by Unknown
Four days after sending the above card, Dirk suffered a mild stroke at home. Reports were carried in newspapers abroad as well as in Britain.
To Hélène Bordes
(Postcard)
[Queen Anne House]
8 December 1987
Hélène dear –
All is well, chere amie – I am lame and still a bit wobbley as you can see – but we will get strong once this AWFUL Christmas is over! Love to you as always – & happiness & peace in 1988 –
With love Dirk
After the stroke, and with Tony in increasingly poor health, Gareth Van den Bogaerde and his family rallied to the cause. Rupert and his wife Jacquie, a trained nurse, had moved in to Queen Anne House for a while.
To Gareth and Lucilla Van den Bogaerde
Queen Anne House
27 January 1988
My dearest Cilla & Gareth –
I am only too well aware that I have never really PROPERLY thanked you both for your wonderful, and quite unstinting, kindness, generosity and love during the last three months.
I will try to do so now.
The shadows seem to be lifting, at least from my head, and I am able (look at this!) to type again .. it’s taken it’s time but it is happening. [ … ] I have an Office built .. carpets laid, shuffled about and got one or two things dealt with, mail sorted, drawers cleared, books stacked. So on. I’m trying to break through again .. it’s been far too long. Which is why I never did more than thank you in the most perfunctionary way.
My heart wanted to say more; I just lacked the energy somehow.
My typing as you can see is all to hell … I’m getting the letters muddled up .. dislexia perhaps? Who can tell .. or just that this is the first letter I have attempted since early November, or late November or wherever it was.
But it’s only to say how wonderful you both were .. and how tremendously kind and calming you were inspite of the sacrifices which I know you had to make in your own life-style to accomodate two elderly gents in trouble.
Both you, and your extraordinary family, swamped this place with love and security just when it felt arid and cast-off.
Leaving Clermont was, for both Tote and myself, an amputation rather than a severence … killing Bendo a sort of suicide .. something which we’ll take a time to get over.
But thanks entirely to you this house now seems not so hopeless, so unfreindly, so alien … Rupert, Brock, Kimbo and Jackie and Ulric (and Alice on the telephone!) have given the place a luster it never had before.
With your love and care I think we might even make it!
I dare not look at the future .. who dares I wonder .. but for the forseeable future, anyway, thank you all … thank you both: I know that you will say, ‘Well, thats what families are for’ and so they are. But you gave more than just immediate family affection, you gave something so cherishable and rare that I shall never, how ever hard I try, be able to repay you, nor make you realise how deeply grateful I am to you all.
And thats quite enough. I shall start sounding soppier than I even am.
For the errors in typing, my apologies … but there are no errors in my words of love and gratitude.
Always
Dirk.
To Olga Horstig-Primuz1
Queen Anne House
27 January 1988
Excuse the errors – I have not
typed since November! D
Most loved Olga –
I am very well aware that it is a long time ago that you wrote to tell me, or telephoned as well, to say that you were leaving the Office. I should have sent you flowers: a golden pen … maybe an apple tree in blossom … I did none of these things and I did’nt even write to you or telephone.
I have excuses, of course. What good Actor has not!
Depression was the main one, and a complete lack of any kind of incentive: I was still, it seems, in my state of post-shock-after-the-stroke and nothing was anygood that I did, nor did I do anything. But I sat all day and read the papers or just sat. Stareing at nothing. Not my usual form at all. I have always been a fairly active person, eager to hurry about and do this or that. I have NEVER just done nothing at all! Which is why I have never taken a holiday unless I could avoid it; to sit on a beach in the sun, or under an umbrella, with a little swim now and again, or a sip of wine, is my idea of total hell on earth.
But the stroke, and it was mild, laid me completely out.
The last two years have been a terrible strain I fear […] I suffered a big loss and I miss France every single day of my life. I always will. But there is no way back now.
And so … grieving for my lost country, France, for the peace and beauty of Clermont, for the life that once I had, rather drained me and I could not put a pen to paper, or even lift a telephone to send you a telegram, to tell you how deeply I shall miss you and how utterly different the world I knew is, now that you are no longer fully active.
I miss you enormously: I miss our little chats on Sunday about this or that … nothing important, but just a familiar holding together which I enjoyed greatly.
Cannes, Paris, all France, will not be the same now that you are no longer in that curious old office which I loved so much even though I did not often see you there. But from the early ’fifties until last year I knew that, not so far away, you were sitting behind your desk ready to surprise me with a new Client or an old, and loved, one! And that you were near to come and have a drink at the Lancaster, or to have a luncheon in the garden, your handbag full of clippings from … oh, Figaro, Paris Match, Variety .. anything.
Never mind. Both our lives have altered.
I shall always remember our meeting with B.B and Cloun .. or Clown1 in English .. remember you dragging an excited little Vera2 to meet me when we came over for the ‘Servant’ … the evening you came up to meet a rather strange, leggy, creature called Rampling!
I never spoke enough French for you: I was useless in so many ways as a client, but we did do one thing together which I shall cherish all my life. We did ‘Providence’ … and that was a good thing. Thank you for your love, your care, your sweetness at all times … for the happy days we spent together at Clermont … once with your Mamma, remember? and the time we had at Festivals in France and Italy.
What a good time it was! How lucky we have been! No one will enjoy it more than we did, will they? Nothing will ever be quite the same again. Tant pis. I LOVE you quand meme …
Your devoted Dirk – XX
To Ulric Van den Bogaerde
Queen Anne House
5 February 1988
My dear Ulric –
Your letter of the 20th January just got here this morning. What did you do? WALK to the mail-box? Anyway: it was good to have it even though your news did sound a bit depressed, rather than depressing … You are going through a really foul period of time.3 I knew it well and detested it .. I could’nt fart in a blanket, for Heavens sake! I was the total despair of my beloved and careing parents, and got shoved from one school to another, one Tutor to another, and finally ended up in a Technical College in Glasgow where I rotted away quietly all day (Did I know a thing about H2SO4, Bunsen Burners, the effect of copper filings on sulphuric acid? Did I? And what is more did I care?) and went to the ice-rink in the evening with a cousin who loved a goal keeper in the Canadien Ice Hockey Team.
Not me.
So it was not my time either. But, honestly, dont give up all hope .. you are a very bright fellow, personable, clever (I know that. I can tell.) and very intelligent … the fact that you dont seem to be able to put it all together just yet should’nt get you into a state of despair and hopelessness. It all takes time. Not immediate. Something, or someone, will suddenly grab you and it’ll all shake down. I am quite certain.
What you HAVE to do is keep reading. Not Beano but real reading. And keep writing … write anything, write rubbish … write a daily analasys (cant spell it) of yourself. Whatever you do keep on expressing yourself, and keep very a
lert. Maybe Florence will help to jog you into some sort of awareness … maybe you’ll want to read a bit more about the city, it’s history, the art it has to offer, the type of life that goes on there and has gone on there for simply hundreds of years with very little change .. I mean, allowing for motor cars, disco’s, and Tourists and all the crap of this ugly centuary. Anyway: we’ll see.
But as long as you become someone, not just a dollop of humanity, as long as you remain aware, careing, interested and, above all, curious, I am certain that your life will be fullfilling and rewarding.
I never watch my old schlock on the TV, it’s too small, the screen I mean, and the fact that I never get a penny piece in residuals so pisses me off that I just turn my back.
Sucks to them.
But I DID watch the ‘Servant’ and quite enjoyed it again after 25 years or so .. The Blue Lamp was on too late for ‘ickle me’ … so I missed that. I get shouted at in the street now of course. I’m amazed, literally, that they recognise me after so long … but people do. Funny, I have’nt at this mo. got any photographs, I burned the lot during the move from France .. but as soon as another sodding German Fan sends me a packet for signing, I’ll snitch one1 [ … ]
Now: there we are. I hate this machine … it’s different from my old faithful[…] and the bloody ‘P’ and ‘O’ are in different places. Oh well.
Be of good heart, courage, and dont be hopeless: that leads to helplessness and thats VERY boring indeed!
You are better than that!
Love Dirk.
To Hélène Bordes
(Postcard)
Queen Anne House
12 February 1988
Chere Hélène –
Thank you, my dear, for the cards and the messages of courage they contained! I was in need of them, I assure you. Courage has mounted high again. Yesterday was the Big Cancer examination for the Patient and the chemiotherepy is working! The tumor has been, they said, ‘considerably reduced’. A tremendous bit of luck and fortune .. so we continue. Everyone very happy because this is entirely an expiriment. The pills come from Japan and are not in use normally in Europe. We are guinea-pigs .. tant pis1 if it works. So now the future is less appalling for the moment, and the builders are hard at work making me shelves for my books and desks for this machine .. and one day, who can tell? I may get back to my work again. I have a big piece in the Sunday Times on Sunday next about the Riveria!2 I’ll send you a copy next week. My only piece of work for two years. Oufff .. thank you again for your hand across the sea, the ‘plank’ is always there. A good feeling!
My love Dirk
To Nerine Selwood
(Postcard)
Queen Anne House
18 March 1988
Dear Nair –
In haste in reply to your letter recieved today […] Alas! Tony has cancer AND Parkinsons and side effects from the chemio therepy. He’s also had a v. bad fall in the street and cut his face and broken his teeth, so life is pretty well a buggers muddle. I am still having phisiotherepy for my right leg, everything else still works thank God! .. but I am lame and with all the housework and cooking (I cant!) to try and do, life is a problem to say the least.
This week is full of dentists, the cancer specialist and later on in the week the occulist who is to perform a small operation with laser to heal a burst artery in T’s left eye. If you had told me that all this would be my lot at 67 I very much doubt that I’d have bothered! [ … ] Anyway. Have a good day on the 28th .. I shall do my best to forget it.3
Love. Dirk –
To Hélène Bordes
(Postcard)
Queen Anne House
30 April 1988
Chere Hélène –
Thank you for your sweet letter which gave me great pleasure today. I needed it because, alas, The Patient and I have lost the battle. Day and night nursing by two nice girls, and not very long to go. It is a strain, but at least I am able to sleep again, and apart from feeding the nurses, and him, my work is not difficult. The loneliness will be when it comes. It was a good fight, valient, determined, but the good Lord has decided that He will be the winner. Mal chance … one day, I promise, I’ll write that LONG letter. For the moment I wait only.…
My love & thanks. Dirk XXX
Anthony Forwood died at home on 18th May at the age of seventy-two.
To Hélène Bordes
(Postcard)
Queen Anne House
21 May 1988
Hélène my dear –
My Patient died peacefully in his sleep on Wednesday morning. I was with him but he was unaware thank God.
Now I must try to begin to live again: and alone.
The house is very empty without him. And my life also.
Thank you for your card, it gave me great comfort.
All my love Dirk.
To Susan Owens
(Postcard)
Queen Anne House
3 June 1988
I was saddened to get your letter with all it’s wretched news.1 Mine is pretty bloody too. Mr F. died ten days ago and the pain is starting right in now. I cant write more or longer, there is no sort of incentive and I have so much to clear up, not least all his papers and clothes and etc. Not fun. And after fifty years (minus seven for the war) you feel a bit lost. Being alone is one thing being on your own and lonely quite another. It does’nt hit you during the weeks of nursing and care, but then that is all done [and] the silence is deafening. Family and chums have been wonderful. But there is still that terrible emptiness when you shut the front door and they’ve gone.
I’ll get better, they tell me, but no one can quite say exactly how long it takes. For ever I’d think. At least you have your children. I made a big mistake .. so dont expect any signals for a while.
DB –
Putting this house on the market today! Move off to a small flat in Chelsea, with a Porter at the door so I can just lock-up and go – DB
To Julian Barnes
(Postcard)
Queen Anne House
11 June 1988
Julian –
How comforting was your letter; how chuffed T. would have been, he always felt so fearfully inadequet intellectually, as he insisted and nothing I could say or do would ever convince him that people actually did like him MUCH better than me! He never learned, the silly fellow. I realise, from the letters which have come since he died, just how much he was liked and respected, and that the balance between Sweet and Sour, if you like, he and I that is,1 was rather good. Anyway we had a terrific fifty years together and nothing can take any part of that away. The last five years were hell. But then one has to pay it seems. Sod it.
D
To Mark Goodings and Judy Roberts2 Queen Anne House
14 June 1988
My dear Mark & Judy –
Thank you so much for your invitation to the nuptials. How splendid for you both and how I wish that I could be present.
But it is not to be: I tried a first trip out on Tuesday just to see if I could face the world again and found that I’m not quite ready for all that just yet.
But I shall be very much with you in spirit, and I wish you both a wonderfully long and happy life together: it is, after all, something about which I know quite a bit!
Be happy, be courageous, gracious and loving and give way when essential to do so and you’ll make it work in this shoddy world.
Above all share things together, that is a very important part of the relationship, and discuss before you have a fight or a slanging match!
Great happiness and a long life together.
With much love
Dirk
To Nerine Selwood Queen Anne House
18 July 1988
Dear Nair –
Thank you so much for your letter which I got on Friday … much better than those incomprehensible things from Telecom or the Gas People which leave me helpless with worry!
I have managed to destroy 45 years of T’s letters and files
and bundle off his clothes to Oxfam. Always a distressing business .. but now the place is empty of his presence, and I must start off all over again.
To this end I have sold this house, at a profit, and move into a titchy pent-house with a terrace facing south over a beautiful garden ten minutes walk from Sloan Square. I cant bear this area, full of nig-nogs and punks and gobs of bubble gum all over the pavements. So I’m off at the end of the month. Another move within nine months is impossible to contemplate, but I’ll have to have a bash and Lu says she’ll come up and stay with me while I sort myself out. I have’nt even unpacked the books from the last move yet so at least they are still in their containers!
She, Lu, has been a brick, we have managed to console each other very well,1 and she wanders up from time to time and spends a couple of days here and we sit and read and lay tables and shop in M&S … it’s company for us both.
One day perhaps you and I could manage a meeting. God knows when … but, honestly, I dont want to remember the past, and have ‘a natter about the NADS and the old days’. As far as I am concerned they are distant history and I have no rememberance, and wish none, of that time. So much, you must realise, has happened to me over the years, so many new faces, new experiences, new directions, that all I can do is look ahead to whatever the future has in store for me. I have written my books about the past, burned all my papers and diaries, and cleared my decks so to speak. Now it’s full steam ahead and there is no time for reminiscencing about a dead time .. it’s all in the distant, forgotten, past. Can you under stand this possibly cruel, but quite unintentionally so, attitude? I really cant go back, and I frankly have no interest in doing so. We really have’nt very much to speak of together, we have both gone such different paths and they will never cross again as once they did: we are too old for that now, and ‘memory lane’ is somewhere I dont want to linger in!
However, a card now and again, a letter, and we keep in touch, that is as much as one can expect at present. There is so much still to do, and so little time in which to do it … I’ll let you know where I move to and when, if I have the strength left!
As ever