In the spring of 1925 Graham Greene (then 20 years old) fell in love with the fervently Roman Catholic Vivienne Dayrell-Browning. For the next two years he courted her, mainly in an outpouring of hundreds of letters, and they were married in October 1927. There is no doubt that they were fond of each other, but neither was ready for this step. Greene was managing the impulses of bipolar illness, involving mood swings from elation, expansiveness or irritability to despair and would quickly be guilty of repeated infidelities.

Vivien (as she then began to spell her name) affected an extreme girlishness, was uneasy about sex and could be both priggish and sentimental. Their marriage had some periods of happiness, but Greene became deeply absorbed in his writing and would often go abroad. Vivien developed interests in Victorian furniture and antiquated dolls’ houses. The couple had two children, Lucy Caroline and Francis. The marriage effectively came to an end in 1939, but a formal separation did not occur until 1947. As part of his courtship of Vivien, Greene adopted her religion.

Balliol College, Oxford
May 26, 1925

It must be rather fun collecting Souls, Vivienne. Like postage stamps. I enjoyed this evening marvellously, but now I’ve got back I feel . . . it’s just as hopeless that you will ever be more than mildly interested in that blasted nonexistent soul of mine. What it all comes to, I suppose, is that I’ve never really been in love before, only suggested myself into a state of mild excitement.

37 Smith Street, Chelsea
August 7, 1925

Darling, I’ve never met so complete a companion as you. Those winter evenings you describe seem to me the only thing worth having. It’s companionship with you that I want & just that sort of companionship. You would go on holidays, when you liked, & see your mother when you liked, & I should share your companionship. I shouldn’t grumble if it was a less share than your mother had. You could work too if you wanted to. There’d be no domestic tying down, & you’d always keep your ideal of celibacy, & you could help me to keep the same ideal. And besides having some of the winter evenings with me, as well as having some with your mother, we should have our own adventures together. Because sometimes, when I’d been good, you’d come for a holiday with me, & we should have that night train journey across Europe. And the whole thing would be an adventure finer than the ordinary marriage, because it would be two, not merely fighting for each other, but for a shared ideal.

Greene was a man of strong appetites, often made utterly unmanageable by bipolar illness. His offer of a “monastic marriage” was doomed from the start. His sexual life was conducted mainly outside marriage; he was involved in many brief liaisons, sometimes with prostitutes, and he had several long relationships. After the publication of his first novel, The Man Within, Greene took a trip to Eastern Europe. The Baltic countries lay in the sights of both the Soviet Union and Germany, who were intent on installing sympathetic governments. The trip would later influence the writing of Our Man in Havana.

Hotel Room, Tallinn, Estonia
May 12, 1934

Dearest, dearest darling love – I’ve just got your letter. I might have had it yesterday but I seem to have gone to the wrong place – it’s rather difficult when everything’s in Russian! Darling darling love, I do hope you are feeling well & that Lucy is allowing you to sleep. I don’t wonder at her being thirsty in this weather. I am drinking all day – soft drinks mostly, as the wine is much more expensive than in England & the beer is not very good. I’m feeling terribly well & sunburnt & selfish at having left you behind. I should be enjoying this so much more with you.

By April 1939, Graham was involved in a very serious relationship with Dorothy Glover, which continued until the late 1940s. Although Glover’s short, stout appearance was hardly prepossessing, he admired her direct and forceful character, which offered a decided contrast to Vivien’s. The two remained in London through the Blitz. In later years Dorothy became a Catholic. Hard drinking eventually destroyed her health. On October 18, 1940, Greene’s home in Clapham was bombed. Vivien and the children were in Oxford and Greene was at the studio in Bloomsbury, so the house was unoccupied. He wrote to his mother:

As from 99 Gower Street
October 19, 1940

Alas! our house went at 1.30am on Friday. I arrived to collect some objects at 8.30 to find a scene of devastation. Either a landmine at the back or else a whole load of bombs . . . Impossible to get beyond the hall for wreckage. I only hope some of my books & some of V’s things will be saved. Rather heartbreaking that so lovely a house that has survived so much should go like that. And I feel overawed without my books.

Greene’s shock at the destruction of a fine old house was not the whole story. Stocked with costly antiques, the house had stood as Vivien’s recompense for an unstable childhood. Greene felt more and more engulfed in a middle-class way of life, from which he had sought escape since adolescence. The destruction of the house brought these differences of temperament and expectation into sharper focus. The end of the marriage of Greene and Vivien can probably be dated from the beginning of the war when she evacuated to Crowborough, then Oxford, and he remained in London with Dorothy Glover. His time in Africa merely postponed a reckoning. A month after his return, Vivien had apparently confronted him with evidence of infidelity.

King’s Arms (Oxford)
April 8, 9, 1943

I love you so much, my darling. Please believe that. Things have been difficult these last years, but I want so much to make you happy. That’s what I always said I’d do. You are the best, the most dear person I’ve ever known. Life is sometimes so beastly that one wishes one were dead, [Greene originally wrote and then amended “I wish I were dead”] & I go to places like Mexico & Freetown in a half hope that everything will be finished – but . . . back I come and ask you to like me & go on liking me. You mean more to me than the children, though I may seem nicer to them! Sometimes I wish I could twist a ring & skip twenty years & be old with you, with all this ragged business over. I’ve never wanted to be old, but with you I could be old & happy. God bless you, dear. God bless you, dear. I’ve told a lot of lies in 38 years or I suppose in 35 years, one couldn’t lie from the cradle – but this is true. I hate life & I hate myself & I love you. Never forget that. I don’t hate life, ever, when I’m with you and you are happy, but if I ever made you unhappy really badly & hopelessly or saw life make you that, I’d want to die quickly. There’s a cat moving outside the door. If it were you how quickly I’d let you in. I love you dear, good night. Keep this.

Late May, 1943

Dear heart, I can’t tell you how sorry I am about things – I feel I’ve fooled you. I think for ten years I kept you happy, but then things went to pot. I hate your being unhappy, & I do understand why. I never think you are lucky – I think you are having a tougher war than anyone I know. You are having a tougher war than people even whose husbands are killed because death is a kind of distraction, a jerk that sets one into a new life. I really feel that it would have been better for you if I’d been torpedoed or plane crashed because a novel sort of vitality would have been handed over to you after the first shock. My dear, my dear, my dear, I love you [so] much – that’s true however badly now I show it – even when it seems untrue, it’s true.

The marriage staggered on for another four years, when Greene’s relationship with Catherine Walston led to a final separation. Vivien refused to grant a divorce in the belief that sacramental marriage is indissoluble. The sentiment Greene expresses here, that a wife might be better off with such a husband dead, reappears as part of Scobie’s motive for suicide in The Heart of the Matter. Catherine Walston was the American wife of the wealthy Labour MP Harry Walston (later Lord Walston). Although a stranger, she asked Greene to serve as her godfather, since his books had influenced her decision to become a Catholic. Within a few months they had embarked on a serious affair that continued, with interruptions, for more than a decade.

Eyre & Spottiswoode
September 25, 1946

Dear Mrs Walston This is a shockingly belated note of congratulations & best wishes. I gave my secretary a telegram to send, but in the rush of work (I had been away on the Continent for a fortnight) she never sent it! I feel I am a most neglectful godfather! I haven’t even sent you a silver mug or a spoon to bite. I heard all about the breakfast from Vivien. I wish I’d been there.

Again, all my best wishes for the future. Yours, Graham Greene

Eyre & Spottiswoode, c. October 1946

Dear Catherine,

I wrote off the other day – to a wrong address apparently, in Ireland – explaining my apparent chilling silence on the day of your reception, & now my sense of guilt is increased by your letter! However what would a novelist do without a sense of guilt?

I think the whole business of your becoming a Catholic was extraordinarily courageous – I became one before I had any ties.

How lovely the West of Ireland sounds. Do come & tell us about it in Oxford when you get back. Yours, Graham Greene

Greene spent most of April with Walston in a cottage on Achill Island in the west of Ireland.

Monday, May 5, 1947

You won’t be able to read this so I can put what I like!

I missed you so much on Sunday. Mass wasn’t the same at all. We went to 12 o’clock at St Patrick’s, Soho, & had a drink afterwards at the Salisbury in St Martin’s Lane. I just missed you all the time & felt depressed & restless. A bit of a row blew up before I left – she said I had changed so much in Ireland, but she still believes that it’s simply that I’ve come under influence of a pious convert! Tried to ring you from Charing Cross. Got to sleep by reading, still depressed, but woke up blissfully happy. You had been with me very vividly saying, “I like your sexy smell” – & of course I had a sexy smell! It had been one of those nights!

Then there was a line from you (how beautiful your handwriting is), & then I got you on the telephone. Result I feel cheerful & I’ve written 1,000 words! And you love me – you do you know. And I see you on Thursday.

After John Boulting directed Richard Attenborough in Brighton Rock(1947), Sir Alexander Korda produced The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949), and he introduced Greene to Carol Reed, who directed both films.

To Catherine Walston, 15 Beaumont Street, Oxford, 7.45, June 10, 1947

I’ve been in town all day seeing Korda & Carol Reed: they are buying a short story of mine called The Basement Room [ The Fallen Idol] & want me to work on it. Once I supposed I’d have been excited & pleased by all this (it means about £3,000), but I feel dreary. Thank you for the keys, darling, & for the letter. I think a lot of it is self-deception. (I think perhaps your love for me is too. I don’t know.) If I’m going to tell the whole truth to Vivien, what’s the good of keeping us back? Within 12 months a new line of deception would have developed.

I expect this is the end. If it is you’ve given me the best morphia I’ve ever had. Thank you. Thank God, anyway that there’s somebody I can’t hurt. With love, Graham

15 Beaumont Street, Oxford
June 29, 1947

Dreamed last night that you telephoned as usual & woke happy. Here my relations with Vivien seem to be slumping back to the old level. An individual can’t of course be heroic all the time: last time she was heroic, now the heroism has worn out . . . Quite literally the only way I get any happiness now is either with you or with work. And work is for the time being over. So tomorrow unless wiser counsels prevail I shall set about pursuing you to Ireland. Cafryn, dear, I want to kiss you, touch you, make love to you – & simply, sit in a car & be driven by you. Tomorrow (unless I’m wise & only the very young can be wise) I shall telegraph proposing a date.

I nearly slept at Mass today. How dead it was – not dead in the amusing phosphorescent way of last Sunday, aware of your shoulder half an inch from mine, but just limp & meaningless & boring. I’m not even a Catholic properly away from you. Love, Graham

Dear Vivien

If possible I think we should discuss matters before I leave for Vienna, though I don’t expect to be away more than ten days.

You know I am fond of you. Quite apart from that I am aware of the responsibilities I owe you & the children. But, mainly through my fault, we have lived for years too far from reality, & the fact that has to be faced, dear, is that by my nature, my selfishness, even in some degree by my profession, I should always, & with anyone, have been a bad husband. I think, you see, my restlessness, moods, melancholia, even my outside relationships, are symptoms of a disease & not the disease itself, & the disease, which has been going on ever since my childhood & was only temporarily alleviated by psychoanalysis, lies in a character profoundly antagonistic to ordinary domestic life. Unfortunately the disease is also one’s material. Cure the disease & I doubt whether a writer would remain. I daresay that would be all to the good.

For nearly nine years, as you know, I have had a second domestic life in London, but the fact that that has been without the ties & responsibilities of a husband has not made it any more of a success. So you see I really feel the hopelessness of sharing a life with anyone without causing them unhappiness & disillusion – if they have any illusions. If you feel that a life is possible for us in which, though Oxford is my headquarters, there are no conditions, no guarantees or timetables laid down for either of us, then let us try it. But, my dear, if as you reasonably may, you feel this arrangement (or lack of an arrangement) would only make for more misery, then I think we had better have an open separation which will be less of a problem & nerve-strain for both of us than the disguised separation is now. With affection, Graham

To Catherine Walston, 5 St James’s Street, London
July 8, 1949

My dear, after all this time have we got to say goodbye. Harry says I am not to speak to you. Is this final? You always said you would stick to me. I don’t know what to do. For God’s sake send me a line.

To Catherine Walston, [Paris] 11.30am, December 18, 1949

Dear, forgive this letter in advance, a humiliating wail of self-pity that I am ashamed of. But I’m missing you terribly here – the fortnight doesn’t seem to have helped & I just feel at the end of my tether, or near it. After Mass I was stupid enough to walk across the river, & I found myself crying in the Tuileries Gardens. I don’t know what to do. It was all right yesterday when I spoke to you, but one can’t telephone all the time. You captured Rome & Dublin, & now at the second assault you’ve captured Paris. My dear my dear. I used to like being alone, but now it’s a horror. One thinks of times when we were happy & one tries to shut off thought. It’s horrible that one can’t be happy thinking of happy times like one can in an ordinary relationship.

I don’t know what to do about next year. I so long for your company – I don’t, at this moment, want to make love. I want to sit on the floor with my head resting between your legs & be at peace. The telephone pulls at my elbow but what’s the good? My dear, I never knew love was like this, a pain that only stops when I’m with people, drinking. Thank God, from tomorrow there are lots of engagements. For God’s sake, dear, don’t hold this letter against me, & be sweet on Thursday. You can always cure this pain by coming in at a door. You don’t know how I need you.

Pray for me, Graham

Among Greene’s exotic travels was a visit to Haiti, the inspiration for The Comedians. In recording his impressions for Catherine he asked her to “keep this letter in case I need it to refresh my mind”.

El Rancho Hotel, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, August 30, 1954

I wonder if this will follow you to Ireland? Last night we were at a Voodoo ceremony until 3 in the morning. One reads about such things but to see them is incredible & terrifying. The first two hours were spent in a kind of parody of Catholic rites – a choir of white-clothed girls jigging & singing & responding, holy banners – one marked St Jacques, the portrait of a saint, the kissing of crosses & vestments, endless prayers from the Houngan or priest recited in a Catholic way, the “fairy” motions of a server, a kind of Asperges with a jug of water, the horrible really began when the Agape began a procession carrying fuel & food & dishes & a live hen. The man carrying the hen swung it like a censer, & then would dash to this & that member of the congregation & plaster his face & body with the live bird (you can imagine how I felt about that!). More interminable prayers & then the bird’s feet were cracked off like cheese biscuits & the attendant put the live bird’s head in his mouth & bit it off – the body of course went on flapping while he squeezed the blood out of the trunk.

By the mid-Fifties, there was little reason for Greene to hope for marriage from Catherine Walston. He began a relationship with Anita Björk, the recently widowed Swedish actress. He found himself very much in love but Stockholm was dull, and his sense of humour shocked the Swedes. Short of asking Björk to abandon her career and live elsewhere, there was no hope of marriage or any other satisfying arrangement between them. By the end of the decade, Greene was in a profound depression and went so far as to seek electric-shock therapy.

He visited the Congo in early 1959, spending most of his time at a leproserie in Yonda. The novel that came from this experience, A Burnt-Out Case, was published in 1961. Evelyn Waugh wrote: “It is the first time Graham has come out as specifically faithless – pray God it is a mood, but it strikes deeper and colder.” However, other Catholics thought well of it, among them Edith Sitwell, who described it as a “holy book”.

Greene met Yvonne Cloetta [18 years younger than Greene and married to a company executive] in Cameroon in March 1959. Although for the sake of their children she did not divorce her husband, she became Greene’s de facto spouse for the next 32 years. An elegant and thoughtful woman, her temperament was more cheerful and moderate than those of Greene’s earlier loves. Her influence seems to have coincided with a quieting of the cycles of manic depression and the beginning of a happier phase in the novelist’s life.

© Verdant S.A. 2007
From Graham Greene: A Life in Letters, edited by Richard Greene, published on September 20 by Little Brown, £20. Buy the book for £18 (including p&p)

The barbs of Waugh

Greene admired Evelyn Waugh and often corresponded with him. He wrote that many who dwelt on the cruelty of Waugh’s character had left out another side, which was extraordinarily kind, and seen him only “as a sort of sacred monster”. This has been Greene's own fate at the hands of some of his biographers. He provided Christopher Sykes, whose Evelyn Waugh: A Biography appeared in 1975, with a favourite anecdote:

“I always disbelieved a little in the stories of Evelyn’s rudeness at parties and used to deny such stories until one evening when Carol Reed invited Evelyn, myself and Korda, who was then living with Alexa, to dinner. Suddenly at table Evelyn developed an extreme antiSemite rudeness towards Korda. The next day I was with him in a taxi and I said, ‘Why did you insult poor Alex like that?’ He said: ‘He had no right to bring his mistress to Carol Reed’s house for dinner.” I said, ‘But I had my mistress with me.’ Evelyn’s reply was: ‘That is quite different. She is a married woman’.”

Frosty response

To Michael Korda La Résidence des Fleurs, Avenue Pasteur, Antibes May 13, 1978

Dear Michael Certainly you can say No to the David Frost Show! If you could make the No a bit insulting so much the better. Perhaps you could put it that Mr Greene wouldn’t dream of appearing on a David Frost Show! Affectionately, Graham

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