The Parting Years (1963-74)

by Cecil Beaton

  ‘What marvellous authority she has,’ he said, listening to a coloured singer. ‘She follows through.’ He sent his arms jerking about him. I was fascinated with the thin concave lines of his body, legs and arms. The mouth is almost too large; he is beautiful and ugly, feminine and masculine: a rare phenomenon.

  I was not disappointed and as the evening wore on found him easier to talk with. He asked: ‘Have you ever taken LSD? Oh, I should. It would mean so much to you; you’d never forget the colours. For a painter it is a great experience. One’s brain works not on four cylinders but on four thousand. You see everything aglow. You see yourself beautiful and ugly, and other people as if for the first time. Oh yes, you should take it in the country, surrounded by all those flowers. You’d have no bad effects. It’s only people who hate themselves who suffer.’ He had great assurance. ‘If you enjoyed the bhang in India, this is a thousand times better: so much stronger — good stuff. Oh no, they can’t stamp it out. It’s like the atom bomb. Once it’s been discovered, it can never be forgotten, and it’s too easy to make.’

  We walked through the deserted, midnight streets. Mick admired the Giacometti-like doorways; was sad at the sleeping bundles of humanity, and had not seen such poverty since Singapore. He loved the old town with its mysterious alleyways.

  By the time we reached the hotel it was three o’clock and my bedtime, but they were quite happy to go on. Never a yawn and they had been up since five o’clock this morning.

  It is a way of life very different from mine and I enjoyed being jerked out of myself. Mick listened to pop records for a couple of hours, and was then so tired that he went to sleep without taking off his clothes. He woke at eight, undressed and got into bed to sleep for another couple of hours.

  At eleven o’clock he appeared at the swimming pool. I could not believe it was the same person walking towards us. The very strong sun, reflected from the white ground, made his face look a white, podgy, shapeless mess; eyes very small, nose very pink and spreading, hair sandy dark. His figure, his hands and arms were incredibly feminine.

  None of them was willing to talk except in spasms. No one could make up their minds what to do, or when.

  I took Mick through the trees to an open space to photograph him in the midday sun. I gave his face the shadows it needed. The lips were of a fantastic roundness, the body almost hairless, and yet, surprisingly, I made him look like a Tarzan by Pietro da Cosimo. He is sexy, yet completely sexless. He could nearly be an eunuch. As a model he is a natural.

  Their wardrobe is extensive. Mick showed me the rows of brocade coats. Everything is shoddy, poorly made, the seams burst. Keith himself had sewn his trousers, lavender and dull rose, with a band of badly stitched leather dividing the two colours.

  Brian, at the pool, appears in white pants with a huge black square applied on to the back. It is very smart, in spite of the fact that the seams are giving way. But with such marvellously flat, tight, compact figures as they have, with no buttocks or stomach, almost anything looks well on them.

  Marrakesh to Tangier

  Beautiful roads through hills to Essaouira. In rocky hills an old woman with orange scarf was throwing stones to move on her flocks of goats which were eating the berries in the argan trees. Goats in trees a strange sight. Deserted forts, markets, mud villages. Our conversation in great contrast to the uncivilized surroundings. But spirits high.

  David Herbert’s love for Morocco abounding. When I asked what country he would like to inhabit if he could not remain here, he gasped. He loves the Moors.

  Arrival at Portuguese sixteenth- or seventeenth-century Jewish town of Mogador. Pink and white castellated walls. The Tosca-esque seventeenth-century ramparts with a twin-towered archway and simple symmetrical ramps create shadows like modern abstract paintings — the whole very much like de Staël — in white, biscuit and browns. Town dotted with tall ferns, growing like magnolia, and rows of argana, a sort of thin, monkey-puzzle tree.

  Sudden great enthusiasm, beautiful old city with everything in harmony, even the modern, white buildings have the same feeling as the old. Lots of exciting pictures taken, and back to a pleasant, comfortable, modest hotel for lunch and siesta before further sightseeing. White-veiled women with black shuttered faces flee the evil eye of the camera but were so entranced listening to the theatre music coming from a Les Forains circus tent that they became oblivious of one. With great excitement, I clicked until dark.

  Have been reading Volume II of Harold Nicolson’s Diaries with as much pleasure as I read his first. I wonder why, in spite of being told again and again by his friends, James Pope-Hennessy and others, what a fine fellow he is, I’ve never liked the man.

  Once more he shows himself to be an honest, good character, sensitive to others, candid about himself. He is never vulgar, and always has an eye for the comic. Often he is able in the written word to move me; in fact I finished this book in a blur of tears.

  But when scrutinizing the photographs I again see that I am as put off by his physical appearance there, as I am in life. How unfair this is. But the Kewpie-doll mouth, the paradoxical moustache, the corpulence of hands and stomach all give me a frisson and there is no getting over the fact that I could never get to know him well enough to become a close friend. Sad, because he could have been a help and guide and an influence for the better.

  Reddish: June 1967

  Monday morning my breakfast is brought in — tea, charcoal biscuits, yogurt and the papers. I am looking out of the window at the green scene when I hear that war has started in the Middle East. Israel and Egypt are each saying the other was the first to be the aggressor.

  The awful sinking dread surged through from the nape of the neck to the solar plexus. At once one thinks, not of the suffering, the pain, the killings in the far land, but selfishly of home and oneself. If the war spreads we are liable to become involved, even if only remotely, by, say, the rationing of fuel. It seems such a little time ago that we were doing all we could to scrounge an extra can of petrol. But the continual dread ... the encroaching anxiety.

  Miraculously the Israelis have overthrown the Egyptians. Against all odds, with brilliant tactics and fierce fighting, they have brought about in three days a complete reversal of the Middle-East picture.

  No one can be more delighted than our neighbour up the valley — Anthony Eden.

  There was quite an extraordinary atmosphere of joy and celebration in the pretty Georgian house at Alvediston that Clarissa and Anthony have recently bought. Despite his plastic duct and continuous fever, Anthony had reached the age of seventy. It was his birthday and the events of the last week were a wonderful present. They have meant that, in principle, Anthony’s much criticized policy on Suez, and his distrust of Nasser, were correct. Clarissa, generally so cold and reserved, admitted this evening that she was ‘stewed’. She was enchanting in her gaiety and, in an aside of happiness, said: ‘I never thought Anthony would live long enough to see himself proved right.’

  Anthony, sunburnt and wearing a marrow-coloured velvet dinner-suit, seemed the picture of health and radiance. He was surrounded by his loyal confrères, and a few members of his family. Bobbity Salisbury made a speech that was eulogistic but neither embarrassing nor sentimental. Oliver Lyttleton, whose desire to amuse has increased with the years to the extent that he is a real bore, made one funny joke. The evening was a great success. A surprising group: the Lambtons motored from London; Lord Scarborough came from Yorkshire; Nicholas and other young Edens; Lord Brooke; Ronnie Tree; Anthony and Dot Head; and the Hoffs[7] (whom I brought).

  Nicholas handed round tulip-shaped glasses of Elizabethan Kümmel! This was real dynamite! It tasted like aquavit, and took the breath away as it went down the throat. Bottles of champagne popped, and the gathering was very English, understated and poignant.

  MY LAST ASCOT

  Old age creeps upon me in many indefinable ways. In spite of exercises and massage from Charlotte Gaffran, and being stretched and manipulat
ed by Svenson, my back aches and I am apt to walk upstairs more slowly. I realize I am not as young as I was. Fewer things seem to give me pleasure. Lately I have felt a restlessness that is most unwelcome. I have noticed on the faces of older people the terrible look of empty boredom. Is this coming my way? The only thing to dispel it is work and, thank heavens, I have my painting (and sometimes my writing) to keep the heavier hours at bay.

  As a snobbish boy I was always disappointed when my mother’s request for tickets to the Royal Enclosure at Ascot were turned down. But the slap in the face came back again and again from Lord Churchill on behalf of the King. However, nowadays anyone who can pay the few guineas necessary is welcomed, and with the opening of the flood-gates that allowed in Jack Hylton, Binkie Beaumont and any little starlet, I was given the OK. But it was too late. By the time I got there the grand ladies in their fantastic dresses and the exclusiveness had all gone.

  The Ascot weeks that I spent, in the pleasant company of Mrs Nancy Lancaster, were really rather an effort. I know nothing whatever about racing, and I was soon bored and tired.

  The rules have now changed. You need not buy a Royal Enclosure ticket for a whole week. So, for one day, I thought it might be fun. I went under the best auspices, with Jakie and Chiquita Astor, whom I love. He, as a member of the Jockey Club, can make things easy. We had a delightful lunch at their flat. The car journey was enjoyable until the queue started, half an hour away from the course. Then all sorts of forgotten snobberies rose to the surface; unimportant things assumed importance; our eventual arrival on the course was perfectly timed so that we saw the royal procession coming towards us. Some people with a banner were running in front of the oncoming horses. ‘Stop the murder in Vietnam.’ The police, like bioscope cops, were slow off the mark.

  The colour of Royal Ascot has changed — Edwardian Ascot must have been entirely pastel coloured. But this was a transformation that I enjoyed. Everywhere there were large touches of brilliant magenta, orange and viridian. The Maharaja of Jaipur in a marvellous turban of ochre and scarlet. Yet the retina-irritant mutation of the plastic and the nylon looked crummy in the outdoors; the crocheted shift, the mini skirts and little-girl fashions were hardly right. But then I was not right.

  Loelia Westminster gave me a look of surprise. ‘What are you doing here?’ She may well ask. I suddenly realized I wasn’t enjoying myself and that I was only pretending. It was tedious to go into that Holy of Holies, the Jockey Club restaurant for a short drink of iced coffee and to hear Lady Sefton abuse her husband. The only diversion was losing each way on Mrs Englehard’s horse. The sight of the French Ambassadress wearing an art nouveau picture-hat adorned with water lilies was the only fashion note that gave me a slight tremor.

  But I was not diverted in any way and all I could think of was getting away and leaving before the last race in order to miss the worst of the traffic. My only crumb of pleasure was the company of my friends.

  I returned home crushed with fatigue, and, worse, fear that my powers of appreciation of this form of entertainment had entirely gone. For me at my time of life to go off to such a function was perhaps asking for trouble. At sixty-three I must seek other excitements.

  Corfu, on the Wrightsman yacht: July

  The Greek royal family came on board for lunch. (Evelyn Waugh once wrote that the presence of royalty was like heavy thunder in the air.)

  The King, very boyish, with puppy fat, came from Athens. He was grateful to be asked to take off his coat. His Queen, pretty complexioned, but as yet too young to show any character, was dressed in a most uneventful way. I have Queen Frederica on my left and her giggling daughter Sophie on my right. Sophie is easy to talk to, with bulging low cheeks, silken hair, drooping eyelids, button-mushroom nostrils, baby teeth, and pretty eyes. Her unmarried sister Irene is the more serious of the two and is a good pianist. Queen Frederica is deaf but I have her better ear. She talks of her vegetarianism. It started because she had seen so much suffering, and did not wish to inflict more on animals, fish, or anything that loved its mother. Much laughter. What about whitebait? She was surprised at our reaction, but has the sense to laugh at herself. ‘I did not like my mother,’ she added. She said that taking drugs was like having a glimpse of heaven, but paying with shoddy money. It should only be done in isolation. She said she had been called Fascist yet had worked on our side against the Germans during the war. The British papers had been monstrous, but she thought the people were sympathetic.

  The Queen related being ‘set upon’ while walking with Princess Sophie outside Claridges and how shaken they had both been. As she walked on in a dignified way, her daughter had told her what was happening. ‘Two are on the ground and now they are closing in on us.’ They walked faster and only when in the mews at the back of the Italian Embassy did they run and ring a doorbell. This was how Marti Stevens, the actress whose doorbell it was, learned the story of the life of the Queen of Greece. The police and embassy attaches had eventually come to their rescue.

  Then Queen Frederica heard the King talking about the revolution in Greece. He had been in his private cinema watching a Rock Hudson film. He had hated it so much that he decided to stay and see another film. By remaining so long he probably saved himself from being hijacked on the road to his country home. In the middle of the night his secretary telephoned to say there was a revolution. ‘Who are they?’ ‘Don’t know.’ He telephoned to his mother and spoke in whispers. Guns put to his door. ‘We are here to protect you.’ Army officers, some of whom he did not know, were the instigators.

  Fortunately there was no bloodshed. Matters had been cleverly organized and soon the whole excitement had died down. Then they began to realize that changes had to be made; that the regime could have turned Communist and the whole family put behind the Iron Curtain.

  SELF-ANALYSIS

  I have not allowed my mind to be trained, or my interests to broaden. I am in many ways the same person I was forty years ago. But with a slowing down. I can’t take in as much as I could. I learn nothing new. I get tired more easily, and bored. Even my ambitions are less than they were. I don’t seem to have any plan to do anything that I have not tried before. If I survive, I may publish more diaries, but the fount of inspiration for an original book seems to have dried up, and the chances of writing for the theatre are becoming rarer. I may possibly do a bit more painting. However much I am interested in today’s phenomenon there are positive signs that I have become part of an older generation with its tired attitude and approach.

  I don’t really feel that I am ever going to come into my own, to justify myself and my existence by some last great gesture. I am likewise certain that nothing I have done is likely to live long after me.

  I have got to the point where I know I should relax, calm down, read more, and prepare for retirement. But I realize how little accustomed I am to living without surface excitements. The whole problem of the future is one of anxiety.

  The other day when discussing with Eileen the problem of whether or not to spend £2,000 on an addition to the house in the country I said: ‘I’d like to have the benefit of the change as soon as possible because God knows how many years I will be spared. Any minute I may get an unpleasant shock and a tax man come along.’ Eileen said: ‘You’ve probably got another twenty years.’ How appalling! I don’t necessarily want to take my own life, but I don’t want to have to hang on patiently bearing the humiliations, the lonelinesses, the discomforts of decrepitude.

  Yet perhaps this is not for one to decide. My father was sad, bored and alone in his late sixties, and my mother was brave about all the physical disabilities she had to put up with until she was nearly ninety. I am glad that, unlike poor Rex Whistler, I was allowed to survive the last war, but I don’t really find myself enjoying life today as much as I did before.

  Randolph Churchill, looking old and grey, like a haggard hawk, has been on the brink of death for three years. The other night he told me that he was now happier than he had
ever been. He was at last doing something that justified his life — his book on his father, the best thing he had ever done, his contribution to the world; the fact that he was no longer restless was balm to him. I am sure he was being sincere, but it is hard to believe. His eyes look so abysmally sad.

  THE THEATRE

  The theatre is another form of enforced entertainment that I am finding hard to enjoy. Early on in life it was enough for me just to watch the curtain rise on an illuminated set, and to peer at the make-up on the performers’ faces. Now this is not so. The well-known situations, the clichés, and the presentation of such conventionality in the usual commercial play does not give me anything but excruciating uneasiness.

  I have become expert at quitting the theatre at the first interval. But after the trouble, time and expense of getting there by ‘curtain-up’, this is not a satisfactory way of spending the evening.

  On one occasion, however, I was utterly contented. This was at Hampstead when Roy Dotrice gave an extraordinary portrayal of old age in a one-part play about John Aubrey of Broadchalke. This piece, derived from Aubrey’s diaries, showed the old professor working, going through domestic chores and thinking aloud about life on the last day of his life. Dotrice’s understanding, his love and sympathy for old age, was one of the best pieces of histrionic art I have ever seen. It was an exquisite pleasure.

  The strange play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead also gave me a lift. It embodied in a different, oblique way, the essence of the theatre. The romanticism, even the mysticism, of the players and the innate poetry made it a rare experience.

  CHRISSIE GIBBS

  September 1967

  Chrissie Gibbs is a delightful, intelligent and extremely well-informed young man.

  When he asked me to have dinner I thought it would be a quiet one with him. I returned to Pelham extremely late, in a state of near collapse, having been out all day. I rang to ask if it would matter my being a little late. ‘Not at all — take it easy.’