The Parting Years (1963-74)

by Cecil Beaton

Margaret Case postscript

  The sad news of her death is followed by the manner of it. It seems the unhappy soul jumped from the window of her bedroom on the fifteenth floor. One cannot imagine the misery of mind that caused her to have such terrifying last seconds.

  That she suffered so much unhappiness was a shock, for Margaret seemed to have a great deal to keep her interested. I know she was upset by what was happening at Vogue and disturbed by the direction things were taking there; but she read a lot and she saw all the new plays. As for people, she never stopped making new friends and continued to be most loyal to her lifelong cronies. However, they obviously did not make up for the emptiness of her life; she no doubt felt that she was going round like a squirrel in a wheel, and in any case was not in a fit state to withstand any cruel blows.

  The picture of her recently published is a wonderful character study of her in a benign, amused, interested mood, as she arrived as chic as-be-damned in spite of her ugly face, at some exhibition. The cameraman could not have known what emotion his picture would create in so many hearts. The sight of it went through me like a stab.

  November

  Nancy Mitford seems to be a bit better. She has pills which, though they make her wuzzy and silly, put her out of pain. She feels she is on the mend and may start to write her ‘Souvenirs’. Should she include Mark Og’s letters about the little boys he loved? Mark is dead — what harm?

  But it is lovely to know that Nancy is not, as we all thought, on the way out. It is a marvel that she has survived such agony for so long; and it will be a miracle if after all she can survive a few more years.

  Went to two excellent plays last week; or I should say one good play, Butley, and one wonderful entertainment, The Changing Room. David Storey, who wrote the latter, used to fly up to Manchester at the weekends to play football while studying at the Slade. He is now not only a successful novelist, but a playwright.

  His subject is the behind-the-scenes at a football match, an enormous cast. I cannot think it would read well, but Lindsay Anderson has made characters of each individual, and has made it into a sort of choreographed play. The effect is stunning, for Storey knows just how to make his theatrical effects. The evening is an effective tour de force.

  Butley is a most articulate play, in fact one I would like to read, and is made momentous by the performances by Alan Bates and Richard O’Callaghan. Bates has invented an original sense of humour. It takes a while to realize what he is up to, but by degrees one is overcome by his tongue-in-cheekness and self-mockery. He has grown his hair very shaggily long. This is obviously to compensate for the width of his neck which has now become almost inhumanly large. But what a marvellous find for the theatre he is. He came in on the new wave of John Osborne and has gone from one peak to another: a real artist, modest, determined and utterly charming.

  CHANEL

  Chanel is dead. One can no longer take for granted the feeling that she and her talent are always with us. She was unlike anything seen before. She was no beauty, but her appearance in the twenties and thirties was unimaginably attractive. She put all other women in the shade. Even in old age, ravaged and creased as she was, she still kept her line, and was able to put on the allure.

  She used to spend most of the time complaining in her rasping, dry voice. Everyone except her was at fault. But you were doing her a service by remaining in her presence, for even her most loyal friends had been forced to leave her. You tried to leave, too, for your next appointment, but she had perfected the technique of delaying you. Her flow of talk could not be interrupted. You rose from your seat and made backwards for the door. She followed. Her face ever closer to yours. Then you were out on the landing and down a few stairs. The rough voice still went on. Then you blew a kiss. She knew now that loneliness again faced her. She smiled a goodbye. The mouth stretched in a grimace, but from a distance it worked the old magic.

  I found myself outside the shop a few weeks ago. I had not seen her since the musical Coco and thought I’d pay her a call. She looked older than ever. No gipsy had ever looked so old. The hair was like black wool; eye-black smudged; no make-up would remain on the dark skin. Her hands appeared enormous at the ends of long, stringy arms. The chest was almost concave. She never ate anything; one felt that it was only her spirit that kept her going. Her servants and the others who work for her were cowed. But she knew that she would always have the whip hand.

  I always wanted to get to know Coco, but she was very forbidding. She never had any feelings of friendship for me, so I am not disloyal when I write of her venom, her lack of generosity and her disloyalty.

  For fifty years she went on proving that her taste was impeccable. She had a strong, daring, sure approach that made others fade into insignificance; never anything extraneous and fussy; she believed in utter simplicity. She was a female Brummell. Just as the Beau got rid of frills and furbelows overnight, so too Chanel demonstrated that nothing was more chic than fine linen, navy-blue serge and lots of soap. She had an eye to quality and proportion that was unbeatable. She had daring, freshness, authenticity, conviction. She was exceptional and she knew it. She was unfeminine in character, but totally feminine in her ability to entice, and she had great sex appeal. Chanel had qualities and talents that are very rare. She was a genius, and all her faults must be forgiven for that one reason.

  London: Saturday, December 18th

  It is very seldom that I am in London at the weekends, but I wanted to go to the memorial service for Gladys Cooper on Saturday.

  The service was beautifully arranged. Stanley Holloway read from the Pilgrim’s Progress; A Shakespeare sonnet on ‘Love’ was read by Celia Johnson; a serenade from Hassan played; Robert Morley’s comic and evocative address gave great relief to the congregation and prevented the atmosphere becoming morbid. A prayer, a blessing, then two minutes of silence in which we were all to remember, in our own way, our friend Gladys.

  For myself, I remember Gladys since, as a faltering schoolboy, I went up to her when she was having lunch at the Carlton Restaurant with Gertie Millar. I remember the sweetness with which she acceded to my stammering request, and said I must of course also ask for the signature of her friend. Her complexion was of a white and pink marshmallow perfection, her hair fair silky fluff and eyes the bluest.

  Gladys — I could now write a book about her. She was one of the recurring enthusiasms in my life. She has meant a great deal to me. I was full of admiration for the way she could be utterly herself on all occasions. Few people have had such strength of character. Gladys had her share of disappointments and tragedies, but she accepted everything with a wide-eyed courage.

  As Sybil Thorndike was about to be driven away from the church, I told her how beautiful she had become, more so now than at any time in her life. ‘Don’t be such a fool! Don’t be so silly!’ she said, but was pleased. Then she said, ‘I hope my service will be as gay as this one. It won’t be long now; you know I’m nearly ninety!’ and waving and leaning back and cackling, away she went.

  Kitty Miller during a dragging conversation said: ‘I knew Proust.’ Suddenly everyone was on the edge of their seats. ‘Tell us what was he like?’ Kitty answered: ‘Ghastly, darling!’

  Reddish: December

  A quiet weekend with David and Caroline Somerset. I met a lot of old friends and when I left I felt refreshed and pleased at having had such a ‘different’ time.

  The return journey to Broadchalke was delightful. Motored to Bath, and caught the train to Salisbury and suddenly realized how pleasant a country train journey can be. One sees so comparatively little driving a motor-car.

  This is one of my favourite parts of England. Bath is always a surprise treat and today, although mid-winter and grey weather, it looked as beautiful as ever in the silver mist, and the countryside around Bradford-on-Avon was feathery and sylvan.

  The stone cottages among the undulating hills are beautifully harmonious in the landscape. Even at this bleak time of the year the willo
ws were lovely and the cottage kitchen-gardens had patches of brilliant green among the grey; a real delight to wind along in the slow-moving train with the river near at hand.

  I was in a good holiday mood, coming back to my home for a long spell. Smallpeice greeted me with the news that the Wilton Hunt had met at Broadchalke. They were in the village street when suddenly they saw a fox rushing towards them from our new water garden. The fox leapt the wall, ran through the wrought-iron gate into the garden and straight over the lawn to the paddock with the hounds in full pursuit. No damage was done but Claire Pembroke was acutely embarrassed; we all thought it very funny; hearty laughter on all sides.

  January 1972

  ‘Sir’ is a romantic title. It sounds so unlike me, so much less personal than ‘Mr Beaton’. ‘Sir’ on envelopes seems to take away some individuality, but I felt proud, and sorry that my mother was not alive to share my pleasure.

  A VISIT TO EGYPT

  Cairo: March

  Mercifully one is apt to remember only the high-spots of one’s travels; the things of great beauty not seen before. But few of us, when setting off for the far corners, realize what hours, even days, are to be spent standing at some airline reception desk and, even if successful in getting tickets, what further long delays in airport lounges are to be endured.

  But never in my experience, or in Raymond Mortimer’s, has there been such gruelling, nerve-wracking incompetence at points of arrival and departure as in present-day Egypt. The tourist invasion has led to complete chaos. Scheduled trips are carefully arranged, but, just to give one example, the likelihood is that one hundred people may arrive at midnight from London only to be told that half their number will be without rooms as the government has commandeered them.

  Appalling to wake up to see the ugliness of Cairo today. Skyscrapers everywhere and the minareted silhouettes gone for ever; modern blocks of the cheapest cement cheek by jowl with the mosques; the whole town a beastly modern, anonymous mess. Such desecrations cannot be imagined.

  Wednesday, March 8th

  To the Aswan Lake to see the Temple of Philae. This was a wonderful, romantic expedition. We sailed along a dark passage, past a large, carved woman’s head, into the sunlight to see the Ptolemaic carvings on the walls each side of the entrance to the inner sanctum. Although these figures have been defaced by Copts or Moslems, they are still of an extraordinary beauty. It was exciting to see them as they were planned to be seen perhaps five thousand years ago. But the effect was made more strange by the water coming up to the thigh level on a row of rotund women, all that remained visible of a colonnade. Here was an Egyptian Venice, full of unaccustomed effects; water where there should have been sand. The effect of their reflections in the water was bizarre and theatrical.

  The Cataract Hotel

  A serene night’s sleep with soothing, entertaining dreams; a sense of well-being. Headaches a thing of the past. Early call. As expected, a rush to get off the boat to see the Temple of Kom Ombo. It was built for two different gods at the same time on a plan that divided the building in equal sections.

  In the early morning sunlight the carved walls were at their best. The details and fantasy were quite varied: someone being fed, a lion eating a crocodile, a boat full of papyrus with birds among royal cartouches; huge slender feet next to a frieze of animal-headed personages; each wall decorated being a tribute to Ptolemy, father of our Cleopatra, who built the imposing colonnades, halls and perfume shops; all of crème caramel stone.

  Even if one is not particularly partial to the Egyptian style, this temple is in its own way utterly successful, not only for the beauty of the drawing, the exquisite purity and quality of draughtsmanship, but in the general planning, so that the sun shines on columns and walls just as in the manner intended and gives the necessary colour to the bas reliefs.

  Luxor

  Well here I am, fly whisk on table, wearing shorts and a large, straw hat. I am looking around at the enormous pineapples of bougainvillaea that cascade from the top of two vast palms. Formal flowerbeds are full of hibiscus, salvia, cactus, gerbera, ferns, and hollyhocks. The trees are gargantuan; to me they are nameless but beautiful and are a dark haven to thousands of doves and all sorts of singing and twittering birds.

  But there are even disappointments here. I had imagined the hotel as being white with lots of Arabic decoration delicately cut out in wood. Instead it is heavy and solid and deep cedar-coloured and has a new swimming pool to which all the tourists migrate. However, it is an oasis from the squalor of the town, the shopping lanes, and the touts.

  The climate is ideal. Yet I am not at all content. It is awful to see a country that is going to the dogs, that is living in and on the past. Tours by caleche, bus, and boat have shown us the best of this country. But having spent most of the morning battling with hall porters and tour guides, and being bitten by flies while I wait in dreary offices and undergo infinite humiliations, I have become disgruntled. Perhaps I hate too much.

  Peter, our chief guide, proved to be a little, elderly Egyptian Jean Cocteau. He was remarkably thin with the skin of his face stretched tightly over beautiful bones. His amused expression conveyed, with raised eyebrows and pursed thin lips, resignation and sorrow. He used his hands to great effect; they became beautiful in movement as he demonstrated a point or wielded his cane. He was a dandy. He wore a tarboosh and, over a white jellabah, a natty brown jacket of smart European cut. He showed a great deal of white cuff.

  Peter spoke in quite perfect, even rather precious, English. He said that some of the more brash American tourists had difficulty in understanding him. For a man who is a serious scholar it must be a burden to have to spend so much of his time escorting people with little knowledge of Egypt and her history.

  We walked in a leisurely manner to the Temple of Luxor. In the morning light it appeared more magnificent than at dusk when it had looked dusty and unimpressive. Peter pointed out with his walking-stick various felicities, the mixture of style, obelisks, minarets, and Roman arch all together within the same outer walls.

  Upper Egypt

  It was unusually exciting to drive through high cliffs knowing that we were about to see the tombs where the Pharaohs are buried, with all the golden treasures they considered they should have, together with furniture, jewels, foods and comforts for their after-life.

  They had taken such care that their earthly remains should not be discovered or their presents to the gods plundered, that they employed mostly blind workers to dig their graves. But after 3,000 years these had been unearthed. Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon made the great discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Imagine the excitement when they looked through a wall at jewels hidden for so long. They saw, gleaming in the half darkness, the life-size figure of a jackal, a symbol of death, gold caskets, jewelled mummies, and golden beds carved with sacred animals.

  We drove high into the dust-coloured mountain and then were conducted to the tomb of Rameses IX, perhaps one of the biggest and certainly the most beautiful that we saw. Fascinating details of contemporary life were painted on the walls, illustrations depicting the sun, the Pharaoh symbol, on its journey to the underworld and its final resurrection. In one large chamber the goddess Night, my favourite, with arms and body like a snake, decorated the ceiling of dark blue and gold.

  Cairo: Tea with Madame Fouad

  An evening was spent visiting Madame Fouad, a Turkish hostess who was a great figure during the war and entertained lavishly in a huge house. She had a nilometer at the bottom of her garden with which the depth of the river could be measured. Now much of her influence has gone but she has battled with the regime successfully enough to have most of her confiscated possessions returned. But they did not give her back the furniture which had been placed traditionally in her tomb in the City of the Dead in preparation for her demise.

  Her house, rather large for one old girl, is now a ghastly mixture of good and bad, dotted with relics of the past; beautiful Persian needlework casket
s, china, and medieval brass. All was in need of a good dusting. The glass of the chandeliers was caked with dirt. It was a sad sight. So was she, an anachronism, but through guts and courage she has succeeded in living the life she wants.

  STAYING WITH MICKY RENSHAW IN CYPRUS

  March 17th

  The joy of finding myself in this highly civilized house was beyond anything. The landscape of high ranges of jagged and wooded mountains, groves of carab and olive, and tall, pale, lush green grasses was beautiful. I was delighted at the prospect of remaining in the same bedroom for an indeterminate stay.

  The sight from my windows in the early morning when the shutters were drawn made me gasp; every sort of blue, green, and yellow on the hills dotted with gorse, broom, and mustard, all in bloom. In few places could I have relaxed and recuperated in such comfort. Breakfast of crisp, fresh bread was an extreme pleasure. My cold, caught in Egypt, became bronchitis and I was as weak as an invalid, but I enjoyed listening to the music of Mahler on the record-player while Micky went about his chores.

  The expedition into Kyrenia with Micky was delightful, the market full of the most appetizing-looking fruits, all oversized; lemons like gourds, oranges, and tangerines; vegetables exotic; vast artichokes, the first asparagus, pale ivory balls of cabbage.

  I loved seeing the wild flowers and other people’s gardens. We went on expeditions to Salamis, Morphou, Vouni; wandered in the remains of a rich Persian’s palace and through the Laurence Durrell countryside of Bellapaix and the marvellous ruins of a Romanesque monastery. We took my godson, Caspar Fleming, to excavate at Neolithic sites.

  WEST GERMANY

  May 19th

  Went to Essen — clean, calm, quiet, tree-lined avenues, good shops — to see the reconstructed cathedral. Disappointing on the whole; this was possibly because most of its treasures had been lent to the medieval exhibition we saw at Cologne.