Cape also lived in Russell Square. The Greene family were directors, related to Grahame Greene, whose novels everyone was reading. Cape threw a splendid party every winter. Desmond Morris would drive me up to London, where we would dine at the Gay Hussar before moving on to Cape’s entertainments, which lasted half the night. On one occasion, Desmond and I met up with Billy Connolly and Pamela Stevenson. Thus, while Desmond talked with Pamela, I found myself joking with Billy, the great joker.
An amiable man he was.
The Greenes had another distinguished member, Felix Greene. Felix and his wife Elena had been itinerant political commentators before arriving in China (in about 1960).
The impression and impact of that vast country was so great that Felix found himself settling there. I came to empathise with what he felt. Felix wrote a valuable book, The Wall Has Two Sides, which openly describes that great country in which he found himself and his wife living.
Speaking of his travels, Felix says, ‘I did not think that seeing a new country could ever really stir or excite me again. But I was wrong. No experience in my life shook me as deeply as this first visit to China. I came away certain that, whatever our view of it might be, what was taking place in China was one of the great historical events of our era.’
How right he was. And this in 1963.
The Cape Greenes decided to send a small party of their authors out to Beijing to greet their remarkable relation. This party of six included Iris Murdoch, David Attenborough, and me.
I was acquainted with Chinese people, having lived for a year or so in Hong Kong. Also virtually living with two Chinese families in Sumatra. Our Cape group stayed in a HK hotel for one night before flying to Beijing, where we were escorted to a pleasant old hotel; our rooms had views of Tienamen Square.
From that point, we were escorted over much of China – so vast, so wild, so beautiful. The delightful Felix served as one guide, our other guide being a tall, elegant English-speaking man, Liang. It is hard now, just as it was at the time, to describe the spell under which we fell. We became enthusiastic about everything – the people of China especially.
China was definitely not as many in the West believed. Chairman Mao had died a year before we arrived. Already the country was awakening, awakening from what had become a crazed rule.
What Lord Acton said in 1887 had been born out once again, that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Acton added, There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
Our little group was taken to the Great Hall of the People to see Mao lying in state. He was perched in his coffin relatively high up, so that only the exceptionally tall could see much more of him than his nose. We suspected that even his nose might be wax.
We met with none of the robot-workers the U.S. in particular had conjured up. On entering a factory for a brief inspection, the workers immediately stopped work; they dropped tools and lit cigarettes, the better to observe – and if possible speak to – these visiting longnoses.
On the farms it was much the same. The workers would lean on their hoes and enjoy our visit. We sat outdoors and ate with them: ate the local food. Felix talked to the peasants in the local dialect.
In the evenings, Iris, David and I would sit about and discuss what we had experienced. Or we would invite in a school teacher to teach us. And of course we talked with Felix and his wife. Felix was cousin Grahame, another wanderer.
Yes, there was endemic poverty, the traditional enveloping poverty matured over centuries. But we were struck with the cleanliness everywhere. Those of us who had lived in India recalled with disgust human excreta on public display, with busy attendant flies. China had several ways of dealing effectively with this human problem.
Nor did we see prostitution, which is not to say, of course, that it did not exist. But it was not the vote-winner it had been in Calcutta, Brother selling sister.
Eventually, we had to take a ferry from Canton across to HK and its gorgeous hotels. There in its luxurious baths and showers we ceased to be Communists and became Capitalists again.
Have I ever been happier, less self-regarding, than on that adventure?
Mao Zedong had bestowed a proud title on Felix, ‘Friend of China’. The title was now somewhat in question. And Felix was becoming unwell. Still he had friends and medical aid to call on.
He died of cancer in 1985, in Mexico.
