Slowly, Mustique started to become a bit more appealing. In 1965, Colin’s friend from Eton, Hugo Money-Coutts, arrived on a small yacht with his second wife, Jinty. They were on their way around the world, but as soon as Jinty came ashore, she told Colin that she was fed up with being stuck on a boat. With that, Colin invited them to stay and Hugo began to help Colin with the running of the island.
Jinty set about making her mark on Mustique by shipping a boatload of horses to the island, and Hugo was intrepid. He taught himself how to fly, using a tiny grass runway to take off and landing on the cricket pitch next to his house. We’d fly to St. Vincent for supplies and I was the only passenger who didn’t have a contingency plan in case the plane crashed. Jinty always had a bottle of gin and placed herself nearest the window, ready to jump into the sea, and Colin, fearing the same fate, would come equipped with a snorkel and mask. I was just glad we could get about. For one thing it meant we wouldn’t be marooned in an emergency—which I worried about far more than Colin ever did.
With friends on the island, life was easier for me: if I got fed up with something, Jinty would understand, and if Colin was full of energy and I wasn’t, he would go off with Hugo.
Having a working cotton estate meant that Colin could use a lot of the cotton in clothes and linen. The Sea Island cotton was high quality and very soft, like silk, so Colin was tremendously excited about showing off his new clothes, especially a pajama-type suit, made in a range of colors. When people admired one, he would smile and say, “I grew it myself.”
Wearing his cotton pajamas, he set about modernizing the island, employing a local plumber from St. Vincent, known as “Pipeline,” to tackle the challenge of running water by making a dam with a collection point, but Pipeline made the awful mistake of putting the filter in wrongly so to start with we got all the silt and none of the water.
One day Colin and Hugo were on St. Vincent when they came across a young man lying in a ditch, having been thrown from his motorbike. His name was Basil. They took him to hospital, and a few days later, when Colin visited to check on his progress, they struck up a rapport. When Colin found out Basil didn’t have a job, he offered him the position of barman at his soon-to-be-opening bar on Mustique. Basil accepted and, unlike John Kiddle, he was an inspired appointment. The bar was named “Basil’s Bar” and is still there today.
Basil had a way with people, especially with women. Once Mustique was more developed, Colin started to invite widows or divorcees, bringing them over for some “fun in the sun,” and so, of course, Basil charmed them all, ending up living with one of them—the beautiful blonde Viscountess Virginia Royston. But in the mid-sixties, there weren’t too many people to charm, and instead it would be normally just me and Colin, with Hugo and Jinty propping up the bar.
As well as Basil’s Bar, a new school was built, and the tin village was moved and updated from tin huts to permanent housing. Pensions were distributed to the older people, and jobs were offered to the rest. All the people I had got to know since the beginning told me every time they saw me how glad they were that “Mr. Tennant has come.”
Just before Charlie started school, I brought him and Henry with me to Mustique and the school mistress helped Charlie with his reading, although he was far more interested in exploring the island. Both boys loved being in the sea and played on the beach just like I had done as a little girl at Holkham.
My mother and sisters came out in the early years and continued to visit. My mother especially embraced the lifestyle, enjoying wearing old cotton trousers and leading a far more relaxed life than the formal one she was used to back in England, but my father never came. “Abroad?” he would say. “What for?” Holkham had everything he needed so he stayed put.
One day at the beginning of 1968, out of the blue, Princess Margaret rang Colin to ask, “Is it true? Did you really mean it about the land?”
“Yes,” replied Colin, thrilled that she was taking an interest. Having given Princess Margaret and Tony a piece of land for their wedding present, we thought they had forgotten about it. For the first years of their marriage Princess Margaret had been immersed in a new circle of bohemian friends, and now that she had two children—David, who was born in 1961, and Sarah in 1964—her life was centered around her family. We were busy on Mustique so we had not been much in touch.
“And does it come with a house?” Princess Margaret asked.
Colin, not wanting to disappoint, replied he would build her a house. She was delighted, ending the call by saying she would plan to come out to Mustique to see the land.
I got in touch with her to warn her that she probably wouldn’t want to do that because the whole island was still far from habitable. Since her first visit in 1960, Mustique had changed substantially but it still wasn’t fit for a princess. I explained that there were still only Tilley lamps, because there was no electricity, that the water had acquired the tinge of a satsuma orange on account of the roof tiles, and that there was certainly no hot water, but she was not deterred and said how much she was looking forward to coming.
When she arrived a few months later, Princess Margaret accepted the limitations straightaway and adapted without a fuss. Whenever she wanted a shower, she would use the bucket in the tree, just like we did. The food, too, was really basic. Although we had fresh fish, everything else was tinned, but she didn’t seem to mind.
We had no proper furniture, so we sat on plastic or wicker chairs, playing cards when the light wasn’t good enough to read. Colin never once lost his temper with Princess Margaret, even if she did have a winning hand.
Mosquito nets covered the beds and during the night we were inundated with some extraordinary mice. Princess Margaret called them “flying mice” because they would rush up the net, then jump to the next one in great leaps that seemed to defy the laws of gravity. Perhaps her own experiences had made her surprisingly adaptable—by then she had lived a life of contrasts: riding pillion on Tony’s motorbike through the lamp-lit streets of London was a world away from waving in a horse-drawn carriage; Tony’s Docklands studio was nothing like an existence within the Royal Household; and his bohemian friends moved in a very different circle from that of the rest of the Royal Family.
She was very excited when we took her to Gellizeau Point, the land where her house would be built. A peninsula at the top end of the island, Colin had suggested it because it was difficult for people to get to and therefore more secure. Of course this meant that it was difficult for us to get to and covered with scrub. I offered her a pair of Colin’s cotton pajamas. There she was, clambering up the hill, wearing Colin’s pajamas, with string tied around her ankles and wrists to stop the brambles scratching and the mosquitoes biting. She wore wide sunglasses, a straw hat, and a big smile, not minding at all. She wasn’t vain. She just got on with things.
We got to the site and walked around the imaginary house, which Colin had marked out with wooden stakes. When his back was turned, she pulled up the stakes and took them into the undergrowth.
“What are you doing, Ma’am?” asked Colin.
“Well, I think I ought to have a bit more land,” was her reply.
“What do you need more land for?” retorted Colin.
“Gatehouses for my protection officers,” declared Princess Margaret.
And that was what she got.
Although incomparable to a royal palace, Mustique offered Princess Margaret a break from her husband. Like Colin, Tony was unpredictable, sharing similar character traits: he was eccentric and extremely demanding, often rubbing people up the wrong way. But, just like Colin, he could be incredibly charming. Although Princess Margaret and Tony had been madly in love, their relationship had become strained and the press sought stories in every look, every outing, every move the Princess made. There was no press on Mustique and, since Tony had said he hated the place, he wasn’t likely to follow her there, though he always made a point of telling her that he might come, as though to stop her relaxing.
Princess Margaret was rather like my mother in that she didn’t dwell on things. Neither did she spend hours complaining about Tony. She told me enough to allow me to understand her position—including that she no longer looked in her chest of drawers but would get her maid to do it because Tony had developed a habit of writing little notes saying things like “You look like a Jewish manicurist and I hate you.”
She was used to being treated with the utmost respect—everybody else bowed and curtsied to her and called her “Ma’am,” although she would sign off with “Margaret” in letters to friends. I never minded: her father had been King Emperor, she was royal, so it wasn’t surprising she had “royal moments.” The formalities never interfered with our friendship, but I suspect Tony resented them. Everybody she had ever met had treated her in a certain way and there was Tony, being spiteful in creative ways, bothering to come up with nasty little one-liners to write down and hide in her glove drawer, with her hankies or tucked into books.
I was glad Mustique provided Princess Margaret with sanctuary and I made sure she had everything she needed—she wasn’t used to doing things for herself and would often make little requests that it was easier to carry out than to ignore. During the day we swam together, and in the late afternoon we would often go and sit in Basil’s Bar, watching the sunset, skeptically waiting for the “green flash” that is supposed to appear on the horizon just after the sun vanishes. Neither of us believed it, yet we always seemed to be distracted by the thought, pausing our conversation to stare at the view, just in case we saw it. We never did but it became a fun habit.
In the evenings, she and Colin would discuss her house, and it was over dinner one night that Princess Margaret suggested that her friend, her husband’s uncle Oliver Messel, the leading stage designer of the twentieth century and a great artist, design her house because she had visited him in Barbados and had loved the house he had built for himself. She also hoped at one point that involving him might encourage Tony to spend more time with her and to like Colin.
Colin thought it was a wonderful idea and got in touch with Oliver, and the following year Princess Margaret came back to Mustique to see the plan of the house that he had created. Colin was pleased to have Oliver involved and, ever resourceful, went one step further than asking him to design just one house. Already a fan of his sets, enchanted by the décor of Truman Capote’s musical House of Flowers in New York for which Oliver had been awarded a Tony, Colin approached him and commissioned him to design all the houses he planned to build on Mustique.
Colin had turned his attention to building and selling houses because the cotton wasn’t making any money. For ten years he had tried different schemes to improve business, but the problem was that the industry as a whole was dying—alternative synthetic materials were being produced much cheaper and in far larger quantities in China, and the traditional crops of the Caribbean couldn’t compete.
Conscious of the islanders’ livelihood, he knew that the houses would provide more stable employment because each would be set up with domestic staff: the people whose jobs were in jeopardy would have alternative employment options. He was passionate about the new plan for developing the island and it played to his strengths. It also aligned with his visions of making Mustique a household name and creating a thriving community, so he set up the Mustique Company. As well as Oliver, Arne Hasselqvist, a construction engineer from Sweden, came on board with a few investors. The idea was to split up some of the island into plots, design beautiful villas, then sell them to shareholders who would also invest in the rest of the infrastructure.
The plan to use Oliver to attract Tony failed: Tony stayed disinterested, but Oliver was a huge success, although he and Colin did have some frightful rows, which was to be expected since both were so highly strung.
The first plot was sold before any houses had even been designed. Honor Svejdar, née Guinness—the famous Irish brewers—and her second husband, Frankie, had come ashore to visit Basil’s Bar. When they met us, Honor complained that she didn’t want to stay on the boat any longer, just like Jinty had done earlier. By the end of the conversation she had asked if she could buy a plot and, on the spot, Colin agreed.
Honor and Frankie bought two of the very best plots and a beach, which she named “Honor Bay.” Frankie drank a lot so he built himself a wooden bar outside the house near the road, where he would entertain the workmen in the evening when they passed by. When my mother visited, she became great friends with Honor, going snorkeling together in bath caps, with bags attached to their waists to collect shells. They would even go out at night with flashlights to find them. I wasn’t quite as fond of shells as they were, once I discovered they would smell terrible if they weren’t cleaned properly. Many a time when my mother and I flew home together, her shells would make the plane smell appalling.
Only after Colin had sold the beach to Honor did he realize no more should be sold—that the beaches should be kept for everyone. Nevertheless, the sale spurred him on, convincing him he would achieve his vision for a profitable island, with a thriving community, that he could run as a luxury estate.
CHAPTER NINE
Motherhood
IN 1968 WE finally moved into the White House in Tite Street, designed by a French architect, and the wait was worth it. The house was a real marvel, described as the most stylish in London. The press were very interested in the interior, and for a few weeks, I appeared in a great many magazines, perched on the edge of a sofa, proudly showing off the house. It was very “of the time,” made from Portland stone, with an iron spiral staircase and a hallway floor of marble that was inspired by the Impressionists, with black, gray, and white circles of different sizes. There was an octagonal outer hall, which was bathed in natural light, with branches of coral set against the walls; a bathroom with sunken bath and bronze taps, silk walls in the dining room, and silver door handles everywhere shaped like shells. Downstairs was designed around our favorite paintings—a Turner, a Gainsborough, a Watteau, and a pair of Arcimboldo’s fruit portraits.
Colin was delighted that the house was being talked about and praised for its impressive design because he loved to make a statement and the White House was an excellent setting for the many extravagant parties we had.
I found all the parties he got so excited about difficult to enjoy, especially the fancy-dress parties, not only because I didn’t like drawing attention to myself but because I always seemed to have to mend an outfit at the last minute. Before the parties, Colin would rush around nervously, making final preparations, and I would be trying to make sure everything was in order so he wouldn’t lose his rag at the last minute.
I was far less interested in outrageous ensembles, which was lucky because Colin needed to be admired the most. Probably his most ridiculous fad was wearing paper knickers, which, for a time, he showed off to everybody, drawing attention to them with a new party trick where he would declare, “I’ll eat my knickers,” after which he would put both his hands down his trousers, rip off the knickers, and stuff them into his mouth, playing up to the more prudish people he came across, amused by the stir his actions provoked.
Perhaps having such an eccentric and unconventional father affected Charlie and Henry, who by the time we were living in Tite Street were eight and ten, but it is impossible to know for sure. Although Colin was incredibly proud of both his sons, he didn’t take an active parenting role with them when they were small. This was completely expected in those days.
Colin was away far more than I was and, like my father, found it difficult to be affectionate or tactile. Instead, he would come home with presents and treats for the boys, who would look up tentatively, with wonder, at their tall, slightly intimidating father. Although he could be fantastic with them—he was so good at telling stories—I did my best to keep the boys away from Colin if he was in a bad mood, on tenterhooks in case they got caught up in it.
When Charlie was about eight, his behavior started to chan
ge, becoming rather strange. For a long time, I couldn’t work out whether he was following in his father’s attention-seeking footsteps, but there did seem to be a tangible difference. While he was highly strung, like Colin, he didn’t have the “Tennant rages” that ran in the family, but he developed rituals that were nonsensical and took up hours of his time—things like having to wait for somebody to accompany him down the stairs or going around and around in circles in a precise and deliberate way. It was as though he was very superstitious, though in this respect avoiding cracks on the pavements was about the most normal thing he would do.
Gradually the rituals took over, so he was doing a hundred loops of the house before he could go out. At about the same time he developed a dark side. At prep school while the other boys got out books from the library such as Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit, he picked books on sinister topics. Unsurprisingly he was plagued by terrible nightmares and, concerned for his well-being, his form mistress called us in for an emergency meeting. She told us: “I do see how Charles has a disadvantage. He’s very worried about his Nazi grandfather.”
Colin and I looked at each other in astonishment. “Nazi grandfather?” I replied. “He hasn’t got one.”
“Oh,” she said. “Come and look at his desk.”
Inside his desk was a collage of Colin’s father’s head stuck to a Nazi general’s body, covered with swastikas. We both left the meeting wondering where on earth Charlie had got these dark ideas from. With no obvious answer, and knowing that all boys seemed to be fascinated by guns and fighting, after a long discussion we dismissed it as a phase.
Unlike the common boyish obsession with blood and gore, Charlie’s rituals were harder to dismiss, but children do plenty of nonsensical things and, knowing that making a big deal out of something often exacerbates it, we felt that ignoring his peculiar habits was the best thing to do. With no outward reaction, we hoped Charlie would simply grow out of them. He didn’t. In fact, his rituals got more intense, not to mention more time-consuming, so Colin took him to see a psychiatrist, who diagnosed neurosis. These days, he would have been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, but then none of us knew what that was, including the doctors. The diagnosis of neurosis didn’t exactly solve anything, and the doctors provided no answer as to how to stop it.
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