An Artist and a Magician Read online

  The other main theme in my books, I suppose, is the ‘beauty and the beast’ element – that you have to have them both, you can’t have one without the other. Beauty without the beast is shallow, meaningless.

  RTK: Would you say it’s a necessary acknowledgement of evil in the world?

  HF: Not ‘evil’, just the facts of life. I don’t really ‘do’ evil (laughs). I hate the word ‘innocent’, too – I know what people mean by it but I just don’t buy it. There’s ignorance and then there’s knowledge, or there should be.

  People say Francis Bacon’s paintings are horrific, but I find them beautiful as paintings. The subject matter is, in a sense, irrelevant. If you consider the power of Renaissance painters who painted crucifixions – the subject may be tragic or whatever you want to call it, but if the paintings are beautiful then in that way you get the whole package. The Grunewald Crucifixion in Colmar, for example, is horrific but also beautiful. Whereas paintings by someone like Renoir who just did flowers and rosy-cheeked girls are much uglier to me.

  RTK: So the artist needs to make an accommodation with the horrific, to look at it squarely?

  HF: Oh, I think everybody should, artists or no. I should say, I don’t think artists are any more corrupt than anyone else – I just think they should stop pretending that they’re less.

  ONE

  He stood, plump and pale, on his terrace, and tried to conjure the morning into life. But perhaps because he had a slight hangover, or perhaps because it was only seven-thirty and he hadn’t slept enough, or perhaps, simply, because last night’s dinner party had been a disaster, the morning refused to respond. Oh sure, the white August sky shimmered intensely above him in all its early brightness, and two dark swifts who still hadn’t migrated wheeled hungrily round his head. And sure, the domes of the churches quivered upwards into the quiet clear light, and the ochres and umbers of the buildings nearby were already beginning to glow. Even the flowers on his terrace, red and orange and yellow, were open and blazing at his feet, and the cat had been awake for hours. Yet though he saw all this, saw all this movement and quickness—saw the nuns on the roof of their convent pacing up and down in their black habits, with prayer books in one hand and crumbs in the other, which they dropped surreptitiously to the doves, saw the garbage men in the courtyard of his building removing the refuse of yesterday, saw bare brown arms stretching out of windows to open shutters and blinds—it was all a dull, yeastless pageant, a dough that refused to rise. He whispered to it, he sang, silently, a little song to it, he even, without moving, lifted his hand and waved an invisible wand at it. But—nothing. The spark was not there. The morning refused to budge.

  He flopped down in a wicker chair and closed his eyes. Mornings like this occurred perhaps once every six months, and they crushed him when they did. For whatever philosophers might say to the contrary, he knew that only he had the power to make the world exist, to make it live. Because it was all, this world—the sky, the flowers, the domes, the doves, the colours, the nuns, the cat—within him, and what he saw were merely images projected onto an empty screen through the film of his own soul. Only the images weren’t enough; he had to feel the things themselves inside him. Feel them filling him, swelling him, feeding on him and feeding him. He had, every morning, every day, every minute of his life, to create them. And this morning he couldn’t. He was just looking at an old newsreel; a documentary of a world that no longer was. And oh it was all so depressing. It was worse than depressing, he told himself; it was death. Yes. That was what death was. When one no longer had the power to create the world…. But he wasn’t dead yet, and he wasn’t going to die for a while. He still enjoyed his creation too much. He still had so much to do. He had to light the fire that would set the whole business in motion for another twenty-four hours. He had to burn the old footage, and start transmitting live again. He had to. And what did hangovers matter, or tiredness, or even disastrous dinner parties? He was a god. He was a magician. He was—

  He was a silly old fool, he muttered to himself now with a little smile, and opened his eyes. He was an overweight 58-year-old with straggly white hair who drank too much, who was sitting on his terrace in Rome feeling sorry for himself when he should be making some coffee, giving Philip-the-Cat his breakfast, showering the sweat of the night away, and going into his study to attack the mountain of scripts that should have been translated and sent back a week ago. A god! A magician! Really. What an old fool he was becoming.

  But as he turned from the terrace and went back into the apartment, feeling quite cheerful and at peace with himself once again, he glanced over his shoulder—and saw that indeed the morning had come to life….

  *

  It had been a disastrous dinner party however, he thought, as he pottered about the kitchen surveying the remains of it, and wondering whether to clear it up himself or leave it for Aida, his cleaning woman. And that was why he hadn’t slept well, and why he had a hangover—though God knows he hadn’t drunk any more than usual. Even less, maybe, so intent had he been on trying to keep the peace between his various guests, and trying to give some semblance of gaiety to the evening. Not that it had been any use. He had stuffed them with food, drowned them in wine and whisky, made up ditties, put on rag-time records, told his war stories and his cat stories and his stories of the old South—had even danced for them with a tambourine, going tap on his toes and bang on his bottom and hit hit hit on his head—and all they had done was sit there, smile politely, tell him he was wonderful; and then go right back to their bickering and boringness. The ugly little Canadian lesbian had snapped at the pink and puffy portrait painter, telling him he was a snob, and the portrait painter had paid fulsome and embarrassing compliments to the old deaf princess. The old deaf princess had attacked the supercilious young writer for not being married, and the supercilious young writer had ignored her and spent the entire evening condescending to some woman from New York with a little flowered expression and a little black dress, who possibly, in other circumstances, could have been very nice, but last night had been as appetizing as a dish of cold and over-cooked rice. But then in other circumstances, by themselves or with other people, they could all be—they had all been, were—very nice. Only last night the chemistry hadn’t worked.

  He was, he supposed, as he decided to leave the dishes, and lit the gas under the coffee, a little too slapdash as a cook, and should take more care over the ingredients he mixed together. But that would have taken the fun out of things. And while, when disasters did happen they were dreadful, and made him feel depressed and mean, and made him regret having wasted his time and money, most evenings—and he had dinner parties almost every night—were wonderful. Or at least, he enjoyed them. Inventing all those different characters, bringing them all to life….

  Though it wasn’t only he who enjoyed them, he knew. Nearly everyone did. Otherwise why should they come back for more? And they came—except for the irredeemably sour, the unacceptably aggressive, the dedicatedly dull—time and time again. Both those who lived in Rome, and those who passed through in their hundreds every year. And he was sure it was just because he did mix things so recklessly—both food and people—that they came. Because no one ever knew what they’d be getting. Some great elaborate dish—or sausages and beans. Some famous opera singer or writer or surgeon—or an impoverished actor, a lacrosse coach from a girls’ school in Wales, or a Danish dealer in waterbeds. Yes. That was the secret of his success—apart from the fact that he always tried to be, and nearly always was, an attentive and amusing host, whatever the particular evening’s recipe—and that was why he never did take more care over his ingredients, in spite of the occasional slip-up. In fact, of all the thousands of people he knew and who came to him, all the thousands of members of this vast court of friends, acquaintances, and the merely curious, a court in which he was both the magician and the fool, only four people were not allowed to meet each other under his roof—and certainly never met each other under anyone
else’s. But then they were his inner court; an oligarchy of four people who adored him, hated each other, contended for his services, were jealous and sulky when obliged to remember that he didn’t belong exclusively to them—and who, incidentally, supported him, when it was necessary.

  Which was, alas, rather often.

  Because while the translations of film-scripts that he did could feed the cat, pay the rent, and even just about cover the expense of a cleaning woman and a sweet if not over competent Irish secretary, they couldn’t always pay for his dinner parties, his liquor, the odd trip abroad he took, and all the other paraphernalia that was so essential to the maintenance of his body and soul, and his particular role in the world. And so the four of them—unbeknown to the others?—sometimes helped him out. They didn’t call it supporting him—they called it loaning him money. But while he had never been absolutely certain, he was fairly sure that for them the word loan was a euphemism for gift. He certainly hoped so, anyway, because he was not likely ever to be in a position to pay them back. At least not in cash. And in kind—well, he had paid them back hundreds of times over, and with interest; which was why he never felt at all guilty about applying for further loans when they were needed. He entertained them, he made them laugh; he cheered them up when they were miserable, he introduced them to the brightest and best—or the most attractive—of everyone else he knew, and above all, he brought magic into their lives. For not only could he and did he create the world afresh day by day, he also had the power—with a word, a gesture, or simply a mood—to create it afresh for other people; a power which he exercised and made available for most people only at his dinner parties, but which, for the four members of his inner court, he was willing—or obliged—to make available whenever they needed it. Most people, when they phoned during the day, were lucky to get thirty seconds of his time; a quick ‘how are you’, a quicker ‘when am I going to see you’, and that was that. But for the four he was always on tap; for ten minutes, twenty minutes, an hour if necessary. To counsel, advise, discuss, plan, distract—whatever. Not that he begrudged them his time. For one thing he was truly grateful to them for their continued support, and for another, he felt that only they truly appreciated his nature, and thought of him not as a translator of film-scripts—which was what he was forced to be—but as a poet, a novelist, a painter, an actor. An all-round artist. A magician, in other words. Which was what he was….

  Quite why they hated each other so much he wasn’t sure. Certainly they had nothing in common apart from their inexhaustible supplies of money and their affection for him, but to have nothing in common was hardly a reason for the animosity they felt towards each other. And animosity they felt. Pam said that Jim was depraved; Jim that Pam was evil. Betty said that Bernard was rude; Bernard that Betty was fey. Betty said that Pam was a hypocrite, Pam that—but it was a never ending circle, and all four of them, Pam, Jim, Betty and Bernard, thought that, above all, the other three were destructive forces who were preventing ‘dear Wilbur’ from, more than merely being a poet, painter, novelist and actor, actually writing poetry, writing novels, painting pictures and acting in plays. All of which, before he had come to Rome and met them, he had done. Yet though it was flattering to think this high concern for his creativity was what made them mutually detest each other, he couldn’t help feeling there was more—or less—to it than that. Strangely enough, however, they had never told him, and he, who liked them all and didn’t care or think it polite to press for things that weren’t willingly offered, had never really asked. Also, he preferred to avoid the subject of his productivity, since it was in the name of this that he applied for and was granted his loans. Of course they all—Pam, Jim, Betty and Bernard; the four pillars of capitalism as he liked to think of them—knew perfectly well when he said ‘my dear, I just have to get away for a few days to write another chapter’ that write another chapter was exactly what he wouldn’t do. Still, it was a pleasant fiction, a graceful way of going about something that could easily have been sordid. It had the added advantage of allowing the four to feel they were playing the part of patrons, of doing their duty towards the arts, without obliging them to take the responsibility for, or even worse, make a judgement on, the finished work. What would they do, he wondered, as he shuffled now out of the kitchen towards the bathroom, with a cup of coffee in his hand and Philip fed, if he actually did some major work, and they didn’t like it? It would be so embarrassing. No; it was much better this way, where his art and his life were one and the same thing, and both equally products of his genius—or his talent. Besides, he sighed, as he lowered himself gently onto the black plastic toilet seat, he did produce just enough minor work every year to satisfy the vulgar minded; to satisfy those who were oblivious to his charm, blind to his originality; resistant to his magic….

  *

  The process of getting up and putting himself into gear was the slowest and stateliest of the whole day. It was also, normally, the only time of day when he allowed his mind to wander. But it was an important time, since it set his mood for all that followed. And if he couldn’t, as he nearly hadn’t been able to this morning, bring the world to life, he was miserable and wretched for at least twelve hours. And he couldn’t afford to be wretched for all that time. Because unless he was already in his study typing and translating away by the time Irish Lillian arrived—and stayed there till twelve-thirty, when it was generally time to make a small lunch for two or three people—the backlog of work that he just managed to keep shifting would have jammed up completely. Which would have caused a breakdown in his whole carefully balanced system. And such a breakdown would have been particularly unfortunate today, since it was the middle of August, and the Friday of the ferragosto holiday weekend, and almost everyone was out of town, and he was planning on doing a great deal of work. He didn’t even have anyone coming for lunch! In fact, with three of the Four away, unless some very bored friend or very stray acquaintance called, with any luck he’d be able to work uninterrupted all day—or at least until three, when he took a siesta—and then again from five to seven—when he would have to start preparing dinner for those one or two people who hadn’t gone on holiday. He might even, if he had a whole weekend uninterrupted, might not only be able to shift the backlog of work, but actually to clear it. Which would be a relief. Because recently things had been so tight that he’d been considering applying for a loan….

  *

  However, if he thought that he had, after a shaky start, got the day off on the right footing, and thought that he was going to get a lot of work done, he was wrong. First, because no sooner had he sat down at his desk than the telephone rang; and when he answered, an old, fluty, imperious voice said, ‘Wilbur?’

  It was Pam; the only one of the Four who hadn’t gone away. But then it was very difficult for Pam to go anywhere. She was very old, had water on the knees, chronic asthma, and an uncertain sense of balance.

  With only the slightest of silent sighs, Wilbur set his voice.

  ‘Hello my dear, how are you?’

  ‘Oh, not very well. I fell out of bed last night and couldn’t get back in. So tiresome.’

  ‘You should have phoned me.’

  ‘I thought about it. But it was so late. And you couldn’t have done anything. Besides,’ the old voice added, with only a trace of bitterness, ‘I’m quite used to sleeping on the floor.’

  ‘Oh Pamela dear—’

  ‘I got a letter from Bobbie yesterday.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Oh very well. She has this new boy-friend—’

  ‘You told me.’

  ‘And it seems they get on splendidly. Bobbie said—’

  But before Pam, whose fifty-year-old daughter was the one great passion of her life, could go on to tell Wilbur what Bobbie had said, he, thinking that perhaps Bobbie herself wouldn’t be so eager to have every detail of her private life discussed over the phone, interrupted again.

  ‘Oh, that’s marvellous for her. You sa
id he sounded very pleasant from her last letter.’

  ‘Oh yes. He sounds very pleasant indeed. He’s Hungarian. A fishery expert.’

  ‘Well I do hope they’ll be happy together.’

  Happiness, though, was something Pam didn’t seem to be certain of. She said quickly, ‘Oh I don’t know about that. He’s much younger than her, and as far as I can gather doesn’t really have any money or prospects.’

  Bobbie, Wilbur wanted to say, had quite enough for two; and besides, didn’t seem the type to be interested in prospects. He had met her several times when she had come to Rome to visit her mother, and liked her very much. She did something for the Aborigines in Australia. He didn’t, naturally, say anything, and let Pam go flutily on.

  ‘I should so love to go to Australia myself again sometime. To do some painting. I’m sure I’d be able to get some of those marvellous landscapes much better now than I did when I was young.’

  ‘You should, my dear.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  No, of course he didn’t. For one thing, Bobbie would be furious; she relied on him to look after her mother, and discourage any of her wilder fantasies. For another, Pam, who thought of herself as a bohemian, and whose life had been dedicated to the production of minute water-colours, had got quite enough landscapes here. And finally—what would happen to his cover, the roof of security under which he lived, if one of the four columns that supported it were suddenly removed? He could hardly expect her to help him out from Australia. What need would she have of his encouragement and originality there?

  ‘Yes, of course. Those colours. The space. The difference in light. It would give your paintings a whole new dimension.’

  ‘Oh,’ Pam trembled.

  There was no point in discouraging her though. Time would take care of this madness, he was sure.

  A very short time, too; for it seemed, when next she spoke, that she had already forgotten her Australian landscapes. She said haughtily—and Wilbur guessed that this was the real point of her call—‘Wilbur, could you come to tea this afternoon. I have to talk to you.’