busied themselves secretly, their dormant animal attraction for each other reawakened, no doubt, by the sunshine and the sense you always had in this place of proximity to nature, of closeness to some primal, life-giving force. It’s amazing in a way that Beatrix never got pregnant again. What kind of difference would that have made, I wonder, to subsequent events? I think on the whole it’s better that it didn’t happen.
I wish I had a picture of one of those picnics. I would like to look on our faces again, me and Beatrix, together, somewhere on those hills. But this picture of the kitchen, dreary though it is, tells more of the story. And it is appropriate, too, to dwell on the infant figure of Thea, your mother, as she lies in her pram, unaware of the turns her narrative is about to take, unaware that the fragile sense of security she has enjoyed in her short life up until this point is already on the verge of splintering for ever into fragments. How peaceful she looks, in her baby ignorance!
The eighth picture is quite different from those that I’ve chosen before. It was not taken by me, or Beatrix, or any member of our family. It was given to me, in fact, following a dinner party in London when I was well into my fifties. It features a caravan – another caravan! I am only just beginning to realize what an important part caravans play in this story. There will be other ones, too, before I am finished. But this particular caravan is rather special, and so are the two people standing in front of it. They are both actors. One of them is called Jennifer Jones, and the other is called David Farrar. I suppose it is just possible that you might have heard of them.
Where to begin? Ruth, the friend with whom I shared a good many years of my life, was a gregarious person and liked to entertain regularly. She was a painter – rather a highly regarded painter, at this time (by which I mean the late 1980s) – and the people we had to dinner were often people of similar leanings and temperament: fellow artists, writers, musicians, critics and so on. One evening we had among our guests a man who wrote what I always thought were fearsomely intellectual books about the cinema. He was not very good company, I have to say, although that is completely by the by.
The talk turned to films at one point, and our cinephile guest mentioned the director Michael Powell and his film Gone To Earth. He did so because he had heard that it was about to be revived at a London cinema. This was the first part of the conversation that had attracted my attention, because until then I’m afraid that it had (like most conversations about films) been boring me, and I had started to doze off. It was only when this title was brought up that I suddenly turned and addressed a question to him. ‘But surely nobody remembers that film?’ I said. ‘I haven’t heard it mentioned for years and years.’ He told me that, on the contrary, the reputation of Michael Powell had been in the ascendant recently, and that this film was now regarded – by some (he stressed that word most emphatically) – as a masterpiece. ‘You’ve seen it yourself, have you?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I saw it in Birmingham – several times, as a matter of fact – in the winter of 1950. But never since.’ ‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ said our writer friend, and then launched into a brief précis of the film’s disastrous fate: the producer had loathed it, apparently, and given orders for it to be reshot, re-edited, retitled and generally hacked about for its American release. In the years that followed, all traces of the original were believed to have disappeared. I was astonished to learn that it had now been restored to its former state and could soon be seen for the price of a cinema ticket and a tube journey to Oxford Street. ‘But Ruth, we have to go,’ I insisted, turning to her. ‘We have to go and see it as soon as possible.’ ‘Of course, if
I wish I had a picture of one of those picnics. I would like to look on our faces again, me and Beatrix, together, somewhere on those hills. But this picture of the kitchen, dreary though it is, tells more of the story. And it is appropriate, too, to dwell on the infant figure of Thea, your mother, as she lies in her pram, unaware of the turns her narrative is about to take, unaware that the fragile sense of security she has enjoyed in her short life up until this point is already on the verge of splintering for ever into fragments. How peaceful she looks, in her baby ignorance!
The eighth picture is quite different from those that I’ve chosen before. It was not taken by me, or Beatrix, or any member of our family. It was given to me, in fact, following a dinner party in London when I was well into my fifties. It features a caravan – another caravan! I am only just beginning to realize what an important part caravans play in this story. There will be other ones, too, before I am finished. But this particular caravan is rather special, and so are the two people standing in front of it. They are both actors. One of them is called Jennifer Jones, and the other is called David Farrar. I suppose it is just possible that you might have heard of them.
Where to begin? Ruth, the friend with whom I shared a good many years of my life, was a gregarious person and liked to entertain regularly. She was a painter – rather a highly regarded painter, at this time (by which I mean the late 1980s) – and the people we had to dinner were often people of similar leanings and temperament: fellow artists, writers, musicians, critics and so on. One evening we had among our guests a man who wrote what I always thought were fearsomely intellectual books about the cinema. He was not very good company, I have to say, although that is completely by the by.
The talk turned to films at one point, and our cinephile guest mentioned the director Michael Powell and his film Gone To Earth. He did so because he had heard that it was about to be revived at a London cinema. This was the first part of the conversation that had attracted my attention, because until then I’m afraid that it had (like most conversations about films) been boring me, and I had started to doze off. It was only when this title was brought up that I suddenly turned and addressed a question to him. ‘But surely nobody remembers that film?’ I said. ‘I haven’t heard it mentioned for years and years.’ He told me that, on the contrary, the reputation of Michael Powell had been in the ascendant recently, and that this film was now regarded – by some (he stressed that word most emphatically) – as a masterpiece. ‘You’ve seen it yourself, have you?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I saw it in Birmingham – several times, as a matter of fact – in the winter of 1950. But never since.’ ‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ said our writer friend, and then launched into a brief précis of the film’s disastrous fate: the producer had loathed it, apparently, and given orders for it to be reshot, re-edited, retitled and generally hacked about for its American release. In the years that followed, all traces of the original were believed to have disappeared. I was astonished to learn that it had now been restored to its former state and could soon be seen for the price of a cinema ticket and a tube journey to Oxford Street. ‘But Ruth, we have to go,’ I insisted, turning to her. ‘We have to go and see it as soon as possible.’ ‘Of course, if
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