Alex Preston - In Love and War

Another quote kept coming to me on the train, and then on the boat from Genoa to Lisbon. It’s Shelley — I think from his Defence of Poetry, but I don’t have my books with me — ‘A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.’ This is what we’ve lost, our empathy. The Germans used to have it — Hölderlin had it, and Goethe and Rilke. But they don’t any more. Poets still have it — Auden does, and Spender, I think. Whatever you lose out there in Florence, Es, keep that. And for God’s sake put it into your writing.

Now the last, rather embarrassing thing. My parents are nowhere to be seen here. Presume they’ve hot-footed it to New York already. But I was rather relying on them for funds. While I was waiting for the clipper to New York, I met a Portuguese sailor in the Barrio Alto. I know, I know, but Lisbon is a rather thrilling place. You’d adore it here. I woke to find my watch and wallet missing. He left me a handful of escudos on the chair but they won’t get me far. I wonder if you could wire me a few quid, just to see me through until the boat leaves. In my name to the Central Lisbon Post Office, if you don’t mind.

You’re a good man, Es. I’ll always think awfully well of the time we spent together.

Philip.

L’Ombrellino

Piazza di Bellosguardo

Firenze

28/4/38

Would you like to come for dinner on the 3rd? Just a few of the old-timers. You might come and bathe beforehand. Bring Bailey.

Alice Keppel.

Telegram: 2/5/38

Money received with thanks STOP Far too generous STOP Actually now not going to States at all STOP Will join Charlie in Valencia STOP Always fancied fighting the good fight STOP Come and join us STOP Viva las Brigadas Internacionales STOP Philip

[Selection of twenty-first birthday cards, postal orders, a copy of Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We , a fountain pen.]

He hasn’t told Goad, or Bailey or Ada that it’s his birthday. It’s past eleven and he’s sitting in the bar of the Excelsior, drunk. He orders a gin fizz and goes to the lavatory where he urinates down the front of his trousers, singing ‘Domum’ to himself tunelessly. At the bar, he orders another drink and slumps on the stool. Despite the broadcasts, the money, the novel finally finished and typed up and sent off to Faber, he doesn’t feel he’s made a success of anything in Florence. And yet, he thinks, if he’d been offered this a year and a half ago in Shropshire — to be running the radio station, hosting vibrant cultural discussions with Ezra Pound and Bernard Berenson, invited to parties at Renaissance palaces in the hills of Fiesole — he’d have fainted. It’s partly that his expectations move several steps ahead of the events of his life — Goad smiles expectantly at him at the end of every broadcast and the face he returns grows ever more heedful and resigned, as if to say they could do so much better if only they had better equipment, more staff, more luminous interviewees — and partly that he’s different now: he walks a little slower, talks more carefully, drifts away during most of the Fascist broadcasts and looks towards the window.

Welsh Frankton,

Shropshire.

1st June.

Dear Esmond,

I was delighted with your letter, as was your mother. It seems extraordinary to us, marooned as we are out here in the wastes, that our son should be at the very centre of things, hobnobbing with world leaders. We listened to your programme on Manzoni’s The Betrothed with great interest in the library this evening. Difficult stuff! Pavolini sounds a good sort — well done for getting him on. I understand that he has Il Duce’s ear, quite the coming man of Italian politics.

Great sense of relief that the problems in Czechoslovakia appear to have been resolved. Hitler perhaps not as bellicose as we had feared. Glad also that Chamberlain was so swift to bat down any talk of cosying up to the Russians. They’re the real enemy: remember that.

Good work on the latest instalment of advertising money. Be assured that it’s being wisely invested in the future of this great country.

Your mother sends her love,

Your Father.

P.S. I saw Pound in London — he’s barking but seems to have enjoyed your meeting. When do we hear the recording you made with him?

[Selection of letters and telegrams from: Birra Moretti, Wilier Triestina, Snia-Viscosa, Beretta, Danieli, De Agostini, La Stampa, Martini & Rossi, Romeo Motron. All confirm advertising subscription to Radio Firenze at the new rate of 1,000 lire per three-minute window.]

Hotel Las Arenas,

Valencia

15th July, ’38

Dearest Es,

Of the many things I might have become, I scarcely thought I’d end up a soldier. But that seems to be how it’s all worked out. Simply thrilling out here. We travelled up the coast after getting a boat round the Straits. We could see the shelling of Alicante — whole place lit up like the sun had toppled down. Rather beautiful, actually. We came ashore at a kind of sandy isthmus called El Perellonet and then, under cover of night, made our way into the city. Italian warships like glimmering palaces out to sea. They fire the odd shell every so often but things seem to have quietened down since we arrived.

I’m driving an ambulance. The Nationalists are really quite on our doorstep here, so we’re always getting called to dash out and scrape up some poor chap who’s caught one in the head or arm. Charlie bought me a gun which I fire at pigeons on the roof. Not much of an aim yet, but I’ll need it soon enough, I would imagine, when the final confrontation comes. The Republicans are all thoroughly decent sorts. Lots of Brits, of course, but it’s the locals who up the pulse.

We’re staying in a hotel that’s been shelled. I can see the stars from my bed through a hole in the roof, but it’s mild enough and actually rather romantic. Charlie has insisted on teaching the chaps cricket. Rather a different game when it’s played between orange trees in the Plaça de la Reina after a few bottles of Rioja. I scored my first ever fifty as the light drew in last night, sound of gunfire and distant shells as I held my bat up to generally bemused spectators. Spaniards can’t play for toffee, of course. Charlie, who’s much better than me, hit a six that flew so far it ended up over enemy lines. I’m going to bowl a few grenades at him tomorrow. It’s all just too bloody exciting.

Anyway, I thought you’d want my address, and if you could spare some cash I’d appreciate it. Think of it as contributing to the forging of the heroic new me.

Philip.

One evening, light still trembling outside the windows of the studio. Ada signals the end of the transmission. They’ve recorded a programme on Murray Constantine’s Swastika Night , recently translated into Italian. It seems a very daring subject — the novel had, after all, been a choice of the Left Book Club — but it is, thinks Esmond, important that they engage with material like this. The novel imagines a future where the Nazis and Japanese have defeated the heroic Brits, and now squabble with each other over their Fascist empires. It is futuristic, bold, horrifying in the way it takes the unstable present and ramifies it into a vision of the totalitarian world to come. Esmond had enjoyed the book, Goad hadn’t.

— A most engaging debate , Goad says, standing and stretching, pulling on the blazer which he had hung on the back of his chair. — Perhaps the best yet . He smiles at Esmond. — It wasn’t too—? Goad thinks for a moment, scratching the skin of one hand. — No, it was fine. Our uncertainty tallies with the culture, I suppose, the uncertainty of the present moment in Europe. I think we did well. Now I must be off, good night, you two .