A new play, Switzerland, which opened in the West End this month, seems to have demonised Patricia Highsmith once again. I cannot quarrel with the overall impression given by the diligently researched biography by Andrew Wilson, but merely say that as one who knew and liked her over many years, the picture seems unfairly partial.
We met for the first time in Florence in October 1952; I was 21, she 31. The Pensione Bartolini stood on the Arno facing the Ponte Santa Trinita. It was on an upper floor, and dominated by a huge dining room redolent of pasta, its windows looking out onto the river. Hardly had Pat Highsmith, lean and auburn-haired, arrived at the pensione than she was commandeered by Bernie, an American painter who had fought in Burma. Bernie plied her with wine and hospitality. ‘Women like that kind of decisiveness,’ she remarked to me.
The studentesco Bartolini was hardly for Pat.
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