Francis Bacon in Your Blood

by Michael Peppiatt

  After several more tugs of war and a couple of cups of coffee, Michel and I wander out on to the Boulevard Saint-Germain and decide to have lunch at a family-run bistro almost opposite the offices of Cahiers d’Art, one of the artistic and literary journals I revere most, to which among his myriad other achievements, I remind myself sharply, Michel has almost certainly contributed way back before I was even born. Suitably chastened, I sit squarely opposite him for what I imagine will be a quick, frugal meal, wondering whether I shouldn’t back down over certain points in the translation out of respect. However, Michel’s attention is focused on the wine list from which he eventually chooses the new Beaujolais, saying that would be best as a lunch wine because it’s so light and I agree cheerfully although from past experience I know that Beaujolais has a treacherous undertow that gets you drunk more quickly than any other wine going. We’re well into the first bottle before we’ve even looked at the menu and Michel is suggesting that since it’s such a light wine a second bottle would be in order and from being thoroughly constrained, with his stern features constantly twitching, he begins to relax quite visibly, glass by glass, as thought it were a potion, which in many ways I suppose it is, and he becomes voluble about his life and his writings, which I’ve come to know quite well, insisting more and more that everything he has ever done is worthless and he himself is a sham because although he has taken certain literary ‘risks’ they are nothing compared to real physical risks which he has never the courage to take so that someone whom he detested and whose face he would like to slap publicly like General Bigeard, famous for the torture he carried out during the Algerian War, is in fact demonstrably superior to him because he has at least proved his bravery in war.

  I am caught completely off guard because I have never seen Michel this communicative, not to say so fiercely self-deprecatory, before. I remind him that during one of the Surrealist escapades he had shouted out in front of a crowd ‘Down with France’ at a particularly sensitive moment in the Rif war in Morocco and that he would have been lynched if the police hadn’t intervened.

  ‘That was nothing,’ Michel replies in a definitive tone. ‘I am a coward and a sale bourgeois, and that’s that.’ And as if to emphasize the point, he orders another bottle of Beaujolais.

  I try to change the conversation. I’ve heard that Picasso’s dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who has been living with Michel and Zette for years, has been very ill, so I ask him if he’s any better.

  ‘Yes, he’s made an extraordinary recovery,’ Michel says. Then he grins suddenly, baring large teeth, with all tics gone. ‘We gathered round his bed thinking he was about to die. Then he suddenly came to and we asked him, timidly, if there was anything he wanted. “Yes,” he said, “une saucisse-frites”!’

  By the time we leave the restaurant Michel is clearly unsteady on his feet, so I take his arm and we walk back to his apartment on the Quai des Grands-Augustins. I wonder whether he’ll have to confront Zette in his inebriated condition or whether he’ll be able to slip unobserved through the dark discreetly luxurious interior lined with Picassos, Légers and Braques, to his study overlooking the Seine. As we stand in front of the fortress-like door, I sense that Michel is about to re-enter a world of convention where self-exposure is taboo.

  Just before he disappears into the building’s gloom, he turns and repeats, like an urgent message to the outside world:

  ‘The truth is I never had the courage to risk my skin. I am just a sale bourgeois.’

  ‘Michael, is that you?’

  ‘Yes, Francis.’

  ‘Look, I’m terribly sorry to bother you like this but I’ve just been wondering whether by any chance you could find me a place like yours in Paris, as I think you said you might be able to do. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I got back to London.’

  ‘Of course I can. I’d be delighted to.’

  ‘I’m not looking for anything grand. Something simple where I could work and sleep. That’s all I really want. I do feel London is terribly dreary at times and I’d love to have somewhere in Paris.’

  ‘Well, why don’t I round up a few places for you to see and you can take a look at them when you next come over?’

  ‘That would be simply marvellous. I’ll come over as soon as you think you’ve found a few places.’

  I put down the phone feeling both elated and puzzled. I’d jump at the chance of being useful to Francis, particularly since it would mean he’d be coming to Paris more often. But I can’t think why he’d want all the bother of having a place of his own when he loves staying in hotels and having everything laid on for him when he feels like it. He’s also in his mid-sixties, which seems to me rather old to be starting a new adventure in life, and it’s not as though he’s ever found a place outside Reece Mews where he’s been able to work. Still, I like the idea of finding a perfect studio for him and I put out the word among those of my artist friends who, and there are a few of them, have a very good eye for property. Before long one of them gets back saying that he knows of a magnificent studio for sale where Puvis de Chavannes worked and that the American owner would immediately drop his price if it was Francis Bacon who wanted it. I go along to visit and the space is indeed fantastic, a traditional nineteenth-century atelier with high ceilings and vast windows, and with the reduction the price seems very reasonable. But it’s not in the Marais, so I also do the rounds of the estate agents and settle on a space more comparable to mine, but bigger and more stylish, in an impressive, classic townhouse on the rue de Birague, which leads from the Place des Vosges down towards the Seine. The main room overlooks a quiet cobblestone courtyard and has a north light coming in through two lofty windows.

  Francis arrives as planned and we go to visit the grand atelier and although he is very amiable to its American owner he tells me it’s altogether more than he wants. We jump into a cab and go to visit the second option. The moment Francis walks in to the room he looks round and says, ‘I know I can work here,’ and that seems to clinch the matter. He scarcely looks at the kitchen and bathroom. Things seem to me to be moving too quickly, particularly since the estate agents have lined up several other places for him to see and the owner’s asking price for this one is exorbitant, especially in comparison to what I paid for mine. I feel I’m exercising due caution but Francis brushes this notion aside.

  ‘Let’s just give him what he wants,’ he says.

  ‘But, Francis, no one in Paris ever pays the initial asking price on a place.’

  ‘It’s so rare to find something one wants that I can’t really be bothered to what’s called negotiate, Michael. And I’d like you to have the place and look after it for me.’

  ‘I can just look after it, Francis,’ I say, alarmed by the sudden turn of events.

  ‘I’d like you to have it, as long as I can stay here when I want.’

  ‘That goes without saying, Francis. But wouldn’t it make more sense if it was in your name?’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t actually, for all sorts of reasons. And I don’t want the bother of owning things. I’d really be very grateful if we could do it in your name.’

  I go back to my own less glamorous flat and spend the next couple of days in feverish speculation. Obviously I could hardly have dreamt up a more marvellous offer. There’s not only the fact that owning something substantial would make my still pretty much hand-to-mouth existence in Paris less precarious, but the alluring prospect that I would be a more established and more obviously useful part of Francis’s existence than ever. But while his trust in me is hugely important and flattering, I’m uneasy about getting ever further into his debt. I try to reason that this kind of conflict comes from my essentially puritan upbringing, but I just can’t fob myself off. As I worry over this apparently insoluble contradiction, I find myself staring at the little papal head on the wall as if the anxiety inherent in the portrait’s confused, blurred features might help resolve my own. A prominent Parisian art dealer has been making all kinds of
advances towards me over the past few weeks, taking me to expensive restaurants as if simply for the pleasure of my company although at some point he always mentions how keen a wealthy client of his would be to own a Bacon painting. I’ve told him flatly that I have no intention of selling it, but suddenly the notion takes on a new significance. If I could get enough from the picture to pay for the flat, the problem would be solved, since I’d be able to do Francis what he calls a ‘favour’ without increasing my indebtedness to him, and incidentally not having to worry whether the picture would be stolen or go up in flames every time I went out.

  Francis is back in London now and I’m a bit concerned he won’t accept this solution since he always insists on paying for everything himself, perhaps thereby keeping control of any given situation, but when I suggest it over the phone he accepts the idea enthusiastically, so I put both the purchase of the flat and the sale of the painting in motion. I’m very sad to be parting with my Pope, which has acted as a kind of talisman for me, the act of owning it reinforcing my sense of identity and self-belief. On the other hand, I like to think that I am growing less romantic and more mature, and that I should heed the more practical side of my nature which argues that an artist’s reputation is almost chimerical by definition whereas a property next to the Place des Vosges can hardly fail to go up steadily in value. I’ve never been through this kind of reasoning before, and I’m amused by the idea that from eking out a living in journalism I might soon be a man of substance as well as being very pleased that Francis will now be spending more and more time right here among us in the Marais.

  There are archaic, almost medieval aspects to purchasing a property in France, and the whole transaction has taken considerably longer than anticipated. The money is being held in escrow by the notary, and tomorrow we should at last be signing off on everything and I should be handed both the deeds and the keys. Francis is already over here, clearly excited by the prospect of having his own place in Paris. We’re having an early lunch at the Coupole, where I haven’t been in years, and when I get there he’s already sitting over a café au lait. Since he always seems to arrive before everyone and be the last to leave when we hit the bars I wonder how he finds the time to work in between while keeping so many different friendships and all the other areas of his life going, even though I know he gets by on very little sleep and that when he focuses on a new image it tends to come off quickly if it’s going to come off at all. He’s in a fairly sombre mood this morning. We discuss ‘despair’, a favourite notion of his, and when I make a remark to the effect that ‘people only have the despair they can afford’, he tells me, ‘You’ve just said something very profound,’ and I feel absurdly proud. Meanwhile, Francis has been eyeing a puddle of milk on the table, and as though giving in to an impulse he had been repressing for some time he suddenly dips his thick white finger into it and draws a shape. I tell him we’ll have the keys to the flat tomorrow, and he suggests that I pick up some champagne and a few glasses and we meet there with Sonia, who’s in town, and his would-be dealer’s sister Nadine Haïm to celebrate before we go on to dinner together. A waiter comes to lay the table and suggests we might try a petit vin léger that’s on offer, to which Francis replies balefully, ‘Pas trop léger,’ before going through the wine list and ordering a very full-bodied red Graves. The brasserie begins to fill up and Francis has focused with unusual malevolence on a flamboyant, statuesque woman who’s been behaving as if she were a famous star throwing tantrum after tantrum at a table across the large, noisy room. At one point the woman gets up and sets off for the toilets. When she returns, she walks past our table in a cloud of perfume, at which Francis, as if no longer able to contain himself, bursts out: ‘She goes down to have a shit and comes back smelling of roses! There it is. We eat and we shit, and that’s about all there is to life if you really think about it.’

  The food is mediocre, which does nothing to improve Francis’s mood. I remain very neutral about everything, because I know from past experience that enunciating any kind of opinion about anything is likely to be a red rag to a bull. Just as we’re preparing to leave, David Hockney arrives with a couple of American painter friends, Shirley Goldfarb and Gregory Masurovsky, and comes over to kiss Francis affectionately on either cheek. As David moves on, Francis takes out a handkerchief and wipes his cheeks very elaborately.

  ‘Now I wonder why he did that?’ Francis says to me. ‘I suppose he must have some ghastly disease.’

  The following evening I arrive jingling keys with several bottles of Cristal, a champagne Francis has developed a notable taste for while in Paris. Like a seasoned barman, I stow these away in the fridge and polish the glasses. Alice arrives first and admires the space. Then, clearly already drunk after what must have been an epic afternoon, Francis, Sonia and Nadine make their entry. I pop open the champagne and make sure everyone’s glass is kept filled. The empty new space is suddenly filled with loud, lively conversation and slightly hysterical laughter. Sonia and Nadine vie with each other to advise Francis which bed to buy and where to stock his kitchen. Francis seems to find the whole event hugely amusing, although I know that, like me, he hates the unsightly gold-and-black flock wallpaper chosen by the former owner – an almost comically pompous architect who has bought up and ‘developed’ the whole house while describing in detail to everyone who will listen the myriad advantages of his tasteful renovation of the various flats he has put on the market. Francis is clearly itching to do something about it and, as more bottles are opened, he tells the ladies how much he’d like to get rid of the wallpaper and have everything painted simply in white. Suddenly Francis goes over to the wall and rips off a large swathe of the offending wallpaper without further ado. We all applaud, then move in with gusto to help, grabbing handfuls of the stuff which peels off with admirable ease, until the parquet floor is ankle-deep in flock and we are all guffawing like student pranksters until we realize that the studio door has been left open and the pompous architect, his mouth literally agape, is standing there watching the spontaneous destruction of his art.

  ‘Since all the people around me have been dying like flies,’ Francis’s most recent refrain goes, ‘I have nothing to paint but this old pudding face of mine.’ It’s an exaggeration, like much of what he says, but it reminds me that on a couple of occasions we have discussed the idea that he might paint my portrait. Those things are easier said than done, I know. I’ve been seeing a bit of Henri Cartier-Bresson recently, and he’s suggested photographing me but no date has ever been set and he’s never come back to it, so neither have I. Perhaps when he says he wants to photograph me, he means he wants to photograph Francis, since I’m coming to be seen in the Paris art world as a sort of gateway to him. I know that someone Francis has portrayed began by deluging him with photos, so rather than bring the subject up again I’ve asked Alice to take lots of shots of me, full face and profile, and quite a few full-length ones stripped to the waist. Francis seems quite interested in them, then one evening he explains to me that I’d have to shave off my beard and have the photographs done again because he needed to ‘see the bone structure clearly’ before he could embark on a portrait. I always keep my beard trimmed short, so this sounds evasive to me, even though it’s true to say that I can’t think of any bearded men in his paintings. But what, I wonder, would I feel like if I did shave off my beard, which has become part of my personality, and then Francis still didn’t see his way to painting me? I decide in favour of the beard.

  Francis has just done two heads of Michel Leiris which capture the extraordinary mobility of his face with quite uncanny accuracy. They are also beautiful, inventive images in their own right. What people seem to forget in all the talk about violence and distortion and the legacy of the death camps and so on is his delicacy and skill simply as a painter. Here he hasn’t been as radical or destructive as in some of his portraits of George or in his self-portraits, where perhaps he feels much freer, but in one of the Michel heads he’s cut out the w
hole temple and replaced it with a dotted line joining the nose to the isolated ear. It makes me think of the Valéry line that Francis likes to quote about ‘giving the sensation without the boredom of its conveyance’. If I’m particularly impressed by this head, it may be partly because Francis has chosen to give it to me. I protested, feebly enough, but he insisted he wanted me to have it because he’s so pleased with the translation I did with Michel, saying he sounds so much more intelligent in the French version (though that could hardly be credited to me). A couple of painter friends of mine have come round to see the new picture hanging on its nail, and one of them, an extraordinary character from Montenegro called Dado, has given me an enormous, very powerful oil painting of his – a collage of fragments of figures – not only because we’re old friends and I’ve written about his work, I suspect, but because he wants it to be hung in the same space as a Bacon.

  I’ve been down to the studio a couple of times since Francis has moved in and started working. He’s obviously delighted to have a place here, and I’ve been wondering whether one of the reasons he made up his mind to take it so quickly was the address: 14 rue de Birague. I’m pretty sure Francis has a thing about numbers, odd though that is in someone who furiously eschews any form of belief or ‘superstition’. It may come from some gambling strategy he has devised, but the number 7 is key. Several of his previous studios have been at a number 7, or a multiple thereof, and when I tell him I’m hoping to move to a new, larger flat at 77 rue des Archives, the idea seems to appeal to him instantly. It’s also not for nothing, of course, that he has his permanent abode at 7 Reece Mews, London SW7.