Irrepressible (48 page)

Authors: Leslie Brody

BOOK: Irrepressible

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By that time, Decca had been on the wagon for almost a year. Edwards thought perhaps she wasn’t as chatty, but there weren’t many other obvious changes in her conduct. Then in June, Decca began to cough blood. The diagnosis was lung cancer, which had spread to her brain and her bones. To her visitors over the next few days, she seemed philosophical, without noticeable fear, and curious about dying. Her assistant Karen Leonard saw Bob “panic-stricken”—as was Benjy. They turned to Dinky, who came out immediately to help arrange Decca’s care, which began with daily radiation to preserve brain function. Decca wrote to Debo: “Doesn’t hurt at all plus I get marvelous pain pills
and
blue cheerup pills.”

Bob encouraged Decca to eat and drink whatever she wanted, and after one trip to the hospital, she returned home to find he had filled their refrigerator with chocolate mousse. Vodka didn’t taste as good, and she didn’t drink again. She seemed undeterred in those first few weeks after the diagnosis, confident that she could complete many of the projects she’d set for herself. She made plans to travel to see her sister and friends in Cape Cod and England. “Possibly late autumn or even Xmas so don’t come here. But DO come to me funeral, about 9 months or a year off accdg to the Dr.”

Her situation, she wrote to Debo, was “SO much better than just being hit by a car or in a plane wreck. At least one can plan a few things with the help of marvelous helpers who are absolutely smoothing every path here, so it’s sort of a nonstop party, all my favourite people flocking by. So why worry? Did I tell that when I went to register at hosp name of Jessica Treuhaft the social worker said ‘Are you by any chance related to the piano tuner?’”

Over the past few years, Decca had made some effort to put her accounts in order. She had never paid much attention to money management. She had once conscientiously taken Dinky on a tour of the various places she’d stashed bundles of cash around the house, after which they had driven to several banks where Decca had multiple accounts. Now, she gathered some of her cash and began to give it away to her friends while she still could. She and her new health-care assistant, the musician Lisa Pollard, would make
up lists of friends whom Decca wanted to see, and these they would invite to a series of dinner parties.

Decca had written two memoirs of her life, and she had few regrets. She still enjoyed the fight, still possessed the power to “denounce wonderfully.” She did not whine. She asked some friends to make sure to sue the Federal Trade Commission on behalf of consumers. Most important, she had to explain to Dinky and Benjy why she had decided to leave Nicky out of her books; this she did in a letter to her children:

I know it must seem v. odd that in writing
A Fine Old Conflict
I sort of airbrushed Nicky out of it entirely, not one mention of him—although he was such a star & hugely important factor in our life. Bob Gottlieb (editor of Fine Old C) understood, I think—or anyway, raised no objection—when I explained that to re-live his death (which one has to do, if writing about a person) was a bit more than I cld bear.

Late at night, when she couldn’t sleep, Decca spoke about the past. There were always more stories to tell. She was emphatic about her love for sister Debo. Several years earlier, when a graduate student Anthea Fursland had written her Ph.D. thesis on Decca, Decca complimented Fursland on getting most of her relationships right, but added to her impression of Debo:

We adored each other as children (even though when she was small I used to be rather horrid to her). Ditto as teenagers. As she was completely apolitical there were none of the complications as in the Boud/Diana situation; just enjoyment, jokes, non-stop Honnish poems and songs.

Naturally, she and Debo had quarreled, but Decca dearly loved her youngest sister. In early July, the sisters exchanged faxes about ways to get funding for the Send a Piana to Havana campaign, Dinky’s superior medical expertise, and dates for their next reunion. She also wrote that Bob was “being marvelous.”

At 3:00 A.M. on July 10, 1996, Decca couldn’t sleep and wrote a letter to her husband of over fifty years:

Bob—it’s so ODD to be dying, so I must just jot a few thoughts—starting with fact that I’ve SO enjoyed life with you in all ways. Isn’t it rather amazing how we ever met in 1st place—and thinking back to absolutely everything . . . Mainly, of course, you’ve been incredibly GOOD to me all through life and have TAUGHT me more than I can say, not to mention being incredibly kind & forgiving of faults such as Impatience. I must say I’m glad it’s me first as I v. much doubt I’d bother to go on much if it was you. Also there really is a small bonus—I wonder if you agree? In knowing ahead of time so one can think things out a bit (not just finish book—you know what I mean). Back to us meeting in Washington. What on earth would have become of ME if we hadn’t. And wonderful Nicky (actually I do think of him most days, now aged 52) when Mrs. King told the children her skirt had blown up at Wild Cat’s Peak & Nicky saying “Did the wild cats peek?” You & Dink, whole relationship over the aeons—goodness what a lucky thing you liked each other almost from word Go. Not quite; I think she rather looked away from you at the very beginning, to my worry. But that soon stopped, & I can skeke imagine a better friendship than you/her. As for Benj—hasn’t he turned out amazingly well lately? So now, about you. You’ve got the children & Oys all of whom adore you, but you’ll need someone—I mean you’ve got all those household skills, cooking etc., pity to waste don’t you agree? Be thinking of someone agreeable. You won’t have to as they’ll come flocking I bet. I do have some ideas but fear to mention for fear of annoying or being intrusive, none of my business you’ll say. On separate page, am putting down about money. Yr loving Wief

The cancer progressed, and less than two weeks later, in her bedroom at home, Decca showed Karen Leonard that she couldn’t hold up her arm. Her
speech was more or less slurred, and she was weak, but she could understand. In the hospital, the nurse checking her in asked various questions, including, “Can you tell me who the president is?” to which she answered, “That’s not my fault!”

AFTERWORD

The point is I just write as I see things. I do have a funny bone.
There’s really nothing more hilarious than the funeral industry.

—JESSICA MITFORD, INTERVIEW WITH
IDA LANDAUER,
PORTRAIT OF AMUCKRAKER:
THE STORIES OF JESSICA MITFORD

B
EFORE SHE DIED on July 26, 1996, Decca organized the details of her cremation or, in the mortuary jargon that she both loved and deplored, attended to her “pre-needery.” She chose Frank Rivera of Pacific Internment Society (whom she knew as the “most hated funeral director in California” for his defiance of funeral industry leaders and practices) to dispose of her earthly remains. Decca’s ashes were dispersed into the Pacific.

During her last months, undertakers had vied for the opportunity to “do” Jessica, but none of them expected a good-bye note. That privilege alone belonged to Robert Waltrip, president of Service Corporation International. In a communiqué sent posthumously by her assistant, Decca encouraged Waltrip to pick up the tab for all “goods and services” associated with her funeral. She considered this a fair exchange for the free publicity she had provided, and she kept the bill low just to show it could be done ($475.00, including “$15.45 for the cremation container”). After that thrifty cremation, there were two boisterous memorial services in packed houses (first San Francisco, then London). Some people choose music or readings in advance; Decca designed a comic protest to surprise and lift the
mood. She had long theorized that the speakers at funerals too often relied on the word
but
to combine excellent sentiments with inferior ones, so in her final weeks, Decca secretly charged some friends to object should any of her eulogists wander that way. When a speaker early on in the San Francisco memorial innocently invoked the offending conjunction, her avenging angels rose to protest, and no more
buts
did he bruit.

Once, during an interview, Decca had jokingly expressed a desire for a horse-drawn hearse to carry her corpse. She came to regret those remarks, since her humorless adversaries only flouted them to prove her inconstancy. To her family and army of friends, however, it was a good joke, and knowing how she really would have loved a funeral cortege they arranged one for her.

As the congregation emerged into the lucid San Francisco afternoon, they saw at the curb six black, magnificently plumed horses waiting to draw an ornate and polished antique hearse filled with Mitford memorabilia. A driver in full livery, including top hat, scrambled into his seat. A band of musicians assembled to precede the hearse, and Lisa Pollard on solo saxophone followed behind. As they proceeded along the waterfront, the band played songs in honor of Decca, among these “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “Amazing Grace,” and “The Internationale.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
AM GRATEFUL TO Decca’s children, Dinky Romilly and Benjy Treuhaft, for their generosity of spirit and openness of mind; Peter Sussman, magnanimous editor of Decca’s letters who gave me sage advice; Decca’s designated literary executor Marge Frantz, Pele deLappe, Dobby Brin Walker, Eva Lapin Maas, Virginia Durr, and Gerda Lerner, all of whom are American treasures. Thanks to the second generation: Ann Durr Lyon, Lucy Durr Hackney, and writers Tilla Durr, Mark Lapin, Leah Garchik, Sally Belfrage, and Nora Sayre for keeping the flame; and to Katie Edwards, who knew everything and was unfailingly helpful.

Thanks to leading Mitfordologists Charlotte Mosley and Mary Lovell; to Kevin Ingram for his indispensable biography of Esmond Romilly; to filmmakers Ida Landauer, Stephen Evans, and James Morgan, whose many interviews with Decca and friends (conducted for their film
Portrait of a Muckraker
) were tremendously valuable; to the late, great Stew Albert; to Jovanka Beckles for her research of the Gary family story; to Cecil Belfrage for his masterpiece
The American Inquisition
; and to Taylor Branch, Jo Freeman, Anthea Fursland, Diane McWhorter, Laura McCreery, Victor Navatsky, Elena Poniatowska, Kevin Starr, Patricia Sullivan, Robert G. Larsen, Philip Toynbee, Robert Rosenstone, and Edmund White, all of whose work was essential to this book.

The following people kindly offered interviews and stories: Peter Ackerberg, Judy Gumbo Albert, Bert Albert, Eugene Albert, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Coats, Carole Cuenod, Lillian Engel, Eleanor Engstrom, Jeff Eliot, Doug Foster, Constance Gary, Herbert Gold, Kathi Goldmark, Tom Hayden, Tanya Harrod, Robert Gottlieb, Danny Grossman, Barbara Hall, Alex Heard, Patricia Holt, Diane Johnson, Kathy Kahn, Wendy Lesser,
Karen Leonard, Lisa Pollard, Bart Schneider, Dugald Stermer, Judith Viorst, and Michael Waite.

I appreciate the help of friends at Centrum, Hawthornden, the Carmargo Foundation, Yaddo, and the Sundance Foundation and numerous librarians: Ohio State University’s Rebecca Jewett; University of Redlands’ Sandy Richey; and the staff at the San Francisco Labor Library, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the Berkeley Historical Society, the Voices of Feminism Oral History Project in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, the Tamiment Library at New York University, and the British Library. At the University of Redlands, the Creative Writing Department’s cheerful and indefatigable Starla Strain and a brigade of student workers have assisted me over many semesters, beginning with Emily Sernaker, David Smooke, and Rachael Severtson, and everyone at the UoR who helped me obtain funds for travel, editing, and a sabbatical, Chris Deyo, Nancy Carrick, and Barbara Morris. Thanks to special researchers Erica Brody and Jessie Wick.

Thanks to Decca’s extended family Edith McKelvey, Terry Weber, Olga Feher, Robert Lumumba Forman, Chaka Esmond Fanon Forman, Benjamin Daniel Weber, Zsófi Melani Treuhaft, and Isidore Robert Treuhaft, and to the fourth generation: Chaya Lillian Forman, Sakai Esmond James Forman, and Emeka David Chaka Forman. To friends and family: Erin Auby Kaplan, Susannah Crawford, Denise Davis, Karen Derris, Brian Evenson, Patricia Geary, Joan J. Hall, Kelly Hankin, Simon Barker, Laurel Ollstein, and presiding angels Debby and John Hanrahan, Judy Hatcher, Jack Hayes, Joanna Howard, Gregory Lehmann, Andrew Tonkovich, Judy Tschann, Dwight Yates, Victoria J. White, Richard D. and Mary Anna White, Thomas R. White, Emily Wick, Elizabeth Wray. To Dorothy Albert, Agnes Amdahl, Bert Albert, Richard Brody, Jane Cohn Brody, Special Correspondent Lauren Brody, Robert Brody, Philip Brody, and Warren Brody. To Lillian Albert Brody, Steve Brody, and Anna Brody; I miss them. Thanks to Elena Engel, without whose comfort, support, and San Francisco home I would
never have dared to continue. To my husband, Gary Amdahl, and to my muses Alphie, Ole, and Masha, without whom I might never have started.

Thanks to publisher Jack Shoemaker, editors Roxy Aliaga and Patricia Boyd and everyone else at Counterpoint Press, and to my agent, Martha Kaplan.

I am particularly grateful for the assistance of the People’s Writing Committee: writer, filmmaker, and WIHU comrade Jenny Shepherd; historian Michael Wilson; novelist and editor Alisa Slaughter. Furthermore, to Regina White, who deferred other things to help get this book right, for her tireless and formidable work as researcher, fact-checker, editor, and friend. Finally, to Esmond Romilly, to Bob Treuhaft, and at last to Decca, fondest love.

NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS

PEOPLE

Benjy . . . . . . . . . . . . . Benjamin Treuhaft

Debo . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deborah Mitford (Cavendish), Dowager Duchess of Devonshire

Diana . . . . . . . . . . . . Diana Mitford (Mosley)

Dinky . . . . . . . . . . . . Constancia Romilly

ER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Esmond Romilly