Christopher and His Kind (34 page)

At a much later performance, the audience was similarly amused by Margot, Countess of Oxford and Asquith. This formidable patrician was greatly taken with Hedli Anderson. When Hedli left the stage, Margot dozed off and woke to find herself in the midst of a scene which she neither understood nor enjoyed. She demanded indignantly: “What have they done with that
charming
little Danish girl?”

*   *   *

F6
got some excellent notices and was a considerable success. In April, it was transferred to a bigger theater—the Little. Two years later, it was revived at the Old Vic.

*   *   *

On March 17, Christopher returned to Brussels. Nothing had yet been heard from Mexico City, but Christopher had new plans for the immediate future. While in Paris, seeing Wystan off to Spain, he had visited the Sterns, who were now living in a flat on the Quai de l'Horloge. Christopher had told Tania Stern how frustrated Heinz was feeling in Brussels, with nothing to do. Tania had been sympathetic and, as usual, practical. She suggested that Heinz should learn a trade. Here she knew a silversmith who would give him lessons. So it was arranged that he and Christopher should move to Paris for a while. They hadn't done this sooner because the lawyer had had some difficulty in getting Heinz a French visa. But now the visa had been granted. They left Brussels a few days after Christopher's return there.

Cyril Connolly was in Paris at that time with his American wife, Jean, and a friend of theirs, also American, named Tony Bower. Jean and Tony were later to appear, affectionately caricatured as Ruthie and Ronny, in
Down There on a Visit:

She is a big girl altogether; big hips, big bottom, big legs. I've seldom seen anyone look so placid, so wide-open to visitors, so sleepy-slow. Her great beautiful gentle cow-eyes have sculptured lids which make me think of an Asian bas-relief—the carving of some giant goddess.

I like Ronny. His impudent, attractively comic face keeps breaking into grins, and his round blue eyes sparkle with a lit-up gaiety which is in its own way courageous, because he isn't as carefree as he tries to appear.

Tony was then in the relationship of a disciple to the Connollys. He was eager to follow their advice and imitate their life style in every particular. On the day when Christopher and Heinz first met him, he was scarcely aware of his surroundings. This was because, the previous evening, he had obediently swallowed some sleeping pills which Jean Connolly had given him. They were the ones she used regularly, without any visible ill effects to herself, but they were triple strength. Tony was not only a model disciple but free with his money. He had thus gained the reputation of being enormously rich, which he wasn't. He bought the Connollys and their friends gourmet meals at the restaurants Cyril favored.

Christopher knew few Etonians because he despised them on principle, as an article of his left-wing snobbery. But for Cyril, as for Brian Howard, he had to make an exception. Cyril was certainly one of Eton's most creditable growths, as Brian was one of its most monstrous. Cyril won Christopher's admiration by the brilliant artifice of his wit and the genuineness of his passions—for landscape, architecture, classical and Romanic languages, food, wine, lemurs, and literature. His big face—flat blue eyes, tiny nose, and double chin—looked as ageless as a Buddha's; but he was more of a pope than a Buddha, for he spoke with conscious authority, implying that he knew you, as a writer, better than you knew yourself—knew you historically in relation to the entire hierarchy of letters, past and present, and could assign you a place in it. You might lose that place later, of course. If you ever did, he would tell you so, blandly but brutally. He had a terrible phrase for such outcasts: “Those whom the God has forsaken.”

Connolly had praised
The Memorial, Mr. Norris,
and
The Nowaks
and he was soon to refer to Christopher in print as “a hope of English fiction.” Thus fanned, Christopher's ambition burned hotly and he determined that Cyril's hopes should not be disappointed. Nevertheless, Forster's approval was still worth far more to Christopher than Connolly's. Connolly made Christopher feel competitive, Forster didn't—because the one offered fame; the other, love. Connolly and his God could forsake Christopher. Forster never would, however much Christopher's work might deteriorate.

The five of them rode bicycles around Fontainebleau and walked in the forest. I have a photograph of Jean Connolly striking an attitude; she is pretending to be Ransom urging his followers on toward the summit of F6. And I remember a coldness, only momentary however, between Cyril and Christopher. Cyril had asked Christopher, in a tone which Christopher found patronizing, how he felt about Heinz—the implication seeming to be that Cyril couldn't believe that an intelligent adult like Christopher could take such a relationship altogether seriously. To this, Christopher replied casually but nastily: “Oh, very much as you feel about Jean, I suppose.” Cyril obviously found this insulting, to Jean and to himself. But he couldn't very well say so.

*   *   *

On April 1, Christopher went over to London on some business. He had meant his visit to be short. But, soon after he arrived, he became ill with an infected mouth. The infection flared up suddenly in a cavity from which a tooth had been only partly extracted by a clumsy dentist, a few weeks earlier, leaving an embedded fragment.

On his return from Spain, Wystan had left an overcoat at Kathleen's house. It was very dirty but Christopher had been sleeping with it on his bed; it made him feel an affectionate nearness to Wystan. Nanny now decided that the Spanish war germs in the coat had infected Christopher. “It's all that old coat,” she kept muttering.

Christopher's condition got gradually worse, partly because Kathleen refused to take his illness seriously. His high fever was his fury against her skepticism. His mouth became ulcerated and his tonsils inflamed. The doctor couldn't exactly diagnose the nature of the infection and later admitted that he had been gravely worried. All he could say was that it would be unwise to extract the rest of the tooth until Christopher was better.

Meanwhile, there were plenty of visitors: Tony Bower, just over from Paris—Kathleen describes him in her diary as “a tall young man, rather like a friendly giraffe”; Stephen, sunburned from being in Spain, with his wife, Inez, “small and rather ironic”—Kathleen neglects to mention that Inez was strikingly good-looking. “Stephen's friend Jimmy has managed to fall out with the International Brigade and been put in prison”—this is Kathleen's way of saying that he had deserted and been caught. Later, thanks to Stephen's efforts, Jimmy was pardoned and allowed to leave the country.

Kathleen was critical of Wystan, because he filled the air of Christopher's room with cigarette smoke and banged on the piano. Edward Upward, who came with his wife, Hilda, got much better marks. Kathleen felt that his recent marriage was already a success—“he looks so well and cared for.” Indeed, he was so plump that Kathleen didn't at first recognize him. She found Wystan “a most restless unpeaceful person” and Edward “just the reverse.”

*   *   *

On April 13, Wystan left for Paris. Christopher had hoped to go with him but this was now out of the question. On the seventeenth, Wystan phoned to say that Heinz was in trouble. The French police had told him that his permit to stay in France would not be renewed. It was due to expire in two days.

What had happened? Christopher later got various reports. This was, more or less, what they added up to: Heinz had had the bad luck to be sitting in a café when an Englishwoman complained to the police that her necklace had been stolen. The police questioned everybody present. Heinz, who was a bit drunk and therefore aggressive, had got into an argument with them. So, without accusing him of the theft, they had detained him temporarily and cross-examined him further. Thus they discovered that he had lost his identity card, a short while previously, in a street fight. Then they had interviewed people at the hotel where Heinz was staying and had been told
(a)
that he was a practicing male prostitute and
(b)
that he had seduced the chambermaid, who was deaf and dumb. The police had therefore decided that he was an undesirable alien.

It so happened that Tony Bower was having tea with Christopher when Wystan's phone call came through. Tony offered to go to Paris next day and personally escort Heinz to Luxembourg. It was the only move on the chessboard which Christopher could see, since Heinz had no visa for either Holland or Belgium and couldn't get one at such short notice.

Tony was then somewhat in love with Christopher. So it was easy for Christopher, who was well aware of this, to prompt Tony to make his offer. Christopher told himself that he was doing Tony a favor, making him happy by letting him be helpful. Here he miscalculated. Tony's impulsive gesture was followed by resentment, when he began to feel he had merely been made use of. All this was soon forgotten, however, and they remained friends.

Christopher was inwardly convinced that he could somehow have prevented Heinz's expulsion from France, if he had been in Paris. No doubt he was wrong, but his conviction made him feel frustrated. Once again, England had become a prison. He vented his spleen on Kathleen, growing increasingly difficult and imperious. Kathleen writes:

Olive Mangeot came at five and stayed till seven, and as usual Christopher was very aggrieved and irritable after being with her, though this time I dare say he was thoroughly overtired, not being fit for much talking. She brought the
Daily Worker,
which always makes him feel how unsympathetic we are with his political views. And he went to bed very offended and vexed as well as very tired. I think we are all tired and he does not realize we are trying to do our best.

Nanny very tired and naturally rather aggrieved at the way Christopher takes everything for granted, and hardly answers or says thank you and we really all spend our time running up and downstairs while he poses as a sort of sultan, and very impatient, expecting a series of teas to be carried up for his friends, and finding fault with the cooking.

One day, when he felt too toxic to talk or even read, Christopher had the idea of sitting for William Coldstream, whom he had met through Wystan. Coldstream had already suggested painting Christopher's portrait and he agreed at once to come. He was attractive, amusing, and intelligent; Kathleen calls him “appreciative”—one of her highest terms of commendation. He painted Christopher on a couch, propped up against pillows, wearing a striped red and blue dressing gown given him by Uncle Henry. In this position, Christopher could doze or lie in a semi-coma of not disagreeable weakness, imagining himself to be lazily, easily dying.

The picture was duly finished and taken to Coldstream's dealer. Later, Coldstream met a friend in the street who told him: “I've just been looking at one of your paintings—I'm delighted with it—you know—that charming portrait of an old lady lying in bed—”

FOURTEEN

On April 25, Christopher was well enough to go to Luxembourg. He traveled by way of Belgium and had a dinner between trains with Gerald Hamilton, which he later described to Forster:

After the worst crossing of my life, a very dazing nonstop-talking dinner with Mr. Norris: “Here you are, my dear boy, to the minute, I really must apologize that everything isn't quite ready, but this is the very best duck obtainable, tell me honestly, don't you think it's decidedly on the cold side, well, well, I must apologize but don't let's waste our time we must really talk about your affairs, yes, yes, what kind of journey did you have, but do start, let me see, as I was saying, my goodness, there isn't any
mustard
…” etc. etc. I caught the train on from Brussels by the skin of my teeth.

Heinz and Tony Bower were at the Hotel Gaisser, where Christopher and Heinz had stayed in 1935. Christopher found Tony bored, after a week of Heinz-sitting, and impatient to get away. Heinz was feeling deeply aggrieved. The police, he said, had believed all the lies told them by two prostitutes who lived at his hotel and didn't like him. He firmly denied most of the charges made against him, including an alleged statement by the silversmith that he had failed to appear for his lessons. Actually, he had only missed one, and the silversmith had told him that he was a promising pupil. In proof of this, he produced a silver ashtray which he had made for Christopher.

Christopher now believed Heinz and felt ashamed, because, as he had to admit to himself, he had taken it for granted that Heinz had done everything he was accused of having done. While in London, he had unconsciously come round to the attitude of Kathleen and others, that Heinz was still an irresponsible adolescent. Instead of having faith in Heinz, Christopher had merely forgiven him in advance, before hearing what he had to say in his own defense.

As far as the French authorities were concerned, the question of Heinz's guilt was academic. The very fact that they hadn't accused him of any particular crime made the situation hopeless. He was simply on their undesirable list—and all Germans, at that time, were becoming increasingly undesirable in France. There was no hope that they would relent in the foreseeable future. However, the lawyer assured Christopher that Heinz would have no difficulty in reentering Belgium as soon as he had his Mexican passport. It appeared that the Mexicans had suddenly announced that this would be available almost immediately.

Christopher only half believed this promise, but he wasn't much worried. To him, there was something safe about Luxembourg, just because it was so small. You even got an intimate, protected feeling when you looked at the publicly displayed photographs of its sulky-faced Grand Duchess Charlotte and her teenage son Prince Jean, with his charming grin. After Christopher's illness and Heinz's troubles in Paris, they were happy to be together again. And now their long period of waiting—waiting to begin a new life—seemed nearly over. Now at last, surely, something definite was bound to happen.