Letters to a Friend

by Diana Athill

  Love and love, Diana

  16/17 APRIL 1991

  Darling Edward,

  Good that you’re coming (touch wood) in May. It’s soon enough for your star not to have risen quite out of reach but may it continue its upward movement. A good dollop of fame would be absolutely delicious in one’s riper years, when consolations can be so sparse.

  I’ve just met a most extraordinary person who isn’t famous but ought to be. She’s 85, called Marie-Louise Motesiczky, was Elias Canetti’s mistress for thirty-five years, kept under thickest wraps in darkest Hampstead – and is a marvellous painter. I met her because when my dear friend Calvin’s girlfriend was looking for a flat for Calvin she went to view one in Marie-Louise’s huge and shabby and lovely house and had a mysterious feeling that Marie-Louise and I should meet, so invited us to tea together. One falls for her at once – her family was Viennese Jewish of the grandest and most aristocratic kind – huge fortune, but even more intellect and style than money – and M-L is one with whom one can talk at once about anything, and of the most transparent and profound honesty. And last week I went to see some of her paintings – and my god, one was up there with Picasso and Braque and Kokoschka – real painting – all stuffed away in cupboards in her bedroom. She did have shows in her youth, and there are three or four of her paintings in European museums, and one in the Tate and one in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge – but apparently she never sells, and in this country is hardly known to anyone as a painter – I think that old brute Canetti sat on her so heavily that she couldn’t promote herself – but also it would hardly have seemed important to her, so long as she could go on painting. But now she’s tormented about what sort of will to make, because she does want the work to be seen and understood when she’s dead. I’m half afraid that I’m going to get involved in this very complex problem! She hasn’t much money [she was quite well-off, in fact] – lets out most of her house to lodgers – but doesn’t consider selling her work because of that. And anyway, when she fled from Vienna after the Anschluss a cousin said ‘my dear – you’d better take this in case you need to raise money’ and gave her a Crivelli out of his collection! Not a top class Crivelli, but still, a Crivelli. And luckily she doesn’t like it very much so now the time has come when she does need to raise money she won’t mind selling it. A Japanese is flirting with it so she has dug it out and hung it up in her drawing room – and I must say it gave me quite a turn to see it there – for a moment I thought it must be a very large and clever reproduction.

  Unfortunately the flat that was being considered by Calvin has now been taken by a horrid young man who has announced that he must at once paint the kitchen and bathroom because they are unhygienic. ‘But don’t you think that it really is rather tactless of him? My house is not a slum.’ Perhaps once he’s painted the rooms she’ll dislike him so much that she’ll sack him – but I fear it’s only a one-room flat, tho’ a huge room, so it wouldn’t do for you! Would it? No it wouldn’t – because I heard her telling the horrid young man when he came to view it that of course he could have his girl to stay for weekends and so on, but she did not want two people in the room all the time.

  Heavens, it’s half-past midnight! Goodnight, dear things, and much much love.

  Diana

  19 SEPTEMBER 1991

  Darling Edward –

  Wonderful piece – and how satisfactory to see it where it ought to be. Tell that little voice inside to shut up. True – you in your heart of hearts probably think ‘what a lot of nonsense’ – but the more famous you are in your old age the more fun it will be for your friends.

  Oh André and I did have fun in Hungary. Can’t remember if my postcard to you was one of the ones onto which I condensed the story of our excursion to Siklos, George Mikes’s birthplace, for the Unveiling of the Plaque (spelt Plague on the official invitation card, English version) in his honour. The joke was the tremendous difference between the fuss André had been making about it in advance, and the event itself. Having organized the presence there of George Mikes’s son, his daughter, the woman who was his love during his last years (not on speaking terms with son and daughter because they think she forced him to change his will in her favour literally as he lay dying, whereas he implored her to write out the codicil for him with almost his last breath and would have died unhappy if she hadn’t); plus the novelist Stephen Vizinczey (very snappy writer, difficult man, great friend of George’s), a distinguished journalist called Phil Knightley (nice) and a couple of other people from London; and having tried hard to persuade our ambassador in Budapest to make the six-hour drive to Siklos (luckily he couldn’t make it), André had created the impression that the whole town would come to a halt for the occasion, and probably most of literary Hungary would turn up for it.

  In fact no literary person in the country cares a fig about dear old George (a rather simple humorous writer little known outside England except for one little book forty years ago, called How to Be an Alien), and Siklos had only thought of giving him a plaque because it’s ashamed that it let George’s poor old grandmother, the last of the family to live there, be carried off to die in a camp (there is only one Jew living there now). It was a dear little village occasion. For the actual Unveiling police blocked off traffic at both ends of the street, down which local passersby peered with mild curiosity before plodding on about their rural occupations, and the attendance was about fifteen people in addition to the English contingent. However, the young actor in his tuxedo read his patriotic poem with enormous verve, and the beautiful beautiful burgomeister made a long and patriotic speech, and later we all made very short speeches in a library of the school, and everyone felt it had gone very well, even tho’ George’s son had not brought a wreath to hang on the wall (none of us had thought of it) so a fierce last minute scramble had to be made to find one (I think from the baker’s – it looked as tho’ it had been designed to sit on a cake).

  Except for George’s love, who was very sad, we all enjoyed ourselves greatly, even tho’ the drive was long – because the dinner on our arrival the night before had been so lovely. We’d had no idea what was awaiting us – were carried off some three miles into the hilly vine-clad countryside, turned out in pitch darkness – the night warm and still, but starless as well as moonless, and told that we had to walk only half a mile – which we did on a narrow little path between vineyards, following a faint and wavering torch, while all round the crickets sang. The fact that we could also hear the distant thudding of Yugoslav artillery from across the nearby border [this was the beginning of the war in Yugoslavia] ought, of course, to have lowered our spirits badly, but I’m ashamed to say that all it did was add to the oddness and interest of the occasion. The barn we eventually reached, lit by brilliant, hissing compressed-oil lamps, had a big cellar full of huge casks, and there we first had a Tasting, to decide which of the farmer’s wines we would drink for supper. Even I tasted – and they were so delicious and so obviously pure that I did venture to drink one glass of white and one of red with the meal, and came to no harm [alcohol had, alas, started to disagree with me]. The white tasted of lovely unknown flowers. In the barn was a long narrow table with a white cloth and benches, where the grape harvesters are given their harvest feast, and the farmer’s wife, on a cylinder-gas stove, had cooked an Enormous tin bath full of stewed pork. I was terrified that I would be unable to eat enough to satisfy oriental-style hospitality, but as it turned out she dished the stew into bowls set along the table, with plates of salad between, and everyone was expected to help himself and one could eat as much or as little as one liked; so I could happily concentrate on falling in love with the Burgomeister who – although in fact a vet – was the very image of a nineteenth-century Hungarian poet, complete with beard, aristocratic nose, large, expressive grey eyes, a noble brow and a touch – a casual touch – of the dandy in his dress. Scrumptious. How terribly sad to be old enough to be his grandmother! The stew was sublime.

  All the
rest of the visit was more ordinary but really enjoyable because of much hospitality, a perfectly marvellous hotel (one of the greatest Art Nouveau buildings of Central Europe) and the fact that battered, down-at-heel Budapest is a fascinating city. And as for the Cakes and Pastries – words (perhaps fortunately) fail . . .

  Much love, Diana

  28 NOVEMBER 1991

  Dearest Edward,

  The situation in this place is becoming boring – it goes on and on being the same: none of us seeing how we can possibly last more than another two months or so, and Tom [Rosenthal] behaving as though all were well (except for looking like Lazarus) and bringing down an Iron Curtain whenever anyone tries to ask him about it. We are hardly taking anything on (hence lack of desperate overwork), but on the other hand, since we started thinking ‘We can’t last more than a month or so’ we have lasted quite a lot of months, so perhaps there is a glimmer of hope? If all turns out well I shall feel terribly guilty, because we’ve just lost a brilliant young novelist – Chris Wilson, he was at our garden party but I don’t know if you talked with him– entirely because, without quite putting it into words, I warned him off. He’s very shrewd about the publishing scene, so put me in an awkward corner by saying ‘I know I shouldn’t put you in this awkward corner, but is the firm going to last?’ He’s recklessly given up his teaching job (fool!) so it really does matter to him to get as much as he can out of his writing. He’s good, and I really like him – he’s become a friend, so when I had to do an instant balancing between loyalty to firm and loyalty to my writer – the scales tipped in his favour and I told him than while I knew nothing definite and was still hoping, I was unable to feel sure. ’Nuff said – Chris instructs his agent to be totally unreasonable in her demands, and I find myself having to hold Tom’s hand through a lot of huffing and puffing at the monstrousness of agents until finally there’s no alternative to letting Chris go. Oh dear, tangled web . . . I hate lying (as I was in effect doing to poor Tom) but usually find that when I have to do it I’m very good at it.

  Have you got your new flat yet? I do hope so, because surely it would brighten the prospect for 1992. [They did move from their charming but rather subterranean apartment, to a larger, airy one with a tree so close that Edward could watch a bird sitting on a nest in its branches.] For which, beloved two, I send you lots and lots of love and wishes for everything good. Diana

  20 JANUARY 1992

  Dearest Edward,

  Given your awareness of growing old, I thought you might take a wry pleasure in the following, which turned up this morning in an obituary notice of John Sparrow, former Warden of All Souls, Oxford. It said that he produced it off the cuff towards the end of his life, when his memory was going:

  I’m accustomed to my dentures,

  To my deafness I’m resigned,

  I can cope with my bifocals –

  But oh dear! I miss my mind.

  I found myself chanting it all the way to work.

  Sparrow’s position was the most prestigious in British Academe, and he was a very sharp man indeed who struck terror into the hearts of those who feared he might think them fools. I met him only right at the end of his life when he was no longer Warden but still lived in All Souls, which had become his home. My glamorous friend Andrew Harvey (now sitting at the feet of a Holy Mother) was then the youngest Fellow of All Souls there had ever been and used to invite me to dinner there on Ladies’ Nights (rare and exotic occasions then – tho’ now All Souls actually accepts lady Fellows – good God!). After dinner we withdrew for coffee and brandy in the Fellows’ Common Room – an exquisitely comfortable book-and-print-lined room, marinated in centuries of intellectual privilege – where old Sparrow would already be lurking, hungry for a taste of life as he used to know it. On the first occasion I was flattered that I was instantly pounced on and taken over to be introduced to this famous and venerable figure, and gratified by the kind welcome he gave me; but I soon realized that I was in fact a Human Sacrifice. There the old boy was, every evening, telling the same stories – his memory was going fast – having become, alas, a terrible bore – but pathetic in his longing and anyway they were all very fond of him, so inevitably someone would have to take him on and keep him happy until he got tipsy enough to be steered off to bed. So if a kind-looking guest happened to turn up – swoop, and he or she was delivered up, upon which the rest of the company quickly ebbed away to far corners of the room where they could merrily get on with evidently fascinating conversations – Laughter at the Other Side of the Room, it was. Poor old Sparrow was sweet – pathetically grateful for attention, funny and touching, and his stories were good, so the first time it was no hardship. But the second time I realized that it was word for word the same as the first time . . . and the third time ditto . . . in fact one saw only too well why they did it. It must have been a relief when he finally turned up his toes. But they’d given him a happier old age than most, and he’d still been able to be funny about his own plight – which I suppose is why his little verse seems to me like a spell against decay.

  You are responsible for turning my mind towards poems. I’ve just begun tinkering away at another. I shall now resist the temptation to mail them off to you one by one (Barry can’t feel very interested in anything which doesn’t address the question: How Are We To Change Human Nature? so I’ve no one to bounce them off easily to hand), and see whether a little group accumulates. Then you will have to say what you think.

  Love, Diana

  [Andrew Harvey had turned his back on an academic career, in which his friends had expected him to shine, and after a visit to Ladakh, about which he wrote an excellent book, had embarked on the pursuit of spiritual illumination. At one time this led him to become the follower of a young Indian woman who was believed to possess extraordinary powers, which apparently led to disenchantment. He moved to the United States, after which, with regret, I lost touch with him.]

  20 JANUARY 1992

  Darling Edward –

  What a Feast of Poetry! It really was a lovely bundle, and kept me happy for several evenings. Barry enjoyed The Exquisite Corpse best because in addition to you he very much likes the liveliness of the thing. Such variety in your poems – I love ‘Callas’ and ‘The Stumps’ specially. And also, with what brilliant simplicity you have given me the image of the grizzled poet’s performance.

  I didn’t quite enjoy all the interview, because it disturbs me when you say you are a neurotic mess, and about not liking yourself, and being not good at things – like it disturbs me when you go on about being old. This is because ever since I’ve known you, you have been in my eyes so sane – dear heart, you’re my sanest friend! – and have had so much natural authority, just as you have always been so astonishingly young – not only in your appearance but in your responses. I think it even shocks me a bit to hear you say your vulnerability out loud. But I did simply love the bit about always feeling that poetry had a duty to be true and clear. And what a sublimely valuable statement this is; ‘half of writing is learning to put down what is there. You never know if it’s ordinary or not until you put it down.’ That’s the best thing that could be said to any writer, and it comes with such force from you because you are a writer who has fought his way through to it. So thank you very much for that envelope of riches.

  I just had an adventure in a hospital. Because of various twinges and uneasinesses I went to my doctor and told her that I thought I had a stone in my gall bladder, and she said it did sound like a classic case of same so I’d better go to the Middlesex Hospital Out-Patients Dept. and have an ultra-sound scan. Which I did. (In London, anyway, the dear old National Health still functions quite efficiently, whatever they say in the papers.) It is a mild and amusing procedure, and sure enough, there was a stone in my gall bladder. But the specialist said that many an autopsy reveals stones that big, or bigger, in gall bladders that have never given their owners the least discomfort, so my twinges might be caused by it, but they equally might
be caused by an ulcer, so now I must have an endoscopy. Shock-horror! Because an endoscopy is when they feed a tube down your throat into your stomach and part of your guts, with a bright light at the end of it and take photographs of the inside of you . . . which I’ve always thought sounded Nightmarish, on top of which, when it was done to an old friend of mine (admittedly about twenty years ago) they ruptured his oesophagus and damn nearly killed him. So I went very green and ran home to my doctor and said ‘I think I’ll say I won’t have it.’ She – a good doctor and nice woman – said ‘It’s your guts and you have a perfect right to say that . . . but you should, possibly, take into account this, that and the other’ – and finally, very gently, worked me round to saying ‘well – I suppose it would be pretty silly not to have it done.’ So after two weeks of getting more and more nervous I tottered back to the hospital, was given an enormous shot of Valium, felt convinced that the shot was having no effect on me at all, was hardly aware when the tube went down, hadn’t a clue what the doctor actually did (in fact he took lots of pictures and a biopsy), thought that the whole thing lasted about three minutes when really it takes twenty, didn’t feel the tube being withdrawn, and didn’t even have a sore throat afterwards although they’d warned me I might. After an hour or so resting and a cup of tea Barry came to pick me up and took me home to a delicious lunch, whereupon I went to bed and slept soundly for eighteen hours. So, if ever you hear anyone being anxious at the prospect of such an examination, tell them to relax – there’s nothing to it! The doc did find a small area of inflammation and has put me on ulcer pills for three weeks. He did not appear to expect the biopsy to prove anything more than a formality – well, I suppose he wouldn’t, anyway – but I’m so relieved and cheered up by how easy the examination was that I’m not able to worry about hearing the result of that, which will come in about a week’s time. Certainly no one threw up their hands and exclaimed ‘Oh god, this woman has an inoperable cancer!!!’ which is encouraging.