The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe

by Andrew O'Hagan

  them. He once said that the French must truly love women

  because they invented the bidet, and that was the kind of

  thing women loved him for observing. ‘This one’s friendlier,’

  he said, not quite looking at me. ‘I have to tell you, Lassie

  was something of a diva.’

  ‘No!’ said both women.

  ‘A diva,’ he said, eating an olive. ‘Much like you two. A

  proper diva, no doubt about it.’

  Frank looked over to see what all the hilarity was about.

  He didn’t mind fags. He was used to them. But he sometimes

  worried they were laughing at him. ‘What’s the big idea?’ he

  said.

  ‘Roddy’s just been telling us about some of the geniuses

  he’s worked with,’ said Marilyn.

  Sammy was back. There had been a rather extended

  maracas interlude while he changed his tuxedo. ‘Speaking of

  which,’ said Roddy. ‘I’m working with Richard Burton just

  now. Camelot.’

  ‘I saw the theatre on 44th Street.’

  ‘You must lay off the Ibsen,’ Marilyn said.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘We’re both making a movie with Elizabeth next year. Fox

  are doing Cleopatra.’

  ‘Hiss,’ said Marilyn.

  ‘O, don’t be like that, swinehunt,’ he said. ‘You love each

  other really. You and Liz are the only stars left in this bloody

  industry. Now shut your trap.’

  ‘Kiss my ass.’

  ‘Kiss my asp,’ said he.

  The music was going crazy and I was still thinking about

  Lassie. I must say Lassie was always the doll of dolls to me,

  so sleek and elegant for the cameras. ‘Listen,’ I was saying.

  ‘That Elizabeth person was in the dog picture, too. The first

  of those Lassie movies? Him there and Elizabeth and Lassie

  all young kids together, right?’

  But Sammy was already mid-flow, chewing the air and

  tasting the sweet triumph of his talent. Roddy looked at

  me once more. ‘What’s the dog’s name?’ he whispered to

  Marilyn. She glanced up and saw Frank looking over. ‘Tell you later, honey,’ she said.

  There wasn’t a part of Sammy that wasn’t responding to

  the occasion, hearing the music, absorbing the lights. There

  wasn’t a cell in his body that wasn’t meeting the thrill of

  the audience. I’m sure his stomach muscles pulsed to the rhythm, an eye rolling to the ceiling here, a finger stabbing to the floor there, a foot tapped and pointed to the side just so, on the beat, on the moment, while the follicles of his hair itched in sequence. He was a showbusiness entity to the ends of his nerves, projecting hope and capability, all wrapped inside this strange little man from the worst slum in Harlem. He was singing, dancing, impersonating people, the most canine person I ever met. ‘I ain’t got nothing to be bitter about,’ he said between songs. ‘I ain’t had it this good

  in my life, you dig? I got a pool and I can’t even swim.’ In the ladies’ room, a bottle of L’Heure Bleue was sitting

  on the ledge beneath a misted mirror. Marilyn sat me in the

  sink as she fixed her face. The nice attendant was amazed

  to see us coming in. She said hello as if she were accepting

  a prize and then went on wiping the mirror and looking at

  Marilyn working with an open compact case. You must have

  noticed: people talk to dogs as if they are people, speaking

  the words they wish the dog would say. ‘You are a tired little

  dog and a brave man, aren’t you?’ Marilyn said. ‘Yes. You are.

  All these noisy people. Yes, you are a tired little thing. You

  want to go home, don’t you? Want to go home and see what

  Hattie’s left for you.’

  ‘He’s a fine animal,’ said the attendant.

  ‘Why, thank you,’ said Marilyn. ‘Only had him a few

  weeks. He’s a tiddy biddy little thing who just wants his bed.

  Good dog.’

  That’s what humans do. They talk to you. They talk

  nonsense. They talk to you and they talk for you. And so

  they create a personality for you which is defined by the way

  they act you out. Every minute they are with you they are

  constructing you out of what they want, a companion, a little man, a furry friend who can only love their owners for their mothering tongue. ‘What do you say to the nice lady?’

  asked Marilyn.

  Come on. You know damn well you can’t hear me. You’re

  doing to me what you say those studio bosses do to you. Stop

  assuming I’m only really here to accord with your goddamn

  version of me.

  ‘I’m afraid we don’t like too much noise, do we now, TootToot? Too many people. We like to walk in Central Park.’ I suppose it’s all acting. And I’m not going to pretend I

  don’t love that aspect of people, the part to do with acting.

  Other animals don’t have that capacity and are all the

  poorer. And maybe Marilyn was right: maybe I was tired and

  maybe we did like to walk in Central Park. In any event my

  subservience was always the greater part of my charm. An elderly lady came into the restroom. She looked at

  Marilyn and immediately came over to her. ‘I am Lillian

  Gish,’ she said. Her voice was lovely and her manner was

  direct. Marilyn immediately arranged for her to have a

  chair and she behaved so beautifully with the older actress,

  whispering such endearments and compliments, and soon

  there was a little conversation over two glasses of iced water.

  Ms Gish spoke of Springfield, Ohio, and also said things

  about Mr Griffith, the director. The whole encounter seemed

  to make Marilyn calm; she was now away from the tension

  of messy, judging people, and safe with a pure actress like

  Sarah Bernhardt. It was a fact about my fated companion:

  she always felt calm with grand old ladies who flushed with

  self-pleasure, as if her own radiance could be no threat to

  them. Sybil Thorndike had been like that on the English

  picture, so had Isak Dinesen when Marilyn and her friend Carson met her for dinner, and Edith Sitwell, who was so much herself that she only felt charmed by Marilyn’s face and mind. Old age was a badge of honour on those women, not a guarantee of envy and unrest as some other people found it to be. These women had suffered losses and they faced the fact with a humorous defiance. Of course, they each had the air of an antiquated beauty, which is an evergreenness in itself, quite different from the disposition of persons who were never blessed in that way. Marilyn liked them: she liked to feel survival was a trick women could pull off, in spite of everything. (There were few signs that her mother had ever managed such a trick.) Ms Gish had a very relaxing air of artistic fastidiousness, and Marilyn took it in naturally. They spoke of acting classes and Ms Gish said she was delighted to

  be back on stage, at the Belasco.

  ‘Your dog has a very kind face,’ she added.

  ‘I guess he’s not a bad little soldier,’ said Marilyn. ‘I would

  say he’s feeling a little overawed by tonight.’

  ‘It’s nice to have a friend,’ said Ms Gish. Then she pressed

  her lips over a piece of tissue and turned to Marilyn. ‘When

  you were very young, Miss Monroe, did you have a best

  friend?’ Marilyn paused only for a second to register both

  her surprise at the question and her general satisfaction that

  such a question could be asked in a place like this. Mar
ilyn

  had a gift for immediate intimacy.

  ‘Yes I did,’ she said. ‘Her name was Alice Tuttle.’ ‘That’s what I find as I get older: the little girls of one’s

  past step forward to keep you company. In my dressing room

  at the theatre I often find I’m thinking about them. Isn’t

  that strange? Only the other day I found a picture of a girl

  like that – haven’t seen her in fifty years – and I put it on the

  mirror in the dressing room.’

  ‘I bet you are a swell friend,’ said Marilyn.

  We allow the human story always to take centre stage:

  that is what makes a dog the perfect friend. And yet I

  was thinking of the wild dogs that wandered the streets of

  ancient Rome, the ones remembered by the philosophers for

  haunting the city in the dead of night. They were Celtic

  hounds who came from the mountains, keeping to their own

  kind, threading through the pillars, licking dust from the

  mosaics and circling the Forum to bark at the mysteries of

  civilisation.

  Friendship. It depends on a suspension of the instinct

  merely to propagate oneself. One must leave parts of oneself

  dormant in order to succeed as a good friend. I never wanted

  to be the sort of animal who inveigles others and nuzzles his

  way to a summit of affection. Being a good friend requires

  a willingness, on occasion, to appear to subvert the cause,

  being critical when clarity and progress demand it. My career

  as Marilyn’s pet was pursued with a degree of moral vigour:

  in that universe of flattery I tried to sing my own notes, not

  very successfully, but I think she got my meaning through a

  long concatenation of looks and yaps.

  Before we took off, a fan called Charlie, whom she knew

  very well, asked the doorman to take a quick picture of him

  and Marilyn, and she was happy to do it, taking his arm.

  ‘Gee. Your hands are cold this evening, Charlie. How long

  you been standing out here?’

  ‘Two hours.’ He shrugged. ‘Less than that. I went to see

  Exodus at Warner’s on 47th Street.’

  ‘Preminger,’ said Marilyn.

  ‘And Dalton Trumbo.’ Together they walked the few

  steps to her waiting car. ‘Can you believe it, Trumbo writing

  again?’

  ‘They blacklisted him, right?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Big time. Maybe things are easing off.’ ‘Mmmm, I doubt it,’ said Marilyn. ‘Not while Khrushchev

  is still banging the table with his shoe. What did you think

  of the picture?’

  ‘A bit talky,’ he said. ‘Cobb’s good.’

  ‘Lee Cobb?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Arthur knew him.’

  ‘I know,’ said Charlie. ‘He was in his play.’

  ‘He named names. They always get forgiven in the end.’ ‘Who does?’

  ‘Men.’

  ‘Oh get lost,’ said Charlie, wrinkling his nose. Charlie

  was one of those smart kids it makes you feel nice to like.

  ‘The picture tries to be fair to everybody, which is always a

  mistake in drama, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I guess so,’ she said.

  Charlie was one of the Monroe Six. This was a group

  of kids who hung around in front of Marilyn’s apartment

  building and who used to wait in the lobby in the days when

  she lived at the Waldorf. She often saw them as she made

  her way to appointments and she would always smile for

  them and sign autographs. They looked after her if she was

  out walking by herself, following her at a distance, and I got

  to know Charlie. Sometimes she would let him ride with her

  in the limousine across town.

  ‘Not tonight, Charlie.’ She meant about the car. But she

  looked at him as if he was the right kind of friend, and my

  earlier ruminations on the subject began to fade into the cold

  night air. ‘Some other time, huh? I mean, some time soon.’ ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I got work tomorrow.’ He was already

  walking backwards and stuffing his camera into his pocket

  and winking goodbye. Marilyn thought he was the future. I

  heard her thinking it as he walked away. The boy was able

  to take something for granted about fame and politics, about

  their joint power, and Marilyn took it for granted the same

  way. The difference was that it gave her a strange feeling in

  the pit of her stomach. I was just getting to know my fated

  companion but already I loved the quality identified by Carl

  Sandburg. ‘There was something democratic about her,’ he

  said. But the question of fame and intellect often haunted

  her reveries. Driving away from the Copacabana, she waved

  to Charlie from the car and said to herself that if anybody had

  made her a star it was the people. That’s all. But popularity

  has many snares. As we crossed onto Lexington she recalled

  that a picture of Rita Hayworth in a pink negligée was pasted

  on the bomb they dropped on Hiroshima.

  The park on Sutton Place faces the East River. We often

  went there in the daytime and watched children playing in a

  sandbox. Other dogs would come and Marilyn would sit on

  the bench and stare at the water, imagining the lives of the

  people on the passing boats. The night of the Copacabana we

  went down to the park and she sat there smoking a cigarette.

  People can be alone with their dogs, perfectly alone, so long

  as the dog knows how to pipe down and simply be vigilant

  over their owner’s privacy. On such occasions, Marilyn

  would often just stare into space and mention names. Men’s

  names. She felt alienated by the thought of how indebted to

  men she was, all those men who had given her something

  large while meaning to take something away. It always

  bothered her that she had been so dependent on the men she admired. She looked into the water and said, ‘Tommy Zahn.’ Turns out he was a lifeguard at the beach in Santa Monica when she was a mousy-haired teenager desperate to be no

  ticed.

  The Queensboro Bridge was covered in lights that looped

  to Welfare Island, and staring at them I saw in my mind the

  image of Emma Bovary and her little Italian greyhound,

  Djali.* I believe it is well known that Emma would walk

  her as far as the wood of beech trees at Banneville, where

  our attentive and happy mutt would busy herself yapping at

  the yellow butterflies while Emma opened her mind to her.

  She opened her mind without reservation. The dog was the

  only one to hear her secret. ‘Oh, why, dear God, did I marry

  him?’ The essence of dogs often lies in pictures. I thought

  of Fragonard’s painting called The Souvenir. Ah, the lonely

  spot, the darkling wood, the young lady lost in reverie, and

  the small dog looking up at her, eager to understand. Art

  makes relatives of us all. Sitting on the bench, Marilyn put

  a finger down and stroked my chin. ‘My mother told me life

  happened in fifteen phases,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that a strange

  number, Snowball? She picked it up from a door-to-door

  salesman. Fifteen strides, he said. Fifteen tracos. But maybe

  there’s just two phases: before and after.’

&nb
sp; In the apartment, she dropped her clothes all the way

  down the hall, except the coat, which she dragged to the

  living room and laid by the white piano. ‘Here’s yours,

  Snowball,’ she said, kissing my nose. I snuggled down into the ermine and sniffed her essence of roses. Marilyn took a bottle of Dom Pérignon from the fridge and went back along the hall, and soon the voice of Mr Sinatra was coming from her turntable, the sound escaping with a bar of light at the foot of her bedroom door.

  * This was the era of valiant smoking. People smoked: that’s what they did. Like Sammy, many of them used a Lucky Strike as if it were a baton, conducting the symphony of their own coolness. I have a few small talents, but I always regretted not being able to smoke or stick out my tongue at passing enemies.

  * A dog is bound to like footnotes. We spend our lives down here. And in a sense, all literature is a footnote. Djali, for instance, Emma Bovary’s dog, was a footnote to Esmeralda’s little goat in Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris, also called Djali.

  7

  O

  ne Easter Sunday they brought out the dogs in Alabama. I’m talking about a couple of years after the time I was in New York with Marilyn. It’s not part of our adventures, but I want to mention it here. They brought out the dogs and they brought out the fire-hoses and they turned them on the people who asked for freedom. The dogs were barking and the people were scared of being bitten but just as scared of their own anger. I’m talking about the kind of anger that can wreck a person’s life. The thing in Alabama was a terrible mix-up because, Holy Lord, I saw the dogs on TV pulling on their leashes and weeping for shame as Bull Connor’s men dragged them in to oppose the black people. Trotsky said insurrection is an art with its own laws, but at Birmingham the laws were horribly corrupted: the dogs found themselves acting the part of slaves set on slaves. Only humans could fashion something so profoundly inhuman. The dogs were adding their sound to the voice of democracy, singing Freedom Land with the freshness of Betty Mae Fikes. ‘Walk,’ they barked, ‘Walk, Walk, Walk out of Slavery.’

  Anyone with experience knows how life can turn our instincts against us. I saw that back when I was young, a while before Alabama, when I was still with Marilyn. I often think of civil rights when I think of New York that spring, because there was a pulsation on the streets and at the lunch counters, in the parks and in the bus stations, a sense that the times were equal to a change of some kind. One morning, we walked twenty blocks in the sunshine. A black man with a harmonica was sitting on a fire hydrant at the corner of 77th and Madison. At the other end of my leash, Marilyn was wearing a black wig and dark glasses; a Hermès scarf encased her head in clouds of blue and gold. We stopped and she made to open her purse, but the man dismissed her. ‘Save yo’ money while you can,’ he said. Then he sang a snatch of song. ‘Your Dog Loves My Dog’.*