Under the Sun by Bruce Chatwin Read Free Book Online Page B

Marlburian, Richard Sturt.

To Charles and Margharita Chatwin
    Rome | Italy | 2 April 1957
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    We had a fairly uneventful journey; wonderful scenery from the train. The sun was blazing as we crossed the Alps, but a confectioner from Scarborough, and a German girl in the same carriage insisted on having the windows firmly shut. We got here rather tired, took a taxi driven by a very smooth gent and before we knew what had happened he charged us £1. We argued and argued, and when he began to get nasty we gave him half, but it only should have cost about 2/6. The pensione was very grand, and now we have got a nice, much cheaper place. We went on a tour of Rome today with Father O’Flaherty 30 , Richard’s friend, and tomorrow morning, together with several hundred other people, we are going to an audience with the Pope himself. Frankly, except for the Coliseum, the arch of Constantine, and Trajan’s column, the Roman remains are rather dull to compare with the fantastic Medici palaces and the like. But it really is an incredibly modern city moving at a colossal speed. We have been made honorary members of an English club where we had tea with five very jolly Irish fathers. Love B
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    â€˜Always a good listener, Margharita was seldom stuck for words, except on one notable occasion,’ says Hugh. ‘This was on Bruce’s return from Rome in 1957. He regaled us in the Brown’s Green kitchen with features of that city, ancient and modern, of its Seven Hills, of the fountains, of his lodgings beside the Spanish Steps, of the contents of its museums, of the Cardinal through whom his visit and audience with the Pope was pre-arranged – of the glamour of Rome’s streets, of fashion amongst its women. “Golly!” was Margharita’s interjection, as Bruce paused for breath before continuing his report. Thenceforward, it became our mother’s party piece to trade on her astonishment of her and Charles’s friends, giggling all the while, at the conditions in which her elder son was growing up, gallivanting about the Continent, whilst she was still plucking fowl and scrubbing eggs for sale at Henley-in-Arden’s packing station.’

    As at Old Hall School, Chatwin concentrated his best efforts on acting. He was Secretary of the Shakespeare Society and played the Mayor in Gogol’s The Government Inspector , Mrs Candour in Sheridan’s The School for Scandal and James Winter JP in L. du Garde’s The White Sheep of the Family . His interpretation of Winter, ‘an expert burglar’, revealed to the critic of the Wiltshire Gazette & Herald ‘considerable acting ability; his speech and movement were well-defined and throughout the whole performance he seemed perfectly at ease’. Less impressive was his performance in class. In 1955, following a blow on the head while playing rugby, Chatwin had to miss the Michaelmas term. He struggled to catch up. ‘He still finds his term away rather a handicap,’ wrote his favourite form master, Hugh Weldon, the following summer. His report for Michaelmas 1957 was typical: ‘Thoroughness and consistent concentration do not come easily to him. Too often in school and, it seems, in preparation, he is led astray and his mind goes off at a tangent, usually interesting but usually irrelevant.’ Towards the end of his time at Marlborough, Jack Halliday, Chatwin’s housemaster at B2, put pressure on him to think about a career. ‘The undoubted success he had on the stage in Memorial Hall shows that he is extremely capable at organising other people, while the undoubtedly unsatisfactory reports in this folder show that he is not very capable at organising himself. In the holidays Bruce simply must get to grips with himself and, with his father’s aid, must evolve a plan for his future.’ Halliday proposed the Law and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, but Chatwin was quite sure that he did not want to follow