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ANECDOTES about ELEANOR BERRY by Rozanne Robinson, a freelance jounalist
The Washing of Ian Rosen and The Fourteen chairs
When Berry created the character, Ian Rosen, she had no idea she would be besotted by him. This could be because he was a "character of void", meaning that he was not based on anyone, living or dead. The notion that he is based on Robert Maxwell is contemptible nonsense.
When he first appeared on her pages, she was unaware of the problems he would generate. It was the case of the Creation overpowering the Creator, like Frankenstein's monster.
When Berry writes, she allows her characters to come out of themselves and unfold, provided they adhere to the plot. She does not like to regiment them, for fear that they might become wooden.
As The Rendon Boy to the Grave is Gone unfolded she found, not only that she had fallen in love with Rosen, but that he had possessed her. His sexuality had become so savage and so virulent that she found she could no longer hold him steady. Two of Berry's closest friends from Golders Green advised her to destroy the book, for fear that Berry was destroying herself.
Berry does not believe in literary abortions but she had to come to an agonizing decision to, quoting her own words, "lung cancer Rosen out." This broke her heart.
When Berry created Rosen, she portrayed him as a publisher, who is a man- hating ladies' man, a man who is fiercely secular, a man who loves children and a man with a passion for sex, together with the beauty of the written word.
Berry has shown him as a man who is often clean, but sometimes goes for days without washing and wears his tie loosened at the neck. Whether or not Berry is turned on by the unwashed male with a loosened tie, is not known. All that is known is that she is smitten, not by a real person, but a character from her pen alone. It is the fact that Ian Rosen is not real, which has tormented her most. In order to disguise her infatuation, Berry re-wrote the first edition 12 times and the second edition twice.
She took more time and trouble on her Rendon Boy than any of her other books.
Berry sent her Rendon Boy to two independent female literary editors, both of whom told her that the "Sex Bomb" she had created was not attractive but unattractive, mainly because of his bathing habits.
Berry would have preferred a male editor and a female, instead of two female editors, on the grounds that a male judge might assess her work more rationally.
Berry spoke to one of the editors on the telephone and indirectly implied that women who did not favour the natural odour of an unwashed male, were, to quote her own words, "a bit awry."
One of the editors contacted Berry again and distressed her very greatly by forcefully stating that the Rendon Boy could not even be considered for publication until Berry was prepared to "wash" Rosen.
Berry got into a terrible state for several days, not so much because critics were rejecting her, but because they were rejecting Rosen who had become so close to her heart, that he might as well have been a living person.
However, she composed herself and submitted a scholarly University level report about 5,000 words long to the most recalcitrant of the two editors stating exactly what changes she had made in the 2nd edition of the Rendon Boy, and why. She wrote a particularly forceful, if unnecessarily lengthy, insertion, not only explaining why the advice to "wash" Rosen had upset her so much, but also stating why she refused to "wash" him.
Several 'phone calls took place about whether he was to be "washed" or not. The more frequent the discussions, the more upset Berry became, totally baffling friends and relatives alike. Just as we have the stereotype "hunting, shooting and fishing" bore, Berry developed the issue into an obsession and was even labelled by those who loved her, as the "Rosen Ablution Bore."
Things came to a climax when Berry rashly rang up the Editor in a distraught, emotional state from her mobile 'phone, in the kitchen of a countrywoman who had invited her to a lunch party, and stated that she was prepared to surrender. It would not be fair to say she was hysterical, only that she was bordering on hysteria as her preoccupation had deprived her of sleep for several nights. She shed her inhibitions and shouted into the mouthpiece,
"OK. I'll compromise. I've had enough! I'll wash him if that's all I have to do to get the book published. I'll get out bucket, brimming bumper, mop, soap and bloody disinfectant soaked in a sponge, propelled by my own bare hands if I have to!"
Berry ended the conversation and looked up. She saw a woman, she said she hadn't seen before, holding two steaming dishes in gloved hands, trying to kick the stove door shut with her foot.
The overheard telephone conversation had startled the woman.
"What are you going to wash with bucket and brimming bumper?" she asked.
Berry evaded the question.
"Are you the owner of this charming elegant house, or are you here in a servile capacity," she asked.
"You are peculiar," said the woman. "I'm your hostess and you were only introduced to me five minutes ago."
"Oh, oh, I see. I'm terribly, terribly worried."
"Why?"
"Because there are thirteen places laid at your dining table. I counted them before I came into the kitchen."
"Surely, you must see I'm very busy?"
"I understand that, but it's really unlucky to have thirteen people at a table. Are you able to produce a fourteenth chair?"
"What? Now? You're joking!"
"Then, may I have your permission to go and find a fourteenth chair and either a doll or a dog to put on it?"
"Bloody hell, no! There aren't any dolls here. My children are grown up. There aren't any dogs, either."
"I'm terribly sorry, but if you are unable to produce a fourteenth chair, I'm afraid I'm going to have to go outside and sit in the car."
A dish containing creamed leeks sprinkled with nutmeg, fell to the floor.
"F***!" shouted Berry's hostess.
A man came into the kitchen, possibly the woman's husband. Berry was too distraught by the "Washing of Ian Rosen" to help. The problem was explained to the man, who, thinking Berry was a bit strange, rushed into the drawing room and wrenched an eighteenth century Blackamoor from a niche in the wall and staggered, under its weight, into the dining room.
He then went to a back room, and produced a precarious-looking blue wicker chair and pushed it to the table. When he put the heavy Blackamoor on the chair, two of its legs gave way.
The hostess rushed from the kitchen.
"F***!" she shouted, a second time.
"Oh, it's all right," said Berry. "All that matters is that it is there."
"I think there's something seriously wrong with your head," said the hostess.
Berry was invited to another large house for lunch the following day. She has a poor memory for faces and surroundings at first sight. She went to the kitchen where another woman was frantically cooking. The woman, a hired cook in frayed jeans and an ill-fitting Oxfam sweater, looked up from her pans, startled by Berry who was dressed in leopard skin and black leather.
"Can I help you?"
"I really am awfully sorry about the incident, well, in relation to that blue chair of yours, yesterday, and I hope I did not create a misunderstanding about, well, er, something you may have heard me say, about something I said I was going to wash. I wasn't casting any aspersions about the cleanliness of these, er, premises."
The accent of the woman cooking was vintage Bethnal Green, and could have belonged to Reggie Kray's mother.
"Bloody hell! I don't know what you're rabbitting on about, darlin'! I'm trying to cook for bloody twenty. I gets ú6 an hour and I'm on the sodding job every day of the year."
"Oh, so as I understand it, you are not the owner of this house?"
"Owner of this house! Stone the bloody saints! I work cos' my husband's a f***ing drunk!"
"Oh, is he? I'll make a f***ing note of that."
"Just do me a favour, will you, love. Piss off! I can't take this kind of carry on!"
"If that's what you wish me to do, I will do it," said Eleanor Berry.
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