Under the Sun (24 page)

The next drama. Sandy Martin said he had sold the Maori the opening day of his exhibition. It got the red spot and was duly considered sold. I found out it was to G[eorge] O[rtiz] P[atino]. The payment to be made Jan 1st. Dec 30th phone call to Sandy. He wouldn't buy after all. Says he told Sandy he would buy on one condition that it was prior to 1800. Took the photos to an expert in New Zealand who said Very fine quality but 1810-1820. K. J[ohn] H[ewett] says this is nonsense. Now there‘s an almighty stink broken out, but Sandy who had written to my bank guaranteeing the money, then wrote off to cancel it
before even telling me
. They're all such liars. K.J.H. being very helpful about it. Overdraft now £1,250. Oh God!

I'm taking up to London the Persian silk textile
³⁰⁷
and will probably be able to get £500 for it. The Moroccan one is ready and looks marvellous and so it can hang in its place. I vastly prefer it anyway. That'll relieve the situation temporarily at least. Am rather loath to sell anything else just at this minute. The Mitsutomoe is a huge gilt roundel Japanese of uncertain date but probably Muromachi that is to say 15th-16th Century with three enormous blobs like ying and yang except the Japanese Shintoists with their flair for the ambiguous have gone in for HE SHE AND IT. Magnificent. It's like having your own Brancusi 2½ feet diam. Best thing I've ever had except for the Eskimo seal another Brancusi-ish object.

The lights have gone off. The third power cut in two days apparently. The deep freeze stuff is a wreckage according to the note left by Linda. They had a fourteen-hour cut. There is one candle in the Japanese lantern, and I am thankful I am going out to dinner with the Gascoynes,
³⁰⁸
and will refuse to be put off. Bamber and his wife have spent a winter in India and are writing a Mughal book – such a
novel
idea. They're rather silly.

PLANS. In a way I'm rather sad you think you must be here in May – like May 1st? Especially as I have been laying a series of very well conceived ones to be invited by the King of Bhutan and you as well. All the papers have gone off last week. Oh dear! What to do about? As you know, to me this book is really important. It is, though I say it myself, coming on all right. There are parts I am pleased with and parts that are a mess. One cannot hurry something that can't be hurried. Am lurching through the last section quite rapidly now, next week will come to the Hero and the road of trials, followed by anarchists and modern revolutionaries, and then a concluding chapter where all the heavy guns are fired. Nerve required. I am quite unaware at the moment if I have gone off my head or whether the ideas are so novel, so outrageous, so shattering that no one will be able to put the book down. Or neither, just a silly mess? Iain Watson who is normally a stickler about such things is highly enthusiastic. I read him passages and he corrects it. Quite toughminded Iain when it comes to the point. We shall see.
The Book must
be done
. The back of it may get done by mid-Feb in a state visible to Tom Maschler i.e. in an intelligible first draft. I don't want to be disturbed till then particularly. That is if you are happy, and you sound infinitely more cheerful than previous letters which were giving me a slightly guilty complex. My father has made no holiday plans. He I think would come out and help you. I believe that if one asked he might very well like to come
anyway
, but I think one should provide some entertaining diversion in India or en route for him.

So I wouldn't worry if I were you. The thing with me is that if I break the continuity it always goes to pot. This has happened before, but as I hope to remain comfortably installed in Blomfield Road it should be OK. Incidentally it's the nicest place to live in London and really convenient because the Oxford motorway streams right by. There is none of that Cromwell Roadism, it's also very convenient for the West End and the City.

In spite of my screamings or I suppose because of them the
Vogue
article appeared with title. The typography made it look as though it had the title NOMADS, and the shrieks of acid laughter were not quite as loud as I feared. Lesson learned. Never write an article for the fashionable press after a hangover in two hours. It doesn't pay off in the end.

I am really quite worried about Charles [Tomlinson]. For three years he has worked on translations of the poetry of Ungaretti.
³⁰⁹
Oxford guaranteed to publish etc. Now he has found that some snake who he
told
about it, extracted from Ungaretti's publisher the rights to all translations in English, and Charles can't even publish at all. Coupled with that he is really ill. Now I think this is something we must look into. He has a permanent pain in his intestine on the right side accompanied by a constant urge to pee and couldn't eat anything for days. But before Christmas I had exactly the same. I couldn't sit at the typewriter because of the agony in my stomach, coupled with really terrible nervous depressions. C[harles] says it was so bad for him some years ago that he went to the Bristol Hospital with suspected kidney disease for check ups and they found NOTHING. I went up to the Doctor in London three times and he found nothing. I am having the water tested. I am quite decided it isn't my fertile imaginations. It is quite definitely something biological in the water, local virus etc. God knows! But we really must find out.

Great drama. A rogue sewage lorry dumped all its filthy effluent on the drive in that open patch. We i.e the police and I believe the Spyvees
³¹⁰
put them up to it. If I wasn't in so financially tight straits I'd have sued both of them. The only thing I have made them do without going to court is to cover the whole thing with lime. Really filthy. I think it does give us a stronger hand with the Glos. C.C. over the private road, and when you come back you and C.L.C. [Charles Chatwin] should have another go at getting it closed.

Am taking a few days off actually to write an article on the horrors of Konrad Lorenz for the
New York Review
. I've really got him. ‘The Jews, through inbreeding have formed a tumerous growth in a civilised nation.' ‘Tolerance towards the inferior is a danger for the people.' I also have a new friend Lord Chalfont
³¹¹
who helps my schemes. Although this is the nadir of our fortunes, I am not sure that one or two little plans are not working out.

Lights have gone on again. Thank God! We've had the worst frosts ever. Today I looked in at Roger Warner
³¹²
and bought a very nice old boomerang and three of those cloche tops with rather ropy bottoms which we could easily have fixed, or have new ones made. The border at the back of the house my dear is going to be a blaze in fact not a blaze at all because it's all white and soft blue and yellow and greyish green. I think you ought to have a plant licence, because if you come through Afghanistan in April you'll be able to get handy with your trowel. One thing very nice. Japanese winter flowering cherry, about twelve willows.
Magnolia Sieboldii
if it survives, a dream my dear a dream.

Robert Skelton
³¹³
is going to get Penelope's camera equipment out to her by Feb 11 if I can't come out. He has someone going, and they will be dropped off at the High Commission in Delhi. She can use my camera if she likes
on condition
she replaces anything lost, and repairs all defects.
³¹⁴

Your mother has been getting your letters because I have heard from her. I wrote asking her to send another Cape Cod lighter which Linda finally broke. Chatty letter in return to the effect that your father had sprained or broken something and she'd fallen from a horse. Thank God you did not buy the
Encylopaedia.
³¹⁵
Never heard such a ridiculous idea. In India of all places.

I hope you bought the Maharajah's Dumbbells.
³¹⁶
They sound very nice. Kitty Puss is fatter than she was. She went through a bad patch, but is now better. Probably pining.

PLANS AGAIN. Will you cable me where you are on Jan 28th-Feb 7th and I will let you know mine. I think that's the best way of leaving things. If by then, the thing is looking like completion within a reasonable time I will come out maybe just on an ordinary return fare for a month or so if the return journey can be sorted out. I'd no idea you were going to be in Bombay as we were without news till yesterday when the letters from both Bombay and Hyderabad came together.

Lovely New Years party at Susanna's
³¹⁷
then passed on to the Erskines – and horrors. I have never been in a room with so many people lacking one redeeming physical feature.

Have decided to do nothing about UTA and Ceylon. Too complicated. You don't any way know how lucky you are not to have to face the flight!

Cable if you'd like your reactions to Plans. Address c/o Ghika, 27 Blomfield Road, London W.9

Love as ever, BBB BBBBBBB B No pen.

P.S. Have just got here from the farm again, and after loading the car with books I think I've done my back in again. Agony. There's really going to be no point in sitting cooped up in a car if it goes on, and frankly I become more and more convinced I won't be able to make it. I did it shovelling earth into the border behind the back of the house. Sitting in a confined position makes it worse, and one has to have an upright chair with a pillow in the middle of the back.

Write soon. Must get on with the
New York Review
article. Real acid. Love B

P.P.S Had a sudden panic this morning as I couldn't find this and wondered if I'd left it on the kitchen table for Linda to see.

B

c/o Ghika | 27 Blomfield Road | London | [but franked on envelope Lisbon | Hotel Tivoli] | 1 February 1971

 

Dear E,

What with the postal strike
³¹⁸
and everything closed here, how are we going to be in touch. Suggest the best thing as per my cable is to cable c/o G. Ortiz office in Paris, or c/o Jessie Wood, 16 bis Rue L'Abbé de l'Epee, Paris VI.

Rather depressing here in London, and the book still grinds on with remorseless slowness. If I start at 9-30 in the morning and finish at four I am intellectually exhausted. In theory one ought to be able to go on all night, but it always turns out badly if I do.

Went down to the farm last weekend for Sunday night to get some books. Everything is OK but Linda [Wroth] continues to rule. I wanted to go down this weekend but she rang on Tuesday and said it was inconvenient. We shall have to cut the tree in the lane as the oil people simply will not deliver any more until it is out. He breaks the driving mirror each time. Please give instructions, as I said the hedge ought to be laid and everyone else says you have said no. What also shall we do about the garden? I can't dig any more even if I'm there. Shall I employ David Hann, Keith [Steadman]'s helper, to come and do some things or not. If so where's the money coming from?

My back's still there. Some days it's O.K. others not. Particularly bad with driving. Last night we had Stephanides and the Johnstons here for dinner, and Miranda [Rothschild] and I got frantic with boredom half way through. They arrived an hour late after the dinner was spoiled, and then batted on remorselessly about what Jeremy and Antonia, or Amabel and Clive were or were not doing with each other, stayed yacking till 1-30. God the English are a bore. I have never felt such a yearning to be something else.

Let us know through Jessie [Wood] what your plans are and what you want me to do.

Much love, XXX Bruce

P.S. Have absolutely no money since the Maori fiasco but just
manage
as long as there are no expenses.

c/o 27 Blomfield Road | London | or as next week c/o Wood 16 bis Rue L'Abbé de l'Epee Paris VI | [February 1971]

 

My dear E,

Have just heard via Patrick Kinross
³¹⁹
that Jack Richards is bringing a lot of films to Penelope and so I'm scrawling a few lines to catch you because the whole country has seized up with the postal strike – and I haven't heard a word since about 5 weeks I thought it'd be a good opportunity. Apparently you can send cables via Western Union.

The book isn't bad but of course still not over. Oh God when will I get it done. I've worked and worked for example 8am to 12 midnight yesterday. I am beginning to think it's rather good in parts at any rate but it is an endless drama of shuffling and reshuffling the component parts, turning passive verbs into active verbs etc. Miranda and Iain are going to Paris on Thursday and I am hitching a lift with them to give myself a break – collect the famous bed and get Iain [Watson] to bring it back in four days. Then I shall have the house to myself for about a couple of weeks and then Llama [Ghika] comes back. I would really then like to move back to the farm but because of the Linda situation I don't know what to do. Shall I kick her out before you come back or leave her? Can't stay under the same roof. Unbearably rude whenever I go. Apparently Sally [Westminster]'s broken something hunting
³²⁰
so I must ring up. Sold some absolute rubbish inc. that Punic head brought in Tunis £68 and some others. Then I found another Moroccan shroud like ours. Rather beautiful £10. Finances bad but not so bad.

Am writing the anti-Konrad Lorenz article with great excitement and this is going to be a bomb for NY
Review of Books
– already accepted.
³²¹
I would love to go away and will probably come and fetch you part of the way out. I would like some sort of instructions! I think now March-April for the book ending. The garden's in chaos at the farm as there has never been so much as a trowel lifted except for my operations at the back of the house. But the vegetable patch – horrors!