DIARY
P . D . JAMES this has been a busy year for me with overseas trips but the most memorable was one with Malcolm Bradbury to Buenos Aires, arranged by the British Council. Despite the huge road-side signs proclaim- ing in Spanish that the Malvinas are Argen- tinian, we met with nothing but kindness and there was genuine pleasure at the re- oPening of the embassy and the British Council building. We were due to speak at a huge South American book fair and our final session was unforgettable, for two rather strange reasons. It was a discussion With three distinguished Argentinian writ- ers with simultaneous translation, in the Presence of a large audience andthe British Ambassador and Argentinian minis- ter for foreign affairs. There was some delay caused by disagreement among our hosts as to who was actually to be on the Platform before we got started. It was, per- haps, not propitious when, during our Ambassador's speech, the Union Jack descended gently from its pole and Wrapped itself round him. He continued unperturbed in his excellent Spanish but there was a hiss of dismay from the audi- ence. Malcolm and I had the greatest diffi- culty in assuming the expected expressions of grave displeasure at the insult to our national flag while in the throes of irre- sistible giggling. A gallant girl from the British Council, no more than five feet high, sprang on to the platform and, tiptoe- ing, held the flag aloft for the remainder of the speech. Both flags were then borne off t° general relief. The discussion went well, although at a somewhat elevated level for me when the Argentinians began discussing Whether Borges was more influenced by Prench than by British literature. This I was Well content to leave to Malcolm. During his observations, I noticed that the audi- ence were beginning to resemble a Wim- bledon crowd, their eyes swivelling rhyth- lineally from left to right, while I thought I caught mutterings of 'Rat, rat, rat!', and Wondered whether this was an Argentinian expression of dissatisfaction with the pro- ceedings. There was an iron girder running across the room a few feet above our heads and, looking up, I realised that the word was entirely appropriate. There was indeed an extremely large rat making its way back- wards and forwards along the girder, stop- Ping only occasionally to groom its Whiskers. It is difficult to keep one's mind 1°.n literary controversy when a large rat is !Liable at any moment to drop on one's 'cad. We took a lively interest in its Progress. The British Ambassador told me afterwards that the whole session was legarded as highly successful and no doubt ...troni the Brits' point of view it was, since we were not late in starting, had not been responsible for the flag incident and could
claim no credit for the rat. Malcolm and I both agreed that the incident was more appropriate to his fiction than to mine, and I am assured that the rat will soon be immortalised in a Malcolm Bradbury novel.
0 ne of the more depressing aspects of increasing age is that one spends more time visiting friends in hospital. Many of my recent visits have been to private wards and, although the medical treatment was no doubt excellent, the general care didn't seem to me, or the patients, equally satis- factory. The private wards are invariably staffed by agency nurses, so that the patient seldom sees the same face twice. In one case I detected, I hope wrongly, a resent- ment from certain ancillary staff against private patients. Many people greatly pre- fer to suffer an illness in solitude, but when my turn comes I'm not sure I won't again opt for the camaraderie of the public ward; that is if I can stand the noise. The last nov- elist friend I visited in a public ward was having a hip replacement and was the only elderly patient in a long ward filled with young men who had crashed their motor- cycles. The ward was as exuberant as a per- missive pub on a Saturday night, but the racket was more than I could have tolerat- ed, although my friend endured it with admirable stoicism; he was, no doubt, mak- ing notes for his next novel. Most people now stay in hospital for much shorter peri- ods and this quicker turnover, apart from 'It's hosted by John Major.' making life much busier for the nurses, has, I feel, affected life in the general ward. When I was last a hospital patient, briefly, just after the war, there was a number of ambulant patients who would potter about in their dressing-gowns, refilling water jugs, sitting with patients who needed company, interpreting temperature charts, distribut- ing newspapers and reassuring new arrivals. It seems strange to remember that when I had my two daughters in maternity hospi- tals, a stay of 14 days after birth was consid- ered normal. With Jane, however, it was hardly a restful fortnight, since she was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital at the height of the flying bomb bombardment. I remember the matron, a redoubtable lady, sweeping in unexpectedly one night in her dressing-gown, pigtails flying, to reassure us while the walls shook around us. She was one of the old school of matrons. Some of us wish they were with us now.
Ihave some sympathy with feminists over the wish to see inclusive language in church, although I am personally content to follow the Founder of Christianity in refer- ring to God as Father. Even in childhood, however, I rejected the image of the beard- ed, elderly gentleman in the long night- gown and I have never thought of God as in any sense masculine. But what about the devil? Is he, too, to be neutered? At the risk of gross sexism, I prefer to think of him as male. A female devil is no doubt quite as capable as Satan of going to and fro in the earth and of walking up and down on it to our general discomfort, but somehow to me she lacks credibility.
surprising number of life's minor
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pleasures are being destroyed, including riding in a London taxi. The new seat-belts at the back are the most uncomfortable I have ever attempted to clip on, effectively preventing me from leaning forward to speak to the driver or from opening the window. Being fiercely strapped to the seat in a locked cab while one's ears are assault- ed with continual pop music is hardly a pleasure for someone mildly claustrophobic and allergic to noise. A more important pleasure I miss is visiting churches, particu- larly in the country. Invariably, because of vandals, they are now locked. I have been told of a country vicar who has placed a notice on his church door in• French explaining where the key can be found and asking visitors to replace it after re-locking the church. He will no doubt be criticised for elitism, and the assumption that no one who can understand French can possibly be a vandal is open to question. However, I understand that it works.
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