but his heir, if I don’t think he ever quite used the word. It was as if your dad had been earmarked, even from those short-trousered days perhaps, and now Tim was thinking of the future. He wanted your dad, in the fullness of time, to take over his baby. Though, again, that’s my word not his.
And, in a nutshell, I yielded. Partly for those back-lawn reasons, and partly for intimate and sensitive reasons I’ve yet to come to. A temporary phase, I thought. Be flexible. A passing aberration. A year or two…
It’s lasted over twenty.
Now, of course, I’m not sorry. Now, of course, I even shamelessly like to make out that I knew all along, I kept the faith. Our ship (no more, in those days, than a rather leaky boat) would one day come in. Your dad likes to say it was all Uncle Tim’s doing, really. That right-place and right-time theory. And Tim had always told him (he says now) that one day there’d be a bonanza. In
science
? I think that’s just your dad being modest. It doesn’t sound like Tim Harvey. The “fairy godfather” factor only goes so far. Tim may have had the money and even his wishful thinking, but he had his limitations. And your dad had his hidden talents. I think they were even rather hidden from your dad.
But you’re familiar with the story now, you’re part of it—its real heirs. Things began to come good for us in the end, not so long after you arrived. Tim stepped aside when I was on maternity leave, dealing with the insomniac havoc you wreaked on Davenport Road (forgive me) and wondering if I ever really
had
worked in art dealing. Meanwhile, your dad’s talents had begun to blossom. Don’t ask me where he got the energy. Then Tim died, in 1981, leaving most of what was left of his private wealth to what he liked to call “
LW.
” Then it was the Eighties and there was a publishing boom.
You know the rest:
Living World Magazine,
Living World Publishing, Living World Books. A whole new image. That now familiar logo, the little button-sized, blue and green Yin-and-Yang biosphere. It more or less just got better and better. But, most importantly—and who can say if
you
didn’t actually bring out that other entrepreneurial man in your father and give him all that drive?—there was the bonanza of you.
I remember how in what I’ll call now the “in-between” years—I mean, before there was you, in the mid-Seventies—when I was starting to do well (and just as well) at Walker’s, I’d sometimes find myself saying, at art-gatherings I had to go to: “My husband? He’s deputy editor of
The Living World.
” Or, later: “My husband? He’s editor of
The Living World.
” It
sounded
good, of course, it sounded important: what could be bigger than the living world? People in the art world aren’t necessarily clued up on science. And it was certainly better than saying, however confidently and breezily, “My husband works on snails.”
All the same, I’d wait for the vacant stare or the bluffing, knowing nod—keeping up a sort of bluff myself. Or I’d prepare for the embarrassed and embarrassing, “I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard…”
But once, at least, it made a big, even a startlingly strong impression. It was with our vet—who would, of course, have been a scientific man. He actually said, “I’m impressed.” It turned out he was a regular subscriber, one of the very few I’d ever knowingly met.
“Your husband’s editor of
The Living World
? Well, I’m impressed.”
And, naturally, I told your dad. I said, “I had this interesting chat with our new vet.”
But you’ll be thinking: vet? What vet? How does a vet come into the story?
14
I’M JUMPING AHEAD. Come back to Davenport Road in the year that Uncle Eddie died. I need to explain now some difficult and delicate things. I need to explain in my own words what your father will explain in his tomorrow. It’s one thing we’ve agreed on: your father will do the talking. Who else, in the
And, in a nutshell, I yielded. Partly for those back-lawn reasons, and partly for intimate and sensitive reasons I’ve yet to come to. A temporary phase, I thought. Be flexible. A passing aberration. A year or two…
It’s lasted over twenty.
Now, of course, I’m not sorry. Now, of course, I even shamelessly like to make out that I knew all along, I kept the faith. Our ship (no more, in those days, than a rather leaky boat) would one day come in. Your dad likes to say it was all Uncle Tim’s doing, really. That right-place and right-time theory. And Tim had always told him (he says now) that one day there’d be a bonanza. In
science
? I think that’s just your dad being modest. It doesn’t sound like Tim Harvey. The “fairy godfather” factor only goes so far. Tim may have had the money and even his wishful thinking, but he had his limitations. And your dad had his hidden talents. I think they were even rather hidden from your dad.
But you’re familiar with the story now, you’re part of it—its real heirs. Things began to come good for us in the end, not so long after you arrived. Tim stepped aside when I was on maternity leave, dealing with the insomniac havoc you wreaked on Davenport Road (forgive me) and wondering if I ever really
had
worked in art dealing. Meanwhile, your dad’s talents had begun to blossom. Don’t ask me where he got the energy. Then Tim died, in 1981, leaving most of what was left of his private wealth to what he liked to call “
LW.
” Then it was the Eighties and there was a publishing boom.
You know the rest:
Living World Magazine,
Living World Publishing, Living World Books. A whole new image. That now familiar logo, the little button-sized, blue and green Yin-and-Yang biosphere. It more or less just got better and better. But, most importantly—and who can say if
you
didn’t actually bring out that other entrepreneurial man in your father and give him all that drive?—there was the bonanza of you.
I remember how in what I’ll call now the “in-between” years—I mean, before there was you, in the mid-Seventies—when I was starting to do well (and just as well) at Walker’s, I’d sometimes find myself saying, at art-gatherings I had to go to: “My husband? He’s deputy editor of
The Living World.
” Or, later: “My husband? He’s editor of
The Living World.
” It
sounded
good, of course, it sounded important: what could be bigger than the living world? People in the art world aren’t necessarily clued up on science. And it was certainly better than saying, however confidently and breezily, “My husband works on snails.”
All the same, I’d wait for the vacant stare or the bluffing, knowing nod—keeping up a sort of bluff myself. Or I’d prepare for the embarrassed and embarrassing, “I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard…”
But once, at least, it made a big, even a startlingly strong impression. It was with our vet—who would, of course, have been a scientific man. He actually said, “I’m impressed.” It turned out he was a regular subscriber, one of the very few I’d ever knowingly met.
“Your husband’s editor of
The Living World
? Well, I’m impressed.”
And, naturally, I told your dad. I said, “I had this interesting chat with our new vet.”
But you’ll be thinking: vet? What vet? How does a vet come into the story?
14
I’M JUMPING AHEAD. Come back to Davenport Road in the year that Uncle Eddie died. I need to explain now some difficult and delicate things. I need to explain in my own words what your father will explain in his tomorrow. It’s one thing we’ve agreed on: your father will do the talking. Who else, in the
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