FATHER TOOK A direct interest in my education. He hoped secretly that I would emulate Evelyn Waugh’s monstre sacrée Josephine Stitch, the eight-year-old prodigy in Scoop who construed a passage of Virgil every day before breakfast. As Mrs Stitch would urge the child, ‘Show him your imitation of the Prime Minister . . . Sing him your Neapolitan song . . . Stand on your head.’
Father encouraged me to talk to his distinguished friends whenever they came to the house. Heaven knows what such cerebral colossi as Kingsley Amis, Hugh Trevor-Roper, John Kenneth Galbraith and Bernard Levin thought of me. My conversation must have seemed like the incoherent chattering of monkeys. But one established the veracity of the following maxim: the more enlarged the brain, the more intensified the generosity of spirit. One evening in 1980 I had been struggling with a school essay on an epic poem of Tennyson’s. Father found me hunched miserably over a pile of foolscap.
‘What are you doing there?’
‘I’m trying to write an essay on “The Lady of Shalott” and I can’t think of anything to say about it.’
‘Why don’t you ring up Kingsley Amis?’ suggested Father. ‘He’ll help you.’ Kingsley Amis? The breadth of this ambition was astonishing. One might as well have been asked to get in touch with Charles Dickens.
In any circumstances Kingsley was a terrifying prospect. His mind leapt and whirled at a pace only the superhumanly touched could begin to comprehend. For another he was frequently bad-tempered. Father said that all geniuses were bad-tempered (he included himself, naturally, in this equation) but I suspected that the cause of Kingsley’s dyspepsia was not common to all people of parts. It seemed to have a direct connection with alcohol.
‘Well, yes,’ was all Father would say, ‘Kingsley drinks, but no more than a gentleman should.’
And yet? The chance to impress my peers with a startling talent they would not suspect was another’s . . . Egoism and renunciation vied in the recesses of my soul. With trembling fingers I dialled the number. After what seemed an eternity it was answered by the great man himself. ‘Is that Mr Amis?’ one faltered. ‘Who wants him?’ said the voice. ‘It’s Petronella Wyatt.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Petronella Wyatt, Woodrow’s daughter.’ ‘Oh yes, what do you want?’ One pressed on. ‘Father said that you might help me with my English homework.’ ‘Oh he did, did he, the old bastard? He had no business to.’
This comment left no room for contradiction. ‘I’m really sorry.’ My apology must have disarmed him for he replied, ‘What is it then?’ ‘Tennyson.’ Fortunately the name was like a magic password. ‘Well why didn’t you say so at once?’ Amis was obviously something of a connoisseur of the poet, for allusions and ideas poured forth. Half an hour later I thanked him humbly and hung up. ‘Well, they’ll be very impressed at school,’ Father said. Indeed. How could they not be, with Kingsley Amis’s thoughts passed off as my own. How they would marvel! How they would repent of their earlier harsh judgements. ‘We really got that Wyatt girl wrong,’ they would say to each other over coffee and biscuits in the staff room. ‘Quite a talent you know.’
Some bozo or other once said something along the lines of happily the children play, ignorant of their fate. Custom was in the English class to read out the best essay of the week. Was it not mine? Should it not have been mine? Well it wasn’t. There I sat, my face contorted by a grimace, as the teacher read out a prosy piece of work by a whey-faced girl called Mary. When the lesson was over each essay was returned with a few words to its author. When it came to me the woman looked pained.
‘You appear to have tried hard this time but I am afraid that your ideas are lacking in originality. I’m afraid the best I can give your work is a B-minus.’ Lacking in originality! A B-minus! For Kingsley Amis! The outrage of it! I longed to tell the truth. I longed to exclaim, ‘You stupid, wooden-headed thing of straw. It’s brilliant. Kingsley Amis wrote it.’ For some reason I thought better of it.
At the parents’ evening a few weeks later, the woman approached Father like a missionary ticking off a junior colleague for indulging the savages. ‘It’s very commendable that you want to help Petronella. But I do think that fathers shouldn’t impose their ideas on their children.’ ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ ‘Petronella’s essay on “The Lady of Shalott”.’ ‘Oh, no,’ said Father. ‘Kingsley Amis.’ ‘Tennyson,’ corrected the teacher, bemused. ‘No,’ insisted Father, becoming cross. ‘Kingsley Amis. He wrote it.’ ‘I think you will find, Mr Wyatt, it is Lord Tennyson.’ ‘Oh my God,’ said Father. ‘What sort of education are you giving these girls? How could Tennyson help Petronella with her homework? He’s been dead for a century.’
Father had his revenge. It was on the occasion of the annual school sports day. After a decade or so of holding it in a small arena in Holland Park, it was so contrived that the athletics events be lent the verisimilitude of a real sponge track. Hurdling being the only physical pursuit at which I excelled, I had been entered for the 100 metres race. The night before this momentous day, Father remarked casually, ‘I think I’ll bring Robin Day to your sports day – just to keep me company.’ I gulped. Robin Day was then at the zenith of his fame. He was a man whose charm found most people extraordinarily susceptible, particularly members of the female sex. But to say he could be overpowering was like saying that Attila the Hun could occasionally lose his temper. He and Father amidst a crowd of excitable girls, anxious mistresses and febrile parents, would be a combination devoutly not to be wished. But once Father had made up his mind, trying to deflect him was like throwing oneself in the path of an armoured car.
Most of the school was already at the track when I arrived. The odour of two hundred perspiring girls made the atmosphere distinctive and individual. The fond parents of Young England were beginning to take their seats in the grandstand, which was grand enough even for Father’s exacting taste, decked out as it was in flags and coloured ribbons. By 11.30 it was time for the first race, a 100 metres sprint. Father had not yet arrived. I tried to brush aside my fears. Maybe he had changed his mind. Perhaps he had been called to the office for an urgent meeting. Hope sprang in my heart. It was shortly crushed. ‘Girls get ready for the hurdles,’ spoke the reedy voice of a mistress. Then someone else piped up, ‘What’s that? Over there.’
I gave a start and looked long and earnestly. It was Father. He was walking across the grass swinging his head from side as if it were a trunk. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Father never drank before lunch, I would have said that there were fair amounts of liquor splashing about behind his teeth. He was accompanied by Robin Day in a bow tie that shone like neon. They were not alone. They were carrying folding chairs decorated with green and gold vertical stripes. They looked like a procession of maharajahs making a progress across the interior, except that Father had one of his largest and most pungent cigars clamped between his lips.
Eventually they unfolded their chairs. The site they had chosen was not fortuitous. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ shouted one of the mistresses. ‘You can’t sit there. You’re on the finishing line.’ Father would not be drawn by these stratagems. He waved his hand contemptuously. ‘It has the best view. I want to see little Petronella win her race. Mr Day has come all the way from Birmingham.’ Three hundred pairs of eyes swivelled to where I was crouching. A weak spirit would have been overwhelmed – I was that weak spirit. Everything seemed to go black and swim before my eyes.
When I was able to see clearly again I perceived that Father and Robin were still occupying the finishing line. The games mistress began to plead with their sense of fair play. ‘We can’t start the race with you there, Mr Wyatt. Don’t spoil the hurdles race for the girls.’ Father lit his cigar and looked as if he had settled in for the duration. Robin had begun to hum. I felt something on my cheek. A tear, perhaps? A facile fancy. There was another drop of moisture. Then a wild hope. By heaven, it had begun to rain. Providence was in a merciful mood after all. Discouraged by this sign from the heavens, Father and Robin picked up their folding chairs and repaired to the Ritz for lunch.
A year later, Father sent me to St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith. St Paul’s was less of a school than a way of life; in this it resembled the Roman Catholic religion. In some ways it was also similar to an ancient Athenian school for hetairai (those cultured courtesans of the classical world). It was not that sexual activity was encouraged, rather that the social polish acquired by its pupils was unusual among academic establishments.
By custom the headmistress was referred to as the high mistress. During my first term at St Paul’s the position was occupied by Mrs Heather Brigstocke. Mrs Brigstocke was almost unique among members of her profession in that her favoured sartorial choice was leather. She presided over the school assembly like a dominatrix with brains, making frequent appearances in glossy magazines such as Tatler and Vogue. It put one in mind of the Lerner and Loewe song from Pal Joey about an intellectual stripper. ‘Zip. I was reading Walter Lippmann today. Zip, will they make the Metropolitan pay?’
Most of the fathers including my own were a little enamoured of Mrs Brigstocke. Unfortunately her rapport with the unfair sex did not extend to females. She was what is called a man’s woman. From the beginning she found me sallow and tiresome. My conduct was admittedly erratic. One term I broke all the school records for tardiness, having been late for classes thirty-two times. On top of this I had a problem with mathematics. The problem is sometimes referred to as idleness. I didn’t see it as such but Mrs Brigstocke, quite correctly, did.
One evening she summoned Father to see her. I remember that evening well. A gentle summer rain was pattering against the windows of our house and the trees, new in foliage, gave the aspect something of the appearance of an enormous salad bowl. I didn’t know why Mrs Brigstocke wanted to see Father but I suspected that it wasn’t to discuss the state of the nation. At about seven o’clock, Father returned. I heard voices in the hall. But instead of sounding angry and despondent they rang with triumph – at least Father’s did. He was waving a wad of paper on which I recognised my own handwriting. ‘That bloody stupid woman. She wanted me to take Petronella away from St Paul’s. She said she wasn’t up to it. Can you believe that?’ Father went on. ‘How obtuse of her not to realise how brilliant that child is.’
‘Yes, Woodrow,’ said Mother.
‘Anyway I took the precaution of showing her this.’ Father brandished the wad of paper. ‘That stopped her in her tracks.’
It turned out that Father had shown Mrs Brigstocke a letter I had intended to send to the Dictionary of National Biography. This concerned its entry on Richard III. The Wyatt household was strongly Plantagenet and Ricardian. The letter I had written was an attempt to prove historically that Richard was unlikely to have been the boys’ murderer. It was not very distinguished, and indeed if a grown-up had written it it would have been rightly derided. But in its way it had the glitter of enthusiasm, and Richard III was an unusual hero for a thirteen-year-old girl. Mrs Brigstocke had apparently been taken aback by the document. If she did not hail one as a prodigy she at least acknowledged that I must have some apparatus with which to think.
Richard was a gateway. I discovered history. History may be many things to a child but above all it is a release from an irksome existence into a world to live in and savour. Father’s joy in the past was boundless and in me he had an enthusiastic acolyte. We sat up late into the night. We talked of General Gordon’s death at Khartoum, while Father thrashed his cane around in imitation of the General’s own.
‘Never go to the Sudan, Petronella,’ he warned. ‘It’s a very treacherous place.’
Over glasses of port we spoke endlessly of Pitt the Younger. Pitt had said, ‘England has saved herself by her exertions and will I trust save Europe by her example.’ He was called the Pilot who Weathered the Storm, explained Father. Legend had it that his dying words were ‘My country, how I leave my country.’ Father refused to believe this. ‘No one would say that when he was dying. What he really said was, “I could do with one of Bellamy’s veal pies,” but silly historians found that too prosaic.’
During school holidays we trailed around London looking at Dr Johnson’s pretty Georgian house near the Bank of England. Johnson was a distant family relation. His sister, a Miss Ford, had married one of the Wyatts. We paid visits to the church in South Audley Street which housed the resting place of John Wilkes, the eighteenth-century radical MP. Every Christmas Eve we went to Midnight Mass there, presided over by a pompous High Church prelate. ‘Wouldn’t it be funny,’ asked Father, ‘if he knew why we were really here – to pay our respects to a deist, a lecher and a one-time convict?’ Wilkes had been an early member of the Hell Fire Club. Initially they had met to practise their arcane debaucheries at the ruins of Medmenham Abbey by the Thames. This location had been penetrated, however, so the club had rumouredly transferred to the caves of West Wycombe Park, the Buckinghamshire estate owned by the then Sir Francis Dashwood, dilettante, sybarite, and Lord Bute’s Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Mother was often bemused by our conversations. It was confusing for her, especially as a few of these long-dead figures had descendants of the same name whom she happened to have met. ‘Who is this John Wilkes?’ she would ask, exasperated.
‘Well,’ said Father, ‘he’s a friend of Charles Churchill and Francis Dashwood.’ This was perfectly true. Charles Churchill, the poet, and Sir Francis Dashwood, the first baronet, had been close chums of Wilkes. Charles Churchill (no relation to the poet, but the Duke of Marlborough’s younger brother) and the present Sir Francis Dashwood were friends of ours.
Aside from the eighteenth century which we admired for its verve, its abundance of great wits and its lack of hypocrisy, Father and I leaned towards ancient Greece and Rome. When the I Claudius television series, featuring Derek Jacobi as the stuttering emperor, was broadcast, Father and I were hooked. We could not be prised away for anything. During one tense episode, the telephone rang. Father was eventually obliged to pick it up. ‘Can’t talk now,’ he roared. ‘State of emergency, Agrippa’s being murdered.’ The receiver was slammed down. Half an hour later the phone rang again. It was Mrs Thatcher. ‘Are you all right, Woodrow?’ she asked. ‘The Downing Street switchboard said they rang earlier and you were being attacked by an intruder.’
So fond did Father become of this series that one Sunday afternoon he decided to venture into the local video rental shop in search of more Romans on celluloid.
‘I want an educative film for my daughter about a Roman emperor,’ said Father. The manager of the shop shook his head. ‘We don’t have anything like that.’ ‘Yes you have,’ said Father. He pointed to a section marked Adult. ‘Look, higher education.’ The man was dubious. ‘You misunderstand, sir.’ Nonsense. Father’s eyes skimmed a selection of salacious titles. Bondage Bitches, Sex Fiends from Hell, Slaves to Sado-masochism.
‘How odd, I’m not familiar with these. Are they anything to do with Tacitus?’
But when his gaze fell on a film entitled Caligula there was jubilation. ‘That’s it. That’s what we want. Very educative for my daughter.’ ‘How old is she?’ ‘Fourteen.’ The man paled. I could see he was thinking of unimaginable perversions. But Father was oblivious. We took the video home and put it on. Sir John Gielgud’s appearance in the opening credits made Father feel vindicated. ‘Silly man in that shop. If John’s in it it must be very highbrow.’
Gielgud was in it for a mere ten minutes – fully clothed. He was the only one who was. In a sub-Fellini pastiche, orgy followed execution followed incest in disgusting, crapulous monotony. Father was bored and baffled. When Malcolm McDowell’s Caligula had sex with his sister’s corpse Father said, ‘But that’s not in Suetonius.’ As the film ground to its repellent conclusion Mother chanced to put her head around the door. Horror disfigured her visage. ‘Really, Woodrow. What are you teaching Petronella?’
Father replied equably, ‘History, Buttercup. But it’s changed since I last read it.’