Sybille Bedford

by Selina Hastings

  After the publication of Jigsaw, the only commission Sybille had undertaken was from Penguin, to provide introductions for new paperback editions of her four novels. Currently she had no ideas for any future project, indeed was relieved to be able to live without the constant pressure of the deadline. Aliette, however, thought otherwise, convinced that it was too soon for Sybille to retire, determined to persuade her to begin work on another book, which would also help keep at bay the ever-present threat of depression. At first the suggestion was brushed aside—Sybille no longer had the energy, no plot or theme in mind—but slowly, as Aliette continued to coax and encourage her, she began to take the idea seriously, gradually starting to feel excited as a plan began to form, of a personal memoir, a series of reminiscences rather than a straightforward autobiography. Twenty years earlier Sybille had discussed a similar project with Bob Gottlieb, but soon afterwards had decided against it. “Although this so-called autobiographical stuff keeps pushing itself up,” she had told Bob, it is “not interesting enough to put before the reader.” Now, however, she felt differently, and with Aliette’s support at last felt able to begin again to write.

  The work was to take almost seven years to complete, as Sybille, during Aliette’s absence, was able to write, or think about writing only for an hour or two a day. Wearing her green visor and a large-framed pair of spectacles, she sat at her metal desk near the tiny window, its surface piled with books and pale green paper, a tall red-shaded lamp on one side, on the other a reading stand which obscured the typewriter that, to her regret, she was no longer able to use. “[Now] the writer actually has to write. Arthritis has undone me, I can no longer tap those keys…Writing slow-hand is all I can do: the scrawl is back; not improved.” Every day Sybille composed a few lines, occasionally a paragraph or two, went over each new sentence, every page of the chapter in progress, rewriting again and again before eventually putting it aside and beginning the next. At weekends Sybille and Aliette spent hours together struggling to decode Sybille’s “insect’s traces” before Aliette took “the precious sheets” back with her to Paris to copy them onto her computer. For Aliette, “it was an extraordinary discovery and a great lesson…seeing how her mind and memory worked, and how then she painfully assembled words, sentences, paragraphs, very slowly, step by step.”

  There were intervals in these periods of industry, the longest during the summer when Aliette was on holiday for the whole of August. The first two weeks, as for many years in the past, she spent with friends in Scotland, the rest of the time with Sybille. On several occasions they went together to Suffolk, at first staying at the Swan Hotel in Southwold, so that Sybille could see her old friend from the wine trade, Simon Loftus, and later with Elizabeth Jane Howard, who had recently left London and moved into Bridge House, a beautiful eighteenth-century house with a large garden in the little town of Bungay.

  For their first visit to Bridge House Sybille and Aliette had been driven down from London for a weekend, followed the next year by a stay of ten days. The day’s ritual was quickly established: each morning Jane took them breakfast on a tray upstairs, after which the two women remained in their bedroom until lunchtime; in the afternoon, at Aliette’s insistence, Sybille took a short walk in the garden, before they again retired to their room until dinner. Night after night, as the three of them sat at table, Sybille talked obsessively about wine, and Jane began to feel anxious about the dinner she had arranged for the final evening to which several friends had been invited. “I warned them that she was very boring about wine and I was afraid would talk about it all through dinner and there was nothing they could do.” In the event, however, Sybille never mentioned the subject, was charming and cheerful, genuinely interested in her fellow guests, and, to Jane’s relief, “the meal turned out to be a great success.”

  In 1997, Sybille, accompanied by Aliette, travelled to Paris to promote French editions of both Jigsaw and A Visit to Don Otavio. The trip “half killed me,” she said afterwards. “Getting old & weak is horrible…[but] 2 sets of publishers looked after me like angels.” Richard Olney, who saw her at this period, found her physically very frail, bent like a hook with spinal arthritis, her grey hair thin and wispy; she moved cautiously with the help of a cane, “but in good spirits and working on a new book; delicate health has not cooled her passion for wine and conversation.”

  Back in London, Sybille gave a number of interviews, among them one in 1998 for the BBC on Desert Island Discs. In the course of an hour, Sybille talked mainly about her childhood and adolescence, about her parents, her life in Sanary, the kindness and protection provided by the Huxleys; at intervals chosen passages were played from the works of her favourite composers, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart. “I’m not musical,” she admitted. “I can’t hold a tune, I have no ear, but I simply love great music…It gives me great emotional pleasure.” At the end of the programme, when the key question was put to her—if on a desert island which piece of music, which book and what luxury would she choose to have with her?—she replied, Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, Bach’s double violin concerto, and for her luxury, “a French restaurant in full working order: not a Michelin four-star [sic] but a good traditional solid restaurant, and in the evening I’d go out and look at the sea with a glass in my hand, and I’d do my writing, as Ernest Hemingway said he did, and one must, in my head.”

  On a rather different level was an interview that appeared the same year, 1998, in Country Life magazine, in which Sybille talked more about the present than the past, expressing her contempt for feminism—“I do think that emancipation of women has gone far too far. It’s ludicrous”—and her anxiety about the problems of overpopulation. This latter subject was one that had been causing her anxiety for many years: in an article written for The Times over two decades earlier, she had stated her opinion that “the overrunning of this earth by the human species is a key factor in our present universal plight.” Now she returned to the theme. “The one problem that no one dares to talk about is overpopulation. You can’t do it by force or by exposing children on hillsides any more…but you could try to make childlessness attractive—instead of giving child benefit you could reduce taxes for people who are not interrupting their working life by having brats.” As to the erosion of the environment, “Great buildings and landscapes are being overrun by crowds. I don’t see why one shouldn’t suggest that only people who deserve to visit Chartres Cathedral should be allowed to.”

  While Sybille continued to work on her book, her domestic life during the week was largely enabled by the helpfulness of friends and neighbours. Although she could at times be bossy and arrogant, brusquely dismissive of those who bored or annoyed her, the fact that she retained such a large circle of friends was proof of Sybille’s innate kindness and charm, her sense of humour, the fascination to others of her extraordinary memory and intellect. One of her helpers was Audrey Wood, “a Quaker saint,” in Sybille’s words, and for many years the lover of Sybille’s old friend, Charlotte Wolff; now frail and bent almost double, Audrey nonetheless devotedly took care of Sybille, reading to her, shopping, and taking her for little walks. Another devoted assistant was Sybille’s one-time girlfriend, Jenny MacKilligin, who on an almost daily basis ran errands for Sybille, cashing cheques at the bank, collecting books from the library, shopping at Waitrose for tins of corned beef, for Bovril and instant mashed potato, as Sybille when eating alone now preferred the most simple and basic of foods.

  Yet as before she still enjoyed dining in restaurants, and it was in a restaurant one evening that Sybille met a woman to whom she felt instantly drawn. Some time previously Sybille had been contacted by Robin Dalton, a successful literary agent and film producer, originally from Australia, who had been interested in making a film version of Jigsaw. The two women met to discuss the project, and although it eventually came to nothing they quickly formed a rewarding friendship. One evening Robin invited Sybille to dinner
, bringing with her a colleague, part Australian, part Italian, who had been very keen to meet Sybille. Luciana Arrighi, a dark-haired beauty in her early fifties, was a talented set and costume designer, whom Robin had hoped would work with her on the film. Sybille was immediately smitten, and when at one point Luciana briefly left the table to go to the ladies’, Sybille leant over to Robin, holding out both her hands: “Look how my hands are shaking!” she said. “She is so beautiful!” From that moment on, Sybille and Luciana became close friends, meeting often, in constant touch by telephone, Luciana one of two acquaintances Sybille named as a contact in case of emergency.

  On 16 March 2001, Sybille turned ninety, an occasion celebrated by a dinner given by a neighbour, George Naylor, a retired lawyer and notable oenophile, who had devised an exceptional sequence of wines for the evening. Before the meal there was champagne, Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame 1990, then during dinner each course was accompanied by a different wine, Puligny Montrachet Le Clavoillon Premier Cru 1993, Château Pichon Lalande 1982, Château Ducru-Beaucaillou 1982, Château Ducru-Beaucaillou 1989, Chambertin Grand Cru 1985, Chapelle-Chambertin Grand Cru 1990, and finally with the dessert a Sauternes, Château Rieussec Premier Cru 1986. Despite her frailty, Sybille throughout remained cheerful and alert, her eyes shining as she discussed with intense enthusiasm each wine in turn, analysing their differences and subtleties.

  During the next three years Sybille continued to work on her book, enthusiastically encouraged by her agent, Sarah Lutyens, whose firm Sybille had joined after the death, in 1995, of Elaine Greene. Lutyens & Rubinstein had been founded a couple of years earlier by two young women, Sarah Lutyens and Felicity Rubinstein, highly experienced in publishing and bookselling both in London and New York. Sarah had first met Sybille when working at Macmillan, the firm which had reissued her Huxley biography, and was delighted now to have Sybille as her client. Sarah immediately proved herself not only efficient and engaged, but soon became an affectionate friend. One evening Sarah and Felicity, rather nervously, cooked dinner for Sybille, every carefully prepared dish, as it turned out, a failure, but to their relief, “Sybille was delighted and laughed so much…She also introduced Felicity and me to a lot of her friends,” Sarah recalled, “and I often went to Old Church Street, [where] I remember being lectured on how not to open a bottle of wine.” In 1999 it had been Sarah who made a significant deal with Penguin for new paperback editions of all four of Sybille’s novels, and it was she who now arranged the sale of the present project, to Hamish Hamilton in London and to Counterpoint in New York.

  The book, entitled Quicksands and dedicated to Aliette, was delivered, as agreed, by the end of July 2004, with publication planned for the following year. After reading the manuscript, Sarah reported to Simon Prosser at Hamish Hamilton that she had found it “Enchanting. Full of delights and absolutely up with the best of her inimitable prose, full too of profound comment on this last century of turmoil and war. It’s going to thrill her devotees…There simply isn’t anyone else left able to write this kind of book about this generation.” Prosser, too, was impressed, writing to Sybille that Quicksands “is a truly beautiful book which I know will stay in my memory in that way that only certain books can…It is a unique journey through a life and a century—and I feel it will endure for years to come. I am very pleased and proud to be publishing it.”

  Quicksands appeared in the States on 5 January 2005, and in Britain on 2 June, nearly three months after Sybille’s ninety-fourth birthday. Subtitled A Memoir, the book is both vividly evocative and tantalisingly elusive, the story moving continuously from past to present, from one country to another. The narrative involves many of the same characters and covers much of the same ground as A Legacy and Jigsaw, Sybille again recalling her childhood in Germany, her years in Sanary, with, as before, the figure of her mother continuing to dominate her perspective on the past. “My difficulties now that I have committed myself to writing what could be called fragments of autobiography are multiple,” she states near the beginning. “When I feel I must repeat myself…I am afraid that I shall bore…If on the other hand I fail to jog the unremembered memory, I may cause lack of clarity or cohesion.”

  Many familiar characters appear on stage, among them, as well as Lisa, who is never referred to by name, there is Sybille’s sister, Katzi, the Huxleys, the Mimerels, the Mann family, the Muir sisters—some introduced only fleetingly, others in detail and at considerable length. Among the new material is the story of Sybille’s meeting with the Gendels while living in Rome, in which she delicately makes reference to the subsequent “attachment” to Evelyn that ensued. She also provides a fascinating account of her marriage in 1935 to Walter (here referred to as “Terry”) Bedford: the Huxleys’ search for “a bugger bridegroom,” the complex legal process undertaken by Sybille’s lawyer friend, Sylvester Gates, and the bizarre details of the wedding day itself, culminating in the party given by the Huxleys in Albany. Once possessed of the crucial British passport Sybille is able to escape to America, although nothing is said here about the war years spent in California and New York, and there are only the occasional, vague references to later love affairs. In the final pages of the book Sybille writes tantalisingly, “I would like to have been able to say something more…to tell some more stories…Wish I could tell the half of it…But…there seems to be no time.”

  Oblique, laconic and elegant in style, a deft combination of artistry and recollection, Quicksands unfolds in layers like a complicated puzzle that is never wholly solved. As one reviewer expressed it, “To read this fascinating book is like wandering from one brilliantly illuminated patch to another in an otherwise misty landscape.” While most critics praised the author’s style, several were bemused by the amount of reticence and elision, and the fact that so much of the personal history previously narrated was now repeated. Joan Acocella in the New Yorker, described the work as “positively chaotic…a sort of rummage sale,” while Alan Hollinghurst in the New York Review of Books regretted the fact that this “brilliant and original writer” should cover so much of the same ground as before, revealing almost nothing about her more recent years. Andrew Barrow in the Observer voiced much the same complaint—“she tells us for the third time about her first meeting with the Aldous Huxleys and then plunges into another account of her mother’s drug addiction”; he nonetheless went on to praise the book, relishing the author’s style as “gloriously uncondescending and pioneeringly ungrammatical.”

  For the rest of the year following the book’s publication, Sybille remained in London, increasingly fragile, more than ever dependent on friends, always impatiently waiting for the weekend and the arrival of her adored Aliette. On Sunday 22 January 2006, while alone in her flat, she fell and broke her hip. Two friends, her neighbour George Naylor and Luciana Arrighi, were alerted by the alarm Sybille wore on her wrist; Naylor, who arrived within minutes, immediately called an ambulance. Accompanied by Luciana, Sybille was driven to the Westminster & Chelsea Hospital in the Fulham Road, from where, uncomfortable in a public ward, she was moved the next day to the private Lister Hospital. One friend who visited her soon afterwards noticed how touchingly childlike Sybille seemed, almost unaware of her situation, of the unfamiliar surroundings. “Standing beside her bed, I saw again that very young face, the pale, translucently fair skin that, as she lay on the pillow, was divested of wrinkles, the Alice blue eyes gazing up in wonder, curiosity, some confusion, and just a streak of indignation.”

  Aliette, telephoned by Luciana, had been horrified by news of the accident. Unusually, she had had to cancel her weekend visit to London because of a crisis at the theatre, and had been worried by her inability to contact Sybille. A few days later she arrived in London, going at once to the Lister, appalled to see the fragility and helplessness of Sybille’s condition. From then on Aliette spent every Friday, Saturday and Sunday with Sybille, sitting with her, talking, reading to her, making her feel as comfortable as
possible. She was furious on one occasion to find Sybille’s doctor attempting to force his patient to try to walk. “She was in great pain…[I] told him Sybille couldn’t possibly do any such thing. He said, ‘If she doesn’t she’ll never walk again.’ I said, ‘You know she’ll never walk again.’ At this point the doctor bowed his head and left the room, and after that a much kinder doctor replaced him.”

  On 17 February, almost exactly a month before her ninety-fifth birthday, with Aliette by her bedside, Sybille died. It was Aliette who arranged the funeral, which took place ten days later at Mortlake Crematorium, attended by a large number of friends and admirers. Afterwards a wake was held, a generous buffet luncheon with excellent wine, provided by Kit van Tulleken and her husband at their house on Brook Green in Hammersmith. Nearly four months later, on 5 June, a memorial gathering, again organised by Aliette, was held at the Reform Club, at which a number of Sybille’s friends spoke, some describing their personal memories of her, others reading from her own writing about her past. Among them was her editor, Richard Ollard, who said of his author that “her company was always refreshing, even when her circumstances were adverse…she recognised unpretentiousness as fully as she detected its opposite…sympathy rather than passing judgements was central to her understanding.” That evening Aliette returned to Paris; five days later she travelled to the south of France, taking Sybille’s ashes with her to Sanary, where standing on the shore in the early evening light she scattered them over the Mediterranean while quietly reciting Paul Valéry’s “Le Cimetière Marin,” a poem Sybille had always loved.

  Since her death, Sybille’s literary reputation has continued to grow. In 2015, the distinguished American writer and academic, Brenda Wineapple, wrote an article in the New York Review of Books analysing the importance of Sybille’s work. Brenda had first met Sybille in the 1980s, when Brenda had been working on a life of Janet Flanner. After a brief correspondence, Brenda had come over to London and called on Sybille one evening to ask for recollections of her old friend. After their conversation, which continued for several hours, Brenda found she had come away with a clear impression of Sybille’s exceptional intellect and complex personality, giving her a significant insight into how it was that she had become such a fine writer. “I remember that our first talk lasted far into the night. I remember that she was then and continued to be forthright, funny, and scrupulously frank. I remember thinking…how remarkable it was that one of the finest stylists of the twentieth century, bar none, with a prose of incomparable precision and grace, would candidly acknowledge her daily battle against discouragement, distraction, and doubt. But that was typical…She understood first-hand the burdens of survival.”