Pursuit: The Memoirs of John Calder

by John Calder

  My divorce from Christya was now imminent. The decree nisi had gone through some months earlier after many difficulties and setbacks, and I was looking forward to the final decree. Then, one day, Tom Hammond telephoned me. “Tell me, John,” he said, “when are you and Bettina getting married?” I looked at the telephone in dismay. “Why?” I asked.

  “Because surely you realize we are only allowed to employ British artists at Sadler’s Wells,” he said. “When we engaged Bettina, we naturally assumed you were getting married.”

  She came back that evening from rehearsals, and of course knew about the call. “Well, why don’t we get married?”

  “But I haven’t even got a divorce!”

  “You will at any moment. I’m so excited to be singing with a company like Sadler’s Wells. It doesn’t have to be permanent. If we don’t get on, I’ll not be any trouble.”

  I was to remember those words with much bitterness.

  * * *

  The opening of Ariadne auf Naxos was only a few days away when we went, one brisk winter day at the end of 1960, to the Marylebone Registry Office. We waited for fifteen minutes while others went in to get married, then it was our turn. The divorce absolute was not even a week old. The two witnesses were Marion Wilson and Arthur Boyars. Afterwards we went to the Mirabelle for lunch, a good expensive restaurant that I had rarely visited, and then, to fill in the afternoon (my first thought to return to the office was not popular), we all went to the Tate Gallery to see a Picasso exhibition. There I ran into Leo de Rothschild. I had been to see Leo some months previously to find out if there was any chance that the Rothschild Bank could help me financially. They gave me a very English lunch in the boardroom as an old school acquaintance of Leo’s, but of course I was far too small a company for their consideration.

  Life went on as normal. Bettina had helped out a little in the office as a receptionist before her rehearsals started in earnest, but now she was preparing for her British debut. I had invited various friends and relatives, and had a dozen tickets to distribute. Then the flu struck, and on the morning of the big day Bettina had no voice. Her understudy went on instead. I telephoned around, but no one wanted the tickets, and they were unused. She also missed the second performance, but on the third, which was about a week later, her understudy fell ill, and Bettina was told that, voiceless or not, she was the better of the two invalids and had to appear. She did not do badly at all. Her pallor and shakiness was perfectly in character with her role. She sang all the other performances, but of course did not get reviewed, as the critics only went on the first night.

  Her next role was Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, where she was a success, but did not stand out from what was, then as later, an excellent company. I think she had probably upset Colin Davis rather too often, because he did not seem keen to give her more work, and she began to sing with smaller opera companies. She still had a German agent, but she received no more European engagements at the time. Walking out on an opera company that has contracted you does not inspire confidence.

  We began to see quite of a lot of Marion Lobbenberg and Roy Jones and his wife, Lucy. It was now fairly settled that Marion would invest, but Jones drove a hard bargain. He said £20,000 was needed, not half that sum, and Marion would only come up with £10,000 if I could do the same. As it stood, he insisted, the company was worth nothing, and Marion for her investment would get half the company. If it failed, she would get her money back before me. I had no option but to accept: Marion became a partner and director and owned half the company. Although she had her own ideas, she was happy enough for the time being to go along with my editorial programme, which at that time was increasingly involved in translating the most advanced European literature, while continuing to publish books on music, drama and the arts generally. I cannot remember how I raised the other £10,000, but I did somehow. The fact that Roy had begun to like me and that he had taken an interest in the work of the company helped to cement things and made me a little less uneasy at giving away so much for so little. One of the conditions was that Roy Jones also became a director. Thereafter we had regular board meetings in his office, the other director being Lesley MacDonald.

  Much of our energy had gone into selling Barney Rosset’s Evergreen paperbacks, a series that had greatly expanded. If we had the rights, rather than selling the American edition, we would now bring out our own. Beckett’s little book on Proust had sold well, and we now produced our own edition with other texts in the volume, as well as his first novel Murphy. Malone Dies had come out in hardcover to mainly indifferent reviews, and when we published the Trilogy, with Malone republished as the middle part, the reviews were not much better, but at least more serious and longer. Molloy had been translated by Patrick Bowles to appear as an Olympia Press book, and Beckett had helped with the translation, but he was never happy about it, and thereafter translated the other two himself and all subsequent work written in French. Gradually all of the Evergreen Becketts were published in our own list, with the exception of the plays, which were with Faber.

  It was through one play, Godot, that Beckett’s reputation as the most discussed and disputed writer of the day had been established, and the arguments went on. Cyril Connolly in the Sunday Times remained negative. He said that the time had come when he should advise his readers whether or not they should bother with this man Beckett – and, on balance, he thought they should not. He was too difficult and obscure, and Connolly hinted that a charlatan might be hiding under the elegance of the prose.

  But the academics, who needed a new idol to follow Joyce, now appreciated by a growing readership and the object of many critical studies, had begun to latch on to Beckett, and his name was current in the universities. It had of course all started with Godot, but the novels made it easier to understand the plays: it was all the same territory. Beckett looked at the world from the perspective of the underdog and, just as Beaumarchais had once enabled the French aristocracy to realize that their servants were intelligent human beings who could mock them behind their backs, so Beckett now made readers aware that the beggars and down-and-outs they pass blindly on the street, see them too, despise them and often hate them as they rush by with their little everyday certainties and securities and homes to return to. Beckett was beginning to come into intellectual fashion, and the academics were getting ready to make him their next prey.

  One American, Hugh Kenner, came to see me, and we published his book, simply entitled Samuel Beckett: A Critical Study, which Barney Rosset also took for the US. It was the first book on Beckett to appear, and it brilliantly picked up the physical objects, preoccupations and obsessions that occur throughout Beckett’s work. It was quickly followed by a flood of other books as the academics got to work on an author whose depth seemed to have no bottom, but who could be very entertaining on the surface. Kenner had already written on T.S. Eliot, and over lunch he gleefully related the foibles of that author, with whom he had had many interviews. I had in fact noticed one or two myself, such as his way of tapping the side of a cheese with his knife before cutting it. When Beckett was in London once, I took them both to the Hurlingham Club, where Sam and I played billiards, while Hugh Kenner sat in a corner and made notes as he watched us. “This little circle should meet regularly,” he commented to me afterwards.

  Kenner’s book was well reviewed and sold quite well, and Beckett’s own press reception and sales were improving, although most of the literary establishment still remained hostile. The Irish had still not accepted him: his first book of fiction, More Pricks than Kicks, published in 1934, had been banned unread purely on the title, and although he still had many friends there, his name was barely known. With time Sam Beckett was to take an ever more militant stand towards Irish censorship, against which he had written a telling poem in his youth.

  But at the BBC Beckett had his loyal adherents. Foremost among them was Donald McWhinnie, who had produced his ground-b
reaking radio play All That Fall, in which sound effects added a new dimension to a poignant text. The novel Molloy was read on the Third Programme as well. The gravelly voice of Patrick Magee was ideal for the gritty character of the itinerant Molloy dragging his tired body, resting on a bicycle or on crutches, through town and field and forest in search of his mother and whatever comfort she could bring him. Beckett heard the broadcast on his radio in France and sat down to write a play for this interesting voice and for an actor he had never met. It became Krapp’s Last Tape, written in English as the radio play had been. McWhinnie produced the play for the Royal Court Theatre in October 1958.

  Beckett travelled to London, met Magee, spent time talking and drinking with actor and producer and went over the text very carefully with Pat. The director of the Royal Court was George Devine, who was taken with Beckett, and said he would produce any other play that Beckett would give him. Fin de partie was already written, and had been published in Paris, as well as translated in English (as Endgame) by Faber. Devine very much wanted to produce it, and eventually did.

  Gradually a little circle of professional admirers was forming around Beckett, people who believed in him absolutely – and none of them were ever shaken by the hostility that so many others felt towards his style and vision. McWhinnie had an assistant in the script department of the BBC, Barbara Bray, who became another Beckett admirer and soon an intimate friend. She apparently had an equally intimate relationship with McWhinnie and Beckett at about the same time.

  Barbara Bray, a remarkable woman with intellectual tastes, was busy translating a number of French playwrights for broadcast on the Third Programme, in particular the work of Marguerite Duras and Robert Pinget, both authors of mine. The BBC involvement helped a little: at least it showed moral support and evidence that I was not the only member of the London intellectual world to show an interest in the new talent that was coming from France. Largely because of Barbara Bray and a few other kindred spirits working at the Third Programme, a new flavour of avant-garde modern drama became visible there, and much of it was French. In time this would cause difficulties, because many complaints were to come in from listeners.

  A German journalist working in Paris, Werner Spies, was commissioning radio plays for Süddeutscher Rundfunk, and he was approaching not only those mentioned above, but also Nathalie Sarraute, Roland Dubillard, Eduardo Manet, François Billetdoux and other writers to produce radio plays. Many of them ended up on my list and were broadcast in English by the BBC. Nathalie Sarraute had never written anything for the theatre, but she now produced a number of conversational dramatic pieces, which could be staged as well as broadcast, provided a director could put in suitable stage directions. Jean-Louis Barrault, and later Simone Benmussa, took Sarraute’s texts, semi-abstract conversations where the speakers were on the whole not identified, and gave them a stage presence. These plays were first performed in France at Barrault’s studio theatre at the Odéon. In my opinion they worked brilliantly, even if only to the tiny number of people who went to see them. I managed to get them produced at one or two small theatres in London, such as The Gate at Notting Hill, but again they attracted a very small audience. However, I eventually published them, together with other radio plays that were brought into existence by the commissions of Werner Spies. Ionesco also accepted Spies commissions, which I believe were very well paid.

  There was a New Zealander around at the BBC, Owen Leeming, whom I often met: he was passionate and knowledgeable about the nouveau roman and the new French theatre, soon to be labelled “the theatre of the absurd”. Unfortunately, he suddenly went back to New Zealand. Very few of the surviving members of that group interested in new literature can now remember him. Every time I pass Leeming Airport on the A1 main road in North Yorkshire I do remember, and wonder where he is.

  I lunched a few times with Barbara Bray to discuss these plays and the translations she was doing for us. My problem with her was her attitude, which was a rather typical BBC one. She was a vivacious, extremely attractive lady – perhaps in her late twenties at that time – well read, intellectual and very self-assured. She would berate me for puffing up the reputations and talents of my writers, Beckett in particular. “You don’t have to keep saying how wonderful a book is,” she would say to me. “Readers will find that out for themselves in time.”

  “Perhaps,” I would counter. “But by then I won’t be publishing any more. I can’t pay rent or salaries or printers from books that might be bought in ten years’ time.” She couldn’t understand this, because at the BBC money in those days had nothing to do with the creation of programmes. She was already involved with Sam at the time, but I had no inkling of it, either from her or him.

  * * *

  After Bettina moved in with me, it became obvious that I needed a bigger place. I found a large two-floor flat at the top of a building at the bottom of Wimpole Street, No. 76. Lynette Perry, whom I had known for some time as a writer of radio plays, took over my old flat. She was just becoming involved with a fairly mature student at Oxford called John Peter. He had come to Britain as a refugee from Hungary after the Russians had put down the Hungarian rising in 1956. Their affair eventually became long-term and ended in marriage. John Peter later managed to get a job as theatre critic at the Sunday Times, and in a fairly short time became one of the senior drama critics, as well as one of the most serious current writers on drama, with a wide knowledge of the European arts. I kept in touch with them both over the years.

  My new flat was owned by a firm of solicitors who occupied the ground floor, while a rather unpleasant couple had the first, just below us. The wife frequently complained that classical music gave her a headache. Needless to say, that was what came down to them from my record player and from Bettina rehearsing her roles or doing vocal exercises at the piano, so there was some friction. This was to lead in July 1962 to a letter from the solicitors on the ground floor, Ross Elliston and Co., who were also our landlords. They had been aware by that time that there was a considerable traffic of people through my flat, that I held parties and that there had been political gatherings, some of which are mentioned elsewhere in this book. The letter threatened to cancel my lease and said that remaining in the building meant rigidly adhering to the following restrictions: there were to be no political meetings, there was to be no singing, no posters exhibited from the windows, no groups were to gather there, and I was to have no books on the premises. The letter went on for three pages. I had totally forgotten it until I came across it, while writing this book, in the publishing archives that are kept at the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana. I probably ignored it, but was more careful.

  All the same, it was a good flat for entertaining, and we had a constant flow of writers, musicians, artists and politicians coming to drinks, lunch and dinner. Bettina was excellent at entertaining and could organize a meal for several people at short notice, which often became necessary. There were two spare bedrooms on the top floor, and one or both were frequently occupied by visitors during the next few years, the most frequent of whom was Samuel Beckett. Beckett was quite often in town to discuss readings on the BBC and productions of plays, to see friends and sometimes to be present at the vernissage of an art exhibition, especially if asked to be there in support of a friend. In those days he was not particularly welcome at rehearsals as far as producers were concerned, but he nearly always formed an instant bond with the actors, unless they were very traditional and careless West End actors who had their own ideas about the play. Among the actors he liked best were Jack MacGowran and Patrick Magee. They were heavy drinkers, as was McWhinnie when he was with them – and Sam, although he was being more careful now, could also put down a considerable amount of beer or whisky. With me he more often drank wine, but that of course was largely in restaurants or at table in my flat. Actors often came to Wimpole Street to work with Sam in the sitting room.

  Sam himself when he stayed spent
much time at the piano, with or without a score in front of him. He had a remarkable finger memory, in fact a remarkable memory altogether. When something set him off, he could quote for several minutes favourite texts in his four main languages (not his own texts, although he memorized them as well for use at rehearsals). But his lifelong interest in sport would always draw him to the television set – any sport, but cricket and tennis in particular. Otherwise he stayed in his room much of the time, occasionally working on something, although he usually only wrote or revised his work either in Paris or at his place in the country, which from about the time I first knew him was at Ussy-sur-Marne, about an hour’s drive east of the city. On one occasion he gave me a typescript to read, which I tackled with some puzzlement. It was the first draft of Happy Days. I forget what comment I made. I certainly did not grasp the whole poignancy of it.

  When Beckett stayed with me, he was out most of the time, seeing actors, his agent, those concerned with his plays and friends, and he very seldom made any comment on his movements or whom he had seen, except when he came back from rehearsals, where his mood was usually irritation caused either by the difficulties the actors were having with his lines and stage directions or those he was having with a producer who had conceived a vision of the play rather different from his own. His stage directions became ever more precise to remove any ambiguity about what he wanted.