little mouth pursed and stretched with surprising vigour, and Tamara, hearing the ebb and flow of her voice, felt she had accidentally tuned in to a cheerless current-affairs discussion on Radio 4.
In the fading light of Honor Tait’s flat, Tamara smiled, nodded andshook her head where appropriate, prompted by the rise and fall of the old woman’s voice, and pretended to take notes.
Honor Tait, doyenne of war reporters, high priestess of journalists, is far from happy. At eighty, still in possession of her faculties, though with an octogenarian’s tendresse for reminiscence, there are few traces of her once-famed chthonic beauty. Staring at Honor Tait is like looking at the horrifyingly shrivelled former beauty (fill in name) played by (name) in the movie classic
Last Horizon.
“You have to understand that one was working in a vacuum,” Honor said. “There was no reliable information network, there were no other news sources one could draw on. The fear was palpable. One had to truly
see
, to rely on the evidence of one’s eyes, and record with precision exactly what one was seeing.”
Tamara, cued by the cracked music of Tait’s voice, uttered exclamations of surprise or admiration, concern or disapproval.
“Of course!”
“All around us, mortar shells were exploding as I ran to the jeep.”
“Terrifying!”
Most women of her age are doting grandparents and devoted widows, only too happy to pore over photographs of their loved ones with hapless visitors. But for Honor Tait, the indulgent anecdotes
, les moments brilliants
of her life, her rhapsodies of remembrance, concern not her family or lovers—on the subject of which she is sternly silent—but her work
.
Tara was, Honor observed, a scrupulous note taker. Could she have been too hard on her? The girl was the product of an age in which history had been jettisoned along with seriousness. The young were all gunslingers now, each one a little Goebbels, reaching for their revolvers whenever they heard the word “culture.” And truth had been reduced to the subjective. This is
my
truth; what’s yours? At least Tara seemed to have some measure of the gulf between them, an instinctive sense of what had been lost, and she showed signs of an ability, or at any rate a willingness, to listen.
Honor continued: “There was widespread panic. Fleeing South Koreans were pushing past, hoping to get across the river, and the artillery fire started. I grabbed my typewriter and set it up on the hood of the radio truck …”
“No!”
Interviewees are warned in advance not to mention her famous
amours.
Her personal life is strictly off limits. Honor Tait’s response to questions about her upbringing in a château in Scotland is silence
.
“The only option was to walk the fifteen-mile mountain trail to Suwon, further south.”
“No!”
Doubled over her notes, Tamara seemed fired up, her hand working frantically to keep pace, inspired by an account of a different, more authentic and vital age. Honor found it almost touching to watch this ignorant child, raised on the intellectual pabulum of the modern media and groomed for mediocrity, respond to the stimulus of real experience, living history. Buried somewhere beneath that commonplace exterior, Honor thought, there were the makings of a decent newspaperwoman who, in a less otiose age, might have been a perfectly efficient reporter of, say, court proceedings.
On the subject of her three husbands, she is mute. On the subject of her many lovers, her lips are sealed. But when it comes to her work as a frontline journalist, covering the century’s big stories
, les contes grandes,
you can’t shut her up
.
Tamara covered page after page as the soliloquy continued. She was caught out only once.
“Really? Fantastic!” she enthused, before realising, too late, that she had misread Honor Tait’s voice; she had been giving an account of the death of the first American troops in Korea.
“They were teenagers,
In the fading light of Honor Tait’s flat, Tamara smiled, nodded andshook her head where appropriate, prompted by the rise and fall of the old woman’s voice, and pretended to take notes.
Honor Tait, doyenne of war reporters, high priestess of journalists, is far from happy. At eighty, still in possession of her faculties, though with an octogenarian’s tendresse for reminiscence, there are few traces of her once-famed chthonic beauty. Staring at Honor Tait is like looking at the horrifyingly shrivelled former beauty (fill in name) played by (name) in the movie classic
Last Horizon.
“You have to understand that one was working in a vacuum,” Honor said. “There was no reliable information network, there were no other news sources one could draw on. The fear was palpable. One had to truly
see
, to rely on the evidence of one’s eyes, and record with precision exactly what one was seeing.”
Tamara, cued by the cracked music of Tait’s voice, uttered exclamations of surprise or admiration, concern or disapproval.
“Of course!”
“All around us, mortar shells were exploding as I ran to the jeep.”
“Terrifying!”
Most women of her age are doting grandparents and devoted widows, only too happy to pore over photographs of their loved ones with hapless visitors. But for Honor Tait, the indulgent anecdotes
, les moments brilliants
of her life, her rhapsodies of remembrance, concern not her family or lovers—on the subject of which she is sternly silent—but her work
.
Tara was, Honor observed, a scrupulous note taker. Could she have been too hard on her? The girl was the product of an age in which history had been jettisoned along with seriousness. The young were all gunslingers now, each one a little Goebbels, reaching for their revolvers whenever they heard the word “culture.” And truth had been reduced to the subjective. This is
my
truth; what’s yours? At least Tara seemed to have some measure of the gulf between them, an instinctive sense of what had been lost, and she showed signs of an ability, or at any rate a willingness, to listen.
Honor continued: “There was widespread panic. Fleeing South Koreans were pushing past, hoping to get across the river, and the artillery fire started. I grabbed my typewriter and set it up on the hood of the radio truck …”
“No!”
Interviewees are warned in advance not to mention her famous
amours.
Her personal life is strictly off limits. Honor Tait’s response to questions about her upbringing in a château in Scotland is silence
.
“The only option was to walk the fifteen-mile mountain trail to Suwon, further south.”
“No!”
Doubled over her notes, Tamara seemed fired up, her hand working frantically to keep pace, inspired by an account of a different, more authentic and vital age. Honor found it almost touching to watch this ignorant child, raised on the intellectual pabulum of the modern media and groomed for mediocrity, respond to the stimulus of real experience, living history. Buried somewhere beneath that commonplace exterior, Honor thought, there were the makings of a decent newspaperwoman who, in a less otiose age, might have been a perfectly efficient reporter of, say, court proceedings.
On the subject of her three husbands, she is mute. On the subject of her many lovers, her lips are sealed. But when it comes to her work as a frontline journalist, covering the century’s big stories
, les contes grandes,
you can’t shut her up
.
Tamara covered page after page as the soliloquy continued. She was caught out only once.
“Really? Fantastic!” she enthused, before realising, too late, that she had misread Honor Tait’s voice; she had been giving an account of the death of the first American troops in Korea.
“They were teenagers,
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