Catalan Pitg a fangc.
The French Republic being a relative newcomer in Collioure’s ancient history,[fn13] the town’s major annual celebration is the Feast of St Vincent, Collioure’s patron saint, on 16 August. Until the beginning of the last century, when it was prohibited by the atheist administration of President Émile Combes, a boat bearing the saint’s relics plied from his little chapel on the rock across the harbour, to be ceremonially received on the beach by the curé with a ritual exchange conducted in Catalan.[6] A bullfight in the town’s arena by the railway station was one of many celebrations marking the festive occasion. In 1953 my mother passed ‘Picasso visible in café des Sports – merry, pink, active. He was président of this year’s corrida.’ The evening’s firework display is especially magnificent, usually surpassing that of the quatorze juillet. On one such occasion in the early 1960s, we ascended the ridge above the house to obtain a panoramic view of cascades of fire erupting high into the night sky from the beach, as also from fishing boats moored about the harbour. The highlight of the evening occurred when the French Army, then occupying the Château Royal, blew up with one mighty roar what appeared to be their entire reserve of high explosive. From an invisible vineyard above us echoed an answering primitive bellow of approval from a solitary enthusiast, which greatly pleased Patrick.
It was not just innate curiosity which led him to conduct careful observation and recording of traditional ways in Collioure. Just before he left England in September 1949, it was seen earlier that he had agreed to write a book about Southern France for submission to his publishers, Secker & Warburg. Although he kept the project in mind, over two years were to pass before he hit on the idea of utilizing the knowledge he had acquired for the alternative purpose of writing a novel. Before that, the indications are that he planned a descriptive account of the life and landscape of the Côte Vermeille, and it was to that end that he noted its more colourful aspects, and encouraged my mother to record observations in her diary. Naturally gregarious, consorting daily with shopkeepers and neighbours, and being more proficient in French and Catalan than Patrick, she was the more productive worker in this field.
It was during the summer of 1951 that the idea of writing a novel with Collioure as its picturesque setting had germinated in Patrick’s mind. He and my mother had become concerned with, and to some extent involved in, the divorce of their good friend Odette. On 2 March 1951 my mother accompanied her and her father to lend support in a hearing at the court in Céret. Odette’s husband François Bernardi, a successful sculptor and painter, had deserted her for an older but extremely beautiful woman. Next day Patrick sketched a plot based around the affair. Although his initial plan seems to have been to produce a short story, the scheme is sufficiently detailed to suggest the possibility of fuller treatment.
His initial reaction was one of indecision:
It sounds a commonplace little romance. Perhaps I could lift it out of the rut by showing the gradual development of Odette’s character – she should be mature at the end, and at last spiritually free of the [her] family’s domination – and the parallel development of François’ to something like unselfishness and honesty. The moral being that you have got to be free of domination (by cant or by family) before you are any good.
A great difficulty would be the presentation: it could hardly be done from outside (the all-knowing observer) and I hardly know whether I could manage it from inside each character.
Patrick does not appear to have been at all troubled by the possibility that informed readers might identify the protagonists. (His friend Walter Greenway was similarly concerned lest people in Cwm Croesor discover the extent of their potentially embarrassing portrayal in Three Bear Witness.) Nor, more surprisingly, does this thought seem to have worried my mother. It seems they generally espoused the view that Patrick’s literary work stood apart from the material world: connections between them hardly mattered. Equally, they may not unreasonably have assumed that no one in Collioure was likely to read the book.
In October my parents assisted in bringing in the grape harvest. ‘Vendanged for Vincent Atxer’, noted my mother. ‘Too long, did not like the V[incent].A[txer].s. O[dette]. was there, objectionable. Told us the équipe [working party] in the plains was very grossier [coarse]. Youths rolled women in the dust, took girl’s trousers off.’[fn14] Next day there was a further vendange, at which my mother was evidently annoyed by ‘O[dette]. horseplay moustissing the men.’[fn15] On the third day my mother and Patrick ‘Worked from 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. Beastly children. Very, very fatigued.’ My mother was far from being a prude, and it is possible that she objected to Patrick’s observing their beautiful friend behaving in so wantonly provocative a manner. The sultry Odette was a lissom creature of the South, who amid the grape harvest under the burning sun appeared almost an elemental being.[fn16]
Four days later, Patrick ‘sketched out vendange tale’. It seems likely that this was the basis of chapter VIII of The Catalans, with its vivid depiction of the exhausting physical labour and pain incurred in gathering the grapes, together with the erotically charged relationship between the intellectual outsider, Alain Roig, and the lovely Catalan girl Madeleine, who has been deserted by her painter husband Francisco. The episode builds up to a heated climax, with Alain’s symbolic rape of Madeleine:
With a quick pace he was up to her. He knocked her to the ground. She fell on her knees, and crouching over her he gripped her hair and ears, pressed his teeth hard against her forehead, and in the surrounding cries and laughter he crowed three times, loud like a cock.
Patrick appears at first to have remained undecided precisely what use he might make of these possibilities, until on 18 December he took my mother for a walk up to the Madeloc tower. It was a beautiful day: passing the old barracks (which at one point they envisaged as a permanent refuge from the town), with partridges flying around, they collected wild daffodil bulbs to plant in their window box. Buddug cavorted, madly hunting and catching nothing. As they walked, Patrick for the first time unfolded his idea for a novel on the theme of life among the local Catalans.
Patrick, toying with various approaches to his novel, was struck down yet again by one of his nervous attacks and retired to bed, where he received the usual medication. So bad was the bout on this occasion, that he had to force himself not to think of the book lest the pangs recur. Not until 9 January 1952 did he recover sufficiently to begin working on it. At the end of the month my mother called on Odette to collect information about the social structure of the town, a factor which was to be vividly delineated in the novel. On 6 February ‘P. showed me first chapter of novel: terribly impressed & happy.’ With my mother’s enthusiasm buoying him up, Patrick now found the book advancing with increasing satisfaction. Despite intermittent setbacks and misgivings, he worked throughout the summer, until he finally laid down his pen on 12 September. ‘Much fatigued & terribly pale, kept lying on bed feeling faint,’ as my concerned mother noted.
However, the task was completed, and both were enthusiastic over the result. In May Patrick had toyed with the title Interested Motives, but eventually settled on The Catalans. My mother threw herself into typing the text, and on 2 October copies were sent to Harcourt Brace in New York, and Rupert Hart-Davis in London.
No sooner were the parcels despatched, than an anticlimactic reaction set in. On 5 November ‘Nervous tension over Catalans suddenly overwhelming. It matters so hideously.’ Might it suffer the same distressing fate as the collection of short stories, on which such high hopes had been pinned?
Three weeks passed by, during which they attempted to distract themselves with household improvements. ‘Wait, wait, wait, for post.’ Finally, on 26 November 1952, came news as good as might be hoped for. A telegram arrived from Naomi Burton at Curtis Brown in New York, announcing that Harcourt Brace had offered to take The Catalans at the same rate as Testimonies. Since the book was complete, they would shortly receive a second time within the year the princely sum of $750, tax-free!
Exultation reigned in the little