A Dog's Life(11)

David’s reputation as a costumier was at its highest then. His particular delight was in making clothes that fitted naturally and comfortably on operatic divas, and singers such as Montserrat Caballé, Shirley Verrett, Janet Baker, Beverley Sills and Teresa Stratas climbed the six flights to see him. The neighbours were impressed by the Bentleys and Rolls Royces waiting below. ‘You need a corset,’ he assured Caballé, who had given her measurements as 46, 46 and 46. She spluttered in protest that she had never worn, and would never wear, such a horrible object. ‘I will build you a corset in which you can sing freely,’ he guaranteed. She went on protesting until the hour of the fitting, when she looked in the mirror and saw that he had given her a waist. What’s more, she could breathe easily in the light contraption he had designed. ‘You have made a fat little Spanish girl very happy,’ she cooed, kissing him warmly on both cheeks.

David’s greatest asset in those days, apart from his admired talent as a tailor and cutter, was his honesty. He saw no reason to flatter or suck up to the artists he held in esteem. If a colour didn’t suit the singer’s complexion or physique, he advised her to resist it. He worked on a basis of mutual pride and respect, and was only disconcerted on those rare occasions when he was treated as a menial. Yet, deep down, he was aware that however well he had fulfilled the designer’s intentions (and sometimes he was able to interpret a sqiggle pretending to be a sketch) it was not enough to make his name, David Healy, known beyond a small, incestuous circle.

I made the acquaintance of other writers – most notably Angus Wilson, who had introduced me to Elizabeth Bowen and been characteristically kind, and Iris Murdoch, whom I had met on a tour of the Midlands organized by the Arts Council. One night, in Knutsford – the origin of Mrs Gaskell’s Cranford – an overdressed woman in the front room of the church hall announced that she hadn’t heard of the three men on the panel but simply adored Miss Murdoch’s novels. ‘Why is that?’ Iris demanded, out of curiosity. ‘Oh, because they’re so predictable,’ the woman replied. ‘That isn’t much of a compliment,’ Iris snapped. The woman was relentless in her misplaced enthusiasm. ‘I mean, I feel so at home in them. You seem to have written them with me in mind. I always know where I am.’ This was insupportable to Iris, who muttered ‘Stupid cow’ under her breath and invited a sensible question from somebody else.

Iris was to use that expression again, at a party she gave in her London pied-à-terre. A rather butch ex-nun was telling anyone who could be cajoled into listening that she was now a painter. She wore a smock for emphasis. She had doubts about her new vocation. ‘Is there any point in painting after Titian?’ she wondered aloud to everybody she met. Before one could respond with a reasoned ‘Well…’ she had answered the question herself: ‘Of course there isn’t.’ As she became more and more drunk, the rhetorical question took on a defiant note. ‘Is there any point in painting,’ she boomed, ‘after Titian?’ I seem to recall a brave soul quietly remarking that Rembrandt and Goya came after Titian, but she was drowned out with an assertive ‘Of course there isn’t.’ Two hours later, when it was time to leave, the painter was reeling, and still muttering the name of Titian. We were standing in the hallway, saying our goodbyes to Iris, when the painter, pointing at a bowl of red roses, exclaimed: ‘What beautiful flowers, Iris. Who gave them to you?’ The reply was immediate, and brusque: ‘You did, you stupid cow.’

In 1976, I went to live in America, where I remained for almost three years. In the summer of 1977, Iris invited David to her annual party. He arrived in some trepidation, not being at ease among intellectuals. The small flat was crammed with people, none of whom he recognized. It was then, with some relief, that he noticed the famous poet and his wife in a far corner. He made his way towards them and said hello. The poet, looking down on him, asked ‘Do we know you?’ and David answered yes. He reminded the couple that they had dined with us in our first flat, and then how he had rescued the wife’s meal when the taunts of Mr Amis had driven her into a state of near-panic. These calmly pronounced reminders made no impression on the pair, who began scanning the company for someone else to talk to. David walked away from them and out of the party.

(I had assumed, wrongly it seems, that David had told them, in very precise Anglo-Saxon terms, where to get off. A friend who was lodging in our Hammersmith house at the time assures me that David returned home early in a state of shock and disbelief. He had been wounded by their snubbing of him, offended deeply by their haughty rudeness. He had left them in silence, his dignity intact.)