Graham Greene (41 page)

Affectionately,
     Graham

27th May, 1965

Dear Raymond,

Yesterday I had lunch with the wife of an old friend of mine Mervyn Peake, the writer and artist. It is rather a sad case and I wondered whether you could possibly give any advice in the matter.

Apparently Mervyn, who is about fifty-two years old, some ten years ago started Parkinson’s disease. He had an operation on the brain in London and whether or not as a result of the case developed encephalitis. For the last eight years he has been completely incapable. He doesn’t speak, he dribbles saliva and walks backwards. For a time he was put in a mental hospital but the mental hospital said in the end that he was not really a mental case, and the doctors thought it was bad for him to be in those surroundings. His wife has suggested to her own doctor that she take him back home and look after him, but the doctor has said that it would be highly dangerous both for herself and for Mervyn. There seems to be no National Health establishment for a case like his, and therefore his wife has had to put him in a private hospital for which she pays over £1000 a year. As she has three children and her income is only a little over £2000 it is becoming a burden impossible to bear. Is it really the case that there is no establishment run by the National Health for cases of this kind?

If you felt you could be of any help with advice I would be immensely grateful if you would see Maeve Peake.

Yours ever,
     Graham

Greene was not able to help Peake’s situation. An effort at about this time by John Brophy to establish a trust for his care also failed. From 1964, Peake was a patient at The Priory in Roehampton and remained there until the wing where he was accommodated was to be demolished. He was moved to a smaller institution in Berkshire run by Maeve’s brother, where he received similar care. He died in November 1968
.
⁸

Villa Rosaio, | Anacapri. | July 16 [1965]

Dearest Carol,

How are you & all the family? I am down here till July 22 finishing the revision of my novel
The Comedians
. I’ve just heard that Hanoi has given me a visa, so I am off to North Vietnam at the beginning of August for
The Sunday Times
.

At the beginning of this week I went up to Rome because the Pope
⁹
had sent me a message that he would like to see me. It was all very nice & informal – not a bit like the Vatican of Pius XII (when I get home I’ll send you a
horrible
photo of me & the Pope).

The Pope talked to me for twenty minutes about why he liked my novels! He had read
The Power & the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, Brighton Rock
, &
Stamboul Train
! He gave me a rosary in a nice little case for Vivien, a medal of himself for me, & a beautiful leather bound edition of The Gospels in an edition limited to 140 copies. All the monsignori were very cordial, & the Pope didn’t go in at all for a talk about ‘the duties’ of a writer. He said there would be always things in my books which offended some Catholics, but not to bother about that!

Lots of love to all of you,

Daddy.

Janet Adam Smith (later Carleton)
(1905
–99), the widow of the poet and anthologist Michael Roberts, was an old friend of Graham’s and a biographer of his distant cousin, Robert Louis Stevenson. In this letter he describes an encounter with his old antagonist J. B. Priestley, a man equipped for bad weather
.

12 November 1965

Dear Janet,

Will you forgive me? I came back from Paris specially, after celebrating Mauriac’s eightieth birthday, to come to your party, and then it rained and it rained. I waited for a quarter of an hour in the shelter of Meakers
¹⁰
and no taxi came. Only the porter of Albany who was seeking a taxi for Mr. Priestley. Finally I went back into Albany and found Mr. Priestley who was sheltered under a great big hat. I don’t possess a hat and rain on my head becomes more and more unbearable. Unfortunately I mentioned to Mr. Priestley that I didn’t have a hat. Apparently he didn’t get a taxi either, because later after I had had a snack at Bentley’s I ran into him entering. He said I was a coward for avoiding the rain, and forgetting that I had already mentioned his hat I told him that I hadn’t got a hat. He disappeared into the lavatory I suspect in umbrage. He must be proud of that hat. I don’t suppose I would have had much chance of talking to you but all the same I feel a traitor. Will you let me come and see you one day when there is not a party, when it isn’t raining so hard and when I don’t have to feel an envy of Mr. Priestley’s hat?

Affectionately,
     Graham

C. 6 Albany, | London, W. 1. | 20 December 1965

Dear Bernard,

Thank you so much for your Christmas card. All the best wishes to you and your family. I was delighted to hear from you as I was afraid that something might have happened to one of you during the revolution – a revolution which alas I could not attend!
¹¹
I’ve got a novel about Haiti coming out at the end of January of which I am sending you a copy in the hope that it may arrive. I’m sure you will find a great many errors there, but perhaps you will be amused by the last chapter which reflects our visit to the Bauxite works! Forgive the errors for the sake of the intention.

[…]

Having thought
A Burnt-Out Case
both technically flawed and a confession of unbelief, Waugh judged Greene’s new novel a return to form: ‘I greatly admire
The Comedians
. What staying power you have. It might have been written
30 years ago and could be by no one but you.’
¹²

130 Boulevard Malesherbes, | Paris 17. | Jan. 6 [1966]

Dear Evelyn,

Thank you so much for your letter which encouraged me, not
only about
The Comedians
, but about the C.H.
¹³
which I felt snobbish in accepting. You should have had it first & then I could have happily followed in your footsteps, but you probably refused it.

1965 was bad for me too. Someone like Jones claiming a C.B.E.
¹⁴
did away with half my savings, so I’ve had to leave England & establish myself in France. Yes, & there were also deaths & the new liturgy, but in my case no dentistry.

Love,
     Graham

Along with Evelyn Waugh, R. K. Narayan and Muriel Spark, Brian Moore
(1921
–99) was one of the few contemporary novelists in English whom Graham regarded as a master. Born an Irish Catholic, Moore wrote often about a lost faith. While the subject was close to Graham’s heart, his real interest in Moore was his craftsmanship (see p
. 343),
as demonstrated in
The Emperor of Ice Cream (1965).

28 January 1966

Dear Moore,

I was delighted to receive your new novel from the publishers and I have read it with the usual pleasure and admiration. So many writers claimed to be realists and trod
¹⁵
in the heavy hoof prints of Zola. You are really the only realist writing whom I can read always with a sense of pleasure and exhilaration.

It’s sad that you have left Montreal because now as my daughter is living there I make regular trips. I always remember our evening together at the amusing striptease joint which has since been closed down!

Yours ever,
     Graham Greene

130 Boulevard Malesherbes, | Paris 17.| 25 February 1966

Dear Michel,

I was so glad to get your letter and to hear that you found
The Comedians
readable. I am always rather apprehensive of the reactions from those who know Haiti as on the last occasion I spent far too little time there. I would have liked to have gone back two or three times before writing the book and I feel my lack of impressions in reading it.

[…]

I’m so sorry that you are feeling empty. Perhaps your menopause has come a little early. I went through a year or two of that in the 1950s, but I seem to have emerged and my melancholy now when it does rear its ugly head is quite bearable. I suppose that is one of the consolations of age.

My love to you and Edith,
     Graham

March 15 1966

My dear Narayan,

Do forgive a note dictated over the telephone and signed in absence, but I am heavily embroiled in the film script of
The Comedians
. I’m glad you liked the book. I am sure that Jones at least would have enjoyed Malgudi!

I read your book
¹⁶
a few days ago. I don’t want to give a considered judgement until I have had time to read it a second time, as I have always found with your books that the second reading gives far more. To speak frankly I was a little disappointed with this one. The story line seemed to me to wander a bit and it needs a good deal
of editing as far as English is concerned. There’s practically no changes required in the first fifty pages but after that it was as if you had grown a little tired and inattentive. I sound like a school-master in the Lawley Extensions! May I urge you to cut the last sentence of all on page 248. ‘She was a good girl’ seems to me the perfect ending. It might even provide you with a title?

Please don’t be discouraged by my frankness. I am certain I shall like it far better at the second reading and when the little obstacles of English are corrected which at present impede a free reading. Nothing alters my opinion that you are one of the finest living novelists […]

Boulevard Malesherbes, | Paris 17. | March 30 [1966]

Dear Joseph,

Letters from you arrive miraculously – not only letters but once a night telegram poem – at five year intervals but always when one has a need of a friend, of a past. I’m in exile from England now like you, partly for ‘sexual’ reasons, partly because a C.B.E. stole half my savings & is now imprisoned (not by me) in Switzerland. Thank you for liking
The Comedians –
I half like it, but I find now that the effort of writing robs one of confidence, pleasure, everything. So the private life – as I hope you find – is the happiest.

Do you recognise the line – my favourite in The Eclipse [
sic
]?
¹⁷
But it’s not
my
sign. My sign produces only

(It’s 11:30 at night & I am a little drunk & I’ve only just opened your letter – with such pleasure. The pleasure I felt too when I read in 1924 ‘The Bank Clerk Drowned at Sea’.
That
I haven’t got here with me – but I’m certain I’d still love it. I find the Meadows
¹⁸
stay.)

What has happened to the theatre? That I suppose belonged to the Meadows too. But I wish you’d tell me a little more of your life now. Do you see anything of poor Harold Acton – I say poor only because of his operation? Let’s meet again – not at a Gaudy – but in Florence or Antibes where my life is mostly spent.

Love,
     Graham

Evelyn Waugh died suddenly after attending Mass on Easter Sunday
, 10
April 1966
.

130 Boulevard Malesherbes, | Paris 17. | Easter Monday [1966]

Dear Laura,

I was shocked more than I can find it possible to write by the news of Evelyn’s death. As a writer I admired him more than any other living novelist, & as a man I loved him. He was a very loyal & patient friend to me. What I loved most in him was that rare quality that he would say only the kind things behind one’s back.

Please don’t answer this letter, but do believe there is a real community of grief for him.

Yours with so much sympathy,
     Graham

51 La Résidence des Fleurs, | Avenue Pasteur, | 06 Antibes. |3 October 1966

Dear Vivien,

[…]

I’ve moved into this new flat in Antibes (thanks to the film company who are making
The Comedians)
and I have a problem which you would solve better than I. A small black cat has adopted me, coming from God knows where. She seems to have a home as she departs at night and only appears at the worst possible moment when I am beginning work in the morning and sits down firmly on my paper and sucks at my pen. I give her an occasional saucer of milk but she doesn’t seem under-nourished. I have to go up to Paris in a fortnight’s time and I wonder whether I shall lose her friendship in my absence. The greatest pleasure she has at the moment is an empty cardboard box which once contained a bottle of cognac into which she can just insert herself and pretend to be hidden. Obviously until I have got her under control I shan’t progress much with the articles for the
Weekend Telegraph!

Affectionately,
     Graham

Please
tell me how you are & how you are walking.

51 La Résidence des Fleurs, | Avenue Pasteur, | 06 Antibes. | Oct. 3 [1966]

Dearest Catherine,

A line to wait for your return. Cuba was exhausting with heat & lack of sleep (I averaged about four hours a night over three weeks) but very rewarding. This time all the doors suddenly opened to me. I had a Cadillac & a French speaking chauffeur – & they wanted to
put me into the grand house where they put heads of state with a butler, servants, swimming pool & a guard at the door, but I refused & stayed in a hotel. I came back loaded with presents (a crocodile brief case from the woman I met in hiding in 1957 who is now in charge of Latin American relations),
¹⁹
a Milian painting from Milian – a strange obsessed artist I like very much, & another one by him from Franqui who is writing Castro’s autobiography,
²⁰
a drawing by Portocarrero
²¹
from himself & a beautiful flowers painting by Portocarrero from Fidel who inscribed it to me at the back. My last night I spent from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. with Fidel & we got on very very well. I liked him a lot & was very impressed. I was fetched away by a messenger from a private dinner with the British Ambassador who was quite jealous as he hasn’t spoken more than two words to Castro yet.