Any Human Heart (63 page)

Through a gap in the trees of the park I can see the blond grass of the meadow — turned quite yellow under the sun like the waters of the old River Plate — and the dark green of the oak woods, offset beyond, the trees so densely leafed that they seem to billow out over the sun-bleached yellow grass like smoke or waves. And, closer to, the sharp clarity of the sunlight on the bushes and the creeper around the house is perfect: the perfect balance of leaf-shadow, leaf-shine and leaf-translucence — absolutely correct, as if worked out by mathematical formulae to provide the ideal visual stimulus. Down by the barn a thick patch of thistle is in seed and the wandering breeze snatches the thistle-down and lifts it skyward in small urgent flurries — backlit by the sun so that the down seems to sparkle and gleam like mica or sequins — so much so that it looks like photons of light are taking to the air, flying upwards — rising upwards, blowing away across the meadow — like what? — like glow worms, like lucent moths.

Too nice a day to stay inside. I shall choose an old familiar book and go and read in a deckchair in the cool blue shade of the big chestnut tree. I woke this morning with a transient old man’s erection. I was dreaming, I think, of that naked girl who walked by me on the beach. My dreams are so vivid these nights that I wake in the morning blinking, dazed and exhausted from my encounters with my unconscious life, wondering who and where I am. So this morning I took hold of myself, pleased to be so stiff, so virile, if only for half a minute or so. Life in the old dog. Life — still living, pleased to have managed to live in every decade of this long benighted century. What a time I’ve had —
quel parcours,
as the French say. I think a drink is called for. Yes, absolutely — I will open a chill bottle of white wine and take it out and sit under the big chestnut and drink a toast to Logan Mountstuart. Every decade. All my ups and downs. My personal rollercoaster. Not so much a rollercoaster — a rollercoaster’s too smooth — a yo-yo, rather — a jerking, spinning toy in the hands of a maladroit child, more like, trying too hard, too impatiently eager to learn how to operate his new yo-yo.

1 This places the entry in the summer of 1987. LMS had a telephone installed in March.

2 Dried shoots from vines that are pruned in the winter and gathered into faggots. Excellent for starting fires and for summer barbecues.

3 September?

4 Compiled from newspaper reports and the transcript of Benoit Verdel’s trial. [LMS’s note]

Logan Mountstuart died of a heart attack on 5 October 1991 — he was eighty-five years old. His heart was not receiving enough oxygen because it was not being allowed its regular flow of blood, as one or more of his coronary arteries had become blocked (they are called ‘coronary’ because these vessels encircle the top of the heart like a crown). Starved of blood, his heart muscle, and its rhythm, broke down and Logan Mountstuart’s life ended.

He was discovered towards the end of the day by Jean-Robert Stefanelli, who had come to Cinq Cyprès with the gift of a basket of apples. Receiving no answer at the door, Jean-Robert went around to the rear of the house. There he saw the deckchair under the chestnut tree and beside it a half-drunk bottle of white wine in an ice bucket and an open book, cover-side up (it was the
Collected Plays
of Anton Chekhov). The ice in the ice bucket had melted, and Jean-Robert realized that something was amiss. Wandering around, he soon discovered LMS, dead, face down on the grass beside a corner of the barn where there was a large clump of thistles. He noticed that LMS’s cat was not far away, curled up on a stone, watching everything intently.

Logan Mountstuart was buried in the graveyard of the village of Sainte-Sabine. His grave can be found in the north-east corner of the graveyard. He had made provision for a gravestone: a simple black granite rectangle set in the ground, it reads:

LOGAN GONZAGO MOUNTSTUART

1906-1991

Escritor

Writer

Écrivain

In his will he left the house, Cinq Cyprès, to Mrs Gail Sherwin. She, her husband and their two children spend some weeks there each summer. A search of the property was carried out after his death by his cousin Lucy Sansom (who had been willed LMS’s library and manuscripts). No trace of the novel
Octet
was found. Jean-Robert Stefanelli remembers helping LMS build a bonfire a week before he died. ‘He burnt many papers,’ Stefanelli recalls. ‘For an old man he seemed very well, and very happy.’ There were no obituaries.

The Mind’s Imaginings

The Girl Factory

The Cosmopolitans

The Villa by the Lake

Any Human Heart: The Intimate Journals of Logan Mountstuart

This is not an Exit: Essays on Art and Literature (in preparation)

Abaco, 239

Abbeyhurst College (Abbey), 10; 13-61,

passim
; reminiscing about, 213; its appalling food, 412

Abstract Expressionism, 301; 367

Ada
, by Vladimir Nabokov, LMS reads, 455

Adrar, Sheila, takes over agency from Wallace Douglas, 378; sacked by LMS, 397

age of consent (New York State),370

Alberti, Caspar, and art-collection fraud, 328-9

Aldeburgh, Norfolk, LMS’s summer rental at, 206

Algeria, background to Peter Scabius’s novel, 324

Andros, 239

Anglophobia, 309; 316

Angry Brigade, the, John Vivian’s links with, 426

Annasdottir, Katrin, 282; as sexual fantasy, 287

Arlen, Michael, 53

artrevue
(magazine), LMS becomes chief book reviewer, 163

Ash, Preston, shares Oxford lodgings with LMS, 100; talks about Oxford with LMS, 103-4; golfs with LMS, 105

Atkinson Morley neuro-psychiatric hospital, Wimbledon, 301

Auden, W. H.,308

autobiography, LMS plans his, 427

auto-eroticism, 287

Baader, Andreas, found guilty of terrorism, 428 ' n.; suicide, 448

Baader-Meinhof Gang, links with SPK, 426; verdict on at Stammheim, 428 ' n.; and Mogadishu raid, 447

Bad Riegerbach, Austria, 31; Easter vacation at, 47-52

Bahamas, Duke of Windsor appointed Governor, 217

Baldwin, Stanley, death of, 289 ' n.

Balliol College, Oxford, its superior food, 65

Barcelona, LMS visits (1936), described, 179; second visit (1937), LMS notes changes, 187

Barkasian, Peter, Nat Tate’s stepfather, LMS meets, 320; reaction to Nat Tate’s suicide, 348-9

Barker, John, Miami detective, 244; his incompetence, 248

Barrowsmith (school contemporary), 13; congratulates LMS, 46

‘Bay Street Boys’, 232

BBC, employer of Freya Deverell, 158; LMS gives talk at, 212; Spanish language service of, 222; in Nigeria, 385

Bel Air Hotel, Los Angeles, described, 350

Bennett, Arnold, 53

Biarritz, LMS meets Dick Hodge there, 81; holiday with Freya Deverell, 165; fantasy about, 223

Birmingham, 9-10; return, 251

Boca do Inferno, villa where Duke of Windsor stayed, 215; 220

Bookbinder, Lulu, makes pass at LMS, 234

Borg Hotel, Reykjavik, 282

Bowra, Maurice, 67 & n.

‘Bowser’, LMS’s dog, acquired, 454; his death and LMS’s grief, 480

Boyd, William, his book on Nat Tate, 337n.

Brasserie Lipp, 291

Braque, Georges, 337

British Colonial Hotel, Nassau, 230

Brown, Geddes, meets LMS at the Fothergills’, 128; in Paris, 135; in Biarritz, 165

Brownwell, Tina, LMS meets, 422; contribution to The Situation, 429

Brugosova, Anna Nickolaevna (prostitute), LMS’s obsession with, 110-12; LMS confides in, 118; followed

home by LMS, 123; her mysterious disappearance, 133-4

Buback, Siegfried, assassinated by Red Army Faction, 427 n.

Bucknell, Dunn & Weiss, LMS’s US publishers, 306

Byrne, Dr John Francis, LMS’s New York psychiatrist, 330-32; analyses LMS’s sexual fantasies, 338; 368

Campo 33, Certosa, Italy, 273

Café Flore, 291

Camus, Albert, 389

Canthaler, Marcio and Martin, option
The Villa by the Lake
, 350; meeting with LMS, 351; dissatisfied with LMS’s script, 354

Cassell, Lord Angus, at Abbey, 56; at Oxford, 66; at drunken party, 76; invites LMS shooting, 114; staying with Dick Hodge in Scotland, 127; best man at LMS’s wedding, 145; source of royal gossip, 167; asks LMS if he wants to join White’s Club, 182; anger at LMS, fights with LΜS, 197

Cedar Tavern, New York, atmosphere, 311; 320

Chekhov, Anton, 321; 489

Chew, Flight-Sergeant (LMS’s dropping officer), 259; his loquacity, 260; 277

Christie, Harold, described, 242

Churchill, Winston, 221 & n.; 237; 242

Cinq Cyprès, Sainte-Sabine, LMS’s house, described, 445; renovation of, 453; left to Gail Rule, 490

Clampitt, Paul, 322

Clay, Esmé (actress), 64 & n.

Clay, Siegfried, at Garsington, 98-9 & n.

Clough, Tess, 23; Peter Scabius’s description of, 28; banned from seeing Scabius, 46; meets Scabius at Ringford, 59-60; arrives in Oxford (Islip), 69-70; kisses LMS, 88; begins affair with LMS, 92-3; affair ends, 94; meets LMS in Oxford, 105; marries Scabius, 121; writes to LMS about Scabius’s infidelities, 204; death by drowning, 207

Coghill, Nevill, at Oxford, possible tutor for LMS, 91 & n.

Coin, Norbert, 455

Connolly, Cyril, as LMS’s Chelsea neighbour, 129; 130 & n.; dines with LΜS, 131; meets LΜS in Café Royal, 171; object of Virginia Woolf’s disdain, 171; in Barcelona, 180; 482

Cordato, Cesare di, Gloria Ness-Smith’s second husband, 361; death, 379 & n.

Cornelia Street, Greenwich Village, LMS’s apartment, 304

Cornwallis, the, LMS’s local pub, 402

Cosmopolitans, The,
LMS’s third book, LMS chooses title, 136; researches, 142; difficulties in writing, 152; finished and delivered, 172; published, 177; reviewed, 183; continued success in France, 206; 456

Cosmopolites, Les, 134n.; LMS’s growing interest in, 136; decision to write book about, 136-7

Crane, Hart, his poem
The Bridge
, 317 & n.; significance of his suicide and Nat Tate’s, 349

Cunard, Lady Emerald, invites LMS to party, 132 & n.

Danfodio Road, no. 3, LMS’s house in Nigeria, described, 381; LMS’s unhappiness at leaving, 393

Darker, Constable Joseph, meets LMS during General Strike, 95; invites LMS to tea, 125-6; tells LMS of his wife’s death, 165

Darwin, Ned, LMS’s dislike of, 414; leaves hospital, 417

Dead Souls,
Gogol’s novel, LMS’s son’s band, 354

de Kooning, Willem, 301; LMS admires, 306 de Marigny, Alfred, 236; prime suspect in Oakes’s murder, 243; arrested for murder, 246; acquitted, 253

Deverell, Freya, LMS’s second wife, first meeting, 156-7; dinner with LMS in Lisbon, 158; courted by LMS, 160; sexual relations with LMS, 161; affair with LMS under way, 164; with LMS in Biarritz, 165-8; moves into Draycott Avenue, 168; holidays in Greece with LMS, 173; reaction to discovery of affair by LMS’s wife, 186; helps LMS in divorce proceedings, 198; marriage to LMS, 199; becomes pregnant, 199; birth of daughter, Stella, 204; takes up reading duties at Sprymont & Drew, 223; visited by Vanderpoel, 277; believes LMS is dead, 277; meets Gunnarson, 278; pregnant by Gunnarson, 278; her death, 278; LMS inconsolable over, 297; LMS’s continued sense of loss, 401; lasting grief over, 460

Deverell, George, Freya’s father, 285-6

Deverell, Robin, Freya’s brother, 285

Diebenkorn, Richard, 351

Dielendorfer, Frau, 47; cuisine of, 49

Dieudonné, Cyprien, poet, LMS meets in Paris, 134 & n.; dines with LMS, 136; visited by LMS in Quercy, 142; in Biarritz with LMS, 165; grateful for the success of
The Cosmopolitans
, 206; awarded
Légion d’honneur, 323;
leaves house to LMS, 410 & n.

dog food, LMS’s taste for, 419

Doig, Father, RC priest, 26; disappointment at Ben Leeping’s appearance, 31; confronts LMS about Leeping’s sincerity, 42

Douglas, Wallace, LMS’s agent, first meeting, 117; does deal on
The Girl Factory
, 132; LMS stays with, 152; arranges journalism assignment in Spain, 153; encourages writing of second novel, 170; sells
The Villa by the Lake,
306; retires from agency, 378; 397

Draycott Avenue, Chelsea, site for LMS’s second London flat, 159

Duggan, Alfred, 70 & n.

Dulles, Allan, head of OSS, 266; 271

Dupetit, Gabrielle, moves into La Sapinière, 462; invites LMS to drinks, 463; LMS visits La Sapinière, 465; LMS’s sexual attraction towards, 466; plots with LMS to catch vandals, 474; shame and departure, 477-8

Edgbaston, Birmingham, LMS’s dislike of, 16; return during war, 254

Edgefield, Aelthred, Earl of, LMS’s first father-in-law, 114; allowance paid to LMS, 159; his opinion on the abdication crisis, 184

Edgefield, Enid, Countess of, LMS’s first mother-in-law, description, 114

Edgefield, Lady Laeticia (Lottie), Angus Cassell’s sister, LMS’s first wife, first meeting, 115; staying with Dick Hodge in Scotland, 127; meets LMS in Scotland again, 143; accepts LMS’s proposal of marriage, 143; on honeymoon with LMS, 145; informs LMS she is pregnant, 148; birth of son, Lionel, 150; her spendthriftiness, 162; arranges thirtieth birthday dance for LMS, 176; discovers LMS’s affair with Freya Deverell, 185-6; divorce from LMS, 198

Edward VIII,
see
Duke of Windsor

Eisenhower, Dwight D., elected President, 317 & n.

Elie, Fife, 281

Eliot, T. S., LMS reads
The Waste Land
, 53; similarity to Wallace Douglas, 117; on losing teeth, 404

Exumas, Bahamas, 237