TO ETIENNE LEROUX

A leading Afrikaans writer, Etienne Leroux (pseudonym of S. P. D. le Roux, 1922–1989) was at this time best known for his novel Seven Days at the Silbersteins (1962). Graham’s evolving interest in South Africa had a direct influence on The Human Factor.

Dear Etienne,

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I can’t reproach you with not having written for a long time, because I only write letters when I receive letters. I imagine that’s a common fault with a writer who feels he’s done enough when he’s put his five hundred words on paper. About two hundred words now in my case.

We shall miss you after Easter. Yvonne is off with the children – if one can call them still children – to Brazzaville for her usual African Easter and I shall fill up the time in Paris, Switzerland with my daughter and London. Both of us back again in mid-April and then we shall lack your presence.

I can’t remember whether the new port had been started when you were here last. It’s now nearly finished except for the gardens which are going to be planted outside my windows. I hope the value of the apartment has risen to atone for all the dust and noise we have suffered for more than a year. The wife of the retired spy³⁶still prepares a good omelette. I am not sure whether the whores are still in the Hotel Metropole. The bar has changed completely and become clean and a pizzeria. Brandade Nimois is still obtainable at the Liberacion, my telephone is still the same, the Time chap arrives at intervals to see his children, but I haven’t seen any women leaving mysterious markings for about a year now. The beastly man with the dogs has left the little Hotel Belle Vue outside my window and now there’s a big fat man from the Loire who cooks excellently and we call Silvertooth. The mysterious man with the Mercedes who used to turn up in the old days is now wanted by the police both in Italy and in France and is rumoured to have escaped to Morocco. We have our dramas. I expect you read about the boat which was chased and shot at from Villefranche nearly to Marseilles which was overloaded with heroin.

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Date: 2015-02-03; view: 646