Time to Be in Earnest (32 page)

I went at
2
o’clock to Bush House to discuss on the BBC World Service
Thrones, Dominations
, Jill Paton Walsh’s completion of an unfinished novel by Dorothy L. Sayers. Our interviewer was Harriett Gilbert. I had been sent the six chapters some time ago and asked whether I would like to complete the novel, but I didn’t think it could satisfactorily be done. The fragment, obviously very much a first draft, was about 40,000 words long and DLS was clearly less concerned with plotting a detective story than with the preoccupation previously dealt with in
Gaudy Night:
How does a woman with both heart and brain reconcile the emotional and sexual side of her nature with her intellect?

She certainly never managed to do this satisfactorily herself. It is interesting how often unintelligent, even stupid, women manage their emotional lives more satisfactorily than do their cleverer sisters. When Harriet Vane says in
Gaudy Night
that the reason she values the life of the mind is because this is the only part of her life she hasn’t made a mess of, she is obviously speaking for her author. DLS was made deeply unhappy, even distraught, by her unconsummated love affair with John Courtos,
subsequently found sexual satisfaction but no commitment in the arms of a married philanderer, and finally married a divorced man who resented her fame and sank into alcoholic bad temper. No wonder she distrusted the emotions. For Dorothy L. Sayers, even her religion was a matter of intellectual assent to dogma, not an emotional response to a personal God.

Jill Paton Walsh, an admirer both of Sayers and of Lord Peter, has managed to reflect the Sayers style, remain true to the proposed theme and provide a detective story very much in the mode of the 1930s. She has not incorporated the whole of the Sayers draft, wisely excluding the more embarrassing passages. I easily detected the vital clue and had little doubt about the identity of the murderer but this, too, made the book typical of its age. I doubt whether anyone could have done it better.

Afterwards I went to the House to listen to the second reading of the Crime and Punishment Bill and two speeches on the abolition of
doli incapax
, the requirement of courts to be satisfied that children accused of criminal acts know that the acts are seriously wrong, not merely childish bad behaviour. I made a brief and not particularly relevant intervention in which I recounted an incident I saw in a juvenile court. An agreeable small delinquent with the face of a roguish angel and attired in a multi-striped hand-knitted pullover had been accused of letting off an airgun in a supermarket. His response to the question whether he knew it was wrong—“I knew it was against the law, but I didn’t know it was wrong”—provided a nice problem of law for the juvenile justices.

Yesterday I had dinner at the Dorchester with Rosemary Herbert, the journalist from Boston whom I first met when she interviewed me about twenty years ago and who has become something of an expert on crime writing. Rosemary is at present Editor-in-Chief of a compendium of crime writing to be published by Oxford University Press. She is anxious for me to cooperate on an anthology of the best crime short stories in the last hundred years, to be published at the Millennium. The suggestion is that I write the foreword and introductions to the selected stories. I said I would not wish any major work to be published by a publisher other
than Faber and suggested that she provide a written proposal which I could consider, and if necessary discuss.

I am not a natural collaborator and I suspect that few novelists are. A novel is essentially the product of an individual voice and a single concentrated mind. Drama can be collaborative and textbooks frequently are, but I can think of no major work of fiction written by more than one author. Canaletto might ask an apprentice to paint in an inch or two of waves, but I can’t imagine Dickens, however hard pressed, handing over a synopsis to a pupil and asking him to help out with some of the duller chapters.

A car called this morning to drive me to Birmingham to take part in the BBC quiz programme
Call My Bluff
. Our captain was Alan Coren and my fellow panellist the actor Michael Maloney. On the other side were Kate Adie, Sandi Toksvig and Robert Daws. I can remember when Frank Muir sat on one side against Patrick Campbell, now alas both dead. I am told that they took the game with deadly seriousness and both hated to lose. Luckily our captain was less fanatical, but I was surprised how glad I was not to have made a fool of myself. The final score for both games was a draw of three points each.

The game was recorded at the International Convention Centre and I was astounded how much the centre of Birmingham has changed for the better. I remember going to my father-in-law’s funeral some fifteen years ago and walking out of Birmingham Station to take a look at the city while waiting for my connection. The Bull Ring appalled me: a concrete monstrosity in which only motorists, criminals and psychopaths could feel at home. It is still in place, but I believe the city fathers plan to demolish it. In contrast, the development by the canal is impressive and obviously designed for human beings. Old brick buildings have been restored and there are outdoor cafés and walkways by the canal. Gradually some cities are putting right the follies of the 1960s.

At Southwold with Lyn and Clare. Yesterday was dull and with intermittent rain but still warm. Clare and I went to the small antique shop
in the High Street to buy her birthday present. She chose an enchanting Victorian souvenir of Cambridge, a little circular wooden inkstand with a glass pot and a coloured plaque of King’s College Chapel, together with two very heavy square-cut glass inkstands. I found another brown Doulton jug for the kitchen shelf. We had a celebration dinner at the Swan and then went back to the house to review the rough-cut video of
A Certain Justice
.

This was more enjoyable and did less violence to the story than I had feared. The fact remains that it is impossible adequately to adapt a long and complex novel for the small screen in three episodes. Inspector Piers Tarrant has been dropped, with the somewhat risible effect that Dalgliesh and Kate Miskin appear to be the only police officers on the job, evoking the comment from Clare that Scotland Yard was obviously economizing on manpower. This impression is reinforced by the number of interviews which Dalgliesh conducts, not at headquarters, but at any convenient place where he happens to be. But the beginning is very effective, a clever piece of adaptation, and the acting good throughout.

At first I thought that the actress playing Octavia, Venetia’s daughter, was too pretty, but she conveyed an impression of vulnerability combined with obstinacy which is effective, and the young man playing the psychopath—an extremely difficult part—is convincing. The trial scene is well done (court scenes seldom fail on television), but the actress playing Venetia moves in court to demonstrate how far a television set is from the witness. I had learned during research that barristers do not move in court and that she would have asked a solicitor to do this for her. As it is, every barrister will note the mistake. Another anomaly is the introduction of Venetia’s memorial service. The timescale of the novel is short; indeed the plot depends on this; and in the book there hasn’t even been time for the inquest, let alone a cremation and memorial service. But I can see a reason for introducing it. Dalgliesh is present, as are all the barrister suspects, and the camera can range from face to face with the unspoken question: Is this the one? The scene is not true to the book, but if I mildly protest I am sure I shall be met with the usual excuse: it makes good television. On the whole, though, I think this will be regarded as one of the more successful adaptations.

I awoke today to beautiful spring weather. Lyn and I walked round the dunes to Walberswick and met Clare, who had taken the path across the common, at the Harbour Inn. It didn’t open for coffee until 12, so we
didn’t wait but walked back on the narrow path fringing the road and the water meadows and had a drink at the Lord Nelson. We left as darkness fell, and I spent the night with Lyn and Clare in Cambridge.

The Prime Minister has exhorted us to show a little more enthusiasm for the Millennium Dome, which he has prophesied will be the envy of the world. This I rather doubt, but I imagine that the Dome Experience will be some kind of repetition of the Diana Experience; once it becomes fashionable to make one’s pilgrimage, everyone will want to join in. It can’t be allowed to be a failure and if enough money is spent on promotion, it won’t be. Perhaps the country will be gripped by Dome mania.

I don’t in the least object to a pleasure dome providing a happy day out for all the family, but I do feel antagonistic to the idea that this will be some great cultural experience. If I want to immerse myself in the history of England I have the National Portrait Gallery as well as the V&A and the British Museum, and any passion for scientific achievement can be met by the National Science Museum. For those who want to experience religious emotion, our country’s churches, cathedrals and all other places of worship offer a more appropriate place than the spiritual area of the Dome.

I suppose what I most dislike about it is the idea of spending £750 million on a building without first knowing what its purpose will be. If we are celebrating 2,000 years of recorded time, surely something more permanent could have been erected, preferably a modern theatre for opera and dance. Visitors could come up by river—a quarter of the cost of the Dome could subsidize river boats—and there could be restaurants and riverside gardens. Then the Royal Opera House, suitably renovated and with its facilities updated, could be used for smaller operas. I suggested this when I was a member of the Arts Council but I can’t remember that it was received with particular enthusiasm.

Hubris has inspired me to celebrate the Dome with a Dome Pome. This is likely to be the only verse included in my diary, which is just as well: