Any Human Heart

by William Boyd

  I jumped off the bus on the Brompton Road and was just about to turn down Draycott Avenue when I heard someone shout my name. I looked round and saw Joseph Darker climbing out of a police car. We chatted a bit and I told him about Lottie, Lionel and the move to Norfolk and apologized for losing touch.

  ‘How’s the family?’ I asked.

  ‘We had a bit of a blow, there,’ he said, looking down. ‘Tilda died last year. Diphtheria.’

  I don’t know why the news shocked me the way it did. I even staggered back a pace or two as if I’d been pushed. I remembered that diffident woman, always apologizing, now dead and gone for ever. I muttered something bland, but he could see how buffeted I’d been. We exchanged a few more words and I gave him my new address. I came home and felt genuinely saddened. I told Freya how I had reacted and she said, ‘We’re not ready for it – for people of our age to die. We think we’re safe for a while, but it’s a dream. No one’s safe.’ She ran her hands through my hair, put her arms around me and stood on my shoes. Then she hooked a leg round and through mine. It’s something she does, one of her quirks – a ‘leg-hug’ she calls it – ‘Got you,’ she would say, ‘clinging on for dear old life.’

  Friday, 3 August

  Biarritz. Ben has taken a large villa between Biarritz and Bidart, set back about half a mile from the coast, with a big overgrown garden with many trees and a concrete swimming pool. The party consists of Ben and Sandrine, Alice and Tim Farino, me and Freya, Cyprien Dieudonné and his girlfriend, Mita, a dancer from Guadeloupe, and Geddes Brown (now one of Ben’s artists) and his friend, an Italian – also a painter – called Carlo.

  Every day a picnic lunch is served beside the pool for those who are staying at the house, but we are free to come and go – to the beaches at Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Biarritz, or up into the mountains to walk.

  There was a memorable moment yesterday at lunch – Geddes and Carlo were absent, and Cyprien had gone into Biarritz to get his spectacles repaired. We’d all eaten and drunk a great deal when Alice suddenly unhooked the top of her two-piece swimsuit, moved her chair into a patch of sunshine and sat there bare-breasted.

  ‘Are you all right, darling?’ Tim said, wholly unperturbed.

  ‘You know I like to do this,’ she said. ‘So much nicer to feel the breeze on your tits.’

  At which point all the other women around the table looked at each other and spontaneously removed their various tops and we finished lunch with all these shapely and beautiful breasts on display. I found it quite arousing at first but after ten minutes it seemed the most natural thing in the world. I caught Freya’s eye – she was striped like a tiger from sun and shadow cast by the bamboo lattice beneath which we were sitting. She reached back behind her head to adjust a clip in her hair and I watched her breasts rise and flatten as she did so, the shadow-stripes shifting to accommodate the new contours. When the party broke up for a game of boules we slipped away to our room.

  Thursday, 9 August

  Geddes and Carlo have gone up to the mountains for a few days to paint. ‘Too much ocean light,’ Geddes said. I think he has talent – he certainly works hard – and I quite like him, a blunt and dour fellow, though I think he’s a little wary of me. He still sees Land, he told me, and implied she was having an affair with Oliver Lee.

  It was a little overcast this morning, so Tim Farino and I went to play golf at the Plateau du Phare Club in Biarritz. Tim’s not a bad player, but we were both rusty with lack of practice. I had just birdied the ninth hole and was teeing up at the tenth when a man in white flannels and a blazer approached us, announcing himself as secretary of the golf club, and asking if we would mind allowing a distinguished visitor the opportunity of playing the back half ahead of us. Our green fees would be reimbursed, he added by way of incentive, and gestured at a couple of men walking down the gravel path from the club house, followed by caddies.

  ‘Are you English or American?’ the secretary asked.

  ‘I’m English,’ I said.

  He leant forward and whispered, ‘It’s the Prince of Wales.’

  And of course I recognized him immediately as he drew near. He’s a small, delicately made man and was wearing immaculate plus fours with ankle boots. He was carrying a flat tweed cap and his blond hair was thick and oiled in an immaculate part. He was with a taller, older, slightly untidily dressed man who was not introduced – an equerry, I supposed.

  The secretary, bowing and scraping, explained that these English gentlemen had kindly agreed to give way.

  We shook hands: I introduced myself and Tim.

  ‘Awfully good of you,’ said the Prince. ‘We just want to get in a quick nine holes before luncheon. Don’t want to keep the ladies waiting.’

  We stood back and watched them drive off. The Prince had a stiff, awkward swing – not a natural sportsman, I would say. They strode off – and then the Prince came jogging back, an unlit cigarette in his hand.

  ‘Got a light?’ he said. I took out a box of matches and lit his cigarette.

  ‘Couldn’t spare the box, could you?’ he said and gave me his famous smile.

  ‘All yours, sir,’ I said, handing them over.

  ‘Thanks. What was your name again?’

  I told him. Logan Mountstuart, sir.

  Later. Ben says the Prince has taken a house here and that the American woman, Mrs Simpson, chaperoned by her aunt, is with him. Some ribald speculation ensued. Tim says he knew her vaguely before she married Simpson – knew her first husband, a terrible drunk, by all accounts. Freya didn’t understand our innuendoes, so we explained about Lady Furness being supplanted and the new favourite. She was amazed: she knew nothing of all this. I realized I’d heard all the gossip from Angus Cassell. Ben said it was common knowledge in Paris.

  Worth noting these encounters, I think, however nondescript – the gift of a box of matches to the future King of England. We forget, otherwise. What else? He was wearing no tie.

  Friday, 17 August

  Freya goes back tomorrow and I intend to stay on until the end of the month – perhaps go on to the Lot and stay with Cyprien. ‘Think of me on Monday morning walking into the BBC,’ Freya said, as we lay in bed, giving a half groan, half scream. ‘And think of me thinking of you lot down here. IT’S NOT FAIR!’

  ‘You’ve got to give up your job,’ I said, reaching for her.

  ‘And what would I do then?’ she said. ‘Become a writer?’

  Saturday, 18 August

  Freya off on the train to Paris. I begged her to stay on in Draycott Avenue, to think of the flat as hers and she promised to consider it. ‘If I move in,’ she said, ‘I’ll be paying my share of the rent.’ I demurred half-heartedly – every little helps. ‘I’ll not be your kept woman, Logan,’ she said sternly. How I’ll miss her.

  These have been magical days down here on the coast. I am burnt brown but Freya, my northern goddess, doesn’t like the sun as much as I do. To remember: wading hand and hand into the big surf at Hendaye. Standing naked at the window, looking out on the garden at night, feeling the cool air on my body, listening to the drilling noise of the cicadas, Freya calling me back to bed. Long conversations around the lunch table – as extra wine is fetched to see us through the afternoon – Cyprien, Ben and me arguing about Joyce; Geddes making the case for Braque against Picasso; talking about the spitefulness of Bloomsbury – Freya stoutly defending Mrs Woolf against all comers; analysing Scott Fitzgerald’s new novel21 (apparently his wife is insane, Alice says). Nights in the casino, dancing to the jazz band. Freya winning a thousand francs at blackjack – her unmitigated joy at this unearned gift of money.

  Ben has been a discreet and true friend, given he was an usher at my wedding. I tried to explain the situation vis-à-vis Lottie but he didn’t want to hear. ‘I don’t care, Logan. You live your life and I’ll live mine. I won’t judge you – just as long as you’re happy. I’d hope you’d do the same for me.’ I assured him I would.

  He told me a lot about
Gris and how ill he had been at the end of his life. He said, if I were interested, he could lay his hands on a small ‘but exquisite’ late still life. How much? I said. £50, he said, cash. I can’t afford it but something in me made me say I’d take it. He went off immediately to make a telephone call to Paris.

  Vague ideas rove around my head about setting a novel here, around such a summer house-party as this.

  [November]

  The Juan Gris, ‘Ceramic Jar and Three Apricots’, hangs above the fireplace in Draycott Avenue. The walls are covered with my other drawings and oils. In August Freya painted the room dark olive and on these gloomy evenings, with winter coming on, the lamps seem to glow with an extra warmth, backed against the earthy greenness that surrounds them.

  Freya has decided to live here on condition that she contributes something to the rent (£5 a month). She punctiliously hands me a fiver on the first day of each new month (I’m not ashamed to say every little helps – but I see I’ve already mentioned that above – which doesn’t make it any less true). I’ve now borrowed to the full extent of my Cosmopolitans advance. All the money I made from The Girl Factory is tied up in blue-chip shares and insurance policies, which I can’t cash without alerting Lottie, or Aelthred, even worse. Wallace urges me to deliver Cosmopolitans, but I keep telling him I haven’t the time to spare as I’m doing so much extra journalism these days, to make ends meet. I suggested doing a monograph on Gris, but Wallace shot that down at once – saying I’d be lucky if I got £10.

  *

  At lunch the other day:

  WALLACE: I thought you said you had an idea for another novel.

  ME: Just a vague idea. About a group of young people, couples, sharing a villa at Biarritz for the summer.

  WALLACE: Sounds excellent. I’d read that.

  ME: I thought of calling it Summer at Saint-Jean.

  WALLACE: You can’t fail with ‘Summer’ in the title. I could get you £500 tomorrow.

  ME: Wonderful. But when am I meant to write it?

  WALLACE: Write a synopsis. Two pages. A few lines. Time’s running out, Logan.

  That sounded ominous – clearly my Girl Factory credit is all but used up. So I sat down and tried to put something on paper. As a simple experiment, I took our situation at Biarritz, changed everyone’s names, created extra tensions, external pressures (wives, ex-lovers). Suddenly, like Wallace, I could see the huge potential in this idea – the sex appeal, abroad, the freedom of summer heat by the ocean – but I couldn’t unleash it, no matter how I tried.

  1935

  [January]

  Snowed-in at Thorpe. Snow piled up to the window ledges. It would be rather beautiful and romantic if I were here with Freya and not Lottie and Lionel, who seems to have whooping cough. I hear the raucous mocking call of the rooks in the elms – Freya-Freya-Freya – they seem to cry.

  Udo Feuerbach has asked me to do a piece on the Bauhaus and lent me photographs from his collection. I marvelled at the pictures of the girls in the weaving rooms – beautiful and free. One of them looked like Freya. I can’t escape.

  Tuesday, 4 March

  We dined at LuigI’s and went on to the Café Royal. It was busy, full of unfamiliar faces. Spotted and spoke briefly with Cyril and Jean who were with Lyman? Leland? [unidentified]. They left shortly after. Then Adrian Daintrey22 came in with a party in evening dress – which included Virginia Woolf,23 smoking a cigar. I let them have our table and during the general milling around that took place I introduced Freya to Woolf. ‘Are you two here alone?’ she said to Freya. ‘What a ghastly crowd. How it’s changed.’

  ‘We were here with Cyril Connolly, a moment ago,’ Freya said.

  ‘Was his black baboon with him?’ VW asked.

  Freya didn’t know what she was talking about.

  ‘His little gollywog wife.’

  I turned to Freya. ‘Now you understand Mrs Woolf’s reputation for charm.’ Back to VW. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’

  We strode out and when we reached home had our first serious row. Freya was a little shocked at VW’s spite. I said you would never imagine the person who wrote all that lyrical breathy prose was steeped in such venom. ‘At least she writes,’ Freya said, without thinking. But it cut and so we looked around for something to argue about and duly found it. Now I’m writing this, about to go to sleep on the sofa, and I can hear Freya sobbing next door in the bedroom.

  Wednesday, 20 March

  To a dull exhibition of collages and photographs at the Mayor Gallery. Enlived only by being cut dead by Mrs Woolf – positively spun on her heel to avoid me. Clearly I am not forgiven.

  Went on to artrevue offices and drank wine with Udo. He listened patiently while I raged at the mediocrity of English art. He told me they have signs up in every German town now saying Die Judensind hier unwünscht [No Jews wanted here]. You can hardly believe it possible. But Udo said it put things in perspective: we could tolerate a moribund art scene without too much pain, he said: there were other consolations for living in London.

  [March-April]

  Movements: Norfolk – London – Norfolk. Paris – Rome (for Easter. Three days with Freya). We plan our summer: Greece. What do I say to L. this year?

  [April]

  Heroic efforts see Cosmopolitans finally completed. I took it into Roderick, who commented, a little acidly, on its brevity: it will come out at under 150 pages. (I explained I had planned, then abandoned, the idea of an anthology of translated poems appended, which would have bulked it up.) Well, at least you’ve got it out of your system, he said. Now what about this rather sexy novel Wallace has been tempting me with? I let him believe it was a possibility.

  Freya follows the development of the P. of Wales/Mrs Simpson affair with fascinated interest – she can read about it in the American newspapers they have at the BBC. She thinks it utterly disgraceful that the population at large remains in near total ignorance. ‘I tell everyone about it,’ she said, ‘everyone I meet.’ I must admit to a curious interest in it myself since my encounter with the Prince on the golf course. Angus is a reliable source – he must know somebody in the inner circle – he says the Prince is utterly besotted with Mrs S. – follows her around like a dog.

  [July]

  In the end I lied. Said I was going to France to work. Freya and I met in Paris and flew to Marseilles. Then from Marseilles by boat to Athens. Hired a car and motored: Delphi – Nauplia – Mycenae – Athens. Intense heat: we longed for rain and cool weather. We

  resolved never to spend our holiday like this again, constantly on the move. Last year in Biarritz was an idyll. And I just can’t take a constant diet of ancient culture – guided tour after guided tour of individual ruins, however beautiful, however freighted with history. In my mind Greece is reduced to one vast pile of shattered marble, shimmering in a heat haze. Dust mantled olive groves, sweltering hotel bedrooms, flies. We vowed to come back one spring. Mind you, it was incredibly cheap. Flew Athens – Rome. Then train to Paris, London. Exhausted, irritable, not the success we had imagined. And now I have to spend a month with my family. I think Freya will relish her solitude.

  [August]

  Dick [Hodge] comes to the rescue. A quiet month at Kildonnan with Lottie and Lionel. Angus and Sally for a fortnight also. I golfed at Gullane and Muirhead with a friend of Angus from the City, Ian Fleming.24 He was off to Kitzbühel. I told him about the scorching heat of Greece and he recommended the Alps in the summer – loves the Austrian Tyrol. I wrote to Freya and told her to pick her favourite mountain for next year.

  Thursday, 26 September

  At lunch today Peter [Scabius] presented me with a copy of his thriller – or his ‘Teccie’, as he referred to it with disparaging modesty. It’s called Beware of the Dog, published by Brown & Almay next week. Just a bit of fun, really, he said, not in your league. We drank rather a lot to celebrate and Peter confessed he was having an affair with the wife of another journalist who works on The Times. He said he had fallen
out of love with Tess but would never leave her because of the children. ‘She’s a dear thing and a good mother, but I was far too young to marry her.’ He asked me how things were with Lottie and I said wonderful. Lucky man, he said: it’s not always ‘marry in haste repent at leisure’. I was on the point of telling him about Freya and then resisted: the idea of telling Peter, here and now, would cheapen my relationship with her. My life with Freya is no ‘affair’, no fling. And I felt obscurely hurt for Tess; felt her betrayal and resented Peter for including me in his duplicity. And all this has, of course, made me reflect on my own situation. I feel nothing for Lottie. And I feel nothing negative about her either. Sexually our life is at a virtual standstill – though I notice that lately she has started talking about a little brother or sister for Lionel. Since Lionel’s arrival I always make sure I wear a condom on our rare fucks. The last time (in Scotland) she said: ‘Must you, darling? Not tonight.’ I said we couldn’t afford another child. She started to cry and the need for prophylaxis was over.

  In parallel, Freya and I lead this curious, loving, cocooned life at Draycott Avenue. When I’m not with her she picks up her old bachelor-girl ways with her friends – none of whom I’ve met. When I’m with her we lead the selfish, self-absorbed existence of a newly married couple. She goes off to work in the mornings and I set about my London business: have meetings, visit the offices of the magazines I work for, do research in the London Library, lunch with friends. I’m always home by the time she returns from the BBC. At some stage in the day I ring up Lottie and we chat for a few minutes. Lottie seems quite content and unsuspecting – she doesn’t really like London anyway.