The Wandering Years (1922-39)

by Cecil Beaton

  A young man strolled in, smilingly joined us and shook hands all round. He was drunk. Wilson encouraged him by making jokes. The drunk thought Wilson a hell of a fellow, kept saying, ‘You’re fine,’ never realising how funny Wilson was being about him. The drunk beamed and gazed with glassy eyes. There were occasional awkward silences. Then the razzing continued.

  Another glazed drunk appeared. This one seemed a mean hound. He recognized Irving Berlin and at once lapsed into familiarity with, ‘Irvie, old fella.’

  The first drunk was a nice sort, his enormous mouth stretching in a grin from ear to ear. He wore a yellow overcoat, punctured leather gloves and a hat with a little feather in it. Wilson now made jokes about his clothes. Drunk Number One beamed and again shook hands all round. He leered across the table at the others while pinching my arms and shoulders. ‘Oh, you’re all fine,’ he reiterated.

  Wilson had by now become bored with the situation. ‘Say look here. We’ve got to discuss something private. It’s about money and we don’t want to let strangers in on it. You see, we’re squaring a deal; and this little woman wants a twenty-five per cent share, only she didn’t do a damned thing for it. So be nice fellows and leave us for a moment.’

  ‘You really mean that? You want to get rid of me? Well, all right. I’ll go.’ But before going, Drunk Number One insisted on another round of handshakes, during which a new conversation served him as delaying tactics. Drunk Number Two meanwhile sustained his mean-dog look.

  Irving took me into a corner for quick consultation on how to get rid of them. But Wilson had already done the damage by encouraging the strays too much. They were, as Wilson put it, ‘among friends’.

  The friendly drunk now brought out some bonds to show he was a broker. His unfriendly companion, afraid that he might be losing something valuable, shouted, ‘Where are those Anaconda Copper Bonds?’ ‘In my pocket (pronounced puckert).’

  ‘Where?’ ‘In my puckert!’ ‘But where?’ ‘In my puckert!’ They shouted at one another in drunken fury. Wilson asked the grinning drunk what his name was. ‘Bu-y’ (Buddy). And the other? Frank or Gus. ‘And you’re brothers?’ Wilson raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh, no, go on, you’re kidding. He’s not really your brother, is he?’ ‘Yes.’ And then, very quietly. ‘Why, don’t you like him?’

  The whole complexion of the scene altered. The bores were now growling dogs getting ready for a fight. It was ominous.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Wilson soothed. ‘I’ve said nothing. We’re among friends. Be sweet now.’

  The lurching pair were hot for a fight, their eyes sparkling. Wilson stood up. ‘Go home and be quiet. No kidding.’ The growling became vicious. Drunk Number Two, who only a moment ago had said, ‘Irvie old fella,’ abruptly changed his tune. ‘Jew!’ he shouted at Irving. ‘Jew! Dirty Jew!’

  Wilson kept stuttering, ‘Be sweet now.’

  One of the drunks made a rude noise, then said, ‘And so much bull to you!’ The other shouted to Wilson, ‘Sit down!’ Both shouted, ‘Sit down!’

  Old Wilson, his white face pouring with sweat, rose and stood to attention in all his giant height. Anita got up from the table. We all clustered round, weakly advocating, ‘Now be quiet.’ The restaurant proprietor, a timid little grey-haired man, became grey-faced too. The Mexican waitress stood ashen. The mean hound said, ‘It’s all right, Buddy. I’ve got my coat off.’ And with that there was a fierce blow aimed at Wilson’s face. Happily, the blow went wild. But it was enough to start the melee. Wilson, with blood in his eyes, fumbled quickly for a beer bottle and cracked it over the side of Buddy’s head. Crash! The glass fell in smithereens.

  ‘Wilson! Stop it!’

  A scuffling, then more bottles flew through the air and burst like bombs. The noise was deafening. The drunks sought ammunition in the front part of the restaurant. Wilson, the old tough, stood in the doorway dividing shop and back parlour. His face deathly white and pouring with sweat, his eyes darting out of his head, he threw bottles at the enemy while the enemy responded with other bottles, tumblers and heavy glass water carafes that whizzed through the air past his head and broke in a thousand pieces against the wall.

  The proprietor, who had been impotent to stop the fight at the beginning, now stood cowering behind a net curtain. Wilson barked huskily to Irving and me: ‘Get her out! Get her out!’ But there was no escape for Anita. The back door was locked; the only means of escape seemed to be the main door, from which direction the drunks in their fury now threw anything and everything they could lay hands on. The fight would never cease until we were all dead.

  Crash! An earsplitting bang, and the mirror on the wall dropped in splinters. Wilson would surely be killed, or at least have his head gashed open. He roared like a bull. Protecting himself round the doorway, he flung things back in reprisal.

  How would this end? It seemed useless for the rest of us to join the battle. We were sober, and didn’t want to kill the drunks. We only wanted the fight to cease. The drunks, though, were out for blood. Wildly, we tapped on the back windows to attract the chauffeur’s attention so that he would send for a copper. The smashing, roaring and shouting went on.

  Then, suddenly, the fight stopped: the drunks had mysteriously retreated. We held a frenzied conference. ‘Hide the Napoleon brandy in case the police come! Where’s the key to the kitchen door?’ The ashen proprietor produced the key. Irving and Anita dragged a reluctant Wilson out through the kitchen while I hurriedly paid at least the food bill.[52] The shop was entirely wrecked. No picture remained intact upon the walls; every mirror had been broken: pieces of glass lay strewn about. Beer and water ran down the walls and along the floor.

  The drunks were now returning. ‘Are those people here yet?’

  ‘No,’ I heard the Mexican waitress gabbling, ‘they are already gone.’ And that’s all I heard: for I, too, slipped through the kitchen and joined the others in the car.

  The chauffeur, it turned out, had been unable to find a policeman. But all had ended happily. Wilson was unscathed; and none of the drunks, I reported, seemed badly hurt.

  Now that we were safely in the car, the whole scene took on a different aspect. ‘Really, boys! We all might have landed on the front page,’ Anita piped.

  We might have, and a choice assortment of names it would have been! We began to laugh hysterically. Wilson of the amazing performance turned to me and said, ‘Well, young Beaton, now you’ve seen the social life of Hollywood!’

  February 5th, New York

  I went down Broadway to see Adele Astaire at a Negro dance school where she is taking lessons. Adele looked her best in a pair of pale blue drawers that revealed witty legs. She smiled like a little monkey and said, ‘Oh, Buddy has taught me such marvellous, new, dirty steps.’

  I am staggered each time I see Adele perform. She stabs her pointed toe with delicacy and force. Her dancing has such personality; it is subtle, sophisticated and — to use a word which strangely enough does apply to someone so American and modern — dainty.

  An atmospheric place, this dance school: a rather ‘high’ smell of stale sweat and face powder predominated. Gramophones ground away in competition from every room, accompanied by a frenzied tapping of steel-toed shoes. The proprietor toured me round, telling anecdotes about these pupils who had become famous. Many of them still come back to learn new tricks, even though their names are now in lights.

  February 6th

  Adele said she wouldn’t mind if I joined her for a few lessons. Whereat Adele changed into her rehearsal clothes and gaily started to strut as if in her real element. I felt impotent with no control over my feet whatsoever. Even a simple succession of steps became a mountainous difficulty.

  I sweated like a bull while a fifteen-year-old Negro boy kept urging, ‘Do it again! Do it again!’ The merciless little wretch went on doggedly while I continued to try so hard to remember and concentrate with my eyes shut.

  I asked Adele about the first visit to London she made with her brother,
and she told me how at the beginning they hated it. They got taken out by June and Anita Elson to Babe Barnato’s, but then they were invited by the Duke and Duchess of York to a party at Chesterfield House, and they became intimate with the Prince of Wales, Prince George, Lady Louis Mountbatten, Audrey Coats, and all their friends. These extraordinary little hoofers went through the Royal Family like a streak.

  Adele is an utterly natural star, and this is a rare phenomenon. She is brilliant in intuitive ways, also looney and childish. For years she had poored over watches and clocks; and not until she was seventeen did she learn to tell the time.

  Adele then took me to watch Fred and Marilyn Miller rehearsing a dance on the top of the Ziegfeld theatre building. I had never seen such a display of energy and high spirits. The room reechoed every sound as they screamed and yelled and stamped and kicked as if they were mad. Fred was excited and chewed gum frenziedly, chewed a bit more, then crunched it with his front teeth as well.

  He looked very ashen and pink-eyed, and terribly thin. Miller with a face like a little pig, pink and fat, and mouth sprouting teeth. She is very ‘old-fashioned’ looking, and has a twangy speaking voice. But I do admit her legs and feet are perfection; her agility is amazing.

  I envied these two their hilarious fun, planning their dances and encores, and when the difficult work is done, running through the routines so slickly to the ring of success — success.

  February 13th

  We intended going to a German talkie but arrived too late. None of the picture palaces on Broadway seemed to have appetising attractions, so we ended up at Minsky’s burlesque show.

  There was hardly a woman in the audience, apart from Anita. It was a lecherous conglomeration of thugs, ‘he-men’ and old gagas. On the stage were the toughest, dirtiest lot of comics and showgirls. The jokes were so broad they could scarcely be called double entendre. The ladies, exhibiting nipples and navels, shimmied out on an illuminated gangplank. They had blue-bruised legs and arms; they shook their tasselled bottoms. Policemen stood ready to throw out any man who became too lustful and held on to a pair of varicose legs!

  There were lots of ‘teaser’ numbers. With the same chorus repeated over and over, the leading lady coyly and tantalisingly takes off one piece of clothing at a time, then goes offstage until the audience applauds sufficiently to bring her back again. Ultimately, if the applause is overwhelming, she takes her final bow almost in the nude — three leaves!

  Some of the ‘teasers’ were far from young. The leading lady we had seen outside the theatre while buying our tickets. A fat, hennaed old hag in a fur coat, she’d been explaining to the policeman that she had a terrible cold in the head. Now she was strutting over the stage, wearing a small bit of silver fringe over her sex and singing the dirtiest song about her ‘artillery’ man.

  The wow of the evening was Carmen, the belly dancer. I had never seen anything like Carmen’s expert orgy. Even the toughs in the audience hooted in embarrassed laughter.

  New York, undated

  These past months I have gained independence and assurance. If I am left alone, I like it; I take an ‘it’s-spinach-and-to-hell-with-it’ attitude. I’ve taken to chewing gum, having my hair cut short and sitting with my legs wide apart.

  Perhaps I’ve even acquired an easier personality. I’ve certainly had more success and this was observed by Mrs Moats who remarked that there was a challenging look in my eye, and an authority — as if I had just possessed a woman!

  Part X: A Country Setting, 1930 and 1931

  February 1931

  My journal has remained untouched during the past eighteen months or more: not for lack of personal events that have been of great moment to me, in fact just the opposite. All of a sudden, existence seemed stackful of excitement, and so much happening every day, that the next day’s activities had started before the diary was even thought of. Now there is a lull let me appraise the last eighteen months.

  It was only a year ago last August that, in a flurry of elation and dripping with sweat, I ran down Covent Garden to the publishing firm of Messrs Duckworth. Under my arm was the finished manuscript of my first book. Mr Thomas Balston (to whom I was recommended by the Sitwells) blinked like a barn owl behind opaque glasses, as he bid me catch my breath and have a cup of office tea. He then turned the pages of The Book of Beauty.

  The manuscript was not a bulky one, in spite of the drawings and photographs with which it was interspersed; yet to me it represented a monumental work. After many weeks spent in the British Museum Library among the sentimental engravings of ladies holding doves as they inspired the poets of their day, I returned home to write my eulogies of their contemporary counterparts. Miss Joseph, a handsome raven-haired Rebecca who became my secretary and boon companion, pounded out my halting or garbled sentences on a portable typewriter. Then I had taken my chapters to Wiltshire to undergo the eagle scrutiny of Edith Olivier, that most kind of all Christian ladies. In her ‘long room’ (a wooden annexe) we sat on the floor with scissors and paste, reorganising the construction of the book.

  Occasionally our industriousness would be interrupted by a visit from a member of the Women’s Institute, or an old forester coming for advice. Earlier, Mr A. G. Street the Wiltshire farmer had brought Edith his first work, a novel about high life in Monte Carlo; Edith had tactfully suggested, with excellent results, that, in future, he should write only of the countryside and things he knew about intimately. These diversions were so entertaining that I never chafed if our work was curtailed: no one staying with Edith could but be infected by her lack of self interest, and by her serene enjoyment of life.

  Rex, who treated Edith’s house as his second home, also exuded this sense of calm; together they created an atmosphere that was idyllic.

  At the end of lunch one day, the three of us were sitting at her small round table on the chairs Edith had covered with needlework pictures of the various rectories in which she had lived her full, if secluded, life. We had eaten trout caught from the river outside the bay-window; we had drunk white wine out of Edith’s tall green goblets. After strawberries from her garden, and coffee, we were extolling the glories of Wiltshire. I wondered aloud if I could find a cottage nearby, and if I, too, might not be able to achieve this peace of mind?

  ‘Cottages are scarce,’ Edith regretted and suddenly her eyes became brilliant. ‘But now I come to think of it, Stephen Tomlin, the sculptor from Swallowcliffe, did say he’d seen, while on a walking tour of the downs, a deserted house that had a grotto!’ Wild with anticipation at the prospect of anything so romantic and Sitwellian as a grotto, I insisted that Edith abandon scissors and paste and drive Rex and myself in hot pursuit. After many dramatic experiences of losing our way among the downs, we discovered, in an utterly isolated, remote, and almost hidden valley, my Grands Meaulnes.

  Sleeping among the drooping ilex trees stood a small cluster of cedarwood-coloured brick buildings, elegantly faced with stone. From the moment I saw this haunting, haunted sight, in its aura of lazy beauty, I knew Ashcombe would belong to me.

  For several weeks my requests to the landlord to buy his impractical place were ignored. But I persevered. The owner recognised the advantages of having some fool put into livable order his game-keeper’s store-house, pheasant hatchery and unused stables. He would let me rent the place, so long as his birds were not disturbed.

  Michael Rosenauer, a successful Viennese architect and cherubic-faced friend of Anita Loos, came down to a high-summer’s picnic. In this bucolic, out-of-the-world spot, Rosenauer, with his town clothes and cigar rolling in his bared teeth, looked curiously urbane as he mapped out his plans, and bargained with cocksure little Mr Brazier, the tweed-clad builder from Wilton. A sum was named. Scribbling in a sketch book ‘Not so much as I feared,’ I passed it to Edith; ‘Nor me either,’ she wrote, and added, ‘Hurrah!’

  Now flashback to Covent Garden. I mopped my forehead and looked around Mr Balston’s office. It was very dark, dry and stale. I k
new I did not belong in this serious, scholarly atmosphere; Mr Balston and his likewise black-clad assistant, knew it too. There was something quite haunting about this young assistant. He pervaded a Dickensian misery; for it seemed that, against his will, he was caught in the trap of a publishing firm and would possibly remain for ever. It is extraordinary how quickly one senses a situation, and without ever discussing it knows that it is mutually understood. Anthony Powell,[53] for that was the assistant’s name, gave me looks of understanding and made himself friendly, while Mr Balston blinked and turned the pages which my Rebecca had so patiently produced for the fiftieth time from her typewriter.

  Perhaps an hour had passed in that dark office in Covent Garden. At last Mr Balston snapped-to the covers of the folder enclosing my puny offspring. He blinked at me some more and smiled, ‘It’s most entertaining!’ I had quite expected him to say it was not quite serious enough for a firm such as his to publish. But instead he added, ‘We’ll put it in work right away. The proofs will be ready in six weeks.’

  With the satisfaction of knowing that the builders were at work at Ashcombe, and the printers on my book, I went off to join Anita in Vienna. Here antiquaries were ransacked for cheap baroque chairs and consoles for my new home. Oliver Messel joined us; and with him a tall, gangling young man, with the face of a charming cod-fish, named Peter Watson. Of all my recently acquired friends, he was to strike the deepest and rarest chord of sympathy. Peter’s acute sensibility, subtlety of mind, wry sense of humour and mysterious qualities of charm made him unlike anyone I had known. Not that we took to one another at first sight. To begin with, when we went en masse to beer halls and fêtes, we were merely civil. I did not recognize his virtues, and asked Oliver if the newcomer was not a bit of a bore. But one morning, when Peter decided to come out with me on a sight-seeing expedition, and we stood in stiff silence coming down in the hotel lift, he caught sight of me, and I caught sight of him, each glancing surreptitiously at the other in the looking-glass. We burst into laughter, and arm-in-arm walked off into the Vienna side-streets to become the greatest of friends. We stimulated one another. Whereas I gave Peter his first glimpse of a modern painting — a Matisse at the Leicester Galleries — he taught me an appreciation of music. Before meeting him I had heard of the composer Strauss, but had not yet discovered that he could be either, Johann, Richard or Oscar.