your history at the door.’ii
The quote is from ‘Newsreel’ by Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–1972).
A N.Z. trip? You say that if you made the trip it wouldn’t mean that I’d have to ‘put you up’ or ‘put up with’ you. I’d be very sad if you didn’t visit and stay but of course you must do what your Muse dictates (portrait of B with brush (?) poised with Muse nearby dictating). It is always nice to be free to come and go . . . You are going to put up with me at Santa Barbara.
How pleasant it is to be out of Yaddo. I had a martini at ten o’clock in the morning of my departure, so did Kenneth B and Freya had nothing (but finished my half-finished martini), and Douglas Allanbrooke just sat and looked silver-haired which he is, and Alfred Kazin had a martini because he had decided overnight to leave also—I’ve not known people leave early at Yaddo before—their stay is usually extended at their request; Kenneth was persuaded not to drive us to the bus stop (he had planned a royal farewell, taking everyone with him). It was nice to be met, if only inadvertently (I can’t think of the word) at New York, for Ann had come to meet Alfred who was also on the bus, and they asked me to dinner so I rushed my bags to Elnora’s apartment and returned twenty blocks down West End Avenue to have a very pleasant family evening (they have a daughter of fourteen) but I had rather too much to drink. Another martini to celebrate being out of Yaddo, then wine at dinner, then chocolate liqueur, and I’m afraid I still have the hangover. I was glad to see the Kazin’s in ‘real life’ because at Yaddo Ann was very-too-brilliant and witty, and Alfred seemed shyly disapproving, but in their home they were warm and happy—it’s marvellous not to be conscious all the time that one’s a ‘writer’ . . .
Elnora’s phone seems to be out of order or perhaps ‘cut off’. This is the third letter I’ve written you since I posted my last one but it will be the first I send as I must exercise restraint, old bean.
I must get out now to a phone, will drop this in the box, am dying to see the blue skies of California and what lies beneath them, in the small concentration of 131 H. Drive and the hills—oh my hangover, oh the foul air. Enough.
Yet it was a pleasant welcome to New York and my faith in humankind, in New York humankind, has been restored a little, for yesterday when I had to get a taxi from downtown to up here the taxi-man stopped to buy him and me a hotdog and he almost refused my meagre tip, and at first I was suspicious of his friendliness as one gets in N.Y.C.
Goodbye. Love
(Hasty—tasty) J
31. Elnora’s Boutique February
Dear Bill,
You mean real butterflies and real humming-birds and real jonquils? And a real
I don’t know where my time in New York has gone. I rushed north in a blizzard to Springfield, I was met by Mark and Jo, we dined at Holyoke in a small restaurant which had Bear Steak on the menu (we had sandwiches), we came to South Hadley Mass, a lovely place deep in snow, full of scarred birches (this is part fiction) and then to Jo’s house, painted inside a raw colour as if the wood were being returned to its tree state (and this is precious, a literary whimsy). Only yes, it was newly raw with a strong smell (and here I could delve into childhood when we moved into five different houses before I was five years old but I shan’t delve because New York is not a place for delving (not now when I’ve been rushing uptown and downtown—in one place, though, there was a big empty paint-smelling house surrounded by silver birches). Food again, talk, anagrams and guess who won although Mark and I had surprising resurgences of battery power.
MacDowell was almost unrecognizable under snow. Elnora waited, her eyes fox-bright. And it was nice to be there and say hello. Elnora seemed well and much happier and we laughed a lot but the scene was new and you were not there, so except for Elnora and Jo and the Eaves [women’s dormitory at MacDowell] colour against the snow and the whiter than white Colony Hall and the rumour that the tenant of Omicron is being visited by a monstrously fat chickadee, the place seemed far away and strange and when the ‘new people’ returned to the Eaves from their studios and wandered in and out sharing our rose hip tea and peppermint tea I thought Ugh Ugh as the novelists say and was glad I’d been sprung from MacDowell. The birches though, like salt-washed stone, and the snow!
I’m caught in my own narrative, another state which New York city does not allow.
It was all fun and happy. I slept in Elnora’s studio which has a Steinway and if pianos were to appear in Before and After Advertisements it would be the neglected waif side by side with your shining cared-for piano. I’m sorry that Elnora didn’t play as she was going to. I had been describing to her how Douglas Allanbrook invited me to his room one evening at Yaddo to play for me and ply me with drinks and hearing he was a good pianist I went to listen (and to drink a little) but when he began his playing was nothing, nothing, nothing. Notes, yes. (I think I told you this.) Notes and gloss and feeling but not feeling for the music, at least it revealed itself as feeling for D.A. playing the music. To make a long repetitive story short it was just not Bill playing and Bill’s presence; it was a cardboard half-hour.
Embarrassing aren’t I?
It’s breakfast time. O to join the Inner-thinkies, feelies in Santa Barbara! I’ll let you know when. I had booked for March 2nd but I may be able to get away a few days earlier.
I’ve done nothing in New York except travel hundreds of blocks by bus and recover from pollution of the air while submitting to pollution of the intelligence and spirit—states which I couldn’t define and mention only because I’m sure they exist. Bee, you’re right
the bomb has fallen
...............................
......................pollen
32. Down Baltimore Way February
Dear special Amazing real Bill,
I miss you and I’m writing a hasty letter to say so. Baltimore is now blue sky, snow sometimes, cold with a mistral blowing the pieces of glass and torn cartons and wrappers up and down the street—yesterday was Trash Day in East Madison Street. The plants in the small backyard garden are still grey with no sign of green yet.
So much for local colour. John Money is less crabby than when I was last here—I think he is pleased with his series of lectures to the Medical students on Pornography. I find him much much too serious about everything and even in ordinary conversation he lectures, which is an occupational hazard, I suppose, of lecturers.
In New York I spent a frantic last couple of days rushing around and doing nothing and not going where I wanted to and missing out people I’d promised to say au revoir to. I went to Ann’s apartment for a quick dinner (the L.A. Ann) and it was good to see her again, also to have a link with the west coast and to have real messenger news of the live oaks*. [footnote: * species found in Santa Barbara known as Bill, Paul & Ned (a mutant oak, furred)] She had two friends with her, one a young sculptor; the other had recently spent time in New Zealand: both bright. From there I went to the Marquands and spent time with Sue and John and returned to Elnora’s apartment in the early morning, slept about three hours, then caught the train to Baltimore and here I am missing