Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [82]
In the quad a floppy, fattish, rather shambling man, with a case as tatty as my father’s, and a head as bald, asked us the way to Thirkell Quad. My father double-took in surprise, ‘Well I never, if it isn’t my old best man, Bags Cave.’
Recognition spread less spontaneously across Bags’ face, but at last it came. ‘Good Lord,’ he said to my father, ‘Hugh St John Gordon! … Palin,’ he corrected himself. My father didn’t seem to notice anything untoward, so pleased was he to encounter Bags. It was Silence and Shallow.
‘How are you, old boy?’
‘Oh, wilting a little, old boy,’ said Bags, sadly, and started talking about hospitals.
Being back in Cambridge transformed and inspired my father in such a way that I could visibly see it doing him some good. He was suddenly in control – he knew where he wanted to walk to, and he remembered Cambridge well. I noticed afterwards that the only time he was a little restless was when we walked around the new buildings at St John’s. The joy of Cambridge for him, at his age, is in its lack of change. It doesn’t disorientate him as other cities do, for he can still see many, if not all, of his old haunts. We walked around the colleges, drinking in the privileged atmosphere, on a perfect, calm, sunny evening. I think we both felt great enjoyment during the one and a half hour walk, and it left no question in my mind as to whether it was worth bringing him or not.
Two days later, on the 29th of July, it was Angela’s 40th and Jeremy’s 13 th birthday and we went down to Dulwich for lunch. The sun came out for us, and we lay in the garden and drank sherry and I tried to take a few photos, as it was one of the very rare occasions on which the family was all together.
It occurred to me what a polite lot we all are. I can remember Angela’s childhood being punctuated with violent rows and shouting matches, I can remember many occasions when I hated my father for his intolerant, irrational rule-making, and his surliness to my friends, but now, with age, we’ve all mellowed. More optimistically, there doesn’t seem to be any repetition in Angela’s or my family of the lack of contact between father and children which we experienced.
In the garden after tea, Grandfather1 sat in a deck chair, increasingly concerned with his lack of bowel movements. Granny, getting a little tired, tried to ignore him, and sat talking to Helen. Jeremy, Marcus and Camilla took Thomas and myself on at football. Veryan was cross at the mess we’d made to the lawn. Angela’s chief present was an almost new Citroen 6. The first time she’s had a car of her own. (Later in the week it was rammed up the back at some traffic lights.)
Next day I took Grandfather down to the West End and dropped him in the Mall, collecting him later from the dark recesses of’his club’, the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. He appeared to be at a low ebb. He didn’t feel like shopping for the coat he had wanted, and said that his wretched condition was definitely slowing him down. With some misgivings I took him to the Barque and Bite, on the Regent’s Canal. It was conveniently un-full, and, as it turned out, we ate a really excellent meal. He had melon and a very generous Dover sole, I succumbed to salmon and asparagus quiche and guinea fowl, he drank beer, I had a half-carafe of house wine. He liked the situation and he relaxed a lot during the meal. We had a good chat and I even told him that Helen and I were possibly going to have another baby – something which I wouldn’t dare tell any other member of the family.1 It didn’t sink in at all, but it felt good to be in confidence-sharing mood with him. He livened up a lot after lunch, and I took him, Thomas and William to Syon Park for the afternoon.
As I drove out along the M4, I became aware that all three of them were asleep – all nodding gently. After a moment Grandfather woke up and said, à propos of nothing, ‘There’s a plane.’ He kept