Father regarded the early Christians as somewhat pernicious. Their theology, above and beyond that of other religions, had a psychology of sin that Father was not prepared to accept. It is supposed by Christians, especially Protestants, that conscience reveals to every man when an act to which he is tempted is sinful, and that after committing such an act he may experience either of two painful feelings, one called remorse, in which there is no merit, and the other called repentance, which is capable of wiping out his guilt. Father occasionally experienced the former but was a stranger to the latter.
As I was saying, Father determined that we should visit Tiberius’ ruined villa on the island of Capri. This journey involved travelling down to Naples by rail and then taking a hovercraft over to Capri. Mother understandably declined to have any part in this bizarre enterprise, so it was a small party that waited to catch the Pisa train that August morning. The train was the 8.30 Espresso. Never was a locomotive more ineptly named. It was two hours late over a distance of fewer than 207 miles. In his raging consternation, Father began to compose a letter to the Italian Minister of Transport.
‘Are you not ashamed of yourself that you cannot make an important mainline train go faster than thirty miles an hour?’ he scribbled furiously. ‘Italy is the laughing stock of the European Economic Community.’ It ended with the challenging peroration, ‘At least Mussolini made the trains run on time.’ (Later, under the soothing affects of some decent Chianti, Father decided against sending it.)
Once the train arrived, the lack of attendance of the stewards working on it was striking. ‘Caffé?’ Father enquired hopefully from our carriage at intervals of five minutes. ‘Vengo, vengo, signor,’ replied the stewards, quite unperturbed. In a last-minute frenzy of avarice they sought to atone for three hours’ neglect with a multitude of unneeded services, including offers of out-of-date English newspapers, an old Penguin paperback of A Tale of Two Cities and the address of a not very salubrious Neapolitan brothel.
Naples did not seem an inviting place for a long visit, at least judging from the part of it near the station. Bleak tenement buildings, from which wafted a smell of heat and urine, sat squatly on streets so badly paved that even the natives seemed to have difficulty navigating the rough and broken stones. But like the medinas of Marrakesh these places of ugliness and squalor unexpectedly opened out onto vistas of beauty. The Bay of Naples shimmered there; a mirror set up to the men and women of history who had sailed by its strange tides; here Lady Hamilton fed and watered the British fleet; here Nelson felt the first faint stirrings of human love; here poor Queen Maria Carolina, sister of Marie Antoinette, and her wretched, weak husband Ferdinand fled from the advancing French.
‘This way,’ cried Father and pointed away from the land. We boarded the boat, an Italian approximation of the hovercraft, and a poor approximation at that, which took us over the bay to Capri. The island was and is a hedonist’s paradise, a nymphaeum among temples of beauty and a restorative haven for the jaded and the bejewelled. No wonder worshippers from Augustus to Jacqueline Onassis sojourned there. If St Mark’s Square in Venice is the world’s largest drawing-room, then the main piazza in Capri is its most exquisite salon. Its walls were the azure sky, its floor a marble drop to the sea, its furniture, brass cafe tables sweating silver champagne buckets.
My brother and I wanted to linger, to eat an ice-cream from one of the enticing-looking gelaterias, but Father had the sight-seeing bit between his teeth. It was three in the afternoon – the hottest time of the day – but we were English and Father was a little mad. Gamely we hunted for blue and white signs bearing the legend ‘Tiberio’, as the locals referred to the old emperor. Father was becoming quite lachrymose and told us that villainous writers including someone called Suetonius had invented disgraceful calumnies about the poor man, even claiming that he had forced little boys to swim in the sea with him nibbling his genitals. I wasn’t sure what genitals were, though I didn’t like to say it. I knew congenital. Father often said that someone was a congenital imbecile. I assumed then that genital was the opposite and that Tiberius had liked people to eat his brain. Whatever his proclivities the old boy had certainly liked seclusion, for he had built his villa on the remotest and highest point of the island. One felt sorry for the slaves who had to fetch and carry food and water from the village.
As we arrived at the ruin, which stood strong and clear and bleached against the sky, a small party of Germans were inspecting some particles of coloured mosaic. This set Father off on another variation of his theme. ‘The trouble with the Germans,’ he declared in timbres that reverberated around the open space, ‘is that the Romans never conquered them properly. That’s why they never became civilised.’ Then, a perfectly cultured if accented voice answered from behind in English, ‘You will find, Mr Wyatt, that you are a little out. Under Augustus Caesar, the German people were almost entirely subjugated by Germanicus, indeed more so than the Britons at that time.’ Father whipped around and found himself, to his intense mortification, face to face with a German acquaintance from London who was holidaying on the island with his two sons. Father planned a disarming remark to defuse the situation. ‘Nice to see your sons having fun.’ Unfortunately it came out as, ‘Nice to see you Huns having sun.’ The man jumped. ‘I am begging your pardon?’ ‘I meant buns,’ said Father. He shuddered to a halt. The acquaintance stalked off, enraged.
Of all the tales Father told me of his exploits in Italy, one of the ones which he related with the most verve and relish concerned a visit he had paid to the Uffizi gallery in Florence. Father’s views on Florence confounded those of a great many cultured people from the Renaissance onwards. ‘Florence,’ said Father, ‘is a very unattractive city. The façade of the cathedral looks like that of a public lavatory. The Ponte Vecchio is an ugly commercial fraud. The Boboli gardens are immensely overpraised.’ But fairness was all. He did concede that the Uffizi was a skilfully decorated building and contained a few reasonable pictures.
Back in the Sixties, Father had visited the gallery with the late Sir Hugh Fraser, of the fabled Scottish family. (Sir Hugh was at that time married to Lady Antonia Fraser.) A Christian, a romantic, an orator, a humorist, his abilities were admired by nearly all; for his kind and gracious character he was loved without exception. When undergraduates, Father and he had started a newspaper called The Oxford Camera, which was shut down when they drew attention to the dons having secretly built themselves private air-raid shelters.
Anyway, one July afternoon Father and Hugh decided to go for a potter around the Uffizi. It was a high point of the tourist season and the galleries had that unpleasant whiff of hot, congested bodies. Tour guides ushered their groups from painting to painting like governesses leading their exhausted charges, explaining in painful German, French or Japanese the provenance of each masterpiece. Father and Hugh trailed despondently round crowded rooms, at last finding a space in which to squeeze themselves in front of a rather bland Botticelli. Father’s knowledge of art was meagre, but Hugh’s was considerable; he could have matched, point by point, any proselytising professional. For some reason Hugh took a dislike to the Botticelli. He sniffed at it, he stepped backwards, he peered at it again and sniffed even louder. ‘There’s something wrong,’ he said finally. ‘What?’ asked Father. ‘Botticelli was having an off day when he painted that one. Either that or they’ve got it wrong and this is “school of”.’ Hugh’s voice had authority and resonance, and a buzz of interest grew up around the two men. Father in a playful mood, said, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if it were a forgery?’ Then he had an idea. ‘These people behind us think you’re an art expert. Let’s go around declaring some of the paintings forgeries.’
Hugh greeted this suggestion with cordiality. They strolled over to a Fra Angelico Madonna and child. ‘As a great expert, perhaps the leading on this school,’ said Father, laying it on, ‘what do you think?’ By this time a crowd was gathering, to the irritation of the official tour guides. Hugh assumed an
intent, grave expression. ‘Funny,’ he murmured audibly. ‘The brush strokes don’t seem right to me.’ He then launched into a waffle about melodious lines, pigmentation, the ageing of canvases and so forth. The crowd was at first numb, then dazzled, then extravagantly receptive. ‘Fraud,’ snorted Hugh triumphantly. The crowd became larger. It followed Hugh and Father about as they declared a da Vinci school of, a Simone Martini a forgery and an inept one at that, a Canaletto a bad imitation and a Rembrandt an obvious fake. The tourists looked at the tickets for 20,000 lire that they had had to purchase at the gate. It was too much. A terrible deception took palpable and grotesque shape before them. Conscious of a just cause, they rose and defied the miscreants. The titular leader of one of the American groups, a large Texan in a panama hat, grasped a museum official by the wrist. ‘This gentleman here is an art expert. He says these painting are fakes. This is a damned disgrace. I shall be writing to the American consul. In the meantime you must give me my money back and the money of all these good people.’ He waved in the direction of the crowd, which by then resembled a mob.
The official looked at Father and Hugh in the way in which Hugh and Father had looked at the paintings. He sniffed. The idea occurred to him that they were themselves fakes. He drew up his pigeon-sized chest. ‘You are causing a disturbance. Where did you study art, signor?’ he asked Hugh severely. ‘Are you a dealer, a gallery owner? Where are you listed?’ Hugh glanced behind him to see Father failing to distinguish himself for bravery. In the hour of retribution he was attempting to back away. ‘What is your name?’ the official demanded. Hugh opened his mouth, shut it again, looked at Father and then blurted out, ‘My name is Woodrow Wyatt.’
In subsequent moments of quiet reflection, he concluded this decision had perhaps been an unwise one. Father had already been widely advertised among the Italians as the author of scurrilous articles accusing their government of the grossest corruption. The museum official looked like a jungle tiger who had at last been presented with the trussed-up figure of a much-hated coolie. ‘Woodrow Wyatt?’ He curled his lip. ‘You and your friend will come with me to the carabinieri. It is quite obvious what you are trying to do.’
‘Er, what are we trying to do?’ enquired Hugh.
The official looked stern. ‘You are trying to create a collapse of confidence in Italian works of art causing a panic in the banks and a run on the economy.’ He finished triumphantly, ‘You and your accomplice are English spies. You will leave the city at once.’
Hugh and Father left, via the police station and with a caution. On the way home Father said peevishly, ‘You know the worst thing about this whole business? All those people in the Uffizi will go to their graves believing that Woodrow Wyatt is an oversized gargoyle with skinny arms and a ginormous nose.’
16
Father gets married (four times)
LITTLE DID I know that Father had four wives. Until I was fourteen, he succeeded in keeping the first two a secret. The discovery of his amatory history – of its variety, longevity and familial implications – was one of the formative moments of my adolescence. Fortune had conspired on this occasion to do her unpleasant worst. On a Wednesday morning in 1982 I was emerging from a mathematics class when I was accosted by a girl named Flora. After an occasional nod during milk break, she issued the startlingly informal greeting, ‘Hello auntie.’ Having advanced thus far Flora stopped and giggled. ‘You are my auntie. Your father was married to my granny.’
This explanation may have clarified but it did not reassure. I burst into tears.
‘I don’t believe you. Prove it.’
Flora took me at my word. The following morning she returned with a fraying newspaper cutting. It was unmistakably genuine. In one of the columns was printed Father’s name and that of a woman of whom I had never heard. She was called Miss Susan Cox.
‘Susan Cox,’ finished Flora on a note of triumph that made my head spin like a loose wheel, ‘is my granny. She left your Father for grandpa Reggie.’
Why had Father not told me? Why? Was the woman a murderess, a prostitute, a fiend? Was she the only secret wife or were there others, grinning like ghosts in phantom registry offices? That evening I confronted him.
‘I met a girl in class today. She said she was my aunt.’ These momentous words failed to produce the desired effect. His face showed only puzzlement.
‘Your aunt. Are you sure you didn’t mishear?’
‘No, I did not. She said her name was Susan Cox.’
Eureka. The effect this last revelation produced was wholly satisfactory. We stared at each other, fascinated, horrified. Something occurred that had never done before and would never do again. Father fell silent for the space of three minutes. When he finally spoke it was in the hoarse, trembling tones of a man who knows the game is up.
‘I’m afraid it’s true then. I was married to a girl called Susan. But it’s no concern of yours, young lady.’
No concern of mine? I rose up and confronted him. ‘I suppose there are some more wives skulking somewhere?’ One was not expecting the answer to be in the affirmative. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact. One more. A Russian called Alix. Four is not really very many, you know. Henry VIII had six.’
Later, in explanation of the frequency of his nuptials, Father would remark, ‘I had to try every racial group: Anglo-Saxon, Slav, Latin and Magyar.’ All things considered, he thought this very generous of himself.
Father had met Susan Cox in the late Thirties when both were undergraduates at Oxford University. Father had written an article in a University newspaper accusing Oxford women of being plain and slovenly. A furious reply was drafted by Miss Cox who, so far from being either, was generally regarded as resembling an angel on Vitamin A. Her English complexion glowed like the underside of an oyster.
Rather precipitously, they married. Three months later Britain declared war on Germany. Susan, kicking her shapely heels at home, began to see something of a young man called Reggie. What Reggie did and why he had not been drafted was immaterial. A pacifist when it came to war, with women he compensated. When Father returned home, his wife said she was leaving.
So upset was Father by the separation that he resolved to marry again as soon as possible. If you think this is a paradox, just remember Freud’s aphorism that it is only in pure logic that contradictions cannot exist. ‘There is nothing like a new wife to make you forget the old one,’ Father said. But who was he to marry? Wives are not so easily acquired. As P.G. Wodehouse observed, nothing propinks like propinquity. He married his secretary. He said afterwards, in partial explanation, that it saved him the expense of hiring a new one. The name of this unfortunate creature was Alix. She was sultry, dark and half-Russian. The marriage allegedly came to an end over a frozen joint of mutton.
What alteration this second failure made in Father’s character is hard to quantify. The newspapers began to draw attention to his clumsy domestic minuets. Indifference to public opinion is often regarded as a challenge. On the other hand the man who fails at marriage should consider calmly the hypothesis that he is bad at it; he should not reject this out of hand as untenable. But Father never seemed to mind taking risks. Within a short time he had made the acquaintance of the young woman who was to become his third bride. The daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon, her name was the Lady Moorea Hastings. Jack Hastings was an eccentric in his own right. Incredible rainbow-coloured shapes arose from the distortions of his personality. He had a fund of malapropisms which included, ‘I’m as happy as a handbag,’ and ‘A rolling pin gathers no moss.’ It was said that, by blood, Jack was the rightful King of England. One of the senior surviving Plantagenets, he was a direct descendant of Edward IV’s younger brother the Duke of Clarence, who was allegedly drowned in a butt of Malmsey. Another though possibly imaginary ancestor claimed by the Earl was Robin Hood. Some legends asserted that the outlaw had been the Earl of Huntingdon himself. Jack would tolerate no contradiction on this point. One unfortunate man who dared to suggest th
at had Robin Hood indeed existed, he could not have possibly been an ancestor, was asked to leave the room.
Moorea’s mother was almost as individual. The Marchesa Cristina Casati came from such an elevated Italian family that to study their tree induced vertigo. She was, however, an enthusiastic Communist. On one occasion she arrived at Heathrow with her arm in a sling. ‘What is the matter, Marchesa?’ asked the waiting Press. ‘Oh,’ replied the unabashed Bolshevik, ‘I hit my maid so hard that I broke my wrist.’ Her mother, Malu Casati, was a celebrated eccentric beauty. She had her picture painted by Augustus John and her bust sculpted by Epstein. She was adored by the fabled poet and war hero D’Annunzio. No one was quite sure whether she was more interested in making love or making a show. She gave a great dinner party in her house in Venice, now the Guggenheim Museum, and had a wax model, à la Madame Tussaud, made of herself and dressed identically. She sat at one end of the gargantuan table, the model at the other. Neither Marchesa moved to acknowledge or speak to the guests, who were uncertain whether to laugh or to be insulted. On another occasion she received her friends completely naked. She had a cheetah which she took about on a lead, and sometimes she wore a live snake around her neck. At one of her balls the pages were painted gold. Unkind friends spread a rumour that one had died, as Shirley Eaton’s character was later to do in Goldfinger, from having no outlets through which the skin might breathe. This was probably untrue but seemed plausible at a party given by someone with the attitude of a Roman empress. Malu shone like a resplendent dragonfly.
The product of this alliance was Moorea. In profile she resembled a head on an Etruscan vase. Father was a Labour minister when they married. For an alleged socialist and his wife they made an unusual couple. One newspaper soon commissioned an indignant feature on the life of the Wyatts. It claimed that the couple ate off gold plates, drank from golden goblets and were surrounded by yapping King Charles spaniels.
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