She would stay in Europe for the next two years, flitting between London, Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome, Salzburg and Munich. Like her character Tom Ripley, whom she would create three years later, she had no permanent address and was forced to pick up her mail from American Express offices. She was, she noted, always, ‘ “care of Mrs Somebody” . . . I have never a home.’1 Europe, she told Kingsley, helped her in many ways: she found it easier to make friends than in America; she liked the people, whom she thought more serious and considered than the folk back home; the change in environment gave her a fresh perspective on life and stimulated her creative imagination and, on a practical note, the day-to-day expenses she incurred were less than in the States. Although individual items such as tissues were more expensive, ‘to have an elegant good time, with beautiful surroundings, is cheap,’ she wrote to her friend.2 After a few days in Paris, where she enjoyed cocktails with Janet Flanner – ‘Genet’, The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent – and her partner, the book publisher, Natalia Danesi Murray, Highsmith boarded a flight to London on 16 February.
