Read Trials of the Monkey Online
Authors: Matthew Chapman
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Nonfiction, #Retail
Trials of the Monkey (10 page)
A moment: once, when I was grown up and already writing, we were walking out along the dyke, the wind as usual ripping at our clothes, when she saw a plant and rubbed her hands together. She had the habit of stretching monosyllabic words or
pausing in the middle of longer ones and then stretching out the following syllable for emphasis.
pausing in the middle of longer ones and then stretching out the following syllable for emphasis.
‘I think you’re going to like this one, Matthew. I can’t imagine who on eaaaarth would come up with such an extra-oooordinarily unpleasant name for such a harmless plant but that is
shrubby sea-blite!
Isn’t that abso-
loootely
marvellous?’
shrubby sea-blite!
Isn’t that abso-
loootely
marvellous?’
These forays into the fresh air were when she was happiest and when my father clearly loved her most. There was an innocence to her, something invigoratingly fresh and pre-war English about her. ‘Crumbling jumbos,’ she’d declare as we tramped back from the beach, leaning against the wind and shivering, ‘it’s not
that
cold. Pull your socks up!’
that
cold. Pull your socks up!’
Yes, this she loved, the bleak, chilly, windswept beauty of Norfolk.
And she loved us, her children.
But nothing works, least of all this last assumption, because now my mind lurches, as always, back to the great mystery. How could she be so melancholy when she had us, her four children, to love? How, if she loved us, could she inflict so much pain? How could she be so miserable that nothing would induce her to seek help
if only for our sakes?
What incredible depths of sorrow could so contort a woman that she’d lay waste to all she loved with this ravaging despair?
if only for our sakes?
What incredible depths of sorrow could so contort a woman that she’d lay waste to all she loved with this ravaging despair?
I want to believe that my mother’s life was worth living, that the sum of happiness was greater than that of sorrow. I want to believe this, but cannot. I think she was fundamentally and profoundly unhappy most of her life.
Born in 1924, she grew up among the most interesting and artistic people in Cambridge. Her mother, Frances Darwin, daughter of Sir Francis Darwin, had married another Francis, Francis Cornford, Greek scholar and Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge. Both Frances’ parents, Francis and Ellen, were prone to depression. Frances was far worse, suffering, during her life, three long and severe depressions, the shortest lasting two years, the longest six. Hugh, my
uncle who was a doctor, described the condition as ‘depressive psychosis.’
uncle who was a doctor, described the condition as ‘depressive psychosis.’
My grandmother is most famous for a poem she did not much like, ‘To a Fat Lady Seen from a Train.’
O why do you walk through the field in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the field in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
And shivering-sweet to the touch
?
O why do you walk though the field in gloves,
Missing so much and so much
?
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the field in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
And shivering-sweet to the touch
?
O why do you walk though the field in gloves,
Missing so much and so much
?
Her husband, Francis, was a brilliant but introverted scholar whose translation of Plato’s
Republic
is still used in universities. He also wrote
The Origins of Attic Comedy, Thucydides Mythistoricus, and Before and After Socrates,
all of which examined Greek philosophy from a modern psychological perspective.
Republic
is still used in universities. He also wrote
The Origins of Attic Comedy, Thucydides Mythistoricus, and Before and After Socrates,
all of which examined Greek philosophy from a modern psychological perspective.
Clare was the youngest of five children, three boys and two girls. Until she was ten, her life was that of a fairly normal upper middle class girl. The family lived in a large house a mile outside Cambridge. Named Conduit Head, it had been given to Frances and Francis by her father as a wedding present. Frances did not like being a grown-up and had no interest in taking care of domestic matters, but this was not a problem because there was a cook and two or three other domestic servants, including a gardener who maintained the large garden with its tall hedges, beds of roses and snapdragons, and at the end, most important to us children, a rotating wooden sun-house which could be spun like a roundabout.
When she was not depressed, Frances was lively and engaged. For the first decade of her childhood, Clare was close to her. Summer holidays were spent in Norfolk, in the converted windmill overlooking the sea. Before the Second World War, the
servants were sent ahead by train while the family went by car, a Bean. The eighty-mile journey took all day. Later on, after Francis died, everyone would go by train to Hunstanton. On arrival Frances and the younger children would take a taxi while the rest of the family rode a collection of bikes brought up in the guard’s van. My oldest cousin, James Cornford, described them as ‘hair-raising contraptions’ which sometimes collapsed while being ridden. They were provided by the gardener at Conduit Head and if there were not enough of them the family would play bicycle leapfrog. One person started out on a bike and after half a mile or so got off it, left it in a hedge, and started walking. Whoever had started out walking, now picked up the bike, rode past the first rider, and left the bike for him another half mile along the road. Once they were settled in, there were rides on these bikes to the vast beaches of that coast. In the evenings they’d play games and talk. It was a large, happy, intelligent, gregarious family.
servants were sent ahead by train while the family went by car, a Bean. The eighty-mile journey took all day. Later on, after Francis died, everyone would go by train to Hunstanton. On arrival Frances and the younger children would take a taxi while the rest of the family rode a collection of bikes brought up in the guard’s van. My oldest cousin, James Cornford, described them as ‘hair-raising contraptions’ which sometimes collapsed while being ridden. They were provided by the gardener at Conduit Head and if there were not enough of them the family would play bicycle leapfrog. One person started out on a bike and after half a mile or so got off it, left it in a hedge, and started walking. Whoever had started out walking, now picked up the bike, rode past the first rider, and left the bike for him another half mile along the road. Once they were settled in, there were rides on these bikes to the vast beaches of that coast. In the evenings they’d play games and talk. It was a large, happy, intelligent, gregarious family.
In the middle of the summer of 1934, however, when my mother was ten, life suddenly changed. Frances sank into her longest and most severe depression and was sent to a nursing home. Two and a half years later she was still there when Clare’s eldest brother, John, father of James, a strikingly good-looking poet and Communist, went off to fight with the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. In January 1937, he was killed in battle, shot through the head by the Fascists on his twenty-first birthday. His body was never recovered.
Clare was then twelve. If you look at photographs of her as a child, there is, long before any of these tragedies, a withdrawn, melancholy expression on her face. Afterward it is more marked. I see the same expression in my own face and sometimes in the face of my daughter.
Clare was sent to St. Christopher’s, a co-educational, vegetarian boarding school in Hertfordshire, where I would later go myself. One of her two remaining brothers, Hugh, the closest in age to her, was also there. He fell in love with a girl from the school,
Jean, and later married her. They adored each other until she died. Clare’s older sister, Helena, a dancer, went off to America and married Joe Henderson, a psychoanalyst and former patient of Carl Gustav Jung, who later wrote one of the chapters of Jung’s final book,
Man and His Symbols.
They also loved each other deeply, even after she collapsed into mental illness and, like my grandmother, had to be hospitalised. Her other brother, Christopher, became Dean of the Royal College of Art. He married a beautiful older woman and they too loved each other.
Jean, and later married her. They adored each other until she died. Clare’s older sister, Helena, a dancer, went off to America and married Joe Henderson, a psychoanalyst and former patient of Carl Gustav Jung, who later wrote one of the chapters of Jung’s final book,
Man and His Symbols.
They also loved each other deeply, even after she collapsed into mental illness and, like my grandmother, had to be hospitalised. Her other brother, Christopher, became Dean of the Royal College of Art. He married a beautiful older woman and they too loved each other.
Clare was not so lucky.
After school, Hugh decided to study medicine. A year later, Clare chose to do the same, although her nature, which was often sardonic and intolerant of human frailty, seemed ill-suited to such a profession. In her first year at Newnham College, Cambridge, she met a fellow medical student, Katherine Priestman—always known as K—who would become her lifelong friend.
K introduced her to my father.
Half-French, half-English, K was, and remains, a lively, highly intelligent woman. As capable as my mother of unleashing the biting
bon mot,
she did so less frequently, perhaps because she was happier. (Though I have watched them together, ‘stitching’ as the Brazilians say, discussing their friends, and sat mesmerised and laughing, while at the same time praying the bright beam of their wit would not pan in my direction.) One of those women who seem to grow old without losing any of their beauty, K is small and slender and has a laugh so natural and affectionate it seems like a reward. When I asked her what my mother was like when she was a student, and if she displayed any signs of the despair and alcoholism which would plague her later life, K thought for a while and then said: ‘No, she was a very happy, scathing woman.’ And laughed, remembering her.
bon mot,
she did so less frequently, perhaps because she was happier. (Though I have watched them together, ‘stitching’ as the Brazilians say, discussing their friends, and sat mesmerised and laughing, while at the same time praying the bright beam of their wit would not pan in my direction.) One of those women who seem to grow old without losing any of their beauty, K is small and slender and has a laugh so natural and affectionate it seems like a reward. When I asked her what my mother was like when she was a student, and if she displayed any signs of the despair and alcoholism which would plague her later life, K thought for a while and then said: ‘No, she was a very happy, scathing woman.’ And laughed, remembering her.
She was bold, advanced, and witty. She smoked and drank, but neither to excess, and was considered somewhat ‘rakish.’ Her confidence, so notable then, so absent later, came, K believes, from having a large, interesting family in which all the members
took pleasure in each other’s company even as adults. When Frances threw tea parties at Conduit Head for academics and fellow poets, the children were always invited.
took pleasure in each other’s company even as adults. When Frances threw tea parties at Conduit Head for academics and fellow poets, the children were always invited.
When they were finished with their studies, Clare took K out with Hugh and Jean to go pub-crawling. Because of the war, it was often hard to find a pub which had beer and they would wander around the city in search of one, and, having found it, drink and talk until closing time. During this period, Clare and her mother started to attend a small church in Cambridge, Little St. Mary’s. It was K’s impression that this began because of a monk Frances had met who was both charismatic and intellectual. Clare enjoyed the ritual, the songs and the incense.
Throughout the war, K received occasional letters from an officer in the Navy, a childhood friend named Cecil who wrote from Australia and the Far East. Clare, who had no such glamorous friends, pretended not to believe in his existence and insisted on meeting him when he came back on leave. By the time he did, the war was almost over and Clare was studying at St. George’s Hospital in London. The three of them had lunch in a Chinese restaurant in Soho. My mother, already in her twenties, arrived with a yo-yo which she played with constantly. My father was handsome and intelligent and had a girlfriend in Australia, which made him all the more desirable.
A short while later, with France liberated, K decided to go and visit relatives in Paris. When Clare heard Cecil would also be there, she insisted on going too.
As a Naval officer, my father had access to the Officers’ Club, which was in the former Rothschild mansion, not far from the British Embassy. The cook at the club was French and the food was not only excellent but plentiful. Coming from rationed England, this was the greatest of treats, and the three of them ate and drank there constantly. By the end of the week my mother and father were in love. Not long afterwards, they were engaged.
Cecil was the son of a professor at Oxford, Sidney Chapman, a theoretical physicist who discovered a magnetic layer around the earth, now known as ‘The Chapman Layer.’ Cecil already had
a degree in physics from London University and after the war would pick up a second, in history, at Trinity College, Cambridge, where his father and grandfather had been Fellows. When I was a child his mind seemed as different from mine as an athlete’s body is from a paraplegic’s. He could do calculations with numbers that were absolutely baffling in their complexity, feats of mental agility for which I was simply not equipped. He also had an extraordinary memory and allowed no factual question to go unanswered, rushing always to the nearest encyclopedia to extract the truth. He was kind, decent, honest, ethical, rational, objective, and fair.
a degree in physics from London University and after the war would pick up a second, in history, at Trinity College, Cambridge, where his father and grandfather had been Fellows. When I was a child his mind seemed as different from mine as an athlete’s body is from a paraplegic’s. He could do calculations with numbers that were absolutely baffling in their complexity, feats of mental agility for which I was simply not equipped. He also had an extraordinary memory and allowed no factual question to go unanswered, rushing always to the nearest encyclopedia to extract the truth. He was kind, decent, honest, ethical, rational, objective, and fair.
He was the wrong man for my mother.
Perhaps there could never have been a right man. As a teenager my mother climbed into the attic at Conduit Head and found boxes and boxes of love letters her parents had written to each other, hundreds of them, mostly from her father to her mother, most written after they were married. K, who was taken up into the attic a few years later to be shown some of them, says the letters expressed a love of such depth and power it was almost shocking. It was as if Francis and Frances were as close to each other in spirit as they were in name, as if each had found in the other the absolute ideal.
This rare state of romantic and intellectual passion is, I think, what Clare expected in her own marriage. Maybe it was the war—kamikaze pilots crashing into the decks of the ships on which my father served, the scent of foreign ports, or simply his good looks—which convinced her Cecil could provide the grand romance which her father had provided for her mother. If she was thinking at all, perhaps she also concluded that whatever their differences, the similarity of their academic backgrounds would sustain them.
They got married in 1947. By now she was in her final two years of training. Soon she was pregnant with my older sister. And if you are looking for a determining moment, a moment where life could have provided her with sufficient pride or structure to overcome her instinct toward self-destruction—or not—
this is where you might find it. Taking the final exams that would qualify her as a doctor, she failed one paper. As I remember the story, it had something to do with the anatomy of a cat, although why someone who was almost a doctor would be studying that I do not know. In any event, she abandoned medicine for motherhood and, compounding the sense of failure that descendants of great men tend to have, she never went back. From then on, it often seemed that if she could not immediately do something perfectly, she had no interest in it and gave up.
this is where you might find it. Taking the final exams that would qualify her as a doctor, she failed one paper. As I remember the story, it had something to do with the anatomy of a cat, although why someone who was almost a doctor would be studying that I do not know. In any event, she abandoned medicine for motherhood and, compounding the sense of failure that descendants of great men tend to have, she never went back. From then on, it often seemed that if she could not immediately do something perfectly, she had no interest in it and gave up.
Though I believe they were genuinely fond of each other, right through to the end, in spite of her alcoholism, theirs was not a happy marriage. At least for the last thirty to forty years it was not a happy marriage. In the beginning, for about nine years, my father thought they were happy, and probably they were by normal standards. And then one day, my father found out she was having an affair and had been for at least a year.
Cecil’s partner, Peter, was a graceful man, slender and quick. Educated at Stowe and Cambridge, his mother was a German aristocrat, his father a correspondent for the Manchester
Guardian
in Berlin until the First World War. His paternal grandfather, however, had been the ticket clerk at Rugby railway station. A long-distance runner for Britain in the 1936 Olympics, Peter had been expected to win in 1940, but the games were not held because of the war. His bearing was upright and athletic but diffident rather than haughty. He spoke with an upper-class accent and voted Conservative, but was a man who didn’t seem to quite fit in anywhere and to me this was his charm, a kind of awkwardness, a shyness handled with rueful dignity.
Guardian
in Berlin until the First World War. His paternal grandfather, however, had been the ticket clerk at Rugby railway station. A long-distance runner for Britain in the 1936 Olympics, Peter had been expected to win in 1940, but the games were not held because of the war. His bearing was upright and athletic but diffident rather than haughty. He spoke with an upper-class accent and voted Conservative, but was a man who didn’t seem to quite fit in anywhere and to me this was his charm, a kind of awkwardness, a shyness handled with rueful dignity.
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