Under the Sun (22 page)

Now UTA
²⁷³
are prepared, I think, to fly me for free to Ceylon in January. What about that? I could I might add also go to Tahiti, Madagascar or the Cameroons. I would write a piece.

. . . Went riding with Rich Ron [Gurney] last weekend on the Berkshire downs which was quite beautiful.

Some of that later Seljuk architecture can be appalling. Never cared one bit for that elaborate portal at Sivas, but have never been to Divrigi or Malatya. I don't quite agree with you over Hittite art. I think that Yazilikiya is most remarkable. It's very tough and solid, and requires a bouleversement of all one's ideas as to what is beautiful. I like it all the same in the time of the Old and early New Kingdoms. You're not, I suppose, going to Nimrud Dagh.

I am just going to move my stuff to Holwell in the land rover and must dash this to the post or it won't get you in Teheran. Most mystifying. A huge consignment of gold and silver dishes arrived from some dealer in Teheran for me at London airport. I replied I knew nothing about it and had the whole lot sent back. It might have been some smuggling operation, and I simply don't want to be involved. It wasn't the textiles of last year.
²⁷⁴
That for one is certain.

Love and all.

xxx B

Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | [October 1970]

 

Some cutting away required, but not
malignant
cancer which is what the biopsies were about. If only we knew less about medicine and were able to trust to the mercy of God, we might live less long, but be saved innumerable alarms. See you soon, I hope. Much love, B

Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 22 October 1970

 

Dear E,

Vastly windy day and the leaves pouring off the trees, and the house buzzing with flies, and a new addition – bats, long eared bats that mysteriously secrete themselves into the bedroom and hover around at night after the flies. It's a curious sensation the noise of fluttering air, more mechanical than animal, and I could even hear the high-pitched screech.

My parents have been here this morning to try on the overcoat.
²⁷⁵
Un vrai sac
, I am afraid. She must have thought I was a giant. I can see my father ending up in it.

Lunch the other day with Sally
²⁷⁶
and later a walk with her and Master, and needless to say I succumbed to his entreaties about cutting down the tree on the path. Lenny
²⁷⁷
is going to do it.

I have taken to staying in the Knight and Olda's basement in London which is very convenient and pleasant, but I don't know how long it'll last. Teddy [Millington-Drake] is here from Patmos and is going back to New York ‘because I don't have anywhere else to go'. Poor thing. We may both come out to India, but as I have firmly maintained I make no promises as to the date. The book progresses. There is no doubt about it. But as I have cast the whole thing in a different literary form, and have abandoned the confining institution of the paragraph in favour of a more militant SLOGAN, the whole thing has had to be recast. Am having a great row with
Vogue
magazine as they intend to publish my article under the title ‘IT‘S A NOMAD, NOMAD, NOMAD WORLD.'
²⁷⁸
Either the title is changed or it's coming out. Thank you.

Have heard from Cary [Welch] who is busy as usual with the young folks. New Young Folks this time with art classes and Zen cookery lessons.

If you get a chance can you let me know what you have decided to do about the fencing which has to be done because the sheep have been in the garden. Who is supposed to be coming to do it? A ghastly new vicar,
²⁷⁹
a really priggish vandal has come and proposes a real clean up of Ozleworth, this involving the removal of the tombstones in the interest of Hygiene. Fury all round. It's the stupid fault of the Fergussons
²⁸⁰
for not attending to it properly.

Thank God my teeth really do seem to be better. A very nasty week that was, waiting to hear the results of the biopsy on a piece of my gum from the Cancer Clinic.

Vandalism is in the woods. That horror Mr Woodward is chopping near Newark Park now. Thank heaven for our little bit of scrub.

She is awfully curious that Linda. Secretive in a funny way. Frankly I thought she'd leave when I came. She said ‘I suppose it's your house, isn't it?' but now she seems to have got used to the idea of my presence. She is silent, moves stealthily about the house, has the most terrible friends, really terrible friends, professional snivellers – except John
²⁸¹
who came one night. I receive nobody, except that I may be having Keith
²⁸²
plant some more trees. I am afraid I cannot find time to DO the garden, only to offer some useless advice. Lenny [Ballinger] is very helpful, and is chopping the apple tree up for firewood. I intend to plant some more of those willows in the willow patch.

If I'm through by Christmas I may go to Darling D[erek]. I don't know whether it's a good idea or not. We shall see. In India please look out for hand made paper, old looking but with all the bits in it. Also anything you can find in the way of original natural not aniline colourings paints etc. When I have finished the book I am going to have a really big painting and drawing session. I have got all worked up about the old passions Seghers,
²⁸³
Leonardo landscapes, Sung masters etc. There is a North West Coast stone whale in Sotheby's looking rather neglected, unillustrated, unloved by F[elicity] N[icolson], Sandy [Martin] etc, but really beautiful. May try and buy it. Am selling kufic lettering, maybe the Green Man
²⁸⁴
if I can get enough and some other footling thing. Nothing of yours – yet!

love, B

PS Have read another horrendous article about Heraclium
²⁸⁵
and have eradicated 2 by the peonies. Where are the others?

Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 28 October 1970

 

Dear E.,

If you are that desperate for money, we will send some, but the question remains how much do you need and where do you want it. Quite frankly we have had so much expense here that I don't know whether I'm coming or going, with rates, oil and the mortgage payments who demand monthly payments at the rate of about £500 per year. We simply cannot go on asking my parents to fork up, as there will come a limit. I have been doing some more journalism which brings in a bit, and I think I have sold the Maori board but I am reserving all the money from it for an emergency.

My pectoral
²⁸⁶
has been the success of the year £50, sold the fish hook off which nearly paid for it; the pectoral itself comes from the famous Caroline Islands, and is worth about £400, at least John [Hewett] offered me three.

The flies are incredible here, and I have caught worms and a terrific resurgence of ringworm, which must be from the cats
²⁸⁷
.

I am much less depressed about the book though, which does seem to be getting along far better if slowly. I have changed the literary form.

A red writing case came for you here this morning, will I pay for it £6 or so and what do you want done with it. Kept?

The posts must be very bad between here and Teheran if you didn't get my letter, but of course the first week after my arrival back in the country was so fraught with anxiety that I didn't get one off before.

Elizabeth Simson. If she drives you mad which she plainly does, imagine what she'd do to me. I might even become a homicidal maniac.

Did you meet up with Roger the Lodger?
²⁸⁸

love, B

Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 6 November 1970

 

Dear E.,

It's all very well you complaining about no news, but I have no idea as to how fast you are travelling. You are a. miles behind schedule but b. failed to get my letter in Teheran. Yet today we have one quick as lightning from Afghanistan. I don't know, so you'll now have to put up with a boring succession of correspondence in Delhi.

All is well enough; the house has been filled this weekend with Linda's friends including Japanese. The Hodgkins and Kasmin and Tomlinsons are coming tomorrow night. I have met some rather nice people called Roberts who are relations of yours in a way I cannot fathom. Iselins as usual, but they are as county English as you can imagine. The girl hunted with the Genesee Hunt but was not available for cross-questioning. I am going to exercise their hunters once or twice a week in Cirencester Park and have become quite horsey, stamping around the house in riding boots. Would you like to write to me to tell me what to do about the Forest and Orchard Nurseries, and whether they are to plant the beech hedge. If they come don't you think they might as well tidy up a bit. Fred
²⁸⁹
is far too busy with the transformations at the Bowlbys'
²⁹⁰
and you know my horror of turning the sod. Might plant a tree or two, but that's my limit. Miranda [Rothschild] after endless procrastination seems to have bought a very pretty 17th Century house in Cheyne Row (the p-a-and s of this typewriter are giving out causing me endless pain and fury). What am I to do?

. . . Teddy [Millington-Drake] and John [Stefanidis] came for lunch. I cooked deliciously but
naturally
neither were hungry. ‘Fancy serving haricot beans with lamb. Fancy!'

When you are in Delhi will you please make
detailed
enquiries about the following. The North-West Frontier Province, Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, and Ladakh. I will quite definitely want to go into the high Himalaya in the spring, and that's that. I simply can't think of it at the moment to make plans, but I want any amount of gratuitous information. I want to write a very specific travel diary about it to publish, but I do not have to have a camera with me if that is the obstacle as I fear it may be with the frontier problem. Is there any literature available. Also can you find out for me the name of the man who arranges expeditions with sherpas in Nepal?

Imagine my horror when
Vogue
proofs came back with the title changed to ITS A NOMAD NOMAD NOMAD WORLD. Jesus what horrors editors. Am tackling the Jews in the book, god what a nasty lot! Everywhere the smell of singeing flesh. Do you mind if I sell the Green Man to buy an Eskimo seal coming up in Sotheby's. His eyes have been haunting me for the past two weeks as seals' eyes do. Bloody typewriter collapsing as I write. I hate typewriters.

Love B

Notice came that £200 or so was deposited by Mellon
²⁹¹
to your Bank.

Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 15 November 1970

 

Dear E.,

I have your letters from Delhi today, which is also if I recall correctly your birthday
²⁹²
though I am not very good about remembering things like that. In any event the anniversary of your birth has been marked by a ceremonial planting – Holwell farm now has a
Salicetrium
and you can guess what that is till you return.
²⁹³
It has also been graced by a beech hedge, which I have had put inside the apple trees, and it looks and is far nicer than if it were outside the apple trees. The back has also been graced by a mixed planting of spurges, hostas, White Buddleia, pale pink clematis, Rosa brunonii and it will be absolutely charming.

There is a creature called David Hann who is supposed to be coming to work in the garden. I have sold a coin of Euthydemus to Hon R[obert Erskine] to pay for same. I think he may say that a very firm hand ought to be taken with the cross paths etc. in order to eradicate the weeds. In the yard is a ziggurat of reddish topsoil of the finest quality, because at 40/ – per ton I said they might just as well bring five tons and three for the hedge.

You will have to admit that my instincts about P[enelope] were fully justified. Eccentricity carried to that extent is egomania, and not particularly interesting. John B[etjeman] is having her letter describing the rape photostatted and circulated, so Jim L[ees]-M[ilne] told me.

Phone rings at 8am brightly yesterday. Sally [Westminster] inviting herself to lunch. And last night I was at Keith [Steadman]'s to meet the Garnetts
²⁹⁴
when Derek [Hill] rang saying he had something vital to talk to me about, the worst possible news, something really serious had happened. For some reason I could not sleep and when I did I dreamed horrible nightmares of Derek and the Andy Garnetts in a futuristic house. This morning too at 8-30 Derek in a funereal voice, spent five minutes telling me how serious and terrible the situation was without telling me what it was.

It seems that Faber's have turned his Morocco book down unless D[erek] manages to produce £8000 to cover the printing costs. Did
I
know a foundation who would put up the money. What I did not say was that D[erek]'s photos are so atrocious that it would be a miracle if any publisher looked at them with or without the £8000. Anyhow I suggested the Mellon Foundation, and much cheered he said he would write AT ONCE to Bunny Mellon, and of course etc. etc. she'd do everything to help being such a close friend. I am afraid that was the cruellest thing possible because poor Mrs Mellon if she has any sense will say no and there will be an embarrassing scene and a broken friendship (by whom?). The simple fact remains that it is unpublishable. Why are all one's friends lunatics?

Charles T[omlinson] came to dinner with the Hodgkins and Kasmin the other night, and the morning before Charles appeared with his latest monotypes, which I like in a way as they have a certain quality. Would I mind hanging them in the drawing room so that Kasmin etc might take a look, and possibly have an exhibition etc. etc? Really quite dotty because the Kasmin Gallery only goes in for Candy stripes twenty feet long, and not black blodges 2⅔ by 3¼ in.