Gallery Beggar Britain, 2014, 619 pp
Reviewed by Norman E. Gough, S. Staffordshire, UK
Simon [Peter] Gough (1942-2018), a distinguished actor, was the son of famous actors Francis Michael Gough (1916-2011) – usually known as just Michael Gough – and his first wife, Diana Graves (1915-75), who married in 1937. Michael appeared in numerous celebrated acting roles but seems destined to be remembered as the butler in the Batman movies! He was the son of Francis Berkley Gough (1884-1957), a rubber planter from Kuala Lumpur. Simon’s grand uncle was Robert [von Ranke] Graves, (1895-1985), more commonly known as the poet Robert Graves who was famous especially for the successful book and TV series I Claudius. The relationship ‘grand uncle’ arises because Simon’s mother Diana was the daughter of Richard Massey Graves (1880-1960), son of Alfred P Graves (1846-1931) by his first wife Jane Tuthill Cooper (1848-1886) who married in Ireland in 1874. Robert Graves was also the son of Alfred P Graves but by his second wife Amelia Elizabeth Sophie von Ranke (1857-171) who married in 1891. So, Robert was Diana’s uncle. A notable ancestor was Charles Graves (1812-99), Lord Bishop of Limerick and Aghadoe, Killarn.
This novel is a thinly veiled autobiographical account starting with the author’s stay in Majorca aged 10 in 1953 with Robert Graves and his second wife Beryl Antoinette Pritchard (1915-2003). He justifies it as fiction on the grounds that it doesn’t matter if he gets dates, times and other details wrong and anyway ‘you were not there’, so ‘you have no reason to criticise’. There are many detailed reviews of this important book, which I chose not to read in advance to avoid ruining any sense of surprise. The author was elderly and suffering with cancer when he wrote it. I believe I understand why he set down the basis of the story as a young man but am unclear as to why he would choose to publish it late in life. Perhaps it was cathartic, and he tried to set the record straight? What is certain is that once you start reading this book, you will not be able to put it down.
Simon’s father, Michael Gough, does not feature at all in this story (apart from the bizarre fact that he taught Simon how to make a salad dressing). It appears that Simon saw little of him when he was at boarding school in England, nor was he present when Simon visited Spain since Diana and Michael divorced in 1948. His mother, on the other hand, was not well and, according to Simon, acted unpredictably towards him, although he says that by the time he was 17 he had “made it up with his mother” and they were “interacting well”. He seems to have been influenced at this vulnerable stage in his life mostly by Robert and Beryl Graves. Beryl comes over as a lovable, understanding woman but unfortunately, Robert appears as a complex, unconventional, self-serving and domineering character, who after suffering a serious war injury, had managed to carve out a profitable career as a poet. It is difficult to understand why he felt entitled to keep a pretty young lady as a ‘muse’ is his household, on the grounds that she stimulated him to write great poetry.
Because the characters of this story are so famous, it is hard to view it as anything other than an autobiographical account. Somehow, we expect our film stars to live their lives in continual drama, seeking the limelight and deliberately avoiding conventional norms in their outrageous attempts to achieve fame. But this book is so skilfully written that you forget all of this. OK, some of the humour is school boyish and scenes involving Robert and Beryl’s uncontrollable son Juan Graves (1944-2015) involve farcical scenes such as a farting donkey and explosions of home-made bombs. But they made me laugh aloud and his witty style skilfully draws you into a web of interrelationships that is hard to resist. When Simon visits Spain again in part 2, things get more serious. It is enough to reveal that at the vulnerable age of 18 he was caught up in an intrigue in which he acted as a go-between between Robert and his ‘muse’, Margot, the ‘Goddess’ of the title. It is immediately apparent to the reader (but not Simon) that Margot should have had ‘DANGER- KEEP OFF’ printed on her swimming costume. After Margot and Simon kiss, this seems bound to end in grief as he is drawn irresistibly into a love triangle just as a fly loses its freedom as soon as it hits the spider’s web. In part 3 Simon goes to study in Franco’s Madrid post civil war. His vivid description of the beggars in the streets is Dickensian, the colourful descriptions of Andalucian flamenco and bullfighting are reminiscent of Hemmingway and the heart-breaking emotional scenes remind me of D H Lawrence.
Simon went on to marry Sharon Gurney Rhodes (b.1950) in 1970 and had a family, so I am unsure as to what is the moral of this story, but it seems likely to be associated with that kiss. The words of the old song may say that as time goes by ‘a kiss is just a kiss’ but for Simon ‘whatever she had meant by that kiss, it had sealed my fate – and brought havoc in its wake’.