I must mention the first visit we paid to Arpachiyah after an interval of fifteen years. We were recognised at once. The whole village came out. There were cries, shouts, greetings, welcome. ‘You remember me, Hawajah,’ said one man. ‘I was basket-boy when you left. Now I am twenty-four, I have a wife, I have big son, grown-up son–I show you.’
They were astonished that Max could not remember every face and every name. They recalled the famous race that had passed into history. We were always meeting our friends of fifteen years before.
One day as I drove through Mosul in the lorry, the policeman directing traffic suddenly held it all up with his baton, and yelling out, ‘Mama! Mama!’ advanced upon the lorry, seizing me by the hand, and shaking it wildly.
‘What joy to see you, Mama! I am Ali! I am Ali the pot-boy–you remember me? Yes? Now I am policeman!’
And so, every time I drove into Mosul, there was Ali, and the moment he recognised us, all the traffic in the street was held up, we exchanged greetings, and then our lorry proceeded with full priority. How good it is to have these friends. Warm-hearted, simple, full of enjoyment of life, and so well able to laugh at everything. Arabs are great ones for laughing, great ones for hospitality too. Whenever you happen to pass through a village where one of your workmen lives, he rushes out and insists you should come in and drink sour milk with him. Some of the town effendis in purple suits are tiresome, but the men of the land are good fellows and splendid friends.
How much I have loved that part of the world.
I love it still and always shall.
EPILOGUE
The longing to write my autobiography assailed me suddenly at my ‘house’ at Nimrud, Beit Agatha.
I have looked back to what I wrote then and I am satisfied. I have done what I wanted to do. I have been on a journey. Not so much a journey back through the past, as a journey forward–starting again at the beginning of it all–going back to the Me who was to embark on that journey forward through time. I have not been bounded by time or space. I have been able to linger where I wanted, jump backwards and forwards as I wished.
I have remembered, I suppose, what I wanted to remember; many ridiculous things for no reason that makes sense. That is the way we human creatures are made.
And now that I have reached the age of seventy-five, it seems the right moment to stop. Because, as far as life is concerned, that is all there is to say.
I live now on borrowed time, waiting in the ante-room for the summons that will inevitably come. And then–I go on to the next thing, whatever it is. One doesn’t luckily have to bother about that.
I am ready now to accept death. I have been singularly fortunate. I have with me my husband, my daughter, my grandson, my kind son-in-law–the people who make up my world. I have not yet quite reached the time when I am a complete nuisance to them all.
I have always admired the Esquimaux. One fine day a delicious meal is cooked for dear old mother, and then she goes walking away over the ice–and doesn’t come back…
One should be proud of leaving life like that–with dignity and resolution.
It is, of course, all very well to write these grand words. What will really happen is that I shall probably live to be ninety-three, drive everyone mad by being unable to hear what they say to me, complain bitterly of the latest scientific hearing aids, ask innumerable questions, immediately forget the answers and ask the same questions again. I shall quarrel violently with some patient nurse-attendant and accuse her of poisoning me, or walk out of the latest establishment for genteel old ladies, causing endless trouble to my suffering family. And when I finally succumb to bronchitis, a murmur will go around of ‘One can’t help feeling that it really is a merciful relief.
And it will be a merciful relief (to them) and much the best thing to happen.
Until then, while I’m still comfortably waiting in Death’s ante-chamber, I am enjoying myself. Though with every year that passes, something has to be crossed off the list of pleasures.
Long walks are off, and, alas, bathing in the sea; fillet steaks and apples and raw blackberries (teeth difficulties) and reading fine print. But there is a great deal left. Operas and concerts, and reading, and the enormous pleasure of dropping into bed and going to sleep, and dreams of every variety, and quite often young people coming to see you and being surprisingly nice to you. Almost best of all, sitting in the sun–gently drowsy…And there you are again–remembering. ‘I remember, I remember, the house where I was born.
I go back to that always in my mind. Ashfield.
O ma chère maison, mon nid, mon gîte
Le passé l’habite…O! ma chère maison…
How much that means. When I dream, I hardly ever dream of Greenway or Winterbrook. It is always Ashfield, the old familiar setting where one’s life first functioned, even though the people in the dream are the people of today. How well I know every detail there: the frayed red curtain leading to the kitchen, the sunflower brass fender in the hall grate, the Turkey carpet on the stairs, the big, shabby schoolroom with its dark blue and gold embossed wallpaper.
I went to see–not Ashfield, but where Ashfield had been, a year or two ago. I knew I would have to go sooner or later. Even if it caused me pain, I had to go.
Three years ago now someone wrote to me, asking if I knew that the house was to be pulled down, and a new estate developed on the site. They wondered if I couldn’t do something to save it–such a lovely house–as they had heard I had lived there once.
I went to see my lawyer. I asked if it would be possible for me to buy the house and make a gift of it to an old people’s home, perhaps? But that was not possible. Four or five big villas and gardens had been sold en bloc–all to be demolished, and the new ‘estate’ put up. So there could be no respite for dear Ashfield.
It was a year and a half before I summoned up the resolution to drive up Barton Road…
There was nothing that could even stir a memory. They were the meanest, shoddiest little houses I had ever seen. None of the great trees remained. The ash-trees in the wood had gone, the remains of the big beech-tree, the Wellingtonia, the pines, the elms that bordered the kitchen garden, the dark ilex–I could not even determine in my mind where the house had stood. And then I saw the only clue–the defiant remains of what had once been a monkey puzzle, struggling to exist in a cluttered back yard. There was no scrap of garden anywhere. All was asphalt. No blade of grass showed green.
I said ‘Brave monkey puzzle’ to it, and turned away.
But I minded less after I had seen what had happened. Ashfield had existed once but its day was over. And because whatever has existed still does exist in eternity, Ashfield is still Ashfield. To think of it causes me no more pain.
Perhaps some child sucking a plastic toy and banging on a dustbin lid, may one day stare at another child, with pale yellow sausage curls and a solemn face. The solemn child will be standing in a green grass fairy ring by a monkey puzzle holding a hoop. She will stare at the plastic space ship that the first child is sucking, and the first child will stare at the hoop. She doesn’t know what a hoop is. And she won’t know that she’s seen a ghost…
Goodbye, dear Ashfield.
So many other things to remember: walking up through a carpet of flowers to the Yezidis shrine at Sheikh Adi…the beauty of the great tiled mosques of Isfahan–a fairy-story city…a red sunset outside the house at Nimrud…getting out of the train at the Cilician gates in the hush of evening…the trees of the New Forest in autumn…swimming in the sea in Torbay with Rosalind…Mathew playing in the Eton and Harrow match…Max arriving home from the war and eating kippers with me…So many things–some silly, some funny, some beautiful. Two summits of ambition fulfilled: dining with the Queen of England (how pleased Nursie would have been. ‘Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?’); and the proud ownership of a bottle-nosed Morris–a car of my own! Most poignant of experiences: Goldie the canary hopping down from the curtain pole after a day of ho
peless despair.
A child says ‘Thank God for my good dinner’.
What can I say at seventy-five? ‘Thank God for my good life, and for all the love that has been given to me.’
Wallingford. October IIth 1965
SEARCHABLE TERMS
Note: The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.
Absent in the Spring (‘Mary Westmacott’), 499–500
Acton, Mrs (V.A.D. matron), 228
Adams, Mr, 508
Akhnaton (play), 471
Alibi (play), 430, 434, 472, 514
Anderson, Sister (VA.D.), 229, 232, 239
Ankatell, Mr, 178–9
Anna the Adventuress see Man in the Brown Suit
Arbuthnot, Mrs, 484–5, 490–1
Arpachiyah see Nineveh
Ashfield, childhood in, 15–65; letting of, 67, 151, 166; after father’s death, 116; Monty returns to, 324, 326; on mother’s death, 346–8; AC visits; 408; AC occupies, 413, 466, 469–70; nostalgia for, 530–1
Attenborough, Richard, 512
Australia, 293–7
Baghdad, AC visits, 361–73, 378–9, 384, 390, 397–8; museum, 465, 521; AC’s house in, 527–8
Bailey, Mr, 218, 279
Bailey, H. C, 342
Baillieu, Clive, 319–20
‘Ballad of the Maytime’, 329
Baird, N. H. J., 32
Bantry, Col and Mrs (fict. characters), 434
Barker (housemaid), 31
Barker, Miss (headmistress), 355
Baron, Coco, 400
Barrie, J. M., Dear Brutus, 487
Barttelot, Lady, 178–80
Barter (housemaid), 103–4
Bartlett (batman), 261, 264–5
Basrawi, Sheikh, 399–400
Bates, Mr (Belcher’s secretary), 289–90, 292, 303
Belcher, Major, war-work, 284–5; on round-world mission-tour, 286, 289–92, 294–7, 302–6; and Bates, 290, 292; character, 290, 297–8, 302, 306; friendship with, 306, 351; marriage and divorce, 307; fictionalised by AC, 311–12
Belcher, Gladys, 307
Bell family (Australia), 295–6
Bell, Guilford, 295, 479, 481
Benenden school, 475
Bernhardt, Sarah, 158–9
Besant, Mrs Annie, 25
Bessie (servant), 422, 468
Big Four, The, 354
Black Coffee (play), 433–4
Bland, Joyce, 434
Bloomfield, Derek, 516
Bodley Head (publishers), 260, 276, 283, 312, 317–8, 329–30, 346
Body in the Library, The, 489
Bond, Sister (V.A.D.), 228–9
Boué, Monsieur (singing teacher), 159–61
Bowen, Elizabeth, 409
Bowker, Elsa, Lady, 518–19
Bowker, Sir James, 518
Breasted, J. H., The Dawn of Conscience, 496
British Empire Exhibition Mission, 286, 289, 294, 297
Brown, Mrs, 20
Browne, Annie see Watts, Annie
Burberry, Mrs, 344
Burnett, Sir Charles, Air Vice-Marshal, 389
Burnett, Sybil, Lady (‘Bauff’), 389
Burrows, Eric Norman Bromley, S. J. (E. R. Burrows), 376–7, 391
Burwood, Dr, 158
Cairo, 168–74
Caledonia School, Bexhill, 355–6, 475
Call of Wings, The (short story), 193
Campbell Thompson, R. see Thompson, Reginald Campbell
Canada, 301–5
Canary Islands, 353, 357–8, 408
Caroline (fictional character), 434
Carver, Dr, 386–7
Cauterets, 75–80, 122, 152
Chaflin, John, 218, 279
Charlotte (Monty’s nurse), 382–3
Christie, Dame Agatha (Dame Agatha Mallowan; née Miller) third birthday, 21; and the garden, 22; and Nursie, 22–4, 27–9, 35–7, 45, 47–8, 56, 59, 62; and imaginary companions, 23, 26–7, 39, 96–8; and her mother, 24, 118–19; and her brother, 24–5, 34–6, 288; and her sister, 24–5, 53–5; christening, 25; education, 26, 53–4, 93–5, 149–51; and ‘Goldie’, 26–7, 532; portrait of, 32; and ‘Tony’, 33–4; and dreams, 37–8; and Auntie-Grannie, 40–41; at Ealing, 44–5; nature of, 47, 104–5; and reading books, 49, 55–6, 94–5, 120–1, 147–8, 193,195, 198; and church-going, 49–50; and social life, 50–53; first short story, 55; and toys, 58–62; and her mother’s jewelry, 68; and family collections, 69; learning French, 70–5, 153; and Marie Sijé, 74–5, 79–80, 84–6; riding at Cauterets, 77–9; arriving home, 88–9; and clothes, 95; and music, 98–9, 101–2, 148–9, 153–4, 196–8; and dancing, 99–101; and theatre, 107–8, 148, 158–9; and Torquay regatta, 108–9; and father’s death, 110–13; and her father, 114; first appearance in print, 127; alone at Ashfield, 133; at Abney, 136–40 and embroidery, 138–9, 198–9; swimming, 140–7; and house-parties, 179–83; first flight, 187–8; writing verse, 190–1; early attempts at writing, 193–6; on writing, 198–9, 310–12, 333–5, 341, 409–10, 413, 430–32, 436–8, 455, 473–4, 489, 496–500, 509; and courtship, 199–208; and detective stories, 210–11, 254–9; meets Archie Christie, 212; engagement to Archie, 215–20, 226–7; financial situation, 216–18, 279–80; learning First Aid, 222–4; in V.A.D.s, 227–32, 238–40, 246–54; marriage to Archie, 233–8; and Archie, 246–7, 259–88; birth of daughter (Rosalind), 265–7; houseowning, 273, 426, 467–9, 479–81; round-the-world trip, 286–306; surfing, 292–3, 298–302; illnesses, 301–2, 349, 359, 386–8, 427–9; bridge-playing, 306; contracts and agents, 318–19; golfing, 320, 344; motor cars, 321, 343, 345, 415, 532; early driving, 332–3; on criticism, 334; artistic activities, 335; dogs, 342, 414; mother’s death, 346–9; estrangement and divorce from Archie, 349–55; journey to Baghdad, 361–73; meets and travels with Max, 391–7; on own character, 409–10; on friendships and admirers, 410–13; literary earnings, 413–14; Max proposes to, 415–18; marriage and honeymoon, 422–7; plays, 433–4, 471–5 510–11, 514–15, 519–20; on crime and criminals, 438–40; archaeological activities, 456–60, 463, 466, 523; studies photography, 478–9; wartime work as hospital dispenser, 483, 486–7, 489, 504; royalties and rights, 512–13; public appearances, 517–19; see also individual works; and ‘Westmacott, Mary’
Christie, Archibald, meets AC, 212; engagement, 215–20; in First World War, 226–7, 246–7; marriage, 233–8; living in London, 260–88; on round-the-world tour, 289–92, 294–6, 298–9, 302–5, 362; falls ill in Canada, 303–4; character, 309; employment, 309–10, 319–20, 336; golfing, 320, 336, 342–3; and Monty, 325, 353; and AC’s driving, 332–3; and AC’s writing, 333; and Rosalind, 343, 352, 360; cars, 343; estrangement and divorce, 349–55, 360; and Rosalind’s wedding, 488
Christie, Campbell, 219, 235, 354
Christie, Rosalind see Hicks, Rosalind
Churston Ferrers, 513
Clifford family, 212
Cochran, Charles, 182–3, 472
Cochran, Evelyn, 182–3
Collins, William, Sons & Co. Ltd., 342, 413
Colton, Thornley (fictional character), 433
Come, Tell Me How You Live (Agatha Christie Mallowan), 466, 500–501
Cork, Edmund, 319, 510
Craik, Captain, 170
Cresswell Place, London, 390, 422
Croft, Freeman Wills, 433
Crooked House, 520
Crow, Mr (singing-master), 121
‘Cuckoo’ (Rosalind’s nannie), 308–9, 312–14
Damascus, 369–70
Daniel (house-boy), 525–6
Death Comes as the End, 498
Derby, Lord, 247
Dickens, Charles, David Copperfield, 15; The Old Curiosity Shop, 49
Dinard, 81, 84–7
Ditchburn, Mr, 394–5
Ditchburn, Mrs Elsie, 394–5
Draper, Ruth, 437
Druce, Beda, 385
Dru
ce, Pam, 385–6
Dryden, Miss (schoolmistress), 158, 162–3
Du Maurier, Gerald, 434, 472
Dunne, J. W., Experiment with Time, 379
Dwyer, Colonel, 380, 383–4, 398, 401
Egypt, ancient, as subject of novel, 335, 496–8
Elizabeth II, Queen, 321, 531
Ellis, Dr, 247
Ellis, Mrs, 247–8
Elsie, Lily, 192
Emma (parlourmaid), 240
Evening News, The, 319
Ferguson, Amy, 390
Fisher, Charlotte (‘Carlo’), engaged as secretary-governess, 339–42; father’s illness, 348, 352; accompanies AC to Canaries, 353, 357, 362; and Rosalind, 361, 408, 420; friendship with, 385, 410; on AC marrying Max, 418–19; and AC’s writing, 432; and AC’s houses, 467, 491; war work, 487
Fisher, Mary, 340, 418–19, 432, 467
Francis, St., 25
Freeman, R. Austin, 433
Froudie (parlourmaid), 67, 89–90
Fürster, Charles, 159, 163–4
Gallagher (driver at Nineveh), 461–2
Gertrude Bell School of Archaeology, 522
Giant’s Bread (‘Mary Westmacott’), 470–2
Gielgud, John, 335
Glanville, Stephen, 485, 494–7
Godden, Rumer, 409
Graves, Robert, 317
Greece, 424–7
Greene, Graham, 409, 505
Greenway House, Torquay, 479–81, 484, 490–2, 507–9
Griffiths, Arthur, 212–3
Guernsey, 87–8
Guyer, Miss (schoolmistress), 150–1
Hamilton, Robert, 522, 524, 527
Hannaford (gardener), 490–91
Hannah (cook), 56, m, 129
Hartnell, Miss (fictional character), 434
Hastings (fictional character), 342