Must You Go_ - Antonia Fraser [95]
Our warm alliance with a proper French family in the shape of the Cavassonis gave me new confidence in our French life – up till then I had always been rather frightened of the French. This was based on my unfortunate memories as a British schoolgirl in 1948, going on an exchange visit to a château near Bordeaux: here everything, including my wardrobe and my French accent, was found wanting by cruel French teenagers. My feeling of acceptance was reinforced by the subsequent birth of the Cavassoni twins, Cecilia and Allegra in 2001. Harold, whose works had been done early and done very well in France – they continued to be extremely popular – had had a different experience. Now we both shared the pleasures of a life which veered between Versailles and the supermarket pork pies. We received generous hospitality and there was also much political accord as the shadow of the second Iraq war grew closer and finally enveloped us all in a culture of protest.
In the same way, the marriage of Damian to Paloma Porraz del Amo in Mexico and the births of Ana Sofiá, Oriana and Miranda, transformed us into Abuela Antonia and Abuelo Harold (whereas we were Grandmère Chat and Grandpère in France) but also, we felt, gave us an interesting perception of Mexican society. For Harold, with his keen interest in Latin American politics, a first-hand experience of Mexico, the country once described as ‘so far from God, so close to the United States’, was a boon. Then there was his deepening affection for the Porraz family, including not only Paloma, a serious museum curator, who actually had the graceful looks of an Infanta painted by Velasquez, but her parents Rosa and Alfredo.
January 1994
Mexico. Our first visit together (Harold had been on stage at the time of Damian and Paloma’s wedding). While we were at Oaxaca, we stayed in a hotel which was a converted convent. Sight-seeing, or rather ‘having a look round’, although in this case, it was really having a look up. We both climbed up Monte Alban. Two things made Harold laugh in the midst of his exertions. 1. Loud, very loud American voice echoing reassuringly through the clear air: ‘Henry, I’m on top of the next pyramid along.’ 2. Me to Harold briskly: ‘OK, now it’s tombs,’ as I shut my guidebook in a purposeful manner, following our rest under a tree. In the mornings I swam in the icy pool (the only person ever to do so, so far as I could see).
It was while we were there that I received that long, carefully worded, sensitive but inexorable message which all pet-lovers know must come one day unless their pets happen to survive them. Rowley, our cat aged sixteen, was dying. ‘Unlikely to survive,’ said the vet, ‘until you return.’ Although there were various options which might have staved off death for a little while, all of them put the feelings of the owner above those of the cat and could not humanely be contemplated. I knew I had to take a decision. Rowley must go to his last sleep even though I am not there to hold him. Rowley: one of the kittens we acquired when we first lived together in Campden Hill Square. In his prime, he reminded me of the Persian saying: ‘God created the cat so that man might have the felicity of caressing the tiger.’ When my basset hound died in 1968 I didn’t believe that animals had souls. But now I do. If there is a heaven, how on earth could God’s creation not be fully represented? At least,