David listened intently as the diarist launched herself into a litany of self-praise. We heard that May Sarton was more than a mere novelist or poet. Sackloads of letters from lonely women reached her home in Maine by every post, and she replied to each one personally.
Breaking the silence that followed these revelations, she turned to Lisa and enquired, ‘What kind of books do you write?’
Lisa laughed, and said she was an actress, and that I was the writer in the house.
‘You’re not an actor?’ The gruff voice sounded angry for some unaccountable reason.
‘I was. A long time ago. I’m a novelist.’
It had taken almost an hour to establish this. I wondered if, from now on, any literary judgement I might venture would be treated seriously, not cursorily dismissed. In one of her volumes of autobiography, Sarton had boasted of a night of sexual – and presumably drunken – euphoria with Elizabeth Bowen. I mentioned, casually, that I had met the great author at a party shortly before her death. I had been tongue-tied in her presence, but she was gracious and charming in the face of my awkwardness as she sat on the sofa in the publisher’s office in Soho.
‘I knew Elizabeth very well,’ Sarton announced. ‘Very well indeed.’
That was another show-stopper. Sarton’s proffered glass was refilled. It was clear to me that she wanted us to praise her writing. I am no stranger to deviousness, but I have never been able to pretend to admire work I consider second-rate. It does not follow that an inferior writer must of necessity be an inferior person. I had hoped, against the written evidence, that Sarton would prove to be interesting at least. Fond hope.
We sat down to eat. Edythe praised the smoked salmon mousse, which Sarton picked at. She was now consuming wine with the same fervour she had applied to the whisky. Trouble seemed to be looming with each intake. She had begun to glower. She offered no comment on the pheasant, which Edythe again was the first to praise, but complained instead of the terrible burden she had to fulfil by responding personally to the thousands of letters she received every year. There were days when she had no time for her own work.
‘When I get back to Maine, there’ll be hundreds of the damned things waiting for me.’
‘I’ve only read two of your books,’ Lisa remarked. ‘I can’t understand why so many people write to you or why you have to reply to them.’
Sarton, enraged, banged both fists on the table.
‘If you’d bothered to read the other forty, you would understand,’ she bellowed.
‘Could we keep the decibels down a little?’ David asked, while Sarton snorted.
‘Shut up,’ she shouted, glowering at Lisa. ‘I’m talking. You’re only the cook.’
The moment I had dreaded had come. But David surprised me. He took off his apron and placed it carefully on the back of a chair. He walked over to the dining table and looked straight at Sarton, who was still fuming. He spoke quietly but firmly.
‘You are without doubt the rudest, the most egotistical, monstrous human being I have ever met.’
‘He doesn’t like me,’ Sarton wailed, her gravelly voice sounding almost girlish.
David went downstairs and phoned a close friend, whom he regaled with a detailed report on the behaviour of our guest of honour.
I served the dessert. ‘It’s delicious,’ said the ever-placatory Edythe.
Sarton pushed the plate away from her. She was in need of the last word, and here it came, deafeningly. ‘I get the impression that no one in this house likes writers.’
It was impossible for David not to hear this. ‘Too fucking right,’ he called up the stairwell.
It was time for Sarton and Edythe to go, even though the proud author of forty books was spoiling for a real fight. My friend rang for a taxi, which came in ten minutes, to the relief of everybody but the disgruntled writer. Lisa and I said goodbye to Edythe, and tried to say goodbye to May Sarton, but she was muttering to herself and swaying from the drink she had knocked back with such determination.
‘I feared something like this would happen,’ Edythe confided in my old friend as they descended the stairs to the street.
We had a post-mortem. Had David met Sarton five years earlier, he would have frogmarched her out of the house. He could laugh now, which he did as the four of us repeated the various slights and insults Sarton had bestowed on the company for nearly three hours.
Sarton sent me a Christmas card, with one of her execrable poems on the back. She thanked a fellow writer for a memorable meal. The cook had been ignored once again. That she hadn’t registered, in her self-absorption, what the kindly Edythe had clearly seen – that the man who cooked the dinner was terminally ill – is a horrible fact which continues to shock me. She hadn’t noticed his gaunt eyes and sunken cheeks. Her mind was on those letters that had to be answered personally.