RODRIGO FRESAN

Trtmslllted frqm the Spanish by Na~tUIJn Wimmer

Ftrt•rA-r, StrRIIS and Giroux

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It "as m Kensmgton Garden~ that J M Banie, who used ro walk
h1s dog then: every d.w, mel llcwclyn Davies.

1l1e Peter Pan starue "a~ created in the studio and installed only
when complete:, l i Barrie ''anted children to belie\'C it had ap-
peared as 1f b\' magic
Ed Glinert
A Liurnry Guide To London

Best of C\"CI)'thing IS being a child. Second best is writing about

bemg a child.

May God blast an)•onc who writes a biography of me.

J. M. Barrie
Noubooks
KENSINGTON GARDENS
Ir begins with a boy who was never a man and ends with a man
who was nc:n:r a boy.
Something like that.
Or betu:r: it begin~\\ ith J man's suicide and a boy's dead1, and
ends with a boy's death .u1d a man's suicide.
Or with various deaths and various suicides at varying ages.
I'm not sure. It doesn't matter.
Everybody knows- it's understandable, excusable-mar num·
bers, names, and faces are me first to be jettisoned or to duow
memseil•es from me platform during me shipwreck of memory,
whach always lies mere ready for annihilation on me rails of me
past.
One thing, at any rate, is clear. At the end of the beginning-at
the beganmng of rhe end- Peter Pan dies
Peter Pan kills himsc:lf and here come~ the train. The scream of
steel hurrhng through the guts of London like a curse, like the
happ•est of lo~t ~uh.
Peter Pan Jumps onto the tracks at just the right moment. Peter
Pan as one of tho~e rwo people a ''c:ck who-statistics say- mro''
themsc:hes OntO the: rails Wlm Briush puncruality just before me
train\ rnumphal entrance
A woman snc.tm~ \\hen she: sc:c:s him jump. A woman screams
4 RODRIGO Fll.llSAN
when she sees a woman screaming. All at once- screams are more
contagious than laughter, and there are so many screams in this
stor)<-it's the same scream that leaps from woman to woman,
from mouth to mouth. The same scream makes the cars brake, and
the brakes also scream at the unexpected and futile effort of having
ro stop all those wheels and all the steel riding on those wheels.
Yes, without warning the whole world is one single scream.
It's April 5, 1960, the hypothetical day of my increasingly hy-
pothetical birth (the scream of my hypothetical mother, who
spreads her legs tO push me and my hypothetical first scream out),
and it's the day of the dearh and suicide of the respected publisher
Peter Llewelyn Davies, founder of Peter Davies Ltd., considered
an "artist among editors."
"Peter Pan Becomes a Publisher," ran the headline reporting
the professional birth of t.he man who now emerges at dusk from
the Royal Court Hotel and crosst:s Sloane Square, thinking that he
became an editor in an atrempt ro vanquish the horror of having
been a character for so manr years, too many years. And I like to
think-because it's so fitting at the start of a book, and because
certain gestures teU us so much about a protagonist-that Peter
Llewelyn Davies is accosted by an anachronistic pack of Chelsea
beggar boys; I hesitate when it comes to deciding whether he
passes out a handful of coi ns. What I am sure of is that Peter
Llewelyn Davies goes down the stairs to the underground station
and wairs a few minutes on tbc platform, until he sees the light at
the end of the tunnel, a lighr rhat grows steadily stronger and
closer. Peter Llewelyn Davies jumps and doesn't scream. Let
everybody else scream, thinks Peter Llewelyn Davies, in the enor-
mous second it takes his body to fall ro the rails; then comes a blue
spark, and a smell of electriciry, and the wheels, and the scream,
and the screams.
To believe- if karma's concentric spirals and the zigzagging
laws of reincarnation don't deem it impossible-that the immortal
spirit of Peter Llewelyn Davies abandons his ruined body and
floats far away, and then enters my brand-new self at almost the in-
stant I am bom, is immensely tempting. If that's how it was and
KENSINGTON GARDENS s
always had been, my story would be so clear, so easy to under-
stand, that it would no longer be necessary to leave all the win·
dows open or dosed each night, waiting for some act of
redemption or punishment to justify the course of my life.
But sorry-nothing is that simple. Certain explanations are per-
tinent, inevitable.
Certain explanations take rime.
Others are quicker: Peter Llewelyn Davies is the real name of
Peter Pan, or Peter Pan is the real name of Peter Llewelyn Davies.
It doesn't matter who's the shadow of whom, or whose shadow is
sewn to the other's heels. What matters now are the cars full
of people on their way home; the screams and the scream bounc-
ing off the tile of the underground walls; the oxygen breathed
too many times down there in the eternal concave dusk of train
stations.
There was a time, thinks Peter Llewelyn Davies, when we came
down into these: depths not to die but to keep from dying. The
long, tribal, brightly lit nights of the Second World War, of the
War Even Greater than the Great War. The word n>ar brings Peter
Llewelyn Davies bad memories, takes him back to his war, to the
trenches of the Somme.
So Peter Llewelyn Davies makes an effort and remembers the
other war, the war that came after bis. The war that he didn't fight
in, bur that reached him anyway, because wars always manage to
find you wherever you are. Everybody together down here in the
underground stations turned inro shelters singing Vera Lynn's
"We'U Meet Again" at the rop of their lungs to drown out the
sound of the sirens and the shudders of the Blitz. Everybody to·
gether reading magazines by torch, magazines with some cartoon-
ist's sketch of Hitler as Captain Hook, his hook raised. Everybody
drinking tea, nearly transparent and hardly tasting of rea, like
members of a secret society, like the first Christians, like prehistoric
shamans telling stories and painting them on tl1c walls. Everybody
together experiencing the queer contradiction of burying them·
selves in order to be closer to God, to heaven. Yes, for once heaven
was underground and hell was the skies where the Luftwaffe flew,
 RODRIGO PRBSAN
and beyond- much higher and farther, second star to the right,
and straight on rill morning- was Neverland.
Peter Llewelyn Davies looks up and looks down and grips his
furled umbrella and light briefcase so as not to go flying off, swept
away by the \\1nd of his pa.~t towards that faraway island inhabited
by p1rares and crocod1le~ and the terrible promise of eternal irre-
sponsible childhood. '1 hat'~ ho" Peter Llcwclrn Da1ies feels: light,
hke a ghost of h•m,clf; like a rever-ed X·r.ty, bones on the outside;
as if he's gone back Ill umc and is running in Kensington Gardens
again; like a story "orn out after hanng been told too many rimes,
whose only ~alvation is this unc\pected ending-real, undeniably
true.
Peter Llewelyn Da1•ies IS SIXty-three when he jumps, kills him·
sett: dies. Peter Pan is some vears younger; but age and the impre-
cise precision of dares matter little where Peter Pan or Peter
Llewelyn Da1·ies is concerned Danes, who, according to the
coroner's vcrd1ct eight d.1ys later, "took his life while the balance
of his mind was disturbed "
As 1 sa}, Pe1cr Llewelyn Davies Jlllllps, and it's only logical-
normal, proper, appropriate- to imagine him taking a small step
forward to where tlwrc i'> no platform, the end of the £)3[ earth on
the maps of the .mcients; ro 11 atc:h him fall into the jaws of mon-
sters and le\;athans. But I don't thirtk that's quire right. It occurs
to me that there's only a \econd 10 the bncf life of the person who
kills himself. lho~e who commit suicide li1·e as fleetingly as some
butterflies· a hghtmng nip, a held breath, a snap of the fingers, the
bhnk of an C\'e, the non• you see tt, 11011' _l'OII tfo11't it takes to get
rrom A to B 'lo that scc:ond must be tremendous, an instant of
pure undc:rstandmg, of kll(mmg e1erytlung-bccause is anything
more tmporranr t.han kno111ng 11hich way you're going and how
long it'll take to get there'
I'm imagmmg what Peter Ue11 elm Da1·ies is thinking.
Peter Uewel} n Da1ies is thinking of James ;\btthew Barrie,
who-in the dedication ~To the Fh·e~ rhar prefaces the book ''er-
sion of the play m which Barnc Immortalized them all-says toPe-
rer and hts brothers:
KllNSINGTON GARDENS
I made Peter [Pan J hy rubbmg the five of you ,;olcntly ro·
gc:thc:r, .1s sa1agcs with two \tick~ produce a flame ... Thar
is all he i~, the \park 1 ~wle from you
Peter Uc'' dyn Da\'lc\ i\ thinking of Ja.mes Matthew Barrie, who,
weeks before his death, \HOtc m his notebook·
DurriJ. He who dies is simply one who finds himself a short
way allead in the procession of millions all headed ro the
same place; the person we lose stght of for a few seconds be-
cause we fall behmd a little upon stoppmg to tie our shoe·
laces, and, when we look up, he isn't there any more.
Peter Llewelyn Da~ics bends down to tic his shoelaces. It would
hardly be elegant to trip JUSt now, at rhe head of the procession.
Beside him on the platform, a bov- watches him with new, animal
eye\, eye\ read} to devour c1crything. A boy at the age when go-
ing ro sleep is a terrible lorm ofinju~ticc. Children aren't afraid of
what might be found in the d.1rk. 'vVhat they can't stand is the fear
that all night long there will be 110thi11g to see, and tl1at their eye-
lids will close like ~hutrcr~. A bov 'en• like the boy who, half a cen-
tury later, I'll watch collap~c on the same plartorm of rhe same
station, his eves rolled up in his head, foaming bluisWy at t11e
mouth through clenched teeth, and howling "Jimyang-Jimyang-
Jimyang, ~ tor rca~ons that arc my fault and no one else's.
Peter Llewelyn Da\'IC\ IS thmkmg of his fa.mily.
If the storv. of a fa.milv. can be the sron·. of rhc world" then the
story of hi\ fam1h \omerime\ weigh~ on him as if it wc::rcn 'r JUst
the ~tory of the world but of the whole universe. Peter Llewel)11
Davie:~ began to wmp1lc 1t m 1945, in enormous notebooks in
wh1ch he h1mself is hMcl) mcnuoncd, and where he has arranged
photographs and document\ punctuated br hi~ notes, Illuminating
and crypnc by turns. ,\ kmd of rccon~trucuon and chronicle and
commenurr on the pa\t. An nplanarion. r--:o\\ th.:rc arc \IX vol-
umc~-ll never o.:.urred to hm1 to pubJi,h them; he considers
them ~•mply a kmd of memory hobby-that he rends ro reler
 8 RODRIGO PRl.lSAN
tO, rather acHily, as ~The Fam1ly Mausoleum" or "The Morgue."
Peter Llewelyn Dav1es began to put aU this material m order
some time ago, and the task proved unhealthy, so much so that a
few n1ghts ago he was obliged to bum in his fireplace many f.umlr
mementos and thousands of lc:tters rhat he and his brothers had
wmren to Barrie. Peter Llewelyn Davies is depressed; he has night·
marc\, hi~ dead brothen. appear to him at the most unexpected
times and placcb. The pabt is a dangerous game.
Peter Llewelyn Danes is thinking of his four brothers, and he's
thinking of the last .:ntry he made in Ius "Morgue," in memory of
his dead brother George.
Peter Llewelvn Dmcs is thinking of George ("Peter Pan Dies
on Batderront"), and he's thmkmg about the time he visited Ius
grave in 1946, in the cemetery tor British troops at Voormezeele;
he thinks of George's tombstone, with the bas- relief of a cross and
a medal, and of him~clf srandmg there, .. thinking vaguely of the
dus1 and skeletons and the conqueror worm, and older days that
were happ1er, and l'm not a~hamed to admir that r piped an
eye ~,
Pe1cr Llewelyn Davie~ is thinking of Michael, who of d1em all
was most Peter Pan ( .. Peter Pan DrO\ms ,,;th Best Friend 111 Sand-
ford Pool: Su1c1de Pact Suspected"), and he remembers going to
Oxford to search for his brother's losr body, traveling from Lon-
don on a long, dark night when he tOo felt that he was submerged
rn water and that there was no air to breathe.
Peter Llewelyn Da\1CS is thinking of Nico ("Peter Pan Mar-
ries" ), who these days goes out only to \1Sit rare-book dealers in
search of first editions of ghost stories.
Peter Llewelyn Da\1e~ is thmking of Jack, who died a year ago,
and abour whom he can't remember any headlines, maybe because
Jack never entirely trusted Barrie, and because Jack was always the
least Peter Pan of them alL
Peter Llewelyn Davies is thinking of his parents, though he
can't remember them very well.
Arthur and Syhia.
Two names that always seemed-whether he said them aloud
K!:NSINGION CARDI!N~
or not, it was enough just to think them-like 1he name' of heme'
of ancient legend or the lando;capes and face~ lliscovc:red l>cne.uh .1
painting's surface, landscape~ .md faccb the arti\t decided to cover
up, ha,·ing cbanged hu mind or been disappointed. Pmtimmro 1'
whar that's called, he d1in~ now, his mmd still firmly nude up a~
the time comes ro jump.
Peter Llewelyn Davies is thinking of all d1c times he was asked
what it felt like to be the inspiration for Peter Pan. Peter Llewelvn
Davies is thinking about how Peter Llewelyn Davies always ;e
ferred tO Peur Pnn as "d!ar terrible masterpiece," and he is think-
ing-he sees it all at once, as if someone had struck him-that
none of the following day's newspapers will resist the temptation
to tide his ob1tuary "f>eter Pan D1es in London Underground Sra-
oon," "Peter Pan's Death Leap," "The Tragedy of Peter Pan,"
"Peter Pan Commits Suicide."
Peter Llewelyn D;l\·ies is rhmkmg that none of th1s martel"\ m
him now-although his editor's instincts would have caused him
to react in di~gust at the error the nex1 morning in the Dni~v f\·-
prrss, which \\ill give hts age a~ ~ixr:y-cight iru1e.1d of Slxtv-threc:-
or at least that it doesn't matter as much. .
Peter Llewelyn Da,ies is thinking-~ I am thinking now-of
the wretched statue of Perer Pan in \\retched Kensington Gardcm
in the wretched dry of London. A bronze bo1• with a flute at hi~
lips, appearing between d!e trees. A bronze bo·, that-like aU stat
ues-won't C\'er grow old. He ne,·er liked the statue. Barrie didn't
like it either ("It captures nothing at all of the little devil in Peter,"
its creator sa~d to its sculptor). I don't ltke it then-as night tails
on the night Peter Llewelyn Da~ies falls forever or nO\~, all thC\e
years later, beside this open window, relling you tl1e story that he
gins ,,;th a boy who was never a man and ends \\1th a man who
was never a boy.
Something Like that.
Or bener· it bcgms ,,;th a boy's death and ends with a man·~
SUICide.
Or with various deaths and various ~u1cidcs.
I'm not sure
/0 R 0 DR I G 0 P Rl! SAN
It docsn 't matter.
One thing is clear: at the end of the beginning, Peter Pan dies.
Peter Pan kills himself.
Peter Pan is thinking-he's thinki ng again-that dying will be
an awfully big advcnmrc, and he jumps and thinks of Peter Llew-
elyn Davies, and Peter Llewelyn Davies is thinking that he's so
tired of thinking.
Peter Llewelyn Davic:s is thinking that it's April 5, 1960, that
there's no rime left, that now is the time (wh-at time is it?), that the
train is coming into Sloane Square Station, on time as alwa~•s, that
he hopes he'll be forgiven, I'm sorry to have to go so abruptly, so
rudely, good night, God save the Queen, and God have mercy on
my soul and forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.
Lately, Kciko Kai- "1 read the news today, oh boy"- l've been re-
membering too much roo.
That old-fashioned boy, that sepia-tinted boy, sitting under the
walnut table where they've set his brother's coffin, is called James
Matthew Barrie, and he's six years old, and he's pretending to hide
from a terrible pirate. They won't find him here, he's sure of it,
hidden by the skirt of the tablecloth, protected in the ship's hold
by the dead new body of Da,~d Barrie: the family's great hope, the
chosen one, the electrifYing light in a home lit by candles.
David Barrie: athletic and handsome and good at school and
sure to become a minister, to bask in heavenly and academic glory
as an admired doctOr of divinity; and who will read all those books
of philosophy and theology now, who?
"Why him? Why did it have to be him?" weep the women
who've come to weep. And the sound of their sobs makes James
Matthew Barrie think of the treacherous singing of mermaids, of
shipwrecked advenrurers, of distam shores. James Matthew Barrie
isn't very good at games: short, his head too big for hi; too-small
body. James Mart11ew Barrie i; the constant worry of his teachers,
because James Matthew Barrie, tiny James Matthew Barrie, always
seems ro be somewhere else, somewhere far away. So unlike David
they might belong tO rwo different races.
David was, is, and always will be the f.worire of his mother,
Margaret Ogilvy, who's kept her maiden name according to old
ll RODRIGO FRBSAN
tradition and has now retired to her rooms and closed the win-
dows and drawn the currams so she won't hear anything or any-
one. The consunr noi~ of the looms coming out of all the houses
and up the street makes James Matthew Barrie imagine-under
the table, playing \\ith h1s lmlc s1srer, Magg.e, under Da1id's
coffin-that he's heanng the clash of the many blades of many
gentlemen fighting \lmultaneous duels for the heart of a single,
unattainable pnnce~~- }arne~ Matthew Barne has the rare ability to
tr31'el without gomg anrwhere.
Margaret Ogih')· won't ri'e from her bed, not e1 en to deposit a
last kiss on the e1 er bluer lips of her favorite prince. Da1id, the
best of her ten children Da1·id, dead in a skating accident just as
he was abour to turn fourteen, on an ky lake as cold as a mirror, in
the Grampian Hills ours1de of Kirnemutr, m the county of Angus,
once known as forfar5h1re, five miles northeast of Forfar, in Scot·
land, in the terrible and unforgettable I\inter of 1867.
Jamc~ J\ lattlu.:\1 B,1rru: Will immortalize this place in se1•eral of his
books, calling 11 the Thrum\, the n.um: the inhabitants of Kir-
ricmuir-•• town of ~pinncr' ,1ml looms-have given to the skeins
spinning on 11 ooden frames .
And here he b now.
Spinning on his own a>.is.
James Manhe11 Barrie (Barrie, from 11011 on) was born on May
9, 1860, and was baptized tn the church of South Free the follow-
ing Sunday, the ninth child of Da1'id Barne and Margaret Ogilvy,
who were marned at twenty seven and twenty-one and had seven
daughters and three sons Alexander, the oldest boy, was born in
l 841; Maq fdward, the oldest g1rl, 111 I 854; Jane: Ann Adamson
in 18-!7, Da1id in 1853, Sara 111 1854, Isabella in 1857 Elizabeth
and Agnc" d1cd 'crv earlv, 111 thc1r cradles. A good )'idd for the
age: just two lile\ lost out of tc:n, though perhaps I'm overlooking
some death. Mark .1 cross bes1de their names in the register, lay
them in little: pine: boxc>, COl cr the boxes 1\ith earth, and life goes
on; there wasn't even time for them tO learn to say dtcir own
KllNSINGrON CARDbNS 13
namn. And, thmk.\ M.ugaret Ogilvy, you don't miss, or don't m1ss
much, \omeonc you ha1 en 't e1·cn come to m1dcrsrand.
~brgarc:t Ogih-y docsn 't really understand Barrie, the: youngest
ofhc:r wm, very 11cll e1thcr There's something incomplete about
him, .1bour the: wa~ he looh in the fc1\ pictures taken of him-
because "h~ botl1er to photograph a boy who doesn't even seem
tnteresting enough to impress his image forcefully on paper? In his
childhood photograph~. Barrie alwa~s looks imprecise. More like a
sketch than a porrra1t More as if rendered in the oils of an appren-
tice than the brand new and almost automatic miracle of photog·
raphv's developing fluids. Barrie, always dressed in little suits that
try to impart some distincnon to his small body ";th its short arms
and b1g teet and enormous head. His moon fuce crowds as many
features 1nt0 as small a space as possible. It's as if h1s eyes and nose
and mouth seck the exact center of that pale circle, which always
seems to ha1·e JUSt emerged from the eclipse of a long and dull and
exhausnng 1llness.
In her photOgraph,, on the mhcr hand, Margaret Ogilvy looks
strong and determined: a gentle dc~pot, a professional mother,
head of the tribe:. 11cr hu,band occupies himself with affairs out·
side the house. Her husband i~ one of Lhc most respected men in
the community, and he's known and admired for his busine~
skills. Her hu~band would never let her children be de1•oured by
rl1e mills, alway> r.ll cnous for wool; her husband has better plans
tor those "ho bear his name. Margaret Ogilvy steers dte house like
a ship, not letting go of rl1c wheel for a second, her eyes always
lhed on the horizon, looking ahead, ~earching for land. It's hard
for me to imagme either of these two-Margaret Ogih-y or Da1id
Barne tdhng thetr children stones. It's hard for me to believe
they know any stories.
What a change between th1s photograph of Margaret Ogih1' be·
fore young D.11'id's death and thJt one , taken scl'cral '\'ears after he
was brought to her on a ~led, dead and almost unmarked, h1s neck
broken and bones jumbled nonetheless as 1f by one of those wh1rl·
14 RODRIGO FRFSAN
winds of dead lea,·es that come rushing down the Highland rocks,
kilt blown up and sex exposed, ~hrunken by the cold and the rain.
Da,id's eyes are open. I always wondered what 1t meant, that final
choice: d)•mg "1th eyes open or shut. When a person's eyes are
open, does it mean that what he saw m the final second of life was
too beautiful; or, conversely, "hen h1~ e\'O are shut, does it mean
that what he glimpsed on the other \ide wa~ ~o terrible that the
darkness behind the curtain of h1~ eydids ,,.as preferable?
Open your eyes
Let me shm\ vou, Kl:iko Kai.
In the first of the photographs, ~largaret Ogihy is the perfect
mcarnarion of matriarcha.l power and self-satisfaction. A woman
\Vith a mission, her modest but digrufied bonnet ned \\ith a bow
under her chin. Margaret Og1l~'\ smiles the smJle of someone who
feels invulnerable, the wmncr of wars that no one should e,·er have
bothered to declare .1gam~t her. What was the point, why fight in
retreat without ever ha,·ing jo1ned bJttle? The photograph is out
of locus, not bccau~c the photographer made a mi~takc but be-
cause it wa~ impossible to kc:cp Margarc:t Ogilvy sdll in those days
of long exposure~. A minute was too much time to waste staring at
a wooden box with a glas~ eye, with its foul-smelling flash of mag-
nesium, thought Margaret Ogihy.
The second of the photographs, from 1871, is a typical stndio
portrait that shows her \\ith her gaze lost and her slcin nearly
translucent; ~he 1s dres~cd with great elegance, but Margaret
Ogilvy IS now a weaker and more tearful woman. A motionless
woman. A woman who's had one of the most Important chapters
npped from her life sron In rh1~ photograph, one hand is rai<;<:d
ro her face but doc\n 't quite touch 1t, perhaps for fear of not find-
ing it, or, c\ en wor~c:. of passmg through it as if it were wau:r
or air. It's th.: photograph of a linng ghost, of a woman who-
beginning Januar} 1867, after ~,\ ly son is dead! Mv son will ne\Cr
die!," and until her own death twenty-nine years Later-bas been
Ih·ing on another planet for too many rears. The planet David, in
the Nebula of the Oldest Son, near the constellation of the Dead
Skater, far from earth.
KI!N:OtNGTON GARDENS I 5
Barnc \1 ill <,ay one dav that "nothing that happens ro us ancr we
arc rwche mane~ \c::rv mu..:h,~ disguising '~th this clever exagger-
ation rhc:: luck) \htKk of the mmr important thing: the thing that
''ill mark the rest of rus da}S, that happened to him when he was
onl) six years old and had an older brother who'd just died.
Barne remembers that rwo telegrams arri,·c:d from the office at
Forl'ar. The first brought news of the accident (Da,id hadn't e\·en
been skating; a friend "as pu~lung him from behind and Da\id teU
and hit h1s he: ad on the ice ; the second told of the tragic outcome.
Da,id IS brought on a sled as night falls. He's brought on a sled
by rimed men, men recently come from the mills, covered in the
red, green, gold, and blue of the enormous barrels of dye. It looks,
thinks Barrie, like the funeral of a Icing of the elves. It's trolls that
bring Da~d slowly along Brechin Road, in a solemn procession, to
the house Jt L1lybank Ill the Tenements, Kirricmuir. A house the
same as all rhe rest: a pitched root: chimney, wmdows, a from and
a back door, and it's not easy to say which of the two doors is the
front door, which i~ the front of the house.
Barrie'~ ~brcr~-who .ucn't sure cithcr--di,·idc.: into rwo groups
and come: out the two door~ and begin to howl so neighbors and
fam1ly won't nmr.ll..e the puh to gric:f. .Barrie bears them from the
hule "ashhou~c: on the or her side of the street, across from his
houJ.e, "here he spend~ most of the day thinking up plays. Barrie
comes out of Ule little house and encounters the bodv of hls
brother, who now seems ltke a puppet whose strings h;,.e been
stolen, and yet still wears a smile of surprise that nor e\·en the min-
ister will be able to ~mooth away when he prepares the body for
the funeral.
Barnc ~tands on a cha1r and looks into Da,,d's coffin, on the
table. Barne ~miles back at Dav1d, and doesn't quite understand
what'~ happening The grown ups tell him to get d own from
there, and Barnc crawb under the table so he won't have tO sec his
mother ~houung. If there'\ anything more terrible than shouting,
it's ~cmg "here the \houting comes from: shouting always tram-
16 RODRIGO l'RBSAN
forms those who shout, rurn~ them mto something new and terri·
ble; and Barrie docsn 'r rccognite his mother anymore, struck as
she is by the lightning bolt of her own shounng. The \\indow·
panes tremble, ourside a dog barks, and someone else shouts too,
because stray shout~ ah,ays find a ~hout to join.
Barrie's father orders h1~ daughters to take the1r mother to her
room. The daughter~ \maHer \hours paying obeisance ro the big
shour-obev 1mmed1atel}'. and httle Barrie hears them going up
the stairs. A shout for ealh Mcp from oldest to youngest in turn,
then back to the bcgmnmg. A door opcm and a door doses, and
for the ncu few davs the hou~c ~eems to hang in the air, as if
frozen in time,~ 1f Margan:t Ogth'\ ·~~hour has fore,·er altered the
mechanisms governing nme and monon.
Nothing 1mponant ever happened in Kirricmurr, but after
Da\id's death d1c only thing that happens in the house on Brechin
Road is his death. Over and over again. Sctded .u the head of the
family table, at church, everywhere. Barrie evades th1s nonevent of
living death. Barrie escapes by losmg h1mse lf in books. Barrie
opens books like wmdows, opens books to let the light of a story
into hi~ gloomy lifi:. llarric reads w leave hi~ ~urroundi ngs behind,
and the books become p.~rt ol' him. BJrrie and Ro!Jimon Crusoe
and Trenmre Islnutf and The Arn!Ji1111 Niglm in a deluxe children's
edition, without ~candalou~ illmtrarion~. Barrie reads stories about
lone tra\ clers and lost Lravc:lc:rs. Barrie imagin~ his moilier as a
queen taken pnsoncr. Barrie enters hi~ mother's bedroom, which
is always dark, as if he's venturing mto a treasure: ca,·e or a srorm at
sea. He enters books and clo,cs them, and Barne asks h1mselfwhar
happens when a book closes, when the story 1t tells is interrupted.
Barrie asks h1mself what the book's speed 1s: is it the author's
speed as he was wrinng, or 1~ 1t the speed readers reach as they
read> And aim. docs a bo<lk \lop when It's set astdc, or are books
perpctual-mocion machine:~ Ll1.1t work wiili no need of readers?
Books are lil:.e magic engines that never srop dri\ing their hemes
and villains toward~ new shore~ and palace~, and that's why it isn't
a good idea ro mterrupt your rc:admg of them, thinks Barrie: you
miss so many things when you close a book. There are nights Bar-
K.BNSINGTON GARDENS I 7
rie could swear he hears the books talking among rhemsclvc•, mm·
gling, recountmg their live' and wor~, recalling their plots, their
best momenb. Barne d1in~ that reading is the: making of memo·
ries and that '' riung i~ alw the making of memories. The memo·
ries of the person who writes-the only d1ing writers do is
rnnembtr something the) happened tO think of, somcthmg thdt
happened to them or ne' c:r happened to them, but that's happen·
ing 11011' as d1e} ''rite-are incorporated into the memories of me
person '' ho reads, until it's tmpossiblc to say where the memories
of one end and the other begin. The writer as imc:rmediarv, as
spirir guide-as elucidator of bo'' book5 are the ghosts of li\ ing
writers, and dead writers arc the ghosts of books. And maybe this
is immortality, never getting old, Barrie says to himself. Ink as the
eh:xir of eternal life, drunk through the eyes, and Barrie thinks that
if there's anything better than bcmg a writer, it's being a chJ.racter.
Barrie thmks about aU these things.
l know it seems unlikely that a six yea r-old would think hke
that back then; but I swear to you, Kciko Kai, I thought that way
a century later, when I was the ~amc age as Barrie. And, like Bar·
ric, I thought all th ose things, and d1csc thmgs, as useful defense
mcchanbms: there's nothing better than contemplating the way
fiC£ion works when you're trying to flee rcaliry.
Barrie: wonders about the mcanmg of certain illustrations 111
certain boo~. Barrie think5 about the happiness we feel when we
reach a certain paragraph and understand at last why a chaptc:r's
called ''hat it's c;allcd
Barrie thinks about the subtle ~ibration of eYery'thing arow1d
m the first time we read a ~ntence we 'U never forget:. Barrie thinks
about all of mis so he won 'r have to think that now it's time to go
up and ~ee hO\\ h1s mother tS Barrie docsn "t lil:.e to go mro that
room where the atr ~cared) moves, where evcf)'tlung drags itself
on its knees beggmg lor ex plana nons from a merciless God, God's
fury barelv d1sgm~d by hi~ p10U\ cloak of prayers and roganons
Margaret Ogilvy i\ the daughter of a fanancally religious bnck·
larcr, and ~he wa\ brought up m one of the most punranical
Protestant seers, known 01s the Auld L1chts, or Old Ltghrs. Her
111 ROORIOO FRESAN
task in the seer was to care for the motherless children, the littlest
ones. When she gor married, she moved to another kirk, her hus-
band's pansh, as specified in the marriage laws: the Free Church,
wh1ch split from the Estabhshed Church of Scotland in 1843. This
spbntcr branch had no backing and depended on the generosity of
1ts members, who were supporters of new lights. Even so, Mar-
garet Ogilvy alway~ rcmalllcd attached, body and soul, to the
unswerving faith of her elder~, among whom it was preached, "If a
man dcmcs the Holy Sp1rit, then that man could not have been
created by Him .~
~!argarct Ogiky-Jemoved bv grief and the shock of her
grief.- ne1•er renounces God, but she does renounce her youngest
son. James Matthew IS so insignificant compared with Da1·id. Even
under the ground, David seems more real and present than James
Manhew.
And this IS what happens to Barrie when he's six years old, the
instant th.u marks h1s whole life, and, so many years later, wiU end
up sparking the legend of a boy frozen in time. This is the day Bar-
rie receives and conceives hi~ ten commandments.
"Everything is pure supposition until the.: age of six," Barrie.: will
write much later; but he'll .1lway~ remember this moment per-
fectly, as if seeing it at the theater or in a book: the date of his real,
second birth. Barrie ascends to the summit where Margaret Ogilvy
lies, and descends with the tablets of his law, on which a single
commandment may be read. An unchanging voice of stone and its
echo that knows how to counr only to ten, which is more than
enough:
:-lever grow up.
Nc1·er grow up.
Nc1·cr grow up.
~ever grow up.
Nner grow up.
~e1·er grow up.
Never grow up.
Never grow up.
tU;NSINOTON GAROflNS IV
Nncr gru11 up.
Nc1cr gro11 up.
Barrie climbs the Mairs. His older sister Jane Arm has told him that
it isn't right, dle 11 av Ius modter'~ forgotten him. uThc (jving mu~t
be at least a~ important as the dead," reasons Jane Ann. Barrie
thmks about me story of a night in TIJr Arabian NigiJts that he's
only half finished. He wan~needs, yearns-to rerum to tint per-
ilous ad1·enrure as fast as he can, so it's best to face this other
perilous adventure as fust as he can, he tells himself.
Barnc recalls the ep1sode years later in Margaret OgilP_v, his suc-
cessfi.ll memoar about h1s mother pub(jshed by Hodder &
Stoughton m 1896. The book that has more to do "'ith him than
with hi~ mother, since, all the wh1le it analyzes the woman who
gave birth tO him, it evokes lm despair at having lost his war back
to the Land of Ch1ldhood.
Here's my copy. A fir\t edition.
What would you prclcr, Keiko Kai: that I read it to you or tell
you the story? Wd l, let me reread it myself for a few minutes, so I
remember it. And then I' ll tell it to you.
Ready.
Li;tcn, look; here it is:
Barrie climbs the st.tirs. Fir~t he ~tops in his bedroom-until re-
cently "Da1 id's bedroom"- and opens a wardrobe, takes out one
of hb older brodlC"r'~ ~uit~, and puts it on. The Sunday suit. It's
very big on him, but, oddly, it fits h1m better than his own Sunday
suit. His suit seems me product of an operation by an incompetent
surgeon, with scars Ill the strangest and most unlikely places, he
mlllks.
Barnc: knocks at h1s mother's door. There's no answer. He
opens the door He goes m. He hears nothtng from the bed, bur
that doesn 'r matter he can't sec the bed m the dark, the kind of
darkness that c:mrcd m the world before electriary reached every-
where- ·a dark darknc~s . The hght of the sun and the moon and
e1·cn firehght were dtflcrcnt back then roo.
Barnc remembers the 1\J} to the bed and goes towards it. Bar-
20 RODRIGO PRESAN
rie breames de~:ply, and maybe he's crying without realizing it.
Barrie makes a noise. He starts to whistle. lt's taken him hours,
whole days, ro perfectly imitate the way David whistled. The
cheerful runes that were always on Dav1d's lips as he buried his
hands in the pockets of h1s trousers and strode around the sitting
room dJgging the heels of his boors into the scuffed wooden floor:
~Three Legged Paddy," "Pour Me One Last Pint for the Road,
Kathleen," "All the Men Were Really Boys," "Lon~lr ruta, Bed·
room ~1aid," and "Another Da) 10 the Life" ...
Th1s IS ho" Barne moves nO\\ : hopping in the dark, dancing
badly lake bad dan.:er\, who, as thq dance badly, thmk constantly,
"1 'm dancmg ... I'm d.m~mg " fh1~ 1~ how Barrie dances and
thl'> i'> ho'' Barne '' lusrles .md 8.1rnc closes his eyes because he
cJn 'r sec .1nyrhmg anyw.ty.
Then he hear<> a vo1ce .md a que~tion. "Is that you?" asks his
mother. Barne unucrMand~with the terrible logic of children,
logic mar's lost J\ the year~ go by tl1at Margaret Ogilvy has con-
lll~ed him with his dead brother. Barrie doesn't answer right away.
First he says "Yes." After all, she's asking him if he's him, and, yes,
Barne is Barrie. He hasn't lied, he hasn't sinned. Barrie hears a sur-
prised inrake of breath and- lim is what scares him most-the be-
gmmng of a laugh. It's been a long time since Margaret Ogi.Jvy
laughed, and whal come~ !Tom her throat :>ound~ to Barrie more
like the •awing of a crm\ that'\ been lo\t for years and finally re·
turm to Its nest. There'~ ~mething mad in that laugh. It's the
laugh of >omeone who's sure the dead don't die but instead arc
trapped in an ins ram, fore\ er unscathed and free from the dictates
of the body and the passage of time. It's the laugh of someone
who bellc\·es in ghosts that nC\ er grow old and in dead bodies that
don't rot Same can't help feeling proud, for the first time in his
life, that he's an mdispensable part of something important and
euraordinarv Suddenly the darkness seems a strange form of light.
"Yes, it's me," say~ Barrie happily, and his mother reaches out
and findo, him .md hug\ h1m. What Barne feels first IS the force of
love m d1e arms that da~p him, and then, immedJatcly, a powerful
dJsillu~ion .1~ they let go of him and push him away. Margaret
KllNSINGTON GARDENS 2I
Ogilvy lets out a long, ~ad moan, like the wind tl1at blows on wm-
ter afternoons over the crests of tlte Grampian Hjlls, and buries her
face in tlte piUo''.
"No, no, I'm not him; it's only me," says Barrie, and he leaves
the room and shuts tlte door, and the pain lasts the exact rime it
takes him to run do'' n the statrs and open a book to see the foot·
print left 10 the sand of a deserted beach, or the wake of a flying
carpet in the golden skies of Baghdad, or the gleam of gold in a
chest. He doesn't care. He 1sn't sure. For once, the leners are only
leners. Black symbols on white paper that seem to have loSt their
ab1hry to combine and make stories. Sin bad and Man Friday are no
more than creatures of black, leaden blood, men of dry ink. :-loth
ing hke what he's JUSt dJsco,·ered he can become: a cannibal aristo·
crat. One of those hybrid Eastern beasts the sultans light. A corsair
of make-beheve. A writer and a character living inside the same
name. Yes: Barrie has learned not to call up ghosts but to be a
ghost h1msdf. He has learned the crucial lesson that those who are
loved best arc those who never grow old, who nc,·er grow up.
Ghosts, the dead.
The dead who in rime become ideals rewritten by the Jiving.
The dead are-always-masterpieces of literature. Phamasmagoric
fictiom, true; but fictions of the kind mat manage to survive and
surpass any fleshly reality. The dead never grow older, but they do
expand: like a gas, a poison, a perfume.
"I won't grow up," swears Barrie.
And he closes the book.
And opens all the ,,,ndows m the house.
When the wmdow of a book closes, the wrndow of a life opens.
Mme.
M) first memory IS of a ghost, tor what 1s childhood but the
ghost that haunts our later years that refuses to abandon us m
death but matenali7cs at the end of a corridor when we least C'l·
pect It, ranling 1ts cham~
My fim ch1ldhood memory- if I rry to ~ec m}-sclf from a dis-
22 RODRIGO PRESAN
ranee, as if looking fi-om outside into an open window-is of me
and a book. In m\ room, in the room that was also Baco's room
bur that in the end would be only mine. Up there, at the top of
the house. Readmg.
I remember ir-1 remember myself reading-because it was
then I real1zed that it "as ~omething 1 ncYcr wanted ro forget, and
I felt the delicate but unnmtakablc gears of my memory turning
cogs c,·en smaller than a clock's, a dcncc capable of presening the
inseam as if it were a ~ulpture on d1splay m one of the most exclu-
si,·e wing.s in rhe museum of nw hie
A book and me and the particular, diMincm·c silence that fills a
room when then:'\ \Omconc: re.1ding in 1r. A different kind of si-
lence, because the .:omplt\ Mlencc of reading has nothing ro do
\\ith the simple \lienee of just bcmg quiet. The: silence that em·
anares from books and envelops us 1s .1 silence full of sounds, a si-
lence that changes the coordtn;ucs of eternity, which means that
you can spend hours rcadmg in the bathroom without noticing it,
trousers around your ankle'>, hypnotized by the secret scent of the
letters and the inn mate fragr.mce of your own bowels. Books arc a
point of escape, a pbcc ro let go, w let yourself fall and run into
the loresr \\~th surpri.,ing ea'c and sw1ftnc:ss. lL isn't a coincidence,
1 think, that books arc made lrmn the ncsh of trees, and Lhat li-
braries ultimately turn into petrified forests, inro branches 3Jld
roots that burrow into us and flo" er in our imagination.
"It's only during childhood dtat books have a profound influ-
ence on our h\·es," wrote Grallam Greene, 3Jld I agree. Keiko Kai:
if there were any scn~e 111 g~ving you advice that you 'U never have
the chance ro folio\\ no,v, I'd tell you to read as much as you can
while you're young. That's when \torics help us learn to struggle
against forgetting, to lormulate our reahucs, and, yes, disguise
them 3Jld make them better thm the\' really arc, so that when
\\e'\e grown up \\C: \\On't remember our life bur the lives in the
books we read back then. Edmond 03Jltes 's escaping his unjust
imprisonment and Heathcliff's embracing the dead body of his
belm·cd become key moments in our other existences, skins insep-
arable from our bone~. We attach ourseh·es to those stories like
KllNSINGTON GARDENS ] l
flies \ruck to stnp~ of \tiCk) paper, and when the moment of our
death arnves, we d1c happy, I guess: our life story ends up having
a~ many head\ as books we've rc.1d, because we've li,·ed \O many
hvcs through reading .
That, Ketko Kai, i~ how our first books-the books that work
their\\ a) tmidc ol u~ the \H}" .tmc works lt5 way into bonc-rc\·eal
to us nor onlv the stones of other~ but the possibilirv that "e
might strucrure and wntc the plots of our own exisrcnces accord-
ing ro rhc ~rylc and genre we like best. Forrunatc arc tho'>e \\ ho
read as ch1ldren, because thCif" may never be the kingdom of
hea,•en but they'll be granted access w other people's heavens, and
there they'll learn the man) "ay~ of escaping their 0\\TI hdb with
the nonfictiuous Stratcgtc~ of fictional characters.
Kc1ko Kai: I look Into the heavens of my hell as if I'm looking
into a book, through the open wmdm' of a book
I look m, and of course there exists-how could there not-the
temptation ro equate or superimpose in a single landscape the re·
dining figure of Margaret Ogilvy in the winter of 1867 and the
dancing figure of mr morhcr, Lad>• Alexandra $\\inton -Mcnzic~.
M)• mother, one hundred years later, spinning in a lysergic
spiral, hand in hand with Marianne faithfull, Nico, Patti Boyd,
l:ldic, Jane Birkin, Anita r.lllenbcrg, Twiggy, Jan de Souza. Brin
Ekland, Catherine Dcncuve, )can and Chrissie Shnmpton, Rita
Tushingham, Patti D'Arbanvillc, Vanessa and Lynn lkdgra,·c,
Verushka .. Is 11 !XlSSiblc that I saw them all together, on a smglc
day? Or i~ ir my memory th.lt hnks them fore,-er? Who cares; what
difference docs ir make? There they all are· mad priestesses in that
winter and summer of 1967 I re<.ltc rhc1r name~ like difficult in
gred.Jems 111 a m1rade brew· mane of a chaste unicorn, eye of a mis
anthropK Cydops, poem of 3Jl msomniac minstrel.
Bob Dylan \\anders the top tloor of our house, comes mto m}
room, and makes a s.:ene "A \Cenc~ 1s what m~ parents rename
the thmg my grandparents \\Ould .:all "a shameful s.:cne."' The lo~
of the adjccr1vc-of that dmmrjill--1s what separates the rwo gen-
cratiom· an ab~"'~ where what \eem~ 1mproper !Tom one side is ex-
perienced !Tom the mhcr .1s somethmg that bare!~ happened.
24 RODRIGO PR.BSAN
What happens is this: Bob Dyl:ln comes into my room. The
room that until recently was our room. My room and Baco's. Bob
Dylan comes in thmkmg that it's the bathroom. Bob Dylan is pale
and green and dressed an a black suit and a black shirt with white
polka dots and he has dark gla.,.~cs on and he vomits on my neatly
arrayed collection of lead <.oldier.. and he apologizes and I can't
undcrst<Jnd a word of\\ har he's <.;~ving "Don't worry, darling, I
don't either . No one undcr.tands "hat he says; that's why he's
so succe~sfuJ ," my mother wtll e~pla.in to me later, as she insiSts
that m~ 6Jthy, smcllv wld1er.. arc much more ,·aJuablc now than
rhev were when the\ were clean and smelled only like metal.
Margaret Ogilw and Lady Alexandra S\\1nton·Men:zies have
just lost sons the former her oldest and the latter her younger-
and the two arc plagued by survi,ing, guilt-ridden sons. Barrie's
guilt is imaginary, and 10 rhe end ll helps him construct his acs·
thetic credo. Mine ~~ real, and ir's been useful to me too.
Not long ago, I read an anicle in an airhnc magazine that ex-
plained thai the death or a .. hild increases the likelihood that his
parents will die young. You know, Kdko Kai: one of those reports
based on ~urvcy~ that Thr Lanm publishes every so often, in
which figures pile up and percentage& arc boiled down and ir's re·
\'ealed rlur, tor as long as three years after dte death of a child, par-
ems li\·e in a state of extreme \'ulnerability in which anything-any
bad dting can happen ro them, and that their chances of disap·
pea ring ~re 60 percent greater than those of parents who hav·en 't
suffered a sim1lar loss. I suppose my parents fit this pro6Je, al·
though rhe arncle ~ays nothing about the bereaved parents, before
they die, going gracefully mad
Here, a long time ago. Do,~lutairs in Lhe basement recording stu-
dio of Ne\crland, the familv cottage at Sad Songs. The real name
of my familv's house isn't Neverland, of course; bur I've caJJed it
that for alrnosr as long as 1 can remember, and, please, don't con-
fuse it with that pathetiC, one note, plastic ranch belonging ro
one-note, plastic Mtchacl Tackson.
KENSINGTON GARDENS -~
' 0
Here, in those day~-in the sixrie~. in what were once the secret
chamber.. "here a dc:,adc:nt nobility co:dc:d up ,~;th their house·
maids-my father, Seb~uan "Darjeeling~ Compton-Lowe, and hi~
band, the Beaten aka the Beaten Victorians aJ..a the Victorians,
keep recording son~ and 6Jming evc:rvdting that move~ and
e\"el')'thing that'~ nc\cr moved or ever will mm·e. They haven't
slept for many days and ni~m. All but for my father ha,·e nostrils
dusted \\ith Colombian snow. It's cold and It's hot and dtere are
moments when It's noming at all, as if it were outer space here in
the depths of Neverland
Q,·er and o,·er again, my f.tther and his colleagues record and
film what they presume will be their masterpiece: the never-
released quadruple album nded Losr Boy Baco's Brokm·Henrud
Req111em & L)'strgte Ftmcrn/ Parlor Inc. Peter Blake and Andy
Warhol go so far as to design rl1c cover: a mirror in the shape of a
tombstone in wh1ch you sec yoursclt: The idea was Andy Warhol's,
and it was also Warh ol who directed parr of the shoot. When you
open rhe cover, it un folds-like a certain kind of children's book-
to reveal a crowd of famou~ figures from the British Empire,
among rhem James Manhew Barrie, paying their respects be~ide
an open grave. Peter Blake\ idea. At rhe bottom of the tomb lies
Baco's old teddy bear-1 think ih nan1e was Murphy-which with
the years and the ero~ive forces of 101 e had become something that
mighr ha' e been a cat or a dog or a rat. Warhol doesn't like the in-
terior collage much. It strikes htm as very "highbrow." Peter Blake
isn't sure "hether he didn't use dte same idea for dte cover of Sgt.
Pepprr's Lo11e(v Henrrs Clttb &md. Peter Blake isn't even sure of his
name. Peter Blake has just s1gned a contract mat stipulates he'll re-
ceive onl\' a smglc paymem of two hundred pounds from the Bca·
des' label for SCC\iccs rendered. ln orne he'll go to court, realizing
that h1s Sgt Pepper cover ts almost as 1mporranr as the music in-
Side Bur" hat\ s1gned IS s1gned, bche,·c me, Kciko Kai.
So my brother Baco's gra'c sudden I~ becomes a pop shrine.
More than once, l'\e ~ccn T· sh1rts \\lth the photograph of my
mother holdmg Baco and my father's arms around them both I'm
nor 1n rhc p1cture, but I 111111n the p1crure: I'm the taker of the pic-
 RODRIGO FR.£SAN
rure, I'm the click and the flash; I asked them to smile, to smsle
at me.
Ba.:o·~ the real son. I'm the nor ~o real 'lOll . I'm the real lost
boy It doesn't matter; It doesn't matter to them; a matters to me.
For my parents these arc times of absolute truth, and, paradoxi-
cally, of m~tanr mythicszation. (',ountcrculrural amnesia causes
Baco's f:1cc, Baco's blue eyes, Baco's golden c:urls, the fleeting
memory of him, to be rapidly assimilated a~ the onlv mememo of
his parent\: renegade aristocrats, bhaming their parents, noble:
members of the nobility who can't undcr~und how their children
could change so much in so little time. Baco and the: mt:mory of
Baco arc: the surface of a lake set rippling bv wngs like srones, by
the roclung of long-drawn-our songs, and- hey 1 sf our son's
died, better ro make something of it, nsrn ir into something new
and crcam·e: ~Here comes the son,~ ha ha ha. An aod opera in
memory of Baco, my dead lsrrle brother The recordsng sessions
began with star-~tudded enthussasm, but the party wound down
lske a fire burnmg through the darke\t of night~ The deluxe guests
lcfi one by one. Some wenr without saying goodbye, waiting until
my father was momentarily distracted; he kept them almost like
hmtage,, ''or lung, forbidding them to go out in the daylight. At
l.u.t, my father i\ left alone with his !,'Uitar. He i~n't in the best of
shape: he: 's lost we1ght, an ear infection has made him nearly deaf,
his scalp and Ius hands are co,·ered in psoriasi~, and his retinas are
damaged from staring unprotected at an eclipse. Yes, my father's
the la~t man on a deck approaching the \'ertscal, the captain who's
decided not to abandon his sinkmg ship. The shsp ss him.
i':or long ago they called me from the re1ssue label Rhino. They
otlcred to launch Lost Boy Baco's Brokm -Htartcd Requiem & Ly-
sergic Funeral Pm·lor Inc. for the fir$t time, wah all rhe requisite
pomp .md circumstance, in a mirrored case with two silver com-
pact di~ks J~ well as a DVD of film dips and a litrlc book written
by me, of cour~e: the unhcrsally cc:lcbrated creator of Jim Yang,
hero of children everywhere.
The\' asked me whether I had the tapc:s. I lied and said no, that
they had gone down in the never full} explamcd shipwreck of the
tram.ulantic hner SS Rf!Jina t'ictoria. I told them they ''ere lost
KENSINGTON GARDENS 27
with my psychcddic progeniltll"\ ( Ill) mother "a!. found, bur st can
hardl} be said she sun·i\C:d the ds~.l\ter ) Jnd their crew of Oo\\C:r-
bedeckcd dandies on their "av to t11c: .u.hram of Rishikesh \\here
the Mahari.ilii Aiahesh Yogi was w.utlng for them, and where m}
tathcr-1 disco,·ered years larer in a llian in which he explained his
plan-imended ro burniliare the Indian holy man, or "if possible
kill him," in orde.r to bter "propose or establish, whichever is eas-
iest," a nco-Victorian pop raj, or something like that.
"We'll get there before the bloody Bcatles! Our SS Re.qinn Vic-
toria is better than their idiotic yellow submarine," mv father told
me, hugging me on the dock and dcmonstrat:mg yet again that his
competitiveness with John, Paul, George, and Ringo had by now
reached pathological levels. More about this later; I 'II tell you
soon . Oh, ssnce we'n: on the subject do you like the Searles,
Kcsko Kai>
''Take care of that great big latlc brother of yours," added my
father I thought it inapproprsate to rcmsnd him that my "great big
little brother" had been dc:ad lor almoM ,, rear. My mother didn't
say Jnyrhing. For months she'd bcc:n li\'ing behind a perpetual
smile and discovering that what worked so well for centuries for
the Monn Lisa could work for her too. Mv motbcr offered me J
daisy .u. ~olemnly as she might have handt:d me a jewel, full of tl1e
childish gravity with which flo" ers were offered in those days.
I "aired w1til the ship had disappeart:d on the horizon and
threw the flower inro the water. Dermotr- 1 ask myself whether
certam British surnan1es make st inevitable that a butler \\ill germs
nate ''here once there was a man; I J.\k myself what secret shears
prune the first names of butlers so that only their surnames grow-
rook me home. Dermott brought me to Nc,·erland, where a tcw
day~ later we heard news of the shipwreck, and I thought, Dicken
sianly, "An orphan at last," and went out into the garden ro make
two snowmen. A man and J wom.1n: my parents. l needed to see
them melt, I thought; and rhc uwi,iblc man on the BBC signed
ofr wsth the mantra ..This ss the end of rhe world news " which
'
mil dssturbs me tOday \\ith sts prom sse of an unJUSt final JUdgmens,
\\1th sts snsinuauon of an end "srhmst return.
\o I said goodbye to the record company necuuvc~. One of
2/l RODRIGO PRBSAN
them asked me," ith hungn· pride, whether l knew that in the re-
cently d!~co' crcd dsscardcc.i fi>otagc of A Hard Day's Night there
was a brief scene 10 whteh l appear, practically still a baby, beside
Phil Collin~. fhcn I tC:lr the horror of realizmg that for some peo-
ple my childhood was part of a new archcologJcal adventure, or an
ancient curse on an) one who defiled the grave. I rold him 1 had no
memory of such a thmg, then hung up wtth the excuse of an ap-
pomtmcnt m .1 ~.111 on the orhcr hnc, and went down into the
cellars of :-\c,·crland tu look for the tapes of Lost Bo_v Bnco 'r
Brt~km-Hfnrrnf ROJIIItm "-~I ,yse•~11t I- mural Parlor bu. I'd never
heard them I \\as sure th<:\ 'd he sad somc:ho''· E\o.:ruciating and
vulgar and tJ.:tk as on!) the rcvoluunnaf) gesture~ of those years
l.ln and umld h,.. sul,,muung "!me lor hlalk and up for down
and \\ ar for pe.1,c .1nd ( ll.lnd lor pat,houli. 1 in1.1grned them like
one oft he: me sse:~ Ill) IJthc:r "as so fimd of organi,dng. Everything
and ev.:ryonc 111 .t single: song \\1t.lt do Jane Austen and Oz's
Emerald Cit"\ h.l\ c in common? Or Wiu~ton Cl1t1rchill and the
courtesJn who rumed .1n idim pohtH:tan and lat.:r had her picture
taken nude, lc,lning ag.linst the: back of .1 designer chair?
Ir rook me a "htk ro lw.:.nc therr wherc.thours: the tapes were
stored Ill Jn empty orgnnc ho\, .md .tg.un, .1fter I'd tound them, I
didn't "·ant to li\lcn 10 thl·m I .tho (Oil\tdercd it bcS£ nor ro cx-
po~c: myself to the dmcns of l'Jtustcrs of cellulord Highly toxic ra-
dioactive~ matcri.tl There\ ~omething tc:rnble about the ability to
compare tile mc:rnoric:s of .1 ~hildhood with the incontestable e\i-
dence of "hat happcnnl then. 1 .uk mnclf \\ hether there isn't
somedung tcrnblc about the carcti.tl "a\· 'ideotape presen·es the
prc~ent and future II\ c~ of all rhme who 're filmed from the very
moment of thctr htrlh, all those who 'II be able ro see themselves
now and forever-~ car> alter rhc contractiom and parted legs-
covered 111 bltx~<.i ,lJlJ pb,cnta, hem hng as if they\·e JUSt been ex-
pclkJ from an amnion, paradt~ .md l>cen confronted \\ith an
c:x.:irc:d idtut hokhng a .\ b.de Ill Japan camera. Yes, I suppose it
happened tO you, Kc:iko 1\:.li. And, ~ es, tile idea rhar everything is
recorded !>Care:~ me one\ 0\\ n litC: a~ a documemarv that can be
consulted <It 1\111, thus a.s~uring the deatl1 of the .tb~olutc mnterr
KJ:.NSIN<JTON GARDENS 19
of our p.!\t Lw profc,stng to dcvJte .1 banal ~ixth-birthda) parry to
the hi~tori,;~l and dowmcmarv level of that home mo,~e shot in
D.tll.l~ in '63 and vet
That's whv I choo~c to remember rather than to sc:e.
I prefer to sec "ith my cvcs shut.
I rcmc:mbcr everything, en~rything, e\ernhing I've decided ro
remember.
It's not as tf J\·c forgotten the rest, I've just chosen not ro re-
member. The ~me tlung happens "ith certain songs: we !mow
them pcrfccdy "ell, but we can't recall thctr otles or the names of
rhc persom who smg them. That's why I preferred ro decide for
my~elf 111 advance what was forgettable and what wasn't, before
gt'·ing in to chance or the agmg of my neurons. Whole continents
have been sw.tllowed up by the waves of my memory.
I remember little or nothmg, lor example, of my school days. A
pri\;ltc \Chool, the other students all like those alien children in
Villn,qr of tbr Dnllllmf, I mmplctcly unlike them. The certainty
t h.u I would ncvct he good at L11Jths, because, by the time I was
f.1ced with dreaded decimals, I h.td no understanding of rhar kind
of thing. I couldn't help re.tding equations by pausing at the peri-
mh as if the number~ "ere part of a scmence, not a ~urn.
But I do remcmbc:t "hen 1 ''a~ JU~t m egg imide my motl1er.
And I remember my dc.1d mother'~ open eyes. And d1c eyelids of
so manv other de.1d people; crelitis, I'm told, are the first things to
disappear as the bodv bcgim the siO\\ process of shedding skin
and flesh and personalit\', Bodies dancing that striptease of the
perishable and meidenral uno! they're left bare, naked to the
bone, and -doaked 111 death so shamefully identical to all other
~kelerons.
I remcmb.:r cvcf)·dung I ''ant to remember, because almost
from the Oc:ginning-ti·om the day I dtscovered the thing called
mmror.v that \\Ould .diem me to reco,·cr almost intact whar had
happened the d.l) bclilrc-1 told m}-clf I wouldn't torgct ;my-
thmg I cnn,tdcred unlorg.:tt.lhle.
The meth1xi ts 'trnplc and almost obnous: spend mo or three
hours .1 da~ g01ng on:r \\ll.lt', h.1ppcncd, mnkm,lf mcmorv; be-
1(} RODRIGO FRBSAN
cause, yes, memory's constructed in the same '' ay that buildings
arc constructed. It's ob\ious that it's an undertakmg doomed to
~
tailurc; no mancr how little there is, it's impo\stble to remember
c:,·crything Sooner or later \\indows dtsappear, whole rooms arc
lost, greenhouses Jre abandoned, p.l<>sageways lead to locked
door,, and gardcm arc ra,•agcd by sumtorms and hail It doesn't
maner. What', mtcresting ts what rematm, ''hat's len intact. The
immort.tl \lldlthat won'r pass through the holes in the mesh of
the sin·c: and that ends up forming om idcntlt). The things we de-
cide to remember forever. What\ tangled and can't be: unknotted.
The \tring~ of the pa~t that mO\·e t.hc marionette ol our prescnl.
Tim 1~ hem I remember my little brother Baw\ funeral. :\oth-
ing hke David B.trrie'~. This IS how hi~ \will pa~sage through our
slow life w~ honored: with a par(\ of~uns and moon~ and arnped-
up light, Ill\ mother dressed-unlike .\largaret Ogil\'Y, in her rig-
orous mournmg tn colored fabncs, her eyes made up, a third
open eye painted on her forehead. A take but plaustble Eastern
princess, rhe daughter of the rajah of ( arnaby Street in the kt.ng-
dom of the: Swmging Sixncs, vibrating, a\ Da,·id Bailey-who has
JU't marncd Catherine Dc:ncul'c-<>rbits countcrdockwise around
her and her pric\tc\~eb: pointy high-heeled boo~, Mudied cockney
accent, hi~ 35mm RoUeiflex like an arulic1al \::ttcllitc taking pic-
run:~. Thcv d.utce The ne\\ and ephemeral goth who\e come t.o
up~r the ccnrunes-long generanonal cquihbnum dance as the an-
cient goch once danced.
And all of th1s happened so fast. A \'erttginous canonization. In
a tel\ monrhs-<Jr maybe it happened after a single secret day 11ith
hundred~ of nightfalls-the city seem~ to have changed com-
plercl~ . London retncarnatcd as another London New colors,
difTerent ~ounds, .md an army of young people taking over the
rhc.ll<:r of operations, the bartletront, the command post. The
adults fought their retreat choking in a cloud of ~caudal and
shante: the Argyll di\'orce, rhe Profumo case ... Now, in the new
London, after so many decades of paralysis, to be forty is to be old,
robe fimshed, to be pan: of what's o1·er and will ne\'er come again.
~ow my parents and their friends enjoy their new yourh wirhout
KENSINGTON C.ARDl!l'iS .II
C\ er thinking that time mO\ es limcr than they do, that rime 1\ al ·
1cad~ winning the race; not rcal11ing that many of them won't h1e
to tell the talc . .My mother dances w1th her bc~t friends. The\ 'rc all
~lim and elegant. The po~n' ar babac~ of the rationing era gre\\ up
undernourished, and, as a result, tltc:y'rc: n:ry different from their
robust progenitors: thin, perfect women with the ability to eat
an)rthing in intimidating quantities without gaining an ounce.
Lo1·ely, elegant women. Eyes darkened with kohl, and eyelashes
stiff and long as d1e sensitive pistils and stamens of earnh·orous
plants. Women who do strange things wtth their arms and hands
and teet and legs. Women who shake themselves as if they'\·c been
batten by a spider, who share cigarettes and glasses full of strange
colors, who flow and oscillate
And now rhar I rhank about it· we nc,·er dance the wa1· \\C
thank we dance, and we rcaltze It when \\C sec: oursc:h·cs dancing 111
a mm·ie someone took at a party Oh, we can'r possibly move like
rbnr. The ~arne thing happcm when we he.tr our \'Oicc recorded
for the fif\t time: it sound~ almmt nothing like the \'OICe rhat
come~ [rom ~ide our body ,utd cirdl!s back to our ears. The ~ame
kind of thing i~ true of most of the relationships we're involved in
O\ er tlte course of our li1·es: tltey don't dance the way we think
rhc\' dance, they don't ~ound the wav \\C clunk they sound, but
we'd rather not know it, and we keep ourseh·es and our love~ as far
as possible from microphones and mom: cameras.
My mother hardly knows her best fnends, but at doesn't mat·
ter, because they're all alike And they all dance alike and all their
vo1ccs sound the same. And they\·e all been reborn under the sign
of Aquarius. And they all buy their clothe~ at Biba or Bazaar, or
anv other boutique that opened a week ago and \\~II dose: in fifteen
days. And their hair's been ~haped an the dean, geometric Bauhaus
style by the small, frenetic sc1ssors of Vidal Sassoon, aestltetic en-
emy of David Batley, in his salon .11 171 Bond Street, ,\tayfair.
The ha1rcut all her mends have " migmally called the Bob, bur
it\ name keeps changing accordmg to the cclc:briry daring enough
to tn tt the Quant, after .i\larv Quant, and the Kwan, alter :-.lann·
Kwan ..\ly mother is the onh one who \\Colt\ her hair long. almmt
32 RODRIGO FRESAN

down to her waist; and when she brushes it bard on staticlcy sum-
mer nightS, colored sparks light up my dark room.
And I'm not sur.: whether my mother and her friends are fuincs
or \\itches. Some- like my mother-died at the precise Instant re·
quircd by their wa,·enng legends and cononue ro be as beautiful as
e\·er in their metallic dresses and their prisons of shaky Super-8 and
on the pages of fashion maga7ines, where they've been pho-
tographed looking more angular than cun]!. The) didn't want to
grm1 up, and rhe> didn't gro1\ up.
The survivors haven't aged \I ell; the)"\e grown old graceless!).
Their wrinkles seem more like knife sla~hes than life lines. Everv
once in a while I see d1em on rcle1iJ.ion, saying cruel and politicallv
incorrect things; presenting albums of '"autobiographical songs"
(one song always features the 1\ hcczing gasps of a Dol b) orgasm)
on which they're accompanied by musicians who could be their The horror of my boyhood was rbar f knew a time would
grandchildren and who look at them l>ith a strange mixture of dis- come when I must gh·c up games ( th1s agony still rcn1rns ro
gust and fascmation. There they arc, ~pun-our, rambling divas, re- me in dream~, in which f find myself playing and being
membcnng the old days as 1f they \\"ere much longer ago, as if watched disappro1·ingly by the .1dulc~). so 1l was aho then I
they're referring to rumed ca.,tles and kings roppled br the wind- understood that I had to keep playmg, bur m secret,
\~inds with names like ama1·cord, rrluuisy, crrfard, fnry'ri!Jul-

whistling in t.hc black ''"ind of black hbtory, quadraphonic, round,
spinning, scratched, and 1\ith a little hole: in the: middle.
Tell me, Keiko Ka1, are you bored bv all this? Do you miss your
parents? Would you like ro see more pictures of the young Barrie?
Did I malce d1e ropes and gag and blindfold roo tight? Do you
need me to gi'·e you a loss good mght? Do you \\"ant me to tell
you another srory before bed? You're not tired, arc you' You wanr
ro !mow what happens next, don't you? Don'r you wanr to hear
the same old srory agatn?
wrote Barrie many years later, when he had ~topped bemg a child,
never to become an adult.
To compare Barrie's Vittori;m chrldhood to my h•\ergic d1ild-
hood would be unfair, not to say absurd But r won't deny that I
envy Barrie's childhood-Barrie's childish years-when 1 compare
.
it wirb th.: constant wrbulenc~ of mv Oving .
' vouth, 111 which the
Fasten Sear BeltS sign was never turned oft~ and ali d1at could be
seen out the window of the plane was a terrible sk) lashed b>• long,
dazzling streaks of lightning.
Jim Yang was invemed and born, yes, our of a perfect mi:x of
.
Victorian elements: his srory. i~ the baga of a bo\ who is ''old-
fashioned and demode compared with his modern parents" and
possessed of inteUecmal powers far superior to d10sc of an ordi-
nary six-year-old. A kind of \'Oung Sherlock Holmes '' ith "the in-
reUigcnce of a boy of eighteen or a man of forty or a sage of iliree
hundred-nor necessarily in dut order!!!"
31 RODRIGO FRESAN
In tl1e fir~t of hi~ ad\·enrun:~, Jim Yang disco,·ers the time ma-
chine in the .mic, buried under old furniture; it looks like a bicy-
cle, and It \\JS built b~ M:Wmilian Ma\-Ma\ ~1ax-a generous,
mptcriou~ uncle no one has seen in vem. On this bicycle, Jim
Yang flic:s througl1 the centuries in search of his mother, Raven '
and hi~ little ~iHcr, Lucy, who have been kidnapped by an evil ge-
nius: Professor Cagliostro Nostradamus Smith, Max Max's das-
tardly former partner, driven out of his mtnd by the horror of
having such a common last name, and in lo,·e to the point of mad-
ness with Alice Liddell, the little gJrl who was the inspiration for
Lewis Carroll's Alice.
lr'~ no ~urpri~ that Alice-sec jmt Ytlllll n11d rlu Wonder·
land Nrt•crlnnd-Prpprrllmd Eo:pru~oon IJII\ in love \\ith Jim
Yang, "ho, m that book, take~ her ''irh htm on his travels our
of nmc, for he knows thar, wtth Altce b} lm side, Cagliostro
Nmtradamu\ Smith and Jim's mother, R.t\en, and little sister,
Lucy, won't be tar away. At the end of jim Yang and the
WmJdcrlnud-Net•erlmuf-Pepperlntld Express, Alice dies: cornered
by Cagliostro Nostradamus Smitl1, she throws herseu· into a well
and breaks her neck, thinking she's found dte passageway to an-
other damcn\ion. It's just a well- a \'cry deep well, but an ordi-
nary one.
And, yes, there is a problem, a dark side, somed1ing that tor-
ments Jim Yang more and more m each book. T1mc tra,·cliog
becomes an addtction, and it has an odd and terrible side effect
roo tunc tra,ding makc:s Jim Yang stop gromng, and numbs his
tcdmgs, while at the same time drasncally tnuea~ing his intelli-
gence. Thus, on one of his last ad,·enture~. after so much coming
and going, Jim Yang reflects with almost mctafictional bitterness:
"Now I'm like one of those characters in children's stories too
. . . Those books that grown-ups concoct for young readers, books
that'rc ultimatcl)' all about what the grown ups believe children
must or should be like. Now I'm someone who watches in desper-
anon as his reader; grow up, someone who res•gns htmself to start·
mg over agam a~ new and younger reader; appear Someone: who
reali7e\ he'~ l')t:en trapped forever in a space-time crack, in an eter-
KENSINGTON GARDENS .n
nal, golden, terrible instant, for centunc~ upon centuries, menl) ·
lour hours a day, three hundred and \IXty-fi,·e days 3 year- or
three hundred and sixty Si\, because I was also unlucky enough to
be born on Febru.lr) 29. So, JS tf evcrythmg else weren't enough,
I gcr to blow out the candles on a birthday cake only once e\Cr)
I(Jur wmtcrs ... "
My editors at Bedtime Story Press read this and asked me
whether it wouldn't be better to ltghtcn up jim Yang's reflections
.1 little, bcc.wsc it seemed ro them he'd become "rather dark and
b111er for chtldren's taste." !told them no, that they didn't under
\t.tnd anything, mat there arc no darker (')t:ings than children, I hat
\\e're so bad when we're children that ''hen we grow up \\C
d11x1se to forget it. Adult amnc:~ta about childhood is a fascinaung
phenomenon, and one of the leas! studied by the scientific wm-
muntty, which, in m} opinion, i~ always more inrcresrc:d in
prolonging old age man restoring youth.
And I'm sure Jim Yang think!, ~o too.
Jim Yang, yes, is a typical child of the Swinging Sixties, ~hur­
tling back and forth and back agai n 3~ he fighrs Cagliostro
Nostradamus Smim, who takes on the different guises and man-
nerisms of the monstrous villains of each era. A serial killer, one of
Genglus Khan's deputies, a Larin American dictator, a Caesar
whose hobby is crucif}ing everything withm reach.
Someone pointed our rhat the J•m Yang books are so colos~lly
\ucccssful with children because they're "no,·cls "itll special cf-
fi:ns, mdependenr of film " ~ laybe. Or maybe nor. Because, if a
mm1c of the first installment of Jim hng'~ ad,·cnturcs hadn't been
planned, \\ith a budget btg enough 10 ICed all the bloarcd-bdhcd
d11ldrcn of some African counrr} lor ~C\ eral )'Cars, I would never
h.we met you, Kcikll Kai.
And you wouldn't be here, listcnin~ w what I have to tell you .
Hut I thmk the most important fa~ tor in the equation, and the al -
ffi()~t ~ubliminal ~cret of Jim Yang\ \UCCe~~. lie~ in me clash and
comra~t of British discipline at the end of the nineteenth and the
36 RODRIGO FR.ESAN
beginning of the twentieth century with the Aquarian revolution
of the 1960s. The perfect cockrail in book form, now bought by
the well-off cluldren of C::\·hippies and neoconservatives for their
own offspring so that in wme wa> they'll understand what their
parenrs' upside-down youth "as hke: where they were, what they
saw, the \isions that blinded them fore,·er. Or maybe the books are
read by men '' ho, like Barrie, decided ne,·er to ha,·e children so
they could take their youth ''1th them ro the grave and not feel
obliged to be like their parents
[ like to think of )1m Yang as a forerunner of what might be
called Nc'' Vicronanism, a lund of ren;us~ancc or updating of cer·
tain posirm:: habitS Ill the interaction of ch1ldren and adulrs. A re-
turn to childhood a~ a \Ource of regeneration, and not a cesspool
of degeneracy
I like to think abour Jim Yang because ir's an elegant and sub·
liminal wa} of d1mking about my parentS as if they were characters
in a Jim Yang book.
My mother-once she was rescued, floating on a raft, almost a
month aftt·r rhc nc\·cr fully explamcd shipwreck of the SS Regina
Victorin- \\ as almmt hlack &om the ~un. Nothing like the elegant,
bron7cd sun-lamp tan w1th wh1ch Lady Alexandra Swinton·
.\1cnzies had prepared hcr\clf \\ecb before, in another life, tO wei·
come the franuc London ~ummcr of lo,e. My mother wouldn't
srop talking in the ~trange language of those who'\·e lost them-
seh·e~ fore\'er, suffering from what ninereenth-cenrury nm·els-
beforc the imenoon of Freud and his inventions--called "soul
s1ckness."
In her few lucid momenrs, before she was confined w a conva·
lescent home where I \iSited her at the weekends, she asked me
about my father, and repeated o,·er and O\'er again that I had had
a "prinleged childhood," not real1zmg that I was still a child. Af.
terward, she showed me abstract pamtings she had done in the
garden. She thought they were figuraO\'e; but she wondered
whether that turquo1se splotch-which, she assured me, was
Baco-had come out right, whether it looked like the original, and
I< S NSINC1'0N GARDENS 17
"Why docsn 't B,tw ever come home?" she asked again. "This de·
pham I painted ntxt ro your little hrmhcr isn't, isn't, isn't . .. It
isn't the Indian god Ganesh 11's Dun1bo, ~ my mother explained
to me. I nodded "ithout really ll~renmg-the magnitude of her
pa.in was so O\ er\\ helming that 1 tried to think about anything
else-and stared at the painting as the nurse requested silence with
a finger to her lips. An artificial and terrible silence. The bottled·
up silence of hQspirals that tries ro make patientS forger the
healthy, bustling racket of the outside world.
Once the brief progr.1m during which my mother's antenna
seemed capable of emnong and recei,-ing signals that were more
or less comprehensible but hard to credit can1e to an end, she
would rerurn to the: usual staoc. To the white noise of a madness
in which she smiled goodbye with the sweetest of smiles, and set·
tied into a deep com·ersaoon wtth the ghost of Baco, my little
brother, who had finally "come home."
All right: so Rob Dylan vomited on my lead soldiers. A grear
story to tell yea rs later as I rather halfheartedl}' tried to seduce the
derailed daughrcr of some oil tycoon; bUL I wouldn't call that a
"privileged childhood ," just as I would never co11sidcr Barrie's
childhood a paradise; though, even so ...
One night, maybe in search of my dead tather, whose body was
never found, my mother fled her eleganr room in the celebrated
clinic and-ho\\, no one could say-managed to walk naked ro
Neverl:md and throw herself into our pool. Who knows, maybe
her intention was ro reclaim the fate of a failed drowning 'icrim.
All this happened the day of the moon landing, and we: didn't hear
my mother am,·c because we were all watching television, trying
to figure our the tnck of the rhmg, the truth behind the biggest lie
m h1story. All of a sudden, that bone· colored ball orbmng the
eanh was a Ne\'erland wnhm reach of our hands, and the foot that
rook; a small step or a g1ant leap. Ar some point, one of rhe
ma1d~- who sa1d ~he wa\ "too \cared to watch~mething w11l go
\~Tong and the moon w1ll fJll on u~"-looked out the \\1ndow and
$3\\ that rhc water in the pool was choppy, a.s 1f it were boiling. A
pool fi1ll tO the edge\, a pool o,ealcd \\lth WJter, SUddenly ali\e
Together Dermmt and I pulled my mother out (the blue at the
 RODRIGO PRESAN
bonom of the pool was like the blue of space, and I floated there,
as light as atr, happy to have learned to swim not long before), and
we latd her down on the grass and watched her die like a jellyfish
as we listened to the chirping of the cnckcts and the ambulance's
~•ren, e\'cr nearer, e\'C:r more funic, and the maid kept saying over
and over again, "I mld you ~o. I told you so."
I thought then that It wouldn't be w bad tf everything ended
that night tfNcil Armmong killed h1~ fellow astronauts, seized by
a fit of madnc:ss; if the: p.mc:rn of the: tides changed because of the
extra ''eight of the mc:n up thc:re; if a symphony of universal cata·
clysm \\ere the wunterpQint to my chamber tragedy.
My mother \\.1.~ saying something m a lo\\ votce, and I put my
ear to her mouth and ~he sa1d 1t to me and I heard it. My mother
was sa}ing over and over ag;un, "You 'rc not mme ... You're not
mine.:." My mmhcr ",,, '>mging her one relatively successful song.
The song that 'he'd recorded year' .1go, .1nd that ~orne biographies
s.1y was a gift trum Rob Dylan in return for a mght of love, or
something like that.
My mother wa'> singing 111 .1 cold, dispassionate voice, and it
seemed tc> me that her body gal'c off the seem of violets that saints
are supposed ro gh e otT at the momcm of their deparrure from
this world. The voice of my dying mother-Saint Alexandra of the
Pools was more techno than pop. Then-! want to believe it was
her first and last death \pasm, and not an eruption of secret ha·
tred-my mother b1t off half my lclt car. 1 famted from the pain.
I taimed, thinking Did.cn~1anly again, "A real orphan at last." 1
fainted at prcc1sch the final ~cwnd, as my mother exhaled her last
breath. I thought I \aw her ~oul leave her mouth: a slender col·
umn of colored tog, sinuous .u an odalisquc in a trance, light as a
rising ribbon of silk, or ddinitive as the smoke trickling from a rc·
\'Olver that's just been fired. [ lost consciousness and feU into a
dream of a world where I <lidn 't exi~t. A bener world. A normal
world, like any normal ch1ld'~.
When I woke up, r \\\l.S sure 1t had aU been a terrible nightmare.
The illusion didn't lan long: in front of the mirror I saw what re·
mamcd of my lett car, and I realized that from then on I would be
asymmetncal, different, \Olitar)', marked.
KENSINGTON GARDENS 39
Like Jim Yang.
And-as Jim Yang also thought-there are two ways of accept·
ing the disappearance of your parents and acknowledging that sud-
denly rou're an orphan as well as a son: you can fed like a circus
freak or rou can feel unique.
Like Jim Yang, I decided to feel umque.
In Jim Yang nnd tiJt lmn.!JmllrJ Frimd, Jim Yang travels in his
ume machine to the year 1867.
Jim Yang's rime machine-as you know, as I've already said-is
a kind of bicycle. A chronocvcle on which Jim Yang pedals furi.
ously forward or back\vard. The idea came to me when I 53\\ that
scene from 11]( Wi::nrd of Oz again, in which the evil Miss Gulch
rides her bicycle in the middle of a black-and-white tornado.
In Jim Yaii.!J and rbe bllfi.!Ji'Iary Frimd, Jim Yang comes-on
the trail ofCaghostro Nostradamus Smith-to Lilybank, Scotland.
There Jim Yang meets little Barrie. Barrie's brother David has just
died; his mother, Margaret Ogilvy, spe nds m uch of the day shut up
in her room; and Barrie discovers in Jim Yang the perfect advcn·
turc companion.
At first, Jim Yang doesn't tell Barrie anything abour his life,
abour what he'~ doing there or where he's come from. Barrie
docsn 't ask much Clthcr, because the important thing is having
found a tnend, someone like him, and he: doesn't want to risk los·
ing him.
Jim Yang's fans ha\e no doubt that this is the: strangest book in
the series: a kind of paremhesis \\ithin parentheses in which reflec-
tion outweighs action. The critics called it the "most disturbing"
or the "worst of all", and my editors usually refer ro it as the mosr
.. problematic" of the books I\ e written. They published it anyway,
of course, because, at the orne it came our, the name Jim Yang
could sell a p1tcher \\1thout a handle, or a pen \\ithout ink. Who
would dare challenge the man who'd saved Bedtime Storv Press
and turned it mto a multim1lhon dollar company, the ,;;iOn3C)
creator of NTV, the man adored by parents and children world·
,,;de?
/0 RODRIGO FRESAN
Someone once told me that if I ran for prime IDIDlSter I'd
clearly be impossible tO beat. I preferred not to comment, just as,
each time rumors arise that I'll inevitably be knighted in recogni-
tion of my senices ro England, 1 send Buckingham Palace signals
of my unease tO make them reconsider.
That's how thmgs are. Thmgs that ,,;u ne,·er be the same as
they once were
}1m Yang and tbc lmagmar_Y Frrllld- which only reached num-
ber three on the be~r -seller ltst and stayed there tor two months, a
triumphant f.ulure-1\ m} favonrc of the Jun Yang books, of
course. It's the one I hkc best because 1t's a book about childhood
as a rermorv to be explored; a~ an era that Jim Yang-frozen in
rime-refers ro a!. "Eternity"; as a place where everything happens
o,·er and over ag.Un, with slight \'ariarions, as if in slow motion or
gathering strength ro endure the horrors of the rest of life.
Compared \\ith the frenetic pace of jim Yang a11d tile Pyramid
oftbc Cyborgs or Jim Ynnlf and tbe Cbrldren>s Crrm~de or Jim Yang
rmd tiJe BrotiJeriJood of Mzd11igbt for example-little or nothing
happem in jim Ytwg a11d tlJI: lmagi11ary Frimd.
Bur, in t:1cr, things do happen. Various things, lots of things-
bur alwap at the gentle pace usually set in pastoral novels. Yes, I
admit it: Jim Ynng n11d rbt lmagmary Fmmd is closer to George
Eliot than ro Indiana Jones.
Marcus Merlin ( 1'11 never be able: to call him Marcus or Uncle
Merlin or ~L\1 ) liked it, although, as is his habit, he couldn't help
pointing out that the title lent ItSelf to confusion.
Said Marcus Merlin: ~In the book, Jim Yang becomes little
Barrie's tmagmary fhend . . Or at least that's what everyone
thinks, since no one in Barrie's fam1ly ever sc:c:s Jim Yang. Bur the
novc:l is called Jtm Yaug a11d tbf Imagmar_r Fr~md; so what you
probably meant ro sav IS that Barnc: becomes Jim Yang's imaginary
friend, yes? Bur ho\\ can that be when Barrie o"im, when Barrie
(xisud>"'
Bm Marcus Merlm is miStaken: Barrie's imaginary friend-and
Jim Yang's roo-is none other than the shadow ofPc:ter Pan sewn
to Barrie's heels, the: character they gradually create: togc:thc:r over
KllNSINGTON GARDENS 4 I
the course of their long com crsations as they walk the moors of
Kirricmuir, outside of Lilyba1lk in the: Tenements, beside the lake
where the luminous Da,·ic.l Barrie: died.
In Jim Ynu,fT n11d tJu Imn,fTinnr.Y Friend, Jim Yang and Barrie
theoriLe about the nature of childhood. Jim Yang mll't grow up
and Barrie doesn't 11'117/t to grow up. They're complementary op·
posites. Barrie en\'ies his brother because, now that he's d.:ad, he'U
nc:\'er become an adult and he 'II alwo:~ys ha,·e his mother's lo\'e. Jim
Yang-\\isc: beyond h1s years- reflectS on the strange fact that
eve!}' great h1stoncal moment seems to ha\'C a corresponding age:
~Youth was the legacy of e1ghteenth-cenrury books, childhood
that of nmeteenth centuf}· books, adolescence that of rwc:nueth -
cc:nrury books . What will the twenty-first century's 'age' be? I
''enrure ro predict that u'll be old age· a century brimming '~ith
healthy, dcspa1ring old people: . . In this nineteenth centur\
where I'm sroppmg now, wnccrs seem particularly attracted t~
childhood. So many towering little: charactcrs: Oli,cr T,,~~t, Alice:,
Jane Eyre a~ a girl, young Cathy and Heathcliff, Mary Lenm. and
Dickon and Colin, Little Lord Fauntlcro)•, Little Ndl-somc man-
age to grow up, but they never forget that their srories began long
ago. Some die along the way. Otl1ers give in to the temptation of
tl1e fantastic, and, like: Dorian Gray, arc w1able ro bear the hideous
sight of a portrait or a m1rror. The Victorians pay homage to child
hood \\irh a m1xrure of sacred lo,·e and pagan passion thar leads to
the spreading of a novel &entimenr: the discovery of children as a
species, kindness ro the young as a sort of hobby. Kindness thar
translates mto the "nnng of laws that put more humane hmits on
chtld labor, 1nro greater and caster access to education and shnnk
mg fam1ly SI?C, which leads to closer relationships between parents
and ch1ldrc:n and also fosrers the correspondmg neuroses, unnl
then unknown This is ho", in the Victonan age, with the: boom·
mg growth of the: cnhghtened m1ddle class supported by Victoria
herself (unhkc the ambitiOus, ntravagant explOiters of the House
of Hano,·er who preceded hc:r, and who preferred a world of ari\·
tocrats mamtamcd by the humble to1l of ;m abysmally lower, un-
educated das~ ), a true industnal revolution 1s produced m the
 RODRIGO l'RESAN
realm of toys. Lowther Arcade opens in London-a full -scale
shopping center where the Empire's principal roy stores are clus·
tered-and the first children's books read and enjoyed by adults
appear too, books to be read aloud by parents ro their children.
This sentiment will shift again when the figure on the throne
changes, and a looser moral and aesthetic code is adopted, inspired
by the immature and short-lived Edward VIJ, Prince of Wales, the
perfect company when what's desired is an irresponsible good
time, it's said. A king who dies after ruling for just nine years is a
king who dies while still a boy: it isn't his biological age that mat·
ters, but his r·ea/ age. I 'II meet him one day; and, of course, the
First World War sets things straight.
"That's why, in my u-avc:ls back and forth through the past and
the future, I always come back here. To these golden years. To the
last of the old days. To resrore my strength and spirits, ro contem·
plate all of this. Still distant from the rime when Lolita Haze and
Holden Caulfield- adolescence will be our new Pronused Land,
and instead of si mply enduring d1c adult world, the young will
question it-take O\"er and assw11e the curse of being protagonists
perpetually lost in a crazy world of adults who behave like children.
A world that'll soon become a place where children arc connected
to consoling consoles and commanding computers and no longer
know where d1ey end and the machine begins. A video game starts
and game over is announced and tbe next thing >'OU know you 'rc
buried up to your neck in the lost cemetery of Tamagorchi wid1 me
ghost of electricicy howling in me bones of your face."
Why does Jim Yang talk like dlis? What's happened to him?
What's happened to me? Naturally, my editors at Bedtime Story
Press were concerned at me new turn things had taken-by rnis
dark, discursive, and almost motionless Jim Yang-in me same way
that they'd been worried about publishing d1c first installment, the
manuscript rejected by thirty publishing houses because of Jim
Yang's slightly risque origins as me producr of a single night of
passion between his momer (a middle-class London girl) and an il·
legal inmligrant (a rc:acher of martial arts and Buddhism) born
alongside the Great Wall of China.
KENSINGTON GARDENS 43
I calmed mem when, just six months later, I scm them the
swashbuckling, suspenseful, and-they liked this- gently sensual
jim Yrmg and tbe Mermaids ofUt·kh-24, in wllich Jim Yang, a little
tired of me hormonal hallucinations of an almost adolescent Alice,
succumbs ro the charms of a beautiful extraterrestrial princess who
at first is very bad and in the end is very good, though this doesn't
mean she gives up certain van1pish attitudes.
Twenty· four months at number one, and the paperback edition
was postponed for half a year so as nor ro disrupt a very pleasant
situation for Bedtime Story l'rcss, a family business for several gen·
erations which until then had survived on the tiny sales of forgot·
ten eighteenth· and ninetecnth-cenrw·y children's classics which
were in the public domain, didn't require me payment of royalties,
and, most important, didn't expose d1em to dealings wid1 individ-
uals of ''artistic temperament." That wasn't and isn't me. I don't
have an artistic temperament, unless being artistic means having a
double self, a secret face.
What do you dlirlk, Keiko Kai? What's your opinion? Don't
you have any thoughts on the subject? Are >'Ou one of those who
believe that Batman is a psychopath? And what about Jim Yang?
And me? And Barrie?
I insist: Jim Yang and the Imagi11ary Friend is my best book, not
only because it reveals the shadowy side of Jim Yang as an "old
child, neither one thing nor the other," but also because-first in
the Victorian dawn of Empire, and then, over me course of d1e
novel, rerurning regularly to that splendid, mutant England popu·
Ia ted by lights and shadows-it exposes and proves for itself what
we all suspect: thar we're never born into the era that suits us best.
All of us arc lost, in one way or anod1er. Our brief life-the con-
struction of our biography, our personality-is nothing but a futile
attempt to accommodate our true temporal sign, much more im·
portant tl1an the sign of the zodiac for orienting ourselves in me
chaos of the era mat we're allotted to suffer by the wheel of time.
Leonardo da Vinci, I'm sure, must\·e suffered very much. There
44 RODRIGO PRBSAN
are exception~. of cour~e: rhc Bcatlcs (as much as my father hated
them), Johannc~ Gutenberg, Pablo Picasso, Bill Gates. The right
men for the nght time
Jim Yang feels comfortable only among the Victorians, and
that's how Jm1 Yanp, meets Barrie Jim Yang comes to Scotland in
search of Barrie bc:.:au\c.: he: ~cnse~ in h1m the more: or less cenain
possibilin of a l'\ in, a comrade:, the other half he n:quires despite
their unbridgeable difference~ Jim Yang is mong and agile, and
Barrie IS sicklv and very ~mall J•m Yang IS grown up, and Barrie is
exaggeratedly childish. Jim Yang IS rational, and Barrie spends all
his time dreammg ••. It doesn't matter; thev need each other, so
that by readmg each other they can finish writing themselves.
In ]1m Yang 1111d tiJr lmngmnr_v Fru:nd, Jim Yang and Barrie
don't go otT on an) "great adventure " Caghostro :-.lostradamus
Smith is nowhere m be: fimnd, and, for the fir~t time, Jim Yang has
no interest tn pur.uing. l11m.
Nor do.:~ he think mud1 about hi' mmher, sweet Raven.
Or his 11aughry lmlc: •istcr, Lu~). Lucy c. re.ill) his half sister;
the product-depending on lm mother's mood-of a single night
of passion with Mu:k ]agger; or with a high-ranking member of
the Conscn•auvc Party (married, of course); or with an Italian
playboy.
Or about the many danger. and .ld,•cnrurcs that await him the
minute he starts pedahng h1s chronocyde agam. None of that in·
rere~t~ h1m. )un Yang 1\n't thmkmg about any of it.
In }1111 Yall.f1 n11d tiJr hlllll111111Y)' Fnwd, Jim Yang and Barrie
usc the time machmc to go back only a few days mto the past, to
try to pre\ ent the death of Da\id Barrie on the: frozen lake. They
succ~:cd, but Da\ id die~ a fi:w hours later after being trampled by a
runaway horse. They prc,enr that death, and David dies again by
tatting into the ja\H of a loom Ten anempts later-Barrie's older
brother has died O\ er and over again in the most horrible and
ridiculous ways, the last time m a fit of laughter brought on by a
dirty joke Da,id comes ro Bame and Jim Yang and asks them,
please, to let h•m die Ill peace once and for all; he explains to them
that it isn't being dead that's so ternble but the precise instant of
KllNSING'ION GAROI!NS
d\ ing. And that, dc\plte thc1r good llllcntions, the}''vc turned him
mm a "kind of 1111mort.tl corpse . And it hurts, it hurts so
much~
Ttm Yang and Barrie under.rand tht:n thu Da,id \\ill alwavs
die, in all the infinite tor~ death can take; that death can't be
th\\ arred, that the dead arc dead, and that ir ~n 't the place of the
h'ing to alter their fare and "ill and "ish.
So Da,id, Jim Yang, and Barrie walk back ro the frozen lake;
Da,·id puts on his skate~. "aves to them, and glides swifrly awah
d1sappearing into the fog, h1s hands clasped behind his back. smil·
ing, d}ing of happmess
The rest of the book· the madcnr \\~th Da,id is the closest thmg
ro an adventure in }llll Yang n.nd tbc Imngillfr.ry Friend-is pure de·
scnption and reflection, and almost nothing happens. Margaret
Ogilvy appears as a f.mly Important character through the stories
Barne tell\ jim Yang ab<lut his mother. Jim Yang d~:cidcs not to say
anything 10 B.trrk about Ius own mother, so as not to frighten him;
instt:.ld he tell~ Barrie ~omc of the thing~ that've happened to him
in hi~ pc:r~nal hi~tOr) and in Hi~tory. Also, when Barrie swears d1ar
he'll nC\Cr forget him, Jim Yang explains whaL he's .:xplained to
dozen~ of character~ and people over the course of t:he novels.
"I'm made of rime, Barrie, and time is made of dreanlS. 1
~houldn't be: here. I'm a crooked stitch in dte fabric oft:he years . . .
An error that \\ill be corrected as soon as I lea\'e your era: you 'U
begin ro forger me the \Cry next day, and after a week at most,
you 'II thmk of me as someone you might have imagined but nC\·er
known."
That's almo\t all.
In }1111 Yllltl1 n11d tbr lmn._(Tillnr_l· Frimd, Tim Yang hides h•s
chronocyde. He un\CrC\\ ~ tts pedals, so no one can usc it if it'~
found )lm Yang hves Ill a granary on the edge of town Every day,
Barne come\ to \1\lt him and brings h1m food; they talk, they
exchange penny dreadfuls ( t110~e bastard predecessors of com1c
txmk.s, li1ll of pirate\, killer., and desert islands) and they read
-16 RODRIGO FRESAN
them, as Barrie later \Hites, "standing in the store where they were
sold, Yery quickly so as not to have to pay for them; the most ex-
quisite way of reading."
It's in those days-in Barne's real life, beyond Jim Yang and
the Imagmary Friend -that the Scottish boy deades to be a writer.
So m a sense )1m Yang amf the Imaginary Frimd also ends up be-
ing an ad,·cnrure no\'(:1, but a novel about a different kind of ad-
venture· the ad,·enrure of an arnstic calhng.
In the book's final page\, ]1m Yang and Barrie part after a long
embrace, bur-in a brief coda-we ~ee ho\\ Jim Yang pedals back
into Barrie's life on v.triou~ o.:ca~iom O\'c:r the ve~, and, hidden,
o~er\'es what's become of hb fncnd On one of these return vis-
its, Jim Yang watches him leave for Dumfries Academv. There Bar-
rie adopts the bold alias of Sixteen String lack, in the same way I
rook the name Peter Hook to write about Jim Yang. And, all right,
it isn't a great nom de guerrc. It's a childish name, a bit obvious-
the way it makes the name~ of the hero and the villain do,·etail-
but it's practical and easy to remember .md it looks good on the
covers of my books. And it\ a way of escape. Magic words to
make a new self appear without requiring the old sdf to disappear
first. r think that writer\ should always find themselves new names,
because when you writc-juM as when you read-you become an-
other person. I'm chinking about the secret names the ancient
Egyptians gave themselves: names that were truly their own. They
didn't reveal them to anyone, and they only said them alone, in
front of a muror, as if speaking to the most trustworthy of friends.
At Dumfries Academy, Barrie will be happy playing cricket and
soccer, parne~panng m the debating club, and writing his first
play, a success. Same: u~ually takes the roles of ''young lady" or
~younger daughter," and h1s Opus I, written especially for an end-
of-term program, IS called Bn,dtlcro tiJC Ba11d1t. The work \\lU be
denounced by a clergyman in the tO\\ n paper as "nllgar and im-
moral," and the smr) \\ill reach the London papers and make
Barrie a minor but rcspc(tcd c.:c:lcbrit) among the srudc:n~. His
classmates, the glfls, award htm t:he prize for the: "school's sweetest
smile," and Barrie, horrified, decides "never to smile again."'
Jim Yang-disguised as the son of t:he gardener at Dumfries
KllNSlNOfON GARDENS
Atademy--c.li~co\Cr\ th.ll something ~trange is happening to Bar-
ric· h~ isn't gro\\ing. Or, r.uher, he\ getting older but not bigger;
rhe ma,hinc:ry ol hi\ bone\ h~ shut down completely. "A.~hamcd
to be so short that I cJn \till pay half-fare: on the bus," \\Tites Bar-
ric in his note: book, .md at ~' entccn he's barely five feet tall and
docsn 't lulO\\ what it is to sha\ e. Barrie-ignored by his class-
mares-begins tO pl.1y "ith studenr:s from the lower forms. Jim
Yang "arches from a di~tance, knowing he can't help Barrie or
show himself again, and e\plains to his readers:
"As \'OU alreadv know, it isn't ad\isable to 'isit the same person
all through his life. It can cause imbalances, especially in adult-
hood I'll never forgn·c myself tor what I did ro little Mozart and
httle Rlmb.llld, wonderful playmates."
And Jim Yang pedals away.
In 1878, at the age of eighteen, Barrie lca,•es Dumfries Academy
and rcrurns to Klrric:muir, intending ro become a professional
writer. I le'll \tart a~ a journali~t. Being a journalist back then i~
much hkc being a writer, becaw,c the stones require the same kind
of eflC>rr as a novel: rcJiit)' mu~t be conjured up for readers who
will nevc:r lu1o\\ the wider world, who will ne\ er see famous mon-
uments or grc:at men, who will ~<.:arcdy leave the tOwns where they
were born. There arc no phorog.raphs in the newspapers; the dra\\-
mgs of nadonal lcaders on the front page are like those of the he-
roes in dime no,ds; the type b small and unnen; and a news story
might eas1l) be confu!>Cd "ith a tall tale.
H1s mother, howc,-er, has a ditTerent plan: Barrie must ralce
David's place and attend univcrslt)'. Barnc obeys, enrolling at Ed
inburgh Un11·c:~it)· and heading there \\1th Tim Yang follo\\ing
clo~ bc:hmd, Ill a ,-a net} of d1sgmses and masks.
At the umvc~1ty, Harne 1~ unhappy as he never was at o;chool.
He has no fncmh He walk.~ alone. He dcc1des to keep a dJary, a
di\Ciplincd record ot'hi' dap and mghr:s. Until now, he's been not·
mg randon1 thought~ 111 the margm' of his schoolbooks. Barrie
buys \C\'Cral nmchooks. I llllJgmc: d1em small and light-brown, the
wlor of 'crt.1in !J\t, dangerous cat\. He fills them quickly. Thev
 RODRIGO FRI!SAN
aren 'r dutiful diaries; they don't follow the fhed and precise course
of datebooks. They're stranger specimens, of 1rregular and syn-
thetic hab1ts, and, occasionally, \\ickedly obscene. Sometimes Bar-
ne rereads them "irh fascinated horror. He asks himself what
would happen 1f they tell into the hands of strangers, or, worse, of
people 1\ ho knm1 h1m. His notebooks arc the keyhole through
which Barrie s11ics on others. If an1•onc. cbc read them, Barrie
thinks, rhc cquarion would be invcrrcd and he would be the
one ob~crl'ed . Writers' diaries are ~pc.1rs thar c.1n turn into boom-
erang\, or, like the genies in Arabian tales, turn again~r their mas-
ter at the !>lighte~t slip or misstep.
Barnc.: dec1des to guard against the rhk 11ith a trick, a childish
trick bur one that, paradoxically, makes h1m e1en more I'Ulnerable
and transparent and cruel to himself. Barnc adopts a habit mar
he 'II retam unnl his death: wnnng about himself m the third per-
son, a th1rd person that sometimes rebels and becomes the most
desperate and elemental of confessions:
Men can't get together without talkmg tihh . .. He is very
)'Oung looking-trial of his life that he is ,tlw.ty!> tJ10uglu a
boy . . There arc.: finer thing!> than romancing a girl . . .
Great horror--dream I am married- \\ .1ke up !>hric.:king .. .
Sudden and !>trong impulse tO go imo a toy Hore and buy
mvsclf something, but I don't dare.
}1m Yang reahzes that, in Edmburgh, Barne IS lost among men.
Women pay no attention ro him Only ch1ldren seem to under-
stand h1m. H1s brother Alexander married in 1877, and nO\\ Bar-
ric has rwo niece~ he visits as often a\ he c.1n. He contemplates
them ~ if they're works of art, sn1d)ring them, analyzing them; it
intrigues him that he's happy with them, that in their company all
his worrie~ and sorrows melt away like cloud~ ~pent after a storm.
Barrie.: returns to Kirriemuir for the holiday~ without having
forgotten his hterary calling; bur he can't d1scu~s ir \lith a momer
who lives to see him become the doctor of di,iniry that Da1id
could never be. To console tum, h1s sister Jane Ann shows him a
notice in 71Je Scotsman seeking a colummst for the regional news-
KENSINGTON GARDENS
p.1per the ~orri,I!Jbam ]oumnl: hght prose and the corniderable
pay of three pound~ a 11 eek.
Barrie replies and is lured and "me~ ~bout things such a!> um-
breUas and flowers, and sunset\, Without ~igning his name m h1s
pieces. He writes with a mhturc of cynu:ism and !>Cnrimc:nt. B.uric
writes constandv. Barrie is ambidextrou~ md claims that mere are
two different writers inside hun, one.: for each hand: the left-hand
writer is usuaJJy gloomier than the right-hand one, and "there are
things t11at come from t11e left arm that could never come from
the righL" The handwriting of the rwo sides is more or le&. the
same-script with an almost Eastern look-bur me left-hand writ
mg IS more crabbed than t11c right hand \\ riting.
"Pretty Boys"-rigbt? lefi:?- 1s one of his most discussed ani ·
des, and it goes like this:
Pretty boys arc pretty 111 all Circumstances, and this one
would look as exquisitely dehghtful playing on the floor as
when genreelly standing, 111 tm nice lttrlc 1•clvet suit \\ith h1~
sweet back to the fireplace, but thmk of the horror and 111·
dignation of his proud and loving mother . .. When you
leave the house the pretty boy goe~ with you to the door
and holds up his pre try mouth ti>r a ki\S. It's at that moment
\\hen rou realize t11at if you "J!>h to conunue on good terms
with hi~ mother you must do e1 c:r) thing be \\ishes; if you
are determined to remain a man \1 hare1 c:r be the conse-
quences, you slap his prerrv chc:ek \Cfl hard while the
mother gazes agha!>t and the father looks another way, ad-
nuring your pluck and wishtng he h.1d the courage to go
and do likewise. It would, on the whole, be a mistake to kill
the ch1ld ounighr, because, li>r one rhtng, he may grow our
of h1s velvet suit in time and 1nsist on having his hair cut,
and, again, the blame does not attach to him nearly so much
as to his mother.
Barne ·~ particular brand of humor pro,oke~ a certain unease: in
rcade~, ~o he dc:c1des ro \\ntc on lc\\ "polem1cal., matter.. Barrie
quc:~tions hts mother about her pa\t, and tunlS her imo hi~ tim
50 R O DR I GO PRESAN
great ch.mlcter. He begins ro publish a series of stories about the
Auld Licht sect and Margaret Ogih'Y's childhood, and he sends
them to the Saint James's Gazette. Frederick Greenwood, the edi-
tor, likes their "Scottish Aavour~ and asks for more; he pays him
better and lets Barne write an his own name.
Barrie decides that the moment has come for him to make his
assault on London and become, definitively and forever, the writer
he's always wanted to be No one reqUJres a wntcr to have a beard
("ith great effort, Barnc ha~ managed to grow a mustache), or to
be tall, or handsome
Barrie studJc\ a number of maps with a strategic eye and comes
ro the conclusion that the lxM place w hvc is in Bloomsbury, near
the reading room at the British Museum.
Befon: he le;nes for the big cit), Barrie send!. another piece to
the Snim Jnmrs's Gnztttc. )lm Yang, hidden behind his open paper,
reads it sitting in the same carriage on the night train ro London,
March 28, 1885, the train that's taking Barne to the E mpire's
great capiral. The arncle i~ titled "The Rooks Begin to Build."
Let us sun·ey our hero a~ he sits awake in a corner of his
railway com pari menJ ... He is gauche and inarticulate, and
as thin a~ a pencil bu t not ~o long . . . Expression, an un -
comfortable blank . Mar\nc~, full of nail.!> like his boots.
Ladies have: decided he is of no account, and he already
knows this and has prh·ate anguish thereanent. Hates senti -
ment as a sla,·e may hate Ius master. Only asset, except a pe-
cuniary one, is a certa.in gnmness about not being beaten ...
Our hero reaches London and has one of those great, nC\·er
to be repeated, moments 10 the hfe of aU heroes: he buys a
copy of the St. jnmts}s Gn:uttc and begms to read a stOry
wrirtcn by h1m le~~ than a week before. Our hero has just
reached London and he's already made two gum cas! It's a
piece called ..The Rooks Begin to Build" and it begins: " Let
us ~un·cy our hero . ~
The: hero Barrie-and Jim Yang dtc her~get off the train at
Saint Pancras. I like to mink mat Barrie recites-like a prayer- all
KI!NS I NGfON GA RD ENS .S J
me names Londun l1.1d hdure It became London, im·oking a~
mysterious oligin wim the ed10 of all the po~ibk lctrcr\ in its
name :lt the time i~ found.uion stone was buried, the name of a
ciry that began to gro" at the end of the Neolithic period: Kacr-
lud, Kacrlundein, Umdon, L:lindon, Lunnd, Caer Ludd, Lun-
dunes, Lmdomon, Londtnium, Lundene, Lundone, Ludcnbcrk,
Long~dmrum, Babylondon . . . The biggest ciry in the world. The
nucleus of the Empire The mdestructible metropolis capable
of enduring colossal 10\'asions, great fires, and massive plagues.
M(,!Jnwpo/u Rrg111n Exec/so G/ortn: London is a planet in and of tt
~If, indrllcrent to the p.tssagc of me ccnrunes, contaimng all the
most torm1dablc treamre~ of history (here and now Charles Dar-
\\1n is rewriring the pa.!>t and Karl Marx is sketching the fi1turc)
and \hutlling them at Its pleasure and whim, as if to say, "Evcrr·
thtng th.u has happened so t:tr has happened solely so that you
wuld come to me; wckome and tare-thee-we ll."
The first thmg R.urie buy~ upon arriving in London is a big
boalc of black ink. The second is a hat-to favorably impress hi~
cdiwr at the Sniw /Milt'S 's Gazette, he thinh. Later, Barrie pays for
a room on Guilford Street ~tnd-followed by dte shadow of Jim
Yang-walks until he loses lm l!enbc of direction and finally throws
his m:tps away. Barrie has decided that he's a Londoner now, mar
he doesn't need maps, that it doe~n't matter being lost in London
if you've found your~elf in London.
T he center of rhc unrversc. The colors of London, the noise,
the rain. The almost sohd a1r of London that fills your lungs and
makes you !eel as 1f you could brcame underwater, or as if you're
drowmng on dry land. fhc comum noise of London-the shriek
of c\·cryone arn\'Jng in London at once, to conquer it or be de
feared-as if mmcone were shoutmg ar you m a foreign language,
bur all of a sudden you rcahzc you know rhc language, and begin
to undcr;rand rt word b) word It soothes Barrie not ro under-
stand rr all yet It doc\n 't matter what anyone says or what It
'iCems Harne knO\\'\ he'\ .t m.tn and a boy of twenty-si"l:. The best
of both world\, And he\ al\o a 'icot, and he thinks then, and larer
\HJte,, "There .trc IC\\ more 1mprcssl\c s1ghrs on rhe lace of the
earth than th.ll ot a 'i~ot\l1l.ln detcrmmcd to succeed "
51 R.OOR.IGO FRESAN
Barrie reads stone markers that proclaim Ex Hoc Momenro
Pmdct Aeumims and l'tsr[J1tll N111ln Retrormm: "Eternity RestS
on Th1s Moment" and "There's No Turmng Back," more or less.
And he translates them as if they were telegrams composed by su-
penor bemgs and sent to earth solely to be read and deciphered by
him. Bulletins that announce a defirun,·e Jo,·e. Barne has fallen in
Ion: \\ith London at first s1ght. Lmle Barne's hnle heart is p1erced
b~· immen~ London a ~harp· shooting Amazon whose only breast
is the cupola of Samt Paul's Cathedral And, yes, my lyricism docs
sometimes border on pre,lousne-;, and even go beyond it; bur
maybe I slip into these CX(C~~e\ lx:,au~ Marcus Merlin was always
irmarcd by my \'erv Bnush tcndenq to freight certain small mo-
menr' with the: pomp and drcum\tanee of h1Horic eventS. I do it
ro annoy him, .\ml no\\, scekmg hh appro\·al, I'll continue in the
panoramic and Cmenusc:opic stvlc: he liked so much.
Take 1: It's the: time of night when the prostitutes of
Whircchapel come ro the banks of the Thamc~ to throw their dead
fetuses or their newborn babies or thcm~elves mto the river, while
the high priest~ of On ental sect\ go down into the sewers in search
of the true, secret source of the Nile, and John "The Elephant
Man" Merrick returns to lm room at the London Hospital after a
night ar rhe the.uer The distant throb of the factories can be heard
merging with the \il\cry \Oke of Nicholas Hawksmoor's cathe-
drals and Christopher Wren·~ doc~, pulsing in a secret tongue for
the glon of the triangular eye of God, the Great Gothic Ar-
chitect of the Universe, who tivc:s here and OO\\ here else. Crimi-
nals emerge from the sewers, and aristocratS enrer their private
dubs, or maybe tt's the other way around-it makes no difference.
The resurrectiomsts wait tor mght:fall to han·est fresh cada,·ers so
they can ~ell them to medical students eager to disco,·er what hap·
pens msidc the pgsa\\ of the hum.lll bodv. Thou~ds of extras and
supporcing player~-oh, look at all the lonely people, where do
they all come from-and yet each and eYer) one of them is the un-
challenged protagonist of hi'> own novel. And nen the rats are
proud to be citizens of the most powerful emp1re in the universe.
And someone has rurned on the fog machine and everything
K SNSlNCfON CAROENS
sc:c:ms ro m:mblc, .ll> if it were built on the armor-plated back of
one: of d\ose sea monster~ that inhabu the: atlas edges of a world
d1ar's scarcely been explored, a world no bigger than a great ciry.
And someone wiU turn on the fog machine tomorrow morning.
There are so many machines in this new machine age. Machines
are invented each day m this e\er more mechanized metropolis,
where men gi\ e birth to devices, and devices swallow up men.
London, London, London ...
Barne nplores a ctry that isn't mine yet, but will be. The nan1es
are the same. The names will alwavs be the same, no matter how
much the substance and mood of what's inside the comainer of
the names changes flavor and scent. Londonian names of London:
Kmgs Road, Chelsea, Bond Street, East Ham High Street, Prim-
rose Hill, and Carnabv Street ...
'
And here, here again, is another ofrhosc collisions berween my
life and Barrie's. A temporal misalignment in which yesterday's
and today's maps arc \uperimposed, and ~wept away by a gust of
information. Information that I've gathered for years, informacion
that only serves to distract me from other facts that don't appear in
any history book except the secret guide to my life. Informacion in
which the public realm imer~ectS with rhe private.
An exan1ple: Carnaby Street, which in the seventeenth cenrur}
was called Karnaby House (there is no record of what or who
Karnaby was}, and which later was part of Abingdon Com·enr,
and, after that, property of the Crown (which used it as a morgue
during the rw1n catastrophe~ of d1e Great Plague and the Grear
Fire}, and then a riding field, and soon afterward a neighborhood
inhabited by fleemg French HuguenotS, and then, one rwencieth~
cenrury mommg m the m1ddle of the 1950s, fohn Stephen, son of
a Glasgow 5hopkeeper, opens the doors of Vmce Man's Shop-
nearby, around the corner, on Newburgh Street-one: of the first
London haberdashcnes where it's possible to buy clothes 10 colors
that aren't gray or blue: or black; and one afternoon there's a shon
circuit, and cver)'thmg burns, Jnd Stephen is offered an empry
storefront on ( arnaby ~trec:t, and by 1962, Stephen has four bou-
oqucs on the ~trect
54 RODR I GO PRllSAN KSNSINGTON GARDENS 55

All of this just to be able to match up my Carnaby Street-the with his moLhcr when he wa~ ~till a boy like any other bO}'· Before
Carnaby Street of my childllOod-with Barrie's Camaby Street. Caglimtro Nmtradamus Smith and the hurricane of millennia
And who knO\YS whether all those places, all those hallucinogenic became part of hi~ life forc\'cr; before the eye of the hurricane
boutiques drenched in Oriental mcense smoke, aren't already fhed its unblinking gaLe on him, spinning and spinning and still
there when he arri\·es· m place, though mvis1blc:, with their phan- spinning.
mm roots already ,;brating under the: pavement like the tremors of That's hO\\ Jim Yang a'1d tlu Imaginary Fritnd ends.
the earthquake that's to come ~1y fa, oritc of the books r,e \\ ritten.
Barrie comes and I go, and Barrie rounds a corner that l'U tum The longest of all my books.
many times many years larer, and Barrie d1scovers a park. Hyde Fi\e hundred pages in which-as in moSt li\·es-almost nothing
Park. A man ~houts that the end of the world is coming and that happens, so that e\·erytbing can happen.
God docsn 't exht; another man shoub that the .Messiah has re-
rurned tO punish all those \\ ho \ay that man is descended from the
apes instead of ascending to the Creator. Both arc perched on plat·
forms, and both jab at the same point in the same sky. Barrie walks
along the edge of the park, down the stretch that borders Knights-
bridge, and crosses a small street Exhibition Road-and it's as if
he's crossed the border of one country and entered another.
Kensington Gardens, he reads on a metal plaque on a gate. Bar·
ric enters the park and sirs on a bench. He smiles. Suddenly Barrie
feels he is being watched; he LUms rapidly, and leaps o\·er the back
of the bench and catches a boy who is hiding in a bush. He peers
at him, half dosing his C)·cs, as if looking for something lost a long
time ago. For an imtant he thinks he's found it; bur the memory
slips away, along with the boy, who goes running and crosses a
green bridge over a blue stream and disappears from his sight for-
e,•er.
Barrie loses a memory but m its place be finds an idea, a good
one. It's not entirely clear to h1m yet; but there \\ill be time to pol-
ish tt like a daamond held up to the hght, next to a ~indow that
opens onto the thousand colors of the London sky
Jim Yang escapes Barne and keeps running, and doesn't stop
running until he reaches his chronocyclc He mounts it and pedals
as bard as he can. Jim Yang pedals forward, and the figure of Bar-
rie sitting on a bench in Kensington Gardens begins to dissolve
like a painting in the rain, like those pictures drawn in colored
chalk on the gray pavement in that film, the one Jim Yang saw

I'm not a hero.
I've nncr ti:lt lake a hero.
What's more: I never w.mtcd robe a heroic children 's writer (I
wou ld've been perfectly h.tpp) jmt being a reader, bur .. . ); I
never liked children , and b)• the umc I wa~ fourteen, 1 was six feet
tall and f'<.l experienced a remarbblc concentration of tragedies
more befitting an adult thJn an adok~cenL
I'm telling you rhb, Keiko Kai, to era~e any notion that I'm in-
terested in or obsc~~ed 'mh drawing a parallel between my life and
Barrie's, in bcmg a pale shado\\ of htm, a fake double, a cheap im-
itation. • othmg of the kmd
The onlr thmg Barnc and l ha,·e m common is having created
a ch1ld hero and gotten neh a\ a n:~ult. But Jim Yang isn't much
like Peter Pan Clther
True, hm Yang nc,cr gr<J\\\ up, but the reasons he doesn't arc
,·cry different from Peter Pan',, Jtm Yang can't grow up. And
where~ Peter Pan 1~ addkted to the amphetamines of eternal
childhood, Jim Yang is a JUnkie who ~hoots up on:r and over again
with a srringe full of the liqu1d of millennia, someone hooked on
the naive illusion that orne must have a posttive effect on realit)';
that if everythmg past is better, then the future must be better yet,
and can be manipulated to one's convenience and satisfaction.
KENSINGTON GARDENS 57
The eternal problem i~ alway~ the presenL
lL ·~ also true th.u Ba1 ric and I ha~c a dead brother in common-
older or younger-and &lightly unbalanced mothers in our pas~.
But !-unlike Barrie--<lon't write in order ro be someone. I
write to be ~omeone else And that wmeone else is none of the
many "T"s cin:ulatinp. out there. Barrie \\TOte to be recognized a~
the famous author of hi~ farno~ creatiom; I write ro be able to
disappear behind them, so that Jim Yang is more real than me, so
that the character trump~ tl1c: person.
Nor that this prc\enrs m) in\ i~ibilil) from creating false impres-
sions, urban legends, f=y tales; it's impossible to avoid.
I'm 11or the rvcoon hcrmJt of children's literature, though it's
true I refuse to participate in book fairs and sit at rectangular
roundtables alongs1de my colleagues. I'm sure that they hate me,
that they consider me an interloper, sin1ply because I don't make
pubhc pronouncements on the significance and profundity of chil-
dren's litcrawrc and its purlieus. Similarly, sorry to say- I'm not
sorry at all- 1'11 ne,·cr be found signing books elbow to elbow
with S (creator of the Great Catsby, melancholy millionaire cat ), R
(creator of Lucyprctty and Tonyugly), Y (proprietor of Frogman
Capote, 1he gay frog, hero of children with homosexual leanings),
A (inventor of Tick-Tcx:k, the imprecise little: clock), o r M (lord
and master of Frank and Drac, the cowardly monsters ). Nor will I
be seen in from of horde~ of children and flocks of parents, much
less contributing to anthologies for the benefit of sick children suf
fering from one of those terrible syndromes with hrphen:lled
names that are so difficult to pronounce and so easy ro geL
I'm not the e\'11 playboy w1th a taste for supcrmodcls.
I'm not the s;unr with m1raculous powers who brought Mer
ceditas, the daughter of Meucan narc Miliao Mantra (boss of the
NostalgJc Rancheras ( artcl ), our of a deep coma when her favonrc
book· }mt Yang and the Rcvmge of Montezrtma-was read aloud
to hc:r 111 a Houston hmp1tal
Bur it's always pms1blc to spot the pattern of the threads of
truth on the loom of myth, Kc1ko Kai. And here arc some raveled
notes lor Jn unauthorm:d autoh1ography I'll nc,er write.
58 RODRIGO FRESAN
I like to llc alone; soli rude is full of people
Despate hanng eliminated all sexualampulses from m}' bemg, I
had a casual, unexpected aff.ur ,,;th the Argennnian supermodcl
Pin. Nothmg serious: e\·ery night, she begged me to teU her a
story to ward otf the nightmares of bulimaa and anorexaa.
A~ I was walking through Trafalgar 6quarc, I was kidnapped by
a small manach1 commando group. They put me on a plane and
took rne to a house in a place called Tap.llpa, 111 the mountains of
Mexico, where an active volcano throbbed. rr<>m up high you
could see horrible, enormous black birds, like men dressed as
birds turkcv \'Uiturcs-crossing the sk) on the horu:on. And you
could also see how swrms rook shape, picturesque storms, stonm
thar could be appreaated only from dle pro" of a nineteenth-
century shap or from David Lean's folding director's chair, I sup-
po~e . And I could understand them better than m any of those
computer graphacs on the Weather Channel Suddenly, right there,
evcrythmg wa~ lake one of those Weather Ch.mncl pacrures, except
that it was real and natural, no artificial color\ or fl.wors. And we
had to dme the doors and windows ro keep the douds out of the
house. Clouds you could see coming from f:u .nvay, and suddenly
they \\ere riglu there, engulfing the house in something that
wasn't fog . It was cloud. And it was ~uch a Jo, ely ~ight, Keiko Kai,
that ir ga\ e vou the urgent desire to be muck by lightning so that
you could sta\' in that cloud landscape fore' cr, a random and elec-
tnc suacade. I didn't know what I was doing there. My captors
nc,·er spoke to me, except in hea,ily accented English monosylla-
bles, which emerged from the depths of thear broad, hairless
chests, tattooed with \irgins risang up to heaven. There was, I
thank, J pnvJte 700. One day I went up to a zebra and d.iscO\·ered
rhat it was JU~t a white horse painted with black ~tripes. It seemed
better not to go ncar the supposed giranc and rhinoceros. I spent
all my time \1 atchi.ng t.hc fire in an immcme fireplace: l added
wood, small log~, building compln \lructures that were devoured
b\ the flames; and the hours fle\\ by. Watchmg the fire is ne\'er
boring. Like water, it's an inexplicable m}Sten, and, along \lith
the "a\·es, it's our first narrative form, the inaoatory book read b~·
new-fledged human beings. One rught, l£'s true, thev did bring me
KENSINGTON GARDENS 511
w the dying Mercedir:as, and ~he looked almo~t like one of tho~c
angelic folk-art dead girls who'n: photographed for the Dav ofd1e
Dead, and her father ordered me to cure her, and I must have said
something or done something, 1 don't remember, 1 don't kno" I
danced, possessed by the peyote JUice l'd consumed in memor} of
m)' tiahcr, and when T rcrurncd from the place you go when you
cat sacred mushrooms, Mcrccditas Mantra was laughing, her tc,·cr
gone, health restored, and J was quickly removed and bound ro a
scat on a rented Concorde, ultra first class, all expenses paid cour
resy of the Tijuana Carrel. I thank that's how it was. I don't
remember any of it very well. Yes, suddenly J was walking m
Trafalgar Square again, m that almost im·isiblc, constant rain that\
so much like oxygen, as if norhmg had happened.
I'm almost none of those people and almost no one else: except
who I am and oo one could imagine.: the person I am except Mar-
cus Merlin, who, I hasten to add, wasn't a hero either, blll who
could l.woch imo almost epic tirades when he was in the mood, or
~imply with the help of an opium pipe-"Thc effect is almost im-
mediate for a \'eteran like myself in these affairs," he would sav-
dle smoke narrowing has eye.:~.
S;ud Marcus Merlin: "I'd ne,·er wam to be the hero or the prorag·
onast of anything. It's a nuasancc. foo much work and rcsponsibil
1[). l hke, even prefer, bemg a supporong character, but one who's
key w understanding the story. You know: someone tmportant,
but who influences the story from the margins. A small but unfor-
gettable part. The kind of role that, in film credits, after all the
names of the cast ha\'e scrolled by, requires that 'and' ... all by it
self and in last place. Bur andi~pens.1hle. ror example: ' . . . and
Christopher \Valken.' Though no, ( hri\topher Walkcn is a)\\ ays so
extreme Instead ... I know: ' , . and Donald Sud1erland.' Or
e\ en better, he·~ one of ours: '. .. and Mac had ( ainc.' The kind of
actor who alwan seems to be pl;mng hun \Cit~ but at the same nme
can play anyone. Robert Rc:dl(lrd ha\ that talent too. The abih[)· to
 RODRIGO FRESAN
do anything and still be himself. Reporter, fireman, horse tramcr,
hired killer: he's always con1incing. And he doesn't have ro resort
to stup1d rno:k.s like gaining weight or wearing a prosthesiS or re-
searching some degenerari\·e disease or changing h1s accem until
he's unrccogmzable. God, if there's anythmg I hate tt's actors who
net . .. You, on the other hand ... You're . . . You'd be more
along the lines of Bill Murray. Or William Hun. Thm tips and sad
eyes, the look of a silent-film actor taken aback to find himself in a
movte 1\ here everyone talks too much .. Oh, and thank Jesus for
movie star~ . they gtve us such a u~efi.1l, easy wav ro defi ne our·
selves They're much better than the charancr. m books. And you
don't kno11 ho11 happy I am that you\ c linJII) ~i1cn up those stu·
p1d old· fll,hloncd M.:ruplcs and rc:~triwon\ 11()\\ that the golden
opportunin··, arriH:d lor a film 'er\ion of the .J<h·enturcs of our
belo\l:d Jim Yang . . And thar vou've quit your mtpid fantasizing
about a I 1111 Yang pia) ... Do you know \1 ll\ God im-enred the
thcarc:r? So ugh acrors would ha1e a pla~c to ,,,,rk, ha-ha-ha. Ugh:
d1o)c pl.1ys, those classics, d1at in d1e end are nodung but bori ng
versions of the unjustly scorned gladiaror m01·ie . . . Seriously,
now: children's books and fi lm have much more in common tha.n
you reah1e. I think it was the producer Irving Thalbcrg-he died
young- who used to shut himself up in a dark screening room,
until, he: said, he'd 'gotten ins1dc the head of a twelve-year-old
boy: that'~ tlu: tnteUecrual coefficu:m of the a.-c:rage American.'
Yes, Ill\ dc:Jr, mo1ics Jre made: for man ·bo~~ . And boob for
bor-mcn> I don't know . .. An~"' a,·, ~pectaror~ aren't the same as
readc:rs Reader~ ;1re the book's producers, in a certain sense;
they're worker~ . . . Spectawrs arcn 't. Spe.:tators are n;uVe, lazy
people, ready to be ta.ken in by any magic tnck ... After all, the
mtracle of corn mrning imo popcorn is a~ respectable as the trans·
formauon of your ideas into books. And it\ a much gentler mira-
cle roo: there'~ no need for whole: tore\ts to die for a movie to be
filmed, 11ouldn't you agree .. . > And I think I already know what
I'll 1\CJr on opening night, which I'll h.wc to .mend in your place:
... I can ~e it coming,~ said Marcus .t\krlin, ~miling, his pupils
clouded b~ the green opium smoke, looking up unsecingh• at a
ceiling as !ugh as the sky.
KENSINGtON <.;ARD£NS it I
All right: 1 read a~ mu~h J\ Barrit during my childhood, and I
c'capcd into books too But I al\o \1 JH:hcd tdcvi~ion. Lot.\ of it.
relc\'is1on th.Jt began broad~.mmg aruund noon md ended alter
~ .
midnight, .JDd new:.ca~rs dut had rhc led of the ncarh fictitiou; or
the inst.lntlv historica.l, with none of todav's options for when you
need to interrupt the unimcrrupriblc. And as 1 think this and sa~
It, I .1sk myself whetl1er all the kingdom's plasma TVs aren't being
bombarded by breaking news bulletins reporting what Ji m Yang's
.ldored creator has done.
Better not w think about that.
Better to think abour other tclc1ision sets, yes?
Sets \\lth electrical insect anrennae that had to be angled with
\Kill and patience to find the pcrkct position and that occasionally
ga1·c you an electric ki<-s that rat~d the h.11r on your arms and
m.1dc you gn·e a sharp little cq Sets With sw1tches that no longer
nl\t .md !unctions that've dls.lppcarcd trom remote controls ltke
U\eb; appendages, like the h.ur~ CO.Jt \hruggcd off by evolution,
ltkc the lower J:lW that u~ed w JUt torward and now ~lants back.
B utton~ fi>r vertical and horizom,tl control, and to wipe om that
ghostly image hovering like an aur.1 over Prolc!>-'>Or Quatcrm,tss or
l)rolc~·.or Rudolph Popki» A 1iciou\ly \tkky dial, a knob lor
chJJl~mg channels that at fir~t '' l\ hard w turn, and then, ~ the
molllh\ p.l~\Cd, became smooth and lome, JJ1d you ended up ~pin ­
ning it with a preci~c: flick of thl' "ri\t, as if the tele1ision bad bc-
wme one of those old safes dut open only if you gi,·e them the
kid glOI'C treatment. Sets that, oack then, \\ere like a piece of 'CI
en~c: finion pulsing 111 our li1 ing room~: turned on, they took a
wh1lc to warm up wd show a p1cntre, turned off, they sighed a
;low fJrcwell, the insommac zomote eye of a white pomt Ill the
center of d1e screen refusing to dose and remaining there some
ttmcs tor as long as an hour. 'icts l1kc mcchamcal dogs, like robot
bcs1 friends. Sets that didn 'r yet h.11 c the power and potency of
today'~ sets, those machines wuh the aoilit) to turn you into a
modern day child of d1c Middle Ages, bombarding you \11th \O
much agc-mappropriatc: mlornution that your d1ildl10od 1S used
up and you're thrmt mto a prem.lturc aduhhood. Sets in thc:tr m-
lan~r. "tth ju\t a few channel\ and on!) the \trictly necessary pro·
62 RODRIGO FR.BSAN
grams at regular times, once a week. Sets that sometimes worked
and ~omet1mes didn't.
And am1d :ill that, the 1960s tc:leli.SIOn my father hated. I was
alway~ sorry he wasn't here to enjoy those retro series especially
designed to celebrate the eras of Victona the First-and-Only and
Edward VII and even George V, as the horror of the 1970s was al·
read)• beginning to settle over everything. I drank in that 1960s
television, which no one had ret accused of being harmful-
though there was room to suspect rhar somctiJi11g must not be
quite right, because, if photograph~ s10lc your soul, then what
would the cfli:ct~ of that small and imperceptibly flickering screen
be? If photography ~tole your soul, then it made sense to think tel-
elision cru~hed it, killed it.
I warchcd J.ll.rage to tlu Borrom oft/)( Sta Iand pretended to be
tossed from port w starboard, from one ~ide of the room w the
other, as 1f some monster of the deep had the Seaview trapped in
its tentacles; my favorite character wa~ the psychotic sailor Kowal-
ski, perpetually seized by oceamc frenzies and furies); I watched
Star frc/; (and pretended tO be tossed lon1ard and backward, sit·
ting at the control.'> of rhe Entet•prisr as 11 wa~ attacked by extrater-
restrial rays; my fa1·orite character was any of them, all perpetually
seized by galactic frenzies and furic~), I 11at~hcd 17Je Forsytt Saga
( twemv-~i\ epi~odes in the Vicrorian lite of a Victorian family
perpetual!~ ws~ed by inrernal earthquakes); I watched Dr. Who
(barding those Daleks, which looked like washing machines); I
\\'atched 17Je Pmoner (and accompanied the spooked Number 6
trapped in the disturbing landscape of a 1illage/jail); I watched
Top of tiJc Pops (my father and mother appearing JUSt once, singing
and dancmg spasmodically, always facing the wrong camera); I
watched TI1e Avengers (no, I wasn't in love with lithe, elegant
Emma Peel; 1 was in love with Emma Peel's black leather catsuit,
and, especially, the S&M version of Emma Peel who appeared in
the unforgemble episode "A Touch of Brimstone"); and I still re-
member my surprise and dismay when, soon after I turned rwenty,
someone explained to me that Hanna Barbera wasn't an incredible
woman cartoorust but the last names of two men.
KENSINGTON GAROI!NS o .I
I ~aw all these series and cartoons m black .rnd wh1tc, nor color
I read io color. We were the first mi\ed-breed animals (learmng ro
rtnd and to watc/J at the same ume ), and the last to gro'' up be·
he11ng that tebision 11 as something fake. We were sure that
mo1·ie ~pecial effects were nowhere near as good as the one~ we
imagined in our heads; it was impo~ible to turn all those dazzling
stories from books into images. They bored into our eyes through
our pupils as we daydreamed in an infinite range of shades, and
they established themselves in d1c underwater planet of our brains.
Telel~sion today is the exact opposite. The need to escape real·
It)' has gradually been replaced by the temptation to imitate reality
The other day, I read an interview With one of those angry blond
teenage smgers with an onomatopoeic name, who said that he
couldn't remember his childhood 1f he d1dn't break It down first
into twenry-fi,•e-minutc segment\ 111th a laugh track: ~Like one of
those mfinite reruns. When we're kid~ we're our own 1V sets, and
our t:wome show inside of them ... Even now, when I wake up, I
can't help teeling my scalp to find the place I'm sure my anrenna
is. \Vhere's my antenna? Who pulled otT my antenna? Did they
take it out with my appendix? It 's my parems' fault, I'm sure. I
ralk about that in 'Zrapping,' the Rilp You single that 11i.ll be
on ~ale next ... " said the boy, his eveb full of static and hi~ arms
\\anng. In the picture in an airline magazine, his arms look om of
fows, his body hunched hke an albino monkey's, his fingers trans
m1tting ;ilinost Masonic signals. I dtdn 't understand what he was
talking about, but T thought I understood what he was referring
to It's from this, from an upbnngmg like tlus, from ha\ing been
overexposed to too many hour; of radianon, I suppose, that we
come to need all those strange competitions in which "real pco·
plc"-not actors-arc held captive and made to live under extreme
conditions and participate in sadistic c;>,penmcnts m exchange tor
the pmc of celebrity. We're living .md watching the Warhol Chan·
ncl; and what interests the \pccrator 1\ ~cclllg how mortals have m-
\Jdcd the old tcle1ision of the 1mmortah to banish the gods and
become ltkc them, and ultimately endure the same slow but 1rre
'er.1blc retreat of spotlighb and camera\,
64 RODRIGO PRilSAN
I haven't IJ'ntcbcrf tde\i\ion again-when I sa} "watched," I
mean in the ~emc thar I think of mv~clf as IMtcbitrg it-since the
television of my ch1ldhood. Almough sometimes, when a world
catastrophe or private tragedy makes its regular surprise appear·
ance, I tune into rhe news channels to sec a fa1ry pnnccss's carriage
smashed mro a cement p1llar Or to watch death shown lh·c in the
form of t\\1n a1rplanes hurhng thenl';ch·es agamst t\\in towers. Or
to hsten to the slow vo1cc, Its dc~pcratton hardly di~guJsed, of an
inrellccrual spealong to no one, in rhc lowcst· r.nin~ time slot, late
m the dark night of rhc soul. A man w1th a generous face, a tor·
e1gner who--in <nrrcct and pa\\ion.ltc Engb~ays, and says to
me alone, and, 1f he\ lud.\, to a handti.1l of imomniacs who'rc try·
iog to be: hypnotitcd b."k to \lt:cp
"The godo; arc elusive guc~t~ of literature. They crisscross it
wim me wake of the1r names. But they often abandon it too. Each
tin1e me writer ~ers down .1 word, he has to reconquer them. Mer·
curialness, a sign of the gmh, is also an mdicanon of meir
ephemeraliry. But it wasn 'r alway' this way. Thmgs were different
when there was a common scnpt: .1 template of gesrurcs and
words, a controlled aura of de~rruction, an C\clusi,·c usc of certain
matcnals. All th1~ pkascd the gml~, a~ long as men wamed to ad·
dress them. 1 hen ,\II that rcmamcd, like banners waving over an
abandoned camp, were rhe ~LOne~ of the god~ implied in e,·cry
geMurc. Uprooted from thdr tcrriron and expmcd to th.: crude
light of d1e word, rhe ~;~od~ wuld come to seem shameless
and vain. And mar wa~ the end of t:\Cf} thing in the history of
literature.~
Why IS 1t that anythmg exdtmg is e'en more exciting when it's
rold ro us m our own language by someone who comes from far
away and has taken the trouble to ,,~It us and lc.:~rn our language?
Who lo1o" s? Bur the rrurh " that his words mspired one of my
most subversive 1dcas-and mo't epic too, prob.1bly So, 1f anyone
wants ro a~nbc: some heroic t~-csturc to me, wme magnificent
deed, r suppose the mmr admirable thmg I've ever done, in my
opinion-and the mo~t demented, m ncryonc else's opinion-
"as to create NlV: a relc:,·i~ion st.1tion that rejects me idea of tele·
KbN!>ING'lON GARDHNS
'1\IOn. No Trlrl'imm Cl"king to NTV \\ irh tht: remote control,
<!Jncing the channcl-,urfinp, "alt.£, meant finding a blank ~creen
acros~ "hkh the mmt beloved ~rone~ and novels in me history of
literature nurd1ed: leucr bv letter," ord bv word, sentence bv sen-
ren.:c, from beginning to end. Yes, d1e idea was to watch tde,·ision
and read. ro "arch as tf praymg-bv scrolling through das~1c
pages-tor the: reconstrucnon of our lost communication ,,;th me
gods. Thar was all ~o sound or color or special effects. Just a sud
denly clecrnfied book. It didn 'r last long, of course, but ir was
"orth ir.
I'm told thar lots of people watched :-.'T\' while taking drugs
or makmg love or just domg nothmg and enjo}ing the rare privi·
lege of tcdmg that they were doing somet1Ji11g. All mosc people
whme parent\ accu~ed them-each rime they saw them with a
book m the1r hand~-of "wasting time," and made them go out·
side and mm e around, ma,•be worrying that the act of reading
would diminish the: no" of blood to the simp!.: hean and increa~e
it ro the problem:uil brain.
And it's .1lw.1y\ the ,,1mc, Kciko Kai: the people who talk most
about rdcvbion arc the om:' who say over and over again mar the)'
aren't int.:reMcd in tclevi,ion, whereas those who watch most arc
the: one~ who t.llk about it lt:a~r. For the former and d1e l.uter, tor
aU of them: NT\'
And it d1dn 'r take long for d1e paranoid prophets to appear,
swearing they'd detected suhlunmal pulses, h1ddcn signals, and '>a
tame messages between the lines. None of it was true, of course;
bur how ro fight the seeker\ of ne\\ world-order consp•rac1cs,
"ho-~unng the spcnal marathon broadcast of A Ia rccbercbe du
temps perdu, .ll the pmnt in Lc Temps rctrom•c when Samt· Loup
dc~cnbc:s an a1r attack on P.lm mth "anators hkc \'alkynes~ who
~form a con~tcllauon" and "make apocalypse" m the skics-
bchcvcd rhcv detected a ~ubliminal, coded <ail from an IslamiC
group for the Imminent bomb.udmc:nt of Buckingham Palace, or
somethmg like: that.
rhc\c \\ere, of course, the carl~ dars of the nc" millennium,
when e\ cr~ thing C\plodable nplcxicd, and, thanks to the arro·
66 RODRIGO I'RBSAN
gance of the calendar, we started over again, became children
again, and-as in Barrie's rime, but for vcq dllferem reasons-
there wa~ an explosive new boom in ch1ldren 's hterarure.
The targets to bomb were the proud possessors of happy child-
hood memories. They were so easy ro spot: people '''hom nothing
bad had happened to bade then, and who therefore remained
partly ~ruck in those early years. People whose voices grow sud-
denly and naughtily high, who laugh like lunatics at any little
thing, who can't resist the momentary urge to play an annoying
practical JOke, or who fall abruptly into a willful and absurd silence.
People wh(")-!,urprise-found out on the new\ about a new ad-
vance in genetic~ mtcnded ro double our age, to fold it up in sec-
tiom hke chrommome origami. :-\othing "a~ definite yet, bur the)•
were already c:nJO\ing an une:-.pecred boon that allowed them to
kill time and ~lay impatience: the consumpoon, as adults, of phe-
nomena mtended for children. The loudly whispered secret, the
sublimmal message of c,·ery classic of children's literature, is noth-
mg but the recuperation of the past .1s reward, whether it be in
the skin of a beggar girl remembering her days as a princess, or m
the armor of an old king on his last battlefield pining for his first
nights as a naked prince.
These men and women-"grown-ups"-wanted a return m
ch1ldhood hy any means po~iblc:. And they lxlUght the "adult"
edmom of Jim Yang by the thousands: black-and-white photo-
J:.'T.lphs on the Jackets instead of color 1llusrrauons; a pound and a
half more expensh·e. Holc:s where the} could burv their heads and
their fears m the ad,·enrures of a time rra,•eling bo}', and thus ban-
ish not the dread of night but the dread of the everyday.
Barrie was afraid of the dark, cl1e dark that lived in his mother's
bedroom, rhc dark that had swallowed up Da1•id and was surely af-
ter him now. Barrie 11 rites in defiance of that dark, unceasingly,
and at fi~t \\~th little: success. Barrie buy'> more botdes of black ink
but keeps wearing the same hat. Barrie thinks a hat is indispensable
for fa, orably impressing his editor His strategy doesn't work: the
Xl!NSING'tON GARDENS
cd11or reJects his fi~t fourteen .uudc., and accepts the fifteenth,
'' h..:h I\ titled "Bcuer Dead" and l>egm\ with this sentence ":-Jo
tmc "ho h~ devoted a few minute\ to the question can C'>t.ape the
'und~ion and the com teuon that there: are a good number of our
contemporaries about "hom Something m~t be done." And Bar-
rie goe~ on to li~t difti:rent type' of people who deserve to p.m on
ro a bettt:r lite. Frederick Greenwood laughs when he reads it: he
thinks the mix of sophisticated spite and immature fury is perfect
for the pages of his Sni11t James's Cnzettc.
Barrie moves to a cheaper room on Greenville Street. "No big-
ger than a piano box," he writes in his notebook as he lunches and
dines "more than satisfactorilv" on four halfPenny rolls that he
spreads with the marmalade his mother sends him from Kirriemmr.
For speoal occasions-when an arnclc is accepted-Barne allow~
h1msclf the luxury of a baked potato bought at a street srand At
dmk, he often thlls into a deep state of depression: he stands by the
wmdow for hours, counting the leaves of a tree-is David that
small green ghost making faces at h1m from the highest branch?
unul he reaches that perfect moment 111 which he forgets about
himse lf, about "my personality difficulties," and then only work,
wnting, and escape remain.
My most precious po.sses~ion i~ the pleasure I experience
upon sitting at my desk. I'm nor sure "hen it was that I re-
aliLed it It wasn't early m In) lik; because the truth is that I
was luy at school and J read all the books thar I wasn't sup-
posed to read during school. Bur I fell in IO\'e ,,;th the idea
of hard work one perfect Ma~ mornmg ... I found it wait-
ing for me at a London train station and it accomparued me
all the way back to Bloomsbury ... Hard work, more than
any woman in the world, is the best thing for a man,
Barrie would recall in a speed\ at the Author's Club of London,
\hortly before dying.
And I agree wnh lum. I can 'r help agreeing.
~o Barne writes to forger.
Oil RODRIGO PRBSAN
I do roo, bur I can't; 1t doesn't work. Each page 1 write-in my
first notebooks, the ones I'm burning now to keep us warm
through the long night, Kc1ko Kat-only etches more deeply the
thing that I tried to den} for \0 many years and that now I'm try·
ing to make d1~appcar like a tattoo 'iQmc:onc: etched inside my
head. Each of the place~ I nc\'cr wanted to sec again suddenly ac-
quires the untouchable cc:lcbrit) of a histone spot: the woods of
Sad Songs, :-=e1 erland, tl1e pool where my mother drowned; my
father's recording srudio; tlle open windo11 of my room, Baco's
room and mine, that becomes m~ room again when Baco dies ...
E1·erything reappears.
~o one told me that memories could be so perfect, so clear. It
isn't fair. Curse those who complam about the1r poor memory;
tlley don't kno11 ho11 lucky they arc.
Barnc, on the mhcr hand, IHitcs new memories, im·cmcd
memories. Barnc write\ \o he doesn't have to lhc his life, writing
himself a ne\1 lite. Barnc writes Witll<>ut ~lopping. In 1891, he's aJ.
ready a regular conrriblllor under his own name-tlle pen names
Anon or Gavin Ogih-y arc left behind forever-to tbe Empire's
most prestigioub publications, including W. E. Henley's influential
National Obsei'I'Cr, where IllS name appears beside those of
Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, and W. B. Years.
Barrie pays for the pnnring of a fir.t no,·cl. Better Dcad takes its ti·
de and subJeCt maner from one of h1~ mo\t famous articles: tlle
satirical foundmg of a dub dc,otc:d to the bcnc:,·olent assassination
of unpleasant famous people lor the lmprO\cmcnt of society. Bar·
ric Iuses t\1 cnty-fh c pound~ Ill the undertaking. Barrie runs to the
publishing house and a~ks to be !0' en tlle fir..t copy as it comes bot
off tlle presses. He rouches it and smells it and strokes ir as if it
were a small animal. And he puts it in his coat pocket and carries it
\lith him for days, and e1·erv once m a while he takes it our and
opens it, each ume thmkmg that maybe the pages \\ill be blank,
that all trace of mk \1111 have vamshcd as if by art of magic, as if by
Jo,·e of art. The novel 1sn 't bad, but it's tlloughr to be roo sophis-
KI!NS I NGTON GARDENS 1>9
Licarcd lor the average reader, who's much more interested in rhc
uimcs of Jack. the ltlppcr- 111 lm bc~tial language, h1s recipes for
the best preparation of pm;ritutes' li\crs and kidneys-than in
Barrie's clever, macabre 1alc
One criu~: goc~ M> far ~ to sa, dut Barrie 1s ob,iouslv the
pseudonvm under Which Bernard Shaw and o~ar Wilde have com·
a
posed a joke dmx B.urie is amused by this unintended compli·
ment, but he also obeys ItS underlying imperati1e. Barrie decides
tllat his neu book will be written from the heart and not rhe
head-tllere are alread) roo many cle1·er Englishmen in book·
stores and hbra.r ics-and he decides to look back, treating litera·
rure as a time machine and tlle Thrums of his childhood as h1s
rernrory.
Never grow up, ne1•er grow up, never grow up, ten times over.
A11ld Licht Idylls ( 1888), A Window i11 T1Jr11ms (1889), and
Tlu Little Mi11isur ( 189 I )· books in which for the first time his
irony and spite arc fused with a deep sentimcnrahsm-rurn Barrie
into a very successful writer and Kirric:muir into one of rhe first In·
erary tourist destinations. People go and look and buy postcards
signed by Barrie. The local rc;idents aren't happy with the way
Barrie: portrays them and sometime; pokes fun at them, but soon
they succumb to their new and unexpected fame: better to be ta-
mous for anything at all than to be nobody. And oobodr is as fa·
mou~ ~ Barrie, who waste~ no time publhhing WIJm a Mau s
Single, a semi·auLObiographical short novel about tlle life of a jour·
nalist, in whil:h the narrator exclainu: "My God! ... I would write
an article, I think, on mv mother'~ coffin." Barrie isn't a man \~ho
writes· Barrie's a writing machmc:.
Soon afterward, 17JC LJn/e Jfwl.stO'-about a short man ror·
menred by h1~ height-IS dubbed ~a work of genius" on the first
page of tlle Natio11nl Obsencr, and in tlle United States four dit:
ferent publisher.. bring out p1rarc: cciJtions, making it an interna
tiona! besr-scllc:r Robert Lou1s Stevenson reads T11e Little Mimstcr
in Samoa and wnrc~ to Henry James recommending tllat he read it
(~You, Kipling, and now Barne arc my three muses"), and to Bar-
nc to congran•latc h•m and otli:r h1m ad11cc· "The autllor shouldn 'r
 RODRIGO FRllSAN
be like hJS books; he should be his boo~ " Barrie obeys, bur it's
an order he's already gh·en himself long ago, an order be follows
better and better until it becomes an automanc reflex, something
as simple and unconscious as breathmg deeply or dipping a pen
inro the mkwc:U.
Barrie is now a writer with writer friends. Barrie begins ro cor-
respond with Stevenson, and dines with Thomas Hardy and
George Meredith. "The most satisfacrory thing in my little literary
history is being able to say that the people I most admired as writ·
ers I can now also caU my best friends," he writes.
Barrie recruits Arthur Conan Doyle (who created Sherlock
Holmes, the skeptic in extremis, as a perfect co,·er for hts belief in
fairies and spmts and messages from the Bevond and JUSt abour
anythmg ) and Jerome K. Jerome (the \'i.:torian satinst of 1JJTu
Mm 111 a Bont and 1J1rec .\.fen on thl' Bum mel) lor hts own bizarre
cricket team: the AUahakbarries, a playful corruption of the Arabic
"Allahakbar" or "Allah is great!" Barrie is the ideolo~t and the
captain, and happy as he's tlever been. The best of both worlds:
cricket among literary people dressed in white with straw hats,
who smoke, laugh, shout, and play like children on a lawn so
green it's dazzling. Literary people who bring their children to the
matches ·and, oh, the pleasure of playing \\1th other people's chi!·
dren, as an equal, without the distance that latherhood and duty
tmposc l.tttle Barrie, larger than life, runs \\lth the children, who
comtder hun o ne of them. Lmlc Margaret Henley-who will die
soon after she turns six from one of tho\e gro\\ n-up childhood ill-
nesses of the day-baptizes Barrie as "M\ Friendy"; but Margaret
can't pronounce me letter "r" (Barrie will be fascinated ever after
by women with difficulties pronouncing it) and it comes our at
first as "~ly Fwendy" and then "My Wendy," and thus little Mar-
garet invents a name that didn't yet exist: Wendy. A name th:tt
some ye:trs later- through me young heroine of Peter Pan, Wendy
Motra Angela Darling-would become one of the most popular
names for gtrls o'·er and across and up and down England.
Little Barrie and little .Margaret laugh unnl It hurts.
Lmle Barrie and little .Margaret and Allah arc great. I like the
KllNSJNGTON GARDBNS ' I
idca-tt makes me happy-that Barnc becomes famous and then
.Umost 1mmediateh· he's able to ha\'e the chtldhood he ne,·er had,
a chtldhood in which he's surrounded b) lost boys: b~· adults who,
at least for a few hours, arc \\illing to play along with him tn hts ef.
tom not to grow up.
I like: to think too that my father, Sebasttan "Daqeeling"
Compton-Lowe, and his band the Beaten aka the Beaten Victori·
ans aka the Victorians, were also lo~t boys, suJ.pended in time and
J.pace.
Sixties rock as an isolation tank and a vchiclc for tra\'eling to
otller planets. The rockers :1!> astronauts-and, yes, se,·eral of them
did die during takeoff, or drifting in perpetual orbit, or at the
combustible moment of their return home, sinking inro the ocean
With thetr suits and capsules and 'tsionJ..
The fuces of the four musicians of the Beaten aka the Beaten
Victorians aka the Victorians-despite the several years dunng
whtch they occupied the comfortable place of pseudo-uncles tn my
life- ·ha,·e blurred for me, mergtng tnto a single person: long hatr,
pointy-collared shirts, elcctnc suit~ (embroidered with little rwtn
kling lights activated by a battery hidden in a pocket), Nehru jack·
cts, glasses with colored lenses.
The: drill I imposed on my\clf' with !'russian rigor soon atier
they all ~nk forever beneath rhe \\atc:rs oftlletr last trip did me lit·
tic good, if any: remembering c.Kh feature, each gesture, in order
to fix them in my absorbent \'Oung memon At first it seemed ro
work, but \\ithin a year, the irrcn:r\ible process of disappearance
had .Uread> begun. Faces and bodies are made of water, and water
C\ aporates quickly under the ficr.:e, swift sun of time. E,·en m\' fa
ther\ and momer's faces: \·es, I remember mem better, but thev
are .llways motionless, as if smiling from .m album cover or out of
the sound that rises from the album's spiral groo,·e.
Not long ago I saw them agatn, uncxpectecUy, as I was flipping
through a magazine at a Victona Station newsstand. A rock maga
.tine. E,·cry once in a whtlc I buv rock magazines. I like ro read
them; I ltke to find that I don't rceogm7e anyone except the pco
pie I knew dunng my childhood. I like to sec the wrinkled p1crures
71 RODRIGO FRSSAN
of Bob "rorcvcr Young" Dylan and Paul "When I'm Sixty-Four"
McCartne) and Pete "My Generauon" Townshend and Mick
"Time h on My Side" Jaggcr-picrures of old people more or less
surpmcd to be old, and clinging to their electric guitars like canes.
I like to sec that I don't know anything; it amuses me to think that
all thosc profound theories about something so superficial are im-
portant and worthwhile to someone; it comforts me to think that
fashions change but that people are still young in the same way. All
those strange styles and onomatopoeic names. All those high-
flown and elaborate declarations in the mouths of such well-
educated id1ots. All those analyses of what happened in the sixties
a~ 1f It were the foundation stone of the prco;cnt All those mixed
erhmcmes and all those blood feud~ and the paradox that re,·olu-
tlonary rock IS o ne of the most rac1st domallls Ill the universe. All
those di\Wgraphies and links and rankmg~ and all that reflexive
and aurom.nic need to generate surveys so that young people can
vote on their 0\\ n 'cry recent past, and in wh1ch the winner in the
c:llegory of all-time best album is always a record that's at most
five yean. old. The whole big business resting on the idea that any-
thing new i~ better than anything less new, :tnd that the classic will
always be more modern than any of the moment avant-garde. All
rho~c new Beatles and new Dylans. Nowhere docs one age faster
or ach1cve Immortality sooner than 10 rock.
Th1s month's MoJo was dedicated ro the "Cult Heroes" of rock
and pop An elegant euphemism for pa)'lng tnbute to formerly
beauuful losers who now, thanks to the re\ ISIOmst snobbery of ad-
dicts of all forms of consumerism, have been rescued bv a new
generation inclined to hate their contemporaries and lo,·e those
who du:d before they were born. Ghosts they're resuscitating now,
digitally and in new editions, with the addition of bonus tracks and
demos and booklets.
And wh;u would my father, such a conservative and pop-centric
Citizen, say about the compact-disk format, about the sudden
sprawlmg laser summation of his life and work? Now that I think
about it, my futher never would ha\'e hked those little disks of
metall1c1zed plastic. He always defended the dual psychotic order
KENSINGTON GARI>PNS • l
of S1de A and Side B, and, besides, he loved to calculate the C\act
pt>mts on a spinning record where one song began and anorhcr
ended He'd blindfold h1mself \\1th a fuchsia or p31sley handkcr
ducf and, taking a1m at the bncf -.cconds of faintly crackling si
lcnce-bctwcen "Pledging i\ly Time" and "Visions of Johanna,"
between "End of the Season" and ~waterloo Sunset"-he let the
needle fall like a knife thrower who needs J steady pulse and per
feet aim to hit his moving target. Neither end nor beginning-the
careless noise that made you grit your teeth because of a shaky or
unsure hand-but the exact spot; limbo, the nothing that follow\
and precedes everything. My father would ha1·e hated those •ong'
~trung one after another on the last stretch of Abbey Road, and all
the ~ounds of alarm clocks and tdephont:s and com·ersations link·
mg Pink Floyd tracks. Once, I think, my fatller told me it wouldn't
be a bad idea to make an album that S\\itched the order of the
components: thin seconds of mustc between duck bands of silence
and ,·inyl. My father, the cult hero ...
The main pieces in this edition of Mojo were dedicated ro the
Velvet Underground (on rhe cover), the La's, Big Star, Fred Neil,
and someone called Jonathan Richman, who for some reason wa~
labeled a "pop Peter Pan." All through Mojo, many other cult he
roc~ appeared, synthcsi1ed and in rhc gui~e of a failed chorus line:
the Action, the Pastds, the Short Stones, the Fugs, the Onl}
One\, the Godz, the Samrs, the Rcp!J~:cmcnb, the Pop Group, th<·
Pocrs, the Soft Boys, the Crcallon, the Left Banke, the I.Jnitcd
State~ of America, the Los f\ita\, the Dantig 0~1-ars, the Rampant
Barons, the Sea .o\lonkq'S, the Bhnd Cartographers, and, ye,, the
Beaten aka the Beaten Victoriam aka the Victorians. A handful of
lines for each, and no fighting: there'~ room for e\eryone.
l felt a strange mixture of pit)• and bhamc: culthood is on I) in ~
tcrc~ting and noble when one doesn't have a personal relationship
to it. Culthood, up close, is ju't another of the many ways to ~ay
jflllure.
My father wasn't a hero; and 1f there\ anything more rerriblc
than not being a hero, it's wanting to be a hero and not succeed
ing. Although maybe my father's herotsm-and, by resigned e\
 RODRIGO PllllSAN
tension, my morhcr's ha5 lc5s to do \lith what they wanted to
achic1·e than 11 11h what they ended up being. He and she as their
own mmt pcrtecr and accomph~hed creations: an epic of failure
doomed from the start by the dKtum~ and !>logan~ of a decade that
reqUired absolutely cvcrythmg to ..:hangc (c1·cn the thing~ that
were finl' ) in ord ... r fi:>r anyone to be trul\ ren>lutionary, only for
them to d1S<:o1·er in the end rhu thcv'd bc:come nothing but con-
fused children "1th unrc:c:ogm.t:able piece~ of suppo~dl~ immortal
mys. Yes, yes, ye~. Cult Heroes.
ln the m.1gazme, each of the cncvdopcJJa-~r~·le entries was it-
~elf subdi1ided into four p.lrts, headed a17Jc Band,~ "Tht .lfitSic, »
awhere 17u_v Arc ?Von•," and "Tru·1a. ft
I bought the magazine and got on the fim tram to an}"''here (I
often do that, get on a tr.lm as 11's pulling our w1thour looking ro
sec where it'~ going, !erring 11 rake me wherever 1t wants), and I sat
down to read what It \aid under .t photograph (one I had nen:r
~cen lxlore) of my father .tnd lm lricnds dressed as bobbies pa-
trolling fog-shrouded \lrccrs
I read·
17Jt Band: the Bem:n aka the Beaten Victorians aka the Vic-
torians was formed in 1962 by the aristOcrat Sebastian
"Darjecling" Compton Lowe (rhYthm guitar and voice)
with sc1·eral classmates at the prestigious public scbool
('harterhousc, where he was ~em br his father, Lord Ce-
cil Compton Lowe, for Mcharactcr· buildlllg." The other
members of the band· ·\Jgncd b) the record label Decca
afi:cr one of 1ts c:xc:cum·c\, D~ek Rowe, mi~d the chance to
~1gn the Beatles-\\ere the Amencan Te>.. "Tax"' Dudley-
Smith (lead guitar), the hench Charlcs-Charb ~1antream:
Che1ieux (b.t!>!.), and the Italian Dino Di ~oJJ (drums),
11ith fleeting, ne1 er c:nnrelv confirmed appearances-
accordlllg to the acknowledgments of Armageddon Tea
Time 1965 )-of Bob Dylan "on harmonica and puking."
Sometimes Alexandra S111nton·~lcnzics JOI!led the lineup.
Well known 111 ccrtalll \O.:Ial and .tmtocrauc circles, she was
KSNSINGTON GARDENS 75
abo cumidercd one: of the mo~l brilhant students ever to at-
tend RADA and the Royal College of An, bm she dropped
e1·er~1.hing 10 bc:cume Compton-Lowe'~ wife and to ~ing
ba..:kup on the choru~es of ~ome songs. Alexandra S\\inton-
Menzies had '><>me succe~s \1 ith her recording of the ~in­
gle "You're ~ot Mine (I'm :Not Youn),'" 11ith "Brigadoon
Girl" on its B side. Tht: fi~t of these songs-supposedly
wnnen by Bob Dvlan, though it was never confirmed-is an
oflbeat, mischic:,·ous response to Sonny and Cher's "I'I·e
Got You." "You're Not Mine (I'm Not Yours)" became un-
expectedly popular a fe" years ago, when it was rescued w
be: used in a commercial for a famous brand of running
shoes.
'l11e M11sic: Hard to pinpoint, since their style murated as the
band changed names and Compton-Lowe changed . . .
mood5. Many call the international hit "You Really Hate
Me" the foundational riff of heavy rock, and a good parr
of the Beaten's first album-R.oya/ Noise ( J964)-is con-
structed around variariom on this simple but unforgettable
song, which was so ofi:en imitated. By 1965, the Beaten
were calling thcrmclvc~ the Beaten Victorians and releasing
what's considered their "transition" album: Streets and
Forests, also known a~ Armngtddon Tea Tim11, a title that was
rejeC£ed by the studio at the time but recovered for the
1987 Rhino rc:rele~. One side of the album is electric and
urban (Struts), and the other is acoustic and rural (Forcstr),
\\1th the band singing alternately about the decadent plea-
sures of Swinging London ( "Wh)' Don't We Do It in the
Tube?") and the melancholy pleasures of a walk along the
Thames on the edge of the great city ("Up m Trees, D0\\11
by the Water, Here With You Naked, If You Ltke It,
Plea.~"), and 1t ends wnh a lund of retro existential barrie
hymn tc:lhng the story of a psychonc devoted follower of the
fa~h1ons of the times ("Dr Mono and Mr. Quadraphonic").
 RODRIGO PR.SSAN
It's around this time-supposedly as the result of a long.
ro.:kv LSD trip-that Compron Lowe metamorphoses his
band once again, which now calls nsclf \tmply the Victori-
ans. and embraces themes and srrlcs tmended to denounce
all :mcmpts at ~Beatie hypnosts" whtlc at the same rime
re~cmng, tn \'Jrtous unforgettable song\, ~the many time-
honored values we 'vc come to cherish· like cucumber ~and­
wtchc~ .lt teatime, punctuality, and pre\crving the hymens of
the girl\ of the British Empire until thdr 1\ eliding night.''
Compton· Lowe .uso undergoes a radical personalil) change,
rc:fu\ing to play live again until he can perfo rm a wshow with
firewo rks and lit-up fountain," at Buckingham Palace, es-
peciall\' conceh ed for the Queen·~ name da\'- The singles
from thts era- later posthumous!\ collected in Small Vic·
rorus and Rzg Dcftars E11JOJtd nnd Suj)crcd bv r/;c Victorians
( 1969 ), such .ts ",\1c and the Queen," ~-l.uc Gallery Raga,"
wRioom\bury tn Bloom," "Acoustt~. :-lot Hcctnc," "King
and Country Rc,·isited," ~Blood, ~1\e,H, !cars, and Some
J\lorc $\\cat ," "Wc' lll\ket Ag.1in (bur I I O\t the Address),"
"Who Nc:nh You, Buddha>," and the unintctHionally hilari-
ous "I mpcrial Forever," a fen em hom.1gc: to the Canadians,
who rejected the ~C:\\' World'~ driH: f{>r independence: and
dcctdcd ro remain swaddled in the prore.:uon and love of
the Briosh Crown. The conscrntism of the ~ong<> sparked a
certam cnncal cunostl)', but alienated the larger public,
which in tho~e dar~
. waited for each new Beatie~ song as tf it
~
was the word of God, or the gods, .md whtch, as a result,
preferred npenmemation ro rhc dcfemc of tradinonal val·
ucs Compton Lowe then took lm nearly demented-but
very tunny-hatred of the Beatlcs C\ en further (the no,·elry
song~ "Bc.lting the Beetle" and, on the B ~ide of the same
'>inglc, "Reading the Real Nc:w~ Tod.1y" were: lawu:hed as
"battle lnmns," according to Compwn-Lowc). The nex-t
development is surprising, or not w ~urpnsing: the Victori-
ans, COn\1nced thar the oruy \\'3} tO defeat their "archco-
emv" is to do it on their own rurf, become a kind ofBeades
KENSINGTON GARDENS 7"
P.1.n T\\O, intclll on antiop.llmg the Liverpool quartet\
nery mo\ c. This create\ \Omc temion in the band, \\ hich ts
already on edge becau'c of Compton-Lowe's increa!>ingly
arbttrary outbursts ( Dino Dt ~odt lea\~ and is replaced bv
the en~:·clopedic Indian percu!>~ioni!>t Bartiata\·asa "Bom-
bay~ Siciliajun), and the Vinort.tns shut thc:mselves up at
the end of 1967 in marathon ~essioo~ at the family estate,
Sad Songs, where- inspired by the recent death of his
younger son-Compton-Lowe devotes himself to the cre-
ation of what rnanr bchc\·cd would be hjs unsurpassablc
magnum opus: Lost Bo_v Baco's Brokm·Hen.rted Requiem
.:::- Lym;gic Fu11era/ Pnr/or l11c. l-or its "construction,"
( ompton- Lowe gathers an tmpresst\'e number of talents
and bons vl\'ants one of many accounts of the unfint~hed
recording of the album can be read tn Tm Parti~s That
'ihook rbe World, by !\Ia'< Gla\\ ), among whom were Andy
Wuhol, Diana Rigg, )tmmy !'age, julie Christie, a verv
young David Bowie, Stanley Kubrick, Hugh Hefner,
Prtnce~s Margaret, and Trum.tn Capote. Nothing recorded
there has e\'er come to light, but rumor~ and lc:gend;
Jbound as to the dozens of hours oft.1pe~ which- according
lO Greil Marcu~-"could forc\er change the: way wc\·c
heard the ~ixti~ up until nO\\ "
H'llcrt 71Jc_Y Art X ow: At the bottom of the sea.
Trir•ia: Sebastian "Darjeehng" Compton Lowe ordered his
label to elimtnate rhe \'Otccs and record just the music on
ten coptes of Streets n.ud Fol'rsts, creating a purely insrrumen-
tal version. The idea wa' that the ten f.1n~ who bought these
alhums- \\ithour rcali7ing that their copies were "diffcr-
cnt"-would get in rouch \\ 11h the Vtctorians by calling a
telephone number that appeared on the inside sleeve and be
awuded the ~pn7c,~ whtlh \\Ould •onstst of the Victo·
78 RODRIGO Pllll.SAN
rians' going 10 their hou~e~ to ~ing them the whole record
karaoke·Myle. Nothmg w~ heard, nor has anything ever
been heard, about anyone claiming the reward," hich surely
depressed the author of "Wrong Number, Again.~ Sebastian
~oarjeeling" Compton-Lowe and Alexandra $winton-
Menzies were the parentS of the popular author and crearor
of children's hero )1m Yang, who publishes his books under
the pseudonym Peter Hook (not to be confused v.;th the
band member of the ~ame name, member of }o\· •
DiYlsion•
New Order, Revenge, and Monaco), and ..
I closed the maga7mc and closed my eyes-nothing interests
me lc:ss than nwsclf-and got oil ar the nnt station and returned
to London, conunuing on to Sad Song~ and Nc\.:rland. r went
down w my father's old rc:corc.img ~rudio with a bottle of whi~T
A fc:w glasses of ~inglc:- malr make vou incredibly brave. I chose
some boxc• of rape' I'd nc\ cr heard, and-this time I rcallv did
it-l put them on rhe old player. I heard my futher's \"Oicc saying
something mcomprchensiblc, and then I heard a child's voice. I
was terrified thinkmg rhar it might be my little brother Baco's
voice, that he had suddenly marcriall7cd to play a part in that pop
bacchanalia. Bm it wa~n't: 1t was m} voice. My little voice an-
nouncing that I w.1s gmng 10 \IllS ,1 song l had written called
"Sewing Your Shadow ( Peter Pan\ Blues ) " t-.·1y ,·oicc singing it
was the dear and terrible voice of childhood, the voice that at
some poim die~ and ~~ lost fore\·cr.
Tt wasn 'r a bad song, Keiko Ka.i. if I do say w my~elf If you
want, I'll go do\m ro the basement and find ir, and I'll let you lis-
ten ro it, and vou can tell me what you thmk. The funny thing is
that l don't remember wnung It at all, mud1 less singing it in from
of a microphone
I must have been under the: mflucncc of drugs.
My childhood wa5 J mange childhood too, like Barrie's. As I've
already ~aid: nineteemh·centur} no,·cls and Emma Peel's black-
KENSINGTON GARDENS
karher-cbd hod). Bur \trangcr vi~iom too: trip~, moves, 1mdmght
Hammer Film~ movie~ with mu~cular·cheMed vampire women, the
embalming of my fir~t pe~ (~OillC\\berc: 1 read that ~ il. one of
the clearest earh Mgn~ of future serial killers), a sudden interest in
my chem1stry set ami in explosiom., \il.its to galleries such as the
Ar~ Laboraton, where a friend of mv parents was showing an
atrocious arrav of \\Tecked c.us.
It's an e~cellent era to die in a car accident, and suddenly C\-
ery young Briton seems to have learned to dri,·e foiiO\\ing the
Marcello method from Ln dolce rita, which leads to a brutal
Romanizarion of London traffic, until then so \'cry differenr, so
phlcgmaoc and polite.
On a stormy night on the way to Nice, Fran<;oise Dorleac-
SIStcr of C.uhenne Dencu,·e-goes off the road; her car crashes
and burns, and it~ dri\er is killed instantly•. Tara Browne-son of
Lord Cranmore and Browne and the beer heiress Oonagh Guin·
ness; permanent resident of the Ritz; boyfriend of the model Suki
Poitier-b lolled in hb Lotus Elan when he hits a ''chide parked in
RedcliiTc (rarden~, Chcl\ca, .tnd i~ instantly immortalized by the
lkatles in ''A Day in the Life": "He blew his mind out in a car, he
didn't notice that the lig.hb had changed ..."
Keiko Kai: one night I dreamed I wa~ Tara Brmi'Oe's blue Lo-
tus Elan, and, yes, it seemed as good a way as any of observing
Swinging London in the ~ixties and fixing it in mr mind: a
crowd-middle- and lower-class, smelling of fish and chips-
watching an acc1dent, squinting, mouths open; a car with rigor
morris, its color that unique and indefinable color cars turn when
they crash, no matter what color they were before. A crowd asking
1rself where It's seen that face or those legs before, and '"ilere that
orange SUit must be from, or that ne ,~;th the design and colors of
the: English flag, equally parnotic and disrespectful.
Life: and death m S\Hngmg London 10 the sixties as rwo com
plc:mentarr and adJacent c:\hibltlons you get into for the price of
one, and where you're bombarded nonstop \\1th the flashing lightS
of cameras .md dl\cothcquc\ and parties, to which one alway~ ar·
nvc:s m a \mall, IJ\t car-With litcr.1llv auto-destructive intention~.
110 RODRIGO FRllSAN
of course. Cars that were made ro be crashed. Name· brand cars-
Triumph Sp1rfire, AJfu Romeo, Mark 11 Zod1ac, M.ini, RoUer,
Rolls, Jaguar E Type, Chitry Chmy Bang Bang, and 007 Aston
Marrin whtch, after their coUis1ons \"\-1th anythmg, with what-
ever's put m front of them, don't leave manr marks on thc1r dead
drivers, ofli:ring them up with hardly a scratch, ready lor display.
The twhted metal and Marcus Merlin's mcr;~l mouthwork (Marcu ~
Merlin, who always manages to emerge my~teriously unscathed
from the bowe l ~ of cars d1at eYen tl1dr maker~ 1\'0LLldn't recog-
nize) and the metal of the metallic mini~k1m of tl1e drugged girls
who hug the urc~ \\id1 eyes closed, the red points of their tongues
between apple-green lips. The siuie~ ''ere a meull.ic age, a sreel
age folio'' ing the Iron and Bronze Age~
Sometime\ my grandparents-my mother's parents-tmposed
some normality on my hfe back then; but It wa~ a \trange k.ind of
normality, a Madame Tussaud's wax imitation. I remember them
a~ museum p1eccs, their past unfolding 111 a kind of constant and
unch.mginl:\ present.
T here the~ arc:
My srandparents see me as a pet, alben a dangerous pet. My
grandparent\-although they were perfecth a\\Jre of their daugh-
ter'~ and \Oil in-la\\ 's deaths-kept forgetung that Baco had died,
and ne,er stopped reminding me ro watch out for my lime
brother, rcllmg me I should learn from him, because .. you oe,·er
hear a peep our of htm; he's quite the little gentleman." Some-
times ther thmk I'm Baco :md they a~k me about myself, and I
prefer ro play .dong wnh them: "I'm ~ure he's domg something he
shouldn't be," I replr It's beginnmg to annoy me that a symptom
of bot h my grandparents' senility and my mmher\ dementia is a
Baco returned from the dead.
In the middle of my grandparents' land there'~ a pond and a
little: island, and I h.ide there-like Pt:tc:r Pan on llis Maroooe~'
Rock- and make powerful explosh·es and promhe ne'er to rerum
to solid ground, and it ra.ins as tf it'U ne'er stop raming.
KENS I NG•I ON GARO£NS II I
.\t d~k. Dermott come:' out w find me with an umbrella and
til\\ eh. ~h perfect portable: butler, the bc:M inheritance from Ill}"
parent~. a cancer is rapidh eating ,1\\ J\ at h1m, and soon the mo-
ment will come \\hen he lca,·e~ ltlr the: lost eemererv of burlc:r~
Dermott mows it, but he ha~n 'r ~.1id an) thing He docsn 't w.tnt
me to ted sorry for him, bcc.tu'e the st:cret work of butler~ i~ to
feel sorry for their m.u.ter~ and ~ay, "How 'ery intere~ting, ~ eadt
lime tlu.:y come up with one of thdr incred.ibl)' idiotic notions.
And J' m the perfect testi ng ground, the ideal oppormnity for
Dermott w become the ~ecrer king of buders. I inspire-! de
mand-more pity d1:ut anyone, I'm a powerful fucrory of li1e in
tcresring. I smile in the fla~hes of lightning and watch the
li>rm1dable explosion of mr first bomb from the bank, like Oppen
hc1mer, ltke Shh·a the Desrrover of World'
The 1sland seems ro quiver .md seriously consider sinkmg, back
then, I'm sure, Barrie would ha\e loved to knO\\ me. At the time I
wa~ the perli:ct incarnation of wh,\1 a boy should be, accordmg to
BJrrie: free of Kruplc~. ungr,ucfu l, .1 liar, intelligcnr, and dcstruc
uvc. Someone "gay and innocclll .md heartless," as he wrorc 111
the last Ime o f Peter fllld ll'r11dy. A little monster. An amoral hero.
L1ke Barrie.
Like: Peter Pan.
l.1kc: me.
Mv grandparents come to the wmdcm to warch the island
burn, "ith champagne glas~s rrc:mblmg in their hands. I'm sure
thev rhmk It's another bombing b\ tht: Lufu,affe. The \\ar hasn't
ended; ''ars ne,·er end for those'' ho IJ\e through them. Dermott
call' the firemen, and I tell m1· grandtathcr 1 can't find Baco, I'm
afraid he's been killed 111 the bombmg of the little island. It's a
JOke a bad joke, but a JOke Mr grandmother t:1inrs whe n a con
vov of tanker trucks arnves .tnd crw.hc~ ~c\·cra l beds of her prize
wm mng roses. My grandt:uhcr call' hi' lawyer and Marc us Mcrhn
and a'k\ them w bring the paper\ to \Cttlc the matter of mv
guard1an\h1p as soon as poss1blc It ,,.n he several months before
,\hr~u\ Merlin comes of age, but there'' a JUdge who owe\ ~lar~u\
\lcrhn a favor. l hear from hc:hmd ~ door that Marcus ~lerhn ''a\
82 RODRIGO FIUlSAN
always mr parents' first choice "if anything should happen tO US,"
but thar my grandparents had refused to accept 1t and filed an ap-
peal, because they considered Marcus Mcrlm an "unhealthy pres-
ence." Now ther'vc gi\·cn up, and they reahze 1t's really me who's
the unhealthy presence for them: 'iO the ,,;11 of Lady Alexandra
Swmron Mcnz1es and Sebastian "Daqeehng" Compton-Lowe is
done
Marcus Merlin comes to get me one fall mornUlg. lL hasn't be-
gun to be: cold yet, but the air is goldc:n like rhc gold of old pho-
mgraph!>. Marcu.s Merlin puts a hand on my shoulder. h isn't the
first time I've ~cen him, of course. I\e known him for two or three
\car!> almo!>t a lifetime on a child's calendar-but it's as if I'm
seeing him for the first time, separate, alone, out of the motley
context of parnes and funerals. lt was Marcus Merlin who came
for me when 1 ran awa~· to Brighton on Sea, and Marcus Merlin
wa~ there at Baco's burial. and at the sernce lor my parents' miss·
ing bodies, and later at the funeral for my· mother; but now it's dif-
ferent Now Marcu~ Merlin is my guard1an. Or maybe I've become
Marcu~ Merlin·~ guardian. We're a nc:w race: of two.
M;~rcu~ Merlin looks steadily at me and doc:sn 't say anything.
"My father and my mother and my linlc brother arc dead," I tell
him. I don't know why J sav thi~-MarcuJ. Merlin is perfectly
aware of the dJJ.appcarance of mv father, mother, and lirtle
brother-but the word!. rise to my lip!. as if I'm sptning them out
after feeling them stuck in some pan of my throat for roo long, as
1f they•'rc one of those balls of feathers and h;urs that C\·ery so often
even the most phlegmatic of cats cough up.
Says Marcu~ Merlin: "Of course."
And what he say-s is even stranger than what I say; bur there's
~omcthing rare and precious in that "Of course." There's more
wmlort .111d affection in his assent than in the hundreds of kisses
and hug~ I've been getting since the beginmng of the end of my
famllv
Marcu~ Merlin carri~ my suitcase to his nc:w Jaguar, explaining
to me that later a mover's rruck will come to get the: rest of my
thmgs, and we waste no time returning to Ne\c:rland, like lords
KENSJI\GTON t.AROt.NS IIJ
anc.lma~tc:~ ~cuing out lor the rc:.:omJUC:~t of our ancc:Hral home:.
rhc: hoille! h~ been dw.c:c.l for month,. We enter almo~t hkc
due\ c~. or \J\ ages. We run do\\ n cmpt} pas~agcways, un.:o\cr li.lr-
nnure shrouded in shce~, open the ''inc.l<)\\s, and-Marcus Merhn
con\1dc~ It appropriare-thrm\ a b1g party.
Sa,·s Marcus Merlin: .. Like the good old times last year." And
he \miles
Week!. later, my maternal grandparents die almost unawares, in
their sleep, together, symmetrical, :~nd happy, I suppose, nor ro rc·
ah1c that tlteir long sleep is simply what foUows the brief pwn of
dvmg.
My other grandparents-my paternal grandparents, who ne,·cr
really became grandparents and were hardly even parents-had
died many years before, m rhc Bht7 :\ pa1r ofV-2 bombs fell on a
hor\e ~hO\\ they refused to lea\'C:, di\rcgardmg the alarm bells
\\Jrning of dte arrival of flying squad rom over rhctr house: on the
l'hame\, just outside London I ~upposc: m} prmo-grandparcntJ.
wouldn't ha,·c been our ol pl.1cc on arw of the pages of Edith
%well\ Eng/is/; Eccmtrics. Thc1r portrait~, painted in th~ manner
of John Singc.:r Sargent by one of h1~ d•~ctplc:s and lunging in a
corridor of Neverl;u1d at Sad Song,, sho11 them to be a couple
with fierce, amused c>;pre~~ion\. My ladtcr was very small when
dtC) died, and he illed to refer w th~m l!. "dtc ones who wcm on
holidJ\ and luckily forgot to bring me along." And maybe ha1ing
1oM them as a child unbaiJJlccd m\ father'~ existential metabolism
lor~1a, since afterward, in the ~1\nc~. he was unable: to rebel
agaimt his elders, and decided to b.utle his dissolute conrempo-
raric:~ .111d die-as idioocally as hi~ progcn1tors-m the name of the
c~rabhshment of a neo Victorian.,m 111 whtch the cricket of 1m
maculate uniforms would ultimately be 1mposed on the muddy
vulgarity offootball and rugby.
I suppose my mother\ p.ucnrs fc.1rcd a sim1lar end. Past ,1 ccr
ra1n p01111, all grandparent\ merge into a ;,mglc and indi,-isible
grandparent, It's in old age thar .111 ~U(lCI'\tiUons arc finally pron~d
true, ICar.omc, efficient; and m} crJ;ry dy n.llmtcr stage ultimately
thrc\\ them off balan.:c and dc,rroycd thc•r already fragile health.
 RODRIGO FRESAN

"Time tO go back to Nevcrland," I say then to Dermott. And

Dermott obeys, and the ~ky fills with new stars, fireworks, real dia-
monds.
Dear Keiko K;u: those were the first seconds of January 1,
1970; the Searles had already chmbed up on d1e roof of Apple
Corps loolung lor shelter and desperard~ smgmg "Get Back"; the
Blue ~ teanies were running down mounramsides to ra,·age Pep-
pcrland, and !~till a brand new orphan, innocent, ga}', and
heartless-watched Ill) lim end ol the world. The end of the
world my dead lather had prodaimcd so many t:imc:s, an end of
the world that dtdn 't rurn out to be the clangorous nightfall of
the kind of apo.:alvpsc that appear) in booh about wizards and
prince~ wtth unpronounceable names, who draw swords and bran-
dish magic stalls ro s.l.\e kingdoms With e'en more unpronounce-
able names.
My futher had wishcd tor .1 shadow approaching from the hori-
zon and annihtlwng e\·cr}'t:hmg m its path. A grand finale. That
much at least, please.
Now, however, there wa\ nothing bur the elegant subtlety of a
snake pausing, ch.111ging skins, .md immediately slithering on. T he
old skin, once glossy, was shed like a gray, ashy husk, Like old, out·
dated clothes, and suddenly, down below, the new decade ap-
peared naked and damp, a decade of wide lapels and open-necked
shirts and bell-bottomed trousers and llideous music, and widl it,
as I've alrcad\' said, the first end of the world in Ill}' shon but too-
long hfc.
Will I ever walk in Kensington Gardens again?
Who knows? I don 'r thtnk so. I don't care.
Keiko Kai: I don't need to go back to Kensington Gardens ro
go back to Kensington Gardens. 1 know the place b)• heart, though
I don't know it like: the back of my hand. [never understood that
phrase:: i~ there anyone who really /mQtvs tl1e back of his hand?
r know Kensington Gardens, yes, as the spot to which my feet
so often rook me:. The Serpentine:, tl1e Baby's Palace, the Round
Pond, Bunting's Thumb, Saint Govor's WcU, the Dogs' Cemetery,
Queen Mab's Palace, the Baby's Walk, the Fairies' Basin, the Big
Penny, Chewlett's Street, the Fi~: name~ of places-some of them
made up by Barrie· inside a real place.
The scene of the crime, the scene of my life's work, the map of
the desert island where my Oriental treasure lies. Back and forth
through history, pedaling Wee Jun Yang, corrung and going and re·
rurmng to a place that changes nor at all mili the passage of the
rears or-maybe more tmportant-the ages.
I'm thtnkmg about Ttmc, that ulomare abstraction. Time as
the paradox of a crud God 111vcnted by men, in whose dt,lnit:y
men ne,·errhclcss beltC\·e from the beginning to the end of thctr
days. A God who strikes men down without even beltc,1ng tn
them, stmply obc}mg the rules he must follow. A God whose dis-
 RODRIGO FRESAN
regard of Kensington Gardens has preserved it almost intact.
Scorn the new refreshment stands and the Memorial Playground
commemorating the unbearable: marcyr Lad}' Di aka Princess of
Hearts aka D1ana of Wales aka Cinderella Part 2: 11JC Unhappy
Endmg. EnJoy, instead, Its green and leaf)· molecular structure
simply for the pleasure of feeling how the children who play there
grow up, get old, come back a last rime to say goodbye. Time
passe~ , but Kensington Gardens remains, Keiko Kai.
So Barrie, my futher, and I stroll the same place, linked forever
in a continuum where Victorians, rocker~, and millenarians can
commune under the ~arne ~un, reciting, "h wa~ the be~t of times,
it wa~ the \\ or~t of times, it was the age of WJ~dom, it w~ the age
of foohshne~s. It was the epoch of belief, it \\as the epoch of in·
creduhrv, it was the season of Light, it was the !>Cason of Darkness,
it was thc spring of hope, it was the mnter of despair, we had
evcrythmg betore us, we had nothing before us, we were all going
direct m Heaven, we were all going dtrcct the other way ..."
'Nharcvcr the moment, then, we're all lost boys now and for-
ever boy~ who can find themselves only on 1·he winding paths of
Kcn\ington Gardcm.
Lct\ go.
My father pulls me by the hand through Knightsbridge, and we
pass the Albert Hall. "'~ow they
. know hO\\ man\'- bloodv. holes it
takes to bloody fill the bloody Albert Hall," mutters my father,
gnmacing; and he adds, "You'II ne,·er hear me say [ucki1J>, like all
those tdtot depatriatcd musicians who were born in Chelsea or
Fitzrovia and now pretend they're black and sing the blues. Dis-
gusting." And we enter Kensington Gardens, and I'm seven or
eight years old, and I've never been one of tho~c typical park-and-
playground children. I'd rather stay home, reading. Baco liked
fr~h air and jumping and rolling in the grass, but I don't. And
now there'~ no more Baco. Baco's been adopted as a kind of post-
mortem pop mascot by the Victorians-or whatc\•cr my father's
band is called t:lus week-and he's used hke a kmd of antenna for
KENSINGTON GARD.bNS II'
rc.:eh·ing m~ges from other d1mcn~1011>. And my futher and I
'' o~.lk aimlessly in circles, and I'm fasdnated by the idea that '' c: 've
gotten lost in the middle of London, and suddenly my father tells
me to bare my head-though I'm not wearing a hat or cap-m
fronr of the statue of Queen VictOria next to Kensington Palace,
and at last we come to the banks of a lake that's called the: Serpen-
nne and separates Kensington Gardens from Hyde Park, next to a
monument, a kind of outcropping, crowned by a kind of boy play-
ing a kind of flute.
"Don't move until I come back. Or until Cat comes to get
you," my futher says.
Cat doesn't come.
Car's real name is Stephen Demetre Georgiou, and he's the son
of the owner of a popular West End restaurant, the Moulin Rouge.
H1s father 1s a Greek Cypriot and his mother is Swedish, and Car's
young and he likes music, and my f.1ther has adopted him as a kind
of protege. Cat likes to write mngs. He has one about h1s crazy
love for his dog and another about his desperate need to buy a
gun. They're good songs, but "Steven Dcmetri Georgiou" is a bad
name, and my father says, commands, renames him: "From n()w
on you'U be Cat Stevens." My f;uhcr gives him that name because
Steven Demcrri Georgiou has a Mickey Mouse face, and if thc:rc: 's
anything my father likes it's contradictions. And that's more or less
all, I guess. Cat-soon after my fad1er dies-starts to be fumous,
much more famous than my father ever was. Cat Ste\·ens records
"Marthe'' and Son" and "Here Comes My Baby," and when they
ask him where he got his name, he answers ,,,thout hesitating that
he carne up with it himself, thus srealmg a few lines from Mo;o's
entry about my futher, the cult hero. And maybe poetic justice or
a curse &om above has something to do with the fuct that soon
Cat Stevens gets tuberculosis (a few nmcs 1 saw him cough up
blood, bur since I was used to Bob Dylan's vomiting, it didn't
seem particularly disturbing), and he: vanishes for a while and
come~ back as an inrcrnarional $tar followed by moonshadows and
ndmg peace: trams with father; and M>ns through wild worlds
Then Cll changes his name agam and disappears after alm0\1
811 RODRIGO PRBSAN
drowning in Malibu and says he's been Sa\·ed by the dJ.,ine "ill of
Allah; now Cat 15 Yusuf Islam, and he hates Salman Rushdie and
'
just as before, he has no orne to wa.~tc gomg to look for his men-
' hea'') veil, though nerything \I as happenmg at noon on a ficrcc:ly
tor's <.On m Kensmgton Gardens.
:-Jow and then, I'm alone in Kensington Gardens.
Suddenly rt's dark by the statue, which \0 many years later I'll
approach on my knees, leaving my heartti:h and fragile offering-
my small, sparkling dead-at its fecr. Or rmybe this is aJl the prod-
uct of my imagination, or the imagin.lti()n of the product of
having 11 riuen ~o many made-up thing~ tor so many years. Maybe
the ~tories I made up aren't lhe memorie) of Jim Yang, bur of
Cagliomo Nostradamus Smith.
Ma\be unlike Barrie-1 didn't return over and over again to
Kensmgron Gardens.
The nrgln of ,-\pril 30, 1912, Barrie erect~ the sto~tue of Peter Pan
beside which, in 1968, 1 await my father'\ dubious return. Barrie's
idc•r wa\ th.u the Matuc would be a surprise li>r the children of
London, .urd it w,rs a strange idea from the Hart. The contro,·ersy
reached the Home: of Commons, where it wa~ a~ked whether
there w~n 't '\ometlung improper" about ;~n author using public
padrwavs to .ld,·erthe his work, barely concealing his intent be-
neath the subterfuge of a supposedly noble donation to the city's
supposedly arnsnc hentage.
Bame docsn 't real!~· like the statue-the work of Sir George
Frampton-bur rt's done, and that's that. The House of Com-
mons comes ro the same conclusion, and somcho" it's admitted
th.rt Kcmmgton Gardens-although rt exi\tcd long before Barrie's
arrival; it opened ro the public in 1841-now owes much of its
lame to the bookl. of the tiny Scotsman, who·~ made it his fuvorite
place ro walk ncr since he came to London.
And I remember-when the fin.r Jim Yang book, Jim Ya11g
n11d tiJt E.\·trcmcZl' Formidnbk Biqclt, \\Js such a success-that
someone decided it would be a good idea to photograph me next
to the statue of Peter Pan and thus link the past and the presenr of
British chtldren 's literarure, and ...
KENSINGTON GARDENS 11!1
I said yes, and I regretrc:d 11 as soon as I arrived: nausea, dinr -
nc:ss, and again the feeling that night \1 as dropping O\'er me hke a
bright day. I could swear the sratue moved, but who has any mtcr-
est in hearing me swear to ~omething like !hat? I said I was sorry
and hurried away. Days latc:r, a photograph was published in which
you sec: me from behind, fleeing . And that, I suppose, was the be-
ginning of the legend of the elusive, mysterious creator of Jim
Yang. And I didn't even [Urn ro see whether the yellow ghost of
Baco was still hopping nearby, or smiling, just at me, from the ex-
act spot where Peter Pan smiles at all the children who smile at his
feet.
Barne's legend hasn't yet been established at the time Barrie drs
covers Kensington Gardens. Barrie rc:mams an unknown, an au
thor of some renown, but still far from becoming a liYing classic, a
proper noun and a name everyone knows, an exceedingly recog
mzablc registered trademark. T here's no statue of Peter Pan beside
the Serpentine yet, because there is no Peter Pan; there arcn 't any
guidebooks telling how to get here :rnd where to get oft" the un
dcrground, or that require a whole chapter to outline tire points of
interest in Barrie's London and locate them on the map.
Barrie docsn 't have what he need\ cithc:r.
Barrie needs to be a few inches taller. There are nights when he
dream~ he's five and a half feet r.rll-thc:re are e\en better nights
when he dreams he's six feet tall-and he's walking through a ne\\
London in which his gaze sweeps abo' e ha~ and sunshades :rnd
his ~hoes seem incredibly far below, lost in the kind of fog that
drifts at the bottom of raYines.
How to overcome it? What to do? Many years later, Barrie
writes a letter ro a friend's wite:
Six feet three inches . . I r 1 had really grown to this If
would have made a great d1fTercnce '" my life. I would nor
ha\'e bothered turnrng out reel~ of pntued matter. My one
aim would ha,·e been ro become .1 f.r\ orite of the ladrc~
90 RODRIGO PRBSAN
which between you and me has always been my sorrowful
ambition. The things I could have said to them if my legs
had been longer. I read th1s w1th a bttter s1gh ..
The ladles who~c: fa,·oritc Barrie wants to be arc, for the most part,
actrcssc~. Barnc ~pcnds all the free rime he h~ at the theater. Barrie
goes to the theater to o;cc actrc<.-c~. Thu\, h1s life ~'~ings like a pen·
dulum berwecn rhc lamas1cs he writes and the f.mtasies be watches
.
from his ~cat Wll\. thi~ la!>tinarion \\lth the theater? Wbv is Barrie
the last ro ger up and kavc! the hall? I s~pect the answer is as sim.
pie as It 1s str.lnge: 10 vour Sc!at, sitting in the dark, no one can tell
"hether you 'rc tall or short. And there, in the theater, reality
seems suspended, as 1t is 10 a doll's house or a haunted house. Tbe
theater's the closest thing to playing that adults find acceptable;
and, maybe most important, the actresses arc Ltkc girls pretending
to be women by putttng on fancy dresses that aren't theirs.
Barrie falls tn love With actresses, and his form of courtship is
based on the clc1 crest of lover~' g~mcs: Barrie write~ them plays.
Plays are much better than llowcrs ( though he also sends bouqucrs
as lush as jungles), and they're the onlv strategy he has for feel·
ing powerful beyond the coordinates of his body, over and above
taller men.
The first theater piece Barrie writes is called Ctmght Napping,
in honor of Minnie Palmer, to whom he's too nervous to speak a
word when they're introduced in her dressing room. The actress
rejects the work and irs author.
In 1891, Barrie collaborates with H B. Marriott Watson on
Rulmrd Sa1•agt becau~e he '5 fascinated by the mgcouc Phyllis
Brough ron.
With Jbsrn 's G!Josr, a parod> of Hedda Gabler-Toole's The-
•nrc, May 30, 1891-Barnc achle\·es Ius first cnrical success, the
grato:ful coquetq of Irene Vanbrugh, and Lmlc else.
Again in the third pc:r~on, as if describing a character, Barrie
write~ in his notebook upon returrung from the opening night,
"Perhaps the curse of h1s life that he nen:r 'had a woman. • "
H'JJlktr, Londo11-Toole's The.1tre, May 30, 1892, as The Profts·
KllNSINGfON GARDENS ~I
SIJI'S un•t Stol'~ opens Ill NC:I\ York-i~ J
new bouquet for Irene
Vmbrugh, hut lor thi~ farce about m impostor who pas~es himo,clf
otT as a rich man, the: ~npr dcmands the services of a second
actress.
TI1c dirccror·acror J. L. Toole offers the role ro a member of
the compan). Barnc 1sn'r con"inced, and asks his friend Jerome K.
Jerome if he know~ any "pretty young girl who likes to flirt, and LS,
if possible, a great talent.~ Jerome introduces him to tbe beautiful
and hcadnrong Mary Ansell.
I have a p1cture of her here, Ke1ko Kai: a classic face framed by
a fur collar; and \\ h> IS 1t that all the women in these old photo·
graphs seem to have disappeared, why aren't there faces like this
anymore, faces \O obviomly of another age. Mary Ansell manages
her own acting company, and she's free between two productions
Barrie, carried aw.w by cnthus1a~m and without consulting Toole,
otTers her the rule .md a ~ahr> higher than the leading actress's, al-
though-a ~mall hitch, Barrie\ forgiving-Mary Ansell is very far
from being a great talent Toole and Vanbrugh arc angry, but Bar-
ric is .1damant. Mary Ansell is smaller Jnd ~horcer than he is: Mary
Ansell may not be brilliant, but she'~ perfect.
Walktr, Ltmdon i~ a ~uccess. The critic~ take no notice of Mary
Ansell, bm they do point to Barrie as an odd, admirable specin1en:
a writtr able tO succeed in the theater as well as in journalism. On
opening night, the public applauds until their hands sting, calling
for the author. Barnc won't rake a bow. He doesn't like to appear
onsrage at the end of his plays. He dJdn 't like doing it after
Richard Sm>a_qr. H1s adm1rcrs propose theories: is he shy, or, hke
some god~, does Barne preter nor to show himself so as ro be
everywhere at once? The explanation has the elegant simplicity of
the best my~tenes:
. Marnott Wat\On w~ tmce as tall as Barne and
Barne dido 't rehsh bomng bes1de hLS impo~ing friend .
.
So he 1sn 't ~ecn, bur his pre~ence is felt. The residents of Lon·
don rc.1d Barnc 10 the paiX=r, where he muses on the character of
ch1ldrcn 10 aruclcs \Uch as ~ Petcrk.tn A Man·cl of • aturc ~ (10
sp1rcd by h1s little nephew Charhc Barne, a first and dtstam mcar·
natton of l'crer !'an); they attend plays such as Tiu Proftssor's Lo1•r
92 RODRIGO PRilSAN
Stor_v; they buy novels such as My Lndy Nicotme (which extols the
pleasures of smoking m Kensington Gardens); and at night they
go looking for laughs at light, giddy comedies that reYeal, perhaps
unconscious!}, the nature of the century about to come: unpre·
dictable women, tormented men, the fiightcmng fleetness of sen·
nments, the e\·cr sharper cun·cs of the road winding along the
edge of a cliff where blue·and·green waves as tall as mountains
roar in an immen~e ocean like a dc~crt.
8arne bcgm~ takmg note\ for a nm·cl tcntari,·clr titled Thr Sm-
timmmlin, a book rhat mil end up bcmg two b1zarre crypto-
autoblogr.tphle' \car.:cly J1\gui\ed by the ma\k of fiction and
imended ro '".:amain what orJinaq biographies Ollllt. ~
I know \\ntcr\ who don't like tO read writer~' memoirs. It's
anyone'~ guc:s' whv not, .1 nwMcr~. I lme it 1.hat they write them.
And I lm·e 1.0 read 1.hcm One I remember reading was that other
strange crypto autobiography, bv Jack London-the polar oppo-
site of Barrie as a wmcr and a man -called Martin Edm. I remem·
ber the strange, unfamiliar happineS\ it produced 111 me, a book
that e\·cn in a meta fictional ~cme, in a mctarcali~tic sense-risked
foretelling the death of the amhor by having hi~ character and
hero commit suic1dc But whJt moved me most and still moves me
abom Mnrtin Etfm wa\ ~nd b the idea that a man of ad,·enture
could and can .tho be a writcr, the ccrt.\_inty llt.tl a writer can and
could also b.: a man of ad1·emurc There were tho~c: dazzling para·
graphs on tlte di~covery of reading and writing, those pages in
which a noble savage discovers new '' orlds ,,;thin the new world
of books; and l wonder '' hether there's anything more exciting
than a book rdling the story of the moment when its author first
tells a srory
Smtimmtnllilmmy I I 896) and 1om my and Gri::;cl ( 1900) ha,·e
as their hero J "nter, Tomm\' Sandys, "who travels between
dreams and rc:ahty a~ 1f through u~~ue paper,~ who "po1>Scsscs the
ability m plll. himself 111 orhers' ~hoc~ and wear them until they're
his," and who is of course, ..~omeone short of stature." For
Tommy, the idea and the practi.:e of M:ntimentalism signifies a
form of constant escape from the responsibilities and demands of
KI!NS I N(oTON GARDENS 93
the adult world. Sentiment.tlism J~ the pcrfecr alibi. Tommy de·
c1dcs nor to grm' up. Grizcl, his friend from childhood, lxcomes a
woman, though. The1r relationship IS destined ro collapse and
lca\·e onh emotional rums, doors that lead to rooms without walls
and the dc,·ouring mourh of a dark forest. Once again, Barrie finds
a kind of a d1srurbmg consolaoon in writing about himself.-and
abour his relationship with Mary Anscll-as if he were someone
else, a man "ho 1s vef) like himsclt~ but who turns into someone
more bearable, comprehensible, and hcro1c in the th.ird person
~ingular
:-!ores·
• The g1rl won't do wh.n he tells her ro do (knowing 1t
\HOng-he treating her Like child) lies on floor with head
on chair, rwi\ting about in woe: ... She makes him say
he b her slJve-then impulswely cries it is she who
is his-she wants him lO say he is lxcause she knows he
isn't. "T shd h;l[e you n:ally to be my slavc:-oh, say again
that you arc!"
• T he ~cntimentalht wants the girl to love him, yet doesn 'r
want to marry her.
Maq Amell docs ''ant ro marry Barne.
Barrie is an excellent match for an ordinary actress. Barrie is an
amu~mg man, and ~oon the society columns begin to speak of
an Imminent engagement. Barrie has no comment, but he wntcs
an arncle for the: F.dmbllr:_qiJ l:l•flllltg DISpatch m which-under rhe
ominous nrlc: ~ Mv <.ih.mlv Dream.,-he recognizes the nature of
his mncrmo\t kaT\ about marnage:
~1y ghastly mghtmarc 1~ ah\ay' the same: 1 sec: myself mar-
ried ~md then I wake up With the ~cream of a lost ~ooul,
damnw and '>llll enng ...
Mv gh.\Miy dream ah1 a~' begms in the s.tme ''a~. I seem
to k.nuw that I hJ\ c gone to bed, and then I see myself
94 RODRIGO FRESAN
slowly wakening up in a misty world. The mist dissolves;
and the heavy, shapeless mass that weighed upon me all
through my childhood suddenly assumes the form of a wo-
man, beautiful and cruel, with a bndal veil over her fuce ...
Which doesn't prevent Barrie rrom proposing to Mary Ansell,
Mary AnseU from accepting, or Barrie rrom later writing in his
notebook:
Morning after engagement, a startling thing to waken up &
remember you're tied for life.
Barrie flees London and returns to Kirritmuic to gi\·e his
mother the news. Once he arri\ es and finds himself back at his first
home, Barnc becomes a boy again: Barne is ill. Pneumonia and
pleurisy. The papers repon his almost inevitable end with a gmity
usually resen·ed for matters of state, and Mary Ansell leaves the
production of Walker, Lo11don and comes to tend to her beloved.
Margaret Ogilvy, at first made uneasy by the idea that her son is
marrying an actress, can't help being moved by the care the you ng
woman la,·ishcs on her fiance .
Barrie and Mary Ansell marry quickly-the groom is tllirry-
four, the bndc tllirry-tw~and they do it according to Scottish
tradition: a simple ceremony in the fam1lv home. Barrie: is better
no''• and they lca,·e for Switzerland on their honeymoon. In
Lucerne, Barne gi\·es Mar}' Ansell a weddmg present: a little dog
that soon grows to be gianr-sized, a Saint Bernard they baptize
Porthos, the name of the dog in a novel they both liked ,·ery
much.
Viciom rumors abound, spiteful barks: Mary Ansell never
wanted to marry Barrie, but she accepted thinking that he would
die soon and that it wouldn't be so bad to be the young widow of
a famous, successful man. Or maybe Barrie never asked her to be
his wife, but Margaret Ogil\'y ...
Who knows? It doesn't maner. One thing is dear: two days af-
ter the wedding, Barrie writes four terrible semences in one of his
KENSINGTON CA RDI!N S 9 .~
notebooks, .sentences that once ~gain sum up the sheer agony of~
man \\ho doesn't want to be a man, let alone a husband:
• Our love has brought me nothing but misery.
• Boy all nerves. ~You nrr ••tr)' z_qnom11t."
• Scene for a play. Wife: aHave _YOII given me up? Hnvr
notiJilsg to do 1viriJ me?"
• How? Must I instruct you in the mysteries of love-
making?
ln an intcniew for Sketcb, Barne jokes with birtersweet humor,
the kind of Barrie-esque humor char's made his name-"I only got
married because my wife's hairpins arc so useful for cleaning my
p1pc."
Then Barne says goodbye ro the press, plays for a while w1th
Porthos on the rug, and shms himself up to write.
With Porthos.
Yesterday I dreamed that I was Porrhos, Barrie's dog. A huge and
hugdy happy Saint Bernard. If dogs are man's best friend, then
Barrie is my best friend. And there'~ also Mary AnseiJ, my other
best fiiend, who will be inspired b\ me to write se\'eral motherly
books on dogs and the love of dogs, since she has no human chi!
dren of her own. Porthos- that's me- ts the son Barrie and Mary
Ansell don't ha\'e and ne\'er \\1ll ha\'e, A son who barks and doesn't
bite, and who in rime \\1ll become that man in a dog costume
in the first stage adaptations of Peter Pn11, long before ammals
were forced to be actors by order of the terrible kingdom of
Holl>"''ood.
And, yes, I know, Keiko Ka i- tcw thmgs arc more annoying
than a dream that works its way into a story. "Tell a dream and
lose a reader," I think Henry James once warned; but the adven-
tures of Jim Yang, especially the l~rcr ones, arc overflo,~ing \\1th
drc.um, and readers still cl.Jmor for them. I'm sorry, Henry: it's
dear that your dreams weren't .1\ good a\ nunc, that they were the
96 ROt>R.IGO FR.FSAN
typical rr>aki11.,.11 dream that some writers usc as a de,·ice to explain
things that happen when the eyes arc open; the bad literature of
even worse psychoanalysis. That's nor the case with me. My
dreams arc worrhy of bcmg dream~.
So rn th1s dream I' m Barne's dog and I'm runnmg in Kensing-
ton Gardens The mde\cribable pleasure of ha\1ng four legs. What
humans know a~ running i\n 't running. at best, it's \'cry fast walk-
ing, and almost alway\ \\ alk.mg in a ridiculous and ineffective way;
all It does i~ make U\ mi'' the hunched, ~imian "av we ran when
our arm~ were long and f.ut . ,\ ty voice IS deep and furr}, and four
or fh e sounds arc more than enough for me to interrogate rhe
planet, and for the pl.met to re\pond. 1 don't need or ask for more
than rhat: the boundless happmc~s of animals that will never know
the punishment of e\OI\'Ing imo melancholy City bcascs expelled
long ago from their forest parad1\C.
Yesterday I dreamed th;u I was Porrhos and that I was lying at
Barrie's feet as he wrote; and the sound of the pen on the paper
and the sound of the p.1per beneath the ink made me dream in
perfect penmanship, with IW spelling errors. Dogs, they say, can
sec only in black and white; which wou ld make it fair and right
that 1-Portho\ the Magnificent-~hould dream in color. My ca-
nine dream!. arc: nothing less than the .mimal, four-legged transla-
tion of Barrie's dream~. Our dogs and ca~ and fish and rurtles and
hamsters and parrot!>-wc don't kno" thiJ>, bur we sense it-are
nothing but the ~ecret antennae or hJdden Lightning rods of our
most private des1re,. That's what our ammals feed on, and their
addiction to us is what we often confuse with love and loyalry. Our
pees smoke us hke robacco and dnnk us hke '~inc. Our pets bite
us And they bark and meow, happy, as they inject the rich, heavy
liquid of our dreams in10 their ,·cins. That's why their eyes are al-
ways moist and half shut, With a happmcss mcomprehcnsiblc to
human beings The ball or the stick that we throw far for them tO
ferch makes us fed powerful. The) ch~e after It and rerum, smil-
ing, amused bv the know ledge that it's real!} us rhe)"re carrying in
their jaws. We need tht:l>e creatures to pluck out the demon of our
darkest thoughts and deepest sorrows. And our pees are the first to
show us the mcanmg of death. Our pees die before us wirh their
KllNSIN(.fON GARDBNS 11 7
~horr lmle li1es hclJU\e they're: preparing us for the end of more
formidable li1 cs-of t:um ly, of friends-though the dc:ath of a pet
is no lc\S painful. Our pers arc: the insrructi\•e and refracu,·e Mr.
Hvdc facet of us that lc~ us be better and utterly fake Dr. Jc:kvlls.
I'm earning an em elope t(>r my master in my mouth. Stel·en-
son has written to Barne, a long, sinuous letter in rhe form of an
almost hallucmarorv d1ary The paper Stevenson writes on smells
of C'\Otic sp1ccs and hurricanes. Ste,·enson is very ill. One disease
after another dance~ through his body, which is weary of telling
stones. Stc1·enwn asks Barrie to \1Sit him...Sail for San FranCisco,
and my 1sland IS the second to the right," he jokes. Barrie won't
forget these mstructions when the nmc comes to situate ~c,·er­
l.llld m the skies of his work, and Stc,·enson dies almost without
reah11ng it: rhe ti:vc:r IS e1c:ryrhing, and it's a fe\'er that crases the
dtfli:rc:nce between bcmg al1ve and being dead in rhc same way
that we can ne1er tell ,l sunset from J \tmrisc in photographs. Bar-
ric rc:tc1vc:~ the b.1d nc1\~ ~ if it's the dress reh.:ar~al for the final
act in .1 laM work: now he'll never meet his most admired tellow
pl.lycr of litcr.trv g.tmc~, now he'll never climb the rurquoise peaks
of Vailima's mountain surroundings or find m:asure there, so far
ofT the prcdict.lblc route of the tours organized by Thom:lS Cook,
that wrscd, ne\\ t\ll1glcd domesticator of ad,·eorures.
Deaths· as usually- happen~ once the door opens ro the first of
them never come ~mgly, and Jane Ann falls first: Barrie's older
sister and Ius eternal accomphcc, struck down by cancer, which she
never told anyone about Jane ne1·er complained of any pains at all;
she always ~ccmed happy Jane Ann was one of those women espc-
ciall} created to make 'ccond and third parocs feel that all's well,
thar nothmg c:an go wrong. Barnc and }.lary Ansell, in S\\itzerland
again ro celc:brate rhe1r fir\t weddmg annil·ersary, receive a letter of
congratulation\ ti·om Jane ,-\nn, and then, in the nett post, the
telegram informing them of her death The couple cur shorr their
hohday and \tart on the \I0\1 return trip I bark the way dogs bark
when they ~cn\C that a new gho~t has appeared to btd farewell to
her loved one~, or to tell them that they'll ha\·e ro endure her for
the rest of their li,cs.
.
Barrie, gricf~trkkcn, take\ three davs to reach Kirriemlllr' where
98 ROORlGO PRESAN
he finds [\VO coffins instead of one: his mother has died roo. No
one expected that either Margaret Ogih·y ~eemed strong and
healthy, and her new habit of talking to herself wasn't particularly
'' orrisome: old people don't talk to themselves, they just realize
they don 'r have much t1mc left and they're hurrying w say every-
thing they know they won 'r be able to say from the other side. So
Jane Ann Adamson, fort\' nine, and Margaret Ogih-y, sC\·enry-six,
arc buried together, one on top of the other, m the same gra\·c as
Da\1d- the perfect son, the ideal brother, the mvmcible ghost-
on the hill where the cemetery of Klmemuir rises.
Margaret Ogilvy'\ last words- Barnc's told-were the first she
spoke after her fir~t death, the mght they brought her F.worite son
home on a sled with h1s neck broken. "h d1at you, Da1id?" Mar-
garet Ogilvy s1ghed. And she do,cd her eyes, snilling.
I, Porrho~, "hen no one i\ ''arching, go up to the stone cov-
ered in letters and dates and htt one of my back paws, blessing it in
my fashion with a JCt of hot, steamy urine, and then 1 give a long,
spiraling howl that c1·eryonc Interprets as a sign of grief, bur which
is really somcrhmg ver)1 different: I so miss running in Kensington
Garden~.
When the time come~ to propme a poss1blc: heart of the universc-
dut point of pure encrg) from 11 hu:h everything emerged and to
which cvcrythmg "ill return-allow me ro unfold a map of the sa-
cred metropolis of London before your eyes, Keiko Kai, and sbow
you the exact place where the emerald happiness of Kensington
Gardens blooms.
An old map from the end of the nineteenth century, with in-
genious, detailed Illustrations 111 the margms intended to disguise
the lack of precision in its draftsmanship. Kensington Gardens,
ne,·ertheless, appears as 1t should, a~ 1t is: it's impossible ro mistake
it or fail ro recogni7c it At the time, 1t was the biggest open space
in the middlt: of London and, ye~. Barne likes to imagine that, on
clear, endless nighrs when the moon IS full, Kensington Gardens is
\'isible ro the moon-d1\eller.. a~ a seductive green dot perfectly sit-
uated on the blue face of the: earth.
KllNI>INGTON GARDENS
When Barnc and Mary An~ell return from their eclipsed honey-
moon in <iwuzcrbnd, they ~c:ulc nearby, at 133 Gloucester Road,
South Kcmington, in J hou~c: represenung one: of d1e most shame-
ful example~ of lmlcou~ Vicwrian architecture.
There Barrie shuts himself up to write: Margarrt Ogih>y, "by her
son, J. M. Barrie," as 1t reads on d1e plain jacket. Just past the tide
page, there's a portrait of d1e protagonist: she appears wrapped in
a he;l\)' fur cape, with a bonner tied under ber chin, her bead bent
and her eyes closed. The 1mpression is of a cadaver that hasn't re-
alized it's dead
Jfar:narrt Qq1li'Y IS a brief memoir and heartfelt requiem for
Barne'~ dead mother, while at the same rime a kind of exorcism
and apologia of sp1nrual possc:o;sion. Margarrt Ogihry is also one of
the most exquisitely pathologJcal books ever written. A strange
book. Shorter than fifty thousand words, half the length it was
thought novels should be back then.
A psychotic book: an overwrought rnbutc? A biography that
becomes autobiography by osmosis? A study of an imaginary past?
In it, Barnc tel ls c1•erything and reinvents everything, and writ-
ers and readers succumb to this disturbing form of literary exhibi-
tioni~m, excruciatingly intimate and painful. The critics arc divided
be[\veen those who say it's "the kind of thing which it is almost
sacrilegious to crincise, ~ince it ha~ ro do with an idyll of the di-
vinest of human feelings: a mod1er's love:," and those who con-
demn it as a "shameful wa} of commercializing the private; its
supposed truths seem more dun debatable, and it ends up offering
the reader something very like an exercise in refined sadism."
Margartt QJTiiV), of course, ultimately reveals more about Bar-
ric: than about h1s mother, and 1t may bave been the first specimen
of the man\' fam11iar nonfiction ril•trits that since then have con
tinually assaulted bookstores and the best-seller lists, compulsh·c:ly
readable bc:cau~ they're compulsin:ly wrincn. Suddenly off c\·ery-
one goc\, rc:admg Margartt Qq1h7 to compare his own mother to
Barrie\ Th1~ IS the ~ecret dement, this is what b1ographics and au-
tobiographies arc lor: we consume them to find our whether other
people'\ h1e~ arc at lea\! a little like ours.
I wrote d book hkc that too, Kcik:o KaJ I signed it with my real
100 RODRIGO PRilSAN
name. My real name back then \Vas alread~ a kind of pseudonym of
m) famous altas. The tide of the book is A POPcidenta/ Childhood:
Growmg Up 111 tile Psycbede/ic Si.:rrics and All Tlmt Rock. I \\TOte it
far &om mv computer; very far, farther: I \\TOte it on a manual
typewriter. My first typenTiter. The one m}' parents gave me: a
portable red Olh·erti in a modern design that, now, supplanted by
computer technology, has become a nmclcss museum piece:, an in-
st<Ult antique. I wrote my memoir on it ro help me remember bet-
ter, to remember what it was like to write on a typewriter.
A review s:ud-whcther cruelly or cle,erly, I'm nor sure-that
it was an "Ideal book for those ''~dl an interest m others' sadness
and depressiOn, unaware that it's thev who're sad and depressed."
The book sold quire well, mough nowhere near as well as any of
the Jim Yang Installments, of course:. The readers of children's lit·
erarure-children-aren't imerested in the author ofmeir favorite
books, let alone rn k:no,\ing that he was once like them and that
they IIIOII ' t be like him; mat the future awai~ them full Of infinite
,·ariatiom that have little or nothing to do wuh the almOSt com-
muni~! umtormiry of the first years of our li,·cs, or the set trajecro-
ries o l ~rories about witches dcfcared with a magic wand :uld
'' oh e\ riddled with silver bulicL~ from a golden rifle.
Only in our memory, from a diMancc:, doc:s childhood seem
somethmg singular and inimitable and beyond all questions of
'erisimilirudc or truth.
Only in memory does our childhood seem to us like a good
children's book.
Barnc docsn 't: care about rc,icws. Barrie never stops writing. Shut-
ting himself up to work in his studio is the perfect alibi, and "I'm
writing" is the most: practical of mantras, the most effective and
best-planned escape, letting him feel more like a boy than a hus-
band when he's alone. Who's authorized to say what's real or not
in his hfe, or in any writer's lifc:- thmks Barrie-if so much of life,
the most important part, occurs in '' riters' minds, in me hn'Uriant
gardens of their imaginations:
KENSINGTON GARDENS 1 II I
And \\hen Barrie muM lc<l\e hi\ dcn,luckil) there'\ Kens111gron
GJ.rderu, ~o close to 133 Glom:cster Road mar you .:.an almmt
reach out and touch it: a ~mall, bard\' umed jungle \\id1 an arufi-
Cial round lake, me Round Pond, ''hen: a small armadJ of wooden
boars sail; and another, natural lake, the Serpentine, that separate~
Kc:nsingmn Parle from Hyde Park and c:u1 be cro~d to reach .1
small bird sanctuary in irs center, Bird\ Island. On one bank is the
Dogs' Cemetery; on the other, the exact spot where Peter Pan will
one day alight, and that years later Will become f.tmous for a smrue
that, as I've already said, Barrie never liked because he didn't think
ir was much like the real Peter Pan.
Barrie and Mary Ansell and Ponhos wander here and there.
Somcomes they linger on the ma111 path, the Broad Walk, " ·here
all the passersby go who wanr to sec and be seen. Each day, be·
rwccn rwo and four in the afternoon, the Broad Walk's obhgarory
tnbutary, the Baby's Walle, becomes the realm of maidsen·ams
who push elaborate carriages, pa.la":s on whc:d,, in which the} dis-
play the little princes and prim:cs<,c~ of the London aristocracy.
Kensington Gardens in those days, Kciko Kai, had litLie or
nothing to do wid1 d1e Kensington Gardens )'OU know. Here's a
picture taken then. Children, fathers, morhc~, governesses watch
ing a model-sailboat regatta. The open parasoh, the water, and the
trees, all in black and white, a~ if everything were made of the
s:une mercurial substance. A juuaposition of postcards--one &om
then, one from now-would achic,c, I suppose, me same odd dis
comfort produced by identical t\\ins With opposite and incompati
blc: personalities.
Which of the t\VO Kensmgton Gardens do I like best, Keiko
Kai? The old literary one, of course Barne's Kensington Gar
dens-because you always end up prefernng what you don't have,
what you can't have, what never cx1sted or doesn't exist anymore.
I won't say anything here about a hypothetical third Kcnslllg-
ton Garden~. My Kemington Garden\. A Ken~mgton Gardens on
the other side of the mirror, in another world, inside this one. The
dark, cnminal Kcnsmgton (..ardell\ that I helped or \\111 help (I
thmk I did, I'm not sure ma,hc 11'\ m} wild imagination, maybe
102 RODRIGO FRESAN
it's only something that happens sooner or later to all writers, ex·
cept that none of them, none of us, dares to confess it) ro sow
with the wrecked bodies of so many lost boys in another of my
many possible lives yet to be written. The life my life would be·
come if I didn't stop it. The Kensington Gardens of the man vari·
ouslr called "Peter Punk" or "The Hook" or '"The Lost Man" or
"The Neverland Monster" or "The Lost Shadow" on the sensa·
tionalistic front pages of the newspapers.
1n these days, my Kensington Gardens is a.lmost deserted.
Mothers don't bring thetr children here anymore, fearing uncom·
fortable propositions, and e\'en those addicted to Eastern exercises
ha\'e mo\'ed to other parks, far from the statue of Peter Pan, which
is alway~ ~urroundc:d by yeiiO\\ tape ("Simpson-colored yellow,.,
Keiko Kai says, his eye~ the many colors of the pills I keep making
him swallow) printed with CRIME .!>CEN£ / DO NOT TRESPASS in
big black letters. Yes, maybe all of this has yet to happen. Maybe
it's no more than a breath of my grim future, blovm along on what
J like to call the Black Wmd. I'll tell you about the Black Wind
soon, Keiko Kai. It doesn't matter now. There, wherever, I pay no
attention: I ignore the comm.tnd of the yellow tape and cross over
and sit down to smoke a dgarcne, .tnd I remember myself, grow·
ing up beside this \arne stat uc that ne,·er grows old.
How o ld was I when my father brought me here and, acciden-
tally or not, ga' e me a dose of LSD and left me here hallucinating
with a toy plane in my hand? Unlike Marcus Merlin, I didn't want
to be the pilot of a plane; I wanted to be a plane. A passenger
plane or a combat plane: first empl)1ng mr belly of bombs over
Wesmunster, and then flying away as far as I could. At the time,
my father was gomg through one of h1s increasingly frequent peri·
ods of aesthettc psychosis: it "as hard for Sebasoan "Darjeeling"
Compton-Lowe to mamtain hts Victorian pose and miss the psy·
chotropic parry where all his fnends were floating happily in the air
while he made himself memorize Charles Dickens's Blenk House
with a pos~ible rock opcrena in mind, or something like that. So
that occasionally, with the extreme passion of converts or heretics,
my father gave up and abandoned himself to drug-addicted bac·
KF.NSINGTON GARDENS /OJ
c.:han;th that could la\t a w~:~:l.. or l'\\ o. Sc:s~ions that he ju~tified as
"way~ of trying £O connect sc:morially with Baco, m) poor little
Baco, "he rever he ts." Occa~ions that only led ro visions like "I
swear I fdt I w~ one: of the stones in Virginia Woolf's coat pock·
ets!!!"-as I remember he woke me up one night ro tell me, in a
state of excitement-or to strange songs populated by crabs and
men ,,,th bmps for heads, beaches ,,;th whale carcasses and glass
hotels, trams that went nowhere, famrite buildings knocked down
and replaced by hated buildmgs, sweet ghosts of light and trans·
parent Jo,·ers, and the Queen of the Eyes and the Madonna of the
Wasps
Thmgs hke that.
11ten, autumn 1967, my father rook me on walks in Kensing·
ton Gardens, where-under the clumsy gui~e of deep convcrsa·
tions bet\\ cc:n father and son-what he really did was recite
desper.ue gencrauonal monologues. It's strange: I can't remember
anything he told me, but I ro11ld write it down, as if I were pos·
se~ed b}' the ventriloquy of his sadness-not the logical sadness of
dead flowers, but the incomprehensible sadness of medals and mil·
itary decorations :u pawnshops-:md it made me speak in his
voice, distorted by a shrill distress. A kind of selection of his most
frequently recurring and well-worn thoughts arranging and disar·
ranging themselves the same thing happens to me when it comes
to remembering and forgetting decades and parties- like the
pieces of an equanon that doesn't yield a definite answer. Now,
Keiko Kou, I'll be the doll my father uses to speak, the: doll "ith a
votce that i~n 't ht~, and therefore dares to say what no one dares to
tell himself:
The author of my hie's 1 P, ~ebastian '"Darjeeling" Compton·
Lowe, lc:tdcr of the Beaten alca rhe Beaten Victorians aka rhc \'ic·
tonam, saJd thmgs like thts, accordmg to me.
What am I trymg to do? What ,~;n I ne,·er be able to do?
Who k.no,\\> One thmg t\ dear· we've failed. We're sup·
posed ro be the Som of Rc\'olution and the Daughter' of
Aquanu~ . We're \uppo'>td to be the chosen ones, changmg
I 04 RODRIGO PRESAN
the world as we\•e known it unnl now . Lies. True, were-
,;,·ed a city that was in a coma, we made it the center of
cvcrythmg for a few years. Ne'v York, Rome, Pans, and Los
Angc:lc~ looked to London to sec us . . But wc\·e fallen
into the trap: we thought we knew more than everyone, and
we ended up kno"1ng less than anyone. The estabhshment
tempted us with the apple of being d1fTcrcnt, and we bit
into it with no concern for the worm~ nestled at its heart.
We drc~sed in bright colors, sang new songs, distilled the
JUice of artificial paradises, created our own universe at the
.:mt oflcavmg the established unh·ersc. Just what our elders
wanted. Those who pretend to be alarmed and dismayed
when the\ speak of our anarchistic tendencies and drug use
arc real!} more: than happy for It to be thJs way: addled
brains arc harmless brams. What a paradO'(" our tdle youth
ha~ s1mpl} served to prolong the1r youth-their active life in
power We stood as1dc, thmktng we were rebelling. We iso-
lated our\clvcs mtcnoonally, 1mtcad of puttmg up a fight
and tak1ng their places. The smart thing, the really effective
thing, wOLdd've been to fight them from the inside, infiltrat-
ing their establi~hmen~ ... But nm\ it's as if we've run
awav to the park to play until night comes, "hieh is \Yheo
we discon:r, surprise, that we don't have the slightest idea
which "ay tS home. We burned our bridges before we fin-
ished crossing them. We renounced the past \\ithout both-
enng to conSider the furore. We behevc:d thJs dazzling
present was enough, but what we thought was an epic cata·
clysm IS only a brief, showy mctcorologtcal phenomenon. A
~ummcr storm. And so we've become a generation of pari-
,ths who enjoy our game of long ha1r and Indian music and
hedonistic commune-dwelling as long as playtime lasts. And
play'timc is short. Like childhood. We've designed some-
thing that could only work in ntUr1111111, and only if we pos-
sessed a small, crucial attribute: the abiliry ne,·er to grow up.
But n's hopeless. Today we're happy lost boys and our-
~idcrs, but romorrow we'll be zomb1es fried on LSD made
KENSINGTON GARI>ENS I 0 ~
1n the U S.A., radioactive frc.tk\, luCikr'~ fallen angel~
Or wo~· hippies Blood1• hippie\ I'm told rhat (Jeorge
Harrison wcm to San Franc1\<:0 to \CC 11hat the Summer of
Love ''as all about and that he came back disgusted: people
who never bathe, and '' ho dan'c n.tkcd in the mud too.
Nothing to do with us, with our English style. We who in
the beginning were unique, chosen, ~ophbticated ... Our
utopia was a utopia built on the ba~b of individuals, not
tribes. An aristocratic meritocracy where noble names didn't
hesitate to dance with the plebeian names of a new caste fed
by talent. Now the nobility are returning w their cottages
and they've begun to give the1r butlers the same old instruc·
nons: "I'm not in the mood for that sort; the parry's o,·er,
Jasper. If anyone calls for me, tell them I'm not here, that
1'll never be back. n Ne,·cr agam w1ll the countess open her
bedroom doors and her legs to the d1rector of avanr-gardc
films. Never again will gay wild thmgs be lfl\'ited to Lad~·
Victoria Ormsb)1·Gorc's ~ixtccnth b1rthday ... I've said 1t
before: now my generation entertains itself by dressing in
Californian rags, by imi taling the American~, and when win-
ter come~ you'll see how bad thing~ will be, ha. There's no
future. Ther.:'s no future for mut.ttiom There's no future
for my London, which commincd the error of spilling ir~
~ecd in Tokyo, in Berlin, in Prague any da\ now, and, oh, in
~e" York again, always ~c" York. And who's guilty?
Again, it's always the ~arne culprits, the banalizers of our
Empire: those four disgraces who had ro be born in Liver-
pool, of course ... Cave dwellers from the Cavern, worship
pcrs of an iiJiterate farmboy from Memphis who called
himself the King. And they i1wircd them to play in the Royal
Variety Show. And they even knighted them. And those
other fi1 c-the Rolling Stones, cheap imitators of black
singers. We're lost. Morning will never come for those who
are simultaneously Dr. Frankenstem and the monster, the
Tiu111ic and the iceberg . . We'll smk, mr son, we'll be
sh1pwrecked between eternal icc: and eternal fire. And "1th
10~ RODRIGO PRESAN
time we'll become just another of those historical nostalgias
that people rerurn to once in a whtle, "atchmg a tele\ision
scrie~, at a cosrume party, in some retro compulsion . . .
Like the Victorians. Outmoded fossils \\1th an expiration
date. We in,cmcd something, but what we mvented IS terri·
ble roo: the premature death of the onginal, the headlong
pace of fa.:.hion, the ephemerality of trends, the culture of
lightning speed and pop acceleration. Wi ll I be the only one
who realizes all this? Must I pay a ternblc price for being the
repmitory of ~uch revelation\? Who cares? No one would
li~ten to me, and now it's roo late to do anything. Oh, it's
cold already, the golden year of 1960 is further .md further
J\\ ay, and it\ a litt:Je clos.:r to December 31, 1969, a linlc
do~cr to the end of the world .
What \\~ my father really talking about when he fell into these
prophetic trances? Was he genuinely worried about what would hap·
pen to rock music? Could be glimpse a furure m·aged by shorter·
and shorter li\'cd cliques, by fushions like ~mokc? Was he equipped
to hear-there and then, so long ago-symphonic pop, '~olem
punk, thick-skulled satanisrn, the disco spasm, the new-wave joke,
techno machmations, the weird new hatrstylcs of dark and new ro·
mantic, grunge nilulism, the squatter rooms of hou.se, ecstatic dec·
uonica, the: bc:aufication of beat, tlle eanontlation of the DJ, the
dialectic of rap? Or ma\'be be already intmtc:d the dhsonancc:s of '68,
when young people ga\e up being dandies to go out into the streei:S
and bum their own schools on cinema screens? Could my father
have been a clumsy Nostradanlus of pop m~ie, or an ideologue
who-a$ IS often the case-had more vision than real talent?
Maybe not.
Or maybe I prefer to remember him that way now.
Maybe it's good for me to think of him as a visionary martyr
and not as a shortsighted leader. The relief of remembering him,
''ith the help of Ill)' selective memory, a~ the: natue of a defeated
general punished by the inclemency of time and d1e contempt of
pigeons.
Maybe: so.
KENSINGTON GAROI!NS 107
There·~ always an in\rant ot hla11ng omnt!>Ctcnce in the au·
tunm, the: consolation pnle for tho~c \\ ho understand they "on 'r
n1.1k.e tlJC: firush line. Maybe m\ t.uher gue\\cd that all that strange
dothmg would soon be exchanged lor y,e~ Saint-Laurent and
Pierre: Cardin suii:S, and th.l! the new m<xle of uansgre~sion would
mO\c on to other area.:.: protest~, ".tr~, assas.:.inations, rnolt~, rev-
olutions. London had none of that. London couldn't compere.
London was a contented city. The only Uling London had ldt wa~
drugs and a handful of films that dated too quickly. There was
nothing to fight a!,'ainst now, and all those who'd held out hopes
of dying before they got old were still aJi,·e, and li\'ing abroad so
they wouldn't ha\·e to pay such htgh taxes.
~laybe the presence of a counrerculrurut disillusioned by his
own coumerculrure is a cliche as common todav-Marcus Merlin '
.
of course, pointed this out to me-as the rne,itable SS officer who
lo\'es art and sa,·es the life of a talented Jew to ease his gutlt and
arone for his partictpation in the Holocaust. And ar times I ask
myself, noting the shameless frequency of its appearance in boolls
and films, whether there didn't really ClOSt a whole secret German
unit of artistic elites in the Nui Party: Hclmuts and GLinrhers and
Sicgtiicds \~th a nostalgic look in their eye and perfect uniforms,
cspecrally likely robe mo,ed b) a paiming or a piano, ro remember
the good times in vanished Drc\dc:n, and unmediatcly, \\itll a snap
of Ule fingers, to sanction the \un t\·al of long-suffering but hard)
Hebre\\ artiSts.
~hybe I too am a worn out dichc: the: ship\~Tccked son of a
patr of parents drowned during the dectric revolution, sa\·ed from
the mrtex of the sixties becau~e of my ability-like Barrie's-to
paper the rooms of real children (a.! ways other people's children)
with stories.
It doesn't matter. Whar good can it do ro reconstruct ha
rangues deli\'ered by a desperate father to his son, who, even rhcn,
lhtcncd to him and srudicd htm, calibrating his potential as an
imagrnary character? Parents, a\ we know, arc the im·ennon of
their chtldren. It's the chtldrcn who turn them into parent~. and
therefore become thctr creators. Mavhc there's 'Orne sort of score·
scnhng and automatic reflex mvolvcd Children begm as footnote:\
10/1 ROD RI GO P R ilSAN
to their parcnrb, and parents end up being foomotcs to their chil-
dren. That's life; and, yes, we li\c in a cruel world. A world that
exhibits and mainrains constants of bcha,·ior only \\·hen the con-
stants arc the rcrnhlc kmd. rhat'\ why there are so few books by
parents about ch1ldrcn, I ~uppoo;c, and \O many books bv children
about parcnt\-and no, no, no: I 'II nc,·er ha,·e children, children
who'd ,,·rite my lite \tor~.
I dec1ded it around the umc 1 had my first \~et dream, and reaf-
firmed my deci~ion \\ ith a deluxe '~c:ctonw at a private clinic
where: the) took can: of m\' pm ate parts, which m one fdl swoop
were depri,ed of all rc:producuvc: capacity. I don't want to have
children. Like Barrie Bener-more comfortable and safer-ro be
the father of orhcr parents' ch1ldren To be the Great Father of an
infinite number of children who· ·smcc they don't know you-are
left with the comolauon of adonng you through your books. An
invmc1ble Grear Fathcr-bccau\c nothing bur your own blood has
the power to dcHro} you. Now that I'm older than they were
when they d1ed, my parem~ h~1\e in some \C I1 Sc become my chil-
dren. Ml' ghoM children.
And it's then, Kciko K.1i, that I in1.1ginc my father's true end,
with the atrractivc hypothc\i~ th.u it \\ .1~ he, misdlJC\:OUS and mor-
tal, who scr fire to the deck or knocked holes in the hold of the SS
Regina Victorin as C\cryonc "·'~ sleeping, thus granting himself
an epic, Arthunan death , the death of a monarch who has no in·
rcrcsr ar all 111 sun•iqng Ill a pronmcd land rhar will ne,·er be ceded
ro him
I go c\·cn tl1rrhcr and imagme hm1 \\\imming ro an island that
doesn't appear on an~ map, \\here he'll reign as a new messiah, a
nco-Victorian Kurtz, adored by the naU\ cs \\ ho \·e been waiting
tor him for ccntunc\ "<> he can teach them the sacred rite of five
o'clock tea, as the1r \acrcd son!!> proclaim.
Chil<fuh, m~ lather's dc~irc: to disappear suddenly rather than
vanish little b~ httle. To rcfiN: to gro'' old, belie,ing eternal youth
is a blessing, without rc:.ilizing that, in the oldest and most re-
spectable legends, the gods u~uallr punish men with the curse of
eternal youth.
K E N S IN GTON G A R D ENS /09
You \\On't read an} of thi~ in the light, inoffemivc, anec-
dotal, plca~ant, and pre' iously mentioned A POPcidwtnl CIJiltf-
IJootf: GI'OII'itiJ/ Up 111 till Psydmfc/,c Sixries nud All 17JIIt Rnrlt, of
cou~ Then:'s nothin!'. u1 there about my father's despondent vi·
sions, or about nw triumphant 'isiom as an accidental ac1d
prophet's apprentice:. Nodling about \\hat I saw that e\·ening in
Kensington Garden~, \\ hich I don't C\ en have to remember, be·
cause what I Sa\\ there tranM:ends memory, and all I have to do is
fi\: nw gaze on a blank spot on any wall for ir all to come back so I
can rehve it again
Here I am, there I was, a hero.
I'd fimshcd counting the e,·en nun1bered lea,·es on a tree, and
was starnng to count the odd numbered leaves (I didn't know
what kind of tree it was, but otherw-ise I knew everything about
that rrcc ), when Peter Pan stepped off his bronze pedestal and
came up to me and said, sure, dymg would be an awfully big ad-
\'emure, but It would be even bigger and more awful to kill,
would n't it? Peter Pan assured me that a jury would be swayed
when they heard I'd ingc~tcd psychedelic drugs at such a tender
age; it wouldn' t ju~tif)r my ,\ctions, bur it migh t get me sent ro a
better and more cxclu~i vc home tor psychotic criminals in rhc
country, on the banks of the Thames. The trud1 is that this was
only the beginning of the vi~ions, the first rush of strange chem-
istry. Pity the 'hild "ho takes LSD, but don 'r therefore refuse ro
appreciate the third and fourth and fifth and thousandth eyes that
suddenly blink in the middle of his forehead.
The feeling that the world is opening up as it does in the
panoramas and d1oram~ that stun Barrie when he goes ro see
them at the Egypoan HaU. the world unrolling before the specta·
tor as a lecturer pomts our and explains the features of a far-off
land that's ~uddenly been transferred to the center of London, or,
better yet, to the: space 111 front of seats fixed ro a spinning floor
thar spim the way l \pun then Orbits \\1thin orbits, and what I
saw had nothmg ro do mth the f.lCile landscapes of bear surreal-
ISm, \\1th d1amond skies and ruby Tuesdays.
No, "hat I saw then WJ\ \Omethmg \'cry dJITerenr. I saw fleers
I I0 RODRIGO FR ESAN
of wrathful glass jumbo jers cradling in their steel bellies cardinals
and bishops who preached in the skies over a London that had
suddenlr become a boundless Gothic ;urporr smkmg ats spires inro
the clouds to bring forth holy water and ~crc:d bolts of lightning.
Tsaw all the bashops jumping with \\1nd parachutes, floating in the
airy landscape, bestowing blessings 10 a new or a very ancient lan-
guage-Porpo::.ec ciebic nic proszc dorzMml nlbo zyolpocz cilvego,
rhcir spcakang staffs repeated over and mer aga10, vibrating Like
nming lbrks-as the conrrol rower~ were toppled by lightning, like
the to\\ er in m~· favorite deck of tarot card~. l saw how all ilights
were canceled by dh·ine will, and all ~uitcase~ lo~t. 1 watched the
forced landing of the first, spoiled Jesu~ Christ, looking so much
like m~ dead tittle brother; the Jesus Chnsr who docsn 't appear in
the Bible but whom one senses there, and \\hom I found again
later 10 the best-written pages of the Apocrypha when I wasn't
e\·en looking for him. A Jesus using the power of his mind to kill
everyone who dares to stand up to ham, or-m Thornas's words-
turning .111 has terrorized little friend\ into goats when they won't
play '' h.ar he wanrs to play. A Jesu~ who didn't wanr to grow up,
bcc~usc growing up was dring, and who know~ whether he was
interested in the ''hole resurrection-on-the-third-day thing. Why
wait so long to be brought back from the dead, and why do it so
modesrlv and almost secretly? A Jesu~ too much like Peter Pan,
\\ ho also says, ~suffer the linle children to come unto me."'
Blessed be he, the Child ;\lessiah we all earn· msade of us some·
where, whom sooner or later we're forced to crucifY in order to
enter adulthood
I lu1e1\ then that all of llS were no more than the metal spokes
in the bkyde wheels of that ruthless linlc Jcsm, ofthat fifth horse-
man of the Apocalypse called Faith. Faith and Lhc ~uicidal impulse
ro believe in somethi11g sin1ply because we lcel that believing in
sou1t1bi11,!1 is better than believing in llotbillll· F;uth feeding on our
fear of uLtcr nothingness in the end. Fait.h galloping beside Pesti-
lence, War, Famine, and Death. 1\nd wor~t of all i~ that, even if we
arcn 't belie\ e~, his divine form crops up e1 erywhere, so thar the
world as full of people who say they're religious but who-by prac-
K ENSING l'O N GARDENS I I I
tieing the doctrine's cruclrv 1\ithmn the myth·~ poetic grace--only
manage to do E\il in the nJme of Good
If:. not that then, in the (Cntcr of t11e \\ hirlwind, I decided to
~tOp believing in an external God, whKh or \\ hom T had nc:ver lx·
Lined in, immersed as I was in Ill). parents' high·cl~ paganbm
But I did close myself off to an) po~sibili~ of believing in him in
the future, and, obliged to choose a divinity, I opted for an inter
nal God, for Our Lord of the Left Hemisphere.
How could the abstract metaphor of wine turned into blood
compete or seduce me when I could experience the pri\'are, figura-
U\'e miracle of ink rurned into ~·pc? A God who was only mine-
is there anything more sensible and mtelligent than creating your
own retigion?-and was ruler of a land where not only did C\'Cr~
thmg occur, bur everything occurred to me. A world withour a
God who was always aloof was much more comfortable and narra·
ti1·cly coherent rhan a world \vith a sah·er-pupiled God who'd
abandoned us or whom we'd betrayed almost unconsciouslY. Yes, I
rcfu~ed to join the hosts of Pilate and Judas--those millions who
wa~h their hands and quickly .1nd cheaply sell the best part of
themselves, the intact original part of cluldl100d hidden between
the fold~ of DNA-and I pledged my~clfto a religion in which rhe
totem LO be worshipped \\ J~ the paradhe we're expelled from a
fC\\ ~carce years after we reach it: .:hildhood, cursed and incredible,
\\here we feel immortal and powerful and irresponsible, at least for
a \\ hile. like Peter Pan. Like Barrie
And 1 look again for the headlines m giant red type on the
front pages of the Sun and the Dnt(Y Mtrror, and they aren't there
anymore. It's scantily clad girls and the rO\'al . mosr recent
. fumih•'s
pseudo scandal now, md not a ~inglc report on the serial killer I
supposedly become when shadoii'S deepen. It has its funny side: b)'
day I'm the children's hero, the creator of]im Yang, and by mghr
I turn mto an all-powerful sorcerer, the dark prince, the tireless
pursuer, the diabolical profCS$Or ('agliostro Nostradamus Smith.
Or not. Maybe not. Maybe, a~ 1\·e saad already, tllis is all the prod·
uct of my delirious mind, of the only part of my body that ha~n 't
changed \tnce my cluldhood, the nght temporal lobe bursting in
I I2 RODRIGO PRESAN
the skies and on the beaches of the left temporal lobe and laying
waste to everything with the fury of tts vtstoos. Maybe it's the
capnce of a tumor hiding from the X rays. Or a lysergic flash-
back, a haUucmogenic echo of my psychedelic pop childhood. Or
maybe it's stmply a residual effect, an me\1table consequence of
the m·ercmploymcnt of the materials ot my trade: the constant re-
visitation of the world of childhood with an orgam~m that's no
longer what it used to be and that struggks against the a lmo~t
complete re~huffling of the body's deck ol cells every seven years.
Little by little-like machines-we're mutating, recycling worn-
our piece~; and it·~ up to us to find and keep in perfect condition
that single screw or last hinge, that trrc:p!Jceablc: replacement on
which the motors of children's literature are mounted. The ke)
isn't remembering, then, bur the reverse; nounshmg the phan-
tom zone where our adulthood is a memorr, a forward-looking
memory.
The rules of thought must therefore change: when we believe
we've come up with something new, most of the tllnc all we're do-
ing is comparing its outline with somethmg old. This i~ the only
way we can recognize anything frc~h: by invoking the obsolete.
When 1 thitlk and write abour Jim Y.mg, l revcr~c the polarities:
I go to live in the scaled room of the p:m \O I can understand the
present from there as a kind of specter of what might or might not
come to be.
There's m especially revealing paragraph at the beginning of
Peter n11d lltiJd_v, a paragraph I find useful. There Barrie "Tires:
I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a per·
son'~ mtnd. Doctors someumes draw maps of other parts of
you, <tnd your own map can become intensely interesting,
but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind,
which i~ not only confitscd, bm keep~ going round all the
time. There arc: Ligzag lines on it, just hkc: your temperature
on a card, and these are probably roads in the island, for the
~everland is alwar~ more or less an island, \\ith astonishing
splashes of color here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-
KENSINGTON GARDENS I I l
looking craft in the offing, and sa' ages and lonely lain., and
gnomo who are mostlv tailor., and caves through which a
river runs, and princes \\ith si\ elder brothers and a hut fast
going to decar, and one 'erv smaU old bdy with a hooked
n~e. It would be an CJS) map tf that were all, bur there
IS also first day at school, religion, f.1thers, the round
pond, needlework, murders, hangings, ''erbs that take the
dative, chocolate pudding, getting into braco, say ni nety-
ni ne, three-pence for pulling out your tooth yomself, and so
on, and either these are part of the island or they are an-
other map sho"ing through, and it is all rather confusing,
cspcctally as nothing will stand sull
The map of my mind-a hybnd mind, the map ot m adult's mind
drawn m a child's hand-must be \llmethmg ltke that. A treasure
map where the person I am has ro be buned to unearth the person
I u.'4\,,
Who am I?
Am I an efficient child killer, or am I .1 ktllt:r child who alway~
su~pected the possible existence of the monster lurking in his fu-
ture?
I don't care.
I'm so tired, Keiko Kai, of being "ho l am, whatevc:r that
might be.
I am-res-a \\Titer
And no one ts a writer of his own free will, Keiko Kai. No one
becomes a "Titer. Being a \\ntCr im 't an opuon, tt's a fate. A weak,
unhanded tate: wrirers arc ne'er tn the hands of fute. Writers cs
cape the gencralines of law and luck. To be a writer is to be some
one who didn't choose bur was cho\cn by the no-return vocation
of the socially acceptable madman. 'iomcone who spends five,
nine, twelve hours a day shu t up in ,, room hearing voices rhal only
he can undcmand, and who con<,ob himself thinlcing that once
there wa' a way that would take him ba~k to Kensington Garden,,
and \lcep, ltnlc darling, do not crv, and l "til 'ing a lullaby, he
.:au~, boy, you'll be carrying th.u \\Ctj:tht lor J. long time
114 RODRIGO FRESAN KENSINGTON GAll.DllNS II 5

The weight of the torment docsn 't maner.
l'm ready to accept whate1·cr I've got commg.
Any-thang to be able to walk in that green, peaceful world again,
out\lde and msidc thas black, 1iolenr world.
Now at's the hour when the saren\ start to waal, Keako Kai: the
sirem of sleepy police cars, the sirens of ansommac ambulances, the
red siren~ of London that don't tic you m the ma~ts but toss you
overboard and make you swim ro the shore> of the s:1me park that
was once another park. The ~:llllc park, but tliffi:rent-s:une bur
different, like a boy's body into which .111 .lllult body could never
fir, and vet from inside of which e1•erything came.
IJngu~ge of childhood perfc:ctl), the "Wm\!"s and "Hey'"s Jnd
"\ appcce!ns Someone who ~peak\ to duldrcn not from the \tccp
crag~ of maturity bur trom a gentle hall, tlle top of which can be
reached on a bicycle-a bkyde like an} other bicycle, an ordinan
baq·de-so that from tlle top you ~\\ oop down again witll no mk
of being hurt, over and over ag;Un, until you've reached tlle point
of happy exhaustion after laughing a thousand and one rimes, with
arm~ stretched wide and eyes closed, and down again, let's do it
again, the last time, I promise, once more and we'll go home, be
cause it'~ gcning dark now, it's already dark, because now it's
naght tl1at's swooping down on us, and night rises high, higher,
higher still, above a place called Kensington Gardens.

Our there, m Kensington Gardens, Barrie and his 11ifc and his dog
arc a strange, fasonating sight. another of the many anractions of
the place
The uny man smoking a papc and almo~t lost in a hat and coat
~evcral SI/C.\ roo bag.
The IJdy drc,\cd according to the late:\! and mo~t costly dic-
t;ues of ta,hion.
The cnormoll!> Saint Bernard th.u seems LO pull both of them
along with the furrv fOrce of his fuur pa\1 s, and 11 ho~ bark is per-
fect for giving heart anacks ro tlle sheep tllat graze free on the
scill-1\ild lawru of Kensington Gardens like lo~t woolly babies.
Porrhos .mracts the smallest :llld brave~t children, tllose who
somcurnes seem ro suffocate in thear starched sailor suits and
miniature lord costumes, and 1vho seek and find m Porthos's com-
pany somethmg of the yearned-for and arrc\ponsible nakedness of
the pnmordial ad1•enrure tlley're already beginnmg to miss.
Barrie likes this magnetic quality of his dog, which-when he
commands it with a loud snap of hi\ finger<;- rear~ up on its hind
paw~, vertical and monstrous, and boxes with its tiny master, to
the glee of tl10~c: 11 ho dream of a dog like this and a lather as small
and~ much like them as Barrie.
Barrie as m anmsemenr park in and of himself A ~crer garden
inside Kensmgton Gardens. A man who ~terns to speak the lost

1fl(GUI5T
:\nd the next d.1y, l".bt, running, to Kensington Gardens again. It's
a perfect morning, .tnd C\ en the .ur seems to bnm 1\ith the bright
colors of Arthur Radiliam \ allu\traoons tor those ternble \lcto·
nan children\ books of fantastic l.tndo;capes more real than realirv
itself And at doesn 'r marrcr; no one dares to accuse the trees 1\ith
dw.rr1c~ .,way111g in thcar branches of bc111g implausible. l 'm refer·
nng to the glo\'~· plate\ that arc almost haddcn, pressed-like
mumm~ flo\1 er,, lake ~ulor-bhnd butterflie~. like real letters of tilic
IO\·e-bc:meen mo pages of tnt, someumes deticatelv veiled by a
sheet of almost tramlucent paper, and, oh, the swpris~ of disco,·~r­
ing them, al" ays on the right ~tde, ~ you read further, and the
temptation that must be resisted not ro slup allead and find them
betorc ha\lng arm·ed at that po111t 111 the ston· Seeking them out
fif'it rud~ing them Guc~~111g what they're about Yes, interpret·
111g rhcm as ai you ''ere read111g the future. These illustraoons-
trappcd 111 bag, heavy H>lume\ tt \eem' no child could lift "ithout
an adult"\ help, and yet ~ooner or l.tter . . -are our first experi·
ence of rebellion ag;un't the un~1elding tyrann~ of our elders. Sud-
denly "e feel so b[q and so happil\' ~litM)' reading on our own
no", \\lthout the: tntcrferencc of a mother's or a father's 1·oice.
And then the pnncc 111 the allustrauon ~ no longer wythi.ng like
the pnnce we tmagine when we Hart reading for ourseh·es-no,
no, no, noth111g ar all hke ham. And yet the forestS and parks in ink
KllNSJNG1 ON GARDENS I I 7
and oils-the background sccner> against which heroes and vii·
lairu appear-always ~ecm perfect to us, ideal, exactly like tl1c:
places we explore in our minds.
Which brings me back again to the place I've never left.
Is it possible to become addicted to a place? To feel the need ro
return over and O\·er again? To count the hours and minutes wd
seconds until we return to the spot that must be our true home?
Barrie is addicted to Kensington Gardens.
What's more: Kensington Gardens IS addicted to Barrie.
They can't hve without each other, they're made for each other,
till death do them part together fore,·cr, for century upon ccn·
rury.
When he returns to London, Barrie lets the servantS occupy
themselves \\ith his suacases and has wife's suitcases and runs as
fast as his li ttle legs wall take him down Gloucester Road, and fi.
nally, like someone racing to plunge into the ocean, lets himself fall
into the green park with his eyes open, holding his breath: Barrie
will stay down there, underwater, as long as his lungs permit.
Barrie has just come: back from his first trip to the United
States. He was happy there. Manl1attan seemed a magical and al-
most impossible ciry to him, its inhabitants members of a different
race, a new and strange variety of Englishmen. In Manharran, Bar·
rie fdt more British than ever. Nationality is something that's al-
ways acrivnted abroad, thinks Barrie. Paradoxically, we're more
patriotic when we're far from home.
The goal of his expedition to the New World was co meet the
formadable Charles Frohman, legendary wd always smiling patron
samt of the srage. The Beaming Buddha, his fiiends and even Ius
enemaes call him. Charles Frohman as a theamcal and messiahlike
producer· no marrer that he's short-before whom all the mar·
quees of Broadway bow do,1n.
Bame and Charles frohman soon become great fiiend~, soul
mates, and kmdred ~pant~ The rwo love the theater as a space
where anything can happen, and does· at's enough ro set our tO
achic\'e it, to bclaevc 111 It 1 he two adohze their mothers and chi I·
dren, all chtldrcn, even af they aren't theirs.
After three year\ of marri.1ge, Barrie and Mary Ansell ~till ha1c
I I 8 ROD RI GO P R ESA N
no children. Mary Ansell thinks of nothing else, and consoles her·
self with her increasingly maternal love for dogs. Barrie, on the
other hand, prefers his fncnds' children. Barrie keeps adding other
people's children to his hst of fiiends: Cecco and Pia (the children
of writer Maurice Hewlett); Pamela (the daughter of actor Cyril
Maude); and best of all, h1s md1sputable and overwhelming fa.
,·orites: three boys always dressed m coats and red tam· o'·shamers,
ram·o'·shanters that are never snll and look like little flames, the
small beginnings of an enormous blaze.
Here thC) come
George, fiye years old, and hi~ brother Jack, four, and their
newborn little: brother, Peter, who can't walk yet and who watches
them from the arms of thc:1r nanny, Mary Hodgson, who takes
them almost C\'erv da} to Kensington Gardens, where Barrie and
Porthos arc waiting ro play with them.
George grows \'cry fond of Barrie. He likes the way Barrie
moves his cars and makes his eyebrows dance. And Barrie can imi·
rare rhc voices of the strangest animals. George loves the stories
Barrie tells. Stories in which there arc dc~crt islands and cricket
marches .1nd f:1iric\ and pira t e~ and murderer~ and hanged men at
lonely crossroad~ and ghosu. that refuse to rest quiet in their
graves, Nothing at all like the imipid, dainty stories their mother
reads them before bed. George is f.1scinated by Barrie's shortness,
by ~ sickly air, and-miracle- by his surprising dexterity and
strength when he spars with hulking Ponhos, more bear than dog.
And Barnc can't take hts eyes off George. He seems to Barrie
the lovchcst Jnd h\·cliest boy he has e\·er kno\\11. George is like a
distillation of the best of childhood An immense perfume in a
tiny, perfect container An I0\1ncible boy full of energy and
courage::, capable, according to Barrie, of"striking hundreds of gal-
lant poses in a smgle day, and when he falb down playing, which
happens \ery often, a second doe$n't go by before he jumps up
again, like a little Greek god."
Barrie is so enchanted with George that he doesn't e\'en bother
to find out his last name. H1s first name is more than enough. Last
names- the trademark passed on to us by our elders that either en ·
K I!NSINGfON GARDI!NS I I P
nobles us ur U()()llh us-Jre, to Barrie, one of the w1equivocal
~igns of adulthood. Fortunately, there'$ nothing less necessary in
childhood Llun the name LI1Jt links us to our parents, a chain, a
sump of ownership
At the park, 10 Kensington Gardens, parents are forbidden;
that's what nannies are for Sometimes, at the weekend, some of the
parents-men and women who're still young but who take pains to
assume an air of adult importance-make an appearance at the
Round Pond to sec whether their children's sailboats speed past the
sailboats of the children of their m-als on the Stock E:tchange, hu·
milianng them. These are the futhers and mothers with whom Bar
ric is sometimes obliged to spend long, boring dinners at which-as
if drawn by a magnetic force- all the women end up together at
the end of the drawing room, while the men swap cigars in libraries
where no one reads but e\'cryonc discusses the book of the mo-
ment: Dnrcula. Barrie has re.1d Draculrr, and been moved by its
power as a fairy talc tor adults; he's intrigued by the idea of an evil
but heroic character tormcmed by an eternal thi rst, a being who
never grows old and feeds on the strength of others. And Barrie's
even more 1 mprc:~~cd when he discovers tllat Dmcula's author,
Bram Stoker, refused to learn to walk w1til he was six, and that he'&
a member of secret wcictics, or ~o tr's ~aid; and what must those se·
cret societies be like? Could it be: tl1at the city leaders secredy gather
there to play? Barrie-famous and eccentric-would like to be able
ro jom in some com ersation; ro weigh in on all of this; ro point our
that Stoker is also the author of the strange book Under riJe Stm·
stt, a \'O)ume of eerie allegoncal stories for children; bur, like a
cluld among adults, Barrie never knows where to stand on these
everungs, and, oh, the courses flo\\lng one after another "ith the
agoruzmg si0\\11CS~ of a nver, and how much longer \~illtt be unnl
he can go home ro Porthos and Ius latest manuscript?
On one of these mghts, and at one of these drnners-a parry at
Str George U:\\l~'s house on Portland Place, in 1907-Barrie finds
h1m<>elf mting next to a woman who strikes him as the "mosr
beautiful creature l'\'c: e\'er seen"'· Sylna Uewelyn Davies, ,,;fc: of
Arthur Llewelrn Davie~. a prom1sing young attorney.
1211 RODRIGO PR.ESAN
The voung woman has a small and delicious snub nose, gray
eyes, black hair, the mosr mischievous of smiles, and-Barrie
smtle~ at her smile-she's pretending to follow the com·ersation
whtlc ~he hides sweets m her little \tlk bag, thmking no one is
\\atching. Syhia Llewelyn Davies sees that Barrie's seen her.
"TI1ey're lor Peter" is the only e~planarion she gtves. Barrie soon
learns th.u before she was married she wa~ called Sylvia Jocelyn
Bm\on du Mau ricr, and that she's the SISter of the actor Gerald du
l\lauricr and daughter of George tlu Mauricr, author of the very
sucee~sti.1l noveb Trilb)· and Peter lbbetso11, the Iauer featuring the
S.1int Bernard called Porthos after "hich Barrie named his dog.
Barno: ~ay~ to her, You see, the two of u~ h;l\ e so much in com-
mon. Syl\'la Ue"el~n Da\ies expl:uns to Barrie that her youngest
\On's name also comes from the no,·el. he's called Peter, like the
protagom\1 of Peter lbbmon. More and more remarkable coinci-
dences and dtscoveries: it so happens that '>yhia Llewelyn Da,ies IS
rhe mmher of George and Jack and Peter, Barrie's Kensington
Garden\ playmates To prove to the young woman that he's the
m)'St<.:nom friend her sons can't stop t.llking .1bout, Barrie wiggles
his cyebro\\ ~ .Uld ears like mad-b<·cau~c nothiHg makes a writer
happa:r than coincidence!. like thi~. coincid..:nce~ that s..:em more
appropriate w fiction and intrude mto realit:v wirhour warning,
contr.tdKung the la"·s dur determme \\hat'~ impossible and what
isn 'r, and striking them dm\n. Suddcnlh sometimes, if proper at-
tention is paid, lite seems-life is· a real fatry tale.
Though tt's hard for me to behc\'e m certain coincidences,
Ketko Kat Comcidences don 'r produce themseh·es. You have ro
kno" ho" to arrract them, seduce them, create an ideal atmo-
sphe re t(Jr their growth and propaganon. We writers arc experts ar
crcatmg and lostcring coincidence$, the: things Chesterton called
"spiriw.ll puns." Our lives and the li ves of ou r characters depend
on rhem. And I'll go so far as to sa~· that the strength of a literary
calling-the desire or the compulsion ro be a writer- is firmly
based on the number of coincidences we're able to ~pot and recog-
mzc m our first years of life. Once we've di~o,·ered the hidden
mcchamsm that makes the world turn, once we\e heard the secret
KENSINGTON GAllD.BNS Ill
music, it's impossible for us to resiM the need to add a fc,, beat~ of
our O\\ n, an assortment of nc:\\ gear\ and pulleys. It's then we rc-
altze \\ e'\'c gone m·er ro the other s1dc: and there's no return
ticker. We accept that we're roo emotionally crippled to ~ucccss­
fully am:mpt any "normar job. We 'rc terminally• ill. There's no
cure. The only thing left tor us to do is to learn to throw a fe,~
bones in the air, analyze the way they fall on the sand, cxpl.tin
them, extract a story from them, and, in telling it, win the respect
of more productive, healthier people who've nevertheless been de-
nied our gift; the rare talent of calling forth the same eternal srory
under the cover of different guises and coincidences, over and over
again.
And this is a secret, Keiko Kai: here at ~everland, at Sad Songs,
m the roo many rooms of m\' family mansion, e\·eryone who \isirs
from outside-the \'cry few welcome guests and the many m ·
e\itable guests who'\·e spent the night here- ·aU dream the same
thmg over and over again: what's known as a recurring dream.
My recurring dream, for as long .1s I can remember, goes like
this: I see myself--because dreams, bcs1dcs always being in black
and white, arc also written in both the first and the third person,
and it's to that simultaneity of dreams that the great unrepcarable
moments of History aspire, when everything seems ro be happcn-
mg at once and everywhere-1 see my~elf running, running ''ith-
out sropping, over the roofs of London, \'icronan roofs-actual!~
more Gothic than Victorian-across \\hk:h I'm being chased b~ a
furious pack of gentlemen with bowler bars and shorr silver-
handled canes; and maybe tbe source of this dream of mine has tO
do ""1th an oneiric wa.r ping of the clumney-sweep sequence in
Mnry Poppim.
Dtd Barrie ever have a recurring dream? And if he did, was it a
gentle one or an unbearable mghtmarc? Hard to say just what the
mght dreams of someone who ~ccms to have lh·ed in daydream~
were like. In any case, I don't thmk Barnc's recurring drcam-tf
he had one-would've been hnear, narrati\'C I suppose I imagine
It a.~ ~omctbmg like the dreams of people who\·e been blind since
btrth Sounds and tenures and \mtll\. Ha.~hes of a future where
 RODRIGO PRESAN
men prolong or recapture their childhoods by hooking themselves
up to ,·irtual reality machines. A digiti.tcd murmur escaping from
all tho~c heads imprisoned in headphones and goggles and hel
mer~. and the votce of a hollow, laserhke w1nd m their cars. Thou·
sands of men tethered \\ith cables and Roaring ltkc ba.lloons-Qne
nexr ro another, in orderly rows-1nside huge hangars like hollow
1slands where rhc only sound to be heard i' a sound hke the noise
fire m,tkes ~' it nms along rhe hallways of .1 burning house. Barrie
can'r sa them, but Barrie can ti.:cl wh•lt they're drc,uning, I'm sure.
What\ your recurring dream, Ke1ko K.ti?
I suppose the dreams of vour generation are a different kind of
dream Sleeping dream!> .1s the synon~m of w.lktng .unbitions. Re-
alistic dream~. Dre.uns to be realized. And \'ours must also ha,·e ro
do "ith bemg a mo,ie star, a sur of" hate\ cr. And don't worrv,
Keiko K.11: this whole business, th1s long mghr will JUSt help you be
an e'en b1gger, more powerful star -a legend, with all that en
ratls and believe me, you 'II be tmmorral when you die.
Rur as I wa~ SJ)~ng, what happens ro the ~lcepcrs of Neverland
. . Ir\ the \trangest phenomenon: depending on the bed you oc·
cup)' in"''> of the rooms, rhar single repeated dream, that echo of
rhc ~ubwthcious, is ,-aried or amplified, \Omeumes subtly and
~omctime\ radically. Like when you tn· to tell '<>meone's life story
and b, the end it's almost a dream, a fin1on, ~ hquid episode of a
tdc\ ision sene~ that's broadcast 01 er and over again at an hour
"hen rho'e who kneel in from of thctr telc\i\tOn sers ha,·e lost all
hope rhat the1r existences \\ill enjor the grc:ateJ.t possible ,;ewer·
ship To be dead among the Jh·ing, or li\ing .unong the dead, 1t
makes no dttlerence: the commeretals arc the same c1ther way. As
i~ the cerrainry rh:~t our dreams arc also our dead.
The dead become the fictions of those of us who survive them;
we subjcc:r them to the indecency of deletions, additions, and revi-
siom in the s.tmc way--exactl)• hal~vay down the road-that we
end up rc" nting that other zone, our childhood.
That·, "hy ghos~ come back over and over again, Keiko K.tt.
Thev don't "am to scare anyone; the only thing that both<."rs them
IS seetng themselve!> subjected to the: putrefa.:tion of lies that in
KENSINGTON (,ARDEN!> 11.1
time will be fosillized imo truth\. 11tc:rc's 'omc:thing tremcn·
dously unfair about the hnng "nung Hi\tory, because d1e l111ng
arcn 't necess.uilr the winners. And wmetimes, in our dream,, the
ghost of the child we used to be: returns and asks us to explain ho"
we could\·e rurned into someone like tim.
We u,·e, Keiko Kai, between tWO Imaginary counuies: that of
the children we were and the dead we'll become. And between
one and the other-between the ~hildren who think of nothing
but death and d1e dead who think of nothing but their child
hoods-is all ofUfe, the whole conn t'>ing ~tory, which only in a few
ca\e~ achieves some order, some grace, some moment worth)• of
bcmg endlessly rerold the same way we endlessly tell stories that
never come to an c:nd. stories that-for wa.nr of a better name·
we 'vc dec1dcd ro call ch1/drm 's.
Thae arc contradictory aceoum~ of" hen md how Barrie met the
lovely Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. Year~ later, the artist H. J. Ford-a
!i·iend of Barrie's, on d1e Allahakbarries' cricket ream-daimed in
a letter to one of Sylvia's son~. Peter Llewelyn Davies, that the
meeting actually rook place in his swdio 011 Edwardes Square: "1£
\\as at one of my rca partie~ th.ll ). M. Barrie met your mother: ~h.:
\\JS wearmg a corduroy jacket she had dc:sigued herself. Barrie sa\\
her, surrendered, and was won over immediately. That was the be
gmrung of Peter Pan, and of e\·en'thmg that came afi:cr. ~
There arc, of course, other po'\ib1hties, other places \\ith a
thtrst for immortality that claim for thcm<>elvcs the honor and priv
ilcge of being the <-"xact ~pot \\here Barne kissed Syhia Lie\\ clyn
D.n tcs'.s hand fOr the fim time. Multiple opuons leadmg to a sm
gil' end, because it's well known th.\t history often sink.~ irs roots
into the shifting sands of myth. l'hcrd(>rc, witneSl>eS abound who
mcar to have been ar one place or another. All agree and ins1st
that the meeting was comcidcntal, magical, written in the \tJN,
and not cnmpoo;cd in cun·y, clahora1c \'1Ctonan script by the
cart hlv protocol~ of Engli~h \ocicty
I go even further
124 ll.ODR.IGO PRESAN
I belien-: something dse.
I h.:~,·c: a more dbrurbing theory that demolishes the clmrms of
happenstance: md turns d1e whole ep1sode mto something more
interesting and ca.lcubred: Barrie knew pert't:cdy weU that Sylvia
Uewelm Da,ies was the mother of his adored Kensmgton Gar·
dens plavmares, md .u soon as he sa'' her and realized who she
w.u, he wenr after her. There's no more effective method for get·
ting what you want, no bener way of mumphmg, than to dedare
yourself conquered and thu~ \\1n 0\Cr your conqueror
lu\t .l\ \\1th the recurring dream~ in rhe beds ar 1'\everland, the
day and rime and pi;Ke may change bur the result \\Ill alway~. in·
entJbh, be the \arne. In orher word~, Barrie bad ro meet Syl\"Ja
Llewclm Da\ ic<. 10 make hi\ dream come true. And he did, it did.
Barrie k.t1e\\ that '), h 1.1 wa<. the door rh.u led to a perfect "orld.
Sylv1.1 \\J\ the: Ah<.oluu: ~!other, the Great Procreator, the Fertile
Body from "hich ne" live~ \pr.mg a' if bv magic or nmacle, in a
proce~•-~ It ".1~ bdic' cd in the Paleolithic, \\hen females were
wor~hipped .IS fin, powerful \'enmes-rh.u males had nothing to
do with; all they did was play .lt being hunted hunters, at being
alive and being dead
And why i~ it precisely now that I remember rhe funeral, the
memonal service tor my dead parents, my lost parents (my mother
wouldn't miraculou~l) reappear until several weeks after the ship·
wreck of the SS Rr,11inn Victllrm ), .1.nd that it was there, amid
~cc:ntk~~ flowers and \.:ented candle:~. that John Lennon appeared?
Maybe bc.:ause he felt .1!. orphaned as me-mavbe because no one
could be more of m orphan than he w.u, and he wanted to keep it
th.tt way-John Lennon came up to me. He had just been to Brian
Epstem 's funeral, and \\1th hi~ eyes full of tears, he said to me:
kl'm Chri~t." :>.o one ''a~ pJ)1ng much anention to my parents'
real-lite death ·111\tcad, everyone wa~ speculating about the rumor
(~Paul Is Dead") that \\a~ cirwlaring just then-and years later I
read m ~c,era.l bmg.raph1cs that Lennon would announce his di'in·
it) to anyone he ran 1111<> ~t the: time, and that "as 1t for him, that
".u the end of the poor man.
Lennon needed <1 gallon of LSD to discover what I'd under-
KllNSING 'ION t:ARDilNS 125
~tood .tHcr one or two .~C.:idenral drop\ one: bright evening in the
Kemingwn G.trdc:n\ ot mv \.hildhood, and he still gor it wrong.
Beuc:r read the fine pnnr ol the messianic conrract befure you
sign 1t
I'm nut gomg ru a\k. vou \\hen: you were: the night John
Lennon w~ \hot, "-ciko K.Ji, for the s1mple reason that you
\\Cren't born \Ct \\'here: w~ I' I'd forgonen; but nO\\ J remem·
bet No'' I .:an remember m~ before and my after, like .lllybod~
else, like listenmg to rwo radio stations at once.
1 rune mro that night memoncs don't come back to vou; you
go back to them and rhere I am. I'd just been to see the statue of
Le\\1\ Carroll's Alice 111 Central Park. I liked 1t. It's bcncr than d1e
Peter Pan in Kcnsmgron Gardens; it's a much more literary stante,
I thmk. Alice goe\ down mw rhc depth~ of Wonderland to try to
hring order to chaos; Peter Pan goes up imo rhe skies of Never·
land to preach cham. lim Yang doe,n't go up or down; Jim Yang
lloat~, I think. And 1 rhmk how I read in some biography that Pc·
tcr J.kwc:lyn Da\ic~ Jnd Allee I iddell met in New York, in 1932,
when Liddell, the ut~pir.uion tor the heroine of Alice's Ad1>wttm:s
i11 Wrmrlt'rlnnd, tr.wded there to gr;u:c with her presence the ~h­
tivitic~ tor the centen.uy of d1c birrh of Lewis Carroll. They met at
some reception, I ~uppmc It amu,c> me to imagim: it. What could
thev have ~aid to cadt other? The rwo sh.lfed d1e stigma of being
the adult origm.1ls-Pcter Lie'' clvn Da,·ics was thirty-hl.x at the
time:, and Alice Liddell eighry-of 1mmorul children. Peter Uew-
elyn Dav1cs, It's rruc, wa.'; responsible for jusr a part of the monster,
where.u Ahce l.1ddell \\JS 100 percent guilry. And both had grown
up and m some W.l\' surv1ved the illusrraoons and old photographs,
>0 that no one would rccogm7e the tcarures of the hero and hero
me 111 their t3cc~ :-.=evcrrhclcss, I'm sure the same desperate sad
nc~s lingered in thctr eyes. What must they have talked about?
~1ight the~ have shared the small and large miStortuncs they suf-
fered for ha\lng heen chn-.cn \\ nhout sigmng on for thctr rc~pcc
trve ta\ks, \\\-appmg rhe1r \OtrO\\ s like pmtcards) Or might thcv
hav.: tgnorcd each other? \1a\ he-a~ i~ said to have happened at
the glonou'h pathcu.: mectmg nl Jo~cc and Proust-they juM e~-
126 RODRIGO FR.BSAN
changed small talk, obligatory remarks, notes on the weather and
the city and the long return trips that awaited them. Or maybe not
e\·en that, and-pretending not to hear the possible declaration,
intended to be clever, of the wicked host whose idea it was to
bnng them together, .. Wonderland, meet Neverland!"- the two
went their <:Cparate way~. repelling each other like 1:\\in magnetic
poles, as Irreconcilable as opposite sides of the moo~ trying ro
think about annhmg else ... I'm hungn," thought Alice Liddell.
"I'm hungry," thought Peter Uewclyn Da,·ies. Eat me, drink me.
I'm hungry, I thmk There I am. At a diner not fur from the
Dakota, m Ne\\ York, December 1980. I won't lie: I won't say I
heard the sho~. but I did get the nc\\S before almost anybody else
from the terse, monosyllabic conversation of two policemen who
came in for coffee with the1r walkie· talkies. "Beatie," said one.
"Dead," sa1d the other. And then the caliber of the gun and the
number of bullets that struck the body. In a \'ariation on that same
mghr-yes, l come up wnh strange things, Keiko Kai; I'm a writer
for all the wrong rcasom, bur I am a writer, after aii-I'm as-
saulted by one of1hmc .1lmm1 savage-looking juvenile: delinquents
with a mono~yllabit: n.tmc, .tnd I call the police from a pay phone;
and a patrol car come~ lO gel me; and they're taking me ro file
charges at the prccincl when an urgent voice crackles from the car
radio and one of the policemen says w me, "I'm sorry, buddy, but
we ha,·e more important busmess," and, speeding through stop-
lights, we come to a building that looks like a castle in a horror
mo,'ie; and on the curb there's a young man reading in a quiet
vo1ce from a book, and there\ a happy warm gun next to him; and
inside the building, in whar must once ha\'e been an entrance for
the nou\'eau-nche carnage:~ of the t\c" World, there's a man lying
facedown with sc\ c:ral bullet holes in him; and they turn him over,
and I'm the first to recognize hun, because l know him, and I teU
the officers, "It's John Lennon~; and thev look at me, first as if
I'm crazy and then as if I'm the \\iscst man in history; and I help
them lift Lennon's body 1nto the patrol car; and they turn on the
siren, and it 1sn 't the siren but the Oriental howls of Yoko Ono;
and I'm left there alone thmking, "Christ is dead"; and back at the
KENS I NGTON GARDENS 1}.7
diner, the policemen arc sad. They seem more sad than policemen
usually do, and just Lhen the: teJe,bion o'er the counter at the
diner Interrupts the ba~ball or baskelball game, and there are lh e
shots of worshipper.. making a pilgrimage: to Central Park as if
they're on their way to see the most lunar of eclipses.
Do I need to make 1t clear here: that there was no spontaneous
gathering m Hyde Park when my parents' death in the ship\\Teck
of the SS Rrgma Victorta was reponed, and that the stories in the
papers spoke not of a great tragedy but, rather, of the just punish-
ment of the b1zarre whims of the pri,ileged classes, in an editonal
and almost scoldmg tone? Anyway, as panoramic shots of people
crying, holdmg candles, and leaving flowers nett to the door of a
buildmg were ~hown, the song "lmag~nc" began to be played over
and o\·er again. A song m} father would surely have dc:sp1sed if
he'd li,·cd long enough to hear it. A song I find extremely interest-
ing, yes, bm for all the wrong reasons. fu I sec it, in "Imagine"
Len non was ~i nging and is singing and will always be singing
about an inviolable and un~poiled utopia but also-by process of
elimination; no more heaven, hell, possessions, borde rs-about a
boring state of mi nd. A dimension where notlung, or at least no
parr of what we undcr~tand as our hfe and hiswry, could exist in
time or space. " Imagine" is the universal hymn of pacifists, who-
out of laziness-can't imagine the existence of something called
JVar. Backed by the melody of an almost somnambulistic piano,
" lmagme" urges us to g1ve up eJ,cr_lt/;wg, and, as part of that
everythmg, ourseh·es. Autistic li\'ing, empry and absolute. Li\ing
in an unfurnished Ncvcrland. "lmagme" IS a kind of "Day in the
ufc" without getting out of bed The death certificate of the lush
sixoc:s heralding the "asteland of my long amnesia, of my other
hfe. The sc,·enues and the mnenes and the beginning of the eigh-
ties, when the ob\e\\ed fan ~1ark Da\'ld Chapman came up to
Lennon to ask him for an autograph and came back to thank him
for It hour, later "ith a bouquet of bullet~, unimaginable until that
momem Chapman may be one of the lew people who proper!} in-
terpreted l.ennon's mc~~.tge, and-as in the Zen parable in \\hkh
the apprcntke mu\t kill the Buddha he meets on the road-
128 RODRIGO FRESAN
Chapman carried out his order~: the only 11ay the world "will live
as one'' i~ if you abandon the world, if you die. Adieu. Sayonara.
The End. And the hcadhnc~ in the papers were ,·ariations on the
morbid idt.-a that no11 the six tie~ n:all~ fi'CI'C 0\'cr, once and for all.
And so, all together now, we entered a new dark age.
I used the a~~a~~ination of john I ennon in jim Yn11g a11d riJc
Cbmuc Madmu lam ~\'es Lennon !Tom ( hapman, but Lennon-
like Da11d Barrie in jim Yan..n and t/J( llnn..nmnr.Y Frimd-dics the
next da~ of a broken ned. "hen he slip'> in the bathtub while
he's sho11ering. Alter that, )tm Y.mg stop~ uying. And Jim Yang
docsn 't like "I magme " lim \'.mg tlun~ it's a "song about the per-
fection of nothing," the same not hang Barrie tears. The nothing of
the blank page. The nothtng of lm null marriage. The nothing
of approaching the equator of life.
And wouldn't it be fanrastac if we could feel the exact center of
our own lives? The moment at which death mm·cs mro the vacant
house of the body and Slarrs lO titrnish it, unhurriedly bm also un-
ceasingly? I'm not ta lking about i~ol .ncd and diffuse symptoms.
Sigm, for cxan1plc, like askm~ ourst.:h e'> tor the first time, half hor-
rified .lnd half amused, whether we lake wrla.v's _voutiJ. And answer-
ing ou~elvc• wnh idt.:as mc.lnt to be tntcresung, along tl1c lines of
"Younger generation~ rod a\ don't even la~r long enough to be
gi1en a name th.u dbtingui,he\ them from other younger genera-
tions,n or ~rn thts millennaaJ b<>rder time, youth ~tarts sooner and
lasts longer, that's all." \\1urc,er. Pure staoc. White noise. I'm re-
ferring to something el'><: that ha~ less to do with being any partic-
ular age than 111th hcing tully comcaous of the precise tnstant life
stops bemg lite and begms to be death. The zero-second when
.
\'Oil 're halfwav
'
down the corridor and a door closes behind .\'OU
and a door opens ahead, .111d .111 of a sudden childhood and old age
a!>!>umc the ~.une degree of unrealtry, of fiction . What was and what
will be arc \Hirrc:n \\ uh the ~.I me he\itancc, with spelling and
grammar mistakes. It's then that the 11aning myth of childhood
meets the gro11 ing legend of old agc, and then: you are, asking
KENl>ING10N GARDBNS J2 ~
vour~df~ "\Vh.tt time i' tt~" .md not "an tang to look too dosely .u
\'OUr" at.: h.
I wrote \Umcthing ahout that-abom the fantas} of knowing
how long tt 1~ ull th( l.t~t page an the no1·el of our lives-in J1111
Ynt1J1 nnd tiJc Timr Enur In that book, my linle hero again fao.:~
Cag:liosrro :-JosU'3damu~ Sffilth, who-while: trying to come up
11ith his own chronocyclc- -<iesagm a terrible machine. A Ttnle
Eater. A de1ice capable of <:J.kulating the exact date that e\'er~· lil'-
ing bemg on the surface of the planet 11ill die. The c1-il professor's
plan ts monstrous: to incite coUectil'e hrsteria by sending letters ro
all the inhabnants of London; black en,·elopes that, when opened,
will rcl'eal the day and hour the recipients ~~ill draw their last
brcarh. This, thinks ( aghostro Nostradamus Smtth, 1nll topple the
pillars of soctery and halt the proper functioning of institutions,
since nolx>dy-comdous of the imminence or remoteness of the
end-will lare anymore ab<>ur maintaining order in a life almost al-
''·l)S rukd by the: notmn of a ~urprise death.
Jim Yang dedde~ 10 .t~k for the hdp of a ~pc:cialist on the ~ub­
ject, .md he pcd.tb until he find!> the writer H. G. Wells. He tells
him his srory; he ask~ for advice. But We Us only seems inten:sred in
learmng whether anv of his scientiflc prophecies have come true in
the nature Jtm Yan~ thinlu. about it a little and tells him no: the
formula lor im i\ibility hasn't been disco1·ercd; not only have Mar
ti~n_., nm tried w conquer earth, but all signs seem ro indic.tte that
there arc no Martt:lll~; Dr Moreau's beasts ne1·cr rose up to be
come men; the counrrv of the blmd doesn't appear on any map ...
:\!.Wells listens, he\ more: and more deprc~scd. Jim Yang tnes to
con\Oie hun: "Bur you \houldn't be sorry, sir: in the end you're
the only real "mer of fant.t~tic fiction. Your ideas haven't been ~ul·
hcd hy realiry. 'I hey'rc \1111 powerful, ambmous, unattainahlc ...
And then there\ me and nw chronocyde, whtch I know i~n'r ex-
actly a nmc machmc, hut . ~\\'ell\ loses his temper, calls hts sec·
retary, and thnm ~ ltm Yang our of the hou$<:, ~houting· '"~orne
tdtot at the bhtan 'i<>.:tety \Cnt you to mock me! Or do you thmk
I bc:hen:d f(>r one <.ccnml .my of the nonscn\c you 'l'e been rclhng
me'" Finally, en:rytlung ends m a kind of random Joke: the deadly
130 R.OORlGO FRESAN
letter~ Cagliosrro No~rradamus Smith sends don't reach anyone,
because, ro sa' e a few pence, he doesn't usc enough stamps. And
on the last page, )tm Yang constders how interesting it would be
ro know the dare of the last dav
but on a day in the exact mtddlc of our Jt,·es; and how that knowl-
.
. of our lives not when it's too lare
edge would gt\"C us the chance ro change w many things, includ-
ing the moment of our deaths. In general term5, Jim Yang and I
almost always agree
And that'~ where I \UP(lO\C I'd be nm\, Kctko Kai, at the C'<act
point-gtve or take J year-bet\' een ON and OFF, if I hadn't de-
cided to change my plam, move ahead t() ''hat come~ later, age as
fast as po~sible, push m~ cemer backward, come to a decision
about my fa\t-.lppmaching end Finbh nwsclf otT.
And that's where Barrie W.t\ when, dauled by rhe solar radi-
ance of SyJ,ia Llewelyn Dane~, he felt ''hat an astronomer must
feel "hen his telescope fin all~ finds the stars hls passion will orbit
until the end of hts days. The ecstatic joy of discovery. Barrie
sighted the Llewelyn D:l\"ics brothers and then their mother, and
he's never felt this \\J)' before, and his Lcnnon-srvlc Nowhere Man
nothingness sudden I)' begins to be m:cupied by a Neverland full of
corners, hiding pl.tces, shortcuts, secret passageways, and the
laughter of children running "tid, ()pcning and do~ing doors. Bar·
nc is thirty-~ix, I thmk, or dmc w that. Almo.,t half as o ld ~ he'll
e\er be. T'm ~urc that Barrie mmt\e fc:lt somu!Jing then. Again,
that's wlw I a~k nwsdf" hether it might not be good-whether it
might not be intrrtitiltiJ-tO have the abilit) to be fuUy conscious
of the exact minute you cross the secret line where you begin the
inevitable do\\11htll slide. A faint shudder m the air, or the clamor
of a thousand trumpets, anythmg The chance to d.tsco,·er a milc-
srone explaming the stgnal that tells us precisely where the slow
but steady descent from the heights of what we supposed would
be our etcrml.) begms. And telling U\ that from now on time ,,;IJ
run faster-tt's so much e.asicr to run downhill than uphill. Or
maybe all of this doe~ m no good we: know that time is much
faster than our abtlit) ro fathom its speed. Which leads me to the
thought that the world this is what the world is like-is overflow-
KBNSINGTON GARDENS Hi
ing \1 idt Iori) ·VCM·OI<h .:onvinc:c:d 1hat they're still rwemy, who
uuulv wmradto.:l the ~entimmtal nouon of tbc: "inner child"; peo-
ple who keep thetr child on the out~ide, hanging arow1d thetr
necks like one of tho~e dc::afeningly loud mo,·ie chimpam;ecs
that'rc ~upposed to be funny And ho\1 funny can a frantic chim-
panzee be when it '>Creams and screan1s and keeps scn:aming in
horror at a story that's mcreasmglv hard ro understand because it
keeps specdmg faster and faster.
Some[lmcs, however, all falling seems to stop, pausing for an
instant of pure, unquahficd transcendence. Then, for a moment,
we're able to imagine what tt must be like to be immortal. We're
up there, suspended, our arms spread, loolong down, understand-
mg that it's nor we who\·e left the planet but the planet that's
le;l\ing us. And that tt's nght it should be that way.
And rhen Rarric feels he·~ flying o,·er Kensington Gardens, over
tho~e perfect boy~ "ho'll keep a~kmg him now to rouch down be-
side them so they can listen to the stories he has to tell, stories in
which 1.hcy fly tno, and ,.i~it other worlds.
The: discovery of this new planet inhabited by Lhe perfect children
of a hca,·c:nly fairy, think~ Barrie, ghe~ him the chance to change
the: c:~rabli~hcd order of life-that immutable law of gra\1t)•, the
ponderous "eight of age that begins tO stick to his bones and flesh
and ~uddenl)' srop [lmc from rwming-horizomal and continu-
ous, eternal along the gentlest of sea le\·els, at the feet of diffi
made of knees.
Barrie's sudden and perfect love for Svhia Llewel)11 Da,ies is so
great that it's be\·ond Jealousy. It's a sublime Jo,·e that begms and
ends m itself, and m it~ hugeness finds room to include and Jo,·e
e\·er)"thing and evcn•one Jo,·ed by Syhia Uewel~11 Da"'ies: her chtl·
dren, the father of her chtldren, her husband, her lo,·e.
Have I ever kno" n a love ltke that, Keiko Kat? I doubt tt. 1\·e
been \\ith women, bur I've been \\1th them m the same way J\·c
nsued certatn inc\itablc, predtctable tounsr spots. And I soon
abandoned the \\Omen just ,l\ I've almost completely given up
l.l2 RODRIGO FRESAN
IT.Iveling, because I discovered all roo quickly thac the incon·
\"cmcnces of rlle voyage-hs back-and·forths, hs emergency land·
ings, 1ts delays and canceUations, i£S lost luggage, i£S strange and
uncomfortable beds-never lived up in pracnce to rlle theoretical
pleasures of a stay in a place that was essentially unfamiliar and al·
ways foreign. As f\·e already told you, Kc1ko Kai, sexual desire is
overrated, and I gave it up without much difficulty; maybe it's not
right for me to talk to you about such thmgs, but 1 do it more our
of resignation than urgenq•. You're rhc only one I can talk to, and
the last person 1'II talk ro, so ...
It's easy, I'm sure, to srop making love. That expression-
mnking/o~·t--alwavs struck me as somewhat rnappropriate, elevat·
ing a primith·e reflex ro the category of modern-day work, of
domg somethmg. It's easier to stop makrng love than to give up
drinkmg, smoking, gambling, or, of course, reading. This lack of
interest-! hasten w make clear-m my case has nothing to do
\\1th trag1c e,·cn£5 or pathological parrncrs, much less with the sex·
ual rcprcwon of Victorians who covered the legs of pianos and
chair' hccau~c they considered them roo lascivious to be displayed
in publk. On the contrary. The women 1\·e been with have always
been guml and generous to m.:, and I never \uccumbed to that
Prou\tian silliness of falling in lo,•e with unsuitable women or
women who couldn't be undtrrtood b~· my immune system. They
were all suml.u enough to one another to be interchangeable, nor
requmng me to shuffie the files of mv heart too much as I ap·
proached and apprehended them. Ther all had the pale, icy air of
old tash1oncd damsels; ther all came 1\ith .1 ~igh mstead of a shour
(I like to think that an orgasmic sigh IS like a shout in Braille, ha);
and at most, in momen£S of passion, they all closed their eyes and
parted the1r lips to show me two always perfect rows of small
crowded teeth, more vegetarian than carnivorous. Each received
the news of the end of our affair with a knowing, grateful smile,
bccau~c in my farewell speech I always made it perfectly clear that
the wc:ak-willc:d failings of my mcurablc: misanthropy had nothing
ro do ''ith them The fault was mine, alwars; and there's no
greater happiness than knowing yourself to be innocent and know-
KENSING10N (;AROENS I !J
ing 1t was the other person "ho made every conceivable mi,takc,
that vou d1dn 't make a ~mglc one Su "hen I left them the~ \\ere
happy to think that they "ere lc:.wmg me And women, as cv<:rv-
one kno\\s, arc better, laster, .md more thorough at recoverv. Thev
' .
come our of an affair as if cmergrng from a long bath. Clean.
And they dr) themselves with Oull)· toiH:h. And then-sooner or
later-they'd all invite me to their rcspcctin: weddings. One or
two even asked me to be their ~hildren's godfather--offers I rc·
fused because I didn't "feel worthy," though I still sent huge, ex·
travagant gifts. And I'd almost never see them again, except in the
~oocty columns of the papers and in photographs in d1e glossrest
magazmes.
Recently, on the few occas1on~ when I felt possessed by some
uncontrollable urge, I chose to rc~rt to the cold, efficient sen·iccs
of professionals: brief, brisk rnps \\ith no turbulence or m1~com
mumcations of any kind. And, yes, I li:ll 111 love \\ith them too for
a fcl\ days or a few hours; once ll1r ju\t a mmute. At first, I nude
u~c of them live and in person. l .arcr, I d1scoYered the telephone
the best of both worlds. Tht: hot line i\ the etjuiralenr of ''irtual rc·
ality when you travel the wav I do. I 'vc: .~ecumulated many mile\
a1\d many key-rouche~-1'm a frequent Oyer, a frequent dialer·
and I always call rlle same number, tl1e ~an1e voice. J'\'t: never
doubted the unique and unsurp;b\ablc beauty of that voice. Hear
ing It is like admitting what no one d.ues to admit to himself: that
bemg part of a couple means nc\ cr complete!~ knowing the other
person, not because the other pc~n is a myster: but for a simple
and mdrspurable reason: you sec what you want to see. It's rhe
same thmg that happens when you read a nO\·cl. Is there anythmg
better than that? I love the way I can hear her saliva somenmes, 111
visibly. A smack of her hps rs hke fire when it encounter\ new
wood. When she's good (when I a\k her to be good) I call her
Wendy; when she's bad (when I ask her to be bad) I call her I igcr
Lily.
Maybe-m most people\ opinium-l'm nm an cmotion.!ll) or
romanncall) satisfied man Bur I'm J m.m Without problem\ Re·
ally, the great danger doesn 'r he 111 nmr lm ing som<:one bur m
134 RODRIGO PRBSAN
someonc::'s loving you: if ~omcone loves you, you end up becom-
ing the per;on they love. A doppelganger of passions, an ideal con-
structed by someone cl\c that you ine,·itably end up destroying
for the sole pleasure of scemg at collapse, and seeing the collapse in
the face of the ~mitten architect.
Keiko Kai · lo1 e i~ one of those councnes perpetually sruck in
the third world. A republic subject to dictatorships and financial
crack-ups and re,oluoons and droughts and epidemics. A kingdom
where sooner or later there's an earthquake, where someone will
always come walkmg our of the blazang rums unable to understand
what's happened, wondenng: why mel
M) parents' lm·e for each other-what was it like? How will I
e1·er know? Love between parents 1s the most mrstcrious love of
all. We're an in~cparablc: part of 11, and at the same time, it ex-
cludes us. Children can never know anything about it, and, be-
sides, other people:'s lo1 cs arc impo~ible to gauge-which is a
good thing, because nothing could be worse than being able to
compare our lmes 11ith the loves of acquaintances and strangers
with scientific precision. Love as a scientific property and an ele-
ment we could alchemically dimll would be a much more power-
ful weapon than any ~plitring of atoms. The mystery of love,
revealed and ~ynthesitable, would rurn our planer inro an even
more terrible place than at is, because it would put love on the
san1e lcl·c:l a~ the brural, sample, funcoonaJ logic of hate. The mys-
tery of what ultimately bring~ a couple together-taking into ac-
count the scientific ad1 ances closing in on the genome that
relegates us to the almost extraterrestrial loneliness of our bod) in
a dead uni\·erse, refu~d an imitation to the big imisible party that
e\"C:C)'thmg would seem ro indacate we don't deserve-is the only
mystery we have left, a mvstery that, once solved, ,,iiJ bring us fuce
to face 1\ith a reahry where htcrarure, film, art, music-and Jo,·e, of
course-11ill no longer be nece~sary or make sense. But for now,
when we try to nnrrnu a couple, all we have are scattered frag-
ments, toorprinrs m rhe ~and rhar'rc imtanrly blurred by the spear
poinr of a wave:, by the ~ound of a I'Oice that approaches and fades
,\\\ ar.
KENS lNG rON GARDENS 135
Which docsn 't prevent us, of course, from venturing to make
.crtain modest assernons, from enumerating some rc:levanr points
of contact upon mt\lllg up the couples composed of Sylvia Jocelyn
du Mauncr and Arthur Llewelyn Da1·ies, and Lady Alexandra
S111nton-Mcn1ies and Scba~tian "Darjccling" Compton-Lowe, in
the same te~t tube, as if the) were two different experiments car-
ried out in the same laboratory.
To begin wath, the four 11 ere shamelessly beautiful. Four per-
fect chaldren ofthetr orne, English through and through, the kind
of people ir's hard to imagine e~sting in another era or place, or
~amply bemg uglv.
Marcus Merhn once explained to me that there's no more fool-
proof line to approach someone \\ith-cspccially someone of the
opposne sex-than "I dreamed about you last night," because ir's
a password no one can rc:sast, a password that opens all doors and
overcomes all resistance. lr's hard to refuse to hear more about
what rhe orher person dreamed. And everybody knows you can say
anything when you're describing,, dream, because it's a dream, af-
ter all, and dream\ can take any shape they want in dreams.
What to say abour how my futhcr and my mother met? What
were their first words lO each other? I know little or nothing about
the occasion. i\ly parcn~ ne\cr LO!d me much about it. Never-
not once-did I visit that commonplace of childhood, did I hear
or glimpse m}' parents making lo' e. So I can't claim they felt great
passion for each other earher. Once or tl'ice, in com•ersatioo, 1
know they described their murual courtship as "pendular": that
there was a moment when he pu~ued her and another moment
when ~he pursued tum, and that the variables of the chase de-
pended on the weather and the seasons. And that this back-and
forth connnued once they were married-a faithful marriage
despnc: the excesses of rhe era, a bnghr \'ictonan mamage 111th no
h1dden secrets, I'm ~ure of it-when they always seemed to be do-
mg datTerent yer ~ubtl} complementaC}· rhmgs, as 111 the choreogra-
ph,· .
. of a ballet 111 whiCh the dancer.. move awa\' from one another
11·hile nill me~hcd 111 a s111gle mo1cmcnt. The only time I '>.111 them
doing rhe ~arne thmg at the s.tmc rime and in the same place-they
/36 RODRIGO PRESAN
didn't know I was watching them from the top of the stairs in the
dark, they thought 1 was still asleep under the effect of the seda-
tives I was given ar rhe hospital-was the night I watched them
collapse in front of Neverland's voracious flaming hearth, hand in
hand and howling like coyotes at Baco's death.
And of course, from the time they were children, my father and
mother were always seeing each other at different gatherings, at
the baptisms and weddings and funerals of the gray, boring upper
class. Terrain ripe and ready for being revolutionized by the festiv·
itics of a new decade primed ro change everything. The inspira·
tiona! fury of round numbers joined with the spiky fever of
hormones. Love as a strategy, and the urgent need to populate the
New World ,,fJth a fresh Litter of children completel>' different from
the children they had been: children who would help them relive
their childhoods; ditTerent childhoods, improved. This explains the
irresistible urge to pair off like rabbits and nun into yotmg parents,
Little parents, parents with no desire to grow up; and what better
way to make that come true than ro produce children of their own
before it was socially acceptable in those days. Children as experi-
ments that would free them from the influence of their own par-
ents by creating a new dimension of people even younger than
them (bur not b}• much ) and admit them to a privileged stare
where their yomh wouJd be eternal, or at least much longer-
lasting.
Something ILke that, I don't know.
Maybe I'm talking nonsense, Kciko Kai.
Maybe all of this is just theories elaborated after the fact, theo-
ries worth nothing. The futile ravings of a surviving witness.
One thing l used to be sure of but, raking imo account recent
revelations, I'm nor sure of anymore: my parents were supposedly
engaged the night of December 31, 1959, and I was already there,
Aoating.
Yes and no.
It's easy for me to imagine them-because, except for the date
marking the legal bcginnjng of their love, they hardly told me any-
thing abom rhe prehisrory that parents who aren't parents yet in-
habit befon: their children arrive-with their glasses raised high,
KENSINGTON GARDENS 13 7
almosr stowaways at a parry of aduJrs headed for extinction.
Grandparents and aunts and uncle~ petrified in the amber of one
or rwo worJd wars, depressed by Ult: Empire's slow but steady de-
cline, remembering with sadness Edward Vlll's speech of amorous
abdication that fateful December 11, 1936, when everything fi-
nally lay in ruins, asking themselves what had happened, how it
could be that 40 percent of the population of London was now
under the age of rwenry-five, which surely bad to do with the
dizzying rise in the crime rate; where had the good times gone;
and bas anyone heard anything new abom Winston's health, eh?
Was it love at first sight for them? Now l know that the f.unasy
I played with for all those years, the desire and the milestone of
having been conceived months before but legitimated that night-
in the beat of silence between peal number eleven and peal num·
ber twelve--could never ha,•c been true. My parents wanted to be
revolutionaries, but back then everything had its limits and con-
ventions. And anyway, it was clear that my futhc:r's private re,olu·
tion-a counterre\•olution hidden inside a revolution-in reality
sought a utopian return tO old ways and habits, not the tlllill of a
fertile, messy orgy.
Keiko Kai: I'm a complete idiot with dates, with caJculations in-
volving time. It's numbers, and I've already rold you that I can't
be counted on with numbers. I don't understand dates. So I'm
forced simply to memorize them and repeat them from memory:
this happened tiJcn, and that's it. Like pra)~ng without believing.
Obeying the rules of an abstraction-the idea thar rime passes,
that it goes by, is the onJy thjng that makes time bearable, after
aU-always seemed to me a vain and difficult rask. Time is an aber·
ration beyond the reach of any system, and its only merciful and
orderly quaJiry, I repeat, is its perpetual rdi.1sal to come to a stop.
Time is above eyerything, even God. God rules the whole uni -
verse except for its vital fluid: time. The Devil is the keeper and
caretaker of time-making music our of notes like seconds that
add up to millennia) symphonies-and that's why most mistakes
arc made and mo~t soulless pacts arc signed in his name. Time is
always the foundation on which d1e complex architecture: of sin
rises
138 RODRIGO FRESAN
At least that's what MarCLu; Merlin thought.
Said Marcus Merlin: "You understand it when ymt spend a little
time analyzing religious rites-all that standing up and sitting down
and kneeling, services of acrobid.ted fuith-you know what I mean.
The stuffy air of churches, and the idea of burying yourself deep in
prayer until you can't breathe and there's no oxygen floVI~ng ro the
brain and you're ready to believe you believe in anything. It's aU
just a hopeless attempt to try to take back control oftimc."
And Marcus Merlin added that he'd been smart enough to sell
his soul to d1c De\il when he was five years old, dunng break at h.is
elementary school in Manchester.
Said Marcus Merlin: "I ne,•cr understOod th ose people who
wait until they grow up to sell ir, who take so long to learn to trust
the Devil. Aft1:r all, don't forget that the Devil is Jesus Christ's
older brother and that he's alwa}•S shown more of an interest in
tmderstanding human nature, a much more graril}ing interest
than that shown by God's other son, who's always talking in lid-
dies and mer:tphors and parables. The Devil speaks clearly, and as
we all know, E\•il is the work of craftsmen, whereas Good is an au-
tomatic, mechanized acti~ty. So I never understood those doubts
about selling rour soul as fast as possible. The sooner you sell it,
the better price you'll get. Poor Faust ... All d1at wasted time ...
lf you sell your soul when you're very young, you don't have to
make the ob,~ous choice and ask for youth. As far as I'm con-
cc:rned, it wa~ an c:xcdlc:nt bargain, I can tell )'OU that. I always
liked Lhar old Chinese curse. 'May you ha\'e an interesting life.'
Though I never ttnderstood why they consider it a curse:. All right,
i11terestiug is an ambiguous word when it's applied to lives. And
women, ba. But 1 don't care: I soJd my soul to me Devil when I
was very young. And in exchange I asked for an interesting life.
And believe me: the Devil gaYe it to me.''
Maybe that's how--of course it is-1 came up with the cle\'er
concept of my Jim Yang as a hero pedaling over d1e tyranny of cal-
endars, my young hero as a chrono-illogical anarchist saint.
And it never occurred to me to think that parents might lie. 1
grew up in an era when children's literature hadn't yet discovered
KENSINGTON GARDENS /39
rhe possibility or narrative dcvict: of parentS as more or less danger-
ous monsrers. I never imagined that the beginning of Ill)' lite
would contain clementS so like d1ose of the books I read b)' the
light of a torch. The obviousness of d1ose commonplaces, d1eir
vulgar efficiency-the same thing always happens-is usuaUy clear
tO everyone except the protagonist. It's hard for us to belic\'C that
reality could be so much like a soap opera: arriving in episodes and
always postponing the end until it comes aJI at once and \~thout
warning, weary and confused, wid1 so many plot d1reads still to be
unt.mglcd, wanting to be over no matter how, simply over. And
JUSt as we're d0ng, we realize in horror that the most terrible
thing about our death is its scant importance in the novel of \\'hich
we: thought we were heroes, as part of a plot where everything
keeps happening e\'cn though we aren't there. We feel like main
characters, bur at most we 'rc important ~upporting players, if
we're lucky. We think of ourselves as writers at the controls or in
the tallest tower of a castle, and we're just barely qualified readers
rying oursel\'t:S with ropes to the ma,rs and lost among the u·ec~.
Our ra~k was simply to propel tl1e ship a litde farmer or to make
someone else's flag Aurrer. We're the wind in the sails, or the \~nd
in the branches through which I'm fleeing now so as nm to face
the reefs that capsize you and the ax that fells you.
Not yet, please. Not yet.
All right, I confess.
My parents died young.
My parents never grew up.
I'm alive, and now I'm older than my parents ever were. Not
old enough to be my parents' father, but certainly an older
brother. Or one of those young uncles. The kind of brother or un -
cle who appears and disappears, now you see him, now you don't,
on the farthest fringes of a family reunion. The one whom nobody
asks about when he doesn 'r come, and whom everyone's surprised
to sec when he does come. The relative-in fact, it's not ~trictlv
necessary thar he be a re~JI relath·c-about whom nobody knows
exactly what he does and ...
I'm digressing again, Keiko Kai. And my head hurts. Tt always
140 RODRIGO FRBSAN
happens when rhe past leap~ ahead a relatively new experience for
me, one I was denied for so many years-and mixes irself up with
the present, that ,·erv bnef instant that always seemed completely
tedious and ~uperfluous to me. If we IJ,·ed only in the past and the
furore, the world would be much more Interesting. Not ha,;ng ro
thmk about the present- what'~ about to be, what is, what's al·
ready been- I'm \Ure would allow U\ to remember e\'el)-rhing and
predict e,·el) thing and • ••
What do I mcanl \\11Jt dol want to believe> Better this blue pill
to keep the green p1ll company and send me floating in the skies of
London Better to fl} and chome a \\indo" and head towards jt,
An\·thing that comes in through a ''indow and not a door is
definitely somcthmg that's come to stay.
"There never w.1~ a s1mpler h.1pp1er f..1mily until the coming of Pe-
ter Pan,"' wrote B.Hric
The cour1ship of Arrhur .md Srh-ia b pcrtC<:tly documented
in mc.:mo1r~ .md soda! n:!l-i\lt:r\ of 1he era, and their marriage
is de,cribcd in the p.1ge~ ol Pcrer Pnll-\\ith certain crypm-
biographical spite- in the portr.w.ll of the DJIImg~.
We kJ1o'' that Anhur come~ fi·om a f.1mily of professional spar-
tans, and Sylvia trom a f'Jmilv of li-ivolous bohemians. We also know
that Syhia, accordmg to a lucky and appreciati,·e witness, "often
ctisplayed the tops of her lm·clv breastS and her shoulders and
neck," and that solemn J.ttorncv Arthur at first didn't seem much of
a carch to the parcms of \UCh a splendid daughter: not much
money, though he had a pronming future 111 the world of law. To
hts credit, they adum" !edged, he was an increctiblr handsome
young man . Together, .-\nhur and 'irlna produced a dazzling ef-
fect, a\ if two perfect goth had d(X1ded to consecrate rhe1r fo,·e far
from Olympu<., dum~ih dt~gui,cd u mere mortal~ here in London
I ha\ e pictures, Kc:iko K.lt Sylvia has the kind of beauty that
wouldn't work so "ell tOO.l\ Hers ·~ a face that would better grace
a cameo than a magazine cover. Arthur's handsomeness, on the
other hand, ha~ we.1thcred the ~hift in fashions bcttc:r, and he'd
ha\C no reason to envy the looks of,, film star or a model of ex-
KhNSINGl'ON GARDENS 111
pcnsi\t~dmhing .l11~ d.w M.1ybc most important of all: their rwo
h~autics are "ell m.ud1cd
Arthur W.l.\ left three tl10usand pounds in an uncle'~ will, and
after rwo years of paucnt waiung, he married Syh·ia on Aug~t 15,
1892. When rhcy remrned from their honeymoon in Porthgwarr~
in Corn\\a.ll, the couple moved into a house at 18 Craven Ter-
race, Paddmgron.
On )ulr 20 of the foUo"ing yeJI, thelT first son was born:
George
On September I 1, 1894, John arrh·ed, almost immectiately
known ro all a\ Jack.
On February 25, 1897, Peter was born. Unlike his brothers, he
1\3\ nevcr hapn1cd 111 the church, since his parents rhoughr it
would be nght to let him decide for himself what was best when
he \\J~ older. And it\ true, they're right, they're intelligent, mo...t-
ern p.m:nrs, bccau~c wh.n's the sen~c: of initiating people into the
"or\hip of an invbiblc:, angry god when they're lucky enough 10
Ji,•c a1 '' 1ime when the mischievous and omnipreseor messiah Pe-
ter Pan flies the face of the planet.
And the Crawn Tc:rr.Kc: hottse got too small.
The t:1milv decided to mo1c to a house belonging ro one of
Arthur\ aunrs who'd just died, at 31 KensingtOn Pack Gardens, in
Notting Hill, and htre a nanny named Mary Hodgson to help "ith
the little ones and the hou~ehold chores. Notring Hill was a good
neighborhood spnngmg up around Kensington Palace, birthplace
of Queen Victoria. It wa~ a place where writers and artists often
moved. l'ord Madox Ford dc~cnbc:d 1t-1rorucally bur accurately-
a~ ~a lirccm1ich \'illage tor the upper classes"
Arthur began ro earn money wh1le Syhia occupied herself de-
signmg dothmg li1r ,\1r\ :-.:ettlc~hip ·~ famed costuming shop and
for the 'clchrated J~trc~\ 1:- lien Terry \Vith the scraps and rem-
nant\, \he m.uic dmhC\ t(lr her ~om . One da)', Syhia found m a
drawer an old JUdge'\ robe thJt had once belonged to Arthur's
grandfather Hcan red doth. There: would be enough fabric to
se\\ three \lllJII WJI\ and three t.lm-o' -\hantcrs for hc:r boys. The
141 RODRIGO PRI!SAN
uniform rhat would make them almost another of Kensington
Garden's attractions. And Sylvia di•covers that dressing children,
changing the1r skm, IS much better and more fun and more
freighted with significance: than the almost forgotten game of play-
ing ''irh dolls To dress children ·~ to rem,·ent them so that the
world excla~ms at them and applauds.
Til us Barrie dis.:o' ered them and loved them, and thus Barrie
discovered Svhia at dlat dmncr .u Sir George Le''is's bouse, and
nothmg would e\er be the same agam.
I ins1st, Keiko Ka!: the true miSSIOn of coinadences-which arc
ne,·er coincidental and 111 fact function as a popular md economi-
cal and access1blc ,-c:rs•on of m1rJcles-•~ s1mply to help us feel part
of ~omerhing we can't rc\ist. In the name of comcidencc-which is
also nothmg bur a bur\t of madness d1sgui\Cd as something of ra-
rional sign1ficance-wc: end up dmng things we would ne,·er have
done otherwise. And Barnc: bn 't the kind of person who needs
much help to feel cho~cn by a ~uperior being, to bdievc himself
someone prc:dcMined ro play a certain role in a certain play \vith a
plot that only Barrie could hav.: thought up.
The mystery and pro,·enance of the brothers Llewelyn Davies
solved, Barrie and Porrhos play ''uh them and no one else. Barrie
prefers George, and it's George he menuom most often in the
notebooks he keeps at the time. And it's George: who gi\·es him
the idea for the ~low geHation, over the course of four years, of
71u Littlt Wbitt Bmi 1\.h· favonte of Barrie\ books, Kciko Kai.
The book that'll be published in 1902, and in "hieh Peter Pm will
fir>t appear. Barrie writes in hh notebook:
• George admires me as wmer.
• Littlt WIJitt Bird. Telling George what love is ... in 3Jl-
swer to George's inqUJnes about how to wnte a srory.
George is the son Rarne ,,;11 nc\ cr have, the son who makes him
the tiuher he 'II never be: the} 're an imaginary son and father, free
KI!NSINGTON GARDENS I 0
of the re~pml\ibihuc~ .1nd tic\ of blood, a f.uhcr and >on who~e
onh and impcrath·c: obligation i~ to play I like to imagine the two
of them in Ken>in~ton Gardcm, in fast-forward or the jerky mo-
non of cartoons Barrie plays "itb George m Kensington Garden>
and goes home: only "hen it's time tO keep writing 77u Littlt
ll1Jitt B~rd, the novel b;~scd on his games "ith George.
11Jt Lmlt WIJiu Bird h narrated in the first person by a charac-
ter called Captain W--, "a gende, whimSical, lonely old bache-
lor," and begms ,,,th the sentence: "Sometimes the little boy who
calls me father bnngs me an im'ltanon from his mother: 'I shall be
so pleased 1f you ,,;11 come and see me.' md I always reply in some
such words as these· 'Dear madam, 1 decline.' "Capt31n W-- is
a retired sold1c:r who makes a lh·mg as a wntcr and likes talong
long walks 111 Kcnsmgron C.ardcns "ith h1s dog, a Saint Bernard
that answers to the name Porthos. Captain W--'s greatest wish
1s someday to love .1 child of Ius own whom-he has it all thought
out, .111 written down, w the la>t detail-he'll call Timothy. And so
Captain W-- come\ to know a young couple for whom, under
the: impi>h do,tk of.monymiry, he'll become an infinitdy eager and
gen.:rous bcnefiluor.
At the beginning of T7Jt Little WIJitc Bird, Captain \V--
meers young William, the husband, walking dle deserted streets of
London on the night his wife, his love!~· wife, Mary, is giving birth.
They speak for a fe" m1nutes. Days later, Captain W-- finds out
where the couple li\'eS .md learns that they've had a son whom
thev've called Da,id C.aptaJn W-- ties and tells them that he
too has a son· T1morhv from then on, Captain W-- fullows
Da\id's progress closely, and one day-after finding a distraught
Mary tT)1ng to pa'' n some of her dearest pOSSC:SSIOns because she
has no money to huy dothe~ lor Da,1d-he tells the young parents
that his hclm·cd 'l1moth\ has d1ed and that he no longer has any
use tor his clothe\ .md toy~. h u.n't long before Mary dis.:m·crs
that Timothy 1~ nothm~ but the product of Captain \\'--'s
1mag•nauon and that 1t'> he: "ho\ been the famil\''s . mv~terious
-
protector all tim umc. Man im acs Captain W-- to ,;sit over
and 0\cr <l~Jin, but he rcfi.•~e~, dcmJ.Dding that Da\id come to sec
1-14 RODRIGO FRESAN
him first. Mary accepts-after all, they owe the man so much-and
then Capt.un W-- purs into pracncc 3 cruel plan w "in rhe
boy's atlecnons and make him forger ht~ parents: ~It was a scheme
concet,·ed m 3 flash," ~a smmer prOJect" to "cxpo'IC to the boy all
hts mother's vagancs," it is explained to u~.
Mar)', of course, is based on 'iyh'ia, .md Wtlham on Arthur;
but Hamc chomcs to conduct hi\ rclatiomhip '' ith the Llewelyn
Da\·ic'>c.:s tn a way th,lt's just as extre me a~ that of the redusi\·e and
enigmatic Captain W--, though at the oppo~iu: end of the ~pec­
trum of etiquette: Barrie goes as oflen as he cJJI to 31 Kensington
Park Garden~. Whether he's in,·ired or not. Any rea~on or excuse
to \l~it Syhta and the children is good enough. Barrie's finally
found ''hat he's been seeking for years: a IO\cly woman who's the
ideal symbol of matemi£}', and a small rroop of perfect playmares.
In one of the first biographies of the aurhor, the almost hagio
graphtc Bnrru: 17Jc Stor_v ofJM.B., b} Dent\ ~lackatl, who played
with Barnc in Kensmgton Gardens when he was a boy, it says-1
have it here:, let me read this to you, Ketko K..tt, yes, hstcn-"What
i~ genius? h •, the power of becoming .1 \:htld \\he never you so de·
~ire. B.trric: .tdores these little one\ and their g.um:s, and if some·
lime~ hi~ ~ingle-minded concem:rarion on them is really a liu:le
excc~~i\'C and .Uarming, no one CaJl ~top him, because the children
re~uc htm from his darkest depre~ions, lifting hi~ spirits and mak-
ing him ~o happy."
Yes, Barne needs the lirrle Uewclyn O;l\'lese~ the way a sick
man needs his medlcme.
Harriet\ one of the most famous and celebrated of writers: his
presem:e 1\ welcome e\·erywhere; he's JUSt recei,·ed an honorary
degree from S.mn AJ1drews UniverSity, where he wa~ applauded by
all rhe ~tudcnts; reporters come to every one of the Allahakbarric
cricket matches and allot them the same ~pace requi red aHd occu·
pied by historical evenrs. Ho\\ to clo~c the door on this little
Scot~man who all of a sudden seems to ha\ e become another
member of the family? wonders Arthur Uewclyn Da,·ies.
Arthur's sure the lirrle man presents no danger to his marriage.
He's harmless. Sylna loves Arthur and no one but Arthur; but
KENSINGTON GARDENS
isn't it a little rusrurbtng that Barrte \ec::m\ to lot•( tbe ltn•( the beau·
tliul voung couple:: feel for c:ach other? Barrie 1s delighted by thc::m
md-Arthur can't help IC:cltng-studtcs them And sometime:\ u
tsn't \C:C} pleasant to come: home: afic:r an exhausting day at court
and-~ Mar> Hodgson inform\ him vet .tgain that's she's lost
.ill control 0\'er the lirrle ones since Barne entered their li\'cs-
dbco,·er not only that your humble desire w dose the door w rhe
world and take refuge with your witc J.Jld children hasn't been
granted, bur, worse, that your children ru1d yonr wife seem pos·
'''sed bv the euphoria of thJt damned pygmy Scotsman who's
sptnning and spinning like a dcr\'i&h in the middle of the drawing
room.
Yes, Barne mcds to see them all the tin1e; he has succumbed to
the most delicrous and soctal of obscs~ions. Barne \isirs them and
bcsteges them and accosts them and works on his rexrs ''ith hts
usual monstrous conccntr.ltlon, whtch, when one of his books is
opened, at ttmes creates rhe tllu\1011 of watching him wnre letter
by letter as we read word by word
Ch<~rlcs Frohman, the Buddl1.1 of Broadway, has come to l on·
don to vistt. He tells Barrie 1hat lm pl.tp work very well m the
United State), but that he: \\.till\ ~omcthing else, something that
''til revolutionize tl1c history of the theater, that will tran~form ir
tore\'cr. Barrie tells him that he: ha~ an adea, a good idea. It come~
to him .ill .u once, fullv fledged ; there's no doubt whatsoe\ er a~ to
the wne of the first act, the pace of the: second, the denouemenr
of the third. It "ill be called 17Jr Admirnbft Cruhton, and 1t's about
the ~hip\\Tcck of a family of English ari~tocrars on a deserted tsland
\\lth their butler, and their life there for rwo years. On the island
because of his suni\'al msrincts and practtcal sense, by ~natural
sclccuon"- the butler, Cnchton, rake~ the lead, and the Lasenhys'
voung daughter, Lady Mary, f~ll~ in love wtth him and ... When
they're rescued, Barrie explains ro ( harles Frohman \\ith a mts·
chtC\'Olls lttde laugh, C\·crythmg goc' hack w being the way it'' as,
a\ tf nothmg has happened· ( n<·hwn returns to his cusromarv
duttc\ and his room in the ccll.tr of the h1g hou\C, the daughtc.r
rc~umc) the prcparatton\ lilr her \\edding to her old fiance, and
I 4ft RODRIGO FRESAN
d1e gro\\n-up~ again treat CrichtOn as an ordinary, capable ser-
\"ant. In a thoughtful moment, feeling gUilty, Lady Mary says to
Crichton "You arc me best man among us." The butler responds:
"On an 1sland, my lady, perhaps; bur in Engl.md, no." Ladv Marv:
"Then there's something \\TOng With England'' Crichto.n: "~tv
!Jdy, not even from you can I hstcn to a "ord again~t England."
( harlcs 1-'rohman smiles and rells Barrie to get to work. Barrio:
apologizes-it isn't the theater mi1".11.:lc Charles 1-'rohman was hop-
mg lor, he knows; but he'U come up w1th wmcthing.
Barrie worb en:ry night, but e\cn \0 he lc~ no day go by
wid1out rnalJng time for a visit w the llc\\clyn Davieses. Barrie
doesn't announce his \'isits. Barrie doe~n·r ~end ahead one of tl1ose
card.\ backed with siln:r or marblei.Lcd paper or printed on papier-
moichc, failing ro nke ad,·amage of the cm ·~ '>C\en daily mail deliv-
eries (wntmg letters back men is like talking on me telephone).
And Barne docsn 't limit Ius star . ro the hours established by. rhe
protocol of the era: me best time, the appropnate wmdow, being
berween three and six in the afternoon. Barrie s1mply shows up,
ICJ\'IIlg only in order to gi,·c hirmclf the ch.mcc to appear again.
Harne di~appcars tor the exact time nc~:e\\Jry tl) buy everything
menuoncd in hi~ gan1cs and com a,,nion~ with the boys and reap-
pear~ I he next day, accompanied by a \ .tlet \\ ho helps him carry the
huge paLkagc~ \Happed in shin) colored paper.
And "hat does MaT} Barrie think about aJJ thi!.! Ar first she
hares Syh ia, but tt doesn't take her long ro realize that it would be
be~r ro win her over. And after all, what's happening to her hus-
band now has happened so many t1mes bdorc: wim me actresses in
h1s plays: 1t's a childish, innocent, and surely fleeting voracious
nc~s. Mary and Sylvia have mtcrcsts m common: clothing design
.md imerior decoration. Although Syh·ia can't help being dis·
gu\tcd by M.try'~ constant rude displays of wealth, and is uncom-
l(lrtahle at the way ,\\ary uses Barrie\ name over and over again to
~cum: sm.tll favors-good tables in rest,turant~, better scats at fa,h-
ion shli\\S, and private boxes at Ascot-they soon become fiicnds
Without under..tanding \Cr} "ell why or what for. Barrie has
brought mc:m together to work on an im isiblc pia\.
JCENSINGTON GARDI:.NS I I "/
Dis,atisfaction \\ ith her marno~gc: g1ve~ Mary a boundless
hungt:r, an urgency to "do things" and kha' c project!..~ It <><:cur\
to her mar what she needJ> is a ~uuntry hoU'>C. Something ro keep
her <><:cupied, and if po~ible 10 J..eep B.trrie away from the Ucw·
clrn Da\ieses and little George; from the bo1 Barrie can't stop
ralkmg about and won't stop talkinp. to.
George has become Barrie's ideal la~tencr, and also a kind of
perfect .md exalting echo chamber tor his imagination and writing.
Barne soon develops a system, a method for assembling his srorics
(wh1ch-in me opinion of the mcrca~ingly furious Mary Hodg
\On "ha\e no moral purpose or virtue"): Barrie first reUs George
a story, men asks George to rcll It back to lum \\im aJJ me alter
arion~ a cluld might make to an adult story; then Barne tell~ n
llJck o~gain \\lth Ius own mcxhficanons. In tlus way mcy tm~ the
\WT\ b:tck and forth to each other o\er and over again, like a ball,
until 1t's h.1rd w say who came up With what.
Rarrie i~ c~pccially inrcrc\tcJ in George\ srill-rrcsh mcmonn of
lm day~ 111 the cradle, asleep and honwntal Barrie asks qucstiom,
anJ George putS his lunds to his temples and sq ucctes hi' eyes
shut .u1d speaks in a deep, •crious voice, like 'omeoue posses!>cd
\\hoi~ caUing up the g.ho~t' ofhi' brief past. Ar some point a name
emerge~: Peter, a baby who can fly because bi~ mother tbrgor ro
we1gh hin1 when be was born. A feather light baby \\hO abandons
lm carriage, escaping and buildmg a nest in the trees of Keru;ing·
ron Garderu;. Something hke that.
Accordmg to Barrie-although me~· mav ha,·e forgotten it, me
trauma of being imprisoned keeps them docile until mcy ach1c\·c
the consolation of amnes1a all children were once birds at the be
gmnrng of meir lives. That's why the wmdows in their rooms arc
. barred: SO that\\ hen they're
USUaU1• . JSSatlcd bv. me shadow of that
old winged memo11· the>' don't succumb ro the temptation of
wavmg d1eir arms and trying to fly up into the sky.
Barnc and George-and D.md and ( apt;un W-- m TI1r l,tt ·
rlr IV!mc Btrd-endlessly ralk and otlcr up thconcs about Peter Ar
fiN, Peter IS clearly m~p1rcd hv <..corge's httle bromer Peter But
he becomes a more complicated lip.ure .md he 1\ gtven a last name:
1-48 RODRIGO PRI!SAN
Pan, in honor of the ancient Greek god, symbol of nature, pagan-
ISm, and the kind of happy amoralicy that Mary Hodgson keeps
~olcting about- If Bame is a bad influence, then this imaginary
and increasingly concrete Peter Pan-who's also easy to associate
'' 1th the imperfecoon of certain pnm1ove Chnsnan saints-begms
to drive the little Llewelyn Davieses w1ld '~irh glee, and Barrie too,
who soon realizes that this fl)~ng child is the perfect emboctiment
of all his obsessions: childhood as a gr.wity·free land outside all
1,1\vs; the: firm determination to srop t1me hy refusing to grow up;
the verb to pln_v tn all 1ts posstblc conjugatiom.
And \O Peter Pan IS introduced tn the pages of TIJe Little IVInte
Bmf J\ .1 kind of ~ubplot, like a surpn<.e withm a ~urprisc. Peter
Pan e<.tablishe~ his d\\eUing place on the i\land m the middle of
the Serpentine, on Bird's Island, ruled bv the .:row Solomon Caw;
he pia\' wnh the fairies; sometimes he: vi~its terra firma, rO\\ing in
a nc:~t he u~c~ like a boat; and e\ c:rv ~o often he llies co his old
home ro <.cc bts mother erring for her lost son. Sometimes Peter
Pan b even a little upset to sec her so sad, but the call ofKcnsing·
ron Gardens 1s much stronger, and he returns there "for ever and
always."
Peter Pan also finds bts way into the last- mmure rc~sions of the
novel 7imlllt_v n11d Grizel, where, m one: of the chapters, Tommy
ask\ h1\ \\1ti: to kiss the: manuscript he's about to send ro his editor·
..Wi\h it luck .. You were alwa)' so fond of babies, and this is m}
bab\ " In the novel we're wid that this nC:\\ book about Tommy
Sandys-another of Barrie's alter egos-is T11e Wandering Child:
.. ! wonder whether any of you read it no\\. Your fathers and moth·
crs thought a great deal of that shm volume, bur it would make lit-
tle sttr 111 an age in which all the authors arc trymg ro sec wbo can
~ay Damn loudest. lr is but a reverie about a little boy who was
lost IIi' parents find him in a wood ~inging JO}.fi.tlly to himself be·
l.tusc he: thmk~ he can now be a boy for C\'cr; and he fears that 1f
thcv ~arch him they \\~ll compd him to grow into a man, so he
run~ lart.hc:r ti·om d1e111 into the wood and i~ running still, singing
to htnt<.c:lf because he is always to be a bo~. That is really all, but
T Sandy~ kllcw bo\\ to tell it. The moment be concci,c:d the
idea . he: kllew that it was rhe idea for him."
KENS I NGTON GARDENS I ·I Y
At the end of Tommy nnd Gnu/, Tommy Sandy~ kills htmsdl, I
rhtnk, and Barrie's reader\-\\ ho were: expecting something more
like Smtimmtal Tommy, the pleasant firsr tn~tallmc:nt-wcrc taken
aback b} the novel's bitterness and morbtdJt}' and its tragic condu-
StOn, \\ith adorable Grizd dc~trO)cd by her hu~band's childish
\\ays and Tommy hanging himself; or ar least ir seems to me that
he does, but now l'm not sure.
Barrie isn't very bothered by the book's poor critical reception
and its relatively low sales for an author ofllis stature. Barrie a ban
dons Tommy-the end of an era-in order to deYote himself full)'
to TIJe Little White Bird and Peter Pan and to go running to the
Uewc:lyn Davieses' house:, \Yhcre he tells George and Jack and Pe
tcr rhe new things their hero has done.
Arthur Llewel}11 Da,,es dec1des to flee, rake a break: he goes
on hohday with his family to rhe coast, to Rusongton, 111 Sussex
He needs to spend some ttmc: alone wtth hts chtldren and with h1s
wtfe, who is pregnant agam. Arthur dreams of a daughter; bur
Mtchacl b born, and once again they decide: not to christen him or
give him a middle name.
The Barrics-without sending word, they want it to be a sur-
pnse-foUow rhe Llewelyn Da\ icse~ ju~l a few days later; d1e> rent
a hou~e lc:s~ than a mile from d1ci r~.
Arthur pours himself a scotch and dtcn immectiately another
S<otch, and goes out to the porch ro take deep breaths of me sea
au. George and Jack and Peter JUmp for joy: during the holidays
thc:v'll be able to spend n/1 da~ \\ith Barne, "ho, as soon as he ap
pears, informs them that he has many thmgs to tell them about Pe
ter Pan, while ceaselessly taking pictures of them "irh his new roy.
Barne is an excellent photographer, and O\'er the years he manages
to assemble a sizable collection of these photographs: Peter and
George and Jack runn ing on rhe beach at Rustingron; Syh·ia read
ing under a tree; George and Syh•ta; Peter naked from behind;
George sleeping on a hillside; and my fa,·orire of all, Syi\'Ja at the
edge: of the -;ca as she tries ro dry a shppcry Peter, naked again, the
towel flappmg like a flag. The compmlUon of the scene tS elmer w
that of an 1mpressiomst pamung than anythmg t\plCal of the stauc
photographs of the orne, bur It ai'>O h.1' the timeless mvstcn of a
/50 RODRIGO PR.SSAN
perfectly pre~cn·ed instant, which, like the mute lion roaring be-
hind tl1e glass of a museum displa)', seems to ha,·e been frozen
there forever at the prec1se moment it was about ro leap on us and
sink Its claws and teeth and happiness mto us.
I don't have pictures of myself as a child at the seashore. My
parents ne,·er took me. And I didn't disco,·er the sea until I ran
away, after Baco's funeral, pcdalmg my amphetamine-fueled bicy-
cle towards the Bnghton coast Maybe 1t was the distorting effect
of the: p1lls, but smcc: then I've been cominced that minors should
be forb1dden to see the ocean There·~ sometlung disturbing about
the back-and-forth of the waves that makes us think about things
we shouldn't unul \\t're more: inteUecrual.ly prepared, or maybe
Jess susceptible: to the liquid unhc:r~c: "c: once emerged from,
dragging oursclve~ like shipwrecked ~univors of the cataclysm of
evolution.
In Rmtingron, Barrie and the Llewelyn Davies brothers fly kites
m the morning a.nd watch meteorites fal.l at night. The sky is al-
ways popular; but in the Victonan era the sky is also the place
where the best stories begin. Barrie tells George and Tack and Pe-
ter the thmgs rhar\•c been happening in Kensington Gardens since
they left.
Barri<.: tclb them that Peter Pan rides a goat and that-if you
look for it hard and carefully enough-in Kensington Gardens
you'll find tl1e only house in the world built for human beings by
the fairies. "But no one has really seen it, except just three or four,
and they ha,·e not only seen it but slept in it, and unless you sleep
in it you never sec: tt. Th1s IS because 1t is not there when you lie
d0\\11, but it is there: when you wake up and step outside."
Barrie: tells them that the stars shoot down because: they're: nrc:d
of danghng m space lor so many thousands of years. He: tells them
that some of the Mar~ arc vc:rv strong and hold on easily, until,
from the top of the: tallc:~t tree: m Kc:mington Gardens, Peter Pan
hits them with a stone and makes them fall, and thev f.ill, furious,
breathing a last streak of dead light.
Barrie reUs them that the children who break their necks when
they tumble down from the1r carriages arc buried in Kensington
K.SNSlNGTON GARDENS I 5 I
Gardens, and that It'~ Peter Pan who buries d1em, and that those
\\hire ~tones be.mng numbe~ and mitials-W. St. M. and 13a P.P
1841; markc:rs indicating the exact point where: tl1e paruh of
Wesuninstc:r Saim Mar} borders the parish of Paddingron-are
really small gra,·~tone~ O\·er the little tombs of Walter Stcphc:n
Matthews and Phoebe: Phc:lps.
Barrie: reUs them, "Phoebe: was tbineen months old and Walter
was probably a little younger; but it seems thar Peter, as a matter
of delicacy, preferred nor ro put therr ages on the stones."
Barrie: tells them that at first there were no fairies in Kensington
Gardens, because children weren't al.lowed in Kensington Gar-
dens; but once the: prohibition was lifi:ed, Kensington Gardens
filled up ,~,th children and f.uries; and it's the fairies-who're inca-
pable of domg an}·thing useful no matter how busy they always
look-who change: the nouccs that say what rime the gardens close
and thus move forward that moment of farewell. Then, when the:
gates to the garden arc closed and the wmdows of night have
opened, the fairies come out to play and the trees clap for them,
slapping their br.tnche~ tOgether while tl1e lames dance in the
bright, sc:aet, magic air.
Barrie tells them that, after aU tl1c people out walking have re-
turned to their houses and the gates are closed until the next
morning and all the church bells arc: ringing, Peter Pan gaily plays
his flute and dances on the graves, where he sometimes leaves
white flowers. Peter Pan searches for little children who've just
died so he can bur}' them, digg1ng in the dirt \\ith his oar, and Pe-
ter Pan shouts songs to make those lost children laugh as he leads
them to another world, a world of eternal play. Another world,
wh1ch 1sn 't called Nc:,·erland )"Ct but already exists, a magic place:
where the tc:rnblc: bedtime hour nc,·c:r comes.
Jack and Pcrcr fall over lauglung: to them, death snll seems
~mething that happens onlv 1n the stones Barnc tells. Something
that doc:m 't eXISt, that could never happen in their \\'Orld and thc1r
lives and the hves and worlds of those around them. George listens
spellbound George-Mary Hodgson passes b) and can't help put-
ting her hand to her mouth m horror-gets up, puts a hand on his
152 RODRIGO FRESAN

chest, pointS tO the horizon with the other, and exclaims in a deep,
heroic voice: "To die will be an awfully big adventure!"
"To die will be an awfuJJy big adventure!" George exclaims;
and Barrie sighs and imagines an eternal, solitary child standing on
a rock in the sea, his hair wet and his hands clasped behind his
back, contemplating a horizon where icebergs seem to loom and
d1c moon, above a few clouds in the sky, is reflected in the water,
and the mermaids sing to the moon bcfon: retiring, one by one, to
their chambers benead1 the wa\'es.
Barrie writes aJJ this down in the notebook he carries every-
where tO record the things the Llewelyn Davies brothers say. He
notes them one by one, coUecting them like gold coins and hold-
ing them up to the light, knowing already that they must be real.
Barrie bites them, smiling with the advance satisfaction of some-
one who knows that he's no longer a guest but has become some- Take notes, Keiko K.ai.
thing much better and stranger and more impressive: Barrie has Please.
become an invader. I'U untie your hand so you can write.
Or betrer not.
Never mind.
Here's a portable rape recorder. The elecrric animal that's
the successor to those acoustic notebooks you can hardly buy
anywhere now. A machine that ears voices, which-when they're
played back, as I've alread)' rold you-sound hardly anything like
what their owners hear. The person a voice belongs to always hears
it blended: the part from inside that be hears with his brain; the
part from outSide that he hears with his cars. The two parts-as if
one's the finger and tho other d1e digital fingerprint the finger
makes-say the same thing, but a litdc differcndy, skewed; and it
sounds slighrly false, almost like a good imitation, buLan imitation
nevertheless.

REC.
One, rwo, three, testing.
Famous plactl> in London that I remember having ' 'isired in my
childhood:
15-1 R.OORIGO I'RESAN
Abbey Road Studios, Buckingham Palace, Biba, Piccadilly,
the West End, E3S[ Ham High Street, Notting HiU, Mayfair, the
offices of the maga;dnes Q}tem and Vogue, English Boy Ltd.,
Madame Tussaud's Wax Muo;cum, the Strand Palace Hotel, rhe
Sa,·oy Hotel, a flat on fbury Street and another flat on Primrose
H.U and another flat on Harley Street, Ca,·em:!Jsh Avenue, Kings
Road, Bond Street m Ma) fa1r, 69 Duke Srrccr, Denmark Street,
the BBC, Ennl\lll<lre Garden ~le,,~, the E~tablishment Club, the
Kenruck) Club, the Saddle Room, the Flamingo (also known as
die 'Mingo), the ~l.!.rquec (there arc t:wo Marquees), the Pic-
cadiU}, the E.llmg Club, the Ad Lib, the Scene, the Talk of the
Town, the Palladium, the Blue Angel, the Cr.mdaddy, the Colony
Sporting Club, the Pickwick Club, the Playboy Club, the UFO
Club on Tortcnham Court Road, die Roundhouse UFO Club,
me Positano Room, the Speakeasy, Quo Vadis, Regent Street
and Oxford Street, Vince, H1s Clothes, Male West One, Domino
Male, Wip's, Blaise's, Quaghno's, Luard's, Esmeralda's Barn,
Crockf(>rd's, Annabel's, S1hylla's, O~tcria San Lorenzo, Trattoria
Terra; .l.l, La Poubdlc.:, Le Kilt, Club dell'Aredlllsa, La Dis-
cotheque, Indic.1 Gallery, rate Gallery, Carnaby Su·eet, Savile Row
(w here the Beatie~, in july 1968, opened the general headquarters
of Apple: Corps at No.3 S.l\ilc: Row, London Wl, in a house Lord
Nelson once presc:med w Lady Hamilton; my father-this was just
after he was ship" recked-couldn 't han: borne ir, I mink), Sloane
Square, World's End, Vidal Sa.~soon, Chelsea, Bazaar, Grannv
Takes a Trip, I Was Lord Kirchener's Valet, Hung On You, Skin,
Mr. Freedom, Mcxicana, Hem and Fringe, Just Looking, Forbid-
den Fruit, Clobber, Blast Off, Through the Looking Glass, Just
Men, Mmukilc:u, the l·ool, Apple, Waterloo Bridge, Hyde Park,
and Kemington (.;arden~ .
Famoul> people I remember having seen during my childhood, at
part:iel> At many p.trties, wluch in the telling l'U merge into a sin-
gle unforgettable parry to save time and space. Ir's better that way,
after all: maximum luxury, like in mose big-budget history pro-
KhNSINGTON GARDENS J 55
gram~ in which a whole period of lmtory b condensed into .1 \ill-
glc night, and ~uddcnlv all kind~ of people who never kne\\ one
another meet in a big room in the glo" from a ~ingle fireplace:,
ra1smg gb~~e~ and bumpmg into one anomer and signing declara-
tiOn~ of" ar or mdependence
Parnc~- baptisms and weddings and funerals included-usually
define an era much better man the careful analysis of everything
that was done: between one party and the next. And here mey arc,
here they come, me ghosts of my Chri5tmascs past, wluch
becau'iC of the \\ ay po~tCilt)' WOrks-ha\'C become me ghosts Of
( hri\tmasc~ present and future. Spints mhabiting a dimension
"here it's al\\ ay\ ('hri\tma' bur where the "most fumous birthday
in luMory" 1~11 'r celebrated-says Marcus Merlin-and instead we
celebrate the po~'1bihty of \topping and altering ordinary time
with the wild ab,mdon ol a ncver-endmg part)•. Ghosts that really
e~ist, because back then they already bdie\'ed in life after death
or-who knows-lik afi:cr the things d1ey'd done to make diem-
M:Ivc~ f.1mous e>r inf:111iOU>.
They aren't gue~ts, Kdko Kai. They're in'·aders. They're in-
\'Jdcrs who come early and almost always leave early-early the
nexr morning, or a few days later. The)' come to Neverland, they
alight from brand new cars, they smile ~ if aware that a flash
might catch them from me bu~hes, and diey Step into a painting
mat's half Hieronymus Bosch and half Wally's World: Wally, that
idiot "ho .ll\\ ays has to be looked for, and when we find him, we
can nc,·cr understand \\h) \\'t: wanted him so urgently.
Here the) come
Mant Allen (an ed1tor at ~\lgue, hunrmg for new fuces and find-
mg roo man); never have there been '10 many new faces in London
all at the ~amc time, talking .ll1d blinking and k1ssing and dnnkmg
and S\\ allowmg· \\ekomc to the '>a fan of me Age of the ~ew
~ace ); Woody 1\llcn (in London filmmg Cnsi11o Royale, he make~
JOke\ about ~l ar.:uw .111d l~ung that no one undcr.tands; 'omeone
a~ks him what b.md the\ pl.1~ 111, "hat gallen they show in, what
IS~ RODRICO I'RESAN
. " . :~ thev act in, what restaurant they cook for, what boutique
"l esign clothe~ for), the Animal~ (Eric Burdon ~ks Bob D}ian
if Bob Dlian is there vet . ~r-:o, he'~ not here vet.." Bob Dvlan .
replies); Princess Anne (\\hOm I always get mixed up with Princess
.\1argarer); .\1Jchdangdo Amomoni (he's p~ing out an obses
sh dv detJilc:d questionnaire to photographers to help hun de,·elop
the protagonist of his film 8/on•·Up. \\ith questions like: "Are fash·
ton phorographers a'ked to highlight the model's se:.:uality or JUSt
the clothes?.~ ~.-\re your marnages usually happy?,~ ~Are you reli-
gious?," ~If not, ts tt becJu\C you 1gnore am th.ing hning to do
\\ith cthtcal codes or beha\"lor or 1s tt a constdered and explicable
rCJCCtion', ~ "Do you dnnk tn pub~?," "Do you have chauffeurs for
your Rolls Royccs nr dn you prclcr to dnvc them yourselves?,"
"Do you worry ahour liti.- and death?" !'hen he .mnounces that he
plans m p.unt the gr.t\\ uf Maryon !'ark, where he'll film part of
the movie, .1 color "gn:cncr than green"); Jane and Peter Asher
(sister ami brother); John .md Neill A!.pin.tll (brother and brother:
being a brmher or .1 sister is in, being a comin is our}; Richard
A,·edon (he rakes a photograph of me when I'm seven in which I
look like a kmd of mint.uure M;u-lon Branda from The Wild 011c;
Ringo lem me rhc cap I'm wearing, the one he had on in those
free cinema, rwttl•tlfr l'n,quc sequences trom A Hard Day's Night);
Franci~ Bacon (tn a bad mood ), Joan Baez (1n a worse mood);
D;nid B~ilcy (he tell~ C:\crvonc he: runs into, "BIOJv-Up e'en moi ...
I'm the insp1rauon lclr the photographer character in the film,
nor Brian Duff) or Terell\:c: Donovan, got tt?"); Chc:t Baker (who
falls dm\ n the stairs, a very lon~:t flight of stairs, and, don 'r ask me
how, ends up on his feet, ~miling; one of his teeth is missing);
James Graham Ballard ( ~1lenr and always smiling; he's like a replica
of an ongmal Ballard '' ho never existed, strange as it sounds; and
all of a sudden, a~ if charged by an clectnc current, he startS to talk
ahour rhe mi"\C of the PoN:hc '>ihcr Sptdcr that James Dean died
m : "Days before dnvmg 1t lor the lir;t ttmc, Dean had filmed a
~hort ~pot '' arning young people ahout the penis of rhc highway
and speeding . • What wa' ldi of the ..:ar tell on a me..:hanic and
broke both lm leg\, later, '' lulc it \\ .u. being displ~ycd as part of
KllNS I NGTON GARDENS IS "
a ruad·edtK.trion l.1mp.1ign bv the Greater Lo~ Angde~ Safcry
Coun.:il, it fi:ll un the fl.ttbed truck that "as transporting it and
cru\hcd a teenager\ hip, a Be\ crly Hilb docror who bought the
engme and lll~tallcd it Ill another car died driving it ... "}; Baldlll~
(he arri,es, then leaves almost before he's arri,cd, after asking us
"hcther we 'vc seen hts cat, and, most important, whether his son
Sta.\h de Rob aka Pnnce Stamslas Klossowski de Rota and Baron of
Waten·illc-rcceml~ arrested w1th Brian Jones, his comrade in
narcouc ad\·enrures, for possession of cocaine, methedrine, and
h.1,h-1s here); Bngme Bardot (her English is abysmal; Paul
McCartney keep\ bcggmg her pardon, m rather poor French, for
not ha\"lng put her on the cover of ·'tfTt. Pepper's Lolltly Henrts Club
Rnnd: "All four of U\ thmk you're the bt~t; I don't kno" whose
idea tt \\J.S 1<1 usc Di.mJ Dor~"); Syd Barrett (who's nor yet with
Pink. 1-iloyd, and who \1111 ha\n 't tncd ly\Crgtc acid; or if he ha.~, ir
due.,n't ~cem to ha\e altered lm behavior much); Alan Bates (he
takes hi\ ~hirt off .11 the ~lightcM e~cu~e. for no reason, simply for
the pk.lburc of bhowing off hi~ chcM); the Rca tics (who ,u first re·
mind me of .1 mon~tcr wid1 lour he.tds and then of tour decapi-
tat<::d bodic'>); Cedi Beaton (he looks like a burler who must also
be a murderer); Samuel Beckett (he too~ like a murderer who
must abo be a butler); Mari~a Berenson (learning to pant); Jane
Birkin (teaching people to pant the way she does in "Je t'aime ...
moi non plus" with Serge G:unsbourg); jacqueline Bisset (learning
to pant); Cilia Black (paradigmaoc groupie, once coat-check gtrl ar
the Ca\"crn tn l.1' crpool, then glam \alesgu-1 at the boutique Btba,
and now chanteuse and protegee of Brian Epstein and the Bea·
des), Peter Blake (panrmg to anyone who comes ncar how it was
that he and he alone can1e up \\1th the idea for the co,·er of Sgt.
Ptpprr's l.o11c{\' lfmrts Cl11b Rn11d , D1rk Bogarde (he takes note~ 111
one of thn\C 'el) practkal and elegant and proletarian Molc:skine
notchook~; he\ drC\\nl up a\ a 'en ant, Ycry amusing ; Da,·id
Bo\\iC (in mtmc m.1keur .md \crvmg canapes), ,\l;u-lon Branda (hi'
Fnglt'h t\ e\cn \\or.c than Bngme Bard<>t'\1, Tara Brom1e (a li.-"
mghr\ bcli1re he: died, yet alreadv gmng off dtar odd and unnm-
tak.ahk phmphornccnlc th.tt bootes that arc almost corpse\ gi'c
 RODlUGO PRllSAN
off 1; Lenny Bruce (talking to himself, talkmg fast); William Bur-
roughs (p1clong up, cutting up, and reasscmblmg the pages that
~mcone tore from the books in the librar> a few nights ago, while
pc:rfummg the: library "ith a strange: fum1gaung tank); Michael
Came (constantly trying to a\'Oid Terence Stamp; they have a
~han:d flat and ~harcd ambitions, and they've recently been fight-
ing; thmgs got complicated when the model Jean Shrimpton
moved in with them; no, she moved in with Terence, bur inro the
sa me fl.ll where Michael was also living); Truman Capote (that
voice like fingernails on a blackboard singmg some song from The
Mikndo 0\C:r and over again all rught-actuallv just once, but like
an infinite shrill sampling); John Cassa\'etes (\\ith a ponable
Super·8 camera, but no film); Cher (''ithout Sonny); Julie Christie
(whom I tell m love ,,;th when I was th·e, for the first rime in my
hfe, I thmk I'm almost sure; 1t's so strange to see her up close
and 111 a house when you're used ro seemg her 1mrncnsc and gi-
gantic hkc an Olympian goddess and always m open spaces, on
f:1rms and dachas and in meadows and on steppes); Eric Clapton
(he: keeps stealing glances at Pam Boyd, the future Patti Harrison,
his best friend's best girl; he can't swp stanng at the future Patti
Clap1on; best friends arc so easy to bt:tray); Cassius Clay (he:
shouts that he\ the: KING Of THE WORLD!!!, Cia)' shoutS it in cap-
itallcn.:rs and \\ith three exclamation points); Scan Connery (un-
bearable, his hair moves; later, T learned that it wasn't his hair; I
prom1~d myself there and then that no maner what happened I
would ne\'c:r stoop so low as to wear fake hau 1; Jerry Corneltus
(he exists, I sa'' him); Tom Courtenay (he runs and runs alone
through the woods of Sad Songs that ~urround Nevcrland); Noel
Coward (he tells me that when he was fourteen he was chosen to
be Slight!)', one of the lost boys, in the 1913-14 revival of Peter
Pnn; I thought it was a lie but it was true; I found a photograph in
which Coward appears in costume; here he is: Slightly); Quentin
Crisp (learning to pant with the girls); Peter Cushing (he asks
whether anyone's seen Christopher Lee); Tony Curtis (I suppose
he's here because he's one of the people who appear on the cover
of .\_fll. Pepper's um~y Hmrtr Cl11b Bm1d; Peter Blake asked him to
KENSINGTON GARDENS J.H
be included, I don't lo1ow "hy), Itlv Da,·ies ("Raymond is JUSt
hke me; e:xccpt he's a gem us and " sa\'S mv father, smihng
sadJv); Sammy Da\'iS, Jr. (Cassiu) CIJy, already Muhammad Al1, ac-
cuses Sammr Da,is, Jr., of being a goddamn black sla,·e at the bed.
and call of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, & Co.; then he says that
he should be ashamed to be one-eyed, Tewish, and a dwart~ be
cause good Negroes ha,·e to be perfect); Catherine Deneuve (i mi-
tating Marlene Dietrich); Marlene Dietrich (imitating Catherine
Dcneuve and then asking Dcneuvc why she isn't on the cover of
Sgt. Pepper's umel_v Hearts Cl11b Bn11d; Deneuvc pretends not m
understand the French of the German, who does appear on the
cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Harrts Cl11b Ba11d); Donovan (1 al-
ways felt so sorry for tum); Fran'i01se Dorlcac (a fi:w nights betore
she died, but already ginng otT that odd, unmistakable phospho-
re\\:<: nee that bodies that arc almost corpses g~ve off); Bob Dylan
(l',c: already told you about Bob Dylan, Kc:iko Kai); Sibylla Ed
monstonc (I remember her name, but not her face); .Magnu'
E1sengrim (for one of my mother's birthdays, I remember h1m
performing a magic trick in which he curs off Sibylla Edmon
stone's bead, and maybe that's why I can't remember Sibylla
Edmonstone's fuce); Brian Epstein (he keeps swallowing seda
tivcs-Carbrital; it's a few nightS before he dies, and he's already
ghing off that odd but unmistakable phosphorescence that bodies
that are almost corpses gi\'C off); Marianne Fairhfull (once 1 ~aw
her naked ); .\1Ja Farrow (who wa~ a horrible television Peter Pan,
Hnllmark Hall ofFnmt, ~BC, 1976, the kind of woman you ha\'C
no interest m seemg naked, e\·en when you're \'cry young; if you
happen to sec her, run, Ketko K.ai. she'll rry to adopt you); fed
cnco Fellim (he's explaining to Terence Stamp abour lm next
character, Stamp's character, 111 hi\ next film, Fc:llmi's film, in
~omewhat Fdlini-csquc: Engli\h: "Tcrc:ncino . . . You was party.
One org1a. Lotta whisk)'· Glu-glu-glu Troppo hashish, mariju.1na,
coca c fucking fucking fucking. Fringili-trungiii tutta Ia mght.
Doppo a Roma LSD in aeroplano . "),Peter Finch (clme to !11i~
worldly notsc, his hands 0\c:r hi' car~. not understanding much,
undcrstandmg nothing ); Albert finnc) (~hirtlcss, J\la.n Bates cilred
/60 RODRIGO l'RESAN
him ro take hi~ shirt otT, Finnc1• seems slightly embarrassed); Ian
Fleming (he came thtnking it was my grandparents who were
thro11ing the party, dcc1ded to stay, is 1gnoring Scan Connen•,
who's filmmg his first Bond mo\'lc; Flcnung will die before the:
pretmere, I think), Peter Fonda (he tells john Lennon that he was
dead once, that he kno11 1 11 hat 1t'\ like to be dead, and that
"there's norhmg to worq ahout tlu:rc:" , Robert Fr~cr he shows
photograph\ of the work1 of Jrrtlt' from lm gallery and distributes
colored hamkuft<., he·, 11 c:anng a p.ur him\Clf on his left wrist, as a
som·erur c:ommcmorannt; lu~ rdc:~c from pmon, where he 11 as
sent on ~orne rypic.U nan:o£1n charge wid1 l'.lick )agger); Lucien
Freud (he asks, a httlc c.lc1peratclh 11 hethcr we'1e ~een his dog; me
answer is no, 11e'rc still loolung for B.Utllus's cat); Serge Gains·
bourg (he nc1cr looks women in me ere, be prefers to stare at
thctr asses; and when they a1k htm why he won't look tllcm in me
eye, he says, "I'm JUSt ~o shy all I can look at is )'our ass"); Judy
Garland (she kisses me, 1hc hugs me, she sings to me; l don't u n-
derstand a word 1he ~ays); Allen Gin1berg (who c1·en then made
me t:mbarr.lSM.:d f(>r hun, .md still docs), Glenn Gould (glo1es and
scarf and woollen tap; he '·'Y' th e Be.nlcs ''.1re a completely sec-
ondary phenomenon"; my t:uher, thrilled, hugs him ); Graham
Greene (who, in one of hi\ ~c,eral lying autobiographies, A Sort of
Life, tells hOI\ he u~cd to r~ad in Kc:min~.\1011 Gardens when he
was lirdc; and I wonder whether he e1er played wiili Barrie and
Porthos); Hugh Hcthcr (in pajamas, bkc me, who on many of
mesc occa~iom would come down from my room and stay up like
a stowaway through those party mghts follo11ing upon party days;
Hugh Hefner's pajama\ were light-blue, mmc were a paisley or
psychedelic prim, ah1 a~ s bought at the boutique: Granny Takes a
Tnp or I Wa~ Lord Kitd1cner'~ \'.Uet, I'm nor sure which); Da,,d
Hemmings (.\IKhc:langclo "Don't Call Me Signore, Call .\1e
.\1ichdangc:lo~ Anromoni ha~ JU~f informed him mat he'll be me
star of B!oJI'·Up, not Terem:e Stamp, de~pitc what eleryone minks:
"Keep quiet, top secret,~ he \\.trns him); Jimi H endrix (me most
brazenly impossible person to mutate back men, when everrone
mutated everyone cbe, because, well, Hendrix was black-he was
K I·NS I NC,;TON GARDENS /(1/
bard w irmt.u e, .lhhout;h Hcndnx W.l\ ea.1ier to tm itatc than
\ ammy }),1\ i1, )r., I \Uppme); Audrey Hepburn (she came w11h
Georg.: ( ukor, they're di\Cll\\ing the pos~ibtlity of making a P~ur
Pnn mgether that 11ill ne1er be filmed, Audrey Hepburn in the
lead rolc, hcr eyes as big a~ mouths; sh.: 1mghr have been the best
Peter Pm of all, l thought then and ~till think no11 ), David Hock-
ncr (he asks hOI\ nice me \1 earner ~ in California ; Michael
Holling~hcad (who's come to London w1m two thousand doses of
l SD lcgall} Imported from a go1ernment laboratory in Prague in
a mayonn;use Jar, ~Aldous Hu\lcy's favonte elixir; the old man
pa\\C:d on to the other s1de after one last nsit from tllose visionar
ic:s \\1th rhc:1r holy 011'>, hallcluph,~ he ex.plams); Dennis Hopper
(he a\k~ Bnan f pstcm for p1ll~ and tells lennon that he'll nel'er be
dead hke that idtot Peter fonda); Bnan Jones (w1mout the Rolhng
Stone~); Dan111 Kaye (I nel'cr thought he was funny; there's noth·
ing kss funny than someone dc~perate to seem funny); me party
girl Christine Keeler (.tnd her pal Mandy Rice· Dal'ics, their face&
al11 ay' tr.tmfixcd by the ed10 of .1 pa~t orgasm link.:d m the sou nd
of the next org.1~111; and yet they don't pam, they are n't intereMed
in wlur Jane Birkin wam~ to teach them: they know how to panr
perfectly well); the Kra\ brother& (t:>1~n gangster~, fa~bionablv tim
gcrous; one night I &,l\1 -and, moH disturbing of all, benrd-how
thc1 broke the leg& of a bon vivant who owed tllem someming·
thcv took him inw the billhc~ at Nc:"erlmd and men ' immediareh
d1en.: \\J~ rlmr ~ound; d1en they born came out smiling Siame~c
..
'mile~ and adjusting each other's ucs ); Ttddu Krishnanlllrti (he
giv.:s me a mantra and then, r.:gn:mng 1t, demands it back); Stan
lc:y Kubrick (the best of all, he comes wim a giant monkey which I
learn 1~ a man dressed up as an anthropoid, or somcmmg like
mat; Kubnck kneels and sm1lcs at me and asks me whemer l be
hc1e mrdhgent hfe C\l~ts on other planets; I ask htm whtch
planer he mean\: the earth M me planet l live on?); Ph1lip Lar·
km (thmkmg·\aytng 11 ntmg rec1t1ng h1s ~~c,·er such innocence:
agam" poem); Peter l..1wlord (a kmd of sleepwalker programmed
to ~ar rhc name' Kennedy .tnd \matra at least once a mmutc );
'I 1mothy Lear) (m orbit, drittmg, mtrabtlc tripru; he passes out
/(>2 RODRIGO PlUlSAN
sugar cubes mat he blesses wim a drop of "spirirual elixir"); Christo-
pher Lee (he asks whether anyone's seen Peter Cushing); Sonny
Liston (after barely two minutes he's KO'd by Clay/Ali); David
LitvinofT (guru of the Chel\ea dem1 monde; James Fox asks his
ad,ice about h1s character m Pcrformancr, "Oh, come ·with me to
the bathroom, l'ox1c ... I ha\'e ~omethmg tor you to trv," Lit\i-
notl rcphcs), Joseph lo\Cy worncd about the imminent f.Uiure
of his Moduty Blniu), ,\lagK Ale:\ (horn Yanms Alexis Mardas,
td.:' 1sion repa1rman and gcniu\ in reMdcncc ;u Apple Electronics
at the expcme of the im:rcas1n~y ch.10ti..: finances of his four
bosse!>, a fc'<.:mh swmdlcr "orl..mg on the creation of stereo
surround-sound "all paper and me comtruction of a floating com-
munal house on the Greek 1sland ofLeslo so the Bcades could live
there \\ith their families; and who knows, maybe that Robinsonian
project was abandoned after wh,u happened to my parents at sea);
Princess .\largarcr (whom I always get mixed up with Princess
Anne ); Dean M.trtlll (he looks over at the Rolhng Stones and
comments, with a smile .tlways propped on a martim, "It's not that
they have long hair; it's that their f(>reheads an: low and their eye-
brows arc bushy," .tnd .1dc.h, "Somebody bring me another Dean
1\1artini"); Joe Meek (,, mu~ic producer whose behavior has be-
come incr.:a.\ingly bi<!:arrc, creator in 1962 of rhc ~ucce~~ful instru-
mental sci-fi ~inglc "Tcl~tar~ -electric guitar and the sound of a
toilet-and of l Hmr 11 Nrll' II'Or/ti-the first conceprual-electronic
album-and famous for dJscovcring the an1azing acoustics of tiled
bathrooms, which arc great for recordmg ,·oice tracks; here he is, a
few mghts before he die~. already giving ofT that odd but unmis-
takable phosphorco;ccncc that bodtes that arc almost corpses give
off; he's thmkmg that 1t wouldn't be so bad to go home, blow his
landlady's head offmrh a smglc \hot, and then blow his own head
otT, in the bathroom, if po'>\iblc, to "sec how It sounds," and so
it'll be easier to dean up all the biO<Xi; the idea comes ro him, and
then immediately he putS it into practice); Paul Morrissey (Andy
Warhol's right arm and left side of the brain; he looks around and
scowls and says, "I can't understand why all of you keep sa}ing,
'I'm cxpcnmenting with drugs.' \Yhat you're experimenting with
KHNSINCTON GARDENS I 0 l
i' illness No1\ th,lt M:ientbts ha,·c managed to eradicate polio and
smallpo\ and ;til thmc childhood di~ca!.cs, \\hat you're doing i\
drugging yoursdve\ ro sec what it'~ like to be sick"), V. S ~aipaul
(\\fur's he dmng here? I guess he hasn't been able to shake the
habit he picked up "hen he u-.cd to "rite for the BBC Caribbean
ne11s broadcast and they sent hun to strange parts of London in
search of~lo.:al color", if so, he hasn't lost the grimace-parr dis-
gust, part pleasure-of the person who slices open a bit of organic
marrcr JUSt before It begins to rot and peers inside ro see ho1' the
worms generate themseh'e~ 1; Nico (not to be confused "ith Nico
Ucwclvn Da\1CS, son of Arthur and Syhia~ it's Christa "'Xico" Paff-
gcn, the chanteuse Warhol foisted on the Velvet Underground; ir
\\111 be a long nmc before she dies m a bicycle accident in Spain,
and she docsn 't yet have that odd but unmistakable phosphores
cence that bodies that arc almost corpses gi,·e otT, bur you can
hardly tell the d1flcrcncc); Rudolf Nurcyev (he dances, but the
truth is it doesn't impress me as much M what Chct Baker did);
C'lacs O ldcnhnrg (from whom my mother commissioned some-
tbi11g sm111l); Yoko Ono (li·om whom my mother didn't commis-
sion anything); a handful of you ng ladies and lords, their last name
Ormsby-Gore (a ri\tocrats \\ ho enjoy ascending to the hdls of the
damned ex-schoolmates of my parents, who return to the vaulted
bedroom' of their parents' castle> "hen me sun comes out, like
vampires who drink Otlly blue blood); Andrei\ Loog Oldham
(Rolling Stones PR man, po\sessed and prophetic, predicting that
in the future "people '~ill argue about whether the sixties starred
in '67 or ended long before, "hen the Beatles left for ,-\merica";
he: uses the fingers of both hands to count how many inno.:enr
Soho pedestnans he's hit rcccnrh· in his new Jag); Joe Orton (a
fe\\ ntghrs before he rued, but already giving ofT thar odd, un-
nustakable phosphorescence that bodies that are almost corpses
gi' e ofl; he rips pages from books and socks photographs to them,
pages that, nights later, \'v'1lham Burroughs ''ill find); Peter
O'Toole (what, can 1t be> a~ usual, he bursts into tears while snll
sm1hng, and cxplams ro me why gla\Ses must be tapped when you
roast: al l the ~cnscs arc 1mohcd m the act of drinking-'itghr,
 J(t-1 RODRIGO PRESAN
touch, taste, smell-except hearing, he reUs me '"ith a lachrymose
smile; and there's got to be that crystalline drinlt! to make everv-
thing perfect); Jimmy Page (session man par excellence, not y~t
\\ith Led Zeppelin, executes complicated magJc passes over Hen-
dm's head; Hendrix has no idea what's happenmg); Anita Pallcn-
bcrg (naked too ); Pier Paolo Paso lim (he instructs Terence Stamp
about h1s next character, Terence playing Stamp, in his next film ,
Pa~olini'~ film, in somewhat Pasolini-esquc English: "He's a boy"
and "Open your legs all Lhe time," that's all, no more is needed);
D. A. Pennebaker (\\~th a portable earner.~; bur, unlike Cassa-
vetes's, it has film in it); Pink Floyd (without Syd Barrett and
\\ithout David Gilmour; they still call themseh·es the Abdabs);
Alexander Plunket· Greene (husband of .Mary Quant, an impecca-
ble su1t but no slurt; tie and buttons paimed on his bare chest);
Roman Polanski (he asks Vidal Sassoon to please fly to ~ew York:
to cut M1a farrow's hair for Roscmar.r's Baby); Elns Presley (I'm
not absolutely ~urc It was Eh1s Presley; l don't remember whether
it ''a~ Thm Eh is or Fat Elvis: either way, It was someone who
looknl jmt like one of those two Eh•ises); Mary Quant (showing
just how h1gh she plans to raise the hem~ of her next generation of
mi1tbkirts and laughing when someone says that, according to po·
lice records, the rape r3[e in London has gone up 90 percent since
women started walking around \\ith their thighs exposed); Oliver
Reed (sh1rtless, but drunk); Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave (more sis-
ters ); Tom Ripley (he exists, I saw h1m ., ~icolas Roeg (he tells
James l-ox how to play Ius next character, James playing Fox, in his
firn film, Rocg's first, without hanng to say more than one word:
dm..qs ; "l told you so . .. You wcren 't paying attention, come on,
otl" to the bathroom," insists Lit\inofT, passing by again); the
Rolling Stone.:~ (without Brian Jones); Ed Ruscha (one of my fa.
vorite painters, one of those painters who seem to paint nothing
bur the nonrcalist moments of reality: letters in place of clouds,
the sky a~ canvas); Ken Russell (one of my least favorite directors);
Vidal Sassoon {who tells Roman PolaJ1ski okey-dokey, he 'U cut
Mia Farrow's hair; good publicity for everyone); TeUy Savalas (still
,,;th some h= l; Gerald Scarfe (he drc\\ me, it came out ugly;
he e\plained that no one comes out nice-looking in his pictures,
K B NSING TON GARDENS
It ~n 't hi~ sryle ); Peu:r Seller\ (who would'\'e been the perfect
(.aglio>trO Nostradamus Smnh, bccau\e It "as Peter Sellers \\ ho
\\JS m~· inspiration for Cagho~tro Nostradamus Sm1th and Unde
Max M.u and Jim Yang'b ephemeral Buddhist father and almost
every other supporting character 111 the ad\entures of Jim Yang;
and someone comes up to Sdlcl"l. and asks him ro be Hook in a
possible new version of Ptter P1111, and Sellers answers in a strange
voice, in a voice that is and isn't his, in one of his many ''oices, Nl),
tbattks); Jean and Chrissie Shrimpron (more sisters); Frank Sinatra
(I'm not completely sure; in any case, someone who looked just
hke Frank Sinatra and who talked to the person exactly like the
large· or extra· large·sizcd Ehi~ Presley); Lord Snowdon (he takes
p1crures, drinks champagne, re,·eals nothing ); Terry Southern (all
he seems to care about IS the fate of the English team in the up·
commg World Cup finals of 1966); Ph1l Spector (\\;th a gun he
sometimes shoots into the .m: bullet holes m the ccihng, m a \lilt
of armor, in a taxidermied polar bear my grandfather brought back
from an expedition); Terence Stamp (who keeps looking at h im~clt
in the mirror; the mirror's stanng back at him); Cat Stevens (I've
already wid you about Cat Stevens, Kciku Kai); Sharon Tate (her
ghost; or maybe it's a fe\\ night~ bcl(m: ~he died, T'm nor sure uf
the date, though she'.s alrcad>· gi,in~ otT that odd but uruni.stak·
able phosphorescence that bodic:~ that are almo.st corpses gi1e ofT);
Vince Taylor (be's dressed in black leather and has his head
sh,l\·ed, and as he burns pound notes he announces tO the crowd·
"Money is the root of all evil, and I'm Matthew, the DC\\. Jesus, the
cxtraterresrial son of God . . Rock and roll! I have a plane waiting
. .
for us a few miles from here, and vou're all invued to flv with me
to Holl)'WOOd"); lke and Tina Turner (she was hitting him, or
at least that's what I saw, I swear); Twiggy (everything makes
her laugh); Kenneth Tynan (he laughs at e'•erybody ); Roger
Vadim (he still hasn't d1vorced Catherine Dcneuvc, but Cath ·
erinc Dcneuve is already hnng with J),md Bailey: no problem ),
Vcrushka ("I'm in Rl01v-Up roo" ); Momca Vitti (no one can stand
her, c~pccially nor Joseph I .<)\C~ and !ere nee Stamp); Klaus Voor
man (~ho"ing ofT the orig10al of h1s 1llmtration for the cover of
Rtvoll'tr); Andy Warhol (who 'a}' "ah, oh, ah, oh, ah ...~ ); Eve ·
166 RODRIGO Flt.BSAN
lyn Waugh (he arrives Ihinking it's m) grandparents who're Ihrow·
ing Ihe party; he decides to stay); Ihe Who ( Ihey've just come
from plaYing on Ready Steady Go!; I saw them on television, Pete
broke Ius guitar and Keith smashed hts drums and I, not wanting
to be left out, Ihrew my little desk out the window that same
night);
. . . and my father and my mother (a few nights before they died,
but already giving off that odd, unmi~takable phosphorescence
tim bod1es that are almost corpse~ give off);
... and my little brother, Baco (a fe\\ n1ghts before he died, but
already gl\ing off that odd, unmistakable phosphorescence that
bodies that arc almost corpses gl\'C otl; but Baco is more phospho
resccm th.1n any of them, pure light, one of those deep-sea fish ris-
ing to the surface to dazzle the world);
. . . and me (bdore and during and a.tlcr Baco, making my way
into tho~ parties as if they're lost continents and strange civiliz3-
tiom An explorer who suddenly feeb he's swimming in the dark
ware~ of an almost dried-up aquarium. A sea cemetery where the
remnants of a race that refuses to gro'' up smk to the bonom, 3
race that would rather die than get old, a race that chooses to let
death tbss1lize it m a golden time and unrepcatable space rather
than resign 1tsclf to living condemned ro remember past glories,
perfect instants when London was the center of the universe, and
in the center of that center everyone spun on hi~ own a.xis, special
and happy. What's interesting about this, I think, is that none of
them seemed con~cious of ha,-ing made such a decision. To vanish
early and all that. And therefore the sudden proliferation of dead
people made them so uneasy that d1c:y could be soothed only by
another dead person. Dead people upon dead people:. A revolution
of the tmrnorul dead, the worshipped dead. Posters of dead people
KENSINGTON GARDENS /07
papering w•tlh, and dead people a\ prJycl'\ for meditation and tram·
!ormation, because the dead don't die: ~They JUSt move on to an·
other level of existence; SOrrO\\ at thetr parting is nothing but an
c:gousncal emotion that dtsrurbs the1r new karmas; don't mourn,
burn incense," instructs the guru of d1e moment. A new dead per-
son before: the: idea of the: l~t dead person has sunk in. Dead peo-
ple like lut singles, like flec:ting songs of the week mat lose volume
as t.hey slide ponderously down the steep slope of the rank.ings .
Each new dead person as a fresh pain ro soothe the pain caused by
the previous dead person, so C\'crybody else can keep walking, anes-
thetized, on the edge of the generational abyss from which their
children, on the beach below, watch them fall and shaner, and, like
~r.unbled puzzles, drag themsch·cs to shore, and then the wa\·es
and the rocks and the drowmng and down to the bonom ... Or
maybe I'm being too dramatiC \\1th these memories inside of
memories. A mirage-another one forged out of memory. A use·
till dctense mechanism for when 1t becomes necessary to try to
understand the incomprehcmible. Maybe nothing was so ominous
and elegiac. Maybe d1e)' were all ju~t people: who got burned pl.ty-
ing with fire or drowned playing with water, not knowing how to
u~c: all that water to put out all tl1at firc. Insignificant cn:aturcs.
Lost children. Maybe-definirely-mythification is the only effec-
U\ c remedy for healing certain wounds and for making certain tllc:y
nc\ c:r disappear completely, like some scars, the best scars;
... and Marcus Merlm, who seems ro de\'Our all brighmess with
the bottomless voracity of a black hole (he lights a match and
bnngs it tO 3 pipe and sucks hard, exhaling a yellow, Oriental
smoke, and then he smiles like a dragon, or, no, like a man who's
just devoured a dragon; Marcu~ Merlin smiles at me, offers me his
ptpc, say~ "welcome").
Welcome, Barne.
Barrie everywhere:, all the: nmc.
168 RODRIGO FRESAN
Barrie as an imp, an uncle, an elderly son, an almost inrolerable
being, thinks Arthur Uewelyn Davies, who clings to that almost so
as not to say anything, so as ro smile, in stiff astonishment, at Bar-
rie's capering outside the realm of decorun1; after all, his sons are
happy with Barrie, and Arthur's happy if his sons are happy.
Distance is no obstacle for Barrie, and he leaves his new coun-
try house near Farnham, in Surrey, on Tilford Road, near the ruins
of Waverley Abbey, to travel with no difficulty at all to Kensington
Gardens or Burpham, where the Llewe)~rn Davieses arc spending
these holidays.
The house in Surrey is called Black Lake Cottage, and Mary
Barrie bought ir to console herself for being nobody, doing noth·
ing, having become a dccorati,·c appendage of her famous hus-
band. Mary decides to become a decorator appendage: she rallies a
small army of builders and gardeners and-to the joy of an at first
indifferent and then enthusiastic Barrie-that July of 1900 the
merry members of the Allahakbarrie Cricket Team play their first
match of the season tl1ere. The writer happily discovers that his
wife has turned one of the rooms on me top floor into a perfect
study: a new sanctuary where he can lock himself away and escape
for long hours, far from his wife.
Barrie works harder and harder. On September 27, 1900, T11e
Wedding Guest opens at the Garrick Theatre-a work his friend
Charles Frohman calls "too Ibsen·ish." \Vhich means " not mucb
happens in it." Charles Frohman advises Barrie to keep on \vith
The Admimble Cl·ichtotl instead of writing plays like The Weddin.g
Guest, a drama set on the day of a wedding at which the groom, an
"artist," confronts an ex-lover and an illegitimate son whose exis-
tence he wasn't aware of until then. Most critics-who, since this
was a "Barrie," were expecting another of his light, efficient, un-
complicated comedies-agreed with Charles Frohman but said so
less tactfully: "Unpleasant," "Painful," "A defence of promiscuous
seduction," and "Of doubtful morality" are some of the things
written about The Weddin.g Guest. Barrie sh rugs his shoulders. Bar-
ric believed in TIJe Wedding Guest (altl1ougl1, years later, he would
oppose its revival); Barrie smiles and keeps writing TIJe Little White
Bird, feeding on me commentary of his beloved George (who is
K£NSINGTON GARDENS I09
seven now), and ~njoying newborn .Michael. For Barrie it's as if
each of Sylvia and Armur Llewelyn Davies'~ new SOilS i'> a fresh
chapter or act in a colossal work in progress: h.is greatest success,
play or novel, it doesn't matter.
The Christmas before, Barrie had taken Jack and George to sec
the pantominle The Babes in the Wood at the Coroner Theatre in
Notting Hill Gate. Inspired by the children's excitement, Barrie-
competitive, jealous-decides to go one better and write a Christ·
mas pantomime himself, to be put on by all of them during the
holidays: Tile Greedy Dwmf, subtitled-with a mocking \\~nk to
Mary Hodgson's worries about the bad influence of Barrie's sto·
ries-A Moral Tale.
The only performance takes place at 133 Gloucester Road on
January 7, 1901. The specially printed program has on its cover a
photograph of little Peter Llewelyn Davies, who is identified as
"The Author and/or Peter Perkin." Inside it proclaims: "The Allah-
akbarrie Cricker Club has the honour to present for me first and
only time on any stage an Entirely Amazing Moral Talc entitled
The Greedy Dnmrj, by Peter Perkin." Following this tl1ere is a cast
list: Miss Sylvia as Prince Robin, Mr. Barrie as Cowardy Custard,
Mr. Gerald du Maurier as Allahakbarrie, Mr. Porthos as tl1e dog
Chang ... and an enumeration of the different scenes, which take
place in a dearing in me woods, at a little schoolhouse, and in "me
horrible home of the greedy dwarf."
Barrie had kept the role of the cowardly bad boy for himself,
and-according to the children present at the event- his character
was even more terrifYing tl1an tl1e dwarf. Barrie's great dran1atic
moment came when, to delay the start of a fight, he slowly took
off vest after vest until counting twelve, each in a different bright
color. Sylvia spent the whole play smiling sweetly and timidly, as if
aslcing forgiveness for this hugely ridiculous thing she'd let herself
be talked into by Barrie \\~thout knowing quire how. Mary Barrie
was fantastic as the Little Good Girl, a dauntless heroine who was
clearly more than happy ro defeat Syh~a on the territory she knew
best. Arthur Llewelyn Davies applauded enthusiastically, or so it
seemed.
Once the performance was o'·cr-thc staging of which had cost
170 RODRIGO PRBSAN
Barrie a considaabk ~um-and while d1e guesrs and actors did
justice to d1e cakes and ice 'ream, Barrie jotted down in hls note·
book:
• Sea of faces mouths open.
• I listen to me children talking on me stairs. "Is my hair
muSl.ed?," etc.
• The eat's disdam. The dog's •merest.
• Ch1ldren ga7Cd •mc:ntly- ne,·cr sm1led.
• Thc1r polite eongrarulations.
Five da~"\ after the opemng and dosing of flu Greedy Dwarf,
on ]anUM)' 12, 190 I, the eurram t:1lb for the last orne on Tlu
Wtddin,_q Gucsr aher une hundred performances; it hasn't been a
failure, but no one can \JV It wa~ a sutte~.
Fifteen davs after the opening and closing of '111t Greedy Dlvarf,
on January 22,1901, after ~eventy·tlm:e and a half years ofunimer·
rupted ~ucce~, Queen Victoria's name comes down from me
Buckingham Palace marquee. The longest rdgn in all of history is
over. The Grear Queen, tile greatest ~ince Elizabeth, is dead. No
one bclie\'CS that such a thing-tl1i~ endmg- is possible. True, peo·
ple kne'' she wa~ Ill, but Victoria, Victoria Rcgi11a, was immortal.
Vicroria wa~ England "I mourn the safe and motherly old middle-
class queen, who held the nation warm under me fold of her big,
hideous Scorch-plaid ~hawl," Henry James wrote at me time.
Did the funeral ~cn·ice uke place .u Westminster? I suppose ir
did. Did it snow on that long, terrible day? I don't know. It docsn 't
matter. I can say mat me funeral ll'ns at Westminster and that the
snowflakes were 1mmense and perfect and-for once-all exactly
alike, like me SilO\\ in thOse globes }'OU just have tO shake tO make
me Whi[CS£, gentlest StOrm ~0 one dared yet to Sa}' ..God sa,·e the
King"-they were pracncmg 1t m pri,·ate, m front of the mirror,
like sleepwalkers, the bhnds drawn and the: lights low, in secret-
and all the ~trc:er~ wc:rc decorated \\1th purple bows, and all me
Children were drc:s,~d Ill b)a,k, and at Jast-mJS IS what me grand
deaths at rhc end of great hves arc lor-the twentieth century had
realh begun.
KllNSINGTON GARDENS I ' I
The fact that m\ father met Marcus Merlin at the service markmg
another anni\'cr~.tr) of Viu01i.1 ·~ death-mv father went year afta
year w honor the memon of tl1e ..only real queen," wying with
the 1dea of writing a ~ong about Victoria's \'eins, her rhick, blue
ropl blood-urely had something w do with the way m) farner
dloughr about Marcus Merhn. As an almost magical being, readv
tor anyth•ng. The perfect ad,'iser to a king, ,,;m his multiple abili-
nes ro rake charge of almost anythmg, maybe with me help of me
powerful mag•c of his last name.
I \\Tote jim Yn11g tmd rile Sn•i11ging GnrljJJtcr as an ob,ious
honuge ro Marcus Merlin, m gratirude. Marcus Merlin-as w.1s to
be C\pccrcd-didn'r like the book much.
S;ud Marcus 1\.lerhn: "There isn't enough action or blood to
make it a good gangster novel."
Rur acru,llly ]1111 YtliiJJ n11d tbr S111ingi11g GmiJ!Iter isn't about
gangsters, nur i ~ u \uppo~ed ro be; ir'~ one of dlose book.~ in
which a boy, Jim Y.mg, i~ rcstucd from peril by an ally of unccrrain
virtue but bulletproof plindplcs. In Jim YmiJJ nud the Swiugittl}
Gtll~fTSter, Jim Yang return~ to hi~ present, the 1960s, and Uttle
Tony Drbc:oll, ~on of Rig Tony Dri>eoll-one of the brut.tl and
criminal brothers Dri~coll, masters of tl1e East End gambling dem,
ob\iously in~pired b) Reggie and Ronnie Kray-steals his chrono-
cyclc. Then Memo Monk, head of a d\·al gang and Jim Yang's un-
e:\pected protector, makes his cntrance- vcrv much in me spirit of
Long John Silver m Tmmm: Island or Abel MaS"itch in Gt·ent
Expwnriom· and helps Jim Yang get Ius time· tra\·cling bicycle
back .Memo Monk i~ the S\\inging gangster of me tide: addicted
to the mystique of Hollywood, famous for Ius danong skills, and
emied for his success \\1th women, from starlets to duchesses
Memo Monk IS Marcus Merlin; and when was 1t that :.tarcus
Merlm entered In}' parents' h\'es, who in\1ted him, and how is it he
went almmt m'>tanrly from being a \'ISitOr to becoming a long·
term guen and an im adcr?
I hkc to think J\larcu\ Mcrhn c.1mc to Neverland at almost the
same time I ~I) came to London. Dark lightning shooting from a
J ~} RODRIGO FRESAN
colored cloud. It works for me as a n.urath·e device, although Mar-
cus Merlin came into tn} parcms' lh·es-and mine-before that.
But I can safely say th:l£, beg~nning 10 1966, Marcus Merlin be-
carne someone imporunt to me, .rnd therefore-as the narrator of
this story, after all-1 allow myself to gradually intensity his pres-
ence in keeping with my awareness of him. I claim such a right on
the ba\1~ of rhe narur.1l properties according to which stOries Me
structured, not only to make rhem more plausible but also-and
most important-to make them better
And if\ou'rc: \lccp\, Ketko K.l1, tfvou'rc filling asleep, here's a
pill that "ill hdp mu keep ,·our eyes open, help you forget your
eves \\ere ever dmed
Yes, pills h.tvc .t.l" ays been tn\ thmg, and \\ith the exception of
that innocent and accidcnt.t.l tnp counes; of my distracted father, T
haven't tried lpcrg1c ac1d a gam.
LSD is unfair competition frl1 a wnter.
Pills, on the other hand, keep you awake, 10 an eternal bright
noon, your finger\ t:tMer .llld f<t~ter on the keyboard of your com-
puter, until you re.Kh the: \peed of the electric brain.
Pill\ dut in the: Hxtic~, 111 the modern .lnd mod ~ixtie~, taught
you how to dance the new ~pa,tic dances (the Shake, the Jam, the
Rag, the Writing Blo,k, the Clm-Chat, the Bang!, the Sheik, the
Swtter, the Monkey, the Hitchhiker, the \Varusi, the Raj) and to
shake dtose strange new h:urdo~ (dle Perry Como, the College
Boy, the l'ou,ellc Vague, rhc Parka, the French Crew, the Rum
ble, the Wmdv, . the Bmooom!) .1~ vou . swallowed them drv~r .
\\ith the help of a Coca (ola-~cotch-vodka-Jime-rurn-warer-all
at once, all mght, hand\ full of httlc: helper\. You brought them ro
your mouth a~ 1f you ''ere punching your~lf, as if you wanted to
hide the hard ~mile that made your teeth seem to fu~ mto rwo
~inglc marble ''all\. Purple Heart\ and French Blues (the domestic
and imported 'cl)iun\ of Dryamil, re~pc:c:tivcly), Black Bomber~
and l'ig!(er .Minstrel\, dc\edrine, whatc:n:r there was. Pills that
fried vour brain and genit.t.ls "I can't remember the last time I
could masrurb.tte and I looked at a gtrl, not tiJrougiJ her," the
Mods rold each other proudly. Ptlh that helped you forget your
KI!,NSING10N GARDENS 1 - .3
girlfriend \U you could W IKclllrate on \\hat was most important,
yuur~clf Jnd yum clothe\ .md your lwr, the only thing you wamed
under you \\ .t~ J ~nx>tcr "ith an lt.ilian name. Pills dut made: your
heart beat faster, unnl the throbbing filled your ears, and you
danced \O vou \\ <>uldn 't die, to wear yolU'loCif out, so the effects
would pass Pills that m.tdc \'Ou stammer that you hoped vou
would d1e before vou were old. Pills that aged you early.
The duel betwt.-en amphetamines and lysergic acid is the first
great chemical batde, the first crack m the once-pristine porcelain:
.\1ods versus Rockers. The first chance-after so long, after so many•
wars waged by adults \\lth the flesh of children-for the young to
light the1r own wars. Before at the beginning of the fifties-the
Ted~. or feddy· Boy~, had appeared (gangs "ith Edwardian roots
domg their thing 111 South l.ondon), and beatniks imported from
America and mingling with the intellectual Angry Young Men. But
back then there was never anything like what there is today: fury un·
kJ\hcd, a 1var of lite or dc.uh. lt was the first of many battles to be
toug hr until rhe beginning of the third millennium by successive
ht)rdc, ofsuc"~~ive 1oM boy., trying 10 impose a new sryle on a sryle
that w.l!> hardly .lily older. Style as banner. Aesthetic as weapon.
The Mmh arc J !>ynthc!>i!> of d1c Moderns (who at first listened
only w the cuolc!>! jau .1ntl feuded with the Trads, who defended
Dixieland and ragtime and skiffle and blues) and the Modernists
(worshippers of Jean Paul Sartre). Merged, they'1·e now become
dand1es hailing from the fringes of London-Tottenharn, llford,
Stamford Hill and thev intend to reclaint the city's most exclu-
sh·e neighborhood\ for thcm\ehc.:s after e\pclling all those brutish,
1dioti..: Rockers. All the Mod5 care about is dressing well, with
da~s. Dre~~mg ahke and weanng thc1r h;ur the same and looking
pale; bcmg t\ lod~ rwcnty·four hours a day, and not JUSt when
there'~ some mag.11me photographer around. Not hanng fun all
the ume, \utlcring a little (flipping through Camus, if they're 10 rhe
mood), and sr.1ying up all mght h1tcnmg to Radio Carolmc, the
tim of the great Bnmh p1rate lt<JttOns. By 1964, the .\lods have
mmcd to the \\Cit and \Ulllh of the City: West End, 'hephcrd'5
Bu1h, RidtmonJ l'hc Moth h.tng out at the Flamingo, the Scene,
174 RODRIGO FRESAN
the Crawdaddy, d1e Goldhawk Social Club, or the Marquee. For a
1\lod, there's nothing becrer than being a Face, the rop level of the
Mod htcr.1rchy. A Face is a Mod who's more Mod than anyone
else; who looks most and best hke Terence Stamp; and has the best
clothes (the Mods can spend a week's pay on a tie) and the best
girl and the best pills and the best scooter; the 1\lod who's best·
looking, though he's really more interested in tmpressing his
mend~ than hts girlfriend. And there's nothing more intense for a
Mod than fighting alongside his fricnd~-"wc few, we happy few,
we band of brothers"-against the ~>cker,, thmc cretins who only
kno\1 how to stroke their lead1er jacke[!, and go to the theater over
and over a gam to ~ee TIJr Wild Ont \11th ~!arion Br.lfldo until iliey
kno\\ it b\" heart, down to the last still.
The differences arc clear- to the Mod~. the Rockers are brain-
less lower class animals; to the Rockers, me Mods are effeminate
office workers who're only mtercsted in climbmg the social ladder
and dtsarranging mcir hair as httlc a~ posstblc on their way up. The
Rockers hkc flvts, hard and pure. The ~texis memorize the lyrics
to \Ong~ by the High Numbers (about ro b\:come the Who), the
Kmk~, and the Small Faces as if they're g()spel, in~tructions for
rnovmg .md standing still in the world The Rockers ride powerful
Harley Da' id\ons made in me U.S.A ; the: Mods prefer delicate
Italian \hp~ and Lambrenas.
The Rockers and the Mods are mereforc natural enemies, m-
stant armtes, duelmg mirror tmages m ~arch of the best fighting
ground I can't unagme any of mts tntercsrs you, Keiko Kai. All
rhc:~e names, like me names of warrior races and ,·anished civiliza·
rions, must sound more like Gandalf than Sgt. Pepper ro you.
Drutds .1nd clb and magic contests for the trove of all-powerful
rehcs. It ~ccm~ right to me: the greatest legends have humble ori·
gin~. Th.ll 's the trick of it, d1e beauty, rhc meaning, the mystique
that make~ you go rwllling out of a trench '' ith your teeth bared,
feeling the most courageous fear you ever thought it was possible
ro feel and enjoy: believe me, Keiko Kai, no one·~ more ali!•t than
those who belte,·e they've found me best and most precise reason
for d}1ng.
KENSlNG fON GAROI!NS
The lint big face-ofTs bet,~een .\tud!> and Rockers take place on
a cold weekend in the spring of 1964 lt \ t.hc coldest it's been at
this d;tte for eight} years, it's ~id On March 26-27, a crowd ot
Mods gather in me r.1mer co.:lnc:y C!Jcwn-on-Sea in ~'- The
town kids don't like me idea that these twits from the capital are
making fun of them because they li~ren ro "'Heartbreak Hotel,"
"Blue Suede Shoes," and "Don't Be Cruel." Some of them decide
ro start a fight. The incident reaches the papers, and soon the
whole th ing becomes a popular pastime. Weekend getaways: t:ake a
stroll along the coast mrough the crumbling seaside resorts, al
most like ghosr rowns, and along the way break .Mod bones, rock
mg them and rollmg mem. Both stdcs are children fighting over
the same tm'isible my Both ~ides have such a good time rhey
promtse to do tt agam next year, and so me beaches bum: Weston·
~upcr-Mare, Grear Yarmouth, Bnghton
One of mcse fights-the lasr of the great bardes back then-•~
dc\Cribed in Jtm Yang and tbt Swmgw._q Gangrter, with Srcn·
dhalian authority. lr was .1 brutal dash of forces. I was there I re-
member, Kciko Kai, th.tt once 1 read a letter by St.:ndhal ro hi~
sisrc:r Pauline. Don't ask me to explain who Stendhal was. I don\
have the lime, and I'm nor in the mood. And there's no reason
why I ~houJd: Stendhal slips in and out of m~ story almost wimout
leanng a tr.lce. I'll just tell you mat Stc:ndhal-like Peter Hook-is
abo an ahas, and that 1, hke htm, approach fiction writing wim am.
btvalence, and, frequend\', \\lth htde enthusiasm.
Stcndhal's lener, which I learned by heart from reading ir so
often ·tr's a very short lettcr-\\J~ \lnttcn on Apnl 1, 1814, m
Pans, and tt goes like rhts.
l am ,·cry well. Two days ago there was an enjoyable battle
at Panti n and Montmarrrc. I wa~ witnc:s~ to the capture of
the hill.
Evcn·onc bch:l\ ed properly, there was no disorder. The
manhab performed manc:b. I'd he: most grateful ro have
nms of you, and of your hou\Chold .md M. de Saim-
Valhc:r\. The family ts \\ell I am ltving at home.
176 RODRIGO FRESAN
And the letter i~ \lgned b~ a certain General Terre, another of the
aliases dut Srendhal pardon me, Mane Henri Beyle-was so
fond of, I suppose
This letter alway~ llltngued me. Was It a joke> Could it be true
that the Clti7c:ns of !'am earned thctr toldmg chairs and parasols to
the edge of the cny tO watch !laalc' a' if they were plays? What
planet wa~ thi' ''here- with little eagerne\\ and even le'~ ,uccos-
a plodding COil\ul .:ould bc.:omc the gre.lte\1 novelist of his age?
What '' ;b I thinlung ''hen, after m~ little brother Baco's funeral, I
filled m~ mouth wnh colored p1lb .1nd got on m\ S.:hwinn biC\·cle
and pedaled south '' ithout \toppmg, mu.:h tJ.,ter and more ~­
phctammoid than the five fifteen train, and got ro Brighton? What
did the seagulls talk about among thcm,elve~ (suddenly I discov-
ered that imide my head there hV~.:d four de.uly dlstmct people:
the person l ''a' hcf(lre B.1co \ de.nh, the one I had become at
Brighton; the one I ''<mid be many ye.u\ IJter; the one I'll be
when rhis long, h1scom mght w1th you " over, Kciko Kai) .1nd
what did I talk to rny,df .lhout> Would I \Oille<hy be able to stop
running along that long ptcr wir h .1 \trangc p.tl~cc at the end? b
there a more terrible .1nd d.ulltllnp. in\'l:mion dun the sea, the
l.1ndless sea, rhat .u nwmo:nt~ ~ecm~ like ~omc:thing laid our to dry?
The sea the sea that rurn~ awav- no n\'er- w;u, it me? Do .vou be-
come part of rhe sea bv Mmplv taking to the road and hurling
yourself wuh your bJCyclc from the top of a cliff into the water, the
water from whtch we all came and to whJCh \\c'll all rcrurn? Who
rescued me> Who laught me '' uhout net or hook? \Vas ir a Mod
or was it a Rocker, and \\hat arc all tho-.c people domg fighting on
the bcad1, what arc all those d.1rk, heav\ moturc\dCS doing crash-
ing inro all tho~ light 'wotcr~ \1 ith too many reanie\1 mirro~?
How i~ ir-1 realize all of a ~uddcn-mat there are so man~ differ·
em reds in blood? \\'tm are those grrls and b<m doing in the aJ.
leys, why arc they leanmg <m each other and spreading their legs,
and why do they seem ro dance and moan a~ the police scatter the
young wamors? What will happen 1f I mix thts pill ,,;th that pill?
Why is the moon ~o big, and how can 1t be that the ocean listens
to the moon when the mcxm order~, uNm' t(,rward, now back:,
now forward ag.lln "?
KllNS!NGTON OARDilNS 1• 7
Plca,e: \\'Ill \omeonc explain ,lll l11is to me, and the manv other
thmgs I didn't undcN.md, that I ;rill don't understand.
Keiko K.1i: I li1 .:d under the piles of the great pier at Brighton for
5<:1 en da~' and sc:1 en nights. When the\ fow1d me, I waJ. almost
w1ld. I drank rain, .tnd ate: fish and Black Bombers. Step up and see
the Wild Boy of Brighton .
Yes, I was shipwrecked before my parentS were. Someone must
ha\c called them lrom the police Marion where I was left; but it
was ~!arcus Merlin who .:amc to get me.
;\brcus Merhn smiled at me sadl~· and proudly.
.
Sa.d Marcus ;\1crhn: u"-h httle lost bo\'. . . I think I'll call .\'OU
~I an l-nda\' ~
•
.\lar.:tl\ Merlin hrought me hack to London in the back scat of ht~
)Jguar, wirh the top duwn. I wa~ ra,·ing, shouting, and hurling
myself back and forth. Marcu' Mcrhn tied m)' feet and hands with
hi' bdt and uc-"my heM tic," ht: told me. It was nighttime, and
I remembc:r I decided to count aU the stars-or maybe just t:he
bright ~tar!>-until I found "the second star to me: right and l11cn
str.Ught on till morning~: the exact location of Neverland, accord·
ing to Peter P.1n. It w;~~n 't easy, of co~e. Constellations are ne\·er
wdl mannered enough m look like \\hat meir names sav the\' are.
Thi~ is a crab, the hunter, a btg d1pper, they tell us, they ~l;um,
pointing up into the ~ky. And we don't see anythmg d1ere, except
little hghts cmhroidcrcd on the 1mmcnsc darkness. The names and
tngrcdic:nr' of plll\-thme angular and metallic and dangerous
namc:s-nc\ er he to rou or dccCI\'e you: the\''rc: alwan what thev
say they m:, and wh~t they're \.ud t<; be in that chemic3l languag~
~ hke the l~um of the \okmne\t ( ad10lic ma.sses. I was-anlcn-
morc ot a hclic\cr tlun an addi.:t I'd karncd tun, ntrcmd\' well
'
'>0 that l.ttc:r I multi lc.1rn tu crash ncn better
I hC\ kept llll' tor .llmo\1 a month at the Great Ormond Street
Hmpttal The liN chtldrcn \ ho,pit.ll in the Umtcd Kingdom. The
hmpn.ll to ''hilh, in 1929, Barrie deeded the rightS to the p!Jy Pt·
I ~II RODRIGO FRI!SAN
ter Pan as well n~ the licensing and control of the character. When
the deed expired in 1987, when Peter Pa11 and its spin-offs
passed into the public domain-a special decree by the House of
Lords re\tored to the hospital tts share of the income, but revoked
irs ca~r-iron nght to authonzc or veto "mtcrpretations., of the play
and book Ptttr P1111 and the character Peter Pan.
I had a pnvate room there. I can't ~a) whether they attached
'' tres to Ill) head, or put a pte'<: of cork in my mouth tor me: to
bite do\\ n on I do r.:member the honeyed and cloying voice that
come~ from imide doctor~ whcnc' er they ha\·c: to talk to a child. I
remember the li:\cr; Ill\ hm<h ~ btg as balls; the overwhelming
thirst; being com1nced that if 1 were a train I'd be a train that al·
ways arri\·e\ late; the sight of a slup Mth steaming funnels on the
ccihng's horizon; the sound of btcydes in monon, at once retro
and funmsnc; and the unnustakablc sense of ha\1ng sported some-
thing important pul~ing JU~t outstdc my field of \ision, something
that wasn't there anymore when I turned my head, and would
neva be there again.
Every day, books ,lJld flower~ were delivered to my room. The
~cent was tcrriblt: Jnd powcrlltl and made me dream of whales that
;,melted like ro-.es. I tried to read, but-I'm left-handed, it's a
problem we left hamler.. have- 1 turned the page~ of books from
back to front. N, a residual effect of the pill~, I guess, my eyes al-
ways drifted to the last line, and it Wa!. as if those last words let me
unfailingly mnur everytlung that had happened in the preceding
pages. There wa\ no mystery 111 tflosc books, and I can't even
break them down tnto pages It "as as if everything they had to
tell me was a ~mgle, extremely long sentence, honzontal, stretch
mg on and draggmg ttsclf out for tmle~ And I was ,·cry tired. So I
re,igned my\elf to ending~. to th~: place to be gotten to. And the
strangest thing of all-It ~ccm~ pertinent to mcntton tt, Kciko
Kai-is that these were: the endings of bookl. that ha.dn 't been
"rittc:n ret. Ending~ f memoriLed thc:n and that I've just come
across agam many year~ later. And I ask. myseli' whether in child-
hood-when there's so little for us to remember, when there's so
much free space in the chambers of memory-we're allowed to
KI!NSINGfON GARDENS I 7V
glimp~c: \omc cptmdcs from our future in the deliriw11 of our vast
chtldhood illnc~~e~. the !her working like: a crptal ball.
I read: ~. I had nc\ cr known, ne'er even imagined for a
heartbeat, that there might be a place for people like us"; I read
kand connnued day after dav in a life I belie,·e ro be utterly re-
markable " And what ~ense was there in continuing to read: \Vhat
\\JS the fun of starting from the beginning just to wind up at end-
ings like these~ I wondered.
So I asked the doctors to g~ve the books to the other children
at the hospttal ( thetr pam and their mghm1ares, the sound of their
moaning, helped me sleep at mght), and 1 ga,·e the flowers to the
nurses, who thanked me by pmching my cheek and ''inking at me
\\lth cuggeratcd coquetry
One mornmg, my parents come to pick me up at the Great Or-
mond Street Hospital in my grandfather's Rolls-Royce. They seem
uncomfortable around me. [hey avoid looking at me and at each
orher My lather orders Dermott to turn on the radio. A broad-
caster <ln nc>unccs th,ll the: BBC has prohibited "A Day in the Lit~,"
bv the Beatie~, "bccau~c it considers that the song expresses a per-
missive attitude tow.1rd~ drugs, seeming ro encourage their con-
sumption."
"Well dunc," says my father.
h was the on!~· lhing he said all the way back to Neverlaod.

The character 1~ Barnc.
Barne working. Barnc rc,·ises and makes final corrections to
11JC Admtmblt Crttbton. Barne sends Charles Frohman the script
of Q:tnlzty Street, hi~ new pl:t)' for the actress Maude Adams:
ItS original tnlc 1~ Pbtiebc's Gardm; It take~ place during the Na-
poleonic Wars, and sr'll open at the Vaudeville TheaLre on Sep·
temher 17, 1902 Harric keep~ adding new chapters to Tbe Little
Wlmr Bml. And \1 hen Barrie feels hi~ head is about to explode and
hi~ hand can no longer bear to dip the pen in the inkwell again, be
walks Jh·e minute~ along a tree-lined path from Black Lake Cot-
t.lge to Tilford, where the Ucwelyn Da\ieses have renred a house
tor the summer.
The brmhers can almost feel h1m approaching: a slight but def-
inite change in the quality of the .ur, .md all of a sudden the little
man and his immense dog Me thro\\lng themsehcs on the ground
be.,1dc them
:\her 17u Grud.v Dll'nrf, none of them arc content simply to
IJtnr srones .unmore. nO\\ they want to see them, act in them,
make them come rrue. Barrie mvents characters, makes papier-
m.ichc masks. One with a fierce tiger face for Porthos and one of a
pirate for him: the mask of simster Captain Swarthy, his dancing
eyebrows invested \\ith the power to hypnooze little Michael and
KBNSlNCTON GARDENS I 8 I
make Peter walk the gangplank Jnd fall into a lake "infested with
sharks and crocodile~," where the ~hip they solemnly bapti.ted the
Annn Pi11lt ha!> sunk. Sometime~ the whole thing clueatcns to be-
come a liLrJe d:mgerou5, and Sylvia and Arthur Uewelyn Davies
have forbidden the: usc of arrows and the slurp real knive~ that
Barrie brings from home. Barrie and his friends disappear for hours
and return only at teatime:, chased by the rain and laughing up-
roariously, dry under the euphoric umbrella of those who know
themselves to be members of a secret socie£)•. I like to imagine
them pla)1ng and laughing and shouting in electric storms; the
lightning alwa)'S h1ts them, but instead of sniking them down it
charges them wnh a new, monstrous, alkaline energy.
Barrie's brought h1s camera, and he's always taking pictures of
rhe brothers; sometimes I shudder to think what Barrie might have
done if he'd had a video camera back then, Keiko Kai. Barrie
develops his own photographs. They're good ones. Today only
2 percent of the pictures we take are our of focus. Out-of-locus pho-
tography is an extinct ~pecies, a disealoe almost completely eradi-
cated by the immunity of automatic cameras vaccinated at birth.
Back then, 80 perce nt of photographs must have come our look-
ing a~ if thc:y were ob~cu rcd by a veil, wavering between faithfully
reflecting reality and invent.ing something new and misty. Barrie,
however, is very ~ki lled , and-so fur as child photography is con-
cerned-in the vanguard. His pictures are nothing like Lewis Car-
roll's stiff portraits of children. Here George and Jack and Peter
and Michael arc always Ill motion in photographs that ne\·er come
out blurry: fighting with a tiger, hanging the Captain Swarthy
doll, S\~immmg, raising their oars high and niurnphanr on the
deck of the A1111n Pmlt. Barrie decides to assemble the photo-
graphs and wnte capuons for them, and he pays the publish1ng
house of Constable to put out an ednion of two copies, one for
the Uewclyn Danes brothers and one for h1msclf.
Marcus Merhn got me one of tho~e rwo copies.
Sa1d Marcus Mcrhn .. Piea5e don't ask me how I did it. I don't
thmk you \\ant to kno",~ \\arnmg me before I could ask; so all l
'aid was "Thank. you "
182 RODRIGO PRl!SAN
The little book was called T11e Boy Castnways of Black Lake Is·
land, md I have it here, Keiko K:U. I'll rurn the pages so you can
see it.
On the cover there's a drawing of the three brothers (back then
Michael spent the whole day sleeping; he was still pracncally a
bab}•. and, according to Barnc, "an honourary member of the
troop" ) proudl} brand1shmg swords and nflcs.
On the first page n reads
T1u Boy
Cnstawnys
of Black Lake Island
btmg a ruord of tlu ttrriblt ad1•mrures
ofrht brothers Dm•w in tbt mwmer of 1901,
fairlifuiZv set forth by
Pt·fCI· Llcll'tlyn Davus
Lon dOll
Published by J. M. BA.RtUE
In the Gloucester Road
1901
The book is dedJeated to "Our Mother, in Cordial Recognition of
her Effons to Elevate U~ Above the Brutes," and it has a preface
attributed ro Perer but wriuen by Barrie, of course. Peter is four
years old then, he's the youngest of the starring trio, and he's de-
serving of such an honor- according to Barrie-"for being the
one who's most often dragged away from our advenrures by a
nanny telling h1m It's time for his nap." There we're informed:
..The date of our shtp\\Teck \~'aS August 1, 1901. I ba,·e still ... a
,;,;d recollecnon of that strange and ternble summer, when we
suffered expenenccs such as have probably nC\·er before been ex-
penenced by three brotl1ers "
In the long dedicanon "To the F1ve"-almost an essay, in fact,
that Barrie would write a quarter of a century later for the book
KllNSINGTON GARDENS 11/J
\CI'!.ion of the play J>rter Pnn-m author recalb the genesis of his
mo~t famous character and \ignals 77u BOJ' CIIStnways of Black Lnkt
Island as the opening ~hot, c;~lling it "a melancholy volume, the
btcrary record of rh;u ~ummcr, and the lxst and the rarest of this
author's works."
There arc siuc:en chapters. The last is titled "Conclusions
Ad,;ce to Parenrs About the Education of Their Children," and,
looking for it in the book, we find a blank page. The brief passages
of reX£ are set under dutry-five photographs for which "part of the
scory had to be made up later, because you always started doing
~methtng else juS£ as 1 pushed the button on my camera," re-
membered Barrie. And he added: "Captain Swarthy "-asn'r yer
called Captatn James ')as' Hook, Porthos wasn't called ~ana,
linker Bell d1dn 't exist; but I remember that one afternoon, as we
went mto the woods carrying Michael-it was almost twilight-
the boy wa\ fa~dnated by the twinkle of our lanterns and that's
how Tink was born."
Barrie kept hi.~ copy like a treasure, as if it were the Holy Grail
or the Hoi)' Shroud or a ~pi in ter or a nail of tl1e Holy Cross: the
humble seed from which a luxu riant religion grew. The other
copy-Barrie: notc:d-"a~ befits any object related to Peter Pan,
managed to lose itself forever in a railway carriage."
Actuall)•, Arthur Uc:welyn Da,~es lost it, and-as Peter Uew-
elyn Davies writes in his "Morgue"-the children's father never
felt particularly sorry for having lost it, or, rather, for ha\'ing
helped tt ro be lost.
The copy that dJSappeared on a train was ne,·er found, until
Marcus Mcrhn made 1t reappear- like so many other lost ob-
JCCtS ·as 1f It were the long-dc:layed finale of a magic trick.
The char;~ctc:r 1s Marcu\ Merhn .
Naturalh, ~br.:u\ ~lcrltn thinks ciJnrncur can only be a syn-
onym of protn.fJOIIIst.
Says Marcus Mc:rhn ~whv ~tclc for being a bad person when
you can be an C\.:cllcnt .oharacrc:rl"
I II 4 RODRIGO PRBSAN
As Marcus Merlin sees it, a ~bad person" isn't someone "bad"
but someone completely untnrercsong. And an "excellent person,"
for example, might be a "bad person" from an ethtcal or a moral
point of \'te\\, but nevcrthelco;s snll be an ~e'\cellent character."
And, yes, that\ the: kind of queHion Marcus Merlin asks. The
kind of quc\rion that would be an excellent character, if it were a
character. The kind ol quc\rion that-it\ understood-has no in-
terest tn the proximuy of any re~pon~e The kind of question that
an~" crs itself, it\ que~tion mark!. hook!. that you swallow almost
without rcali;ing it, hook!. that snag you fore\ cr. And you don't
care. You e\·en ltke ir. The feeling that nothtng depends entirely on
you an}more. Certain people h;m: that rare power. Ruthless fisher-
men. I suppose Jc\us WJ\ a linlc ltke that, for those who believe in
him. I'm \ure Barrie and Marcus t-lerhn were like that-1 believe
in them.
'iays Marcm Merltn: "Don't ask me ccrta.m questions, because
you'll m.1kc me .mswer you \\llh half truths; and a half-truth is
much more dangerml\ than .1 lu:."
Says Marcus Mcrltn: "An c:xccllcnt character is the most invin-
cible per~on imJgi!1Jblc- good or bad-but also filmed to look
hi;, besr. An excellent ..:harac:Lcr doe;,n't need an eyebrow hair
smoot.hed or J pcral of the flower on hi~ lapel adjusted."
Says Marcu~ Merlin: "Let me give you some advice: the key to
a great life is to invent your~elf first, and then invent everybody
else; to be the dtrector and star and \Utter of your own film. Most
people do rhe oppmirc. They thtnk they have to understand the
world first, and they wa\tc thetr nmc on that. They die having
been JUSt nmor. at a mu~cum when they could\·e chosen to be
work.~ of art ~
Says ~lar..:us .\ lerltn: ~M\ gr.tndfathcr, .!lso known as the King
of Fiuro' ia, killed him,df Mv father killed himself. My uncles
k.illed themseh·e;, .\h. brother killed hin~lf ... I , however, will be
murdered. I'm sure: of it What 1 don't knO\\ for certain is whether
that \\ill mean the e\ olution or deterioration of my fanilly history's
double hcbx. One thing is clear: they won't get me without a
fighr."
KBNSINGfON GARDBNS /85
And Marcus Merhn ~mile\, Mar,us Merlin's smile is like the
~mile of tho~c: giant Mdtue~ that loom Wlcxpectedly in the Tasman-
ian jungle, c\eept rhat ir 's .a smile: with teeth. Metal teeth, teeth
Marcus Merlin has armed in metal jackets A dangerous smile A
Cheshire-cat smile.
Marcus Merlm •~ the ~on of an Englishman and a }an1aican
\\Oman His father \US the perfect, comwumate spi': he made
good money on the black market during the \\ ar; he stole silk
intended for parachutes from the warehouses of the RAF and
brought tt to his wife so she could make women's stockings that
the\ later sold at exorbttant pnees. Marcus Merlin shows me a
photograph of hts parents. Martin Merlin is almost a twin of the
roung Trevor Howard (maybe that's how Marcus Merlin got the
habtt of almost auromauc;illy trartslating the faces of strangers into
the faces of famou~ actors) in hts tmpeccable striped suit with w1dc
lapels, unmistakably spiv, and that incredibly spiv pencil mustache
that seems tailor made to pull ram a subtle, ironic, constant smile.
Bertha Spencer, his mother, i\ a dark beaury with long legs and a
scorching gaze that gtves the frightening impression that each of
her eyes has several pupils.
Said Marcus Merlin: "My mother worked in the costume de-
partment at Ealing Studios. She hid her pregnancy until the last
mtnure. She was afraid she would lose her job. So it was there I
came imo the world, a different world, burrounded by the scener~
of sophisucated Engli~h comedic:~, comedies that always featured
some elegant crook . . Maybe that'~ whv I'm so mad abour cellu-
loid. AnY'' ay, m~ mother wa~ ne'er the ~arne after tn\' first scream
ruined one of Alec Gwnness's scenes. In 17Jt Man ";, tiJt WIJiu
S111t, l thtnk. Mv mother ne,·er torga,·e herself. I, on the other
hand, constdered tt an honor An unmistakable signal, an indis-
putable sign, that I was someone dtffcrent: I was someone who re-
fused to be born in a place a\ obnous as the hospttal; I would be
someone who refused to do ndgar thtngs or be a parr of rhem; I
would be untque, dtlkrcnt ~
Sa1d Marcu~ Merhn ~Mr father threw himself from Big Ben A
quemon of debt My mother t\ mad. You and I were born ro be
/86 RODRIGO FRESAN
orphans, my friend . . . Dead f.1thcrs, mad mothers," he con·
eluded. And that was the last time he brought up anything having
to do with hi~ family.
Marcus Merlin as another Engli~hman of mixed blood. A white
::-legro Another product of the maxing of different ways tO be
Engli~h Lake )am Yang, "hom Marcm Merlin always criticized for
bemg comfonablv Oncntal.
Said Marcu~ Merlin "You ~hould\c made him Pakistani and
~·ou'd sell e1en more boo~.~
Yes, Marcu~ Merlin is part of that broth seasoned '"ith fiery
colonial spices -the Caribbean, Africa, India, China, :-lew Zealand,
Australia- that began to ~ammer hot and furiously in postwar
London. Marcus Merlin was born m 1950; he's ten years older
than me, but at'\ as af he belongs to another period of history,
as if he's on the other sa de of one of those massive slices of
time that ~cparatc the dmosaurs trom man and the Spartans from
the Cnl\ader\.
It's 1965 when I meet Marcus Merlin-or, rad1er, when I be-
.
g•in to ream:mber M.m:u' Merlin. I'm live vcars old then, and Mar-
cus Merlin is fifteen, ;1nd to me:, Marcus Merlin is a... grown-up as
my parenL~. He'~ much doscr to them than to me, and I've never
yer been quire able w catch up with him. Now, Marcus .M erlin is
stili closer tO m) parent~: he\ older than me but somehow as
young as them. Marcus Merlin doesn't have an age: he has an era.
I know perfectly well how old he is, but the number of years
doesn't seem ro corre,pond to the omcless air with which he's
mO\cd through lite \mce rhe bcganning.
Marcus Merhn wa_' ah' ar~ a youthful adult. I, on the other
hand, wa.~ an old child It asn 't unu~ual tor the telephone ro ring
and, when I am11 er, for 1he \ oile of some silly ne''" girl to ask
whether 1\e seen mv little brother recently: "Darlin' Marcus.,
The ditlerence between tom and fifty-compared with the abyss
between five and fifteen-is like the distance from one side of the
street ro the other; bur it's a street'' ith too much traffic going too
fast, the unpredictable traffic Hght changing when you're halfway
across.
KllNSING'lON GARDilNS JH 7
So J\lar.:u\ Mealin tlie\ hap.hcr Jlun me to the very end, Kciko
lui. J\lar.:u~ Merlin lil.c\ w fly. He l ike~ planes. I don't. Sometime\
we n, rogether, and at\ on the plane, after his armored ~mile has
made d1e au·pon metal dcteClors go off, that .Marcu1o Merlin is
happieM.
Saad Marcus J\lcrhn: "You wouldn't undemand it. Bur I had
one of d1osc: tcrnblc duldhoods. Really terrible. Like in those
bloody old no1·eb you hke so much, with the children who scan·e
to death. I nc1cr would've beiJe\·ed ir was possible I could go up in
a plane Planes tor me were sometlung you saw in the sky. \'el") far
away Almost 111\Jsible. More noase than substance. That's why I
skappcd school and went to the ;urport: to watch the planes, to see
them take otT and land Could an)'Thing be more beautiful? Thar
momcnr of absolute, magical power when the planes leave rhe
runway, when they hreak tree of rhc pull of the earth ... I warched
rhcm go up and I said to myself: 'Yes, someday I'll be in one of
tl10~e In lir\t d.l~\.' When it became more or less dear how hard ir
wuuld he ro ger 1he money to buy one of those expensive tickets
anytime ~oon, Tw.mtc:d to Mudy so I could sit even tanher forward
than the rich pa\\cngcrs. That'~ wh.n I wanted to be: a pilot. Or at
least an air Meward. Bur d1ere wasn't any money ar home. So I
m.1de up f(>r it by forming a gang tl1at ~tok merchandise and lug-
g.1gc trom Heathrow, ha. Let's SJ\ that we were a kind oflosr-and-
found office. Or .1 lmr-and -lost office."
Once J rold Marcu~ Merlin that I had come up with an idea for
a nm·d: the ~torv of a bo) who'~ marooned at Heathrow. A boy
whose parenrs lo\c h11n \\hale thev're . checking m. A bov. who'~
~
ne\-er found and who gr01n up there, mO\ing from one terminal
to the ne\r hke a cross bet\\cen Tarzan and Robinson Crusoe, be
coming a kmd of urban legend .\1arcus Merlin gave me a ~trangc
look-1 dadn't understand It then, bur I understand ir now-and
suggested it would be better tor me tO ~sock ,,,th Jam Yang and
nor mix your\elf up 111 wcard snatl:"
Weard matt ,\l.1rcus .\1erhn and has weird srufr Is rherc anv·
thmg \\eardcr than i\larcll\ \lcrlan, Where dad .\1arcus 1\lcrl;n
come from, Or "J\ he ah' ays there, l:scry once in a while, 01 er
/RR RODRIGO FRESAN
the vears, he re1·eals bits of tus legend to me, tossing them to me
like ptece~ of an infinite puzzle, or like crumbs for the pigeons at
TratJ.IgM Square. He reUs me he spent ~educanon.tl holidays" in
the pn<;Ons ofBrurol, \Vmchester, Exeter, and Dartmouth.
He tells me he ~spent a long \\eekend" at Long Grove Mental
Hospttal because "they let me choose between that and something
much worse."
He tells me he had a "business" in Gibr.1h.1r.
lie tdl~ me he learned the art of hypnmis Irom a Germ;m ma-
gician. lie explams that it's true, you ~an't make anybod} do any-
t hm~ 1hcv don't want to do, no maucr how deep a tr.ulCe they're
111 He .1ho e:.pl.Um the secret dame, the \mall prim between hyp-
norilc:r and vktim: most times no one real11 kno"~ what d1ey
"ant, \O ••
He tdh me he worked for the legendan· record producer Joe
Meek, th.n he "went out to hunt sounds" 11 1th a tape recorder for
Joe Meek\ strange creanons: sonic collages about tnps to the
moon .1nd robots and ghosts. That's the oflictal verston. The unof-
ficial, oft the record version-the rrack htdden 111 the last concen-
tric gmm·e,-is that the young Marcus Merlin is ordered to go
from record \tore to record store buytng smgks by the artists pro-
duced by Meek so that the~ 'II ri\c: up the chart\. That's at first.
Almo\l immediatelv. .\farcus Mc:rhn dtsco1 cr.. that it's "easier,
cheaper, and more fun~ to bulh the record ~tore owner and keep
th,. monc\' tor himself. he ad1ises them that it'~ in thetr best inter-
esc to put the arnsrs produced br Joe Meek on thetr best-seller
hm Ihcn Joe Meek starts to go crazy. He leaves on Ius sunglasses
whtle he ~lccps; he doesn't even flirt with Marcus Merlin. Joe
t.lcek almo\t never sleeps. Joe Meek htrcs mediums to put him in
rouch with hb hero, Buddy Holly. joe Meek hears voices inside hts
head. )o~: Meek d.Ums he's being spied on by Rrirish intelligence
or by rhe KGB, whichever. Joe Meek ~pcmb his time recording
and \ending and receiving ''me~~agc:~" in hh flat. joe Meek almost
ne1c:r goes outside. Joe Meek r.uh to hi~ gun: he calls ir "my one:
and onlv ~ One day, his gun replie~. returning all his love at close
range:.
KllNSIN<.lfON GARDiiNS //IV
M.ucm .\lerltn decides the moment·, come to seek a new bm~.
.10 e~tcr-going mentor I '>upp<>'c 1h.tt's 11 hen Ill} father make\ hts
emran,e. Marcus Merlin \tarts ~ommg to the hou-.e all the: ume.
The: first thing he does is help 111\ l.llhcr build his studio in the ccl-
l.lr.. ol Nc:verland. Marcu~ ,\lcrlin lr1011~ ho\\ ro do these dungs
S:ud Marcus Malin: ~I 11 .~ inttiated into the mysteries of the
world of electronics when I d i~ovcrcd what a c:u- battery directly
connected to the nipples of a noNo-nke guy could do."
M:u-cus Merlin works for my furhcr, but he also works for the
Kray brod1ers, London's most glamorous gangsters.
Marcus Merlin has free run of the cirv's dubs. He knows them
hke hts own home-better chan hts own home . .Marrus Merlm
tsn't home ,-cry often: the 100 Club, .\brquee (Oxtord Street), Beat
Ctt), Roaring 20s, Top Ten ('tub, Marquee (Wardour Srrecr),
Ron me Scott's, jack of Cluhs, Round Houo;c Pub, the Scene, Pic-
.:Jdtlly )an Club, the flamingo, 'ltudto 51, the Ad Ltb, Notre
I).lme H .Ill.
I was at ~ome of them I thmk I w.1~ at some of them. Or nor
There\ a moment when .111 duh' 'ecm alike, or they're simply
shutlled like cards in a dcLk and tall back into place as the: reincar-
nau<m ol other clubs. Some dub~ dt~appc:.lr abruptly. Other.. die
wttlmut warning. Or the} bum inro lbmc:s in the middle of a
put) "Or someone helps them bur..t into flames,., says M.1r.:us
Mcrlm.
At the beginning of the sh.uc:s, Marcus .\lcrlin is the ne\\ star of
.1 l.1rge and long-established tanulv of enmm.tls. Marcus Merlin is a
gang)ter "ith S\\ing. Marcus Merhn ~naps his fingers and smtles
and wears the wtldc~t color.. well. Hts mother's rroptc.tl blood
lc:nd~ no color at all ro hts pale moon t~Kc, bur it makes tt shine
wid1 a new hght, like uolcn ~unhght. No, Marcus Merlin will
nc1er kill himself.
The first time I ~cc Man:u' J\ lcrlin the first time 1 remember
scemg Marcus Merlin ·ts .u a p.trry at Ne1·crland. One of my
btrthday parties. Marcus Merhn come\ up to me
'i.1p Marcus ,\tcrhn· ~Kid, I'm gomg no". I ha1·c to go Iced
'iOme trees .., I tell htm rree' don't cat. I tell him trees drmk
190 ROD.RIOO PRBSAN
Says Marcus Merlin: "No, no, no. Trees also ear: you dig a hole
a few feet deep and a few feet long and a foot or two wide. You
throw the meat in there. You don't need to strip it or cook it first.
You cover 1t up well And you go home whlsding."
The last omc: l saw Marcus Merhn, Kctko J(aj, was a day or two
ago. I don 'r remember If very well. The pLils, you know. I wenr to
,;sir h1m at the ho~p1tal. I went srra1ght from the airport, from the
airplane rhar brought me from Hollywood The: inrc:nsive·care
ward ~larcu\ Merlin had lo\t lots of wc1ght and was full of rubes.
Ten years older than me, but no'' an eternity separated us, and nor
Ortl) did he seem ro have (,lllght up mth me, be 'd gotten so tar
ahead he \\,lS almmt lmt on the hor1.1;on. ~lar\:uS Merlin was older
than me :u last Hb 'km '' J} hanging from his bones, making him
look like someone who's dressed too fast after leaping our of bed
to open the door co someone who won't stop knocking, who's
banging as hard as he can with h1s fist.
Said Marcus Merlin: "My boy, this is 1t ... I told you I wouldn't
kill myself; I prom1scd myself years ago. That's why I'm going
to ask a last tavor of you I want you to kill me. The best of both
worlds, I know, .lnd the question must be asked whether inviting
someone to murder me bn 't just a lesser form of suicide. I hope
not. One thing's for sure. it c.ln't be ''er~ complicated. Press a but·
ron or rwo. An air bubble in a vein. Or the old pillow method. I
leave ir up lO you, you've always been the best at coming up with
good endmgs. I was better at beginnings ... I don't think the
doctors \~ill realize. I know: maybe if you pull our some of these
rubes . and then put them 111 my hand .. they'll think I did it.
I don 'r care ,,·hat they rhmk. What I cace about is not being the
cause of my own death .. Don't look at me like that. I know it
won't be an ca\y thing for you to do, 1 know you think you can't
do it; but if there's anythmg men ace perfectly equipped for, it's
killing. It's in our blood All vou ba' e to do is puU the right lever.
So I'm going to hdp you. I'm going to help you hate me. I'm go-
mg to stop being an excellem character and just become a bad per·
son. Let's see . How to begin? Ah, I know: what was the last
thing your morher sa1d bctore she died ... ? Perfect ... I think
KBNSJNGTON OARDBNS I 9I
that·~ the bc~t pla(c to start, the magic words to turn you Into my
assassin . Now I'm going to tell you a story . . a children's
srory ... "
The character IS ch!ldhood
Childhood was inn~nted by adults. Childhood can orLly be ap-
preciated trom adulthood, so aU children's books are nothing but
more or less desperate exercises 111 nostalgia and revenge. And, oh,
how mce it would be 1f there were a series of children's books writ·
ten entirely by children, children's dass1cs produced by ch1ldren
between the age~ of five and six. Real stories, not invented; stones
rhat would relate, in JUSt the right amount of time and space, the
prcci'>C texture of weekend~, d1c epiphany of birthdays, the tear of
losing teeth or wetting the bed or the dark, the irreconcilable dif-
ti:rc:nce between '~ 1nter and summer, those two completely sepa·
rate dimensions.
There were always children, of course, but when was childhood
invented? Jim Yang says-be.:ause I make him say it-that the idea
of childhood was conceived in Vicrorian England. Previously, all
through the eighteenth century, children were dlought ro be sim-
ply miniature adults, impish beasts, nearly wild; empty vessels co be
filled with the fluid and substance of basic knowledge so they'd
grO\\ up fast and occupy their proper place in sociery, or the place
luck had bestowed on them.
The arri,•al of the Romantics begins to alter these expectaoons,
and suddenly ch1ldhood 1m't a blank page but a we1ghty volume
wnnen 10 code:, full of strange 1dca.s and portentous thoughts
watong to be dcc1phcred b) adult~ who haven't fully grown up.
Or who've grown up d1ftcrcnt Adults who 'rc usually unmarried
or h;l\ c no ch1ldrcn; adults I\ ho 1\ nrc monumental little books
Ch1ldhood 1~ dcc1phcrc:d 111 \:hildrcn 's books bv Victorian authors
who fed a ~rrangc and unprecedented kinship wirh children: l..c1\ i\
Carroll, Ch3rlc\ Kingsley, Fd\\ard Lear, Frances Hodgson Burnett,
Kenneth (irahame, A A M1lnc Looking glasses to pass through,
the wind hlowmg in the \1 1llow\, little bears and moles, little lord'
J 91 RODRIGO FRESAN
and hrrlc pnnc~es, and, most tmporranr of all· secret gardens. All
thc~e books ha1·e something m common· hidden places people can
reach only tf thev\·e earned their way, tramparcnt conceptions of
Eden regained Parents may ha1·e been e:o.pcllcd for their sins; bur
chtldren can set out ro find Eden, lind the road home, return.
What\ tmportant ts having enough time m be told the story. Sud-
denly what\ important is ro gro" h.m.lly at .1!1, to be ~mall enough
ro go through all the little magic doors.
And to believe.
I believe in Peter Pan becau~c onc morning-! c.:an 't be more
thJn fi1 e, l 'm still reading letter by It:ncr, word by word, sentence
b) ~entcnce-1 go our walking in the gardens of :Ne1 erland. It's
dawn, or the d~ing moment of one of mv parents' long pJrties,
and the .ur ts full of goodbyes, of engmes ren1ng up, of people
coming slowly d0\\1l the st.urs, ~hielding their eyes so the sunlight
doesn't make that crazy headache any worse
The need to get away from the home. M.1yhe forc1·er. I remem-
ber leehng that. And thinking that maybe I'd chmb a tree m the
forcM of Sad Song~ and nc1·cr come down. I wal k with my hands
in my pocke~, and I come to rhe \u mmcrhou~c:. 11here the Victo-
riam somcumc~ rehearse, and 1 go in, and-nw~tery of mystcr-
ie~-on the floor there's a book, and the book is called Pett>r P1111.
I open tr.
1 enter tt.
I read
All chtldren, except one, grow up.
And all books, cx..:cpr one, grow up Peter Pan-unlike all the
other boob 11 c read in childhood and rcrc,\d a~ adults; like the au-
thor of Pem· Pnu, like tile reader of Petn· Pa11--docsn ' t grow up,
will never grow up. Perer Pa11 i~ like Peter Pan.
I enter Prter Pa11, never ro emerge from it again.
The character IS me \\Titer.
The writer of chtldren 's lirerarurc.
K E N S I NC.TON GARJ> I:. NS I II !
The 11 nter of chtldren\ litaature lle..:omcs what he i~ a\ the rc ·
' uh of 01 dlll<fuh dcdsion, made, of cout"<=, m childhood Onlv m
d uldhood can 11 e face me o..:c.llltl '~Lne~ of words-the ad1 cn-
turc of reading them ami '' riting them, of acquiring alltho!>e tool~
of knowledge in such a short ume If you thirlk about tt a Iurie,
logtcally we should learn to read and write when we're older .md
rational and thoughtful, and not in tllat ahno~t savage mue. Bm of
course, if it worked mat way, no one would dare to be a writer.
Because, tf you think about it a ltttle, there's no more childish
dcctston man to become a writer: a dectsion that-with very few
cxccpoons-•s always made when you're a child, because only then
arc you crazy enough to face a challenge and a calling It lee that Ir's
a dcci~ion as unreal as choo~mg 10 he an a~tronaut or a hero of the
r oreign Legion ( I ask my~df "hether any profession could be at
once nearer and more alien ro that of the wmcr than that of the lc:·
~,o~tonn.urc: or astronaut, alway~ in orbtt and otT base and ~uspe..:ting
it won't be easy Lo come home ), .1nd it'~ alway~ made .u a moment
of cxqui~itc and extreme and finivc trr.nionalism. Keik.o Kai \\C
dcddc to become writer~ when we rcalile we won't be able ro be
anything cbe; when we fi ni~h read ing the children's book that will
influetKe us at e1•ery stage of our life to come; when- yes, all writ
c:r~ of all literature always emerge in the ~badow of a children·~
IHitcr of children's litera run: - we discover that we're mutants be
yond help or cure. We're hnlc reader.; then, and we tell our\ell'es
that we want to be btg wnrcrs, and we tciJ our p-arents, and our
parents look at us "ith a kind of horror, asking themseh·cs what
wcnr \\Tong and where we've come from The formauon of a
wnrer carries implicit \\1thin it the dclormation of so m.my other
professtons, and thus we find our~ckcs orphaned by a firsr impu l ~e
'parked Ill chtldhood, that freak age of all ages, that short and long
titnc whe n each day and night we change a little for tl1c o;olc \arts
facrton of knowing that we're tl lltqllc .ltld chmen and donmcd,
understanding that we'll nc~:cr grow up now, and that became
we're writers we'll he children and dlt ldto;h until the end of our
h i'C\ All ,·ocaoons change and gru11, c~ccpt one. \\'riting \\'Ill be
an awfully big ad1·cnrurc.
t\ mutation, yc,, but arcn 't mut.ttton\ the irrefutable c1idcn(c
I 94 RODRIGO FRBSAN
of the arnsnc nature of the e,·olunonaq process? Of those rare
momcnrs when regimented evolution e\pcrimcnt5, changing sryle
and frequency, JUSt to see whar'U happen?
Writers of chtldren 's literature arc strange ammals, bemgs deh-
catel} removed &om the profession's barrie~. '\11 of them arc writ-
tng very far from the front, and from the rcflcx.ve need to make
it onro the Grantn or NeiV Ytn·ktr li~t\ where young wrirer~-of
adult litcraturc?-want ro appear at .til COM\ ~o they can ~er sail as
soon a~ pos\ible, knowing that time keeps mm·ing faster and fa~tcr
and that literature, like c:vcrythin~ el'>c, ha~ .t~hievcd pop speed
and .tlllhor~ don't last as long as thev used to, seeming increasing!~
like: ~horr·lin:d, di~posable rock sta~: here com~ another one, a
ne\1 one, a newer one.
The process of children's literature is diflerent. Ir isn 'r a game
in the ~lick casrno of immediate fame bur something much more
complex and paradoxical, a long term ctlort. Chtldren 's literature
doesn't seck posterity for the author; imtead, 1t finds immorraliry
in 1ts characters. The name on the cm·er ts what'~ least important
in the end. Of greatest value is the title, ,md the name of the hero.
Thc~c arc books to be read by the most pnmiti\e readers, and also
pos~ibl) the moM passionate; readers who care nothing about
the writer', hll: or his ~t:yle; pure reader~, though not necessarily
lllll~Cnt
Children·~ literamre is enjoying a golden age, tn\ ested "ith the
~ame ~randeur and sense of the epic as certain classic texts of the
anctcnt world These are specimens with no e\ptration dare, and
perpetual inhabitants of a planet at the exact point of maximum
pcrfccnon. My father-always lost in rhe thickets of his frustration;
only he could\·e come up \\ith the tdca of ;111 tmpcrial rocker-
would've understood: there arc few trades more authentically Vic-
torian ,md victorious than that of children's writer. And maybe I've
simpl) made his first and only and last \\ish come true: that I be a
perll:n, c:omplc:te gentleman.
J\.lavbc.
The truth is that children's fiction i~ almost an impossibility
~medung concocted by adults for the consumption of children.
KENSINGfON <.AII.DENS
That's" here its difficultie~ .md dangers he. It's a voyage begun lw
many, with only a pri,·ileged II:\\ ncr rc•u:hing the end Mo\t dtc-
or gro" up, or lie too much-along the \\J\'. It isn't easy It ne,·er
"til be. It's ~toric:s made up by people who must understand chi I·
dren "hile being perfect!) clear who the\ themseh·es arc as adult~.
remembering where thq '\'C come from and where they're going.
That's the Faustian pact and the rule in effect for mosr of the ere·
ators of children's books.
And e'·ery so often there's a mutation "~thin a mutation: a chil·
drcn's writer who isn't necessarily gro,\n up.
Barrie's case.
My case.
If adult literature is generally the product of hidden childhood
trauma, then children's literature IS the product of plaml)' \iStblc
childhood trauma, the wor;r k.md· the kmd about which e,·ery
thmg ts known; the kind that's alwap there, w;ning ro us from a
corner of the room; the kind thar nc,cr ages, but seems to grow
larger and more powerful wah each pas\ing minute.
Peter Pan's case.
The character is Peter Pan.
Peter Pn11 or 1Ju Boy Wbo Wo~tld Not Grow Up. A play bv J. M.
Barnc: perfom1ed for the fir~t time: at the Duke of York's Theatre,
London, 1904; and e\'er ~incc anotmcd as a Christmas tradition, a
cla~sK production with a succession of famous actresses or would.
be: famous actresses in the leading role.
Ptttr Pn11 occupies an unccrtatn place between drama and pan
tomtme, although it began as purely a children's entertainment
whose renown and appeal had more tO do with its stage incarna
lion than with its later adaptation to d1e medium of lircrantrc.
Docs Peter Pan spring from Apollo's wise forehead or Dionysus'
wtld laugh? Does it matter? Why choose one or the orhcr? Why
can't Peter Pan be a symbol of \amry and madness at the same
time> Why can't I be?
The play begins ar rhe Darling famtly hou\1: in Bloomsbury,
/9(> RODRIGO FRESAN
with Lhe Mrival there of Peter Pan, a boy who fled his home on me
day of Ius btrm after listening in horror as his pMents made plans
for his furure and talked about what the1r son might be when he
grew up and became an adult.
That's why Peter Pan distrusts parents; he espectaUy hates
mothers, ever ~ince the time he tried to go home and found the
window clmed and his mother with her arms around a new boy.
"Mmhcrs arc satisfied so long a~ they have someone," thinks Peter
Pan bicterl).
But all Lhat happened a long time ago. Now Peter Pan slips
inro the Darling house and is dhcO\ered by Nana, the dog. Nana
tiightem Peter Pan, who flie~ a\\ ay and le:l\·es his shadow in me
ch1ldren's room. Mr. and Mrs. Darling's children are called Wendy
Mo1ra Angela DMling, fohn Napoleon Darll.ng, and Michael
Nicholas DMimg. Mr. Darling is jealous of h1s children's love for
Nana Mr. Darling is a man of ~imple and petty sentiments-so
that one mght, when he goes out to dmner With h1s wife, he chains
the dog 111 the garden. Which allows Peter Pan to return in search
of hi' lo~t bh,1dow. The three little Darling~ find him in their room,
and after Wendy ~ew~ his shadow to hi~ hcclb, Peter Pan explains,
in gratitude·
I ran a\\ ay to Kensington GJ.rdens and li\'ed a long long
tJme among me fairies ... Most of mem are dead. You see,
Wend\', when me first baby laughed for me first time, its
laugh broke mto a thousand p1eces, and they all went skip·
ping about, and that was the begmmng of fairies . .. When
a new baby laughs tor the first rime a new fa1ry is born, and
as there arc always new babies there arc always new fairies ...
You see children know such a lot now, they soon don't be-
lieve in f.1lrie~, and every time a child ~ay~ "I don't believe in
fairie~," there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.
RJ~ht away, with the help of hi~ magic filly dust, Peter Pan
teaches his new mends to fly so mey'll accompany him to the is·
land of ~everland and join !urn in great ad,entures. In Neverland,
KENSING10N GARDENS 1~ 7
Peter Pan lhes with me t3iq Tinker Bell and hh 1oM bovs, \\ho'rc
alwan m search of a mother: Tootle~. Nibs, Slighrly, Curly. md the
twms. Six boys who ne'er get an, older, md who are bOme of the
"children who fall our of their perJmbul.uors when the nurse i~
looking me other way. If mey Jre not dJ.imed in se\en day~ thcv
Me sent fur away to the Nc,·crland to defray expenses," explains
Peter Pan. And be adds th.u ir's s.1id that girls are roo clever to fall
out of their carriages. The rest of the population of Ncvcrland is
composed of mermaids who like to play cricket with me bubble~
of ramwarcr they make by slapping their tails; a swarm of mauve
and white fairies (and another swarm of silly blue fairies ); a tribe
of Indians whose chief IS Grear Big I ittlc Panther, futher of the
beautiful Tiger Lily; and the ,;IIams of the land, Captain Hook and
hi\ crew of pirates· Smcc, Gentleman Starkev ., Cook.<>On' ( ccco'
Mulltru, Jukes, and Noodler ·r ruth be told, Hook is only a rclari,·c
\1llaan. His presence fills the need lor the c~tablishmcnt of a little
order md discipline on an i~land O\errun by me anarchy of d1ose
who refuse: to grO\\ up. In any cabe, Hook and his men dcfc:.ll the
tribe of Grc:at Big Little Panther while: Peter Pan is away, and
Wendy, who has become: the mother of the lost boys, is captured
by me pirates with all of her "family." Pc:ter Pan rerurns just in
time to prevent Captain Hook from cau~ing "a holocau~t of chil
dren" by making mem .. walk the plank" on me starboard side of
Ius galleon, the Jol(r Ro._qcr, and accordmg to Wendy-"die like
English genrlemen." Peter Pan beat\ h1s n,·al in a duel and throws
him overboard, ro be eaten by a crocodile mat's been pursuing
h1m for years, ever since n devoured h1s ha.nd (which Peter Pan cut
off) and swallowed h1s watch (the only watch in Neverland '• thus
becoming the master of t1me; this i\ rhe only sign that tame passe\
and must pass.
With all problems solved .llld Ncvcrland at peace again, Peter
Pan bring~ the little Darling\ home, where he rejects Mrs. Dar-
ling's otTer to adopt him, so th.lt he \\on't be ~orry w part lr0111
h1~ dear Wendy, Mrs. Darling pr<>mi\C\ hun that \Vcndv will be al·
lowed to return to 1'\e\erland ca•h ~pring, to help \\ith rhe spring
clean mg. What isn't cnurch dcJ.r w me-unlike the unambiguom
19R RODR I GO PR.ESAN
conclus1ons of other children's classics is whether the ending of
Peter Pa11 IS happ)' or not. With Hook dead, what happens ro that
ch1ld1sh continuum of childhood, 10 wh1ch all days arc more or less
rhe same and the battle is constant and nc,·er-ending and keeps
startmg and being interrupted and ~tarring over again? And I
ask myself whether Peter Pan-dying of boredom-wouldn't slice
open the crocodile in the end and rescue his enemy so he could
keep fighting, as if time hadn't pas~ed, wcrc:n 't moving, were un-
changing.
And Barrie builds Peter Pan d1e same way Victor Frankenstein
builds his creature: with the assorted pieces of different bodies.
One Chnstmas, Barrie takes Jack, George, and Peter ro a
,·audc,ille performance. The show, Sevmour Hicks's Blllebell m
Fa1r.¥land, describes itself in the program as a "mus1cal fantasy."
It\ the triumph of ilic season The ch1ldrc:n of London come to
sec it m·er and over again. And the adult~, Barrie notices, don't
~c:cm too bothered to have to accompany them each Friday.
Barr1e ~tarts taking notes:
• Fairy J>/n_y. The characters fly through d1c: air in sheei:S
carried by birds in d1eir beaks.
And ;u last Barrie finishes 17Je Little Whitt Bird. Jr's the sum
mer of 1902. The book's chapter about Peter Pan, one of the sto-
nes Captam \V-- tells Da,id, has sptlled over mro most of ilie
rest of the no,·el.
Barne turns ilie manuscript 111 to his publisher, and to cele-
brate, he mo,·es e\en closer to-right across from-Kensington
Gardens and the Llewelyn Davieses. Barrie leaves l33 Gloucester
Road ami settles into a little Regency-era house on Bayswatcr
Road- Mary calls it Leinster Corner-on d1e north edge of ilie
gardens. When Arthur Llewel~rn Davies finds out, he shudders in
private and publicly smiles.
At his new house, Barrie receives ilie news of his futher's deaili:
Da,id Barrie-who scarcely appears in Barrie's autobiographical
wrinngs, and plays almost no part in h1s cluldhood memories-bas
KBNSING1 ON GARDENS I 9V
d1cd at ilie age of cighty· \C\ en, run do" n by a carriage on Ktr·
nemuir'~ High Street. A lirrlc: !Jrcr, another of his siste~, Mary,
ilies.
Barrie is depressed, and recovers; 011 No, ember 4, 1902, at the
Duke of York's Thearre, 17Jt Adnurnble CridJton--his play about a
butler who becomes the leader of a family of shipwrecked aristo
crats-opens and is a great success. Barrie oversees everything
down to d1e last derail, and makes surprise appearances at the
theater every so often tO ensure that the actors aren't improvising
or altering their lines; Barrie hates it when iliat happens. It's with
17JC Admirable CriciJtOIJ that Barrie experiments for ilie first time
with his need for things ne,·er to end. He changes the endmg of
the script, sc:,·cral times. Each performance IS a surprise, and Barne
dc.:idcs that plays can also be like duldren 's stories, ro which 1m·
pro,emeni:S are made each time they're told at ilie request of chil-
dren who never seem ro tire of hcanng the same story. Thus, there
are nights wben the butler Cm:hton remains in England; mghts
when he returns to thc island and ~ends a letter to be read by an
actor before the audience afier the curtain bas fallen; there: arc
nights when he marries the young noblewoman, and nights when
he rejeci:S her. It isn't that Barrie: isn't satisfied wid1 ilic firsl end
mg, but that Barrie isn't satisfied with d1c concept of endings. The
end of a play-the moment when ncrythmg finishes, when reality
comes back w claim the rcrrirory ficnon has snatched from it-is
for Barrie ilie equJ\'alent of being ordered to bed earlv b\ the
grown-ups. And Barrie wanr~ to keep pla}ing. So he 1m·en1:S c:x
cuscs new endings-to put otT as long as possible: ilie moment of
gomg up ilie stairs, getting under the co,·ers, turning off the hght
17JC Little Wl1itr Bn·d-a no'cl fbr adults about ch1ldhood
take' the ~amc tack. It's a seriom ~tory about the need for rhe tim
llC\'Cr to end, fun being the onl)' thing that must keep growing.
Barrie keeps takmg no1cs:
• Play. 17u Happy Bo,v. Uoy "ho can't grow up-he flee\
pam and death-when he's \:Jught he·~ become a sa\·age
(Ending: he escape\).
200 R.OORIGO PR.SSAN
The Barries inv1re Syh~a ro Paris in return for her acting as in-
spiration for 17J& Ltrrle li 1Jite Btrd. Arthur stays in London work·
ing and takmg care of the cluldrcn. "Syl\ia is in Paris with her
friends the Barnes," he writes m a letter. Her friends, not his.
Barrie returns to London and to h1s strolls in Kensington Gar-
den~, and he reccl,·cs a gre.n honor: the Viscountess Eshcr-a
hab1tuce of the theater and a fervent admirer of his work-feels
Bamc ha\ wrinen ~so charmmgJy" about Kensington Gardens in
17Jt uttlt lVIntt Bird that he de~nes a fining reward. She speaks
to Lord Esher, "ho hold\ the position of secretary to His Ma-
jesty's Office, and ~ks him to mtercede with the Duke of Cam-
bridge-also the ranger of the gardens-so that Barrie is given a
key w Kensington Gardens for his personal usc. Barrie thanks them
for the honor. He has no interest in walking m the gardens at night,
when they're closed, bur he's fuscinated by the 1dea of having been
chosen as the guard1an of a singular object, something that grants
him a special power to open forbidden doors as if b>• magic.
And Barnc di'>covers- half astonished and half annoyed-that
TIJe Little Wbitc Bird has become one of the popular topics of con·
vcrsation in Lhc p.1rk., almo~L an urban legend: more and more
strangers come up w him lO ask him exactly where Peter Pan lives;
more and more: mother~ introduce their children to him, hop-
ing he'll immortalize them in a best-seller. Barrie says little in
return and keeps walking. Alone. Porthos has been dead for a
year. Mary· {jeprived of babies; Sylna is expecting her fifth child
around this rime gwes Barne a new dog: a black-and-white New-
foundland that they name l.uath. The dog is sickly, bur Mary man-
ages ro nurse it back to health and restore the force of its barks.
Mary is a good mother, Mary could be the best of mothers; and
later she 'II wnte bmersweetly about her canine lo,•cs, her passion
for decoration, and her matnmonial frustrations in three books of
memoirs titled Mm a11d Dogs, 1JJt Happy Gardtn, and Happy
Housrs.
On ~o,·ember 23, 1903, Barne begins work on the play that
,,ilJ eventually be called Peur Pan; the first draft is titled AnotJ.
The first scene rakes place in the Darling children's bedroom.
K llNSING'lON GARDENS Jill
Nearb>, J fc:w lwur~ later, s> lvia gi\C\ birtll agam. Another \Oil .
Svh·ia "ants ro call him Timmhy, after Captain W--·~ uwiMblc
~on in 77u Littfr U'IJIU B11·d, but Artlmr rcfu~es with re~olure ele-
gance ro fall 1nto the e~y bad t~tc of mcrafiction. Nicholas-like
Peter and Michael-1~n't chri~tened then. bur he'll ask to be cbru-
rened when he's fourteen, choosmg Barrie as his godfather.
Arthur also decides it'~ rime to mo\'e. The house ar 23 Camp-
den Hill Square in Kensmgron Park Gardens bas become cramped
for a couple with five ch1ldren and four servants. After years of
hard work, Arthur IS begmrung to reap the rewards at court, and
ar last he can pcrmtt himself the luxury of a more comfortable
home The houses in the center of London, howe,·er, are soli be-
yond his reach; ro Arthur goes looklng for something in the sub
urbs, discovenng the fudor·style Egerton House on Berkhamstcd
High Street The btographcr Andrew Birkin notes in ]. M. Barrie
& the Lost B()Js: 11Jt Love Story 71Jat Gave Birth to Peter PatJ:
Egerton Hou~c . . . sct·mcd to ~olv.: all problems. 1t was
clo~e to tJ1c Marion, which would allow Artl1ur m commute
every day to London; it was large enough to .1cconunodate
an ever-expanding household; it had an excellent day school
(Bc:rkl1amsrcd School, headed by the respected Reverend
T. C. Fry) "ithin walking distance of the house; ir would
prO\ 1de the gro\\ing bo\'S with clean country air; and it was
twenty five miles from J M. Barrie's doorstep.
Barrie works ~o cnthus1asocally on what he's now tided Pcrer
and rl~ndy that the opcnmg of another of h1s plays-Littlt: ,\far_v,
on September 24, 1903; two hundred performances, and, accord ·
mg ro 17JC Timts, ~a rather \lily rale.,-goes unremarkcd.
In Ptur a11d 1\htd_r, Barne call~ upon all the memones of h1~
own childhood and the childhood of the Uewelyn [);1\ics broth-
ers, as well a\ the immortal ghmt of hts mother, M.arg.trct Og~ky.
At rhe indesrrucuble heart ofh1s \tory beats the prom1'e of eternal
youth and the dream .:orne true of bemg a boy forever, hke hi\
brother Dand, inhablllng a world outside this world A world that
 R.OnR.lGO FR.BSAN
in the beginning is called Never Never Never Land (in a first draft
of the play), then Never Nc,·cr Land ( a name Barrie borrows from
a region of Austraha: Never Ne,·er Land, an endless desert), then
Nc,·er Land (in the pertormances of the play and the script pub-
lished in book form ), and, finally, Nc,·erland in the novel Peter
nlld n~lld_v.
Barrie fim\hcs a firsr version on ,\ 1arch I, 1904 Barrie \\Titcs to
Charles Frohman that he 'II ha\ c a new work ready m which
Maude Adams can star Bamc: truM' that the actress will play the
pan of Wendy and tlut a bo~ wall be Peter Pan But there are
problems. the English law~ prohibat the use of minors on stage at:
ter nine o'dock at night Charle~ Frohm.m-without even h:l\ing
read the script, hi~ t'Jith in Barrie is .tbwlutc- then suggests that
Maude Adams could be Peter Pan in the American production and
that they could abo find a young Englishwoman, an 1dea that has
great commercial potential but \\hich has since led to the bizarre
and dubious behcf that Peter Pan must by rights be a covered role
for women.
With this matter solved, there arc other details left to be set-
tled. The play will require live dif'fercnt and elaborate sets, many
mechanical device~. and .1 c.l~t of .1lmost fifty actors. It's a super-
production like lei\ C\ er ~een in fngland , or anywhere else. And
tl1e fir~r opinions about what begin~ w be kno\\n as "Barrie's
Folly"- an eura' aganza witl1 pirate~. red~kins. crocodiles, fairies,
fl~ing children, and children lo~t in magJc l.mds-aren 't favorable.
To begin with, It •~n't clear whether it's a play just for children, or
a play for adults "ho want to revtsat their childhood. The plot
is full of adventures, true. but the dialogue is complex: there
are many pm·ate JOkes comprchcmablc only to Barne and the
Llewelyn L)a,·iese\, and \omcumes the whole thang seems ro
founder on the sho.1l\ of c:got:entric, narassl5tic whim.
One mghr Barne reads the plav to the actor and impresario
Herbert Beerbohm Tree:, spcoah~r an sumptuous stage sets at His
Majest) 's Theatre Barne ~hou~. climb~ on the furniture, plays all
the parts. Tree- who h~ become famous for being \\illing to rry
anything and not skimping on production cosrs-can't believe
KbNSINGfON GARDENS 10.1
"hat he\ \ccing and hearing; he turn~ pale and immediately write~
to Ch.1rles Frohm.1n: ~Barrie ha<, gone out of his mind . . I'm
\Off\ to ~J\ 11, but you ought to kilO\\. He's just read me a play.
He i~ going to re.1d it to you, \0 vou can take this as a warning
from ~mcone \\ho\ a good friend of yours, and of Barrie's, too. I
lmm\ I ha\ e not gone: "oozy in my mind, because I have rested
m~ -.elf since hearing the play; but Barrie mmt be mad."
When Charles Frohman arrives in London from ~ew York, ar
the end of April, Barne dines with him and proposes a deal: Peter
n11d ~~bu(v (whach he's renamed, acknowledging its origin and its
debt ro 17Jt Little White 81rd, as 71u Great WIJite Farber, and
whach, he confesses, he's sure won't be a success bur is his "per
pro1ecr") and another play, A/tee Slt-By-11~e-Fire, a typical Barrie
product. Charles l'rohman asn't ''cry impressed by Alice Stt·B_v-
11Jt·Ftre, but he love~ ·n" Great Wbite Father. He's never read
anything like 1t. Not a line of it should be changed, except the ti-
tle. "It ha~ m be called Peter Pn11, nothing else will do," he com-
mand~, and Charlc\ frohman smile~, and the play will have ro be
ready f(>r it.~ West hld debut the following Christmas. And Charles
Frohman keeps ~111iling.
Pett'l' Pnn in large type, and below it, in smaller type, or 17Je Boy
Wbo Wo11ltlu 't G1·un• Up. And then type and more type: the first
Pttrr Pn11 p(l\tcr i' a bhon~ighted per~on's nightmare, and rcacling
it all would take: a~ muc:h umc a~ reading a whole newspaper. 1t
doc:~n't matter; it's better th.u way. En:rything ha\ing to do with
Pn(r P1111 mu!>t be like this: different, exaggerated, unprecedented.
Charles Frohman ha~ at last disco,·cred-just as the law of gra,·-
ir, wa~ disco' ercd and not Ill\ ented, Just as the sun was suddenly
~een to sit at the center of the uru\·erse \\ith e'-el')'thing spinning
around it-the thing that will make him remembered forever, the
thmg that \\111 make him immortal, the thing that \\ill make him
responsible tor ha\1ng brought mto the world che most indestruc·
tible toy e\Cr
In Rnrne: 11Jt \tt1r.v of f ..\I. 8., the biographer Denis Mackail
say\: "'I here WJ\ no hmat on 'pcndmg. The risks dadn 't mat-
ter :--lever had ( harlcs hohman \ megalomania risen to greater
]fl.( RODRIGO PllESAN
height~. Never had this inspired little Jew been happier. And never
had any writer for the stage been luckier m bcmg able to coum on
a producer hke Charles Frohman .,
rherc's no ttmc to lose: Charles frohman selects Dion Bouci·
caulr-son of a famous Victonan plavwrighr-as dtrcctor and pro·
ducer Hts -.istcr, :-!ina Boucicaulr, ~~ the pcrlect choice for Peter
Pan. Nina asks Barrie how she should play her character; all Barrie
~•1ys h: "Peter Pan is a bird ... And he's one day o ld." Hilda
Trevelyan will be Wendy, and Gerald du M:lllrier is responsible for
the double roles of beastly Captain Hook and dull, cautious .Mr.
Darling, married ro Dorothea Baird as Mrs. Darling. Jane Wren is
Tinker BeU. Joan Burnett is Tootles. C'hmnne Sih·er is Nibs. A. W.
Ba,kcomb IS Slightly. Arthur Lupino mil be Nana the dog, and he
spend' hours at Lcmster Corner studying Luath 's mo,·emems. A
srudto of makeup professionals on Drury l.ane take: samples of the
dog'~ fur and create an ama1ingly hlclike cmrume. The little lost
boys arc personally chosen b} Barrie, who tells them stones at
break during the rehearsal\. Wtlliam Nicholson-a fashionable
portr.tit paimcr-is charged with dc~igning the costumes and the
stencr\'. John Crook will write ~:he \Ongs and the music. I can't re·
member-there are so many nan1es-\\ ho's the fin.t Tiger Lily,
daughter of Chief Great Big Little Pam her. So many names ...
Yes, now J remember: Miriam Nesbm as Tiger Lily, and Greu Big
Lmle Panilier is Philip Darwin.
Each and every one of iliem •~ given a looseleaf cop}' of the
~ript, and each must solcmnlr S\\ ear not to reveal a single derail of
rhe play to fatmly or fiiend~, ler alone the new~papcrmen who arc
bcgmnang to ~mdl a scoop; the owner of the Duke of York's The·
atrc: t\ made to hire a small army of ~ccurit) guards, who march up
and down Samt Marrin's Lane and prevent the infiltration of
snoops ami undesirables. Which of cout'bc: doesn 'r prevent a11 in·
creasing(\' dated Charles Frohman from stopping acquaintances in
the srrcet to act out selected scenes from Pner Pn11.
Hilda Trevelyan receives me notice annoWlcing her first re·
hcal"'al, reading, '"ith slight panic: "10:30-Fiying." Dion Bouci-
cault i~ waiting lor her at the door; he asks whether she bas life
KENSINGTON GARDENS 105
10\Ur.lnce and tells her th.n tf 'he: doe\n 't she \hould gct '>Oillc a\
\OOn as possible. Inside, George Klrlw i\ \\,uting, founder .md
darector \incc 1889 of Gc:orl!-c: Klrb, \ Fl~ing Ballet Company.
George Kirby and his troupe 'oar on the stages of Europe mank.' to
a "fhing appararus,~ a kind of complic.:ated, hea\-y harness. Barnc
chaJlcng~ George Kirby to design a lighter, more practical model,
one that won't-with its many wires and pulleys-be so obvious ro
rhc audience. Barrie docsn 't want a flying machine; Barrie wants
the actors ro fly. George Kirby accepts rl1c challenge-the pay is
Yery good-and makes a light rig that can be hooked and un
hooked from the srage machiner)' in a matter of seconds.
Wendy flies, Peter flies, Barrie loses steam.
At the end of October, the e~hausong stx weeks of rehearsals
begin, but the Uewclyn Da\ieses- Barne realizes all at once-arc
no longer nearby. Where as lmle George-his looking glass and
\oundtng box-when he needs ham mon? What good docs ir do
to hold the key to Ken~mgron G.udens if his playmates arcn 't
there anymore? Barrie and Mary ha,·e been married for a decade,
and-as is his habit, fictionalizmg reality to make it more bc~r·
Jblc-thc writer jots down ideas f(>r a novel about a marriage per·
rifled by years of unhappin~:~s:
• He says can't we pick up the: pieces (of our !oPt) & she:
~y~ no-Ion: not a broken Jar but fine \\in~ontents
spilt-can'r pick that up
• She on the agonies of years of forg~veness, self-deceptions,
clinging tO straws, &c, & how all these ha,·e gone. Like
~ock in fire, flaming, red, \\ith sparks, now black & cold.
Rarnc looks for any excuse ro leave rl1e house. The arduous and
increasingly ill\·olvcd rehearsal\ the author rewrites and adds bits
at the foot of the stage and rhe page-arc the perfect excuse 10 e5·
cape from Leinster Corner, from rhe abode of hts checrlc~\ mar·
nage, devotd of laughter or applause When C\'ef}·onc goes home,
Harne stays amtd the ~enery of l'cttr Pnw hts home, lm nan' e
land, his refuge, hts own \\Orld, hi' :-.!en:rland
 RODRIGO PR.ESAN
The character is the theater
If all the world is bur a stage-as Shakespeare wrote and Barrie
read then I like tO think London is the eurtam that nses and falls
as h1story w11ls it and that every so often-during the 1960s, for
example- it proves to be more interesting than any play unfolding
behind 11.
When this happens- when London i~ so--the whole world
agree~ that there can be no better drama or comedy than the enor·
mous, heavy c:uwas of the city, ~o much grander and more enter·
tainmg than a blank cinema screen. And no one realizes when all
of a sudden it refuses w go up, because there's nothing more
thrilling d1an stanng unblinkmgly at that cun.un frozen in place by
all the thmgs happening in the network of 1ts patterns and designs.
When th1s happens, no one a5ks ''her her l.ondon is or is not,
bccau~e It's \\Tong w talk m the theater e\'cn if the play hasn't be·
g\m or 1~n'r about to begin and we're all tocu~cd-in a pcrpcrual
imermi\~ion-on the picture: of a Cit)' on rh.11 vc:rtical flag, hardly
stirring in the almost imperceptible w111d of millennia.
\Vhat i> it th.lt we see in a cunain? The: dust of all d1e plays per·
formed behind it? The echo of the anors' monologues and the
spectators' coughs? The creak of the timbers under boors? The se-
cret murmurs of the stagehands? The curtam as a permeable mem-
brane warmng us that things on the other side aren't like those on
this side, much as they may seem to bel
My 1mpo~ible dream, my unfulfillable des1rc, has always been a
life untoldmg at the exact pomt-that wavy hne following the
told~ of the velvet-that separates what's rcc1ted from what's said,
what's lived from what's acted.
M.1ybe, Kciko Kai, that's why I claim for myself, on mis last
night and in dlis last act, my only clllncc to be the curtain be·
tween my parents' life and Barrie's storv. Or between Barrie's life
and m\ parents' story-it amountS to d1e same thing. I hope ro be
a good curtain. A curtain that, when e\eryonc has left the theater,
remam~ barely illununated by the ghost lamp, that ,·enerable and
KSNStNOTON GARDENS 1.0 7
poctil: tradition: the lamp that a worker lighb at the end of ea~h
performance and lea\·es on all mght in the middle of the: sJagc to
scare: ,l\\:1\ the ghosb of dead J(tors and li\e characters. And ''ho
kno,,s, maybe a spark will leap 01110 me-theaters arc such inflam
mabie places, and they burn so quicklv-and that spark ,,;u set me
blazmg, and my whole world will burn with me, until there's
nothing left but ashes of everything I once was and will never be
again.
I wcm to sec Peter Pnn for the first time on a cold Christmas in
1966. Snow and the sound of bells. Marcus Merlin takes us. Me
and Baco. My father refuses to come.
"Too psychedelic for my taste. I don't understand those chil·
dren L.i\'ing thetr childhoods at the happ1est moment the Emp1re
and thiS cny ha\'e known, and they'd rather go somewhere else, to
an i~land \\1th ... lndums," ~ays m\ father.
What Marcus Merlin takeo; m ro 'ec IS a renval of the Walt D1s
ncy mo,·ie. Disney's Pttrr Pnn 'ommirs the most morral of Sill\,
the mo~t unforgivable blasphemy: ,u the end it reveals that every·
thing in it-Peter Pan included-\\ .1s just something Wc:ndy
dreamed And there are those horrible songs and Peter Pan's irri-
tating \Oicc, .:ouncsy of Bobby Driscoll-child star of the Di~ney
Studios-who would end up, like so manv other more or less child
prodigies, addicted to drugs and dead of an overdose. Don't
worrv, Keiko Kai: your end wtll be 'cr) d1ffcrcnt, more glonous
and qwcker.
The Disney film tSn 't magical like the play. of course; but even
so, I'm infected by the srory, b) the myth. I already was: I'd al
ready read the book. The book that someone left in the summer·
house of the garden at Neverl.md Rut the film strengthcm the
virus and makes it even more mcurable.
And-1 see it this way now, Kciko Kai-thosc rwo child·
manipulawr~ arc strangely ~1mil.lr: llm·ic is w Walt Disncv wh.lt
the Neanderthal was to the Cro Magnon man. Something like
th,Jt Although maybe rhc compariwn 1~ unfair, wrong, ine\JCt I
like to think Barrie \\.1.\ a murc \oplmticated being and mu~h
h1ghc:r up the e\olutionarv ladder than Walt Disney e\'er could\e
208 R.ODR.IGO FR.BSAN
been. It's clear that Barrie came first; Barrie is the god who makes
light and myth and along the way creates a whole new children's
universe, a new wa~ of understanding the cosmogony of children.
Disney-a hardworkmg pup1l -erects the temples of his theme
parks m memory of Rarnc Sacred dtic:s where, after pa};ng admis·
s1on, vou can v1s1t Peter Pan's home, descend to its depths, con·
template the ficttonal ~uddenly made real lor the sole pleasure and
pervcr~1on of blurring the bound) between truth and lies and lite
and fanr~v.
In an} e~. the mO\ ie ha~ bnght colors and a good stOr) and-
r ha'e to admit-the: \c:xie\t Tinker Bc:U who e\·cr existed and will
probabh ever exist bv the Mandards of the Disney Studios car-
rooni~ts , Tinker Bdl IS practically a La!. Vegas chorus girl or a Plav·
boy Club w·aitre~~
I le.ll'e the theater and go read the book again. 1 read it until !
learn ir by heart, until I know the: page number where each thing
happens And l begin to find out e'·crything I can about Barrie
and Peter Pan.
Baco likes the: fi lm, hut It doesn't thnll him the way it thrill~
me. He's very lmlc. Hc.:'s ~till at the: age: when nodling is as good
as the reccnth disco,•crc.:d power of hi~ imagination, nothing can
compete: a child'~ logic n1.1y come roo close ro fantasy, bur his
dreams are :tlways disturbingly real.
I, on me od1cr hand, Ltkc to dream I'm one of the lucky ones
who attend the opening mght of Peter Pm1 at the Duke of York's
Theatre. A play dreJmcd up by the most grown up of children.
Something d1~rurbmgly real The best of born worlds: product of a
ch1ld's imagmanon, and the re~urces of an adult J like to imagjnc
myo;clf there, and it', no comcidcncc rhat }tm Yang has ne\·er \iS·
ired dut golden moment on anv of hJS ad,·enturcs. Why lum and
not me? It docsn 't o;cem f.ur mat my mo~t chenshed fantasies-and
merefore me truest-should be ceded tO my character in the end.
And that It should be h1m and not me who's gi'·en the chance to
be. am-where in space or ume.
Jim Yang docsn 'r go.
I go.
KllNSINGTON GARDENS lOY
J go, and I'm Jn egg tn S} l\la Llewelyn Da,·ics's uterus, an egg
thdt's ju\t been fcrulizcd. I'm the secret fission of love I'm the
;matomical reaction and the phy~ical rad1atioo of somedung that
unul yesterday was )ll\t a sperm-an odd-numbered and left-hand·
programmed sperm-belonging to Armur Ucwc:lrn Da,ics. I'm a
son~r. as Arthur would dearly ltke, a daughter-who will live in·
side Syhia JUSt long enough to .mend the opetling night and dlt:n
disappear without anvonc:, even Syh·i:t, being aware of my pres·
cnce I'U be gone in her neu menstrual Bow-the red bloom of a
smgle mght, the most lo~t oflo~t boys-5\\imming in the sewers of
London that empty into the: ri' er and then into the sea, ne~er to
return.
Syhia travels tO London wirh her sons. It's the beginning of
December; classes have ended and won't begin again until after
me hohdays, and the fin:tl, critical rehearsals ha,·e begun. Barrie
reaches the lmlc Llewelyn Davieses how to usc: the: flying appara-
tus. They fly. Barrie tntroduccs them to the cast as "the true au
thors of the play," and at the last minute: he changes the names of
a few of the characters so that his best friends arc represented in
some way onstagc. Barrie also makes it clear that the idea tor the
character of Peter Pan occurred to Sylvia Uewelyn Davies, and
rhat m 17Je Little Wbite Bird he simply put in writing everything irs
"true owner" never felt the ttrgc to write herself.
Opening night i~ supposed to be: the: 21st, but it bas to be: post·
poned till the 27m ~luluple complications On the night of
December 21, the stage coUapscs: too much weight on me
floorboards. The machineq that will control many of the special
effects is still betng 1nstaUed. Whole: scenes must be dropped: the
ending in KensingtOn Gardens, for example, and the scene in the:
mermaid pool It doesn't matter There'll be time ro add mcm
later, all the time m the world, Barne consoles himself. And the
stagehands refuse to work O\'cr Chnstmas. The tdea that the ac·
tress playmg 1 mkcr Bell should always perform behind an enor·
mous magml)1ng gla~~ re,cr;cd, m ~he looks smaller, ha~ pro,·ed
robe impracucable, :tS well a~ mad. The company-me actors col·
lapse mth exhau~twn in hallway\ and scats and dressing rooms;
210 RODRIGO I'RESAN
flying is ~o tirin.rr-are convinced that e1·crything will end in a
disaster of cata~trophic dimensions. A stagehand-at one of the
breaks, while a backdrop is being lowered so another backdrop can
be raised -comes up to Barne and says, ~The gallery boys won't
stand 1t." Barne thmk~ that he\ a ghost or a spnte. A theater imp.
Barrie ignores h1m Barne ne1·er stops smihng. Barne pays no at-
tentiOn to the torment of h1$ migrames; he barely allows himself a
moment m cat somethmg light and drink mnumcrablc cups of tea.
Barrie asks over and over agam whether Syhia Uewclyn Davies ha$
arrived With her 'hlldn:n Barne !oecms to hine 1~itb tbe brighmess
that onh-. saim\ -.hme "1th at the imtam the\'. first become con-
~ciou~ of their ~amthood
Svhia, George, jack, Michael, and Peter (Nico is still too young
ro go our at night ) arrive at the Duke of York's Theatre in one of
those small buses that some companies rem ro family groups for
excursions ro D01·cr or Canterbury or Stonehenge. The brothers
enter the theater lcehng rhem,eh·es ro be rhe lords of the night
and parr of the show, and they're seated in the best box in the hall,
and from there the} w.uch, hke small holy emperors, the rest of
.
the mere mortals ;\bout to be •niti.ued into the mvsreries they.
know \O well.
T he verst<lll of Pttt•r Pnn in three .lets that goc~ up at eight·
d1in:v at night on December 27, 1904, i~ ~honer d1an it was sup-
posed m be. Two or three ~cene~ that were written are mis~ing,
and odwr~ arc m•~~ing that there wa~ no time to write, or that Bar-
ric keeps coming up with and )Otting do11n on napkins, in the
margins of books, on the wallp.1.per of some bathroom at some
friend's house. But the audlence- wruch ha$n 'r sroppcd saying
~oh!~ and ~Ah!~ since the curram rose-doesn't notice, isn't
aware They' re adults suddenly returned to the zemths of their
childhood. They're h.1ppy.
Queer thing\ luppcn from the beg.nning: a little girl comes on-
stage tO direct the ordu:~tra, d1ildren fly m and out of the window
of a house Ill London, .md to J tree house in a strange place called
Ncvcrland where the actor~ dance with Indians, do battle 11ith pi·
rates, descend to the depths of the earth ...
KhNStN<.fON GAROIONS 11 I
Bm bcvond .111 thc'e m.1r1 cls, the most ~lllnning rakes place 111
the third ~ccnc of the ~cwnd act. There, in order to sa\'e Peter
Pan, Tinker Bell dnnks the p01~on intended for him and is about
ro die Then Peter Pan ~ocs to the edge ofd1e stage and addresses
the audtcl"C as urgently ~ a hero in an Elizabethan drama:
Her light is growing t:Unr, and if it goes our that mews sb.:
is dead' Her I'Oicc 11. so lo11 1 can scarcely tell what she is
SJ}ing. She says she says she thinks she could get weU
agam 1f ch1ldrcn bebeved m fauies! Do you believe in faines?
Say qlllck that you belie1·e! If you believe, clap your hands!
Don't let Tink die.
The theater •s pcrtcctly ~ilcnt. Barrie has arranged with the musi-
cians to appl,\lld tf the audience doesn't react, to rescue the situa-
tion. It isn 'r necc\s.lry: a thunder of handclaps rises from the stalls
and dc:M:cnd~ from the boxc~. lias Barrie im·enred the theatrical
device of audience p.micip.ltion? The device that from then on will
mark all children'~ pl.1ys, with-to d1c horror of the parents-the
.1ctor tran~gre\\i n~ the natur,l l boundaric~ of the stage to torment
thos.: who .uc seated, Mtddenly making tl1em feel an urgent de~ire
10 gee up and go runnin~ out?
Nothing of d1e ~ort happen~ that night at the Duke of York's
Theatre. The acrrc~\ Nina Boucicault can't contain her tears. E1 c.:r~ ­
one belic1c!> in fairie~. and so does she, because could anyone be
foolish enough not ro bchc1 c on this magical, perfect night? It\
the beginnmg of a new era. Men embrace, women cry, theater crit-
ics 11 a\'e thc•r programs and their notes as if celebrating a great ,,,.
rory on the field of the happtest of battles. I like ro imagine that
then '>Omconc tamts, that 'Dmeonc rcg:uns h1s senses, that some
~
one's hair rurm white m a matter of seconds, that someone is con
\'Crtcd to .1 strange rehgton, and that someone-at the next fam•lr
funeral, afi:cr the: ~·mrom.uy moment of silencc-ts in.~pircd by rh~
memory of that moment and t>cgms the odd tradition of applaud-
mg the coffin a\ It retreat\ applaudmg just m case, applaudmg be
cause pcrhap\ a \park lcapmg from the friction of hands dappmg
212 RODRIGO PRBSAN
will C•lUS~ the blaze of a miracle and the resurrection of the dead.
The whole theater i~ standing; the applause goes on for se,·eral
minutes. Barrie: smiles Barne is still smiling-and on the st:lge
Peter Pan excl:ums
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!
The cast comes our to take 1ts bows o1·er md over again, for long
minutes that become 3 kind of tnumphant epilogue, a small play 10
and of iro;clt, 10 which :-.lma Boue~cault and the acrors watch,
d.vcd, 3\ an aud1cnce of grown·up~ who seem to have gone mad
rhro" rhcir hat\ in the air .md leap up on their scats as if the spdl
of a \Or~c:rer'\ .tpprcntl~c \uddenh elevated to grmd \l-izard has
~c:nr them back in time.
Charles Frohman ~~ m New York. It'~ nearly fh·e in the after·
noon there, ami the .:it\' 1~ cndunng one of the biggest snow·
stOrm\ in memorv. Charle~ Frohman is waiting for a cable from
London that w11l tell him hOI\ everything wenr; bur the storm has
cut otT telegraph service, so Charles Frohman whiles away the time
by acnng out the whole show for his friend Paul Potter, scene by
scene. Charles Frohman get\ down on all fours to be the dog and
the crocodile. Charlc~ Frohman barks, Charles Frohman snaps his
)3\1 s; but Charlc~ Frohman tells the story as if he were Wendy,
his favorire ~haracter. Close to midnight, the telephone rings, md
Paul Poner :mswers and take~ down the cablegram, reading the
magic worth to Charlo:~ Frohman:
PETER I'A.'I l'l:RH.cr. LOOKS LIKE GREAT SUCCESS.
~oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" exda~ms Charles Froh·
man
The press j01m the parry and i\ almost unm1mous in its praise
of the nc:w 'huw "To our taste, Pttrr Pan is from beginning ro
end a thing of pure dehghr," smiles 17;e Times. "The minure of
conflicnnp; elemenrs ulumateh vidds a product of such originality,
warmth, and d.1ring that there·~ no room for even a shadow of a
K ENSINGTON GARDENS 2I 3
doubt ~ to i~ inc' itahlc: and ovcrw hclnung ~ucccss," predicts the
D1ull' Ttlt..fJrllpiJ. "In Ptur Ptw, Mr Barnc: once again relics not on
true dramatic appeal but on hh marvc:Uous power to keep one en·
rerrained .a the theatre. Mr Barrie is the only li\ing writer, With
the possible exception of Mr Bernard Shaw, capable of erecting
pleasure palace~ on the most iJuubstaJlrial of foundations," en·
rhuses the .Moming Post. "Ptttr Pnn is the best thing Mr Barrie has
done-the thing most directly from ,,;thin himself. Here, at last,
\\e see his talent in Ius full maturity; for here he has stripped otT
from lumself the last flimsv remnmts of a pretence of maruriry ...
Mr Barrie IS not that rare crearure, a man of genius. He is some·
thmg even more rare -a child who, by some dhine grace, has
found 10 the theatre the artisoc medium through which to express
the childishness that is m him. Mr Barrie has never grown up; Mr
Barrie is still a child," is Max Beerbohm's accurate diagnosis.
D1scordant voices can also be heard, some rather horrified by
the side eflccts camcd by this new-fledged, victorious monsrcr.
Bernard Shaw growb: "hom the dramaturgical point of view, Pe·
ter Pan is an artificial freak that misses the mark." The tl1earer im·
presario George Edwards shrugs his shoulders and sighs: "Well, if
that's the ~on of thing the public likes,! suppose we'll have ro give
ir 'em." Anthony Hope, friend of Barrie and author of 17;e Pl'is·
o11rr ofZmda, can 'r bear the "touchrng~ new ending-added four
nights after tl1e opening-in which the Beautiful Mothers, a kind
of female chorus, appear in the: Darlings' nursery ro take back tl1eir
lost boys, who vani~hed so many year~ ago. Anthony Hope runs
our of the theater for :ur, taking deep breaths of the London cold
as If 1t's the mt1dorc ro a doring poison, saymg: "Ah, what I'd
g.ve for an hour of Herod!"
Once the excitement of ope rung rught JS over, Barrie rerurns to
Lemstcr Corner, where the \\lfe he hardly speaks ro is wamng, and
the Llewelyn Da1ics tnbe returns to Egerton House, thetr home
in the London ~uburbs.
Bamc 1s finishmg the man> re,,s1ons and too mmr rewrites of
Pttrr Pan, and he oversees the upcommg debut of Alu:c·5zt·By-
17u·F~re on Apnl 5, 1905, aga10 at the Duke of York's Theatre
2 l 4 RODRIGO FRESAN
The play-Qnce offered as a guarantee ag:1inst the sure fuilure of
Peter Pn~1-is almost an anriclima.~. A light enrerrainmenr in wiUch
no one flies 1sn't parocularly memorable after such a resounding
success, even though the protagorust ts played by the di,;ne EUen
Terry.
In the country, the Llewelyn Daneses are happ1er than they\·e
ever been. Man\· . arc the fncnds and fum1lr- members who remem-
ber the great harmony between parents and children, and to set
the record straight, they correct the picture of Arthur Llewelyn
Da,,e,, d1stmgU1shmg hun over and over again from the clumS)
and obtu~e caric.uure rhat-<omo.:1ously or unconsciously-Barrie
sketched .1~ the t}'piCJI Ed" ard1an patcrfamili~ Mr Darling in Pe-
ter P11t1.
Arthur adore~ hi~ children and re~pects them, almost never re-
sorting to har~h di~c1plinc, and is patient to a fault. Syhia, on the
other hand, loves them as 1f they're an inevitable and natural ex-
tension of her own beau[)·. Syh·ia doesn't worry much if they hurt
themselves, or if they have problems at school, or if they're ill:
that's what the ~crvant~ and Arthur arc tor. If anyone contradicts
her or rdt1scs her a t:wor, Sylvia has a disturbing tendency towards
easy tears and sulking. And Sylvia is blessed and cursed by a fasci-
nation with the good life and easy, boundless luxury. So Barrie: is
her perfect counterpart, ~omcone \\ ho adores her and ministers to
her desires and has more than enough money to make them real-
ity. Barne invites her to Paris many times and to the seaside resort
of Dives on the ~ormandy coast. Barrie is-according to biogra-
pher Denis ~lackail-"a nch man and at the same time innocent
to a ridiculous degree; someone to usc-as Sylvia did-as a kind
of extra nursemaid, a more than generous fa1ry godmother, and
wmetime\ even an errand boy. It became unpossible for Syh;a
Llewelvn Da' ies to resist the temptation to usc Barrie. She had no
sense of limi~."
So time and again Svh·ia goc~ tra\eling \\;th Barrie and Mary,
bringing Jack and Michael (who suffers and will suffer for years
from terrible nightmares m wlUch strangers come in through IUs
bedroom \\1ndow; Mtchacl belic,·cs in Peter Pan as passionately as
"-I!NSINGTON GARDENS 2 l .S
he doesn't believe in l-ather Clmstmas), while Arthur goes ro visit
hi, parents in Klrb) w1th George and Peter. Linle Ntco stays at
Egerton House 111 the care of MJr)' Hodg\on.
Coming~ and going~. and Peter P1111 has irs debut in the United
Stares, where u's even more ~ucce!.sful than it was in London. Bar-
ne's made some changes to the script so It may be exported more
e!Tecovely· Hook'~ .. Do" n w1th King Edward!" becomes .. Down
with the Srars and Stnpe~!" and when Peter Pan defeats the pirate
captain, he pa~sionately in' okcs the patriotic names of Abraham
Lncoln, George W~hington, and John Paul Jones, though this
doesn't pre,·em him from appearing victorious, as usual, dressed as
::-.Tapoleon on the deck of the jolly Roge,._becausc, explains the lit-
tle hero, "Napoleon was short too."
The critics are won over again, and offer new interpretations in
which Neverland IS a symbol of the power of the New World,
while the figure of Peter Pan can be nothing but the triumph of a
youthful New Order over old and outmoded S)'Stems. And there's
something amusing, somctlUng log1cal, about the idea of Peter
Pan as the perfect incarnation of the New Man, of a man who's al-
ways new because he's a man who never grows up. Today Never-
land, and tomorrow the universe.
Maude Adams-who designs what from then on will be consid-
ered the character\ classic costume: a grec:n tunic with tights and
a hat, too mdebted to the Robin Hood look, in my opinion-plays
the leading role Bcf!.inning the fir~t night-No,·embcr 6, 1905,
Empire Theater of Ne" York, property of Charles Frohman-it's
impossible to ger ticket~ for the play, and after the longest and
mosr successful run in the history of the Empire Theater, the im-
presario organizes an unprecedented tour across the length and
breadth of the cononem. Charles Frohman is a con\"ert: Charles
Frohman wdl preach the gospel according to Peter Pan. The play
is performed m the metropolises of the East Coast as well as the
saloons of the Far West. The San FranciSco earthquake doesn't
pre,·enr Its arm-al barely SIX days after the cata.snophe to a c1ty
eager to beheve m the possibility of happy endings. Real redskins
applaud Tiger Lily's dance: on the stages of lndian reserntions.
216 RODRIGO FRESAN
And Maude Adams ~uspects-<orrectly-that there'll be nothing
else Like this in her career For the ncxr £WO decades, it'll scarcely
matter at all that she tackles other roles and even some plays by
Barrie \\ ritten cxclus1vcly for her. Two million people will come to
watch her fly through the air, and clap enthusiastically each time
Peter Pan ask.~ for their help to bnng Tmker Bell back to life.
~1ark T\\ain ~ends Barne a letter of congratulations: "I think
Peter Pan ts a huge and mphi~ticated and optimisnc conrnbuoon
to the land~ ape of thi~ ~ordid, money·obsessed era." It's Peter
Pan mania: bo~ ch1ldrcn begin to be named Peter en masse, toys
and co~tumcs and colonng boo~ and postcards are created. Barrie
is delighted Maude has been one of his favorite ~girls" since she
vaulrt:d mto the LOp rank\ of acm:~e; \\ith his pla) TJJe Little Mill-
mer in the Amenc.m \ crs1on produced by the Frohman Srock
Company.
Maude Adams in the United State> and Nina Boucicault in
England when they're rubbed together, sparks fly that feed the
flame of Peter Pans yet ro come. Like rcmcarnations of each other,
like cffic1cnt machmc~ oft ~ production line, like the scream that
follows the echo One alter .mother-and female after female,
bccau\c Peter Pan \\ill ,tlmost alway~ be a role for which adult
women dJeS~ a~ 11l11l1Jture men, to amuse themselves and maybe
have: their rnengc. Or pcrh.1p~ 1t'~ a kind of revenge on the former
actors of the Globe Theatre· if the fir~t Juli~t and the first Ophelia
were plaved by men, then it's only right that Peter Pan should
have female parts under h1s green tights. Here they come:
\ 'i\1an Martin (who IS offered the leading role in the United
States for a season by Charlc~ Frohman); Cecilia Loftus (who re·
places ::-.lina BouciCJult m England}; Paulme Chase (Barrie's fa.
vontc, an Amcncan who \\111 rnumph in London and fall mto a
pond m LJ\erpool'\ ')efton Park dunng the um·ciiing of a replica
of the statue of Peter Pan in 1928); Madge Tithcradge (who
doe;n 't la.t long, ;he: ask\ \0 \ ehementlv for the children to clap to
save Tinker Bell thJt the audience: wall' in terror ); Gladys Cooper
(who complain> that it's 1923 and Peter Pan's cosrume-"'that old
rag~-ha; nner been updated, and suggests to Barrie that the
KllNStNGTON GARDENS 117
wooden swords used by Pcrer Pan and Hook in the duel scene be
c:\changed for "real" sword~, because in her opinion they look
"stUy''); Jean Forbes-Robertson (with huge eyes, almost crazed by
the power of the character she's playing, recording the first phono·
graphic version of Ptttr Pnn}; Marilyn Miller {famous Ziegtcld
Girl); Betty Bronson (the first stlcnt-film Peter Pan); Eva I.e Galli-
enne (the proletarian Peter Pan in the Civic Repertory Theatre
production intended to enlighten the workers of the New Amen·
can Emp~te and the1r children, who, wdl indoctrinated, don't hes·
irate ro storm the stage at each performance to fight for their
hero's freedom and dignity and overthrO\\ the pirates of capital·
tsm), Elsa Lanchesrer (who's Peter Pan for a few performances
alongside her husband, Charles Laughton, in costume as Captain
Hook); Anna Neagle (who may have bcen-I'm not quite sure-
Peter Pan during the Bhtz, when all the scenery was destroyed by
Nazi bombs); Sarah Churchill (daughter ofw·mston); Jean Arthur
(\\ith Boris Karloff as Capra1n Hook ); Mary Martin; Mia Farron·
{who doesn't need ro cut her hair for the NBC television version;
Danny Kaye is her Captain I look); Sandy Duncan (Broadway rc·
viva!); Cathy Rigby (once a gymnast fumous for her appearances in
the 1968 and 1972 Olympics); and all those other little British
girls passing through (Anne Heywood, Millicent Martin, Hayley
M1lls, Maggie Smith, Lulu, Susannah York), until at last we come
to the Royal Shakespeare Company's male Peter Pans in 1982
(best of all, I suppose; most intc:rc:sting) and Steven Spielberg's
ternble Peter Pan, played b) terrible Robin WillianlS (an adult,
amnesiac Peter Pan), and finally Peter Pan as a boy savage in the
film directed b~ the Ausrrali.m P. ]. Hogan.
Keiko K:u. I won 'r lower mrself here to list the crude gay
and lesb1an vers1ons, the easy psychoanalytic adaptations, the self
help books and femm1st manuals for understanding machjsmo, the
blundering steps of stup1d comedy. None of them is Peter Pan, no
matter how they usurp h1s name and likeness.
At one point, hm Yang asks himself how it can be that no actor
who donned the green su1t-despnc the unm1srakable resemblance
of the first Peter Pam 111 all the old photographs to those \·acant-
218 RO D R I GO F R ESAN
faced figure<, with halos that ornament the ceilings and walls of
churche~-evcr went mad the 11 ay the: ardent players of T arzan,
Dracula, Superman, or Jc<,us Chrbt knc:w ho11 to go nobly mad.
The Jn!>\\Cr b that-unlike the .1peman, the 1·ampire, the super-
hero, or the Mess1ah-Peter Pan is already mad, happily mad.
All the Peter P:ms are remembered in the small commemorative
volume I was asked to put together to celebrate the centenary of
the character: '"" Tnng nnd tht Ptttr Pnn Cla11. In it, Jim Yang
fights a gang of child thie1cs who arc ransacking the museums
of the world m search of a hypothetical map that tells preascly
how to find the lo\t f'l:c,·crl.md, g111ng rhe exact roure. Of cou~,
they don't find at, and all of rhcm-whalc Jim Yang looks on in
horror---end up lulling them<,che~ a\ member~ of a suicide cult,
thinking that finally they'll be able to return m the Lost Paradise,
the Promised Land from 11 hich they were unjustly expelled. Once
again, mv ed1tor~ Jt Bedtime Story Pres.\ wen: a little uncomfort·
able with the ending. 1 decided not to imist on tl1e darkness lurk-
ing inside all children just bencacl1 the skin, or to explain that
ch ildren, lost or found, are always much stronger and more dan-
gerous creamres than they seem to be and want us to believe. So I
wrote a new l;~st chapter in which Jim Yang catches cl1e little delin-
quents and take~ them back in time on his bicycle and lea,·es them
in Kensington Garden\, where on a victorious Victorian morning
Barrie discover~ them running wild, munching flowers from the
flowerbed\ .lnd yanl..mg 11"(><11 oft' the ~hccp ro protect themselves
from the cold. He dce~des to make them pan of an idea he's work-
ing on; BMne decide~ that thc!>C children gone astray 11ill be the
perfect compamom for Peter Pan m :-.?evcrland.
The character is 1:\everland.
Ways of getting there: falhng our of your carriage when you're
a baby, or ghmpsmg It from the abyss of the deepest d ream; or Pe-
ter Pan chooses you and no one but you, and comes to get you.
Ne1·erland as a place whose atmosphere keeps you in a state of
perpetual chaldhood Even better than Shangri-La, where eternal
K S NS IN GTON GARDENS 119
voutll is the rc~u lt of .1 sort of moral pledge, or :a certain Zen, New
Atr.e cons<:IOU~Ilc\s. In Nc1erland there's no rc:~pon~iblliry at all c:~.·
cept to be irrespomible.
And I do have a map of Nc:1 erland.
From above, Neverland is vaguely the shape of Australia. Kev
s1ghts: Crocodile Island, Marooners' Rock, Captain Hook's Co1·e,
the \\'ild Wood~, ti1C ~1crmaids' Lagoon, the Lost Boys' House.
Many places to \isit and of which tO take photographs that'll be
me CO\'} of fnendS and lam II}'.
The den where Peter Pan and the lost boys live is underground.
You get 111 through the hollow trunks of se1•en trees that lead to a
smglc, 1mmensc room, hkc the place the Beatles li1·e in the film
Hdp.1 In the maddle of the room there's a sizable tree that must be
cur down to the ground each morning, regularly and without fail,
and that b) 1eatime ha\ already grown tall enough to be used as a
table where the cup~ can be set. There's a huge bed for everyone
w ~Jeep in "like ~.trdincs in a tin"; it ti lts up and is let down when
cl1c w n sets, 3\ Pcrcr Pan tells the los1 boys the stories he finds at
night o n the bedroom floor' of ahe children of London. In a cor-
ncr of the room, behind a eurtain, in a hole in the wall "no larger
U1311 a birdcage:," .m: the: private quarter~ of T inker Bell: "No
wo mJn, however large, could ha1·e had a more exquisite boudoir
and bedchamber combi ned," 11 c're told, as if someone were trying
to sell us me property. Tht: lmt boys' diet is 1•aried: dishes that are
somc:tin1es pure fruit of Lheir fertile amaginauon, and rhe bounty
of me forest, and thmg> they find l}mg about. Their clothes are
stitched from bcaa>luns that gave them a srurdy, almost round look:
falling do11 n mean~ rolling who mows where; u's better to walk
carcti.allh to walk without hurrying. There's no rush.
The character 1\ the past.
The character as the 11 ay you relate to the past, how you ignore
It, and ho11 you obe~ u.
The way, lor c\amplc, my lather thought about yesterday and
the way I 1hmk about ar.
120 RODRIGO FRESAN
Two passages from the same book. Two paragraphs underlined
in my Father's Favorite novel that I always thought perfectly illus-
trated the two systems-complementary systems-of looking
backward.
Here they arc:
You may ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quire
many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have wit-
nessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people
ro desire ro set down what cl1ey have witnessed for the ben-
efit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or,
if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads.
Some one has said tint the death of a mouse from cancer
is the whole sack of Rome by rl1e Goths, and I swear to yon
rhar the breaking up of our lm:lc four-square coterie was
such another unthinkable evenr.
And then:
l have, I am ;1ware, told tl1is story in a very rambling way so
that it may be difficult for anyone to find his path tluough
what may be a sort of maze. I cannot help it. I have stuck to
my idea of being in a country cottage with a silent listener,
hearing between the gum of wind and amidst the noises of
the distant sea the story as it comes. And, when one dis-
cusses an affair-a long, ~ad affuir-onc goes back, one goes
forward . One remembers points that one has forgotten and
one explains them all the more minutely since one recog-
nizes that one has furgotten ro mention them in their
proper places and that one may have given, by omitting
them, a false impression. I console myself wid1 cl1inking that
this is a real stor>' and that, after all, real stories are probably
told best in the way a person telling a story would tell them.
They will then seem most real.
That's why I write.
That's how 1 write.
KENSINGTON GARDhNS 2.21
Falling to piece~, rambling, going backward and going rorward,
the real breaki ng up of our lirtle twelve-numeral, two-handed
circle.
The character is time.
Time that gives you strucrure and limits.
Time and its arrows-dates like darts that always hit their mark,
the red-and-black grid of calendars; dates I use to order Barrie's
life. His ope ning nights, his books, his speeches, his moves; dates
that I have roo, that I could apply ro the course of my own exis-
tence, but that do me little good. There isn 'r much I remember. 1
remember much about very little. I remember now the most im-
portant thi ng of all: my childhood; the memory of my childhood
growing like a tree chopped down ea<:h morning, a tree that by
evening is tall and leaty again and has a powerful shadow sewn
tightly ro its roots.
Por thc first years of your childhood, time docsn't exist. Time b
measured in birthdays, in summers, and in Christmases, and rl1at's
all. The passage or time is slow, a stroll. It'~ the kind of rime there
is in Ne\·erland, time that doesn't exist in Nevcrland because-
Barrie tells us-the only watch in Ncvcrland tick~ in the stomach
of a hungry crocodile, and to know what time it is in Neverland,
you have w get as close ro tl1e crocodile as possible and smy d1cre
as long as you can, until you hear the sound of d1e alarm, until
time opens irs jaws and sinks its teeth uito you and you can't es-
cape its bite and you understand mar now, at laS[, alter so long,
time is going ro swallow you up.
Time is going to eat you alive.
The character is age.
One day you're given your first watch. It's rl1e end of obligation-
free childhood. The watch is a roy, yes, bur it's a delicate toy,
a serious roy. A toy you arcn 't sure what to do with, but all of a
sudden there It 1s: biting your left wrist like a crocodile and infect-
ing your blood with the viru~ of hours and minutes and seconds.
212 RODRIGO PR'BSAN
That first watch means you're old enough and responsible enough
no'' for a first watch. It's the first of the several watches you'U ha,·e
over the course of your life. A watch for each age. Four or fh·e
watches. Enough watches, until you \\1nd down and die, your
watch stopping when you go to bed forever and rou lea,·e it to
someone cbc, the machine that tracked the age of your body and
your mind and the way your life assembled it~clf until it became a
lirrlc story, one of the infinite bricks out of which the immense
nm1sion of eternity is built.
Along the~e lines, a paragraph of the dedication that Barrie
wrote for the fir~t edition of Peur Pnn-d1e play became avail-
able: 111 book form in 1928-alwav~ ~ec:med to me defining and
dcfiniti,e:
Some sa~ that we are different people at different periods of
our hves, changing not through etTort of will, which is a
brave aftiur, but in the easy course of narure every ten years
or so. l suppose this theory might explain my present trou-
ble, bur l don't hold with it; l think one remains the same
person throughout, merely passmg, a~ it were, in these
l.1pses of time from one room to another, but all in the same
house If we unlock tJ1c rooms of the far p~t we can peer in
and ~c: ourselves, busily occupied in beginning to become
you and me.
Somethlng sunilar appears in one of his notebooks:
• CHARACTER: who fails to develop normaU}·, his spirit still
young inside his aging body, constandr troubJc:d by the
pamful astonishment we all experience at one time or an-
other when we're.: struck by some external evidence that
shakes our faith in eternal youm.
A last wish: if my cursed bones are used to build an addition to
iliis House of Time, please use them to make a new window. An
open \\1ndow mat I can close fore,·er, and thus pay, "ith Engli~h
alacnry, for so many sins after so much time.
KENSINGTON GARDENS
The character is ilie era.
The: ~uddc:n consciousness of the era we live in. Or me eras.
There are hinge-moments, door-years, threshold-periods, when we
have the distinct sense and uncertain pri1 ilc:ge of lh·ing on se\'eral
temporal planes at once.
Years when History becomes even more historic.
The Victorian era and me Swinging Sixties, for exan1ple. They
have curious similarities and point:; in common-and, please, it's
nor because of my father that I say so. The two are golden ages-
though me reign of Victoria is an era of gemus whereas me reign
of Sgt. Pepper is simply ingenious-and unlike other eras of splen-
dor, each is conscious of itself as it unfolds and has no need to wan
for the posthumous medals of the chrontclers of things past.
The two ages manage to create new forms of childhood: the
Nc" Children and the New Rockers, lillli:rcnt versions of ep1c,
happy irresponsibility. One group CIIJOYS a whole new world cre-
ated for it, and the other gambles on founding a new establish-
ment. The former finally undcr~tand~ the terrible truth in the.:
trenche~ of the First World War and in the rear guard of the Em
pire'~ decline. The latter pays for it~ audacity much sooner, perish
ing buried under me weight of its own utopia. Two sides of d1e
same Illusion, of the failure to consider smali, pertinent details: me
me\'itable passage of time, tor example ' whtch erodes e\'erythmg
and brings bad music and crude 1m1tanons like Dr. Dolirrle and
Goodbye. Mr. Cllips), and, abo,·e all, the rclendess parade of fash-
ions through the streets of London.
The character is the city.
The c haracter is London. lit by that light so peculiar to Lon
don, a glow that's impossible to imitate and that doesn't bathe the
City but ~ems to be radiated by It A pnsmaric brilliance. Whne
light reco,·ering its true ramb<m \tate by passing mrough the
drops of a ram that never comple£ch nrushcs: in London tt's al -
\\J~\ raining, or about to ram, or Jbout w \lop raining.
22~ RODRIGO FRF.SAN
An island floating inside an island. Maybe this explains the al-
most reflexive need-like the jerk of the knee at the tap of that
little hammer-to travel all o\·er the '''orld in search of answers to
the universe's questions. Thus, the swarms of Victorian explorers
ready to carry their queen 's likeness to the most distant and inhos-
pitable corners of the map: enormous icebergs like palaces, source-
less rivers crossing entire continents, strange flowers with a deadly
scent, paintings of swimmers on the walls of caves smrow1ded by
sand and sun. Nothing ~eems ins.ignificant to these men in motion.
And there are so many rooms in the British Museum to fill, and
everything is worthy of being recorded in the registers of the
Royal Geographical Sociery in the name of Victoria: a queen and a
kingdom expanding like a gas over everything soli~ ru1d even go·
ing back in rime with the help of Charles Darwin to find explana-
tions of where we come from, what we used to be like, what
London used to be like.
London like one of those cabinets of cmiosities where a whole
histOry is displayed in the most logical disarra)'· The many pieces of
difterem puzzles that ~till manage to fir together. Inside ir: the san-
dal of a Roman legionnaire who comes to what will one day be
Kent in the year 55 B.C.; a spear point from the army of powerful
Boadicea; a Viking helmet; the crowns of Alfred the Great and
Olaf; a page from the first Domesday Book; a fragment of a paving
stone from the first London Bridge; the echo of a prayer recited
during the first service at Westminster; the mocki11g voice of Geof-
frey Chaucer reciting one of the CM~terlmry Tales; the dying
breath of someone with the black plague; the headless bodies of
Thomas More wd Anne Boleyn; a curl from one of Elizabeth I's
wigs; the feathers of a parrot imported by Francis Drake or Walter
Raleigh; the makeup box that an actor at the Globe Theatre used
to rmn himself into Juliet ru1d Ophelia and Desdemona; a pinch of
the powder with which Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament; a
brush that might or might not have belonged to Rubens; the rope
used ro hmg the corpse of Cromwell in Tyburn; Newton's tele-
scope looking out over the city burning with fire ru1d plague; a key
from Handel's cla,~chord; a lirtle bag holding some of the seeds
KENSINGTON GARDENS 225
left over when Kew Gardens was sown; a new fruit that Captain
Cook ncYer dared to taste; a stamp commemorating Victoria's
coronation; a scented handkerchief to mask the terrible stench of
the Thames; one of the trmsparent pmels from Hyde Park's Crys·
tal Palace in the Great Expos•tion of 1851 (rescued from the fire of
1936); a copy of the magazine Master Humphrey's Clock in which
the story of Little: Ndl's death is told; a Wedgwood teacup; one of
Holmes's "clementary"s; a railway ticket; a fan commemorating
the Boer War; an underground ticket; a ticket to sec a Chaplin
film; the lost first manuscript ofT. E. Lawrence's 71Je Sevm Pillars
of Wisdom, revealing to me alone, "All men dream, but not in tl1e
san1e way. Those who dream at night in the dusty recesses of their
minds wake up the next day to find that their drerum were nothing
but pure vainglory; whereas those who dream by day are danger-
ous men, because they can live their dreams with eyes open aJJd
thus make them come true"; a radio that only receives the BBC;
the propeller of a V· 2 that didn't explode back then but could ex-
plode at any rime; a cru1 of corned beef from the days of rationing;
a happy tear of Beatlcmania; a sad tear of Dianamania; and soon a
tear of Jim Yang-mru1ia, shed part in outrage and p<trt in surprise,
because whoever would'l•c thought that what happened would
happen, that what's happening would happen, that what'll happen
would happen, Keiko K.ai.
A [,itcrar)' Gttirle to Londo11, by Ed Glincn, devotes eight en-
tries to Barrie, to the places Barrie immortalized simply by living
in rhem or visiting them, or even jus! by thinking about them.
Barrie's name is one of the most frequently cited in the guide.
Dickens gets more mention~; but Dickens always ha~ more of
everything. The shrines to Barrie lhat appear marked on the map
arc the: Great Ormond Srreet Hospital for Sick Children (to which,
as I've: already mentioned, Barrie donated the rights to Peter Ptm;
it's thc hospital I was taken to after I was captured in Brighton);
1 Robert Street (where Barrie li\'ed from 1911 until his death in
1937); the Savoy Hotel (Barrie was invited tl1cre for H. G. Wells's
seventieth-birthday parry); the Travellers Club at 106 Pall Mall
(founded to serve tl1ose \\ho went on the Grand Tom aJJd anyone
22o RODRIGO PRBSAN
who'd traveled at least a thousand miles from London; it's there
that Barrie asks Afncan explorer Joseph Thompson what the most
dangerou~ part of his last trip was; Thompson answers, ~crossing
Piccad1lly C1rcus"); the Athenaeum Club at 107 Pall Mall (one
e'·ening, Barrie asks an old man s1rung m the smoking room if the
food IS good enough to make It worrh ~rapng for dinner; the old
man bu~ts inro rears, 0\'Crcome-"Thls IS the first time anyone's
s;ud a word to me \mce I became a member here"- md e:~.cuseJ>
h1mselt ro go otT m \ean:h of a handken:hicf and ~me dignity\;
133 Gloucc\ter Road (Barrie'' horne while be was writing Smti-
mmtnl Tomm1· and Margnra Q.qif1•1 and where he wem to li\'e
,,;th Mary Ameli after rhe1 ''ere: married, Glinerr rather rashly and
irresponsiblv note.\ that "the marriage failed because Barrie was
gay" and had a weal.. "\ex dme" ); I 00 Bayswater Road (where
Barrie \\TOte Peter Patl); Campden Hill Square in Kensington Park
Gardens (the neighborhood that would inspire T. S. Eliot's Fo11r
Q.ltMtetS'-ongin.llly called Kcm111gton Q!tartctS'-and where
Arthur and Sylvia Llewelyn D.w1es hved with their children and to
which later rhc pacifist poet Sicgti·ied Sassoon would move), and,
of cour~e, tha1 appendage of I !yde Park, that smaller Siamese rwi n,
called Kensing10n GMdcn~.
The character is Kensington Gardens.
Kensington Gardens as the S1amese rw10 ofHvde Park· born in
. '
1698, growing and flourish10g through the eighteenth century
under WiUiam and Mary William moved to Nottingham House,
next to the gardens, bccau~e he said the air of Whitehall Palace
aggranted h1s asthma Wilham commissioned the design of the
gardens to Charlc:s Bndgcman. And he ordered Sir Christopher
Wren-the architect who rebu1lt the churches of London after the
Great Fire of 1666-to remodc:l ~ottingham House wd rurn the
austere mansion inro a palace. Then Queen Caroline-wife of
George Il-made the Round Pond and the Serpentine flow from a
branch of the \ Ve~tboumc Ri1 er. And it w~ from then on that city
dwellers were allowed "so long as they are respectably attired"-
to walk in the gardens and listen from the paths ro rhe laughter of
KENSJNCTON CARDBNS 117
little \'ktonJ, "ho \\ .1~ born be~ide Kensington Gardens, or rhe
wc:cping of Dtana of Wales, who lived her last days as a fast, di-
\'Orc:ed prince\\ there. Thcy'yc all left no\\, tl1ey'rc: all gone:. Ken\-
mgron Gardens ~till remJJm.
Kensingron Garden~ .1~ J black hole, a deYourer of galaxies, of
hghr, of what "~ a11d "hat "W be. Kensington Gardens al> the
password that open~ the door to the secret ca,·e. Kensington Gar-
dens as the "Xn on the treasure map wd the white outline mark-
mg the exact spot where until recendy a dead body flowered.
Kensington Gardem as the mastermind of all crimes.
Kensingron Gardens as a magnet for poets, as a poinr of aurae-
non for rho~ ·as the(re described in The Little Whire Bird-
"who aren't exactlv adults, who scorn monev
; ., and onlv . care about
havmg what they need to make it through the day." In I11e Little
n'h1te R1rd, Barrie de\Cribcs ho\\ the young Percy Bysshe Shelley
makes a paper boar With a banknote and, like an offering, sets it
.:tfloar o n rhe Serpentine, where it's spurned by the crow Solomon
Caw and end~ up in the hands of Peter Pan, who makes it his 1:1-
vorirc roy, his mean.~ of tran~porr for reaching land.
Kensington Gardens and me.
Kensington Garden\, of cour~e. appears in my hypothetical
London. A kc)' cmry in A Liurar.v GtJide that follows in my foot-
steps around the city. But I don't chink there'll ever be such an en-
try, Kciko Kai. I'l l be "iped from all records, the despicable sound
of tn) \'Oice "ill be banned e\ erywhere, guidebooks will disa\'OW
me, and my works will be forgotten wd declared unfit for chil-
dren It doesn't make me sad; it's as it should be. That's the idea,
after all, the goal of this night full of memories and names and
vears. !'ames from the dJstwt past onto which I rrv to shift the
burden of the names of yesterday. A near-lunatic r~ciration, be-
cause the only poinr of all dus accumulanon of dara and stories m
my memory IS ro ross pmoners O\'erboard. I like to think that each
date I c1le, each name I spell out d1<appcars as soon as it's spoken
As 1f I were crossmg them out one by one. As ifl were a mad com-
puter at the end of the unl\·cr~c. wclcommg the reward of amnes1a
afrer knowing e\'Cr) thmg lor so long.
But unfortun.uclv 11 d<x:\n 't work that way, Kciko Kai. The
128 RODRIGO FRESAN
process is the reverse: each occasion I call up is a new step in the
direction of remembering everything, of not being able to flee as
1've been fleemg all rhc.se years, refusing to commit my life to
memory and therefore to lh·e it. The seventies, the eighties, the
nineties were nothmg to me but a breeze altermg the marks in the
sand on the beach: yeaN that d1dn 't leave deep tracks, that didn't
change rhe landscape l'or three decades I spent all my time read-
mg and wnnng ch1ldren 's books to forget m}' childhood. I almost
succeeded One Jim Yang ad,·enturc per year, more or less, and the
rest is an impenetrable fog, I li\ed m my books so as nor to Ji,c
oulloide of them. The method worked-Jim Yang as the last brick
in the wall of m~ oblhion All m) memories rising ro the diffi-
cult task of obliterating my mcmorv. And 1 did burn millions of
calonc:s.
Now, howc,·cr, I feel the pa~t rerurnmg ro me. r see how it
gathers on rhc hon7on m a ~narl of clouds brimming with fury and
thunder .md lighrnmg. I he charge doesn't come from all those
years when I mmtly ju\l reJd and then wrote-the nineties, the
eighties, the se\enries-but, r.uhcr, from what happened bdbre
and ''hat seem~ to be hJppcning all over again, aftcr having been
forgotten for so long.
Now the air smells of that crisp perfume, the scent o f thirsty
soil announcing the arrh·al of rain. The storm will burst, and I'll
burst \\ith 1t. And nothing will be able to save me from the electric
rage of irs thunderbolts
Not even Jim Yang.
The character 1s }lm Yang.
There isn 'r much I can tell you that ~n 't m the books, Keiko Kai.
Not much I feel hke tclhng.
And .tfter .til, you're Jlfll Yang.
Or-so sorry, not sorry .u all-you were going to be Jim Yang.
What can 1 tell you? What can I explain?
Ir isn't necessary to knO\\ much aboU[ a hero of children's lit-
erarure. A quick sketch of hi~ past is more than enough. The rest is
KIINSING'rON GARDI>NS 11V
J fren1ied and constJJlt now. And ~orne pertinent detaib, some
questions worth amwcnng.
Wlw a hicyde, for c"ampld
l'\e ah\ ays liked bu:vcle~. Thc strange "ay they ha' e of beU1g
simple and vet at the: same time sophhticated inventions. The biq·-
de is a machine of met.tl and Aesh: blood-and -swear traction and
chrome speed. B1cvcle and man constitute one of the mo~t just
and democranc SOCieties never formed. I won't say anything aboU[
Its degenerate subspec1es except that motorq·des are de fruro bicy-
cles, and exercise b1kes are lhgid b1L-yclcs, and triq•cles arc dwarf
bicycles, and un1cycles- weU, is there anything more idiotic than a
unicycle?
Was there a sketch of a b1g·cle in Leonardo's notes? I th1nk I
saw one there: a bicycle crossed \\lth a helicopter or a parachute.
And why is it that m 2001: A Space Od_Ysst.v the compU[er HAL
9000 bid~ farewell to his perfect memO£)' by singing a song about
the joys of a nde on a bicycle built for two?
w,,,
All right: the first bicycle designed by the Scottish genius
Kirkpatrick Macmill.m in 1839, and its tires were invented by J. B.
Dunlop in 1888; but eve n so, bicycles seem ageless, atc:mporal in a
W:l)' that lets us si tu.ue them in .llmost any .:ra. Or enjoy them any-
where, because the bicycles of Anmerdam and the bicycles of
Shanghai speak exactly the same language, a language \\hose
forthright and muscular intonation never changes.
My first bicycle was a present from Marcus Merlin. A new s1lver
Sch"inn, made in the U.S.A. 1 ha,·e no idea where he got it. An
aerodynamic machme that seemed designed by Mercury himself,
and, yes, }1m Yang's b1C)·cle is a Sch\\inn retrofitted to reach the
speed ofome.
Marcus Merhn brought 1t to me betore my parentS set sa1l
for death and madness He couldn't behc,·e n when [ told him 1
didn't KnO\\ how ro ndc ;~ btkc. I didn't know how to S\'im e1thcr.
Or bo'C lnd1gnant, ,\1an.u\ Merlin taught me how to keep mr bal-
ance and float. "Two c~~cnual skill~ needed to live a worth" hile
hfe,., <.a1d Marcm Mcrhn lie couldn't do much "hen 1t came ro
left hook.~ and I(>Ot\H>rk. Sa1d Marcm Merlin: "Other than S\\1m-
.2-10 RODRIGO PRBSAN
ming and riding a bike, r.be best \\ ay to use your arms and legs-
the fourth best way-l can't teach you myself, bm we'll find you a
\\illing g~rl. ~
Satd Marcus Merlin, ghing up in the final round, when I still
couldn't get the concept of a cross tO the chm: "Some people arc
born with the gift and some arcn 't. Anyway, don't worry; I doubt
you 'II ever have to fight. You ha\'C too much money in the bank,
and you have every right to pay someone to u~c his fists for you."
The text that reveals the most about Jim Yang isn't the story of
any of his adventures: it's a short piece I wrote once for r.be maga·
.dne Uncur. The publication-a monthlv featuring the birth pangs
and autop~ie~ of pop culture-published a special issue in which it
brought together a number of novelists to write about their fa
\'Orite song from the perspecti\'e of thetr characters.
I forgtve me, Father-<hose the Searles' "ADa~· m the Life."
M} short ptcce-"A Day m the ltfc of Jam Yang"-tells the
story of a tnp Jim Yang takes to the Abbey Road studios in Janu·
ary and February of 1967. The Beatlcs arc making Sgt. Pepper's
umety Hen1·ts Club Baud there, and they're getting ready to
n:cord what will rightly be con~idw:d their magnum opus: "A Day
in the Life."
More has been written about the many ways of interpreting the
meaning of this song than about almost anything else in the world
m search of a meaning. That's fine \\ith me. Ir desen·es it. My pre·
ferred hypothests-my chosen hypotheSIS-IS the one that claims
the song ts a kind of small bm exhaustive mstrucnon manual for
the perceptton of reality. A realtty altered by the use of a hallucmo·
genic subHance in the case of John Lennon and Paul McCarmey,
bm one that-in Jim Yang's ease-l attribute to the miles accumu·
laced a~ a rcltulr of his frequent and ever more obsessive time·
traveling habit. "A Day in the Life" is the impossible wish to make
all of lustory fit into a day: a resounding antidote to our clisap·
poinrmcnt with rhe limitations of the mundane, making ordinary
life bearable by elevating each part of it to a place in a perfect cy·
de. ~A Day in the Life"-recorded in a total of thirty-four sruclio
hour. makes the everyday sound different and unique, makes a
KENSINC1 ON GARDENS lJI
dJ\' like a.Jl\' other ~pecial and tram.:cndem. It wakes us up forever
\\lth the sound of dut alarm dock 111 tl1e ~ng's bridge, a ~ound
that seems to burst from the bell} of a crocodile.
Jim Yang-who ''ould IO\e ro be able to srop, choose an era,
establish a normal life there, keep his bicycle locked up-CO\'Cts
that day. While the "day in the lite" of the song is Januar} 17,
1967, commemorated by the cmbclli~hed reading of the Dnil)•
Mnil, in Jim Yang's life it's the moment he'd like to inhabit
forever. Get there, stay, never leave.
In "A Day in the Life of Jim Yang," the young time traveler
arri,·es at the Abbey Road studios for the session at which the sym
phonic segment of the song \\til be recorded. Paul McCartney
wanted ninety musicians, bur tn the end there are only fort}'. The
producer George Martin chose them from among the members of
the: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and tl1e London Symphony Or·
'he~tra The Beatles hand our mas~. fabe noses, false mustaches,
part}' hats for the mLLsici.m~ to put on a~ tht:} play. There·~ ~ome·
t:hing cruel about the way their names Me missing from r.be album
credi~. I imagine them tod.1y, dc~pcratcly trying to convince their
skeptical grandchildren tl1ar they wc:re tl1erc.
Someone films it all witl1 a handheld camera.
There are f.unous guests. My parents haven't been in\'ited.
There's Tim Yang: on his btcycle, not knO\\ing what to do or
where hls own story \\ill go. There's nothing left for him to seek
now, and suddenly he feels lost, \\ith no reason to keep existing.
Could this be the end of childhood? Has the moment come to
grow up? he asks lumself.
Jim Yang thinks he feels a strange tension in his bones, the:
white yawn of a skeleton wakmg up afi:o:r a long sleep. A sound like
the sound we hear as we approach the ~ca and the pavement turn~
to sand and we take ofT our ~hocb and walk through the dune~ ,
and at last our eyes arc noodc:d \\ ath all that moving blue. Though,
no, tt'~ a different sound, samil.1r but the: rc\ er\e: Jim Yang feel~ It\
the sea approaching htm, and-pardon me again, Father, you who
were drO\\ ned and ne\'er buried-the sound reminds me of the or
chc~tral din tlut's heard for the fir.t wne in ~A Day in the: Life~
132 ROOR.IGO FRESAN
and that, in its way, anticipate~ the beginning of the end of every·
thing.
John Lennon described the sound as "the sound of the end of
the world ... a bit 2001," and nothing was ever the same for the
Beatles after th;u song, the way notlung's the same once you've
reached the h1ghest peak and diScovered that the only thing left to
do is ro throw yourself from it.
"A Da) m the L1fe" was J1m Yang's mother's fa,·orite song.
The character is Baco.
Baco's favorite song was also "A Day in the Life." Although
Baco heard it only once. Baco died the night Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Cl11b Bm1d was released. M)' futher came back to Nevedand
";th the :~lbum . He put it on to play. We hstened to it. My fa·
ther-1 could feel lt- hkcd it desp1te lumself. There were sparks of
Vic ton ana in it rhat he couldn't ignore or help appreciating: that
brass sccnon. "She's Leaving Home," the description ofthe differ·
cnr acrs in an old circus, "When I'm Sixty·Four," even the Indian
pastiche had something interesting and colonial about it ... And
when "A Day in the Life" began, I ~aw in his eyes-mo re ears than
eyes just then-that he was conscious not only of the enormity of
John Lennon and P:1ul McCarmey's triumph, but also of the
smallness of his own f:lilurc .
Baco stood up and srarted to spin as the orchestra soared up to
hell or swooped down to hea,·en. Baco sang along with Lennon
and McCartney, hearing the song for the first rime, guessing how
ir wenr, as 1f It were h1s and only h1s.
\\'ould Baco have been worthy of appearing among the many
sacred fuces on the cover of a So11 of Sgt. Pepper or a Sgt. Pepper
~trtkts Back? \Vas Baco a prodigy? There's no way to know. Baco
died bc:fore hi~ geniu~ could be properly certified.
Tru.:: at th.: age of two, Baco bad alread)' taken the step of
christening his toes, because he thought it was "nor \·cry nice:"
that the}' didn't ha\'C their own names, "like our fingers do."
True: Baco had a disrusbing abilirv to enthrall adults and make
slaves of his lade mends.
Ki>N S IN GI'ON GARDENS 1 .1 r
True· Baw occa\ionall) .illuded-not in \0 many word~ but
what he said meant cxac th the ~arne rhing-ro the co~mic, expan-
sive explmion that thousands of years ago gave birth ro million~
of stars. Srars suddenlv anxiou~ to mo'e apar~ stars war) of be-
ing seen together. And Baco predicted that at some point all these
stars would lose momentum, that, ba,mg reached the farthest
edge of the wave of e:..pansion, tl1ey would reconsider their attitude
and begm the slow JOurney borne, retreating to that first, blazing
po1nr of pure energy. And our sky would fill ,,;th stars coming
closer and closer together, stars C\'Cr more eager to be reunaed.
And then there wouldn't be rught or cold, and everything would
be light and hear, and luckily we wouldn't be here anymore to see
it, because our match's bnef flame would've been blown out and
e:ningu1shed long ago.
There's no doubt about it: B.1c:o shone.
But as c\cryonc knows, childhocx.i genius i~ ofi:en a flower th.tt
lives for only .1 day, an ephemeral manifeMation, a gift that be-
comes a ~tigm.1 and later result~ 10 the disfigured face of an adult
closer to swpidiry than enJightc:nmenL
Maybe Baco wasn't a genius
Maybe Baco, conscious in some way of how short his life would
be, tried to concentrate :IS much brilli:lncc as possible in the ~mall
est space.
Maybe Bac:o didn't want robe someone special and unique.
Maybe Baeo JUSt wanted the people be knew nC\·er ro forget him.
The character IS fmulv
My parent~ and my brother wcrcn 't dcs1gned to grow old. To
sa~· that they d1ed young 1~ therefore mexacr. .\1y parents and my
brother died-the wJy dmo~aurs <he· ·when the great meteonre
of a future that d1dn't mcludc them crashed into their planet'~
present.
So It was bcner for them to be extinguished in a Rash than to
live 1n a time \\hen all they'd be was detritus, watches runmng
slow, ammals fccdmg on the empty and toxic and cheerless sub·
stance of memory.
.? .I 4 RODRIGO PRESAN
The character is memory.
Memory that's conStructed our of what we remember, and al'iO
out of what we'\·e decided m forget.
It's ~o hard to remember II'ttl, even the most importanr thmgs
that've happened to you in your Ide. All you know is that they've
happened, and then, conscious of that, you i11vc11t the memory of
them, and instantly tho~c vague di~patchc~ become somethmg
much more tran~ccndent than anything that really and truly could
have luppened. Thus, our reality i\ \ll\tJined by p1llars of unreality
~unk 111 foundations a~ shal..1 .l\ tho\e of a dream told the next
mornmg. Thus, our past i!. nothing but ~(altered fragments lack-
ing a before :111d an after. Scartcred p1ecc\ of a watch that we don't
knO\\ how to pm together. That'~ the comfort of being a child:
there's so tittle to remember that we remember e\·erything. And
we remember tt weU.
Barrie knows th1s. Barrie's chosen to build his life and work our
of the limited but effective combinarion of these basic materials.
Barrie remembers en:rything and promi~cs himself not to give in
to the tendency to forgetfulness that catches up with you as the
years go by: there's increasingly more past and less free space in
the ~cvcnty·five cubiC inches of the bram. The real tragedy isn't
death, thinks Barrie, but forgetting en:rything you've remembered
o,·er the cow;e of your life. So Ba.rnc won't stop taking notes.
Ever. Ba.rric will sum up e\·erything in sentences in his notebooks,
111 pracocal theories, in stories ripped from h1s life story.
That's what fiction's for.
That's what those books whose style and plot we can conjure
up imperfectly but whole are for, those books that connect us au·
tomatically, reflexively, to ou r own experience. Reading is a com·
parative c:xcrc1se; literature-the act of writing and reading-is the
phy~ical manifestation closest to and mo~t like memory that hu·
mans have achieved. Therefore, all novel) arc ine\itably aurobio·
graphical for those who \Hite them and \hut them; but also for all
tho,c who open them and read them.
With the theater it's differem: \\ e remember moments, scene~.
K I!N~ING10N GAROI!NS
1.'\dungc~. an actor we hkc, an .l<.trc" we hate. ·n,ere we're \Imply
\\ ltncsse!> or prisoner<> We arcn 't re\pon~ible for anytl1ing.
With film-there .1re d.w, l~arric: \\ 1\hc' h1~ lite \\ere a mm ic d1
reded by someone else, and not a book wrmen by him-It's even
e~1cr. We just float Tn ~ilc1Ke .md "1th all the light!. turned out, if
po~~ible: the glow from the screen illuminates us.
And at first, film rried as hard as it could to imitate lili.:. lr
wOl.'>n 't easy, of course: movies were silent, black and white, too
short.
When was the terrible momcm when life began to imitate film
and forget itself?
In the end, memory is simply the script of the film of our life.
Based on a uue story, yes, but full of changes that improve the
pace and the appeal and the dramaoc possibilities of the story and
our always deficienr and 111.1dcquate acting skills. Memory 1s the
tool we usc to forget.
Film 15 amnesia.
The character is film.
The movies.
Jim Yang: The Movie
I'd always refused to allow Jim Yn11g to be adapted for the
~crcen. It wasn't nece~ary. There \\ere already enough young
wntccs \\ ho claimed to \\ rire because thetr real interest was making
mo~ics, tdling mO\i.e stories, filming their books, writing in the
dark.
But all of a sudden I gave in, almost without a fight. A possible
explanation for this-which seemed much more normal to every·
one thm my resistance-has to do, I suppose, with my debt to
Marcus Merlin, my grarimde to Marcus Merlin.
Marcus Merlin convinces me He tells me that I owe it to him.
He explains that T can't deny him this happiness, that 1t would he
very cruel of me-he's laughmg, JOiong, serious, as he tells me
thh after all he's done for nK Marcu~ Merlin in the marvelous
world of film at last
But It's not just thar. There hJ\ to be mmc other rea')(lll t\ ,e
2J6 RODRIGO PRl!SAN
cret strategy. lr doesn't take me long to find it, to understand it,
now that it's impos\ible tO turn back: my need, at first unconscious
and now perfecdy well thought out, to destroy Jim Yang, to end
hts de~potic retgn m the mmds of the boys and girls of the planet.
The film is the first step m his degradatton, and although it's per-
fectly logical, it's always amazmg how fast vou can destroy some-
thmg that took '><> long to build The swastika, for example: for
thous.tnd\ of vcars it ~vmbolizcd peace, prosperity, long life, and
good luck, and m just .1 It\\ vc.tr~ Adolf Hider turned it into the
most effective i\Otope of the unforgivable and the infamous.
The Jim Yang mO\ie will be the first step, the first wave of
bombs htttmg the target, but- maybe I'm naive to think there'll
be a film after what I've already done and what 1 plan to do-it
won't be enough there's alwap the more than likely possibility
that a terrible film ''ttl he loved by mtlltons of people with enthu-
~iastically tcrnhlc ta\tc It doc\n't t.lke much to win the adoration
of the taithful a l,llld~hdc of pubhmy, an avalanche of special ef-
fect~, a handful of e\cellem bad actor~-and, no, don't take it per-
sonallv, Kciko Kai.
The truth i~. I'm nm fighting to presen•e the imegrity of my
work bm to make it disappear as rapidly as possible from the face
of the earth and from children·~ faces.
Keiko Kai: Jim Yang scare\ me. l'm terrified by the effect be's
had on the beha,ior of young readers, of those fans who wait for
each book as if it'\ their salvation. And I'm even more terrified
by the way l•m Yang has gradually dc,·oured my life and past. Now
I understand, now I think I understand. }im Yang has been
the 'edattve that make\ my pam bearable, the music that puts me
to sleep, my way of hiding and dcnpng cenillll parts of the un-
authorized stOr) of my lifi:, "hu:h ts really, literally that- an unau-
thori7ed biograph~-not lxcau~e it\ written by an investigator of
my in~rc:rions, but becau!tC tt reveals a period of my life whose
existence has been dt~authorizc:d by me, eliminated from history as
if it never existed, 111 the same wav the hieroglyphic figures of some
of the ph.traohs were erased from the temples and turned into leg-
ends or cun.es by later dynasoes.
KllNSINGTON GARDENS 2.1 7
And '>V, Kciko K.li, I traveled 10 legc:ndar)', cursed Hollywood.
Bv plane In lir~t da~~
Said Man:u~ Merlin, "ho promised to follow me in a few days:
~If you're going to du: falling from up there, at least die in com-
forr And the moment when d1c:y make you board early M> that
the plebs see you and realize you're one of the demigods of the
sloe\ is pncclc~. ~
I've nc,·cr shared Marcus Merlin's fascination "ith a.irplanes,
much less atrplane luxury, which is nothing but a slighdy more
glamorous and more comfortable way to bide the same egalitanan
terror of entrusttng yourself to a machine whose ability to fly you
don't quite understand It's not that I'm scared to fly: I'm not
afr;ud of sudden jolts, abrupt changes in alrirude, lighming flash-
mg outside rhc ltttlc wmdow; I don't feel the anguish of smokers
painfully aware that there arc ~till thousands of seconds before they
can fill their lung.' with \mokc. Absolute stillness docs bother me:
the way the ~ubtlc ami almost ~ecrct changes in the machine's
brc:at htng p.lltcrn~ become even more noticeable: on perfect
flight;, .tnd all of .1 sudden it's a' if the plane has stopped breath-
ing, as if ~uddenly it too ha~ begun to think that after all it never
rc.tlly under\tood very "ell whc:n people ~xplainc:d to it how }'O U
stay up in the ~ky. Flymg i~ sometlung that always struck me as
O\<:rratcd. It's a childhood t3nrasy that may be important to d1e
Peter Pan and Jim Yang ~torie~ and to all those children dreaming
of midniglm in "hich thcv drift over cities or full !Tom the clouds.
But it's also a symptom and a compulsion that man should alreadv
have overcome: \\1ng~ of feathers and wood and wa.x, aerostati~
balloon~. airplanes and rockets and space shurrles and magic flying
dust. Anythmg goes, ~o long a.~ we reach the place inhabtted bv
the god~, who \\atch u~ from above, because from up there w~
look even \maller than we alway~ arc and always "ill be. That need
to aim htgh and ~kyward . Enough r-.:o more. That immarurc need
to drift and chmb, mavhc because we feel we must m order to dts-
tract Ouf\Ch C\ from the p.lrado\ of gro";ng up and thmking we 'rc
gettmg dmcr to the \ky, when tn rcaltty, as our body stretches, we
shrmk farther from 'pace .md dmcr to the earth Closer and closer
.2 .l II RODRIGO PR.BSAN
ro Si\ feet under. farther and fanJ1cr from the brilliance of the
star...
I got to Hollywood (for some strange reason I can't call it Los
Angeles), and they welcomed me like a kmg m exile, like a prodi
gal son. I inhaled the pure oxygen of limousines and felt the wa)'
the rhythm of the day changed, the way there were no longer para-
graph~, the way everything seemed just barely separated by almost
nonc-.:i~tent full-stops. I attended mecrmgs where I said nothing at
all. They made me sign papers that I didn't read. T hey showed me
the mo~t recent issue of Jlnritt)', with d picture of me on the: first
page: under an enormous headline that read "NEW BARRIE HITS
TOWN." 1l1ev stared at me without trving ro hide that the} were
\t.lring .u me, \\ith that strange mrxturc of Jdmiration and ridicule
and em·y ''•th which Americans rend to look at the English. They
showed me a picture of you, Keiko Kat It was then I first beard of
you, and I can't teU you anythmg about vour face that you don't
alread) kno''• or at least guess: that Implacable and almost her
maphroditic beauty of the be~t Orientals. And now that I think
about it, 1sn't "Keiko" a female name? Could it be a stage name,
intended to incn:asc your auracth·cnc\' to adolescents of both
~exes? Or could it be Barrie \\inking at me from beyond the gra\e;
if Peter Pan \\as al\\ays de,•oured b) actresses, then why shouldn't
Jim Yang be the prisoner of a bm• \\hO has a girl's name because
marketmg; has ordered it to be so? What does it matter? Who
cares> :-:or the Hollywood magnates, that's clear. They told me
I'OU were the star of a popular reJe,isron ~ncs, Kn rnoke Kid; the)
assured me you were the "perfect }lm Yang." and that I'd meet
you m a ti:w days, at the press con terence: in London. They showed
me models of the sers thar were alrcadr hcmg built m the stud1os
of l~orehamwood and Elstree. Or Pmcwood and Shcppcrton? Or
at Twitkcnham, where the Beatles filmed Let It Be? It d idn't mat-
ter: "Very dose to home, as you stipul.ucd in the contract," they
said, smiling. They ga,·e me a copy• of rhc eighteenth draft of the
S\npt of ]i111 Ynug: 17Je Mol'ie, authored by SC\Cn writers, and they
explained, "It isn't based on any of vour books in particular,
there·~ a lmle bn of e,·er~'thing; bur the most important thing is
K tiNSINGTON GARDENS J I~
the 1\.1\' we\·e reworked the ~:haracrcr .,., that ." 1l1ey gave me .1
lrst of Jim Yang toys and lrano.:h1~e~, among them a hamburger
"hose roU had the toa~ted pu:rurc of a bJcvcle wheel on If\ f.lo.:e
The) slapped me on the back .md ~cnt me to my hotel suite, where
.1 "recreational acrres~ "-thar\ I\ hat she caUed hersdf-\\JS \\.lit·
mg tor me, dressed ,u, Tinker Bell in .1 complex scatlolding of
garters and lace and high-heeled shoes. "Courtesy of Millennium
Pictures," she said, smiling. I thought about clapping tor her. Her
beauty was almost an insult; her skin seemed airbrushed onto her
bones. She opened a little: box full or "fairy dust"-that's what she
called it-that the studio executives had given her to offer me. She
sat on the bed, spread her legs and paned her lips, and laid out
rwo lines of cocaine on a little mrrror. She snorted one and looked
at me, raising an eyebro11. 1 looked at her, raismg another eve
brow, as if she were a masterp1ece. Something in some museum
that you couldn't couch. I explamed that 1 had no need of her
company or her seniccs, rh.n she could keep the fairy dun, I
signed the Jim Yang books that she'd brought in a bag for her ~on,
I 'li~hed her good luck, I hung the magic cardboard talisman in·
~cribed with the magic word\ "Pic.l>e Do Nor Disturb" from the
doorknob, and l asked tha t no cJih he forwarded to me. lL oc:·
currcd m me that, almost wirhout rcaliLing it, I'd taken all the
~tcp~ w set the sc<!nc for an c:flicicnt suicide. I asked my~clf
whether there was somet11mg 111 tl1c: od1erworldJ) air of Holly·
wood, something in d1c ;ur or the \Oil, that makes you wam to kill
}our..<:If, whether the ma1onn of celluloid suicide ,;crims ought
not be obe)ing a secret command, acting reflexi,·ely, foUO,\ing the
bracketed stage directions 111 the draft of an INT. NIGHT scene. 1
opened the door and went out onto the balcony. The dusk seemed
almost metallic, saturated with particles of electricit)• and secrets,
with a sound like the breathing of dragons as t11ey sleep. 1 lifted
my hand to my left car and caressed rhe nonexistent lobe that my
mother had torn off with her last bite. It's a habit of mine: I reach
for something I don't have each ume I start ro think about death
On the balcony there was a high powered telescope mounted on a
tnpod . It's impossible to resist the temptauon of telescope~ and
2-10 RODRIGO PR.I!SAN
microscopes and keyholes, to look through them with the k:evholc
of our bodr, our eyes. It was the time of day when people go~ into
rhe1r convernbles and went m and our of tunnels and satd the same
thmg on their cell phones: "I'm lo~mg you .. losmg you ... I'm
los ..~ In the distance a forest wa~ hurnmg. You could sec how
the traffic on the h1ghways was bemg red1rected, and how the ani-
mals, unlike the humans and headed 111 the opposite direction,
were running towards the fire and cros\ing i1 in search of refuge
on land that had already been burned. In some houses in the hills,
people were getting into their pooh tO w.uch the blaze, fullv
drcs~ed and holding martini5, while below, in the street, people
rook thelt blaring te!C\isions out for .1 \troll in shopping carts, like
babies. A small army of sunburned surfers was parading down one
of the h1ghways ,,;th their surfboards on their shoulders; the\· were
singing something that sounded bkc a hymn, o;omething about a
last wave and an ocean covering everything, the ghost of an ocean
reappeanng when the moon was full, on mghts m the desert where
once, m.my thousands of years .1go, wha les and dolphins and
sharks swam. This was the Ne'' World, tlw Modern Age, the Fu-
ture that my f.uher had foreseen from the desperation of his Victo-
rian dclu,iom. "The horror! The horror 1" repeated over and over
again every rwo hottrS witholl[ commercial breaks, on the cable
channels where mmies are shown that you . .
don't see anvwhere
else, that Jie ne,·er shown. I clo~cd the curtains and turned on the
tc:lension. Some kmd of science fiction . Everything was happening
in an mtergalactic spaceship, or something. A yonng android war
nor m a s1h·er suit-why is it that sci-fi always gets costumes so
'' rong?- was looking at the camera w1rh a mixture of melancholy
and mlcmniry, and saying, "To reprogram or nor to reprogram "
Someone called him "Hamlcx." I realized immediately that it \\\IS
yet another of the many rclocatiom of Shake~peare in time and
space. I never understood that urge to Jdapt him to fit e\·ery place
and every age. Shakespeare in Manhauan in the eighties, N:ui
Germanv, the Japan of the last san1urai. After all, no one's ever set
DcntiJ of 11 Salcsma1l in the Middle Ages, or ~WJo 's Afraid of Vir-
gmin H~oif? during the decline of the Roman Empire. Could that
KENS I NGTON GARDENS 1 II
be the ditlcrence between old cla~~IC\ .md modern class~es> That
tl1c: former can be projected lorwud but the latter arc fixed in
time:? I changed the channel to a news Marion and turned the vol-
ume down. I watched on rcle\ision the fire that I could sec from
the \\indO\\. I sat on the bed, trving to rc:ad the script. I couldn't.
Barrie: could. Barrie had even gone: so far as to write a silent-film
5cript tor Peter P1111. Hc:'d re~isted for many years, had rejected
many offers and many sums with many zeros, bm when Jesse L.
Llsky-director of Paramount-took over Charles Frohman's af-
fairs, Barrie ga,•e in. Barrie'b script was rwemy thousand words
long, words that described in great detail roo many ways of flying.
Flying was at the time, and until quite recently, one of film·~ gre:u
challenges: making someone fly \\itllOut seeing the \\ires, the false
backdrops, the artificial wind blowing h;ur and capes. Barrie'b
scnpr was soon discarded by the producers. It's ob\ious why when
vou read the fen·enr pages the aurhor wrote. It's enough to easr a
glance at a scene in which Peter Pan and Wendy and her brothers
dec1dc to stop on the way m Neverland and rest on the Statue of
Liberty, which, when it feels them land on its shoulder, comes to
life and cradles them until dawn. Barrie's imtial suggestion that
Charlie Chaplin would make a wonderful Peter Pan was also ig-
nored. The chosen actor-upholdmg the trJdition that the charac-
ter be: played by a fc:male-wa~ Betty Bronson. The movie began
filming in September 1924, ''as ready lor Christmas, and had ItS
opening night at the Rivoli Theatre 111 ~e'' York; the critics ~:ailed
It the e'·c:nt of the season, and Tl1r Ncn York Timtr judged it one
of the ten best films of 1924 h \\3SO't that good. Actually, mmies
in general aren 'r that good. Or, rather, the ryrannical bond be
t\\ een film and spectator \\ill llC\ er match the democratic nexus of
book and reader; someone else wrote the book, true, but it's von
who read the story and ser the pace and the mood as you [Urn. the
pages. That's why almost all good novels are almost always in
evnably superior to d1e good films they inspire: by defending the
book, we're really defending our right to choose the \vay we hkc
to be told a story. And of cou~e Marcus Merlin would say I'm
talking nonsense. So I'll hasten m add, Ketko Kai, that the lim
141 RODRIGO FRBSAN
film ver~ion of Ptur Prw, dire1.ted by Herbert Brenon from a
script by Willis Goldbeck, has its interesting moments, bur it
doesn't manage to ~hake the static quality of a lot of movies back
then, with the camera motionless, like another spectator in its sear.
Barrie, I think, liked it well enough. More than the film, he liked
the idea of his creation making the leap to another medium, ad·
\'ancmg in 1ts conquest of the world I watched it just a little while
ago. On DVD. I watched It on the small o;creen of my computer
,~;th the disbelief ~omcwhere between funny and tern~ing-that
we 'rc made to feel by thmg~ that arc old but not so far from mod-
ern rcchnologv "hen the) 're ~uddenk msened into a new-model
mach me. A.\ I '' Jt<hcd 11 I w~ thinking that the next stage in hu-
man evo luuon wouldn't ~:ome in the form of a subtle or drastic
modification of the sk.dcton but that it waJ. already occurring-
over and over again- and that it was happening outside of us: in
the diZZ)ingly f.1St mutation of machines; in the brief distance be-
m ·een ana log and d igital, between light and laser. I wondered
whether, at the beginning of the twentieth century, in dark, stuff)r
movie theaters hke opiu m dens, it was considered appropriate to
talk during the projection of silent films. Or whether silence was
demanded, a~ it IS in bnghtly lit libraries. I was thinking about this,
I was thinking abour rhc kind\ of things you can't even think
about when you 'rc: ncar the magneuc interference of Marcus Mer-
lin, " hen the tc:lephone rang . Is t.hue anything more terrible.: than
d1e ~ound of a telephone that ro 1·our knowledge shouldn 'r be
ringing? I was told it "a~ urgent, a long-~tance call from London
from Mr. Marcus Merlin. l took the call.
And-ne" paragraph, at last- thev gave me the news.
The character is informatiOn.
All the intormarion I'\'C been gathering and organizing 0\'er
the years Places, dates, photograph~, last names, theater programs,
books, records
Alien mformation- inlormation about Barrie, about orher
people-as a form of ancsthc~ia . .)earching lor and finding out
KENSINGTON GARDENS 1-1 .l
cverythmg ,1bom \Oillcone who i~n 't voursc:lf as a perfect system
for not h.l\ mg w deal wtth your 0\\11 truths.
lnformauon mjcctcd srraight intO the ,·cin. Information that
reaches the brain and heart in 110 time at aU.
lnfomution a~ a drug to which I've been addicted e,·er since I can
remember, Cl'er since I unoxicated my memory with so much ofit.
Tnformaoon on the sadistic and masochistic airplane screen
map that tells you ho" many miles you've gone, how many miles
arc left, how mam· feet there arc between the surface of the sky
and the surface of the ~a, how many negatiYe degrees it is ourside,
how much ome 1s left, how much time has passed.
Information ti·om ncar or far that suddenly seems to be hiding
a secret story, rhc .s tory rold in a manuscript ,~;th its pages out of
order, a story that's maybe m1ssing JUSt one or two essenrial events
before ir can be properly undcrMood, and yet ...
On the return trip to London, in the sky, flying, I read the fol-
lowing things in an i~sue of an airline magazine. T like airline mag-
azines, because they ~ec m to be Jbout someplace else, somewhere
in the.: sky.
I rc.1d that an American, in his fifties, likes to dress up as Peter
Pan (look, Di~ncy, there.: he: b on his own Web site) and say~ he's
looking for "a pn:uv, lm-ing Tinker Bell" to help him find happiness.
TI1crc:'s a picture.: of the man. He's flyiJJg io from of a typical subur-
ban house. He's ~miling. Hb teeth are perfect: they're American
teeth, nor Engli~h teeth. Peter Pan- \\ ho, Barrie tells us, never lost
h1~ baby rceth-<ouldn 't possibly have such a bright smile, I think.
I read that rhc palace on Bnghton Pier burned for a full day
and mght, jusr as I once burned in the palace on Brighton Pier for
SC\'eral nights and thc1r rc\pecrive days
I rc:ad that a ream ot Bnnsh psychologisrs- afrer ha,-ing inter·
\1ewed more than a thousand people-<l:ums ro haYe discovered
the formula ti>r happiness, and that 1t's P + 5£ + 3A According ro
the rcsearchc,-.; , l''tanlh li>r Pcr•onal (your outlook on life ), E tor
E\1ncncc (health, fr1cnthhip~. c.:ononuc stabihty), and A tOr Aspl-
ranon (\elf C\tccm, cxpe~:tatiom, and ambitions ) I don't under-
~tand . A' [',c 'aid .1lrcady, I was never good at maths.
 RODR I GO FRBSAN
1 read that there are more and more men and women who
don't want to grow up, who'd rather live with their parents for as
long as the} can. Who spend hours watching those television sta-
tions that show onl} cartoons. Who spend small fortunes, with no
shame or guilt, on toys designed especially for adults, and who buy
three of each: one tO play ,,;th, one to keep mtact in its original
packaging, and the third as an tn\'C:Stment, which they'll sell in a
fe,, years for the price of an antique or a work of art. And who
dress up e\'err weekend m thetr old school uniforms-gray skirts
and blue blazers-to go dancmg as tf notlung's happened. Thus
marriages and children and d1vorces arc reduced to ballucina·
nom or apparmom from a recent past that's plunging headfirst
into a brand nc\v chtldhood. a nruslikc: and precocious new
form of nmralgiJ-thc: grand m.1l that until recently struck only
~randp.m:n1~-in wh~eh \OU don't mi~s tl1c: good old days bur in-
\tcad strive dc\pcratcl} to transplant tho~e good old days to these
bad new d.1y' of inevitable: and early adulthood, the first nights of
creeping darkness.
I read that .\l Nc\1 York's New Square Fish Market a fish that
was about ro be cut imo shccs began to scream, in perfect Hebrew,
''T::nmciJ sJmnimJJ'" and "Hnsof bn:IJ," or something like that. A
f.:tiry talc. l'"e copied the words exactly as they appear in the mag·
azmc. Words that can more or less be translated as saying that we
must prepare l'!Ccause the end of the world is coming. Zalman
Rosen, owner of the fish market and a Ha~Jdic Jew, translated the
prophecy tor ternfied, hysterical Ecuadorian Luis Portales, who
almost had a hearr anack when the fi~h-a tuna, to be precise-
began to wail, Rosen approached the fish, confirmed that it had
been posse~scd by the spirit of a Jew who died a year ago, and,
upon trymg to kill It, cur otT h1s own finger and had to be hospi·
ralizcd . The fish, dead now, was sold hours later. The stewardess
comes up and asks me \1 hether 1 want chicken or fish. Chicken.
I read that a \'icronan house known as Moat Brae, in Dumfries
in the 'outh of Sc.:odam.l-\\ here bttlc James Matthew Barrie, au·
thor of Putr Pnn, once plaved ptrate~ ~ith his good friend Stuart
Gordon-was attacked b> a fe\\ "young hoodlums» who knocked
I
KENS I NCfON GAR. D B N S 14S
down the door and moved in for sc,·eral weeks, later burning some
of the li.1rnirure and pulling the wallpaper off the walls, on which
tl1ey painted thmgs hke j1111 Yang Is Commg. The article ended by
noting that the J1m Yang book.\-\\ ritten by "that even stranger
character, Peter Hook»-seemed mcreasingly responsible for "ex·
treme acts by children who proceed from stealing bicycles to van-
dalism to suicide, and refuse to wear watches or to change from
size small to size medium when their parents bu> mem ne\1
clothes.»
I read an inteniew with a student of ancient religions who ex-
plains that certain Indian gods can't rise up to hea\·en by them-
selves; that these gods need the help of inferior but essential
W\inities, a kind of bird that's pure form, or something like that.
"If the gods reached heaven by means of form, men will have even
greater need of form to reach the gods," explains the academic. I
don't understand it very well, but I like the words.
l read that the singer and songwriter of\Varmgame-a popular
rock band that describes itself as belonging to the "nco-agonist"
genre-is anguished by living in a world that worships yourh but
prevents youth from playing a leading role, and by "how fast I'm
losing my hair; it doesn't seem right." Warmgame's fronrman adds
that the B side of their next single will be a cover of a song by the
Victorians, "Small E:-<pectations." "Compton-Lowe was a genius,"
says the Warmgamc singer. And be adds: "We'"c been ti\'ing the
end of the world for so long: we're living in the shadow of the
spreading wa,·e of the sixties, the moment "hen the world ended
and we dido 't notice. AU fashion now is like an echo of the six tie~.
£, c:rything seems to indicate that we '11 ne,·er get out of this
bloody loop \\ith no doors or \\indows." I look at the picture of
the anguished boy. He must have been born in the mid-seventies
at the earliest. It occ~ to me that the sixties are like UFOs: c,·ery-
body cl:ums to ha\'e ~en them, but no one has the e\'ldence to
prO\'C: lt. The simcs· ·for many people, for roo many people-were
nothing but an umnterrupted scncs of lies accepted as truths. Au
tomatic truths that no one c\·er took the trouble to ,·erifi· but that
·'
had to be true because we'd heard them so many times. The sy-;
140 ROOJUCO FR.ESAN
rematic repetition of .1 fallacy unti l it comes true is a dear sign of
our times, or maybe an enduring human traiL For example:, tJ11::re's
the: frequently repc:atc:d ide~ that Hamlet recites his "To be or nor
to be~ speech with a skullm llli hand (a isn't e\·en spoken in the
graH:vard scene ); or that Sherlock Holme~ wears a deerstalker
(wluch he ne\'cr does in anvthing written b} Arthur Conan Doyle:
illustrator Sidnev P.1gct carne up with the idea ; or that Rick Blaine
in Cnsnblnncn sa\·s "Play it agJJn, San1 ~ (he doesn't; all he says is
"Play a" ). And then there are the blessed and cursed sixties-the
Swing~ng Sixoes. Just as fairy tales are stones for children, the six-
ties are a fairy story for adults- for adults who were young dunng
the si\ties and as a result ha,·e become the best, most reckless liars
tn all of h1~tory.
I read that an '\merican anttsmoktng group has decided to
erase the ctgarette 111 l)aul McCartney's nght hand on the cover of
the Bcatles' album Abbe_1 ltond. Yet anomer way of altering the
truth, distorting it, den ring it, lying about it. And that's what the
sixties arc, alway~ : a wmb 10 desecrate until you're sick of it, some-
thing dead th.lt won't rest, a corp~e in the constant srare of being
auropsied, a ghost conjured up over and o\'er again at the least ex-
cuse, simply so it can be asked ~illy, impertinent questions.
l read that it's believed the scientists Isaac Newton and Albert
Einstein suffered a m1 ld form of autism; and that the impression-
ists Monet, Degas, Cezanne, P15sarro, Matisse, Rodin, and Renoir
were shomightcd. And I ask mpclf where this odd and increas-
ingly common tcndcncv to d1agnose the maladies of genius comes
from-who dc:cidc:d to find an explanation for the singular in
certain common afllictions. T think that It won't be long before
someone claims that Barrie was simply an idiot savant.
I read that the adrmrusrrators of the Grear Ormond Street Hos-
pital in London have summoned the most important authors of
children's literature. The idea is that one of them will write a sec-
ond part to Peter Pnn; the idea is that the hospital will retain
50 percent of the nghts to this second parr. The Great Ormond
Street Hospttal executives arc nervous: the terrible dare ar which
they'll once again lose the nghts to Barne's book is approaching
KENSINGTON GARDENS
(righb that reprc:~ent "a ~omiderablc but confidential sum," i~ all
one ollicial w1ll \ay), and wlm ktlows whether they'll be saved by a
parliamemarv decree; better to take precautions than ro bemoan
tlleir fare. "Ju~t as much pleasure could be had from a sequel as
from the original," commc:n~ the direcwr of the children's hospi-
tal, caught bet\' ec:n ecstasy and hysteria. I see the photograph of
her. She looks desperate, lo~t, li\'ing the end of a dream, the terri-
ble moment at which you realize fairies don't exist. The article
notes that se\'eral write~ ha\'e already expressed their lack ofimer-
est. My name is mentioned too, as that of the "ideal candidate.~
Peter Hook, of course, "has made no comment yet.., "But let's
not g1vc up hope," adds the ctirector.
l read that It's been proved that after the death of the body the
bram continues to live for six ro twelve minutes; that you can
think after you've died; and that to the dead person those twelve
or six minutes can come to seem an eternity-like the elastic, hor-
izontal rime of dreams--or at least a whole other fantastic life,
1deal or tcrnblc. Maybe that's what heaven or hell is: the way we
spend those few infinite minutes. l also read that the brain is inca-
pable of feding any pain; that nothing hurrs the brain, that Lhe
brain doesn 'r hurt. And yet the: brain is solely responsible for
proce~~ing-for ttlllmtit:g, for writit:g-thc: theory and practice of
pain. I wonder what the brain must be thinking when it reads
things like that about itself. Is ir interested in man's advances? Or
does it laugh, amused that everything we think we've discovered
about ir is simply what ir wants us to think, what the brain allows
us to think about the bram?
l read that an inventor has de,·eloped a process for making dia-
monds from the ashes of dead bodies; that massive pressure on the
rcma.tns gl\'es them access to immorralny, envy, the pleasure of be
mg held up to the ltghr Goodbye to cemeteries, then. No more of
thn scattering of ashes tn the air, on the \Vater, over the earth. In
the: same: arude 1t says that the custom of burying the dead bas be-
come: mcrea~mglv fe,s practical and less practiced: lack of space,
lack of mane:}, C\'C:n the 1dca that the body must be kept im'iolate
in Jnttcipanon of the great da~· of the great resurrection is being
2411 RODR I GO PRBSAN
revised by Vatican specialist~, who've already commissioned an in-
flammatory prayer to be rcJd dunng the rite of cremation. I like
the 1dea that the dead can return and be resurrected as diamonds;
that the dead have no \'aluc anymore except metaphorically,
though the1r worth IS always nsmg. h remams to be seen, of
counc, whether good people: \\ill make better d1amonds, whether
cerram spmtual pnnciplc:s \\111 reap a matenal reward, in purities or
impuntJC\. Kuma JS a synonym lor carat.
I read the thing l alread) mentioned to you, Keiko Kai. The
thmg. about the way the death of a child increases the likelihood of
the unumclv de.uh of d1e child's parent:!.. And the sunival of the
child's brother, 1 add
Homng read all thb fl~ing, the impending end of the world,
children ~ d~trover~. floating gods, men gone mad, sick geniuses,
my ~ick father'~ gemus, flames in Bnghron, and fairy tales about
talking fish in wh1ch someone is always in search of the philoso-
pher's diamond of perfect h.:~ppmess-1 feel an urgent desire to
vomit Sittins next ro me is an old man who must not have much
life left in htm: a nc.trly empty hottlc, the last leaves of a tree, the
last mea\urcs of .1 &ymphony, the l.m night; so many last things.
The man·~ holdin~:t ,, book btl! he isn't reading it. Maybe it's the
book that's holtling. the nun. 1 glam:c at the: title: out of the corner
of my eye: S!Jc, b> Sir Hc:nrv Rider Haggard, and, oh, another Vic-
torian MbtocrJt ~etting ofl' on a fruidc:ss quest for eternal youth.
The man looks at me c:nnou~h, maybe \11th hatred. He studies me
with the fur) of someone who knows that he isn't interesting any-
more, that httle or nothmg 11ill happen ro him, that his days and
mghts are numbered, .1nd that the fingers of one hand, or at most
of two gnarled da1\ s, .:~rc enough to count them And I always ask
my,clf why there arc ,,, many ine:-.pltcabk-seeming juvenile delin-
quents and ~o li.:w log11:al-seeming geriatnc delinquents: dangerous
old men and 1\ omen, drugged out of their minds, hooting tooth-
lcs~ or cacklinv; fahe -toothed, dragging themselves down the street
or ~peeding along in their aerod) namic wheelchairs, and attacking
the spectators of fashion sho11s full of tweh e-) ear-old rop models,
kno11ing they're beyond rhe reach of the law or any punishment,
KllNSINGTON GARDENS
~o invulnerable and so fragtlc, ~o deadly ro others and to thcm-
St:he~. And now more nausea lor me. I go into the airplane toilet,
as cramped .15 a collin or a confessional, and I get down on my
knees and ohgodohgodohgodohgod, 1\e're all perfect believers
and marrvrs "hc:n \le'rc: 10miting, whc:n our body turns inside out
like a glo\e and the conrents of our guts fall like foul manna from
the: heavens. 1 ~tay there inside, sitting on the floor, repeating" P +
5£ + 3A" until the airplane begin~ its descent with a sigh of resig-
naoon. I have the suspicion that airplanes don't like to let down
their wheels and lower their flaps, and that they• envy the 1ertical
skills of helicopters. I also ha,·e the suspicion that someone who
starts theorizing seriously about the likes and dislikes of airplanes
can't be 1cry balanced, can't be 1·ery happy.
It's nighttime. It's raining a rain that hardly makes you wet.
H eathrow, sweet Hcathro11. Silence. Airports are so much like
hospitals. 1 read it some1Yhere. Both are no-man's-lands, never-
lands. Places you land in order to take off, places you go in order
tO leave. Arrivals and departures, hellos and goodbyes, and the
continuum of climate control and arrows and signs that dc:nr you
the plea$urc of losing your way bur granr you the torment of los-
ing yourse lf, of nOt being able to get to the place where they're
waiting for you, and you 'rc c.:~llcd by absentminded loud~peakcrs
or the unforgettable wh isper of last words.
I arrive and I go in and 1 ask a nurse or a stewardess to tell me
which is Man: us Merlin's room. They call a doctor who's roo
young to be a doctor.
H e a.sks me whether I'm a lannly member of the patient.
1 tell tum that I'm hts and he's mine.
H e says, Then you'd better sit down.
l tell them that, e\'Cn better, I'll faint; l faint for real, I'm not
kidding.
The character IS ltes
uc~, whtch arc nothing but the origmal storytelling impulse.
Lies that narrate
150 RODRIGO Fll.JlSAN
The lies of those fir~t ~toric~ our parcnr1- rdJ ~: lies we need ro
believe more than any truth M> that right away we can start telling
our O\\ n lies, our O\\ n stories.
Lies we continue to believe, much as we deny ir.
Lies that ne\'er completely grow up; because the fine art of
relling lies someho\\ keeps us children forever, helps us be more
innocent and trusting, so we can lie even better when we're adulrs.
Lies that lengdlen bchmd our backs as we grow up, clinging ro
us like shadows
The character as shadow\.
Peter Pan's shadow.
ln Ptttr n11d Wwd.Y, Me\. Darling hears Pc:tc:r Pan's name for
the first umc "when she's tidying up her chlJdn:n 's minds." Barrie
explains that at night, once their little: ones have: gone to sleep,
mothers tiptoe into their children'\ rooms to SP)' on the inside of
their heads and straighten them a little, so next morning those
heads don't wake up in complete disarray, with everything strewn
on the floor. Barrie explains that this activity is "quite like tidying
up drawers" and the goal is that "hen the children open their eyes
"rhe n:mghriness and evil passions with which you went to bed
haH: hccn folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind;
and on the mp, beautifully aired, arc spread out your prettier
tl10ughrs, ready f<>r you to put on."
Busy at thb, Mrs. Darling discO\ers the name of Peter Pan, and
it's a name like: an echo, soundmg in the untidy head of the girl
she once \\as. Wendy e:..pl.uru to her mother who Peter Pan is, and
reUs her he \1M£~ often, coming in through the \\indo\\.
One night, when ~he goes to kiss them good night, Mrs. Dar-
ling discm·ers Peter Pan }Ilana the dog barks and Peter Pan Hies
awav, bur N;ma catches hts shado'' when rhe window doses on it.
Nana bnngs Mrs. Darling Peter Pan's shadow m her mouth. J\lrs.
Darling, worried, thank_~ about hangmg tt from the windowsill so
Peter Pan can come back and get It, but her sense of propriety
stops her. ~It looked \O like the washmg and lowered the whole
h.bNSINGl'ON GARDENS .! 5 1
tone of the hmt<,e " So ~he deL ide~ to roll up the shado\\ and pur
it carefully an a drawer Peter Pan comc:s back for it tl1e next night
He can 'r lind 11, and Tmker Bell ~bows him ''here it's kept. Peter
Pan rakes it out of tl1e duwc:r and unroU~ it, but he can't stick it
back ro hh heeh. Peter Pan sob~, waking up \Vendy, and Wendy
'ew~ on has shadow.
To lose your shado" is ro lose your balance.
Our shado\\- the thmg that walks ahead of us or behind us-ts
mcmorv.
I lost Ill\' shadow dunng my cluldhood too. lr wasn't a dog
that gmllonned It \\1th a ''indow sash. It wasn't my mother who
came m one mght to fold at gently and put it under my pillow. Ir
wa~ I myself who cur otl"my \hado\\. I cut it off like those animals
that gnaw oil the paw they've caught in a trap. I cut at off when I
\1 as a boy The black sh.tdow of an accidental Hamlet, of a prince
destroying lm own lmc Fir~t I cut it otl~ and then I rolled it into a
\lender ribbon, knotting it around one of my arm~ a~ a mute
cxprc~saon of mourning at tl1c li.merals of Baco and Sebastian
" Darjcding" Compton-Lowe and Alexandra S\vint<>n· Mcnz ies. My
\ hadow i., .1 praCIIL.ll .1nd malleable ~hadow. Easy to turn imo a tie
or •t h.mdkcrchicf:
Here 11 i' srill, Kciko KJ.i.
Let me sho\\ it to you.
Let me use tt to bind your eyes.
1l1e character is secrets.
llung;s you can 'r ~cc, though they're there.
Sccrcrs as a strange illnC\s. ~o cure's been discovered for se·
cret.~, for keepmg secrets at bay.
Secret~ that function as their own besr fiiend and chosen en·
cnn the paradox of the secret that doesn't come to Life-that'~ m
an c•<eitcd \tare of su~pcnded animation-until it's killed first and
then resurrected and 'Ct working. Secrets thar don 'r intCcr you un·
nl they're nnt scact\ anymore, unnl thcv'rc shared, dasseminarcd,
rran~mmcd.
252 RODRIGO FRESAN
Secrets are one of the sublimest forms of narrative. Secrets tell
stories like nothing else. Secrets know everyone relies on them ro
tell stories.
Said Marcus Merlin: "Now I'm going to tell you a story ... "
But what Marcus Merlin's going to tell me isn't a story. It's a
secrer. A secret tl1at, as soon as it's let go, speeds happily-secrets
fly faster man rumors-to merge wim my guilr.
It's 01}' faulr. I'm guilty.
The character is guilt.
My guilt.
"Guilt is magical," a poet once wrote. And I don't think he was
rdcrring to the illu~ivc and illusionist guilt of a man cutting a
woman in half or a man humiliating a spectator who offer~r himself
as a l'olunteer for 1.he next trick; but to me guilt of someone who
decides LO disappear, knowing he's responsible for having made
many things appear that shouldn't have appeared.
I'm guilty.
All-powerful guilt. Guilt as the engine of me machinery that
drives most of our actions.
The guilt felt by the survivors of concentration camps; guilr
that one day, many years later, makes mem throw themselves
down flights of stairs.
It's guilt and not love-love moves nothing; love paralyzes,
petrifks-cbt 1/II$OJ1e if sole e l'altre ste!le.
Barrie's brotherly guilt, which is simply one of d1e possible ver-
sions of me guilt I share. Barrie's guilr-d1e guilt of all survivors-
linked ro my guilt because it survived as an epilogue and a coda to
my dead family's final act.
The character is death.
Man is tJ1e only animal who knows he has to die. Some re-
searchers of thanatological behavior say that pigs know it too, mat
they feel it: the inevitable day, t11e "That's all, folks." I'm not sure.
KENSINGTON GARDENS 253
Maybe it has to do \\~th d1t consram looming presence of a wolf
warh powerfullw1gs.
Maybe.
One rhing is certain: men must have more imagination tJ1an
pigs in order to convince memselves d1ar they'll never die.
Death as the great universal experience, after mat omer great
universal experience at me opposite end of tl1e runnel, the act of
being born. But the consciousness of our birm is really our par-
ems' consciousness. The consciousness of our deam is solely our
own. It's an intimate and untransferable sentiment, and when we
seem to be mourning me death of omers-I'm sorry, I don't be-
lieve it-all we see in mose alien deailis is an increasingly clear and
imposing sketch of what our own portrait will look like, tl1e paint-
ing that'll be um·eiled some day or some night, before a few peo-
ple or many. A group of people we won't be part of, so that mey
can tell us about ourselves, saying, upon seeing me portrait-
seeing us in a frame, inside the wooden frame all coffins become,
as sudden still-lives-things like "It's as if he's sleeping."
The character is sleep.
The third of our lives that we ~pend elsewhere without going
anywhere. We sleep in order to wake up somewhere else. We sleep
in two stages: first comes the physical disconnect and then the
mental disconnect. The return trip is me reverse: it's our brain mat
wakes up first, and immediately afterward-a few seconds later-
our body. \Vhen our brain disconneCts, sometimes we experience a
sudden muscle spasm; we kick, as if we're fighring against me sleep
overtaking us. The phenomcnon-f'm told it's called myoclonus,
a name mat suggests a bad-tempered Greek god-can wake us up
and force us to srart over again, like when we read a page we don't
quire understand and we have to go back a few lines in me story.
Many people resist sleep. They think mat to sleep is w waste
ttme, ro squander life. It's a childish objection. A taste of their
past. They're wrong: night is the facrory of romorrow and the mu-
seum of yesterday. It's while we're a.~lecp that we fix our memories
 RODRIGO FRESAN
in place and sketch our fiuure, and we sink into sleep as if we're
descending the ~weep of a spiral staircase over and over again, un-
til we reach-if we're lucky-d1e last step, me step into the deep-
est and steepest of dreams.
The sleep of children isn't necessarily deep. Light sleep is the
kind that lets you glimpse Neverland, says Barrie, the shallow and
childish slumber d1ac's easily dismrbed by desperate, inex-perienced
parents who, upon trying to get a child to sleep when he won't
stop crying, do exactly the opposite of what ilicy should: they jos·
tle him, sing to him, feed him, and rake him for a walk, so that he
finally wakes up altogether, terrified, in a place he doesn't know,
fur from home and his bed and his u.~ual night's skcp.
The recurring dream.
My other recurring dream. The recurring dream I dream with
my eyes open.
My other recurring dream isn't a dream bur, ramer, a dreamed-
for correction ro a nigbnnarisb reality. In my other recmring
dream, I don't do something I once did. That's all. A small action
wiped out in the act. And that small amendment is enough-me
changing of one word for another, like a deletion in one of my Jim
Yang manuscripw-ro make my whole universe, all the way to its
last and fariliest unexplored corner, regain its sanity, and, after so
many years, permanently lose its eternal desire for madness.
The character is madness.
Madness is ilie Black Wind, Keiko Kai.
No, mar's not quite it. The Black Wind is me voice mat wakes
up ilic madness. It's a wind you can see, not just the transparent
hand that acquires substance only when it knocks into wings and
pushes them, stealing their shapes.
The Black Wind has shape and color (never trust those who say
black isn 'r a color but the incontestable proof of ilie absence of all
color) and even a disrinctive smell, similar tO me chromized scent
airplanes give off at the moment they leave the earth: a smell of
hot metal mat makes you cough and rear up and smile a Little.
The Black Wind doesn't wail but instead murmurs in yom ear.
KllNSlNGTON GARDENS 2$5
The Black Wind doesn't say, "You\·e gone mad," but "You're mad
again." Because madness is our true and original srar.:, Keiko Kai.
We're born crazy. After me nine months we spend floating inside
our mothers wiili our eyes and fists clenched, tile shock of leaving
tbere to enter here is tremendous, unbearable. Suddenly we forget
everything, we speak a strange language, we cry for any reason,
our sleep is as erratic as our .first love-for our one-and-only
mother-is unshakable, and we don' t have any control over our
stiDplest bodily functions.
Yes, it's madness iliac gets us through our childhood. Madness
is me freshly painted white wall on which paintings of sanity hang.
I like to think that they're portraits. That there's a portrait for
each of us. An automatic portrait, a self-portrait with a little label
ro one side thar tells our name, the year of our birth, 'vhere we're
from, our measurements, and the artist's style.
And if we're unlucky, if a window is opened and d1e Black
Wind comes in, then a painting falls to the floor and sanity is lost.
The ponrait always ends up facedown. And the lircle label with our
information on it has no meaning anymore, and all that's left is the
ghostly bright spot on the wall th:~t marks the exact place where
something used to be, and where now, if we're lucky, mere's just
tile memory of what once hung mere.
All we're left with is the horror of that endless naked wall, that
white wall (ne,·er trust those who clainl white iso 't a color bur the
ghost of sunlight that hasn't been broken down into the different
colors ofilie spectrun1); and mere's noiliing more terrible than d1e
Black Wind blowing on the surf:'lce of a white wall, Keiko Kai.
So it is: me painting falls, and me frame is broken, and the wall
remains.
And we go mad, we go mad again. And waiting for us beyond
me madness is the consolation prize of our rediscovery of ou r for-
mer state, a kind of perfect, irrepressible happiness. When we go
back tO being crazy the way we used to be, we recover our capac-
ity to believe in everything: in fairies; in our ability to Ay; in the
1dca tl1at dying will be an awfully big adventure, and at the same
time, easily exorcised with notl1ing bur applause.
Now that we're mad again, children reborn, it doesn't frighten
 RODRIGO FRESAN

us so much to think abour death; because death is the thing that's

always happcmng to other people so that we ha,·e the chance to
think about death.
The dead arc the mhemance we never want to receh·e, the in-
heritance we always receive, the eternal dtarnonds that hang
around our necks, that \it on our fingers, that pierce our ears, and
that nestle in our n.n cl~ .
The dead arc ~•mply what ghmrs become for a fe" hours when
they go to ~lcep, after they'\'e played all night at frightening the
li,·ing.

There\ a moment when life bcgim to fill up with the dead.

At firM we don't sec rhcm comtng, although we sense them,
ever elmer, in the ~Jme way we \Ometirnes know what the nnt
~ong on the r,tdio will be, or rhc next ''oice on the telephone, or
the Mt \pH:iou~ly e\.Kt ending of,, crime novel.
Death-the mo~t plural singular of all-il. an apprenticeship.
Death- like childhood-i'> a commcmplace we all make the trip
to sooner or l.uer, and it's a journev w.: dunk about a lot. We tllink
a lot about death at the beginning of our lives (in an abstract W•ty),
and we think a lor about deatlt at me .:nd of our li'·es (in an urrerly
figurauvc \\'3\') We understand death as something that in princi
pic ts onh conjugated in the second and third persons of me sin·
gular and me plural And '' tthout haste or deJa}', death gradually
ascends becoming increasingly verbal and eloquent-tmtil tt
reaches the last rung of the first person singular, me mode that tn ·
eludes onl~· us, and is just us. Such ts the ebb IDd flo" of death:
one day we're barely wetting our teet on the shore, and the next
day, almost \\1thout warnmg, the water is up ro our necks and the
beach is very far away.
Same and I became familiarized \\ith the principles of death-
the unyicldin£!. principle\ of death-almost from the start of our
li\'CS, with Da,id and Ba(O a~ the initiatory casualties that 1mmcdt·
258 RODRIGO FRESAN
ately defined the territor~ of our existence~. When me deam of
.!>omeone .!>trike,!, so close ( m my ea!>e, me deam of Baeo opening
the windO\\ to the death,!, of my parents; in Barrie's case, the deam
of D;l\"id opemng the door to all those other deaths that stopped
by to pay a vtsit ), \'OU ha,·e no chotec but to feel tt as something
nearby and constant. Death as the answer to all riddles. Death as a
playmate, death as a game tn tt.!>elf.
The opemng mght of Pcur Pan, and the play's success, is
a clear and danling ~ign lor Harne, unequt,·ocal evidence that
there'll be nothing better beyond the gra\e It's a kind of death in
hfc: Ptttr Pan a~ ulum.llc, un,urpa,sable mtlestonc. Peter P1m is
abo the puhh~ hro.llka~ting of the huberw private faith of a capri-
cious god. Barnc writes in hi\ norcl:>ook:
• There i,!, a small and tronk God who smiles on us. And
he's on our ~ide unttl he pulls the rope and then we all
fall and go rolling down the hill.
It doesn't surprise me that what Barrie thought he'd really done
with the revelation of Pew· Pa11 wa~ to betray a secret oath md
awaken the mortal and vengeful fury of the gods.
In any ca~e, it's impo~~iblc to ntrn back now. The hidden tem -
ple has been profaned bv the mulutudes who clamor for more md
more' and Barrie throw~ humelf IIllO me preparations for me first
of me num TC\Wals of Ptttr P1111-~0\·ember 1905, the Duke of
York's Theatre again. There are new scene~ that require the fabri-
caoon of new and more complex mech:ulical devices; :l.lld now the
play has fi,·e acts :l.lld is almost four hours long.
It isn 'r clear why ~ ma Bouctcault ts replaced rn the leading role
br the ,·cry mfenor ( ecilia Loftus, who's \von certain fame as a
mustc -hall impersonator. Nor ts any clarification necessary: Barrie
wants it thts \\ ay, and Bame i~ the lord md master of Peter
Pa11. Barne and Dton Bouct,ault summon her at almost me last
minute Cecilia I.oftu,!, Ia'~ rhc acting talent of ~ina Boucieault,
bur-small, agile:, and girlt,!,h-~hc: gives Peter Pan a ramer more
inf:l.lltile :l.lld naught) air, like :l.ll :l.lldro~,\)'OOu~ dwarf. Gerald
KbNSINGfON GARDilNS
du 1-1aurier be~in\ to fed the strain of dre,!,sing up as Hook night
after night and f.IClng the \hrieks of overexciu:d children, ah.h ough
he conWic,!, htmsclf wtth the thougbt that it's better than "sweep-
ing d1e floor~ of a mortuat·y for a shilling."
The audtencc mcmbers-mosdv return ,;sitors-are delighted
b~• the nC:\\ \Cene and welcome it gratefully, as a gift; it includes me
postponed merm:uds :l.lld the inst:l.llt when \Vend)' escapes through
me 3.lr \\'tm me help of Michael's kite, while Peter Pm-
abandoned w Ius fate on Marooners' Rock, surrounded b)' the sea
as the tide nsc::s, and lacking me strength to fly after m exhausting
fight wim me pirates-speaks his immortal line: "To die will be m
J\\ fully btg adventure!~
Peter Pan docsn 't die, of course. Peter P:l.ll uses the nest of me
Ne,·cr bird and hts own shirt to make a small craft md reach land.
Some critics are uncomfortable mth me scene and point out the
bad example Peter Pan sets for chtldrcn by tossing out the bird's
eggs to make his escape. Rarric takes note of the reproaches of
these first ccologi$lS and adds the detail of Peter Pan carefully plac-
ing the eggs in the hat a pirate has let ful l in the heat of battle.
Michael Llewelyn Davies-manufacturer of increasingly perfect
and concrete nighunarcs-falls ill with that rare mix of happiness
and panil with which children fall into illnesses to see what'IJ hap-
pen and tO find OUt what the difference is betvveen me fe\•er of
health :u1d the fe, er of fever. His pertect flu, which keeps him from
going out to plav until spring, pre,·ents him from attending the
opening. Barrie and Charles Frohmm decide to take action: me~·
bnng a whole convoy of scenery :l.lld actors to his bedroom at
Egerton House to stage :u1 exclusi\·e performance. Barrie has a
spectal commcmoraove progr;un printed, the co,·er of whtch
reads: Ptur Pa11 111 .\fuiJael's Nurscr_v/ Fcbruar_v 20, 1906. And Its
first page: "By Comm:l.lld of Mtchael, Mr Charles Frohman Pre-
~nrs Scenes from Peter Pa11 to be played in Mtehael's :-\ursery
at Egerton Hou~e. Ucrkhamsted, February 20, 1906, by the
GrO\\lng Up ( ompanr of rhe Duke of York's Theatre, London.~
The next morning, Mtcl1acl'~ better, md m 1975, :--lico Ucw-
elvn Da\'ICS-\\ ho \\ill dtc m 1980-wmes a letter to me biogra-
 R.OORrGo FRESAN
pher Andrew Sirkin reminiscing about that therapeutic theater
performance and exphtimng that ''there was nc\'cr the remotest
feeling that Uncle Jim liked A better than B, though in due course
we all knew that George and Michael were The Ones-George,
because he had ~tarred It all, and M~ehael ... because he was the
cle,·erest of us, the potential gemus . .. "
In another letter, 10 reply to the questiOn whether any of them
sensed 111 Barne the surnngs of a forbidden lm·e, Nico Llewelyn
Da,·ies explaim "I'm 200 per cent cerrain there was ne,·er a desire
ro kiss (ocher than the cheek) .. All I can say is that l never heard
one word or sa'' one glimmer of anything suggesting homosexual-
ity or paedophilia: he had neither of these leanings. Barrie was an
innocenr, which is why he could write Peter Pan.""
Andrew Birkm also notes that 1t would be \HOng to think that
all of Barrie'5 cncrgJCS were concentrated on the Llewelyn Da,-ies
children. This IS .1 time of great acti,·ity tor him.
Barrie holds b.mquet~ Barrie alwar~ has Brussels sprouts served
as a first cour\C, but he ne,cr e.ll~ them. He doesn't even touch
them wirh his fork . Whenever anyone a~ks him abom this strange
practice, Barrie re~ponds: "1 love ro say the words: brussels sprouts
... brussels sproms .. . brussels sprouts ... the letters of those
words in mv mout.h, biting them, swallowing them."
Barrie plays widl the Allallakbarries.
Barrie become~ fncnds wtth Captam Robert Falcon Scott, re-
cently returned from his Antarcnc expedition. Scott envies the in·
tellectual life; Barrie pr:usc~ dlc ufe of ad,·cnture, and takes notes
for a play-a play he'll ne\ er \\nte-m which a man dying on the
1mmortal 1cc is "n~ited" by different "moments" from his past.
In \"ain, Barrie tries to defend his agent and friend Arthur Addi-
son Bnght, '' ho·, been charged wllh embezzling his clients' royal-
ties. Si..ueen thousand of dlc rwcmv-cight thousand pounds that
arc being claimed belong to Barrie:, who, with his indifference ro
mone\, hasn't even nooced \\hat was missing and feels a linJe re·
sponsible for h.wing sparked this criminal temptation in Bright.
It's a strange kind of embezzlc:ment, an unusual crime: .Bright has
tOuched almost none of the money that doesn't belong to him;
KllNSINGTON GARDENS 2ft 1
he\ ju\t depo~itcd it 111 hi\ own account, maybe tor the sati~faction
of readmg the \Um entered 111 hi\ b.mkbook.
Barrie i~ named godiJthcr of Pauhnc Chase, who play~ one of
the rwins and lmt bon 111 the first staging of the play, and \\ ho by
1906 will ha"~ become Peter Pan, Barrie's fa,·orite Peter Pan.
Barrie organi;cs \ ariou\ charitable works.
Barrie accomparuc:s Ius wtfe to her mother's funeral.
Barrie write~ a couple of light one-act entertainments. One of
them-M1rror .\i1rror 011 rbc 11'tlll-is ne,·er performed; bur for
once in 3 Barrie pia) there arc interesting derails regarding the
Jamesian .. madness of art." ln the play, a successful writer is kid
napped b) 3 man who cla1ms ro be one of his characters. The
kidnapper accuses the wntcr of ha,·ing sroleo-consciousl)· or
unconsciou\ly-his existence ~or one of h1s books, and demands
that the "author of my days and mghts" tell him how the story
continues after the novel ends. To save himsel~: the writer tells the
madman that in the end he kills h1mself. The play ends with rhc
suicide of the kidnapper at the moment the police arrive and break
down the door. The curt.tin falls as the police take the body away
and the terrified author reads aloud a manuscript belonging to the
suicide. viclim, a Morv• lhat beuim
0
with a writer tied to a chair' a
smoking gun on the Ooor, a warm body, the police coming up the
staJrs.
Barrie travels tO Lucerne to identif)• the body of his agent,
who's committed &uidde, and writes his obituary, in which-\\·idl
perhaps inadvertent irony- he describes .Bright, who had been the
Bear in 11Jt Grud.v Dn,arf, as "a maJl who neYer had much time to
be mtc:rested in h1msclf he was so mreresred m his friends." Gold
mg Bright, brother of Arthur AddJSon Bnghr, will be h1~ new
agent
And Barrie bcpns to &equcm the London ansrocracy. The
Duchc~~ of Smher!Jnd i\ h1\ famnte The nobility adopts Barrie
with the mteme yet \Upcrfic1al fascmation they reserve fur arti$ts·
those lords Without utlc\, rho~ roy' especially des1gned ro amme
the nob1hl) unnl the) wear out or they're broken or they get sick
or they die.
 RODRIGO PR.ESAN
I suppose Barrie is happ)' dlen.
I suppose too that his dramatist's reflexes are already warning
him that happiness is fragile, and that \\idl the second act will
come dle difficulties, the tragedy, everythtng that really makes a
play memorable and classic and eternal.
As the curtain rises, we sec Arthur Llewelyn Da,·ies in the center of
the stage, looking in dle mirror. He's alone in one of dlc sitting
rooms at Egerton House, and ar first we're surprised by this streak
of ~ecrer narcissism in a man who ne\·er ~emed to place much im-
ponance on his good looks. Immediately we discO\er that he isn't
imeresred in his classical profile bur in a slight discoloration dlat's
appeared on one of his cheeks. He touches 1t carefully and curi-
ous!). He feels hts slighdy swollen Jaw Arthur has just rerurned
from the dentlst, who told him that all th1s could be due to the in-
ti:ctcd root of a dead tooth, a forgotten fragment of a molar pulled
years ago Just in case, d1e dentist recommends dlat he visit a doc-
tor, who, in turn, decides to run more t<:\~. The diagnosis isn't
good: it·~ not an abscess but a sarcoma. There must be an opera-
tion at once, and-as Ard1ur tells his sister Margaret in a letter-" I
am afraid it means removing half dle upper jaw and palate . ..
Poor Syl\ia! 1 have told her e,·erything except the name of dle dis-
ease . . After dle operaoon I shall be tncapacitated for about
6 weeks, and unable ro speak properly for 3 or 4 mondls ... My
43 years, and especially dle lasr 14, leaves me no ground of com-
plamt as to my life. Bur dlis needs fo rti rude."
It i\n't lo ng before Barrie d1scmc:rs \\hat's happening, and he
drops everything to come to the rescue: he seeks out dle best spe-
cialists, assumes d1e cost of the enormously expcn~ive medicines,
and installs himself io the hospital room, at the foot of the bed of
his best frknds' fadler.
in hi~ " Morgue," Peter Llewelyn Da,·ics writes:
If rh1s were a real book instead of just a brief compilation of
e\·cnts, a clear dnision should be drawn here Slgilaling the
KENSINGTON GAROBNS 26 I
end of one of its sections or "pan~. " Because d1c next entry
will mark dle start of the material dlat I like to call the
"morgue sort," and that, beside~ bemg my principal mOti\'C
for undertaking th1s t~k. i~ aho ''hat most makes me doubt
''hedler my effort will han: any meaning or ,·aluc. So dle
best dling for me will be to continue widlout asking myself
roo many questions . .. }.M.S. stepped in to play the lead-
ing role; and played it in dlc grand manner ... I can sympa-
dlize in a way wid1 dle point of view dlat it was the last
straw for Arthur that he should have had to accept charity
from dle strange litde gen1us who had become sudl an in
creasing irritation to him in recent years. But on dle whole,
I must disagree. We don't really know how deep rhe lrrira-
uon went; and even if It wcnr deep. I am cominced dlat the
lundness of which j.M B ga\C such overwhelmtng proof
from now on, far more rhan outweighed all dlat, and that
the money and promise of future financial responsibility, a\
well as the great tact \\ ith which he offered his help, finally
overcame my father's resisr.111ce.
Berween dle end of May and d1c middle of June 1906, Ardlur
undergoes three operations. Each is more difficult and compli
cared than the last. Ardlur comes out of the operating room \\id1
1m head wrapped in bandages, floattng on the sad bliss of a sea of
morphine. Barrie keeps him companv for long streKhes, read1ng
him dle paper and of cou~ taking real life, on-dle-spot notes for
h1s po~ible next fictions:
• 711l 1,000 Nigbti11gnlu. A hero who is d)ing. "'Poor devil,
he'll be dead in ~ix months" ... He in his rooms awa1r
ing end-schemes abandoned- still he's a man, dy111g a
man ... E,•crything going \plcndidly for him (love &
work) when audience hear; of hi~ doom.
When rhey rcmm·e her hu,baml\ h.u1dagcs, Syh·ia-morc real-
i~uc and practical-howls a pcrfc.:t, hi,tnomc "They\·e ruined my
 RODRIGO I'RI!SAN
darling's face!" The malignancy seems to have been eradicated,
but this doesn't mean mat a young lawyer who's lost his looks and
his power of speech will have any kmd of professional future.
Arthur returns to Egerton House The ch1ldren ha,·e been sent
ro Ramsgarc, ro their grandmother Emma du Maurier. Arthur
docsn 't want them to sec him like this, and he writes to them
every day. Letters that might have been written by the healthic~t
.md happiest and most '~gorous man in the world.
Kciko Kai: I envy the strength of Arthur's love for his children,
the pmency of the medicines he's ghen, his stoic bravery. Arthur
knO\H that he's finished, and that C\ crything from here on will
depend on Barrie, who now- in the messages he sends by
telegram- be finall) calls Jimmy.
"Gt\e me your hand, Jimmy,n "Do wme more things other
than plays, ]lmmy," "Vague fancies .. that I \vas going ro have. or
perhaps had had, an irtfant. All thts was vaguely connected "ith
thtrsr and pam m my face, Jimmy," "I'm very happy. This last six
month\ of convalescence have been the happiest of my life. I've re·
ceived ~o much kindness. Bless my bones," "I don't think anyone
has ever done so much for me," "! pur all the burdens on you bc-
cau\e you can help better than anyone," "I love ro watch you while
\ 'OU write,n "DEAR Jimmy," Arthur \\rite:~ to Barrie on a notepad
with mam pages. Barrie asks himself what Arthur means by his sug-
gestion that Barrie write "more things other than plays." Can he be
rcfcrnng to fat realist novels? To the unreal form of preaching real-
ltv b\' composing perfectly tidy lives and Jo,·es and deaths, always at
the same narrau,·e tempo? Barrie isn't mterested m art imitating re·
ahry. It's reahry that should Imitate art, thinks Barrie.
Arthur recovers enough to take walks wtth Syl~ia, and, from a
distance-his face hidden behind a black veil-he watches his chil-
dren plav with Barrie in Kensington Gardens.
Barrie is drcss.:d up as Hook,\\ ith Michael as Peter Pan. Barrie
ha~ a~kc:d William Nicholson-Pettr Pn~~·~ wardrobe manager-to
dc~ign a costume for Michael. It'~ a gift with an ulterior motive:
Barrie is already amusing himself ,,;th the idea of commissioning a
statue of Peter Pan, and Michael, he thinks, is the indisputably per·
KllNSINc..;rON GARDEN!. 2 (t .'t
feet model. Michac:l-lm leg\ apart, a \ti~k on his ldi: shouklcr, hi\
g.lLe defiant, his smile bold-u Peter Pan :\nd Barrie: photographs
lum from every posstblc angle-ami whv is it harder ro dc:\uibc a
photograph than a movie, Ketko K.U?
This is one of those photographs th.tt- Well, T just bad to
limg!J, fmd I sail' the pboto.._l]rnp!J . . .-have ro be seen ro be be·
lievc:d. One of those photographs that say more than a thousand
paintings. One of those photographs that should be taken of all
children as an essential parr of their upbringing, to provide them
\~th useful and incontrovertible evidence, so that-years l.ner,
looking at the photograph wtth tired eyes and holding ir in trem
bling hands-they can say: "Here it is. Here J am. Look. Look at
me You see, I wasn 'r l~'ing. I was like: thts. Many years ago, on an·
other planet, in another dimcmton, I was unmorral and brave and
happy and perfect like tim ., A photograph to keep in a drawer ur
an album and never hang on the: wall hk.: one of those porrraus
With the abiliry ro absorb \im .md wrinkb; bcca~c a photograph
like this i~ a fist, a fist striking over and over again, a blm\ for e\ cr}'
minute and hour and day and month and year tbat pass~ after the
day the photograph that stole our soul was taken; because rh.u
photograph is our soul. A photograph like this is paradise, a para
disc that, by definition, is alway~ a paradise lost: only once we've
been expelled do we realize that we lh cd in a paradise, and that
paradise lh·ed in us.
Barrie asks Michael ro stand tim way and that, and for an m ·
Stant he's excited b} the idea of a sequel to Peter Pa11: .\fidmd
P1111, the story of Peter's younger brother. Barne rakes note,,
wnres down things the bo} ~ay\ and docs. Bame worshtps and
loves htm.
Arthur-imposstblc not to imagine him as one of those Pnncc
Charmings wid1 a pall suddenly ca~t over him by a hideollS ~pell­
cries as he watches them from beh1nd the bushes. Arthur ha'n '1
stopped crying for months: during the last operation it became
necessary to remove h1s lear duct,, .1nd now it'~ unposs1~lc for hun
to control the flow of ht~ rears. Arthur cncs because he can't \top
crying.
 RODRIGO FRESAN
Barrie hears about a new electric trearmenr, about a prosthetic
metal jaw that makes too much no1sc yet might improve Art:hur's
speech and appearance; but nothing seems to work. I like to imag-
ine Arthur a~ one of those goth1c monsters: an automaton half
man and half steel, and capm·c of a Jaw that starts to possess him,
to grow, to overrake the re\t of h" body hkc I\")'
Barne spares no C\fXnse, monc\ IS what he has more than
enough of. Barrie has made tony-four thousand pounds this year
so t:u, \\1thout n1unung another fh e hundred thousand just for
Peur Pan To the roralues lor Prur Ptm-ready for a third tri-
umphant season-are now added tho~e of Purr Pan in Kmsingt011
Gardtm. Barne's publishers at Hodder & Stoughton have con-
\1nced htm to pubhsh the chapters from I11e Little WIJire Bird
separately in .1 special edition ,,;th fifty illustrations by Arthur
Rackham. The book sell~ well, and its first page reads: "FOR SYLVIA
AND ARTHUR LLFWFLYN DAVIES AND Tll.ElR BOYS (MY BOYS)."
Arthur cries as he: reads the book. He cnes tor real; he cries be-
cause he wants to cry, because ll ~ccms dignified and appropriate.
It's as if now, reading It, Arthur understands Barrie at last. Every-
thing Barrie feels, everything he always felt, is almost exactly what
Arthur never lclt ,lJld what he's beginning to feel now: an exquisite
loneliness, so much like t.he company of death as it creeps closer,
like a boundle~s love tor the world that surrounds him and of
which he is begmning to rake his leave.
The pain mcreases along with the doses of morphine, and soon
it's disco,·cred that the cancer has spread to the other side of
Arthur's face, and that more operations are no longer possible or
helpful. The mechanical Jaw grinds m desperation. On Septem-
ber I 8, 1906, Arthur "ntes to his 'tster Margaret: he has six
months to a vcar leh, he tells her. 1"hc d<~y~ pass, and there's some-
thing terrible and at the same time pri11lcged about lcnowing the
coordmates of the end. The proximi~ of death, thinks Arthur,
makes everrthmg seem more alive:.
Barrie scarcel) moves from his side Barrie takes a house in
London, at 23 Campdcn Hill Square-very close to where the
Uewelyn Da\'leSCs used to IJ,·c:, and \·ery close to Leinster Cor-
KllNStNGION GARObNS lf>7
ne...........,<> 'iyh i,l can mni'C there w1th the children. Barrie puts up a
g(}(><.l part of 1he money to buy It Barrie pulls strings so that
Georg,e IS .t(ccprcd into Fwn (C...1ptain "Ja~" Hook \\aS there; h1s
last wurth, before lxmg dc:,·oured b) the crocodile, arc "Fioreat
Ewna~ ) and write\ w Captam Robert Fakon Scott ro ask for h1s
hdp in getting ).tck admitted to the Royal ~aval College Barrie
reports thc:~e nc" devc:lopmenrs one by one ro Artl1ur, who, per-
haps .:om inced of the good fortune of his loved ones, no longer
has an) re.uon to keep fighting.
Arthur Uewclyn Da,ics dies on Apnl 19, 1907, at the age of
forty four The children's grandmother assembles £hem that night
and gJVC~ them the ne\IS. Peter will never forget mat Emma du
Maurier IS weanng a sleeping cap at the moment she reUs them
the1r father IS gone. The next morrung, the brothers go to the
seashore ro dig holes and build casdcs. lt's a cloudy, windy day on
R.1msgare Beach Nothing IS different from the day before, but
evcrythmg has changed. And how docs that lying poem by Edna
St. Vincent Millay go, Kciko K.1i? Oh yes: "Childhood is the king·
dom where nobody d1e~." It isn't t.rue, of course. Childhood is a
place inhabited by beings ~hort in ~taturc but with a high death
rate, and the linlc Llewelyn Davicses have just discovered this. And
it's only 1hc beginning.
Arthur didn't lc;wc much. His brother rakes up a collection
among the family members, but Sylvia refuses to accept ''hat's
gathered and asks that the monev be returned to those who con-
tributed No one quite understands why she wants it that way; bur
everyone know) Barne won't besttue to take charge of me \lido\\
and her children. Someone says: "When Barrie bas decided to give,
he g1\·es m the fuJJ sense of the word, and no one, not even a su
perman, can escape the: force of Ius generosi~·."
Barnc renrs a hou-e m S.:otland ·Dim-ach Lodge, perched on
the edge of a gorge: w1th \1ews of Loch Ness-and takes even·onc
on hohday. h's hot; the: sun seems to refuse tO set each evc~mg;
the days arc too long; and there isn't much talkmg. The silence 1s
more th.m palpable. 1 he 'lienee 1s almost a color S1lcnce comes
out of people'~ mouths when they're talkmg to one another-in
 RODRIGO FRESAN
~~~~~· ~t telegraphic conversations· ·and they all seem like actors in a
silem film to which someone 's forgotten to add the occasional ex
planatoq card. There are no words, there's JUSt the oppressh·e
sound of a sad spring: bells, b1rds, oars in the water, someone
~mging a happy song in the dtstance-you hear his 1·oice, but rou
can't sec the singer, and it's bencr that way. Few things are more
terrible than the sight of others' happiness so close to one's own
sadne~~ .
Michael's afraid of going in the water. Michael has nighunare~
that arc tncreasingly claborate and powerful. At the end of the hol-
idays, George begins his first year at Eton, Peter enters Mr. Wilkin-
son·~ famous institute, Michael and Nico begin school at Norland
Place, and Jack hates each and even• one of Ius days at the ~aval
College m Osborne and- polJtcl} and cauriously-begins to hate
the Barnc who's always rcadr to S.ti'C them, to decide and \\Titc
whar ha~ to be done, and ro srrucn1re the hvcs of others as if they
were character\ 111 his plays.
Syll'ia tentatively begins to sm1le agam. Barrie goes back to
working on the new rc,·ival of Ptter Pnu, thi~ time 5tarring Pauline
Cha\e. There'~ .tlways 50mcthing to re1 i5e or add. At the reque~t
<>f the London AmbuJance Service, the author adill a line of warn-
ing about "no one being able to fl\' unk~s they b.ave faiJy dust,"
since he's been told by hospital emergency-room docrors that
"mam ch1ldren, a.frer rerurnmg from the theatre, try to fly by
jumpmg otT thetr beds, and hurt the1r httle heads and legs and
arms"
At the last ~how in Pcur Pnn's rh1rd season, something unex-
pected and unprecedented happens.
On the night of February 22, 1908, at the end of the fifth act,
the curtam falls and-despite d1e mual thunderous applause-the
actor~ d<>n 't come our to take their bow~, and the hall remains in
darkness for almost fifteen minutes. The audience begins to grow
une~>, J. child bursts into tears, and the pieces of that broken
weeping spread ro the other children in the hall. They're all cry-
ing, and even their parents are asking themselves whether they
shouldn't en roo: the darkness reminds them of the darkness of
KENSINGTON GARDENS
their childhood, the darlene" of tht>\e mght5 when you don't fear
whJ.l lhes in the shadow, but the pm\1bilu:y that the hght w1ll
ncn:r return, that the light ~~ gone forever.
Even thing is part of a surpri'C Barrie has prepared tor Charles
frohman. wb.o's come spcci.tll) from Paris and i5 sitting in the
front ro11. It's a surprise that will ncl'cr be repeated in their lives:
Barrie:: has written a short sixth act tor Peter Pnu, a coda that he's
titled "When Wendy Grew Up: An Afterthought," and that reveals
what will happen many )'Cars later in the lives of Peter and Wendy.
Then Tessie Parke- the actress who played the youngest mer·
maid-appears. Followed by a spotlight beamed from the hall's
rafi:ers, she comes up almost to the edge of the orchestra p1t and
says
My friends, 1 am the Baby J\lerma1d. We are now gomg ro
do a new act for the fir\t and onl~· 11me on any stage. Mr
B.trrie told us a story one day about what happened to
Wendy when she grew up and 1\C made it into an act, and 1t
w1ll never be done again. So open your eyes wide.
The curtain goes up, and there·~ Wendy, 11itb tbc same bodv
and the same face as the actrc\\ Hilda Trevelyan; but 11011 her drc\~
~~ lormal and b.er hairstyle is that of an adult woman, and her \'Oice
has lost the sharp gleam of childhood No11 Wendy is a woman,
and ~be's married and she has a daughter. Wendy is in the chil
drcn's room. In one ofrhc bed!> hcs an old, tired, nearly immobile
vcmon of the dog Nana, as if the actor had lefr the cmpry costume
there. In the other bed smile~ little Jane, Wendy's daughter. Jane
~ks her mother to tell her a story about Peter Pan.
The audience holds its breath a~ it watches the scene. It's a
strange, disquieting moment. Barnc has wrme n a mctafinional ap·
pcndix in which he makes clear what everyone senses, though no
one can ex-plain how ir happened· Peter Pan is no longer pan of
legend; he's transcended h1s theater e:mtencc to become a legend,
a commonplace, parr of their hvc\. Pctrr Pa,1 1s now one of the
cla"ic fairy tales, and the aud1en~c ha\ been granted the pril'ilcgc
}. ; (} RODRIGO PRESAN
of living in the era when everything began and when people began
to behe,·e in Peter Pan the same way they believe in so man'' other
thmgs. - ha\ e had to be as btg as all of London
Wendy explams tO Jane that she doesn't remember how to fly
anymore, because grown-ups forget about flymg, and the only
thing that flies for grown-ups is time. Wendy tells Jane: about the
short life of fairies:
You ~cc, dear: a fairy lives as long as a feather stays aloft o n
a windy day. But fuiries arc so small that a very short time is
a "hole life for them. While the feather flutters, they enjoy
the happiest of existences ... \\ ith enough time ro be de·
ccnth born, explore the world, dance once and cry once
and bring up their children . . ju~t as tr's possible to tra,·eJ
a long dtstance ,·ery fust m an auromotule. Automobiles are
very useful when tt comes ro e>Cplammg tames . . You know
C\'eryonc grows old and die~. 1- :tccpt Peter Pan, who never
had any sen~c of time. He thought that the whole of the
p.tst fit into yesterday ...
And then Wendy says bow sorry she is that-bcca~e of his heed-
boncss of time, his very un-British )a,k of puncrualiry-Petcr Pan
didn't keep his promise and never came back for her. Then, as if
he's heard her, Peter Pan comes fl~1ng in the open \\indow. Peter
Pan bclteves only a day has gone by since therr ad,·enrures tOgether.
Peter Pan tnststs that Wendy accompan) htm Wendy refuses. She's
too old no\\, ~he explains; bur-a~ tf 10 tribute-she'll allow Jane ro
go \\1th hun to Neverland. For a week. Wendy waves goodbye &om
I he hcdroom \\indow and muses aloud about the day Peter Pan will
come in -.e.1rch of Jane's son or daughtct·. And so on for centuries
upon centuries and child after child . Yes, lcttht: little children, "gar
and innocent and heardess, ~ come unto me, amen.
The curtain fulls, and a few sc:conds pass before the audience
begins to applaud. They're mo\'ed. They're not sure tbey\·e seen
whar they've seen. They ask themsch·es whether anyone "ill be-
hc,·c them, and they know that ,·ears from now so many people
KENSII'iGTON GARDLNS l7 J
\\ill swear to ha'e been there, and su mam will lie about ha\ing
been there, dut to hold them the Duk.e ofYork.'s Theatre \\Ould
Charles Frohman is transfigured He cries and laugru and em·
braces Barrie, who has directed the whole surprise-there was
hardly time to rehearse it-from the \\ings, and who, for once,
comes out to ack.nowledge the audience, which is ecstatic with
gratitude: Barrie almost hidden in his famous black coat, wrapped
in a scarf, hat in one hand. People clap even harder: Barrie playing
Barrie is unsurpassablc.
Charles Frohman informs Barrie that the suitcases must be
rcadtc:d and the scenery and the actors packed off. Charles
Frohman has arranged the Pans debut of Perer Pa11, ot~ Le Pmt
GarfOII IJIIi nti•OIIlmt pasgra11dtr. Two weeks at the very fushton
able Theatre du Vaude,ille. They'll scarcly make enough to cover
the ~taggcring costs, but Charles hohman couldn't care less. The
tmporram thtng is that Ptur Pa11 travel, fly, conquer the world
fhc work is performed in Engli~h, but a twelve-page srnopsts
of the script is distrihuteti-L'HiJtom: dt' Pem· Ptm; I hought a
copy 111 almost perfect condition at an auction, Kciko Kai-to help
the Parisians understand tl1c: already w1iversal mysterr of tl1e plot.
The show sells out to the \'ery last seat, and Le Figaro devotes
duee columns to it, placing ~pecial emphasis, of course, on the
symbolic and philosophical qualities of the play, and \'enruring
rather strange, ,-e~ French interpretations.
Back in England, Barne shuts htmself up to write WIJat Errr_l
\i\mmn Knows. Ir's his first work 10 three years
- ' and-maybe . as an
anndote to the influence of Purr Pan it's a play for adults, \\1th
adult characters who don't behevc m fames and don't know ho"
to fly, only how to crash. It's another big htt: Barrie's name on rhe
plnybtlb is more than enough to fill a hall tor weeks. There arc
IJughs, hut they're the kind oflaugh~ that issue from a birtcr crook
ot the mouth. There'~ lor~ of talk onstage. Nationalism, politic~.
and fcmmism are di~cuso;cd All of this is projected on the back-
drop of one of Barnc 's favontc \Ubjccts marriage: as a batdefidd
.-.nd a constandy simmering prtx:c's of negotiation.
..
1~1
' RODRIGO PRilSAN
Like hts own marriage.
Mar\' Barne has gi,·en up all hope and flirts shamelessly \\1th
Gilbert Cannan, who's seekmg solace after C'aptain Robert Falcon
Scott his romance \\ith the actrc~ Pauline C'hase ended-steal~
the affecuon~ of the young sculptor Kathleen Bruce.
Barrie watches this sentimental mmucr .1~ if it were another of
his plar~, unable to see what's happcnmg or pretending to be ig-
nor.lllt ot the twists and turns of the plot. What's more, ro make
things more i1tterc.sting, he hires Gilbert Cannan as his secn:rary
on the theater anticensorship comminec-a cause to which he
devore~ energy and indignation '' hc:n the work of a fiiend is
banned-and then invires him ro Cau\ on a three-week Swiss ski-
ing holiday Sylna and the bovs are included m the parry.
Awav the\ all go, and Svhia encourages Gubert Cannan to rake
rhmgs c\·cn further "ith i\lo~ry. She arranges tor rhem to meet, and
at the same time she goes otf \\ith Barne to keep him oecuptcd
Uncharitable minds think Syh·ia ts drcammg of marnage to Barnc
All rhat money, all that prcsngc. There arc moments when the ten-
sion at Caux resembles that of the mo<,t grotesque vaude,i lle act.
One: .ttternoon, Peter finds Barrie ~obbing m the hotel library.
He'~ alone and in the dark. Peter asks him what'~ wrong, " hr he's
~o ~ad Barrie lifts his head from hi~ hand~, looks at him with his
eve~ bathed in tears, and repltes, "Peter, somctlung dreadful has
happened to my feet," and pulls a lamp close. Barne's feet are gi·
gannc; thev'"e grown ro four or fh·c umcs rhetr normal size. Peter
lets our a yell and goes running. Barne's laugh he had the false
feet made at Hamley's-follows him down the staJCS.
When, that night, Syh'ia puts her hand to her breast and fujms,
the Llewelyn Davies brothers can't help thtnking it's another b,1d
joke scripted and directed by Barrie. Because recently, ever since
Barrie ha~ become an increasingly powerfitl presence m their li ves,
the boy~ ha,·c: the unmentionable: su~picion-aJI five think tl1e
same thing, but none of them dares say it aloud to the others-
that the)"re inhabiting a play; thar realit) rakes place oursidc: tl1e
theater of their existences, that C:\C:r smce tl1eir father's death
cn:q thtng IS \\ntten and produced and directed by James
KENSINGTON GA R DI!.NS l 7 .I
Matthew Barrie, and that thn arc nothing but puppets, puppet\
wti.hout strings, but al~o wuhout .a "til of their own. Yes, it mu\t
be their mother's faint \\as IJ.ke, an a~l She's played it very \\ell
A great actrer.s. A diva. lt takes S> Ina a "hilc: to come to her
senses. They call a docror who happem to be there, and who rc-
fu~es to give a diagnosis, with the c\cme that he's on vacJtion.
Upon their return to London, Sylvia seems weak and tired .mJ
stops s~:eing Arthur's relatives and the old frit:nds she knew as part
of a couple.
Barrie helps produce a play wrinen bv.. Gu.v du Maurier't Svlvia
~ • \
brother. The play-a fuirly ob\ious bm effective propaganda vehi-
cle-is called A11 Englislmuw's Homt, and in it there's a warning
about the German threat; it's enormously successful.
And Barrie goes ahead with h~ plans ro erect the statue of Pe
ter Pan. H e commissions the JOb to Sir George Frampron, sho\\
tng him the pictures he: took of Michael in Kensington G01rdcm.
He explains that tbis is what Peter Pan is like.
On July 28, 1909, Barrie goes out for a walk m the garden at
Black Lake, and the caretaker, a Mr. llunt, tells him that the cor·
tage is often used by Mary Barrie and Gi lbert Cannan when it\
owner is away. Mr. Hu nt isn't betraying the couple bccau~c he dis·
appro, cs of their behavior but because-he'll explain later under
oath-" the lady criticized the "ay I tend the roses."
Barrie offers his '"ife the chance to go on as if nothing ha.\ hap·
pened so long as she stops '>Ceing Gilbert Cannan. She rc:fuse~
Mary belie\es that it's in her marnage to Barrie that nod1ing 's
happened for all these years, and now she's tired of nothing hap·
pening.
Three months later, the divorce b official, and-to Mary's hor·
ror-Barrie seems more in love with her than C\'Cr and completely
indifferent to the scandal. Mary-who loves Can nan li ke a man
an d Barrie like a son-accepts fi.t ll blame and doesn't even lodge a
complamt about Barrie's constalll ntrto~tions with his actresses and
h t~ strange relationship wnh Sylvta Llcwclvn Davies.
Barne takes refuge m hts tmagmauon as a way of seeking justice
and wastes httlc ttmc: \\nting /1}( 'lir•tlvc·Pou11d Look, a parhcrtc
27~ RO DRI GO P R ESAN
melodrama in one act rhar revolves around adultery and divorce.
The proragomst-a successful F.nghshman by the name of Harry
Sims, soon ro rcceave a knighthood-is roo obviously an idealized
,·crsaon of Barnc: he\ rail, handsome At the end of the play, Sim~
discm·er; rhar has wile was never unfa~thful to him, that he only
wanted ro make ham JCalmas bee<lll~ she felt eclipsed by her hus·
band's t:une, she reappears omtagc as a profcssaonal typist and an
emancipated woman . It'!> all f.urlr ridiculous. And then!'!> some-
dung ~o !tad abom the "av Barnc goc!t back to tanrasizing about
his O\\ n life:, n:writing; it, fitting it inro three acrs. The almost
pathological need to bur} realit) alive under the floorboards of a
stage 111 order ro be able to bear it: af hi!> matrimonial debacle be·
comes a successful pia}, Barrie thinks, maybe mat way at "ill be less
painful. For Barrie, art's supreme mission-and Barrie tmderstands
his own c:mrcncc as a play an progress-has more ro do ";th fan-
tasy than ~ancerit). Why docs late have a single unhappy ending and
nor several h.tppy endings, one atler another, as they're needed>
God is good .11 crcaung ch.tracters but a bad playwright when ir
come~ to ~tructuring the ~cript hc make~ u~ read. The critic. treat
rhe pia)' with the tn irablc: mercy elidted only by the embarrassment
of others. No one ~peak~ of T7u Tll•rfl't·Pomu( Look; everyone is too
busy talking about the reJI divorce of the real couple. Rumors
abound abour Baraic:\ hypothetical and never-confirmed sexual in1-
potence. "The boy who couldn't go up" is the joke circulating
around the London club~ . To cvcrvonc who asks her about Barrie's
amarory capabihocs, Mary msasts that "in the beginning everything
was fine." A group of wntcrs-a~nong them Henry James and
H. G. Wclls-'>ign an open lc:ttcr and ~nd at ro all the Fleer Street
papers aslong t(>r "respect and gran rude ro a man of genius."
Fornmarely, the mal •~ 'hort. The eVIdence prc~ntcd by the
gardener "uh a grud~c as more than enough, and when he ex-
pla~m that "tt "a~ normal to find two cmpt]· cup~ of tea in Mrs
Marv Barrie'~ room," the judge orders him to be silent, consider-
ing hh comment~ vulgar Barrie signs e\'erything that musr be
signed and ga' cs Black Lake Cottage to Mary. He doesn't wam ro
go back there. ~or docs he want to continue lhing at Leinstcr
Corner.
KilN SING I ON GA R DENS
Barrie li nd' .t tl.u an Addpht Terrace House, between the
Strand ami the Thamc~. aero'>'> from Bernard Shaw's house Barne
hire~ .t butler, who \()Oil .:omcs to be known as 1he Inimitable
Harry Brown I've never seen a photograph of Brown, so I don't
hemate w give him tht." lace of nw bdo,·ed and alw inimitable
Dermott, may he rest in pc:acc.
Barrie "Tires to S~ Ina md the boys to inform them of his new
address, and-mo day~ after the trial'~ ,·erdicr-Syhia faints in the
house on Campdcn Hill Square. A doctor is called who isn't on
vacation. Another categorical ,·erdJct: "It's senous. Say nothing ro
the family." Cancer. AccordJng to Dr. Rende!, it's Ktoo close ro the
heart to operate." Mary Hodgson, faithful housckecpc:r, promises
to keep the secret of her mistress's health. She doesn 'r even tell
Sylv1a, who qucsuons her as soon as the doctor's gone. Sylvia lacs
back on her p1llows and pronounces herself "almost disappointed"
when Mary Hodgson tclb her that the diagnosis is exhaustion due
ro her recent sorrows.
Her children ~lt \pcct nothing. It's impossible rhar anything
could be wrong, becau\C 11 would make no dramatic sense after
their father\ death. So they spend thei r days exploring Kensington
Gardcm with Barrie and their new friend, Captain Robert Falcon
Scott-Barrie ha~ .1grc:ed to be godfather to his firstborn son, Pe·
rc:r, named after Peter Pan-who\ preparing ro embark on his
second e.,pedidon to Amarctica.
s,
By Jul} of 1910, ll'ia is con\inccd that her condition as scri-
ou~. It doesn 'r mauer what the doctors say. She hardly has the
strength to move. Smahng i~ an effort; bur e,·eo so she insi!ttS on a
holiday in Del'on. Barrie find~-a!t usual-the pc:rfecr place: Ash
ton Farm, in the Oare Rh cr Valley.
Thc:re Sl'hi.t scarccl\· g~ out for a breath of fresh air and lies
all day on the sofa, an a black robe. Her mother keeps her com
pany. At some poant, Svln1 \\Tites a \\ill. It 1sn't the first. Since her
husband's death, Svln1 ha!t taken to composing morbad funerary
texts In her ~pare tame \he writes in an ncrcise book what <he's
come to call "Notes for a \\'all," m elegant scnpt They're observa·
non~ and <cancrcd adc.t\ in wluch she amagJnes a hfe without her.
She writes:
2 -~ RODRIGO FRESAN
I could die ;:1[ any moment, but I don't think it will happen
I'C:rv soon, since todav I feel strong. ln case it does happen
(God forbid, I thmk of my beautiful children) I'd like to
leave some clear msrrucuons: I think that all my sons will be
good and bra\'c men (cons1denng that they're Arthur's sons
and dut the\' . understand how much thev. were loved bv. him
and by Syh1a, h1s fanhful and lo1ing wtfe). I hope that they
marn• & have ch1ldrcn & Ll\·e long & happily & arc content
to be: poor if ~uch happens ro be their lot . . Of one thing
I'm cert.lin: I M Barnc (the best friend in the whole
world) will alw,l}'\ be read\' to g1ve them lovmg counsel ...
In Srh'ia'~\\ill-\\hl.:h won't be found until se1·eral months later-
~he as~ to be cremated and buned next to ~my Arthur" in Hamp·
stead. Syll·1a SJ.V) she doe~n 't want her children to see her dead or
to attend her fi.tncr.\1 (" lr ~eem) a great mistake; 1 want them tore·
member me a~ I wa~ when I could look at them"), and enrrusrs
her mother ll'ith the task of gomg mrough her letters (except
those Arthur ~ent her and those )he sent him) and, if nothing es·
scnrial for the fi.1rurc i ~ found among them, wT would like evel'y·
tbm,IJ burnt." llcr Jewelry "w1ll be put away and shared out among
the wil'cs of my five bOll\ when tiMt day comes."
Barnc nc1 cr leaves her ~ide as he revise) me manuscript of Petti'
a11d ~~'t-nd~·. rhc mcl'itablc novcli.lation of his great success mar his
pubiHbcrs hale been denunding for ~ome time. A few notes in me
margin):
• Pcrrr Pn11. Rtl'ISt. \Vhat time of year, summer, winter,
tall> Peter docm 'r understand-~ There's onl)' spring."
• The drtng. htend\ around talk of omer things. Wonder
about d)1ng, when \llcnt really malung preparations for
dymg-l(>r the journey.
• DcnriJ One thin~ of the de;~.d as a bird taking lonely
A1ghr.
• 11Jt Sttond Clmnu: "Be1\are, or you nu) get what rou
want."
KSNSING10N GARDENS
S) !via's d1ildrcn-Barrie's boys--.:ome for a visit. George (sev·
cnrcen) is one of the mmt popul.lr pupils in Macnaghten 's House
at Eton, and it's already as~umed that in his last year he'll be one
of the twenty cho\Cn ones who make up t.hc: Etonian society
kno\\ n as Pop, to 11 h1d1 anyone "would give his right arm to be
admitted." Michael (ten) and Nico {six) han: done well at Wilkin·
son's School. Peter (tl11rteen) 1~n't doing bad!)· at his school, and
Jack {sixteen) still ~n 't sure what he's doing at Osborne, and why
Barrie has separated him from his brothers.
Sylv1a man els at the elegance of their school uniforms, at how
handsome her sons arc, how happy the)' seem. Syhi.a stares, fuing
mem with the gaze of someone who wants ro take them with her
to the other side, tmprintmg them forever on the retina of darken·
ing eyes. The boys feel uncomfortable before mose lidless pupils
that try to learn mem by heart. They're disturbed by the all-
powerful intensity of the dying that makes me living feel that
mcy're wasting time, that tl1ey aren't enjoying life as mey should,
that they don't deserve the health the)''re squandering. So they
prefer to see her at breakfast and men immediate!)' escape to fish,
play golf, lose rhcm~clvcs in the woods, pedal to Lyton, ~ruff
themselves with masses of raspberry jam and Devonshire cream,
and explore the lake, where Nico swear~ he saw a monster.
When they return, at night, Sylvi,l i~ already asleep, and Barrie
reads them bits from Patl' and Watdy in a tremulous I'Oicc, beside:
tl1c fire, gesturing frequently, casting shadows on the walls.
Some underlined sentences in my copy of Pctrr and Wmd_v. A few
110rd~ mat explain so much more about me than anything I could
argue m making my hyporhencal detense in front of a bypothe
tical JUT). Tht.S, I think, is alwav~ the function of our famrire
books, our bedside books, the books we read ro help us sleep, me
books "c pick up :again a~ \OOn as we awake: diseo1'ering in them
that ~meone 's written U.\ much berrer than 1\'e could ever wnre
ourselvc:~. And knowing mat thiS book-a book that many
mighr've read bur mat was intended for just one person-is wa1t·
1 7/1 RODRIGO FRESAN
ing for us ~ome'' here, that all we have to do is go in search of it
and find ir.
A lew sentence~, a few words that keep appearing in my head at
the most unexpected momen~. without permission, as if o:iggered
by a bidden ~pring that open~ a ~cret door, and here they are all ar
once, maybe because they sense that this will be the last chance
they'll ha\'e to pounce on me.
All these words and sentences that once worked as keys ro so
many doors for me, fimng mto a final lock: all these words and
sentences at last reaching the almost final mstant m which past and
present and future arc in the same room 1n the same house, here,
m Nevcrland.
Here, Kciko K.ai.
And no".
All these semencc!>, all the~e words, now:
Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life
without our notic1ng for J. time that they have happened.
Thus, ro take an instance, we suddenly discover that we have
been deaf in one car tor we don't know how long, but, say,
half an hour.
Now.
Children ha\'e the ~trangest ad,·enrures without being trou·
bled by them. For instance, they may remember to mention,
a week after the e\'ent happened, that when they were in
the wood they met their dead father and had a game with
rum.
Now.
OtT we skip from home like the most heartless things in the
world, which is '~hat ch1ldren arc, but so attractive:; and we
have an entirely sdfi~h time:, and then when we: have need of
special anention we noblv return for it.
KI;NSINGTON GARDENS
Now.
Peter had seen many tragedies bur he had forgotten them
all ... "I f(>rget them after I loll them "
No\\.
Tink "as not all bad: or rather, she was all bad just now, but,
on the other hand, wmctimcs she \\as all good. Fairies ha"e
to be one: thing or the other, because being so small they
unfortunately ha\e room for one feeling only at a time.
Thev are, however, allowed ro change, only it must be a
complete change.
Now.
Sometimes, though not often, he had dreams, and they
were more painful than the dream~ of other boys. For hours
he could not be ~cparatcd from these dreams, though he
wailed pitcomly in them. They had to do, l think, with the
riddle of hi~ cxbtcncc.
Now.
Peter "a; not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last.
A tremor r.u1 throu11-h him, like: a shudder passing over the
sea; but on the sea one: shudder follows another till there are
hundreds of them, and Peter felt just the one. Next moment
he was standmg erect on the rock again, with that smile on
h1s face and a drum beating withm rum. It was saying, "To
die "ill be an 3\\fullr b1g ad\'enrure!"
!-low.
Stars arc: beaunful, but they mar nor take an actwe parr in
anything, the}· mu\t )U\t look on for C\'cr. It IS a punishment
180 RODRIGO FRBSAN
for something they dtd so long ago that no star now knows
wh.u it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and
seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little
ones still wonder.
~ow.
We ha1·e now reached the c1·ening that wa~ to be known
among them a\ the Ntght of Nights.
And-now-my IJmntc of all, the best possible advice, Keiko Kai:
The more quick!~ tim hurror b dbpmed of the better.
Now.
One CI'Cntng, on thetr way back from one of their advenntres,
George and jack .md Peter and M1chael and Nico sense that some-
thing had ha& h.1ppcncd in their ab\cncc. That morning, Nurse
Looscmorc told them th.u the1r mother had had a bad night and
that she 11,1\ mo tired to sec them in her room; that she was rest-
ing; that 1t would be better 1f they came to her at the end of the:
day. IL wasn't true: Syh ia 11as awake, she cuuld hear them laughing
and playing and runrung up and down the stairs and leaving the
house. S1·h 1a asked for a mirror. Sylvia looked at herself in it and
said: .. Don't let the boy\ ~ec me agalll"
Now all the bhnds of Ashton Farm have been dosed, and the
boys come ~lowly up the path, \\lth the warmcss of "ild animals
approaching a fire !'hey \Cn\C what's happened, bur ther don't
11.1nt to kno11 11 One of the doors opens and Barrie comes out.
He look.\ like the dc\~'!Crate lmlc btrd that's always trying to escape
the ja11., of the cuckoo do.:k and nc,·er succeeds. The neck of his
shirt is open, hi~ hair"' d1\hnc:lcd, and his eyes are wide, as if he's
just fought ~omcthing terrible, a~ if he:'~ lost the fight. From inside
the home come the screams of Mar} Hodgson: "Cruel God!
Cruel God!" George and jack and Peter and Michael and Nico go
KI!NSINGTON GARDENS 1Hl
up the: stairs and come to the half-open door of Sylvia\ room,
and-yea~ later-tl1ey'U ne1·er be completdy sure whetl1er they
sal\ their mother's dead bodv or nor.
"J an1 almosr sure . . that I saw it . . . All I retain . is a
dream-like, cloudy sense of looking down from above for a fe,,
seconds, confused, unhappy, !Tightened, looking and yet nor look-
lllg ar the pale, lifeless features and then of escaping to some: lost
umbo in some remote comer of dte house," writes Peter Uewelyn
Davies in his "l\lorgue." And he adds, with some guilt: "It's
grotesque· I remember very httle of the day m)' mother died or the
dar of her funeral, and yet the morning after her death is perfectly
,;,id: we wenr with Barrie to Little, a store in Haymarket w buy
nets and fishing rods to divert ourselves with during the remainder
of the holidars!"
Jack, bitter, will never be able to forger that Barrie rook him
aside to tell him that h1s mother had decided to marry him, that
she was already wearing his rmg-a diamond-and-sapphire ring
that years later Barrie would present to Nico to give to his fiancee.
"If this wa~ true, It's dear she only agreed because she knew she
was going 10 die," Jack wrme to Peter in 1952, still angry. Peter
never believed that hb mother might have married Barric:: "If the
idea was mrolcrablc 1(1 Ja.:k, I must confess that tor me just think-
ing about it seem~ repugnant . . . A marriage between Sylvia,
widow of the splendid Artlmr and still so lovely, and that strange
creature who adored her and dreamed, as he surely musr have
dreamed, of stepping into m~ father's shoes, would ha\'C been an
affront ro all) reasonable person's sense of the fimess of things.
And I don't believe Syll'la C\er contemplated such a possibility ...
I hope that upon reading thts no one considers me an ungrateful
person, smcc on more than one occasiOn I've written abour the m·
numerable kindnes~s and advantages received from the hands of
the aforcs;ud ~trange creature whose connection "ith my family ul·
timarclv brought much more ~rrow than happiness."
The nc\t mormng, the brorhcr~-in mourning agam, rhree
year\ after thc1r father', death-go walklllg to the village to ""d
telegram~ relaying the b.\d new' to friend~ and family.
"Dc\pltC all the tragedy, today we got up and washed and we
2 /J 2 RODRIGO FRESAN ldlNSINGl'ON GARDENS JIIJ

could knot our tics and lace our ~hoes and breakfast wasn't bad at Her death .111d hn hu~b.111d'~ death once again set in motion
all ... It isn't the tnd of the world, men, life goes on," George thl. machmc that mJkc& Lhe dead. It's a po"erful, bUD!;\T)' machine.
consoles them from the lofty perch of his seventeen years, out The dead Jre necded to manufacture gho&ts.
ahead, first in line, ~rong the pace. B.1rne l311 fCcl h1& ncw gho&ts fluttering, like a curtain in the
"Sylvia leave~ u~ \\ith an Image of such extraordinary lo,·cliness, \\lndow, hke Oag\ in a parade: in the afternoon breeze.
nohlencss, and charm-ever unforgettable and touching," writes Barrie smile~ .It them md "a' es to them.
Henry James, the great cnue of death and funerals, to Emma du Since the beginning, \mcc his brother Da,id's death, Barrie's
1\launc:r upon learning of her daughter's death. alwar& known: until you have gho&ts, you can't consider yourself a
Barrie dcddc'> that MKhad, :-.<ico, and Mary Hodgson will stay truly nch man
at A!>hton Farm lor the three weeks of \acacion that remain. If you ha,·c ghosts, you ha,·e everything.
George, }.1ck, Peter, .md Barrie "ill accompam· Sylvia's body back
ro London It'~ a fi,e hour rnp. Barrie sits ,,;th his back to the lo-
comotive. He .Uwavs doe~. Or, truthfully, Keiko Kai, I'm the one
who does. And Barrie gets 1t from me, or copies me, or I make
him imitate me. There\ a barely veiled dedarauon of principles
and ac~therin m th1, mnocent habit: Barrie would rather watch the
countryside he's leaving bchmd than the countrys1de that stretches
out before him The p.1st rather than the fun1rc. An elusive yester-
day that seems increa~ingl y happy and pertcct when compared
with the blind sormw~ ~till to come. My reasons are probably dif-
ferent: I lllrn nw bad. on the future bec.lllse the future doesn't in-
clude me anymore; I look towards thc past because my past keeps
getting bigger. After so many years kcpt capti,·c in a small box, my
pa&t grow& Jnd won't &top growing. Now, after being starved for
so long, it escape& its prison and, loose and slippery like Peter Pan,
threatens ro devour everythmg and fulfills the threat. The train
stops at every sraoon, and at each one-to the rrritation of irritable
}ack-Barnc get~ out, walk.~ ro the baggage car that's can:ing
Syh;a's collin-draped in purple s1lk-and takes his hat off and
bows his head. ~As 1fhc were a bloody sentry," Jack mocks.
The funeral is \mall-a!> the dead woman would ha,·e wanted
it-and takes place 111 a church m the parish of Hampstead.
Svlvia Jo.:clm Busson du Mauner, wido" of Arthur Uewclyn
Da,·ies, mothcr of George:, Jack, Peter, Michael, and Nicholas
Uewelyn Davics, died on August 26, 1910, at the age of fony-
thrcc

1fl( Gi{_Q9T
Life •~ briet~ death is lasting.
Ami death ~houldn't be confused \\lth that last sterile second of
our ex~tences, the insranr when the hght\ arc turned off and the
doo~ arc closed and the keys arc rcrurncd to our pockets.
Death 1\ ti:rnlc.
Sow the dead and you 'II harvest ghost\.
The ltving arc the field where rhc dead .uc sown. We're the rich
soil waiting patiently for the rain of tears, lor the lime ro gather
the li·u•r~. ro pull up the ripe ghom by their branches and stalks,
gho~t~ that aren't the dead come back ro life bur the living dead.
So the dead aren't with us, but neither have they left us. The
power of the memory of them senles in our present, and the dead
appear before us at the least e\-pected moments. Ghosts that have
nothtng to do ''ith those moaning \"Oids co,·ered by sheets, bur
that dc1 look somcthtng like funmurc covered with other sheets.
hmmurc that makes us reali1e that the 1:1cr th.tt no one has sat in
that d1.1ir for years doesn't nccc'!-\arily mc.ln that no one will sir in
it ag.1in one of these days. The same is true of the dead: we cover
them up W1til-suddcnly and almost wtthout warning-we u~e
them, "c remember them. The c:lcctridty of that memory is the
food With wh1ch ghosts are nourished.
And maybe ghosts lose all memory of what they were in the
ven instant they're born. And maybe that's why they rerurn: not
KbNSINC..ION GARDI:.NS lRS
£O frighten ~. bur to remember \1 ho they \\ere b) ab~orbmg the
encr~" generated b) our f(ar, the fc.1r of tho~ of us who recugn11e
them md honor their memorr. ·n,cv return ~o rhev "on't be for·
gotten, to pre,·enr their se,ond and defiuiuve death, the death
that'~ longer than any life.
Sylna's death makes Barrie thmk of g;bosts. Every night. About
ghosts of mothers who return in ~carch of their children; about
ghosts diflerenr from those typical Victorian ghosts of English lit
crature, those in1matcrial matctiali~t specters always concerned
about rhc fate of bloody inheritances.
Barnc had already ''"ntten about th1s years ago, in 11Je Lmle
Wlmr Bird, when Captain \V-- says.
(jfi: and death, the child and the mod1er, are ever meeting
a\ the one draws mto the hart>our and the other sets sa1l ..
The onJr ghosts, I hciiC\C, who creep mto th1s world, arc
dead young mothers, returned w sec how ilicir child ren
fare. There is no other inducemem great enough m bri ng
the departed bat.:k ... Wh~t 1s ~.1ddc~t .1bout ghosts is th.u
they may not kno\1 their child. 1 hey expect him to be just
as be was wben d1ey lefi: him, .md they are easily bewildered,
and search for him trom room w room ro room, and hate
the unknown boy he has become Poor, passionate souls,
they ma) even do him an 111JUC\. These are the ghosts that
go wailing about old houses, and fbohsh wild stories are m
vented tO explam what IS all <o0 pathetic and s1mple . . All
our notions about gho~ts arc wrong. It ts nothing so peay
as lost wills or deeds of' 1olcncc th.n bnngs them back, and
we are nor nearly so ati"J1d ot them .1s they are of us.
Now he notes:
Nc1 one should return, no matrer how much iliey're lmed.
Harne 1s thmking about a new pia~ \tamng a ~1other Ghmt,
and J\ he take~ notes (he doe\n't dare work on it \Ct, 11 dt~e,n't
~em appropriate at thi\ time of \adnc\\ and mourning), he find\
..
; -
286 RODRIGO PRBSAN
Sylvia's will. Thcy'n.: been looking for it for months, and at last it
appe:m like a ghost in the drawer of a piece of ghost furnirure-
furnirure con:red with a sheet-at 23 Campden Hill Square.
Barrie read~ it and-when he copies it to send it to Emma du
Mauner, Syh·ia's mother he makes a llllStake. Or not. A psycho·
analyst, l suppose, would call it a Freudian shp; but 1 prefer ro
think that It is somethtng incvnable, something that helps the
story along And that Barnc, as he transcribes the original, starts
\\lth h1s nghr hand and ends mth h1s left.
Accustomed fc>r year~ to rc\lsmg manuscnpts, to adding ne\v
sentences to Prur Pmt, Barne alters Syh'ia Llewelyn Davies's will. I
like to think he docs it for lo\'e of the bop and also for love of art
and lo\e of a hfC: that imitate~ art-.tnd could anything be more
gratii}ing for an artist th.ln seeing ho'' the latitudes of others' re·
:ility ~uddenl~ adju~r to fit the long~ tudes of Jill own work?
So, where in Sylvia\ onginal 1t reads, "What 1 would like
would be if Jenny would come to Mary, and that the two together
would be looking afi:er the boys and the house ... It would be so
nice for Mary" (Jenny i\ 1\lary Hodgson's sister), in Barrie's copy
"Jenny" becomes "Jimmy." Yes, it'~ hard to believe Sylvia could
think the constant presence of "Jimmy" :ll Campdcn Hill Square
would be "so nice" for l\1.1ry. In any case-c\cn ifSyh~a hadn't ex-
pressed her !JM wishe\-it 's almost certain that the result of the
negotiation; would\ e been the same, regardless of any "Jenny" or
"Jimmy." Svlvia had made it dear that she didn't want the broth·
ers to be separated and sent to differenr relari\'CS; and who in the
du .\laurier fanuly could take responsibility for the needs and ex-
penses of five ch1ldren) The "Jimmy" in place of "Jenny" came as
a rc:lief to e\·eryone, and a September 1910 letter from Emma du
.
Maurier to Henry )arne\ reads. "I and Arthur's brother Uewelvn . Marcus ,\ lcrhn watches me through half-closed eyes, as if he
( rompton Da\ics & Barne w.U be: the ch1ldrc:n 's guardians, &
it's absolutd) cert.tin that it will be Barrie: who lives with them. I
am roo old ro be of an~· usc to them. Barrie is unattached just
now & his one ''i~h i~ to care for them in the way Syhia would
have wished. Hi~ de,•orion to Arthur during his illness & his
friendship & aflection ever since to all the fumily makes us all feel
that right & reason .ue on his side."
KllNSINGTON GARDENS 287
Everyone seem~ happy with the agreement: Mary Hodgson
caring for the boys and Barnc staying \~th them. As far as George
is concerned, Barrie i!. hh bc:H friend. Jack, despite: some rc:sc:nr·
ment, prefers to keep living at Campden Hill Square rather than
bemg sent to one of hi5 uncle~ or aunts. Peter doesn't know
"·hether he rrusrs Barrie or not; but be admires George, and
George admiieS Barne, and m the end that makes up his mind for
him. As fur as Michael is concerned, Barrie is a god who, in his
rurn, considers M1chael a god. And 1'\ico is roo little, has been the
least affected by the death of Ius parents, and doesn't rhlnk of Bar
ne as a father or a brother but as "the person I like best of every·
one who comes to visit me."
Barrie Jo,es all of them equally, and now there ,,;11 be no more
visits No'' B.trric mil always be: there, lea\ing Adelphi Terrace:
Hou\c for Campdcn H11l, opening the door \\ith his own key;
'' ith them fore' cr and e\·er.
Now, at last, Barrie is the master of his lost boys.
N()w B.1rric has inherited them.
And Marcus Merlin inherited me.
I was Marcu~ Merlin's lost boy.
.AJ1d now Marcus Merlin is lost, and he'll never be able to find
the way back home, to Ncverland.
Marcus Merhn collapsed suddenly, without warning, his illness
all end and no beg~nn111g, bke one of those one·act plays Barrie
''ntes cffortlcsslv 111 a weekend.
.Marcus Merhn IS connected to macluncs that make strange
noi~s that surely mean nothing, that ha,·e no reason for exisung.
were very far away, and \\lth a sm1lc mingling equal parts love and
pam
Wuh dlflkult), Marcm ~lcrlin lifts a hand. A gcsrurc rhat
m1ghr equally be a blc~\mg or a magic trick, a simple: trick, but no
lc~~ imprcs\in: for that
Man;u\ ~lcrlm \pc.l~ in a ~urprismgly powerful voice:.
\avs M.lrW\ Mcrhn "A l.t~t quc~tion, boy .. Your amwer ,,-jlJ
 RODRIGO PRESAN
help me explain something you ne\er knew and that might not do
you any good to kno\\ I t'U help you kill me ... more willingly
... Maybe you 'II actually like it, because tt will bring you c\~cn
closer to those Dtckcns novels, which-'>Orry-ha,·c always seemed
hugely overrated to me: unncce~~arily long, swarming ,,,rh dozens
of ptcrurec;que characters who 're impo~sible to follow, all of them
alike and equally dull -\nd all tho..c absurd coincidences. The
only thing that )U\tifics Dickens·, immortalit}, if you ask me, is
that great accompli,hmcnt of hb: 'Lonely as an oyster.' Incompa·
rablc Pertea But let'\ nm \trav from the Dtckensian marrc:r that
concerns us, and from thi~ quc\lion: what ''cr.: vour mother's last
words?~
I rep!) that m\ mother dic:d ~ingmg...You're nor mine . . .
You're not mme," she ~ang. It was the chorw. of her song, her one
more or less great hit. I don't remember how high ir rose in the
charts, but I do remember that tt was used as part of the sound-
track of one of those go go films back then, 3nd 10 a recent com·
mereta!. "You're Not Mine (I'm Not Yours)," tt was called-the
song that Bob D) Ian nHght or might not have written for her. "You
aren't mine, you aren't mine," ~he-my mother-died singing, bit·
ing me, beside the Mticidc pool .u Ncvcrland in the starlight.
Marcus Merlin u it\ to laugh. A ~trange laugh that only reflects
d1e state-the bad sratc-of thing~ in!>ide his body. A laugh whose
parts han: goncn mixed up and arc now 'crv difficult to sort our
again. A laugh that ends in a catalogue of coughs that, with great
cfforr and difficulty, finally turn mto words.
Says i\tarcu~ Merhn· "Your mother wasn't smging ... What
your mother was rrpng to rcll you wa~ that you weren't hers. You
weren't her son. You weren't your father's son etcher. You were a
gifi. Mine. Your parents thought they couldn't ha\'e children.
Then, one mght, I \role you. Well . it "asn't o:act~v stealing. lr
\\a!. at Hc:athrm~. There \\J.~ no one in ~ight. 1 don't think there
"ere an\ planes lett to land or rake off You kno''• the rime of
night when airpow. clo~c:. like a flow cr .. C gh, the morphine:
makes me so disgu~ungly ~app\ . . Back to our story ... You
\YC:rc a mystery. And an opportururv. You had fullen our of your
KENSINGTON GARDENS lHV
c.1rnap.e There I ",1\ and there vou w.:n:-the \\ heels \till wrning
in d1c air-you were erring as if you would nc\·c:r srop manufanur-
ing tears. Your parcm~. vour real paren~ ... were now here to be
seen. Maybe the) 'd abandoned you, who knows. ft struck them a\
more com enu:nt to lc:a' e \ ou m an airport than at the door of an
orphanage, thinking 1hat plane: rr;m:lers would rake: better care of
vou than those who might come to you by car or rrain. I didn't
read the paper or "arch the new~ rn those days. I preferred nor to
lmo" anythmg. Alexandra and Sebasuan didn't ask me any ques·
uons ThC\· JUSt accepted you the way the gods accept offerings
from their worshtppcrs. They rccei,cd you the way they received
all the other thmg~ I'd gotten for them once upon a time, whether
they asked me for them or not: a ltttle taken aback but ultimarclv
' .
grateful; and I lm·cd your parent~ ve ry much, seriously. Your par·
cnrs were rwo ,1 ngeb . Fallen angels, but angels nevertheless. A
little later, J\ often happen' when couple~ adopt a child, your
moLhcr got prcgn.ull with Baco. And then Baco died. And they
died. And I inh erited you, a~ vour p.1rcms had stipulated. I like
that Jbou t the rich: th <:y make: Lheir firM wills al the age of fhe,
don't they? So they ca n practice the fine art of br.:stowin g rewards
and pun i~h mc:ms and vengeance. ln any case, you came back ro
me in the end. And I don't thin k we had such a bad time, after al l.
It had its momcn~. It wa~ fun ... And now, please, I'm asking you
to ki ll me. It's the lc~t you can do lor someone "ho's given you
a \\h ole life. A strange lite. rrue, bur better than many normal
h\·cs . Yes, vcs, yes· an inrcresnng life ... Good night, sweet
prince . . fade to black, please. n
~tarcu~ Mcrhn closes ht~ eyes, and I cover them \\ith a pillow.
And I prc\s hard. It docsn 't take much
There's ~omethmg I'd like to make perlcctly clear: tt isn't ha-
rred generated by the revelanon of my ong:ms that allows me to
kill htm It's love that swells from the truth, and happmess thar my
invertebrate lite \hould at la!.t finally begm to acquire the outltnc
of a skeleton, somc:thmg that bnngs tt close ro the ncarnc:o;s of a
prcctsc: endmg, ro the moral order of good and bad, to the ridy
structure that hvcs u\Cd to have in other rimes.
190 RODRIGO FRESAN
Are you asking yourself whether I felt hk.e an idiot, Keiko Kai?
The answer is no. Wh}' should T be ashamed of my ignorance?
D1dn't many of the mhabitants of H1roshima and ~agasaki only
reah7e months later that what had struck the1r c1ties was a bomb
made by men, and not di\.1ne wrath m one of 1ts myriad forms? I
can unagme the1r radioacnvc rel1cf when it wa~ e\plamed to them
that they hadn't lx:cn cu~ed by rhe wi~dom of the immortals but
~imply destroyed by the stupidity of man.
Th.ll's how I felt then, Kc1ko K.1i. H.tpp)' possessor of a ccr·
tainty that explain.:d so many thing\ that were unclear. A truth, at
la\t. A truth that-Like all truths-b a double-edged sword. One
oftho\t: truth~ that cut through d1e armor of lie~ and make you re-
member~ man~ things, Keiko 1\.li.
Then canlc the past, descendmg hkc: a storm on me deserr of
the pre~ent. And since then, Keiko 1\.11 -~mce barely a few hours
ago-I remember everythmg that was and lmlc of what is. Now
has become something very distant and msubstanoal. I remember
only a tc''- thmgs about my trtp to Hollywood (in particular, a
phone call and my return flight); and that I came out of Marcus
Merlin's room; and that in the !Milway I pas~cd st•veraJ doctors and
nurse~ running in the opposite: direction. I remember that I went
to the pre\\ conference at the Mud1u out\ide of London ''here the
film111g of Jim Yn11g: T1u Mot•u \\as being announced, I remember
dlat you were there, Keiko Kai, and that, in me middle of the
chao~ and the crowds and me flashbulb~, I put you in my car and
brought you to Nevecland, and here '' c arc, and I have to hurry:
I'm sure they're looking for us, and mere's too !Jtde time left be-
tore ntght's curtain falls and the lights of dawn come on. There
1sn'r much time left, and there's ~till plenty to rcU. So I warn you,
Kcik.o Kai, that from now on until the end of this story-Barrie's
story-1'11 make few appearances. The minimum necessary, the
unavoidable. A Night in the Life: the minutes become seconds,
and the ~conru no longer exist, and-an dTeet of the pills-it
becomes complicated to continue in this format, so literarily Vic-
ronan and Edwardian and British, and so often criticized as impos·
sible and artificial. You know what I mean, Keiko Kai, or, rather,
KENSINGTON GARDENS
\'OU sure!" don't have: the ~lightC\t 1dca, bm even so: ~omcone
telling absolutely n>fn'lbiiiJIIn a single night in a vo1ce that ne' cr
changes, that doesn 'r nre, that doesn't hurry to reach the c:nd.
That's not my case. I han: no problem admitting artifilialil\, my
metabolism processing artificial ructions. Chemistry as a cluonOC\
de melting in my stomach and then immediately following the al
most invisible centrifugal anr trail mat goes from the heart to the
brain and back to me heart and then the brain again and back to
the heart and ... You know, Kciko Kai: me stimulating and spas
modic effect of certain drugs that increase the speed at which
blood and feelings and ideas etrculatc and make your style change.
My voice~verythmg that hve~ m my \'Oice-change.\. I em:
photographs, I look at b1ograph1es. Rectangular, more sharply
dehneated landscapes. Shorter sentences, economy of \·crbs and
adJeCtives, fewer details, faster, faster vet. The mnd in your fa,e.
The roar of the wind makes you dc<tf and mute and almost bl111d,
because the wind makes you dose your eyes ~ mcy don't fill up
\\lth wind. It keeps getting harder .\nd harder to think in the first
person; it's so much easier to hide be: hind the third person, as if it
were a pillar to peer amund and ~cc "ithout being seen. I look at
Barrie. And Barrie looks at me:. Barrie's so exacting, Barrie alway~
demands and recei\·es so much. l'm, yes, abducted by Barrie, and
the end of me cenrurv I traversed becomes the end of me century
Barrie tra,·ersed. Ancient lusror~. Barrie, Janus .\fattlJ~w. as 1f it
"ere an encydoped.ta entry, and for a moment, I thought about
telling you what's left to tell m S\\eet tones, a siUy· ,-oice, dimmu
m·es-as 1f Barrie were a puppet or a manonette or a doll or a ch1l
drcn 's book character emcnng the shadow of a forest drawn 111
dark mks-the way people once spoke and told stories to children:
rhat vo1ce. Bur no. Barrie never talked to his boys like that. So I let
myself be im·aded and conquered by Barnc, 1 dissoh·c mrsclf in his
words and acts, and-m the word\ of Peter Llewelyn Davic~-l'm
one \\ith the "deep, Mrangc, complex, and growing love" that Bar·
TIC feels for his boys I merge \\ith the passion mat at times make\
Same '' 1,h, a$ he \HOle ro .\1Khacl, that ~you had been .t g1rl of
twenty-one instead of a young man so that I could confide \\hat
292 R.OOR.IGO PRESAN
['ye always carried in my heart." A force that mo\·cs worlds. A feel·
ing more central than any thmg or lhing being. Impossible to
compete and \\1n, especially when-as in my ease-l never learned
to play cricket, and, yes, perhaps m Barrie's eyes I'm an involun·
tary ann-Peter Pan, a boy who grew up too soon and too fast.
Which docsn 't preYent me-i:Ycry once in a wtule, when Bar·
rie's d1nracted, when nobodv'~ looking-!Tom managing to lca,·e
an ephemeral foorprim, the ~light mark of my teeth in his land-
scape:. But as I'Ye told you, from no" on l'U content mrself "ith a
minimal prc!>ence, \\lth fleering burs~ of mvsclf-aurora bore·
alises, poltergeist-style ectoplasmic gleams-in Barrie's firmament.
'"Cameos," i\larcus Merlin would',·e said, cinematOgraphically. Or
bli11k.s. I'd say: somewhere I read that when we read a book we
blink approximately eighteen ames a mmute, per page; and that
we almost alway~ uncon\ciously srnchroni7e our blinks with peri·
ods, comma\, ,md the ends of sentences. I claim for myself the in·
habitance of tho~e bli nk\; I claim for myself an intermittent and
almost ~ecrct existence. Kciko K.1i: from now on you'll sec me, if
you ~cc me .11 all, in !lecting ;hadow& and almost blending into the
backdrops of an era th:n t~n 'L mine but that I, like Jim Yang, claim
as mine, ~o a~ not w have lO Lhink about my own times. Disengag·
ing myself !Tom mv p.m. which cbtablishes itself in my present:,
and, famished, sits down to cat the litde future I ha,·e left. I'll ap·
pear just often enough so you don't forget that I'm the one telling
this story, though it tm'r mine; I'm the one who's been possessed
by it, and as a rc~ult, I excn::1se some rtghts over its course and des·
nnarion
Kciko Kai, make an ell<>rr; look hard and find me:
I'm the \\,udrobc: manager of a libtdmous music-hall star ( I es·
pccially like the odahsquc gau1incss of the Mara Hari-sryle out·
fits); I'm a cameraman, a~tonished to film four illustrious citizens
of the Emp1re dressed up a~ CO\\ boys (I don't understand what
I'm domg here, nor do I understand what Chesterton and Shaw
and Wells are domg here:, nor ho" Barrie's managed to get them
to obey him \\ithout protest, with the docility of tame beasts); I'm
a German sold1cr who presses the trigger of his rifle in the trenches
Kl!NS!NGTON GARO!>NS l~.l
of Voormc;cclc: {f don't C\ en take otT my g~ mask w sleep, and
they call me the H idcou~ Antc.llcr; there's no way for me to kno\\
It, but m diffcrc:nL battle~. J'yc alre.td} wounded Guillaume Apolli-
naire and lulkd Al.un-rournicr and Hector Hugh "Saki" Munro,
and it's dear that l\e got great aim when it comes to knocking oil
Romanticist soldier~). I'm a comrade of Captain Robert Falcon
Scott, "ho never stops smging and whistling as, outside, the icv
\\1nds of death blo\\ (I whbtlc "The Mist Co,·ered Monnrains,"
my favonte song); I'm a studem who laughs when Barrie begins
one of his speeches (Barrie, ncTYous, fiddles \\ith a lerrer-opc:ner,
and I shout at h1m to be careful not to cut his head off bv . rmstake,
and Same docsn 't understand what I've said but C\'eryone else
laughs, and later the dean calls me tmo his office and teUs me that
I'm suspended until ti1rthcr notice); I'm a passenger on both the
Lmltfwm and the !Ita me (I survi\'C the first and go down ,,;th the
second, or maybe tt's the other way around; it doesn't matter);
I'm a young reporter who gives Barrie the worst of news (no one
dares to go and ask him a few terrible quc~tions; I'm the newest
on the M.lfT, .111d they ~end me, of course; but l swear I ne,·cr
wou ld've imagined Barrie had no idea what had happened); I'm
ont of the butlers interviewed to replace the Inimitable Harry
Brown (Barrie reject~ me, considering me roo young to be a good
butler; l'd make a good loH boy but ne\er an inimitable and dli-
cienr and admirable ~cn'allr, thinks Barrie); l'm a friend of Michael
Llewel}•n Da"ies ("hen no one is looking, I cut a damp curl from
his head and rrea~ure 1t unul the day I die, in one of those lockets
that open like a pocketwatch); I'm the mentally disturbed specta-
tor at one of Same's last tnumphs (an open-ended thriller tn
whtch It's never clear who·~ gwlty; I leave the thearer in the grips
of a cold fc:,·er, and I decide to become a killer whom the police
\\111 never catch), I'm a bank employee who exchanges a lew
pound note~ lor pcnntC\ w that Bamc can take them as an offer·
ing to a lmlc princes~ (later, at home, I'll read a lerrer 111 wh1ch mr
Wile mform\ me that ~he\ gone and j, ncYer coming back, the
next mormng, I'll \teal mo~t of what's in the ~afe and Ace ro
Mosco\\, w the Rcvoluuon .), I'm a docror who prescnbcs a
294 RODRIGO FRESAN
heroic drug for a hero near defeat (I also use heroin; I'm also a
pursuer of visions; I wanted to be a writer, but my father forced
me to follow in h1s footsteps and my grandfather's footsteps to
hospitals and surgeries and battlefields); 1'm a Scottish gravedigger
in the Kirriemuir cemetery (you can call me Mac) who looks up at
the sky and asks h1mself whether it \vill rain tonight and 305\"ers
himself that, ye~, it \\1ll ram, It'll ram until the sun comes up; and
he promises himself a cup of hot coffee when be's done covering
todav's grave, which luckily is a very ~mall grave.
Every morning at breakfast the Llewelyn Davies brothers find new
surprises: Barrie won't stop gl\1ng them presentS, spoiling them,
Barrie like a genic without a bottle who makes all their wishes
come true.
Newspapers are lust<>ry'~ echo. The news has a morbid appeal,
and it triggers the exCitement we tee l whenever reality imitates fic-
tion and suddenly we don't know whCLhcr it's we wbo're reading
or whether we're being read by someone else. Stop the presses: the
man who never grew up ha~ found his lost boys.
Peter's friends at Eton make fun of him and envy hin1 at d1e
same rime. Peter startS to hate his name and Peter Pan, and he'll
hate both resignedly and determinedly until the evening when he
jumps &om the platform of an underground station. Peter says
nothmg ro Barrie, who cla1ms not to be so mterested in the theater
and lireran1re anymore. It's dear that Barne 1s beginning to live a
ghost life. A pmdife. Nmhing IS the same after Puer Pan: Barrie
understands, correctly, that Lhe first part of his existence has been
the s[m, configuration of the tdeal conduions to reach the point of
the Big Bang, and that no\\, ar the age of fifty-one, and for the
}'eatS he has left to liH:, he 'II inhabit tile manr ripples ofits po\\ cr-
ful expanding wa\'e,
The pubhcaoon of Perer and Wmd.v makes it even more obvi-
ous: the critics aren't very enthusiastic, and they scold Barrie for
the omnipresence of his narrative \·oicc, which insertS irself in-
to the action a~ if needing to procla1m ItS ownership of something
KENSINGTON GARDENS 295
that belong; to everyone by now. Peur Pan was already a chil-
dren's classic before it became a children's book. Barrie is disap-
pearing, devoured by i~ ~hadow The san1e thiJ1g happens w those
who are tmiratcd and immediately \·anquished by their imitator; no
one remembers tllem, preferring w admire the meticulous falsifica-
oon r:1ther than the unadorned original. Peter Pan seems tO ha\'C
existed forever. Peter Pan is immortal and neYer grows up, and
Barrie is suddenly beg~nrung to show signs of the passage of time.
He hasn't lost h1s eternal ch1ld1sh air, but the deep wrinkles on his
face seem ro have been etched furiously in a single night.
Barrie is happy, but Jt's a territ)ing happiness, the happiness of
someone who knows that he's pa)ing an enormous price to get
what he'~ always \\anted. George and jack and Peter and M1chacl
and N1co h\'e with h1m, yes, bur for rhar to have happened Arthur
and Sylv1a had tO die, and suddenly the sun O\'Cr Kensington Gar·
dcm d!>e\n 't \cem a\ warm; the grass isn't as green. At lasr, Barrie
understands that, even if you decide not to grow up, time doe~
grow and o:xp.md and drag everyone cbe along, and very ~oon hi~
boys will be men.
Barrie's silcnccb when he'~ wiLh his friends are increasingly long
and deep, and an)lhing to do with the outside world irritates hinl.
The hysteria o,·cr the Titrmic tragedy; or the shouts of the women
who want Lhe \'Otc, as if voong meant anything; or the affair of the
Peter Pan ~tame, for example.
lr dmlls me to imagine Peter Pan being transported sccrcdy, m
the dark of night; h1s bearers conspmng to drag him through the
streets of London, as tt's sa1d 1\lichelangelo once dragged his se·
cret marble srarue of Da\'ld through tile streets of Florence-
anorher young kmg, another gaanr killer-to re\·eal tr to the world
m the m1ddle of the morning m another square in another Renais-
sance. I know, I knO\\, I kllO\\, Ke1ko Kai; I told you this alread}
The ~tor~ ()f Barrie: and h1s \tatuc. A \mall stanae from the adult
pomt of\ IC\\, bur the nght ~1ze lor ch1ldren a child-scale srarue, a
\tatue that will al\\ay\ be n:memhered '" bigger than 1t really is,
bc.:au'e It'\ a \latue C\pcdall} <:oncci\ cd and designed to sur the
huge imaginati()n of lmlc ones. A much humbler sratue than the:
296 RODRIGO PRBSAN
magnificent sculptural ensemble of the Albert Memorial at one of
the entrances to the park, but more powerful, even so. A statue
whose srory l'\'e told so many times, that I've told maybe a thou-
sand and one nmes. The story of a statue that I already wrote for
you But I can't help telling it once more. There's something
about the idea-'>o tnnoccnt and childish, bur also d1abolical and
brilliant-of crecnng a monument to an 1maginary character. Ex-
hibiting ItS trauma to the world so It'll spread e\ crywhcrc-and
meantime making plam the dum~~· ficuon of .ill those statues of
kings and ;~dnurah and real but false gods-Barrie's public monu-
ment to a pri' ate di\ mit)" draw~ me back O\er and over again. To
see it from every possible angle. To ~tudy it. And, yes, the Peter
Pan statue-despite its failure to li\'e up ro Barrie's ideal-is one of
the few statues that don't lie, that don't know how to lie.
It's set in place the night of April 30, 1912. Barrie doesn't like
it: Sir George Frampton, h1s sculptOr, dldn 't base it on the photo-
graphs Barrie took of Michacl, preferring to usc another boy as his
model, one Jame.q W. Shaw, who seems too delicate ro Barrie, with
none of Peter Pan's energetic savagery. The House of Commons
debates whether a wri1er-important as he might be-should be
allowed to grant him~clf the right ro erect a statue of one of his
characters wherever he wants, "he never he wants. Does Barrie
think Kensington Gardens b part of his properry? The parlia-
mentary polemic ceases "hen someone hints that Edward Vll is
amused by the idea. Barrie doesn't respond. Let them do what
they want; let d1cm caricature it in the pages of Punch; let them set
it in rhyme, as Humbert Wolfe docs m a short, playful poem in his
book Kmsmgro11 Gnrdcm(m which Peter Pan is linked to the Pied
P1per of Hamelin); let them melt 1t down to make bullets. What·
C\'er sum them,'' hatncr they hkc.
Barrie talks emir to the Llewelyn Davies brothers.
Nico le;m:~ Norland Place and JOins Michael at Wilkinson's.
George continues ro triumph at Eton, and Peter and Nico are ar
the top of their classc~. Barrie decides to reward e\·eryone with a
holiday at Amhwnnsuidhe Castle, in the Hebrides. Jack can't or
doesn't want ro go along.
KI!NSINGTON GARDENS 2 v ..
There arc long fhhing cxpcd1Uons on which Michael develop'
d1e maddening habit of dhappearing in the blink of an eye-nO\\
you see him, no" you don't-and Michael-hunting partie; are or-
ganized. From Scotland, Barne "rites his annual km:r to Syh ia,
the dead mother, "telling her ho\\ things were no\\ \\ith her chil-
dren.~ Winter come~. and at d1e beginning oi 1912 there'; an
other death, someone else IS dead: Captain Robert Falcon Scon
penshes on the 1mmortal1ce. Barrie takes the news of his end as a
fresh personal blow Of late he had distanced himself from Scon,
bur that hadn't pre,·enred h1m from connnumg ro admire him, or
from hclpmg to collect funds for hts expedition; now he orgamzes
a public drive to honor hi~ memory and secure the future of h1s
wido" and ~on Barrie is even more distressed when he learns that
with the la~t of his Sll'cngth Scott wrote him a tcrvcnt furcwell let-
ter: "I ne,cr met a man in my life whom l admired and lo\'ed more
than you, but I never could show you how much your frienthhip
meant to me, for you had much to give and l nothing," concluded
Scott, in wavering script.
Barrie folds d1c letter and carries it with him alway~. In his
jacket pi)Cket, over h i ~ heart. He won't allow the newspapers to
publish it, but ar any gathering, and without apparcnr motive, it
isn't unusual for him to tap his glass with his knife to request are,·-
crenr silence and ,·olunteer to read it aloud tO those assembled.
Barrie likes to culminate his reading with a reflection in which be
hkens Scott to Peter Pan: "His body losr, trapped among the gla
cicrs, forever young wh1le the rest of us grow older C\'CI')' second,
as if we're mcltmg before a mcrc1less fire ... Someday, when we're
"ery old, <;corr and h1~ comrade~ \\111 emerge out of those white
1mmen~lt1C: as 1f no time had passed tor them."
Why this sudden ob\CSSIOn of mmc with Capta.in Robert Falcon
Scott, who i~, after all, no more to me than a showy and srams-
enhancmg footnote at Bame's small feet? Good question, Ke1ko
Ka1 A good question that demands a good mswcr; and the truth
IS that I ha\'e hrde 1f an~ mtcrest in his hero's life:. I am, however,
interested 1n h1s hem's deJth Robert falcon Scott writing a letter
to Rarnc in shaky pencil on the pages ripped from his binnacle
298 RODRIGO FR.ESAN
notebook. A letter that becomes warmer as the cold sinks into
Robert Falcon Scott's bones and heart and brain. Ln toasts and at
memonal senices. Barne never reads the whole letter aloud. Barrie
kept the most personal paragraphs for h1mself, and therefore no
one knew wh) he and Roberr Falcon Scott had become estranged.
Someone rheori1ed that Barnc had heard dully rumors about him-
sclt:-.:alummes that the tamom explorer might ha,·e uttered or in-
smuated ro second or th1rd parties who ultimately formed the icc
floc of slander Or mayhc not ~byhc Roberr Falcon Scott didn't
say anything, .tnd C\'C:nthmjl. wa.\ due to a mt~undcrstanding fos-
tered h} tho\e om to '>pite them Or pmsibly cvernhing was the
result of the umtablc n.uurc of Barrie's cnthu~iasms, Barrie bemg
one of thmc btpolar per.onahuc:~ who one: dar Jo,·e you forever
and the ne>.r dav don 'r re\:ogmle vou when they pass you on the
street. In any case, some: fricndshtps simply grow cold-bad joke,
Keiko Kai What docs matter what I like to return ro again and
agam-is the end of the 1crrn NoJ>n expedition members. The first
to die were \V1lson and Bowers. Peerless men of the snow who--as
Scott tells it m hi~ letter, I think-died singing the recipes for com-
plicated and cx:penstve and de licious dishes. The last th ing Robert
falcon Scon \Hotc was "It scent~ a pity, but I do not think that 1
can write more, Mand I a'k my~df whether there could possibl}' be
betta words for biddmg t:m:well to writing. I doubt it. Then
Robert Falcon Scott delicately hud out the bodies, wrapping them
in their sleeping bag~. Aftcn\ ard, he sat up against the central rem
pole and took otT his coat and shirt and waited for the cold eternal
sleep and the crymg of the petrels to overcome him and lull him
like the most slumberous of lullabies. A sleep of open eyes and sad
smile. And that \\olS ho\\ they were found eight months later. And
I can't help thmkmg al>our my own cold, and my own priYate, un-
explored Antarctica: mv Antarctica at thtrty vears below zero. A
truth frozen 111 ttme is ~o much more dangerous than a blazing he.
Like the frozen, uniform, bonng land~ape that now, as it begins
to melt-hole in the o.wne laver, global \\arming, disintegration
of clements re,eal~ me to my~elf, showing me to be the most
broken of misstng links, thawing at last and roaring in pain and
surprise like a newborn bab}.
KhNSINGTON GARDENS
It •~n 't long before Barrie offer\ to take charge of his godson
Pct.:r S.:on \ \lido\\, Kathkc:n, thanks him. but rc:plin that it
i~n 't nece\\.trv. Kathleen doe;n 't \\ant w become: a second Syh ia
Uc\\dvn . Da\ics, dnoured b1. the \oracitY. of the little man \\hO
\:Omumc; little men.
Ntco i~ no\\ the only permanent resident at Campden Hill
Square. Michael is bc:gmrung hi; srudie~ in .\1acnaghteu'; Hou~ at
Eton, but, unlike George, he can't stand the place. He cries him-
self ro sleep e\ Cr) rught He misses Mary Hodgson, Barrie, and-
he's afraid to tell anyone hts mother. During the day he \\'rites
~nnccs, and at night he conm,·es exquime nighonares: he wakes
up howhng hke a wolf. Michael's troubles inspire Barrie's story
"Netl and Tinrinnabulum,M the tale of a boy tOrmented by his in
ncr demons: "Terror had been after him since he \\'aS a child ...
fherc are moments 111 life when a boy can be as lonely a.s God,"
Barnc: writes Ill it
On June 13, 1913, Barrie i~ made a baronet. He's Sir James
Matthew Barrie ti·om now on. But there's a problem, becau~c
the ne'' nobleman was always known to the British public a~
J. M. Banic. "Sir J M Barrie" sotUlds odd. Barrie had refused a
knighthood in 1909, bm how to rc~iH a baronetcy~ He'~ only
.
sorrv-sincc ir's .1 hc:rcditarv. title-that none of the Five can as-
sume it when he dies
.\1ichad anc..l Nico ~tart to call him "Sir Jazz Band Barrie" or
"Str )au." jack, rather malicJOuslv, refers to Barrie as "the Bart~
or "the Ltttle Baronet.~ George doesn't im·enr any nicknames.
George is so very big now; he's rurned rwenry, and-with rasre
and savoir f;urc hcgm~ to frequent the company of ladies of good
brec:dmg. He goes to dances mth Jack, and at a party thro\\11 by
one of thctr aunts they meet the Mttchcll Iones sisters. The three
girls arc enthralled by the young men, but it's the oldest, Jose-
phine, who manage' to capti,·arc George, and carl}' on he gi\C\
her a copy of 11Jt l.ittlc WIJiu B1rd, maybe as if ro c><plain all
the man} thing~ he doesn't knm' ho\\ to explam.
The date nf the mnth renval of Pcur Pa11 is approaching,
.100 RODRIGO FRESAN
and me children who acted in the play the previous year are sub-
jected to the most terrible of rituals. The lost boys arc lined up
before Barrie, who rC\JCws them like a general, proceeding to
measure how tall they arc, one by one. He ~rudics them, staring as
ifh1s gaze could bore mto the young actors' eyes and, once inside,
size up their c;oul\ and the potency of their childish glee and !:heir
scarcely concealed \\1~h to rcmam as they arc forever, acting in a
play, linng and g1ving thcm~lve~ up to an awfully big adventure.
Som~ of them .ue about to receive the worst news of their li\·es
mat, suddenly and ''idlolll \\ arning, mey've reached the end of
' \\here time repeatS i~lf O\·er and over again.
their first-and best and unrepeatable-act. If you're o\·er a certain
height, you're out, ::md you're rapidly replaced by a new, smaller
actor. Afterward, Barrie opens h1s script and announces the new
speeches to be added, the hne~ he's come up with over the course
of the ~·car. J\lichacl prc~1dcs .ts secretary and creative consultant.
Another of lhrnc\ cnd-of-thc-yc.tr occupations borders on
the \candalom: he's imi\tcd on writing a ~how for Gaby Dcslys,
French \ex ..ymbol and dwrm girl famous for her scantily clad
performance\. It'\ not ju~t Barril: who's ~uccumbed co her charms,
but also his boys, infl,uncd bv the fevers of adolesce nce. Barrie's
boys dream of G.lby Dc\h's. Barrie dreams of his boys dreaming of
Gabv Desly~. That'~ Llle crucial difference, the dividing line, me
impassable and definitive: barrier. For Barrie's boys, despite what
Peter Pan thinks, a khs will ne\er be a thimble, and a th.irnble will
never be a kiss. For Barrie's boys, kisses are like needles: kisses
sting your lips until they dra'' blood As me news spreads, some
think Same's gone mad, rhmc who know h1m best realize mat it's
just another of h1s theater pa!.sions, as intense as !:hey are fleeting.
This adoration of <.iaby Deslys-for whom me newly mimed
baronet soon prom1ses to\\ nte a whole rl:''lle-is stmply one of his
latest platomc obsess1ons, anomer actress for his collection of ac-
tresses All)"' ay, Barrie is eomumed by a nl:'\' hobby. Barrie has
discO\ercd cinematograph~. It's something miraculous, Barrie ex-
plains: the actors m h1s plays grow older as time and performances
go bv; film actors, however, are young fore,er. Barrie buys himself
a movie camera. He shoots mousands of feet of celluloid at the
KllNSINGTON GAROI!NS .lO I
~lightc\1 C\Cusc He makn J d1anty film to be shO\\ n at benefi~
and raise munev fc1r the YJ\1( A, though an) cause would serve a~
well a hil.uiou\ \cr\lon of HntbttiJ retitled 71;t Rm171Ji11!J nt LnJt.
"Pure action and no biJ.h blah blah," the program announces. And
Barrie is fascinated b\ e1 ernhing that lllO\ es, because llO\\ he hal.
''ill
the: po\\er to tr.1p it '' ith his camera and release it at and set it
mO\ ing again, like a glowing fairv, like an electric Tinker Bell, on
m~ walls of lm flat at Adc:lpru Terrace House. For Barrie, film ~
me closest thmg tO daydreammg, tO glimpsing mat omer world
Barrie films C\ erything so that nol:hing will grow up. And r ask
m\·sclf what Barrie might have thought of the biopic that Holly-
wood w1ll devote to h1m at the beg~nning of the new century and
the brand new m1llcnnmm, at a time when the self-styled "dream
factory" is committed to compulsi\'cly reinventing real Lives. Surely
he would've been naucred at some lunatic Hollywood producer's
dccis1011 to choose Johnny Depp-"onc of the sexiest men on the
planer," .\Ccording to the mag.IZincs-to embody his spirit and im-
age. T.tll ar last, hantbomc at la~t. The magic of the cinema i~ so
much more: putcnt than the m.1gic of tlle theater, he'd think. To
me, ho11 C\ cr, the whole businc~s ~ecmcd repugnant and almost
bla~phcmou~, and I don't know how or why it was dlaL I made my
way into a c:incnu .u Piccadilly Circus 3Jld saw Fi11di11.!J Neverlnud.
I remember tltat it \\JS raining, and tllat every t:a.\i seemed ro
have dhappcared from London as if by magic, and that I sought
refuge in a c:mc:ma to pass tlle time and wait for me rain to
pa~s ·and that r had ~c:arccly settled into my scat when I began to
feel extremely unc:omforrable, on me \erge of fu.r)r or horror. I'm
sure that Barne -once he'd gotten o,·er the pleasure of seeing
Depp answcnng to hiJ. nanle-would ha,·e felt me same way upon
watching all tho'>t: falsehoods and dmornons ptle up until !:hey
formed a to\\ cr ot absurdnics tntended to acquire me shape of an
mnocuou\ enrcrramment, supposedly mo,ing to me point of rears.
Up on the screen, :-l1co docsn 't cx1st (mere's no need for another
ch1ld ), .lnd •\rthur Llewelyn Danes 1S dead long before Barne dls-
cm·er<. h1s boy.s 1rhere \ no need ror a tamer to Interfere mth the
.I 0 2 RODRIGO PR.ESAN
saindiness of Kate Winslet, modest and long·suffenng widow), and
Grandmother du Maurier (Julie Christie! my Julie Christie!) bn·
rerl> hares the meddling pla~'\\nght (1t's she who contributes
1m·oluntarily to the creation of the p1rate and archenemy), and
Charles Frohman doesn't bclieYe 10 the Peter Pan project, and
Syh·1a dies after the staging of the work at her house. And much
worse, intolerable outrages: Peter never resists Barrie's charms and
wa~n't the direct inspiration for Peter Pan, and Michael (is that re·
ally Michael in the film? } was never hurt when a worker holding
the: rope of the flying apparatus got distracted. And can someone
explain to me whose stupid idea it was to baYc Barrie reserve
t\\'Cnl'\ fi\'c scats on opening night to be occupied by exaggerat·
edl\' dean children from an orphanage near rhe Duke of York's
Theatre? And worst of all: the man1pulat1on of reality for the pur·
poc;cs ot the production may be understandable; but this ,·ersion ot
Barne ·a tall and handsome "ers1on-1~ so much more opaque
and predict.1bk and less interc~ting than the onginal. I saw in the
credit~ that the whole m1sconcci' ed aft:ur wa~ based on 71Jt Mn n
Wlw Wns Pcrer Prm, a play by someone c.1llcd Allan Knee. I'm glad
it wa~ tlH: lir~t I'd heard of his exim:ncc.
I went running om of the cinema and I ran in the rain and, ~·es,
it see~ a~ if all I e\'er do is run down ~treets and through parks
and atrports, Keiko Kai. Bur, realh•, I swear: anything, e,·en thun
dcr and bghtrung, would ha,·e been better than remaining there,
in that lymg darkness. And I couldn't help Imagining how horrible
It would be when someone, in time, would make a loathsome
mO\ ic lite of me, one of those b1op1cs that arc increasingly fashion ·
able, 1t seem~. You, Kc:iko Kai, would have a role in it- yes, the
mirror-image paradox of a young actor plaring another young
anor-.1nd I don't remember who it was th.lt Marms Merlin o nce
told me wou ld be perfect to enact m~ tragic talc. Anyway, what
docs it ma tt er? Maybe I should have signed a special document
prohibiting any tinkering with my life. Doc~ such a thi ng exist? A
legal ban on making one's story into a mo,ie? A clause that pre-
vents Hollywood from tranSformmg the forest of one's life into
the garden Hollywood thinks one's hfc should be? In any case, I
KENS lNG f ON GA R DllNS .I OJ
doubt that 1.be tralncker~ m celluloid ''ill be too sorrv 1.h.u they
c.u1 't prune me and blaL.: traih through the year~ and grati on
some commcmorati\e fountain . The) have more than enough
hH:s; and in the last few yean. d1e1 \ e been calling up the ghom of
the living dead and the phalll~magoric living: Adolf Hider,
Ho\\ ard H ughes, Alejmdro Magno, Sylvia Plath, Ray Ch.1rb,
Margaret Thatcher, Tohnny Cash, Nora and Lucia Joyce, Alfred
Kinsey, Jackson Pollock, Chc Guevara, Marcel P roust, Diane Ar·
bus, Bob Dylan (I'm nor in it), Walter Winchell, Cole Porter,
Osama bin L:ldcn, Glenn Gould, V1rginia Woolf, Stanley Kubnck,
John Lennon (I'm not in this one e1ther), Peter Sellers (don't ex
peer to find me here), Brian Epstcm (or here ), Cassius Clay, Andy
Warhol (m the future, will there be m1m· biopics for everyone that
function as each person's men table fifteen minutes of fame?), and
that enduring class1c, always u•eful when 1t comes ro testing new
spectal ctfccts· Jesus Chri~t. And, oh, now I remember that in a
B·mo' ie thriller about the deaths of Brian Jones, Jim Morri~on,
Jants joplin, and Jimi Hendnx at rhc h,111ds of a fe male seri.ll ki ller
who calls herself Jackie the Gruupie there actually is a fleeting
mention of my parents-made by .1 Scotland Yard detecri\e-~
other poo;siblc 1·icrim~ of tl1c mon~tcr.
In all th~e films-except the la~t. of co~-\\~th the leading
roles plaved by stars who make up what's known as the "A lht," it
d~n 't matter so much that the actors and actresses look like t.he
persons they're playing but that thcv themseh·es be recognized be
neJ.th the almost transparent mask. People don't go to the m0\1CS
to S<:e Virginia Woolf; they go to see ~ICole Kidman. Hence, I
read recently, the studtos' mtcrcst 111 developing a technology that
would bring people like Humphrc) Bogart and i\larilrn Monroe
and James Dean back fi·om the Great Beyond. Loading all the
avatlablc data-processing all the1r gestu re~ an d uttera nces con-
tained on film-into rhe brain of a latc· modcl medi um/compurcr
that would turn them into sla\e,, doc1 lc, a.nd, most important of
all, cheap. A bit of ca\h to the aero~' desccndan~ or more or le\\
d1\tant rc lativ~ to get them co hand O\C:r the righrs to the lik.e
nc'o,c:~ of the dead would complete the nurade. immortal ~tan.,
304 RODRIGO PRESAN
nc\'cr fading. Next, I suppose, "ill come the digging up of the
D~A of celebrities and Lts chemical marupulation, and then-\\ith
the fabncation of real-life ghost~- wc'U come full-circle, and
there '11 be no need to preface any film With the hnc "This is a rrue
~rory" or "Based on real events." Hollywood as a haunted house.
And so It will be Barrie who plays Barrie m a fumrc hfe of Same.
And, of course, he'll be a supremely wretched actor in the role of
him~clf.
Meanwhile and until then, Rarnc explores the possibilities of a
young medium, a technology 1har has vet to grow up, an an in its
infancy. Barrie has a naughty, childi'>h 1dca: ~omcthing he call~
the "(merna Supper," which in\'ol\'c:S inviting 150 distinguished
tiiends w the Sa\'oy Theatre for the prc:sc:ntauon of a series of in-
nocent routines written by lum c~pec1allv for the: occasion. He
plam to film their reacuons, and then, alter the show, take them to
dmncr at the Sa,·oy Hotel and film them again secretly. Later, he'll
m1x and match thetr faces-transposmg them into scenes of one of
Gaby Dcslys's crooc numbers, tor example. Barnc bounces around
the room as he explains his plans to his comrade and producer.
Charles Frohman listens to lhrric'~ m.1chinations with a certain
wc.1ry re.,ignation. Charlc\ Frohman \mile., reluctantly: bu~iness
ha\n 'r heen very good recently. Barnc \ ne\\ play-Tiu Adortd
01u, "h1ch debuted at the Duke of York·~ Theatre on Septem-
ber 4, 1913, alter multiple rewrite£--h;bn 't been ;b successful as ex-
pected, and the Globe otlt:d its re\1ew "Baronet Booed."
Charles Frohman's health has dctenorated, but e\en so be can 'r
forger that this is the same little man who carne to him so mm}
years ago mth the idea for a pia}' \\1th actors who fly md children
who never grow up. Maybe what he need~ to lift his spirits is a
new and rCJuvcnating adventure with Bamc, Charles Frohman tells
him\clf. 5o the im-itations arc sent out ~ummonmg the chosen
one~ for the: niglu of July 3, 1914, five days afier the assassination
of the archduke in Sarajevo. The guc~l\ arc in tl1e mood to enjoy
thcmsd\"1:~, but tl1ey also wonder whether enjoymg themseh-e~ IS
appropriate:.
One of the guests at the Cinema Supper IS the prime llll.llister,
KENSINGTON LARDENS
'' ho, upon learning of Barnc: ·~ pr.mk, ~ends an urgem lem:r from
No 10 Downing Street "arning B.urie rhat he prohibits the usc of
his Likeness in any of tl1c "rirer's ,,;Jd schemes.
Barrie won't give up, .u1d he uwue~ G. K. Chesterton (" hu
tells Barrie:, "fairy tales arc superior m reality not because they as-
~ltre us that dragons exist bur because they promise us that drag-
ons can be conquered"), George Bernard Shaw (who's jusr had a
great success with Pygmnlio'l), and H. G. Wdls (who gives Barrie
an abLmdmtly detailed account of his latest romantic adventures)
to Hertfordshire, and makes tl1em dress up as cowboys so he can
film them playing with bobbyhor~es and toy pistols.
The writers feel uncomfortable ar first, but almost at once t11ey
seem to lose all inhibitions. Sometlung they hardly know, some
thmg called "fresh air"-a thmg they almost never expenence,
al'' ays shut up in the comfortable, cerebral prisons of the1r
studies-intoxicates them now. It mspires them to gallop fast and
empty the chambers of their fake guns and suddenly rcali.te thar It
was this that they didn't remember .md yet still missed so much.
And, yes, unlike Barrie, Chesterton and Shaw and Wells- \\ ho
suggests that they play Elois versus Morlocks and is booed by h1s
companions-arc very different now from the way they used to he.
Their face..~ and bodies don't look anything like their bodie~ and
faces m the yellowing photograph., of tllcir green youth. OrKc
upon a time, in their prehi~toric:\, life "~ ;b nimble and J\ light a~
tlus, the:} think. Or maybe \\hat\ happerung is that it's like this,
.1bruptly and without prc:v10u~ drafts, that the} ·re remembering it
no\\. And it'~ like rJJis that the~ rewrite it, the childhood that Lew1s
Carroll wanted to recapture almost mathematically ., as if it were an
exact science; the childhood th.lt Barrie refuses to give up or lose,
caring nothing for any kind of science. An anarchic kind of child-
hood that exists in aU times simulrancously-remembcrmg the
whole of tl1e very brief and recent past, Jiving in cl1c clastic full ncs~
of the present, feeling the enormous and extremely distant fun1re
as a place where anything could happen-and is ,·crv much hke
wriung a book. A book that, wh1le u\ bcmg created, 1s alm takmg
place 10 e,·ery tense, like ch1ldhood-m then and no" .md
J06 RODRIGO FRESAN
maybe-but that doe~n 't ha\'c to be characterized by rhe adult dis
cipline of order or good sense or coherence. Thls is bow people
write; this i~ why d1cy write: to keep being children, to not grow
up. Childhood as a story, J Once 11p011 a time ... And, at least for
an afternoon, It's a plcJsurc for Chestenon and Sha'' and WeUs-
in the eyes of whom Barrie \uddcnly seems much more: Important
and wiser th.m they ever thought-to rchvc it \\ithout ha,ing to
worry aoom the nght words or ten~s or rhythms or tones or gl!n·
res, and ther aim the1r pi,tol' and yank the rem~ of their mounts.
The writer\ seem to be ha\ mg a good time-1 ha,·e a cOp) of
the film, Kciko K.1i-but Sha" 1~n 't at all .unused "hen Barrie tells
him, rubbing his little hands together, hls eyes spinrung in their
sod.ets like tops, that he plam ro "":rcc:n our lirde western in pub-
lic with four actors mimicking ill in fronr of the screen." Sh:m
confiscates rhe film .llld locks it up. Barrie doesn't understand how
someone can have \uch a poor sense of humor and at the same
nme be capable of wnung such funny plays.
At rhc end of the month, Barne takes George, Michael, and
Nico on holkl.ly to Scmland )ack- sublieutenant in the Royal
Navy-b at ~ca. Peter will JOin them a l~w days later, when he re-
turns from a ~-amping trip with his Eton friends. Barrie's rented a
house ~urrounded b} plenty of land and Ius gotten permits to
hum and fi~h in the Orchy and Kinglass ril'ers. At Auch Lodge, Ar-
gyllshire, dtey'rc cornpletc:ly bolated from the rest of the world,
and dle) arcn 't ncn a\\ are that Britain bas declared war on Ger-
many and rhJt all young men of combat age are asked ro reporr to
offer thctr ~erY1ces to lung and counuy.
Perer and George- now officially engaged to Josephine
Mitchell Innes· ·ask where they must s1gn, and sign. Barrie, at
fifty-four, feels pcrtcctly usclc•~ in a landscape that suddenly seems
to overtJo,, \nth young men m umtbrm rr·~ a new war, a war for
boys \\ ho don't know what war is, and who therefore feel an ur-
gl!nt tks1rc to mardt in it a~ if it were one of the synchronized
\\alrzc.s at a Fnd.ly-mght dance. Barrie \\.IS nen:r a good dancer.
Prime Minister Herbert N.quith writel> to Barrie to ask him tO
gh·e up h1s frh olous plans to \\rite a revue for a half-naked foreign
Jcuess and ~uggest\-almost commands-dtu he put pen to paper
KI!NSING10N GARDENS J II'
.md produce a work of profound p.nrioLic conrem to inspire the
men and women of Bra.Un. Thomas Hard} and H. G. Wells ha\ c:
already commiucd thcm\chcs, A\quith tell\ him. Barrie accepts
the .tSSi~nment, but he: \\.mrs to thmk it over a little:. Meanwhile:, it
occur.. ro him to uavcl 10 rhe Umrcd States to ~prick the American
COnSCience ~
Barrie sets sad without much further thought, tra\"eling 111 stricr
mcogn1ro on the Lusnnmn. When he disembarks in New Yor~ the
consul general IS '' amng for him on the dock., "ith a letter from
the Bnush ambassador m Washmgron forb1ddmg him to make an~·
kind of pubhc political d1splay it's teared that Barne's strange
1dc.1s m1ght d1sturb American neutrality and offend the British
Crown B.une docsn 't really understand what the letter means, but
he obeys It's been seventeen years since he ,;sited New York, and
he rakes advantage of the: tnp to sec old fnends, go to plays, and
'' atch films, "bc:~au~e in them I can sec cowboys, and I always
wanted to be .1 CO\\ boy."
Reporter~ bc~icge him, and Barrie enuenches himself in hi~
room Jt the Pl.w.1 Hotel. Brown, his inim itable: butler, receives
them and distracts tltc:m .u. Barrie escapes down dte back stairs. If
a~kcd, Brown an\1\crs qucsuons in !tis master's nan1e. He's author-
ized m do so, he says
Barrie returns to t.c;mdon on October 22, 1914. Peter and
George are already with their regiments, in training, and waiting
for the orders that ,,,11 \end them as reinforcements to the front·
lines along the Marne and the Aisne, where numerous losses have
been suffered.
Barrie \\Tite\ in his notebook:
• ·n}( Lnn Cruktt \laub One or rwo days before war de
dared-boys gad~ planng cricket at Auch, seen from my
wmdO\\. I knO\\ they're to suffer-] see them droppmg
nut one bv one, fewer and fewer.
Barrie d1\band' the Allahakbarnc\-lt isn't nghr lor adults to
plar '' h1lc boy~ .tre d)1ng, he thmks-and arms h1msdf mth the
paucncc ro 'pend h1\ day\ completing the patriotic comm1ss1on. It
3011 RODRIGO PRESAN
isn't a pleasam assignmenr. Work isn't amusing, and being re·
quired to write a play about the war tsn't the same as playing roy
soldiers.
Barrie utles the pla1 Dcr Tag and writes it as a dialogue be·
tween the German Emperor and the Spirit of Culture. The audi·
ence-seeking stronger cmonons and sunpler messages-finds the
whole thing roo complex and dark and allegorical. Peter Pan has
better luck-not that at needs ar·-m ars tenth season, now with
Madge Tatheradge in the leadmg role.
In the Iuckie\~ rrcm:hcs of France, George: discovers that the
war is a bad pl.ty in "hid1 one al\\ ays plays a supporting role; that
it'~ made: up of equal partS terror and boredom \\ith no logical
rhrrhm; th.tt nothing happem, and suddenly everything happens;
that vacrories don 'r ha1 e the epk ~\\ eep of medie1•al sagas bur
mean winning a tc11 leer ofl.tnd, wnquc:ring a hil4 dcstro}ing vil·
!ages rhat've .tlre.tdl been de~troyed by the enemy, and getting
dnmk and ~houring our dirty ~ongs .1bout the Kaiser.
George rere.tds 11Jc Lut/c IVIJitc Bird and writes to Barrie, "The
fear of death doesn't enter so much as I expected into this show."
I amagine l;eorgc reading -n,e Lirtic IVIJitc Bird once agai n amid
shouts .md e\plmi on~. as unmcrscd in the silence of irs pages as if
he were tr}•ing to dc,iphcr the Rmctt.l StOne, the secret language
of his m1n ni~tcnce. But he can't. It's ampossible. The problem is
t.hat George \.Jn 't rc:Jd the book in hh mind's secret voice- the
same 1oice an \\hich he'd read anv other book; instead, he reads it
in Barne'~ voice and cadences and accent. That's the problem with
lmo1\ing the writer of a book that we koow ,·erv well: the book
wtll ne1·er be ours, no maner how much of it is about us; it'll al·
ways belong to them, ro their voace, to the owner of our srories.
Away at "ar, l;corgc 1\ now a character lost in a no,·el "ithout an
amhor George ma<~C\ the ti:cling that someone is writing his story
and prorecring ham and keeping ham from harm. Away at war,
George grow~ up. Barrie sends ham ram from Formum & Mason
(fruit pre~cn c:d in ~vrup imported from the furthest corners of the
Empire; sweets that take exactly ;u long to dissol\'e in your mouth
as it take~ a battle to be born and grow and die; tins of green tea
K ENS I NGTON GARDENS
t.h.u can be opened only at live on the: dot, thanks ro a complex
and Brit.ish bit of dockwork; sweet and bitter marmalades that
George pas~c~ our ro his cumradc~·in·arms, who usc them ro paint
thdr f.1ces like Indians and then go rurming and shouting out of
d1c: trc:nche~ to plunge: into the Peter Pan- making machine of war,
into an awfully bag Never! and of fire and mud and fury); he tdb
him that he·~ gone with unhappv Michael and always cheerful
Nico tO see a mge adaptation of DaPid Copperfirld ("Too trea·
d)·"); and he tells him that nO\\ he's wnting TIJe New Word, a one·
act play about the discomfort of two men who love each other bur
can't express the love they feel. One of the men is a futher; the
other's a son who's preparmg to go off to the from. At a certain
moment in the pia)', the mother remembers the death of another
son at the age of seven, a son who ••would be rwenry·one now, bur
I've never been able to sec him as anything but seven.''
Barnc's idea is to usc TJJc New Word as an opening act for what
he's writing for Gaby Dcslys. Barnc keeps adding and filming
scenes for the music· hall show that he promised rhe French dil'a.
Work as a kind of battle, a c:alling that brooks no pleas for truce or
mercy.
George goes inro combat.. Again and again. He doc:sn't lmow
how many Limes. The war hi!!> its own time, very differem from
peace time. George thinks that he'd rather die than be crippled or
seriously wounded so t.hat tetanus gets inro his blood and- rumor
ha~ it-finishes him off slowly and painfully, me infection rising
from his feet to hh eyes and killmg him in the end. They say that
tetanus make~ your heels almost touc:h \'Our bead, and that you die
1\ith your body cun·ed and tense as a bow \\ithout an arrow, and
that they bury vou m a round coffin. That's what they say, among
many other thmgs. George walks through the ruins seeing dead
bodies lymg m the strange posations only dead bodies can assume.
Death not tetanus makes all men conroruonasrs.
George looks at them and compares them ro fallen warnors an
age-old battles. Has letters arc: unged \\ith a tragic romanticasm in
whach he dc~nbcs hamsdf as an ancient emperor roaming a dc:vas·
tared world, suddenly mo1ed by the saght of an unscathed altar of
JJO RODRIGO FRI!SAN
a church that no longer exist~. But it isn't long before the sryle of
George\ letter; change\, and he" rites, "I\•e seen the head blown
oiT one of nw Inends in the trenchc~. ~ There's no possibility of po-
etry in that. Each lenc:r i\ lcs~ romanuc than the last.
Barrie: rrie~ to entertain him by p~sing on the gossip of the
great city and new~ of h1s brother.., but immediately the war in-
,·ades his letters too. Barrie: write:~ to George to tell him that his
uncle, Lieutenanr Colonel Gu~ du Mauner-a professional soldier.
a sensiove man whose hair n1med completely gray after he saw a
fiiend d1e in the Boer War- -has fallen on the bartlefield. It's the
last letter George Llcwclm Da,ies \\ill receh·e, and in it, ar the
end, Barne wntes: "It's ternble what you reU me about the man
who d1cd bes1dc vou, bur don't be afra1d to write me these things.
Ir's at night "hen I'm most afraid and I imagine the worst in
painfully real derail I\ e lost .111 trace of the notion I once had that
war could be the birthpla'e of !_dor). Nm\ it just seems tO me
something unspeakably momtrom. With lm·e, J.M.B."
George Llewelyn D.wir:~ dies at some moment early in the
morning of Ma1·ch 15, 1915. His b.lttalion is trying to dri\'e the
Germans from Saint Eloi. George i ~ resting \\ith some friends and
says that if he falls in combat he'd liked to be buried in the place
he fought for the last time, bes1de his trench. He hasn't finished
saying ir when a buller pierce~ his helmet. He dies instantly. His
colonel docsn 'r heed his reque~t- suddenly elevated to last "~sh­
and his comr.1dc\ d1g a gra,·e alongs1de the road, on the outskirts
ofVoonnez~ek. G~orge i~ an oflkcr much beloved by his soldiers,
and they all go to great pams to ofler huu the best they ha,·e. They
decorate the impro,·i~ed burial spot with \lOlets and bortles of
whisky. I don't kno" the names of the soldiers in the squad
commanded by George Llewelyn Da,ies, so 1\·e gh·en them
names that I do kno" and that I now recite from memory:
Michael Barnes, L1oncl Bentley. D. Bradley, Raymond Brown,
Jack Brymer, Alan Cml, Alan Dall:1cl, Henry Daryner, Bernard
Da,is, Gwynne ~.dwar<h, N fawcett, Tristan Fry, Francisco
Gabarro, Ham Geiger, tnch Gruenberg, Jurgen Hess, Harold
Jackson, Granv1lle Jones, Roger Lord, Cyril MacArthur, Da,~d
KENSINGTON GARDENS 3I 1
MlCallum, Dand Mason, John MJr.ton, John Meek, Bill Monro,
Monrv Momgomen, T Moore, Alex NiJosi, Gordon Pearce, Ray-
mond Premru, DaYid Sandcman, Neil Sanders, Sidney Su, Clif-
ford Seville, Ernest Scott, Basil Tschaiko''• John Underwood,
Dennis Vigay, Alfred Water., Do11ald Weekes. English names of
many nationahrics, names impossible: then bur alway~ appropriate,
names that come from the future: the secret names of the lone!)-
hearted musicians lost in the clamor of the crazy orchestra that
George Martin assembled for the recording of "A Day in the
Llfe.n
Keiko K;u: I would've liked to ha\·e been there, ro be one of
those lost sold1ers honoring the fallen body of their beloved leader
\\ith rhe1r rears, paying their respects to a Peter Pan annihilated by
the fury of a Captain Kaiser.
The next mornmg, Mary Hodgson hears someone knock \\ildly
on the door of 23 Campden Hill Square. When she opens it she
finds a frenzied Barrie-wailing like a banshee, according to Nico-
repeatmg over and O\er again. "Ah-h-h! They'll all go, Mary. Jack,
Percr, Michael, even little Nico. This dreadful war will get them all,
one aficr the other, until there's not a single one left!"
The King and the.: Queen scud a telegram of condolellces; and
by the weekend the four surviving brothers gather at Campden
Hill Square. Jack and Peter are in uniform, and they weep silently.
This seem~ odd w Nico: tl1e possibility of crying \\ithour making
any sound at all. Maybe it's a strange talent thar you acquire only
when you dress up as a soldier, he thinks. Ill a trembling ,·oice,
Barrie reads them a last letter from George that's just arri\'ed:
"Dear Uncle Jim· I have just got your letter about Uncle Guy. In
ir, you ~y that h1s death hasn't made you think any more than
usual abour the danger I'm m. Bur I know 1t has. Do try not to let
it. I assure you I take e,·ery care of myself that can be: decently
taken. And if I am going to stop a buller, why should it be: \\1th a
'iral place? ... De;~r Uncle }1m, you must car~· on ,,;th your job
of kccpmg up your courage. I \\ill wntc: every time I come out of
acnon We: go up to the rrenche\ in a tcw days again. Yours affec ,
George:."
312 R.ODI.UGO FRESAN
When he\ done reading, and before he folds the lener and puts
it awa\', Barnc make~ a note under George's &ignarure, as precise as
if he: 's dating a hi~tor11: object: "Too i~ his last lener and was writ-
ten some hou~ be lore he died. I heard the news of his death be-
fore recel\ ing it and reading It "
Peter \\ill \\rite 10 hts "Morgue"· "This much is certain, that
when George dtcd, some esscnual nrrue went out of us as a f.unilv.
The combmation of George, who a~ eldest brother exercised a so~r
of consnruttonal, taCI!l) accepted authority over us and who was of
our blood, \\ith the infimtcl} generous, fanCifully solicitOus, hopc-
ks~l) unJmhoritarivc Barrie," a~ a good one and would ha,·e kept
us rogerhcr a~ a unit uf some \\ orrh; as 1t was, Circumstances were
too much for Barrie, and \ef) ~oon we became indi,'iduals with lit-
ric: of the itl\aluable, wheme strength of the united family."
A week after George') death-flower) and sympathy cards are still
arriving in the mail the revue Barrie wrote for Gaby Deslys opens
ar the Duke of York's Theatre. Rosy Rapwre, or T11c P1"ide of tiJe
Beanty CIJIJrus, 1s a complete failure. The idea of raising the curtain
"Jth "17Jr Nrw \#wtf as an in~roducrory piece produces the opposite
effect de\ircd ,1mong the fluhcrs and mothers in the audience. No
one "anrs ro go w the theater to be entertained and then be as-
saulted without w.unmg lw the drama of a ~on marching off to
"ar And the appcaratKt of Gaby Dc~lys-her dresses spun of neX£
to nothing and her famou~ "~lighr.ly wicked ~mile.,-is spoiled by
the elaborate speech<:~ dut Barrie h~ wrinen for her, uncred in
,·cry tmpcrfect Engbsh No one laughs; everyone groans. Nico,
nevertheless, \an, "It's the be~r thing Uncle Jim's ever done."
Barne-who di~appeared from the final, crucial rehearsals
of the ~how because of George's death-returns to propose
cuts, rcwntcs, nc\\ characters. Rarnc c;cnds a relegran1 to Charles
Frohman and demand~ that he come sooner than he'd plarmcd.
He needs h1m by h1s ~•de to save what can be saved from the ship-
" reck of Rosy Rnpturt.
Charlc:~ Frohman-a~ mual-obeys him.
KBNSING TON GARDBNS J/3
And he's \hipwrccked.
Charles Frohman set\ sat! on Mav l, 1915, on the Lmita11ia,
despite the dangc~ of the Ar.larmc crossing in those days. He shuts
himself up Ill hi~ stateroom and comes out only for dinner. His
knee \1 on 't leave him tn peace, and the damp )Ca air doesn't hdp
much. On May 7, ~ the Irish coast comes into sight, a German
submarine-" to r.l1e eternal discredit of the human race, n as an
English OC\\Spapcr wiU declare-fires two tOrpedoes. The Ll1;ira-
11in sinks in scarcely rwentv mu1utes. There's no time to launch all
the lifeboats, and, according to a surviving witness, Charles
Frohman g~ves up his spot and makes his goodbyes, saying: "Why
fear death? It is the greatest ad\ cnrure in life.~ Charles Frohman
surrenders to death \\ithout the slightest resistance; with suspi-
CIOUS tranquillity, 10 mv opinion. It's as if the theater impresario
were exploiting the epic advantages of the catastrophe to smuggle
in a suicidal tourtst as stowaway, commiting the perfect suicide; no
one can reproach him for it, because there's no bullet or rope or
poison or final note explaining the inexplicable and asking rhat no
one and nothmg be blamed. Maybe, I theorize, Charles Frohman
likes the idea of disappearing from his life's performance; from an
entertainment that was produced by him but has long since
stopped being his. Maybe he's tempted by no longer teeling
obliged to produce Barnc's follies, and at last being released from
acting as hh butler-financier. Maybe, Charles Frohman mu~es-~
he warches, smiling, brandy in hand, how the passengers struggle
for a place in the boats, for a lifcJacket-paradise will be the place
where his greatest, most secret wish will at last be granted: to be
a matinee idol, to fight a duel onstage, to loss damsels who are
obliged to luss him because n's in the script. And he'll be ap-
plauded. And he'll bow to the audience. Or maybe Charles
Frohman 1mag~ncs that hell will be a constant dress rehearsal, the
last and endlc:ss day before opcnmg OJght. None of this maners
too much OO\\, as the LunttHua smks bke the stage of the Duke of
York's The;urc JUSt before the first performance of P~ter Pa11.
Charlc~ hohman •s one of the 1,195 \'lCtlmS of the catastrophe
Hts body is recovered from the water the next day. Rehgious scr-
J/4 RODRIGO I'RllSAN
\'ices are held at the biggest synagogue in New York and at Saint
Martin in the Fields in London. Charles Frohman had once re-
marked that he'd like his epitaph to be ·'Charles Frohman: He
Gave Peter Pan to the World," and that's how c\·eryonc remem-
ber> him, as the man who made poss1ble the btrth of an immortal
cre.uure, as Barne's fa1thful theater blood brother. Someone JOkes
aflcctionarcly: "If Barrie had asked him to produce a dramatization
of rhe telephone book, ( harlcs 1-rohman would simply ha,·c re-
sponded, 'Perfect. Who \hall "c h,l\ e m the cast?' "
Ramc i\ \.td, hut he 1\n 't \hattcrcd by the disappearance of--
according to Pcter-~thc onl~ !"on-Liewelyn Da,ies whom he
kne'' ho\\ w 101 e." 8.1rnc: ha~ been ~hattered for some rime. One
blo" after another ro hi~ small body. The abrupt!} aged face, like
the faces of those ch1ldren with that s1ckness that rums them imo
prematurely old men at full speed, their cells dying ahead of time.
Barne's skull, which seems ro rise from the depths and now strains
against the skin as 1f Jsking ro be let om, shouting that it's tired of
being in there.
Barrie-just a~ wirh the death of Captain Robert Falcon
Scott-can't help ti:cling an almo~t pathological pride in the rda-
tionship between the deaths of the two great men and the e\'en
greater figure of Peter P.m. Barrie insil.ts that the sltrvivor must
ha"e mbhc:ard Charles Frohman's last words. Charles Frohman's
last words- he's cenain-\\ere Sltrely the same ones Peter Pan
speaks on i\1arooners' Rock as the ode rises: "To die "ill be an aw-
fully big ad' enrure!"
Living isn't much of an ad\ cnrure; bm Barrie lives: he gives
money for a home for war orphans, and returns to Scotland for a
holiday ,,,rh 1':1co and M1chacl, whom he describes in a lerrer as
"dark and dour and Impenetrable."
Michacl1s snll suffcnng at Eton, but-m the fall ofl915-he's
ma11agcd to im·cnr a nu'k offalsc: happinc~ for himself. To his fel-
low ~tudc:nt~ he'~ ~a romanti\. with a powerful imagination" and
"a cat who always \\alks alone:." Several of his acquaintances re-
member him as ".1 profound influence"; more rhan one of them
confesses in secret to his di.1ry that he's fallen in love with him in
KllNSING'I ON GARDI!NS .J I .S
the wa~ Engh'h boy' .11 the best M:hoob l:ill m lo\'e: our of admira-
tion, upon dhc<>\ering that there\ ~omeone \vho isn't like anyone
else, someone "hom the\ 'd so much like to be like. The night-
mares of" ar, the cities c:mpw of men, the sudden appearance of
maimed "'idier:. on the ~trcers, feed this ,iriJc:, dramatic passion,
the 1mmcd1atc ctTect of,\hJCh IS the disappearance of thousands of
potential fathers and the consequent absence of millions of chil
dren-millions of children who will never be conceived or born or
reach the exact age at wluch they'U read Peter Pan for the first
nme, or ha,·e It read to them.
Barrie has dec1dcd to ehmmau: the Mermaids' Lagoon and Ma·
rooners' Rock from th1s Chmtma~·~ Peter Pa11: ro save on produc·
rion com and bccau\C the lmc "To d1c will be an awfully big
adventure'" sccrm mappropnarc at a t1me like rhis, when d}1ng
isn 'r .m ad' cnture but Simply .1 part of everyday- routine.
Barrie\ wmk.ing on J ne'' play-A Kiss jilr Ciudm/ln-and he
records in hi\ notebook nightmare~ in which he feels a pair of cold
hantb groping f(>r him under the: sheers; when he tltrns on the
light, all he c.m find is the ~olidity of hh own fear. They're terrible
drc:ams, which he: decides to u~e for a one-act play: The FigiJt for
Mr. Lnprnilt, or, better, ·n,e Hot~sc of Fem·.
Gho~ts again. Barrie thinks more and more about ghosrs. The
ghost of a hu\band's youth coming back ro haunt his elderly wife.
The man hasn't died he's an old man roo-but his past is power-
ful enough to take the: form of a ghost. A Jamesian \'ariation on a
Stevenson1an idea. 8.1rnc's scyle JSn't defined by his writing so
much as by his plors, h\' h1\ obscss1vc insistence on certain sub
jeers. i\.la,·be no\\ that I think about 1t, Keiko Kai, a writer's scyle is
more the ghost of hi\ dcficienc1cs than the rcalicy of his strengths.
Let'\ 'ec if I can C\plain . \\'ntcr; end up res1grung themselves ro
domg whar they kno" how ro do, le;l\1ng by the wayside the
thing~ they'll never do well, In the end, what e\·eryone perceh·cs as
success ~~ rcallr the rcda1med sml of tailurc, soil, if the writer's
lucky, that\ gradually ennobled and purified and perfected I r''
whar a wmer ends up wnh when he really wanted ro do 'ometh1ng
d\C, 'omcthing that 111 umc solidities 1nto the only thing he can do
lJ(I RODRlGO PRESAN
well, inro whar he does bener than anyone else. A whole phantom
oeuvre IS left aside, of course. All those books the wmer might
have wanted to write bur couldn't. Thus the \\Titer's style and his
"ork arc like anumaner, and maybe who knows?-in another
dimension, on the other side of a black hole, there's a James
Matthew Barne or a Peter Hook \\Ttting perfect, realist love stones
for adults when they really wanred to wrue Peur Ptm o r Jim Ya11g
Grccr1ng\ to them from here. Greetings to their ghosts.
Could H.1rnc C\'er han· attended a ~canec? There·~ no record ol
it, but I hkc to imagine that he did, thar ~omc lncnd- maybe the
nc:dulou\ Conan Doyle-ul\IIC\ h1111 w participate in an experi-
ment one night. and that there arc ~o m.m, dead voices clamoring
to talk to Barrie that it's impo<.5iblc m unden.tand any part of a
nOI\e that·~ like me !.Ound the JUdiCll(e mJ.ke~ in a theater minute~
before the ~:urtain goes up. B.une can 'r bear ~itting Mound those
table\ 111 the dark tor very long. Barrie get\ up and lca\'CS when me
sessaon and the uance ha\'c hardly begun None of this am uses
him. B.uric doesn't believe in other damcn~tons or in life after
dcJth. And Conan Doyle's childi~h cnthu~iasm makes him ncr-
''ous too. Conan Doyle bclie,·es 111 the possibility of communicat·
ing with the dead because hi~ son dacd 111 the war, because he
needs to talk to Ius son and be ta lked to Conan Doyle wants to
believe, and bdie,·es m anything m ghom, in fa1ries. Conan Doyle
ha~ turncd his ~uffering into a hobb~ . Barrie writes about f.llries
and gho~~. and maybe because of that-because be's invented
them, because he knows how to create them-he realizes mat their
exastence is Impossible. And w Barrie hasn't been able to trans·
form the pam of George's death into anything that iso 't greater
pam A pam that grows. A real pam that doesn't include any other
hvang being.
Nico leave~ Wilkinson·~ in September 1916 a.nd-to Michael's
dclight-arri\ es at Eron, where they'll ~hare a room. Nico a.nd hi~
pcrpetual ~mile ~oon become-accordmg to his ruror~-the ''heart
and ~oul of Eron. ~
Peter turns nineteen in the \\OIOr possible place, on the bloody
b:mldield of me Somme; and he comcs home on leave suffering
KEN S I N (; I ON GARDENS l 17
lrom \he: II shcx:k, the •on•u''" e ncuro\i~ of ~oldicrs. Peter hnng\
back ~u,·enif\ from the front th.u he: "on't be able to srop ~eeing
o\cr and over again lor the rest of hi~ liiC:. Peter h~ lo~t lu\ par·
cnt~, the brother he lo,ed mo\t, and no\\ hi!. own youth among
bodlc:~ dc:~uoyed bv shrapnc:l and lungs rotted by mustard g~
Mary Hodgson loo~ after him .md drags him from his night·
marc~ ~ if mcy're quic~and. It i~n 't c:asy. Peter's nightmares
unlike Barrie's-are waking nightmare~. Open-eyed nighm1arcs.
His aliglmuares -are in color, mo~t notably a powerful array of
reds. Peter's seen things that no one's seen, not even poor George.
There were moments when in the madness of me battlefield,
when e\'e!)'one seemed to be shooting at e\·eryone else, when the
mortar fire nused waves of mud m whiCh ennre squadrons disap
pea red Perer would swear to hJ\"C '>Cen strange things m the mer
Cllc'-5 hght of the flares: an angel Aoaong oYer the uenches, a
patrol of Roman lcgtonnaires ''ho'd lost thear war home, a boy on
a 11) mg bicycle And the ~rc,lnH ()\:rc.uns that sometimes sound
hkc laughter. Screams that rc~cmble nothang d~c, and that '>ecm ro
eme rge not from the throat but lrom the whole body, from all
your oriHces and the oril1cc~ other\ make in you. And no one
know~ " hat a cry i~ until thev've heard tho~e cries, be thinks. Pc·
tcr wakes up screaming at the \hc:er 'urprisc: of screammg and
hearing his own screan1. Peter \\ akes up each morning a.stomshed
that he's able ro wake up each morning.
That Chmtm~ of 1916, Barrie and me Uewelyn Da,ies broth-
en. gather m the flat ar Adc:lphi Terrace House Nico goes parn -
hopp10g, Michael reads and cdu:... Barne's DC\\ manuscripts, Peter
speaks Little bur seems happu:r, )Jck recounts his adventures on the
North Sea and informs them that he'~ fallen in love with Geraldine
Gibb, the daughte r of a Scottbh banker he met when the crew of
has ship, the Octav1a, received special leave to go into Edinburgh.
Jack has gotten engaged without consulting Barrie, a.nd Barrie· -as
h a ~ guard ian-tells him that rhcr'll ha,·c to wait a year to marry.
Jack hates Barrie a little more th.tn he already did, and now he ha\
a dear and prec1se reason to \Wp lcc:lmg gmlty about haong hun
Rarne tells them that he·~ \\ riting a ne" play. It "111 be called
.11 8 RODRlGO PRBSAN
17u Old Ladv Shtnvs Her Jftdnls. The characters are three old
''omen who talk about the war O\ er tea. One of them bas in,•ented
a son and reads her friends the made·up letters that he sends her
from the battlefield.
Barne tells them that his ex-nife Mary's marriage to Gilbert
( 'ann.m is in trouble. Gilbert Cannan keeps romancing other
women, and-according to reliable sources-he seems to be going
mad and i~ in and our of mental institutions. Mary's never had
children; '>he writes books about dogs and gardens; she's at her
wit'>' end. Barrie has decided to help her, to otTer ro do anything
he can w rdie,·c her suffering. Barrie never spoke ill of Mary. Bar-
ric .Uwav~ knew \\ ho was really rc~pon~iblc for the divorce. Barrie
knmH that the reawn be never rose to t..he circumstances was that
the circumstances were roo lofty for him. "She \\:lS perfection," be
tells the Ucwel} n Davies brothers. Mar}, however, misinterprets
Barnc 's otTer. Mary thinks that Barne wants to try again. Barrie
explams that he doesn't believe in second chances-he's writing
Dear Rmtus, a play about the mcvitabihty of repeating old mis·
takes and all he docs is pay her a yearly allowance and have tea
wil h her just once every rwclve months.
Barrie tells them that he plans ro mm e mto t.he top-floor flat in
Adelphi Terrace House: more space, a bcncr vic\\ (four huge win-
dow~, from which he'll spend houn \\<Itching the city and the
se\c:n bridge~ that cross the Thames; among them Chacing Cross
Bridge, the one he likes least; the one the trams carf)ing troops
cross on theiC way ro France), and a b1gger fireplace (big enough
so that Barrie can clean it without h:l\'mg to stoop, since he's so
~horr) bes1dc: which to place h1s sofa, famous for being the most
uncomfortable m all of London.
Barrie reUs them that he's managed to get the necessary per·
mission to 'isit George's grave:, across the frontline, as well as the
nc:cc:~sary instructions to find it among so many other graves. Bar·
rie im·ites Thomas Hardy to travel with him, but Hardy prefers to
stay home: "I ha,·e come ro the conclusion that old men cannot be
young men," Hardy replies in a letter.
Barrie doesn't teU them about h1s trip. Barrie arri,·es at Voor-
KENSINGTON GARDENS .I I ~
mcLecle accompamcd by a mihtary c~cort, finds the spot, stay\
for a fe,, minurc:s, and then St.lflS back home There arc zeppehn~
m the: skv and fire on the art.h, '' hich continually shudders; the air
seems something almost tangible, something harsh and fi.1ll of
prickles, something that's hard to force into the lungs, something
that refuses to propel the heart and make it march at the redou -
bled pace set by its sad beats.
Peter returns to the Somme, Michael and Nico return to Eton;
Jack sets sail again, bur first he imites his brothers and Barrie to
Edinburgh to meet hi~ fiancee. They dme at the North British Ho
rei, ncar the train station, and they return that same rught to Lon-
don . Barrie doesn't say a word. l.er.Udme is immediately accc:prc:d
by the brothers. Barrie admits that has first impressiOn IS "very
favourable," and rhe obligatory year the couple must walt to be
married IS soon revoked; Jack .md Geraldine are married in Saint
Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh a1 the beginning of September
1917.
Denr Brtttus opens on October I 7, 1917, at Wyndham's The
atre, and the re,·iews are d1e best. Barrie's had in a long rime, roo
long. It's a shame Charles Frohman can't be there to enjoy them.
Gerald du Maurier directs and p!J,·s the leading role in what everv
one considers the pinnacle of h1~ acrmg career. His character, Will
Dearth, 1s an artist who wants a second chance at life, and-\\1th
the melancholy cheer of Shakespeare's comc:clies-he's gJven 1t
And Barrie-fift)·-se\·en years old, twenty s1x of those years spent
wntang for the theater-Is an \'Ogue agaan.
Ger.Udine-"Gcrrie" from now on-mm·cs ro Barrie's flat 111
London ''hen jack is tramfcrred to Portsmouth. Barrie altern ares
between extreme loquacity <lnd hermetic silence, and some1 imcs
discusses matters hardly appropriate l(>r conversation with a rc·
cently married woman whose husband i~ away at war. One alicr·
noon, Barrie asks rhc young bndc "Gerrie, do you knO\\ hU\\ Guy
du Mauricr, the boys' uncle, d1cd>" rap.cr to please, the girl an-
\\\·crs, tr\·ing to make her \OilC tremble as httle as po~Stblc: "He
.110 RODR I GO l' RES A N
was shot, wasn't he?" Barrie fixes her with his gaze, halts his con-
stant stridmg about rhc flat, and comes almost close e no ugh to
rouch her, saying. "Yes, hew~ shot But before Guy died he wan-
dered the banleficld tor nearly half an hour "1th his stomach hang-
mg our ofh1s body, ~houring lor ~mcone please to shoot him and
pur lum our of h15 mi'>Cry . Oh, I thmk that's dinner being
scn·ed now, de.u ~
C.erne also h,l\ to cope '' 1th the hou-.ckeeper's mcreasingly
gothic b.:hanor. .\.bry Hod~on nc' er re..:o' ered from the un-
plca\ant \urpri\e of Barrie\ being named the boys' guardian, and
\\ith the \ 'Car\, she:·, become: a magnified 'c:rsion of what ~he was
in the b.:ginning. a glum, bitter woman "bo appear~ as if by magic
m the darkest corncl">, and won't dc:1gn to ~peak a word to the
young bride. Marv Hodgson ~utlcrs m silence the news that
Peter- who has dec1ded not to come home for his next leave-i~
in Eppmg fore\t, ha,·ing an affair with a woman called Vera
Willoughby, someone rw1ce lm ,\ge. To Mary H odgson it's clear
th1s can on ly be the con5equence of the liu le baronet's noxious in-
fluence Barnc isn't .lmmed by the matter either, and- for the first
time in a qu~uler·cen ru ry-he and Mary Hodgson are in agree-
ment about \omething.
Marv Hodgson had alrc.1dy offered Barrie her resignation ~orne
rime ago. She fc:lt that she h.ld failed and that there wa~ no longer
any sense continuing to "keep the ~acred promise l made to 1\.trs.
Uewelyn Da,·ics:' and anyway, "her babies," or ~her boys," were
men now, who didn't need her. At the time, Barne wouldn't ac-
cept her oiler He didn't want to have to look for someone to take
her place: at Camp<lcn H1ll <,quare, and he still hadn't moved to
the: top floor of !\delphi 'I crr.Kc House ~ow that he has enough
space:, Barnc hopes rh.u Mary Hodg-.on "111 repeat her otlcr to
disappe.tr from rhe1r hve~ ; but the \\oman <;;~~-.; nothing. She never
~peak.~. It's dear \he won't gi\C: hun the pleasure of leavmg. So
Barrie declares a \\ ar of nen e~ and rc:adio a plan to drive her a\\ .l).
he nan1e~ the increasing!} dbtr.lugllt Gerrie mistre~ of 23 Camp-
den Hill Square.
~Gerne, Jack Will be returning SOOn and It WOuld be best if you
went to lh·e at h1s house and prepared cve rythmg for his arri,·al, ~
'
KI!NS I NGfON OA R. OENS .l l I
he: tells her. Gerrie, obcdmu, head~ for the domestic battlcfrom
\\ith no trJinmg "h.lt\OC\ er Mary Hodgson hates her and won't
adulO\\ lcdgc her e:~.lsteltc.:e, much le~ recognize her as mi~ue,.,
and lady of the house:; \he refers w her in tl1e thud person even if
Gcrnc 's m the same room The tc:ru.10n reaches dramatic he1gh~;
it's a theatrical temion. Each day, Barrie comes by ro say hello and
sus on the sofa \\atching the sho" like a delighted spectatOr,
though he'~ as sc:nous as C\'er, rcsisung the urge to smile. Daphne
du Mauncr· Gerald du !\laurier's daughter-\isits every so often
for the: ~le plea~ure of ob~cn1ng Mary Hodgson from up close:.
She likes to ~rudy Mary; watchmg her gives her ideas. She imagmcs
fc:ar~mc housekeepers guardmg the memory of their mistresses
long after their death in dark no\ c:b of revenge. full of resentment
and nlr).
One mornmg (;erne find~ a note from Mary Hodgson on hc:r
breakfast tray· "Either vou lease: thil. house or I do," she read~.
Terrified, Gerrie pack.\ J ~uitca~e and calb her husband, and the
two of them chec k u1to a Knightsbridge hotel. That same night,
Ge rrie ha\ a miscarriage; ~he eric~ for davs, and when she: returns
fro m the ho~pit.tl, Mary Hodgson i~ gone. She's gi,•en up. The
1,ruilt the hou~ekeeper fcc:b is e normous, and now she'll never want
to meet any of the "1\ cs of "her boys" for fear of causing d1em
some harm with the devastating force of her bitter love.
Barrie recognize\ her seniccs by ghing her five hundred
pounds from the deceased $~hi a, tO which he adds another fi,·e
hundred pounds of his own; he disengages h1msclf from rhe afF.ur
b}' retreating mto the wnnng of A 1\'dl-Rtmembercd Vo1u, an
other one-act play in whiCh a mother can't be coruoled tor the
death of her ~n Ill the war Her hmband watches m dc:spa1r as the
woman gO(;\ mad wnh grief and clings to the fu.lsc hopes she's of-
fered by mcdmm~ and '" indlcf\, One mght, the ghost of the son
appear\, not to the mother but to the father, and ask.~ them please
lO <rop looking l(>r hm1 .
I w1~h you'd undcf\tand \\hat a little thing death is ... It's
hkc pas\mg through a \Cil. l.ike a ml\t We romerimes mi:~.
up rhme who h.we gone through It with those who ha,·en 'r.
322 RODRIGO FRESAN
I don't remember being hit, you know. All 1 remember is
the quicrncss. When you. h;m: been killed it suddenly . be·
comes \'cry quiet, qUieter e,·cn than you ha,·e c\·cr kno\>.11 it
at home. That'~ all I wish I could remember something
funny to tell you, father. I'm not boring you, am l?
Bamc is bored and nrcd . In photograph' taken at the time, he
looks even smaller th.ln C\cr, bes1de huge \\indows through which
a tcrnblc light pour\, '>irting in armchair\ that look as if they'll de-
vour hm1, or \tanding in mom\ "here he seems part of the decor
instead of thc1r legumutc ml1.1bitant.
Barn.: lure~ a pm.ltc ~crct.lr\' to help him conduct hi~ a.ffuirs.
Lady C\nth1a A\(juith make~ her entrance. She's the daughter-in-
la,,. of the prime nuniHcr "hom Barrie tricked with his Cinema
Supper; she's the pOs\Cssor of \\hat's knO\m as "a rare beauty";
and- best of all -she has two httlc boys, who are the same age as
George and Jack were when Barne "discovered" them for the first
time, playmg in Ken\ington Gardens. Her husband is away at war
and she needs money, and once again Barrie comes to the rescue.
Cynthia h01~ won 1he reputation of a modern, liberated woman,
and B.1rric can't n:~ist her charm~ . It'~ a pity she isn't an actress,
but ncvc:nhdcs\ \he beh.we'> a\ if she "ere one of the theater's
grc:.u lc:.1ding, ladies. C) nthia Asquith is the l.ll>t important person
to enter Barrie's life. There are too many already. They hardly fit
on the stage anymore. I don 'r ha\ c the time or desire to follow
their m01 emcnrs or study their pronouncements anymore. Enough,
Keiko Kat .
.Michael and ~hco fed uncomfortable livmg ,,;th a pair of new-
lyweds-with Jack and C,crnc-and the} mo,·e in "ith Barrie at
Adelphi Terrace House .\1ichacl rece1ves his enlistment orders,
and then-a~ if the pl;n·'s backdrop is changed-the war ends; it's
0\er; cun:ain. Mil:had propo~~ that he, Barne, and his brothers
rake a trip around the world to cdcbrate. Or tJ1at he: go to Paris to
live \\ith his uncle George du Maurier and study pamting. Or that
he become a film actor like: you, Keiko K.U. Any cliche of youth
\\ill do to celebrate th.: end of the death of so many young people.
"It's time for death to come after old men again," says Michael,
KENSINGTON GARDENS .I ! .!
and he dap~ R.1rrie 011 the back; Barrie pretends not to understand
the allu~icm. Barrie \mile:'> exactly a quarter of a smile, and informs
Michael that first he muM go to Oxford and finish Ius stud1c\.
Michael gh cs in, and Barrie rewards him with ao automobile and a
conage that Michael mil hardly e\'er usc
Peter's d1s.:harged and doesn't return home. He stays "ith Vera
Willoughb1, helping her manage an antiques shop in Soho. Peter
takes rare consolation m sornng through objects from the past and
dating them. Peaceful arnfacrs from before the war whose use
ne1•er had anyrhtng tO do with spilled blood, interrupted lil'es, ab-
surd and violent death~, faces disfigured by horror and shrapnel.
Sometimes a pair of p1stols arri,·e at the shop slumbering m a
glossy wooden c.ll>e, or some heavy sword, or a slender, flexible
foil; yes, bm these arc weapons that were used in secret, romantic
duels tn wh1ch men were killed and died in the name of pri,•atc
love, nor global hatred. Peter is a shadow of what he once was, and
Michael can't stop making plans: he's sworn to learn to swim once
and for all. Nico now that t'vlichacl's lcti. Eton-is lonely and has
been getti ng into trouble at school. Barrie receives his letters,
read ~ them carefully, and answc:~ them, offering advice and, more
than once, solutions. But Barrie sce1m vaguely disconcerted by all
this youth orbi ting him in ever widening and more distant circles,
farrhcr and brthcr from his light and influence.
Barrie b chmcn as rectOr or Saint Andrews University, and one
of his obligaLiom i~ to give a speech ro the srudenrs. He doesn't
kno" what to ~ay to Lhem, he know~ exactly what to say.
He jotl> down:
• Age & Youth the two great enemies ... Age (\\isdom )
failed -Now let us sec what youth (audacity) can do.
• Speak scornfully of the Victorian age. Of Edward.Jan age.
Of last year. Of old·fasluoned writers like Barrie, who ac·
ccpr old fangled tdeas Don "t be graybeards before your
rime. Too much ad11cc like tlus is what makes you so.
The day of hi~ ~pccch, Barnc trembles, hesitates. Someone shouts
somcthtng ti.mny trnm the stands full of men about to venture our
 RODRIGO FRilSAN
into the world. Everyone laughs; Barrie can't bear what they're
laughmg about. He takes a deep breath. He smiles. He begins. He
speaks to them of the1r youth, their potential, their courage, their
chance to be bra\'e and immortal, to defeat their enemies. Barrie
~peak~ to them of the courage they'll need to fight the battles of
the fast-approachmg future, the "struggles between young men
and their superior;; vou bcang the young men and we your superi-
ors, of cour~c." Barrie a~ks them not to be content to leave all de-
cisions in the hand~ of their foolish elders; because adults tend
only to consider thetr O\\ n interests, and their intelligence is
bounded by egotism and tgnorance. Barrie challenges them ro
claun what's thetrs, what ther deserve, what's fair, what they've
earned 111th the1r own blood Barnc calls them to arms. Barrie
sound~ almost hkc a rock star from outside his own time, like an
advance avatar of the counterculture, like a Peter Pan suddenly
grown up and turned rdlccuve. Then Barrie reads them a frag-
ment of Captain Robert 1-akon Scou ·~ lau letter. Sheets that al-
most disimcgrau: in hi\ finger~, that seem more: like skin than
paper, a vcry fine \kin, ,1 ~kin without bones ro stretch it tight and
give: it ~hape, a ~kin handled so often that its prints have worn
a1w.y. And Barrie end~ hb ~peech by reciting a sonnet on the fleet-
ing nature of yourh, written, he tells them, "by a boy who will
never grow up and 11 ho~e name I won't say here." It's a sonnet
Michael "Tote dunng his last holidays, before sinking, going
under A rather bad sonne t, sophomonc. A sonnet that stnkcs
everyone as incredibly beaunful and right for such a momentous
oc.:c~1on, and that, in Barrie'\ l'oicc, ~ounds stmulraneously like a
blessing and a \\Mmng, reaching t.he audience almost from life's
farthest limits. At the end of the speech, the applause goes on for
minutes and rnin:~ Barrie: a little, as each Christmas the applause
re1i\'es Tinker Bell.
Michael ts doing man\ things. Michael is happy at Oxford.
He's :trri,·ed "ith several of h1s friends from Eton; remembering
him, they 1\iU call him "the only one of our generation to be
touched by genius." L}·tton Strachey will say that he's "the only
young man ar Oxford or Cambndge with real brains." Some of his
KI!NSIN010N GARDENS JlS
fricnd~-likc Robert Boothhh future lord-<>ccasionally go 1\tth
hun lO vhtt Barrie, and lca1e nearly \Cared stilT: "I always felt un-
comfortable in that Oat. There wa~ a morb1d atmosphere about 11.
Michael and Barrie'\ relationship \\as extraordinary-it was un-
healrhv. I don't mean homo~exual; I mean in a mental \en~ If
you a~k me, I think Michael and his brothers would've been hap-
pier li1ing in po1 crty than amid aU the splendor of that odd,
gloom~ lmlc geruus."
Michael and his friends Stt in the drawing room and talk, and
it's not until they hear a little cough that they realize Barrie is
watching them from his armchair in the shadows, as if he's a
dummy abandoned by tts \'enmloqUJst, a dummr that's mken on a
life and a wtll of tts own.
Mtchael and hts friends go on an excurs1on to Paris, and when
they return , rhey find Barnc conccntratmg on the wnting of an
other play. !'he moment has finally come to tackle an old idea: the
ghost mother. Mar)' l{uu is the story of a young mother who di~­
appcars on a trip to rhc Hebrides and return'>, many yea~ later,
without ha1 ing aged a single day, wlulc 111 t.he meantime her son
has become a man. Barrie w1ite~ slowly. He develops a cramp in hi~
right hand and <;Witchc:~ to hb left.
Michael i'>n 't around to read tl1c manuscript: he spends his Lime
frequennng lhc salon~ of Ouolme MorreU and Dora Carringron
and the re~t of the Bloom~bur~ group. He doesn't seem 1ery com-
fortable among tl1cm. He: ~c:c:~ out the spots farthest from com·er-
sation. He's ~h}.
Michael finds the atmosphere of Barrie's Hat suffocating and
prefers open ~paces When Same msists on taking a walk "ith hml,
Michael - Barnc's fa,·orttc of fa,·orites-walks quickly, ~tndmg
along, and the httle man ts raptdl~ left bchmd, sad, unsettled, un
able to understand what'' happened.
M1chael ~pend~ his nmc dra\\lng, always carqing a penCil and
~k.etchpad He u~s Barnc as a model and cmphasi7CS his wor;r fc:a ·
tures, wh1lc ncl'er deparung from rcaht:y; he presents Barnc 11ith
the d1sturhmg portrJI£'>
"Michael has been drawing more '>ketches of me: and I begin to
JZ6 RODRIGO FRESA N
feel assaulted. He has a diabolical aptitude for finding my wo rst
atttibures, so bad chat I indignantly deny them, then I furtively
examine myself in the prh·acy of my chamber, and lo, they are
there," Barrie complains.
Michael has lo~t all mterest in Barrie's work: he no longer asks
him about the murder play he begged h1m to write, and he
docsn 't show the least interest in the great success of MarJ Ros~ on
its opemng mght at the Haymarket Theatre, April 22, 1920.
Michael e:~.plains to Barne that he's going through a phase in
which "e,erything make me think furiously.~ He leaves home
carl) and returns late, and he's alwavs meeting his new best friend
ar the Oxford library: Rupert Buxton.
Think of Rupert Buxton as the classic brooding young English·
man. Pale, and a cultl\'ator of dark, sutcidal fantasies. A little Chat·
terton. A guc~r at Gormenghast. A typiCal product of England's
upper classes.
Kciko Kai· l l1kc to rhmk of Rupert Buxton as a possible juve·
nile mode l for Cagliostro Nmtradamus Smith, a boy wi th an air
of exaggerated gloom .111d a tragic expression and pale skin and
d.1rk clothes. A rommllic in the worst sense of the word, who--
transgressile and far from patriotic-likes ro open Ge rman books
co any page and find something imeresting co read aloud, simply
for the pleasure of being heard, as he walks 11ith Michael under
cloudy skies. Rupcrr Buxton's voice is as cold and deep as a pool in
wimer, and when he read~ somethtng (and he constantly interrupts
the things he reads with h1s own 1deas and commentary, so char it's
imposs1ble ro know whar the author wrote and what Rupert Bux·
ton thtnks), tt acquires the rcmnancc of the overly transcendent,
and, as a re~ult, the untru~rworthy. "Death isn't just a conse·
quence of the Wa\ we hvc . Death IS also what defines our life in
the end It·~ odd· 11c can only reach a full understanding of our ex·
istence if\1<.: look backward, but at the same time we're compelled
to project ourseh·es forward . . . We Ji1e by passing from one
thought to the nen, from one feeling to the next; and yet our
thoughts and feclmgs don't flow smoothly, like a river. Instead
they se1ze us; they drop on us like stones ... Look, the leaves ha\·e
already begun to fall .. If you observe carefully, you'll see that
K ENSINGTON GA RD ENS 327
the soul isn't somc:thintt th~r changes color gradually . The
color of the leaH:~ ... It'~ a shame, I think, that we can 'r change
color w1th the years; that "c can't end up a fiery red like a fire chat
refuses to die, for exan1ple ... What happens is that our thoughts
flO\\ upward, like ciphers rising from the bortom of a deep well
. . marhemaocal ... Thoughts don 'r obey the law of graYity ...
That's why one moment you have a thought, and the next mo·
ment a feehng, and chen another thought, each arising as if from
nothing, from emptiness. And if you watch closely, you 'II glimpse
the: prectse mstant that separates two thoughts, the fraction of a
second that, once obscn·ed, can only be death; because life is sim·
ply the lea1ing bchtnd of stones to mark our path and the leaping
from one to the next each day, o1·er thousands of seconds of death
I hkc rhat the 1dea that death insinuates itself into the cracks
of our life and that from time to time ir rears its head hkc ~omc
strange, wily creature. A predatory beast chat hums us c1•en as we
think we're hunting it, believing tl1at we're the pursuers, not the
pu rsued ... In a way, our lil•c:s are all about balancing, ab()ut try·
ing to keep o ur b.1lance on tl1ese ~h ifting footholds ... Careful,
step on that stone and chen the next, you wouldn't wan t to rui n
your shoe~ and . . . Where d id )'OU buy them? Did Barrie send
them to )'Ou? . . . That's the source of our ridiculous fear of a
death with no afterlife, because death is the bottomless pit we fall
into \\'hen there arc no more stones to stand on ... That's what I
call the Leapmg Malady, the fear that leaps. And the secrer, our rri·
umph, i~ to Ol'crcomc it, to conquer ir. It's our obligation to
achie1·e rhc ccrtJIIlty that hfc IS slidmg calmly by; the moment we
~uccecd, we're at last as dose to death as we are to life. We aren't
h~ing anvmore, accordmg t() our earthly concept of hfe; bur we
can't d1e c1rher . . . Oh. the horror of consciousness! Because
"e 'vc achtcl'ed the negation of death as well a.~ the dnnulment of
hie nut\ our uHtant of immortaht), the mstanr when the soul,
breaking free: fmm the brain, at last enters the gardens of hie
and no11 11\ time ro go b.lck.. Let'\ go back..~
Yc\ filr Rupert Bu\ton, death IS neilher the end nor an end; tor
Rupert Bu\tun, death i\ a matter of beginnings
~l iducl\ old tiicnd\ don't undcrst.md tlm relationship. Robert
.128 RODR.IOO PllllSAN
Boothby, agam, always detecting centers of infection in Michael's
surroundings, diagnoses: "Buxton was exceptionally clever, but he
also had a melancholic, saturnine side that I don't think was good
for Michael Everythmg about h1m seemed to ex"Ude gloom and
darkne'\S. His very presence produced a feeling of sickness." And
maybe, 1f Rupert Bu'<ton had li'ed at the dawn of t:llli dusky mil-
lcnmum, he m1ght ha,·c become a trash-rock worship(>« of Satan
& Co-who know~, he m1ght ha'c One of those Columbine
Kids, commg to da~ one dav dre~d in combat fatigues and
spraymg machme-gun fire ar h1s fellow students to reach them a
lesson. But back then Robert Boothb} was exaggeracing, I think:
Rupen Buxton w.l!.n 't a brutal mass murderer. Rupert Bu:non was
cultured and tndcpendent. Rupert Buxton was, if anything, a rare,
lnghly skilled artist of death.
Barrie never get~ to know Buxton. Barrie's too busy trying to
know the new Michael. Or maybe it's the same old Michael-
except that Michael has grown up, Michael is beginning to be an-
other Michael.
ChriMmas is coming clo,cr, and Barrie seeks and finds refuge in
the same place, as always. In Ncvcrland. Revisions and additions to
the 1920 rcvh·al of Pettr Pn11:
• P. Pn11. Child: "Mother, what hour was I borru" "l/2
past 2 in the morning." "Oh, mother, I hope I didn't
wake you."
• P. Pn11. "I thought 1t was only flowers that died."
• Pia_v title: "The Man Who Didn't Couldn't Grow Up" or
"The Old Age of Peter Pan "
And, the next spnng, Barne occupies himself ,,;th the re-
hearsals for Slmll Wt Jom tbt Llldits?, the cnme drama written at
Michael's sugse~oon. De~pite all the differences and friction of
!are, he soli \Hires Michael c\C:r} day, m the frustration of Cynthia
Asquith, who must file his correspondence.
On the night of May 19, 1921, Barrie finishes writing a letter
to Michael and leaves the flat tO mail it. When he reaches the
KENSINGTON GARDENS I 2 <I
street, a young rcpo1ter is waiting lor him, and asks for a comment
on the tragcd). Barrie looks at him uncomprehendingly. Hi~ next
play isn't a traged~. It'~ a detecove srory, yes, but nothing partic-
ularly dramatic. The reporter insists, and mentions the word
~drowned." No one drowns in Slm/1 lle Join the Llldiu?, Barrie's
sure of 1t. Ncar terror, the reporter realizes that Barrie doesn't
k.now what's happened: two Oxford students, Rupert Buxron and
M1chael Llewelyn Da,ics, drowned while they were bathing in the
Thames at Sandford Pool, a bend in the ri\·er where a small dam
forms a natural pool. The bod1es haven't been found yet; bur the
"terrible incident" wa~ witnessed by "two men who were working
on one of the bank~," the young reporter informs him in the lan-
guage of newspaper<..
Barne say~ nothing, returns to the lift, goes up to the flat, en-
ters, locks the door He sits in the dark for almost an hour. Then
he make~ some telephone calls: he calls Peter, Gerald du Mauncr,
Cyntllia_ The)' all rush from different parts of London ro Adelph1
Terrace Hou~c:. B.1rric lets them in. He seems to be beyond life
and death. Barrie is a ghost. A perfect ghost. One of thos<' gho~ts
condemned to repe.n the horrors of their past existence~ over .md
over again, while a~king themselves how childhood, that other
ghost, can possiblv be so brief, and old age so eternally long.
Peter goes to get Nico at Eton . Barrie doesn't want to see him;
he orders Nico to leave the room. Maybe he fears that ~ico ,.,.iJJ be
the ne'<t to die, right there, and that it \\ill be his fault. '\ nC\\
restaging of the same old death: Arthur, Syl\ia, George, M.~ehael
... The connnuous performance-over and over agam, the \"ana·
nons of the particular case not altcnng the same old plot-of the
scene m "h1ch someone beloved and irreplaceable d1es JUSt before
the curtam tall'>. Peter lca,·c, tor Oxford to help \\1th the effort' to
recover the Nld1es. Barrie docsn ' t ~Jeep all night. ~ico runs to
Queen Charlotte''> Hmpnal, where Mary Hodg.'IOn is workmg as a
m1d\\ifc . There''> no need for him to \.1}' anything; Mar' Hodg\On
ha\ only to \Ce his face ro bum into rears and run to embrace him.
The nc:x1 morning, all the papcl"i in the ciry carry the nc'" on
the from page . The b•min,IJ \ta•ufn,-,{ runs an all-cap' he.tdline an -
.J.lO RODRIGO FRESAN
nouncmg the catastrophe-"'THE TRAGEDY OF PETER PAN"-and
adds. ~Mr. ,\1Jchael Uewelyn Da\'lcs (20 and Mr. Rupert E. V.
Buxton (22) were undergraduates at Od(lrd and mscparable com-
pamons .. The original Peter Pan "as (,corgc, killed in combat
.
in 1915 ... !':ow both bovs who arc mmt closch• . associated \\ith
the tashaoning of Peter Pan arc dead."
In a ~id~:bar, one of the v.1tnesses says rhat he saw the two boys
in thc middle of the pool, with their mm around each other and
the water up to their necks, nor looking fi·ightened or as if they
were in trouble. I like to think that mavbe . .
it was mermaids· that
Michad and Rupat were seized and dragged down to the depths
by women with fuhtails and shark ~mile~ and seaweed hair, and
that the) dadn 't let them go until at ''as too late, until they grew
ored of pla)ing "ith them ar the bottom of the pool, which I
amagine hk.e the theatrical stage 'iCmng of some fishbowls: the ru
ms of a castle, a treasure chest, the rcmams of a parate galleon, the
anCient phosphorescent bones of drowned youths, romannc and
doomed. Since at was public knowll'dgc th.lt .Michael didn't know
IHl\~ to ~wim, hi~ death wa~ rukd an Jtddcnt, and it wa~ con·
eluded that Rupert drowned trying to ~ave his friend. Sandford
Pool wa~ a notoriously dangerom spot: two other students had
drowned there in 1843. \Vhich didn't prevent rumors of a suicide
pact from circulating around the unh ersi().
[n ha~ "Morgue,~ Peter nores phlegmatica.llv: "Perfectly possi-
ble but enorely unproYen." In pri,·ate, the brothers think that,
ye~. Michael did commit SUJade: has mcrcasmgly erratic beha\10r,
has long pcnods of depression, a po~sable homosexual phase that
lett ham troubled, his nightmares and terrors, the hurt he nc,·cr
rcco,·c:rcd from after the deaths of Arthur and Syh1a; so many
things ...
The bodies aren't recovered unlil the afternoon of the next day.
I like to think d"lat Michael and Rupert arc clinging to each other,
that the bones of their arms must be broken lO separate them, thar
they're d1c damp and marbleized color of the drowned. And I
always thought there was somcdting frustrating and incomplete
about the fact that when a person drowns only the lungs fill up
KENSINGtON <.AROJ!NS !!I
wath wato:r, nor the:'' hole body. wtmkln't it be much more beau
titul if the '~ater tound it\ way 11110 C:\C:r) l.ut corner of u\, if it
'' .t.\hcd O\"er our mmdcs .1nd organ~ and bones and dl\'iOI~·cd
them, filling us up like: a bonld
Peter waits for the .1uropw to be: fim~hc:d. Peter can't help
thinking that in Greek nuttlp>in means "~eeing with one'\ own
eyes"; and Peter can't help thinking about the perverse beha\ ior of
the human brain at the most terrible moments: it's then it make\
you think about everything except the unthinkable.
Peter brings Michael's body back to Adelphi Terrace Hou\e.
Barrie hasn't slept for two nights. He's a man sunk in a nightmare.
Peter recognizes the symptoms, Peter knows those symptoms b~
heart.
Cynthia Asqmth calls a doctor to prcscnbe a rranqmlizcr Barrie
rakQ it '~ithout e'"en rcali?mg what he's talcing, and tra\·cls from a
waking nightmare m a slccpmg naghtmarc. The whole world as a
mghtmarc. "All the world as dtfTcrcnt to me now ... Michael was
my world," he sobs.
Michael'\ death unlea~hcs a kind of mass hysteria among his
frica1d~. One embarks on the mmt licentious and bohemian of ex·
astences. Another com nuts suiCide: Another goes to li\·e with Lyt-
ton Strachey, who declare~ " If he'd laved, I'm sure Mtchael would
ha\e been one ofdte most remarkable men of his generation." Has
tutor at Oxtord writes w Barrie:: "Michad was one of the most im
portant occurrences of my acadc:mi~ career, and what happened
in some way marks its end I'm left with small matters to attend
to, all of them tn\iaL" Simon Templeton-Lux disappears into
the thumping black heart of Africa, where it's said that a sect of
Machaelites is founded, the members of which are always doomed
to drown themselves in a final ecstatic outburst after performing
deeds as imprudent as they arc mdeccnt. Geoffrey Lyndon never
agam leaves his Chelsea house and ends up writing an unpnbhsh
able no,·el, thousands of page' long, about "'air and water and
earth and fire, and the way they haunt and anfluencc us." Leander
 RODRIGO PRl!SAN
Sanders-Cox sabotages the next Oxford regatta by climbing up to
the umversltv bell tower and firing a rifle at the rowers while
shouting that the Day of final Judgment was last week and how 1s
it possible no one\ noticed \onrJd "Conradin" Clovis slirs his
wrim and let\ h1m'ielf be dc,ourcd member by member by Sredni
\'ashrar, h1~ exonc per penccr Lcwts-Kaminski, who will be one
of the mmt C\acring and admired braim at Bletchley Park during
the Second World War, ~pend~ "hole dav~ tr:,;ng to "mathema·
tize" .Michael Uc:" elvn O.t\ ie~ ·~ death, as if it were a precise and
comprehensible equation, as rf the aruwer to all mysteries resided
in it. John Milford devotes h1mself to chasmg after Harry Houdini
on stages around the world, interrupting the magician's perfor·
manccs ro explam to the pubhc ho'' he performs his magic tricks.
Timmy "Dixie" Loom1s Cranton necs to the United Stares, where
he ,,;ns fame a.o; Poker Pan, a player in card games that last several
night~ and the ensuing d.ws in New Orleans's most dangerous
casinos, or ,,s Rule ''Bnt" Mattone, ruthlc:ss Chicago gangster; it
doe~n't matter \\hu:h.
SIJflll Wt Jom t/Jt' Lndic;-?open~ on May 19, 1921-a week after
Michael's dearh- .u the inaugurauon of the Royal Academy of
Dramatic An. The play is unfinished, open-ended, the identity of
the assassin ne\'er rc1calcd. The critics and the public love the idea,
and they talk until da" n, proposing possible theories, hypothetical
criminals, conclu~ions ar wh1ch they're no longer asked to applaud
to prevent a death bur ro 1denrif)• the author of a corpse. Someone
asks Barne who'~ gu11tv ~ I 'd hkc to know myself," answers Barrie.
On the annheroary nf the tragedy, Barrie dreams that Michael
comes back to \1\11 hun trom the Great Beyond. Michael doesn't
know that he's dro" ned, and Barrie doesn't say anything. They
lh·e like that, Ill secret and nc:' cr gomg out, for almost a y•car, but
as the: next May 19 approachc~, Michael grows sadder and sadder
and asks Barrie to ac:.:omp.tm him to Sandford Pool. They travel
by night, and when rhey arrile, M1chacl hugs Barrie goodbye and
sinks down agam and dJ~appears into those dark waters.
Barne wakes up weeping, and makes nores for a story that
might be mled ~water~ or ..The Silent Pool" or "Tne 19th." In
one of the margins, he writes w1th rus left hand:
KliNSING'lON GA RDBNS 333
• lr i~ .1\ if long .liter "riling Peter Pan it$ true meaning
were dear to me, tran~pJtem· t11e dc.:~peration of trying
to gro\\ up and nc' cr being able to.
Jack and Peter arc destroyed bv Michael's death . .Nico is the
one who takes 1t t11e hardest: not only has be lost his parents and
h1s brother., but no" he's the only one still li,ing with Barrie-
with the shadow of what was once Barrie, a shadow that's lost irs
owner, a shado" ragged beyond repair-and Nico is com·mced
that he 'II ne,·er be able to replace i\lichael, or any of Barrie's dead.
Jack and Peter and N1co exchange glances. They need to embrace
but they're afra1d to, hke Peter Pan, who claimed he couldn't be
touched by anyth111g or anyone Jack and Peter and .Nico can't
help aslong thcmsch·es-in silence, each of them, behind the
clo,ed door ol the1r thoughts-who w1ll be the next to fall; be·
cause It's clear that their family is under a strange, powerful-and,
yc~, awfu lly big--c ur\c. A cur~c that never ages (a curse that will
nc\'er die) and th.lt ~ecms younger and more powerful each day.
Arthur, Sylvi.1,. George, /\lie: had ... One afi.c:r another, swept away
by the: wind, like: loo~c: pages, like finished chapters, like dead sto·
ric:& from a \ad book.
Nic:o lca\es Adelphi Terrace Hou~e in 1926 w marry Mary
Jamc::~. and Peter-hi~ romantic bohemian ~rage over-is engaged
to Margaret Ruth\'en in 1931.
Barrie begins to abandon his life as a hermit and gi,·es dinners
agam and accepts mntations. He becomes friends with Charlie
Chaplin and Marv Pickford. He supportS Michael Collins and
makes speeches agamst Adolf HJtler. He exchanges opmions \\ith
Winston ( hurc:h1ll. He ~ccs Rudyard Kipling a few times-the ere
ator of .\1owgh, that other small and hero1c sa'-agc of paper and
mk, an cxonc: Peter Pan brought up m the farthest reaches of the
Emp1re bur they aren't plea'>Jflt encounters: Kipling has alo;o lost
a son in the trcnc:hc' of "ar; and, unlike Conan Doric, Kipling
doe~n 't he he\ c 111 the annthcs1a of ghosts Kipling's pam is there·
fore too muc:h l1kc Barne\ pam: 1t\ a pain without magic or mys·
rcry or the (ircat Bcnmd . T. E. Lawrence comes by for Barrie on
hi\ motorcycle and take~ him out to tea and show!> him the co~-
 RODR I GO PR'BSAN
rumes he's brought from Arabia (when he spreads them out like
treasure maps, the floor of the sitting room 1s covered ~;th vellow
~nd like gold), and, for an instant, Barne thinks that La~ence
would make a magnificent lost boy, because he's short and he's a
hero and h1s laughter and enthusiasm arc: like a boy's. And what
does all this mean, Keiko Kai? Why now Barrie's puzzling and un-
expected concern for troubled reality, for the ravaged times that
drag themselves, fall, and who knows whether they'll ever get up?
It occurs to me that maybe it's a kind of kabbalistic reasoning, a
conjuration: Barrie knows that he's more of a historic character
than a normal person, and maybe, he thinks, if he involves himself
wid1 History, if he dances a waltz \\~th her, Ius luck will change
and there will be no more misfortunes. t. laybe 1f he grows up and
becomes responsible, maybe . . Hence h1s slufting personahry
the~ days and nightS. Same's mood changes according to the
newspaper headlines pnnted m h1s nund, headlines only he can
read Nothmg horrifies him more than seeing pictures of himself.
Wh.u luppencd? How did he turn inro that litde man, wrinkled as
•1 gnome? At a meeting yesterday, he wa; ;hown a picture that par-
tkularly dimtrbed him: in it he's holding a cup of coffee am ong
brazenly young, hearty men at a stand on the Embankment; he's
wearing a hat and a long coat, and he's holding bis walking stick
pressed against his body wim one arm It was cold when me pic-
ture: ''as taken; bm Barrie feels much colder seeing it at home, be-
s•de a blazmg fire. Barrie mmks that If ~mcone were told mat this
was the man who created the splend1d Peter Pan, mat person
would laugh incredulously and mockmgly. Barrie thinks mat be-
hind lu~ back, behind his small back, maybe everyone is mocking
him. Everyone is laughing at the madness that to him seem~ so
rea~onable: is there anything more scn~iblc than the desperate de-
sire to play until deam parts us from our to)'S? Barrie alternates
bet\\ een periods of almost compulsive social life and spells of
absolute hatred of humanity.
The Inimitable Brown-faithful buder for so long-decides to
retire: to care for his sick "ifc: on a small farm he's bought with his
SJ\1ngs One buder exitS to stage: nght so anomer buder can enter
from stage left. No matter. It doesn't aflcct the show's budget. It
KENS I NGTON G A RDENS .I Ji
doon 't change this laM ;Kt mudt. Br0\\11 is replaced by frank
Thunton, one of my fa\t>ntc character., onc:-1 make an etlort,
thmking the \\3) Marcus Merlin would think- ] can't imagine
"'th Dermott's face but I can im.tgine wim Basil Rathbone's .
Thurston-he drops his given name immediately, as i~ fitting-•~
much more inimitable tiJJn Brown. Little or nothing is known
about Thurston except that he speaks French, Spanish, Latin, and
Greek; .md that despite mis he communicates only in monosylla-
bles, except when, at his master\ request, he's capable of perfectly
imitating Barrie's voice on me telephone, saying anything, accept-
mg in\itations and organizing Panragruelian dinners for the fol
lowmg night. Cynthia AsqUJth has nervous attacks-too much
work and responsibility-and, she d1scovers, she can't separate her
self from tlus all-powerful lirdc: man-she's no longer mistress of
her will or her actions.
Barne writes his last big work, a biblically inspired play; but-
hkc everything he's undertaken over the course of his lite and
work-it's contaminated by his own genes1s and apocalypses. Its
11tlc doses the circle: TJJr Roy Dtwirl .
Barne receives an Order of Merit, i~ made president of the In·
corporatcd Society of Authors, Playwrights and Composers, and is
named chancellor of Edinburgh Univer~ity. He often addres~c~ the
student~. who look at him With equal parts curiosity and admira-
tion, as if Barrie were an ancient and well-oiled machine:.
1 ha,·e a picture of him, Kc:1ko .K;u: a picture from his last days.
In it Barrie is being earned on the: ~houlders of a crowd of smiling
)·ouths. Several of them wear old sweaters "im Egyptian des1gns,
handed down from their older sibltngs and made in the days of the
great Tutankhamen craze, when the archeologist Howard Carter
and Lord Carnar,·on discovered a lost tom b and lifted the curse
from another child ki ng who never grew up. In the picn1re, Barrie
looks uncomfortable; he's pulled his hat down low so he won't
lose it along me way, and he's looking at the camera as if he isn't
sure whether he's being feted or whc:mcr mey're dragging him to
the: top of a pyramid where he: 'II be sacrificed, where mey'll np out
h1s orcd and achmg heart
Barne has a hard time falhng asleep. Barne confesses to CynthiJ
.l .l j\ RODRIGO PRESAN
Asquith that he's afraid of the dark, afraid th:n rn the dark he
won 'r be able tO think up any stones, that the dark is like a black
page on wh1ch it's impossible to wme \\1th black ink. A doctor
prescnbes small doses of heroin rhar, 10stead of helping him full
asleep, transport h1m ..SI(ting 10 bed 10to a state of ecstasy and 10·
sp1rarion " Barne thinks he's flying; Barne thinks that he's so rail
now 1t's a~ tf he were flying. At the height of h1s delirium, ideas for
book~ come to Barrie that wou ld never come to him if he were in
his right mind and his feet were firmly pl.mted on the ground.
Book\ that he might have written and didn't wmc:, maybe because
thev're adult book.\, books thai \omeonc: who hadn 'r rcsi~tc:d
growinj; up might ha,·e wrinen. Book.\ m which a young noble-
man become~ a woman and wande~ through the centuries; m
\\ hich two doomed married couples 'acauon at a German spa; in
whteh a man looks for another man on a dark, dead end continent,
in whtch a legendary theater actor and director tn the winter of his
di\COntcnr watche~ a sea monster from .l Bnnsh beach. Books
that 'rc ulttmatcly written by orher author~ but that arc, I think,
Barrie's ghost books: because a writer ·~ not only the books with
his name on the cover bur al~o the hcx>k~ he might have written,
books 1hat escaped like ink through hi~ lin~cr~.
Barrie keeps making little friend\: Cvntlua Asquith's dlildren,
and the young Princess Margaret, "ho prodaims at the age of
three. ..Sir James is my grc:atc~t fiiend and I am his greatest
friend." Barrie visits her ofi:en, crossmg Kcnsmgton Gardens, and
he C\'en steals a few of her remarks for 71u &;v Dfn•rd. Barrie-as
he did for Jack when he used some of h1s words tn Little .l!ary
twenty· five years ago, on what nO\\ ~ccms to lum another planer-
pronmcs the little princess a penny for ever)' night the play is
pcrlormcd. In March 1937, Barrie rc.:ci,·es an edict from King
George VI Ill which he's informec..l-in a graciously imperious
tone-that the author hasn't paid his debt to his lirtJe coUaborator,
and that he'd bener do so if he doe~n't wanr to recei,•e another
notice soon from the royal bill-c:ollecto~ and be dragged off ro his
DC\\ quarters in the Tower of London. Barrie ~ends Thurston ro
exchange a few bills for coins, fills a bag with pennies, smiles. He 'U
KENSINGTON GARDENS 337
take Ulem ro her personally one of 1hc~c day\. In the mcantimc-
thc.:re's no hurry-Barrie starts and fini\hes a supernatural romance
called Farewell Mrss Julu Ln,lf""• ghmt stones being the only kind
of StOI) he can come up ''ith, gho\t\ protect you !Tom the cold
and fear that the living provoke 1n you It comtorts him to feel the
weight of the bag full of COinS in the palm of his hand ero~ed with
age lines It reminds him of the reward'> and ransoms that pirates
and musketeers and gentlemen of fortune fling into the air; it rc·
minds him of his irretrievable past, the buried treasure of his child-
hood, to which the map ha~ been lost-a map that mu~t ~ureh be
in some drawer, in some dark corner of that deserted house lik~ an
island where the only survivor of a shipwreck washes up.
There are nights when Barrie goes our walking in London, m a
city he thinks he knows b>• heart, but all he has ro do 1s venture a
few streets from Adelphi Terrace House to disco,·cr that wme·
thing's happened, something strange. Barrie loses his n':l)', doesn 'r
kno" bow to get horne, has ro ask a policeman the way to return
safe and sound. The parks and the names on the street signs
haven't changed, but the city is a different place. To Barrie, Lon
don seems robe made of wax, rc.ldy to be displayed in a wax mu
scum as London burning. A London burning and melting into
another London. A new London that Barrie docsn 't recognize,
and in wh.tch he isn 'r recognized A London more like the space
backstage-where the curtams are constantly risrng and falhng,
and nothing is ever qu1ct-t.han the familiar and unchangmg
scenery of a play that opened manv years ago. The play that he
wrme and that's always up, perpetually running, before the orches-
tra seats. The same thing's happened to the years, "hich add up
space: Barrie can't understand ho\~ ther\·e sped by so fast, like
those magician's rabbits that disappear into a bowler hat that the
wind sweeps from your head .1nd carries far away do\\11 dlc srrcer.
One of those nights, in 1934, Barrie turns a corner and runs
into a strange boy, a boy \\ith Oriental features, holding 3 b1cycle
by the handlebars and singmg somerhmg about 3 yellow subma
nne. Barrie looks at him clmcly and thinks he recogmzes h1m,
thmks he remembers something, thinks he remembers everythmg,
.13H RODRIGO FR.BSAN
thinks he's gone mad or the madness h:u. returned. Barrie gives a
linlc cry and flees. Barrie runs through the streets, runs as fast as
his little legs '>'ill take h1m, through a new world, where his old
childhood keeps gro\\ing larger and more powerful, yes, but also
more zomb1ehke and mechamcal. When he's out of breath and
can 'r go on anymore-when C\'cryrhmg 1~ pure fear, when energy
has been supplanted by tcrror-Bame 'ecks refuge m what looks
hke a t:1miliar blllldmg, a ~anctuar~ The Duke of York's Theatre.
He pushes the doors open, and di~overs a. performance of Ptter
Pnu, rC\'1\.tl number 5,347,839, or something like that. On the
stage there arc tour actor\, but the \eat~rhere's no one in the
seats. Barrie collap\CS into one of them. All of a sudden the place is
full of gJib who scream and cr~ and ~em to have lost their senses.
It's the scene, thinks Barrie, in which Peter Pan asks the audience
to cl:lp ro bring Tmk back to life. "Would those in the cheap sears
clap their hands. The rest of you can rattle your jewelry," instructs
a Peter Pan who doesn'1 look anythmg like his Peter Pan. 'What is
this? lie never wrme hnes like th.u, so disrespectful and \'ulgar.
What's going on here? The tour Peter Pans arc wearing strange
military unifim11s, ha\'c M range h.1ircuts and ~trangc accents, arc
holding \trangc guitar\. Barrie applauds tccbl}, and gees up and
makes his wav among frcn.lied .1uolesccnts who laugh and cry aU at
once, and Barrie goc~ running our, still clapping, and he crosses a
bridge, and the Thamc~ IS full of slow, elegant icebergs propelled
by d1e cold current, and Barrie seems to ~e men and women
trapped 111 the icc, and suddenly the whole Thames has frozen, and
where did those ~kJters come from, and Barrie keeps running un-
til he reaches Adelphi Terrace House and gets in the lift without
greeting rhe doorman, and luckily he docsn 't need to tell the lift
man "hu.:h I\ hi~ floor. Barrie docsn 't trust hss \'OICe not w shake,
Barne fear~ that he'~ lo~t the: ab1lity to speak. Finally, he manages
to get into his Hat (i\ n his hand that'$ shaking so much, or is it the
key, or 1\ it the whole buildsng that'~ shaking from cold and fear?).
Barrie reaches his armchair a~ if ir'~ the only magic and sacred
place where he knows he'll be protected, and he collapses there
and asks for the newspaper (the kind that newspaper taxis are made
of, he thinks; and \\hat can be making him think such things?
KHNSJNGTON GARDENS
he \\onder\), and he rt:.llh on the tir~t page that Sir Gerald du
~l.lllricr, the man "ho will all\ .ws be Captain Hook, has died at
SIXty-one of comphc.1tion' after .l dillicult operation. And, oh, all
his friends and accompl]((:s suddc:nlv seem to be so busy perform·
ing the1r lasr aa~. Or maybe he reads that Edward VIn has abdi-
cated. Or he reads that the documents and plans ha'e been
approved to knock down the bwldings around Adelphi Terrace
House and make way for a new urban reconstruction project, and
he's one of the few ressdcnrs rcmaming m the building. Or he
reads that the e\perts m horror say that the seeds of a new war
ha\'e been sown in fertile ground, and that they're sprouting \'igor·
ously. Or he reads that nothing will be the same anymore, and he
docsn 't even dare look at the horoscope column, and Barrie has a
fever, or the fever has hm1 and won't let him go, all through the
long, tern hie night A night that won't sleep, that refuses to sleep,
C\'Cn if it'~ rold all the stories m the world.
Cynthi.1 return~ from a trip and find~ him looking wor~c: . Barrie
tells her he dr.111k too much whisky lasr night. Barrie's like a child
who'~ lived much longer than expected. Barrie's in a bad mood.
The review~ of 11}( Bo.v David h.wen't been good. He's accused of
dbtorting the Bible, of turning the sacred scriptures to his own
ends as hc once planted lili flag in Kensington Gardens in the form
of a statue. He'~ rc:pro.\Ched for changing the sacred story to shape
it ro hh credo.
His heald1 dctc:norates- he asks for heroin, he's refused it-
and lmpro\·c~. and deteriorates again. Barrie's health is like d1e
London "cathcr Barrie·~ mood i!; like tl1e London weather too.
One moment he's the most enchammg of gendemen, and the next
he's exceedingly cruel. Bame pronuses Cynthia Asquith that he '11
lea\ c her a large sum of money, . only. to confess unmectiatelv. that
he's rumcd and-he can -carcch· cont.lin his glee--explams that he
likes all th1s "playmg at bcmg Lear" H1s doctor ctiagno'<=s neuritis.
Few dare ro 'isit him, and Cyntlua Asquith ~eriouslr con~iders
comm1mng ~uicidc or lullmg tum, or both better to kill him ti~t
and then commsr su1c1dc She opts for a comprom1sc soluoon:
C}·nthia A~tuith Aces.
Barrie refi.1scs to a.:knowlcdge that ~he's gone, and-as 1f ~he's
 RODRIGO PllllSAN
on holidav-he checks into me Manchester Square home for me
dderl} until Cynthia "renuns from her outing." He writes a last
letter, a letter of thanks to Thurston, m which he also gives in·
srructions regarding \\ilemer or nor a document enclosed tn me
envelop~: should be published after h1s deam; me document is
ne\W found .
"I'm vcq comfortable here, although of course it would be
more comfortable to die in one'\ own home," he tells Thurston.
And he grants Thurston permission ro keep the books he likes best
from lm hhrary: "Few people who've passed through my flat ha\•e
rreatcd the books as respecrlitlly as vou, Thurston."
Harne t>cgin~ to lose hi\ sense of rime and place. He hears
\tran~c: \Ong~ Sad ~ngs rhu ~c:c:m to come from far away, played
on imtrumc:nrs making bright ne\\ ~und~. Barrie asks ro see peo-
ple \\ ho 're dead. Barrie knows more people who'rc: dead than
altn:. B.mic: h.ll. so much ro talk about "ith h1s dead.
The doctors call Peter ar his publishing bouse, and Peter calls
Cynthta: Barrie is dying. Cynthia returns to London. Barrie has
fallen mto J deep sleep. Maybe it's a coma from which he'll never
emerge. He's given an injection, and he opens his eyes, signs his
wtll, say\ a few words, closes his eyes again.
Str }ames Matmew Barrie d1es on Saturday afternoon, june 19,
1937, at the age of seventy·si\, ,,;thout having recovered con·
scioiDness Beside his bed are Cynthia Asqutth, Peter Uewel}'ll
Danes, md !'\ico Llewelm Davies. I ~dd Thurston so that he can
Sa)· something in perfect Latin, something no one understands.
Barrie dies, and someone opens a window so mat his last bream
can escape, mounted on me back of hts soul. From up above, from
so high up, hts own existence resembles an island-an island he'll
never C\Cr ~cc again-surrounded by the ocean of death. So much
\\;tter \urrounding so much eanh; earth-Barrie now effortlessly
undc:r~t.md~-mat was ne,·er very solid after all, and mat isn't so
hard to leave behind. Flying is worrh it. Flying makes death worm·
while
Barne states dearly in his will mat he doesn't want a grand fu •
neral, which doesn't pre,·enr memorial services from being held for
KSNSING10N GARDENS .J41
him at Saint Paul's Camcdral, Edinburgh Um' crsity, and Saint An·
dJC:\\S Uni,ersity; me modest la~t "ishes of great men aren't u\u-
ally honored.
Barrie doesn't want an til Itt corner among the p<><:b beneath
me stones at Westminster.
Barrie wants the fresh air of me Kirriemuir cemetery.
Barrie wants to be buried beside his momer and his father, next
ro the two sisters who died and whom he doesn't remember, next
to his bromer David, whom he never forgot.
Barrie wants a simple gravestone-his name, his dates; that's
all-and an unvarnished oak coffin.
A small coffin, a coffin so ltght me gra\·ediggers mink It seems
empcy.
Baco's coffin is so light and small, Kctko Kai.
Ir's as if I'm seeing it again
My momer and my father and Marcus Merlin and I arc at the
Kensal Green cemetery. My grandparents have stayed in the c;~r,
with Dermott.
Kensal Green is a Victorian cemetery. One of tl1e several private
cemeteries that begm to grow on the outSkirts of London after
1830, to curb me invasion of the dead filling the public ossuaries
in the city's center.
Kensal Green is one of mose cemeteries mar make you \\ant to
die JUSt so you can be buried mere. A small, silent cicy gro,ving
do,mward. Mausoleums like httle palaces. Clean, perfect streets. A
full fledged utopia. A triumphant revolution. Eveq·one lives hap
pily rogemer mere. Everyone respects everyone else. Everyone is
remembered. E'·eryone is peaceful and rests in peace, in peace and
love.
I don't remember Baco's burial, but I do remember the cemc·
tery where Baco was buried. I don't remember Baco's gra\c (one
of those small obelisks?) or 111) parent~' (bkc: those regal tomb~
where fallen monarchs be in rei tel~ hke puddmg molds>), but I do
remember Kensal Green and the pleasant feehng of being in a
342 RODRIGO FRESAN KENSINGTON GARDENS 343

cemetery, of feeling more alh·e there than anywhere else. I like ro Time to go, rime to return.
clllnk-yes-rhat my parents, Marcus Merlin, and I walked in a Now I'm opening rhe window.
perfect, orderly line, with equal spaces between us, like the Beacles Now come here.
on rhe cover of Abbey Road. Now give: me your hand.
I don't remember whether it was sunny or whether it was Now ler's go.
cloudy or whether it had just rained and the sun was beginning to Now.
show through the clouds. I do remember, however, the statue of
the angel on Kensal Rise, in Kensal Green. The classic statue of an
angel, the same old angel, the angel that stands in cemeteries
everywhere. An angel in a series, bur-unlike all irs counterparts,
renouncing the divine equality of God's intermittent intermedi-
aries-this angel has been divinely impregnated by a tree. At some
poinr, a hermaphroditic seed fdl into a told of her srone robe and
set down roots, and a tree-! couldn't tell you what kind of tree,
Keiko Kai-grew up around her as the years passed. A decidedly
poetic tree, I suppose. A memphoric but realistic tree: Ufe bloom-
ing on the far side of death and all that. Impossible ro know now
whether the angel came from cl1e tree or the tree sprouted an an-
gel. It doesn't matter. The order doesn't change the result of the
miracle, and here we arc now, in Ncvcrland, you and I, in me same
place I was then.
My room and Baco's room. Perfectly preserved. Like a sacred
place, or one ofrhosc museum chambers separated from the visit-
ing public by velvet ropes that you lean over, craning your neck.
Here-alpha and omega-is where everycl1ing began and every-
thing ends, where life ends, ends but never dies; it's rhe person
who inhabited clut life for a certain nun1ber of years and then
stopped Uving who dies. Life-whatever it is; whoever it belongs
to, be it tree or angel; no matter who lived it-always ends up in
the same place.
That's where we're going, Keiko Kai.
Take a pill.
A pill for rhe trip, so nomiog hurts, so you don't feel a tiling.
Now it's almost dawn, now we don't have much time left, now
the Night of Nights is ending.
The sooner we're finished with these horrors, the better.

''Velcome to Alwaysland.
Second star to the left and straight on into the never-ending
night, the interminable day. Alwaysland is mine, and it's unique.
None of those multiple Neverlands, one for each child, with their
!ilight variations but always obeying the san1e geographic laws over
and above all aesthetic differences, as Barrie wrote: "If they stood in
a row you could say of them that they have each other's nose, and
so forth." No. Alwaysland is just for me. I'm irs creator and discov-
erer. 1 got here flying or in a little boat, it doesn't matter which.
Welcome co my afterthought, my surprise revision, my last-
minute addition, my alternate, off-program ending, my new last
act, to be performed for the first and ouly and last rin1e.
You all thought the curtain had tiillen, that everything was over
now. 1 thought so roo, but no: the lights still haven't come on, a
few coughs and the nen•ous murmuring of the audience can be
heard in the dark, and suddenly a boy comes on stage, riding a bi-
cycle and holding a lamp in one hand.
That boy isn't Jim Yang.
That boy is me.
The ch,u-acter is me.
"Welcome to Alwaysland," he says, I sa)'.
Welcome.
KENSINGTON GARDENS 345
Alwaysland is the shape of Kensington Gardens and the sil.e of
childhood.
Let me explain: unlike the usual way of things, in Alwaysland
everything is bigger than it really was.
Let me explain bener. It's inevitable, it's happened to all of us:
what we remember as huge and ominous when we were children,
ends up being smaller and harmless and even disappointing when
we see it again-when we rerum, man)' years later, hoping ro find
everything the way we left it and the way it left us.
That's not possible.
The dimensions of the past don't coincide with those of the
present.
As we grow up, the past gets bigger and there's less and less
space in the present. What was once tall is now short, and the river
that swept us away with torrential glee is no more than a stream
with the gentle pull of a water nap.
Alwaysland, meanwhile, doesn't lie to us or mislead us or betray
our memory: everything is huge in Alwaysland. Everything is even
more colossal than in our earliest and most exaggerated perceptions
Thus, Kensington Gardens-the Kensington Gardens of Al-
waysland--srretches way past the hori7.on, as fur a.s the eye can see
and even farther: a green world where mothers stroll in their best
dresses, pushing their most baroque carriages; where men play
cricket; where children play at losing and finding themselves
among the branches of trees full of squirrels; and where the music
of orchestras especially designed ro harmoniously fill \vide open
spaces-brasses, strings, uniforms-sounds in the air. A bridge and
a fountain and marmalade skies and your head in the clouds and I
see it all with kaleidoscope eyes. Sometimes, m the dista.nce, two
groups stage whar Looks like a battle; they struggle: to take a small
hill, and they all behave properly, and there isn't the slightest dis-
order, and I watch them from the stairs o f Nevcrland: all those
adults playing like children.
And no one knows what time it is, so it's ne-ver rime to go
346 RODRIGO FRBSAN
home. There arc no clocks in Alwaysland- no crocodiles ,,;th
timc-kccpmg bellic~ either-and the moon and the stll'S shine in
the morning sky, and in the night sky it's hard to look directly ar
the sun, which is so happy to finally be able to sec and shine on the
dark face of everything.
Alwar~Iand IS the best poss1ble place to stay, to never leave, to
nc,·cr grow up
There, here, I am.
.
ln the exact center of Alway~land, Neverland rises. "'lv fumilv's
house, my house, nO\\ transplanted to the heart of these gardens
. tle embarrassed for 1t; the same discomfort we feel when we sec
and growing on the ban~ of the Serpennne.
I pedal over to it, and I look up at the top Boor, where my
room is. The room I once shared with Baco. The room with the
open ''indow.
The wmdow I jumped fi'om \\ith Kciko Kai; when, J can't re·
member. Yesterday> A century ago? I have a more or less clear pic-
n•re of the rwo of us jumping from that window, but that's all.
Why did we jump? Were \\ e fleeing someone? I hJvc the disturb-
ing fcding that mv memory b beginning to crystallize, ro take on
d1e cloudy, tbs~il-likc rc:lle.:ti,•enei>S of amber glass through which
light but not d1e clear image: of d1c: light source can pass.
I've said it already: the first thing that changes in Alwaysland is
one's sense of the weather, because the weather is always good in
Alwa~•sland . And an hour ts as long as a second here. And a minute
can contain an cnmc existence. And I remember having read
something ,1bout memal time, time in dreams. And I pinch myself
ro sec whether I'm drcammg. And I don't feel anything, but I
don 'r wake up either
I look at that open wmdo\\ . So near and so far, as if it were an-
other planer, .mother hie, another death.
I look at it until nw eyes hurt, and I keep looking at it until my
eycs srop hurting, until I stop feeling my eyes, until I forget that
there's something called eyes and that that something is used to
look at the mings it hurt!. most to look at.
KbNSINGl'ON GARDENS
I look at that \\mdo" in tlut houJ>c until ir begin\ to rain; and
I look a1 it J little lonp,er, unul I n:.1li~.:e mat ir i~n't raining, until I
know I'm erving.
From OUlSidC:, the Alwaysland Ne\·crland looks exactly like me Sad
Songs Ncvcrland, the Ncvcrlmd outside of London.
The same size. The same pale colored smne walls. The same
\incs chmbmg up It~ s1des. The same vzrrea11x ,,;t:h my family's
coat of arm~ O\ er the entrance, so ma1estic that ir makes you a lit-
someone we rc~pcct making a tool of h1mself in fi'onr of strangers.
Once you arc through the door, though, everything changes:
ms1dc, Ncvcrland 1~ huge, otT ever} scale, immense; and its unex-
pected m.IJCSty produce~ not irritation but the ecstatic ~tupor felt
in certain ~a1 hcdr,lh that g1vc us an effortless faith in the incredi-
ble, even it' only for ,1 fc\\ minutes.
Neq:rland's front hall could ~wallow all the whale~ rh:u ever
swam in the ocean and swallowed every Jonah; and tl1is haU lead~
inro a long passageway like a highway whose end or destination is
impos~iblc ro guc:s~.
An impeccable: white passageway, with ceilings and floors of
tile and-glass mosaic, lit from above and below by an almost solid
light. A passageway "ilh walls that at moments seem m radiate the
echo of com crsations, laughter, the sound of glasses clinking in a
roast at the least excuse, for any reason. A long, perfect stretch
flanked by dozem, hundreds, thousands of doors. The kind of
doors rhar plav their own role in vaude,i!Je shows, doors that
are an indispemablc part of the plot, that end up bcmg the mam
characters.
Doors I uan opcmng to sec what's on the other s1de. to try to
understand the mcamng of e\crythmg thJt's happened to me.
Doors I open \\1thout the lc,m idea what's waiting for me bchmd
them, hkc 111 tho'c frcnz1cd rele,ision competitions The difference
1\ that 111 thl\ Alwa~'IIJnd !':c,·crland there's no competition tor an}
pn7c. The only rc" ard ~ems to be the doors themselves, the ac -
348 RODRIGO PRESAN
tua1 act of continuing to O(><:n them; the knowledge that there are
still so man} doors ro open
I think I've understood thar, so long as I keep opening doors,
I'll still be here, Ill Alwaysland. Here I am· opening doors and dis-
covering ''hat the rooms behmd them ha\'e to show me. Doors
that lead en~rywhere, anywhere Doors that make me uneasy-
ag:un-JuSt like thoo,e illustrations inrerlean:d inro a novel, a novel
that I thought I'd finished readmg but that-everything seems ro
mdicate, damn It-someone refuses ro stop wnting.
Today I opened \e\eral doors.
Behind one of them I found my lather, floaung at the bonom
of the "·'· h1\ ere\ 'acant, h1s body wrapped 111 seaweed He
looked like a creature of the deep; he looked happy and amph1b-
1an. He \\Jved at me. l ~ouldn'r hear an~ thing he was saying, but
1t wa~ de.tr he "a\ telling me m.tn) thing~. bubbles i~~ued from hh
throat in perti:.. th \ym:hrunit.ed bur~ts, in .1 clear and precise
rlwthm. Then l under\ mod that Ill) fadter wasn't sa)·ing anything
to me. 1 realized mv f.uher wa~ singing.
Behind another dour 1 baw the summerhouse in the garden of
the Neverland of my childhood, and I watched someone approach
with the stagy movcmcnrs of a pantomime actor-gh~ng lirtle
jumps, lookmg in all dirccnons, purring a finger to his lips-and
leave a copy of Purr Pn11 on one of the marble benches. For a mo-
ment J thought I rccognited the pcr~on, I felt the weight of a
name on the tip of m~ tongue, but 1mmediarely it seemed ro me to
be a man, a woman, a bov, a dog, a shadow ... and then I had no
idea which it rrughc be, and I knc\\ I '' ould never know.
Behind another door I discovered an exact replica of Barrie's
study at Adelphi Terrace House. The walls of books. The mouth
of the b1g fireplace hkc a giant's ~awn A lirtle table where the
key ro the gates of Ken<mgton (.iardens shmes ltke a golden
trophy, and bes1de It, ~ome paper\, on the top page of which the
handwnttcn mlc "I nsrrucnon' filr L' ndcrst;mding Everything" can
be read. I rcali1c it\ the linal d(1curnent that Barrie entrusted to
Thur~wn before he du:d. The lost ~ccret. The secret key. The mys-
tery solved and read\ to cunti:~; down to the fast word of its
KhNSINO 'lON GARDENS
l.lbt bre.uh An um:omtim.rble empt) armchair, and on rhe floor
near i~ k~>. a \Olit.uy pa1r uf huge teet, as empty a~ ;hoe\. l re-
SJ!ttcd the temptation w go m and ~it down to read in the chair, to
tn on the feet \\ 1th \\ hkh Barrie once frightened Peter Uewelyn
Davie;, to take that ke\ in mv hand and open the lock of my mis-
fortunes.
Something tells me that I shouldn 'r go into the rooms; that it
would be be ncr, lll~t in case, to ~tud)· them holding on tight to the
doorfTame, ,,;th all m\' strength, so that a hurricane of black ''md
doesn't sweep me away and S\\aiiO\\ me up. Who knows; maybe;
undoubtedly: 1f I enter one of these rooms, irs door \\ill dose be-
hind me and I ''on 't be able to leave, e,·er.
I go and open a door agam. There's an old woman sining at a
table She look~ at me \\ithout <aying a word, with that disquieting
mix of love and prty that always gives rou the uncontrollable urge
to lower your eyes, to look anywhere c: lsc. I close the door before
l can \ay for \un: whether that would've been my mother if she'd
had tunc tn grow up a little, a lirtfc bit more. I close the door
thinking th.ll if there'~ .utrthing I regret about all this it's knowing
that I'll never be old now, that this suspended animation i~ no
more than the fJrcc of a false eternal youth.
I try w open .mother door. It·~ locked. On the upper part
dtcre'l> J ~malt, illuminated srgn with dte words A£CORDING SbS-
SJON lN I'ROC.>R.lSS in blinking red letters Music and \'Oices can be
heard on d1e other 51 de. l can't understand what's being said, and
yet the sound b familiar l>Omething I\e heard before, somethmg
I'd like to lu:ar agam It'~ a \oice and a piano and an orchestra and
the sound of an alarm clock, and now, yes, someone smgs ..Woke
up, fell our of bed."
I'II go and open one more door. Then I'll rake a rest. Then I'll
tic down to ~leep in front of any of thc~e doors.
I can't open mJny doors Jt once. lt isn't advisable. Opemng
doo~-<lpcmng these door\-makes you a~ tired as gomg up too
many \tJJC\ \\ hilc hnldmg your breath, or as exhausted as tra,·clmg
through rhe ccnturtc\ for roo long. I open this door and a blast of
damp a1r hit\ my bee. Unequin>cJhly I ondon air, V1ctorian arr.
.rso RODR I GO FRESAN
h's nighttime-night as night used to be, a night impossible to
mistake for daytime ·and under the cold light of the moon I see
the monument to Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens; in the other
Kensington Gardens, whtch to me is no longer necessarily the au·
thence Kensington Gardens.
Barrie wa~ right tt tsn 't a good statue, it doesn't do justice to
the ongmal model or to the real Peter Pan It's the statue of a boy
who could ne\'Cr convince any other child ro come and fly away
,,;th him, to lcJp from hi' windo" uno the sky It's a door 1 dose
quickly, "nh a ti.tnous slam, angr) at hanng wasted my time and
energy on It ''hen there a.rc so manv other doors to open.
Not long ago, I disCO\ ered mat the doors change places; that the
rooms in this Ncvcrland never Ma\' still; that-every once in a
while- their inhJbttanrs or their interiors appear before me in the
most unexpected spots. J rea.li7ed it when I tried to keep a map of
the doors, a c.1rcli.tl record of room~, an orderly list in my mind. It
was hopeless. It wa\ as if the mansion real ized my intentions and
decided to mut.ltc and confu\c me- make me understand that
here: I'm n()l lurd .111d ma~tcr, that my tricks are worth nothing.
Then !-who'd undc~tood my stay in Alwaysland ro be like one
of those Choose Your Own Adventure books, in which a fake free
will is bestowed on linle rc.Kiers, making them belie,·e they can con-
trol the plors and falsely suggesnng that they're the authors of their
ad,·enturcs, that they're responsible for them-realized it made no
sense to continue the search for a sequence that would e:>;plain
en:rything It \\'asn 'r worth tr)lng to puzzle out a course that would
help me move up and down dm passageway thronged v.-ith door
handles. There WOI!J no poS!.ible trick or cheating rongue-and-key kiss
like the: one Houdiru recCI\ cd from his \\Ue before: the door was
closed that locked rum m Too many doors here. A straight and nar·
row universe, and :ill th~ keyholes, which, when you rry ro look
through them-as vou stri' e tO discover whether or not it's worth
opening a door· -only show you the terrible polished face of a mit·
ror, the muffled echo of your own sad gaze.
KllN S lN GTON G A RDENS l.ii
Sometimes I gc:t dc:prc:s~ed. Sometimes I tall apart and I make a
great elTon and I refuse tO keep opening doors and I go running
out of Ne\ erland and I rw1 d1rough the rrees and hedgo and
statues of this giant Keminb'tOn Gardens and 1 say to myself
and I promise mvself that I won't stop rurming until I reach the
borders of Alwa\'Siand, the edge of the map, the last word m
the book.
I run through the moonlit days and sunlit rughrs; and there are
moments when I can even comince myself that I'm getting some
where and that I'm about to lea,·e this place; that I can smell the
sea 111 the dtsrance or hear the rumble of a volcano as it stirs; that
I'm e~pecti ng something-some jagged, uncx'J)Ccted landmark-
ro give this place a kmd of nO\'clty, something dltTcrcnr from
what I used to know, ~omerhing that is now so new and our of
proportion.
T hc: n-whc:n I'm almmr sure l 'm close to crossing the bor·
der- 1 lind that the thing on the horizon l imagined wou ld be an
outcrop I could d imb, an d from it survey a new landscape, is only
Neverland again . .My house and irs doors and its rooms.
I understand that I wasn 'r eve n runn ing in circles, bu r that Al-
waysland is a little like those first, primitive theater backdrops:
cylinders at each end of the stage, and a doth painted with houses,
clouds, and meadows scrolling between them, before which the
actors· mo,·ing thctr legs but not going anywhere-simulate
walking, running, being out of breath, looking for something, and
ne,·er lindmg it.
When I'm ttred of running, I come to a halt and start to wnre. I
hghr a lire and I ~•r 111 ItS glow and I play w1th the scattered p1eces
of a final hm YJng adventure
A book that no one wtll re01d C\Ccpr me.
I wmc tl to have somcthmg to read, as a means of escape: m
Ah1J.V\Iand there arcn 'r .lll) books except in some of the room\,
 1.>2 RODRIGO PRllSAN
on the other side of the doors that I\ e been opening. And as I\·e
sa1d, I'm afra1d to go into those rooms.
So I wnte it.
In fact, I don't write it down. In fact, I mmgine I'm wriong 1t.
In Alwaysland I don't have a computer. I don't ha1·e paper or pen·
ell or ink c1thcr. It's a menral book I learn It by heart, I revise it in
the air. Anyway, all books arc memorv. I nsram memory. What we
put in writing is simply rhe immedi.ue recollcc.:tion of what's just
occurred to us somewhere else, t:1r and ncar, now and t11cn, simul·
tancously, e1·crywhere, here.
The very la~t book in the Jim Yang \erie~ i~ called Jim Ynllfl
nnd riJf End of All TIJings, and-in mv head-it's already much
longer than Jim l'iwg nnd tbc lmn.11i11nrv Frimd; it flows ,,;th the
mdolence of somedung "ithout form or limits, and it rake~ place
during the last days of the umn:rse.
In ]1111 Yaug a11d tiJc End of All 11llllfli, hm Yang is tired of all
hi~ ad1·cnturcs and all the ody~seys he's embarked on in vain. He
can hardly even remember '''hat he's chas1ng after, what he never
re,lchcd The succcssi1·c and mcrcasingly powerful and addicti1·e
dmes of so much travel through the c:cnwrie~ weigh on him like
the: most hideous jet lag; like the time lag that's caused him w
rransc:end the very notion of time. ]101 Yang is no longer sure
where he lett from, what era he's from, how old he is, what time it
is, how man~ decades he's been ndm~ tim strange bicycle thar's
part of 1m body by now.
Jim Yang pedals at top speed, as hard as legs thafve developed
an almost grotesque set of mu~cle\ can go. Always forward. The
past doesn't Interest him anymore. fhe past is past. And now
there's only one possible d1rection tor J•m Yang: towards the end
of .111 things. A time in which-he think~ ·there won't be time any·
more fc>r anything; a time in which th.:rc.:'ll be no time to make up,
no time w gain, no time ro lose. There'll only be the relief of float·
ing on the perfect and inmllltablc \urface of a blank page or a
screen 1·oid of clectriciry. And praying that C\erything ends there,
in an ever after 11ithour even the slightest poss1bili[) of '"(to be:
continued ... ~
KBNSIN<J10~ ()ARDI!NS n 1
On the wa~ ro now hc:re, Jun Y.mg uosscs paths o,cveral umcs
11 1th Cagliostro >JosrraJamu' 'in111h. The\ don't rccogm.te ead1
other. Or, better, the:..- pretend nm to re.:ogni.te each other. lncir
pri1.ttc liar has bec:ome a \omnambul~tic truce. They don't \\Oint
to see each other, thev can't \ce c.Kh other. Their respccuvc ha·
trcds were.: wnsurncd long ago, like so much combustible material,
like the last fuel remaining to be rossc:d into the cauldron of d1c•r
adventures to keep things moving along.
Cagliostro Nostradamus Smith has also suffered the corrosion
of the millennia! winds, the acupuncture of the needle-sharp hands
of a thousand clocks. The only thing he does now is fondle dJa
monds that be cla1ms he's made out of the fertile bones of thou
sands of children who d1ed m great child catastrophes: the children
lolled by incurable epidem1cs, the chtldren lolled in relig~ous cru
sades, the children killed by ragmg adult tsunam1s, the children
killed by the desp,ur of rc:ali11ng themselves to be the last .:hildren
in History, the children 1\ho c:hme ro die young rarher than hve w
be old, the childrc:n 11 ho-mm I rc.:membcr-bcgan to kill and
commit suicide under the unhc.1llh} influence of the Jim Yang
books, my books.
On his last adl'cnturc, a\ the final days of humankind .lp·
proach-Jim Yang and Caj!.hO~tro Nostradamus Smith were there
at the end-no new c:htldrcn arc bom. The biological watc:r·do.:k
of the race has dried up torc1 cr· women don "t ovulate; sperm swim
agamst the current, like !>.limon; a.nd the planet's only inhabitants
arc all o1·er 150 years old Old people: with perfect teeth, more or
less em·iable looks, faul[) mcmor~-because no bram was built to
swre so much mtormation ;md so much past-and nothing to do
except ask themseh·cs how they've come so far and what the me
was of coming so fur as the.:} walk ~lowly through geriatnc parks
and gardens that were once rhc battlefields of youth and ~it and
read children's books peopled by the elderly, by centenarian and
long-li1cd children like bibhcal patriarchs; because now, at la~t.
ch1ldren's literature IS about thO\C who can no longer e1·cn re·
member their far-distant ch1ldhoods
Cagltosrro Nmrr.1damu' 'imnh \ fingerprints ha1e rubbed off
... -
.1 s 4 RODRIGO FRESAN
from so much counting of diamonds, and, almost blinded by the
diamonds' tramparcnr bnlhance, he doesn't c,·en bother to inform
hm Yang that his mother and litrlc sister were never pnsoncrs; that
they simply abandoned h1m, that they got on a plane and wenr ro
li\·c far away With a b1lhona1re who would never ha\·e accepted the
idea of an Oncnral mn hdongmg to \Omconc else. Or something
like that I' m not ~ure . That\ not \\hat tntcrcsrs me most about
Jim Yn11.,11 n11rf tlu F11rf of All 'Dmllfi.
What intc:rc:~t\ me: mo~t about fun Ynng nnd the End of All
I11ings is the end. In the la\t page\ of m~ memorized boo"' Jim
Yang pedah O\Cr a dc\crrcd \\Orld, over cmpt\' citie!!>, over beaches
covered '' ith the skektom of ~.Ut encrusted car.., over oceans that
are tired of making wan:). The ''hole landscape has the noble sad·
ness of an madvcrrcnr mu\cum no one visits even though it's free
and open all day.
Just when Jim Yang thmks he'll see nothing Ji,ing on the sur-
tace of the earrh, he hear~ ~omeone cr)1ng, and he heads out to
sea, trying to di\covcr where the \obbmg is coming from, pedaling
until he reaches a rock on which ,, boy is sitting.
Jim Yang swps hi~ chrcmocydc and goc~ up to him, observing
him carefully. He i\n't c~aetly J boy. He's .1 little man ofuneertain
age, his body and f.1cc covered with wrinkles that aren't exactly
wrinkles. They're nor signs of age but the precise opposite: signs of
agelessness. The little man )Ccms to be on the brink of despair, and
at the same omc, his body radiates a youthful and almost de-
mented ,,gor.
The little man raises h1s head and looks at ftm Yang, and his
\'Oice is nearly maudible. J1m Yang has to bend down to hear what
he says, an insistent sound that's repeated again and again like the
prayer of an astronaut kncxked out of orbn:
"To rue will be an ;m fully b1g adventure!" he says.
And he adds, almost in a ~igh:
"Please ... "
Jim Yang takes the little man's head in hh hands. The bones of
his neck arc as frag1le as a b1rd's, and they break almost at his
touch. They aren't the kind of bones that make good diamonds, I
guess.
KENSINGTON GARDENS .1B
Peter Pan die~ with the happiest, most grateful, and moM idi-
otic of \miles.
Jim Yang tics the body to hh chronocycle and pushc~ it inLO the
water. He \\ .nches it sink and disappear.
Then Jim Yang sit' on Marooncn.' Rock to wait for hi!. mur-
derer and replacement ro arri\e, some day or some oighr.
"I hope it doesn't take him too many centuries," dtink!. Jim
Yang.
Today I returned to Neverland.
Toda)' I opened more doors again.
Opcnmg doors, I've dJsco\·ered, is as addictive for me as [I'Jvel-
ing through nme is for Jim Yang. The exhaustion of opening
doors IS better than the anguish of not opening them. Ir's almost
impossible to res1st exploring eras and rooms. And when l rcfi.tsc
tO open doors, I fall into a heavy torpor in which all I dream of is
opening doors. Or I rise up into a shallow insomnia, in which des-
peration makes me count doors so I can slip into some nightmare
in which I walk along a long passageway asking myself whether I
was already in thb part of the house, answering m>•self that it
doesn't matter: 1 live in Ncvcrland. Nevcrland is alive. This Al-
waysland Nevc:rland is as alive as the home f.liries build for men,
"the house that only those: who've slept in it see, because unless
you sleep in it you never see it; and tlus is because there's no house
when you go to sleep, but it's there: when you open your eyes and
discover the fairies ha'e built a whole house around your dreams;
and you ha\e to leave it in order to wake up."
I opened SC\'eral doors that it didn't help me at all to open: I
saw a frozen lake; a man dressed m a shiny suit and dancing (when
I saw h1m I thought of Marcus Merlin, but I'm not sure it was
him; rather, It was an 1deahzed ,·ersion of Marcus Merhn, a Marcus
Merlin with the almost supeman1ral grace of a dancer in a musi
cal); a ship ~hng a'' a}'; another man, missing the borrom half of
his face; several soldier; smgJng in a trench; a woman m a ~tate­
room putting on makeup 111 front of a nurror; a Saint Bernard \\1th
a cap in hi~ mouth, ready to leap at me .. .
356 RODRIGO FRBSAN
Bur the lasr door today was a useful door. A door that made me
r.:member a number of t.b.ings and understand certain recent
e,·ents that. explain m)' stay in AJwaysland.
On the od1er stde of the door was me in what had to be a hos-
pital bed. I didn't see myself !Tom abo,·e-as on those astral trips
some specialists associate \\1th an cxonc form of epilepsy-but as if
I were passing by, loolong for the room of a sick fiiend, and I'd
stopped to see what wa~ happenmg m some other room. There
was my mouonlc~\ body, covered by a light blanket and connected
to various u:rmtnals and monttors of the lond that-we're told •
and we prefer to believe unquesuoningly-track our vital signs, as-
suring u~ \\c're Mill alive. Beside m> bed were a doctor and two
men who had to be plainclothes policemen, Scodand Yard detec-
tives. I lolew this because looking like policemen when they think
they don't look ltkc policemen ism essential part of their job.
It was a room full of rc\·eahng details, so I paid attention,
watchmg carefully, and ltsrening to each word that was said.
lr wa~ clear t.hat I, in the bed, wasn't saying anything; and that
it was more than doubtfi.tl that l would ever say myth ing. On the
monitOr~. my he.m rate lot>ked slow and stable; my brain waves
were faim and bnguid. l ,,a., brcatl1ing; but not only did I not
lolow I wa.<. brcat.hing, it. wa.<. also JS if ilie oxygen, as it. entered my
lungs, could onl> think about leaving as soon as possible, wonder-
ing what sense there WJ.!> in wasting so much on so little.
And l'\e alwavs asked myself why that state I was in, lying in
my hospital bed, is called a comn, like a truncated comma, md not
an elllpm, or, even better, a parwtbcfis. A comma is a brief pause,
an almost impercepttblc alteration m speech; md not this long,
uncomtorrable, unprcdtcrablc stlcnce. An ellipsis or a parenthesis
has many more possibahtaes. more ume, more rime out.
My bod)' was gt,·ing otl that ,·cry odd but unmistakable phos-
phore~ence that bodu:s that arc almost corpses give off, and see-
ing myself ltkc thts-surpnse-allowed me to reconstruct my last
acts \\ith perfect clant).
Yes, I made Keiko Kai .<.tand on the windowsill and I stood be-
side him and we jumped together. And it's clear that Keiko Kai
KENSINGTON GARDENS JSl
isn't here in Alway\land; it\ obviom he didn't sunive the tall. It's
understood .md I undcr<.t.md that my coma-my comma-was hts
full stop, .md that lm death has more than served d1e purpose I'd
asstgned tt 111 the logac of my madnc~.
Inside t.hc room, the detel.ti\es were talking to the doctor.
They were a\king qucsuons about the chances that I would "re-
CO\er consuousnes... or not m order to undergo an cxhausti\ c m-
terrogauon to cle.u up thi~ ~t.rangc situation." Two newspaper~
poked our of the pocketl> of the detectives • raincoats.
In one of the papers-large type, ink still smelling of ink, head-
lines telling e\"erything and giving me all the necessary informa-
tion it s;ud that I'd succumbed ro a murderous md suicidal form
of madness; the p.uents of the world had organized public burn
ings of the Jam Yang books; and any film adapraoons of my \YOrk
had been aborted Instead of a children's hero, Jim Ymg had be-
come an evil unfit for minors- The author of Jim Yang was no
longer a shming hero but the blackest of ogres.
Jim Yang won't corrupt anyone anymore as Peter Pan once
corrupted me. Sooner or later-it's certain, inevtrable-othcr f.·llsc
tdols will arise to be worshipped: cybernetic crcantres, virtual em-
bryos, interactive beings ... But I won't have anything to do with
tl1em, and it'~ clear thar-hecause of what I did, thanks 1.0 what I
dJd-fiom now on all children'~ creations will be careti.tlly re-
' iewcd, t.hcir destructi\ e potential con~idcrcd, exaggerated precau-
tions taken that'll keep the motl'>ter under control for many years
and prote't children from wol\es disguised ru. sheep.
The other nc\\ spa~r gi' es a differcm version of d1e same
e\·ents, and it's from it that I learn that the intelligence that gov-
erns and controls AJwavsland's Ne,·erland still hasn't complerel~
made up tU mind, md that:, like Barrie, it's still weighing the
possibility of se\ era! endmgs.
The second paper thc:onzcs that Keiko Kai and I were kid ·
nap~d and murdered to prevent the anemarographic bastardtza-
oon of J•m Yang. In the newspaper the Pangboume Massacre ts
recalled, tn "hich all the ehtldrcn of a London suburb kill all thctr
parents and dasappear, occ;monallv reappcanng tO commit acts of
358 RODRIGO FRESAN
terrorism against the adult world under the banner of their mes-
siah, "Jim Yang, He Who Will Return With Justice for All and
Mercy for None," and in the name of a desperate, unhappy child-
hood lived in the currenL state of adult things.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. I understand it now: I was a chil-
dren's book writer whose onl>• goal was to destroy children's
literature; children's literarure destroyed me so that 1 could im-
mediately turn and destroy those around me.
l'm Barrie's remote but exemplary revenge-Barrie, who suf-
fered so much for us, who died for our sins, and whose only and
unpardonable crime was having written an infectious creature car-
rying an incurable disease.
1 was infected; and, terminally ill, I consecrated myself to the
virus- literature- whose mission, hardly secret at all, is to kill real-
ity and annihilate childhood, supplanting and improving both as
thoroughly as possible w1til they've become in1mortal stories that
will never grow old.
Knowing this helps me to know so many other things, to re-
member keenly, ro understand ar last what I'm looking for behind
these doors; to be perfectly clear which door I' m looking for,
and what prize comes with the room 1 want to enter and stay in
fo rever.
And something tells me-nothing tells me anything, but I
intuit it with that rare sensitivity more typical of characters than
people-that the door to that room can't be fur away.
In the last few days-or just recendy, really, because it's becoming
more and more difficult and poindess to associate what happens in
Alwaysland with the misleading and comfortable precision of the
calendars I knew in my other life- Neverland seems to have taken
pity on me. Its rooms no longer open up to impulsively offer me
the first thing it occurs to them to show me happening in side.
Now 1 don't see Arctic landscapes, complex stage mechanisms, a
queen 's funeral , cloth that won't stop being woven.
Now, more sharply each time, I feel that Neverland wants to
K ENS I NGTON G AR DE N S 359
please me, help me, shape itself to the object of my search; as if
what ir's teaching me is increasingly nne-tuned variations, return-
ing little by little-slowly, but coming closer each time- to the aria
from which they were spun off.
This room is an almost perfect replica of my childhood room. All
d1e following doors open to the same view. Some seem more fin-
ished than others.
In this one, everything appears to be in place except the bunk
where we slept- ! on the top and Baco on the bottom- and the
wallpaper \vith the psychedelic pattern; these wal ls are white and
clean.
In the next room, the bed and walls are the same as in my past;
but I'm there: all alone. I'm eight years old, and J look at myself
and I look at him.
Farther along, I see a room reproduced "~th perfect fidelity;
but it's a fidelity of no use to me, an Ollldated fide li ty. I'm in my
bed- a single bed that has still to be replaced by the bunks- and 1
haven't yet been swept away b>• the invisible hurricane of jealousy.
My left ear is intact. In the sweetest of voices, my pregnant mother
reads me the book 1 found that morning in the gardens of Never-
land. "I'm sure Peter himself left it for you as a gift," says my
mother. "" 'All children, except one, grow up,' " reads my mother,
and I have to make a great effort not to go in d1ere, lie down for-
ever, never leave.
And all the rooms are alike in one way: in all the rooms the
window is open, and in all of them a soft, scented breeze blows.
It was I who ope ned the window of this room and all these
rooms. It's I who-when I find the exact room, the scene of my
innocent but not therefore less blameworthy crime-will finally be
able to rest in peace.
Baco and l arc in the room I' m looking for.
Baco's sleepy.
I've already read him my fuvoritc parts of Peter P1111 again. I'm
not really reading them to him. Baco's my excuse for reading them
3o0 RODRIGO I'RESAN
aloud, for hearing how they sound in my voice, which makes them
much more mme than when I read them with the: silence of my
eyes.
Baco always listens to me-l believe-with the goodness mat
makes him able ro respect and even find something appealing in
the most extreme beha,ior of all those around him. Baco is a
bene\·olem king. Baco closes his eyes and falls asleep.
ln that room I open the window because I'm sure that this is
the mght that Peter Pan will at last come for me, to take me far
away, to the place I sense IS my real home, my true birthplace.
In the last few months, I haven't been able to help comparing
myself with my father and my· mother and my brother, and it's
clear I'm nothing like them. Among the three of them there's a
subtle reperitton of features and gestures: the same piano key,
pressed more: firmly or more gently, but always playing the same
narc:.
I don't even feel like parr of their score.
I sound so different.
So I open the \\indO\\ and T cover myself with bla nkets and I
sit on the floor. 1t's the coldest and longest night of m e year,
and at some point big snowflakes begin to fall like stars. If my life
were a children's book, I'm sure this part would be o n an even·
numbered page across from its corresponding illustration on an
odd-numbered page
I wake up at dawn, feverish, delirious, talking about a shadow
that misses it~ 0\\1lC:r and is hiding under my bed.
My father and mother are alerted to my cries by Dermott, and
they come to soothe me, and, pULzled, ask me whether I\·e seen
my brother; thev ask me why the \\indow's open. Then I remem-
ber that, sometime during the night-when sleep was beginning
w overtake me, co conquer me-l thought, "ith the crazy logic of
children, that if Peter Pan "asn 't commg for me maybe he would
come for Baco I remember gernng Baco out of bed asleep, being
very careful so he wouldn't wake up. I remember lying Baco on
the sill of the open window. I remember I left him there like a love
offenng for my beloved god, and if this part of the: book is illus-
KJ!NS I NGTON GARDENS .Jo/
trared, I'll tc.lr out the 1llu~tration and rip it into a tllousand pieces
and thf0\1 them out the open windo\\, so that they're earned away
by the mo~t merciful and comp~~ionate of wind!..
I don't tell nw paren~ any of this, not because: I don't feel the
terrible need ro confes~ a all but became-,~hich is much worse-
it seems to me that it isn ·t necessary, that wmehow everything has
been sa~d, that there·~ nothing left to say, and that it's so hard to
say am·thing when e,·eryone is cqing and shouting. The dream
has ended, we're all awake forever. Now we'U ne,·er go back to
sleep again.
Now I do feel that I'm coming closer to that room and that
mght. Behmd the doors of Jl.:e,·erland are ever more precise recon·
srructions, closer to the perfc:cnon of my past imperfections.
When I open that door-when I finally gain access to that im·
peccable panorama of my childhood, to that terrible last night
when everything began, the night that keeps growing nearer and
sharper in my mc:mory-1'11 go in and close the ''~ndow, and none
of what happened will happen. Baco will sleep and wake up in his
bed. 1'11 watch over him as he sleeps. And then I'll enjoy the unde-
served happiness and cgoti~Lical consolation of having changed a
beginning to savor thi~ final instant.
Ye~, all the Mage lights will go out so the: lights over tile box
scats and orche~tra seats can come on. The audience will begin w
leave the hall- not in a hurry, but with that pressing need ro aban-
don barren and exhausted territory to continue the search for new
and unknown triumphs.
And I'll be left alone like a strayed lost boy; feeling how my
glo\\ gradually fades; ho" my magic weakens; ho" the spotlights
go out one by one until only the ghost lamp is left shming.
And when I've made sure that all the spectators ha,·e returned
to the realay of thctr world, kno\\ing there won't be anybody lefi:
to hear me and obe\ me anymore:, only thcn-~Ha,ing read the
book, I'd love to turn y·ou on "-\\ill I obey, and recite: what the
scnpt demands, readmg It letter by letter, word by word, ~nrence
by sentence, on the craTy scrc:c:n of a lonely televiston of litero~q
and nocturnal habits.
362 RODRIGO FRBSAN

And I'U walk to the edge of the stage and I'll ask the deserted
theater-with false passion, with genuine happiness at the impossi-
bility of my plea-to believe in me.
And I'll beg all those mute and empty sears tO prove it, to clap
FOREVER AND EVER: A NOTE OF
with aU their might, so that at last I-the most awfully big of ad-
\'enturers-come back to Life and live and never grow up and never THANKS AND SOME MORE OR
die, never, never ever, and, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.
LESS PERTINENT EXPLANATIONS

Kemingto11 Gardens-as I hope and wish, and as will, I SLlppos.:,

have been obvious almost from the first page- neither is nor at-
tempts to be a strict biography of James Matthew Barrie or a pre-
cise map of his surroundings. •
Which doesn't mean that much of wbat's recou nted about the
author of Peter Pa~t in this novel-beyond certain divergences of
chronology and plot, and liberties taken in the handling of certain
texrs in order to adapt them to the narrative-isn' t strictly true, as
incredible as it may seem.

Accordingly, I'd like to acknowledge the help of several books,1 in

addition to those written by J. M. Barrie-novels, stories, plays,
collections of letters-about his life or fantasies, that were essential
to the book 1 wrote about him.
They are:

•likewilc-:morher J.lwars pectinent darificatJon-the many ~rciJ .. people ilnd personalities

whc) app<ar .md dis.lppe;r Ln chis, novd :3-lways do so in a "'"fictional" war when they Jntef'J.([
with Lhe dur.tcrers o f Kouin.._I{UJn G4nle.m_None o f,,hat?s attributed to I hem h necc:~~l y
li'U~ c.~c;cpt for their-very mcful to the author-First and lasr names.
'And, of coutse, Ahbris.com and 1..3 Central .Bookstore (Mona & AntOnio and Joan P<rc),
wbo not ouly looked for them £or me. but found them too.
 THANKS AND I!XPLANATJONS
]. M. Barrie & tlu Loft Buys: TIJe UJJ'e Story That Gtn•e Birth to
Peur Pan, by Andre\\ Birlun;• ]. M. Barrie: A Stndy in Fairies a11d
Mortals, by Patnck Braybrookc; Secret Gardens: A Study of tlu
Golde11 Agt: of CIJ1ldrw 's Lmmwre, by Humphrey Carpenter;
]. M. Barrie. Tilt .\fan Behind the Image, by Janet Dunbar; Barrie:
17u Stor_v of a Gm111s, b} J A Hammenon; TlJe Peter Pan Chron-
icles, b) Bruce K. Hanson; 17Jt: Road to tbe NtPtr umd: A Reassess-
ment of]. M. Barrie's DramatiC Art, by Ronald D . S. Jack; Barrie,
the Stor.v of].l'>f.B., br Dcms Mackail; TIJe Case of Peter Pan, or, 17u
Impossibtltty of CIJIIdrm 's Fimon, by Jacquclmc Rose; Inventtng
Wonderland, by Jackie Wullschlager; and Now or NtPer/and: Peter
Pm1 and tiJt Myth of Eumal Youth: A Prycbological Perspective 011 a
Cultt~rallcoll, by Ann Yeoman
Just ru. useful to me in the porrraral of a city and an era 1-for a va-
rierr of reasons, bOrne obviou~ and some not-was the plunge inro
or the contemplauon from the shore, the reading, or the rereading,
.. A funda.mC'n[.\1• .\dnurabk • .tnJ uu.tupcn1.ablc work tor me, as much for the dariry of
llnk>n'> t<>t .u l<>r the qu•hty ol th< •bund•nt gr.apluc materi.t. Th;mk you ag;Un. And
.ag:.un. Fm.n It( JU[tl"\ come JU;tlw of the photogr.1ph41 and quotes J.nd tbys that Peter Hook
rc,r:al-. ;and n:~o.hc\ .md l"t'l.u<' ttl 1\cJko Ka1 .1.llthrnugh thh night-1n-thc-lifc. And thr idc:a of
r.Uung the t..Urt.lin "llh l'tttl llr,,chu J)o~\lc\\ \Uu;idc ¥.M Andre" Birkin"'s bc:fon:: it "'"'-'i
mjnc, thhoup.h I h~dn•t 'ct rcJd h&\ bovk. "hen 1 ''-rotc .about my Pctu't leap on[O the
tncks 111 ch" l>ook. In'"'' cu.:, I'm dchghtcd bv chc cOuJCOdeocc
fJ can't (J\' 1 knt"' IA'Illtun . t \\;u then: ft;r a ft\\ day~ m:<ll1) \Un ago, dunng wtuch I
hardl' lcfi a hnrcl "ath .J \1CY. f•fthc 'iitrMl~C' t'twlillng-1t ma} be: a factory, 1 don"t kncn: 1
think '\C~tncclnc cm~o.l" tnkt r~ u ".I' ;u'l clc4.:tn~o. pbnt-tJut "'l'pc.lt$ nn tbc CU\CI of the Pinl
flo,d a.Jbum AmHII•l-l.s. In 'hHrt I w;a.s nC\cr- 1n Mn\lngton Gardens. And )Ct I know
He•throl. ,,,,. MU (an ll'J'Orl tlut oli..VIIUUCk me .. the perfect scmng roc. 00\'d), be·
c;ause 1',-t made conntcnons there on mam fbfth,ts to otheT l:.uropean citJCS. So the: tdea-
Ul pnnop~ as rhat I would I"(' tum to London md C\C:D IJ\e dxrc for a month to 110n
out the fin.d Jcusl\ an 1he \\nuns and rnl\lon of K£Ntn,sum G~. but in the end, the
method usN~ tr.&\cl wn1cn C\ery"'hcre tmrc.J&Cd aNCif don·• go. the bcntt to knuw 1L
Or. at le:ut m mv cue, the better tu .lt,Junc 1 on· ol ,·ape oudmc. m.,rrhmg l.be cl\151\--c:
charoctcr ol the nuntor AnJ •n odd d<t.ail· mv books olw>n end up bcmg ~mbled vtt\'
f.at from "h<r< thq t>ke pb.;c It h;lf'p<n<d to me "'ch the Mcxiro City of Mu,.. m
Prague •n<i Ru.br<"· n h•rrcncd •p•n "''h the l.ondon of Kr''""8"'" Ga'*"s 111 Sana·
•ge> de C'h•lc •nd Rc'l"'• •nd GUJ<bl•t•ra \LI1k th<r<'> • nc<d of the Ewopcan •hen n
comes to lhe l.tun Amcn\.JJ'l And \l~c vcrw. Or m;a,~·bc. not. \Vh.u 1 am SUK of IJ hO\'
gntclul I .,. lor chc d<ll<r<nt hom th•s n<nel lud dunng us wnttng: the 8oolr. F:or in Bo~
gora., rhc Ccnante$ tn..tnurc llt Bu~h.uciol, the~... EoccndJda Ul ~bdnd, PasJs. map.nnc
ur ~nti.ag:,. de Chalc , ,\lcntnllCJ rcll\'U UnJ\o'Cnaty In 5o~nunJcr, and the V"tlb.sd\or UrrcJ
(.&mih U\ cu ..d.al.al.&r.a. Mcxlt.:U
T IIA NK~ ANI) llXrLA NA TJONS
of lhc boob umdan: 17Jr Br1~11mpb), bv Pcrcr Ackroyd; Tiu LoltiJ
l-inn, by ).1kc Arnott, A11 A1vf11l~v Big Ad1•mmrt, b) Beryl
Bambridgc; TIJf Kmd11css of llomm and Rmming Wild, by
J. G Ballard, TIJc Beatits A11rbolo._1ry, bv d1c: Beades; The Uses of Ell-
chaiiTmmt. 'flu .\lcanin,n nr1d lmportn11a of Fairy Tales, by Bruno
Bertdhctm, Storus a11d Poems for E.wrmu:ly Inrel/igmr 01ildrm of
All A._nu, ed. Harold Bloom; Ln lttterat11ra e gli dei, b} Robert
Calasso; 171t Oxford Compamon to Cbtldnm's Literntllre, eds.
Humphre} Carpenter and lllan Pnchard; 171t Portable Sixties
Rt:ndt:r, cd Ann ChMters; Gron'111.!f Up m rhe Sn>ingmg Srxties, by
Susan Clcc,·c; 17JC PCII.!f/1111 Dictio11nry of Literary Terms a11d Lirer-
nr_v TIJeory, b\ 1 A Cuddon; X-Ray and Waterloo Sunset, by Ray
()a, tcs, l1Jc Deptford Tnlogy, by Robertson Da,;es; Tilt Pop Sixties:
A Pmo11nl and /rrn•erc11t Gmde, by Andrew f. Edelstein; WIJo:r
WIJo ;, I'ICtOI'IIIJi Brttam, by Roger ellis; Duirmete, 11iiio and Ne-
cmtll donmr, by Ed uJ.rd F.sti,·ill; 11Jt Good Soldier, by Ford Madox
Ford; • 'fJg Kra_vs, 11Jc Fi11al Countdonm: TIJe Ultimate BiogmpiJy
ufRtm, Rr._IT 11111f CIJMiit· Krny, by Colin Fry; Guias visun/es Pwgrot:
A\ fitr the era .1"! riAncl I \\•,1\ hum in 1963, an(i I Always thouglu the virologi\:at rJdi
.lll<•n o r I he golden 'liXIIt\ left 1 g_1·c.atcr ntJrk on thmc \d\o were: childrc" J l [ht dmc rlun
on those wh() \\UC It~ \'OUnl( ilnd enthusrawc .md conscious and rc\'olunonarv tn\C:ntors. fn
01her \\Or~1~ llr h.mkc1utcm creates the morutcr, but to [be end 1t*s the mon.u"t".t C\CrYonc
kilO"-\ l'\: ~ranltC'O\ICIIl ("'l~.lt CI\UUgh)
•nm 1\ "here the l\'o J'J'ugc' from Sch.1..~oti.tt.n .. naf')cc1in~(' Comtnon·Lowc·~ faHmrc
nt,,d-quutcd 10 the lh.trtcr ""The Cb.u.u:ter"--<:omc from Dx GOOII S4Ji,rr IS one of mv
f..l,vntc ot•\th too. 1\c re.ad 1t many u1nt1, nc:Ht too nl.llly; and I re3d at ag:..un l*d been
aU.cd tO WfUC' a rmlc'tfl'C to It-a.\ I w~ tuushmg Kc1fnngron Gcnltns ford M.adox ford's
t)(luk. uu~ht mC' lJkt '" '-1111 cr.aCh1ng me thr .tm"agUIUe\ of rht fi~t penon (ingubr a~ a
fUfT.Ut\C .. llc-uag."' the fir-.t ['(nnn .I\ '-hMilltr h ;Wu \httYo.cd me du.1 ccnain na.rnton-
JtJPtCC \\h.it mtnt rc..aJc,-,. u,u.aJiy thu1k.. he~. or c\cn dc:\1~ lie~ or \.lmpl) not feel the
n:mclf:nt oblaJJOC:tn to tell c'cn-dunll One cha.n~ u pl.am;. DC\'tt D"'U.St the tMOmnuc
~C'c.:hct ot ~ ml.n :fuU Of rlwma(tUtKJ.l'; or a 1'10\d tlut ih1fts from~ ti.roon.U chanctcr
rurn.ong. an the hn1 f'IC"t\un tn a rc-.11 hc-ru \1olth .a u ..,c i(tt boaS\' n.un.nng in thr durd
J"C()(llll• nr .auy 00\cl -h~nc lntCnUotli J.n: IO 1dl n-nyr/nN"'. ~lf'tlibrty. the f11.1('\ uf Ken
""S"'" lo.atJ<n. >nd the an••omy of l'ctCT Hook .ltC tun of bUd boles, of I<JR <J'K<' to boo
loa 1n l"'bc wt'tdm of them all m.t\~ coo subdc-conccrm •b::lhcr M.ucw Merbn
rc311y tdl• Pn<r Huok th•t h< ("'">d h•m m the aupon. or "il<th<r n's sunply • he, on m
~rcd,t'tfy mck..lum.att~.: J.nd Ow.kcmu.n (;abn.,.-;mon t-y \hrrus .\\trlin; Of--\lobo k.fh)\H-
¥.}'1Cthcr 1't1cr II•JIII4 ham~U a.s lu.Jiu.. n~ung~ 'J.Ilto":C • .dtcr all. JU'St a (C\\ page.~ evl1cr, hc\l
d<,..nbcd '" .\bmJS .\lcrbn lu• 0\lu t.>r • book about a boy lo>l m Hnthrow \ dmurb
ang hit nf lnform.auon an cht hn.al \J"'~'""I.md :-..;c,·crl.md, nonc ot ~ num doon optru
10 re\(".11 :an l11'J'I(•rt \4o:C'nC', (If to 'huw Pct~r Hook tht- bc.a Of oth~r p.uc-nt~ wbo llrc:n..,
~h'-\fun '"ll.aqcclm~"' ( Hmpron I fNC .111d :\kunJr;~ ~\\lntvn-Menztc' So 1hc~
tore
.366 THANKS AND EXPL A NAT I ONS
London; Sad Songs: The Unhappy Life of Peter Hook and Tm Parties
That Sbook tbe World, by Max Glass; A Litern.ry Gt,itle to umdou, by
Ed Glinert; The Goldm Age and Dream Days, by Kennerl1 Gra-
hame; All Dressed Up: The Sixties anti the Cozmtet··C11lture and Days
in the Life: Voices from tbe English Undergrotmtl, 1961-1971, by
Tonarllan Green; The Victorian Age: An Anthology of Sources and
Doc11mmts, ed. Josephine M. Guy; 1J1e Beatles Encyclopedia, b}' Bill
Harry; The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victo·
rian Englaud, by Kristine Hughes; Psycbedclic Decadence: Sex,
Dmgs and Low-Art in Sixties attd Sevmtics Britai~1, by Martin
Jones; Ready, Steady, Go! S1vingi11g Lo11don and the lm1t11tion of
Cool, by Shawn Levy;* ReJ>ollttion in tiJe Head: The Benrles' Records
aud the Sixties, by Ian MacDonald; TIJe Dictionary of lmagi1mry
Places, by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi; T11e Sixties, by
Ardmr Marwick; 1JJe Making of Vicroriatt Sexttaliry, by Michael
Mason; and Pnul McCartney: Many Years from Now and 111 the
Sixties, by Barry Miles; Mojo magazine (no. 75, February 2000);
T11e Cornelius CIJrOilicles, vols. 1, 2, and 3, and Mother London,
by Michael Moorcock; Die Verwirrmwm des Ziiglings TiMejl, by
Robert Musil; El Etemattta, by Hecror German Ocsterheld and
Francisco Solano LOpez; The E,Jcyclopedia of T11ings T11at Never
Were: c,·cnttn·cs, Places, nud People, by Michael Page and Roben
lngpen; l.Amdon in tbc Sixties, ed. George Perry; T7Je Disappearance
of CbildiJood, by Neil Postman; Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and
Goblins: An Eucyclopedia, by Carol Rose; Ligbts Out for tbe Terri·
rory, by Jain Sinclair; I May Be Some Time and The Child That Books
Built, by Francis Spufford; Eminent Victoriam, by Lytton Srrachey;
1J1e Victo1-itm Underworld, by Donald Thomas; Unmt magazine;
Kmsington Gat·dem, by H umbert 'Wolfe; T11e Wordswortb Compan·
iou to Literature in English and me Wordnvortb Encyclopaedia.
Anyone who wants to sec or hear or find certain similarities be-
tween the biographies, discographies, and artistic credos of Sc-
• J especially rhomk this book. roo, and its au[hor Vcrv 1t1ud\
THANKS AND EXP LA NATIONS J67
bastian "Darjccling" Compton-Lowe and the Beaten aka rllc
Beaten Victorians aka d1e VictoriaJlS, and those of Ray Davies and
the Kinks, is, of course, cordially im~red to do so. Although-if
clarification i~ needed here, which 1 doubt-Compton-Lowe didn't
have a millionrll of rlle talent rl1at Ray Davies had and has and will
always have; rl1is book and this author owe him a great deal.
And now that we're on the subject, to bring musical matters
and the sowldtr.tck that played in d1e fields of Kmsi11gtot1 Gnrde11s
during irs writing ro a close, my thanks also go to Pink floyd,
one of the bands of my mono-stereo, nondigitalized childhood;
especially the first three B-side tracks of me album Atom Heart
Mother and rlle song "Comfortably Numb" from The Wall; lines
from here and mere were recorded over childhood memories of
Peter Hook. I also thank rlle Who for Q}1adrophmia, and the
never sufficienrly praised Kate Bush, who, nor in vain, sings some·
dling called "In Search of Peter Pan" on her album Lio11beart.
And, as usual, this book-like od1cr books by me-couldn't have
been written if the Bcarles' "A Day in rlle Life" hadn't already
existed.
And a brief history of it all: I starrc:d to write Kcmi1Wf011 Gardem
before Mantra, at the beginning of 2000. The idea occurrc:d to
me--or, rather, occurred--one night as I was channel-surfing, and
stopped ro warch somcrlling on one of Spanish Television's Chan-
nel 2 "Theme Nights," something that looked like an old domestic
film and in which, tO my astonishment, G. K. Chesterton and
Bernard Shaw could be seen dressed up as cowboys and playing in
a garden wim a litde man whom I had never seen before and about
whom I knew nothing, and who turned our to be ]ames Marrllew
Barrie. What was being shown was a French documentary on rlle
life of rlle aurllor of Peter Pan. After it came the first film version of
Peter Pan, directed by Herbert Brenon. Trurll be told, Peter Pan-
like the segment of Walt Disney's Fantasia called "The Sorcerer's
Apprentice," which is also generally believed to be something that
figures in the makeup of my DNA-was never one of my childhood
308 THANKS AND EXPLANATIONS
or adult tctishc~, * but what I ~aw then: sparked a certain fascination
in me. I'm not entirely \Ure that the best thing for a writer is to
write books .1bout what he feels most passionate about; but ir does
seem essential ro me: to become: passionate during the writing of
the book, whate,er it\ about. Tr happened to me with Barrie, and
with B:trric'~ ~tO!). A story that, in some way, firs perfectly ''ith my
habitual ob~~ions, and dur-a~ my fiiend the writer Alan Pauls
righdy s.Ud about Mnnrrn- has once aga.m, and maybe even more
so, turned out tO be ~a ~ad, anconsolable nm·el "·hose ~crct place as
chaldhood and who~ ~ub1ccts arc nmc and form: the only two
things that childhood ne,·cr concerns t~clf with and the only two
thmgs that concern rhcmschcs \\ith chaldhood."
I had juH lim\hcd a fir.t versaon of the no\cl (along with the
firM part of Mnllfrn, "The Mc:\Kan Friend") in October 2000,
when my trus~ and hardworlung Compaq Conrura laptop (RIP)
decided to bid farewell to thas mort:tl 1\ orld thanks to a deadly
virus that arrin~d b' c mail, contaminated backups, permanendy
wiped out the DOS (SOSn loclung system, stranded the h:trd disk
on the other side, and, )'Oll guessed it, sent everything straight to
Neverland on a one way ticker; my greetings to that tirsr Kensirlg-
toll Gnrdem if you sec 11 around. In any case, I still haven't been
able to bnng my\clf to thro'' my dc.1d computer away, because I
resist livmg 111 an .1gc:-rhc Age of Philip K. Dick?- in which
• E\plonn11 the l>ohh<>l!urh• thJ: I ttudu>ll~ n-cmhl<d •l>•>UI B.unc """ hn nulic11, I dt•·
l.O\'Ctttl th.u :\ndtc-" lhrkm .1uthur vf the .afhrcmc:nuoncJ buuk. ind1..pmsablc w t1us
book ilio '"ole • "tnlottV" 1.,.. the BI!C t>n the "'!'-' ol the U..-dm Danes bromen. I
looked lor tt but wuiJn't ~et om lund• on n (.dthou!th I lound ooox slilb on the lntcmct J.
And ._, I """ thi• hn•l nu<c, I ruJ thJt • him <>II<J fmli11•.! ~·nvr/JuuJ, sumng Johnny
Ocpp, \\hi-.;h urcncJ LO 2004, 10 •hl<h d\C' ''""' vf the gene"-\ .lll..l \\nnng uf Pu" PI,.
will be tok! &n the nunncr nf VJIIlt•pt-ln u• liatt, ot '\.0 if~ YiJ J'\c tce.n photogr-.apfu in
the rru~tonc '"'""' Fatr OcrJ-unhke lm Holm on the same: rule 111 the BBC nuruscncs
.dre>d1 m<:nuoocd h.u bttle ut nothm,: on common ,.,th B.une. Duson Holfm.m bean
c>cn lea ol> r<O<mbl•ncc w llwln frolunm (m the J'IC'UfC I h>Y< ot'lum, w ~nung
Bu<Wiu look., • bttlc bkt l'ctcr I A)IT<) AnJ I '"1'1"*' lo:Jtc \\-msl<r's Bnush beaut) won't
l>c JMnD(! 10 her ronnr.U ol \jliiJ lln-el}n OJ\ln,l>ut "\\illllCicr >ecm right'" me dt.ll
!'h.O Uc"chn n~\~ fu, b«n ",r<d tmm tiK' nu.~C·r. I rc,.J ... quc..UOIU of nuratJ'\C
ftC)\'~... or some tou"h than~ ln .am '~\<:, u will be J rlu,urc ro go and Sit"c Fmlillf.lf }...~~
/J101i .alter bJVUI[I lett Krnnn411n (;•ritnJ t>chond Uld thrown the tiD· over m\' left shoulder
mt(.l 1 dnch-thr'M.Jgh kr'\ horc no }'C)(,r dC\ll will decade: ro tUe 2 uroll and lea: hunsdfmto
t~ gJ.rdcnJ>, Jt thl\ l)tC hour .and wuh the.: J'lr'k U\c:man
THANKS AND EXPLANATIONS
portable computer~ end up in the same place as chicken bones and
old newspapers And no\\ that I think about it-in the beginning,
in it~ first incarnation-Kt~~sitJgtorJ Gnrdms \Vas a book thar, like
Peter Pan, refused to grow up.
There's no such thing as coincidence:. ~othing is lost, and-
with a little bat of luck and good forn.me~\·c:rything is trans-
formed. And, yes, ~ I finish writing this, I decide that now's the:
moment· the time: has come to drop my computer into one of
those pracucal plastic bins on the comer ne:tr my house. I go
down and adieu and come back up and continue on my .Mac
PowerBook, which-now that we're on the subject-has given me
plent) of sc:tres in the slighdy less than three years it's been
plugged in Mth me.
And I'd say Kensi1llJf01J Gnrdms is an incredibly lucky book.
The name of the infamous sender of the killer e-mail in question
isn't worthy of appearing here; I'm sure that he or she will
receive- if he or she ha~n 't already received-his or her just pun
ishment.
Meanwhile, many other names-and the people those names
belong to-contributed in one wa>' or another to the writing of
this novel, fbr which they won't be hc:ld responsible if they dou't
want ro be, although Kmsi,'l]tOII Gnrdeus docs consider them its
great and indispensable friends and benefacwrs.
Here they are:
C:trmen BalceUs Literar) Agency, Carlos Alberdi, Eduardo Be-
cerra, Juan Ignacio Boido, Lee Brackstone, Javier Cah'o, Monica
C:trmona, Jordi Com, Esther Cross, Luz de Ia Mora, Ignacio
Eche\'arria, EdJtorial Mondadori, Faber and Faber, Farr:tr, Straus
and Giroux, Du:go Gandara, Alfredo Garofano, Dolores Grana,
Andreu Jaume, ~orma Elizabeth Mastrorilli, Alan Pauls, Ana
Romero, Guallcrmo Saccomanno, Lonn Stein, Ennquc Vila
.Mata\, Narasha Wimmer
.J"() THANKS AND EXPL ANATIONS

... and my usual found men: the Beades, John Cheever, Philip K.
Dick, Bob Dylan, Robyn Hitchcock, Denis Johnson, Stanley
Kubrick, Herman Mch·illc, Marcel Proust, and Kurr Vonncgur.

And-once again-a special thanks to Claudio L6pez de

Lamadnd, who lim bche,ed in th•~ idea and then clapped so it
wouldn't die

And to Roberto Bolmo, with us fore,·er.

And to Ana, for cxlstmg.

•
\
Set of • ry .

• was born in Argentina and now lives in Barcelona.

) He is rbe aurbor of ceo books. Kmsingron Gardnu

is che first of chese co be rranslaced mto Englash.

I
I

Jo<l<t .re <{-it ~ ~ Dn"'- '!" 6. "'-~ loJ

J ,, ......_..,...._ _ _ ,.. . ... ....... o.-J)mn
"-pdf.. o.ld.... ......._,_ - .. . . . _ _ . ......
........_ ~ o...JT..,. I C..., """" IN.1pu4 .,.....,.
>~:IDUr1af of dw H.,lm.uk -~ ~ ("Mda..lrc..

,ARRAR . STRAUS AND GIROUX

 lnternotloa•l ' ' • • • •

K111l11111 lar
With astoruslnns skilL flam (who - be 11:d'._..
nouhlc of )'011111 Ladn Amcrica:l wmen -
com pin. gnpping nar:Mift about loot e!lft
rc•ulung tragic adult liYa . . (A) 'll'bciNH
- Alberto Mulpd 1M C»usaw·(ll;i;ltft
,..
"One of Buenos Aires's brigluat ~ XU lll
on h11 abilocy to collate sccmifllly tandom lcleu ...... hiijl!liii. .il!j
puzzl<> and mmns thematic c:onnecaot~~. Mil XIIII _ . . ,. ......
diVer~<' fictoons, or a cuhural thcsaurul. or ,..t r•- a Ia~•1r
the am ol boopphy and au&Dbiopph)r. ,.,... -a .........
and p.ockcd WJth idcu.• --Chna Moll. 7lt n... L• _, ........

• Kmsmgto11 Gtm/ms stylisbly evoka a wllolly 10011\'incias

[Wwardoan) and 1960s Loadon sptUIIIO lifll• ,_.. pla)'i
m-nlmg the depcbs of Hooks ~ IIIII 00111idolriii!J wlillt'Jili,j
cdmnty. while mmapn& a sly dis • _ .........
-Siohhan ~ M#l8 o.a•aIIIOitJ