Bruce Chatwin (46 page)
Authors: Nicholas Shakespeare
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Literary, #Literary Collections, #Letters, #Literary Criticism, #General, #Diaries & Journals, #Personal Memoirs
Miranda took Akbar back to the rue de Grenelle. Two weeks later Elizabeth visited. “Miranda is really being very good to him & making all sorts of efforts to get him a job and residence permit & so on,” she wrote to Gertrude. Miranda’s husband, already mistrustful of Bruce, was less than happy with Akbar, who struck him as “a good-looking idiot”. Back at Holwell, Elizabeth soon became aware of tensions. “Rang up Miranda and Ian who were most weird on the telephone . . . Ian said the whole thing is hopeless – I don’t know if he meant that in several ways or what. Apparently Akbar’s presence has caused a lot of trouble.”
Bruce expressed his concern to Welch: “Elizabeth’s young Pakistani couldn’t get into England and is now stuck in France, where he is adopted by the Rothschilds as their latest amusement and a lot of talk about the Lost Tribes of Israel. We are prevented from talking to him on the phone so jealously is he guarded. Very irresponsible performance on the part of everybody.”
The story continued to unfold out of Bruce’s orbit. “We became lovers,” says Miranda. “He told me he was a virgin, I was his first love, proper poetic stuff, and he wrote letters saying I’m his moonlit gazelle. He was horribly persuasive. I’d only ever been called a sturdy little pony before.” She had a yearning to see Afghanistan. She had wanted to accompany Levi on his trip with Bruce in 1969 and now returned with Akbar to the north-west frontier. “All my nomadism comes back. From a young earth mother with a small child I again became a wild tomboy, toting pistols on the frontier of Afghanistan with China. I wore native dress, slung with a pistol and cartridges. I rode wild stallions. My whole life changed.”
Months later Miranda returned to Paris without Akbar. Ostracised, she passed her time in a bar opposite the Fontaine des Quatre Saisons. “
Sans cesse
from 10 a.m.” At her divorce, Akbar’s letters were read out in court. “Suddenly I get a letter from Bruce on blue paper, blue ink.
My dear Miranda, I want to see you more than anything else in the world. I want you to forgive me more than anything else in the world.
He comes to see me in Paris. He gives me a Mesopotamian duck-weight made of haematite. He’d affected my life to a tremendous extent. He owed me one.”
Sans cesse
from 10 a.m.” At her divorce, Akbar’s letters were read out in court. “Suddenly I get a letter from Bruce on blue paper, blue ink.
My dear Miranda, I want to see you more than anything else in the world. I want you to forgive me more than anything else in the world.
He comes to see me in Paris. He gives me a Mesopotamian duck-weight made of haematite. He’d affected my life to a tremendous extent. He owed me one.”
On 14 May 1971, Bruce stood in Aspall Church in Suffolk and watched Prince William of Gloucester unveil a sculpture to Raulin Guild. “You must try and imagine that some invisible power has carried him off as he was,” Bruce had written to Raulin’s sister Ivry. “Open, fair, free-minded and ruthlessly honest.”
The ceremony put his own life in relief. By 30, he hoped to have finished
The Nomadic Alternative
, but the journey to Teheran had “quite broken my train of thought, and after one day I am already shaking with the malaise of settlement”. He wrote to Welch from Holwell: “Oh to finish the book. I wrote the last sentence before I went away. Since when some ideas have evaporated and new ones have taken their place. Two, three perhaps four months of revision.”
The Nomadic Alternative
, but the journey to Teheran had “quite broken my train of thought, and after one day I am already shaking with the malaise of settlement”. He wrote to Welch from Holwell: “Oh to finish the book. I wrote the last sentence before I went away. Since when some ideas have evaporated and new ones have taken their place. Two, three perhaps four months of revision.”
But in June, he could no longer tolerate Holwell. “The weather is so infinitely frightful that I have just decided to go to the South of France with my typewriter and E is going to follow later.”
He spent the summer in the Basse Alpes, staying first in a remote hamlet owned by the artist Jeremy Fry. From Oppedette, he wrote to Elizabeth: “It’s quite beautiful and completely unspoiled. Not a tourist in sight, and any amount of crumbling farm houses to buy, my dear. High up, plenty of air and wind. One wouldn’t need a garden for the wild flowers are a treat, all wild briars and honeysuckle, my dear.” He suggested Elizabeth “up-sticks” and join him in another month.
He lasted scarcely a fortnight on his own. The telephone had been cut off and he had no car. On 3 July he sent a telegram to James Ivory:
DO COME BUT QUICK STOP HIRE CAR MARSEILLE
. In a letter, he explained: “I do badly want to see you – for lots of reasons. Apart from the obvious one, I want to ask your advice.”
DO COME BUT QUICK STOP HIRE CAR MARSEILLE
. In a letter, he explained: “I do badly want to see you – for lots of reasons. Apart from the obvious one, I want to ask your advice.”
Levi, firmly based in the poetic and spiritual worlds, now yielded to a mentor of wordlier inclinations, the American film director “Jungle Jim” Ivory.
Ivory was a friend of Welch who five years before had proposed a film set in India, featuring the Beatles. (Welch had written to John Lennon saying
Rain
was the best Indian music since the time of Akbar.) The location of the film, about the Mughals, was to be the Red Fort in Delhi. “Also on the path of the Mughals would be a gang of international art dealer/thieves,” Welch wrote to Bruce. “Maybe [Hewett] would even play in the
filum!”
Welch had discussed the project with Ivory, who was “wild” about it. “If the idea comes off, I see you in it too.” There matters rested, but the prospect of making a film germinated in Bruce’s mind.
Rain
was the best Indian music since the time of Akbar.) The location of the film, about the Mughals, was to be the Red Fort in Delhi. “Also on the path of the Mughals would be a gang of international art dealer/thieves,” Welch wrote to Bruce. “Maybe [Hewett] would even play in the
filum!”
Welch had discussed the project with Ivory, who was “wild” about it. “If the idea comes off, I see you in it too.” There matters rested, but the prospect of making a film germinated in Bruce’s mind.
Bruce had met Ivory in the autumn of 1969 at Hodgkin’s house near Bath. Bruce stood in the late afternoon with his back to the wall, looking at Ivory and not saying anything. Ivory, then preparing to make his fourth feature-film,
Bombay Talkie
, found him entertaining company: “he really did make you laugh”. In London, Ivory had visited Bruce’s studio in Kynance Mews. “He lived like a bachelor. One understood he was married. Elizabeth was there in the background most of the time and sometimes she came forward and was important to him, but they were not the usual kind of couple. He never referred to her contemptuously. He spoke of her like a friend, like another boy or man. She wasn’t a weight around his neck who would stop him having fun: she wasn’t that kind of wife.”
Bombay Talkie
, found him entertaining company: “he really did make you laugh”. In London, Ivory had visited Bruce’s studio in Kynance Mews. “He lived like a bachelor. One understood he was married. Elizabeth was there in the background most of the time and sometimes she came forward and was important to him, but they were not the usual kind of couple. He never referred to her contemptuously. He spoke of her like a friend, like another boy or man. She wasn’t a weight around his neck who would stop him having fun: she wasn’t that kind of wife.”
Ivory arrived in Oppedette and stayed a week. The bleak little house lay on a bare treeless hillside. They made a trip to St Tropez, drove to Menerbes in the hope of seeing Dora Maar climb up the hill, and visited Stephen Spender in the Alpillas. Ivory says, “He was tearing a motor car apart and his hands were covered in black oil.” In the baking hothouse they slept on mattresses. “Then Bruce would say, ‘I have to work now’. I would sit on a big chair out in the sun, but very soon I’d see him walking around, not working. And that seemed to be the pattern.”
Bruce’s aim in coming to France was, Elizabeth explained to Gertrude, “to try and finish getting the book organised and shortened.” But whenever Bruce talked to Ivory about nomads, “my eyes would glaze over. He had a thousand shiny bits of weird and unrelated historical facts which he would scatter.”
Bruce promised Ivory: “Never never never will I write anything longer than a few pages. Never – at least for a very long time – will I try anything that demands RESEARCH.”
The advice Bruce sought from Ivory had nothing to do with his book, but with cinema. “I have in the rough a story, which doesn’t really work as a novel because I have tried it. It is also a true story about someone I met by chance . . . Do you think there might be something in it for you?”
The story was “Rotting Fruit”, about the Matisse collector from Miami, and became the first of several ideas which Bruce now pitched to “Jungle Jim” as possible subjects for a film.
Bruce’s interest in film-making was, like his musical based on Akhenaten, his volume of shaman poetry, his book on Afghanistan, a nine-day won-der. “Perhaps I was too stupid to understand that Bruce was
serious
about his film ideas while seeming to play them down or make a joke of them,” says Ivory. “It never occurred to me that he wasn’t being entertaining in his letters with preposterous plots and characters. When I read all his letters together I see – too late – that Bruce might have been in earnest. I must have seemed a poor friend, letting him down all the time.”
serious
about his film ideas while seeming to play them down or make a joke of them,” says Ivory. “It never occurred to me that he wasn’t being entertaining in his letters with preposterous plots and characters. When I read all his letters together I see – too late – that Bruce might have been in earnest. I must have seemed a poor friend, letting him down all the time.”
Bruce furnished Ivory with one idea after another, to be developed as soon as he had finished
The Nomadic Alternative.
All seem based on experiences in his own life: his encounter with Andrew Batey (“That Andrew story
is
fascinating. Maybe we could do something”); the Willey Expedition in Afghanistan (“That really is worth a filum”); and a project that foreshadows
Utz
: “Once I’m through I’ll apply my febrile mind to the idea of the film about THINGS. Incidentally I have a splendidly macabre story about a compulsive collector of Cherry Blossom Boot Polish tins, set in North London between the wars, and ending with the most enigmatic death.” He even conceived a plan to film his nomad book. “ACTION in film is to my mind the answer. I’m afraid film without fast action is for me nearly a non-film. To me it’s the whole point of the medium. I am very keen to do something on the
pilgrimage
theme myself – the idea of
finding oneself
in movement. Any ideas?”
The Nomadic Alternative.
All seem based on experiences in his own life: his encounter with Andrew Batey (“That Andrew story
is
fascinating. Maybe we could do something”); the Willey Expedition in Afghanistan (“That really is worth a filum”); and a project that foreshadows
Utz
: “Once I’m through I’ll apply my febrile mind to the idea of the film about THINGS. Incidentally I have a splendidly macabre story about a compulsive collector of Cherry Blossom Boot Polish tins, set in North London between the wars, and ending with the most enigmatic death.” He even conceived a plan to film his nomad book. “ACTION in film is to my mind the answer. I’m afraid film without fast action is for me nearly a non-film. To me it’s the whole point of the medium. I am very keen to do something on the
pilgrimage
theme myself – the idea of
finding oneself
in movement. Any ideas?”
“Everything was fine,” says Ivory, “but the thought of Elizabeth driving across France at that time to join him, as she said she would, and maybe walking in on us some morning made Bruce nervous. Eventually, reluctantly, I had to leave to join some American friends in Morocco.” A wistful Bruce watched him go. “Perhaps I could go to Tangier too,” Bruce wrote, “but . . . I am very very anxious about getting this book done. I know myself too well. Once in Morocco the footsteps lead to another horizon. I am a bum and I do not believe in work of any kind.”
He nevertheless looked forward “to your acerbic comments on the riff-raff life in Tangier”, in particular a character “known commonly as Ma Vidal, who owns some castle that sounds tasteless and hideous and is or is not normally for sale at a million dollars. All
meubles en matière plastique
.”
meubles en matière plastique
.”
Elizabeth arrived at the end of July. Bruce had asked her to come “with a car
plus
another typewriter as I suspect there will be typing to do, and the two large Oxford dictionaries and some money – enough money – mine if not yours, and also the
New Yorker
article about Chomsky which I left behind.”
plus
another typewriter as I suspect there will be typing to do, and the two large Oxford dictionaries and some money – enough money – mine if not yours, and also the
New Yorker
article about Chomsky which I left behind.”
They spent August in a two-roomed house near St Michel l’Observatoire belonging to “a great expert on birdsong”, who “periodically leaves for Patagonia or the Galapagos to record the dawn chorus”. Yet again Bruce’s attention flew to the person walking by the window, infinitely more interesting than the clutter on his desk. “Very unusual for a Frenchman to have an enthusiasm. The father was a famous old art collector called Henri-Pierre Roche who knew Picasso in the good old days of 1910 and wrote
Jules et Jim
.” Bruce’s landlord, Jean Claude Roché, provided another diversion. He had rigged up his nearby chateau as a studio to record birdsong that he sold commercially as cassettes. Requiring a voice to say the names in English, he asked Bruce.
Jules et Jim
.” Bruce’s landlord, Jean Claude Roché, provided another diversion. He had rigged up his nearby chateau as a studio to record birdsong that he sold commercially as cassettes. Requiring a voice to say the names in English, he asked Bruce.
Bruce’s voice can be heard on the tapes enunciating “Cuckoo”, “Arctic tern”, “Whinchat” and so on, introducing the display and flight calls of 406 separate species.
XX
Deliverance
“Do you think love is the greatest emotion?”
“Why, do you know a greater one?”
“Yes. INTEREST.”
—Thomas Mann,
Dr Faustus,
quoted in BC’s notebook
Dr Faustus,
quoted in BC’s notebook
ON
4
OCTOBER
1971,
JAMES LEES-MILNE INVITED HIS NEIGHBOUR
to lunch. “Bruce came in like a whirlwind, talking affectedly about himself. He has no modesty.” Bruce was then tackling his last chapter. To Lees-Milne, “Bruce is a young man of a different generation, Birmingham, very clever, bubbling with enthusiasms, still very young, feeling his way, not self-assured, and on the aggressive. I like him. It is a pity he is already losing his looks . . .”
4
OCTOBER
1971,
JAMES LEES-MILNE INVITED HIS NEIGHBOUR
to lunch. “Bruce came in like a whirlwind, talking affectedly about himself. He has no modesty.” Bruce was then tackling his last chapter. To Lees-Milne, “Bruce is a young man of a different generation, Birmingham, very clever, bubbling with enthusiasms, still very young, feeling his way, not self-assured, and on the aggressive. I like him. It is a pity he is already losing his looks . . .”
They went for a rapid-striding walk with the dogs through the Foxholes woods. “Then he was enchanting, and all his preliminary social bombastic manner left him. He talked enthusiastically, that is what I like about him, sensibly, unaffectedly. I am certain that in another ten years he will have ceased to be bumptious. He said that he only felt happy in the wilderness, the natural wilderness of the world. Feels constricted in England, lonely at Holwell Farm, not surprising, and is very much conscious of today’s lack of opportunity for exploration and getting away from the madding crowd.” On the walk, Bruce told Lees-Milne how his mother had dressed him in her clothes when he was six. “In spite of this silly treatment he hates transvestitism, but [he] is inevitably homosexual . . . Said that homosexuality was nothing whatever to do with genes, or inheritance, but solely to upbringing and relations with one’s parents. I don’t altogether agree. He admitted it was odd how homos are on the whole more intelligent, certainly more sensitive than heteros . . . B has gone into this question in his Nomad book.”
In
The Nomadic Alternative
Bruce pursues a line of anthropological self-justification. “The husband who wanders”, he writes, “is far more likely to be surreptitiously unfaithful when at home.” After Peter Straker, he went on to have several brief relationships. “I spend the weeks in Oxford now, heavily disguised as a skittish undergraduate, and, I confess, celebrating my thirtieth birthday with a skittish affair,” he had written to James Ivory one year before. “Merton College, jasmine tea, shades of Max Beerbohm, red lacquer, ecclesiastical drag, mystical excesses of the Early Church Fathers combined with the intellectual mentality of Ronald Firbank. You get the picture?
Not serious
, very pretty.”
The Nomadic Alternative
Bruce pursues a line of anthropological self-justification. “The husband who wanders”, he writes, “is far more likely to be surreptitiously unfaithful when at home.” After Peter Straker, he went on to have several brief relationships. “I spend the weeks in Oxford now, heavily disguised as a skittish undergraduate, and, I confess, celebrating my thirtieth birthday with a skittish affair,” he had written to James Ivory one year before. “Merton College, jasmine tea, shades of Max Beerbohm, red lacquer, ecclesiastical drag, mystical excesses of the Early Church Fathers combined with the intellectual mentality of Ronald Firbank. You get the picture?
Not serious
, very pretty.”
Bruce once told a friend: “You’ll never know how
complicated
it is to be bisexual.” Elizabeth suspected about Straker and found out later about his moment with Miranda – “he eventually confessed” – but she did not know the extent of his infidelities. In none of them did he let himself go. Ivory who visited Holwell in the autumn of 1971 maintains that “strolling with him in a long upstairs hall with polished floorboards he privately told me he had given up homosexuality – that he didn’t have those feelings anymore.” Even if this was so, the tensions between Bruce and his wife mounted.
complicated
it is to be bisexual.” Elizabeth suspected about Straker and found out later about his moment with Miranda – “he eventually confessed” – but she did not know the extent of his infidelities. In none of them did he let himself go. Ivory who visited Holwell in the autumn of 1971 maintains that “strolling with him in a long upstairs hall with polished floorboards he privately told me he had given up homosexuality – that he didn’t have those feelings anymore.” Even if this was so, the tensions between Bruce and his wife mounted.
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