by Henry Green
(Break for commercials.)
(Fixer in London studio, standing alone as if lost, shaking his head and talking to himself)
FIXER
English people are OK but they cannot understand. Maybe they do not wish. Our thought in Spain to control tickets is to avoid too many people in one train or boat in one day. But English people pay pesetas in England and I think that they voyage by travel carpet. It is not so. Never-less I like English people. I charge them less than any other country. They are stinking rich in their own country but they have no pesetas in Spain. So I am not greedy with them. I am man of honour. Now this Manuelito, the fat guy, the head waiter, I have known him all my life. Very fierce and difficult on the ship he is, but very frightened at home. His wife very tiny but very angry woman. And Manuelito much like wine. So when Manuelito is on his ship it is best to be very quiet with him. On this Holy Friday the ship is very full you understand. So the young American ladies become very angry with Manuelito when he shout at them about no cabins when we are with him downstairs. And I, I can do nothing. So when the ladies go up with anger I say ‘Manuelito you cannot leave these beautiful ladies, and there is a señor who is good, you cannot leave them with no supper.’ So he comes up with me to find them although he is very busy man. I still have hope something for cabins can be arranged. But there, when they are all on the deck, there is another quarrel. As you will see. And me I can do nothing!
(Fade back to open-air scene on closed hatch on deck. Husband is sitting there as the three girls come back alone.)
EMMELINE
Hi there!
SHE
Oh darling!
MAY
Isn’t he just angelic guarding all our things.
HE
Did you do any good?
MAY
I’ll say not!
EMMELINE
And if that fat slob of a Purser ever comes within a hundred feet of me again I’ll just go up to him and tear his false eyes out.
SHE
Oh my dear the man’s a fiend! Honestly I did feel so awful for the two of you.
HE
And the Fixer was no good?
SHE
Useless. Worse, he absolutely cringed.
MAY
Let’s you and me talk this situation over Emmeline.
(They withdraw to their bags, but not out of camera range.)
HE
(Despairingly.)
Then what are we to do?
SHE
I know darling.
(Then pointing off.)
But wait look there’s that disgusting Purser in person and Fixer too.
(To the Americans.)
See who’s coming! I really believe he’s here to apologise.
(Americans move over to the husband and wife as Fixer and Purser come up to this group. Purser has a great deal of gold braid on cap and uniform, is very fat and angry looking.)
HE
I do believe he’s actually come to see us right!
SHE
My darling I didn’t mean to say this but I really feel rather sick!
(Husband in reply merely points to ship’s rail as he gets up to face Purser. The Americans also move in to confront this man.)
EMMELINE
What is this?
PURSER
I come to have explanation.
HE
We’ve been here hours I tell you.
FIXER
Please ladies, sirs.
MAY
Just don’t ever give me please again.
PURSER
I have been insulted, no?
MAY and EMMELINE
You sure have!
HE
Now look here! I don’t know what goes on but my wife here is a sick woman.
EMMELINE
And if you can’t do nothing for us where’s the Captain?
PURSER
I do not have to accept insulting words.
MAY
Then just take us to your Captain and will we tell him.
FIXER
Ladies, if you please! Captain on these boats sails ship. This man has command of cabins.
EMMELINE
Then it’s a disgrace, that’s all it is.
PURSER
Madame I have had bad words. I throw you off this ship with your friend.
MAY
You hear that Em? This slob. When we’ve paid good dollars for this trip.
HE
But my wife and I . . .
FIXER
Please.
EMMELINE
Where’s the Consul of the US?
PURSER
And on this ship we have peace, no, although we are crowded. In Spain on public holiday.
SHE
(To husband.)
My dear I’m really very sorry but I really think I shall be ill.
HE
It’s disgraceful.
PURSER
(Furiously to Americans.)
If you two ladies will come with me.
EMMELINE
Why, what for you just tell me?
FIXER
Trust me and go in peace.
MAY
Em, is it safe?
PURSER
Follow me please.
SHE
(Half heartedly.)
Goodbye.
HE
(To Fixer.)
What does this mean?
FIXER
(To husband.)
Stay here please.
HE
(To Fixer.)
And what about us?
SHE
(To Fixer.)
Don’t go just now.
FIXER
Stay.
(And follows Purser and two American girls.
Their bags are left behind.)
HE
How very disagreeable.
SHE
I didn’t see you doing much about it.
HE
What d’you mean darling? I’m doing my best. No man can do more.
SHE
You didn’t stick up for them much did you? Two girls alone without a man.
HE
Oh good heavens darling! What is it supposed I should have said?
SHE
You know perfectly well. Oh mercy!
(She nods in direction of Spanish sailor who is shown drinking out of wine skin. He then champs his jaws at wife in a terrible grimace.)
HUSBAND
(Clenching fists.)
We’ll soon see to that here and now.
SHE
(Detaining him.)
Darling you are sweet. He’s just hungry. Look he’s going off to get a crust.
HE
(To back of departing sailor.)
Well never let it be said I . . .
SHE
(Soothingly.)
Calm down darling.
HE
I’m only doing my best as I told you.
SHE
I know dear. But those poor girls.
HE
What about them?
SHE
Well, to be turned off the boat.
HE
Don’t you be too sure of that. They’re probably being led off to the best cabins.
SHE
(Incredulously.)
You mean you actually think those two, oh it’s disgusting oh! . . .
HE
Good heavens look at that.
(Pointing off.)
Coming up the gangway. It is! It’s our honeymoon couple from the hotel.
SHE
Where? Yes it’s them. And look at our horrible Purser coming half way to meet them, Henry. And the welcome he’s giving!
HE
Yes darling.
SHE
Have you seen those two American girls go down the gangway?
HE
As a matter of fact I haven’t.
SHE
Oh so they’ve stolen a
march on us. Oh my dear so that’s all the use you are in a crisis on a journey.
(He makes a gesture towards the Fixer who is approaching them. He moved forward to meet Fixer.)
HE
What now?
FIXER
You would like hot dinner in first-class saloon.
HE
Why yes.
FIXER
Then here are two tickets.
HE
And we could sleep afterwards at the table all night.
FIXER
I regret you cannot.
SHE
Look darling didn’t I tell you?
(She points out sailor who has come into view again, smiling amiably and eating bread.)
HE
Well we’ve got tickets for dinner anyway.
SHE
Darling you have been clever.
FIXER
But you do not wish to spend all night here, no?
HE
No we don’t, would you?
FIXER
Then follow me. Third class but clean. You will pay me one pound.
(Fixer moves off. Husband picks up the four suitcases.)
HE
(To wife.)
Come on, darling.
SHE
Oh so we’re going. But where to?
HE
I don’t know. But do come on.
(They go off down entrance into third class at back.
Fade back to London studio where wife sits alone in armchair.)
SHE
Well you know what they say that everything must have an end. This trip had an end too, though I must say it made an awfully long night to end it. Looking back on everything I suppose really I’d been a bit awkward. Still the whole journey had been so very tiring. But d’you notice how my husband never even calls me by name now. It’s just ‘dear’ when he’s being affectionate and ‘darling’ when I’m sorry to say he’s fed up. Oh well I suppose after twenty-five years. Anyway Henry was getting really worked up poor dear and we were both very very tired. So I went down with him without a murmur into the ghastly stomach of that boat. You’ve never seen anything like it; though everywhere was clean I must admit, spotlessly clean. But absolutely jam packed with people, crying children, grandmothers, the whole frightful business of travelling. They must have got them on by another gangway, because of course we were only deck cargo. Anyway the Fixer introduced us to a Steward and Henry paid both of them and then I was snatched away from him and put on a little mattress on the floor of a ladies’ cabin and poor Henry had to go on the floor of another one but with his head under a washbasin all night. And the men were locked in all the time! But there it is. Everything comes to an end in the end, and I’ve noticed it usually comes as an anticlimax. The odd part was we both slept extraordinarily well. But wasn’t the breakfast in Majorca delicious next morning.
A CENTAUR
Flash and Filigree by Terry Southern
(André Deutsch)
(Review published in The Observer, 1958)
⎯
Green sent Flash and Filigree to Deutsch on Southern’s behalf. ‘He has given us a dazzling performance . . .,’ he wrote. ‘If you decide to do nothing with this Ms. I should like to have it back as I want to read it again.’ After the successful publication of the book, Green met Southern. They were to become close friends.
⎯
The young fellows with flashing heels are now thundering up the course to overtake those sad over-fifties who limp along, nodding like donkeys. For with novelists there is always a fast start and then, alas, before they are dead, very definitely a finish, perhaps even before they reach the post. From his stand a spectator, that is the reader, must have difficulty in following the race. His glasses are trained yet it is all too hard to follow – who has passed who, and who can that be, surely familiar, who lags so far behind? All he knows is the noise, one punter after another, or simultaneously, calling their fancies whilst dark bookies, silent at last, re-examine their boards as publishers do spring lists.
Mr Southern, the young American, living of all places in Geneva, has in this, his first novel, given us a dazzling performance. The setting is Los Angeles with nary a film star in it. A terrifying figure, the foremost dermatologist, Dr Frederick Eichner, is uncovered with a dubious patient he at first disposes of in, for any doctor, a unique way. This fellow, a Mr Treevly, it is best not to be sorry for, though his tribulations are great. Eichner is the man with whom we are immediately involved. He has a kind of crazy logic which, in all his troubles, must support and save, but not console him; he is above or beyond even contemplating consolation.
A brilliantly funny yet, at the same time, a truly frightening character, the doctor has a conviction about everything. He is of Hungarian extraction. He drives his fast car on theory and this leads him to a smash-up. The police come along, the glimpse he gives them of this theory and several others – for he is not a silent physician – makes him suspect. From here on there are hilariously amusing scenes with the constabulary and towards the end with the jury at his trial.
But it is with Miss Mintner, Babs the hospital nurse, that the book soars, gets like all good novels into its own orbit. Of course it can be argued that Flash and Filigree is really two books, or even three if the episode of Frost, the ‘private eye’, is analysed – a fault not uncommon with first novels. But in Southern’s work the cement which binds the kaleidoscopic patterns which go to make the whole is the continuing percipience with which he communicates what he sees in his mind’s eye; the sinister Eichner, the low-comedy Frost, and the raving beauty of addlepated Miss Mintner.
Eichner hires Frost the detective to save him from the police and in the course of a whole night’s pursuit of some mythical witness they both get drunk. This gives us some of the most riotously amusing scenes in the whole novel. Eichner tipsy is a thing no reader should miss. But it is when, quite early on, we come on Babs, fair haired with huge blue eyes, that a rocket begins to climb, to climb with great elaborated wit and deliberation until it bursts up above in colour, light and beauty to give a reward with which writers so rarely bless the benighted reader who cries out, so often in vain, to be carried away.
The last quarter of the novel is perhaps weakest where Dr Eichner disposes once and for all of the first victim and returns in all tranquillity to his collection of toy racing cars. And yet this may by anticlimax be the fault of the seduction scene immediately preceding it – Babs in the back of a student’s car – a quite exceptional piece of writing and something to warm the saddest bachelor heart.
Let everyone salute Mr Terry Southern who with only his first novel already has a winner. He will start odds on for his next.
THE ART OF FICTION
(Published in The Paris Review, 1958)
⎯
This interview may have been conducted in ‘the author’s fire-lit study’, but it was also a written collaboration, the script passing back and forth between Green and Southern. ‘No, there is no real trouble over our interview,’ Southern wrote to conclude. ‘There is some vague and preliminary dissension among the staff over the use of the word “cunty”, but nothing concrete.’
⎯
Henry Green is the pseudonym of H. V. Yorke, the London – Birmingham industrialist whom W. H. Auden has said to be the best English novelist alive.
Mr Green wrote his first novel, Blindness, while still a schoolboy at Eton, and this has been followed by nine more. Of his life otherwise, he has noted:
I was born in 1905 in a large house by the banks of the river Severn, in England, and within the sound of the bells from the Abbey Church at Tewkesbury. Some children are sent away to school; I went at six and three-quarters and did not stop till I was twenty-two, by which time I was at Oxford, but the holidays were all fishing. And then there was billiards.
I was sent at twelve and a half to Eton and almost at once became what was then called an aesthete, that is a boy who consciously dressed to shock
. I stayed that way at Oxford. From Oxford I went into the family business, an engineering works in the Midlands, with its iron and brass foundries and machine shops. After working through from the bottom I eventually came to the top where for the time being I remain, married, living in London, with one son.
Mr Green is a tall, gracious, and imposingly handsome man, with a warm strong voice and very quick eyes. In speech he displays on occasion that hallmark of English public school, the slight tilt of the head and closing of eyes when pronouncing the first few words of some sentences – a manner most often in contrast to what he is saying, for his expressions tend toward parable and his wit may move from cosy to scorpion-dry in less than a twinkle. Many have remarked that his celebrated deafness will roar or falter according to his spirit and situation; at any rate he will not use a hearing-aid, for reasons of his own, though no doubt discernible to some.
