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TO MARIE BICHE

Having weighed the matter ‘seventy times seven’ times, Biche suggested to Graham that he was now neglecting Catherine Walston, who was depressed after two surgeries and heavy medication to deal with a broken hip. From 1964 Graham spent more and more time in France with Yvonne Cloetta, who, despite being married, provided him through the last thirty-two years of his life with the happiness and stability he had not found in earlier relationships.

C.6 Albany, | London, W.1. | Dec. 5 1964

My dear Marie,

Thank you for your letter, but you don’t really understand the character of either Catherine or myself. Since I arrived here a week ago I have written two (for me long) letters to C. & had intended to write a third today – but I choose to write to you instead & there are limits to what the old hand can write when one’s trying to average more than 600 words a day of work. I can assure you there is no one (apart from dictated letters – I never dictate a letter to C.) to whom I write so much or so often as to Catherine. Far more than to Yvonne even during the summers of separation. It’s not a duty, but I love Catherine dearly.

You must realise that what she says depends very much on her mood. One might have written six times in a month, but if at the moment she felt low she would say that she seldom got a letter. ‘Buying books in Brighton’ – I suppose we’ve done that once in 15 years – I know it’s a symbol, & I try to arrange other symbolic things. I hoped that we could spend 2 weeks in Anacapri this last summer, but I realised how impossible it was when one thought of the bus rides, the jostling crowds in the piazza – she would have been a prisoner in Anacapri. Before I knew that she would have to have another operation, I was planning that this February we should both take a holiday in Vienna with the Dottoressa, but now … It’s not poor Catherine’s fault that rendezvous after rendezvous has had to be cancelled during the last 18 months – but nor is it mine – if anybody’s it’s the fault of a Dublin surgeon!

There is a geographical difficulty which Catherine does not easily admit. I have never been able to work in London since 1940 & I’ve confined my work to all intents to the two months’ holiday we had together during a year. Now I spend I suppose 7 months of the year in France working – instead of 1 in Italy & 1 in the West Indies – but it means that the opportunity of seeing each other is reduced. I doubt if I could have continued to earn a living by working 2 months a year – & a few weeks at Brighton as an extra, & for that reason I planned a flat in France long before I knew Yvonne…. If Yvonne had never existed, I would have had to face a situation where less London, less Cambridge was essential if things were not going to go to pieces. I would love to retire & dangle around [?] & write more letters & less work – but the fact is I’m working harder now than during the last 16 years. This C. does not realise.

Love,

G.

I’ll write the third letter in 10 days tomorrow when the shock of yours has worn off.


Date: 2015-02-03; view: 641


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