‘I’m quitting,’ I said, deliberately using the American term.
‘No, you’re not. I won’t accept it.’
‘It’s not up to you. I’m going back to London.’
I think he was genuinely shocked — he hadn’t remotely expected this.
‘Don’t do anything rash,’ he said.
‘This is the opposite of rash. How I was living before was rash.’
‘Take a vacation. I’ll think of something. Don’t worry.’
‘I don’t need you to think of anything, Cleve, for once in your life,’ I said, feeling myself sag inside and my love for him well up, unbidden, unwanted. The man who could think of something. Who could think of anything. No.
I stood up and offered my hand, not confident of being able to speak without my voice breaking — and there was a secretary just outside the door. He took my hand in both of his and squeezed.
‘Amory. . I’ll work something out. This isn’t finished. Call me when you get back home. I’ll come over to London and see you.’ He mouthed, silently: I love you. I love you.
‘Goodbye, Cleve.’ I dropped my voice to a whisper to cover up the emotion. ‘I really did love you as well, for a while.’
*
THE BARRANDALE JOURNAL 1977
I lied to my sister, Dido. I did sleep with a woman, once. It was Constanze Auger in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1934, though I’m convinced now that the whole thing was set up by Hanna. We had arrived in Guadalajara and had found a small, clean hotel — with running, drinkable water, electric light — when all of a sudden Hanna had to go to the German consulate in Mexico City to sort out a problem with a residency permit, or some such bureaucratic muddle, and she’d be away for a couple of days.
So Constanze and I were left on our own in the hotel — the misnamed Emporia Paradiso — waiting for Hanna to return, thrust together. We were perfectly at ease in each other’s company — the roles we occupied on our adventure south of the border were clearly defined. However, as the first day wore on it seemed to me that I was just a listening post — Constanze talked constantly, passionately, about this book she and Hanna were going to create (with a little help from me, perhaps). It was a bit manic but I couldn’t recognise true mania, then.
The first night she knocked on my door and I thought, oh God, not more monologuing, but before I could switch on the light, she shucked off her cotton pyjamas and slipped into my bed. We kissed — her tongue touched mine. There is always an animal instinct of arousal that flares up instantly when two human beings, of whatever sex, find themselves naked and pressed up against each other in the confines of a bed in the darkness of a room. Whatever you may be thinking — no, not for me, thanks — the close proximity of a warm unclothed body activates different triggers. It may not last long, this surge of atavistic lust, but it makes itself known very quickly. Constanze and I kept on kissing. She nuzzled at my breasts, I ran my hands down her back and squeezed her buttocks. She was incredibly flat-chested, like an adolescent girl, little mounds with nipples, and to me it felt like being in bed with a tall lithe boy (one key component missing) and I felt that sex-urge. Perhaps something might have happened but suddenly she asked for the light to be switched on, pinched one of my American cigarettes and lay beside me, smoking, and began talking about her book and her new doubts that Hanna was the right photographer to fulfil the ambitions she had for it, as if the last few minutes had never taken place at all. As I lay there, bemused, all excitement draining from me — I had lit a cigarette myself — I wondered if I was being offered the job as attendant photographer to the Constanze caravan. Nein danke, Constanze. .
Then she said she felt incredibly tired, kissed me goodnight, put on her pyjamas and left. Hanna, returning the next day, asked me, as soon as we found ourselves alone, if Constanze and I had slept together. I said yes, sort of.
‘She’s very aggressive in that way, Constanze,’ Hanna said, thoughtfully, unperturbed. ‘Because we — you and me — have known each other in Berlin she wanted you — for herself.’
‘Well, she didn’t get me.’
Hanna then began to outline her plans. Mexico City was no longer on our route, it transpired — we were going to head down to Costa Rica instead and find somewhere to stay in San José. I let her chat on, half listening. Then Constanze joined us, kissing me affectionately, almost possessively, on the forehead — as an aunt would kiss a favourite niece — something she’d never done before. And I knew — at once — that I had to leave these two to their complex, unfathomable relationship and go back to London. There was nothing for me here any more — I was an adjunct, a toy, a spur for emotional skirmishes I had no desire to participate in. New York was over and the Hanna/Constanze voyage through Latin America was destined to end in some fraught crisis — I felt absolutely certain. It was time to discreetly make an exit; time to reposition my life on its old trajectory again.
BOOK FOUR: 1934–1943
1. BLACKSHIRTS
I WOKE VERY EARLY those summer mornings in London — the dawn light seemed to arrive around 5 a.m. and, once more, for the hundredth time, sleep despatched, I resolved to replace my filmy flower-print curtains with something more opaque and tenebrous. I used to toss about under the sheet, punch the pillows, and try to go back to sleep but never with any success. So — it was tumble out of bed, haul on dressing gown, plod into kitchen, set kettle on stove, light gas ring beneath it and let the day begin.
I was living in Chelsea now, on the King’s Road, in a small flat on the top floor of a building halfway between the town hall and Paultons Square. Beneath me was a maisonette rented by the writer Wellbeck Faraday and his American wife, May, a sculptress, and beneath them was a shop, an ironmonger’s. The Faradays went to bed very late, always well after midnight, and loudly so. When I woke early I was careful to pad about in slippers or bare feet — not to wake them — because I liked the Faradays. They liked me too, I think, as they were always inviting me to dinner to meet their friends but I kept my distance to a certain extent, pleading pressure of work. They led a complicated life (who doesn’t?). May Faraday had a studio in Fulham and while she was out all day Wellbeck would receive visitors — mainly female. May used to ask me, when we were alone, if anyone came while she was out but I always pleaded ignorance. They had sublet the top-floor flat to me so were effectively my landlords and I wanted them to cherish me as the ideal tenant.
I sat quietly in my small kitchen and made myself a pot of tea and watched the sun begin to irradiate the tops of the plane trees on Dovehouse Green. I ate a slightly stale Bath bun that I found in the bread bin and returned to my bedroom to choose my outfit for the day. The Global-Photo-Watch office was in Shoe Lane off Fleet Street where the staff consisted solely of me and my secretary, Faith Postings, but, as I was deemed and titled the ‘manager’, I felt — for some perverse reason — that I should dress for the role and always tried to look smart. As my mother would say — you never know whom you might meet; always best to step off on the front foot — and many other homilies. This morning I selected a two-piece beige jumper suit in a ripple knit with a plain chocolate-coloured blouse with a bow at the neck. Cleve had insisted I had expenses for my clothing and so I’d taken him at his word. My cupboard was bulging but I felt a bit of a fraud: this wasn’t truly me, this ‘manager’.