Dame Rebecca explams
From Dame Rebecca West
Sir: I am embarrassed by Mr Beverley Nichols' allusion to me in 'A Spectator's Notebook' (December 8), for though I know he meant it as a compliment. I feel it lays me under the suspicion of having spoken unkindly to someone made apprehensive by the fear of death. In fact, I was much fonder of the friend he describes than he was, and Barbara Back and I had rubbed along very well for nearly sixty years, and one of the techniques of our
relationship was the exchange of cold hearted remarks at all serious crises in our lives. When she said to me, "I wish I were dead," it was to both of us obvious that she was coming to the end of her life; and to us this meant that I was called on for a climactic remark of the deflationary sort, such as she would have made to me had our places been reversed. So I said, "Well, it really is delightful to hear somebody wishing for something they are quite certain to get." To me the point of the anecdote, and the only reason why I repeated it, was Barbara's response. She guffawed loudly and said, "Ha ha, that's good. That's very good. I must write that one down," and with a wave of the hand got into an elevator and went out of my life in good battle order. Forgive me if I wish to make this clear to people not aware of the background.
Rebecca West 48 Kingston House North, Prince's Gate, London SW7.
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