The stresses and strains of The Architecture of Southern England could easily have destroyed Mollie’s and my relationship; in fact it had the opposite effect, and by the time it was over we found that we had grown into each others’ lives. Anne had been aware of everything almost from the start, and—being herself happily involved elsewhere—had shown us constant sympathy and understanding. The eventual divorce was consequently as friendly as it could possibly have been—to the point where we both employed the same lawyer, whom we used to visit together to work out the details. To this day she and I have a happy sibling relationship and see each other every three or four weeks for lunch. Mollie very reasonably felt that she should delay any action on her part till her children were grown-up; but in 1983 she moved into Blomfield Road and six years later the knot was tied. Soon afterwards her former husband Hugo also remarried. Divorces are always sad, and she had a far more difficult situation to deal with than I did; but I like to think that with ours, at least, no hearts were broken.
My own children had already left the nest. They were fully aware that their parents were only regularizing what had for many years been a fait accompli and were not, I hope and believe, unduly upset. Besides, they were now primarily occupied with their own lives. From time to time Artemis and I used to talk about her future, and occasionally—since this is a subject on which parents should always tread warily—on her eventual marriage. “My darling,” I used to say to her, “when the moment comes to choose a husband, the important thing is to get your priorities right. It doesn’t matter whether he’s good-looking, or intelligent, or sexy; all those things are fine, but they’re not really important. Ask yourself one question only: is he going to be a good son-in-law to me?” As always, she delivered the goods. Antony Beevor, whom she married in 1986, is the best anyone could have: not just our finest living military historian—who has proved that works of serious military history can also be international bestsellers—but wonderful company, full of wisdom, and superlatively good at all the things I am hopeless at—like the law, and finance, and jobs around the house. Their first coproduction was a riveting and superbly researched book, Paris after the Liberation; they have since provided me with two glorious and beloved grandchildren, Nella and Adam; I love them all dearly and owe them more than I can ever repay.
Nella, however, we very nearly lost. She was born in January, 1990, and nobody had ever seen a happier, healthier baby. Eight months later, on the first Monday in September, she was on the point of death. She was vomiting violently, her body was limp, her skin yellowish-grey, her eyes huge and hooded; it seemed, as Artemis wrote later, as if her life was draining away in front of us all. She was rushed to the Charing Cross Hospital, where they quickly realized just how ill she was and, since they had no pediatric surgery unit of their own, transferred her by ambulance to the Westminster Children’s Hospital, in those days in Vincent Square. There she was to remain until the last day of October. None of us will ever forget those first two nightmare weeks. One of the most frightening aspects was that for a long time no one could find out what was wrong. She underwent three major operations in five days; after the second, the surgeon looked her mother in the eye and murmured “I am afraid there is very little hope.” Such was her internal bleeding that in the course of twenty-four hours she was given the equivalent of six complete blood transfusions, and matters reached the point where Antony had to beg the doctors, if the situation was truly hopeless, not to keep her alive artificially. A day or two later one of them said to him, “You do realize that even if she lives she may never be able to eat solids again.”
The following Sunday, when she had been in hospital nearly a week, she began to recover consciousness. This of course meant becoming aware of the acute discomfort she was in and the terrifying treatments she was having to suffer; that second week was almost more wearing for Artemis than the first and was made worse by the knowledge that her little daughter was still desperately ill. She would have to be fed intravenously for a very long time, and her gut was so badly damaged that it might never heal. It was then that we were told about EGF. Epidermal Growth Factor is a synthetic hormone which mirrors, molecule for molecule, the hormone used by the body to regenerate damaged tissue. It was still in the experimental stage, but there was apparently a batch of it in a laboratory in Cambridge; ICI, to whom it belonged, kindly agreed to provide a little. The treatment that was contemplated had never been attempted before in a case like Nella’s; there seemed to be a chance, however, that it might be just what she needed.
And it was. Despite the fact that the quantity used was measured in nanograms—millionths of a gram—the effects were immediate and startling. Within twenty-four hours the inflammation was noticeably less, and on Monday, September 17, Nella was wheeled out of intensive care, her life no longer in immediate danger. Artemis, who had scarcely left her side for a fortnight, accompanied her to her new room, where she slept on a camp bed. Another two weeks passed, and then came the news we had all been praying for. The EGF had done its work. The villi57 were growing again. There was still a long and painful way to go, but at last Nella was on the mend. On Wednesday, October 31, she left the hospital. The ordeal was over. Now, sixteen years later, she is—among many other things—a licensed scuba diver. Looking at her or talking to her, you would never suspect that she had had a day’s illness in her life.
In 1992 Artemis told her story in a book, which she called Watching in the Dark and which she dedicated “To the doctors and nurses of the Westminster Children’s Hospital, who brought Nella back to life.” It is wonderfully done, written without a trace of mawkishness or sentimentality and one of the most moving accounts I have ever read. Going through it again to write this short and most inadequate account, I have felt the tears pouring down my cheeks; I would challenge anyone to read it dry-eyed.
• • • • •
Jason, as I have already recorded, is an architect; and I need hardly add that today Jason Cooper, Architects, is—by a very long way—the most distinguished architectural firm in the country. He may not yet be quite as well known as Messrs. Foster, Rogers, or Grimshaw, but they are the older generation; his time will come. Any firm wishing to be at the cutting edge of British architecture in the years ahead should contact him without delay. If he were not an architect, he might easily have been a professional entertainer: he is an inspired mimic and raconteur. I know of no one who can so quickly reduce me to helpless paroxysms of laughter—an unusual compliment, I suspect, for a man to pay to his own son. We have another great bond too: we both love to sing. The late but incomparable Mrs. Florence Foster Jenkins58—who had absolutely no voice and even less technique, but used nevertheless to hire Carnegie Hall for concerts in which she sang the Queen of the Night’s arias from The Magic Flute and the Jewel Song from Faust—once summed up her vocal career with the words: “Well, they may say I couldn’t sing, but no one will ever say I didn’t sing”; Jason and I can make much the same claim. He shares my passion for the old songs of the twenties and thirties, and we render them—separately or together—at the top of our voices whenever we get the chance.