My husband and I frequently refer to each other as our “cuttle bone/cuddlebone.” We keep each other’s warrior blades sharp. When trying to explain how I became a warrior, deepest emotional relationships we form by choice paint a picture of a quest for support and validation. My coed boarding school had rigid social requirements of dating and communicating – there was a “Boys End” and a “Girls End” and every evening representatives from each side would meet in “Central” and exchange baskets of messages. At Girls’ End these messages (called “KOBS” or “Kindness of Bearer”) were stored in a stocking hung beside the recipient’s mirror. This was our earliest form of flirting! One lover I chose because his KOBS were beautiful – always expressed as free-floating poetry – another because he was imaginative and ambitious – a third because he was forceful and honest. It was how these boys came alive on the page that was significant to me. My last boyfriend at that school – whom I was to marry eleven years later – we are still married to this day – presented himself as an ideal combination of all of these, plus he was gorgeously beautiful. But before we could come together, many dragons needed to be killed.
Leaving the Coven
A craven of cronies stood Between us & God – God demands clones God hated short skirts.
A damnation of judges Stood between us & Knowledge; truth exists Only in service.
A clowder of cretins Stood between us & Art: “Don’t be disturbing” “Never trust instincts.”
From the depths of This oubliette You drank the koolaid Guaranteeing survival
Cherishing passions that One day would rescue me – So I could grow up And write you this poem.
We teenagers at our co-ed religious boarding school wanted to mate. This desire was more powerful than the faculty, it was more powerful than anything. They were always digging us out of bushes, rescuing us from ponds, chasing us out of the woods. We were lustfully ablaze. They kept trying to demand we give an account of ourselves but reason had been bypassed – we were in the grip of an eternal force powering the planet, perpetuating our kind.
I knew that force again when I turned 29 years old. Suddenly I wanted to have a child. There were men on the scene – but they were a shiftless crew of can’t-bes, don’t-bes, and wanna-bes. Warriors don’t take No for an answer. I had to be able to do better than that, but my parents assured me that because of my career of exposing My Body For Profit, no decent man would have me.
But suddenly High School Boyfriend showed up, a working journalist, half-way through law school, interning for Ralph Nader. On our first meeting he told me he’d never loved anyone but me.
One of my earliest jobs was an office work temp – ending up as receptionist at an architecture firm. In my hegira through multiple workplaces I did not find one where I liked the lowly way I was treated. But Warriors, by definition, don’t put up with the Status Quo. Seeking to ratchet up my power level I used my training and auditioned to be a dancer. Things improved mightily! Although I still encountered some mistrust and scorn, on the whole, I achieved my goal of feeling plugged into the Universal Power Source.
At last, fireside peace. Finally got the baby to sleep pressed against my body in the bed, then managed to substitute a pillow.
He seems fussy lately – reacting I think to the general disorganization of streams of family & visitors. Also, I may be drinking too much caffeine. Fix that.
it’s surprising how little you can get done while baby-tending. The books warn – naps more important than housework. Can read while breastfeeding thank God. Starve without brain matter.
Today read almost all of Stone’s The Mystery of B Traven. Love this mania for self-concealment! 1:45 AM – Just back from Sutton’s – a delightful evening playing “Dictionary.” Shane gave me an exhausting early eve but he slept 3 and 1/2 hrs at Sutton’s like an angel. Sutton said he transferred funds to our joint acct at Kidder but we no longer have a joint acct at Kidder. T. says, “Probably mine, then.” Well, he’s not my father.
Our first night here was a nightmare – Toss a crazy man. House very cold and took some time to warm. Toss frantic about the baby who was perfectly warm but cried harassingly. In the AM he apologized. I always feel brutalized by his anger – seems he makes no effort to control it. He thinks everything I do is to “spite” him. What is the cause of this? Must have been Lois. She is pretty strange.
Outside this bedroom in the winter living room Toss & Dom & friends re-living the dictionary game – recounting the funny definitions. Finished feeding Shane and now waiting for him to fall deeply enough asleep that I can move him to his crib.
My press now an obsession. Every book is compared to my inner books. Last night intercourse first time! I was nervous because inside vagina has strange raw feeling tight but not painful. Shane clucking. Better turn out light.
12:30 PM Sun 3 Jan 82 – StormFall Review of book about the creative process quotes the theory that the artist must “stop before coming to premature closure” – closing off options too soon. Later, in discussion of life of Meyer Levin reviewer produces astonishing analysis of the way writers try to answer critics objection WHILE WRITING and that is “responsible” (i.e. bank-worthy.) Further along in a review of Why Bad Things Happen to Good People writer concludes that God is powerless to stop the consequences of the world He set in motion!! He “weeps” but can’t help!! Unbearably wrong-headed. Shows how religious tenets can go in one ear and out the other while the thinker THINKS he has understood. (Of course Judaism is different.)
Christ prayed the cup would pass – it didn’t but the story doesn’t end there. He ROSE! They all saw it!
2:40 PM Baby cried so couldn’t continue. Sad about leaving but eager to get home. The exit always puts me at odds with T and emphasizes my powerlessness. We’ll leave when he is ready at the most inconvenient time. He can promise nothing. Now he has committed us to taking soup with Sutton & Pansy which I am determined he will retract. Thank God I have SOME money and can protect myself from Housewife Madness. Feeling fat and ugly now and I was feeling beautiful before I came – a psychic manifestation of my powerlessness. Sutton’s house a fount of luxury. Toss agitates to seem successful around him instead of honestly stating difficulties & truths. I always feel the problem boils down to loss of identity – I feel like a ghost. The artist cannot allow herself Fear of the Unknown. Everyone else hedges – I want to leap.
Grover’s Mill 4:30 PM – Tues 5 Jan 82 Feeling better. Anxiety level high yesterday but read The First 12 Months of Life that says after 3 mos the crying stops “magically”! Baby begins to play by himself! OK! I “magically” felt less fatigue (fatigue is helplessness with me.)
Baby dozing in the Swing-o-matic but wakes the instant it slows. Hoping to finish first coat of paint on the crib so he can be in his own room by the end of the week.
Charlene stopped by to see the baby. Why does she depress me?
Suggested to Julio & Gretchen that they make a book of his photos of Maine & her poems and I will try to sell it for them. Labor of love. So many good artists out there discouraged by climate of rejection. Do you need mind as well as hide of rhino?
I set Sept 82 as press beginning – I will have $7000 of Corning.
Toss says he & Lois will start paying themselves out of Faircross – this will revolutionize our lives. Yesterday baby was sleepier allowing me to catch up on Psychology Today, N.Y Review of Books and My Search for B Traven which would make good novel.
9:40 PM – Shane asleep from 7:15 to 9:30 allowing us to have a lengthy, peaceful sit-down dinner! Toss very excited about condos wants me to type condo docs. We could get Margaret to watch Shane. It’s only 50 p. Unfortunately, it’s due Fri and I can’t finish by then! He approved Sept as start-off for press.
Tues. 12 Jan 82 – 11 AM Enjoying late breakfast downstairs after weekend trauma. Shane dozing in swing. Total nightmare weekend typing condo docs, spelling each other. Sat night we went out but that was traumatic too because we were away from Shane too long – 6 1/2 hrs – kept calling Margaret. Dinner and LOONG movie (Reds) too much! In future only one or the other. I stayed up trying to express milk – got only 3 oz which T used next AM trying to let me sleep. Worked on docs till 2 PM then dressed to drive to Lois’ go see Louise. Louise “up”, intelligent, appreciated Shane who unfortunately went on crying jag. Louise didn’t get to hold him as much as she liked. Back at Lois’ worked on condo docs till 12:20 – Shane obligingly slept – then the car wouldn’t start. Record cold night – 2 above zero – homeless being rounded up – still, five deaths. So, we couldn’t leave and spent the night at Lois’. I took the Daytimer catalog to bed with me and fell asleep choosing stationery for Quixota, my new press.
Baby now playing, yawning, stretching beside me, the beauty. Lois & T had 9:15 AM with Heritage Savings who will probably be their lender. After the cold night, Lois’ car wouldn’t work and they had to take a cab. Shane and I managed a bath together. They didn’t return till 4:15 PM. They’d had a good day, felt the situation promising. Lois offered to make dinner – so went to work on car batteries – next thing we knew it was 7 PM and Shane was deteriorating. All my efforts to give him away were for naught – I had to collapse in tears and go upstairs to howl. T. brought Shane upstairs when he collapsed into an exhausted sleep and I was able to go downstairs at 8 PM and wolf a chicken.
Then T & I left for our glorious home! At midnight with me swearing not to move till Baby’s christening. We discovered hot water pipes had burst (owing to cold) but we do have cold water. Called plumber today – they are coming but can’t say when. Shane sitting bad-temperedly in his swing – grumpy Baby Emperor. If he sinks into a doze, I will, too.
Thought about nothing but press all weekend. Trying to decide whether to allow Daisy to place them in bookstores or just go with mail order. Trouble with mail order is huge advertising budget! I want to be ruthless now that I am publisher and have everything done my way – maybe G & J’s book as calendar? Shane fussing.
8:15 PM Fri 15 Jan 82 Shane lying in his crib transfixed by his windup mobile – talking to it – especially purple hippo for which he cherishes extravagant fondness.
A good day – school out so Margaret didn’t come – wanted to be with her sons. Fine with me – I’m not quite ready to write.
Shane marvelously agreeable – only one bout of tears right before nap. Only 3 hrs sleep today bodes well for night. 7 Hrs last night!!! Toss due home in half hour – had to go to bank and missed his train.
Reading Dworkin’s Pornography – unbearably uncomfortable – especially for men! Her elegant writing anger infused – balance perfect. True, cogent, exact but does not express the blade of grass ALWAYS pushing upwards thru cement. The world may be a desert – yet deserts are hives of activity. Unexpected flowerings. It’s true that I’m disgustingly spoiled by the perfections of Toss. He is violent in his anger and his rage flames hot but it is not directed at me in a way that leaves me choiceless. And always there is his exquisite tenderness – the heart of his passion so personal – never a moment when he cannot be touched. (He gave his gloves to a cold bag lady this weekend – MENS’ gloves? She said!)
If I were Dworkin, I would despair.
And then there is the ecstasy the religious dimension gives to life! Otherwise the purposelessness & cruelty would be soul-killing – human aspiration and hypocrisy the sand constantly creating a tortuous itch. I see life now as a war only won by love. Thousand small trivial triumphs – looks- smiles – glances – tiny actions – seem to melt to nothing when extinguished by violence as Christ seemingly was – but he WON.
So shall we. Yesterday women’s group first time in six weeks. How time has flown! Daphne Hawkes seemingly smaller – more tentative – less powerful than I remember – psalm 31 newly moving.
This AM Toss told me that putting my name on his accounts makes him 50% poorer in the eyes of those who read his financial statements. I cold say the same, except that I am worth nothing right now. I want this marriage to work. Men contribute money and women contribute the bodies of children which are both everything and nothing under their ancient laws.
Everything outside God is imperfect. All my life I’ve been battling this undertow – a sense of being pulled in a direction I don’t want to go. If I quit fighting I’ll be sucked away. Would like to reduce my sense of confusion & division. I will negotiate & re-negotiate.
4:20 PM – Fri difficult therapy day. Dr Jones trying to get me to see similarity between my lack of acceptance in writing and my lack of acceptance by parents – I can write about it now but was shaken at the time. I think it cannot compute. After all, you have a good chance of being loved by parents but always a small chance of acceptance you’re your original ideas in a buyers’ marketplace. But what would happen if I believed her and translated my search for an income into an effort to be loved? Surely that way madness lies. Is it the goal of therapists to make clients crazier (maybe so they can help them more?) Feel naïve that I expected her to “cure” me. But very attracted to her intellectual world.
T’s brother Dom is coming to dinner. He’s only staying an hour and a half but I hate my solitude being broken. I want to write an essay on Muriel Spark, work out my ideas.
Hoped to have the baby tonight. Thumpings and soundings on my pelvic floor. Braxton-Hicks contractions – reputed to be ‘nothing” – are actually rather painful. Housework hangs heavily over me – Toss does nothing, won’t even pick up his towels off the floor – when I speak to him he apologizes profusely and pledges to change. Doesn’t. I’m boggled by this. I told him I don’t believe in his “as soon as I finish x-y-z” any more I want cleaning person NOW. He purposely arranges his life so he can’t meet his deadlines.
He usually does housework once a week – scrubs kitchen & bathrooms and sweeps breakfast room but he missed this week. I wonder if one of the privileges of motherhood will be my increasing sense of my own power. I hope so. Been difficult up till now.
2:30 PM Mon 9 Nov 81 This world just too crazy for me. Silhouette says my love scenes “lack fire.” Really the funniest part of this is how undiscourageable I am. Better off with a flat turndown than a false carrot. Lavallee writes to say Pinch turned down by Coward & St Martins.
The thing I really hate is how this looks to others – I am sick of being a deadbeat non-person. One needs talent, persistence, application & breaks. I got the first 3!
Managed to find a cleaning woman! I hope this will make it easier to turn to my desk with a sigh of relief. I think freedom is the key to great writing and I’ve been constrained by these petty editors. Miracles occur! T. very nice about my rejections, no “Maybe you should just try harder to please them” thank God. Plan to go on working endlessly without pay, support or recognition – to please myself, while the mystical brass ring floats alluringly by.
Last night Dom said he hopes Sutton is leaving us some money in his will. Toss said when their dad dies we’ll be so wealthy we won’t care! I regard such prognostications with the utmost cynicism. I suppose I’m technically better off than in my working dancer days when I owned a paid off car, an unpaid for house and $300 in bills but it doesn’t feel like it.
9;30 Am Tues 10 Nov 81 Cleaning lady half hour late. So she is probably lost. Yesterday I drove my car out and drove ahead of them to show them the house but she speaks barely any English. On the phone her son says she left to come here “a long time ago.”
Last night read Phantom Prince about Ted Bundy written by his girlfriend. One of the best crime books I’ve ever read! Bundy was like Lizzie Borden in that he ran counter to police theories on crime. They kept letting him go because he “couldn’t” be the guy they were looking for. If he’d known how to STOP he would never have been caught, but he got addicted. Intrigued by the atmosphere of pizza joints & rafting as counterpoint to this couple’s lives. Reminded me of old boyfriend Kyro!
This is a really a whole book about female helplessness and dependency. Women have been trained to act like this to provoke protectiveness in their menfolk – but it often has the exact opposite result! He needed her to protect him from the knowledge of his own monstrousness.
Granma woke me from a nap – still tormenting us about a palace oriental the Schulz Foundation is giving us for reasons that are obscure. Why the principals can’t deal with each other I can’t comprehend. Nap & then try Mrs. Rozo the Lost Cleaning Woman again.
“Memory is our private literature” – Aldous Huxley
11:30 PM Sun 15 Nov 81 Getting lots of sleep hoping a beautiful angel will be born tonight. I’d like to have the house clean. First cleaner doesn’t want to do it, found a new cleaner Margaret who’s coming tomorrow. Washed the white dog in the bathtub and it was really too much for me, can’t bend over at all. Read Lynne Wiley’s Abigail Adams with interest. I enjoy the sweep of a life.
I wasn’t to review Spark’s Loitering With Intent but it’s too thin. Enjoyed the first 7/8 but when it’s over, impossible to say why it was written. She really writes too many books. The transplantation to Rome has not agreed with her.
Yesterday Toss & I drove to Wyomissing to get used (family) crib & car seat. New relationship combustion. I am very emotional right now – told him I don’t want to be solely responsible for harmony in the relationship. In a marriage, there has to be some way to disagree without slipping the rug of love out from under the relationship.
Had Toss to myself all day – an ideal day – reading NY Times in bed.
6;25 PM We 18 Nov 81 Good visit with midwife. She assured me baby will be on time and I will have it at birthing center. Relief. Blood pressure nicely down.
Finally talked Toss into open a housekeeping money market acct with $3500 (and hopefully writing money). Margaret worked hard all day, house looks great. Sat down to write – to my surprise got 8 pages.
4:30 PM – 27 Nov 81 Well it’s all over – my 8 ½ pound baby boy sleeps beside me. Labor was both more and less bad than I expected – I had dysfunctional labor – 2 days’ worth – exhausting & discouraging but I was only able to get to 3 cm dilation myself by noon Wed after having contractions since Mon. The actual contractions were not hard to deal with although they could be painful lying down. Adair transferred me to the hospital after 13 hrs at the birthing center where my contractions finally spaced out to 10-15 mins apart. At the hospital they gave me Demerol – heavenly – enough for 5 hrs sleep then I was ready again. Jane my labor coach showed up and I was refreshed enough for Pitocin at 6.
We were lucky to be in a birthing room with a borning bed – as I discovered later when I got back labor. (Baby high & posterior.) I did all right for 2 hrs then the back labor became so intense I couldn’t tell when I was having a contraction any more. It was torture to be touched. Finally, I asked for more Demerol – Adair didn’t want me to have it because she feared it would increase the need for Pitocin but the Demerol relaxed me between contractions – my eyes became blurry and couldn’t focus. Toss said contractions continued as usual.
The pushing stage I remember well – I enjoyed it – the baby didn’t feel too big & I could feel him moving along. Crowning was a little painful and I got annoyed at everyone shouting “Push! Push” when I wanted the doctor to stretch my perineum a little more. Thankful for the tiny episiotomy they gave me.
Black depression. Hasn’t been this bad since summer – maybe I should schedule an apt with Dr Jones. Silhouette & Harlequin sending me such bad books and unrealistic editorial demands I can’t make myself go to the mailbox. Paradise Postponed made every mistake there is and they are offering it up as a model. So – anybody rather than them. Can’t wait to be my own publisher! The hell with all of them!
Toss missed the 6:30 and isn’t coming till 9 PM and I need the comfort of his presence. Suffering through the letters of Hemingway won’t help. I need Trollope novels to cheer me up.
StormFall Farm, Fri 25 Sept 81 Sitting before a sluggish fire – Toss off on a tractor-buying expedition with his Dad. Gives him a feeling of belonging. Sutton not accepting the Faircross Development idea – thinks Toss should go with a firm. Calls Lois a “terrorist.” Let’s hope she won’t be that way with her son. Finished Symons’s Poe and tackling M Gordon’s Final Payments.
Uncle Avery drunk dialed Toss twice last night – kept calling Sutton “Your brother.” “No, he’s your brother.” “Well, who am I?” Who indeed? Bad Ionesco play or alcoholism? He tortures himself both for having inherited money and for being too poor! There’s more than one double standard. Toss expects to feel completely different when he’s a father himself. Managed a new poem about Heloise & Abelard: From the Flame to the Flame. Don’t know what I think about it yet.
28 Sept 81 Couldn’t get to Bradley class (I’m hedging my bets) last night because car broke down in Cranbury. Had to call a wrecker. Then the Chrysler wouldn’t start either. Had it towed to Reed’s. Faced with $150 gas bill and $180 electricity bill – doesn’t seem possible. Plus, the house is a mess and I have sciatica.
Toss walked to the station this am – luckily only a 20 min walk.
Reading about Harold Nicolson’s “jobless” phase when no one liked him – I can identify. Working on poetry submissions for Watermark I hear dogs bark – I stagger to the door in my torn caftan to see Miriam from women’s church group; baby on hip. She drinks coffee and tells me our private and marital lives are completely destroyed by children. Thanks! Also new way to clean kitchen floors. We set up a new date to go strolling in New Hope – she won’t have her kid and I won’t look like Godzilla goes to Oz.
5 Oct 81 Bad phone call with Mom – she acted like seeing a therapist is an admission that “something’s wrong with me.” She kept asking “why “– so I made up a coherent reason – my crying jags. Realized after I should have said pregnancy. Every conversation seems to slam a door. Wolf’s late wedding present was a black cat in severe need of some kind of vet treatment (eczema?) Taking him to vet then home to make dinner. T promised to stay home Thurs to help me clean.
Feeling better about our midwife Adair. I’m sure I made the right decision even though Lois is trying to scare me about “lack of anesthesia.”
7 Oct 81 This depressing book is making things worse! Should I give up diarizing? Bad session with Dr. Jones yesterday. She says numbing oneself to the pain leaves one in a drugged state without energy to break the deadlock. And yet I must keep going. Dr. J thinks I deliberately chose writing because being ignored and rejected is just the way my parents treat me! “What am I trying to prove?”
My natural optimism asserts itself – I don’t think I’m trying to prove anything! I’m not that involved with other people but with myself and my own capabilities. You can imagine what Dr. J says about that! According to her the world only exists to bring us to life.
T. outside mowing. Housework is my #1 complaint right now. If I could just get this place tolerable the next few weeks will be more bearable.
8 Oct 81 Forced myself to attend Women’s Group after only 5 hrs sleep – I really enjoyed it. Miriam then asks me, “What are you doing after?”
Stupidly I said, “Nothing” and she said, “Me, too, let’s do it together.” We visited Lamplighter Books where I bought a couple of CS Lewis paperbacks and a book on the Inklings.
I invented an after lunch appt so the whole day wouldn’t be blown but I find myself disliking her. She’s exhaustingly competitive. She wants to complain about her husband and she wants me to complain about my husband. I have plenty of complaints about T – he probably has just as many about me – but why repeat them? It just solidifies them when I feel the whole situation could change overnight.
She was pretty shocked that we don’t have insurance. The midwife is $500 but what about complications if I have to go to the hospital? Not my favorite subject for discussion. (She says a Caesarean is $4000!)
Came home and immediately fell into a deep sleep – woke up just in time to get Toss and now I’ve set him to making a soufflé.
He had bad news on his day – he and Lois had lunch with President of the Spring Garden civic association who is going to fight them on parking. Force them to build fewer units. T. also upset about Lois’s close-mouthedness about her financial status – she had two margin calls last month!
He’s been up front with her about his. Now she wants to use the architect as a straw man to buy two more buildings but T says smarter to develop the one they’ve got. Conflict. He suspects her of “borrowing” Mother Louise’s money which she’s technically not supposed to do.
10:30 PM – Devastated. Over dinner (my salad and his very respectable soufflé) T. very critical of how poorly I keep this place – how little I do. I tried talking about the danger to our love of these kinds of fights – got nowhere. Now he’s driven off to Hightstown. I don’t recover from these things as fast as he does. I have tremendous faith in our future. Maybe I should try to get him in to see Dr. Jones. Or she could suggest someone who’s a stranger to us both.
Fri 9 Oct 81 Terrible nightmare because of our fight – T throwing all our furniture out of the house, me fleeing to a motel. Got lost, came home and crawled in through the garage window to find the place burgled. Loneliness, confusion, desperation.
He apologized thoroughly and sincerely.
I really need the 11th hr cavalry – good news about my career – but I’ve forgotten what that feels like. If I finished MFA could teach writing but that seems a horrible life when it’s unresolved in my own mind.
Sat. 10 Oct 81 A much better day. Walking around New Hope with Miriam – lots of beautiful things to look at. Found a wonderful place selling inexpensive Indian clothes that are perfect for maternity wear which I can take in when the baby is born. I need to feel beautiful & confident again; not deprived. “I can do it.”
Yesterday Lois came to our Lamaze class and acted if this is all a personal insult directed at her. I feel so sorry (and embarrassed) for her sometimes. She’s not very flexible, that’s for sure. She made fun of the concept of “enjoyable childbirth.” I tried to explain instead it’s a rite of passage – needs to have some meaning. The first question you ask about football is not “does it hurt?” Even though it often DOES hurt! Kills people sometimes (“and there’s ways to prevent that.”) She can’t follow analogies.
Some change taking place in me – not sure what. Burst into tears over Jaffee’s Adult Education: thinking, “At last a woman’s point of view is emerging.”
Inspired, I managed 600 words on novel. Must beard Toss about $. He won’t like it but we’ll see. I need a cleaner even if I have to sell my Computervision.
Bored by Alice Ellis’ Birds of the Air I paint fanciful Pennsylvania Dutch designs on baby’s furniture.
14 Oct 81 Should pregnancy be this traumatic? Midwife says baby is enormous, could be twins. My blood pressure is too far up – need to rest an hour a day and meditate 15 mins. Maybe I WAS unwise to get pregnant this fast but for me the time was right.
I am now ready to write 6 romantic novels a year if that’s what it takes. Anything for the dignity of privacy. Hideous silence from agent – God knows what Silhouette thinks of my proposal.
10:10 PM 15 Oct 81 Day started taking a turn for the better at Women’s Group where one of the women gave me an exercise GUARANTEED to bring my blood pressure down. Worth a try. Now I’m re-reading The Book of Hope and it’s giving me hope anew.
Attack of crying after the mail came – no word from Silhouette of course – I re-examine my depression and 2 factors emerge. #1 what a fighter I’ve been – I’m still unresigned and I don’t seem to care about encouragement and #2 if depression is justified is it really depression? I mean, things are rough! In spite of all that I got a lot done – 3 poetry contests entered. All I can do is continue to gamble on myself.
Wrote to Mom: since I decided against diaper service, would she give me the same $ for cleaner?
Sat 17 Oct 81 Letter from Guilders rejecting me as an “exceptional student!” I was surprised and Ezra said it was outrageous and he will fight for me, but I told him how can I want them if they don’t want me? They’re entitled to their opinion – I’ll find someplace where I’m appreciated. When he’s been so helpful I couldn’t just tell him I don’t like the type of fiction they teach there anyway! I think it’s primarily a place to find mentors.
Mom astounded me by saying I have one of the sweetest natures she knew of! I wanted to say, then how come you treat me with cruelty & hostility but my sweet nature wouldn’t let me! I mean if that isn’t a declaration of “Let’s start over” I can’t think of a better one! So maybe she’s right. “Get strong” I think is the lesson here.
Toss had 4 wisdom teeth removed – kept saying he wasn’t in pain but seemed jumpy & bothered. Couldn’t eat – his sudden frailty made me realize how much I love him. He decided not to go to the farm (thank God – I can’t keep up with the housework HERE much less there) so we went to the movies instead. (So Fine. Forgettable.)
Trying to come to terms with the uncooperative nature of art. Even when I’m “approved of” it brings no satisfaction. There’s only the work itself. Continue struggling with silly Tarnished Vows – making it “different.”
Asked the obstetrician if you can take a 3 week old baby to the Bahamas. I was certain he’d say yes! HE SAID NO – airports are full of diseases! The hell with him! I’m going!
2:15 PM Mon 19 Oct 81 Just came in from Dr. Bran. Baby’s gigantic – “at least 9 lbs”. He tried to talk me into going to the hospital by telling me what a rough time his sister had. (Baby’s brain hemorrhaged.) My cervix totally closed has 4 weeks to go. I managed not to cry, said I would discuss it with my husband. Everything’s wrong – weight up another 6 pounds. The only good thing is I have brought my blood pressure down.
What is all this? I was so confident. Human mind very serious. I had thought at least THE BABY is a success. Can’t seem to get notice of my existence on any level – no word from agents or publishers. Feel numb. Make myself feel better reading Sheila Kitzinger – she gives examples of big babies born “without tearing.” There’s a woman in our Bradley class who’s over 35 and her hips & thighs are enormously swollen.
9 days to lose 4 lbs. Plainly it can’t hurt the baby any longer!
11:20 Am 20 Oct 81 Read yet another book on compulsive eating. Compulsive everything. Good book makes me ask the question: what am I afraid of?
Pain?
One of my fantasies was to have the light job of caretaking a house so I could write. As housekeeper, I have that. Plus, the love of my “dream man.” He’s usually supportive, although over-critical of me in some departments. So why cry last night for 2 hrs before going to sleep? Things would be worse if I had writer’s block. Managed 5 p. on my disgraced virgin story, Tarnished Vows. My block is of a different kind. It’s a “meaning” block.
In an attempt to comfort me Toss said that if his business takes off we will be able to start the press. I felt obligated to be the Voice of Doom and said, “No business takes off as expected” but didn’t ask him how he would feel about “wasting” money on a totally philanthropic enterprise (all “outgo”) but I know he would call that “planning to fail.” So, I take it as the nice gesture it is. He said we might be so rich we won’t have to worry. I would LIKE to be that rich but it seems impossible. This place needs $40,000 of work immediately. I do believe that inner success attracts outer success. What I need is to be able to relax and enjoy life again and figure out how to mix a baby in with that. I do admire myself in spite of all outward appearances.
4 PM – 21 Oct 81 Interesting afternoon discussing writing with Charlene. She takes a very black and white view of my situation – I should take a waitressing job so I can write “serious” not “sleazy” things. I don’t dare curl my lip – she works as a waitress! But I do say some of my sleazy stuff is important to me. My Tarnished Virgin quite the sociological treatise. Plus, “sleaziness” shouldn’t be anything that makes the pulse pound!
Was Louisa May Alcott better off with Under the Lilacs or her blood & thunders? Which was more fun to write? (Her era had no doubts.)
Definitely over-obsessed right now with money & security. I refuse to get stuck in the housewife rut with this baby – I have to contribute – want every step I take towards “freeing” myself.
(Cat sprawls over the page, her black paws like giant caterpillars.) Need to take my bike to the library. Glorious day.
Up early to take Granma to Quaker Meeting. Very boring. Elder from my first wedding came up and spoke to me – I didn’t recognize her! It was Grandmother Day – spent the afternoon with Mother Louise who forgets who everyone is after 20 mins. In the evening long ecstatic phone gossip with Avril.
Mon 19 Jan 81 Jam packed day – filed grades at Guilders, Financial Aid lecture at Fordham then drinks at World Trade Center with T & Old roommate. Tues depressing orientation at Fordham – can’t get “life experience” credits till you have 20 Fordham credits! Decided to apply for guaranteed student loan – T will be happy. Considering Study Abroad in Eng! After I get pregnant that will be no longer possible. Letter from Book Forum asking me to come in – they might have something for me to do! That would be the first thing I haven’t had to claw for – its welcome. Set up apt for next Wed. Bad thriller by Stanton Forbes & good one by Anne Morice.
22 Jan Thurs 81 Wonderful women’s service at Trinity – new minister Joan Platt – like her very much. Completely relaxed about me sobbing my way through the Nicene Creed – “it gets some people that way!”
Went to the Fordham party with Donna – Dr Dohrn seems to think I could be pulled out of the Excel program fairly soon. Introduced Donna to T’s old roommate – she was nervous and he was supercilious. I give up matchmaking. T (due in ½ hr driving the ’65 Chrysler Imperial from Phila) said people create their own hells of loneliness.
Sat 24 Jan 81 Off to Trenton library with T – he studies and I enjoy Caroline Gordon’s How to Read A Novel. We look at washers and driers – you really can’t get anything for under $700 so we buy a heated bed-pad instead. I read The Denatured Novel – then we have chicken soup in bed watching Desk Set.
Thurs 29 Jan 81 I like the women’s service even better than the discussion afterwards.
Stress interview with Book Forum – wanted me to “throw out 1,000 ideas really fast.” Became completely tongue tied – hadn’t expected that – thought we’d talk about what THEY need. As a result I looked like an idiot. Could barely smile. Awful. I came up with my “Impure Women” concept – Mansfield, Plath, Woolf – that was it. Sounded tired even to me. Obviously never hear from them again. Imagine me being taken for an academic! Hilarious.
Fast registrations at both Fordham & Guilders – only had to pay ½ when I said I was getting a loan. Dinner with Charlene but I rushed home missing T – it was 12:10 and he waited up for me. Delirious marital sex all over the place.
Fri 30 Jan 81 Terrible arguments with T about Episcopalianism vs Quakerism. He’s not looking forward to The Episcopalian dance.
Sat 31 Jan 81 T in his wedding tuxedo – me in a blue bridesmaid’s dress at the Episc. Dance. I especially enjoyed meeting Joan Platt’s husband Peter. Also the new curate – slight pretty girl. (The poor Catholics! We have a deep bench.) Connected with my parents’ old friends the Macdonalds. Bob McD hilariously funny. T had a great time; no fighting, no biting. We left at 11.
Sun 1 Feb 81 Met T’s brother Dom on train – T in “correction mode.” He never does this at home. I called him Mr. Persnickety.
Wait a solid hr at Lois’ house till we can leave for Chadd’s Ford. I eat too many cookies while marveling at Lois’ ability to estrange people. She goes on and on about how the Garden of Eden is a birth myth – this has never been noticed in the history of time by anyone but her. We don’t argue because that would trigger an endless “scene” – she would make us sit there for an eternity unable to move while she beats us into submission.
That’s the kind of audience she prefers – cowed. Ricardo wiggles his eyebrows at his behind her back, gesturing “Please don’t say anything so we can just get out of here and have a nice day.” She goes on and on in her baby-girl voice while batting her eyelashes until you want to smack her. The worst thing that could ever happen to her in life would be to meet herself – neither would ever give ground until they both died, like a Greek myth. If she read any actual books she would not be so impressed with her own ideas – she hasn’t gotten through a whole one the entire time I’ve known her. She’s still reeling from the Deep Truths of The Road Less Travelled – gave everyone copies so they can see how terrible others are – it’s never her.
Finally we get out of there and take both grandmothers out to dinner in Chadd’s Ford to celebrate their birthdays and have a very nice meal. I’m bored solid so eat too much.
Reading the last vol of Kathleen Raine’s autobio – she’s having a rough time with Christianity and there’s no comfort I can give her.
Tues. 4 Feb 81 First day of class both teaching & taking. Met with Fordham advisor who wants me to switch out of Excel and pursue a double major – maybe philosophy! Whoa there!
My teaching class is all babies with glazed eyes – my fiction seminar wrangles about the Death of the Novel. Very dispiriting. They are excited by horrible shit sans character or plot. Plot is contrived and character is MUTABLE. I need to stop reading thrillers – must learn to like Robbe-Grillet.
Wed 5 Feb 81 Miss T – haven’t seen him since 9. Gave my class a really easy test they could pass they all failed. Blue, blue blue.
Women’s group wonderful on the other hand – I adore Joan. Want to ask her to christen our children.
Sat 7 Feb 81 Spent $359 on bathroom floor tiles. It had to be done.
Dinner at the neighbors who wanted to show off their friend Jon Purvis a famous journalist. I got too drunk – T has forgiven me but I can’t forgive myself. Bad day all day. The sorrow of teaching English to the deprived – taking their money and flunking them – is always with me. Don’t like this system. Tried moving novel into first person voice – something my class can respect. Wonderfully cheering call with Avril – she is so good.
Mon 9 Feb 81 Off to library in Chrysler – got a flat tire – had to wait an hour for AAA – missed appt with man to hook up tiny washer dryer we are installing in dining room closet. Feel squeezed & helpless.
Discouraged by mess in house. Frustration the most difficult emotion to deal with. Not impressed by Ross Macdonald: “There’s nothing worse than an ugly woman with a gun.” Really? Bid of $1000 for wiring & plumbing. We’re not paying Lois for rent, she’s not compensating us for improving her property. I try not to care or keep track. Bills bills bills and soon it will be tax time while every job prospect for T melts mysteriously away.
18 Feb 81 Coming out of depression. IRS is auditing me – Toss being completely calm and supportive. I have an attorney! He will represent me! Costume dinner at Snowbury was waste space but we had fun wearing the costumes & we met some interesting people. (Mayor & his girlfriend, a lawyer.)
Weekend at StormFall where I officially give up on fiction and surrender to poetry. Offer to help Gretchen Fuchs find a publisher for her book. I can’t believe we won’t be successful, she’s so good. Toss pantingly bathroom.
20 Feb 81 My depression climaxes and I call in sick – feel like an ugly hopeless worthless slob. Housework all day until I become depressed over how ancient and broken everything is. So desperate I try prayer. The cure lies in orderliness I’m sure.
Sun 22 Feb 81 One cure for depression is reading my diaries – the horrors of Ryder, Devon, Jervaze. Toss so wonderful by comparison. More relief offered by Anne Sexton’s poems.
Mon 23 Feb 81 Feel so unequal to everything. Trying to please too many people with my writing – obvious cure: please only myself.
T asked if I would mind him working for the govt – prosecutor or IRS. I said no – if he wasn’t bored. He said he’s never been as close to another person as he is to me – relief. I was considering myself a hopeless case. Dancing the only job where I didn’t have the fear of being “found out” because I knew I was good at it.
Familiar feeling of depression. More wedding invitations – Granma’s list and Sutton’s list. Poor Sutton – I feel so sorry for him even though he jokes about missing Val: “I got rid of the last gardener I had.”
The only bad night was engagement party – Mom and Dad chose a reel of slides and I sat there stunned at the genesis of all my stories. Ocean, lake, dolls’ cottages – happy healthy smiling people – whence comes all this pain? Dad looks at pictures of the Gryphon tooling through Europe and says, “I’d do it all again.” Would he? I wouldn’t! That pain comes from somewhere deep, deep inside me. Makes me feel like they’ve been right all along – there’s something wrong with ME. Luckily Toss backs me up – he says he “feels 13 years old” around them. Fortunately, I had one “flying high” day on Shadowe Island – with Gretchen Fuchs, the poet. Oh, her library! We soared together in a conversational ecstasy. I saw us deep in the future, two old ladies in an English garden. Talking forever. Lovely woman.
Champagne & steamers with Sutton – then home.
Grover’s Mill – 10 Aug 80 Unpleasant shock in the mail today – Guilders demanding transcripts. Naïve me – I thought only the writing sample mattered for the writing program! Wait till they cock a snook at my record! Will I be exposed as an unqualified adventuress? Would it be so bad if they withdrew their offer? Then I could go someplace else – Marymount maybe. How I loooooong to be pregnant!
StormFall – Tues 19 Aug 80 My last entry? I absent myself from family discussions saying I’ll go to bed to read – really want to write here. Just taken my last Birth Control pill maybe EVER – only 13 pills into the packet. Feeling amorphous. Borderless. The aspirations of adolescence fading. What were the aspirations of adolescence? I can barely remember. To be admired, chiefly. By “others”. And now I’ve ditched the “others” and I’m alone on a vast plain – trying to steady a tipping world. Listening.
Are inner imperatives enough for a whole self? What about love? But love is a term like “weather” – describes infinite mutability.
Need to finish the goddam wedding maps & directions & walk them to the Post Office.
2:15 PM – Thurs 21 Aug 80 Period started! Shouldn’t be surprised – been having a brief period in the middle of my cycle since I started these damned pills – probably they’ve been making me sick. Thinking about the relationships between parents & children – how avoid the miseries? Poor Mom! She felt like a “loser”. Dangerous not believing in an “eternal force” because then all there is is YOU. To BLAME.
Poor Mom! Preferred to housekeep alone – but wanted us to “help” when she wasn’t there – but do it “her way.” Fated to eternal disappointment!
Wedding programs – copy the service in a book for T’s friend Bracket – the gay Baptist preacher – to use.
Weirdly dark cold day. Shakespeare play at Edith Wharton’s tonight is open air – I just hope it doesn’t rain!
Toss’s out driving around with Cousin Wolf in the ancient Chevy they resurrected. Studying the Marymount catalogue and reading Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet – hadn’t realized he was so young when he wrote them! Should be called Letters FROM a Young Poet! May have to switch to Agatha Christie – she’s the sugar taken for “shock”.
Grover’s Mill – 7 Sept 80
A week since our wedding so this must be our honeymoon. I feel perfectly balance on a tightrope – drinking vodka & lime while studying Woolf’sBooks & Portraits, Sayers’ Mind of the Maker. Toss struggling with his additions to our thank you notes. Tomorrow off to Guilders College for a “teachers organizational meeting” so they must be sufficiently desperate if they don’t mind my lack of a degree. Should be interesting.
Chaotic summer swallowed up by the wedding – ended up costing $7000 total. Facing winter with confidence – pregnant in 2 months! If Guilders doesn’t work out enroll in Marymount get my degree one class at a time.
Last night we had bridesmaid Trish Lambert to dinner – husband Noah coming to lunch today – their marriage breaking up so we try to counsel. Looks hopeless – Noah chooses his pride over Trish every time – she says she’s not going back to a situation where she was made so physically ill. What was she allergic to all the doctors wanted to know? Turned out to be him. Try to write here more regularly. These pages are a bank account. Save, save save.
Mon Sept 8 – 80 – Train from NYC – 4 pm What I thought would be a “teachers meeting” turns into a disgusting “registration” process – running from one building to another, paying fees, filling out forms – I am seriously allergic to bureaucracy and the tears are starting to leak. Feel like a person wearing an ill-fitting disguise. However, I believe I carried it off. Just act like you’re entitled and no one questions you. I just don’t want to live in this world. I doubt poor Toss caught in the maw of Beginning Law can provide much sympathy. He is dotting I’s and crossing t’s with a vengeance.
Financial pressures create time pressures. Try to look for the meaning in all this.
2:30 AM Sept 9 – Worry and 2 double whiskies wake me at one and I can’t get back to sleep. Tried bath & reading, nada. Toss has been magnificent. I was able to present my worries without sounding like an idiot and he was able to identify with them without being dismissive. He says his uncle Avery gives Masters to people without BAs in Environmental Studies all the time. I say I really don’t need the degree it’s the experience I want and anyway I blame Plumly. And Chevenix. They ruined me for “degrees”. He always says Plumly was “not so bad” – and of course he loved Reed but they wouldn’t even let him SEE his grades! (They show everyone else!) and he needed an extra year – but he seems to accept my Kafkaesque emotions.
Sat 20 Sept 80 – Fortunately our weekend guest (Toss’s Reed roommate) not here yet. Cleaned & garnished house for 4 solid hours. Went shopping bought 14 meals for $60 – Toss went to Trenton then discovered he didn’t need to go. (Getting out of housework? Hmmm.)
He put a bookcase together and filled it with books (which helped) now he’s making peach butter. What’s preventing me from pointing out to him that him doing all the work he LIKES and me doing all the work BOTH OF US DISLIKE is not a fair division of labor? Cowardice.
Then there’s the problem that this is his grandparents place filled with his grandparents furniture and he doesn’t want anything “changed.” My only satisfaction if making my study a feminine as possible (painting my file cabinets yellow.)
Reading Krumm’s Why I am an Episcopalian (he’s pro women’s ministry) and Hans Kung’s Signposts for the Future and struggling with what God I believe in. Not a subject for dinner party conversation. He will watch Presidential debate and I can opt out of that.
22 Sept 80 Lie in bed satisfied our entertaining’s over. It’s a “test” of our relationship to be around third parties. T always more critical of me in his anxiety that things go well – I am dreamy & slapdash by nature. Ended up watching the debate after all – much more fiery and vituperative than I expected – John Andersen an old-time preacher and Reagan sweetly vague and never finishing his sentences.
24 Sept 80 –Waiting to counsel Rose Love (!) but looks like she isn’t going to show. Lots of them don’t. I’m not the only one having trouble with this system. Horrors! I was “observed” in class – a teacher sneaking in while I was trying to teach probationary “backward” students (I.e. unprepared) how to write an essay and feel I made an idiot of myself. I sweat & tremble – am I only “a pack of cards” or are THEY only “a pack of cards!” Basic feeling of inadequacy – these kids deserve better than me! How did I ever think I could DO this!
Well if Rose isn’t showing up I can read Sackville-West’s magnificent Eagle & Dove.
Very depressing meeting with advisor Ezra Brent about my novel – asked how long I’d been working on it – I said 7 years and he was HORRIFIED. WAY too long for a project so short! But I am evolving as it’s evolving I splutter. Better write about your childhood instead, he counsels. Of course, I can’t do that! Blah! Resolve to write a novel specially for his class – chapter a week. What interests me? Murder & nuns at present. Do I know anything about those? I admit I don’t but need to follow this trail. His obvious expression of disbelief is all the goad I need. Call it “Pinch of Death” from Shakespeare – a quote long in search of a tale to headline.
Train to NY 1 Oct 80 Class observer gave me a rave review! Made 4,000 copies because frankly, no one would believe it. I don’t believe it myself. Good meetings with students. Asked Brent what to do about lack of a BA – he said Do nothing yet. You are a “promising” student. I still feel uncomfortable – don’t even feel like a STUDENT. Feel bolstered up. Unfortunately, no one in fiction class likes my novel – they all think I’m “anti-modern”. I don’t like theirs either. I fire back by advising they read Krafft-Ebing – no “modernity” without him. I should have taken Carberry’s modern poetry – enjoying romantic poetry VERY much.
Fellow student Charlene Clark is teacher at a Catholic college (working on her SECOND masters) and can give me lots of advice about nuns.
I got a letter saying I am a member of the faculty so I get a 10% discount at the bookstore!!! They also have a very respectable library. Reading CS Lewis’s Letters to an American Lady. I CHERISHED his Letters to Malcolm. But 4 Loves very rough going. His anti-feminism somewhat mitigated by his late marriage. He was dragged into that the same way he was dragged into Christianity – kicking and screaming – “the sorriest convert you ever saw.” Interested in his “shameful” relationship with Mrs. Moore. Krafft-Ebing anyone?
Experimenting with prayer but it feels very unnatural. I like the mystic’s stillness – make yourself empty and “fill up.” Any kind of “intellectual direction” feels wrong.
2:10 AM – Grover’s Mill – New Jersey – Sat 24 May 1980
Here we are! Just finished painting the newly plastered wall, putting up a bookcase and most of my books in it. Bad moment when T. thought I was going to paint the wall yellow (I wasn’t.) The kitchen is done but this bedroom still looks like hell.
Wrote a 9 p letter to Devon when I was at my bluest. Probably shouldn’t send it! Sometimes life is too mysterious and T is too much of a stranger. Imagine making this move with Devon! (Or Bruce!) Or Ryder. UNIMAGINABLE!!!! Things are worse because we’re fasting till Mon AM. I use food to pep myself up but this summer I’m determined to get my greed under control. Hard accomplishing anything with T standing over me questioning every move I make.
Looking for a place to hang the Earl & Countess of Horton bas reliefs Mom gave me T said, “I won’t lie to you – I don’t like them.” I said, “I’ll put them in my study” but then I boiled. I don’t like ANY of his stuff – his horrible vintage Camel ads – it’s all hideous – but what if I said so? I took it for granted that if HE likes & wants it, end of story. Evidently, I need to recast my thinking! But that’s impossible – if I rejected everything I didn’t like we’d only have my stuff!
Memorial Day Our compromise is – he works in the barn, I work in the house. The barn is full of treasures that need to be appraised and catalogued and probably sold but he is wildly incensed when I say so! Everything must be saved till it chokes us to death. He is a very angry man and his anger makes me angry. Most unpleasant. He said Alysse, even when you’re angry you’re the person I love most in the world. I feel like I have T’s peace of mind in my care but he doesn’t have mine because he doesn’t know HOW to. Wasted time trying to get him to see praise & encouragement aren’t the same thing. He says, “At least when I praise you you’ll know I mean it.”
He thinks I love him because my “standards are low.”
4:30 AM Sat 31 May 80
Can’t sleep. Reading Helen Van Slyke’s hymn to the middle class but all her books are hymns to the middle class. People who think life is an Ionesco play crossed with Munch’s The Scream won’t like Helen Van Slyke.
Lavallee likes my rewrite “a lot” and is submitting it to Crown. I was sure she’d be able to tell I’m getting numb but apparently not. Sent my gothic The Bride & the Wolves to Tower. Now I have to take a serious look at St Secaire.
Had a little cry (private fortunately) over T praising my clothes, body & housework but not projects or ideas. Need to start a serious program of prayer & meditation.
Ackerman liked T but his CLERKS didn’t want him and Ackerman leaves it up to them! Too bad. Now he’s behind on his bar study schedule because of the move. Maybe self-study NOT the best pattern for a procrastinator?
I think men just aren’t bred to give encouragement.
7:15 PM Wed 4 June 80
“O Rose Thou Art Sick…”
The problem is T’s anger. When we are walking the dogs he says, “Keep to the road, dammit!” There is no point cursing at a dog! He says it makes HIM feel better. I say anger is corrupting – it just makes EVERYBODY angrier! How break an addiction that poisons our relationship? How is it women are called “strident” when men pullulate with such rage?
Forms arrived so I innocently shared my poems and he got jealous of RYDER!!! It never even occurred to me! (poem in question: Love the magician) Obviously, I should have kept these publications “secret” but how icky is that! Especially when the guy is lecturing me on “honesty” night and day. I’m going to have to start pleading the Fifth.
Set up a prayer desk in my study – books, candles, etc. I’m going to practice. I feel stupid asking for things – just try to get in touch with the Divine. But I also feel like God could “save” T! Flood him with light, etc.
Yesterday required interview with Eng Dept at Guilders College for teaching. They astonished me by saying “You’re hired”!
Thurs 5 June 80 Yesterday so bad I threatened to give up and drive to Washington! I was almost in despair. He said I am preventing him from studying with my “demands” which means breathing, sleeping & eating apparently.
He apologized finally and said he’s just so upset about the bar exam! So, I try to relax him physically. Give up on dieting – alcohol & food accomplish what rationalizing & arguing won’t.
Sat 7 Jun 80 We’ve been here a little over 2 weeks and the place is beginning to look like ours. I’m sitting in the garden under holly, maple, lilacs and cypress – an English garden gone to seed. I see Toss’s light in the Little House (an outbuilding) where he is studying.
Tomorrow drive to Phila to celebrate T’s birthday then on Mon I plan to plunge into my study & redo Secaire. Mom & Dad called – I told them about Gilders College Writing Fellowship. They told me ForOptics merged with Corning Glass – up to 24 from 8. This would be good news for me if I could ever get hold of my stock but my “trustee” – Dad – won’t let me have it. He is considering a disbursement. He’d better since Gilders’ stipend is $60/week!
T & I had the usual fight last night but I am learning from them. He goes “negative” & combative very fast. I have to grit my teeth not to mushily give in – I don’t want to fight but APPARENTLY HE DOES – the trick is to get him to see it. He thinks I’m just “resistant” and “demanding.” Resolved to bring his unconscious processes into consciousness.
Reading PD James’ Innocent Blood – just awful. What bone does she have to pick, that’s the curiosity. Feels like she hates females. Probably thinks she must go “male” to write – or how can female “fluidity” direct a story?
Thus began the busiest week of Scarlet’s life, but at first, the happiest. The weather was sharp and clear emitting occasional puffy snowflakes; the sky was wide and open and even in London one could see forever. The streets were festive with Christmas lights and bustling shoppers. There were visits to the Victoria and Albert museum where Kirby Crousam gave Scarlet, Miss Bottomley and Pom a guided tour. Scarlet had never imagined early, high and late Victoriana could all be equally interesting. They thoroughly enjoyed an auction at Christie’s where Miss Bottomley wanted to bid on everything but allowed herself to be guided to a gorgeous big green and grey Larry Rivers at an excellent price – dinners at Simpson’s, drinks at The Gay Hussar and ices at Largo’s.
Miss Bottomley even talked them into attending a pantomime where she clapped as excitedly as a child.
The front door had been endowed with a coded lock and two peepholes – one specifically placed at Miss Bottomley’s height – not that she ever bothered to answer the door any more. Now that she had Enid. All three residents approved and declared this entry was “much less bother”. A “panic button” was installed promising to start up a loud siren signal anytime the Norfolk Crescent Irregulars felt themselves threatened.
Pom behaved like a perfect gentleman, but he looked less haunted and so Scarlet relaxed into guiltless joy. He studiously avoided body contact with Scarlet but his eyes maintained a reassuring glow of intimate promise. Scarlet was mentally relieved but her body was less cooperative – her whole soul ached for him. According to Pelham, the divorce case proceeded swimmingly: Ian had expressed relief to see from their divorce proffer that Scarlet wanted only maintenance for Nick and was offering nanny-supervised visitation. Scarlet felt confident Enid was not Ian’s “type”, and that if he pretended that she were, Enid would see through his gambit.
“Between you and me I think he’ll sign,” said Pelham. “He’d be a fool not to with what we’ve got on him. Ian will agree to be the guilty party and only the judge will ever have to know the details of the harrowing time you’ve been through. Should be over fairly soon when they accept our bargain.”
Scarlet welcomed the days when Miss Bottomley conferenced with Bob Thomas leaving her free to drop into Coltsfoot & Briggins and liase with Mr. Mountjoy. She finally met the elusive Jemima Plympton “pleased to meet you I’m sure” and was given an introduction to the printer, Prollops & Daughters. She was rejoiced at this Dickensian name and accepted it as a very good omen for their future venture! She had already contacted Francesca Joringel, asking to see her manuscript.
The interview she coveted, however, was with Mr. Beebee, head of the advertising firm Coltsfoot & Briggins had used for, quoting Mountjoy, “donkey’s years.” And what she had found out as Mr. Beebee made his pitch caused her to think nobody but a donkey would ever use this firm, but rather than tell them that, she resolved to ask Pom at the first opportunity if he knew anyone in advertising. She had already discovered through happy experience that his art school connections were invaluable.
Once again, she was lucky. On her way out, she saw a young woman – she couldn’t have been more than twenty – showing a portfolio to the bored receptionist who almost certainly had no clout whatsoever.
“I’m sorry,” said the woman frostily in a not-sorry way, “Mr. Beebee’s in meetings.”
Scarlet held the door open for her as the girl marched dejectedly out.
“You’re casting your pearls before swine,” Scarlet remarked.
The girl flushed, “They don’t want to hire a woman, that’s the truth. I doubt they have a single woman working there other than that bloody receptionist.”
“The more fools they,” said Scarlet. “That’s what keeps them living in the past like a pack of dinosaurs. And the same thing that happened to the dinosaurs is going to happen to them. The ideas they showed me were hideously hidebound. Positively strangled at birth.”
The girl looked at her with more interest as they stepped into the elevator together.
“I’m Lalage Sumner-Locke,” she said. “I just finished up at Durham Technical College and my parents gave me two weeks at a hotel as a graduation gift to see if I could get a job in the City.” Scarlet knew this naïve introduction would have been counted against her anywhere except in front of a member of The Norfolk Crescent Irregulars.
“My publishing firm is planning a hardbound reprint of the Miss Clew books of sixty years ago. I wonder if you’d read the books and mock up a advertising plan to get people excited about them.” “I think I’ve heard of those!” gasped Lalage. “My aunt read them through regularly every year. I’d certainly love to try my hand.”
And so Lalage Sumer-Locke came to tea in the Norfolk Crescent kitchen, showed everyone her amusing portfolio and was given ten pounds – “This gives me an extra two weeks!” – and a full set of Miss Clew books.
“She was lucky to have found you,” commented Enid and the two women cleared up afterwards when Lalage had departed and Miss Bottomley, worn out from a morning with Bob Thomas (“Money’s a terrible responsibility!”) had gone to lie down.
“I was lucky to find her! What did you think of the portfolio?”
“I loved the Piccadilly swan lording it over the Mayfair ducks! She’s clever, that one!”
This cleverness was confirmed when, the very next day, Lalage phoned from the Royal Park Hotel (“My parents said I could stay anywhere with Royal in the title”) and suggested she’d also like to illustrate the books.
“The illustrations can be part of the advertising,” she said. “We’ll seize on say, ten moments or however many you want – show an exciting scene – and get people caught up in speculation. “Can Miss Clew escape this time? Is Miss Clew’s number up? Can the world exist without Miss Clew?” That sort of thing.”
“I love it,” said Scarlet. “How are you getting along with the books?”
“I’m loving them so much I have to put them down and force myself to draw. I’m on The Jade Monkey Puzzle right now.”
“Keep up the good work,” said Scarlet.
She was interrupted by Branner of Palace Security.
“That back entrance going to take us longer, miss,” he explained. “We need to sub-contract a masonry job – mortar’s so friable you can put your fist through it.”
“So, you’ll be opening up the wall, then? How can you keep us safe?”
“We’ll hang tarpaulins. And of course, there’s the night guard, ma’am.”
Forever after, Scarlet was to regret not demanding extra guards. Was it possible to be too happy? It could make you careless.
Alysse Aallyn 