AUGUST 10 2019 LISTENER 79
from others, that can only have been salu-
tary. He was brisk, practical, entertaining; he
cooked for her, took her cups of tea, made
sure her working routine was protected,
made practical arrangements for her, helped
her to find a publisher. She, in turn, knitted
him “an enormous sweater” and made a
patchwork quilt for his bed. They played
chess, talked about books (Frank was a mine
of gossip about other writers, both in and
beyond New Zealand); they wrote comic
poems together and Frank told ribald stories.
This was the period when I knew her best,
when she was writing Owls Do Cry, her first
novel – the time she writes of with such
gratitude in An Angel at My Table, the second
volume of her autobiography. In the social
bleakness of the 1950s, Frank’s presence was
liberating to all of us who were his friends,
but how much more so for Janet after years
of confinement and hopelessness.
Her behaviour was still erratic. There were
episodes when she locked herself away for
a day or two and refused to come out. She
sometimes took a job and then almost at
once handed in her notice. Frank encour-
aged her to think of herself only as a writer.
That was her work, her identity, her raison
d’être, her future. She said of him, “Frank
Sargeson saved my life.”
But he also grew weary of caring for her.
Wanting after more than a year to escape
from what he called in one letter “the Janet
situation”, and believing in any case that
a New Zealand writer must experience
Europe, he began to encourage her to go
abroad. He helped to gather money for the
fare from friends, and to get her a grant from
the New Zealand Literary Fund. By March
1957, when she was ready to depart, £125
had been paid for her fare (in a six-berth
cabin) and there was a further £300 for her
to live on when she got there.
From London, Janet travelled to Ibiza,
off the coast of Spain, where she lived for
some time. There was new fiction, her first
(perhaps her only) real love affair, and a
pregnancy that miscarried. She returned to
London and settled, but felt herself failing
to cope and admitted herself to Maudsley
psychiatric hospital. In 1958 (I was by then
a postgraduate student in London), I was
asked to talk to Dr RH Cawley, who was to be
her most understanding and helpful physi-
cian. Cawley wanted to meet someone who
had known her in New Zealand.
I soon recognised that he was exception-
ally intelligent, but I remember that he
surprised me at first by asking had I ever
thought Miss Frame was “mad”. I said no,
not in the least. A shy person recognises
shyness. Here was simply – and by a mile- the worst fellow sufferer one had ever
encountered.
Janet Frame on...
Janet Frame, interviewed by the
Listener just before her 64th birthday
in 1988, on:
Her phenomenal memory: “It is in
some things, yes. I’m not particularly
observant, but when I am writing, I
have a clear observation of particulars
I never knew I noticed.
On specific functions of memory that
were destroyed by shock treatment:
“It was supposed 40 years ago that
memory mutilation as a consequence
of electric shock treatment was
reparable. This is not so. In particular,
recognition of people I knew – I lost
that in my early twenties and never
regained it. Friends and family were
an exception – I always knew them.
But I learnt ways to disguise my dis-
ability. And now others of my age are
catching up with me!”
On whether she ever wonders what
might have happened if she hadn’t
walked out of the classroom that day
when the inspector came to call: “No,
not really. Because I had to go ...
people ask me if I resent the wasted
years [in mental hospitals], but no,
I don’t. Because they weren’t really
wasted.”
Interview by staff writer Marion McLeod