DIARY
MARK AMORY Where most people have a waste- paper basket, literary editors need a dust- bin, grey plastic in my case. It strikes a jar- ring note in my pleasant book-lined office with curtains on the french windows that lead into the garden. The description 'liter- ary editor' seems faintly pompous for what I do but when I told someone that I 'did the books on The Spectator', he said later that he would never have put me down as an accountant; so now I use it. At this time of year the bin is full, parcels pour in, the famous jostle the dim aside and force their way into print; of course, I feel, we must `do' Ackroyd, Heller, Amis, Ore et fils. The lull round Christmas affords opportu- nity for whim and eccentricity and most sat- isfaction comes from catching up with a good, but perhaps odd, book that has been overlooked. For me, that is, Readers — you — seem to prefer something inspired by contempt and even malice, Strangers con- gratulate me on such a piece. I hope the wounds inflicted are not too deep and attribute to the above-mentioned Kingsley Amis, who is in no need of it just now, the dignified reaction, 'Reviews have spoiled my breakfast but never my lunch'. Disap- pointingly, he cannot remember saying it.
An unpleasant surprise on my desk on Monday, David Sylvester's Giacometti. Not unpleasant in itself, I hasten to add, but because of the immediate chain of thought. I have been writing a book for, well I think I admit to six years, and I don't like other people finishing theirs. Selena Hastings was up around nine with Evelyn Waugh but now it is to be published next month. James Knox was coming along nicely over five years with his Robert Byron but now he is knocking off something on Sir Philip Sas- soon on the side, and when he generously suggested that he might come across some material useful to me, he added 'probably a bit late for you', I thought I detected a sneer. But Sylvester puts us all in the shade. To call it long awaited is a ridiculous understatement. It must be 15 years since I was told that he had rung up his publisher about it and the point is that the publisher had been waiting for at least ten years then. `Wonderful news about my book,' said Sylvester — the publisher hardly dared to speak but envisaged autumn publication — `I've got a superb first sentence.'
This whole week I am cast as Sid James opposite Britt Ekland. I am alone in the house with the children and the new 19- year-old, blonde Swedish au pair. At this moment I am rather nervous. It's not that I cannot do that sustained lecherous chuckle nor indeed is it about sex at all, it is about how to treat her. Some say she is 'a guest in your house', others 'a member of the fami- ly', as if they were the same thing instead of virtually opposites. Now we must dine together, who should cook? I don't offer much more than scrambled eggs but acquired some frozen lasagna on the way home, disappointingly cheap. Surely not good enough? She was very plucky, said, `We are going to eat that' in a tone of calm confidence rather than amazement or apprehension (something went slightly wrong with the timing in the microwave) and later, 'You did the whole cook. Thank you'. Nor did she complain about my being in my dressing-gown, which may well con- stitute sexual harassment.
The reason for my wife's desertion is something called T.M.P., Top Managers Programme. She is something marginally more criticised and despised than a journal- ist, a National Health Service manager. I'm surprised we are asked anywhere. Good to be a top one, I suppose, and the pro- gramme is in its sixth and final week, three in one go to start with, one at a time after that. Over 20 of them go to a hotel, are divided into groups of seven or eight and are then given nothing to do, and are observed doing it. Never having been away from goals and structures before, they find it very hard and soon there is vicious com- petition, struggles for leadership, revela- tions. Homosexuals come out, tears are shed. Total truth does not quite prevail: `How was it for you?' Charlotte failed to tell a colleague that she hated her shoes and despised her hair, but it is only fair to say that, while not exactly enjoying it, she thinks it does teach you about yourself and how you work in a group. She, for instance, has learned that she does not like criticism. Well, I could have told her that, indeed I thought I had once, rather quietly. Who does? As Auberon Waugh said, when his first novel appeared while he was at Oxford, to a friend who offered some tips, 'I don't Want constructive criticism, I want praise.'
The same discussion has cropped up with varying degrees of embarrassment lately. What's to become of the house? If there are several children, it looms too large, it is likely to be too valuable to make a fair share for one. Yet to split it among several is to invite decades of quarrels between all but the fondest siblings — even then it is the in-laws who make the trouble. Some want to take the money and run, oth- ers want to remain but cannot find the cash to buy out the quitter; and who is to choose the drawing-room curtains? 'They were there twice as much as us last year and it was their revolting friends who smashed Mummy's vase.' And so on. It depends a bit on the building concerned. A castle that has been in the family for hundreds of years is going straight to the son as is any available cash, in the way that has tradition- ally kept British estates intact. The daugh- ter gets a pittance and 'It's important to let her know where she stands from the begin- ning.' I have three daughters and an egali- tarian wife. At the back of my mind is still the thought that I might just see if one of them makes or marries enough money to live there. King Lear made a botch of it but he did have more of a problem.
In this job you may influence people a tiny bit but you don't make as many friends as you lose. Wannabe reviewers are just as bad as hurt authors. One said, 'If you are never going to use me, it would be kinder to say it,' so I did, but mostly I employ the soft answer that doesn't turn anybody aside for long enough. Jeff Bernard sat in the next room once intoning for my benefit, `He does a book on diabetes, he has a dia- betic on the staff but does he give it to him? No.' Ali Forbes occasionally modestly puts forward his claim by explaining that there cannot be many men around now who were actually at the very dinner-party when ... But while you remain in situ most people tend to be polite. It is only, I suspect, when you leave, or perhaps when your own book comes out, that you glimpse the strength of the resentment around you.
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