After Andy

by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni

  Meanwhile, nothing beat waiting for the election results and then hearing that my father had won. From waiting up late—a treat—to celebrating the final outcome, it was always exciting. Personal computers didn’t exist then. It was a case of bringing in the ballot boxes and counting. Photographs show my father joining hands with his election team led by Lilian Wood, his ever-enthusiastic agent, and pushing them up in the air. An unforgettable sight, since his long, noble face looked flushed with success. And in spite of everything that later happened to him, that vision never waned. My father had presented himself, sold himself, and won. Politics is, after all, fairly straightforward. A popularity contest, it equals the business of selling as much as rock and roll, theater, and the art world. A curious aside, but nearly all the English Muffins who worked in Andy Warhol’s Factory had parents in politics. Well accustomed to the public eye, they were unfazed when handling their own adventures in Warhol Land.

  My maternal grandfather, Frank Longford, a former cabinet minister and peer of the realm, never stopped making his own political noise in the United Kingdom. Having been involved in penal reform, he was nicknamed “Lord Porn” by the press in the 1970s because of his campaign against pornography. Grandpa became involved with a notorious murderess, Myra Hindley, and campaigned to have her sentence repealed. Public opinion was aghast, but I was too young to realize. In 1972, the Queen made him a Knight of the Garter—a huge honor, almost marred when his trousers nearly fell down at an annual royal procession. An eccentric intellectual, he had no interest in clothes.

  I can still remember my father’s television appearances. That feeling of excitement of watching him debate on the box and that feeling of loyalty that led to loathing his opponent. Nevertheless, my favorite moments were in the early morning, before school, when I would join him in his cell-like bedroom, where the bedspread was messily covered with the Financial Times and other daily newspapers. Dressed in his cotton pajamas and red wool dressing gown with houndstooth lapel, he would be smoking his fourth Benson & Hedges, listening to the radio. A favorite program was Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America. When concentrated on something, Poppa’s regard would be quite remote, his large almond-shaped eyes staring ahead and his long fingers holding a cigarette. I would listen but not quite understand. It didn’t matter. The stillness of his company calmed. Unless we were bothered by one of my three brothers, it became our unspoken private time together.

  My father could get “ratty,” his expression for losing his temper. But it tended to be a cloudburst that meant nothing. In general, he was good-natured and had a terrific sense of the absurd that saw him through most situations. Rudeness annoyed him, although he could be detached about the bad behavior of others. “Silly arse,” he’d say, but it was meant affectionately. In his company, I witnessed chivalry and an open-minded attitude. He had several causes outside his political party. The first concerned the famine and genocide of Biafra in Africa. He was horrified by Nigeria’s aggressive behavior and the attitude of Britain’s Labour government, which refused to help. Ultimately, Nigeria seized Biafra’s oil fields and also swallowed up the country, but my father and other liberal-minded souls fought hard to prevent it.

  The conflict began in 1967 and lasted almost three years. Toward the end, a Biafran woman and her young son came to our London house. I can still recall the lush, exotic African prints of her outfit and the smooth shape of her little boy’s head. In our garden, he stood proudly to attention while his shaking mother poured out her woes. Although I was only about six years old, I sensed the desperation of the situation yet felt sure that my father could save her. He inspired that confidence.

  In 1971, he became involved with Bangladesh when it sought independence and fought a bloody war against Pakistan. Then there was Israel, a cause that lasted until his death. Around Christmas, a wooden crate filled with vibrant-colored oranges and grapefruits arrived from Jaffa: a gesture acknowledging his support. Eventually, Poppa became the chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel. Prior to that, I attended a march in Trafalgar Square and watched him share the podium with Topol, the Israeli actor, famous for his role in Fiddler on the Roof.

  All these experiences happened nearly fifty years ago, yet I remember Poppa’s key message: “When you could, you helped.” Being the second son of a Scottish laird—the Fourteenth Baron Lovat and the Twenty-third chief of Clan Fraser—meant that he had inherited very little. Indeed, following the British custom of primogeniture meant that his first brother, Shimi Lovat, got the entire estate. In this case, it was the family castle, several houses, a vast river, magnificent forest, and romantic glen. As can be imagined, certain second sons become quite bitter and suffer from “second-son-itis.” Fortunately, it was never my father’s problem. He was too interested in politics, the world, and life, and it has to be stressed that my mother’s surprise success helped. Born in 1918, he was quite different from the other fathers I encountered, who were usually twenty years younger. My father had experienced Europe in the 1930s. From all accounts, until the outbreak of the Second World War, there had been this innocence and optimism in attitude. At Oxford University he became president of the Oxford Union, and he attended the Sorbonne in Paris. Being well connected, he had wandered around key European destinations. At the Le Touquet casino he had lost a fortune playing chemin de fer. On the French Riviera, he had danced with Marlene Dietrich. “She was furious,” he admitted, “but had no choice, since it was in the days that you could cut in by tapping a man on the shoulder.” In Berlin, where he stayed with Eric Phipps, Britain’s ambassador to Germany, he had witnessed Hitler entertain his friends at a large round table in a tearoom. “No one mentions this,” my father used to say, “but Hitler was brilliant at impersonations.” Like others who had been initially intrigued by the idea of Social Nationalism, he and his contemporaries had steadily watched the evil genie escape out of the bottle and explode into Nazism. With regard to the Second World War, he was mentioned in David Niven’s book The Moon’s a Balloon, but my father rarely spoke about it. Or rather there were set pieces such as waking up naked in the desert, having had all his clothes stolen off him by “a crafty Bedouin Arab” or getting rid of his hepatitis by driving a motorbike over bumpy roads and shaking his liver into health or parachuting secretly into Belgium and being served lamb chops in a religious chalice by the local priest. I never fathomed how much of a hero he was and how he had been awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre and other medals for his bravery in Belgium and Holland.

  Just as my father was fueled by a fierce need for justice, he possessed originality of thought. For instance, he was convinced that geniuses could come from all sorts of worlds. “The Beatles are geniuses of the music world, Lester Piggott [the jockey] is a genius of racing,” he used to say. Such an idea was quite alternative for the early 1970s, a period that strictly associated geniuses with Einstein and other learned greats. He was also convinced that children were individuals who evolved and/or peaked at different times, another alternative thought that was tailor-made for me. Unlike most of my siblings, I was incapable of shining academically. And to demonstrate the level of sensitivity of the British private school system in the 1970s, a letter was sent questioning why I was not as brilliant as my two elder sisters, Rebecca and Flora.

  Comparison has to be the killer of every childhood. I was fully aware that I was a disappointment to my teachers at Lady Eden’s girls’ school, who noticed that I couldn’t concentrate and was generally off the radar. To be honest, I flipped from caring—a few bouts of tears—to not, because I was caught up by my vivid imagination and interior life, which were so much more reliable and enchanting than school. In my self-created world, I was the heroine, the orphan, the princess . . .

  My childhood was spent at Campden Hill Square in Notting Hill Gate, then considered a bohemian neighborhood frequented by writers, painters, and other large families such as ourselves. The family home was a broad late-eighteenth-century h
ouse with three stories and a large basement. When my paternal grandmother—Laura, Lady Lovat—heard that my parents had bought the house in 1960, she was horrified, announcing that my mother had “ruined [her] son.” The general attitude among the upper classes then being that “no one lived north of the park”—a much-used expression even if Campden Hill Square was actually west of the park. But live we did. In fact, my elder brother and I were born in my mother’s bedroom. She had and continues to have an eighteenth-century angel fixed above the bed.

  When I was born, a photograph was taken of my mother, the family dog (a basset hound called Bertie), and me. Two and a half years later, the three of us were back on the bed and being painted by Olwyn Bowey, a member of the Royal Academy. The portrait that depicts me as doll-like is now in the National Portrait Gallery. It betrays no inkling of the drama that took place. I had been given a tube of Smarties, the British equivalent of M&M’s, and was putting “some for me” in my mouth then giving “some for you” to Bertie. My mother was in the bathroom, combing her hair, when I finished the tube. She missed my seizing back Bertie’s Smarties, which I swiftly shoved in my mouth. To my shock, he went for my face. Mum heard screams and discovered he had nearly bitten off my nose. My mother rushed me, with blood pouring down my black-velvet and lace dress, to our local National Health GP, who sent us to Dr. Robin Beare, then working as the resident plastic surgeon at Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead. Refusing to stitch, Beare cleansed and smoothed my nose. I barely have a scar. Extremely lucky; Beare later became the plastic surgeon in London. Ava Gardner visited him when she smashed up her face riding a bull in Spain. Audrey Hepburn allowed him to smooth her neck. And quite a few European aristocrats let him fix noses that were deemed too long for their elegantly narrow faces.

  The Bertie story illustrated my curiosity and impulsiveness. These are two elements that would lead to endless near mishaps throughout my life. Like Alice in Lewis Carroll’s classic, I’ve always had that “What if I ate . . . opened . . . said . . . that?” feeling, often ignoring that bleating voice warning “Don’t.”

  About eighteen months later, I almost drowned in the Serpentine’s Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. It was a family excursion that involved my father, two older sisters, and elder brother but not my mother. The pond had frozen over, and to test whether the ice was safe, I would be used as a guinea pig. It was the bright idea of one of my siblings. Still, my father had agreed. He was evidently otherwise engaged, because I certainly couldn’t swim. After a few steps I fell through. Fortunately, this happened near the edge, I was hauled out by my father and then stripped and rubbed down roughly by a woman using a dog towel. I can still see her furious hatchetlike face—the towel was meant for her doggie, not a little girl. Look no further for the mentality of the female British animal lover: a race apart.

  I don’t remember the fall being addressed in the family. Nor was it addressed that I could have drowned. And the brother of Issy Delves Broughton, to give an example, managed to drown in a few inches of water. Instead, jokes were made about the dog towel and so forth. Still, I do think the fall—another Alice element in my life—gave this inexplicable detachment. A sense that whatever happened, I would be fine. It installed a courage or even madness on occasion. Thinking back, I was equivalent to the little girl in the horror film who, faced with the door barring her from the evil demons, happily opens it. And then disarms the beasts with her somewhat bonkers behavior! Physically I’ve never really been scared. The promise of adventure has always made me brave.

  When young, it took different forms. If dared, I spoke to strangers. This was a childhood no-no on every level. One time, an African man had been hovering around our square for hours. It was a bit strange. A gang of my elder brother’s friends bet that I wouldn’t talk to him. Naturally I did, and naturally he was sweet if somewhat surprised. Another practice was sneaking into my sisters’ bedroom and going through their things. With good reason, this seriously irritated them. I doubt anyone else in their right mind would have done this. Alas, such nosiness led to the occasional drama, such as the breaking of a cello. Determined to open a stiff drawer in a chest of drawers, I hadn’t noticed that the musical instrument was leaning against the piece of furniture. I pulled and pulled. Then watched to my horror as the cello fell timberlike and broke in half on the floor. The elder sibling was fit to be tied. My parents were less annoyed than I thought they would be, no doubt relieved by the idea that it would be an end to “Bobby Shafto’s Gone to Sea” and other sad but scratchy-sounding tunes.

  Such dramas gave me no need for books. True, I enjoyed my mother reading aloud from her favorite books like Orlando (The Marmalade Cat), The Tiger Who Came to Tea, and Gone Is Gone. A born actress, she had a beautiful voice and instinctively knew how to play all the characters. But I disliked reading on my own. At home, almost everyone would be going at it fast and furiously, and I would draw, write illustrated stories, or cut out new pictures of Tutankhamen. I was quite unnaturally obsessed with the boy pharaoh.

  There was a family joke that, aside from schoolwork, I read one classic during our entire childhood. It was Villette by Charlotte Brontë. In fact, it was the actual idea of reading in bed that I enjoyed. Propping myself up against my pillow, pulling down the white string chord to turn on the reading light, then opening the navy blue leather-bound book that had smooth, onion skin–type paper. The reality being that I would read a few pages intensely and close the tome. Exhausted! For three years this continued, and the family joke became, “Tasha still hasn’t finished Villette.” I never did and never minded.

  It was a bit weird for someone whose mother wrote, whose grandparents wrote, and whose aunts and uncles wrote. In the press, they were referred to as the Literary Longfords. But my mother took it in her long-legged stride. The eldest of eight children, she was wise enough to realize that it would eventually pass.

  She also accepted my passion for television, albeit unaware of the startling degree. I knew the entire week’s programming by heart because, once back from school, I was superglued to the sofa. It might be Blue Peter, a series that encouraged DIY for kids. A loo roll and sticky-backed plastic were often involved. Or a cartoon called Wacky Races that had eccentric characters like Penelope Pitstop and Muttley, a cheating dog. After an early supper of baked beans on toast or alphabet pasta heated from a can—a diet that I thank for my exceptional health (I was and am rarely ill)—it was yet more television like The Persuaders!, a series that starred handsome actors Roger Moore and Tony Curtis, or Top of the Pops, which featured the latest musical hit parade. I would watch, imagine, and be transported. Often my brothers accompanied me, except they would take a break by playing football in the square outside our house. Being sedentary (read: exceptionally lazy), I rarely joined them. Occasionally, our nose-in-a-book, intellectual sisters would complain about our TV addiction to our mother. And her usual retort was, “Since they’re all so charming, I don’t see the problem.”

  I was also a telephone addict. A familiar voice at the other end of the line soothed in the same way that television did. I could gab for a good twenty minutes with a classmate I had just left on the school bus. While talking, I would imagine her face, her hair, and her bedroom.

  The idea of people and their existence became my personal reality as opposed to school. Parties were a highlight. Fun was always to be had with my contemporaries. I threw myself into the act of playing pass the parcel and musical chairs, and eating a terrifying amount of sugar. Nevertheless, parties given by my parents, at our home, shot me into another orbit entirely. It was the exhilaration of undiscovered territory: meeting new people. “You can only come down if you’re charming”—charming being requisite for my childhood—my mother would say to my brothers and me. Not a problem, ever. Dressed in my pink brushed-nylon nightdress with a rabbit on the chest and my quilted dressing gown, I naturally knew to compliment or ask questions.

  My parents’ social gatherin
gs were packed with the intellectual, elegant, and privileged. In ambience, they were not that dissimilar to parties given in New York by Peter Frankfurt’s mother, Suzie, and father, Stephen, the wunderkind president of Young & Rubicam, the advertising agency. Women were well coiffed, and feminine, whereas men always wore suits. Almost everyone had a glass of alcohol in hand, and even pregnant guests puffed away like chimneys.

  Occasionally, there was an element of the surprise. Peter recalls Andy Warhol, one of his mother’s best friends (“They did that Wild Raspberries cookbook together,” he says), appearing with Edie Sedgwick in the mid-’60s. “Smitten, I thought she was a superstar, right out of Batman, the TV show,” he says. On the other hand, Kirk Douglas became my first taste of Hollywood stardom. The impeccably turned-out Douglas arrived early, unaccompanied, and afterward delivered a handwritten note to my mother. I remember being shocked by the deep dimple in his chin, and his height. “He’s so short,” I said, because the agile Douglas walked so tall on-screen.

  Then I changed from being sweet, dreamy, and loving everyone to becoming socially aware. It happened after I’d had a boil in my ear. The pain was excruciating. Nothing has come close since. And during that recuperation period of several weeks, I had time to think and subsequently morphed into a mini Elsa Maxwell, the social fixer. Among my parents’ acquaintances, I suddenly made it my business to know exactly who had titles, who was wealthy, and who was foreign. For instance, I was delighted to glean that two of my godparents—Simon Fraser, the Master of Lovat, and Tony, Lord Lambton, had both titles and money. The same could be said for my classmates. I felt that I’d scored if a girlfriend had a courtesy title (meaning “the Lady” or “the Honorable” in front of her name) or was very rich (in my naive world that meant a chauffeur, and an elevator in her house) or was foreign (meaning that her parents weren’t born English). Befriending Dominique Lacloche put me in a state of elation because her mother was Italian and her father was French: a double whammy.