(As Told to Kurt Brown)
“I always had such a wonderful time in the bazaars. You know I once hid in a carpet shop.”
“Darling, I merely record. I don’t judge or criticise. It’s so ghastly when everyone starts wagging their fingers. And shouting each other down. I must say, I don’t like all that shouty writing that’s telling you what to think or do. We have to make up our minds about that ourselves, don’t we?”
“Sometimes one has to do what one has to do, especially to take one’s mind off one’s predicament.”
We talk to MT Sands about her life on the road, her love of the bazaar; her writings and affairs, but not her diet or beauty tips.
We meet in Belton House of the Braceless Country Estate, Lincolnshire – very kindly made available by her new boyfriend, the horse-mad Sheik, Ali Al-Buti. “No relation to the terror family,” I am told as I am ushered into the Nineteenth Century Salon. “He’s been so terribly sweet but rather shy and retiring on a Saturday morning. Would you care for something to drink? – A cup of tea. Lapsang Souchong. Gunpowder Tea, there’s bergamot in it, hits you like the charge of the light brigades. If you prefer coffee, there’s instant, or Sainsbury’s own brand espresso.”
All this comes tumbling out before I have time to scribble in my notebook. “You’re not taping me. Don’t tell me you are one of those gentlemen of the press who still knows how to do short-hand. I always wanted to learn, though I have to content myself with the phonetic alphabet and the schwa. You do know the schwa,” she says. “It’s everywhere in the English language.”
M.T. Sands ers at me and rolls her eyes. Then, as if this is still part of the joke, feigns death throes.
“What about that drink?”
“I think I’ll just have a glass of water,” I say.
“Still or sparkling.”
“From the tap is fine.”
M.T Sands jumps up and leaves the room. She returns with my glass of water a few moments later, as I am contemplating what appears to be an oil painting of the sheik in riding boots and jodhpurs – half naked from the waist up to reveal a rather prominent nipple piercing.
“You’ve got one of the bee glasses,” she says. “And I’ve got one of the hives. Don’t you think they’re lovely?”
I smile; she smiles back.
And I glance down at my notebook.
M.T. Sands is now leaning back on the sofa, one leg tucked under her – and one flip flop dangling off her big toe (she appears to be inspecting the chipped varnish of her big toe). The sofa is a conventional sofa but extends like a divan. It is draped with throws – rather lovely Clarice Cliff looking things, surrounded by peacock feathers. It is all rather light and airy in the room. And perhaps for this reason, or the fact that I suddenly become aware of the smiling Cupid upon the commode behind her that the notebook slips from my lap.
As if anticipating a clumsy child, M.T. Sands leaps to her feet and pushes the notebook back before it slips further.
I thank her and once again we resituate.
“In the resume that you so kindly sent us you allude to your various adventures and misadventures.”
She laughs.
“There have been rather a lot of those, which is why I wrote the book of stories.”
“Of course.”
She pauses – almost as if to inspect the silence and then tumbles on.
“Have you ever been to Arabia? – I had such a wonderful time in the bazaars. It’s a much better way to shop, don’t you think? – Why do we need supermarkets, or hypermarkets for that matter? It is the most boring to shop unless of course you are in Waitrose in Winchester, which I am not, very often. But that wasn’t what I was thinking.”
“What were you thinking?”
“Not thinking. Rather reading about Lady Ellenborough and her Bedouin Prince. Lady Ellenborough was one of those great Victorian adventuresses, and besides which an amazing horsewoman. And her Bedouin prince was in awe of her. As were the Damascenes during the Druze and Maronite crisis… She must have had them around her little finger. They called her sheikha mother of milk. Rather charming, don’t you think?”
“Anyway, you were telling me about your misadventures in the bazaars.”
“I was?”
I nod and M.T. Sands laughs.
“Soon you’ll be putting words into my mouth.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Of course, if you want a misadventure, there was the time my Italian boyfriend, Riccardo, who liked to think he was a count, though I was never too sure, even if he did appear to have a crumbling tower in Calabria or somewhere. He chased me through the bazaar and that’s the time I ended up hiding in the carpet shop.”
“Why ever did you do that?”
“I would have thought it’s quite obvious. He was getting rather jealous. Sexual jealousy is such a terrible emotion, don’t you think? We are here for such a short time. It seems so ridiculous to get uptight about it all.”
“I suppose,” I say, choosing to take her at her word, “it depends on the circumstances.”
“Oh, rot to the circumstances. It’s all about character. And sometimes one just needs a bed for the night. People these days are far too worried about offending their own characters. At least Riccardo made no bones about his jealousy… Do you mind if I smoke? They are not real cigarettes. They’re fakes ones. From time to time I like to hold them. Would you like one, too?”
I shake my head.
She lights up one of her fake cigarettes and inhales.
“I am quite partial to the odd cigar.”
She takes another puff, followed by a pause, which seems to lend space to her racing thoughts.
“Some of them were really awful you know, dribbling one-eyed monsters. But their stories often made up for it.”
“Anyway,” she says finally, “what’s wrong with being a little naughty?”
“It says here -”
I begin to read from the resume that is printed on pink paper (defined when it was handed to me as the Beardsley i.e. naughty pink.)
M.T. Sands begins to chuckle.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “but I do think it’s rather good, don’t you?”
“Elsewhere, I think was in last month’s Tatler, I’ve heard you claim to have no career.”
“I am sure that’s right. I made a career of having no career. The Sheik says it’s my Wildean streak, but I am not sure if a woman can have one of those these days. Are you sure you are okay with your tap water? There’s a rather good whisky in the Sheik’s drink’s cabinet, an Oban.”
I decline the whisky and try to persist with my line of questioning:
“So, you write for the sake of writing.”
“No, I listen for the sake of listening. And sleeping. I write afterwards.”
“I thought you just didn’t think of it like a career.”
“Now you are putting words into my mouth. Of course, I am serious about what I do.”
M. T. Sands looks at me with the stars still twinkling in her eyes.
“And I was absolutely serious when I said I made an art of having no career. As a teacher, I worked and travelled all over the world, but I began to feel like an absolute fraud. And this is the truth with teaching, one always reaches a point with it when one feels like a fraud. I mean, really people, if they feel so inclined – and that includes little children – and all good teachers know this, teach themselves. In this sense teachers are like writers. They are only as good as their students, and writers are only as good as their readers. But I digress.”
“You do?”
“I thought we were puffing my book.”
“Indeed, what do you have to say about your book?”
At which she throws back her head – in the process launching the flip flop that has been dangling from her big toe across the room – and laughs:
“The Sheik says it’s a spanking good read.”