So Who's Your Mother

by Tarquin Olivier

  I left for Hong Kong on 15 December after a couple of days with the children. I found Ada in a terrible state, sitting on the sofa crying. Her handkerchief was soaked and squashed in her little fist. The television was pulled into the middle of the room, the ironing board was up and there were snips of cotton on the carpet. I gave her a hug.

  ‘Sir, you are too good to me,’ she said.

  ‘That doesn’t sound so terrible.’

  ‘While you are away I do work for other people. Sometimes your friends and they pay me.’

  ‘So they should.’ ‘Sir, you pay me too much. You are only here for a week at a time.’

  So we sat and talked it through. I agreed reluctantly to pay her less, so she agreed to stay on. I was able to make it up to her at Chinese New Year with the traditional goodwill bonus. Had she left I would have been lost. I was dependent on her and fondly so. When a couple of years later my tour was over and I returned to England she sent a Christmas card which said: ‘Sir, I wish I was still serving you.’

  The capital of the Solomon Islands is Honiara, on the main island of Guadalcanal. This was the scene of horrific but eventually victorious fighting by the Americans against the occupying Japanese: a turning point in the war in the Pacific, before the Battle of Midway. The main battlefields were steep slopes of grass and jungle. Walking ever upwards even in peacetime was demanding in that heat. In time of war, compounded by rainfall and enemy machine guns, it had been ghastly. On the surrounding plains were war memorials. Standing in front of each were disparate groups of Japanese and of American families, in remembrance, silent.

  Pidgin English was the language there. It has engaging aspects. A helicopter is a ‘mix-master belong Jesus Christ’. A problem is a ‘bugger-up’. No problem, ‘no bugger-up’. Foreigners have to learn it if they want to be taken seriously. I was invited to a formal dinner by the head of the Currency Board with his expat British friends. The conversation became riotous with good food, pleasant Australian and New Zealand wines, all served by their Solomon islander houseboy. Then, in the kitchen, when he was making our coffee he dropped the pot and the spout broke off.

  He came in and told us. He confessed cheerfully, honestly in the manner taught by missionaries: ‘Arse-end belong coffee pot me bugger up, one time, finish.’

  The breathless silence of our self-control made him think he should clarify things.

  He explained: ‘No more piss like master. Piss like missy.’

  Our host with great presence of mind said: ‘What rotten luck. Never mind. We’ll use the aluminium pot.’

  The houseboy smiled nervously and left. We breathed again.

  There was a problem in Fiji with some counterfeits. They had probably been printed locally on a commercial Heidelberg press. When looked at intelligently there were easy to identify. I had our counterfeit expert fly out and assure them that there was no reason to worry as probably no more than a few hundred had been printed. The Governor, seconded from the Bank of England, accepted this and placed a new order. He insisted on a particular delivery date even though they had banknotes in stock to last for months beyond that.

  Then De La Rue told me that there had been some well-publicised revolutions and concomitant runs on currency in various parts of the world. These obviously had to take precedence. This was not a disaster, merely embarrassing. I had to present this information to the Governor. As the meeting was bound to be difficult I decided to get rid of all the adrenaline I could. After breakfast I water-skied over the mirror-flat sea all the way to the reef. The sun was so low behind me that each time I turned to accelerate and jump over the wake the shadows of the spray leapt across the water in front of me.

  I had telexed for an appointment and the Governor must have guessed the reason. At our meeting I started by listing three of the crises, two in Africa and one in Central America, where death and destruction on all sides had led to every kind of chaos and a desperate need for supplementary currency. His reaction was to go for me with studied rage. What was the point of that, I wondered. I leant well back, soft-eyed, as he punched me verbally like a kind of tar baby. The water-skiing had sealed my mood of calm. He gave the impression of a man who had been passed over by his employer, lost his future, and wanted to make up for it through aggression.

  I agreed to convey to De La Rue the full extent of his fury and Fiji’s needs for updated designs, and flew on to Tonga. Nuku | alofa had few activities to amuse, except for a night on an enchanted palm tree island best suited to young couples, a bit of wind surfing, but not much else except for the friendships I made with the Crown Prince, his sister and her fiancé, with our delightful High Commissioner, and a number of government servants who liked playing vingt et un, using exactly the same language as an officers’ mess. The country was still the Friendly Islands, as Captain Cook had called them in the eigh-teenth century.

  A meeting was arranged for me to meet the King. I was led into the cabinet room of the old wooden palace. He was the largest man I had ever seen, proud and kind. He sat in a huge wooden throne a dozen feet away from the head of the Cabinet table. We talked about the Second World War. The room had a bust of Churchill and one of Bismarck. Tonga had treaties of friendship with Britain and Germany. I wondered whether the constant visits by Soviet Russia were of significance. He said they were because of Tonga’s strategic value, but he saw no need for military bases. The Russian visitors gave him ukeleles. I didn’t understand. Oh yes, he said, whenever they come.

  I looked at his powerful hands. ‘Do you play the ukelele, Your Majesty?’

  ‘Oh yes. In fact all over the palace there are small mountains of ukeleles.’

  At party time on Saturdays many Tongans came to the dances at the Dateline Hotel where I stayed. They were paler than Filipinos, with the straight hair of Polynesians, and with smooth features like Hawaiians but much larger. The women’s rounded shoulders were bare and made shiny with coconut oil. After a dance the custom was to slap a banknote on your partner’s shoulder and stick it there for her. This did make the lower denominations of our banknotes rather soiled. Of all the Pacific island countries I went to, Tonga was where I made the best local friends.

  To the east, over the Date Line, was Western Samoa. Its little capital Apia has many wooden churches of different denominations. These are also enormous people, Polynesian, with villages of open ataphouses along the road from the airport. By night, when lamp-lit, the villages look mysterious and inviting beneath the palm trees.

  There were literary associations. Robert Louis Stevenson spent the last years of this life in a house he built there. He is buried high on a hill, where his farewell is written in verse on the lead casket.

  Under the wide and starry sky

  Dig the grave and let me lie.

  Glad did I live and gladly die,

  And I laid me down with a will.

  This be the verse you grave for me:

  ‘Here he lies where he longed to be;

  Home is the sailor, home from sea,

  And the hunter home from the hill.’

  In his memory the main hotel is called ‘Tusitala’, which means story-teller.

  Somerset Maugham stayed in Apia and was held up for a month by monsoon rains. This inspired his story Rain. The same storm-lashed delay happened to me when I was waiting for an appointment with the Finance Secretary, a New Zealander married to a Samoan lady called Quinnie-Mary, and the Samoan Minister of Finance. The wait was made fun thanks to crews of Air New Zealand staying at the hotel for a few days each week.

  From England a visit was made to the East by Peter Orchard and his wife Helen, and Charles and Peggy Banks. I met them in Sydney. Mike Nicholas organised a dinner for the five of us which was a disaster. He was patronising to Charles Banks and made clear that he would like to represent De La Rue in some agency capacity. When we had taken our leave of him Charles said emphatically that he wouldn’t employ him if he were the last man in Australia. I took them to Melbourne to see the Australian
State Printing Works, which I visited once a year just to keep tabs. This irritated them as well because the technical head talked as if he knew more about printing than they did.

  Peter then started calling me by a nickname which I found unaccept-able. I knew that if I let him use it then others would follow suit which would have been unbearable. It was difficult to dissuade him from using it. Time-consuming too because he insisted on having his way and liked to be surrounded by yes men. But I prevailed. It didn’t do much good for our relationship.

  We proceeded to Wellington’s James Cook Hotel. There I organised a cocktail party for all the Reserve Bank seniors below the Governor and the civil servants in relevant government departments. Before they arrived, with their ladies, I explained to Peter and Charles that it was likely to be a piss up. It was. But eventually we cleared the decks and the Deputy Governor and his wife stayed on for dinner. Anyway it suggested to Peter and Charles that I was capable of generating a measure of goodwill. The vital impression that there were no secrets was reinforced next day when we had our meeting with the Governor. Everything seemed secure.

  Our chairman Gerry Norman had taken charge of raising money for the new Battle of Britain Museum in Hendon, north London. He asked if I could help in Hong Kong. Of course he knew the head of Swire Pacific, whom I had appointed as agents in place of H & C. They owned Cathay Pacific Airlines, so that was the place to start. Their chairman pledged £3,000. Britain may have won a key battle in the Second World War in Europe, but our performance in Asia had on occasions been shameful. The fall of Singapore was well known, our guns only pointing out to sea, with no defence against the Japanese soldiers marching along the causeway from Malaya. Nor did we do much to prevent the fall of Hong Kong. So it was going to be difficult to arouse in the Hong Kong Chinese any feeling of gratitude for the Battle of Britain.

  It did mean a lot to me. The Battle of Britain took place in August 1940 when I was in New York aged four. I recalled my mother, my governess and Jessica Tandy sitting tensely every evening to hear the BBC World Service, the number of enemy kills, the number of ours and those of our Polish and Canadian allies. That battle meant even more to me after I had acted in Eagle Squadron with Robert Stack. My emotions were most affected, as were so many people’s, by Larry’s voice as Henry V crying out the Crispin’s Day speech ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’ So even though I embarked on a bit of role-playing, the sincerity of my personal appeal was strong.

  I began by going to the British Navy. ‘Why?’ asked the Admiral. I said that it was because my father had served in the Navy, in the Fleet Air Arm. This he did not know and he took it seriously. He remem-bered Henry V. My next observation was risky. I said it seemed right for me to start the appeal with the Senior Service. That sounds phoney but it really pleased him. He listed all sorts of things which could be done by the Royal Navy in Hong Kong. Participating in such shows was all too rare and good for morale. People knew all about the Army there but had little idea of the Navy’s strength. He said he would write to Sir Arthur personally describing the support the Navy would give, so as to attract as many fee-paying locals as possible to a show presented by all three armed forces.

  Next I introduced myself to General Redgrave, related to my old friend the actor Michael Redgrave. He observed my Brigade tie. He was wearing one as well. A Grenadier. Yes, I was a Coldstreamer. It was clear he had been contacted by the Admiral. He immediately volun-teered that he would have his troops put on a proper tattoo, as done at Edinburgh. It would be wonderful for the men, a change from the exer-cises they did from time to time in the field. This would be something they could really put their hearts into.

  By the time I saw the Air Vice-Marshal word had got round to him. ‘Battle of Britain? We’ll show the other services.’ I told him that my father’s film Henry V had been dedicated to the Battle of Britain pilots. ‘This is us,’ he exclaimed. ‘We will fly out an RAF band, some Vulcan bombers for a fly past,’ and on and on he went. I wondered whether it would be better for fund-raising if he just did nothing and sent a cheque for the money saved. Well, the upshot was that all three arms prepared for everything they had promised.

  I contacted the government information officer, John Slimming. He was an old friend I had stayed with in Mandalay in 1960, just after his book, Temiar Jungle was published, describing his own experiences against the Communists during the Malayan Emergency. He filled all the Cantonese and English newspapers with every shred of information on the programme, where parking tickets could be bought, who would be there, from the Governor downwards. On the actual day I had to be elsewhere so I missed it, but it did raise £100,000 for Gerry’s Battle of Britain Museum.

  Nineteen

  In 1977 Larry was in Hollywood filming. The script was taken from a Harold Robbins novel called The Betsy. Sort of a B movie. He was bored to death and implored me to go there and be with him. He had stayed with me in Hong Kong which had made him feel infinitely more paternal. Years before he had mocked his relationship with me as ‘wicked avuncular’. Now it was changed. He had unburdened himself to me about the unhappy state of his marriage to Joan Plowright and his relationship with their children, ganging up against him.

  At Los Angeles Airport he met me with his driver. There he was in a different state: free and happy. We went off to dine at Le Restaurant with his closest Hollywood friends Robert Wagner – RJ – and his wife Natalie Wood, plus Juliet Mills, an old friend of mine and a beautiful actress, sister of Hayley, daughter of John and Mary Mills, and her husband who was in real estate: Michael Micklanda. After the inter-minable flight across the Pacific I was overexcited, but as this was Tinsel Town so was everyone else. Larry and both the Wagners had played together in a television production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, with him in the role of Big Daddy and them as Brick and Maggie. This had cemented their friendship. Natalie had the same femininity as Vivien.

  Larry was staying in Malibu Colony on the Pacific Coast, in Anne Bancroft’s wooden bungalow, one of the few humble buildings remain-ing. The grandees’ houses stretched up and down the beach, secure in the gated community. Before going to bed I heard him his lines for his next day’s scenes. He was word perfect, as always. In the morning before dawn I awoke him and prepared a full English breakfast. The car came for him at six and he was driven away to downtown LA. The studio had taken one floor of an early twentieth-century building as the location for a few office scenes.

  As I was staying with Larry I was an honorary, but temporary, ‘Class A’, on a par with the stars. The Wagners were ‘A’. I was lionised. When Larry had to leave me for a week’s shooting in Detroit my evenings were organised by the studio. The first party was given by Joan Collins, then Mrs Kass. Before going there I went to see Jean-Pierre Aumont and his wife Marisa Pavan, twin sister of Pier Angeli. The two of them had stayed with us at Notley. He and Marisa lived on the Pacific Coast Highway in a wooden house on stilts, lapped by the sea in a line of many similar ones. After a cocktail we drove up to the heights of Santa Monica. The houses became fewer and further between, the yuccas standing separately, awaiting their turns to flower and wither away. The view spread over the whole of Hollywood, from the ocean all the way round to the Rockies. On the eastern horizon through a telescope you could see oil pumps levering up and down, as if talking to each other.

  Joan had bangle earrings and necklace, plunging décolletage, the narrowness of her waist and fineness of her ankles enhanced by a glori-ous full skirt, and on her feet were four-inch heels, sometimes called ‘fuck me shoes’. She hugged me, called me ‘Darling’ and introduced me to all the film stars and starlets. I remember Lee Marvin, leaning back against the wall, drink in hand, pleased and looking at me with narrowed eyes as if challenging my recognition. Conversation with him was easy, with his leathery skin, deep voice and white teeth, ‘Bor-orn under a wand’ren star’.

  The cocktails were bracing, the talk faceted, brittle, point scoring and fun. These were the beautiful people. Joan
took me by the hand and said she must show me the library (‘lie-breh’). I felt dazzled and inexperienced. The large room was dimly lit, had a very long sofa under a wall hung with a dozen portrait photographs of her, all alluringly posed with her eyes saying everything. There were no books anywhere, no bookshelves. She looked up expectantly and I stupidly said some-thing complimentary about the pictures and not about her.

  Between times I lay in Anne Bancroft’s fenced garden in the sun on a chaise longue, with the beach beyond and the ocean waves. I was very much enjoying John Cottrell’s biography of Larry, just published. I have nothing but praise for his research, fair-mindedness and narrative skill. It carried nothing contentious or deliberately false. In time this became a quality almost unique among biographies. So many seem to pour through publishers, hell bent on dishonesty and dirt, all with a view to profit.

  As people trudged by on the sand, all safe in the gated community, some dropped in to say hello. Among them were Merle Oberon and her young Dutch husband Rob Wolders. They invited me to dinner. Theirs was a sizeable two-storey house with a swimming pool tiled in dark blue for the sake of coolness. Her taste was as elegant as Vivien’s, shelves full of books, Georgian furniture and wonderful paintings. One of her portraits made her look Indian, an appearance she had avoided as an actress. Her being half-Indian was often cited as a reason she did not have children, lest they should be dark-skinned. We remembered each other from the times she had stayed at Notley, between marriages. Rob was my age, but their age difference seemed natural as he showed her his love and every consideration. He was tall, quiet and good-looking.