by Polly Samson
‘This one is special,’ the matron said, placing the baby girl, all dressed up pretty in lace, in her sister-in-law’s arms. I imagine there was little opportunity for Charmian to change her mind. With her firstborn spirited away, losing things came to define her. It wasn’t such a leap that she allowed George to steal the oxygen in the writing room, or that she let her own life spin so out of control that she lost her grip. No woman can endure the pain of losing a child.
I look across my valley to the sea and it strikes me that I’ve ended up living the life she dreamt of for herself.
It was at Charmian’s table that Dinos and I first met; I can’t help but see a twinkle in her eye: Bim having to shift along so that I would be next to him, the way she made sure Dinos knew I’d made the dolmades. Thank you! Thank you! I shout it out like the proper crazy old island woman I’ve become. And thank you for writing the book that led me here, despite the howls of despair that I now see in its pages. For all the times I’ve sat here crying for my losses, I have never felt anything close to the bite of the loneliness that she suffered so unendurably. I can no more imagine relinquishing a child than I can my own grip on this speck of whirling astral dust. No wonder she couldn’t find comfort in the stars and let go.
I keep her with me, like a wise imaginary friend, her voice my oracle. I let time slip. It’s good to dream.
They’re so vivid, the players of that first summer; here in every phase of the moon as though an eighteen-year-old me is forever appearing beneath a gauzy overlay of the present. I change. I am the same.
Not long after Marianne died, Bobby sent me a magazine from the States, along with a fancy invitation to his and Trudy’s golden-wedding bash in Boston. I turned to the article. The headline was predictable, SO LONG, MARIANNE, and the pictures of Hydra 1960. I tried to remember the face of the photographer who kept popping over from Athens. Jim was his name, an old newspaper buddy of George’s; they’d been through some scrapes together, in fact George had once saved his life in Tibet, we’d heard the stories many times …
Trudy had marked an arrow to what was unmistakably the back of my head, my ponytail glossy as I lean into a circle where Leonard plays guitar. Charmian’s beside him, so close she looks like she’s his woman, a halo of light caught in her hair. Behind them the moon is full as a silver balloon caught in the branches of the old pine tree at Douskos Taverna. Leonard handles the guitar like it’s part of his body, sits cross-legged on the wall with his back to the white-painted trunk. Charmian’s hair is freshly washed and she’s wearing a Norwegian jumper of claret wool patterned with white that Marianne has donated to help with the chill of England.
We’ve all made a pact to put our thoughts about tomorrow’s departure on hold, to squeeze every last drop of pleasure from the evening. There have been speeches, many toasts; it has the air of a wedding. Tomorrow George and Charmian leave the island for a while but tonight we are full of spaghetti and Stavros Douskos keeps the jugs of retsina coming.
Leonard’s playing ‘Red River Valley’; we all join in like we always do but it’s Charmian’s bright eyes and sweet smile we’ll be missing after tomorrow. Axel sits at Leonard’s feet hugging his knees, looking up at him like a disciple. He requests ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ but bungles the words and is rescued by Charlie Heck’s fine baritone and the rest of us join in with the choruses. Marianne catches Axel’s eye and shakes her head and he leans across and says something in Norwegian that makes her smile and pretend to slap his face.
Everyone’s beaming. Leonard retunes the guitar. He’s become a little more studied and serious, adjusts his position. We recognise the opening strum of one of his songs. Only George and Didy keep talking, which strikes me as rude given that it was George who suggested he play some of his own stuff.
Leonard’s been making up verses to this one all summer and Charmian looks blissful with her head on his shoulder while he sings.
He launches into a new verse; there’s kissing and marriage and all the women who have known him at dawn, and Charmian turns to gaze up at him.
‘You know, I was never in love with you, Leonard,’ she says and he doesn’t break rhythm to reply, ‘No, me neither,’ and they both laugh.
Acknowledgements
Thank you Lola Bubbosh for sharing a hunch and so much more. This book would not have been written without your enthusiasm and support.
I am eternally grateful to Charmian Clift for opening my eyes to Hydra with the memoir Peel Me A Lotus and to her Estate and Jane Novak for allowing me to quote from its pages. Thank you Nadia Wheatley for confronting the myths and slanders with such an excellent biography and for bringing the essays into collected editions and to my attention. As I write, Charmian Clift’s books are out of print and I thank in advance any publisher with the taste and resources to reissue them.
Serendipity has been my friend throughout the writing of this book and it has been a privilege and a joy to spend time with Jason Johnston. Thank you to him especially for the tortoises and for the word ‘crapulous’ but most of all for being so gracious about this book.
It has been invaluable to have access to the complete set of James Burke’s photographs of Hydra 1960 and I am grateful to Charles Merullo and Bob Ahern of Getty Images New York for facilitating the contact sheets.
Thank you to Leonard Cohen and the Leonard Cohen Estate for the words spoken in this book © Leonard Cohen, used by permission of The Wylie Agency LLC, and to Ira B Nadel, Jeff Berger, Helle Vaagland, Rob O’Connor, Ray Connolly, Bård Oses, Sandra Djwa, Malka Marom, Jed Adams and Donald Brittain for recording those words. Thank you Robert Kory.
Annabel Merullo has been a constant source of encouragement and inspiration, as has Rosie Boycott who I must also thank for sharing a Gregory Corso story that I have re-cast in these pages. Nicola Marchant has gone beyond the call of duty, special thanks to her and to Jaz Rowland. Thank you Kathy Lette for boundless enthusiasm as well as a smattering of extra bloodys and mates and crikeys and for introducing me to Thomas Keneally who generously shared his memories of Charmian Clift and George Johnston.
For stories of Hydra efcharistó to Michael Pelikanos, Manos Loudaros, Natasha Heidsieck, Katyuli Lloyd, Bill Pownall, Phainie Xydis, George Xydis, Gay Angelis, Vangelis Rafalias, Myrto Liatis, Dimitrios Papacharalampous, Linus Tunstrom, Alice Arkell, Fiona Cameron, Kip Asquith, Mariora Goschen, Sula Goschen and Victoria Lund. I gained insight to the later years from Sam Barclay’s letters to Marianne Ihlen together with essays by various contributors collected by Helle V Goldman in the book When We Were Almost Young. Of George Johnston’s novels I am particularly indebted to Closer to the Sun and Clean Straw for Nothing and also to his biographer Gary Kinnane.
Online I am grateful to Allan Showalter of the now defunct but brilliant Cohencentric and to Jarkko Arjatsalo of the excellent Leonard Cohen Files. The website Hydra Once Upon A Time, run by Yianni and Micky Papapetros, has been inspiring. Kari Hesthamar’s interviews with Marianne Ihlen and Leonard Cohen, which I first heard broadcast on the BBC, have been invaluable, as has Kari’s biography, So Long Marianne. I am grateful to ABC Radio for preserving the Verbatim interviews with Charmian Clift and George Johnston and to the National Library of Australia in Canberra where their papers are held. An essay by Tanya Dalziell and Paul Genoni led me to the archive of Redmond (‘Bim’) Wallis held at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand and I recommend their excellent book Half the Perfect World to anyone who wishes to read more about the community on Hydra. I am grateful to Susan A. Perine for her translation from Norwegian of Axel Jensen’s Joachim published in 1964 and held at the Columbia University Archives and to Princeton University Library for papers and photographs from the Gordon Merrick collection. Thank you Jana Krekic for translations from Swedish of works by Goran Tunstrom. I have drawn on the letters of Gregory Corso from the fascinating An Accidental Autobiography, edited by Bill Morgan and constantly checked in with Sylvie Simmons’ outstanding biography of Leonard Cohen, I�
�m Your Man.
Readers of early drafts have all made invaluable contributions. Thank you Cressida Connolly, Damian Barr, Charlie Gilmour, Esther Samson, Sarah Lee and John Sutherland. Romany Gilmour has played a good Marianne while I’ve been writing this book, thank you to her for all the well-timed tea and beans on toast and also to Janina Pedan, Olinka, Gabriel, Joe and Barbounia Gilmour.
I am grateful to Sofka Zinovieff for saving me from Greek language blunders. Clare Conville, Darren Biabowe Barnes, Kate Burton, Paul Loasby, Chris Salmon, Alexandra Pringle, Sarah-Jane Forder, Lauren Whybrow, Ros Ellis, Rachel Wilkie, Allegra Le Fanu. Gardenias and little sandwiches to all of your desks.
As ever, I wouldn’t find space for the words without David Gilmour, my partner in writing as well as in life.
‘Never Be Anyone Else But You’
Lyrics by Baker Knight
Copyright: World excluding Europe: Sony/ATV Music Publishing and Alfred Music Publishing Europe: EMI Unart Catalog Inc/EMI United Partnership Ltd. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission of Hal Leonard Europe Ltd.
‘Boy on A Dolphin’
Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster
Copyright: World excluding Europe: Alfred Music Publishing Europe: EMI Robbins Catalog Inc/EMI United Partnership Ltd. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission of Hal Leonard Europe Ltd.
The P. B. Shelley poem quoted on p.232 is ‘Fragment. Supposed to be an epithalamium of Francis Ravaillac and Charlotte Cordé.’
Leonard Cohen’s novel Beauty at Close Quarters eventually found publication as The Favourite Game. The goal, then as now, falling short of the reach.
A Note on the Author
Polly Samson is the author of two short story collections and two previous novels. Her work has been shortlisted for prizes, translated into several languages and has been dramatized on BBC Radio 4. She has written lyrics to four number one albums and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
pollysamson.com
@PollySamson
BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK
BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in Great Britain 2019
Copyright © Polly Samson, 2020
Polly Samson has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work
For legal purposes the Acknowledgements here constitute an extension of this copyright page
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: HB: 978-1-5266-0055-4; TPB: 978-1-5266-0056-1; eBook: 978-1-5266-0057-8
To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters
Table of Contents
Cover
Half-Title Page
Dedication Page
By the Same Author
Title Page
Contents
Epigraph
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Acknowledgements
A Note on the Author
Copyright Page