Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters

by Unknown

  All my love, Courage! – Dirk XXX

  To Alice Van den Bogaerde1 Cadogan Gardens

  3 August 1991

  Alice!

  Quelle surprise! What a splendid one. I had no idea that you could use a pen. Let alone write correctly, and spell!

  Amazing! I wonder what on earth reminded you that perhaps, only just perhaps, I’d be chuffed to get a letter from you in Paris?

  Never mind. Fear not ‘Uncle’, something did, and it was most enjoyable to get … your letter I mean .. and to know, above all, that you like where you are and seem, cross fingers, to be breaking new ground.

  It’s very difficult to convince people of your age that living in Wandsworth, Fulham, or the better parts of Worlds End is not really living at all. Terribly important for you to get away from that sort of background for a while, and see how it is elsewhere.

  I am, as you know, devoted to France and always will be. Brock and Rupe have promised to get my ashes (when I’m gone) across and then scatter me somewhere. I dont insist on Provence, I wont know will I? and I have told them both that Calais will do at a pinch. Even out over the station. I really dont mind … I just feel better about it to know that, one way or another, I shall go back.

  I dont adore the Parisiens .. but I dont dislike them as much as most English people do. They dont like each other, you must remember, and they are very, very, selective … but they are a courageous lot, sharp, clever as paint, and they wont put up with anything that is really naff. That is left to the petit bourgeoise to do .. and there are a great many of them around. The Parisiens, and the French in general, are not like us. They are’nt chatty over the garden fence and they dont rely on cups of tea to calm everything from a nervous breakdown to a wedding celebration. They dont ‘join’, like we do .... they are very reserved, deeply conscious of ‘family’ and privacy, unlike us, and they dont actually bother about what other people think of them. I dont think that they are so much hostile as indifferent. Think of it. You may find the men ‘pretentious’ and sometimes ‘sickening’, although you dont specify how. But they really are a bit brighter than the average Hooray Harry, Henry, or Harriet over here. Every fellow has the same feeling towards a pretty girl, and you are not an exception there, and flirting and showing off have to come into it. Better that than be totally ignored!

  I have just re-read your letter and noted the date, and realised that my surprise letter was probably engendered by Paris Match last week.1 I do hope that seeing me slammed as a homo has not upset you? It is actually quite untrue anyway .. and what about the ones who are and dont get onto the elegant list! Wow! Naturally my copy here had all the relevant pages removed at Customs .. so it was due entirely to my French chums who telephoned. I quite forgot you might read it or be embarressed. Sorry. But not, this time, my fault lovie.

  I have just finished, yesterday, a three-day ‘shoot’ for Channel 4 all about my life and career.2 Very boring indeed, but I decided to do it rather than let them do it without me. That way I do have a little controll over what goes on. I know that the family wince or have the vapours everytime I open my mouth on the Telly or the radio … but they can rest assured they hardly come into things … no one gets a mention really .. and I am dead darling about them all.

  But I know how they fuss. Auntie Lulu particularly!

  [ … ] Brock drops in from time to time for a beer. He’s a very loyal chap [… ] Came to dinner one night and I cooked him a really decent dinner. I have learned, not before time, to cook! It amazes me .. but it is worth the effort.

  [ … G]reat love to you, keep well and be extremely happy and enjoy yourself … it all goes so damned quickly, you’d not believe.

  Thanks for writing, it was super ..

  Great love

  Uncle Dirk

  To Hélène Bordes Cadogan Gardens

  5 August 1991

  Hélène ma belle –

  Your lovely letter arrived two mornings ago when I was just on my way to the Studio to begin ‘shooting’ a two day Documentary, the LAST!, on my Life and Times. I did one final one in 1986 when I had to leave France. This is from the start of my career, my life even, up until today. With my last film .. Tavernier’s, and my last or newest, novel, Jericho. I was cross, worried, and wearing very formal clothes. Hermes tie, most discreet, dark suit, white shirt. I even had washed my hair the night before, unusual … I HATE washing my hair and all the tra-la-la afterwards. I have hair like a Japanese doll. Fine, dead straight, it blows in the wind like silk. And the bald parts show .. and I then have to glue it all together with something terrible in a spray-can … So your letter made me happy, and I carried it in my pocket for the rest of the film! Madness. But perhaps it brought me luck?

  Your adventures sound awful […] Illness, or imagined illness (comme Moliere!) is terribly difficult to handle, especially if one is what we call the ‘career’ .. the one who has to look after, help and cheer. Ah! I know. I have become the Vice President of a thing here in the UK called Voulantary Euthanasia. I wrote a long piece for a paper pleading for people to have the right to die with dignity,1 IF THEY REQUESTED IT, AND IF DEATH WAS INEVITABLE BUT AGONIZING. Naturally this has caused a fuss. But a good fuss! The Society, V.E.S, recieved 10.000 letters of support in the first four months of this year. We have an ‘advanced warning’ form or, better to understand, a ‘Living Will’ which merely states how we wish to be assisted out of pain or, worse, a vegetable-state. To be signed ONLY when we are well and in our right minds, and to be revoked at any time. It is merely something to alert our Doctors, and something, which we hope, will make their actions legal. I have so many lectures ahead I could spin! And, of course, so many furious people, of all Religions, who hate me! But I know that I am right to try and help get this law brought to legality. I have agreed to talk in the House Of Commons! if they demand. I dont care. I have seen appalling pain and distress in death, both in Normandy when I was young, and later in my life, and people constantly write begging me to help them. I will!

  ‘Jericho’ is all finished and is being corrected. My Copy Editor had only 12 questions out of 86.000 words! One was ‘Is Valbonne spelt correctly?’ It was, and ‘What is a Hoti?’ He knows now! So that was a relief .. and I finished the cover, which is quite good I think, an ‘impression’ of my imaginary ‘Jericho’, with terrible rocks and lovely olive groves … I have abandoned the idea of another memoir. The reason being that everything seemed to be so sad after Clermont. Death, destruction of all my dogs, posessions sold, my stroke, and finally a solitary life five floors up in the middle of a city I really dont love among people who, now, feel strange to me! So .. it’s gone. I do not believe that negativity is a pleasant product! And in my corridor I was always so curious, opening the doors along the way, that I never realised how many things there were to do there! Walls to paint, boxes to open, many, many little things instead of pushing into doors and wondering what to find. I am too old for adventures now. I am very happy to be settled painting my walls and changing my mind! Easy! So I will start to work again on a novel in the autumn, when the evenings get longer and it is dark and cold all day. For the moment I lecture here and there, read for the Blind, books on Compact Disc or Tape (Backcloth next. I have just finished ‘A Particular Friendship’ and it is’nt bad. I was rather tearful at the end! My dear! What conceit!) and, of course, occasionally the BBC for poetry readings, or the ‘Saki’ show which has proved to be very popular indeed.

  Guess what! I have learned, finally, to C O O K! I love it! I was very shy to start with, my hands shook, I spilled the olive oil over the recipe book, I cut my fingers peeling the garlic and chopping the onions … but I have done it at last. I can now cook, without too much fear, my rissotto Milanase, or my one with fungi or porcini (delicious) and my Navarin printanier est tellement formidable! I do not speak of my poulet avec 70 gousse d’ail! Fantastic.

  It does take a very long time to peel 70 gousse. New garlic. But it is devine!

  I am very much like
you: I believe in doing as much as I can while I still can. What good is sitting alone in my room? Or reading? Or not dareing to do something new and exciting and useful? If you are wanted go!

  As you are doing with the American trip. Wonderful! Absolutely right .. how good of you, and how good FOR you. Plenty of time later to sit and knit .. and when we do get to that stage, you and I (although I dont think I could learn to knit!) we will have plenty of things to remember with pleasure.

  [ … ] I gather, from friends in Paris on the telephone, that there is something disagreeable attributed to me in Paris Match. But what can I do? It is, of course, untrue, but I cant possibly afford to take legal action against such a gigantic publishing house. Tant pis. It has been banned in Great Britain so I imagine it must be really ugly. However … dont believe it, whatever you do .. and remember me with affection as I ALWAYS remember you ..

  With all my love & [four hearts] of fondness –

  Dirk

  To Alain de Pauw Cadogan Gardens

  22 August 1991

  Cher Alain –

  My deepest apologies for not having written to thank you for such a magnificent present!

  Clermont all before my eyes in glowing colour! So little changed that I had a lump in my throat, and yet so changed, so beautifully changed, that I was filled with joy to know how wonderfully that magic house was being cherished.

  You and Christine have done all the things I promised myself that I would one day do when I had enough money!

  The potager was always a ‘disaster area’, now it is ravishing, most beautifully sited, un obtrusive and very, very nescessary!

  The one thing I had never considered was a donkey or an ass (?) from Corsica! A splendid idea.

  Forwood and I spent all summer mowing the terraces and the grass, stacking and burning in the winter .. terrified of fire.

  For quite a long time, I confess, I was unable to look at any photos of the place .. especially those taken before we started work, and during the happier days, from ’68 until the end of the unhappy 80’s. But very gradually, as time has deadened my heart, I have started to be able to come to terms that one life is over for ever and another, not as beautiful but fairly comfortable, has begun.

  These wonderful pictures today have pricked my eyes with tears, I do admit, but not wrenched my heart completely.

  They are proof that your love and care have enriched it .. and for that, as you know, I will always be deeply grateful.

  If one still night, when the moon is high, you think that you see a shadow moving among the olives just below the little terrace, or sitting under the big olive over the pond, say ‘Bon soir!’

  It will be me.

  With affection and gratitude ..

  Ever Dirk

  To Lee Langley1 Cadogan Gardens

  9 September 1991

  Lee, love –

  I have’nt written to you only because I knew that the script I read was not, what they choose to call, ‘Final’. And so I thought it wiser to wait a little longer. Anyway, like you, I was, I suppose I AM, very leary about it ever being made. Should ‘leary’ be ‘leery’ [?] I rather think so. Mrs O’Leary’s cow destroyed Chicago. Right?2

  I thought you had done a mammoth job of ‘Voices’. I refused ever to touch it, rightly I think. Equally I refused to play in it. I had my own vision of Archie-Charlie and it did’nt actually match with that of our UK producers.

  Who, frankly, were’nt really au fait with the kind of language they used.

  I offered to take them to Badminton or Chatsworth or some other little place, just to hear how that kind of English is spoken.

  But no. Straight back to Mill Hill and Hendon, so I packed it in.

  What you have done is quite splendid. No book is EVER like the film, that would be nonsense. As you know very well a writer offers only a suggestion, others can pick it up, or over. And, as is normal, a different thing is born.

  I did’nt know that Marcus was going to be English. Super that he is, and I have checked on him3 since my Agents ‘Stand By For Possible Action’ and he is very, very highly considered. And you have given him a smashing part, so he’d better take the chance! I only worry, vaguely, about Anouk. I have known her very very well ever since she was sixteen. Even hid her in a dustbin when the cops were after her because her ‘papers’ were out of date and the fellow she loved so desperatly was a bit late on his film. Heigh ho!

  I worked with her on a disaster called ‘Justine’. She pissed off and left us floundering for the final three weeks: we used a double and ‘out takes’ to get through and neither Cukor or I ever forgave her. Nor did Mr Durrel, as I recall! She is a bit capricious .. but delicious .. and tiresome.

  I half forgave her a few years ago at Cannes. What point is there in being angry about a long-dead film?

  But my ‘Cuckoo’ she aint! Never mind. Let us all hope that your stirling work and my modest basic stuff will, in some measure, survive … I DO admire you, and I am most tremendously grateful.

  All we can do is sit back and wait, I suppose?

  ‘Jericho’, the new effort, surfaces in March. I hope. They are SO slow in the UK .. they have had it corrected and all, plus cover design, since February!

  Blimy … proofs due on the 12th.

  Super about Mark Shivas.1 Not an easy guy, you must feel rather smug! I would! Great good luck, lovie … for us both!

  I’m off to buy a new typewriter. This bugger has lost it’s ‘O’ and it’s ‘P’ and you can imagine how tiresome that is … so forgive errors .. and accept my loving, and grateful, thanks …

  Ever, with love,

  Dirk

  To Penelope Mortimer Cadogan Gardens

  12 September 1991

  We seem to no longer address each other. So –

  I must learn to type. Properly, I mean. Like pressing the button which gets I instead of i. Maddening.

  […] I think I am tired today: I was talking, hardly lecturing really, 300 boys at Tonbridge. On the Holacaust. And Hate. Just simple Hate.2

  Rather an amazing business. I did’nt think that I would be able to talk, frankly, about Bergen-Belsen … or Treblinka etc. I failed pretty badly in ’86 when I tried on a film that R. Hartey did on me. Blubbed. Shameful. But, I suppose, because I have got old now and time has hazed memory, acute memory, I managed yesterday. For one solid hour.

  Not a sound. Not the proverbial pin-drop. At the end they all stood up and applauded. The Head said, later, that no one, not even Leonard Cheshire, had moved so many people so deeply! I tell you this in all privacy .. I was exhausted, but tremendously stimulated somehow.

  I offered no answers. I asked THEM why the hatred we all see today was so manifest, and warned them that they, not I, would see a repeat of the awfulness which I had seen at twenty four and that they must be aware of it, and try to stop it. For their own sakes and for their children. I dont know what good it did: I do know that some of them were blubbing, very quietly. So I think I got it over.

  Their Vicar, Rector, whatever the hell he is, was there. Trying not to be, but I spotted him with that dog-collar. And hit hard at God .. the only thing I allowed the poor sods to keep was faith in themselves!

  I told them, catagorically, that there was no such thing as God .. and that they would be on their own, the only thing that would save them was themselves and their own good sense.

  I dont think he quite knew what to do: I was VERY reasonable. If you believe in the Immaculate Conception how can you believe in a God who did’nt turn up at Auchswitz or Belsen or Mauthausen?

  Oh bugger it. I got a smashing letter this am from the Masters, and that set me up for the day. Until my ‘proofs’ of ‘JERICHO’ arrived. God! Viking aint Chatto in 1975 … so tatty, mean, squashed. The very last, key, line of my sodding book is printed on the top of the last page .. all alone! One line one page. Am I mad, or are they?

  [ … ] On Monday, if all goes well, and I bet it wont, they start to shoot on my book ‘Voices In Th
e Garden’. With Anouk Aimee playing Diana Cooper. Well: MY version of Diana Cooper. The only thing they have actually kept are some of the names and the title. Movies ARE mad.

  Lee Langley, who adapted it as I told you I think, wrote a sweet note prodding my reluctant heart to take pen and write and thank her for her work. It is not her fault that nothing is the same. That the idiot Producers dont think that the Upper Classes ‘speak like that today’.

  I drift in a haze of despair. Thats why one thinks how splendid it would be if you did do Hons and Rebels1 because I know that you know how they were/are. But who, my darling, can SPEAK like that now?

  I watch that filthy Telly to get into the ‘feel’ of things. And the only feel I get is one of utter frustration and futility; and hatred against the lower-orders who demand mediocraty (SP?) and GET IT!

  The Titmus thing2 has to be seen to be believed. Astonishing. It would be (apart from one young woman who is far too good for them) JUST acceptable on the Civic Center Stage in Stockport, done by the local Drama Group. And as for the ‘The House Of Elliot’ words totally fail me. I am breathless with horror, shock, surprise, and, finally, disbelief. I hear myself saying, aloud, ‘I dont believe this. I really dont quite believe this, do you?’ And there is only me to reply. And I say: ‘No. No I dont. I dont believe it.’ and a good time is had by all. God!

  So do write. You say projects and no pennies. Well get on with a damn project for Heavens sake … you handle dialogue so beautifully, you are so economic, there are no cliche’s, you are wise, funny, and often sharply bitter. But ALL OF IT is so good! So ‘sayable’ … actors do actually dream of getting that sort of script. Some actors anyway.

  Miss H. [Katharine Hepburn] could, as I have written elsewhere, read a script like a musical score. No fool she. She knew. If you go through her writers they were all marvellous WRITERS! She damned well knew .. so did Spencer [Tracy].

  Holding a piece of Pinter in your hand gives one the same comfort and security as a thick glove in artic winter. You know you’ll get there, somewhere, in an electryfying turmoil of doubt and despair, but total sureness of the written word. Never alter a semi colon. Never need to.