The phone man said the best that we could get was a party line. No real privacy – ever. I was dumbfounded. “There’s no real privacy on them other lines neither,” said Mr. Sterling, the phone man. “You just think there is.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Arnold told me, right in the phone man’s presence. “We’ll get our phone through the Internet like all sane people. The land line is only for emergencies.”
Sometimes when the phone rang we weren’t supposed to answer it because it wasn’t our “ring”. Maybe Arnold can ignore a ringing phone: I can’t. Especially if it goes off in the middle of the night. No counting a “ring pattern” there – not with the echoes of sleep rattling through your head.
“Who could be calling at this hour?” I demanded of my husband. Rhetorically.
But he said, “Cows. Bears.” In his dream or on the phone?
As usual it was up to me to answer it. “Hello?” I quavered. A sharp intake of breath but no one spoke. I
had played this game before. Could we have brought our own ghosts with us?
‘That you, Gayle?” I boldly inquired. “Just checking up on us? We’re fine. The baby’s fine. Arnold says hi.”
155 – Awake Till the End – Stories by Alysse Aallyn
It was only afterwards that I wondered if the caller was my uncle’s “housekeeper”. The unpaid one he swore would be compensated in his will. Who else would be angry enough to hound us? And there was always the possibility that it was my uncle himself, wanting to complain about the way I’d spent his money. It would be just like the stupid dead to initiate calls they can’t complete.
FIVE – MEATSAFE
Our first visitors came when before we were ready (as visitors will). Before the cable was connected. Willette had streaked her hair with an unbecoming dissipated rock star red which, considering her coal black eyebrows and pointed chin made her resemble Sarah Bernhardt in her coffin. She had two legs, however. Willette had always been High Maintenance. Compared with her, Stan, a little plumper, somewhat balder now, seemed refreshingly cooperative and easily amused. In honor of our upstate move he wore a sweaters with a vaguely Chistmassy theme.
“Snowflakes! Moose!” he genially exclaimed. “What’s not to like?”
“You’re not missing anything in the city,” said Willette. “We’ve been burgled.”
take?” Stan. “Better glasses don’t help.”
“Omigod,” I sympathized, “What did they “A Cuisinart and my reading glasses,” said “Those instructions are rough,” I agreed.
“We told the cops to be on the lookout for a bandit with severe left eye astigmatism,” Stan joked.
“Not that they’ll look,” said Willette gloomily. “They never do.”
“Until the guy kills somebody,” agreed Arnold.
“They don’t even care about that now,” asserted Willette. “They bargain murders down to “accidents” just to skew their crime statistics. Fighting crime from a desk chair.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” echoed Arnold, a sociable host refilling wineglasses.
They had been stuck in traffic so we were dining at nine-thirty, a distinct hardship for anyone with my raging metabolism. I had eaten the cheese and crackers all by myself and was forced to smack together some distinctly unappetizing crudités. Zucchini slices with sour cream, anyone? Fortunately it didn’t matter. They wanted dinner and dinner itself hardly mattered because the dining room was so dark. Without windows, but six doors, there were constant and mysteriously unaccountable drafts; the candles slanting first one way and then the other. Over Martel and coffee conversation languished. No Martel for me. No wine. I was trying to be good. Trying to be good does not a dinner party make.
“I know,” I roused myself. “Let’s play
Icicle.”
“Icicle?” they all wanted to know. “How do you play that?”
“One person hides and everyone goes looking for him. When you find him you have to squeeze in as close as you can get. Last person left is the icicle.”
“That’s sardines!” scoffed Arnold. “I’ve played that.”
But Willette was intrigued. “Good game for this house,” she said. “We’ll find cubbyholes and corners even you haven’t seen.”
“I’m warning you, I’m the world-class champion sardines player,” said Stan. “I once won hanging for an hour in a garment bag.”
With a challenge like that, he had to go first.
“Basement off limits!” shouted Arnold. “It’s dangerous down there.” Was that an implied waiver of danger elsewhere? We listened to his footfalls clatter up the stairs and wander overhead.
“Sounds like there are three of him,” said Willette. Of course we weren’t bothering to count.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I teased. “Real estate agent says this house is haunted.”
Willette seemed unintimidated. Stan I could have impressed.
“Our refrigerator tried to eat the delivery man,” said Arnold, getting into the spirit. “Both recovered and doing fine.”
“And there’s kind of a bad smell coming from Arnold’s study.” I suggested.
Arnold gave me A Look. Ooo, snap! Talk about burning with a cold fire! I pulled out the Big Guns. “Oswald Pewlett saw a fireball.”
“I feel a fireball coming on myself,” said Arnold, shaking the empty Martel bottle.
“Maybe it’s an animus.” said Willette. “You know, like a malignant spirit that attaches itself to unfinished business.”
I didn’t know. Upstairs a door slammed. Hard. We took that as a starter’s pistol. I let the others rush straight upstairs, elbowing each other like a middle- school recess, pretended at first to follow, then ducking behind a door.
World Champion Stan could not make it this easy for us, not even in an unfamiliar house. If it was me I would make a lot of noise going up the front stairs and then sneak quietly down the back. How he slammed that door I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound difficult with our drafts. If you balanced something on it and opened a window…
Outside had to be off-limits. I heard an unpleasant rustling in the rhododendrons. Think far enough outside the box, fall off the edge. I allowed myself to be seduced by the kitchen broom closet. It’s as narrow as an ironing board but runs the depth of the room, thus making an ideal crawlspace. And there was someone inthere. I could hear him breathing. “Is that you, Stan?”
The shadow rippled towards me. “I’ve missed you, Sharl.” That could have been my sigh, me just talking to myself. But then the voice spoke unmistakably and said the most surprising thing: “Time has no meaning.”
That’s not a message I would ever give myself, and it was my uncle’s voice, I swear it. I backed out in a panic, slammed the door so hard the doorknob fell off. The ghost was locked in, ha ha. Serves him right for refusing to play dead.
Willette and Arnold were upstairs together, looking equal parts smug and guilty. Like I couldn’t figure out what was going on. And they couldn’t say exactly where they’d searched. “Please yourselves,” I yawned. Maybe if I found Stan, he would show a sudden yen for pregnant women. Unlike everybody else.
“He’s not downstairs,” I declared, so it was time to inspect the attic. My flashlight revealed footprints in the dust along the steps. I pursued a faint tapping sound. In the dark, Stan had locked himself in the old meatsafe. Dumb place to hide! And he wasn’t happy about it. Like it was our fault. Willette, feeling a bit one down after the exposure of her skirmishes with Arnold, seized advantage like a wolverine protecting its mate.
“What if he had an asthma attack!”
Then you’d be a merry widow, I thought. But honest Stan said, “I don’t have asthma.”
“But an experience like that could give it to you,” said Willette. “Trauma triggers, they call it. “Traumatic inception”. Someone needs to take that door
off at the hinges.”
mandarin .”
“Don’t look at me,” said Arnold. “I’m a
The game was over. “Maybe in the morning,” I told Willette. “I’m gravid and I need my sleep.”
When Arnold finally came to bed – could Stan possibly have agreed to a threesome? I refused to let him in. “You’re the icicle,” I told him.
SCENE XII – BATHTUB/DRESSING ROOM with towel & clothes rack. HUGE bathtub
CHASE
Here we are.
JAZZ
God, this is luxe. Now I’m scared of drowning.
CHASE
(Touches her)
I have a lifesaving badge.
JAZZ
Coming in with me?
CHASE
Soulmates should never be apart too long. In relationships timing is everything and we don’t want to miss a beat.
JAZZ
Right. We might end up in different universes. Who’s to say we’d ever get back?
(She turns on taps, sounds of water flowing – bubbles)
CHASE
You’re getting bubbles all over the floor.
JAZZ
Who cares? Your mother already hates me.
CHASE
(Reaches in to turn off the jets)
She absolutely does not. My mother’s not a hater. Look at this. There seems to be a drain in the floor.
JAZZ
Seems to be? Didn’t you live here?
CHASE
Nope. This house is new to me.
JAZZ
What a thoughtful vortex we’ve fallen into.
(They undress. CHASE has chain tats twisting up his arms)
JAZZ
I see you made your status permanent. What with the chains.
(Touches them)
CHASE
I’ve got commitment. How about you? Any tattoos?
JAZZ
A tiny one you’ll never find.
(Slides into bath)
CHASE
Sure you want me in there? What if I’m contagious?
JAZZ
Here’s hoping we both are.
(He climbs in)
CHASE
You like ithot. Just like my mom. She thinks you’re not clean unless you remove the top layer of skin.
(JAZZ dumps bubbles on his head – they play – she squeals – he upends her looking for the tattoo))
CHASE
Here it is! I found it! What’s that – a hummingbird? A butterfly?
JAZZ
(Spitting bubbles)
It’s a dragonfly.
(They play. Ah, love)
Weren’t we doing something important before we got worm-holed away?
(Seductively)
CHASE
Nothing as important as this.
(Kissing)
JAZZ
Now I recognize you without your skin.
CHASE
You’ve heard the theory angels are hermaphrodites?
JAZZ
I missed that one.
CHASE
You can be my other wing.
(ZOYA strikes a gong in the front hallway)
CHASE
Uh oh. There goes the dinner bell.
JAZZ
There’s a dinner bell?
CHASE
Mom needs an audience for her extravaganzas.
JAZZ
She cooks her own birthday dinner?
CHASE
From scratch. She’s a one-woman homemaking army. What does yourMom do for her birthday?
JAZZ
We go to one of those sneeze guard buffets where children throw meatballs. Intro to Plague Theory.
(They wrestle, squealing)
CHASE
This is the best bath I ever had. I’m looking forward to getting dirty just so we can get clean again.
JAZZ
I know! It’s so much more fun with two of us!
CHASE
No baths with the Bexter?
JAZZ
Are you kidding? I had to use reverse psychology just to get him to shave. Please – no more Old Boyfriend talk. Let’s agree when we get out of this bath we will be completely new.
(Embrace)
CHASE
Agreed.
(Magical moments. ZOYA strikes gong again)
CHASE
Uh oh. Thirty second warning.
(He climbs out, helps her into towel)
Time for Lady’s Choice.
(Rack of clothes in spot)
JAZZ
I can be anyone I want? There’s plenty to choose from.
(Handles clothes)
Your mother wasn’t kidding. Most of these still have tags. Is your sister even real?
CHASE
Sure she is. She got all the niceness, I got all the meanness .
JAZZ
How can she nice and miss Mom’s birthday?
CHASE
You’ll see why. How about this one?
(Prom dress)
JAZZ
No I like this one better.
(Girl Scout uniform)
CHASE
Or Pocahontas.
(Fringed Indian outfit)
JAZZ
Or a cheerleader! Maybe there’s a football uniform for you. I have my fantasies, too.
CHASE
Better keep it simple. We might have to make a break for it.
(Leonard & Virginia Woolf in the Conservatory at Dalingridge Hall)
VIRGINIA If only I could trust you.
LEONARD You can.
VIRGINIA But these drugs turn my brain to cotton wool. There’s a pattern behind the cotton wool, if only I could find it. Did you know the Duckworths, that incestuous race, were cotton merchants? Coining money from the cotton wool that packs me now. If only I could fight back! But my will is so fragmented. My theory is that we all live so dishonestly, unconsciously, disconnected and detached. You are such a stranger! Everything about you is different. That must be why I married you.
LEONARD Tell me everything, Virginia. Tell me what you fear, so we can kill it.
VIRGINIA Where does one begin? Last night I looked in the mirror beneath a pitiless light and suddenly a dreadful animal face showed itself behind me. He bellowed, he stared, his nostrils flared. The pig’s snout broke the mirror until my thighs ached. How could one forget the thrusting of that ugly snout, the snout that meant starvation, pain and death? The purple foaming stain. Somehow it was all my fault. Roars of laughter at my expense. Dream or was it a memory? All that’s left is hopeless sadness. Being dragged down into a pit of absolute despair. Powerlessness. Paralysis. That’s what I remember.
LEONARD Begin at the beginning.
VIRGINIA The beginning is insomnia. I lie awake at night listening to a senile old man gasping, croaking vile indecencies. I thought it was Father, having a fit of the horrors. But the nurse said it was only a cat. Or perhaps the beginning was the whooping cough. I think I knew happiness before I became so ill. The grownups laughed with me, not at me. Whooping cough steals the breath – none of us could breathe. The atmosphere was tangled, matted with emotion. All the children came down with it, all of us gasping. Mother ran from bed to bed until her skin was paper thin and the bones stood out. I used to wonder if Mother had traded my life for hers, until I remembered she preferred the boys. Women serve, men are served.
LEONARD But all of you recovered.
VIRGINIA They threw me into a tank with Gerald, the alligator. Drowning. I knew I must not sink. Couldn’t get my head above the whirlpool.
LEONARD Go on.
VIRGINIA They covered the mirrors when Mother died. I was thirteen. Vanessa was sixteen, Thoby fifteen. Stella was twenty-five, quite grown up. George was twenty-seven, Gerald twenty-four. Adrian was twelve. No one told me what was happening. I was taken to her bed to say good bye but Mother seemed reproachful, so condemning and stern. She said, “Hold yourself straight, little Goat.”
LEONARD Why were you called Goat?
VIRGINIA I was Goat because I couldn’t control my purple rages. The others hated that he talked to me and gave me books. He didn’t allow Stella to read Cousine Bette but said it couldn’t harm me, because I had read Gibbons on the fall of Rome.
LEONARD Did everyone have nicknames?
VIRGINIA Adrian was Wombat, Nessa was the Saint. Thoby was the Goth because he fought. Mother advised self-control to everyone but Father. My mother had two characters, I think. Her real self, and the Angel in the House. Stifler and the life-giver. And to this day I have the oddest feeling that I’m two people, too.
LEONARD Are you talking about the poet Coventry Patmore’s Angel in the House?
VIRGINIA Yes. Wasn’t she so popular? Singing, “Sacrifice. Sacrifice yourself.” I caught her by the throat and killed her. It was self-defense. I had to kill her or she would have killed me.
LEONARD Your mother died of pneumonia, Virginia. Don’t feel guilty, Children are disgustingly violent, every one of them. It’s a wonder anyone lives to grow up. I’ve decided brute strength is the enemy of thought – that’s why bullies rule and why we must all be pacifists and abjure force, even though it goes against our natures. Tell me, was this “angel” thing why Nessa was called Saint?
VIRGINIA No. That was because she was too proud to tell a lie. We hid from Father in the garden, and when he demanded, Didn’t we hear me calling? We all said No. Only Nessa said Yes. I told her she was an old fraud.
LEONARD Goat is the worst name, I think.
VIRGINIA No, that was Stella! She was the Cow, because she brought the milk.
LEONARD These nicknames are strangely degrading.
VIRGINIA I named myself Miss Jan. I so longed to be someone else. Laura was the worst of us but she was called Her Ladyship of the Lake.
LEONARD How old was Laura and why on earth was she called that?
VIRGINIA Laura was exactly Gerald’s age. But she was gone by the time mother died. Sent away, because she wouldn’t mind. Father said she was the Giver of the Sword because she forced him to punish her. Then she screamed so he had to punish her more. When Maitland was writing Father’s life he said that everything about Laura would have to be suppressed. Everyone hated Laura.
LEONARD Why did you hate her?
VIRGINIA Temper tantrums. We all had temper tantrums, but hers were worse. Father was still having them, but Mother could calm him.
LEONARD So, Laura went to an asylum?
VIRGINIA When I was ten. Until then she lived with a governess at the top of the house. At night, we heard her howling like an animal.
LEONARD Did your parents ever say what exactly was the problem?
VIRGINIA Mother said she was wicked. Father said she was perverse. Thoby thought she wouldn’t stop touching herself. I read all Father’s letters when I helped Maitland with his book. Father begged Mother to marry him to help with Laura.
LEONARD But she couldn’t help, could she?
VIRGINIA Abominable system, family life. It goes from ignorance and indifference to denial and contempt, open attack and ultimate destruction. None of it was Mother’s fault. She was always visiting the poor and making them clothes. I always thought the poor knew how to enjoy themselves better than we do, because we are cooped up, day after day while they walk out freely.
LEONARD Did you ever visit Laura?
VIRGINIA Once I went with Stella. Laura spoke only gibberish. The only comprehensible sentence was, “I told him to go away.” I couldn’t go back because that was where I saw the deformed men.
LEONARD I don’t understand why Stella was The Cow. Wasn’t she a young, beautiful girl?
VIRGINIA I thought her lovelier than Mother. She was so pale, so white, she looked like cow parsley by moonlight. I don’t think Mother loved her, really. She was Mother’s loyal handmaid. Stella taught us our letters. She was supposed to look after Father when Mother was gone, and Mother was absent a lot.
LEONARD Where did your mother go?
VIRGINIA Nursing the sick. Mother loved nursing the sick, she said they were easier than the well. She seemed always so far away, in her mind. When we spoke to her she looked through us as if she didn’t see us. While Mother was gone, Stella stood in for her.
LEONARD Didn’t Stella have a life of her own?
VIRGINIA She turned down proposals, I know that. Mother didn’t want her to marry. Cousin Jem was obsessed with her – we children were frightened of him.
LEONARD Cousin Jem? Wasn’t he the mad cousin?
VIRGINIA Yes, but before he was locked up, he conceived a passion for Stella. He would run into the house, shouting, while Stella fled up the front stairs. He pursued her, bellowing, right to the nursery where he speared our toast on his swordstick. I thought he looked like a tormented bull. Father said to tell him Stella wasn’t home, but Mother said she could never bar her door to Jem. She said she loved him and he needed us because he was banned from all his clubs. Once he abducted me and Mother.
LEONARD He abducted you?
VIRGINIA Yes, funny, I’d forgotten it till just this moment. I suppose that’s how memory works. He took us to his rooms because he wanted me to pose for him. Mother didn’t want to go, but she couldn’t stop him. As he painted, he declaimed his own poetry:
“if all the harm that were done by men were doubled and doubled and doubled again squared and raised to the power of ten there wouldn’t be nearly enough, not near to keep a small girl for a tenth of a year.”
LEONARD And you were a small girl.
VIRGINIA I was. The smallest. I never saw the picture.
LEONARD How did you get away?
VIRGINIA Did I get away? I don’t remember. I always stammered when I told him Stella wasn’t home so he knew I was lying. When he grabbed me by the collar I thought of the Ripper Man who had been in all the papers. This is what they must have felt, those women, when they were grabbed by Ripper Man. I’m afraid I wet myself and Nurse was angry. She punished everything I did, but I never listened to her. Nurse claimed all emotions like fear, dread, disgust – come from desiring the wrong food or not moving one’s bowels. Children must accept whatever’s given. If you show a preference, then that’s the very thing you’re not allowed to have. It’s as bad for a girl to cry for what she wants as for a boy to land a blow. Yet we did both, because Nurse was nobody.
LEONARD Cousin Jem was taken away to the madhouse. That was a good thing, surely.
VIRGINIA Where he starved himself to death, and that’s what I shall do if ever you lock me up in one of those places.
LEONARD Go back to your mother’s death.
VIRGINIA I didn’t know what had happened until I saw the nurses crying. I thought they were pretending and we should laugh at them but everyone pulled a face. I went to kiss Mother but she was cold as iron. I never touch iron without thinking of her. Father caromed off people and walls, seeking anyone to wail against. It was like being shut up in a cage with a wild beast.
LEONARD My family was rigidly quiet when my father died. Stiff upper lip, get on with it, try harder, everyone must buckle down. That sort of thing.
VIRGINIA A family is a conspiracy, driven by uncontrollable lusts. I saw a man sitting with mother’s corpse but the others saw no one there. We became unmoored, entering a time of hopeless suspense, muddle, mismanagement, battling the stupidity of those in power. It was as if a finger had been laid upon our lips, sentencing us to a sultry, opaque miasma that choked us and blinded us. Father shouted at Stella if she didn’t stock his writing paper or ordered too much fish. I knew it really was because she couldn’t tell him he was a first-rate writer, as mother always did. Stella had no mind and nobody respected her. Poor father was haunted by fears that he only had a third-class mind.
LEONARD And did he, do you think?
VIRGINIA His ego crippled him. Self-assertion is so loathsome. Father began writing The Mausoleum Book. About death. He wailed from the top of the stairs, “We perished, each alone.” Nothing is to be dreaded so much as egotism. Stella tried her best to rescue us. I wasn’t kind to her because she dragged me to the dentist and ordered all my clothes. I couldn’t bear standing for inspection while being stuck with pins. She was made me wear stays for the first time. Then Stella fell in love.
LEONARD With Jack Waller Hills. Did you like him?
VIRGINIA I did then, but I realized later he was a terrible old Fascist. He used to say, “the weak are wrongdoers who foul the nets.” I know he meant me, that I was a weak wrongdoer. In the end, he was a typical man who liked to have his way. He always put his great hoof down. But at first, he seemed the only truth-teller we had ever met. I was thirsty for knowledge, and he knew things. He taught me how to sugar trees for moths, how to collect and mount butterflies, how to take pride in killing beautiful things. He told me everything about sex, about “street love”, common love, why it is that women can never walk alone. I was so shocked. I asked, What about honor? He said men never think of honor, that they had women constantly, so all their talk of purity is nonsense. Every man has his whore. Every woman except the cheap ones must be locked up tight. Yet they call women fallen! Men are the whores. It makes no sense to me.
LEONARD It does sound mad.
VIRGINIA The night Jack proposed a tramp broken into the garden. Thoby threatened him, shouting at him to go away. We were always frightened of tramps – it seemed they could get in anywhere. I was afraid one had invaded the house and was lurking and leering, waiting to pounce. But it was only Jack. When Father found out about the engagement he tried to stop the wedding but Stella had her own money so he could do nothing. He postponed the wedding until Stella agreed to buy the house next door so that she could still take care of him. During all this Nessa and I were forced to chaperone. You can’t think how awful it is to sit between a couple whispering and trying to touch. I was so angry at Stella I broke my umbrella in half.
LEONARD Child chaperones? Whatever will they think of next?
VIRGINIA I know! I often think I’m the only one who isn’t crazy! Stella and Jack convinced the aunts that Nessa and I could accompany them properly to Bognor but immediately we got there they sent us two out into the rain so they could be alone. We were soaked to the skin!
LEONARD Was there no one who could speak for you?
VIRGINIA The old aunts were the worst of the lot. They curdled our brains with their falsehoods and their pieties. The wedding was the most horrible ordeal. Nessa and I resolved to be Stoic and show no emotion, as if it were nothing touching us. If ever you show feelings you are treated like a beast at the zoo and will never escape the cage. Thus we were buried beneath obligations, under torrents of uncomfortable clothes, awkward visits and unspeakable rituals. I think we are to be congratulated, you and I, that we sidestepped that whole mess so neatly.
LEONARD Yes, the registry office is so much better. It’s over so fast. But after the wedding?
VIRGINIA The happy couple went to Italy, and we were left alone with Father. He was awful to Nessa, how I hated him! He shouted at her as he’d shouted at Stella. But Nessa stood up to him, she was a rock, she didn’t care. That’s when she summoned up her supreme indifference. It’s the bane of all who love her.
LEONARD But Vanessa had no money of her own.
VIRGINIA No. If Stella hadn’t given us allowances we would have had to beg Father for every penny. And then Stella and Jack came home early because Stella was ill.
LEONARD What was wrong with her?
VIRGINIA Violet Dickinson told me Jack must have hurt her with his violent lovemaking. That he broke her somehow. But Violet was just a spinster, so what could she possibly know? The doctors called it appendicitis but you know what cretins they turned out to be. They couldn’t operate because of the baby – she was pregnant, of course. On the night she died, I was sleeping in her new house – in her dressing room in fact –
LEONARD You were sleeping in Stella’s dressing room?
VIRGINIA Yes, I’d been so ill, you see. I always got ill when people went away. But Stella was dying so they sent George to fetch me. George the over-fed pug dog, fat as a louse, beady-eyed as a rat. He wrapped me in Stella’s fur cape and carried me back to Father’s house.
LEONARD And then?
VIRGINIA Stella died and Jack was left bereaved. Now we had two widowers wailing. The men in our family hardly waited for the bodies to be buried before turning to their next victim. I remember Jack holding my wrist on one side so tightly he left bruises, and George holding me on the other side. I was trapped, you see, I couldn’t get away. George won so Jack settled on Nessa. They actually wanted to marry! I couldn’t believe it. I told Nessa, you can’t be serious! She said, “So you’re against me too,” and gave me a look that broke my heart. But she knew they couldn’t marry because of the Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Act.
LEONARD They could have married in France.
VIRGINIA That’s what they say about everything, that “the French get away with it.” Luckily it all blew over because Nessa was granted a place at the Slade. Then I was quite alone. George pounced immediately and began ordering clothes and jewels to release me into society. I was the sacrificial offering to his violent gusts of passion and his mean little piggy brain.
LEONARD
And then?
VIRGINIA
And then Father began to die and I went mad a little. After he died, I went mad a lot.
LEONARD
Well, it isn’t any wonder, from what I’ve heard. If you are mad then so am I.
VIRGINIA You can’t think how long I’ve waited for those words!
(she reaches out a hand to him – he clutches it and kisses it)
LEONARD
Dearest! You will always be my only love!
(they gaze at each other, both trembling with pent-up emotion)
VIRGINIA But darling, if Dr. Craig consigns me to deepest darkness you will have to marry someone else. You can’t waste your life waiting for me.
LEONARD That won’t happen. Craig says our future’s what we make of it.
VIRGINIA Oh, honey mongoose! Let’s make a pact right now to rise above the nay-sayers. You have given me all the best things I have ever had in life, rescued me from the cliff edge again and again. You have been absolutely perfect to me, and I have been disgraceful to you. You work so hard and I do nothing. It’s all my fault. I was mad and angry before I met you and I am madder and angrier right now. I want you to know that I do want to cuddle you but I don’t know how to show it. In spite of my vilest imaginings I’ve always known that I love you and that you love me.
(he leans his face towards her, she awkwardly moves closer and they kiss delicately)
LEONARD Virginia, I promise not to ever push you any farther than you want to go.
VIRGINIA Oh honey! And I promise to follow all your rules; early bed, milk for breakfast; just so long as I can always read and write.
(they embrace)
LEONARD
If ever you cease writing I shall divorce you immediately.
VIRGINIA
(laughing awkwardly as if she has forgotten how)
It’s a bargain. Oh, darling, shall we really have our own press and print all our own work?
LEONARD Yes, and some of your friends if they are good enough. You decide.
VIRGINIA
And can I have a bulldog, too? I’ve always wanted a bulldog pup.
LEONARD
Certainly, my pet.
VIRGINIA
And can we live in London? A new house all our own?
LEONARD
Not London but perhaps some leafy suburb.
VIRGINIA
Leonard! Suburbs!
LEONARD
Think of the bulldog, Virginia. He must have a healthful life.
VIRGINIA
You’re right of course, Leonard. You are always right.
LEONARD
Bulldogs need a place to roam.
VIRGINIA
Fresh air and food. Lots of good red steak.
LEONARD
May I order dinner now, Virginia? Surely, it’s time.
VIRGINIA Yes, Leonard.
(She clutches his hand fiercely while with his other he rings the bell) CURTAIN – END
EVAN This is the letter I would write you if I dared, if I weren’t frightened bf the cancer Of your Elayna-hatred. I am overworked, wrung out. I feel possessed by you. You must always live at the pitch of anguish. Our love has roots in good and evil, It lives in the darkest places of our natures Despite of its pleasant surface. Shall we end by destroying each other? You have the deadlier weapons.
EVA I have a bad effect on people. Guilt, conspiracy, love, I cannot breathe without them. Oh, the pain of your reproach! Not seeing you would kill me. I live for the memory of our every moment. I wouldn’t give a damn if I had a month to live.
EVAN Boredom, dissipation, remorse, And apprehension– I can’t escape this obsessive cycle. Beneath the controlled surface of my mind Opportunities to be frenzied are endless. I’m afraid of saying something evil which many stick.
EVA Gratitude for our happiness chokes me. This restlessness of things going to waste. Missing you is like an illness. I have never fallen out of love with you. The flame is always there. The place is full of you. I can no longer look at hyacinths
EVAN There’s a worm in this bud But who is its corruptor? Your insights are so powerful they alter mine. I’m sorry for your husband’s death. I feel a shift in the angle of vision. A sadness fell on me A foreboding so final it seemed the end. Your pleading for our life dissolved my will. I agree to renewal, something I can live by But I refuse your guilt.
EVA Did I leave my diary behind? Don’t read it, not that you would. It’s anaphrodisiac. I am filled with envious admiration For the way you spend your time. You get so much done!
EVAN Of course, it’s an incentive to work, being alone. You have created your own circle Even if the intelligentsia is as insensitive as you say. I’m grateful we are calm, Those fearful scenes never likely to begin again. I’m sure the panic of youth has played a part. I used to hope you would love me less over time But now I think we love each other equally.
EVA I believe we should exchange rings. Do you think this faux? Would Elayna object? This is so I have something in case you die of that itch or fall out of an airplane. I wonder why Elayna’s throat won’t heal? I believe she is ice-bound. She’s sealing you away from life.
EVAN You witch, you have Frozen Elayna’s throat. I begged you not to. You make Sadness physical.
EVA Elayna’s frozen her own throat I wish you’d see it. Depression is hallucinatory. Guilt and sorrow undermine all confidence, I refuse to give them credence.
You are so near me I feel we are one person. I feel you now beside me. I will make you real.
EVAN These acute waves of feeling sometimes come over me As if you’re signaling. I owe you happiness But I can’t express it. We must always believe life is as beautiful as the music Says it is. The illusions you must cultivate are in fact A form of courage. Forget my deficiencies Find amusement in the worldly game.
EVA Without Allen, I re-experience my youth. Oh, the bafflement of the young! I broke off my engagement because I loved too much And cast about for a spouse I could Control. I believe you did that, too.
EVAN Our parting was unbearable. I had to run away – Your rush of talk was like someone bursting into tears. I feel like an executioner robbing you of sleep. My nose began to bleed and It’s been bleeding ever since. We must love each other less to become more tranquil.
EVA I am a witch and you should fear me. I glow with contempt and boredom and fury. I don’t understand why I can’t experience life by your side. We share the same senses, The same vein of joy. Our life together is timeless, continuous.
EVAN Your letter’s fraught with dynamite. I can never be alone, it is me and the gin bottle. I am home nowhere now – except with you.
EVA I don’t want you getting yourself into a state But Edgar has proposed, forcing me to face the fact That I literally cannot live without you.
EVAN I dread you will fall for Edgar. You called him “sweet” and “cozy” and “brilliantly entertaining” And I am none of those things. Did you bewitch him? he said in a persecuted voice. It would your justice, sending me to hell. We would lose each other by inches, But aren’t we doing that already?
EVA I can’t show Edgar the brutal candor Behind my loving kindness. He mistakes the hostess for a person. I arrange the flowers in symbols of you And everyone’s too stupid to notice. To bed alone again tonight. I wish Elayna would die. Then we should be equals.
EVAN Do you really love me? Why should you? I don’t seem any longer To be able to cope with friendships.
EVA It is a horror, an outrage That we should not be here together. I struggle against The wound of not knowing where you are each minute. Everything you do is more important to me than my own life. The whole of me is with you. I see and feel you so distinctly, your beloved cold hand in mine Your touch on the nape of my neck. Both joy and agony – my insides torn by pincers. A double goodbye would have been awful – two bites on the bullet of pain. This love is like something we have given birth to. We must never blunt our imagination or tenderness. Don’t get a cold in your soul.
EVAN I disappoint everyone. I deliberately left one of your letters for Elayna to find. With me love is linked with A need to betray. I invite possessiveness. She made me promise our love would never be physical. I lied fluidly.
EVA Even the thought of Such a loss of pleasure tears at my heart Like some medieval torture. You harrow me unbearably. My defenses are down. I’m filled me with a sense of ghastly injury. How I wish I were more beautiful – It’s my mouth that ages me. I want you seeing all of me – Even if it hurts. You are your own child, You preserve your youth with the harm That you cause. I am dead and already Interred – in you. You are my eternity.
EVAN You can’t have everything. I am kept aloft by the conflict of Unbearables. I am happy.
EVA Our dancing life is over – Shall I enter a convent? There’s no point in being alive if we’re not together. I show my deepest self to you alone.
EVAN Please – no more shaming conversations Over Irish whisky. Let’s cut our losses And get some fun from life.
EVA
The gash in our love might close But I can’t forget it’s there. Life with you is a remote happiness to which I cling.
EVAN And all this time you write Fantastic books. If you were as unhappy as you say, You couldn’t write so well. I am the whetstone on which you sharpen – I should be thanked for all your works.
EVA You shed your light around me. I am always aware of that other world we share – Or do we? Our pattern seems set – If treachery can’t break it, There is no death.
EVAN I am losing interest in sex. My bed gets so icy in the small hours of the morning – I feel I am trying to communicate with the spirit world. I am in limbo and will never escape this place. The adolescent remains alive in me, I have a Panic fear of conformity. So I cast myself as the elderly rake. I’m the bore – Marriage gets me down.
EVA When you go on and on about yourself You’re a man I don’t recognize. I prefer your adolescent self. The man of the house is a free agent. A respected prowler Who looks benevolently upon the faces of his womenfolk. Then he’s away – with mistresses or boyfriends. In my attack of loneliness, I’m housebound, Eating baked beans and drinking stewed tea.
EVAN In other countries women Are less bossy and more decorative.
I like women willful, late For appointments, fond of showy clothes and society, vague, drifting, dreamy, yet of course all of that is tiresome. But I don’t like competence, intellectual honesty, intelligent sensuality. Women keep turning on me saying, “You don’t love me.” What good is it to have been so happy when it ends so painfully? I am a “crook”, a “torturer of women”, “Murderer.” She has made me feel a monster. Below the surface of the will I feel deep animal distress, as if I had wives Hidden away somewhere To marry my present wife.
EVA I find your misery gratifying. When I was younger I used to Accommodate everyone – Now I’m recalcitrant. You’re never out of my thoughts, but Sadness dulls one. Honestly, I always risk failing you, Failing you in outstandingness. You are extraordinary, I am extraordinary, we have been extraordinary together. We’re specimens under glass. It hurts because the pin runs through both of us. The agonizing force of missing you Is sweeping over me. We have eternity connecting us, Backward & forward but I can’t get anyone to believe it.
EVAN Would my death simplify things? My wife struggles with carrying the conversation While I stare glumly at the rain. We go to an expensive little restaurant And pretend we are on a date to really talk.
EVA That woman’s killing you. Imagine if you were dead and your wife Wrote a book explaining you To everyone! That’s true suffering – Fodder for the mealy-mouthed.
EVAN My wife won’t be writing any books About me or about anything. You’re the one To write the book. I feel safe in your hands.
EVA Except I’ve told you over and over You’ll outlive me. You’re killing me. Or your wife is. I’ll die of my addiction – We always do. We prefer it. Will you write about me?
EVAN I’ve lied to everyone for So long, I’m sure that truth Is beyond me.
EVA I’d rather see you dead at my feet Than dead ON your feet. That would be a mercy killing – The last unbearable agony – Wondering if you existed at all. I have small talent for this. I have disgraced my idealism, Pretending boredom can be fruitful. Waiting, waiting for you everywhere. I Wake one day to find I’ve lost my looks, my hair, fascination, brain – everything.
EVAN You’re simply waking up In an empty hotel. The light is always different The morning after. This is what middle-aged people do. I love the brutality of your world. You never fade. You are my word made flesh.
EVA You are my religion. Until In fell in love with you I was 25 inside. I lived in a world of dreams and theories. Your experiences seem realer to me than mine.
EVAN To have touched the same places Is a bond between us. Social instinct is my religion.
EVA Middle-aged people go to weddings Out of perverse fascination for the bride. I was that bride – My day was all champagne. Anaesthetized It doesn’t hurt so much. Such a sense of enormity came over me I almost fainted. I gave Allen the dirtiest look: “You caused this.” Without wedding dress I was a restless, dowdy snob. People were falling in love left and right – Even in decaying marriages. I wanted that – He read my subtext. And I was caught.
EVAN These dreary parties have a decaying effect. My loneliness for you is like a whiplash. Your absence is a bitter injury But nothing can injure our love – We’re too strong for them. I’m silenced till I hear from you. If I let myself go I would feel desperate. I can’t bear you’re going to France without me – isn’t love our country?
EVA I won’t say “I’ll die if you don’t come” Because I know you would come if you possibly could. What a skeleton in the cupboard a wife is.
EVAN Don’t be jealous of Elayna. You are the only goal Toward which my life is tending. You are the meaning of my life. I could never live for work alone.
EVA You enlarge my soul. In your mind is my existence. You’re more real to me than me. I’m in a peculiar psychic state. It’s an atmosphere of illusion. I envy Elayna all the time. It drips like an irritant over my nerves.
EVAN What of Allen? You Have your worse half too.
EVA Oh, Allen spends his time lost in woods, Falling in love with trees. He’s No threat to anyone.
EVAN To understand one’s destiny One needs a framework for this mass of experience. How can I live separated from you? If I stopped caring for you I couldn’t care for anything. I need my wife, her whip-cracking organization. I loathe living in the squalor I get into on my own. Having breakfast OUT of bed is the last horror. Miasmic feelings of impossibility and terror. Help me.
EVA We help each other By existing. Except for God I have no help but you. Our love is growing more formidable as our unshakeable belief Grows stronger. Like grace, it renews itself. All yesterday I glowed. My inability to accept your wife Is my deformity – help me with it. The light of our love is the only light for me.
When I gave my stepmother a short story to read, she recommended I join a writer’s group. I laughed and said I’d belonged to COUNTLESS writer’s groups! Literally, God knows how many.
She was surprised, I guess that my bumps hadn’t been smoothed out.
It takes courage to share your passions. I saw a lot of talent in writer’s groups. They definitely showed me techniques of riveting attention grabs I hadn’t yet thought of. But every writer comes up against the problem of; how much are you going to let them change you. Usually, if you follow someone’s direction down an uncertain path, you need to be able to trust that person. And I could never quite get there.
I remember when my first serious novel was accepted for publication – “serious” as opposed to my gothic – I was so excited, and immediately shared that info with two of my writer’s groups, thinking they might want me to speak about the effort and the experience. But they showed no interest whatsoever. I couldn’t even get my local newspaper interested!
I contacted my old writing teacher and offered him a copy but he was uninterested, too. He’d moved on.
This was a shock. I couldn’t have pissed off ALL these people – in one of those groups I had been a completely accepting student. I began to think it might be like contacting a home-buying seminar and telling them you’ve bought a house. All they’ll say is, “Good for you.”
Writer’s groups are about relationships – something I suspect I’ve never been good at.
My courage was diminished: somewhat. Luckily the Warrior Ethos tells you that’s exactly the time to make a plan to keep going. Because Being Warrior isn’t about Going Along to Get Along. It’s about finding out what the truth really is, every time. Truth isn’t a fact, it’s a modality Warriors live in. Warrior passion never diminishes. It grows.
#Haiku: Wake Up I’m All Alone
#Haiku: Wake Up I’m All Alone
Spooks need Dupes: Dead need Goodbyes: Sustain Feedback loop: Frustrate Rejection.
After the bank took our house, we moved into one of the vacant condos in their project. My mother-in-law sued us with a federal injunction that accused us of damaging her tax credits.
Throughout this horrible state of affairs my husband kept hoping his mother would come to her senses. I consulted a divorce attorney but realized that I didn’t want a different husband, I wanted a different life. I wanted to return to the past, when we were happy and everything was possible.
At this time, my own family sold our summer place in Maine and I gained a sudden influx of cash. I decided to use it to get my husband away from his mother and into a new life. There was certainly the possibility that he would feel obligated to choose her, because of his “sunk costs” or just feel emotionally unable to leave his situation.
Through the nine years of our marriage we had found joy and release visiting his family summer place, StormFall, in the Berkshires, and it seemed to make sense to choose somewhere near there. Hartford was the nearest big city and Connecticut seemed halcyon and clean; almost a paradise in comparison with Philadelphia. The children were six and two at the time; as soon as I received my psychology degree from LaSalle U we took off to explore the Hartford suburbs. Manchester, “Silk City”; “The City Of Village Charm” seemed just perfect. I bought a cute little new townhouse and enrolled the kids in school. It took Toss only a few months to join me. He hired a lawyer to extract him from his partnership and he found a wonderful job writing for the Connecticut Lawyer. He stayed there twenty-three years! We were a happy family again.
NEW HOUSE
The pregnant car disgorges Us. It’s winter. We beat our gills as light As hummingbirds. In a town of green schools and Greener parks this New built house Gapes and swells To draw us in. There’s a science room and A writing room and A TV room and Rooms for children. We sleep aloft for safety High above the thorny osiers Unseen by the demon’s angry outriders; Cherishing a safe word She’ll never guess; it’s Love.
Bad news – Scribner’s rejects mystery, so I went to the hairdresser in great determination to get a new cut & body wave. I showed her pictures and she seemed to know what she was doing but it came out much too curly when what I wanted was a wave. She said after I washed it most of the curl would leave – it HASN’T – even the color looks brassier – now I think I look like Little Orphan Annie. Toss says “you traumatize easy” and it’s the truth. Never acquired the rhinoceros hide. Trying to be philosophical but feeling hopeless about my work which is the obvious result when you try to please people but don’t. Afraid agent Lavallee is going to abandon me and I couldn’t blame her – also the whole thing about having an agent is they have to think about the market and the market is telling me to STOP THINKING ABOUT IT.
Luckily the baby is a great joy. I let myself get too tired – made a big effort to get to Women’s Group and it was distressingly boring Old Testament stuff. When I tried to apologize to Mom for dragging her to this event she behaved strangely – maybe she PREFERS Old Testament – couldn’t figure it out. Daisy wanted to know why I was distressed and I couldn’t explain how my parents seem to feel threatened by my religious beliefs. Mom & Daisy did NOT like each other. At least Mom didn’t act scornful which was my big fear.
Last Sutton & Pansy came to dinner with Mom & Dad – it was a successful event and the parents liked Pansy very much. Didn’t sniff afterwards about how vulgar they were or over-interested in money. In fact, they acted like rich people around me for the first time, drinking a lot of wine and talking about Merrill Lynch Cash Management Fund. Toss very surprised to hear his father say that if certain targets are reached, he plans to give the Country Store he bought for $125,000 to the manager, a virtual stranger! T used to be against hitting up Sutton for bucks but this might change his mind.
Tonight parents are off to Aunt Fred’s so Toss & I can have dinner alone. Tomorrow afternoon Mom & Dad leave.
Thousands of phone calls to make and letters to write but I think I will just be ruthless and postpone them till I feel up to it. God, I feel better! Just need to talk to myself once in a while. Having a beer and trying to express milk for the baby’s night bottle.
8 PM 4 Dec 81 Started hemorrhaging at midwife appt today. Adair gave me a shot of methargine and had me rest until the bleeding stopped, then prescribed bedrest! No stairs for a week! No housework! I was so tired I was grateful for the directive. I especially want to avoid a D & C.
8:20 PM Tues 8 Dec 81 I did have to go to the hospital – had to call Adair at ll:30 because bleeding started up again with enormous clots! She came over and said I needed Medical Management.
I went to Middlesex Hospital at 2 AM where I was prodded and probed by literally EVERYONE in the emergency room while I clung tearfully to Toss, upset at being separated from Shane, who was being cared for by Lois. Finally, I was sent to a private room where I was able to express milk. Sent 2 bottles back with T so Shane never did run short.
The Pitocin in my IV finally stopped the bleeding and I was released at 5:30 without having a D & C.
Since then I’ve been OK – no bleeding at all.
I am being driven insane by being waited on. T never has dinner ready before 9 and when I send him for tea or coffee he always forgets.
I don’t mind giving up housework but I want to resume a normal schedule and take Shane places but we really can’t go anywhere before the Bahamas.
My reading diverse – The Economist, Money mag and 2 Agatha Christies. Also the entire diary of the Princess of Pless, which I found fascinating.
Yesterday I almost got back to my writing but Shane thrashed around like a whale in a tank all afternoon and by the time he subsided I needed a nap myself. Baby needs changing AGAIN!
Last week the nearest I got to postpartum depression was sobbing over Scribner rejection. I hold 2 contradictory views at the same time. Money represents freedom & dignity, and, it doesn’t matter at all.
Daddy weirdly touchy with me at the beginning of our visit asking what mistakes I’m going to make with MY child (as if I knew!) The only thing I can tell for sure is I’m bound to make SOME (but I won’t make THEIRS.) Sutton seems to have made an impact on him – he bought Printronix, opened a margin account and checks out the stock possibilities of California wines.
Freedom would mean writing what I like and selling directly. What fun. But you have to be prepared to lose money on it. I like doing things MY WAY which is probably why I’ve had so little success so far.
Dr. Jones trying to discover how my self-esteem got so badly damaged in the first place. Feel power slowly returning to me through the confusion & helplessness. Dimly realize I should welcome these difficulties if it makes me stronger. Freeing myself from people liking my poetry. My enemies are exhaustion & demoralization. Still want to write a mystery and have so many ideas I am afraid of them. Also, bothered by Toss. I have been horny the past 3 nights (no full sex for 6 weeks) but he keeps falling asleep with his clothes on.
Being good on my diet so hopefully will be skinny soon. Already look not-too-bad though stomach loose. Swimming in the Bahamas will help. Reading Troyat’s Catherine the Great. Looks like baby needs a feeding. Won’t tackle stairs till the weekend – then I’ll feel I’ve done my best.
10:45 PM Wonderful interview with William Stafford in American Poetry Review. Helpful yet caused fresh agonies. It was about writing for the process, avoiding disapproval AND approval. Yet how kill this terrible hunger?
My last conversation with Charlene making me think this friendship is pretty well over. I have the sense of not being listened to. She thinks I’m too privileged to have problems. Says I should try a tutorial with Ezra (whose taste I deplore) when I have given up on Guilders (and it has given up on me.)
Wed 9 Dec 81 Poor Weasel killed by a car this morning – killed outright, thank God – ½ hr after leaving the house. Very sad knowing she got away with this because we couldn’t pay attention to her. Lately we’ve been trying to get her to sleep in a cotton lined bed because of her allergy and she was taking it as a punishment. In a year or two it will be time to get a puppy Dixie can lick into shape.
Goodbye, beloved white dog. See you where all things are perfect and I can give you the attention you deserve. Valiant Toss out burying the body.
Thinking tormentedly about my writing. So much I want to write and can’t – rejection and poverty are difficult. But my “problem” is something else. The terms of my bondage are unclear. What is the condition I am searching for? Serenity. It’s funny how much better this diary makes me feel.
3:15 PM Baby asleep almost 2 hrs now. I’m still in bed – the crises and chaos of this morning haven’t allowed me to get up yet. Reading Living With Your New Baby which is very helpful. Called Lois to tell her I can’t cope with phone calls for the time being – I need to isolate to cope with stress. However, I could address announcement envelopes if Toss would remember to bring them home. Granma is being a pain, constantly calling & writing – we will see her Sat. She offered money but seems to have forgotten.
Hard to believe Weasel, so vibrant a few hours ago, is bloodied & broken in the earth.
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.
Alysse Aallyn 