‘So, they took the negatives as well,’ I said, soberly, upset.
‘What could I do? I had to give them something. They’d have turned the place upside down.’ He closed his eyes and smoothed his smooth hair down and said, still with his eyes closed, ‘There’s only so much scandal a career can take, Amory. I’m associated with you. I can’t let it go on. People will—’
‘It’s all right,’ I interrupted, flatly. ‘I understand.’
‘I did keep the contact sheets. At least there’s a record of sorts.’
He felt guilty, I knew, as he looked them out and handed them to me in a stiff-backed brown envelope. Then he wrote me out a cheque for the fine — he insisted. I was still in his debt, however angry and frustrated I was.
‘Well, it sort of worked,’ he said with an apologetic half-smile. ‘At least everyone knows your name, now.’
‘Oh, yes. The vile, depraved, immoral Amory Clay. . It was your idea, Greville, not mine,’ I added, a little petulantly, I admit.
‘Well, the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley, as the poet said. Could have worked a treat.’
Then Bruno returned with Greville’s briefcase and so I made my farewells. We kissed at the door and Greville mentioned that there was some grand ball coming up in Yorkshire that he’d need extra help for, if I were interested. He’d telephone with the details — might be amusing. Lively crowd. It was a gesture, a pretence that life would continue as it had before, but we both knew, I think, that the old feeling, the old camaraderie, had gone. I made the mistake, as I walked away down the mews, of turning and waving goodbye with the envelope containing my contact sheets — the only extant record of Berlin bei Nacht in the world. I’m sure he thought it was my parting shot.
Three nights later at a dull restaurant in Kensington (the Huntsman’s Halt), over brandies and coffee, Arthur Lowther took my hand and asked me, a catch in his voice, to become his wife. After I had succeeded in masking my total shock I said no, as politely as I was able to manage: no I’m afraid it wouldn’t be possible, I’m terribly sorry, no, and left as swiftly as I could.
Back in my flat in Fulham I sat staring at the three contact sheets of my Berlin photographs, my mind veering erratically between the first proposal of marriage I’d received and the technical problems arising from the use of a rostrum camera with sufficient magnification to take a good photograph of a tiny ungraded photograph, when the telephone rang. I had an awful feeling it would be Arthur encouraging me to take my time, not to rush to a decision. Bracing myself, I picked up the receiver.
‘Oh. Hello, Mr Finzi.’
‘I read about your trial in The Times. Commiserations.’
‘Thank you. But it was hardly a trial. I pleaded guilty.’
‘That was the right thing to do. But, you know, I think you should look on it as a sign.’
‘A sign of what?’ I reached for a box of cigarettes, opened it, selected one of the two cigarettes remaining and lit it. I was enjoying hearing Cleveland Finzi’s calm American accent — he sounded even more sure of himself, if such a thing were possible.
‘A sign of my stupidity?’ I asked, exhaling.
‘It’s a sign that you had done something significant. Your photographs shocked people. They had an effect. How often can any photographer say that in today’s modern world?’
‘I’ll try to console myself with that thought.’
‘What’re you going to do now, Miss Clay?’
‘You mean before I commit suicide?’
‘There’s no hurry. You can do that any time. Ever been to New York?’
‘No.’
‘Would you like to go?’
‘One day, perhaps. Yes.’
‘Before you commit suicide.’
‘Obviously. Ha-ha.’
There was a silence, then he said: ‘What if I offer you a job? Would that lure you over?’
I felt that heart-lurch, throat-closure. I drew deep on my cigarette.
‘Well. . Maybe,’ I said, carefully, sensing implications, expectations — a future — suddenly crowding round me.
‘Two hundred a month. What do you say?’
‘Two hundred what?’
‘Dollars.’
Images from Berlin bei Nacht (now lost). Girls from the Xanadu-Club, Berlin, 1931.
THE BARRANDALE JOURNAL 1977
Today is Xan’s birthday. He would have been sixty-one. Poor Xan. I searched for his book of poems and found it and read the poem he’d dedicated to me. It made me cry and I hate crying, now.
The Anti-cliché (for Amory)
We were
tropical
opposites,
Capricorn and
Cancer,
diametrically aligned.
But
life is a
vertiginous
elevated railroad.
Timor mortis
has us both
in its
pincer-like
grip.
We cling on
for dear
existence,
fearful of the
undignified isolation
of death,
the long
hello.
BOOK THREE: 1932–1934
1. AMERICANA
1 JANUARY 1934. I woke very early, for some reason, as if I wanted to kick-start the beginning of this particular year, set it off and running with due energy as soon as possible. I slipped out of bed and dressed. The morning light was dull and tarnished — that hint of jaundice in the air that presages snow. I pulled on my heavy tweed coat and stepped out. My apartment — ground floor at the rear — was on Washington Square South in Greenwich Village. Consisting of a long corridor that linked sitting room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, the place was dark, apart from the bedroom that overlooked a small yard containing a tall slim ailanthus tree — all for $15 a month.
I headed over to ‘365’ on West 8th Street to buy cigarettes. ‘365’ was not the number of the store’s address but a signal that it opened every day, even on New Year’s Day. When I arrived there, Achilles, the owner, was sliding back the concertina grille on the street door. Across the road a Chinese boy was sweeping the steps of a chop-suey house. The Village was stirring, the year was under way.
Achilles was a stocky, bow-legged man with a permanent white corpse-stubble on his chin and jaw.
‘A happy new year, Miss Amory,’ he said, leading me into the store, effectively a wide long corridor off the street, shelved on both sides with a counter at the end. Flypaper spiralled from the moulded tin ceiling. There was a sign above the counter that said ‘We sell everything apart from liquor’.
I asked for a pack of Pall Malls for me — a little gesture to London in New York — and a pack of Camels for Cleveland. As I was Achilles’ first customer of 1934 I decided to be a good augury and bought some more items at random: a box of Rinso, some Wheat Krumbles and a bag of cinnamon buns.
‘And I’ll take some Alka-Seltzer,’ I said.
‘Partying last night?’
‘No, no. Early to bed. I’ve got a friend coming round for some lunch.’
‘A friend who smokes Camels, I’m guessing. A true hostess. I know you likes the Pall Malls, Miss Amory.’
We chatted on. I took strange pleasure in being known in my neighbourhood, as if I was settled here for a while, as if it gave my life a semblance of normality — that being here in this city was something I had planned, not simply something that had happened to me.