Adam Mars-Jones - Pilcrow

What I was offered wasn’t a normal school. Still, if it was a school at all, if it wasn’t a hospital lightly disguised, then it could only be more normal than what I was used to. ‘More normal’ would have to stand in for normal.

I had exhausted the educational possibilities of the school inside the hospital inside the Nissen huts in the grounds of the stately home, but I hadn’t exhausted everything the place had to teach me. One thing I completely failed to spot during my time at CRX was that the place itself was one colossal clue. There were esoteric secrets on the premises beyond the ken even of the Famous Five. I didn’t know that Nancy Astor was a Christian Scientist. Of course I also didn’t know who Nancy Astor was, or what she had to do with CRX. I didn’t know that she was the first woman to be elected an MP — well she wasn’t, so I have that excuse for not knowing it. She wasn’t the first woman to be elected an MP (who was a member of Sinn Féin campaigning from prison in Holloway) but she was the first to take her seat in the House.

I also didn’t know at the time what a Christian Scientist was. If Christian Scientists had bombarded CRX with anything like the fervour of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I’d have been better informed. Nancy hadn’t been raised in the faith but had seen the light of Mary Baker Eddy. Her husband Waldorf had seen it too, if only because it was bounced off the reflective surfaces of the formidable Nancy. If Nancy had taken up ritual cannibalism, Waldorf would most likely have gone along with it, not tasting the human sacrifices, necessarily (perhaps refusing with a wave of the hand when the plates were brought round), but ready with a toothpick afterwards, to help Nancy dislodge the human gristle from her teeth. So both of them adhered to a faith that says the pain is unreal — and then the moment a war comes along they volunteer their house as a hospital. It’s more than a gesture. They pay the wages of thirty-odd people, Lady Astor helps on the wards.

She had her own style of nursing, admittedly — if she didn’t rub salt into servicemen’s open wounds, she certainly grated ginger over them. What she didn’t do was tell them, as a good Christian Scientist should, that their pain was caused by Error and not real. If pain is unreal, why take pains to relieve it? Indifference would seem the better response.

So even in the foundation of the institution in which I lived for so long, with its two addresses and two pronunciations, there was a huge clue about the double nature of pain and the double nature of everything else. Both real and not real. Or (if that makes it simpler) neither. Neither real nor unreal.

Old Turps, the same headmaster who had been able to propose nothing better for my future life than work as a clerk, came to see me before I left the hospital. I didn’t forget that he had indulged my phobias and kept me safe from Teddy boys as much as he could. ‘If you go on to do great things,’ he said, ‘I hope you’ll give us a mention’ — consider it done.

Somewhere in this phase of life I had made an advance in my prayer technique. My relations with divinity were calmer. I’d stopped bargaining so nakedly. Now I was praying that if I was going to have pain in this life, and it seemed that I was, that I should have the pain all at the beginning, compressed, so that I could relax and enjoy what came afterwards. The way I phrased it to myself, and to God, was that I wanted to have all the gyp in a dollop. ‘Gyp’ came from Mrs Dale’s Diary , I think, to which Mum had become addicted.

This was a real break-through for me, to be praying for what I already had. It was definite progress. My prayer wasn’t disinterested, to be sure. It was a sort of bet, but when later in life I read about Pascal’s Wager I felt rather sniffy about it. I didn’t think it was particularly impressive, either intellectually or spiritually. Pascal’s idea was that it made sense to believe in God and judgement, since if you were wrong there was no penalty, and if you were right there was a reward. Either you won or you didn’t lose.

I see now that he was conducting a sort of mental experiment, which may even have included elements of teasing. At the time I felt it was really just cowardly to trick yourself into belief. My approach was a little subtler. Prayer showed no signs of being able to take the pain away, so I would devise a new style of prayer which would be self-fulfilling. It would seem already to be being answered, day by day. I had asked for pain, and here it was, but I could tell myself it came on my terms. I awarded myself the privilege of meaningful choice despite my absence of options. I took pain on myself, now, not as an ordeal or a sacrifice but as something more in the nature of an investment.

Dolls of the world

The Cromers and the Morrisons kept in touch for some time after I left CRX, though Sarah and I stopped being so close. The last time I saw her was as late as 1972. She was living in a Cheshire Home near Crystal Palace. The spark that made her Sarah seemed to be missing. She knew who I was, but I couldn’t interest her in very much. She didn’t always answer a question, and if she did it was as if she had to push the words out against some sort of internal resistance. Then her voice would tail away. Even Muzzie couldn’t always get through to her.

Sarah lay in bed with her eyes on her prized possessions. Her doll collection had grown enormously. Now she had a magnificent mahogany cabinet with glass doors to house them all. Her ambition was to have a doll from every country in the world on those shelves. She was nearly there. I think there was only one more doll needed to complete her miniature United Nations.

The only signs of a new interest were the Crystal Palace supporters’ scarves draped across the top of the cabinet, and I couldn’t be sure they were Sarah’s. They might have been something the carers had thought of to bring a bit of life to the room.

Sarah had more to say to her dolls than she did to people. Every now and then a carer would put a doll in her hands and then she would prattle away, almost like the Sarah I had known. She seemed to know what all her dolls were doing with their lives. They all had names, of course. She even knew what they did when she was asleep herself. She might call for Rita to be exchanged for Serafina, or Pushpa for Gita. Holding the doll in her arms, she would listen intently to what she had to say. She would say a few motherly words herself, give the doll a cuddle and then call for it to be put back in exactly the right place. Then she would call for another one.

The helpers at the home entered into Sarah’s world whole-heartedly. This was greatly to the credit of the institution and its staff. It was also rather creepy. Maria said, ‘Sarah! You haven’t mentioned or spoken to your little Eskimo girl for ten days — I hope she’s not starting to feel left out?’

‘Oh yes Maria you’re so right!’ chirped Sarah. ‘Oh do give me Polly straight away … Oh Polly darling, yes it’s true I have been neglecting you, but I didn’t mean to. It’s just that you’ve been so good, you see. That doesn’t always pay, you know! I’m afraid I’ve been terribly busy trying to keep the peace between Sally and Salim. Come and have a quick cuddle. I won’t let you get too warm … What? Yes, I know you’d like me to keep you in the ’fridge, but if I did that I couldn’t see you! And be fair … I have put you in the part of the cabinet that’s nearest to the window and the fresh air. I’m afraid that will just have to do …’

I felt fatally grown-up compared to Sarah, and very sorry for her. I wanted to buy her that one last doll, but at the same time I had qualms about putting the finishing touch to someone’s life’s work. Her life’s work was what it seemed to be. Best to leave her to get on with it. With the United Nations complete, what would Sarah have to look forward to? Academic question, as it turned out, since she died a few months later.