It is difficult to believe that a human being so much larger than life can actually pass on. There is a kind of immortality to a personality as staggering as Lord Jeffrey Archer’s. And yet, paradoxically, when I met him weeks ago at his diamond wedding anniversary celebration at Cambridge, I was strangely reluctant to leave his side.
I wanted to grab every last second with him. To preserve every conversation, every expression, every little moment — almost as though some instinct in me knew I should hold on to the memories. Was it a premonition? I honestly don’t know.
In the disoriented grief I am feeling now, I only know that the feeling has stayed with me.
After his anniversary garden party at Grantchester Cambridge, once most of the guests had left, I was sitting with Jeffrey, Dame Mary, Jammi and a few of their closest friends for an intimate tea and coffee that lasted until 9pm, though in the long English summer light it felt more like four or five in India. I had wanted to grab every last second I could get with him in a poignant sense of clinging!
Jeffrey was talking about Adam & Eve, which was to be his final novel. I protested. Surely there was so much more he had to give the world. Why should this be his last book? He told me that after this — a book he believed to be one of his greatest — he would not write another big novel.
And now, I wonder if he knew. And if I knew? Jeffrey and I go back some fifteen years, to a writers’ and authors’ dinner in Mumbai. There were some of the city’s most celebrated names around that table, yet Jeffrey chose to chat with me and asked me question after question.
His particular attention, however, was soon diverted when he met my much, much better half, KRS Jamwal. In the course of our conversations, asked about our story. Little did I know that he was gathering material.
Jeffrey came back to India soon afterwards and, to my utter astonishment, he read me a passage from his forthcoming book. There was a character called Nisha. He had written our love story. And Jeffrey had made the rather extraordinary decision to use my real name.
The result was “Caste-Off”, the final story in his collection And Thereby Hangs a Tale. Jeffrey’s own synopsis describes Jamwal and Nisha falling in love while waiting for a traffic light to turn green in Delhi. There are very few occasions in fiction when a writer chooses to retain the real name of the person whose life inspired the story.
Mine became Nisha JamVwal.
Jeffrey once told me that it was his favourite story because it was genuinely original and unique. He hoped it would become a Bollywood film. And, in typical Jeffrey fashion, Bollywood did come knocking. There was interest from producers almost immediately, with Caste-Off being described at the time as an ideal Bollywood film! And now we were in the process of finalising the director for this magnum opus he had dreamt of!
The story later acquired another extraordinary life through a special illustrated edition, with the beautiful illustrations by Paul Cox. Those illustrations were exhibited at the Chris Beetles Gallery in London and remain among my most cherished Jeffrey Archer memories. Jeffrey Archer the personality was even more dazzling than the characters he created. Witty. Sparkling. Wry. Irreverent. Occasionally outrageous. Always entertaining. His life was almost as dramatic as one of his plots.
Over the years, his legendary Christmas and birthday gatherings at The Old Vicarage in Grantchester became part of our London calendar. We flew down year after year to celebrate Jeffrey, his friendship and that extraordinary house and garden.
The guest list was invariably a Who’s Who — Margaret Thatcher, Dame Judi Dench, David Suchet, John Major, Ian Botham, Kemi Badenoch, Andrew Pierce and so many friends we made with him. And then came this summer.
In the glorious English sunshine, Jeffrey and Dame Mary celebrated sixty years of marriage at their beautiful Cambridge home. Jeffrey graciously seated me beside Sir John Major. Around our table were Dame Norma Major, Sir Ian Botham and Lady Kathryn Botham, Hollywood producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, and my husband Jammi Jamwal. There were distinguished guests from politics, literature, film, business and the arts.
There was a grand five-course luncheon, a live band and three memorable speeches. Sir John Major was thoughtful and gracious.
Jeffrey, predictably, was hilarious — irreverent, self-deprecating and completely Jeffrey.
And Dame Mary responded with the warmth, wit and affection of a woman who had shared sixty remarkable years with him.
It was, in every sense, a celebration of a life. Now in retrospect his swan song? I remember writing afterwards that I wanted time to stand still. I have rarely felt that way. Now I understand why that afternoon feels almost suspended in time.
Jeffrey gave us the opening chapter of Adam & Eve that day. Today, that book is being published.
Jeffrey went yesterday, suddenly and peacefully a day before his final novel appeared in the world. He had told us clearly that Adam & Eve, had always been intended it to be his last novel.
There is something almost unbearably Jeffrey Archer about that timing. He finished his story. And then he left!
To say I am devastated would be an understatement. London will not be quite the same for us. England will not be quite the same.
And for me, the world will never be quite the same without Jeffrey. We have lost a literary giant — a master storyteller whose books were so dear to millions. In india he was welcomed like a rockstar! I remember fireside chat. I deal with him in Bangalore and also in Madras, and there is no place to stand with people, throwing the venue in hundreds.But statistics seem strangely inadequate today.
Because I am not thinking of the millions of books. I am thinking of the man. The wry smile. The wicked humour. The stories. The garden coffees we shared! The long English evenings. The extraordinary people gathered around him. The way he made a room of hundreds sparkle.
And that last afternoon, when I somehow didn’t want to leave his side. Perhaps that is the real privilege of knowing someone who has lived so vividly. They leave behind more than books. They leave behind memories that become part of our own story. For me, Jeffrey will always remain the sparkling, irreverent man who listened to an extraordinary love story, decided it belonged in one of his books — and then actually wrote it. One of my most sparkling friends.
After my husband, KRS Jamwal, perhaps the most extraordinary man ever to turn our love story into literature.
Wherever you are Jeffrey, you will create magic I’m sure!
And thank you for the tale.
