Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters

by Unknown

  Dirk.

  To Hélène Bordes

  (Postcard) [Queen Anne House]

  18 August 1988

  My dear:

  Thank you for writing [ … ] I am still in the same house! The young people who ‘bought’ it got posted, suddenly, to San Franscisco, so No Sale. Merde! Excuse me … however I sold it again a day later to two exceptionally pleasant people who paid more money!

  But the lawyers and etc are taking so long on the contract for my flat that I fear I shall spend the winter in Hyde Park .. I think, if things DO work correctly, that I shall be able to get into the flat at least in the first week of September. Almost exactly a year that I moved in here. Ah me! My electric machine has broken down, so in fury I went & bought this simple, idiots, machine which works manuelly … but at least I can type and I am so bewildered by computers and all things mechanical … I go to lunch today with my Lit. Agent to show her half a book I found I had written years ago at Clermont and never published .. letters to my wonderful Mrs X. After so many years I think they have a value. I wonder? She will read them today, or the next, and tell me! I am slowly coming back to life!

  Love D. X

  On 9 September Dirk moved into a flat on the third floor (fourth storey) of 2 Cadogan Gardens in Chelsea.

  To Penelope Mortimer Cadogan Gardens

  25 September 1988

  Penny-lopey – love –

  Joy and delight, first off. Delight to have your letter [ … ] I am sitting in my little (titchy) Penthouse. An inflated word for a small cabin stuck on top of an Edwardian mansion. I had thought that it was very probably ‘Nannies Quarters’, but in the recent wind realised that I swung about and creaked like a galleon. Oh well. It cost an arm and the proverbial leg (what DO they cost I ask myself?) but I’m in. A far cry from the farm and even from the 1710 nonsense I bought, and thankfully sold to buy this, off Ken Church Street. NEVER venture there. Most awful place [ … with] neighbours who wrote, very kindly, and pushed the letters under the front door, saying ‘Can we do your shopping?’ and (This was the dottiest and most unusual) ‘Please dont grieve.’

  Now come on. You either grieve or you dont. After fifty years it is a kind of loss. And I cant help looking grumpy anyway. I’m so preoccupied with all manner of tiddly little things.

  How many pennies to the pound? What does a florin represent now .. where can I get a typewriter that WERKS? I dont want one which corrects all my errors, scolds me with bells, and fucks up my margins … and has a list of instructions in incomprehensible Jap-Eng. Fuck it.

  Anyway. Joy and delight. And the joy is that you wrote: before leaving the ‘quaint’ (not my word. The Agents’) house I destroyed, as I had to, forty eight years of Forwoods files and etcetera … he was the Business Head until the arrival of Parkinsons and then Cancer put paid to all that nonsense … so I heaved stuff off to the shredder in sacks. Bank statements going back to 1962, old contracts for films long forgotten, letters from the dead.

  All gone. Until the University of Boston wrote imploring me to sell them my archives! I ask you. So all the MS were dug out of the shredder, all the most lovely letters, I dont mean ‘from the dead’, not only those, but lots from the loving living. By which I mean a trillion of yours! All safely in Boston, all sealed until well after we are dead. But what supreme letters you wrote to me, what splendours they were and still are. From, I dont know, Holland Park would it be? Or Belsize Park .. one of those places, through the miseries of Yaddo and on .. and then spasmodic silences .. but splendid letters. I think that I wrote to you from Paris last? Cant remember, it’s all a hideious blurr now … and the last five years were fucking awful honestly. Never mind. It’s over, that part, and I start again. Odd how tough you suddenly find yourself to be. For a time.

  I have two thirds of a book, sold to Viking, and am slowly coming up out of the deep-freeze, and this is my very first letter in my new, titchy, little study. A view north with no distraction beyond the parapet, and a plastic desk and this manuel, manuel? typewriter. Hence errors and etc. But it at least does’nt speak to me or wring bells. It does’nt work, either – 66 quid at Rymans – oh well.…

  Please lets have lunch in October. Oh please. Shyness CANT be anything to do with us, for Christs sake .. we know each other far too well. Say what you cant eat, I dont go to M&S now, too far away and I cant walk it … so it’s grub from Partridges in Sloan Street. (Where else, pray) and you can choose whatever you like but COME. After the 9th. I have a to-do with Princess Anne then. Attenborough [ … ] has arranged a New Award For Acheivement1 and I have to be the fall-guy … a dreadful kind of This Is Your Life. I ask you.

  Love, EVER, D.

  To Eileen Atkins Cadogan Gardens

  4 October 1988

  Eilleen dear –

  Forgive this dainty card: all I could find to thank you for ‘NEXT SEASON’1… which I am rather longing to read, because I am stuck in the sugary land of Joyce Grenfell.2 I cant be doing with her Christian Science nonsense, (in the middle of a total war!) or her overt snobbery .. nicely meant but snobbery.

  Just saw today in the paper that they have opened a new Holiday Inn in, guess where? SWINDON! That’ll be a load of fun. Do remember it next time you go down the M4 to do some location. Ghastly evening yesterday at a script conference for this dotty BAFTA thing on Sunday. Unspeakable dialogue most of it inaccurate, and we all sat round a board room table being bored and being served bits of dead chicken and wilted salad by a sullen lady who clearly wanted to go home as much as I did. I got to bed at 1.30 .. rather pissed, and cant remember what we decided to do or not to do. Oh dear.

  I wrote what I thought was an ironic little piece for the Indipendant3 last week and have been delueged (no ‘e’) with more than 700 letters from sodden lady readers. Sodden because they were all so saddened by my ‘unhappiness’ … I did’nt know it had shown! Was’nt meant to … anyway they all offer me ‘peace and solitude’ in places as far apart as Bath, Alloa, Hastings, Dartmoor and Cork … golly! I shall have to write and thank them all: so I’d better end this. But thanks again and all love ..

  Dirk – XXX

  To Dilys Powell Cadogan Gardens

  17 October 1988

  Dilys dear –

  How good to have your note. I’d love to lunch with you .. cold cuts, something terribly simple, I eat like a sparrow … but can it be after November 11th? I’ve got myself caught up in a memorial thingummy for Armistice Day … reading Saki at the National. And I quake.

  The Celebration4 was utter hell. They always are. Keeping Sir R.A off the stage was the hardest part, but I managed by doing it all myself. People were wonderous kind and loving and I was very nearly brought to a blub by the ovation, standing! at the end. The foul Press said it was five mins. But I rather think I got it stopped by three. However: not bad. And lots of chums came from distant places, [Jean] Simmons from Los Angeles, [James] Fox from Sydney, and so on … all in all gratifying but potty, and terrifying. I HATE a black tie … I always look like a Maltese waiter.

  I do hope that you are stronger now: crawling up your stairs. Goodness. I have NONE here. It’s a sort of one story box on the top of an Edwardian house … and none the worse for that. From my bed I can look into the sitting room.

  There is a certain comfort in that, and in the fact that I have already collected two pair of wood pigeons, two blackbird, one pair of Magpies and one pair Rooks! How is that for getting a feel of the country in a secluded, and unused, London garden square?

  So lunch soon … I’ll write when the Thing is over. I am never certain about the rehearsals …

  With overpowering love –

  Dirk

  To Penelope Mortimer Cadogan Gardens

  29 October 1988

  My dearest P –

  And, of course, you wont get this until Tuesday. But it is to say what a splendid evening I had.1 Really.

  I know that you were wincing with shame and all those Mortimer Agonies (quite unwarrented, as usual) b
ut I was facinated to be able to watch a fillum which had absolutely nothing what ever to do with me. No responsibilities. And that is usually what happens when I go to the flicks. Responsibility. Either my work as an actor, as a writer or to the Cast and the ruddy Director … and how often I have heaved with fury when the prop men have used enough smoke in a cottage chimney to rival Battersea Power Station at full blast.

  Yesterday I merely thought, ‘Silly farts. Is the kitchen on fire?’

  No: there ARE things wrong with the film. Director, I’m afraid; not ANYTHING wrong with the script I hasten to add, and the performances as we agreed are very uneaven, the music too bloody lush, and the crowds all a bit tidy and clean and all. If only Visconti had got hold of them!

  But there was another part of it all which pleased me so, the evening I mean; first time in years I had gone to a cinema .. first time I’d tried sitting with this still-slightly-wonky leg … first time I’d gone out, as it were, ‘on my own’ … and given that my hostess was you whome I love anyway, and that I had a smashing ride in a super motor with Terry Someone and a delicious, relaxed and paid-for supper with all the whisky I could require, I mean, really, what more could I ask.

  Everything worked very, very well. Even the girl beside me in the cinema offered me her Malteaser. Was’nt that pleasing? I scowled at her of course. I always do. Terror lurks not very far beneath this apparently cool façade. I’m as cool as a microwave oven really.

  But thank you.

  Now lets have no more grovelling [ … ] the film is done and over and whatever it’s faults they are not yours, and I had a really lovely evening. I’m not going to say thanks again: even you will get bored.

  With love, always,

  Dirk.

  To Penelope Mortimer Cadogan Gardens

  10 November 1988

  Dearest Penelope

  What I should be doing is having a bash at my bit on the Holocaust for the Tellygraf. I just cant face it somehow … maybe tomorrow I’ll feel lighter of touch and mind. But three fat books all about those who survived have rather dented my brain.

  [ … ] Nicholas,1 darling or not, pays me rather well: and I do find it a form of therepy actually. I have’nt written a thing for two years … and the thought of getting down to it again depresses me greatly. But Nicholas offered a sort of branch over my sluggish stream of despair and I had a grab and got hauled up a bit. Not much: but a bit. And it’s better.

  Having to do something when all incentive is lost is quite good for the soul. Or whatever. And, oddly, I quite enjoy doing it … I got very funny feed-back from the O’Brian Bit2 … and that is rewarding too.

  I think that the Vita/Harold thing3 might be a bit dreary for you, as you clearly dont seem to care for them. I could’nt take him but did quite admire her … but I’m a bit stuffed with all that Dyke-Runaway and silly old Violet and the rest. I think it would be a terrible penance, and they are bound to play Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour in the thing.

  There is absolutely nothing that I LONG to do … I would like to do something with H. Bonham Carter who played my child in a recent play on TV and was super to work with … we want, desperatly, to be Dad and Daughter again … but cant think of anything. And Charlotte Rampling and I were almost off with Vita’s ‘No Signposts In The Sea’1 only the lady producer was such a cunt and the adaptation impossible. Everything turns to dross when I get near. I wonder why? And Glenda and I tried for a year to get ‘Buried Alive’ off the ground but could’nt get the lolly. Amazing.

  I must walk up to the doctors now and order my Soneryl for the week-end I’m running out. He wont give me more than fifty at a time for fear that I’ll gobble them all up and skip over. Silly fart. Little does he know that all that is taken care of anyway. Neat little packets from Parig[i]2 … still, it’s excercise for the leg, to walk up the street I mean, and his secretary thinks I’m quite lovely. So I’ll boost my ego modestly and mail this, which comes with a stack of love to your sodden garden and you ..

  Always

  Dirk

  On 14 November Dirk took part in an Armistice Festival event at the National Theatre, reading from the short stories of Saki (H. H. Munro), with Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Tim Pigott-Smith and Zoë Wanamaker.

  To Dilys Powell Cadogan Gardens

  24 November 1988

  Dilys my dear –

  I sent off the ‘piece’ to Mr Perry3 a day or so ago: I dont know if it’s what he wanted or not, and he has’nt yet called me back. So perhaps it was’nt any good.

  I was terrifically honoured to have been asked to write for you, and I only hope that I got the thing right … difficult stuff, one is so afraid of ‘gushing’ and doing a sort of R. Attenborough. All that darling and adorable and so on: not my style.

  I’d love to lunch with you … no reason for you to trail over here to me and, anyway, I cant cook an egg even … I subsist largely on frozen delights from the local mini-Harrods1 in Sloan Street. But it’s alright. So, yes please, let us make a date at your house, but SIMPLE. I eat little and a glass of white wine will do for me really. Dont even need the grub.

  At the moment I am wrestling my way through a book, writing it I mean, which I have to deliver to my publisher on December 30th. I shake with terror for I am so out of practice and pages stay blank and white and evil. And empty. Gosh, it’s awful. So as soon as I am in reasonable shape, by which I mean, when I can, more or less, see the end in sight and be able to relax and take a morning off, I’ll let you know. Will that be alright?

  At the moment of writing this I am coping with builders putting up book shelves for my much depleted library. I have had to rid myself of so much now that I’m in a one bedroom flat .. perhaps just as well, I was not travelling light, as they say, and the junk that has accumulated over the years was awesome. Most of it has gone now, and I am reduced to the bare necessities and one or two sentimental pieces.

  The Saki readings which I did with Zoe Wannamaker and Tim Piggot Smith at the Olivier were fun. In a terrifying way. First time on a real stage for 32 years! But they seemed to delight in Saki, who was unfamiliar to them, apparently, and the Olivier was packed to the gunnels .. good.

  But I dont really think it is worth all the hassel, that acting lark, and anyway no one asks me now to do anything, so there is no point in fretting. I’ll carry on with this writing business, it does pay a little and it also helps to keep ones mind a little more alert than usual.

  Mine, my dear, seems to have gone into hibernation.

  I’ll write to you as soon as I get the present ‘block’ unblocked .. and we’ll have a meal at your place. I do rather long to see you again …

  With much devoted love, as ever –

  Dirk

  To Bee Gilbert Cadogan Gardens

  18 February 1989

  Sno my love –

  You are, I gather, due home in a sec. So this ought to be waiting for you: but knowing this ghastly country I’d very much doubt it. Is’nt it utter hell?

  Loved your letter, sad about your financial straits, mine will be just as jolly when they twig I’m here, and happy that you found a Tote Note, they are quite rare I gather and people collect them rather.

  So thats got rid of that. Now then; about the fillum … well the answer is, reluctantly, no.1 I hate ‘Evenings’ but quite like ‘Matinees’ and do them constantly. But getting to and from in an evening is too costly now .. renting cars and etc. I cant sit about waiting for taxi’s for fear of the dreaded cry ‘Were’nt you Dirk Bogarde?’ which assails me daily … unless I dress, as I do now, in trodden shoes and my old anorak from home which is, by this time, crawling with greasy-lice. I am seldome recognised like that. But in a decent bit of gear it’s hellish. And, in anycase, I have’nt got a D.J. I gave mine to Save The Children and they got a thousand quid for it. Lucky children in the Sudan. What was the matter with me? I loathe children, especially under ten (they should, from birth, be stuffed with dates and garlic and slowly turned on a spit) […]

&n
bsp; To reply to your final question, yes, indeed, I come out to play, matinees only of course, I have finished my new book (Viking!) which is called ‘A Particular Friendship’ (edited letters to a lady I never met who lived in the U.S (reluctantly) and who was dying of cancer and to whome I wrote from ’67 until ’73 … v. sad.) and now I live in a sort of Portakabin on the roof of an Edwardian maison in this elegant garden square, with a terrace and blackbirds, woodpigeon, magpies and a thrush, and a bedroom and a titchy office and a wok! Bought it last week and have started Chinese cooking in self defence against frozen gunge and smoked salmon and pasta. I’m not certain if I’ll manage, but I must try. I cant cook an egg … Tote did all that. But I’m having a whack and if it is not Connaught it [is] better than out-of-date Paki-Stuff.

  I keep on cooking for six, which is dotty. But it is so difficult to scale things down for one.

  Reading this over it seems that I bought the apartment a week ago, but you are so clever you’ll twig that it was the G.T.C wok.2

  [ … ] Call me, or I’ll call you perhaps, after the 20th .. and we’ll meet. I do an excellent cold lunch. Try.

  I am doing David Jacobs stint (for fun) on Radio 2,3 but apart from that I have almost renounced the cinema and the theatre. Except for my Saki readings, which are easy, and fun, to do. And only on Sundays.

  End of page – but not end of love from D XXXX.

  I assume Sarah-Jane Holm4 is one of yours? Sarah-Jane sounds like an American brand of fudge. Wont one name do? [ … ] Love you – D

  To Dilys Powell Cadogan Gardens

  25 March 1989

  Dearest Dilys –

  Of course I have not forgotten our ‘modest meal’. You are a bit dotty really.

  All you have to do is tell me when it’s convenient for you .. and your Lady-Cook. I dont give a fig about the dog, but am terribly glad that you love him and were wrong about the other and never loving another and etc. All that silliness we go through.

  I loved doing the Intro for your book, just hope that it is good enough .. Perry is good at his job, a glutton, and possibly quite an intellectual. But. I had a horried time trying to get him to do a reasonable script for that awful BAFTA Business; it was utterly impossible and, finally, I ad libbed the whole evening.