Letters to a Friend

by Diana Athill

  I’m so grateful to my flu for not ruining that truly enjoyable weekend that I can almost like it!

  My bestest love to you both for 1997 Diana

  P.S. My teeth – now being a bit held up – will be both upper and lower, and will take out: clack clack – but he says the fit will be imclackulate.

  26 FEBRUARY 1997

  Dear Edward,

  Barry came back from Washington with the same flu I’d had, although caught so far away, and both of us have kept on having relapses until quite recently. But now energy seems to have returned, thank god – with the result that I’m spending Enormous Sums of Money on the gardens here and in Norfolk, and also on overcoming Barbara’s fatalistic pessimism about the central heating system in the latter, which made our cold spell over Christmas hard to bear. Finally I summoned a plumber and put him to work – and it’s a pity the worst of the cold is over, because now the house is too hot! Such heaven – worth every penny of the £500 it cost.

  I’d hoped that by the time you appear in London my Teeth will at last be Done – but I doubt it. First my flu, then my forgetfulness of two appointments, then the unexpected collapse of two of the pathetic remaining Fangs – one of them a vital anchorman – have combined to make a long process an apparently endless one. Indeed, it has come to seem like a condition of normal life, and when/if it ends I shall miss Mr Faigenblum’s mournful presence.

  I’m in a condition of obsessive stitchery, having embarked on embroidering a seat for a very ugly chair bought by my sister. I’d forgotten how madly obsessed I become when making something – it’s rather fulfilling. I hope my sister doesn’t think that the rather bizarre pattern which is emerging makes the chair even uglier!

  André – really hardly on his feet, nowadays – has just called to say I must help them organize his 80th birthday party. His birthday is not until Nov. 15th!! Only after I’d hung up did it occur to me that I’m going to be 80 too, just three weeks after he is and did it occur to him to say would I like to share the party with him? No, of course it didn’t. I think I must bring myself to speak about this, otherwise I shall work up an irksome resentment: all that tedious work being demanded of me, as though I were a temporary secretary, and then he alone getting all the acclaim for a publishing career which was, after all, our joint achievement! What an old monster he is!

  Longing to see you.

  Much love, Diana

  20 MARCH 1997

  Dearest Edward,

  Pleasure at getting your letter quickly turned to sadness that we can’t expect to see you as soon as we thought, and to great worry at the news about those leg wobbles. Mysterious symptoms are always hateful. Still, there’s no point in adding to our and Neil’s anxiety with a lot of long-distance mopping and mowing so I’ll say no more than give him my fondest love, and a great hug from Barry, and let me know what the tests show. Needless to say we are both devoutly hoping that it’s something easy to sort out – darling Edward, how intensely I hope that for both your sakes.

  The maddest people, at the moment, are Barbara and me, who have allowed ourselves to slither into giving a buffet on Easter Saturday at our Country Cottage for fourteen people. And Barbara – this always strikes me as an unexpected aspect of her – is fiercely competitive when it comes to cooking – she admits frankly that what really matters to her is not that her food should taste nice, but that it should impress. We’ve both been buried in cook-books for the last ten days, and the recipes she homes in on make my hair stand on end. One of them we tried out last weekend, and it made every one of its six very expensive ingredients, each delicious in itself, taste positively nasty – which, happily, she admitted. Finally (I think) she is going to make an amazingly rich venison casserole and I’m going to make a frozen chocolate mousse and a huge dish of trifle, and I’ve forced her to agree that this veritable killer of a meal must be prefaced by a simple vegetable hors d’oeuvre of artichoke hearts, asparagus, avocado, black olives and watercress . . . and we’re having people staying in the house as well. I reckon I’ll be feeling every one of my almost eighty years by the end of it!

  My guest is going to be the delightful Lennox Honychurch who was at Amsterdam with me. I do wish it could be Barry, but the last two times he risked exposing himself to company he behaved so dreadfully – barking and bullying and really upsetting people – that we’ve agreed it’s no good. I fear that all our really very nice Norfolk neighbours would send him up the wall. If he disagrees he attacks – he becomes an arrogant bully, I hate him and he hates me, and then we feel sad and sorry, so it seems better simply to avoid such occasions. Alas. Thank god for you and the Smalleys and Roger King and the few others whom he loves and is his dear self with.

  Oh how we do hope you’ll get here for a long time in the summer.

  Love and love, Diana

  5 SEPTEMBER 1997

  Mes Chers –

  9.30 p.m. Dinner (excellent) over, night wraps the village of Ainhoa in pitch-black silence. [I was in France – the Basque region – on holiday with my friend Nan Taylor, my dearest friend from our Oxford days.] The hotel (in all other ways perfectly delightful) follows the usual French pattern of having no lounge, and if I go to sleep now I’ll wake at 5 . . . So: a letter instead of postcard.

  Getting here was frightful. Left home at 7 a.m. to meet Nan at Victoria Station (for Gatwick) at 7.30, and we missed each other at the station because neither realized that Gatwick is now served (in god’s name, why) by two lines, trains running two minutes apart, one from platform 14, one from platform 17. Having agreed ‘to meet at barrier’, Nan waited at barrier 14, I at barrier 17 . . . until, both growing desperate, each decided to go on to Gatwick where surely we’d find each other at British Airways desk. But I, alas, chose to go to the South Terminal. Plane left from North Terminal, to which one has to travel on a mini-train, and by the time I got to the desk they reported that Nan was in the act of boarding and it was too late for them to let me through. Next plane in three and a half hours – I could try for a standby seat. Got it, but didn’t know until ten minutes before boarding, so had a fairly fraught morning imagining poor old Nan, carless and very wobbly on her legs, stuck at Bordeaux Airport for (if I didn’t get in) about ten hours.

  So by the time we set off on the long drive from Bordeaux I was not at my freshest. Most of the drive a dead-straight line ruled through the unutterable boredom of Les Landes, absolutely flat and every inch of it covered in fir trees – easy-peasy. But after about 120 miles of that we hit the outskirts of Biarritz, where we got lost, largely because we’re both too blind to read signposts without slowing up, which Biarritz’s evening traffic was rude about. Which was probably why, when finally on the right road, I lost my grip on the problem of driving on the right, misjudged the car’s width, and gave it a Horrid Bump against a steep concrete kerbstone while going off a round-about – didn’t realize that I was much too near the right hand edge of the road. Whereupon the engine gave a gulp, and stopped. And would not, would not, would not start again.

  So there we were, stranded, well out in the country by then, no human habitation in sight, night drawing in . . . And hungry. And even more thirsty . . . oh dear!

  A lot of the people who drove by hooted at us crossly for stopping in such an awkward place, for many just drove by . . . oh dear oh dear! About twenty very sad minutes passed.

  But then – oh bliss! – two cars stopped without a moment’s hesitation. Two men, friends, heading for the same destination and thinking as one. Out they hopped – could they help? Oh darling, lovely men. But they tried and tried, and they couldn’t help but they did have mobile phone, so they called Hertz headquarters, which said they would get a mechanic to us in half an hour, and went on their way. (Also they pushed the car to a safer spot.) So back into the wretched thing we got, and waited – and waited – and it got quite dark – and still we waited . . . An hour passed . . .

  And then another car stopped. And this was a woman. We could hardly understand he
r thick Basque accent, but could see at once that she was the bossy-boots to end all bossy-boots, and we were helpless in her hands. Nonsense, she said, we couldn’t go on sitting there. She would take me instantly to her garage two miles ahead and there we would ring up our hotel and tell them to fetch us, and her husband would get the car to the garage and repair it. So she took me – ‘These two ladies of yours’, she said to the hotel on the blower, ‘are elderly persons, they are tired, they are hungry, they’re sitting on the roadside in the dark, you must send for them at once.’ – ‘Yes, indeed, of course we must’ said the hotel. ‘We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’ So she ran me back to poor Nan who was biting her nails in the car in case I’d been kidnapped – and at that moment the Hertz mechanic pulled up. He opened the bonnet and instantly discovered that the shock of bumping the kerb had slightly shifted a little red thimble perched at a vital point with the purpose of cutting off the electricity in the event of accident, for security purposes. He straightened the thimble – and the car started and instead of being cross at being called out (plus his big towing van which arrived in his wake) for such a tiny thing, he laughed and laughed. And wonderful bossy-boots, instead of being disappointed that her husband wouldn’t get the job, first rearranged all our luggage, taking out every bag and putting them back in a different order, then said that certainly we must not cancel the hotel’s rescue operation because the road between where we were and Ainhoa was twisty, and I didn’t know it and was far too old to be driving in the dark, anyway; then conducted us back to the garage where the hotel’s gallant owner had already arrived, and he most slowly and carefully guided me the rest of the way. And when we got here they sent us straight to bed with the most delicious meals on trays in our rooms – and I can’t tell you how the entente cordiale flourishes in my heart as a consequence of that little adventure. I’d always rather thought of the French as being disagreeable to strangers, but shall never think it again.

  This is lovely country and the weather has been perfect – though I think it’s breaking now. Tomorrow we must uphold the honour of England by staying in and watching Princess Diana’s funeral on French telly – they’ve gone almost as insane about her as the Brits – but there are plenty of things to do and see and it’s being a fine holiday. I half regret missing what I gather is the really amazing phenomenon of London in mourning, and am half thankful to be out of it. Distance doesn’t prevent one’s enjoying the spectacle of the ridiculous royal family blundering from humiliation to humiliation. French telly may be dreary, as people always report, but their newspapers are so well written compared to ours that it’s a pleasure to follow events through their eyes.

  You will hardly be surprised to learn that now it is nearly eleven, so I’m going to turn out my light and go to sleep.

  Much much love, dear hearts.

  Diana

  P.S. Next day. We had to watch every minute of the whole thing, seated side by side on red velvet armchairs in madame’s private quarters, while the hotel’s management and staff popped in and out to peer reverently over our shoulders. Was glad to do so, finally. Moved to tears at moments, and fascinated at others – how we wished the cameras had been allowed to show the Queen’s face when Di’s brother promised – in effect – to protect the boys from the royal family and everyone in the abbey clapped: I guess that must have been the most traumatic moment in the history of the British Monarchy since Oliver Cromwell. The basic and fascinating ambiguity of the whole situation (that foolish, flighty, unhappy girl being turned into a saint just because she was pretty, and affectionate to children and sad people) was underlined by the fact that the person who made this daring gesture is a man whose marriage collapsed in an ugly way and who went to live in South Africa – and who has, I think, the face of a bad tempered pink pig.

  But I suppose what remains with me most strongly was the pity of it: the fact that in that box being carried slowly, slowly through the streets of people was the hideously smashed up body of a 36-year-old mother, and the sight of her two sons. The card on Harry’s wreath on the front end of the coffin just said MUMMY. Someone had placed it carefully so that the cameras could catch it – and had, I suppose, tipped off a cameraman to get a close-up of it – though that wasn’t the little boy’s fault. And neither the mother nor the sons with a single really warm, reliable person in their lives – god! The sight of Di’s mother teetering into the Abbey like a little mad mushroom under an enormous and enormously smart black hat and the mini-est of mini-skirts above her pathetic little bony old knees! (footnote: Nan says that was Fergie’s mum – what a pity.) That on one side and the Queen on the other! Poor, poor, poor little boys.

  D

  8 OCTOBER 1997

  Darling Edward,

  Barry left for three weeks in Jamaica four days ago, and Barbara’s off to the US for ten days next week. Barbara’s going to her daughter Laura’s wedding celebration, then on to New York for her customary United Nations roundup. I’ve said not to fail to call you but she looked rather Hunted – I think she gets very work-entangled when in New York.

  What a wonderful letter yours was! Because the Contemporary Authors’ piece seemed like part of it. I’m glad I didn’t meet you in your bearded Guru incarnation – our friendship would probably have been strangled at birth by all that hair. On the other hand you and your sisters were very pretty as the Trio – and your mother was a lovely young woman. I enjoyed the whole story, but specially liked you on your poetry, which is really the heart of the matter. It made it so clear why I loved you as soon as we met –

  It was because even before I’d heard you utter a word about poetry it was obvious you were the sort of person who would utter those words. (I wonder – has anyone else ever said ‘writing poetry, of course, is far more fun than reading it’? A statement of crystalline obviousness, and exhilaratingness because mostly people pretend it isn’t true.) You were bound, I suppose, to be nudged sooner or later into unfashionableness, because someone roaming the New York Literary Scene with such an unblinking eye for the nakedness of Emperors would make a lot of people uncomfortable. Long live (as no doubt it will) Neo-pop – and even longer live you.

  Went to a book-launch three days ago. Rather a grand old boy called Sir Denis Forman had told Tom Rosenthal that Deutsch could publish his third book provided I edited it (I’d done his first two). The first was a delightful account of his childhood which made it clear that at the core of this splendid Establishment Figure there lurks a very funny anarchist, the second was the story of his war (in which he lost a leg at Casino), and this third was the story of the beginning of commercial television – he was in at the very start of Granada Television, working with an amazing Jewish Monster called Sidney Bernstein, who he adored, and finally succeeded as boss. He’s a pleasure to work with, so I agreed, and edited it from home. Tom left Deutsch meanwhile, but the new Deutsch went on with it (a bit baffled, to judge by their appearance at the party, by Denis and his ilk). I couldn’t help being much warmed when the little speeches came at the end of a very agreeable party, and he was so hugely flattering to me that a sort of awed hush fell on the party as one and all turned to gaze on me with deep reverence. All the evidence suggests that, in England, books are no longer edited at all (and they aren’t much the worse for it except for the occasional minor nonsense like someone with a cropped head on page 1 and shaggy locks on page 24). So I suspect that the younger book people there had no idea what he was talking about and were imagining all kinds of magical mysteries at my command. And what was even nicer was when a sweet young woman who used to work for us, congratulating me on my dress, said ‘But then – you always did wear lovely clothes’, so I left that party with a Refurbished Self-image: how pleasant!!

  Much love Diana

  20 NOVEMBER 1997

  Darling Edward –

  When I was still working nothing about a script daunted me more than fatness, but now I have all the time in the world and am constantly buying books I can’t afford
with which to fill my days, the prospect of a good stout manuscript has become just the thing. So lug it down to the post office at once! (Footnote: It’s only fair to warn you that at least 3 years before I retired I realized that I had lost my judgment as to what would sell: the climate had changed but I hadn’t. So by now . . .!!!)

  Last week there was a wonderful tea-party at the Groucho Club to celebrate André’s eightieth birthday – and mine too, thirty days prematurely, which I hadn’t been told about so the huge sheaf of flowers, lovely amber necklace and monster card with dozens of messages came as a touching surprise. Why it was ‘wonderful’ was that the two dear people who had organized it, a former secretary of André’s and our former children’s books editor, had managed to assemble an astonishing number of people who had worked for André Deutsch Limited, and they were all so delighted to see each other again – each person arriving being greeted with shouts of delight from all those already there, that I have never been to a party which buzzed so convincingly with genuine pleasure. I’d expected it to be rather a trial, because nowadays I dislike large, noisy parties – but in fact, from the first minute to the last I truly loved it, André was immensely rejuvenated by it, but that was to be expected because he is very sentimental, and a surprise party laid on by his old employees (it was kept as a surprise to him, very cleverly, because they knew how much he likes that) – such a party was bound to make him dewy-eyed. But I was really amazed by my own delight at seeing them all again – and they couldn’t possibly have been so happy to see each other again if they hadn’t been happy when they were with us . . . I got home from it feeling very good indeed, and do you know what? – It has started me up on the book again! It suddenly gave me, like Proust’s madeleine, a genuine whiff of what the nice side of all those Great Russell Street years had been like, which made me want to go on remembering . . .