Whatever Love Means

David Baddiel

It was replayed on TV many times in August 1997 in the weeks after the Princess of Wales was killed. A scene, 16 years earlier: an interviewer, a teenager and the Prince of Wales. "And you're both in love, of course?" the interviewer asks. "Of course", Diana replies. Camera pans to Prince Charles... "Whatever love means" adds Charles.

After she died, this interview really did for him in the eyes of the Diana-ites. It was evidence of the gulf between them. Her, young and innocent and committed to the marriage. Him, half-hearted, always thinking of Camilla. The rest of us saw some of that in him, of course, but also something more tragic. His is the reply of an over-earnest man weighed down by absurd expectation and uncomfortable with cliche. But in August 1997, if you thought that way, you were better off keeping your mouth shut in public.

David Baddiel's novel uses that strange mad week of Diana's death as its kicking off point. It's the story of thirtysomethings Joe and Emma and their friends, Vic and Tess. It's a strong four way friendship but not strong enough to survive the strange atmosphere in Diana week. Emma is in floods of tears, but for Joe "The whole country's gone fucking mental". Tess, irreverent and funloving returns to Britain from a foreign trip a day after the accident and is horrified to realise she has misjudged the public mood completely when a crack about Diana reduces the rest of her railway carriage to tears and outrage. Vic begins a secret affair with Emma (pretending to be grief-stricken like her has helped).

As you'd expect from David Baddiel, there's plenty of humour, especially in the early part of the book. Now, as someone with close hand experience of Alzheimer's I know it's no laughing matter but I can't help finding the following scene a hoot. Scene: Emma and Joe and Emma's mother (Alzheimer victim, far enough gone not even to recognise her daughter at times) watching the Queen's TV address after Diana's death. Emma's mother jabs a finger at the Queen: "I know that woman ..." Joe and Emma's spirits are immediately lifted by this sudden clearing of Sylvia's personal fog. "...it's Mrs Irving from the bakery. What's she doing on the telly?".

But Vic and Emma's affair leads to disaster and with it some of the humour leaks out of the book. But it is replaced with some rather brilliant writing on the nature of illness and death and it's a gripping and moving read from here to the finish.

It's odd really, because on telly David Baddiel comes across as a bit of a git. Talented, yes, but not that talented and always giving off the sense that as a comic performer he has merely been in the right place at the right time. So from this book I expected something funny but forgettable. An airport read. Instead he turns out to be a writer with a real understanding of the craft. A good premise (other novels will be written about August 1997 but this is the first), interesting characters, a plausible and tender plot with some excellent twists and turns. And elegantly structured.

Even the stuff which would be a cliche in a lesser book is handled with great freshness. For example, there is an AIDS sub-plot. Now, this has been a cliche in thirtysomething novels since 1985. But here there is a recognition that it is no longer a 'sexy' disease. In fact, Joe, a reseach scientist is hauled before his boss and told that his funding for HIV research is to be cut. Perhaps, with Diana gone, it is no longer a fashionable disease, and "well, you know, AIDS is a bit eighties". In a way, thinks Joe, Diana was always a bit eighties herself.

Clever stuff.