Pursuit: The Memoirs of John Calder

by John Calder

  I found a New York book sales agency, which was basically a partnership between a local Italian-American, Lorenzo de Grazia, and an English entrepreneur. They were trying to do exactly what Bob Speer had done. They did not have their own warehouse, but used one in Brooklyn (Mercedes Distribution Center), run by a young man called Joel Goldstein, whom I found very difficult to deal with. Lorenzo had an office in the Flatiron Building at the junction of Broadway and Fifth Avenue. I had already been taken there once by Alger Hiss, whom I still saw occasionally, to meet Edith Tiger, who ran the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, located in the building just underneath Lorenzo’s office. Edith Tiger at the time was trying to help Alger in his, ultimately unsuccessful, battle to get his case reopened and his name cleared. Finally, after many months, I managed to get my books out of Dallas and into the Mercedes warehouse. I realized, however, that I would have to put together a new sales force myself. Lorenzo was quite useless.

  One thing leads to another, and one person to another. Staying on occasion at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, I encountered at its Blue Bar, a famous meeting place, a man called Charles Avery, who was there every evening, chatting to whoever came to sit beside or near him at the bar. He had done various things in his life, almost certainly had some private money – enough to cover his drinking bill if nothing else – and he worked at Grand Central Station as a booking clerk, although he had had a better job earlier in life and a better social position. He was an amateur actor who acted when he could at the Comedy Club, a rather upmarket establishment on the east side of midtown. The club had short runs of popular plays, a bar and restaurant. I found myself frequently chatting to Charles, who introduced me to his lady friend, an eccentric actress in her late forties called Elaine Swann, who did mainly television advertisements and acted on stage when she could, but who was, like Charles, one of the pillars of the Comedy Club.

  They took me there, made a fuss of me, introduced me around, and I met some interesting people. Anyone with an English accent was very welcome in their circles. Charles at that point, interested in talking, drinking and acting, in about that order, was a platonic boyfriend. Elaine had another boyfriend that, she confided to me, she shared with another lady in London, Sue Telch. She suggested that I should look her up when I was back. Elaine had an apartment on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, just off Seventh Avenue, the centre of the most interesting bohemian area of New York, with hundreds of restaurants, bars, theatres and every kind of boutique, including the most interesting bookshops. My friend Martha had lived nearby, but now had moved to Cooperstown in Upper New York State, where on two occasions I went to visit her. She had had two cancer operations not long before I met her. Somewhere around 1980 the cancer came back and she died in Cooperstown.

  Elaine Swann played tennis every day – not well, but with determination – and having the opportunity to move into a block of apartments further uptown, where there were tennis courts for residents on the flat roofs, she moved there, and I sub-let her apartment. It was quite large, but more than half the space could not be used, as three rooms were filled with old theatrical costumes and clothes she was unlikely ever to wear again. I had in practice a bed-sitting room with kitchen equipment and a bathroom. But I was very happy there, because I was in New York’s equivalent of London’s Soho, right on a main subway line, and Lorenzo’s office was easy to get to. I already knew the area well from many evenings spent there with Barnet Rosset in the past, and he did not live far away. I saw him occasionally, mainly in two local literary bars, the 55 Bar and the Lion’s Head. The hatchet had been buried.

  It was in the 55 Bar that I met Jeannie Adams and began talking to her. It was the night I had arrived from London, I remember, but we got on well, and almost every time I went there in the evening I saw Jeannie. She worked for a travel agency, and soon I was using her to get cheap travel around the States, which became my main activity during the next decade and the subject of the next chapter. We were never more than friends, but we became very good friends.

  In London I rang Sue Telch, as Elaine Swann had asked me to do, and she was free to go out to dinner that night. She was a very personable lady in her thirties, an interior designer with a very open and sophisticated manner. Her tastes were popular, in that she went to musicals rather than opera, and light comedies rather than heavy dramas, and read best-sellers rather than serious literature, but she was a wonderful mixer who got on well with everyone. During the war she had developed an Australian accent, because her father had sent her out there for the duration, but he had quickly made her take elocution lessons on her return to get rid of it. Her stepfather was Dutch, and she spoke the language. She was already divorced from Mr Telch, a car dealer. She came back to Dalmeny House with me for a drink after dinner and although I thought it unlikely that she would accept my pass, she did. “I will sooner or later, so I might as well say yes now,” she said, as if in resignation.

  We were an unlikely match. Most of my women have been about my own height and either slight or plumpish, but Sue was much taller and was rather like the more sophisticated type of West End actress. Our relationship went on until she married again. Professionally she was successful and specialized in creating rooms like men’s clubs and designing decors for country hotels, golf clubs and old castles. One of her main sources of revenue at the time I met her was redecorating suites in London’s large hotels.

  Shuna became a major problem once I started to spend more time in the United States and I had to leave her then with one of the ladies in my life. I mated her with the dog of a local landowner in Kinross when she was about four, and when she was heavily pregnant at the beginning of 1972, I took her to a pet shop in Edinburgh to find a large basket. On the floor was a large red high-topped imitation-leather receptacle, and she climbed right into it and made herself comfortable. She had chosen her maternity bed, so I took it back with me.

  I had Melissa with me at the time, and she stayed at Ledlanet for the following week with a dog of her own, Muffin, a Yorkshire terrier, who apparently watched and wagged her tail as the puppies emerged one by one in the red basket. I was in London in my office, and every few minutes Margaret Jacquess, who sat at our switchboard at reception, came in to tell me that another puppy had been born. The first was almost albino-white, but became golden as he grew up, the next nine were all black like the parents. I went up before the weekend to host the last French shooting party of the season, and Shuna was very resentful at having to stay with her litter and not go out with the guns.

  It was not long after that, perhaps a fortnight later, that I had to take the whole basket with its ten puppies down south, because nothing was happening at Ledlanet until the spring. Melissa was with me, and we stopped in Newcastle upon Tyne for lunch, parking the car on the quayside in front of a restaurant. When we emerged, the Tyne had risen and the quay was submerged up to three feet, while a desperate Shuna was frantically barking to get attention. The water was up to the back seat, and the dogs were already getting wet. I threw off my overcoat and jacket, climbed through the water to the lower level of the quay where the car was, unlocked the car door, opened it, told Shuna to swim, and she was pulled up by Melissa. Then I handed the puppies out one by one, then the basket, and returning to the restaurant borrowed a blanket. Apparently this flooding was quite usual in winter, but there was no sign to warn anyone. I called a taxi, told the driver to find a comfortable hotel, and we went to one in Gosport, where all the dogs were bathed, dried and fell asleep. The next day, a local garage got the car going again, but it gave me trouble from there on. It was the same car I had once driven down the station steps at Harrogate.

  The dogs were at Ledlanet until early summer, then I found good homes for them all. My sister took the golden Labrador, which became her family pet, Sandy, and another one, Daisy, was intended for my daughter Stas, but the problems with her mother were such that she ended up with Chris Davidson, my production manager. On
e went to my friend Brian Mahoney, the television producer who had done many things at Ledlanet, and who lived on an island on Loch Lomond: he called his dog Barra, after another island.

  There are two Ledlanet Christmases worthwhile relating. The first must have been somewhere towards the end of Ledlanet Nights, when performances were over for the year. I had my two daughters with me, Brian Mahoney and his wife Jean, their two boys and also Barbara Wright, a friend who translated many of our French authors, including some Robbe-Grillet and Duras, most of Raymond Queneau and some books by Nathalie Sarraute. She had also translated an Italian libretto for Ledlanet. We were looking after ourselves, Attewell having his own Christmas at home, and we were cooking a large turkey for lunch. Jean said, “Why don’t you all go for a walk? Leave the kitchen to me.” It was a lovely morning, and we all went through the wood and up to the hill, with its wonderful panoramic view, returning after twelve. We saw smoke emerging from the kitchen as we came near. The turkey was burned to a crisp, various pots and pans had boiled over, and there was no sign of Jean. But Brian instantly realized what had happened. I had had no idea that Jean was an arrested alcoholic: the sight of a full brandy bottle had been too much for her, and she had wanted us out of the way to drink it. She was now in her bedroom, barely conscious. All afternoon we could hear Brian shouting at her in fury and trying to wake her up, while the rest of us opened tins and had a most un-Christmassy picnic.

  The other Christmas must have been my last there, much later. I had Ron Rosen, the barrister who was defending for me, and Ron’s German girlfriend, who had brought an infant daughter, as well as the Balls. We were again looking after ourselves, although Attewell checked up on us occasionally. The house was a sad place now, Rentokill having pulled much of it apart to get at the dry rot, and Attewell’s role was more of a caretaker. It was a Christmas of legal talk, chess, eating and drinking, and not much else. Even Jim Fraser preferred to invite us to Huntley Hall than to come to a house only partially heated, redolent of memories and visibly deteriorating.

  My financial situation was desperate and I tried to deal with my crises day by day, glad to get through to the next one. The banks would lend me no more, and a judge, who had ordered me to pay even more to Bettina, had no sympathy with my desire to keep Ledlanet and no interest in what it had been or could be again from a cultural point of view. “He should sell it,” he said. And of course I had no alternative then. Land prices were depressed at the time, the house was in bad shape and the London Estate agent who put out a brochure (and charged me for it), came up with no offer at all. I put my library and some of the furniture into storage in Dunfermline and sold the contents of the house for a fixed sum to an unpleasant couple who thought my private clothes were included and took things like my silver sporran without my realizing it. Many things of historical importance kept in drawers, which I forgot about in my extreme depression, where thrown away. They included the albums of photographs of the whole Kennedy family, including dozens of Jack as a teenager (all the Kennedys had stayed at Ledlanet), my grandfather’s unpublished memoirs, which I had intended to keep, and the marvellous modern paintings of Pulsford and other artists who were friends of mine. I should have put them into storage, and I think I did put one or two, but they never came out again. Everything the purchasers did not see as immediately saleable, they burnt. They made a fuss over the Velasquez copy, and some newspapers created a story out of this great “discovery” that could have saved my bacon, but that was soon discredited.

  An Edinburgh couple bought the house itself. When they divorced, they sold it to a local farmer, who had already bought the home farm. Jimmy Provan, who had once rented it from me, had now gone to work for his father-in-law, who owned a chain of newspapers including the Glasgow Herald. Later he would become the Tory European Member of Parliament for Teesside.

  * * *

  Two publishing companies now shared a building in Soho: Marion had the top floor and still kept the same office in the middle of the three rooms for herself, while I occupied the middle room of the three on the second floor, with Chris Davidson in a larger room next to me overlooking the street. I think Agnes Rook, and for a time Bill Swainson, were in the outer room by the stairs, editing manuscripts, but later it was Martin Hoyle. I had taken Swainson with me to Dallas for the big meeting of publishers, and his quiet sensible manner and obvious competence must have appealed to Clive Alison, because at the end of 1979 he left to work for Clive. John Quilliam, a friend of Chris, did our audit and came in occasionally to write up the books. Yvonne Ball did some bookkeeping for both Marion and myself. On the first floor, just above Lina Stores, was the general office that the two publishing companies shared, a reception desk where Margaret Jacquess answered the phone, sold books from the stock we kept in the outer office to the general public and to booksellers needing a title in a hurry for a customer. She also looked after Shuna at times, who kept her feet warm in winter, and when Daisy became Chris’s dog, she was there too.

  There was a constant stream of authors, translators, printers’ reps and others coming in and out. Berry Bloomfield had retired by now to live on a boat with her husband, and I had a series of short-term secretaries, some of them earlier doubling with work for Ledlanet and going there during the performance seasons. We had Irene Staunton, a Rhodesian girl, who felt quite at home that hot summer when the grass in all of London’s parks turned yellow: to her it was normal. One secretary married an Indian accountant from Kenya. She had become friendly with Ian Wallace, who sang at her wedding; we both noted the disapproval of their very middle-English family to the dark-skinned bridegroom, who was taking her to Nairobi with him – where, as Ian remarked “his skin would be more acceptable than hers”. Another of my secretaries, Claire, married Tom Craig after he had obtained a divorce from Penny. They all remained friends, and I continued to see them, but less frequently after Ledlanet was sold. Michael Hayes continued to sell books for Marion and myself, until he decided his income was insufficient and left to work for a wholesaler.

  My office problems began to centre around Chris Davidson, who was in charge of the office when I was overseas and had decided to join me rather than Marion when we divided. There were disagreements about his expenses, and it came to a point where we had a confrontation about it. In addition, we had published a large reference book called Opera Directory. The publication had taken an enormous effort and was profitable, but Marion had not wanted to go through so much sweat and toil again, and it was only after we had divided the company that I was able to start on a new edition of what had been intended to be a regular publication. I had employed Martin Hoyle to start on the compilation. He was a friend of Sheila Colvin’s, and she knew he liked compiling lists. But sitting in my office the compilation was going very slowly.

  There came the day when my dissatisfaction with Chris came to a head. When I said that he was not giving enough time to his work, he responded why should he, when my whole life was a holiday? I was so annoyed that I decided to fire him. He sued me for compensation other than the redundancy money I gave him, and was awarded a little more by the Unfair Dismissal Tribunal. Martin left with him out of solidarity, so a new Opera Directory never appeared.

  At just this time Reginald Davis-Poynter, who had once been the head of the publishing empire that Granada had put together under Sidney Bernstein and had later started his own firm, decided to give up and retire. He had an assistant, Su Herbert, who had also been at Granada and had left with him, and I recruited her to join me. Su had worked her way up to a position of authority in Granada, and was now working with smaller publishers of lesser means and with a less prestigious position for herself. She really did not like it, but publishing was changing, and security of tenure, which was important to her, no longer existed. She came to me on condition I would meet her pension demands. They were greater than I had ever had to consider in the past, but I needed someone competent and agreed. She was to stay with me as offi
ce manager until 1997.

  In America I had kept up with the many reps who had worked for South-West Book Services, especially Dan Wedge in New England, Stuart Abrahams in Chicago and Dosier Hammond and Steve Mandel in California. I wasn’t happy with the New York rep for Lorenzo, so I did New York myself, getting good orders in particular from the string of bookshops along Madison Avenue, from the university shops, those in Greenwich Village and such famous literary havens as Gotham Book Mart. But the Mercedes service was slow, largely because Lorenzo was not an important player and also because he was a bad payer. I was doing some of my printing in Toronto at this time with Hunter, Rose and Company, whose salesman James Bruce, an Englishman, became a friend. He designed a catalogue for Lorenzo and did many things of that kind. I spent one New Year’s Eve with him. It started with a drink with Bill Colleran, who was in New York, then we had a late dinner and went to a jazz club in the Village, drinking whisky in a bar, and parted in the cold morning at five. I think I was in Bleecker Street then, and the year was probably 1979.