2002 - Any human heart

by William Boyd

  Friday, 4 December

  Nat Tate came round to my apartment last night, unannounced. Not drunk—indeed, quite calm and composed. He offered me $6,000 for the two paintings of his I owned—far too much. I said they were not for sale. All right, he said: he only wanted to rework them (an idea inspired by his visit to Braque’s studio↓) and explained what he had in mind.

  ≡ Tate and Barkasian had visited Braque in his Varengeville studio in September 1959.

  I let him take them away with some reluctance. Before he left he offered me $1,500 for my three ‘Bridge’ drawings; I said I would swap them for another picture but I didn’t want to sell. He became rather tetchy and incoherent at this point—banging on about artistic integrity and its conspicuous absence in NY, etc.—so I gave him a stiff drink and unhooked my two canvases off the wall, keen to see the back of him.

  Then Janet called this morning with a report of the same ‘reworking’ notion. She’d let him take away all the work she had in the gallery—she thought it was a neat idea.

  I asked her for a date but she said she was seeing another man. She was in love with him. Who is it? I asked. Tony Kolokowski. But he’s a queer, I said, you might as well fall in love with Frank. Don’t be so cynical, Logan, she said: he’s bi, anyway. These New York women.

  Saturday, 19 December

  I go down to 47th and Eighth hoping to spot Rose or Jatintha. Am I crazy? How many tricks will they have turned in the six months since our night together? I can’t find them, anyway, and clear off with some relief. Times Squarfe and those side streets give me the creeps. Am I so preposterously sentimental to think that I have shared something meaningful with those girls? That we could meet, reminisce, that there is some sort of a bond between us? Yes, I am that preposterously sentimental. There’s no fool like an old fool, Mountstuart.

  The Jan-Carl situation has resolved itself. I finally received a very cryptic letter from Ben in which he said that the ‘Swiss adventure’ might be worth exploring. Then there was a very circumlocutionary passage: ‘If the Swiss holiday is taken, then it can only be taken by you. I would not be corning on the trip. However, if you had a successful time, then I might, anecdotally, pretend I had been there too. If, on the other hand, you don’t enjoy yourself, then that would be a disappointment you alone would have to cope with.’ I assume all this means is that if it goes wrong I will take the blame—the mud will stick to me. Ben wants ‘deniability’ as 1 believe they call it. But if we make a pile, he’ll take it. I have to think further.

  Thursday, 31 December

  I’m going to Todd Heuber’s party later tonight and I find myself depressed by the prospect, and not just because my jaw is aching. I had three molars removed yesterday. And my dentist says I’ll have to be careful: my gums are retreating, I could lose the lot. Funny how the idea of losing your teeth chills the soul. I send my tongue out to caress the raw void where my teeth were, then sluice some whisky round my mouth. Ouch! A new decade and a terrible premonition of the body beginning to decay; the old reliable machine beginning to malfunction. New Year’s resolution: resolve to get fitter, to cut down on the booze and the pills. Perhaps I should take up golf again.

  1960

  Friday, 15 January

  Janet called in at the gallery in huge distress. It seems that Nat Tate has ‘gone missing’, though all the evidence points to suicide. A young man, looking very like Tate, jumped off the Staten Island Ferry on Tuesday [the 12th]. Janet then discovered that all the work Tate had reclaimed had been systematically destroyed—burned in a great bonfire at Windrose. She asked me to come down to the studio, where Peter Barkasian was meeting her.

  At the studio, Barkasian, you could see, was only just holding himself together by massive wishful-thinking. Nat would never do such a crazy thing—it’s just a breakdown—he’ll be back, start over. We wandered around: the place was immaculate, tidy and ordered.

  In the kitchen, glasses were clean and stacked, waste-paper baskets had been emptied. In the studio there was just one canvas placed against the wall, obviously recently started, a crosshatched mass of bruised blues, purples and blacks. Its title, ‘Orizaba ⁄ Return to Union Beach’, was scrawled on the back but neither Janet nor Barkasian picked up the reference. I told them that ‘Orizaba’ was the name of the ship carrying Hart Crane [Tate’s magus-poet figure] back from Havana on his last, fatal journey in 1932. ‘Fatal?’ Barkasian said. ‘How did Hart Crane die?’ Janet shrugged—no idea. I felt I had to tell him. ‘He drowned,’ I said, ‘he jumped overboard.’ Barkasian was shocked, driven to tears. The painting, inchoate and mystifying, was suddenly the only suicide note available. If poor Nat could not continue to live his life as an artist, he at least ensured that the symbolic weight of its end was apt—and to be duly noted. All very sad, of course, but he was in a desperate state—and who am I to say he should have pulled himself together, taken a grip and not surrendered to despair? He destroyed everything, Barkasian confirmed, which must include my two paintings. At least I have my ‘Bridge’ drawings. Janet is full of conspiracy theories but I think the simple explanation is that the poor fellow had gone barking mad. Talking of conspiracy theories. I spotted Jan-Carl lunching with Marius Leeping. Two dealers lunching—nothing odd in that. But why do I smell the hand of Marius Leeping in the collector X scam? I telephoned Jan-Carl and told him that I wasn’t interested—the Picasso was not for sale. His famous poise became significantly unbalanced. He said that I was a fool, I was already involved and I couldn’t back out now, everything was in place, they needed that Picasso. I said I had told him I would think it over, I reminded him, and I have: not interested. Typically English, he sneered. I said I’d take that as a compliment. Perfide Albion lives on. I telegrammed Ben: swiss HOLIDAYCANCELLED.

  Monday, 18 January

  I called up Jerry Schubert [Leeping Fils’ lawyer] just to check on the Jan-Carl Lang matter, that he could lay no claim to the Picasso.

  ‘There’s no contract, no bill of sale,’Jerry said, ‘he can’t touch you. It was only talk. Everybody talks.’

  Letter from Lionel saying he may be coming to New York and if so is there any chance of a bed for a few nights? My first reaction was—of course not. But he’s your son, you oaf, you moron. Why does his coming disturb you so? Because he’s a stranger to me. But maybe it’ll be good, you get on, you might actually like him. Maybe…It can only be his Mountstuart genes that drew him into the music business.

  §

  [In the summer of 1960 two young independent film producers called Marcio and Martin Canthaler optioned LMS’s novella, The Villa by the Lake, for their Hollywood production company, MCMC Pictures. LMS was flown out to Los Angeles for meetings and to explore the idea that he would write the screenplay. As it happened, Peter Scabius was also in town in negotiations over the film rights of his latest novel, Already Too Late (a futuristic allegory about the threat to the planet of nuclear war).]

  Sunday, 24 July

  Bel Air Hotel, Los Angeles. Strange feeling of being in some kind of dream. This hotel is a mini Shangri-La. I feel I only start to age when I cross over the little bridge that leads to the parking lot, and when I return time stands still once more. Perfect peace, low buildings sheltered in lush densely planted gardens, a pale blue swimming pool.

  I had Peter here to lunch yesterday and I could tell he was a little put out at the hotel’s discreet splendour. Who’s picking up the bill? he demanded to know. Paramount? Warner Bros? MCMC, I said. Where are you? Beverly Wilshire, he said. Oh, very grand, I said, and he was mollified, secure and smug again. He’s so easy to handle, Peter, which is one of the reasons I’m so fond of him, I suppose. He’s developed a truly superb, magnificent ego over the years, breathtaking in its presumption, and the match of anything you might find in this town. When I think of what a nervous little chap he was at school…

  The most interesting news is that Gloria has left him for an Italian aristocrat, Count somebody-or-other. He is divorcing her as fast as
possible. No problems with the Catholic Church? I asked him. ‘I lost my faith in Algeria,’ he said, looking sombre and battle-weary. He’s in good shape—better than me—tanned, lean, though his hair is suspiciously dark, not a grey hair, most unusual. Mine is now distinctly pepper and salt, forehead becoming more and more prominent.

  Monday, 25 July

  Meeting with Marcio and Martin at their offices in Brentwood. Marcio is thirty-five, Martin thirty-two. Both genial, both slightly overweight, Martin balding, Marcio with a curly, crooner’s mop. They have paid me $5,000 for a year’s option on Villa with the right to renew for a further year.

  §

  MARCIO: So, Logan, how was your weekend?

  ME: I had lunch with an old friend, Peter Scabius.

  MARCIO: Great writer.

  MARTIN: Ditto to that.

  ME: And I went to a show. At an art gallery.

  MARTIN: We love art. Who was on?

  ME: Diebenkorn.

  MARCIO: We got one of his, I think.

  MARTIN: We have two, actually, Marcio.

  §

  This is what confuses you out here. You think you are having a fruitless meeting with two affable numskulls and you end up talking about Richard Diebenkorn for half an hour. They want me to write the script, they say, but they don’t want to pay me until it’s done and they’ve read it. But what if you don’t like it? I say. You’re not going to pay for a script you don’t like. Won’t be an issue, Logan, Marcio assures me. We know we’re going to love whatever you do, Martin adds.

  Later I telephone Wallace in London and ask his advice. Agree to nothing, he says, tell them to make all proposals to me. I sense he’s a little annoyed that I’m only consulting him now. I’m your agent, Logan, he says, this is my job, for Christ’s sake.

  Saturday, 30 July

  On the plane, Pan Am, back to NYC. Yesterday evening I went down to Santa Monica and walked by the ocean. I had a couple of drinks in a bar by the pier as dusk fell and the sky and the sea began to look like a Rothko colour field. I felt good, lightly tanned, at ease, enjoying the slow burn of the booze and I suddenly had the fantasy about moving out here—start a Leeping Fils West…As you grow older and your life becomes more ordered, so too a comfortable, temperate, easy-going version of the Good Life becomes ever more appealing. I might meet a nice Californian woman—they seem to have more than their fair share of beautiful women out here. But I realized, as I explored it further, that this was and would only be a fantasy: I’d go mad in a month or two—just as I’d go mad in a cottage in Somerset, or a farm in Tuscany. My nature is essentially urban and, although Los Angeles is indubitably a city, somehow its mores aren’t. Maybe it’s the weather that makes it feel forever suburban and provincial: cities need extremes of weather, so that you long for escape. I could live in Chicago, I think—I’ve enjoyed my trips to Chicago. Also there has to be something brutal and careless about a true city—the denizen must feel vulnerable—and Los Angeles doesn’t deliver that either, at least not in my short experience. I feel too damn comfortable here, too cocooned. These are not experiences of the true city: its nature seeps in under the door and through the windows—you can never be free of it. And the genuine urban man or woman is always curious—curious about the Me outside on the streets. That just doesn’t apply here: you live in Bel Air and you don’t ask yourself what’s going on in Pacific Palisades—or am I missing something?

  We resolved the script issue: $10,000 payable in advance; another ten if it’s accepted. Wallace did a good job, which made me think: why don’t I use him more? When we spoke on the phone I told him about my idea for Octet and wondered if we could prise an advance out of Sprymont & Drew. He told me that Sprymont & Drew don’t exist any more. The company was bought and the imprint is defunct. What about Roderick? He’s resurfaced at Michael Kazin—at a much reduced salary. He suggested I put the idea down on paper and he said he would see what he could do, but added: ‘It won’t be easy, Logan. I have to warn you—things have changed, and you’re not exactly a household name.’ True. True…

  Thursday, 15 September

  Lionel has been here the last four days. He has untidy long hair that hangs over his ears and a thin patchy beard. I could have bumped into him on the street and not known he was my son. He is still taciturn and diffident and the mood in the apartment since he’s arrived is one of self-conscious reserve and scrupulous politeness: ‘After you with the salt.’

  ‘You have it, I insist.’ Lionel seems to know a good few people in the city, what with his contacts in the music business. I asked him about his work and he explained, without my taking much in. His first band, the Greensleeves, changed their name to the Fabulairs and made a successful record—just outside the top-twenty, he said. Lionel was invited over to America by a small independent record company to see if he can effect a similar transformation here. He’s very excited, he says: America is the place to be for contemporary music, he claims, just like art. England is filled—with pale imitations of American recording stars. I nod, in an interested manner. Lionel played me his Fabulairs hit—pleasant enough melody, jaunty, a catchy chorus. This music does little for me; or put it this way—1 enjoy it as much as I would a brass band. Ganz ordindr. It’s been worth while coming to know him better but I’ll be pleased to have the place to myself again. He moves into an apartment in the West Village next week.

  We’ve had a few meals out together—we must look an odd couple as we stroll the Upper East Side. He tells me Lottie is well, though I sense he sees little of her. Her two daughters by Leggatt—what are they called?—thrive: one about to finish boarding school, one working on a fashion magazine as a sort of secretary. So life moves on.

  We sit in a restaurant and try to chat naturally. Try: I wonder if we can ever know each other well enough so that we no longer have to make an effort, so that our discourse is instinctive and thoughtless. But, I say to myself, why should that ever be? I never experienced such ease with my parents: I didn’t expect it and neither did they. Lionel is almost a complete stranger to me as a result of my divorce from Lottie. The fact that he’s my son, product of my union with Lottie, seems almost incredible. I have a far closer relationship with Gail. To be honest, I’ll be glad to have him out of the apartment—glad, but guilty, of course.

  Message from Marcio and Martin—they have significant problems with my first draft. I bet they do—but not as significant as mine. Thankless drudge-work: I sense the Hollywood period of my life has just ended.

  1961

  Sunday, 1 January

  Saw in the New Year with Janet and Kolokowski. Big, noisy, drunken, depressing party. I popped into Lionel’s apartment on Jane Street for a drink beforehand. He thinks he’s found his new band—the Cicadas, a folk group, a trio. He wants to rename them the Dead Souls. What, I said, after the Gogol novel? What novel? Gogol’s great novel, one of the greatest ever written, Dead Souls. You mean there’s already a novel called Dead Souls? FUCK! He swore and ranted, much to my delight: it was the most animated I’d ever seen him. Look on it as a plus, I said: if you didn’t know about it, chances are not many other people will—and those that do will be impressed. I think it’s a tremendous name for a pop group, I said. My words elated him and he gave a huge wide smile—and for a poignant instant I saw myself in him, and not Lottie and the Edgefields. I went weak at the knees, feeling a swarming confusion of emotions—relief, then awful guilt, terror and, I suppose, the atavistic Stirrings of an almost-love. One of the band members arrived—a sweatered and corduroyed youngster with uncombed hair—and the moment was over. Lionel played me some tape-recordings of the Dead Souls’ music and I made the right appreciative noises. He wants to bring me into his world, to share it with me, and I must make every effort to respond. It’s the least I can do.

  At the party I had a tense argument with Frank [O’Hara]. I must say he’s incredibly argumentative these days, quite passionately angry—to the extent that some people are frightened of him. Of course,
it was drink-fuelled, like all our disputes. I had said that whenever I was interested in a new artist I always wanted to look at the earliest work of theirs available, even juvenilia. Why’s that? Frank said, suspicious. Well, I said, because early talent—precocity, call it what you will—is usually a good guide to later talent. If there’s no talent on display in the early work it rather tends to undermine the claims for the later, in my opinion. Bullshit, said Frank, you’re so institutionalized. Look at de Kooning, I said: the early work is really impressive. Look at Picasso when he was at art school—astonishing. Even Franz Kline’s early stuff is OK—which explains why the later stuff is OK also. Look at Barnett Newman—hopeless. Then look at Pollock—he couldn’t draw a cardboard box—which rather explains what happened next, don’t you think? Fuck you, Frank railed at me, now Jackson’s dead, cunts like you try to cut him down to your size. Nonsense, I said: I expressed the same opinions when Jackson was alive and kicking. He’s the redwood tree, Frank said, you’re just shrubs and saplings. He gestured at half a dozen startled artists who had gathered round to hear the row.

  Met a pretty woman there—Nancy? Janey?—and we exchanged a kiss that promised much at midnight. She gave me her name and phone number but I’ve lost it. Maybe Janet can track her down. I drank too much and have a sore head and a shivery nervy feel to my body. New Year’s resolution: cut down on the booze and the pills.