DIARY
P . D . JAMES Mr Mellor should, of course, have remembered the advice of Arthur Hugh Clough:
Do not adultery commit, Advantage rarely comes of it.
There is, however, something particularly unedifying in our present outbreak of pub- lic morality. What is important in deciding whether the minister is suited to his job is the ability, enthusiasm and intelligence he brings to it. It may be reasonable to suggest that his moral standards are relevant to this ability and that we, the electors, have, therefore, the right to a lively concern in the details of his private life. But even if this is true, where do we draw the line? Some people might argue that the sins of the flesh are among the least important, distressing and embarrassing though they are to the husband or wife concerned. But adultery, surely, is a private grief. And what of the minister (if such there should ever be) who is brutal to his subordinates, uncaring of his aged parents, unkind to his children, given to kicking the dog or ungen- erous and neglectful of his wife, even though the marriage remains intact? Are these delinquencies also to be exposed, even though they would hardly sell newspa- pers, and the man judged unsuitable for high office? I am intrigued by some of the press comments about the Mellor case. One columnist suggested that the offence would have been less heinous had the woman concerned been intellectually and socially more Mellor's equal. Does this mean that adultery is condoned if it takes Place in a five-star hotel with a woman who is beautiful, rich, intelligent and high-born, but is judged reprehensible if it takes place on a mattress in a sleazy flat? Is a colleague or secretary more acceptable as an illicit partner than an actress? Would the press be less judgmental if the actress in this case had been a star of the South Bank and in work? And what about prominent people who are not ministers? It could be argued that a newspaper proprietor occupies a position of very considerable power. Are we entitled to demand that he, too, is kind to his children, aged parents and animals, Considerate to his subordinates and faithful to his wife? I would find this scrubbing around to discover fresh scandals to bring a man down less distasteful if newspaper edi- tors had been as diligent in seeking out and exposing the delinquencies of Robert Maxwell, the former owner of the Sunday People.
Last week I went to Oxford to lunch With a small group of American aficionados of the detective story — invariably referred to by them as 'the mystery' — who were on tour visiting the places chosen for settings
by their favourite writers. It seemed per- verse to visit Oxford for the purpose of standing on Magdalen Bridge where Lord Peter Wimsey proposed to Harriet Vane, or to make a trip to Torquay in search of Agatha Christie's birthplace. But their enthusiasm, resilience and good nature were endearing and at least they saw places often missed by more orthodox tours, including the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts, the great churches of East Anglia and the Fens. They took a four-mile walk at Six Mile Bottom literally in their stride. A recent and similar tour set themselves a competition to see who could photograph the man who, in the opinion of the group, looked most like my detective, Adam Dal- gliesh. I would have expected this ill-con- ceived idea to have put an end to the Anglo-American special relationship, but apparently they met with nothing but cour- teous co-operation from their victims, who probably took the view that this was an American hobby best indulged in case eccentricity deteriorated into even more embarrassing insanity. I can't imagine a British party setting out with this intention, although I understand there are tours to the scenes in London of notorious murders. It is difficult to see what satisfaction can be gained by staring at the façade of Crippen's house in Hilldrop Crescent, Islington, or attempting mentally to recreate in the sani- tised streets of the modern East End the sinister alleys which were the haunt of Jack the Ripper.
Hitting on a title for a new book is always important and sometimes not easy. I find that I either know the title even before the book is started or have great difficulty when the writing is finished in deciding what the novel shall be called. It is always depressing to work with a provisional title, a sure sign of problems ahead. Some writ- ers are better at the art of titling their Classified — page 46 books than others, and a good title is easier to recognise than define. Titles which come to mind are The Trumpet Major, All Passion Spent, The Lord of the Flies and A Handful of Dust: all reasonably related to the story or theme of the novel concerned, yet mem- orable in their own right. The most damn- ing indictment of a bad title is the comment `I liked the novel but I can't remember what it is called.' My greatest difficulty in finding a title was with Innocent Blood. This was originally to be called The Blood Tie since it dealt with the relationship between an adoptive girl and her natural mother. Just before publication, my publishers dis- covered that the title had recently been used and, although there is no copyright in titles, no writer wants to duplicate anoth- er's idea, quite apart from the risk of confu- sion. All alternative titles suggested by me or my publishers here or in America had either been recently used or seemed cum- bersome, inappropriate or contrived. With the book ready to go to press things were becoming desperate, when I remembered that my American publisher, a Roman Catholic, had great success in finding lost objects by intercession to St Anthony, and thought that he might as well provide a title which, if not exactly lost, was certainly mis- laid. So I said one night what I hoped were the appropriate words and awoke in the morning with the title Innocent Blood virtu- ally on my lips. My publisher expressed no surprise that I had been successful, merely remarking that he paid heavily for St Anthony's services whereas I, a Protestant, had received them for nothing.
Physiologists tell us that we need less sleep as we grow older and this certainly seems to be true. I find myself increasingly waking early. I don't dislike this, partly because it's my best time for work, but also because I have the satisfaction of stealing a few bonus hours from inexorable time. I like, too, the smell of London in the early morning, with its almost seaside tang, and the wide, gleaming avenue almost devoid of traffic. But early rising has its disadvan- tages. The private dinner party is probably the most civilised and enjoyable form of entertaining, but I am a poor guest after half-past ten. And dinner parties seem now to go on much longer than they used to and are later in starting. Punctuality in arriving was once a virtue, but no longer; the usual excuse of London traffic is, I suppose, rea- sonable enough. But I dread the hostess who seems to think that no dinner party is a success unless people are still happily chat- ting in the early hours. Sometimes I long for her to turn to her husband and say, `Darling, we really must get to bed so that these poor people can go home.'
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