In Tearing Haste
Page 23
O. English Delegate ‘Oh, really? I’m so sorry, I didn’t quite catch what you were called when we were introduced.’
Derek Jackson ‘Derek Jackson.’
O. English Delegate (after a pause) ‘No, that wasn’t the name.
’ I’m in my outdoor study, which is a sort of shady bower, on one of the lower olive-terraces, viz., a criss-cross of laths on four uprights, covered with branches and creeping plants, cool and slightly dappled underneath. Two terraces down, two mules are audibly munching, and I see them swishing their tails. We’re taking them up into the mountains for a picnic tomorrow. (Where the mules munch, there munch I.) Rock nuthatches hop about in the olive branches, and I find their name rather difficult to say. Why not rack nothutches, hitch nuckrackies, nockratch hickies etc.
No more now, as I see you’re urgent, so off to the pillar-box. Tons of love
Paddy
I’ll address this envelope to Bolton, and wish I could climb in.
25 January 198[1]
Mani
Darling Debo,
Back to base again, and rather worried because absolutely no news of Annie. Do, like a saint, sit down in a few seconds and scribble all, as being in the dark makes one anxious.
Joan and I are just back from Syria, where we went with our old travelling companions, Xan and his bride, Magouche. We took wing to Damascus, a vast Oriental slum really, but marvellous all the same, with the biggest and most beautiful mosque I’ve ever seen. One simply sat at the foot of tremendous pillars, at the heart of hushed acres of carpet, and mooned two hours blissfully away. Then across the desert to Palmyra, a knockout, and on to the Euphrates, back to Homs, and Hamah, a warren of souks with scores of giant waterwheels turned by the green Euphrates. Then to the tangled lanes and caravanserais, sunsets in the desert:
But when the deep red eye of day
is level with the lone highway,
And some to Mecca turn to pray,
and I toward thy bed, Yasmin,
. . .
Shine down thy love, O burning bright!
for one night or the other night
Will come the Gardener in white,
and gather’d flowers are dead, Yasmin! *
Yes. Huge crusader castles, Krak des Chevaliers, tremendous Greco-Roman theatres (Bosra), the fortress of the Jebel Druse. Xan and I went to the Hammam in Aleppo, a great domed building put up in 1200 AD by Nur-ed-Din el Shāhed el Mansūr, Saladin’s brother. [1] We were pounded to a pulp in the steam by brawny Moslems, then wrapped in towels and gold hemmed robes, set on divans with cardamom coffee and hookahs, where we reclined, listening to the muezzins wailing next door, and sallied out into the gloaming, the cleanest men East of Suez and north of the Hejaz, and the Bedouins of the souks followed our fragrant and disembodied progress with black and blazing eyes.
Now we’re back here among the cats and the owls, cold as hell, but clear and starry.
No more now, darling Debo, except heaps of love from
Paddy
[1] PLF had been misinformed about the history of the building. The only Nur-edDin bath in Syria being in Damascus, it is likely he bathed in the thirteenth-century Hammam al-Nahasin, built by Saladin’s son.
* From James Elroy Flecker’s marvellous ‘Hassan’.
6 February 1981
Lismore Castle
Co. Waterford
Darling Paddy,
Look where I am, at an unaccustomed time of year. Andrew came as per for the fishing & had a sort of frightening collapse, temp of 103, unable to walk, delirious. He’s much better now, mending fast in that amazing way he has, extraordinary one for being really ill & very soon pretty well alright.
He’s had many major worries lately. Chatsworth is being made into a charitable trust & the Poussin Holy Family is to be sold in April to underpin the trust & you can imagine the heart searching & thought & meetings & discussions & all which led up to the decision to do this. [1]
Enough of us, now to Ann. [2] I rang several times, the last time I got her as she had just got back from N Ireland, & was tired of course after the journey but the fact she was able to go there shows she’s not too bad, eh.
The trouble was a twisted gut as far as I can make out which can easily be a killer & she damn nearly died. When I get back to England I’ll have a proper talk to her & will write again.
Diana is in London for Feb. She’s being marvellously good but misses him dreadfully. They’d been as one for nearly 50 years. Many a publisher is after her but she doesn’t feel like work. (Perhaps you don’t know Sir O [Mosley] died in Dec.)
Your outing sounds awful. You are lucky to like that sort of thing. (I KNOW Flecker, you needn’t put it, FOOL.)
There is a musical called The Mitford Girls [3] coming on at Chichester in the summer. Really & truly what next. I’ve noted the script & it’s perfectly alright, I mean nothing objectionable, so I don’t mind. The man kindly spouted it out to me & Woman & Diana & the fellow who plays the piano is IT. He played for Noël Coward the last two years of N.C.’s life. [4] The tunes will do you in, the theme song is ‘It Looks Like Trouble Ahead’, & things like ‘Ukulele Lady’ loom large. I wish you’d been there.
I’m going to the rehearsals to try & get the voice & pronunciation right. It was disastrous in the telly of Love in a CC. [5]
I do wonder who’ll be me. They’ll have a job to get Diana right, & Woman for that matter.
I must stop & get ready for the Dr (who is an Irish Dr in a play, arrives with pills in his hot hand, flies out in a hurry because it’s Clonmel Races shouting Give him two sleeping pills AND TAKE ONE YOURSELF).
Much love
Debo
[1] The painting was sold at Christie’s on 10 April 1981 and fetched £1,165,000.
[2] Ann Fleming had cancer, initially diagnosed as a twisted gut.
[3] By Caryl Brahms and Ned Sherrin (1981).
[4] Peter Greenwell (1929–2006). The composer and pianist was Noël Coward’s accompanist during the last decade of the Master’s life.
[5] An eight-part ITV adaptation by Simon Raven of Nancy Mitford’s novels The Pursuit of Love (1945) and Love in a Cold Climate (1949). ‘Hideous children who swallowed their words, a Hons’ Cupboard with NO LINEN in it, oh dear.’ DD to PLF, 4 November 1980.
29 March 1981
Chatsworth
Bakewell
Darling Paddy,
Any chance of you looming? I go to Lismore on 2 April till 30th. COME.
The editor has been. Richard Garnett, son of David, [1] that’s all. Do be impressed. The terror of it. But he was v v nice & we sat with scissors & paste & chopped up a photo-ed copy of the Bachelor Duke’s Handbook & stuck the bits we like above my bits describing the same bits of house. Good sport. Now I’ve got to look sharp & finish it, the outside & some more boring details. What a business it all is.
Lismore, 3 April.
Somehow got stuck, & now I’m here. Oh, Whack, the beauty of this place, & suddenly it’s fine & WARM (well, sort of ) & everything two weeks early & busting out all over.
I jolly well knew I was in Ireland when the first garage I came to in Wexford had OPEN & CLOSED signs both up. A bit further on I asked someone how far to Waterford. Eight miles he said. His mate said it’s 28. First man said ‘I knew there was an eight in it somewhere, God Bless.’ All in one sentence.
I do love them but I do wish they’d stop shooting people’s knees. It’s such a horrid trick.
Much love,
Debo
[1] David Garnett (1892–1981). Bloomsbury author whose books include Lady into Fox (1922) and Aspects of Love (1955). Became Duncan Grant’s lover in 1914; married to Ray Marshall 1923–40. After his wife’s death, he married Angelica Bell, the daughter of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell.
7 April 1981
Mani
Darling Debo,
I would have loved to come to Lismore, but I can’t. I’m getting a move on with this wretched book [1] at last, afte
r dragging my feet as usual. I long for it all to be finished, and me free. I was an idiot to leave it all so long. It seems to be all right, thank goodness. I’m a bit nervous, after everyone being so nice about Vol. I.
The frogs are making a terrible noise. A curlew should be imposed.
I wish you would come here sometime. I think, quite apart from anything else, one ought to know how and where one’s friends live, then one can imagine what’s going on. Otherwise they disappear into a sort of void until you see them again.
Tons of love
Paddy
Library book-title: ‘WILD OATS, A cereal story’ . . .
[1] Between the Woods and the Water:
7 June 1981
Chatsworth
Bakewell
Darling Paddy,
I went to lunch with Ann at Sevenhampton three days ago, & hasten to write & tell you what I expect you know, that she is very ill.
Once you have got over the shock of her poor twisted face everything appears to be normal. Alas it is not.
She was in bed so I did not see her walk but I know it is a struggle & she has one of those things to lean on to help her along. She is blind in one eye & I noticed someone has brought her books printed in a v big type so presumably the remaining eye is not perfect.
The word lumbago which she speaks of reminded me of Nancy, who used to think the awful pain in her back was that. The truth is the wretched thing is all over her. No one knows how fast it will choose to move. It may be more or less static for some weeks, but it may not. At the moment she is a bit better, seeing people & apparently quite pleased to do so. Her d in law told me they have taken her off the drugs which made her feel so awful, so that is why she is sort of brighter.
I am very sorry to write like this but I know she is one of your greatest friends, & I guess you’re coming to England soon?? DO let me know your plans. I will be here nearly all the time except for a few days in early July when I go to my good Wife for the preview & the first night of The Mitford Girls at Chichester, what a lark. I have got to go & tell them how to speak, to say ‘orphan’ for ‘often’, ‘frorst, corf & orf ’, & try & make them resist hostess. What a hope.
Much love
Debo
17 June 1981
from Corfu
IN HASTE
Darling Debo,
How miserable about Annie. I had heard roughly the same just a few days before from Pat Trevor-Roper, [1] who came to stay for a few days. He, too, thinks that things are uncertain, and may end abruptly; so I plan to come to London early in July, and will make a sign at once.
Saddest news last night, about Philip Toynbee’s [2] very sudden death from the same beastly thing.
I went to Crete for the 40th anniversary of the battle, which was marked by all sorts of ceremonies, lots of v nice Aussie, N.Z. and British veterans, Scots Guards pipers in plaids and silver and feather bonnets, Maoris blowing ‘The Last Post’ till one’s hair stood on end. Lots of old Cretan hands were there. I wish Xan had been, and would have urged him more if I’d realized the scale of the thing.
I had to make an address [3] in Greek at the unveiling of an SOE monument at Heraklion, to which we had all contributed. Pat T-R had told me exactly what to do, to overcome nerves: a double whiskey quarter of an hour before, no more no less. I had it in a little bottle in my pocket, and threw it down the red lane in the loo of the Defence Minister’s private bomber, just before we landed at Heraklion. It did the trick! There were lots of troops in hollow square, masses of archbishops and incense, thousands of old friends, rolling drums, crashing arms etc. When Avéroff, the Def. Minister was summoned to unveil the monument, he unexpectedly shouted for me, and we paced across the square together, each pulled a string and down flopped the British and Greek flags. He made a short address, then led me to the mike, and Pat’s formula must have been just right as I got through it in ringing tones with not a single mistake! It seems to have been a success, and when the public ropes were down, old whiskered pals broke through, and one was mobbed pretty well black-and-blue with hugs. No dry eyes anywhere, all a-clank with medals, full-size ones for the first, and probably last, time in one’s life. It was very moving.
Joan and I motored here a few days ago, where we found the Ghikas and Jacob & Serena Rothschild. They buggered off two days ago, and have been replaced by Stephen Spender, [4] hot foot from China where he has been travelling all over the place with David Hockney. [5] He doesn’t look awfully well but is as nice as ever. His wife Natasha rolls up this evening. I forgot to mention that the great point of our coming was the presence of Dadie Rylands, in order to be here with him. He’s a glory and I bet you would love him, 82, swims like a fish, pink cheeked, blue eyed and enchanting. He’s the most wonderful reader-aloud in the world. It has been a new Trollope novel every year – Phineas Redux this year, but I won’t go into that – and he does all the voices marvellously – Phineas, Dss of Omnium, Ld Cantrip, Mr Chaffanbrass the barrister, Ly Laura – last night we had twenty pages of a marvellous murder trial scene at the Old Bailey, full of surprises and sensations. We wait for reading time of an evening exactly like children.
Home in a few days time, taking the Spenders with us.
No more now, Debo darling, except see you soon and tons of love from
Paddy
[1] Patrick Trevor-Roper (1916–2004). Quiet-voiced, bookish and learned eye surgeon, author of The World Through Blunted Sight: An Inquiry into the Influence of Defective Vision on Art and Character (1970).
[2] Philip Toynbee (1916–81). PLF and the writer were both in the Intelligence Corps during the war. Their shared interest in literature, history and late-night parties created an enduring friendship.
[3] PLF enclosed a copy of his address with this letter.
[4] Stephen Spender (1909–95). The poet and novelist married Natasha Litvin (1919–), a concert pianist, in 1941.
[5] David Hockney (1937–). The painter and Stephen Spender recorded their travels in China Diary (1982), illustrated by Hockney with photographs by Spender.
24 June 1981
Chatsworth
Bakewell
Darling Paddy,
Your speech is a wonder. V brave to have the whiskey, think if it had made you sort of different, like it would have me. It must have been v moving, floods all round.
If you come do come to The Mitford Girls at Chichester. I’ve found a book in the library here I long to show you. Much love
Debo
[July 1981]
Mani
Darling Debo,
After three days of trying to get through to Pat Trevor-Roper (and he to me) to find out whether Annie would be up to seeing me – or anyone – we have just got through. He tells me that when he went there on Sunday, she was in a coma and under deep sedation and could hardly recognise him, and that the whole thing is only a question of a few days. [1] Things being so, he strongly advised against my coming back, rather indicating that it would be hopeless under the present circumstances, and, very possibly, too late . . .
You can imagine how one feels, as you must too. I can’t get over the idea that I’ll never see her again. I wish I’d simply dashed back, as you suggested, but she was very down when Pat was here, and he said wait; then not a word for days and days, during which she had a brief recovery, when she saw Robert and John Wells. [2] I wish I too.
You’ve been marvellous keeping me informed of things. Do try and ring or send a telegram if there’s any change, as they say.
Lots of love,
Paddy
[1] Ann Fleming died on Sunday 12 July.
[2] John Wells (1936–98). Actor, satirist and founder member of Private Eye who appeared as Q’s assistant in the film of Casino Royale (1967).
19 July 1981
Chatsworth
Bakewell
Darling Paddy,
I found your letter today, when I got back from Ann’s funeral. OH DEAR. What is there to say, except how she will be mi
ssed & what a hole there will be where she was.
The funeral was awful. There is nothing like a country churchyard for killing the mourners. I drove down from here & got there very early & sat in the car & then in the church. Oh dear. The flowers, & the churchyard flowers & the people all looking anxious & no one knowing where to sit. Her sister arrived, ridiculously smart in a hard black shiny straw hat, she’s gone tiny & looked like a wretched ill bird of the crow family, not my favourite. [1] When you think how they didn’t like each other I thought how daft form is.
No one in the congregation were CHURCH GO-ERS so didn’t know when to stand, & the clergyman had to tell them – honestly. How she would have taken in all that.
The burial part seemed to be done very quickly & was over by the time I got to it, thank goodness. We all went to the house for lunch. It made me think of what Robert said about Philip Toynbee’s funeral, & how he kept expecting him to come in & thought he’d just been left behind in the churchyard by mistake.
I always thought Sevenhampton a very sad house, but really yesterday it was hauntingly so. After a bit people started talking & laughing like one has to. Brainstorm [2] was very tight & said he has decided to buy a house in Derbyshire so I rushed to the car & fetched the Derbyshire Times & we looked at the For Sales & I think he’s rather decided against it. Raving.
Goodman [3] looked huge but drained, hunched up in a chair too small for him.
The curious thing was there was a service for Philip in London at the same time. So Robert didn’t come. The other notable absentees were Pat T-R & Lucian. Perhaps Pat had to do some ghoulish operation & Lucian sort of wouldn’t be there, would he.
It’s no good going on but oh what a gap. And as I looked at the people there I thought how I should never see any of them again because it was Ann who gathered them all up. I hope Mark Amory & Jacob [4] & one or two others will be exceptions.