54
PARTISAN REVIEW
approaching cri sis. His over-drama ti c reacti on
to
my opera tion must
have been rela ted
to
the fact tha t by co incidence it occurred on the
anni versary of his wife's dea th , December 12th . Stephen had quite a
timc keeping Raymond qui et whil e I was away at a hospital outside
London , for he introduced an element of confusion and h avoc where
our own family took it calmly. Our family doctor was now looking
aftcr Raymond , and finall y the long-term effects o f hi s prodig ious
d rinking which he had brought with him from Ameri ca ended in hi s
bein g suddenl y removed in the ni ght from hi s ho tel to the London
Clini c. A two week cure gave him a fresh lease on life, tho ugh Jocelyn
sa id tha t his very first action , as she helped him out of hospital, was to
imbibe the largest Ball antynes she'd ever seen in her life. Nevertheless a
pos t cure euphoria prevail ed .
We didn 't ever discover whether our doctor. who was very sen sitive
to Raymond 's need
to
restore the pride o f his Marlowe self-image, had
invented an official diagnosis of "mala ria" as a face-saver, but Ray–
mond was delighted that here at las t was a docto r who didn 't mention
hi s drinking. However, our doctor told us, before bowing out , tha t
there was by now very littl e hope of reversing the process o f deteriora–
tion , as did his successor, the local Scottish doctor.
Jocelyn had gone a broad and the o thers were a lso away; a t the
same time Ra ymond suddenl y took a more rea listic a ttitude to his own
fin ances. So we found him a fla t near us a t Carlton Hill ; he found it too
modest and neither stylish nor comfortabl e enough . Its proximity
made it easier for us to dash down
to
shop or cook for him , or to repl y
to the summonses for help from "Auntie," hi s elderl y daily house–
keeper, sometimes at her wits ' end when he was h allucinated and
extreme.
If
he was too ill or drunk
to
be left a lone a t night, we used to
fetch and care for him a t our own house; sometimes Stephen sa t up half
the ni ght with him when he was insomni ac. He wrote apprecia ti vely to
Stephen la ter about hi s hav ing ta ken him into our own home when he
" felt lost" and that Stephen and Nick Bentl ey were the onl y two men in
London who were unfailingly kind to him
(1
can think o f a t leas t two
o thers). The children liked him ("always drunk of course," they said
cheerfull y), but he was very querulous about them a nd , thou gh they
were very well behaved , thought tha t we were fa r too lenient, and that
it was unreasonable tha t he should be expected to an swer them durin g
famil y mealtimes when con versa tion should be onl y fo r grown-ups .
"An y time a five-year-old child is a llowed to domina te a dinner table
and out-ta lk everyone else, and
1
get rep roved by you [or no t an swering
some unintelli g ible question the little bra t fires a t me- any time tha t
