Francis Bacon in Your Blood by Michael Peppiatt Page A

conversation. I’ve tried to touch on various aspects of his beliefs – or lack of beliefs – about life and art. It’s a bit disjointed, and still with a lot of suspension points between unrelated phrases; but it’s the best I’ve been able to do so far, and I have to say his conversation is a bit like that – like a series of brief definitions, things like ‘art is a shorthand of sensation’ or ‘we only give life meaning by our drives’, which often have more impact after a couple of bottles of Chablis than they do in cold sober print.
    The only artist I haven’t been able to pin down is Lucian Freud. He’s often there at the lunches and dinners, but not so much once we start on the round of bars and clubs because he doesn’t want to drink. Actually, he doesn’t eat much either, just nibbles things from his plate and puts them back, half chewed, if he doesn’t like them. We’ve been talking about his doing a kind of ‘statement’ about art for some time, but it never materializes. He doesn’t want an interview and I can’t do more than politely remind him. It would be important to have him in the issue, though, if only because of all the artists I’ve met over recent months he is certainly the one closest to Bacon. They have an odd relationship. When I’ve been with them both, they never mention painting, only people they both know. Lucian makes a point of relaying the latest gossip about their mutual friends, and Francis clearly relishes this, interjecting comments they both seem to agree on, like ‘I’ve always known he was a rat. He’d rat on you just like that if he thought he could get something out of it’ or ‘I hear that now John Russell has left Vera, that stammer of his has got so much better.’
    Lucian also clowns around, specially for Francis. One of his favourite turns is to pick up the restaurant bill when it comes,give it a cursory look and then pretend to faint, falling sideways on the banquette like Charlie Chaplin, while Francis chuckles and writes out a cheque. Sometimes he comes with a waif-like girlfriend in a faded frock, but mostly he comes alone. He is quite funny in an ironic way, with his lightly inflected patter doing quick pirouettes around the people he describes, but I think he is in awe of Francis, or even in love with him. But then I suppose most of us are, whether it’s Lucian or George or me, Sonia Orwell or models like Henrietta Moraes, or Miss Beston, who looks after everything to do with Francis at the Marlborough gallery, from his exhibitions (where she always gives the glass on his pictures a last go-over with a shammy leather she keeps in her handbag) to his laundry bills or medical prescriptions. He is the point, whether we know it or not, around which we all turn. Because of this, I mention to Francis that the issue is pretty much complete except for Lucian’s long-awaited statement, and the next thing I know I get a message from Lucian – the first ever – suggesting we meet.
    I’ve never been alone with Lucian. I’ve never felt particularly at ease with him. He has none of Bacon’s warmth and geniality; on the contrary, although he is clearly an unusual and rather exotic person, he seems to me coldly self-centred and calculating. So I’m not particularly looking forward to this encounter near Paddington Station, but when I find Delamere Terrace and see Freud waiting by a large stylish car I have no time to think because as soon as I get in, the Bentley takes off with a squeal and we hurtle through a few streets, squeal round corners, bounce up on to pavements and ricochet off the wrong way into one-way streets at a speed I’ve never travelled through any city before. I’m terrified at first, thinking we’re going to smash into other cars or a wall, but it soon becomes clear this is what ‘driving’