The Pursuit of Laughter (78 page)

‘Going to prison turned out to be quite a surprise,’ she says.

‘In what way?’

‘It went on and on. Three and a half years is a helluva long time.’

‘But it must’ve made you strong.’

‘How?’

‘To know that you could survive it.’

‘Of course there’s prison and prison. I mean I wasn’t
tortured
.’

‘You mean it was a nice prison.’

‘It sounds corny to say it but what’s so awful is the lack of freedom.’ After 18 months her husband was transferred to Holloway to be with her. ‘All we had was an enormous wall, a tree, and sort of asphalt. Then Kit and the old man who was in prison with us made a marvellous garden and we grew
fraises des bois
which do very well in soot.’

Her sister Jessica and Nancy Cunard were among those who protested against her release.

‘Did the Nazi movement attract you in the 30s?’

‘Not particularly, no. It was Unity who was absolutely overwhelmed with the
heavenliness
of it.’

‘Did you ever have a black shirt?’

‘Did I ever have a black child?’

‘Shirt!’

‘A black shirt!’ Jean-Noël backs me up.

Gales of laughter. ‘No. I wasn’t really a militant.’

‘Did you not think the Nazis were vulgar?’

‘Well, you see, it was a complete revolution. Do you call that vulgar? It was also a choice at the time between Fascism and Communism. I am very anti-Communist. They made a miserable life for almost everyone.’

‘I think they’re both horrible. What about the Nazis’ persecution of degenerate art in the 1930s?’

‘The artists persecuted them really. Personally I never wanted a German Expressionist picture in my house. I think we live in an age when there’s really no art and the best we can do is preserve something from the past.’

‘The Nazis also thought Picasso was terrible.’

‘That was their opinion. Picasso has so many admirers in the world that he can do
without
the Nazis. He was a multi-millionaire. He painted all through the war here in Paris under the Occupation. Nobody interfered with him. I don’t see that he’s got much to complain
of.’

The question of vulgarity lingered, for in a subsequent letter she elaborated the point: ‘I thought about the vulgarity of National Socialists. They were never vulgar in the way, for example, a Tory Conference with ladies in hats singing Wider Still and Wider, is. I think the answer may be MUSIC. My brother, a very musical man, used to say it’s so unfair, they’ve got all the best tunes. Which of course for marches and anthems etc they had. When Hitler made an important speech at the closing session of the Parteitag, a marvellous orchestra would play a Bruckner symphony before he spoke, with the world Press anxious to hear what he was going to say. The choice of music was so un-vulgar.’

Though never publicly dissociating herself from Hitler, she did once say to Nicholas Mosley that Hitler ruined her life.

‘I said it only because I got fed up with being asked why I didn’t hate Hitler enough. He ruined my life in that Hitler really began the war—though he was pushed into it. To me the biggest atrocity of all was the war. I’m as near a pacifist as makes no difference. So it would be truer to say that the war ruined my life. But again not really. I’ve had a very good life as well. Lots of lovely times since then.’

Her father lost a lung in the Boer War. His brother was killed in the First World War. Her brother Tom, also a Nazi sympathiser, was killed in the Second World War. This the era they call ‘the good old days’!

‘What makes you feel guilty generally speaking?’

‘I don’t feel terribly guilty actually. I don’t suffer from remorse. What I suffer from is when things go wrong for the people I love. That I can hardly bear.’

After the war the Mosleys farmed for five and a half years in the English countryside.

‘We got on very well with the local people.’

‘But you were a very notorious couple.’

‘Yes. I remember going into a bank in Newbury to cash a cheque and there was a queue. My husband was waiting for me and when it got to the last man in front I turned round and said “Not long now, my lovebird”. Everyone looked round to see who the lovebird was and saw the one-time leader of the British Fascists. Their faces were so
funny
.’

The Mosleys were refused passports and so had to borrow a boat to escape to their next destination which was Ireland. Then to France, to a house on the edge of Paris called le Temple de la Gloire. The British Embassy ostracised them.

‘There was a complete ban on us from the beginning. One ambassador in the early 70s
did
invite us. He just didn’t realise. So I said to Kit I think we should say no, they’ve been so rude to us for so long, but Kit said it’s so like you that, but you mustn’t—if somebody holds out their hand you must take it. So we accepted and about three days later the poor wretch had to withdraw the invitation. He’d discovered we were on the Foreign Office black list.’

‘And now?’

‘They still don’t. I should feel I’d done something awful if I suddenly got an invitation!’

‘You’ve said that Paris is the perfect city for old people.’

‘When I was here and quite young I was always
amazed
by how much they loved old
people
. They would say of some old hag, you know, oh la beautée! It’s very comforting that they just don’t notice the awful change that takes place.’

‘Unlike London—which is
so
ageist. I find as I’m getting older I’m getting more anxious about crime. Do you find that?’

‘Do you know, I am very unimaginative, because I don’t find that. I never foresee
disasters
.’

‘Have you ever been burgled here?’

‘No, but we’re in a
nest
of police. You must’ve noticed. That’s because of the
government
ministries and the Chamber of Deputies which are here.’

‘Mugged?’

‘No, but then I don’t go out at night, and I don’t think there’s nearly as much mugging in Paris as in London.’

‘Are you good at being by yourself?’

‘Very good. I love it. That was always the case.’

‘Because you’ve always had a huge family. You want to get away from them.’

‘No, I love my family and my friends. But I’m good at being alone because I don’t notice that I am if I’ve got my books. My great phobia is that I might not be able to read. I’m too deaf to watch television. We’ve got one in the flat but I never look at it.’

‘Are you a member of the London Library?’

‘I was for years because at the Temple there was no library, there was room for very few books in that house, but I got tired of undoing and doing up those parcels, so when I came here I gave it up.’

‘Well, I don’t have room for books in my place either but I still have them. I’m now being overwhelmed by books.’

‘Weed.’

‘What?’

‘Weed. Do you weed?’

‘Do I weed …’

‘One has to.’

The Mosleys became friendly with those other local exiles from England, the Windsors. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor had moved to Paris earlier, when the Duff Coopers were still at the embassy. Unlike the Mosleys, the Windsors weren’t on the black list.

‘Diana Cooper was one of the people who said you must curtsey to the Duchess of Windsor—which is recognising her position. Diana did it on the grounds that I always did it myself which was if you’re going to meet them you must be polite to
him
. He minded very much when people didn’t curtsey to his wife. And because Diana led the way,
everyone
else at the embassy did it afterwards. You see, it would then have been too pointed to stop.’

‘You said that the Duke of Windsor hardly spoke French but did speak German. So what was spoken at their dinner parties?’

‘French people talked French to each other but general conversation was in English. The Duke loved talking Spanish if the chance arose. His English had slight Cockney and American inflexions.’

‘Did the Duchess give you any mementos?’

‘Ha, she gave me the oddest memento you could ever imagine. She said oh I
must
give you something and she gave me
A King’s Story
translated into French in a very
cheap
edition!’

And what about Ribbentrop? At this Diana clasps her hands to her breast and looks up at the ceiling.

‘I feel completely sure the story about the Duchess of Windsor and Ribbentrop and their affair and her treachery is an invention from beginning to end. As Malcolm Muggeridge said in his memoirs, to base history on what secret service people say in their reports is as mad as to base it on tabloid journalism and for the same reason: unless they come up with a scandal from time to time, they lose their jobs.’

She gives a sad downward glance to one side which is the only sign that she might be getting tired.

‘Are you OK to continue? Just say stop if you wish to.’

‘I don’t mind going on—if there’s any interest.’ And to Jean-Noël ‘I mustn’t keep you with my nonsense. If you have to get back …’ But he would happily stay for ever.

‘Um—what do you think of the biography of you by Jan Dalley?’

‘To tell you the truth I never read it. I looked at it. The whole thing bores me terribly. I liked her. But I’m sure I’d never want to read a book by her. Did you read it?’

‘No. I don’t like reading a lot about people before I meet them. I’d rather discover them for myself.’ Me to Jean-Noël: ‘Have you read this book?’

‘I refused!’

Diana to Jean-Noël: ‘You’re too good!’

Me to Diana: ‘Yes, tell me about him.’

‘Jean-No’s just so wonderful. I met him because he was commissioned to write a book about Hubert de Givenchy and I was one of the people who knew Hubert when he was very very young, just learning his
metier
immediately after the war. Jean-No came down to see what I could remember—and we made friends.’

Diana looks at him and bursts out laughing, for no particular reason, for the sheer love of his company. She doesn’t look a bit tired, though she’s been several hours on the go with me and has only recently returned from visits to Chatsworth and London where she was photographed by Mario Testino in an assemblage of her large, well-connected family: 5 generations.

‘I’ve just become a great great grandmother. Oh, it’s always the Guinnesses—millions of children! My second son Desmond’s son had a daughter when he was very young and she has just had a baby.’

The Mosley name was poison after the war and the Hitler shadow which is cast over Germany for all time still includes them, but not to such an extent that—unlike the family of Oscar Wilde for example—they have felt obliged to change their name. When I
mentioned
this subsequently on a fax to Paris (deafness precludes the telephone) she replied ‘I laughed at the idea of changing our name. I was so proud of my husband, especially the fact that Mosley opposed the war which so reduced our country that it cannot be compared with the England of my youth.’

Diana has always said that her brain tumour, which developed soon after her husband’s death in 1980, helped her deal with the shock of losing him. Recovery took a long time and when the Labour peer Lord Longford visited her in hospital she quipped ‘He thinks I’m Myra Hindley.’ Even her appearance on Desert Island Discs in 1989 was highly controversial. Its broadcast had to be rescheduled several times because it kept coinciding with Jewish holy days. And yet despite her questionable past, Diana continues to make unlikely friends and keep them. She is extremely considerate, very clever and a terrible tease, but most of all it is her warmth of personality which captivates people.

An average day for her now is: ‘Oh very dull. I get up at about half past 10. I go for a little walk—sometimes quite a big walk, depending on the weather. Then in the morning I write all my letters and anything else I have to write. Quite often a friend or two for lunch but as I’ve only got one marvellous person to help me. I’m never more than 5—and that is rather seldom. I don’t consider I can be 8. She does
everything
, including the shopping, and makes nothing of it. In the afternoon I begin to read. This is a book I
adored. Younghusband
by Patrick French. It’s a mess because my children had it and lent it to me. Alexander reads in the
bath
. Younghusband was a sort of
blot
on English civilisation, but the book is done so brilliantly one can’t help rather loving him. Did you realise that we did in Tibet, not very long before I was born, exactly what the Chinese have done lately? Just went in and
massacred
them. Simply terrifying. And all for their own good—they needed English
discipline
—they were lecherous old monks. All they wanted was to be left alone …’

‘And in the evening?’

‘Sometimes people come to tea or for a drink. I almost never accept to go out to
dinner
because here they like to dine at 9 or half past and I go to bed quite early. My trouble is I don’t sleep too well.’

‘Do you take sleeping pills?’

‘Yes, always.’

‘My mother does too—after my father died.’

‘Probably like your mother I decided I was at an age when I might just as well give in and take sleeping pills. But of course it doesn’t always last the night.’

‘Have you ever dreamed about Hitler?’

‘No. Never. But I do dream constantly, usually fairly nasty anxiety dreams to do with being late.’

‘To what do you attribute your longevity?’

‘Oh. It must be the genes, mustn’t it.’

‘And your other strengths?’

‘… Love of life. And in a way—contentedness. I’m not discontented. I’ve no reason to be now but I have had in the past.’

‘Would you have preferred to end your days in England?’

‘I don’t care where it is as long as it’s quick! The Greeks said that all death is good
provided
that it is sudden.’

This time I hope to talk not about the later Mosley period but about her earlier Guinness period, so after another delectable lunch—this woman does know how to entertain—we retreat to the sofa by the window.