A Certain Style

by Jacqueline Kent

  The Tilted Cross, a convict novel set in Tasmania and based on the career of the convicted forger Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, was, thought Nan McDonald, a much more powerful and developed work than A Handful of Pennies, though the oddities of the dialogue made the manuscript rather heavy going. She was also unsure about some of the elaborate language and the melodramatic nature of the action, but considered that grotesquerie was part of Porter’s makeup as a writer and recommended publication.

  Beatrice conveyed the news to Porter. Perhaps she was less enthusiastic about The Tilted Cross than he thought she should have been, for in January 1961 he casually dropped the bombshell that he had offered it to Faber, who, he said, were extremely impressed. They were only sorry that they would be unable to publish it in spring, but had to wait until the early autumn. Wasn’t Beatrice pleased for him?

  Accustomed though she was to Porter’s unswerving self-interest, Beatrice must have been angry and disappointed at this betrayal. Porter knew that, even though the contract for the novel had not been signed, it was on A&R’s schedule for the coming year, along with his short-story collection A Bachelor’s Children, which he had dedicated to Beatrice. Showing considerable restraint, she wrote to Porter that it was ‘rather a shock’ to learn that he wanted to go with Faber. What about his moral obligation to A&R, not to mention his view that Australians should be published in their native country first?

  Her view was echoed in literary circles, where Porter’s ‘sellout’ caused a great deal of heated discussion.8 Thea Astley took the view that Porter had betrayed his Australianness; Frank Thompson thought Beatrice was being ‘too bloody kind to an author who had ratted on her, no matter how good he was’. Beatrice naturally did not show her real feelings in public, merely saying that if Porter was to make a living as a writer, he needed to go elsewhere.

  Porter’s reply to Beatrice’s letter was disingenuous. Under normal circumstances he would not have sent his novel to another publisher, he wrote. But he had not realised the danger Walter Burns posed to A&R, and he was afraid of being left out on a limb, with no publisher and two books. ‘I am shocked and mortally sorry about A&R’s present unhappy attitude,’ he added. ‘It didn’t dawn on me that they’d be anything but pleased by my success.’9 He said he was wholly committed to Faber, who would be much better for him in every possible way. He was sad, really, rather than angry and unduly critical of A&R, and he hoped Beatrice would understand.

  Beatrice might have retorted that Porter could have discussed his worries with her, and that it might also have helped to know how far his discussions with Faber had gone. However, her reply was generous: ‘Your uncertainties as to our future make your attitude and actions perfectly understandable,’ she wrote to him. ‘With our best wishes for the success of the novel and the growth of your name and fame.’10 When The Tilted Cross was glowingly reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement she wrote to congratulate him; when Beatrice was editing A Bachelor’s Children for publication the following year, she wrote to ask whether he would agree to have The Tilted Cross added to the list of books by the same author opposite the title page, even though it was not an Angus and Robertson title. But she did not let him off entirely. While she was pleased that A Bachelor’s Children would be dedicated to her, she added tartly, ‘I should of course be most flattered, but I have a nasty memory of your saying that you paid off debts and closed accounts by this curious means, so perhaps I would rather not be mentioned after all?’

  Porter was working as the librarian in Shepparton while he wrote his next book. This, he told Beatrice, was a childhood autobiography covering his life until his mother’s death when he was eighteen, and he already had a title for it: The Watcher on the Cast-Iron Balcony. It was developing slowly, he said, partly because he needed to sift his memories carefully, but largely because he was struggling with problems of technique in portraying himself, particularly as a precocious child. He kept Beatrice posted on his progress and she encouraged him, though she must have realised he was unlikely to offer the manuscript to Angus and Robertson.

  Indeed, it was Faber who published The Watcher on the Cast-Iron Balcony, in August 1963. Porter said it was ‘as true as I could get’, and its imaginative (though not necessarily factual) truth, even through the artificial, allusive writing, makes it one of the best things he ever wrote. The English reviews were generally admiring, but there was some alarm that because Porter had discussed his early homosexual feelings the book might be banned in Australia. It wasn’t, but Porter took advantage of the possibility, with fellow writers protesting on his behalf against possible censorship. He boasted to Beatrice that he had perversely written an anonymous letter to the Age in support of censorship, which was not published, convincing him that the Australian literary scene was riddled with communists and fellow travellers. Hal Porter’s political views seldom veered towards the centre, let alone left of it.

  Porter was now riding high. Watcher and A Bachelor’s Children had consolidated his literary reputation and both were selling steadily, and Hal Porter the urbane writer, the suave boulevardier, gave a number of radio and newspaper interviews. But as enjoyable as all this attention was, he didn’t let it slow down his working pace. Already he was preparing a second volume of memoirs, a play and another book of short stories. He wanted to call the stories Say to Me Ronald but agreed to Beatrice’s suggested title The Cats of Venice. The collection was published by Angus and Robertson in 1965 to good reviews.

  Porter offered The Paper Chase, his second volume of autobiography, to Faber in 1966. They turned it down on the grounds that it was more likely to sell in Australia than in Britain, and Porter unhesitatingly offered it to Angus and Robertson. Beatrice knew, of course, that A&R were second choice, but did not say so. She professed to admire it greatly and said A&R were ‘mad keen’ to publish it as soon as possible. This enthusiasm, verging on gush, concealed some of Beatrice’s disappointment about the manuscript itself. She told Porter that it wasn’t quite as good as Watcher, mainly because the focal points of home and family were missing and the narrative was more episodic.

  The Paper Chase was published by Angus and Robertson, in Australia and the UK, at the end of 1966. Only one review, in the New Statesman in January 1967, was less than wholly favourable. It was written by a young Australian who had lived in Britain for some years, and Alec Bolton (who had by then joined A&R’s London office) sent the clipping to John Abernethy with the query: ‘Should I know who Clive James is?’ James’s review went beyond the usual criticism that Porter’s writing was affected: ‘His prose … is so relentlessly too-much that a momentary descent to mere sufficiency would probably look like a lapse,’ he wrote, before making some pungent comments about what he saw as the parochialism of Australian writing. ‘[Porter’s] hyped-up writing is thought to be all right because it is Australian writing, the neanderthal opinions are thought to be all right because they are Australian opinions, the echoes from Proust … are thought to be all right because, even if Patrick White has established himself in Tolstoy’s boots, the cork-lined room for an Australian Proust is to be let furnished.’11 He did allow that The Paper Chase had virtues ‘which have little to do with Australian writing and everything to do with Mr Porter. He has ambition and the means to meet it, an uncanny memory for detail and the patience to set it down, and a sure sense that this is an adventure of the mind.’

  Porter did not take the adverse criticism very seriously, perhaps because it appeared in a leftish periodical. By now he was turning to John Abernethy for literary guidance and advice as much as to Beatrice; Porter liked having a man-to-man beer in the Newcastle, discussing literary projects. Abernethy had suggested one that Porter liked: a non-fiction study of modern Japan. He agreed to do it, and in 1967 set off for a year’s travel and research there.

  While he was in Japan Porter wrote to Beatrice assuring her and A&R that he was working hard, though he said the book was at present little more than a series of travel impressions. He was
honour-bound to submit his next manuscript to Faber, who had published the text of his play The Professor (1966) and had first option on his next book. This wasn’t a problem, he said – he would offer them a book of verse which they would be bound to reject. When Faber duly did, Porter told Beatrice he was clear of his obligation to them and free to offer A&R not only the book of poems, but also his book on Japan. Beatrice was pleased and offered an advance on the Japan book, which he accepted.

  Porter sent this manuscript, The Actors, to John Abernethy in December 1967, but most uncharacteristically added that he wasn’t sure of its worth and that Abernethy or ‘dear little Beatrice’ could cut it as much as they liked. Abernethy said he liked the work, which he thought had some of Porter’s best writing, though Porter disagreed. Beatrice was also doubtful, and after reading it again Abernethy changed his mind. The problem, he now thought, was the tone, what he called ‘the bitter, almost nagging note that keeps creeping in’, as well as a strong dash of anti-Japanese prejudice. Beatrice, who agreed that Porter laid himself open to charges of racism, asked him to go through the manuscript again. Porter agreed with unusual docility to do whatever A&R thought was necessary. ‘As you know,’ he wrote, ‘I’m not (in a book of this sort anyway) the sort of author who cherishes what he has written,’ he wrote, which must have been news to Beatrice. ‘Relax!’12

  But before A&R had finished preparing The Actors for publication, John Abernethy received a disturbing letter from Charles Monteith of Faber and Faber. In 1965, he said, Faber had suggested that Porter write a book on Japan for them, and for three years Porter had been working on it with his Faber editor Frank Pike. Faber had even written a letter of support for the book to help Porter in his application for a Churchill Fellowship. (It was unsuccessful.) The company had made a formal offer for the book in January 1967 and clearly understood that it was theirs. Then Porter’s London agent Robin Dalton told them she had heard that A&R had ‘commissioned’ the Japan book and were going to publish it. Monteith wrote that, though Faber had no legal claim against Porter, they naturally felt very annoyed about the episode.13

  Beatrice and John Abernethy agreed that, though Porter’s behaviour was, as Beatrice said, ‘ghastly’, Angus and Robertson should certainly keep The Actors. So Abernethy wrote a letter of rueful courtesy to Charles Monteith, who replied graciously: no hard feelings on either side. ‘Hal is an unsatisfactory customer, isn’t he?’ added Monteith, British publisher-speak underlining the fact that, if Hal Porter had ever doubted it, his career as a Faber author was now at an end.14

  The Actors did not sell. Haruko Marika, who reviewed it in Nation in November 1968, described it as ‘stifling in its lack of common humanity’. Porter did much better with his book of Japanese stories, Mr Butterfry and Other Tales of New Japan, which A&R published in 1970. Beatrice told the author that she did admire the stories and found them horrifying and fascinating, and they appeared with very little editorial change.

  A Bulletin interview in April 1969 leaned heavily on Porter’s dear-boy, gin-and-tonic style, fully displayed for the occasion. Beatrice wondered why journalists always tried to make Porter even more like himself than he was. As he aged, Porter was increasingly trapped in his own persona. Ken Wilder, who came out from London to run the Australian office of William Collins (and who was Collins’s representative on the A&R board after the events of 1962), considered him ‘a sort of colonial Bertie Wooster’.15

  Beatrice was always after Porter to write another novel, and was gratified when the manuscript of The Right Thing turned up at the end of 1968. She even had A&R type it so it could be entered in the 1969 Adelaide Advertiser competition for an unpublished novel. Unfortunately, nobody at A&R liked it much: Douglas Stewart described it, in an undated reader’s report, as ‘naïve, amateurish, melodramatic and indeed ludicrous’. A&R turned it down, a slightly embarrassing decision because it then won a prize.

  With A&R’s blessing Porter approached Rigby, who accepted the novel – which then promptly won another prize, this time in the 1970 Captain Cook Bicentenary literary competition. There were raised eyebrows at A&R, and Beatrice valiantly wrote a letter of congratulation. ‘I suppose you’re committed now to Rigby for The Right Thing,’ she said, ‘which we did not turn down but wanted you to revise. (I knew you wouldn’t.)’16

  It was probably because she knew Porter so well that Beatrice always forgave his treacheries: there was no point in suddenly being upset over behaviour she had accepted for almost twenty years. Beatrice was aware she was one of three women whom Porter called his ‘old girlfriends’ – the others were his divorced wife and a friend, Margaret Ward.17 He used to say that they would all sit in bathchairs with golden wheels, looking at the sunset in the old folks’ home. This prospect was still a safe distance away, and in the meantime Beatrice could still write to Porter: ‘I wish you could come to Sydney. You could stay with me if you promised not to keep me up grogging on all night and not to bring lonely taxi-drivers in for a drink at 3 am.’18

  During all the A&R upheavals of the late 1950s and early 1960s Beatrice continued with the other, unpaid, part of her job: supporting Australian literature. At various times she was on the committees of Sydney’s three major literary societies: the English Association, the Fellowship of Australian Writers and PEN. All had regular evening meetings, all existed to celebrate literature, and because Sydney was a small place, they all had practically the same membership.19 For a long time the English Association and the Fellowship of Australian Writers met at the Feminist Club room at 77 King Street in the city.

  PEN was more political than the others, the local branch of an international organisation that had been genuinely influential during the Cold War. It was a vigorous group, with committed members who had some literary prescience, nominating Patrick White for the Nobel Prize some years before his award in 1973. During the 1960s they held some outstanding functions, including a dinner for English novelist Angus Wilson, a reception at the University of Sydney for Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko and, in conjunction with the English Association and undoubtedly of great significance to Beatrice, a reception in July 1969 for Christina Stead on her first visit to Australia for forty years.

  This last occasion cannot have been entirely comfortable for Beatrice, nor was it for Stead herself. Stead’s shyness about meeting strangers had hardened into a defensiveness that at the age of sixty-seven could make her intimidating. Beatrice was well aware that though she might express her sincere admiration for Stead’s work, A&R had shown itself to be generally indifferent to it, which Stead of course knew too. Indeed, fifteen years after A&R had turned Stead down, only three of her novels were in print in Australian editions: A&R hardbacks of For Love Alone and Seven Poor Men of Sydney and a Sun Books paperback of The Salzburg Tales.20 Beatrice and Christina Stead met at the PEN meeting and probably encountered each other at the FAW a little later, but not surprisingly their acquaintance failed to ripen.

  Though Beatrice’s position at A&R was gradually changing, in the wider literary community she was just as influential as ever, largely because of her work as a judge of the Miles Franklin Award. Early in 1957 Beatrice, with the other judges named in Miles’s will – Colin Roderick, the Mitchell Librarian Jean F. Arnot, poet Ian Mudie, and Miles’s accountant George Williams – met to decide upon the first winner. There were nineteen entries, including the text of Ray Lawler’s play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, and Beatrice had probably read most of them already. She had even edited several, including Henrietta Drake-Brockman’s The Wicked and the Fair and the light novel Green Leaves by Helen Fowler. One she hadn’t read – They’re a Weird Mob – but she had the opportunity to do so now. (Given that, over the years, the Miles Franklin has become the prize for an Australian literary novel, it is interesting to see how many ‘popular’ novels were submitted in its first few years.)

  On 2 April 1958, more than a year after the winner was chosen, Beatrice, the other judges and distinguished guests assembled
in the Rural Bank in Martin Place, a building whose banking chamber featured a bas-relief of art deco sheep, horses and horny-handed sons of toil that Miles Franklin would certainly have approved of. Beatrice listened while the chairman of the panel, Colin Roderick, announced that the unanimous choice for the first Miles Franklin Award was Voss by Patrick White. Prime Minister Robert Menzies, no less, presented a cheque for £500 to the author, describing his fifth novel as a ‘quite remarkable work’ that, like much other Australian writing, was growing away from excessive attention to earthy humour and beginning to explore the psychological aspects of character. Either Menzies had actually read Voss or he or one of his staff had taken a good look at the judges’ report.

  Though Beatrice admired White’s work, she did not love it whole-heartedly, thinking some of his writing overelaborate. Generally she regarded him as she did Christina Stead: a gifted writer of whom she was slightly in awe because of personality as well as talent. Her relationship with White had never been wholly comfortable; perhaps she thought he blamed her for the unpleasant little contretemps with Hal Porter at Folly Point. She knew how cruel and witty White could be; she might not have known that he consistently referred to her as ‘Beatrice Davis, BA’, with a downward inflection that consigned her firmly to the ranks of the literal-minded, schoolteacherly and pretentious who, he considered, ruled Australia’s intellectual roost.21

  White won the Miles Franklin Award again in 1961 for Riders in the Chariot, and The Solid Mandala was chosen in 1966. However, learning that his publishers Eyre & Spottiswoode had entered The Solid Mandala without his knowledge or consent, he withdrew it just before the announcement was made in April, suggesting the award should be divided between Elizabeth Harrower for The Watch Tower and Peter Mathers for Trap.22 The judges decided on the latter.