I beg to remain, your very obedient servant, Gerry
PS: To hell with good manners – I still think you’re ravishing.
Gerald’s honorary degree was awarded at Yale on 16 May. When he woke at dawn in his hotel room on the day of the ceremony, his first act was to write a letter to his deputy, Jeremy Mallinson, in distant Jersey:
My very dear Jeremy,
It is 5 a.m. on the day I am to receive my doctorate and I felt I must write to you … I am fully aware that the honour that is being done me today is for both of us, since I know I could not have achieved anything without your help, hard work and dedication. So when I receive the doctorate, I want you to know that I will be receiving it as much on your behalf as my own, since it was your efforts that put me in this position.
Prior to the conferring of the honorary degrees, the recipients – who included the former President of the United States, Gerald Ford, and the blues musician B.B. King – walked in procession through the campus preceded by the college band and surrounded on all sides by undergraduates and their parents and friends. ‘I had watched many processions but up to now had never taken part in one,’ Gerald recalled, ‘and I’d never realised how hot the whole procedure was, since the temperature was up to 80 deg. and wearing a mortar board and gown was sticky to say the least.’ When it was Gerald’s turn to receive his award the entire Yale Faculty of Forestry and Ecological Research got to its feet to cheer him. The President of Yale then read out the citation:
A gifted writer whose wit and graceful prose have given us both entertaining and informative excursions into the lives of animals, you have introduced nature to millions. To the established scientists, your work has contributed to a public awareness of the needs and aspirations of modern conservation. Through a sophisticated programme of breeding rare and endangered species to prevent their extinction, you have developed concepts both original and successful. For your humour, your remarkable mind, and your talented contributions to our world, Yale is proud to confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.
Gerald did not meet Lee again on this American visit, but he had not forgotten her, or his seemingly intractable dilemma: ‘How did one attract a young, pretty girl,’ he asked himself, ‘when one is portly, grey and old enough to be her father? To one who had collected mammals successfully in all continents, the problem of this capture seemed, to say the least insoluble.’
Clearly, though, the problem was not insoluble. There was little Gerald did not know about the science and practice of sexual attraction in mammals. After all, it was his business to know. It was what captive breeding was all about. ‘This zoo is sex mad,’ he had once told a party of visitors he was showing round it. ‘How do I get the animals to breed?’ he said to one reporter. ‘I go round their cages at night and read them the Kama Sutra.’ ‘Suddenly,’ Gerald wrote, ‘I remembered the one unique attribute I had: a zoo. I decided that I must get her over to Jersey to see my lonesome asset. But how could I do it without arousing the darkest suspicion in her bosom? I was struck with a brilliant idea. So I phoned her up.’
Over the phone Gerald talked with bubbling, if devious, enthusiasm about his plans for the Jersey Trust, and the part he felt Lee could play in them.
‘You will remember,’ he told her, ‘that I was anxious to set up a behavioural study and sound recording unit?’
That at least was true. What followed was not.
‘An old woman, a member of the Trust, has died,’ he went on, ‘and very generously left us some money in her will. It’s only a small amount of money, not enough to build anything, but enough to do the preliminary research on its viability. So I was wondering … if we should use it … to bring you over to Jersey to give me advice on setting the thing up. How does that strike you?’
‘Well,’ said Lee, ‘I’d certainly love to do it, but I couldn’t come over till the end of the semester.’
From Jersey on 23 May Gerald followed up his phone call with a formal invitation by letter.
As I told you on the phone, we had a tiny windfall, the spending of which is up to my discretion. I would be most grateful if you would allow us to fund you on a trip to Jersey. I would like you to see our general set-up, but particularly I would like you to suggest areas of research which we could profitably put into operation. I am exceptionally interested in your theory about animal communications. If you decide to come, I hope by that time that I will have some interesting material on the whales and a rather fascinating paper on the frequencies of bird cries.
She could stay for as long as she liked, Gerald told her, but not less than four weeks. He would send her the air ticket and reimburse her expenses.
So the trap was sprung – though the quarry was to take a long time falling into it.
The summer was full of so many major distractions that it was a little while before Gerald found time to write to Lee again. Indeed, for a while it seems she almost slipped below his emotional horizon, for she was still a remote dream in a distant continent, whereas his existing women friends remained firmly in place. His Argentinean friend of many years standing, Marie Renee Rodrigue, came over to keep him company for a while, followed by Wyn Knowles, whom he had met when she was the producer of BBC Radio’s Woman’s Hour. A New Yorker in her late twenties by the name of Trish, who had helped organise the historic rock concert at Woodstock – ‘a nice person, rather like Jackie Kennedy, and great fun’ – went with him on his return visit to Mauritius, with John Hartley and Margo also in tow. Later he set off for a holiday in the villa near Grasse and an excursion to Venice, with Margo and John Hartley again in the party, along with a friend of Margo’s called Virginia.
From La Chèvre Blanche he resumed contact with Lee in a letter dated 20 June, in which he extolled the beauties of France, which he hoped he would one day show her in person: ‘I have never seen France looking so lovely as we drove down … Every hedgerow was a vast floral arrangement … Everywhere butterflies in great droves … The rivers like green satin … and every village and cottage covered with roses … As you can gather, I love France. I wish you could have seen it though.’
Gerald’s emotional life continued to drift vaguely and inconsequentially through the summer of 1977. With Lee a bright but faraway figment of his memory and Trish banished for smoking pot and wearing trousers at a dinner with the Governor of Mauritius, Gerald saw a lot of a statuesque Jersey woman in her forties, with whom he enjoyed a relationship that was relatively casual on his part, less so on hers. It was with her that he travelled down to the South of France in July to check out the Mazet prior to taking it over from his brother Larry in October. Into this merry-go-round stepped Alexandra.
Alexandra Mayhew was the daughter of an English father and a Greek mother, who had been born in Bombay. Now a striking, elegant, dark-haired and independent-minded zoology graduate of twenty-three, she had known Gerald since she was twelve, when she and her mother used to see the Durrells now and again during their summer holidays on Corfu, when they were staying at their hereditary grand house at Kavavades. When she applied for a job on a zoology magazine in London in the summer of 1977 she contacted Gerald about using his name as a reference.
‘I had been living in Athens for several years,’ Alexandra was to relate, ‘working for the Greek Animal Welfare Society, but that summer I developed a kidney stone, so I drove back through Europe to see a specialist, and I was staying with my grandmother in Tunbridge Wells when Gerald wrote to me and said come over to Jersey to stay and we’ll talk about the job interview. I went with my boyfriend for a couple of days, then fell ill with a terrible tummy bug and ended up staying a week or so. Gerry christened me “Parasite” and used to write letters to me that began “Dear Parasite” and ended “Your loving Host”. He didn’t like the chap I was with, mainly because he was the chap I was with. He used to bring me up a tray in bed while I was ill, and one day he said: “Oh, you ought to get rid of that awful man. You’re wasted on him. You should come back a
nd marry me.” He was serious. I was young and attractive and we had Greece and zoology in common. He had only met Lee once at that time and though he was very taken with her it didn’t seem that it was going anywhere. Later he told me that there were only three women he had ever really felt tremendous physical attraction to and wanted to marry – me, Lee and Jacquie. But there wasn’t a thing between us at all, because much as I liked and respected him – he was fascinating to listen to, wonderful company and terribly generous, a larger than life, bucolic, bacchanalian St Francis figure who went around uttering four-letter words – I just didn’t fancy him, frankly. He wasn’t in good nick, either, and he was an emotional wreck at the time.’
So Alexandra returned to Athens and Gerald returned to his plans for an expedition to Assam. His aim was to make a fact-finding tour to determine the status of the endangered pygmy hog and the chances of acquiring a few pairs for captive breeding in Jersey. The pygmy hog had recently been ‘rediscovered’ in the Himalayan foothills, having been feared extinct as a result of the settlement and cultivation of its original habitat, above all the seasonal burning of the thatch-scrub jungle in which it lived.
For the Jersey Trust to intervene in the fate of the surviving pygmy hogs was not easy. There were considerable political hurdles to clear, and negotiations with the Indian government had to be conducted at the highest level. In the previous year the Chairman of the World Wildlife Fund, Sir Peter Scott, had intervened on Gerald’s behalf and approached the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, with a request for two or three pairs of pygmy hogs. She replied: ‘This animal had reached the very edge of extinction, but because of our strict protection, it is now making good recovery and we are able to spare some for breeding. I hope they will do well in Jersey.’
So far, so good. Gerald initially planned to travel to Assam in the spring of 1977 with William Oliver, his research assistant at Jersey, but he had picked up a strange amoebic bug in Mauritius which laid him low. ‘It makes me feel as though I am 142 years old,’ he noted, ‘and excrete blood in a way that would be envied by Dracula.’ Though William Oliver eventually went to Assam to carry out his own studies into the pygmy hog, Gerald had no alternative but to postpone his visit to the following spring. The question now was, who would accompany him?
In October he returned to America on another fund-raising tour. Following Alexandra’s fond but firm rejection of his tentative advances, he was all the more determined to woo Lee to his side. But how? The first thing he had to do was to meet up with her again – preferably at something prestigious somewhere exciting. He was due to give an important lecture in Washington, DC. He would invite her to that. It went without saying that he would pay for her flight and accommodation.
Lee had never heard Gerald speak in public, and the lecture in Washington reinforced his charisma for her. ‘It was brilliant,’ she recalled. ‘He drew cartoons, he told stories about his collecting trips, it all just seemed off the top of his head. But it wasn’t. He had a phrase: “You must always practise your ad libs.” He always gave a standard lecture, which started with his animal experiences, going all the way back to collecting animals for zoos, then on to founding his own zoo and Trust, culminating in the work of the Jersey Trust and promoting the American Trust. His strongest point was telling stories and doing sketches and making people laugh. It wasn’t his forte to deliver something terribly serious and straight up and down. He wasn’t very good at facts and figures or programmes and strategies. Oddly enough, he wasn’t very good at asking people for money either. He was brought up in the days when it was considered vulgar to talk about money, so he was very embarrassed about begging for it. Usually social events were arranged round these lectures by Jody Long-necker or Tom Lovejoy or people on the board of the American Trust, many of them very wealthy themselves, who had good contacts with other rich people. Gerry would say: “Point me in the right direction and I will be terribly nice and charming and talk about animals and our work and the terrible problems we’re having, and you follow up behind me and make the pitch.” But though he was the Trust’s chief fund-raiser, he rarely made the pitch himself.’
Over dinner in Washington Gerald cast another fly onto the stream. He was due to go to Assam in the New Year. Perhaps, he suggested, Lee might like to come with him – ideally after she had been over to inspect his facilities in Jersey. Idea implanted, Gerald flew off to Jersey and Lee flew back to Durham. A few days later he wrote to her there.
Dear Chipmunk.
It was nice having you in Washington (or not having you in Washington) and to find that you are as attractive as I remembered.
Re Assam, I will try and put it off to March/April if possible, in case you can join me. It should, as I say, be a red carpet trip and it is supposed to be a very beautiful part of the world – I am sure the trip would amuse you, even if I do not.
With much love, Yours, G
Though absence might make Gerald’s heart grow fonder, distance made Lee’s grow shrewder. With the source of all the charisma now marooned on a tiny island 3500 miles away, she began to have, if not second thoughts, then at least more considered ones. On 26 November she wrote a devastatingly frank and intermittently logical letter which should have stopped Gerald dead in his tracks.
Dear Gerry,
I enclose a flyer on the tape recorder I’ve asked you to buy. Beautiful machine, isn’t it? Talking of beautiful machines, I’m not one. You can’t just push a few buttons and expect me to come out with ‘fuck off’ or any other short, catchy phrase. On the other hand, I can’t reply with some suitably pompous soliloquy to your push on the state of my mind and the plans for my life. I can’t, not because they’re inherently unstable but because the people around me and my circumstances are so subject to change. So here are my honest thoughts on you and me.
I do realise what you’re offering me. You’re a marvellous man, someone I’d like to spend a lot of time with. You’re like me in my good ways and not like me in my bad ways – that’s why we hit it off so well. And you plan to take me to the most fantastic places in the world, glorious places with all the animals and wild lands I’d ever hoped to study. Believe me, it makes my head swim. But all this has come about at the right time in your life and the wrong time in mine.
Wrong for me in that I’ve found a person whom I’d marry. I couldn’t very well expect him to wait for me while I’m off being your friend and lover for a few years. He – his name is Lincoln – has his faults, and our life together wouldn’t be the easiest for several reasons – his obsession for his child and his dear, ever-present ex-wife – but still, I love him and he loves me. I’m not so foolish as to think it will last forever. When we’ve lived together a bit longer, then I’ll know whether to commit myself.
What I’m trying to tell you is that I cannot go to Assam with you because of my thesis, but that going other places with you as your lover, friend and intellectual companion is still in my thoughts.
I sense urgency on your part, Gerry, so it wouldn’t be very fair of me to expect you to wait while I make up my mind. Don’t wait. Do what you’ve got to do. If another lady comes along who can take my place, so be it. I’d be sorry for myself, but glad for you.
My problem must be in my Episcopalian upbringing. (Did I tell you I became a non-believer when my Sunday school teacher told me that animals don’t go to heaven?)
Love, Lee
So the lady was not only intelligent, she had a mind of her own. She not only understood animal communication, but the human variety as well. She declined to be had, but prudently kept her options open. The game was still all to play for, but now there were two players, not one. Gerald seems to have treated this stand-off in the only way that he felt open to him: by ignoring it. At the end of the month he wrote cheerily as if nothing had happened:
Dear Chipmunk,
… I am sorry it took you so long to recover from Washington. It may take you even longer to recover from Jersey in January. I assure you that it wil
l be cold although not snow cold, so bring warm clothes, rain coat and a hat. By all means bring your bikini because I can enjoy watching you sunbathe under my sun lamp.
My love to you.
Yours ever, Gerry
The next day he wrote again with an important afterthought.
I have been having second thoughts about you sun bathing under my sun lamp in your bikini. On mature reflection I have decided that I would prefer you to sun bathe under it without your bikini.
With much love, Yours sincerely, Gerry
By the New Year of 1978 it was settled. Lee had got her tape recorder and she would come over to Jersey and put it to use. The weather was bad on both sides of the Atlantic. Kennedy Airport in New York was snowed in, and for two days Lee had to camp there, sleeping in corners, starving because the food had run out. It was snowing on the other side of the Atlantic too, but that did not dampen Gerald’s elation. Jersey was surrounded by water on all sides. His flat was inside a manor house inside a zoo. There was nowhere to run to, and Lee couldn’t fly.
‘Gerry met me at the airport,’ Lee remembered.
He had a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket in the back of the car and during the short drive between the airport and the zoo we got through most of it. I must have been there for four weeks or so. For me it was all very heady and dramatic stuff. In the day I would go round the zoo with my tape recorder and in the evening Gerry would cook marvellous dinners, and we’d eat in the dining room by candlelight, and sometimes we’d sit by the fire in the sitting room, drinking wine and talking and talking. Sometimes the ‘boys’ would come up and talk conservation business and sometimes we’d go to dinner at their homes. I mean, I was being regally entertained. Perhaps they saw me as the next Mrs Durrell. Gerry had got this pretty much fixed in his mind early on. Even before we’d discussed anything he said to the cleaning lady: ‘That’s the girl I’m going to marry.’ Obviously there was a romantic sexual interest right from the start, but I’d been a bit tangled up in my personal involvement back in the States. This other person knew about Gerry lurking in the wings but I don’t think he gave much thought to it. I was very involved actually, but with Gerry’s flattery, his flamboyance, his humour, everything – I was very easy to reel in. It was becoming evident that Gerry wanted a longer relationship, a physical relationship, and wished for me to share in lots of things with him. Then one evening by the fire he started talking about my being at the zoo more permanently while still doing my research.
Gerald Durrell Page 57
