Although I have never had the slightest interest in celebrity gossip, I am fascinated by the mystery of certain creative partnerships, by their apparent unfathomability to most observers.Bruce & Elizabeth Chatwin's 23-year marriage is for me one of such enigmas, despite the numerous cynical or mythologising accounts still circulating around, and about which I have always tried to remain somewhat sceptical. Nicholas Shakespeare's fine biography of Bruce Chatwin, while not wholly unravelling the mystery (thank goodness), throws a delicate - and arguable - light on it:
A part of him was taking refuge. Bruce worked in a world where homosexuality was not stigmatised, yet he came from a background which did not approve of homosexuality. This dilemma had driven him to Khartoum. He may have hoped [...] that "homosexual behaviour is something you grow out of", and that he could follow the model of his parents' successful marriage. [...] What he aspired to was something not too distant from Sue Goodhew's horoscope ideal: a family life and a relationship that was public, comfortable and supportive. He believed the happiness that marriage and a family would bring might outweight any sexual urges. It was his greatest luck to find Elizabeth Chanler.
[...]
Bruce had told his parents that he was marrying Elizabeth because "she's got a very good head for heights". Only when pressed by his brother did he go further. Hugh put the question to Bruce while walking down Bond Street . "I asked why he was marrying Elizabeth after all the beautiful women he had known: Ivry, Samira, Gloria..." Bruce stopped in the street and replied: "To stop myself going mad."
Hugh understood Bruce to be saying, stormed by his nervous collapse: "This is my anchor."
[...]
Elizabeth, too, may have hoped that marriage and a family would change things. "I knew Bruce was ambidextrous. He was never obvious about it and it embarrassed him that he had this tendency, but he wasn't going to give in to it completely. Looking back, I think he was very uncomfortable at having got himself into this situation, but given his background he didn't see any alternative, and he thought men living together completely unnatural.
[...]
Bruce's "eye" was never better demonstrated than in his choice of a wife. They had a community of interest. Both had grown up on farms; loved art, travel, independence. Both had the Navy and steel in their blood and shared a way of looking at the world. Bruce was continually startled by Elizabeth's originality and lack of self-consciousness: she was never moved by what people thought she ought to be doing or thinking. He admired her, needed her honesty and she made him laugh.
[...]
"When he met her, he'd met his match," says John Stefanidis. "She knew as much, if not more, than he did. It was checkmate." The marriage was not universally understood, yet it made good and lasting sense. It would be unorthodox - but that worried neither. Elizabeth came from a line of eccentric women accustomed to letting their husbands roam.
[...]
There would be painful passages and periods of separation. Bruce had "smart" friends who were slower to see Elizabeth for what she was; sometimes, to his discredit, he appeared to go along with them. Frequently, he went off with other people. He behaved like a little boy with Elizabeth, says Julia Hodgkin. "Always running away from home, setting off with his belongings tied in a kerchief to a stick, knowing that, come nightfall, mummy would come down the road looking for him.
Throughout their marriage Elizabeth remained steadfast. [...] She had the ability not to be emotionally clinging. There was a matter-of-factness in her acceptance of whatever he did. She had made her decision about him and her love was constant. Bruce was the person who could most share the way she saw and lived in the world, and it was plain to Gillian Walker that Bruce felt the same way about her. "His life as it was constructed resembled a circus tent. Everything else can go on, but it has to have a pole to keep it in place. That centering is vital for someone who has a passion for the variety of experiences that the world can offer. Elizabeth was pivotal. Without her whatever chaos there was in his life would have pulled Bruce away from himself."
He needed someone both to run away from and to come back to and he found in Elizabeth that person. "He was dreadful to her," says Gloria, "but he stayed." Ivry Freyberg had no doubt about his motives. "There was no question that he was in love with Elizabeth. She was a completely new animal, so unlike an English girl. He told me: 'I've found this most fantastic American and I'm mad about her'."
Nicholas Shakespeare, Bruce Chatwin (London: Vintage, 2000), pp. 167-69.
A part of him was taking refuge. Bruce worked in a world where homosexuality was not stigmatised, yet he came from a background which did not approve of homosexuality. This dilemma had driven him to Khartoum. He may have hoped [...] that "homosexual behaviour is something you grow out of", and that he could follow the model of his parents' successful marriage. [...] What he aspired to was something not too distant from Sue Goodhew's horoscope ideal: a family life and a relationship that was public, comfortable and supportive. He believed the happiness that marriage and a family would bring might outweight any sexual urges. It was his greatest luck to find Elizabeth Chanler.
[...]
Bruce had told his parents that he was marrying Elizabeth because "she's got a very good head for heights". Only when pressed by his brother did he go further. Hugh put the question to Bruce while walking down Bond Street . "I asked why he was marrying Elizabeth after all the beautiful women he had known: Ivry, Samira, Gloria..." Bruce stopped in the street and replied: "To stop myself going mad."
Hugh understood Bruce to be saying, stormed by his nervous collapse: "This is my anchor."
[...]
Elizabeth, too, may have hoped that marriage and a family would change things. "I knew Bruce was ambidextrous. He was never obvious about it and it embarrassed him that he had this tendency, but he wasn't going to give in to it completely. Looking back, I think he was very uncomfortable at having got himself into this situation, but given his background he didn't see any alternative, and he thought men living together completely unnatural.
[...]
Bruce's "eye" was never better demonstrated than in his choice of a wife. They had a community of interest. Both had grown up on farms; loved art, travel, independence. Both had the Navy and steel in their blood and shared a way of looking at the world. Bruce was continually startled by Elizabeth's originality and lack of self-consciousness: she was never moved by what people thought she ought to be doing or thinking. He admired her, needed her honesty and she made him laugh.
[...]
"When he met her, he'd met his match," says John Stefanidis. "She knew as much, if not more, than he did. It was checkmate." The marriage was not universally understood, yet it made good and lasting sense. It would be unorthodox - but that worried neither. Elizabeth came from a line of eccentric women accustomed to letting their husbands roam.
[...]
There would be painful passages and periods of separation. Bruce had "smart" friends who were slower to see Elizabeth for what she was; sometimes, to his discredit, he appeared to go along with them. Frequently, he went off with other people. He behaved like a little boy with Elizabeth, says Julia Hodgkin. "Always running away from home, setting off with his belongings tied in a kerchief to a stick, knowing that, come nightfall, mummy would come down the road looking for him.
Throughout their marriage Elizabeth remained steadfast. [...] She had the ability not to be emotionally clinging. There was a matter-of-factness in her acceptance of whatever he did. She had made her decision about him and her love was constant. Bruce was the person who could most share the way she saw and lived in the world, and it was plain to Gillian Walker that Bruce felt the same way about her. "His life as it was constructed resembled a circus tent. Everything else can go on, but it has to have a pole to keep it in place. That centering is vital for someone who has a passion for the variety of experiences that the world can offer. Elizabeth was pivotal. Without her whatever chaos there was in his life would have pulled Bruce away from himself."
He needed someone both to run away from and to come back to and he found in Elizabeth that person. "He was dreadful to her," says Gloria, "but he stayed." Ivry Freyberg had no doubt about his motives. "There was no question that he was in love with Elizabeth. She was a completely new animal, so unlike an English girl. He told me: 'I've found this most fantastic American and I'm mad about her'."
Nicholas Shakespeare, Bruce Chatwin (London: Vintage, 2000), pp. 167-69.
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