The darker side of Peter Pan
Michael Levey
COMPTON MACKENZIE: A LIFE by Andro Linklater
Chatto & Windus, f14.95
t•IN
Compton Mackenzie's sister, Fay, be- came a famous Peter Pan on the stage, but in real life it was he who embodied the essence of the part.
That is not a matter solely of the ever-youthful, eternal-seeming energy and zest for adventure — as well as for stories featuring himself — but, more subtly, of his attitude to women as wife-mothers, while the final tableau of the play nicely epitomises Mackenzie's last years, as Peter takes out his Pan pipes to perform in an environment 'thick with his admirers'.
Charming, lively, intelligent and quick to assimilate, Compton Mackenzie publicly assumed a bewildering number of roles, of which being a writer was the most sus- tained. In that role, as in the others, enjoying himself was the point of impetus. He found much to entertain him in exist- ence, and seldom failed to be entertaining, in person and in books, in ways both light-hearted and serious. As `Montyboy', at two years old, he already entertained the company — the touring company formed by his father, the actor Edward Compton — and would continue to do so, with vastly widening audiences, for another 87 years. He wrote best about what he knew best: growing up as a sensitive boy in late Victorian London, going to Oxford, having an intense yet significantly inconclusive love-affair, living on Capri, indulging in war-time escapades in the Secret Service no more ludicrous (and far less degrading) than what apparently goes on today. Some of his many writings were constructed fictions, others factual though possibly enhanced in the process. Fresh adventures and fresh interests — from Scottish Nationalism to Siamese cats — sparked more books; and amid so much with an autobiographical flavour, he found time and energy to produce ten volumes of autobiography as such.
The outward success story of this attrac- tive, exuberant persona scarcely needs recounting, since, in true actor-manager tradition, the subject had taken the best lines, artfully adjusted the lighting and remained centre-stage until the curtain fell. The early-acquired and eventually almost universally applied sobriquet of 'Monty' was wonderfully well-suited, even to its echo of jaunty, to suggest the popular, clubbable raconteur and picturesquely-clad character presented to public gaze. And that character's story seems essentially a Boy's Own one, addressed to boys: what Monty did. Its motto might have been Peter Pan's cry, 'I want always to be a little boy and have fun'.
Instinctive as that impulse may be, it is in practice not easy to achieve, and perhaps not always fun for people around. De- veloping the Pan side of Peter — all gusto for life's rich banquet — tends to obscure the fact that someone (usually female) has to do the previous cooking and the subse- quent washing-up. Occupying the whole of the emotional stage may enchant an audi- ence but reduce fellow-actors to super- numerary status, ministering to demands less those df a boy than of a baby.
There was more to the life of Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie than Mon- ty told, or indeed could tell. And it is in that area that Andro Linklater most deftly and sympathetically operates, leaving largely intact the persona of 'Monty', while skilfully probing beneath it (with judicious use of evidence from the novels), to present a figure more complex and ulti- mately more interesting. If the resulting study is in places darker than anticipated, chiaroscuro only adds depth and convic- tion.
Mr Linklater achieves the happiest tone for his narrative: calm, appreciative and amused, yet shrewd and rarely over- indulgent. Unobtrusively, he aids the read- er's understanding of bow Mackenzie evolved into the character he became, from a psychologically damaging child- hood. The precocious infant soon detected that he was the product of a loveless match. Moreover, both parents had been deeply in love with other people. The father lost his beautiful, gifted actress fiancée, Adelaide Neilson, through her abrupt, premature death. The mother, an actress daughter of Mrs Bateman (the theatrical manager who fostered Irving's early career), gave up her lover under parental pressure.
Vivid and touching is the portrait drawn by Mr Linklater of a young boy loving too desperately a mother often physically ab- sent on tour and herself emotionally dis- torted by an upbringing repressive and actively cruel. In her stead reigned a nanny not so much evil as harsh and obtuse. It is no wonder if the boy decided that the longest and most satisfactory of love-affairs would be with himself. Mr Linklater avoids such a forthright verdict, but he gives plenty of indication of Mackenzie's diffi- culty in establishing, for example, any truly equal, loving relationship with a woman. So fragile was the robust-seeming persona that his first wife, Faith, had, after a tragic still-birth, to be persuaded against trying for another child. 'She understood,' writes Mr Linklater, with arguably too great urbanity, 'that Monty would allow no rivals'.
There is a disturbing sous-texte to this account in the story of Faith, the wife cast in the role of surrogate mother, who happened to be highly gifted and articu- late, not least as a writer. That she was `difficult', and had love-affairs of her own, • is given prominence, but the impression left is rather of someone who only too sadly personified her name, never losing affection for her husband in a marriage that lasted technically for 55 years, though the pair had long parted before her death. Summed up, her life appears in starkest contrast to Mackenzie's as he concluded towards its end that he had been 'happy and fortunate, Homo Felix'.
Yet, whether by chance or not, the majority of photographs in this book show a face that belies the boast. Even on ostensibly pleasant social occasions, it looks out unsmiling, with a taut line of upper lip as grim as his mother's in old age (and that was grim indeed). And, private- ly, the happy man suffered throughout his adult life from bouts of sciatica, often occurring under stress or when inconve- nient situations arose; psychosomatic as its origin may have been, it was clearly most painful.
Seen in Mr Linklater's lucid perspective, Mackenzie's bravura energy and insistence on enjoying himself take on a courageous aspect, displayed movingly in the last days of blindness and cancer, when still the show had to go on. Perhaps he believed that by asserting something, he helped it to come true. Whatever the reality of his life, he is in death happy and fortunate to have found a biographer so patient, perceptive and accomplished.
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