The Man with the Golden Typewriter (30 page)

I do indeed remember your wife. Patricia Trehearne was by far the prettiest girl in the whole of Naval Intelligence and she brought a light of varying intensity into all our eyes. It is only right that she should have entered into such a fragrant union with the head man at Lentheric. Please give her my warmest regards.

Again with many thanks for your kindly inspiration.

 

11

The Chandler Letters

‘Not many people knew Chandler, so I will not apologise for the triviality of our correspondence. It fitted in with our relationship – the half-amused, ragging relationship of two writers working the same thin, almost-extinct literary seam, who like each other's work.'

Ian Fleming,
London Magazine
, December 1959

When Raymond Chandler published his first story in 1933 it was a defining moment in his career. ‘After that,' he wrote, ‘I never looked back, although I had a good many uneasy periods looking forward.' Much the same could have been said of Fleming, and indeed their lives followed strangely parallel courses. Born in Chicago, 1888, Chandler was educated in Britain at Dulwich College – even took British citizenship – and worked in a variety of jobs that included journalism and a spell at the Admiralty, before finding his true metier. By the time the two men met, in 1955, Chandler was famous for his punchy crime books starring private eye Philip Marlowe, the most recent of which (appropriately titled
The Long Goodbye
) had come out in 1953. But, at the age of sixty-six, he was in decline. Plagued throughout his life by alcoholism and depression, he reached a nadir following the death of his wife in December 1954. After a botched suicide attempt in February 1955 he sold his home in La Jolla, California, and returned to Britain.

It was in May 1955, at a lunch given by the poet Stephen Spender and his wife Natasha, that the two authors' paths crossed. Fleming admired Chandler for his naked display of bereavement but at the same time was
fascinated by the picture of decaying genius that he presented. ‘He must have been a very good-looking man,' he recorded, ‘but the good, square face was puffy and unkempt with drink. In talking he never ceased making ugly, Hapsburg lip grimaces while his head stretched away from you, looking along his right or left shoulder as if you had bad breath. When he did look at you he saw everything and remembered days later to criticise the tie or shirt you had been wearing. Everything he said had authority . . .'

They had much in common: they enjoyed the same writers, patronised the same bookseller, Mr Francis of Prince's Arcade, and were prone to the same moments of self-doubt. When Fleming lent him a copy of
Moonraker
Chandler rang a few days later to say how much he had liked it and to ask if a few words of praise would help. For Fleming, who was undergoing a crisis of confidence, it was just the boost he needed. ‘Rather unattractively', he wrote, ‘I took him up on this suggestion . . .'

TO CHANDLER

26th May, 1955

Your elegant writing paper makes you sound very much at home, and I shall call you up next week and see if you would like to walk round the corner and pay us a visit.

Incidentally a good restaurant in your neighbourhood is Overton's, directly opposite Victoria station. Book a table and go upstairs where you will find an enchanting Victorian interior and the best pâté maison in London.

I wouldn't think of asking you to write to me about
Moonraker
but if you happen to feel in a mood of quixotic generosity, a word from you which I could pass on to my publishers would make me the fortune which has so far eluded me.

Incidentally,
The Spectator
is almost girlishly thrilled that you will do
The Riddle of the Sands
for them and the things you said to me and I published about Prince's Bookshop have brought Francis a flood of new business. So the impact you are having on London is that of Father Christmas in Springtime.

FROM CHANDLER

4th June, 1955

I cannot imagine what I can say to you about your books that will excite your publisher. What I do say in all sincerity is that you are probably the most forceful and driving writer, of what I suppose still must be called ‘thrillers' in England.

Peter Cheyney wrote one good book, I thought, called
Dark Duet
, and another fairly good one, but his pseudo-American tough guy stories always bored me. There was also James Hadley Chase, and I think the less said of him the better. Also, in spite of the fact that you have been everywhere and seen everything, I cannot help admiring your courage in tackling the American scene . . . Some of your stuff on Harlem in
Live and Let Die
, and everything on St Petersburg, Florida, seems to be quite amazing for a foreigner to accomplish.

If this is any good to you would you like me to have it engraved on a gold slab?

It was not only good but excellent, and the imprimatur of such an established author gave the Bond novels the impetus they needed. Fleming appreciated it wholeheartedly.

TO CHANDLER

6th June, 1955

These are words of such gold that no supporting slab is needed and I am passing the first sentence on to Macmillan's in New York and Cape's here, and will write my appreciation in caviar when the extra royalties come in.

Seriously, it was extraordinarily kind of you to have written as you did and you have managed to make me feel thoroughly ashamed of my next book [
Diamonds are Forever
] which is also set in America, but in an America of much more fantasy than I allowed myself in
Live and Let Die
.

There's a moratorium at home at the moment as the Duke of Westminster
¹
(whom may God preserve) has ordered us to paint the outside of our house and the whole thing is hung with cradles and sounds of occasional toil.

But they will be gone in a few days' time and I hope you will be one of the first to darken our now gleaming doorway.

TO CHANDLER

29th June, 1955

Just to remind you that you are having lunch with us on Thursday, 30th June, at one o'clock.

Victoria Square is about three hundred yards away from you, quite close to Victoria Station – or to Buckingham Palace, whichever way you look at it.

Apart from my wife Anne, there will be a friend of mine, Duff Dunbar a brilliant lawyer and one of your fans; Rupert Hart-Davis, the best young publisher in England who does the crime reviews for “Time and Tide” in his spare time. If anyone else comes along I will warn you but it is certainly no heavy-weight affair and nobody will say: “How do you think up those wonderful plots Mr. Chandler?”

Despite living in nearby Eaton Square, Chandler proved an elusive guest. When at last he accepted an invitation to lunch, the occasion was not a success. ‘Our small dining room was over-crowded. Chandler was a man who was shy of houses and “entertaining” and our conversation was noisy and about people he did not know. His own diffident and rather halting manner of speech made no impact. He was not made a fuss of and I am pretty sure he hated the whole affair.'

That Chandler attended at all was probably because Natasha Spender was present. Since the death of his wife he had embarked on a path of semi-platonic promiscuity, transferring his affections from one hopeless object of
desire to another. He seemed lost without women, and Natasha was one of many at whom he cast his eye. As Fleming wrote, ‘In the few years I knew him, he was never without some good-looking companion to mother him and try and curb his drinking. These were affectionate and warm-hearted relationships and probably nothing more. Though I do not know this, I suspect that each woman was, in the end, rather glad to get away from the ghost of the other woman who always walked at his side and from the tired man who made sense for so little of the day.'

Chandler left Britain shortly afterwards to begin the process of reapplying for US citizenship, but he returned in 1956. One of his first tasks was to review
Diamonds are Forever
at the invitation of Leonard Russell, Literary Editor of the
Sunday Times
. He was ambivalent in his praise and concluded with the words: ‘Let me plead with Mr. Fleming not to allow himself to become a stunt writer, or he will end up no better than the rest of us.'

When Fleming wrote to thank him, Chandler replied:

FROM CHANDLER

11th April, 1956

Dear Ian,

Thank you so much for your letter of Wednesday and if the payment for my outstanding review had been received a little earlier I should have been able to eat three meals a day.

I thought my review was no more than you deserved considering your position on the SUNDAY TIMES and I tried to write it in such a way that the good part could be quoted and the bad parts left out. After all, old boy, there had to be some bad parts. I think you will have to make up your mind what kind of a writer you are going to be. You could be almost anything except that I think you are a bit of a sadist!

I am not in any Hampstead hospital. I am at home and if they ever put me in a hospital again I shall walk out leaving corpses strewn behind me, except pretty nurses.

As for having lunch with you, with or without butler, I can't do it yet – because even if I were much better than I am I should be having lunch with ladies.

TO CHANDLER

27th April, 1956

Dear Ray,

Many thanks for the splendid Chandleresque letter. Personally I loved your review and thought it was excellent as did my publishers, and as I say it was really wonderful of you to have taken the trouble.

Probably the fault about my books is that I don't take them seriously enough and meekly accept having my head ragged off about them in the family circle. If one has a grain of intelligence it is difficult to go on being serious about a character like James Bond. You after all write ‘novels of suspense' – if not sociological studies – whereas my books are straight pillow fantasies of the bang-bang, kiss-kiss variety.

But I have taken your advice to heart and will see if I can't order my life so as to put more feeling into my typewriter.

Incidentally, have you read
A Most Contagious Game
, by Samuel Grafton, published by Rupert Hart-Davis?

Sorry about lunch even without a butler. I also know some girls and will dangle one in front of you one of these days.

I had no idea you were ill. If you are, please get well immediately. I am extremely ill with sciatica.

FROM CHANDLER

1st May, 1956

Dear Ian,

I am leaving London on May 11th and should very much like to see you before I go. I suggest that we have lunch together at one of your
better Clubs if you can arrange it. I don't think you do yourself justice about James Bond and I did not think that I did quite do you justice in my review of your book, because anyone who writes as dashingly as you do, ought, I think, to try for a little higher grade. I have just re-read
Casino Royale
and it seems to me that you have disimproved with each book.

I read several books by Samuel Grafton, but the one you mention I don't know; I will order it.

I don't want any girls dangling in front of me, because my girls do their own dangling and they would be extremely bitter to have you interfere.

You know what you can do with your sciatica don't you?

FROM CHANDLER

9th June, 1956

I didn't like leaving England without saying good-bye to the few friends I knew well enough to care about, but then I don't like saying good-bye at all, especially when it might be quite a long time before I come back. As you probably know, I long overstayed the six months allowed, but I had a compelling reason, even if I get hooked for British income tax. I am also likely to lose half my European royalties, which isn't funny. It's all a little obscure to me, but there it is. And it doesn't matter whether your stay in England is broken half a dozen times. If the time adds up to over six months within the fiscal year, you are it.

I am looking forward to your next book. I am also looking forward to my next book.

I rather liked New York this time, having heretofore loathed its harshness and rudeness. For one thing the weather has been wonderful, only one hot day so far and that not unbearable. I have friends here, but not many. Come to think of it I haven't many anywhere. Monday night I am flying back to California and this time I hope to stick it out and make some kind of a modest but convenient home there.

I am wondering what happened to all the chic pretty women who are supposed to be typical of New York. Damned if I've seen any of them. Perhaps I've looked in the wrong places, but I do have a feeling that New York is being slowly downgraded.

Please remember me to Mrs. Fleming if you see her and if she remembers me (doubtful). And how is His Grace the Duke of Westminster these days? Painting lots of houses, I hope?

TO CHANDLER

22nd June, 1956

Dear Ray,

How fine to get not one but two letters from you – and one of them legible at that.
²
I hope you have left a forwarding address with the Grosvenor or otherwise you will think me even more churlish than you already do.

I cannot understand your tax position and I certainly do not believe that we will try and squeeze your European royalties out of you for over-staying your time a little. If it looks like something fierce of that kind, please let me know and I will make an impassioned appeal on your behalf.

Eric Ambler has a new thriller coming out next week, which no doubt Prince's Bookshop will send you. If not, I will. It is better than the last two but still not quite the good old stuff we remember. I have done a review for the
Sunday Times
headed ‘Forever Ambler' which struck me as a good joke.

My own muse is in a bad way. Despite your doubts, I really rather liked
Diamonds are Forever
. . .
It has been very difficult to make Bond go through his tricks in
From Russia, With Love
, which is just going to the publishers.