by William Boyd
He tailed off and finished his gin and tonic. He was looking a bit grim and upset himself, thinking back in this way.
‘I definitely need another large one of these,’ he said.
I said I did too.
4. SCOTIA!
‘Right everybody. Big smile! Say “cheese”!’
The group stiffened up, checked their positions, put on their unnatural smiles and I took the photograph. Some twenty people were lined up, arranged in two rows, the bride and groom centred, in front of the entrance to the old parish church in Peebles, in the Tweed Valley. I took two more photographs for luck and let the wedding party disperse to the reception at the Tontine Hotel about a hundred yards away.
I packed away my camera and tripod and lugged them back to where I’d parked the Imp. I felt the usual depression settle on my shoulders and ignored it. No, Amory, stop it. I wasn’t photographing pets but it was close. Still, I had a job, I was earning money. I had no right to complain or feel aggrieved.
I was working for a monthly illustrated magazine called Scotia!. It was a rival to similar magazines such as Scottish Field, Caledonia, Scotland Today, Bonny Scotland and the like, whose staple journalistic menu dealt with the seasonal traditions of our small country – shooting, fishing (‘Rod, Reel and Line’), stalking, game fairs, agricultural shows (‘Country Notes’), robust outdoor fashion, motor cars and – this is where I came in – the social round. Weddings, balls (‘How to Wear a Sash’), christenings, Highland gatherings, tournaments, military tattoos, funerals and so on, were covered by Scotia! with all the nuance and artistic flair reserved for team photographs of rugby, football, golf and cricket clubs. The subjects formed a line and they were photographed. Couples stood side by side, ditto. These subjects and couples then usually asked for copies of said photographs and thereby provided a significant revenue stream for the magazine. It was not to be taken lightly, so the editor regularly told me.
Scotia! was edited by a client of Joe Dunraven. Joe had secured me the job as a favour once he knew my history as a professional photographer. His client, Hughie Anstruther, was more than happy to take me on, given my experience (and my title), but he very quickly advised me: don’t get any fancy ideas, Lady Farr, this is not American Mode. I didn’t.
Hughie Anstruther was a neat, waspish, vain man who combed his side hair over his bald pate in an elaborate coil, like a table mat or hemp rope, and was oblivious to the tonsorial effect of this on his otherwise respectable appearance. But I came to like him and the job he gave me allowed me to supplement my allowance from the Farr settlement. I wasn’t poor but I had to budget carefully. I had a house to live in but it was certainly no palace. It struck me that, entirely inadvertently, I had come full circle. I had started off an impoverished young woman, taking society photographs with Greville in the 1920s to make ends meet, and here I was, decades on, an impecunious middle-aged woman, doing exactly the same.
The world of Scotia!, © Scotia Media Enterprises Ltd, 1964.
I was beginning to feel, also, after the turmoil of my recent years with Sholto, that I’d entered a form of quietus. The cottage was entirely comfortable, though a little basic; the girls were on the point of leaving school; I was relatively solvent, relatively comfortably housed, secure enough, employed, after a fashion. I couldn’t complain. But was I happy?
I had integrated myself, as far as any newcomer could, into the small but diverse island community of Barrandale. I had found a few new friends and, another bonus, because they were new I could tell them as much or as little about my past as I wanted. I never advertised myself as the widow of Sholto, Lord Farr. I was just Mrs Farr, or Amory, to the people I dealt with or counted as my new acquaintances.
I hadn’t sought the Scotia! job. Joe Dunraven who, as a matter of course, knew far too much about me, had suggested me to Hughie, and Hughie, thinking my background would open more doors, had eagerly hired me. The job was undemanding: once I’d returned home from whatever wedding or grand ceilidh or memorial service I would develop the film, print contact sheets, annotate them with the names to fill the captions and post them off with the rolls of film to the office in Glasgow. And the next month there would be the evidence of my work on the ‘social pages’. I was consoled only by the thought that I had insisted on remaining uncredited and that I was – in a manner of speaking – still a professional photographer.
I remember when she was fourteen Blythe said that she wanted a guitar for her birthday and so I bought her one. She was quite musical, it turned out – Dido was delighted – and also took piano lessons at school. One night in the cottage when she and Annie were home on holiday I asked her to play something. She sang a song she had written, a plangent minor-key version of the folk song ‘Bobbie Shafto’. She sang it in a husky but true voice as Annie and I sat opposite her, Annie sitting on the floor by my feet, Blythe perched on a stool in front of the fire, her big guitar balanced across her knee.
Bonny Sholto’s gone away,
He’ll not be back another day.
Wherever he’s gone, he’s there to stay,
Bonny Daddy, Sholto.
The song continued – ‘Bonny Sholto went to war’ – but the three of us were sobbing halfway through the second verse and had to stop and hug each other. It was a moment of real catharsis for us all and I had a full sense of the girls’ loss, also. It wasn’t just my grief; the difficult, complicated life of Sholto Farr wasn’t just my problem; the damage wasn’t just limited to me.
I remember that we all went on holiday to Italy to see Greville in his new life. Having sent him out there on assignment in 1944 for GPW, I’m not sure we ever received one photograph in return. But somehow, in his leisurely travels as he – at careful distance – followed the 110th Infantry Division as it advanced north up through Italy, he had contrived to engage a young artist as his translator, called Gianluca Furlan. Gianluca had inherited a small but rather lovely house up in the hills behind Viareggio, in northern Tuscany. After the war Greville moved in. He took photographs; Gianluca painted the Tuscan landscape. They seemed entirely happy and Greville swore he owed it all to me.
We spent two weeks with them in 1965. The girls had just done their A levels. We were there in July and every two days or so we’d drive down to the wide beach at Viareggio and spend a day by the sea. Greville took this photograph of the three of us. The three Farr women, he called us.
Me and the twins, Viareggio, 1965.
I remember buying a book, a popular military history about the last months of the Second World War called Desperate Endgame: British Armies in the Final Year, 1944–1945. There was a page or two dedicated to the battle for Wesel during Operation Plunder. All it had to say relevant to Sholto was this:
15 Commando, under the command of Lt Col Lord Farr, encountered stiff resistance at a crossroads to the east of the town centre. It took some hours to clear out the strongpoint. At daybreak 15 Commando gathered in a small park where it was discovered that their casualties were six dead, fourteen wounded. The assault on Wesel was a copybook Commando action: in the ferocious street fighting they had proved their mettle.
No comment.
I remember once we were having a picnic, me and the girls, out at the foot of Beinn Morr on a windy, sunny day, the grass bleached and bending in the tugging breeze, and Blythe, who was sitting beside me, asked if we could play Greville’s Game. At that time of her life she was always asking me if we could play the game with her. Annie couldn’t be bothered joining in – she thought it was ‘stupid’.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘What about that little river?’
‘Wet, brown, fast, silky. Too easy, Ma. Let’s do people.’
‘Mr Kinloss. Remember him?’
‘Fat, grey, polite, mysterious.’
‘Good. Yes! I never thought of that.’ She was fast, Blythe, never taking more than a few seconds to come up with her adjectives.
‘Now it’s your turn,’ she said, brightly. ‘Do me. And be honest.’
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‘That’s not fair.’
‘No, you do me, then I’ll do you.’
I felt a little shadow of worry – this could have consequences, I realised, not necessarily welcome, but there was no avoiding the issue. Annie had wandered off with her bottle of lemonade and was tossing pebbles into the shallow burn that gurgled by our picnic spot – she couldn’t hear our conversation, I was sure.
I looked at Blythe.
‘Pretty, stubborn, clever, complicated.’
She thought about this, frowning, making a little moue with her lips, weighing up the epithets and seeing if they fitted.
‘Now you do me,’ I said.
‘Pretty, stubborn, clever, complicated,’ she said instantly.
I laughed and she joined in but I had received the message – especially as she now glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Annie hadn’t overheard. I was beginning to think she’d laid a trap for me – and now there was a private bond between us. She was telling me – so I reasoned – like mother, like daughter. She was probably right.
‘Now do Andrew Farr,’ I said, wanting to break the mood.
‘Dull, shifty, boring, dominated.’
Annie wandered over.
‘What are you two laughing at?’ she asked, irritated.
I remember receiving the A level results for the twins in the post and undergoing the ritual opening of the envelopes at the breakfast table. Annie had done well; Blythe less so – but she said she didn’t care. She was going to be a musician, A levels were of no use. I agreed.
Annie secured a place at one of the new universities, Sussex, to read for a degree entitled ‘International Relations’, whatever that was.
I took her out to dinner in Oban, to celebrate (Blythe was away, somewhere). I looked at her across the table and allowed my love for serious Annie to brim. She had a long thin face – Blythe’s was rounder, prettier – and she was taller than Blythe, also.
‘Ma, would you mind if I asked you a favour?’ she said.
‘Anything.’
‘You know that, because of Papa’s title, I’m “the Honourable” Andra Farr?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I don’t ever want to be called that. I got a letter from the university and it called me “the Honourable”. I was so embarrassed.’
‘That’s all right, darling. I understand.’
‘I just don’t want that title ever to be used. Ever again. No disrespect to Papa, and all that.’
‘Of course. I don’t much like being “Lady Farr” either.’ I squeezed her hand. ‘It’s expunged.’
At the university, in her hall of residence, she was less than an hour from Beckburrow and, much to my surprise, went there every other weekend or so to spend time with her grandmother, who was old, and ailing, but still feistily alert. While Annie was there she unearthed a cache of my early photographs, and others of the period. She sent me a small selection: there was a tattered one of me when I was twenty, standing in the pond at Beckburrow, posing; and one of me as a little girl with my father, taken by Greville. It must be in 1913 or 1914, just before he went off to war.
I remember one odd moment. Blythe and I were out for a walk on the beach with Flim – Annie had gone south to check out her new hall of residence.
‘I hate that bitch, Benedicta,’ Blythe said, all of a sudden.
‘Well, so do I,’ I admitted. ‘Nasty piece of work. Grasping, smug, malicious, insincere.’
‘Do you think if someone killed her anyone would mind for one minute? For one second?’
‘Don’t say that sort of thing, Blythe, not even as a joke.’
‘It’s not a joke. She kicked us out.’
I took her hand – she was flushed, there was a real rage building.
‘It doesn’t matter, darling. We wouldn’t have been happy there, at the House. It was never really our home.’
It seemed to mollify her. She was leaving as well, the next day, for London, to stay with Dido and Reggie Southover at their rather grand house on Camden Hill. Blythe wanted to audition for folk bands or rock groups – she didn’t care, keyboard or guitar, she just wanted to play music. Dido was her inspiration and they became quite close. There was a musical gene in the Clay family, shared by Dido and Blythe – they were different from the rest of us, the littérateurs, the photographers.
I remember I had a rare letter from Charbonneau telling me the news of the birth of his second child – a son, Luc. He enclosed a photograph of himself, ‘So you won’t forget what I look like.’ I saw he’d put on weight and grown a moustache again. He was standing on a terrace on the Italian Riviera, somewhere, and I supposed he vaguely wanted me to feel jealous about the high life he was leading. I couldn’t help thinking he didn’t look particularly happy.
Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, 1962.
*
THE BARRANDALE JOURNAL 1977
I liked to quiz Greer about her old subject, cosmology, as there were aspects of it that intrigued me, to her occasional exasperation.
‘So the Big Bang happened thirteen billion years ago?’ I once asked her, when we were out for a walk.
‘Thirteen point eight billion years ago. Give or take a day or two,’ she said. ‘Oh God, you’re going to ask me more questions, aren’t you?’
‘Because I’m interested,’ I said. ‘You’ve stimulated my interest, Greer. You should be pleased.’
We were walking down from the heights of Cnoc Torran, that we’d climbed that morning, heading back for lunch at the cottage. We had a magnificent view of the various islands around Barrandale. I could see Mull as clearly as I’d ever seen it – I could see a red car driving on the road along the north end of Loch Don.
‘The Big Bang explains all this,’ I said, gesturing freely towards Mull and the ocean beyond. ‘Everything started then.’
‘Everything. It explains everything. You and me. This grass, the clouds above.’ She pointed. ‘That insect – and the universe. It all began then.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ I paused to tie a lace on my walking boot.
‘Well, we have something called the “standard model”. It explains almost everything.’
‘Almost.’
‘Yes.’
‘And the stuff you can’t explain?’
Greer looked at me shrewdly. ‘I know I’m going to regret this.’
‘That’s where your dark matter comes in, doesn’t it,’ I said. ‘Dark matter explains the things that don’t add up, in theory.’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘And dark gravity. And dark energy.’
‘I know it sounds rather spooky and exciting, but it’s complicated. There has to be dark matter to explain the anomalies.’
I snapped my fingers.
‘You need all these “dark” things to explain why the “standard model” doesn’t supply all the answers.’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘You see that’s what I love about cosmology. It’s exactly the same for the rest of us.’
‘You mustn’t do this, Amory. We hate this. Scientists hate this . . . this appropriation. You don’t understand.’
‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘Or yes, I do. Just like you cosmologists, we can’t explain everything. Things don’t add up. What about “dark” love? Why did I fall in love with that hopeless person? “Dark” love explains it. Why did I get this annoying illness? “Dark” disease. Stuff I can’t see is affecting me, the way I act.’
‘No, no, no. You’re turning hard science into a metaphor.’
‘Which I’m entitled to. “Dark” illness. “Dark” weather. “Dark” incompetence. “Dark” politics.’
She had to laugh. We walked on, almost bouncing downhill on the springy grass.
‘The “dark” concept explains why you can’t explain things,’ I said. ‘It’s wonderfully liberating. Why won’t my car start this morning? It started yesterday. “Dark” auto-engineering.’
‘Just don�
�t tell anyone you got it from me.’
‘You see, the “standard model” of the human condition just doesn’t work, either. It’s inadequate. Just as the “standard model” of the universe doesn’t work for you lot.’
‘What’re we having for lunch?’
‘Dark shepherd’s pie.’
I remember we drank a lot at that lunch – we always drank a lot but I think Greer wanted the inhibition-removal that a boozy lunch sometimes provides. She told me about an affair she’d had with a colleague of Calder’s. The affair had ended when he had gone to join a think tank in London – distance working as prophylactic – but he’d written to her, recently, asking her to come and see him.
‘Have you ever had an affair, Amory?’ she asked me.
‘Well, not when I was married,’ I said. ‘But I did have an affair when I was having an affair.’ I paused, thinking back. ‘Twice, in fact.’
‘Only you could make it that complicated,’ she said.
‘I don’t quite know how it happened,’ I said. ‘Dark love?’
‘I’m beginning to see your logic.’ She sipped at her wine. ‘Should I go to London? What do you think?’
‘I think you should do what you want to do. As the poet said: the desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews . . .’
She laughed. ‘You’re no help.’
‘Exactly.’
*
For some bizarre reason Dido took a strong liking to Barrandale. She came to stay for a week or so two or three times a year, to ‘rest’ after her concert tours and recitals. ‘I need to recharge every battery, darling,’ she would say. ‘Peace, silence, nothingness, and a large gin and tonic, that’s all I ask.’ In 1966, she was at the height of her fame – Béla Bartók had dedicated a horn trio to her; she was a regular at the BBC Proms; Harold Wilson invited her to lunch at 10 Downing Street; she was awarded the CBE. However, her marriage to Reggie Southover was ending. She was having an affair with a clarinettist from the Orquesta Nacional de España – ‘Poor as a church mouse,’ she said. ‘But rather lovely, all the same. It’s the Latin spirit I crave, I should never have anything to do with Anglo-Saxons.’