Liberation (10 page)

 

March 21.
Shortly before eleven this morning, I decided to dial Tony Richardson in London and ask him what his number is in the South of France, so I could give it to Nicholas Thompson and Clement, in case of emergencies. When I called the number there seemed to be a lot of confusion, a foreign voice answered, I asked was this 536 6933 and the voice said yes. I asked for Tony and the voice said, “Have you seen the paper this morning? I suggest you look on the front page of the
Daily Mirror
—there's a picture of him.” I tried to ask more questions and he repeated, “I suggest you look in the paper.”

Well then of course I thought, Tony's been killed in a car wreck—or at best he's been involved in some gruesome scandal, and I decided it must have been the voice of Jan [Niem], Tony's Polish chauffeur, telling me this. But then I rang Peter Schlesinger and he got a
Mirror
and there was no picture of Tony and nothing about him, and
he
rang Tony's number and the housekeeper told him Tony is expected back today, so the whole thing seems to have been a false alarm. Maybe I got a wrong number and the man who answered was a malicious practical joker, or drunk or high on something.

Now we have air tickets for Monday, with a stop in Paris. We're supposed to arrive in Nice late, around ten or eleven, and find a hired car waiting for us in which we'll drive off somewhere without delay. Obviously these arrangements may well break down and so I'm somewhat dreading the trip but at the same time looking forward to travelling with David and Peter.

Yesterday Bob Regester and I had lunch on the Post Office Tower. The outer part of the dining room, on which the tables are, revolves; the inner part doesn't, which is somewhat sick making. Also, there is one phase of the revolution which is unpleasantly bumpy. The food is terrifically expensive; our meal cost six guineas. The overall prospect of London has been largely spoilt by all these towers. St. Paul's, Tower Bridge, Westminster Cathedral, the Abbey and Parliament are now completely dwarfed. Afterwards we joined an attractive young Australian, John Hopkins, who helped me buy a Burberry. Hopkins worked on the crew of
Ned Kelly
and we met him in Australia, though I didn't remember him exactly.
²⁴

A very happy supper with David Plante, Mark Lancaster and Peter Schlesinger at the Carrosse. We had a table downstairs, half a long Victorian desk-table in fact. It was divided in two by artificial plants and a rampart of leather-bound books, including [Willard] Motley and Montaigne, so that you could hardly see the people dining at the other end. This kind of device, so amusing and original, is absolutely unthinkable in the States. It would terrify them if you suggested it. It's an utterly alien style of camp.

I must keep reminding myself how disgustingly fat I am, about 156 pounds. All very well to say don't eat, don't drink; all these meals and drinks are practically forced on me, socially. And tonight there's this big party being given “for” me by Robert Medley. The only thing is moderation, but that's hardest of all.

God is very far. Don is near. I think of him increasingly. The day before yesterday, I think it was, I saw [his friend] on the street, between the Royal Court and the Underground entrance. I was going into the Underground and had to pass quite close. Probably he saw me. He looked very bald.

God, how wretchedly cold it still is! The heaters don't help much and anyhow I begrudge the money. This is what spoils London, despite all its other charms. Never underestimate the power of this mild dampish cold. It creates puritanism, primness, disbelief in Love and God and a taste for mini-art.

 

March 22.
A little sun, this morning. I've started writing this in the hopes that it'll make Patrick Woodcock arrive; he is coming to take me to lunch. Tomorrow morning, David Hockney, Peter and I are to meet at the West London Air Terminal at 10:30, to start our trip. It's really very exciting and I am looking forward to it, despite my constitutional dislike of travelling.

Have talked to Amiya [Sandwich] in the country (Chard, Somerset) and to Dodie Smith; shall have to see both of them when I get back.

Lamont Johnson has been here. He has some prospects of making a film out of
Black Girl
.

Later.
Have had lunch with Patrick. He would like me to take his friend David Mann out and find out what the problem is between them. I asked him, “Do you like him?” He said, “Just for a snap judgment, I should have to answer no.” He said of Don (admiringly) that he was “beady,” and that he knew Don hadn't liked David. Don had given him some good advice: “Your tempos are different.”

Bob Regester says he probably isn't coming to the Nid de Duc because Tony doesn't want him. He thinks this is because Tony doesn't like John Hopkins, saying, in effect, that he's a cockteaser.

Last night I had a drink (soda water) with John Cullen of Methuen. John Cullen doesn't like Henry Heckford's book,
²⁵
says it simply isn't intelligent enough and that he doesn't understand how to write a critical essay. He wanted me to read it. But I don't really want to, because then I will have to condemn it, which might even mean my rewriting it. I told him about Alan Wilde's book
²⁶
—then felt rather a traitor because I'd done so. Cullen is wild about Brecht.

A big party last night, given for me by Robert Medley. He had worked for hours and produced an astonishingly impressive amount of edible food and delicious boys. But oh, the terrible schizophrenia of parties! One is pulled in all directions by the chatter. My haven was the Hockney gang, including Wayne Sleep, Mark Lancaster and his twins,
^*
Karl Bowen and a black-haired boy
^†
who shares a flat with Wayne. False Patrick Procktor danced memorably with closed eyes, like a very tall zombie; Christopher Gibbs
²⁷
in strangely embroidered boots, streaming with sweat, brought a greeting from Mick Jagger; a boy in silver pants contorted like a serpent; a Congo prince wore a sweater which showed a bare midriff; Keith Milow was one of the most attractive people present, in the manner of Mick Jagger; a bearded bore named Philip Matthews
²⁸
wanted to know what had become of Bill Coldstream's painting of me.
⁴⁰
(This morning, in
The Observer
's colored supplement, is an article on David called “No Dumb Blond,” with his painting of Don and me included.) Throughout the four and a half hours I stayed at Robert's party, I didn't drink anything but a little grapefruit juice! (But today at lunch, wine, alas.)

 

March 23.
7:30 a.m. and pouring down rain, the heaviest since I've been in London! Thanks a million. So now I'm washed, shaved, dressed, with nothing to pack but a little bag and nothing to do but go. I wish I could hear from Don first but somehow I feel unwilling to call, it'd be just spending more phone money. I long to tell him how much I love him.

Supper last night with Robert Moody and his wife Louise. Like so many of my contemporaries, Robert looked like a little old man when I first met him, the pretty blond hair turned white and gone from the crown. But then the boy reappeared from behind the wrinkles. Robert's mannerisms, I now realize, always had something in them of the old man, he was like a young actor playing old age and poking fun at it—screwing up his face and puttering around. He has had heart attacks but is all right now. He is a Jungian, has actually known Jung and has been president of the international society of Jungian analysts, whatever that is called. He told how he had sat next to Jung at a big dinner and Jung had said to him, “You needn't feel you have to talk to me—when one gets old one is grateful if one isn't talked to.” Jung had confided to him that, “When one's old it is over very quick,” referring to sex acts.

Our evening was evidently a great success, as far as Robert was concerned. I found it hard to read Louise. She sat there, motherly, rather plump. Robert kept referring, rather awkwardly, to his two other wives. All his stories seemed to include them. It was impossible to say if Louise minded this, but Robert was certainly apologetic about it.

8:30—Don has just called! He seems to be seriously considering coming over, via Nice, in a day or two. I only hope, if he does, that there won't be some ghastly mix-up. Everything you do in France is just twice as difficult.

 

March 24.
Prophetic words! We did get to Nice yesterday and indeed all the way to Tony Richardson's house, but both our planes were hours late due to an airport strike at Orly and we didn't reach Tony's till nearly three this morning. In Paris we only had time to wander about for a while in the Latin Quarter, see the newly cleaned Notre Dame and visit two friends of David and Peter's—Jean Léger and Alexis
²⁹
who were getting ready to attend a supper party in drag. The guests, they explained, were all “serious” business people who had never been in drag before. They had got themselves lent very handsome Chanel clothes for the occasion, and some shoes which had been made for black actresses and were extra large.

It rained heavily in the evening and the wait at Orly seemed interminable, almost.
^*
To my surprise, when we did at last get to Nice, the rented car was still available, and David, with magnificent determination, drove us all the way to Le Nid de Duc, through fog and up into the mountains. Today, following his “whiz tour” schedule, he drove us to Carcassonne. I'm writing this at the Hotel Donjon in the Old City. No more for now, because I'm exhausted.

 

March 25.
Yesterday, at the Nid de Duc,
^†
I was woken by a rooster and several peacocks; this morning (around six) by a water lock in the next-door bathroom pipes—I suspect David of getting up to scoop the sunrise in his eager beaver way.

I must say, after yesterday, I feel as fond of him as ever or rather more so, and this despite all the frictions of travelling. He actually drives very well but very fast and the constant overtaking of cars on the narrow three-lane roads was a great strain on my nerves. What
is
the sense of rushing like this, just for the sake of making it to Carcassonne? What a joyless kind of pleasure, tearing past the umbrella pines, the vines, the hilltop towns, the red Cézanne landscape, the narrow streets and the plane trees. Yet David himself remains lovable, so good-humored even when he is scolding Peter, so full of fun and enthusiasm.

And Peter is lovable; I really like him better than before. He doesn't sulk, he isn't merely vain, he wants to know things, his squabbles with David also have an underlying good humor, he nags nicely. His nagging is chiefly about David's untidiness
^‡
and David's needless anxiety that we'll miss the way, and David's overeating. The question of food affects both David and me. David has been so looking forward to the great French meals, and yesterday we actually ate lunch and supper at two restaurants with one Michelin guide star
^*
—the Jules César at Arles and the Logis de Trencavel on the outskirts of Carcassonne. We had cassoulet at the latter, which David loves; at lunch I had rabbit. Was careful not to eat much of anything but one gets stuffed nevertheless; at supper we all consumed a fat-making but disappointing bombe.

At Arles it rained, but we managed to see the Roman amphitheater. By far the most attractive place was Sète, a harbor town between Arles and Béziers with real busy untidy life in it. Most of the places we passed through seemed strangely shut up and dead.

David keeps running his fingers through Peter's hair, no matter how many people are around. This embarrasses Peter but he doesn't get really annoyed. He still loves David very much, I feel.

As for Carcassonne, we shall see more of it this morning.
^†
But its great walls, though awe inspiring and even magnificent from some angles, depress you. How awful to have to be shut up inside this gloomy place, amidst this beautiful landscape, for fear of the neighbors! And nowadays we are shut up too, inside ramparts of rockets.

 

March 26.
Have just spent the night at Douglas Cooper's improbable home, which is a château and also a museum of Picassos, etc. I really don't know that I even want to describe it, yet. Like all such places it is basically uncomfortable and intimidating.
^‡

On the way here yesterday, we had a succession of memorable experiences—lunch at a dear little port in the Camargue called Palavas, the mad-looking freak lopsided new workers' apartment houses at La Grande Motte, a glimpse of the wild white horses of the Camargue at some place in between (most of them were black or brown) and marvellous Aigues-Mortes. (Aigues means “waters” in Provençal.) Then we took to the Roman ruins of Nîmes, which I find a drag, then we reached Douglas Cooper's.

(Actually this passage was interrupted by the charming entrance of Peter through the window of my room, soon followed by David; they had been walking around the battlements.)

 

March 27.
So then we went off to Les Baux and ate at the notorious three-star restaurant,
^*
the Baumanière, and then visited Natasha Spender
^†
at their nearby house and then drove back to Nid de Duc, where we found a huge cast of guests, including Edward Albee, his friend Roger Stock, Bob Regester, Tony's friends Will Chandlee and Giancarlo Cesaro, Anna O'Reilly the ever faithful secretary, Diana Dare, a girl who is said by Bob R. to be stuck on Tony, and Jan the chauffeur, and Jean-Pierre the housekeeper
³⁰
— oh yes of course and the two little daughters of Tony and Vanessa who I went skating with on March 18.