Graham Greene

by Richard Greene

  TO MARION GREENE

  Long a sufferer from diabetes, Charles Greene died on 7 November 1942 : ‘The news came in two telegrams delivered in the wrong order – the first told me of his death – the second an hour later of his serious illness’12

  Freetown, | Nov. 30 [1942]

  Dearest Mumma,

  I have only heard today about Da’s death and I wrote to you yesterday inquiring after him and full of silly minor personal troubles. I feel it was rather a selfish act taking on a job abroad at this time, and I ought to have been home. I wish Elisabeth had been. I can’t write about how sorry and sad I feel: he was a very good person in a way we don’t seem to be able to produce in our generation. I wish he could have seen the end of this wretched war and better times, but I’m glad all happened so quietly and suddenly, so that he had no time to miss Elisabeth being away at the end. And I’m glad too that I belong to a faith that believes we can still do something for him and he can still do something for us. It will be such a long time after that you’ll get this letter, and that will hurt. I’m glad the children saw him again in September and Hugh and his family were down not so long before. I can’t write more now, but I think I shall be seeing you before very long.

  So much love and more sympathy than I can put in words.

  Graham

  Later.

  This may seem Popish superstition to you, or it may please you, that prayers are being said every day for Da in a West African church, & that rice is being distributed here in his name among people who live on rice & find it very hard to get.

  TO RAYMOND GREENE

  Freetown | Jan. 4 [1943]

  My dear Raymond,

  […]

  Forgive this rambling and not very lucid letter. Yesterday I began the second year on the coast, and I think quinine and the dreary colonials and the even drearier services turn one into a complete nit wit. I expect, however, to be home, for a time at any rate, quite soon now.

  The letter about Da’s death was a bit of a shock. I agree with you. Having children of one’s own makes one appreciate the position much more. I felt terribly sorry I hadn’t been down oftener since the war came, and when one did go down his rather noble old Liberalism was always inclined to make one bring out one’s cynicism stronger than need have been. About the chattels: it’s very difficult to think of things at this distance. I agree entirely with you that we should buy the things. I can think only of the DNB which would be extremely useful to me, and, if I could have a gift, his copy of Hardy’s Dynasts. The DNB of course I would buy. It’s very nice of you to have let me have first choice. May I suggest that Elisabeth ought to choose a chattel or two? She can hardly be expected to buy. And perhaps when you have chosen, you would consult Vivien on my behalf. There might be something she would like to buy with a view to having a house of our own again. I am writing to Mumma about the DNB and The Dynasts.

  My homecoming shortly does not depend I am glad to say on the major war situation. I agree with you about that, and resolutely refuse to be optimistic, though actually the prospect of peace now would fill me with utter gloom. War has not yet touched enough people of ours to alter the world. Here the complacency, ignorance and well-being is incredible. I should like to make a poster: ‘Come to Sierra Leone and Forget the War. No Rationing. No Income Tax. All the Fun of the Fair.’ Three day public holiday at Christmas and another three days at the New Year. The consumption of food and drink during those days quite enough to fill a cargo boat. One will be glad to get back to decent austerity again and at least the possibility of air raids. I imagine Churchill’s reference to the services of West Africa in the war was ironic.13 As far as I can see their contribution has been confined to cowardice, complacency, inefficiency, illiteracy and thirst… Of course one is referring only to the Europeans. The Africans at least contribute grace. However it is all admirable copy. But how tired one is of little plump men in shorts with hairless legs, and drab women, and the atmosphere of Balham going gay. People say the African is not yet ready for self-government. God knows whether he is or not: the Englishman here certainly isn’t.

  Yours,

  Graham

  TO LAURENCE POLLINGER

  Graham returned to England at the beginning of March 1943 and was faced with an array of uncertainties concerning Vivien, Dorothy and his future as a writer. After a visit to his mother at Crowborough, his first order of business was to make sense of the stage production of Brighton Rock. Despite the presence of a young Richard Attenborough, whom he admired greatly, Graham found that Hermione Baddeley (1906–86), now best remembered as Mrs Cratchit in Scrooge! (1951), was eating up the scenery in the role of Ida. Worse still, the final script had omitted the key phrase in the novel.

  C/O President’s Lodging,| Trinity College, | Oxford. |

  March 4 [1943]

  Dear Laurence,

  Apropos of our telephone conversation this morning. I went to see Brighton Rock at Oxford on Tuesday & was horrified by certain changes: these seemed to me to ruin the play for the sake of allowing Hermione Baddeley to fling a heart throb to the back of the gallery. She is a very bad piece of miscasting: her performance is on the overacted level of a revue sketch & her grotesqueness is all wrong for the part – but that is beside the point. These are my quarrels with the production & unless Linnit14 will agree to meet our wishes over (1) & (2) I must insist that my name be removed from all programmes & posters, & that no reference to me or my book be made in any publicity put out by the firm.

  Certain passages have been added to Hermione Baddeley’s part to enable her to pull out an emotional stop – which she does with grotesque inefficiency. Not having the script, & my memory of so ineffective a production being a bit dim, I find it hard to particularise. To anyone visiting the production they are made obvious by a preliminary break in Miss Baddeley’s voice which sounds rather like a gargle & can obviously be heard at the back of the gallery. The passages generally refer to her desire to be a mother to Rose. One such heart throb occurs in Act. 2 Scene 2: the worst in Act 3 Scene 2. Here lines are spoken which destroy the whole point of the play. Presumably Linnit has never spotted the point, but the dramatist in his original version certainly did.15 The idea is that Pinkie and Rose belong to a real world in which good & evil exist but that the interfering Ida belongs to a kind, artificial surface world in which there is no such thing as good & evil but only right & wrong. The dramatist brings this out several times in the attitude of Rose to Ida – though I suspect certain lines of importance have been cut. Now new lines have been inserted in Ida’s mouth in Act 3 Scene 2, when she tells Pinkie that he belongs to a small crooked perverted world which can’t hurt her – she belongs to the real world. The result is to give Hermione Baddeley another chance to gargle to the gallery, but makes the poor audience wonder what in hell the play’s about then. If they have any sense they won’t wonder for more than 50 nights.

  The removal of the last scene – & the priest’s speech about – ‘the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God’ – makes the play more than ever pointless. Has this been removed in order to shorten the play – a case of Hamlet being shorter without the Prince of Denmark? We must have an explanation about this – I made an explicit condition of approving the script that the ending should be unchanged – & I am quite prepared to seek an injunction if I am not satisfied with Linnit’s explanation.

  […]

  Changes were made to the script to meet Greene’s criticisms, and even though he was never happy with the production, he made sure that his royalties were paid and that his relatives had complimentary tickets.

  TO VIVIEN GREENE

  The end of the marriage of Graham and Vivien can probably be dated from the beginning of the war when she evacuated to Crowborough, then Oxford, and he remained in London with Dorothy Glover. His time in Africa merely postponed a reckoning. A month after his return, Vivien had apparently confronted him with evidence of infidelity – he was still very much involved with Dorothy.
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  King’s Arms (Oxford) | April 8–9 [1943]

  My darling, I’ve read your letter and I’ve had a party in the bar till now! I hadn’t meant to get involved but they were all friends of Raymond … I love you so much, my darling. Please believe that. Things have been difficult these last years, but I want so much to make you happy. That’s what I always said I’d do. My darling, in vino veritas. You are the best, the most dear person I’ve ever known. Life is sometimes so beastly that one wishes one were dead,16 & I go to places like Mexico & Freetown in a half hope that everything will be finished – but like in that Prior poem ‘you are my home’17 & back I come and ask you to like me & go on liking me. You mean more to me than the children, though I may seem nicer to them! Sometimes I wish I could twist a ring & skip twenty years & be old with you, with all this ragged business over. I’ve never wanted to be old, but with you I could be old & happy. God bless you, dear. God bless you, dear. I’ve told a lot of lies in 38 years – or I suppose in 35 years, one couldn’t lie from the cradle – but this is true. I hate life & I hate myself & I love you. Never forget that. I don’t hate life ever, when I’m with you and you are happy, but if I ever made you unhappy really badly & hopelessly or saw life make you that, I’d want to die quickly. There’s a cat moving outside the door. If it were you how quickly I’d let you in. I love you dear, good night. Keep this.

  TO CHARLES EVANS

  at 19 Gower Mews, | Gower St. | London, W.C. [early May 1943]

  Dear Charles,

  I have just been down to Oxford to see Vivien & have heard for the first time of your son’s death.18 I am so sorry to think that I’ve bothered you only two days ago with so trivial a thing as a dust jacket. Please forgive that & accept this halting sympathy. While I was in Africa I lost my father – that is a much smaller loss than a son’s because one accepts it as inevitable but I think it makes it easier for me to understand a little of what you feel. I always pray that I shall never see the death of one of my children. I’m so very sorry.

  Yours in friendship, I hope, & in gratitude most certainly. Graham.

  The god of us verse-men (you know, child) the sun,

  How after his journeys he sets up his rest:

  If at morning o’er earth ’tis his fancy to run,

  At night he reclines on his Thetis’s breast.

  So when I am wearied with wand’ring all day,

  To thee, my delight, in the evening I come:

  No matter what beauties I saw in my way;

  They were but my visits; but thou art my home.

  TO VIVIEN GREENE

  Friday [late May? 1943]

  Dear heart, I got your second sad letter quickly. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about things – I feel I’ve fooled you. I think for ten years I kept you happy, but then things went to pot. I hate your being unhappy, & I do understand why. I never think you are lucky – I think you are having a tougher war than anyone I know – except perhaps people like Charles.19 You are having a tougher war than people even whose husbands are killed because death is a kind of distraction, a jerk that sets one into a new life. I really feel that it would have been better for you if I’d been torpedoed or plane crashed because a novel sort of vitality would have been handed over to you after the first shock. My dear, my dear, my dear, I love you [so] much – that’s true however badly now I show it – even when it seems untrue, it’s true.

  […]

  The marriage staggered on for another four years, when Graham’s relationship with Catherine Walston led to a final separation. Vivien refused to grant a divorce in the belief that sacramental marriage is indissoluble. The sentiment Graham expresses here, that a wife might be better off with such a husband dead, reappears as part of Scobie’s motive for suicide in The Heart of the Matter.

  TO ELISABETH GREENE

  Aug. 18 1943 Dear Elisabeth,

  […]

  I’ve just had a week’s holiday in South Wales with my family – rather cold, but a lovely place – a few pubs, a ruined castle, woods sloping down to a wide muddy estuary, a few 18th century houses: sands & caves a bus ride away.

  Have you heard that I’m now contracted to be a full-blown publisher immediately the war’s over: after 18 months training I am to have full charge of Eyre & Spottiswoode, which should be fun – but is anything fun when one gets down to it? The Ministry of Fear has sold 15,000 before reprinting which is monetarily satisfactory. I quite enjoy my work now – which is more varied & interesting than what I did at first, but all the same one does long for an end of this boring war.

  Your letters to Mumma fill me with claustrophobia. Malcolm is back, for a while anyway. I wish we could do something together.

  God knows what a dull letter this is, but one’s brain becomes progressively more torpid, & the tightrope one walks gets tighter & tighter.

  Much love,

  Graham

  TO MERVYN PEAKE

  Greene met the novelist and illustrator Mervyn Peake (1911–68) in Chelsea in the spring of 1943. In June, Chatto and Windus rejected the long, unfinished manuscript of Titus Groan when Peake refused to make cuts. Greene suggested that Peake should meet with Douglas Jerrold, the managing director of Eyre & Spottiswoode, to discuss the novel and an illustration project. By the end of August he had written the last chapters and sent the whole manuscript to Greene.

  Reform Club [c. October 1943]

  Dear Mervyn Peake, You must forgive me for not having written before, but you know it’s a long book!

  I’m going to be mercilessly frank – I was very disappointed in a lot of it & frequently wanted to wring your neck because it seemed to me you were spoiling a first-class book by laziness. The part I had seen before I, of course, still liked immensely – though I’m not sure that it’s gained by the loss of the prologue. Then it seemed to me one entered a long patch of really bad writing, redundant adjectives, a kind of facetiousness, a terrible prolixity in the dialogue of such characters as the Nurse & Prunesquallor, & sentimentality too in the case of [Keda] & to some extent in Titus’s sister. In fact – frankly again – I began to despair of the book altogether, until suddenly in the last third you pulled yourself together & ended splendidly. But even here you were so damned lazy that you called Barquentine by his predecessor’s name for whole chapters.

  I’m hitting hard because I feel it’s the only way. There is obviously good stuff here but in my opinion you’ve thrown it away by not working hard enough at the book – there are trite unrealised novelettish phrases side by side with really first class writing. As it stands I consider it unpublishable – about 10,000 words of adjectives & prolix dialogue could come out without any alteration to the story at all. I want to publish it, but I shall be quite sympathetic if you say ‘To Hell with you: you are no better than Chatto’ & prefer to take it elsewhere. But at least I can claim to have read it carefully, & I do beseech you to look at the M.S. again. I began by putting in pencil which can easily be rubbed out brackets round words & phrases which seemed to me redundant, but I gave up after a time.

  Write & let me know how you feel about all this. If you want to call me out, call me out – but I suggest we have our duel over whisky glasses in a bar.

  Yours,

  Graham Greene

  Peake was shocked, but this letter marked a turning point in his career as he finally accepted the importance of ‘the blue pencil approach’. Delayed by revisions and the wartime shortage of paper, Titus Groan finally appeared on 22 March 1946.20

  TO WILLIAM H. WEBBER

  Editorial Unit: | 43 Grosvenor Street, | London, W.1. |

  22nd July, 1944

  To: Mr. Webber.

  From: Mr. Graham Greene.

  It will perhaps interest you to hear the reactions of a Londoner to your fantastically inefficient and childish ideas of organising a fireguard, though it will probably seem odd to you that anyone should take fire-guard duties seriously. But you should remember that in London we have had some experience of fires.
/>   Understanding that one had to report not later than half an hour before black-out, I arrived at 25 Gilbert Street last night about 10.15. I was told to go to 47 Mount Street. I went to 47 Mount Street and found the house locked. Half an hour later I tried again and found a guard there. He had an office chair to sit on – nothing else, not even a blanket. I returned to Gilbert Street to raise Cain and found I had been sent to Mount Street by mistake: I went back to Mount Street for the final time and collected my things. By this time I was getting a little irritable. I was then told that my room as fire-guard was No. 2552. The passages were in darkness; there was no black-out in the rooms and no-one knew where 2552 was. After a long search with the help of a watchman, I found it at the top of the building, at the head of a twisting iron emergency ladder. No fire-guard had apparently ever in fact slept in this absurd death-trap and I set up my bed on the floor below in room 2541. To this room on the third or is it the fourth floor? – one had to carry one’s own bed, blankets, mattress, pillow – a dubious example of courtesy and consideration to fire-guards.

  There were no instructions as to where one found the tools of one’s trade – stirrup pump, etc., no directions where water was available, no issue of torches in case the electric-light failed. Incidentally there seemed to be no other fire-guard on duty.

  However, I must admit that the Gilbert Street fireguard is a little better off than the wretched guard in Mount Street whose treatment is really scandalous.

  If at any time you care to ring me up at 49 Grosvenor Street, I will be delighted to tell you what you can do with your fire-guard duties.

  Despite this outburst, Greene continued to work as a fire guard.21