by William Boyd
Monday, 27 February
My birthday. N°55. A card from Lionel and one from Gail. ‘Happy birthday, dear Logan, and don’t tell Mom you got this.’ I had a vodka and orange juice for breakfast to celebrate, then a couple of slugs of gin mid morning at the office. Liquid lunch at Bemelmans—two Negronis. Opened a bottle of champagne for the staff in the afternoon. Feeling sluggish so took a couple of Dexedrine. Two Martinis before going out to meet Naomi [the woman from the party]. Wine and grappa at Di Santo’s. Naomi had a headache so I dropped her at her apartment and didn’t stay. So I sit here with a big Scotch and soda, Poulenc on the gramophone, about to take a couple of Nembutal to send me off to the land of nod. Happy birthday, Logan.
Monday, 3 July
Profoundly shocked by Hemingway’s death.↓
≡ Hemingway committed suicide on 2 July.
The devastating, sobering, chilling brutality of it. Herman [Keller] said he blew his head off, literally. Both barrels of a shotgun. The room covered in bits of expressed brain, bone and blood. Is that symbolic, or what? All the trouble coming from the brain so disintegrate it. I think of him in Madrid, in ‘37: his energy and passion, his kindness to me, using his car to find the Miros. I couldn’t read the novels after For Whom the Bell Tolls—truly bad work, he had lost his way—but the stories were wonderful and wonderfully inspiring when I first read them. Was that the one moment in his career when he was genuinely blessed? And nothing more after—the Jackson Pollock of American Literature. Herman, who knows someone close to the family, said he was like a little frail grey ghost of a man at the end. Wasted by the shock therapy. Bloody hell: I’ve been to those dark places myself and know something of the torments that can be suffered. Thank Christ I never had the ECT, though. Of course, Hemingway was a chronic boozer, also—one of those who kept himself topped up all day, just over the edge of inebriation but not roaring drunk. Look where it landed him. Sixty-one years old—only six years older than me. I feel all insecure and on edge. Called Herman and we agreed to meet. Funnily enough I want to be with another writer at this moment while it all sinks in—another member of die tribe.
§
[The New York Journal breaks off at this point. LMS made a serious attempt, prompted by Hemingway’s death, to cut down on his own intake of alcohol and amphetamines. Always a light sleeper, he continued to use sleeping pills. He stopped drinking liquor and reduced his intake to ‘under a bottle of wine a day’. In the summer of 1961 he took a month’s holiday in Europe, spending most of the time with Gloria Scabius, now the Contessa di Cordato, and her elderly husband, Cesare, in their comfortable house near Sienna, La Fucina [the forge], inevitably referred to by Gloria as ‘La Fuckina’. It became something of a home away from home for him: he spent the following Christmas and New Year there and returned again in the summer of’63 for another three weeks.
In the autumn of 1962, Alannah was granted her divorce and she married David Peterman. Gail still sent LMS the occasional card, and contrived to meet whenever she could, but it was made dear by Alannah’s lawyer that one of the terms of die divorce was diat there was to be no contact between LMS and eidier of the girls—a stipulation that he always regarded as unnecessarily cruel and spiteful.
The gallery continued to flourish quietly and confidendy, LMS building up a substantial but select collection of modern American painters, concentrating on Kline, Elche, Rodiko, Chardosian, Bazi-otes and Modierwell. Martha Heuber remained loyal and Todd Heuber moved from de Nagy’s to Leeping Fils in October ‘62.
§
LMS’s journalism increased also during this period—a reflection of his comparative sobriety, perhaps. He was frequently invited to comment in British newspapers and magazines on American shows that toured Europe. He always rather resented the reputation he acquired as its champion, claiming that his heart always had lain with the classic modernists and the eccentric individualists of the European tradition. None the less, he published important pieces on Larry Rivers, Adolph Gottlieb, Talbot Strand and Helen Frankenthaler in the Observer, Encounter and the Sunday Times colour supplement among others. Wallace Douglas secured him a monthly column, ‘Notes from NYC’, in the political-cultural weekly the New Rambler. The journal resumes in the spring of 1963.]
1963
Friday, 19 April
To the launch of revolver. Ann Ginsberg is funding the whole enterprise by all accounts. Udo [Feuerbach] does it again—though I find it odd that a magazine of the avant-garde arts should take its’ name from Goering’s famous boast.↓
≡ ‘When I hear the word ‘Culture’ I reach for my revolver.’
On second thoughts, perhaps it’s rather witty. The old crowd had loyally foregathered—though I think we’re all looking a little old and jaded. Frank, puffy-faced and flushed (we promised Ann we wouldn’t have an argument), Janet and Kolokowski (what does he do, that man?). One was more aware of the casualty list: Pollock, Tate, Kline. Living this hard in New York takes its toll. As I had promised not to argue with Frank, I argued instead with Herman about the alleged beauty of Mrs JFK. I said by no stretch of the imagination could she be described as a beautiful woman: a nice woman, yes; a thin woman, granted; a well-dressed woman, indubitably—but beautiful, absolutely not.
Herman, who has been in the same room as her, said that being in her presence is like encountering a forcefield—you’re unmanned, stunned. You’re just a raving fan, that’s all, I said. It’s the office that’s making you awestruck—the First Lady, and all that—you’re not judging, you’re feeling. Then I had another argument with Deedee Blaine about Warhol—whom she sees as the Antichrist. At least Warhol can draw, I said: he can do it but he’s decided not to—it’s quite a different strategy. Naomi broke us up—she thought I was being very provocative.
Ann cornered me later and made me promise to write something. I said I was too old for a magazine as ‘hip’ as revolver and she said, ‘OK, I promise we won’t put your age at the bottom of the article.’ I like Ann—chain-smoking, thin as a stick, voice deeper than mine—and one has to admit she’s spread her petrochemical millions around to beneficial effect. She asked me to a French Embassy reception as her escort. I could hardly refuse.
Wednesday, 8 May
Lionel calls round full of excitement: the Dead Souls have entered some chart or other at number 68. His beard is no thicker but his hair is over the back of his collar. He has a girlfriend now, he says, a real American girl called Monday.
After he leaves I haul myself into my tuxedo (I’m definitely putting on weight) and wander over to Ann’s place on Fifth, whence we limo the few hundred yards to the soiree. Ann is greeted like an old friend by the ambassador. I mingle with the other eighty, middle-aged dignitaries sipping champagne under the blazing light of six chandeliers. Very French, such luminosity, I think—like their brasseries: unsparing incandescence. I have a few words with a sweating attache who seems unnecessarily on edge, continually glancing round to the door. ‘Ah, les voila,’ he says reverentially. I turn round to see the Duke and Duchess of Windsor walk in.
What do I feel? It’s nearly twenty years since I was this dose to them. The Duke looks old, wizened, very frail—he must be in his seventies.↓
10. Actually only sixty-nine.
The Duchess is like a painted figurine under the tremendous lights, her face carved out of chalk, her mouth a livid gash of scarlet lipstick. Neither looks particularly gracious or pleased to be here, but I daresay they can’t refuse an official summons from the French—given that the state has let them off paying income tax (a complete scandal, in my opinion).
I circle round and try to find a better position to observe them. The Duke is smoking, asks for a whisky and soda. The Duchess’s legs look like they’d snap in a frost. She wanders round, greeting people (she seems to know quite a few), the Duke following forlornly in her wake, puffing on his cigarette, nodding and smiling to anyone his gaze lights upon. But his eyes are doleful and rheumy, and his smile is entirely automatic.
I stand rigid as they draw near.
It’s the Duchess who sees me first and her gash-like mouth freezes in mid smile. I do nothing. All that stored animosity from 1943 crackles across the room, as potent as ever. She turns to the Duke and whispers to him. When he sees me, the first expression on his face can only be described as fearful, before it shades into a grimace of anger and outrage. They turn their backs on me and talk to the ambassador.
A few moments later the attache I’d been talking to earlier comes up and requests me to leave the party. I ask why, for God’s sake. ‘Son Altesse’ insists on it, he says, otherwise he and the Duchess will leave. Please inform Mrs Ginsberg I will wait outside, I say.
I spend half an hour pacing up and down Fifth Avenue, smoking. My beat takes me past the door as the Duke and Duchess are leaving. There are a gaggle of photographers and a small crowd of about a dozen people who break into applause as the couple make for their car. I even see some women curtsy.
I can’t resist it and shout out: ‘WHO KILLED SIR HARRY OAKBS?’ The look of terrified panicked shock on their faces is adequate compensation for me—for everything they did to me, for all time. They can do their worst now. They scramble into their limousine and are swept away. I almost become involved in a fist-fight with a portly royalist who calls me scum and a disgrace to America. Warm agreement from the other bystanders. When I explain that I’m English they find it very puzzling. ‘Traitor,’ one of them says half-heartedly, as they turn away. ‘That man conspired to pervert the course of justice,’ I say to their indifferent backs.
Ann Ginsberg is most amused when I explain what went on. What a funny old life you’ve led, Logan, she says.
Thursday, 11 July
La Fucina. A perfect Fucina day. Just the three of us—though we don’t see much of Cesare this year. He’s very old and very rigid in his habits, writing his memoirs in his room all day, only joining us for drinks and dinner. The house is rambling and airily comfortable with well-placed sun terraces, set in its own olive and citrus groves at the end of a gentle valley, facing west, its back to Sienna. I have a room in a separate little guest annexe and walk across the courtyard for breakfast, at which I am always the first to arrive. Gloria comes down when she hears me being served by Cesare’s manservant and factotum, Enzo. She wears jeans, her hair tied back in a scarf, a man’s shirt knotted at the waist. She’s more ample now but carries the extra pounds with her usual careless flair. ‘I’ve been up for hours, darling,’ she says, and I pretend to believe it. She smokes a cigarette and watches me eat—always poached eggs on toast, which is as close as Enzo can come to an English breakfast.
Today we went to Sienna for lunch and sat in a café on the Campo drinking Frascati. Funnily enough the tourists don’t bother me—the square is vast enough for them not to impinge on its beauties. I wandered around and went to the cathedral while Gloria picked up a gramophone that was being repaired. Then back to La Fucina after a plate of pasta and a salad. Gloria took her dogs off for a walk—they have four—and I lay in a hammock and read and dozed. Très detendu.
She’s still very sexy, Gloria, at least to my old eyes. The other evening she came down in a cotton sweater and I could see from the hang and sway of her breasts that she wasn’t wearing a bra. After dinner, when Cesare went up to bed and she was standing by the gramophone leafing through her LPs, I went up behind her, encircled her waist with my arms and nuzzled her neck. ‘Mmm, lovely,’ she said. Then I moved my hands up to her breasts. ‘No, no, no,’ she said. ‘Bad Logan.’
‘Not even a boff de nostalgic!’ I said. She put her records down and kissed me smack on the lips. ‘Not even that.’
—The trouble is that when we’re alone at the pool she takes her top off while she sunbathes. Delicious torment for me, eyeing her over my book. Maybe that’s why I’ve come to love this place—the atmosphere always spicily redolent of Gloria and our sexual history. I think she likes knowing I’m sitting there, aching with frustration. She had the latest news of Peter. The Cuban Missile Crisis sent Already Too Late to the top of bestseller lists around the world. ‘He does love it when critics describe him as prescient,’ Gloria said. ‘He’s been to Vietnam twice.’
Tonight Cesare joined us for dinner, perfect in blazer and white cotton trousers. He moves very slowly, stiffly, leaning on a cane. Gloria teases him, much to his delight: ‘Here he is, silly old count.’
I’m writing this on the terrace of my little guest house. Moths batter at the bulbs set into the rough stone walls and the geckos eat their fill. Crickets beep, toads croak in the darkness beyond the yellow rim of light. I carried over a big glass filled with ice cubes and whisky. I always sleep well here—no need for my pills.
Saturday, 12 October
New York. Dinner at Bistro la Buffa with Lionel and Monday. Jack Finar was dining with Philip Guston and Sam M. Goodforth at another table, but I avoided his eye. I won’t be popular in the Finar household when he reads my piece in next month’s revolver. I detest his new stuff. It’s always strange when a perfectly competent painter deliberately starts to paint badly. Only the very best can get away with it (Picasso). In Finar’s case it looks like a desperate attempt to be fashionable.
Monday turns out to be a dark, strapping girl, of Italian or Hispanic extraction, I would say, with olivey skin, a small slightly, delightfully, hooked nose (maybe she’s Jewish?) and a pointed chin. Lots of thick curly unwashed hair. She looks like she could eat Lionel for breakfast. She used to go out with Dave, the lead singer in the Dead Souls, but has switched her attentions to Leo, the manager. The transfer is an amicable one: indeed the whole group is currently staying at Lionel’s apartment, to economize. They haven’t managed to repeat the success of their debut single, ‘American Lion’ (number 37 was as high as it climbed in the charts). Lionel and Monday somehow manage to hold hands the entire evening. I ask Monday what her surname is and she says she hasn’t got one. What was it before you abandoned it, I insist. Oh, all right then, ‘Smith’. And I’m Logan Brown, I say.
I walked them home and Lionel asked me up to meet the band. Two of them were there, one whom I’d met before, and three girls, all about Monday’s age. Half a dozen mattresses with coloured blankets made up most of the furniture. For the first time in my life I felt a sense of ease and relief about Lionel; he’d broken away from the world of Lottie and the Edgefields—who cared here that he was a baronet and the grandson of an earl? He’d found a place where he could be himself. I felt a pang of envy too, as I walked the streets looking for a cab, imagining them all getting ready for bed. No doubt they just fucked when they felt like it—no big deal. Suddenly feeling old.
1964
Thursday, 30 January
One of my rare clandestine meetings with Gail. As she’s grown older↓ her features have sharpened rather, and I can see the Alannah in her more dearly.
≡Gail was seventeen in 1964.
Her hair is long now—like everyone else’s, it seems, but her sweet nature is unchanged. She makes all the arrangements for our meetings in a hushed voice over the phone: ‘Meet me in the diner at the coiner of Madison and 79th. I can stay an hour.’ We sit at the rear (I have my back to the door) and she smokes a cigarette as we drink coffee. She’s good at art and she wants to go to art school, but Alannah and Peterman won’t hear of it. ‘It’s too bad you and Mom got divorced,’ she said with almost adult bitterness. ‘You’re a much more interesting kind of stepfather. Even Arlene (she rolls her eyes) thinks so.’ She lists my virtues: English, works in the art world, knows all the groovy artists, has lived all over the place, has written novels, has been in prison. Even I begin to think what a tremendous fellow I am. I tell her I can still help her out if she ever needs it. Then I make a little declaration to her that brings a lump to my throat as I say it, taking her hand. We were a family for years, I say. I love you girls and I’ve watched you grow up. Nothing can change that. The fact that me and your mum couldn’t make a go of it has nothing to do with you and me and h
ow we feel about each other. I’m here for you, darling, I say, whenever you want me—always, for ever. I can see the tears welling in her eyes and so I change the subject and for some reason ask her where she was when JFK was shot. At school, she says, in a math class. The principal came in and broke the news. Everyone started to cry, even the boys too. Where were you? I’d been on the phone to Ben in Paris. He must have had sight of a television because suddenly he said: ‘Jesus Christ, somebody’s shot your president.’ I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, very funny, Ben.’ Then I heard Helma scream in the gallery and I knew it was real.
Thursday, 27 February
Fifty-eight. Good God. I don’t think I’ll bother making another of these annual assessments—too depressing.
Health: fair. No more teeth out. Haven’t had a Dexedrine for months. Drinking more under control. I ration myself to one cocktail at lunch but I probably still drink too much in the evening. Smoking: one pack a day if I don’t go out. Somewhat overweight, bit of a belly. Hair receding, greying. Still recognizably the LMS of old, unlike, say, Ben Leeping, now a fat old man, quite bald.
Sex life: adequate. Naomi Mitchell [a curator at the Museum of Modern Art] my current girlfriend. Respectful, tolerant affair—could be more fun. We date once or twice a week when our schedules permit.
Soul: a bit depressed. For some reason I’m worrying more about my future. I can stay on here in New York indefinitely, running Leeping Fils for as long as I want or am able. My salary is good, my apartment comfortable. My journalistic output and influence is gratifyingly high. I move in an interesting, sophisticated crowd; I travel to Europe whenever I wish; I own a small flat in London. So what are you complaining about? I think…I never really expected my life to be like this, somehow. What happened to those youthful dreams and ambitions? What happened to those vital, fascinating books I was going to write?