AND ANOTHER THING
Thoughts on lifting the spirits of a superannuated man
PAUL JOHNSON
Paradoxically, the wet, sunless summer has produced autumn colours of exception- al glory. And, wandering round the Quan- tock beechwoods last weekend, I found myself in elegiac mood: how many more would I see? For I have just turned 65. A Polite Scotswoman from the Ministry Phoned to say that I would now receive weekly from the Government the hand- some sum of £62.34. So I have passed the watershed into old age and hereafter it is downhill all the way. What have I missed, or contrived to avoid?
Well: I have never attended a pop con- cert or a soccer match, watched Coronation Street (or EastEnders or Neighbours), seen The Mousetrap or Gone with the Wind, Picked up a Jeffrey Archer or a Martin Amis, sat through The Ring or finished A la Recherche, read the Economist or Time Out, owned a car, run an overdraft, bounced a cheque or appeared in court. I have never cooked a joint, used a launderette, changed a .nappy, been to Annabel's, stayed at the Cipriani, supped at Maxim's, killed a fish, hunted a fox, stalked a stag or even Squashed a spider — though I once threat- ened a tarantula in Recife. No one has ever offered me drugs, invited me to an orgy or even sold me a contraceptive. Golf, bridge, night-clubs and gambling are anathema to me. I have never had the slightest wish to Possess a Picasso or a Ferrari, to be dressed by Armani or housed in Aspen. I have always given Oxfam, the RSPCA, Save the Whales and all forms of organised do- goodery a wide berth. On the other hand, I have delivered a baby, climbed the Matterhorn, asked Kerensky why he didn't have Lenin shot ( Because I didn't t'ink him important'), smoked cigars with Sibelius — and Castro --- swum in the Caspian and Lake Titicaca, made de Gaulle cross, Churchill weepy and the Pope laugh, chatted up Ava Gardner, slaughtered a bear, published 28 books and written thousands of articles. I have stood on the spot from which the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot, lectured from the stage where Herzl founded Zionism and held Domesday Book in my hands. I think of myself as a typical, down-to-earth, unromantic Englishman of my day, class and age, whose views, likes and dislikes are shared by multitudes. But I may be wrong about that. When asked what she thinks of me, my wife Marigold says, `Difficult.' At 65 I no longer believe that anything I say or write will have a perceptible influ- ence on what happens, though doubtless I will continue to fulminate. The world is not going to pot, whatever I may say in a rage at the headlines. On the contrary, it will continue to get better and better for most of us, as it has for more than a millennium. I no longer have ambitions of any kind, other than the modest one of seeing a painting of mine hang in the Royal Acade- my. The things I now most enjoy are going to church to say my morning prayers, listen- ing to my grandchildren and reading in bed at night. My thoughts tend to centre increasingly on the next world rather than this one. Marigold says that such an atti- tude is not good enough, and that I must form a positive habit of planning and exe- cuting a good deed every single day. I agree entirely. But she has spent a lifetime at the service of individuals and to help them comes as naturally to her as to breathe. I have wasted my days battling for or against trends, historical forces, classes, nations, spirits of the age, a foot-soldier in the war of ideas. I hate worthy committees, meet- ings, discussions. I am not even sure I like people, unless I know them. My instinct, with forward strangers, is like Harold Pin- ter's: to bristle and ask, 'Were we at school together?'
Marigold, asked for further guidance, says resignedly, `Just try being nice, then.' But when, how and to whom? The last time I offered my seat to a lady in the Tube, I got an earful of feminist theory. Tubes are rather edgy places these days and all the rules have changed. One grande dame I know says that, when she sees a black man sitting by himself in a bus, she sometimes takes the seat next to him to show goodwill. `But,' she adds sweetly, 'one's gesture is liable to be misunderstood.' I know what she means. When I was an undergraduate I recall a visiting potentate — I think it was Sir Stafford Cripps — observing, `It is the sign of a gentleman always to pay a cour- tesy to the plainest woman in the room.' I have followed this counsel intermittently. Recently, at a gathering of Lord Weiden- feld's, I spotted a likely candidate whom I vaguely knew: a woman with a heavily lived-in face poised unceremoniously on top of a torso like a dressmaker's dummy. So I sat next to her and was polite. Alas, she turned out to be a gossip columnist and, short of something to fill her space, wrote that I had designs upon her virtue. Ye gods! What have we here — the latest politically correct phantasmagoria: dinner- party rape? A new case of Bardell v. Pick- wick?
Good deeds, then, are more easily said than done. Malcolm Muggeridge once remarked to Graham Greene, 'I am a sin- ner trying to be a saint and you are a saint trying to be a sinner.' But what of the unin- teresting majority like myself who desire neither notoriety nor a halo, just to slip into Elysium unnoticed with a pass degree or even an aegrotat? It occurs to me that the kind of benefaction which works best is one which gives as much satisfaction to the doer as the recipient. It is a quarter of a century since I ceased to be an editor and the only thing I miss is the thrill of discovering new talent and, still more, the chance to help young authors to write better. It is a melan- choly fact that, in the harsh world of jour- nalism and letters, few possess the knowl- edge or the time or the desire to instruct their juniors. I come from a family of teach- ers and it is in my blood. So, nowadays, I take a pupil or two, to coach them through their first book. I find this among the most delightful work I have ever undertaken and a form of philanthropy entirely lacking in condescension, patronage or moral uplift. Moreover, in an age of sloppy syntax, grue- some grammar and polluted prose, there must be some merit in helping the young to honour words. Enough to give a lift to the spirit of a superannuated man, anyway.
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