Letters to a Friend

by Diana Athill

  So you keep your fingers crossed for the continuance of my second wind, while I keep mine crossed for your agent’s success with the Memoirs –

  Love, Diana

  31 DECEMBER 1997, Norfolk

  Darling Edward,

  I seem to remember another time when I was alone in the country, thinking ‘what a nice peaceful time in which to write to Edward . . .’ Now it’s the last day of 1997, and Barbara will soon be getting back here, driven by Adam (she had to dart back to London for three days after Xmas, to get out mini-post-Xmas Economist) so that we could all go to our fourth party – Norfolk is in a seasonal whirl, far more festive than London. This party is given by a pair whose fabulously delicious food is always served up at least two hours late by which time everyone is too drunk to appreciate it properly. The last time we were there I came home at midnight, pleading my Advanced Age, and Barbara got back at 3.30 a.m. – but I hadn’t been able to benefit from going to bed early because Hannah was so anxious at Barbara’s lateness that every fifteen minutes she jumped off my bed to see if she’d come back yet, and then jumped on again, crying because she hadn’t. So this time I might as well stay to the party’s end.

  The best part of being here was going over to stay the night with my brother two days before Xmas, because all his four sons had come home and I came to the conclusion that it’s not family partiality but they really are four exceptionally interesting, entertaining good-hearted men. Charlie, the gay one, was visiting from Buenos Aires (where he’s teaching English at a posh school) and was wearing Argentinian trousers that might have been painted on him, a rib-clinging striped sweater and shaved head – straight off the most decadent tango floor, he looked, which was very refreshing, and he’s wonderfully interesting and funny about the Argentine. But the most extraordinary was Willie the pirate, who used to look exactly like Harpo Marx and live a most adventurous life on the shores of East Africa, salvaging sunk ships, and sailing dhows and shooting lions. Recently came the news that he was in Bombay, ‘learning to be a Merchant Banker’ – and a sort of Hush fell on his family, everyone being terribly careful never to mention the name of Nick Leeson – that young man who Brought Down the House of Baring Brothers. And now he comes swanning in from New York, where it seems he’s actually being a Merchant Banker, looking happy and confident and astoundingly un-like Harpo Marx, roaring with laughter at the total improbability of it all, and saying ‘It’s so lovely being within reach of the children again.’ [His marriage had broken up.] – ‘Within reach – in New York?’ – ‘Yes, I can phone them every day and I’ve got enough money now to fly home every weekend.’ The second son ought to be dull because he’s a Colonel – but he’s not in fact dull, having a Persian wife and sons called Darius and Cyrus, and being both kind and witty. And Phil, the eldest, is the one I see most of. When I see how well both my brother and sister have done in the way of children, I reckon I may have deprived posterity quite severely in having none myself! (I did try for one, once with Barry; but life being what it is, that was the one which spontaneously aborted itself.)

  Every time drinking has been going on over this holiday (which seems to have been most of the time) I’ve drunk a silent health to your agent in the hope of evoking superhuman powers in addition to the existing good-will. I keep hearing such gloomy views about publishing on this side of the Atlantic that I’ve come to feel that here, at least, anything which is actually good is doomed. Please god, you’ll prove me wrong. Much love Diana

  22 JANUARY 1998

  Darling Edward –

  Of course e-mail is wonderful – that’s the only bit of modern technology that I can recognize as desirable – but I’m miles from being able to afford a new typewriter, so . . . well, there you are. But my Chicago-dwelling friend Boman Desai, writer of monumental slabs of fiction only one of which has been published (by me – I loved it) has just written describing how a wealthy friend of his in Bombay has just given him £4000 with which to set himself up with the latest and best, hereupon printing out his latest opus, which took him three eight-hour days on his old computer, now took just three hours!!!! and it corrects typos; and all his other novels and all his correspondence now fit on a single diskette which is not even a quarter full . . . Yes, clearly any actively productive writer ought to be ready to sell his soul for such magic, but it would still be pointless for me, even if I could afford it. Which does, however, rather heavily underline the fact, which I’ve been accustomed to disregarding, that I now belong to Another World!

  On the 8th of March I’m flying to Dominica in the Windward Islands, to stay for two weeks in the cottage belonging to the mother of dishy Lennox Honychurch (who I met last year on my jaunt to Amsterdam). Barbara was coming too but has now been invited to Mexico to stay with a beloved old friend. She feels she must accept because although she detests Mexico she would feel dreadful if John died (as well he might) without her seeing him again. I found a very cheap charter flight which will be long and horrid, but I feel that when I’m established on my veranda ‘in a large botanical garden from which there are views of mountains and waterfalls’ it will prove to have been worth it. Everyone says Dominica is the most beautiful of the Caribbean islands, and the Honychurch mother and son are very congenial.

  With much love – Diana

  30 AUGUST 1998, Norfolk

  About Singing Words [words used primarily for the beauty of their sound, which Edward dislikes]. I don’t see the singingness of words entirely as an evil, although it can certainly lead writers astray. It is a part of their power, and recognition of that part is very ancient – almost as ancient as speech itself – witness magic spells and chanting. Song is surely older than poetry. Sound-patterns catch attention and engage the memory. I’m not good at remembering poems word-for-word and it’s not accidental that one of the few passages of poetry that I never forget is absolutely without importance meaningwise but sounds luscious – a piece of one of Milton’s masques:

  Sabrina fair,

  Listen where thou art sitting

  Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave

  In twisted braids of lilies knitting

  The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair.

  Goddess of the silver lake

  Listen for dear honour’s sake.

  Listen, and save.

  Never, now, would I want to read a poem written like that, but I don’t think it’s a sin to let touches of verbal beauty creep in when it can happen without distorting the naturalness. ‘Behooves’ is, as you say, a mistake; but playing with vowel sounds as Milton did in that song, can add something to a statement. You, of course, do it with rhythm rather than with sounds because of wanting to keep your sounds inconspicuous. And it works. So all the above is just a general thought, not a comment on your work.

  This weekend our neighbours in the village’s big house – dear scatty people, great friends of ours, lent their house for a Reading by a very well-known and popular Lady Novelist who lives nearby, as a fund-raising exercise. The funds to be raised are for a theatre in Bungay, our small market town. In about the 1750s it had a theatre, built for the use of travelling companies, which almost fell down, was then propped up to become Bungay’s first cinema, then almost fell down again when a purpose-built cinema was put up, then became a warehouse . . . and now some earnest and energetic citizens want to return it to its original purpose plus Art Centre. So, handsome Elizabeth Jane Howard, who was Kingsley Amis’s second wife, read cleverly chosen bits of her novels very well to one hundred very enthusiastic people; and after it Gill and Michael Stanley, the house owners, who would do anything for a party and have never been known to leave one until everyone but them is under the table, gave a huge and delicious supper entirely cooked by her – and with the wine which ran almost ankle deep it must have cost a pretty penny – to about thirty of us. It’s funny how much more Social Life there is in the country than in London – although country friends always suppose that we Londoners live in a constant whirl. But
perhaps my life here would be just as quiet as it is in London if it were not for Barbara. She’s a great joiner-inner when she gets down here.

  Love, and great delight at having Frieze at my bedside. [A Frieze for the Temple of Love was Edward’s latest book of poems.]

  Diana

  23 SEPTEMBER 1998

  Darling Edward –

  Such an advantage today to be deaf! Builders are at work in the middle flat, adapting it for Adam and his Georgia, and although the major horrors are over (the insertion of vast iron girders under my floor-boards from which to suspend the ceiling of Barbara’s living room to prevent it from falling down) they are still using drills from time to time. If I could hear fully I’d be up the wall, but as it is I know the hideousness of the din only by the extremity of poor Hannah’s panic. Everything in my flat, even if shut away in cupboards, is powdered with plaster dust – yuk! I shall be glad to leave in four days time for the week in Venice which Barbara is giving Polly/Vanessa [Barbara’s daughter Polly decided to change her name to Vanessa] for her 30th birthday present.

  My dear Dominican friends have invited me for two weeks next March – insisting, this time, on no rent – and suggested I bring with me as my co-guest Carole Angier, who wrote a formidably good biography of Jean Rhys for André Deutsch Ltd, in the course of which we became very good friends, and who is now deep in a biog of Primo Levi of which I’ve seen the first four chapters, and they are wonderful. I think she’ll overcome the competition – one book already, very bad, and another coming, not likely to be very good. We couldn’t afford to finance a Dominican visit for her before the Rhys, which was sad – but she still feels enough involved to long to see it. It will be fun to go with her. Poor Primo – do you know his monstrous mother never ever embraced him, not even on his arrival back from Auschwitz. No wonder his wife, who is apparently just like la madre, is so resolute in refusing to let writers anywhere near her or hers.

  Barry has become even more riveted by Clinton than he is by football – spends all day listening to American talking heads on Sky TV, and shot out to buy the miraculously instant paperback of the full report. I’ve become bored – there’s so much repetition of what everyone knew already. The thing which shocked me most was the spectacle of Clinton’s cabinet after he’d told them he’d lied to them: my god, what a sleazy-looking bunch of ninnies! Did you read the novel Primary Colors? I don’t see how anyone who did read it could be surprised by all this. But it is still interesting to speculate on which way the country will jump about impeachment. I fear that the soap opera element of sheer entertainment that seems to operate on this side of the Atlantic must be a good deal harder to find on your side. And none of it will do any good, will it? I mean, they’ll still go on picking candidates for the presidency simply because they have an effective television manner, not for any real qualities of mind or character. – The older I get, the more I think the box is essentially a bad thing. But that, no doubt, is just Being Eighty.

  Much love, my dears

  Diana

  8 MARCH 1999, Dominica

  I believe I may have sent you this very same card last year – it was certainly pressed on me by my dear hostess, because it was painted by a old friend of hers who obviously landed her with a huge bundle of them. She was brave even to think of painting Dominica, because it’s so wonderful to look at that it despises ‘interpretation’ by humans. I’m here with Carole Angier (you met her once in London) who wrote ‘the’ biography of Jean Rhys but wasn’t able to visit Jean’s island while researching it because our advance was too mingy. She has just said that this is the most exciting holiday she has ever had, which is gratifying. We are staying with my darling friends, in the little house they have built for guests in their garden, and they are marvellous hosts – lending a car (Carole is a good and bold driver), escorting us on the more alarming drives (which are, of course, also the more stunning ones), feeding us, cosseting us, leaving us alone when we want to be left alone – perfection!

  I think I must carry a gene inherited from my remote West Indian ancestress, because the oddest thing about Dominica, as far as I’m concerned, is how profoundly at home I feel the minute I set foot on it. Not only when doing the lovely things, but even when leaning on the counter in the police station waiting for a driving licence to be validated: I felt that I’d heard that fan creaking round a thousand times – and picking my way along the broken sidewalks of Roseau, watching out for the gutters . . . just the same feeling. I had warned myself that a second visit might easily be less enjoyable than the first one was – but in fact it simply feels like a continuation and it’s unimaginable that I won’t come back (though I suppose only too likely, in real life). I think I must feel about it rather like you feel about Morocco – though age has eliminated sex as an element in the excitement it inspires.

  Carole has just gone off for an adventurous guided trek in the rain forest – not the big trek, which is four hours up to the ‘Boiling Lake’ which is the centre of a volcano, continually abubble – she’s training for that. It’s very sad not to be able to walk, except that I think you have to watch so carefully where you tread that you can hardly take in the parrots and orchids!

  There hasn’t been an eruption here within historic memory, but there are ten volcanos, and the whole island is composed of their ash, and there hadn’t been an eruption within historic memory on Montserrat, either . . . and there have been a lot of earth tremors here recently, some since our arrival though not in our part of the island. They seem to think that it’s bound to blow sooner or later, but to be determined to believe that it will be much much much later so why worry . . . The truth is that no one can bear to think of it for more than two minutes at a time – certainly I can’t – so Basta! (Although I believe they are making evacuation plans for the villages in the places in greatest danger, just in case.)

  As usual I’m itching all over, though not from mosquito-bites this time, against which I came armed with magic lotions. This time it’s vile invisible ticks which leap on one out of the long grass. Never mind, its worth it.

  Love and love. Diana

  30 MARCH 1999

  Darling Edward,

  I was slightly disconcerted on the flight home because when I boarded the plane, feeling very sprightly after my wholly delicious holiday, a stewardess positively snatched my very light piece of hand-luggage from me saying ‘Don’t worry, dear, I’ll put it in the rack for you – Now, when we get to Gatwick would you like to have a little buggy?’ Thinking she meant a luggage trolley on which to put my hand luggage, I said ‘Why not?’, although feeling it to be hardly necessary. But in fact when we arrived I was forcibly restrained from leaving the plane until everyone else had gone except for half a dozen evident cripples, and we were then, one by one, conveyed by wheeled chair down a short passage – not more than about 20 yards – and were then loaded onto a convoy of electric buggies on which we were buzzed through the whole process of arrival – passport control and all – without having to lift a finger . . . the only snag being that all the other passengers had all but got home by the time we left the airport. It was certainly extremely comfortable, but I did rather wish that they hadn’t decided on sight that I qualified for it!

  The Magic Words jacket is lovely – are all the illustrations as good? The cataract surgery is not yet – I’m getting very slowly blinder, but it’s not yet bad enough to make it worth it, or so the doctors say. It’s OK so long as I don’t have to drive an unfamiliar route and read sign-posts – because that I simply can’t do.

  Much love from us both

  Diana

  22 APRIL 1999

  Dearest Edward,

  Yes – I’m going to use most of what I’ve written of the general André Deutsch material as Part I, then Part II will be Brian Moore, V.S. Naipaul, Alfred, Jean Rhys, Molly Keane. What a pity that I did books about Waguih Ghali and Hakim Jamal! Unfortunately my two biggest ‘names’, Norman Mailer and John Updike, remain too remote. Mai
ler can come in – does come in – to Part I to some extent, as an important step in the firm’s development, but about John – although I saw quite a lot of him and always liked him very much (more as a man than as a writer) – I simply don’t have enough to say. And the three closest friends I made as an editor (who all became part of my life after they’d ceased being Deutsch authors) Calvin Hernton and Peter Smalley and Roger King, are a) not well enough known to be interesting to the public, and b) too dear for me to want to be beady-eyed about them.

  My court case [I’d forgotten to license my car for a whole year] – I’d forgotten all about it! It was quite interesting because this very big Magistrates’ Court in quite a tough part of London turned out to be so civilized – a pleasant modern building and tremendously ‘User Friendly’ – very polite and helpful people, mostly black, staffing the place and showing one where to go and what to do, and extremely clear, well-thought-out informational notices posted at every stage, carefully balanced in style between an assumption that you would know absolutely nothing about the processes of the law, and an equally firm assumption that you are not a fool. When you actually got into your court (there were six of them) the clerks and ushers and so on were still black and mostly women, brisk but motherly, and it all went very quickly but kindly. I had been pretty sure that they would not fine me the maximum – £1000 – but I hadn’t expected them to be so lenient as to make it £20, which they did. Though it wasn’t quite as good as that sounds, because £50 was added. One was given a week in which to pay, but could do so over a counter at once, if one wanted to, and that was that. No doubt there were people in the waiting areas who were going to have a bad time (some were meeting their lawyers – there were little rooms where they could have their consultations in private) – but I didn’t see anyone looking any more stressed than they would have done shopping in Sainsbury’s.