Keeping On Keeping On by Bennett Alan;

Author:Bennett, Alan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books

14 November, Paris. At five to call on Peter Adam who wrote something for World of Interiors a couple of years ago, subsequently sending us a beautiful drawing by Keith Vaughan.

Adam could stand as representative of European culture, British and continental over the last forty years – having known everyone, particularly the generation of writers and directors at the BBC in the 1970s – Tristram Powell, Julian Jebb, Jonathan Miller, Melvyn Bragg and the writers too beginning with Hester Chapman and including Selina Hastings, the Gowries – no one he does not know, though not in a name-dropping sort of way but as memories of a world in which he moved. And still does, having last week been at the funeral of Hans Werner Henze, where a massive wreath from Angela Merkel fell to the ground during the service provoking general mirth and, as the coffin was borne out, one of the bearers’ mobile phones went off and he dropped out to answer it leaving the coffin dangerously lopsided.

In his eighties now probably, dressed in a rich black velvet smoking jacket and embroidered slippers – a noble presence and a congenial one. We stay for an hour or so, walking back along the Rue de Sèvres and up Cherche-Midi, past the apartments on Coëtlogon where Keith and Lynn lived in the late 1980s and to which I still have a key.

15 November, Paris. Write it and it happens. People begins with two old people sitting in a grand though dilapidated room when a young man comes in (he is virtually naked, but that is incidental). He puts his finger to his lips, indicating that filming is going on. Dorothy, the younger of the two women, says ‘Are we dangerous?’ meaning will they be in shot, and the young man shushes her again.

This afternoon I’m packed, ready for Eurostar and waiting in one of the hotel drawing rooms while R. does some last-minute shopping. A porter comes in and puts a log on the fire, at which point a young woman looks in, puts her finger to her lips, motioning him to forget the fire as they are filming in the next room.

I cannot see what it is they are filming, but it is a lavish crew of some twenty or so with half a dozen other technicians hanging about outside. Someone is being interviewed, I can tell that, which in England would warrant a crew of three or four at the most. Whoever it is has a low purling voice which, increasingly deaf as I am, I can’t quite hear. This goes on for an hour or so at which point R. returns and with him our taxi. Standing up to go I have my first view of who is being interviewed. It is Salman Rushdie.

23 November. The dress rehearsal of The Habit of Art and Frankie parading in her haute couture reminds me of the relatively rare occasions in Leeds when we ventured into the café of Marshall and Snelgrove.

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