A Private Life of Michael Foot. Prof Carl Rollyson

I certainly saw Jenny’s point. But I felt like a double agent, since Julie was a precious source, but whatever her limitations and a surprising number of her stories checked out. I’ve read a novel or two in which the biographer beds a source, but such situations seemed ill advised and Julie never did pursue me.

      None of this might be worth reporting, except that Jenny went on to say that Michael was well aware of Julie’s designs on me. Now that interested me because I did not think he had an eye for such shenanigans. “Carl’s arrived,” Jenny recalled telling Michael, when I first appeared at the Villa Dubrovnik. “Julie’s taken him off.” Now Jenny added, “He sort of sniggered under his breath and said something incredibly rude: ‘I expect they’re hard at it in the bedroom now.’” Emma laughed, “He didn’t!” I exclaimed. Then, on second thought, I added: “So maybe when I start to press him on other subjects, he’ll say, ‘Well, I know a thing about you.’” Jenny piled on, suggesting I use this approach with Michael: “I’ve told you about me, now you tell me about you.”

      30

      Even though I was staying with Michael whenever I came to London, I found it hard to have him entirely to myself. At home there was always a housekeeper, many calls, and visitors. So I was delighted when Emma said she was going out shopping. “Have you got everything you need?” she asked me. “I do,” I said, “I have my man.” Michael, who often missed parts of conversation, asked, “What’s he got?” I repeated Emma’s question and my answer. “Ah,” Michael said. I don’t think he understood that I was leading up to something.

      I started out in as disarming a fashion as possible: “I’m going to tell you what I think of Jill’s book [Daughters of Dissent].” I told him how impressed I was with the writing. Although the book was not complete, Jill had done a good deal of revising as she went along. I then began to discuss autobiographical aspects of the book, passages that dealt with wives of politicians and women with homes and careers. I read Michael a passage where Jill expressed her regret that biographers had so little to say about their subjects’ private lives: “Consequently, we are left with the impression that the Fawcetts were rare specimens who knew nothing of personal tests and fluctuating emotions. Clearly, much more was happening beneath this artificial surface.”“Jill is raising the issue of what biography is,” I said to Michael. “Yes,” he answered. Listening to the tape recording of his response now, I seem to detect the faintest note of resignation in his voice. “You bet she is,” Michael said. I commented on the reticence of Victorian biography, in particular the trouble Froude encountered when he attempted to be candid.2 Michael broke in with “Yah, yah. Yes. He made Jane Welsh, in effect, right, I suppose.”