Graham Greene (21 page)

You say you’d like any suggestions, though as you quite rightly say other people’s suggestions are no bloody good. My own feeling is that climate can play the absolute devil with things: the whole atmosphere of a place like this is artificial in the extreme and I imagine it’s a bit the same with you. A kind of feverish mental sexuality with much impaired vitalities. People talking the whole time and the doing not so hot. (Here comes a tornado – blast it: I’d much rather have a blitz than a bad thunder-storm). And that’s hellishly wearing on the nerves. I don’t personally suffer from it because my life is too complicated to want any further complications.

What I’m circuitously getting at is that I’d humbly and probably impracticably suggest that you, as it were, break off officially with the mutual understanding that you’ve no objection to his making love to you again whether you are engaged or not if he wants to when you are both back in a reasonable climate – put it up to your respective parents that you’ve decided that it’s better to wait and see whether you like each other when circumstances are normal. Then make head office give you over-lapping leaves. Not leaves at the same time, that’s too purposeful like making a date to sleep with a new lech on a certain day.

Of course, I don’t know what your relations with Rodney are, but remember that if you are just engaged, even in a temperate climate a man can lose about five of his skins … I remember ghastly
headaches … I’m assuming for the sake of argument that you are just engaged. In which case, for God’s sake, remember that it’s a distinct possibility to fall badly in love
after
sleeping with a man, and that’s the kind that goes on. A man improves enormously too under that treatment in the way of nerves, thin-skinnedness, sociability and the like. Only, of course, it mustn’t be done as an ‘experiment’, but because one’s feeling cheerful and a little drunk perhaps and in the mood…. I’m rambling on and teaching you to suck eggs. I’m sorry.

I had about two months ago a violent quarrel with my local boss and resigned. I was supported on the point at issue and offered a new position for which I was totally unfitted by lack of languages, though it would have been most interesting. I’m not quite sure or not whether I’m now going home under a cloud. I think not as I am not being replaced. This is a quite useless spot. Anyway you’ll probably hear of me yet cleaning latrines on Salisbury Plain.

[…]

Much love and I hope things improve one way or another.
     Graham

Reading this over I feel it’s an awful flow of platitudes already familiar. I’m getting rapidly middle-aged in this climate. Forgive them.

Long a sufferer from diabetes, Charles Greene died on
7
November 1942 : ‘The news came in two telegrams delivered in the wrong order – the first told me of his death – the second an hour later of his serious illness’
¹²

Freetown, | Nov. 30 [1942]

Dearest Mumma,

I have only heard today about Da’s death and I wrote to you yesterday inquiring after him and full of silly minor personal
troubles. I feel it was rather a selfish act taking on a job abroad at this time, and I ought to have been home. I wish Elisabeth had been. I can’t write about how sorry and sad I feel: he was a very good person in a way we don’t seem to be able to produce in our generation. I wish he could have seen the end of this wretched war and better times, but I’m glad all happened so quietly and suddenly, so that he had no time to miss Elisabeth being away at the end. And I’m glad too that I belong to a faith that believes we can still do something for him and he can still do something for us. It will be such a long time after that you’ll get this letter, and that will hurt. I’m glad the children saw him again in September and Hugh and his family were down not so long before. I can’t write more now, but I think I shall be seeing you before very long.

So much love and more sympathy than I can put in words.
     Graham

Later
.

This may seem Popish superstition to you, or it may please you, that prayers are being said every day for Da in a West African church, & that rice is being distributed here in his name among people who live on rice & find it very hard to get.

Freetown | Jan. 4 [1943]

My dear Raymond,

[…]

Forgive this rambling and not very lucid letter. Yesterday I began the second year on the coast, and I think quinine and the dreary colonials and the even drearier services turn one into a complete nit wit. I expect, however, to be home, for a time at any rate, quite soon now.

The letter about Da’s death was a bit of a shock. I agree with you. Having children of one’s own makes one appreciate the position much more. I felt terribly sorry I hadn’t been down oftener since the
war came, and when one did go down his rather noble old Liberalism was always inclined to make one bring out one’s cynicism stronger than need have been. About the chattels: it’s very difficult to think of things at this distance. I agree entirely with you that we should buy the things. I can think only of the DNB which would be extremely useful to me, and, if I could have a gift, his copy of Hardy’s
Dynasts
. The DNB of course I would buy. It’s very nice of you to have let me have first choice. May I suggest that Elisabeth ought to choose a chattel or two? She can hardly be expected to buy. And perhaps when you have chosen, you would consult Vivien on my behalf. There might be something she would like to buy with a view to having a house of our own again. I am writing to Mumma about the DNB and
The Dynasts
.

My homecoming shortly does not depend I am glad to say on the major war situation. I agree with you about that, and resolutely refuse to be optimistic, though actually the prospect of peace now would fill me with utter gloom. War has not yet touched enough people of ours to alter the world. Here the complacency, ignorance and well-being is incredible. I should like to make a poster: ‘Come to Sierra Leone and Forget the War. No Rationing. No Income Tax. All the Fun of the Fair.’ Three day public holiday at Christmas and another three days at the New Year. The consumption of food and drink during those days quite enough to fill a cargo boat. One will be glad to get back to decent austerity again and at least the possibility of air raids. I imagine Churchill’s reference to the services of West Africa in the war was ironic.
¹³
As far as I can see their contribution has been confined to cowardice, complacency, inefficiency, illiteracy and thirst… Of course one is referring only to the Europeans. The Africans at least contribute grace. However it is all admirable copy. But how tired one is of little plump men in shorts with hairless legs, and drab women, and the atmosphere of Balham going gay. People say the African is not yet ready for self-government. God knows whether he is or not: the Englishman here certainly isn’t.

Yours,
     Graham

Graham returned to England at the beginning of March
1943
and was faced with an array of uncertainties concerning Vivien, Dorothy and his future as a writer. After a visit to his mother at Crowborough, his first order of business was to make sense of the stage production of
Brighton Rock
. Despite the presence of a young Richard Attenborough, whom he admired greatly, Graham found that Hermione Baddeley
(1906
–86), now best remembered as Mrs Cratchit in
Scrooge! (1951),
was eating up the scenery in the role of Ida. Worse still, the final script had omitted the key phrase in the novel
.

C/O President’s Lodging,| Trinity College, | Oxford. |
March 4 [1943]

Dear Laurence,

Apropos of our telephone conversation this morning. I went to see
Brighton Rock
at Oxford on Tuesday & was horrified by certain changes: these seemed to me to ruin the play for the sake of allowing Hermione Baddeley to fling a heart throb to the back of the gallery. She is a very bad piece of miscasting: her performance is on the overacted level of a revue sketch & her grotesqueness is all wrong for the part – but that is beside the point. These are my quarrels with the production & unless Linnit
¹⁴
will agree to meet our wishes over (1) & (2) I must insist that my name be removed from all programmes & posters, & that no reference to me or my book be made in any publicity put out by the firm.

1. Certain passages have been added to Hermione Baddeley’s part to enable her to pull out an emotional stop – which she does with grotesque inefficiency. Not having the script, & my memory of so ineffective a production being a bit dim, I find it hard to particularise. To anyone visiting the production they are made obvious by a preliminary break in Miss Baddeley’s voice which sounds rather like a gargle &
   can obviously be heard at the back of the gallery. The passages generally refer to her desire to be a mother to Rose. One such heart throb occurs in Act. 2 Scene 2: the worst in Act 3 Scene 2. Here lines are spoken which destroy the whole point of the play. Presumably Linnit has never spotted the point, but the dramatist in his original version certainly did.
   ¹⁵
   The idea is that Pinkie and Rose belong to a real world in which good & evil exist but that the interfering Ida belongs to a kind, artificial surface world in which there is no such thing as good & evil but only right & wrong. The dramatist brings this out several times in the attitude of Rose to Ida – though I suspect certain lines of importance have been cut. Now new lines have been inserted in Ida’s mouth in Act 3 Scene 2, when she tells Pinkie that he belongs to a small crooked perverted world which can’t hurt her –
   she
   belongs to the real world. The result is to give Hermione Baddeley another chance to gargle to the gallery, but makes the poor audience wonder what in hell the play’s about then. If they have any sense they won’t wonder for more than 50 nights.
   

2. The removal of the last scene – & the priest’s speech about – ‘the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God’ – makes the play more than ever pointless. Has this been removed in order to shorten the play – a case of
   Hamlet
   being shorter without the Prince of Denmark? We must have an explanation about this – I made an explicit condition of approving the script that the ending should be unchanged – & I am quite prepared to seek an injunction if I am not satisfied with Linnit’s explanation.
   

[…]

Changes were made to the script to meet Greene’s criticisms, and even though he was never happy with the production, he made sure that his royalties were paid and that his relatives had complimentary tickets
.

The end of the marriage of Graham and Vivien can probably be dated from the beginning of the war when she evacuated to Crowborough, then Oxford, and he remained in London with Dorothy Glover. His time in Africa merely postponed a reckoning. A month after his return, Vivien had apparently confronted him with evidence of infidelity – he was still very much involved with Dorothy
.

King’s Arms (Oxford) | April 8–9 [1943]

My darling, I’ve read your letter and I’ve had a party in the bar till now! I hadn’t meant to get involved but they were all friends of Raymond … I love you so much, my darling. Please believe that. Things have been difficult these last years, but I want so much to make you happy. That’s what I always said I’d do. My darling,
in vino veritas
. You are the best, the most dear person I’ve ever known. Life is sometimes so beastly that one wishes one were dead,
¹⁶
& I go to places like Mexico & Freetown in a half hope that everything will be finished – but like in that Prior poem ‘you are my home’
¹⁷
& back I come and ask you to like me & go on liking me. You mean more to me than the children, though I may seem nicer to them! Sometimes I wish I could twist a ring & skip twenty years & be old with you, with all this ragged business over. I’ve never wanted to be old, but with you I could be old & happy. God bless you, dear. God bless you, dear. I’ve told a lot of lies in 38 years – or I suppose in 35 years, one couldn’t lie from the cradle – but this is true. I hate life & I hate myself & I love you. Never forget that. I don’t hate life ever, when I’m with you and you are happy, but if I ever made you unhappy
really badly & hopelessly or saw life make you that, I’d want to die quickly. There’s a cat moving outside the door. If it were you how quickly I’d let you in. I love you dear, good night. Keep this.

at 19 Gower Mews, | Gower St. | London, W.C. [early May 1943]

Dear Charles,

I have just been down to Oxford to see Vivien & have heard for the first time of your son’s death.
¹⁸
I am so sorry to think that I’ve bothered you only two days ago with so trivial a thing as a dust jacket. Please forgive that & accept this halting sympathy. While I was in Africa I lost my father – that is a much smaller loss than a son’s because one accepts it as inevitable but I think it makes it easier for me to understand a little of what you feel. I always pray that I shall never see the death of one of my children. I’m so very sorry.

Yours in friendship, I hope, & in gratitude most certainly. Graham.

The god of us verse-men (you know, child) the sun
,

How after his journeys he sets up his rest:

If at morning o’er earth ’tis his fancy to run
,

At night he reclines on his Thetis’s breast
.

So when I am wearied with wand’ring all day
,

To thee, my delight, in the evening I come:

No matter what beauties I saw in my way;

They were but my visits; but thou art my home
.

Friday [late May? 1943]

Dear heart, I got your second sad letter quickly. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about things – I feel I’ve fooled you. I think for ten years I kept you happy, but then things went to pot. I hate your being unhappy, & I do understand why. I never think you are lucky – I think you are having a tougher war than anyone I know – except perhaps people like Charles.
¹⁹
You are having a tougher war than people even whose husbands are killed because death is a kind of distraction, a jerk that sets one into a new life. I really feel that it would have been better for you if I’d been torpedoed or plane crashed because a novel sort of vitality would have been handed over to you after the first shock. My dear, my dear, my dear, I love you [so] much – that’s true however badly now I show it – even when it seems untrue, it’s true.