon there was much mirth as he shared his views with Stephen and the latter grinned in agreement.

In the rising temperatures, the speeches were mercifully short. Starting with Stephen, “because everything begins with him”, the Duke of Edinburgh expressed his admiration of the
graduands, who “reflected the best of our civilization”. Lord Mackay replied briefly, and then it was all over. The rest of the day was a disturbing mixture of frivolity and encroaching
normality, as if the harsh reality of the gathering storm could not extend its reprieve for much longer.

At home a select group of relatives and friends had assembled, and the College had laid out a tea of smoked salmon sandwiches and strawberries and cream on the lawn, all to be consumed with
champagne. Robert was not at that party, as he had another engagement: early that evening he was to row in the Corpus second boat, racing in the Bumps. I managed to dash away from the lingering
guests just in time to see him row. The day, however long and eventful, was not yet over. Lucy came home in dire distress, as neither of her A-level papers had gone at all well, and then later in
the evening, when all the guests had left and I was clearing up, the telephone rang. It was Robert. We chatted for a bit and then he blurted out that his Finals results were out and they were not
as good as he had hoped. He was understandably very upset, and I too felt his humiliation and the irony of the situation keenly.

Robert, loyal and uncomplaining as ever, had dutifully assisted his father at the Senate House, had accompanied him in the formal procession, and had provided the team of helpers from among his
friends to lift him up steps and over obstacles in Corpus Christi College. With thoughtful reticence, he had witnessed his father’s good fortune without presuming on it, though always
overshadowed by it. All through the ceremony in his father’s honour, all through the excesses of media exposure, all through the compliments, the ovations and the accolades, Robert had kept
to himself the galling news that his Finals results, published that very day, were disappointing. The underlying truth of the situation was that his profound sense of individuality had rebelled
against the overpowering shadow of his father’s genius by mutely refusing to compete with it. I could not help feeling a much deeper pain for my son in his dismay than joy for my husband in
the full glory of his many-faceted success. I identified closely with Robert: I could only stand on the sidelines of Stephen’s success.

If Robert had not achieved the academic success he had been hoping for, he made up for his disappointment on the river. Pursued by the BBC film crew, I took Stephen down to the races the next
afternoon. Despite taking a wrong turning – the races take place on a stretch of the river at Fen Ditton five miles or so out of town – we arrived just in time to see the Corpus boat
flailing past, hot on the stern of the Lady Margaret boat. News filtered back up the river in their wake that the Corpus boat had bumped its prey. My father, who in his day had also rowed for
Corpus, was thrilled with Robert’s prowess on the river. He always regretted that, under constant pressure to aim high, he had not been able to relax and enjoy his years at Cambridge in the
1930s – which is why, in his opinion, it was important that Robert had made the most of his time as an undergraduate.

Late that evening of 16th June, we sat up to watch the announcement at midnight of the Birthday Honours. Inexplicably, Elaine Mason, the nurse in attendance, was disparaging
and disapproving, but my father hopped up and down with excitement at his son-in-law’s elevation to the higher echelons of the Establishment as a Companion of Honour. Like Stephen’s
father he derived a vicarious enjoyment from his proximity to the sort of public success that circumstance had denied him. The next morning I awoke to the more practical consideration of how to
open the day in a suitably festive manner. I had not given any thought to the start of the day and Stephen’s most important meal, his breakfast. Then I remembered that there was probably some
caviar left over from a trip to Moscow and champagne from Thursday’s celebrations in the fridge. The consequence of that extravagant breakfast was that none of us achieved very much that
morning, only managing to stumble across the fen to the University Centre, where I had booked a table for lunch. In the early afternoon, however, I cycled into town to check on the organization of
the evening’s concert in the Senate House, and found Jonathan’s family busy arranging the seating and the general layout while he rehearsed the orchestra. I left them to it and raced
back home to collect my father for a lightning trip down to the river. We arrived just in time to see the Corpus second boat rowing down bearing a willow branch, the sign that it had made yet
another triumphant bump.

That warm, cloudless June evening saw us back at the Senate House, astonished at the sight of the long line of friends and admirers who were patiently queuing to get in for the concert, aptly
entitled
Honoris Causa
. I steered Stephen away from making a tactless beeline for the exam results, the Class lists, which were posted up outside the Senate House, and left him sitting on
the same lawn around which we had processed only two days before. There he had his photo taken in company with various distinguished guests – from the firm sponsoring the concert, from his
College and from the University – while I went to investigate why the queue was moving so slowly. Its length was partly explained by the fact that ten-year-old Tim was the only programme
seller inside the building, though Lucy and my father were hard at work ushering the crowds to their seats. Having enlisted more help for Tim, I rejoined Stephen outside. The manager of the Senate
House insisted to my embarrassment that Stephen and I should make a formal entry, and detained us outside until the rest of the audience was seated. We were greeted by a standing ovation. While
Stephen beamed at the audience and pirouetted in his chair, I felt painfully shy and gauche and was glad to be able to sit down with my back to the audience.

A couple of minutes later, the sounds of the baroque trumpet in Purcell’s sonata for that gloriously commanding instrument opened the concert, soaring above the heads of the audience to
mingle with the ornate plasterwork of the eighteenth-century ceiling. Just as I hoped, the audience were so well satisfied at the end of their evening’s entertainment that they contributed
generously to the retiring collection, with the result that we were able to send handsome cheques to the three charities – the Motor Neuron Disease Association, Leukaemia Research and the
Leonard Cheshire Foundation – as well as covering the costs of the concert from ticket sales. Ostensibly the evening had been a tremendous success: the charities had benefited; the Cambridge
Baroque Camerata had secured a new sponsorship deal and had given a spectacular performance to a full Senate House; and, most importantly, Stephen had been lavishly fêted and applauded by
hundreds of well-wishers. He, however, was edgy and disgruntled. His perceptions of the event were coloured by the grudging view that Jonathan and the orchestra had obscured his share of the
limelight. This was as unjust as it was unlike Stephen’s normal character. He had entered into the project with excitement and, when he had not been in America, had involved himself in its
development with enthusiasm. Jonathan with his natural reserve had carefully stepped aside to allow Stephen to revel in the audience’s adulation at the end of the performance, and indeed
there could have been no doubt that it was Stephen’s show. It was even less like Stephen that he should remind me that, since the honour bore no title, I had no part in it. The conclusion was
as inescapable as it was unpalatable: he had fallen prey to flattery. The sycophantic sources of this flattery were not disinterested, and seemed to be feeding him ideas which were at odds with his
formerly generous if stubborn nature.

The limelight was blindingly focused on Stephen for the rest of that summer, never more so than when we made our second visit to Buckingham Palace a few weeks later, though by comparison with
the first visit, seven years earlier, this one was surprisingly intimate. We followed a similar routine – again staying at the Royal Society the night before – but with the difference
that this time Tim and Amarjit Chohan, Stephen’s Indian nurse, came with us, and Lucy had remembered to pack her smart shoes to go with the dark-brown dress which set off her blond hair
beautifully. Again, just as before, the traffic in the Mall was at a standstill, though this time it was on account of the Changing of the Guard. To avoid the congestion around the main entrance,
we were directed to the Queen’s private entrance and were suddenly transported into a quiet, colourful country garden away from the hot stuffy turmoil of London and its traffic. An equerry,
footmen and a lady-in-waiting greeted us with graciously imperturbable smiles and ushered us into the Palace, past the gleaming toy car that Prince Charles had had as a child and a couple of bikes,
and up into the vast marble-pillared hall, which was lit along its entire length and furnished in red and pink damask. Huge displays of lilies stood like decorative sentinels, guarding the
treasures.

We turned a corner and doubled back along the picture gallery, quickly retracing our steps over the marble hall, with scarcely a moment to glance at the portraits of Charles I and his family,
gazing in mute detachment at each other across the floor. A couple of Canalettos, a Dutch genre painting and lots of portraits of Princess Augusta caught my eye. We turned into a passage so narrow
that it might have led to servants’ quarters, and were shown into a small side room full of paintings and furniture, the Empire Room. After a brisk briefing from the equerry, Stephen and I
were hurried away from the family to meet the Queen, who was waiting in a room at the end of the passage. True to form, Stephen charged ahead towards the open door across the passage. There by the
mantelpiece stood the Queen, wearing a royal blue dress streaked with white. She glanced in our direction with a friendly but apprehensive smile. This soon changed to a look of absolute horror when
Stephen, bursting in haste into her reception room, rolled the carpet up in his wheels like a cowpusher on an American locomotive. The chair hoovered up the edge of the thick coffee-coloured
carpet, tying it up in knots, bringing Stephen to an abrupt halt and blocking the way into the room. From behind the chair I could not easily see what was happening, and there was nothing I could
do to release the royal pile. The Queen was the only person inside the room. She hesitated, and then for one moment made a gesture, as if she herself were about to step forwards and lift the heavy
mechanism and its occupant out of the snare. Fortunately the equerry who had announced us squeezed past the chair, lifted the front wheels and sorted out the mess.