Ramcharran came downstairs, his hair smoothed back, wearing an ironed cotton shirt and trousers. He held a picture calendar which he gave my mother, and joined us for tea.
‘Mr Tarquin helping us,’ he said.
I was surprised and asked him how.
‘You got the sugar factory more interested in us.’
That was true. I had persuaded the manager to have more people working the cane scales at the factory gate so as to reduce waiting time for the cane farmers. No more than that. The manager considered cane farmers as peripheral and tiresome. The estate itself grew almost all its cane requirements.
In January the news from BG was that Bookers had bulldozed 9,000 acres into action for cane farmers. It was recognised that estates were no longer politically desirable and they had to prepare the right sort of people to take over the right-sized chunks of land. They would all be Indians, but with no experience of responsibility. In Trinidad I was fond of them as individuals but deplored their lack of neighbourliness. This was in their culture. A myth illustrates the strength of it: Lord Shiva offered to give a peasant whatever he could possibly want. The peasant asked about the conditions. Lord Shiva said that he would give the neighbour twice as much. The peasant was outraged. How could he possibly accept that. He would rather die. Then, after thinking it over carefully, he begged Lord Shiva to put out one of his eyes, and then both of his neighbour’s eyes.
I carried on with my thesis which showed that the cane farmers were quicker over new initiatives than anyone had thought. Then in April I heard from Jock Campbell. He wrote that he could not hold out any prospect for the sort of job he had planned for me. Everything in BG was at sixes and sevens. He finished: ‘I do feel personally responsible for having encouraged you to spend this year in Trinidad. And while I hope this will stand you in good stead I would like at least to show our very genuine interest in your career by meeting your travelling expenses to and from Trinidad.’
Just before I left Trinidad my literary agent Peter Watt wrote to say that the American publisher William Morrow were going to publish my book, and that P.A.Norstedt and Soner were translating it for publica-tion in Swedish. Their advances were credited to my account. I flew to New York and stayed in East Fifth Street, the Puerto Rican Quarter, with Linda Geiser, now settled there from Bern with an American girl-friend Denine. Her change of languages was being helped at the Actors’ Studio under Walter Berghoff and Kim Stanley.
In July New York was much hotter than Trinidad. She took me to a mad Manhattan party. That was one of the early years of bra-lessness. Some of the dresses were of wool, for the air-conditioned rooms, but knitted with needles the size of broomsticks. The gaps between stitches were an inch across, giving a view of nipples like raisins, not always in alignment. I found myself standing next to a Central American with a sleek Hercule Poirot moustache and hair, polished fingernails, diamond rings and tiny feet. I introduced myself. He said: ‘I am my Excellency, the Ambassador from Nicaragua.’
‘Your Excellency,’ I said, ‘what an honour.’
Later I was chatting to an international art dealer and asked how he coped with exchange control in such difficult times: after all some paintings were changing hands for millions. He said he borrowed from the Mafia. I wondered what rate of interest they charged. Five percent, he said. I wondered if I could get in touch with them because that was less than the rates offered by the Halifax Building Society. Oh no, he meant five percent a week.
‘Any other disadvantages?’
‘Ya. Yer gotta pay them back on time.’
He had just returned from the trip. ‘I met this gorgeous doll, tall, fair hair, big blue eyes. So I took him to Paris. We stayed at L’Hotel. Perfect taste. Bathroom with scarlet marble and gold fittings. He loved it.’
I had posted a copy of my book to Faubion Bowers and went to see him. He was thrilled with it. As he opened the door of his flat he said: ‘Your bath I have prepare for you’, referring to the constant refrain from Fourth Brother in Singapore, especially the first couple of days there when I smelt different from them because of the European food I had been eating. After a few days of Chinese food I smelled the same and got away with only a couple of baths a day. Faubion was complet-ing a two-volume biography of the Russian composer Scriabin. This was to become one of the finest musical biographies ever written. Sadly he and Santha Rama Rau had split up and he no longer saw their son. I took her to lunch in the Museum of Modern Art. She had gained in stature following her successful dramatisation for the stage of E. M. Foster’s novel A Passage to India.For some reason her and my paths never crossed again. Faubion remained a lifelong friend
The World’s Fair was on. I went to the Indonesian Exhibition which had one of the most spectacular pavilions. It even had a full height stone and brick Balinese palace entrance. At reception were Javanese beauties in their national dress. For Americans they were the main attraction. I asked one of them if she knew Didiet Soerjotjorko, the younger of President Sukarno’s two secretaries in 1960. The girl said yes and put a phone call through, asking my name, which she repeated. I heard a happy yell from the phone and the girl said; ‘Didi, don’t shout!’
Didi came down looking lovelier than ever. She showed me every detail of their exhibition and we even watched part of a shadow puppet play because she knew how I had loved them. I invited her out to dinner. She had served in the Indonesian Embassy in Rome and knew of the best Italian restaurant in Manhattan. I asked her to wear her national dress.
I returned to East Fifth Street to bathe and change in the July heat and went to pick her up in a taxi. I could not believe what she was wearing. She was dressed as a Balinese princess, her hair high on her head, woven with leaves of beaten gold leaf, garnet earrings and neck-lace, and cloth of scarlet and gold wound round her body over a long sleeved kebaya, and a kain down to her golden Italian high heels. She was excited and happy. In the restaurant the Italian waiters practically fell over themselves to serve us. They could not believe that such an otherworldly vision could speak perfect Italian. When we were finish-ing our meal two elderly American couples knelt on the floor in front of us, gazed at her and humbly asked the name of her country. ‘Indonesia,’ she said, which took them back a bit because it had been getting a terrible press, following one of Sukarno’s military sorties.
At midnight I took her for a coach and horse ride round Central Park and delivered her home, reminded of everything I had most loved about Indonesia, and puzzling how that wonderful land would ever set itself to rights.
Ten
A year earlier, before going to the West Indies, while discussing possible careers I was advised to meet Mr Prideaux, at the merchant bank Arbuthnot Latham, who was Deputy Chairman of the Commonwealth Development Corporation. He was on the lookout for people like me. A couple of weeks later I went to his City offices, as grim as Victorian mahogany can be. He was courteous, and as a conversation starter we talked about Eton where he had been and his son too, a contemporary of mine. An appointment was made for me to meet CDC’s Head of Personnel, Mr Jackman. That organisation sounded superb, offering finance and management in projects of great variety; agriculture of every size and kind, industry, heavy and light, hotels, harbours, rail-ways, airlines, mining and development banks. This was not aid, which I distrusted. This was business, supporting the disciplines of profit and loss, sound balance sheets, with eight years’ grace when it came to the fructification needs for certain crops such as palm oil. Unfortunately by the time I met Jackman I had signed up with Jock Campbell.
After the debacle of my aims for cane farming I returned to CDC and they took me on. Start date September. I thanked my lucky stars. Shortly afterwards the Guyanese, who had the best-educated populace in the Commonwealth Caribbean, went bananas and burnt their capi-tal Georgetown to the ground. I felt well out of that. In London I rented an apartment, a tiny single bedroom one at the top of Garrick House, Carrington Street, W1. It was round the corner from CDC Head Office in 33 Hill
Street, Mayfair. On my way there I walked up Queen Street, Mayfair, where Heinemann had their offices, with Eye of the Day displayed in their window. On my return to Shepherd Market every evening two dear old hookers were smoking their fags, clearly with hearts of gold but little else to offer. Perhaps there were younger ones inside. ‘Evenin’ love,’ they used to say.
Just after publication of Eye of the Day I was made a member of the Garrick Club. I was proposed by Hamish Hamilton, the publisher, who had turned down my book and wanted to make up for it, and Beau Hannen the old actor I had first met at Henley Regatta. I was among the few younger members, at the age of 29, and was immediately made to feel welcome. Unlike now, when too many grey professionals have taken over, the place was full of actors, its original purpose, and the atmosphere then was charged with life. My friends enjoyed lunching with me at the peripheral tables. After my recent year in Trinidad a number of them were from the Caribbean. One day an imposing and elderly man stopped me as I was hanging up my hat.
‘Now look here,’ he said. ‘I know your father is a renowned member of this club, but I, and a number of other senior members, would be happier if you didn’t introduce so many blackamoors.’
I responded with outrage. ‘Sir, I do not know who you are, but I prefer the company of black friends to being accosted by a racist white stranger.’
He trounced off, hurt mainly perhaps at my not knowing who he was: a most eminent judge with sometimes much-criticised authoritar-ian views, Sir Melford Stevenson. Our confrontation did, however, have a happy ending. Five or six years later I was elected to the General Committee. When it was next replenished Melford joined us. We elected Lord Constantine as an honorary life member. He had been captain of the West Indies cricket team, Jamaica’s High Commissioner in London and then the first black peer of the realm. After our meeting Melford came over to me and said: ‘Now look here. I think I owe you a drink.’
An old school friend, David Mitchell-Innes, asked me to join him on a sailing trip to Brittany. I asked who else was coming and he said two co-owners, and a couple of girls. I asked could I bring one too. He didn’t know I had one. I hadn’t. I wondered if there was room. He said yes, why? This was extraordinary. Only in England could anyone ask such a question. I scoured my friends, and friends of friends, with only a couple of weeks to go before weighing anchor.
Joy Pearce, my mother’s companion, said her elder son had a friend who was a nun. I harrumphed and she told me not to interrupt. There was a younger sister, eighteen, called Riddelle. Sounded a bit young to me at the age of twenty-eight. I had made no discoveries so far. Joy invited her to dinner. She had been a drama student before being advised to give theatre a miss. She had read my book and warmed to the idea of meeting me at my mother’s house. Apparently they had told her exactly what to wear, so I was curious.
The doorbell rang and I opened the door to her. She had the loveliest face, wide blue eyes and eyelashes with a bit too much mascara, a perfect mouth, even teeth and a dimpled smile, her curved forehead swept under a hairpiece with a cascading scarf. Her voice was mellow and a touch conspiratorial. As I followed her into the drawing room I was drawn to her.
Of course I don’t remember what we talked about, the four of us. It didn’t matter. The beginnings of a slow spell started to enfold me. This was not the heartbeat flash across a crowded restaurant which had happened a dozen years earlier with Jenny, in Grindelwald. Nonethe-less those vivid moments leapt up in my recollection, and became a sort of lens I had to look through to see Riddelle, her hand movements, her expressions, unpoised, natural.
Dinner came and went in a flash and afterwards I played the piano. They all sat on the sofa in the music room, under a large Balinese paint-ing I had bought in Ubud. I played restful and romantic pieces. After-wards we were left alone and we sat at far ends of the sofa. I explained about the yachting trip: three couples, all very sound. She was sure her parents would let her come sailing with me. By that time Mother Nature had taken such charge of my mind that I really thought her resemblance to Jenny was complete. Even then I realised this was an overworked cliché in many romances.
Her parents lived in a sunless flat on the ground floor of Hallam Street, near the BBC. She resembled neither of them. Her mother Patri-cia was an overweight Catholic Irish woman who went to Mass every day at 6 a.m. Her books were all to do with religion. I wondered what on earth she felt so guilty about. Her saving grace was a throaty chuckle which made her shake like a liquid pillar box. Her husband Pat described himself as a Christian, but her as a bloody Roman. The real irritation was her white Scotty dog, Robert Burns. If you crossed your legs he would growl. Wherever Patricia went to fetch anything she had to pull him, like an anchor being dragged by a ship. Pat had a well-bred sensitive face, complemented with a neatly trimmed Ronald Colman moustache. He was Director of Personnel Services at the British Insti-tute of Management in Marylebone Road. They both smoked, which was a help.
Riddelle and I took an overnight ferry and joined David and the others at St Malo. The trimaran Highwayman was practical for cruising. All equipment and sails not actually in use were stowed in the port and starboard hulls, leaving the main hull free for eating and sleeping. She was eighteen feet wide, thirty feet long and the main mast thirty feet high, yawl rigged. Space was found for Riddelle’s hat boxes. We set sail. After a not very good dinner I suggested to her that it would be perfectly all right if we shared a bunk so long as we did not get as far as consummation. ‘Gosh, I respect you for that,’ she said, keen as mustard for whatever else. I took Riddelle to meet Larry and Joan in Brighton. He was at the front door as we arrived. She rushed out and landed a kiss slap on the mouth and he fell for her at once. Inside we sat in the playroom and Joan brought in Richard, now a splendid four-year-old, and his baby sister Tamsin. Nanny relieved us of them as we went in to lunch. The dining room was Regency at its strictest, made more severe by the Salvador Dali portrait from the film of Larry as Richard III. The style, especially the curtains and swags, were manifestly his taste and Joan looked out of place. They were still happy and in love with their young family. He said that my presence with Riddelle had brought him even greater joy, he was so delighted we had met each other, we seemed so right for each other. Then he apologised for going over the top. We saw him a couple more times in London, between his overburdened busi-ness hours and his performance as Othello, which bowled us over.
She came to my tiny flat, called it ‘a poppet’ and wanted to know when I would ask her to marry her. It was a leap year so that was fair enough. Word spread fast and we were everywhere. Vivien gave a party for us at 56d, Eaton Square. Riddelle was in a long black silk skirt and patterned blue blouse with full sleeves and tight wrists. Her hair had been permed straight back from her forehead and as she saw the beauty of the room she became radiant.
‘Darling Tarkey,’ Vivien said. ‘She’s ravishing.’
Riddelle ended up sitting on Noël Coward’s knee, arm round his shoulders, questioning him about something or other, which he loved. He described her in his diary as ‘a nice intelligent girl and very pretty’.
For the sake of form I tried to organise a meeting of our two sets of parents, any time, any place, but Larry said that as the lead actor and the National’s Director he had too big a job to take any time off. He did not accept the in-laws’ written invitation for drinks, nor did he invite them. Bloody rude. On the phone I tactfully asked him when would it be the least inconvenient time for him to come to our wedding, early January ’65, what time, which day? He said 5.30 on the eighth and wanted to know whether I was inviting Vivien. I said of course. He was mightily put out: ‘So I suppose you’ll be having me sit on the groom’s side of the church with my three wives next to me.’ He was never at ease with anything approaching Establishment but this was laughable.
‘Will Joannie be coming?’ I asked.
‘No, she’s got better taste.’
A week before the wedding Larry telephoned to say he was at Eat
on Square with Vivien. She was sitting next to him as he spoke, he said. Did I really want her to come? I said yes, most definitely, and asked to have a word with her. How was I? she asked. I said I was about a hundred miles up. Really, she said, up what? She knew how to break tension and said she would love to come and was so pleased to be asked. Poor Larry, she said, silly boy. Which was perfectly true.
The Daily Express’s William Hickey described the wedding:
It was a moment to make a theatrical Knight tremble beneath his make-up. An acute attack of stage fright and on a key line too. Yesterday Sir Laurence Olivier saw his future daughter-in-law, 19 year-old Miss Riddelle Gibson, falter at a crucial stage of her marriage to his 29-year-old son Tarquin.
Standing at Tarquin’s side before the altar of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Cadogan Street, Chelsea, she had got as far as saying: “I Riddelle take thee Tarquin to my wedded husband …”
There was a long pause and the bride was heard to sob out loud. After nearly a minute the priest, Monsignor Patrick Casey, prompted her with the words ‘To have and to hold.’ And nervous Riddelle, once a drama student at the Guildhall School, haltingly managed to follow him. The bride’s voice again broke down at the final words ‘. . . and thereto I plight thee my troth.’ Her face was stained with tears.
But when the couple emerged from the vestry after signing the register young Mr Olivier was wearing a brilliant smile to match his brilliant brocade waistcoat. And as he kissed his bride at the top of the aisle her smile was even broader.
It was a strange time of day for a theatrical family to arrange a wedding. Dusk. Only a couple of hours before curtain-up. And for Sir Laurence it was quite an emotional day altogether. Two of his ex wives were there, though his third wife, the present Lady Olivier, actress Joan Plowright was bathing their two young chil-dren at their Brighton home while the flashbulbs exploded.
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