The collected stories (71 page)

As an encore that night he read a long poem, called 'Londoners,' about Americans in London, starting with Emerson and Hawthorne and ending with himself. In between, there were references to Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, and Henry James. The personal note was struck in such sentences as 'Torn Eliot told me-' and 'Cal Lowell used to drawl -' Afterward, he said the poem was about language and culture. With a characteristic flourish, he added, 'and schizophrenia.'

What I have written so far will not be news to anyone who has followed the career of Walter Van Bellamy. He was a public man; the facts are well known - but wait: it is the public men who have the darkest secrets. They have the deepest cellars and hottest attics, and they are consoled by blindness and locked doors. It is impossible to guess at what truly animates these people whose surfaces we seem to know so well, and there is nothing in the world harder to know than the private life of a public man.

The London Embassy had tried to cultivate Bellamy. We needed him. He had a powerful eminence among the writers in London -partly tor being American and partly because his present wife was a patroness. She was .in irascible Englishwoman who, for tax reasons (ah, the resourceful English aristocracy! , held an American passport.

In the previous ten years Bellamy had signed petitions condemning our intervention in Vietnam and our arming small Central American countries: about our decision to build a neutron bomb

5 ;i

THE EXILE

- and more: public matters. Of course we needed his criticism, but it was unhelpful, not to say humiliating, to get it publicly. I had told Horton that I hoped there was a friendly way of gaining Bellamy's confidence. It occurred to me at the poetry reading that in another age a man like Bellamy might have chosen to be a diplomat. Even today the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, chose poets as their cultural attaches and the Mexicans had recently sent one of their most distinguished writers to be Ambassador to France. Bellamy could, I thought, teach us a great deal. There were too few men at the London Embassy who were willing to criticize policy decisions - they felt their jobs were at stake. That sort of thing wouldn't bother Bellamy. He had a reputation as a humane poet-philosopher; he also had a private income. I felt that someone like Bellamy might keep us from making stupid mistakes. And it would certainly be a very good thing for our image in Britain if Bellamy chose to associate himself with us, for there was no question but that British intellectuals regarded our London Embassy as a stronghold of corrosive philistines, reactionaries, anti-Communists, and America Firsters - a nest of spies. Bellamy would be a good corrective.

True, he was a little unpredictable. He had been something of a prodigy; he had published while still very young and had attracted the notice of the really eminent - Robert Frost and Eliot and Pound. He had gained laureate status while still in his forties. Now, at sixty-three, and nearly always in the public eye - 'the most visible poet since Yeats' he had been called - he qualified as a bard. He was a complicated man - confused, vain, too many sleeping pills, too much wine - but he wrote like an angel. I was sure of it. I could never understand why no one remembered the lines of his poems - I don't know why I was unable to recall a single line. But, then, who can quote Ezra Pound?

When the reading - this Poetry Night - was over, Bellamy walked off the stage and was mobbed by people asking for autographs. I noticed that few people addressed him directly. They stood shyly, offering him his books, which were open to the flyleaf. He signed them without saying a word. The group around him was reverential. Out of politeness - but it might have been fear - they kept their distance and even averted their eyes as, not speaking, Bellamy scrawled his name in various editions of his books. When he was finished he saw me.

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (il): THE LONDON EMBASSY

Our height was all the introduction we required. Tall people often find themselves talking to perfect strangers, merely because the stranger is also tall. Tallness is like a special racial attribute.

Bellamy spoke over the heads of his admirers: 'I think we've met before.'

'At an American Embassy reception,' I said. 'Months ago.'

'Yes,' he said and came over and shook my hand. 'I remember you well.'

His eyes were unsteady and his hair had the look of having been combed by someone other than himself. In his wincing, round-shouldered way he seemed wounded or drunk, but he was more likely just very tired after two solid hours on the stage.

'How is your wife?' he said.

'I think you have someone else in mind,' I said. 'I'm not married. I'm the man from Boston. Excuse me, that didn't sound right!'

Bellamy said, 'Is she still writing poems?'

He had not heard me, and he had mistaken me for Vic Scaduto, whose wife wrote poems - or at least she said she did.

'Not married,' I said, shaking my head.

'So am I,' he said. 'I was just leaving - why don't you come along?'

His tone was neutral, but this was the strangest thing about Bellamy. At a distance he was very friendly, but the closer you got to him the cooler he became. Giving a lecture or a reading, Bellamy had a very warm intimate tone; in public he was relaxed; but face to face, like this, he was deaf and almost completely indifferent. This I am sure will be news to many of his fans.

I followed him outside, not certain that I was really wanted.

He said, 'Have you eaten?'

'No.' But I was not particularly hungry. 'I don't want to intrude. We can meet some other time. You must be tired after your reading.'

'Time to eat,' he said. He waved a taxi toward us. 'You haven't eaten. You may as well come along. After you.'

It was off-hand, as plainly spoken as I have written it, not really an invitation but rather a nod to the inevitable. We rode in silence for a while.

I said, 'I don't feel right about this.'

it's dinnertime/ Bellamy said. 'Too bad about your wife.'

The wife-business had taken hold of him, but I had no idea what

THE EXILE

he was imagining. It seemed a ludicrous trip in this taxi, for the fact was that I did not want to go with him, and he probably did not want me along either - and yet here we were on our way to a restaurant. I wasn't even hungry!

It was Wilton's in Bury Street - expensive, English, dark brown, and joyless. Emma, Bellamy's wife - the third - was waiting for him at the table inside the restaurant. With her were the Poulters, man and wife. I recognized the name instantly.

'Like the mustard?' I asked.

Poulter's English Mustard had a green and yellow label, and an unforgettable royal warrant: By Appointment to HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, with her gold crest. I often stared at this label and tried to imagine the Queen Mother painting Poulter's mustard on a royal sausage.

Mr Poulter said, 'I am the mustard.'

It was clear, from the way Poulter had stood up and shown Walter Van Bellamy his chair and called the waiter over for a fresh drinks order, that he was the host. Poulter was paying. I had no business there.

Bellamy said, 'For God's sake, sit down!'

But they were one chair short. They had not expected me.

Poulter was tactful. He urged me to take his chair. This proved embarrassing. I sat and left Mr Poulter, the host, standing. Every other diner in the restaurant was seated. I quickly stood up again and offered him my seat.

Bellamy turned his back on us. He was drinking wine and - his hand shook badly - spilling it.

Mrs Poulter's hair arrangement was bright mahogany and so shiny and stiff it looked shellacked. She became suddenly flustered and said, 'There seems to be something wrong. There are too many people. Norman, there's one too many!'

And Mr Poulter said, 'No, no. Our friend here' - he beckoned a waiter over - 'will get us another chair.'

The table in the cubbyhole was still set for four, and, worse, it was designed for four, so throughout the meal the discomfort reminded me that Bellamy had had no right to bring me there and make me an unwelcome guest.

Bellamy did not explain my presence to the Poulters. For a time he spoke to the waiter, who did nothing but listen and agree ('Thar needs saying, sir!'). Emma spoke to Norman Poulter about the

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (il): THE LONDON EMBASSY

treachery of postmen, and I spoke to Mrs Poulter about the weather in Indonesia.

The table jolted - Bellamy was shifting position. He stared at me and said, 'Learn of the green world what can be thy place.'

'I suppose that's good advice,' I said.

'Pull down thy vanity,' he said.

'Excuse me?'

'But to have done instead of not doing,' he said. 'This is not vanity.'

'No-'

'Here, error is all in the not done,' he said, 'all in the diffidence that faltered.'

The others, hearing this, had fallen silent and were watching me. Bellamy was smiling broadly.

'Ezra,' he said.

He was quoting Pound!

At eleven o'clock Bellamy stood up and took Emma by the arm and said, 'We have to go. We're in the country these days and our last train leaves in half an hour.'

I stayed uneasily with the Poulters.

Mrs Poulter said, 'Bingo's going through rather a bad patch.'

'Bingo?'

'Walter Bellamy, of course.' She had lipstick flecks on her teeth. 'Do you mean to say you're a friend of his and you don't even know his name?'

That was as far as I had got with Bellamy, which annoyed me, because I still admired him and we still needed him. A month later we had a request from our Binational Center, Amerikahaus in Berlin, asking whether Bellamy would be available to represent the United States in a seminar called 'Writing East and West.' Everett Horton, our number two, told me to take care of it.

I called his house in Kent. A housekeeper answered and said he was in London. I called the Eaton Square number. A tetchy voice said I could not speak to him.

'It's very important,' I said.

'He is very ill.' Was this Emma? 'In any case, he is not here.'

'May I ask where I can get in touch with him?'

'I am not obliged to answer your questions!'

The phone was slammed down.

THE EXILE

There were two more cables from Berlin, demanding Bellamy. My secretary tried but failed to discover Bellamy's whereabouts. There was another cable, and then I went to Scaduto. He was the cultural affairs officer, I said; surely it was his job to deal with Bellamy, the literary man, the poet -

'A binational seminar in West Berlin, with writers from both sides of the Iron Curtain, and you call it literary?' He laughed at me.

'"Writing East and West" - that's what it's called.'

'Guys from East Germany,' he said. 'You call them writers?' He tap-danced for a moment, then said, 'Face it - it's political. That's why we need Bellamy to represent us. The Ambassador's going to be there! Bellamy's got the right profile - he's old, experienced, liberal, well known, active in political protest. Did you know he was arrested in 'sixty-five on a peace march in Washington? Do you have any idea what that buys in terms of credibility with these so-called Marxist writers? Plus, he's well connected, lovely wife, and he wears these terrific suits.'

'And he's sick,' I said.

'So you say,' Scaduto said. 'It might just be a story - famous men often have people around to protect them. "He's sick" - it might be a euphemism for "Take a hike" or "Don't bother him."'

It was then that I remembered the Poulters and that awkward dinner at Wilton's. I found 'Poulter's Mustard Ltd' in the phone book and called the main office. My telephone technique, to reassure people, was to call very early in the morning and leave the Embassy number and my name. They always called back: a call from the American Embassy always seemed important. Poulter was prompter than most. Yes, he remembered me.

I said, 'I know Bingo's very ill. I wonder whether you can tell me where he is - I have something to give him.'

'Doesn't he usually go to the Abbey?' Mr Poulter said.

'In London?'

'Yes,' he said, 'that clinic on the other side of the river.' Other side in London always meant south.

I said, 'I wasn't sure, but I can check.'

'I try to avoid the Abbey,' Poulter said. 'I've never liked those places. And anyway, Bingo will be out soon. He never stops long.'

By then, it was too late to ask what was wrong with Bellamy.

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (il): THE LONDON EMBASSY

'Berlin is still waiting for a reply on that Bellamy request,' Horton said, just before I went home.

I said, 'I feel as if I've been looking for Bellamy my whole life.'

'Then it's about time you found him.'

Back home at my apartment in Overstrand Mansions, I looked up the Abbey in the phone book and discovered that it was not far from me. Its address was Spencer Park, on the 77 bus route in Wandsworth.

I switched off all the lights so that I could think, and sitting in the darkness I reflected on the fact that what I had told Horton was true: I had been aware of Walter Van Bellamy, and seeking him, since my schooldays. Then, to impress us, my English teacher, Mr Bagley, showed us Bellamy's first book of poems and the jacket flap that said: . . . attended Boston Latin School. We were very proud of Bellamy and, because of him, were proud of ourselves. It seemed possible that we could do what he had done. For me, he was more than a fellow townsman - he was, in fact, like my alter ego; and here we both were in London, not exactly exiles but with certain likenesses and affinities.

I knew no more about him than what I have written here. Some people regarded him as one of the greatest living writers, but my image of him was indistinct - from hearsay and books, from the reception at Horton's, the reading, the terrible dinner at Wilton's. I could not say what he was really like. What was at the heart of my quandary was the suspicion that Walter Van Bellamy was a little like me.

The best news was that this private hospital - its name, the Abbey, said everything - was nearby. It was three miles at most, a fifteen-minute bus ride. I called and was told that Bellamy was indeed a patient, that he could receive visitors, and that visiting hours were not over until nine o'clock. It was now seven-thirty.