by Sue Townsend
‘For a finance manager,’ says her companion.
Thursday November 5th
The sun has gone to my head. I’ve just gone into a bank and asked for 10,000 pizzas.
‘You must go to a restaurant,’ says the cashier, laughing, before giving me my 10,000 pesetas. I swim and sunbathe on the beach and then return to the hotel and wait for the photographer who is flying out from England today. I hope he won’t constantly whine about ‘the light’, like most photographers do.
Friday November 6th
The photographer, Barry, is extremely nice, he doesn’t whine once, he isn’t a bore, and he is enthusiastic about Porto Soller. He charms people into helping him. A lugubrious Frenchman is seduced away from his sunbed and asked to hold a portable light, and the deckchair man, Pedro, poses happily. He tells us not to come in the season, ‘Children cry, sun hot hot hot. Many people, disco noise all night.’ According to the deckchair man the best months are May and September.
Saturday November 7th
Barry and I drive to Valldemosa, the monastery retreat of Georges Sand and Chopin. Ms Sand was hoping for a grand amour, but Chopin immediately fell ill, the weather was appalling, and the local people took against her and her entourage. They were unused to seeing a trousered cigar-smoking female in the vicinity. Her description of Valldemosa and the surrounding countryside as written in A Winter in Majorca is so perfect that I cannot equal it, but only urge you to read the book and visit Valldemosa for yourself. The high-walled gardens behind each monk’s cell are a special delight.
Sunday November 8th
The rain is pouring down, disconsolate Germans sit about in the hotel, twiddling their sticks. Barry leaves for England and I decide to hire a taxi for the afternoon and go to Calobra to see the Torrent de Pareis, a natural phenomenon, where the sea enters between massive cliffs and forms a river. Apart from a thin strip of sand the beach consists of small, sharp pebbles. The Torrent is amazing but the drive to it is quite incredible. We pass desolate wildernesses, mountain top reservoirs, and fields of petrified trees which look like creatures from Fantasia. The taxi dodges falling rocks, sudden springs of water, sheep, deer and goats, shaking foreign drivers in hire cars, and, once, a car pulling a caravan. ‘Give that man a medal’, I thought, as I watched the driver navigate around a crumbling hairpin bend, while my heart did a fandango and Mrs Caravan shut her eyes. These are serious roads. As a woman said in the car park at the bottom of the mountain, ‘I couldn’t have stood another minute.’
In the late afternoon I walked to the top of the cliffs in Porto Soller, and as the light faded I climbed a rock face in my jewelled espadrilles. It was an extremely stupid thing to do.
Monday November 9th
Today I left Porto Soller. I got on the tram and then caught a train to Palma from the loveliest railway station in the world, and I don’t mind admitting it, Watson, I had tears in my eyes. I will be back as soon as time and the Inland Revenue allow.
Majorca is magnificent – out of season.
Writing for Television
Last year I had the efficiency of my nerve ends tested in a hospital Out Patients Department. I was hooked up to a machine and then had a series of electric shocks administered to my fingers and arms. The female doctor had a Viennese accent, the technician in charge of the machinery was silent throughout. When I closed my eyes (which I did frequently) I fancifully thought myself in Nazi Germany, bravely withstanding torture. After the two-hour ordeal had finished, I swore never again.
I feel much the same way about writing for television. Why put myself through it? It always starts out pleasantly – usually lunch or dinner in a good restaurant. The wine is slopped into your glass in great quantities by the producer. He doesn’t mention the project you’re about to embark on until the coffee arrives. All previous conversation has been about the house he is renovating. He has told you about his appalling childhood, his allergies, his delinquent children. He has taken you blow by blow through his first marriage. Occasionally he listens while you speak the odd sentence.
Then, the coffee poured out, comes the purpose of your meeting: the script. He takes it out of his briefcase, he weighs it in his hand. He pulls a face, ‘Of course it’s too long,’ he says. ‘The scenes on the beach will have to go.’
‘But,’ you say, ‘it’s called, The Beach. The whole point of the piece is that it’s set on a beach.’
‘Beaches are always difficult,’ he says. ‘Sand in the camera lens. How about The Field?’ He then talks for twenty-five minutes on the advantages of resetting your piece in a field. You find yourself (in spite of attending twelve one-hour assertiveness training sessions) agreeing to this daft notion.
‘Now,’ he says, ‘characters. I don’t believe in Tom.’
‘Why?’ you ask. ‘Tom is an English working-class man in love with a middle-class woman; they meet on the beach, sorry, field.’ The producer says, ‘I think Tom should be an American, a tourist.’
You reel about in your chair and knock back the brandy you’d previously refused. He speaks for ten minutes about this new, American, Tom. ‘Obviously,’ he says, ‘Tom can’t be a council dustman now, can he? Perhaps you could give him a more glamorous job – journalist, actor, stockbroker?’
You flick mournfully through your script, reminding yourself that half of the action takes place at the Council Cleaning Depot in Clacton-Next-The-Sea. How can you possibly transfer these scenes to other, more glamorous, locations?
The producer has the answer, ‘Change the location to County Cork in Ireland,’ he suggests.
At this latest shock your first instinct is to cry out for more brandy, your second instinct is to flee from the restaurant taking your script with you, but you stay where you are. You hear yourself agreeing to rewrite the script. The Field, starring American Tom and set in County Cork in Ireland. What’s more you have promised to deliver the rewrites in five days, because the producer is going on holiday (he has a cottage in County Cork, coincidentally) and would like to work on the rewrites ‘away from the office’.
He then suggests that Amanda, whom you describe in your script as ‘tall and slim and patrician’, is two-dimensional. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if she was a short, earthy blonde?’
At this point you are joined at the table by the producer’s wife, a short, earthy blonde. She tells you that she adores your script. She is dyslexic, but her husband read it aloud to her last night. The blonde tells you she is an actress, she hasn’t worked for years because there is a conspiracy in the industry to keep her out of work. She blames this on the ‘pinko-communists, who are running the business’. Asked to name a communist she says, ‘Michael Grade.’ After you have stopped laughing, you realize that the producer’s wife wants to play the part of your heroine. She has turned up at the restaurant for this reason. She has brought along her scrapbook. You peer with a fixed smile at photographs of the producer’s wife playing Juliet at Kettering Rep 1957, Second Policewoman on the set of Dixon of Dock Green 1962, and back end of cow, Dick Whittington, Haringey Civic Hall 1985.
When the producer lumbers off to the lavatory, the producer’s wife clutches your hand, she confides that her life with ‘him’ is a torment; if only she could earn enough money to leave him. Your feminist sympathies are stirred. You agree that she is perfect for the part. You give it to her, then instantly regret it. You leave the restaurant (after paying the bill) and look for a taxi. You do not want to ride in the taxi, only to throw yourself under the wheels, but luck is not with you, no taxi comes, so you go home, sit at your desk and like the good girl that you are, you do the rewrites.
Russia
When I told my second son that I was going to Russia he narrowed his eyes and said, ‘Again?’ He went off on some mysterious late-adolescent errand and on his return said, ‘After you’re dead, I won’t be surprised to be told that you weren’t really a writer (the cruelty of youth), you were a spy.’ This made me laugh quite a lot. Spying, as a profession, seems to
me about as interesting and useful as designing horse blankets for ‘My Little Pony’. In my ideal world there would be an annual spies’ convention held in a large hotel. Secrets would be swapped openly in the lobbies and bars; so much more comfortable than hanging around on street corners; cheaper too, in the long run.
He was suspicious because it was to be my third visit to Russia. The first time I went to find Dostoevsky’s grave. I’d fallen for him at the impressionable age of fourteen. If he’d been alive in 1961 I would have stood outside his lodging house badgering him for an autograph and begging for a clipping from his beard.
My second visit was with my husband, in winter. The tour was called, ‘The Cities of the Golden Ring’. Five English people travelled the snowy landscape in a large coach full of diesel fumes. Frequently the fuel froze in the tank and the driver thawed it out with a flaming rolled-up Pravda. Nobody believes me but we occasionally ate like kings and queens. We also saw ninety billion icons–my husband suffered from iconophobia; visiting Woolworths art department on our return was the only cure.
My last visit was in May of this year. I was a guest of the Great Britain–USSR Association. There was only one serious drawback – I would be in the company of other writers. The purpose of the visit was to have round-table talks with members of the Soviet Writers’ Union.
I am scared of writers, and, fearful of their beady-eyed scrutiny, I normally avoid literary occasions. But because it was Russia I accepted.
The visa was applied for. I read the list of the accompanying writers with a sinking heart. Paul Bailey, Alan Bennett, Timothy Mo, Craig Raine and Christopher Hope. I had nothing against them as people – I’d never met them – but they were writers. We met for lunch at the Great Britain–USSR headquarters in Grosvenor Place. John Roberts, the association’s director, introduced us to Anne Vaughan, who was to be our mother, timekeeper, guide, translator, travel organizer, and lender of tights. During lunch I overheard Timothy Mo say, ‘I hope to get some scuba diving in.’ ‘In Moscow?’ I thought. It reminded me of a friend of mine who was summoned to the Job Centre, where he informed the clerk that he hadn’t worked for several years because he was a sponge diver but he didn’t want to leave Leicester.
As we got onto the plane Timothy Mo remarked in a loud voice, ‘Oh this is the plane that bits keep falling off of.’ Ungrammatical, but devastating in its effect on Alan Bennett, who is not fond of hurtling through the air in a potential metal coffin. There was a long delay; eventually Dave Platt, the pilot, spoke to us. Mr Bennett pricked up his ears. In decidedly over-cheerful tones Dave told us of the problems in getting the plane from the hangar; we were now stacking and would soon be off. Mr Bennett’s knuckles took on an unhealthy hue. I had left my books in my luggage. I had nothing to read but Highlife. I read all the articles then turned in desperation to the advertisements. One in particular caught my attention. ‘Security, Surveillance, Survival: the briefcase that sees everything!’ And another, ‘Privacy Protection: don’t let business associates or spouses intrude on your privacy. The VL34 privacy protector finds bugs and transmitters that may be hidden right now in your hotel room, office, home or car.’
I looked around at my fellow passengers and wondered how many, if any, were sufficiently paranoid as to be lugging their privacy protectors to Moscow.
The ceiling at Sherimetievo airport is decorated with thousands of what look like bottomless baking tins, only a few of which contained light bulbs. We met up with our translator, Galina and Nina and, eventually, Christopher Hope who had joined us from another writers’ conference in Vienna. We groped our way out of the murk and breathed in the Russian air; a mixture of diesel fumes, sewage and something sweet. I love the country so I may have imagined the something sweet. On the way to Moscow, Galina pointed out where the German tanks had been stopped, only twenty kilometres from the city, during what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War. The next day I overheard an English woman say, ‘They should have got over the war by now.’ As though the loss of twenty million people was a trivial matter, to be compared to a nasty attack of chickenpox. A whole generation still exist who venerate the memory of their family and their friends who fought against fascism and never returned home. The Great Patriotic War remains a living memory. The past is still the present. There are fresh flowers on every war memorial in Russia every day of the year.
Our hotel was one of seven monolithic buildings that Stalin ordered to be constructed to represent the seven points of the communist star. Our particular point of the star was called ‘The Ukraine’. Massive and stolid, it towers over the river Moskva looking like a cartoon from Gotham City. There was the traditional booking muddle, and for the first night people were forced to share rooms. Alan Bennett and Paul Bailey occupied a suite of rooms complete with piano and dining table. It was round this table that we sat and had a supper of Twiglets, liquorice allsorts, lemon vodka and champagne. We needed refreshment because we’d been to Red Square and then spent half an hour crouching with laughter at the window displays in Gum, the largest department store in Moscow. As Alan Bennett said, ‘Well what can you do with two dozen packets of baby’s rusks. It would test the ingenuity of even the most fashionable window dresser.’ This was the first of many laughing, crouching sessions. We seemed to spend most of the time bent double, a little gang of hunchbacks, with streaming eyes and stamping feet. As many Russians were to say to us, ‘We thought the English were cold, reserved people but you are all so jolly.’ Jolly no, hysterical yes. Most of us regressed steadily throughout the trip. I was six years old on my return to England, I needed help with my shoe-laces.
After the last liquorice was eaten a rat ran underneath the piano so we left Mr Bailey and Mr Bennett and went to bed. Our first meeting at the Soviet Writers’ Union headquarters gradually took a surreal turn. After introductions and short speeches we launched into our discussion topic. ‘Does the past influence how we write?’ On the table stood bottles of Coca-Cola and saucers full of fondant sweets. Craig Raine opened the batting for England; his discourse, spoken in his lovely querulous voice, was very well received. After everyone present had spoken, the Russian chairperson, head of the School of Journalism at Moscow University, suggested, in his perfect English, that we break for coffee. We all perked up and trooped outside to the lobby. However, though promised, no coffee appeared, in fact nothing appeared so we trooped back inside for the final session of that day. We were well into our stride, the words ‘perestroika’ and ‘glasnost’ were tripping off our tongues. When Sakharov, the great Soviet playwright appeared, he seemed to be in a bad mood. He opened his newspaper and started to read. This was slightly disconcerting and had the effect of drawing every eye to him. I was particularly fascinated by the colour of his skin. I had seen that tint before, surely it was Max Factor panstick; natural beige?
Sakharov spoke briefly about his play, Onward, Onward, Onward. Then got up and left. The next day’s session was much more interesting. For a start there were great slabs of spam and cheese sandwiches on the table. Sakharov came in and opened his newspaper but this time he read aloud, from an article attacking bureaucracy. Sakharov spoke passionately about the old men who had dominated the Soviet Writers’ Union for many years. He said they were dead wood preventing the growth of new trees. He said they wouldn’t retire and refused to die. Katya, a translator and expert on Joyce, spoke excitedly about the possibilities now open to writers; it was as though she couldn’t wait to start. Her pen twitched in her hand.
My favourite person was a poet; he was small and pale and had a lisp. He was once a professor of mathematics but after ten years he grew bored with doing his sums and instead turned to writing humorous verse. Another writer had worked in nuclear physics but failed to find the romance he had expected and had taken up the more difficult career of play-writing. I asked how many humorous books had been published during Stalin’s tenure in the Kremlin. ‘One’ was the reply.
It was impossible not to respect and admire our Sovi
et counterparts. They had persevered and waited for their time to come, and now it was almost here, and we were there to witness the crack in the door.
For the record: according to Timothy Mo, Sakharov’s skin colour was his own. More bran needed in his diet, suggests Nurse Townsend.
One night we dined in a private co-operative restaurant used by the Soviet Writers’ Union. A noisy party entered and sat at an adjacent table. The men were oldish, the women were beautiful. Yevtushenko, the Billy Fury of Russian poetry, was amongst the party. (He was big in the sixties, toured Britain wearing a leather cap, remember him?) Yevtushenko is now ravaged-looking; his hair, which used to flop insolently over one eye like Tallulah Bankhead’s, now sticks up around his head like that of a recently woken baby. He had taken drink before his arrival and proceeded to take more – quite a lot more. His voice got louder, his companions became glazed-eyed. He turned his chair around. ‘English woman, give me a cigarette.’ ‘If you give me wine,’ I said. I took him a fag and an empty glass. I returned with the empty glass. Later, much, much later, Christopher Hope and I were waiting outside on the pavement for a taxi when a woman writer and her companions got out of a flash car. Earlier in the day this woman had swept into the round-table discussions dressed in Italian designer clothes; she had spoken at great mind-numbing length about her life and work. Paul Bailey had passed a note; ‘She thinks a lot of herself’, it said. She recognized the elegantly dressed Christopher Hope. ‘Robert Redford is coming,’ she enthused. Apparently the great heartthrob was in Moscow and had promised to join her and Yevtushenko’s party, which now included the great director of Crime and Punishment, only recently returned to Russia after being in exile. No taxi appeared; Christopher and I returned to the restaurant and were given a consoling bottle of wine – previously refused. Robert Redford’s chair and that of his companions stood empty and waiting, and remained empty and waiting. He stood them up.