Rodin wrote:Mr Cohen has always denied an affair with Suzanne but Marianne reveals she (S) was her replacement.
Interesting.
This is untrue. Leonard never had an affair with Suzanne Verdal, the subject of his most famous song (she lived in Canada, the wife of a close friend of Leonard). The Suzanne who replaced Marianne (and is the mother of Adam and Lorca) is the painter Suzanne Elrod, who appears on the cover of Death of a Ladies' Man. In the most poignant moment of the interview it is Suzanne E who Marianne describes as arriving at the house with Adam, then the same age as little Axel was when Marianne arrived on Hydra. There is a sense of the wheel turning full circle.
It is unfortunate that the BBC perpetuated this misunderstanding by playing the song Suzanne immediately after Marianne talked of the other one.
But the most startling revelation from the interview is that it was Marianne's decision that she and Leonard would not have a child together. From the catch in Marianne's voice as she told us this, and the pause that followed, it is clear that she has regrets.
Also interesting is her description of the gestation of Bird On The Wire, with which she feels more closely involved than with So Long Marianne.
Let me give you all a glimpse of Hydra in the sixties. Marianne describes Leonard standing silhouetted in the doorway of "the grocer". This is Katsika's, which was on the corner where now stands the Rolloi. The Katsika family (of which Tasso is a member) dominated that corner of the harbour. The grocery shop was the focal point of the island for ex-pats. Things in those days were tough, and there was not a lot of choice of produce: if it was available anywhere on the island, it would be available at Katsika's, or could be ordered through them. I remember the shop being dominated by just a single huge refrigerated display. To get a feel for how Katsika's was in the sixties, visit the Four Corners today.
The grocery store reached only half-way back into the shop. The rear portion contained half-a-dozen tables for Greek drinkers, with its own side entrance. I was warned by my mother never to trespass on the privacy of the local Greeks so I did not drink there myself, but I am sure my mother, Leonard and Marianne, and the other ex-pats, did drink there after the tourists (me, the schoolboy, included!) had gone. Indeed, in Leonard's song-book one of the Katsika Brothers appears in a photo (There were two Katsika brothers running the grocery store, one fat one thin, a sort of Greek Laurel and Hardy).
I have already mentioned Tasso, who ran the cafe where I became a favoured customer, attracted by the best cakes on the island. In those days, Tasso's had either marble-topped tables or the cheap Greek metal-topped tables you can see in Boy on a Dolphin. He was the first to bring wicker to the island, and it was a disaster ... he lost all his winter trade to other cafés, as the locals preferred to stick with traditional Greek furniture.
But much more important to me was Katsika's restaurant, which was located behind Tasso's where today there is a gift shop. The restaurant was run by the energetic Stavros. While there were one or two tables in that alley, behind the little retaining wall, the bulk of the tables were in front of the grocery store, running down to the sea, where today are the tables of the Rolloi. Poor Stavros's life consisted of running back and forth this considerable distance between kitchen and sea, with a tray of food balanced on upturned hand, all the while weaving between the donkey-trains taking building materials up from the port!
These tables on the front were an important meeting point at noon for ex-pats, where empty bottles of Fix (fore-runner of first Alpha and now Amstel) gathered quickly, and this is where Leonard would have been sitting when he invited Marianne to join him at their table. And this is where I would join Chuck and Gordon, the first openly gay couple I ever got to know as friends, and their relaxed and friendly attitude did much to help me understand the gay community. Gordon, a writer, is now dead, but Chuck (who prefers to be called Charlie these days) lives in Sri Lanka and visits the island occasionally. In his song-book you can see a photo of them carousing with Leonard amid flaggons of Kampas.
There is an interesting clip on You Tube (search for 'Leonard on Marianne') where Leonard describes the first time he saw Marianne. He mentions seeing her walking along 'the agora'. 'Agora' is Greek for market-place, and in the sixties it was the name given to the front, because that is where the market was. It is difficult to imagine now how beautiful the front was in those days: no jewellery shops or boutiques, but just row upon row of colourful fresh vegetables displayed all along the front. There was a lot of grumbling when the municipality forced the green-grocers to relocate to what is now the market (beyond the post office) ... it had previously been the ice-factory.
I was only ever an acquaintance of Marianne, and she would not remember me now. But what I do remember of her was not mentioned by Leonard in the interview: her (that old-fashioned word) deportment. Marianne was fond of a long skirt that swished seductively as she passed. Yet, unlike we mortals, she did not bob up and down as she walked, regardless how rough the path, but rather she seemed to glide through life, like an ice-skater.
In the interview, Marianne describes her own little house up at Kala Pigadia, far far up Miaoulis, and how, barefoot, she would start down to the port but, because of the steep incline, how she would be forced to gather pace until she was first running and then finally, at the sea, flying through the air. I can confirm from personal experience that this is exactly how the shiny stones and steep incline of Mioulis affects the walker even today!
