Graham
TO MARIA NEWALL
In 1953, Graham visited Kenya to report on the Mau Mau rebellion, which, among other things, set long-trusted servants against their masters: ‘Jeeves had sworn, however unwillingly, to kill Bertie Wooster …’57 Although Graham was always sympathetic to rebels, he was struck by the cruelty of the Mau Mau and by the courage of some white settlers, especially Maria Newall, a former decorator who had gone from England to Kenya in 1949 and operated, without the help of other Europeans, a farm in Nakuru on the edge of a forest where the Mau Mau were active. In a development typical of the conflict, she discovered that her very pious servant Stephen had both taken the oath of the Mau Mau and served as a police informer. She decided to keep him as there was little chance of her being able to trust anyone more. Nonetheless, she warned him that if he broke the curfew she would shoot him. Greene referred to her affectionately as ‘Pistol Mary’.
C.6 Albany, | London, W.1. | 31st January 1955
Dear Maria,
I think you ought to know that your letter of the 23rd was neatly slit open at the side of the envelope. Are your infuriated settlers beginning to censor the mail or your Africans doing it? It seems unlikely that it should have been cut open in England.
Forgive this typed letter but I am off to Indo-China next week and am clearing up things in a great hurry. I hadn’t meant to go East this winter, but when The Sunday Times asked me to I couldn’t resist the temptation.
I so agree with everything you say. It is inconceivable that anybody could wish to hang 5,000 people which was what it would have amounted to. I do think that it should be publicised that there were 82 cases of murder pending when an amnesty was given to the Security Forces, but I won’t say a thing about this unless you give me permission. I would like to draw the attention of an M.P. to it. I suppose though it is best to let bygones be bygones on both sides.
I hate the idea of your new boy Stephen, and the whole business of your living up beside your farm instead of in your nice house, though I suppose there is no real difference in the danger.
I shall be back in England at the end of March and do go on occasionally writing and telling me how you are.
I had a slight hope that Operation Hammer58 plus the offer of an amnesty might bring the thing temporarily to a close, but as far as one can judge from this end nothing much seems to have resulted.
It is silly to say do look after yourself, but one says it just the same.
Love, Graham
Although no novel emerged from his time in Kenya, Greene did produce the short story ‘Church Militant’ (1956), set in Kikuyuland.
TO VIVIEN GREENE
Lucy Caroline eventually went to Canada to work on a ranch and married Jean Bourget. After the break-up of the marriage, she moved with her two sons to Switzerland, where she still lives.
19th May 1955
Dear Vivien,
I have come to the conclusion that the best plan as Lucy seems to be really firmly bent on British Columbia, is for me to arrange a reconnaissance visit this summer which I think I may be able to swing on the expenses of Graham Greene Productions if I can find a sufficient excuse. We would go together for a few weeks and visit some of the ranches out there and see if one can find a suitable one for her to do 6 months as a student. It doesn’t seem really feasible to send her out into the blue to find one entirely on her own and I think this is a good solution. Then she would return home and I hope we would have fixed something for her departure in the spring for a trial period.
I am writing to the Agent General of British Columbia and the Agent General of Alberta to ask for their help in introduction to ranches but I have not let out the real motive as I want the journey on the surface to be connected with one’s business.
Love
Graham
TO EVELYN WAUGH
C.6 Albany, | London, W. 1. | July 2 [1955]
Dear Evelyn,
I got back yesterday to find your novel.59 I am so grateful & proud of my inscribed set, & I am always reluctant to begin a new book of yours & not have it any longer sitting there in mint condition waiting to give pleasure – like a love affair when one was young which hadn’t yet begun.
While I was away I had to have a liver cure – injections of grape60 (why not of Chambertin 29) & no spirits. Still a fortnight to go. But I finished – unsatisfactorily – a novel I’ve been doodling at for three years & a play.
Affectionately,
Graham
TO GILLIAN SUTRO (POSTCARD)
Gillian Sutro was a fashion journalist and the wife of the scriptwriter and producer John Sutro, who had been Graham’s contemporary at Oxford.
[Calgary, Alberta | 16 August 1955]
‘I a stranger & afraid
In a world I never made.’
What am I doing here? I have an instinct to run screaming.
Love,
G.
The lines are from ‘The laws of God, the laws of man’ in A. E. Housman’s Last Poems (1922). Graham’s sense of the strangeness of Calgary bore fruit in ‘Dear Dr. Falkenheim’ (1963), a short story in which Father Christmas gets caught in the blades of a helicopter.
TO MURIEL SPARK
A recent convert to Catholicism, Muriel Spark (1918–2006), later Dame Muriel Spark, was seeking a publisher for her first novel The Comforters, which was eventually taken by Macmillan and published in 1957.
C.6 Albany, | London, W.1. | 2nd December 1955
Dear Mrs. Spark,
I am delighted to hear that you are better and I do hope that Macmillan’s will publish your book. Perhaps they are not quite the publisher for anything weird and if you have trouble there don’t hesitate to ask advice on another publisher. At the end of a misspent life one has quite a lot of experience.
I will certainly speak to anybody I can about the possibilities of a part-time job, but I am going to be out of London until the end of next week and again for Christmas. Perhaps early in the New Year you would come and have a drink and I could find out exactly what you had in mind, apart from reading. Don’t hesitate to use my name in approaching, say, Tom Burns of Burns Oates, or Jonathan Cape or A. S. Frere of Heinemann’s, in the meantime. Hamish Hamilton, too, might be worth trying and again say that I suggested it.
Yours sincerely,
Graham Greene
Speaking at Greene’s memorial service, Spark recalled how, when she was young, ill and poor, he sent her £20 each month. With the cheque he would often send a few bottles of red wine, ‘which took the edge off cold charity’.61
TO CATHERINE WALSTON
C.6 Albany, | London, W. 1. | In bed. | Wed. 3 p. m. [7 March 1956]
Dearest Catherine,
I feel we are at a critical stage again: it seems to happen every year, but perhaps each one becomes more serious & although we haven’t quarrelled, this one may be more serious than Rome. I feel guilty because at least twice I’ve prevented & fought against the idea of finishing, even though that may be better for you. The trouble it seems to me is that we both want to simplify our lives (even your feeling for walking in Ireland or Switzerland may be part of it) & yet if you simplify you can only do it by excluding me (after all I’m a kind of barnacle on your boat), & if I should simplify it would be by excluding you (living abroad etc).
I’ve had three aquavits & some beer, so you must forgive a muddled letter.
We have therefore to think a) whether we want to simplify enough to separate – except as friends who meet occasionally and b) whether it’s possible to simplify & not lose each other and c) of course whether we want to stay together because if we don’t there’s no point in worrying about a) & b).
I do want you to feel that this letter has nothing – or only a remote connexion – with one’s view through the window last night.62 It has far more connexion with Rome, Jamaica 195– whatever it was, & a division perhaps in my own mind that we would have talked about sooner or later.
Call it a neurosis if yo
u like, but I have the desire to be of use to someone, & in the last nine months particularly I have felt of little use & possibly of real harm to you. You have no responsibility to me, & I have none to you – so that one needs to feel one is not being a clog & a bore & all the rest. The simple thing that we probably both desire is to need & to be needed. I’ve fought too hard to make you stay – which was purely selfish. You might have been happier now if you’d had your wish in Rome.
I don’t think you want or I want holidays at the Ritz, The Grand, luxury holidays here or there, but we began simply in Achill & now think in terms of Hong Kong or Tahiti. Soon we’ll have to think in terms of a rocket to the moon. You are so right to go walking in Ireland, or both of us to go walking in Switzerland. We don’t want luxury holidays – we want to simplify, but can we? You have against you family, social life, politics; I have against me social life & business. It’s easier for me to say, O hell, I’m going to go away & cut it all out than it is for you. Partly because I’ve already cut out, in 1948, most of the first difficulty – with Lucy in Canada & Francis nearly grown up, & my mother not having long to live, I can soon cut out the rest. But of course it’s not only a problem of elimination – in a way it’s the opposite, of being of use to someone other than oneself. You (mistakenly) probably consider yourself of no use to me – I’m not talking of sex which will be dead in a few years anyway for me: I (probably mistakenly) feel I am no use to you. We both (perhaps mistakenly too) may feel we can be of use to other people – a draw not only to pride but to any charity that one has left.
Anyway these are the problems – very muddled after three aquavit & another to come soon (it’s a new experience getting drunk in bed). Let’s think over them in quiet – you in Ireland & me on the Continent & say nothing until we are both back. Then we can ‘try’ to decide what to do.
Very much love
Graham
TO JOHN GORDON (DRAFT)
Writing for the Sunday Times, Greene named as one of the three books of the year for 1955 Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, and so brought down on himself the thunder of John Gordon (1890–1974), the editor-in-chief of the Sunday Express. Greene’s method of dealing with John Gordon was to set up a mock society in his honour, with himself as President and John Sutro as Chairman. This letter was drafted by Greene; John Sutro was to ‘pep it up’ and send it on.
[8th May 1956]
Dear Mr. Gordon,
The President and Chairman of the John Gordon Society are delighted that you will consent to meet the members. They quite understand that you would prefer not to speak on ‘The Necessity of Censorship’, and are ready to accept your suggestion as the subject of the lecture of ‘Pornography.’ They regret however that it is not possible to make this occasion a debate as at the first general meeting of the Society it was decided to found a series of lectures under the title of The John Gordon Lectures for which this should be the first. However the Chairman has no doubt that Mr. Greene will be ready to speak in any discussion that follows. However it is unlikely that Mr. Greene would undertake to defend pornography, and the discussion would be more likely to proceed on the lines of what exactly pornography was, about which there is obviously some disagreement between you and the President.
You will understand that the John Gordon Society is a private Society and it is impossible to provide a list of members to someone who is not himself a member. Any of your friends are at liberty to apply for membership, the subscription is only 10/-a year, and their names will be submitted to the Committee at its next Meeting. We propose with your consent to invite members of the Press to attend the Lecture, and of course we would be delighted if you would bring with you one or two personal friends. As each member will be allowed to bring a guest, and space is limited we are afraid we cannot find space for more than two or three of your friends.
Would you perhaps let us have suggestions for the date and time of the Meeting? We would prefer an evening after-dinner Meeting and it is impossible for the officers of the Society to be all present before July.
Yours sincerely,
[John Sutro]
Gordon comes across in all this as a booby, the harrumphing advocate of censorship, but he was in fact one of the grand characters of British journalism. As a junior reporter, he took carrier pigeons to football games to ensure that the results were reported quickly to his office. From 1928 to 1952, he was the editor of the Sunday Express, where he introduced the first crossword puzzles and features on ‘What the Stars Foretell’ in a modern British newspaper. He and his astrologer had been prosecuted as rogues, vagabonds and fortune tellers, but escaped conviction when it was shown that their situation was not quite covered by the Vagrancy Act (ODNB). He certainly had enough of a sense of humour to play along with Greene and Sutro.
TO MICHAEL MEYER
Michael Meyer (1921–2000) was one of Graham’s closest friends. A prolific author, he is best known as the translator and biographer of Ibsen and Strindberg. Graham looms large in his Not Prince Hamlet: Literary and Theatrical Memoirs (1989).
C.6 Albany, | London W. 1. | 3rd August 1956
My dear Michael,
So many thanks for your subscription to The John Gordon Society. You missed a very amusing and turbulent meeting last week. As a result of John Gordon’s invitation to violence in his columns we had the Horseshoe packed to overflowing with people standing all down the stairs and only about a quarter of those present in the hall were members of the Society and their guests. However John Gordon had miscalculated and found that his public were against him. If it hadn’t been for Randolph Churchill overdoing his attacks on Gordon all the sympathy would have been against Gordon. Anyway it was all great fun and didn’t in fact reach the point of razor blades or fists.
I am surprised to hear that you are still a grass widower!
Affectionately,
Graham
TO JOHN SUTRO
C.6 Albany, | London, W. 1 [Aug? 1956?]
Dear John,
What on earth makes you think that I’d do anything free for the United Nations when I refuse 100,000 dollars to do one of my own much worthier stories!63 I am replying to Adlai Stevenson’s phony cable: ‘Regret unable help as I consider United Nations combined with American materialism chief threat to world peace.’
Love to you both,
Graham
Who is Lillian? 64 What are you up to now?
TO CATHERINE WALSTON
From 1955, Graham was engaged in a serious relationship with the Swedish actress Anita Björk (b.1923), whose husband the novelist and poet Stig Dagerman (1923–1954) had been thought the great hope of Swedish literature before his suicide in 1954.
C.6 Albany, | London, W.1. [early December 1956]
Dear dear Catherine,
I’ve just got your note about Jamaica – one of the dearest you’ve ever written to me, and now I’ve got to write to you. I’ve been postponing too long, hoping that things would somehow settle. I love you so much & no one has ever been or can ever be what you’ve been to me. Nine years are more packed with memory than the rest of life.
This is what has happened. Last November on the way to Poland I fell a little in love with a girl (of 33) & she with me. She was the widow of a young author I admired very much who committed suicide. I didn’t mean to or want to – I certainly wasn’t looking for it. Then she came to London for 24 hours – nothing had happened in Stockholm except the agreement that nothing should happen, but we slept together once in London & I agreed to see her after Christmas. That’s why I went to Stockholm – I hoped to work it out of my system & I thought I had, but I suppose then the gossip started, the result of her belonging to the theatre in her own country. I think all would have been all right, but the same day in September or whenever it was that you told me Harry didn’t want you to go to Paris as we’d planned, she rang up, she’d got a holiday & wanted to be with me. So I went to Portugal instead of Paris.
Darling, don’t think I didn’t want to go t
o Jamaica – I did & for as long as possible & my meanness on the last night was because it was over.
[…]
TO MARION GREENE
Greene-Park Ranch | Christmas Day [1956?]
Dearest Mumma,
There’s so much to tell you that it must wait till I come back. Lucy, [illeg.] in blue jeans, met my train & drove me to the ranch. It’s a most lovely spot – hills & valley & the Rockies at the end of the vista. If it wasn’t for the snow one could walk for hours up hill & down dale without leaving the ranch. No other house in view anywhere. Lucy has turned a little cabin only 23 feet long into a charming bedroom & sitting room, with very nice furniture gathered piece by piece in Calgary, good pictures, a big bookcase made by herself with moveable shelves – very civilized & sophisticated, but the coyotes howl outside & the horses press against the walls at night for warmth – ‘I’ll huff & I’ll puff & I’ll blow your house down.’
The weather two days after I arrived turned lovely. 38° & sun & the snow vanishing. We drove 13 miles to Midnight Mass yesterday & tonight drive an hour & a half for Christmas dinner with her friends the Jennings’s.
Lucy seems very well & blissfully happy. Adores her new horse Silence.65 I like the partners, Geoff & Pearl,66 a nice simple couple very fond of each other. It’s a strange feeling looking round at the country, hill & valley & stream, & knowing that Lucy is the owner. It makes one feel there’s some point in writing books after all.
[…]
Caroline Bourget notes: ‘In the letter Graham writes with poetic licence. The horses were in the barn or corral at night. Coyotes did come down and howl in Winter. The Ranch was in a lovely setting with an historic spring where Indians camped in the past. Now, I’m afraid houses have been built all round and there is a paved road through instead of a gravel track.’67
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