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.
First article about psychoanalysis (New Yorker) much better than second one. If only one had endless money & time! Think about Avril’s fear – that pain exhumed will rise up and annihilate us. Neglect PLUS fear of abandonment are Mom & Dad’s legacy!
So many unanswered questions. When Mom seemed not to hear us was she really in a trance or just pretending? Dissociative state from childhood abuse? Genevieve and I have discussed this – we were completely unable to get her attention. She seemed frozen. Didn’t even flicker. Where’d she go? She was raised in isolated conditions with no Mom, (not allowed to have friends over or bring them to her house.)
She was always “overwhelmed” and could alleviate her guilt by smothering Avril. She clings to Daddy like a lifebuoy, like she’s HIS child.
Telling his children we were going to be “poor” when we moved to Africa was probably a mistake. He just wanted to instill frugality but it was a bombshell in a child’s world and certainly not accurate. NOT told about Uncle Charles’ inheritance or Dad’s portfolio. In Brockton public school my experience with poverty was intimate & scary. That friend who slept on the floor, whose parents had beer but no furniture. It hurt physically, like hunger.
I dealt with it by sleepwalking & hypochondria about blindness & disease (not too paranoid in Africa.) Parents Victorian in their ability to refuse information. Avril’s isolation from the rest of us almost too painful to recall.
Dad sneered at and made fun of our schooling, friends, religion, parents. No system was “good” enough for us. He said news & history was lies & propaganda. TV & movies were crass manipulation and teachers were ignorant. You can’t just say that and then send kids back to school! No expertise allowed or acknowledged. Parents always mildly surprised when we got jobs.
I recall my religious longings quite clearly. First I thought ‘God’ was a dirty word because people acted so weird about it. Brockton had no Friends meeting and the Methodist Sunday School we attended a few times (Mom and Dad dropped us off, didn’t attend the church) was confusing and meaningless. When Mom read us the 23rd psalm, we jeered at it the way we’d been taught and she cried! Then of course Dad yelled at us!
Being unwillingly in “the vanguard” certainly feels like being an outcast! Don’t know how to help Avril’s depression – my badgering psychoanalytic/spiritual letters aren’t welcome. We were fated to follow the pattern of Dad’s growth, whatever that might be.
Last Thanksgiving when we played the game “psychiatrist”. Mom said the year she’d like to live over was the summer of 1958, cruising the Georgian Bay. The closest we got to perfect family happiness. A weirdly frozen unchangingness. Isolated from everyone! Produces an anguished Sisyphean yearning that’s with me still.
I did better with the loneliness. Avril fears to re-live it. Mom actually carries it around inside her like a dead baby!
My curiosity: what future did they envision for us? They acted so weird about basic mental health – “too bad you’re that way” instead of encouraging “good” choices. Because there was no good path? When we followed their with husbands, children, they didn’t react with any particular glee. Julio & Kent were run through the wringer and would state right now Mom and Dad loathed them. Both my weddings were icy, much as I tried to rewrite the family. I think they worked out the personal animosities of their relationship over our quivering live bodies.
Dad’s insistence that the only college possible was Chevenix, the only belief system acceptable was Quakerism so weirdly rigid. We could never “discover” anything, it had already been discovered. I think our efforts at crawling into adulthood were actively repulsed. We clocked in, admiring of them and their “success”, allowing things to be done for us. Behind the pain lies rage; both endlessly intensifying. Gen & I fought back – Avril & Merrill endlessly victimized.
Don’t want to see Ezra today, don’t feel I have anything new to talk about. I could discuss his book – if I’d read it.
4 more days of school. Tolerable, definitely. Think I’ll start a conscious course of praying for Avril – see what happens.
10:25 AM Thurs 18 Dec 80 Should be correcting papers but can’t face it yet. Looking forward to a breather from school. Wish I could go to church every day but there’s nothing nearby. Hoping it will be different when I go to Fordham. Paulist church too big – I liked Church of the Resurrection on E 77th.
Pretending to look at the floating countryside I eavesdrop on conversations behind me – art dealers: “Are you ever asked about your credentials?” Answer, “No, never. They only ask about credentials when you’re applying for low-paying jobs.”
Christmas shapes up interestingly. Caroling in Haverford Sun, Christmas eve with the Brintons till 4, then dinner with Louise. Christmas Day with Lois. Avril 26th and Genevieve 27th. Douglas cocktail party 28th. Shawn Kobler to dinner sometime after that.
NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS
Get up earlier, go running with T
Write in diary every day – match flow of life to flow of thought.
Go to church oftener
Christmas Day, noon – 80 An extravagant morning of love with my honey brings me out of the depression I’ve had since Mon. Came back from an awful day of school to hear about Toss’s interview with his father’s lawyer friend – no dice. T comes from the wrong law school, nobody’s hiring. They won’t even hire from Temple – they recruit at “premier” schools in junior year. T. feels certain he wants to start out soloing. I’m scared of the insecurity but I’m not pregnant and we have no rent – it’s the perfect time. Then T said he wanted to buy a word processor which we fought about for the rest of the night with T becoming so angry he almost strangled me. Nightmare visions of my first marriage kept floating in front of my eyes.
Capital can only be spent on state of the art equipment to impress everyone – then we sit back and wait for the money to roll in. Which it never does. Why not rent a word processor?
He plans to open his office in his mother’s house. I think we ought to wait till he has some business first. I offered to help. “No, Alysse,” he said coldly, “I’m not going into law partnership with you.” Whew!
He pointed out the “thousands” we’re losing because I’m going to school, not working – dirty pool! Took it back later. If Mom & Dad weren’t paying for school HOW would I justify it to myself?
He says that makes him feel like shit – i.e he wishes I was POORER. I said he really needs to settle something with Lois about the rent – nothing’s formalized. If the plan is free-lancing and risk, she’s an investor in his future. God, to have $8,000 a year of my own it seems so MINGY. Why can’t I bring that in from writing? Why do I always end up in these trackless wastes?
10:15 AM Fri Dec 26 – 80 Excellent Christmas. Part of what made it so good was limited time with everyone except Lois! Wednesday spent one hour with Brintons, one hour with Lois! Then a long scary ride home with a blowout – but it didn’t happen on the ice and Toss was able to change it in record time.
Yesterday at Brandywine with Lois 3:30-7:30 then again 10-11:30. (A bit much.) Intervening time helping Granma in Haverford put up tree & exchange gifts. T was a perfect love, a divine angel. Much cleaning of the house now to get ready for Avril.
12:45 AM 30 Dec 80 – Tuesday Shouldn’t be joyous about my vacation’s end but I am eager for 81!
Read Mary Hoxie Jones’ Mosaic of the Sun with a curled lip. Reminds me of Eliz Gray Vining – holier than thou. I think Christians should be spiritually barefoot – ready to shed baggage – test the rope themselves instead of whining about Unwashed Youths and Angry Blacks. Such authorities on other people’s “place”!
Turned to Wm Pitt Root’s The Storm – excellent, a born poet but heavy going – reading him too fast would give you the bends.
Now into Emily Dickinson thank GOD. What a joy. You can read her at any pace you choose – she’s available at every level. Her organization is so original, wouldn’t translate at all. What did V. Woolf think? Should have liked & claimed her.
This burst is result of trying to prepare definitive vol of my own stuff. Sickened by my publications – 25 in 5 years!
New Year’s Eve 1980 Tonight incomplete without “last entry.” Last time I tried to write T pulled me away and made love to me.
This holiday would be unalloyed happiness if it weren’t for the night of the 26th when I drank too much Jack Daniels and threw up. Stupid. Thought I was past that! Kept Avril & T from going to the film we’d planned. But we’ll see it tonight. Somehow makes it less shameful. Glorious private evening – Convict’s Last Meal of roast beef, potatoes au gratin, chestnuts, peas, salad, champagne, coconut custard pie.
2nd bottle champagne after film if we have stamina.
1 Jan 81 Resolution; keep better track of my life in this diary but wish I had a better life to keep track of. Particularly grim holidays while Lois repeatedly attacked Ricardo in front of everyone – people afraid to intervene because she’ll attack THEM (my ideas were called “foolish” and “romantic.”) I tried teasing her by accusing her of “escort beating” while Ricardo murmurs from the corner of the room “I forgive her – She’s been so hurt.”
Guess what? Lois has no sense of humor. This is my landlady. She wants to rent the Little House at highest dollar – since that’s where our washer/dryer is we need a washer/dryer here.
No. Just no.
She’s a weird one. When I suggested taking down a mirror so blotchy you can’t see yourself in it (it needs to be resilvered) she burst into tears and Toss attacked ME. She said she was willing however to rebind the first editions – I had to point out that destroys their value!
So there’s nothing I can say. My job is to clean (and then be criticized for it.) Toss has taken over cleaning the silver because I can’t be bothered to do it “properly”.
To NYC for preview of Frankenstein – awful – we missed dinner because our train stalled in snow. Playwright overly wedded to novel – death after ludicrous death – not even rescued by special effects. Off to empty little bar Vintages for late supper ruined by Seth who teases Toss mercilessly. It’s the apparent goal of this family to get a scapegoat and ride them to death. Starting to see why Sutton got the hell out – who would stick around for this abuse?
Ricardo, it seems. And Lois doesn’t respect him one bit for it.
Boring New Year’s Eve party in Merion – I had high hopes (they were all psychiatrists) but all they talked about was heating bills.
Got rid of Seth & Susie 4 pm – pizza and wine dinner – delicious lovemaking. Read The Poet – most poems shockingly bad – but there was one poet I liked – Katherine Hanley – so I wrote her a fan letter.
On the good side: almost finished Pinch of Death. T. is my soul – so good & calm & not provoked at all by Seth who raged against Lois. Ugh. Exams next week.
Bored to shriek point by Trent’s Last Case.
2 Jan 81 One final entry waiting for Sue & Seth to come so we can all catch the 4:25 to NYC.Thinking about male violence. Interesting that Toss doesn’t “realize” he threatens me physically. He says I must know he’d never hit me but when he’s angry he breaks things or grabs me by the throat. I point out I don’t do that! But most men regard women’s statement that they are continuously reminded of the threat of male violence as feminist cant!
4 Jan 81 Weather so cold it’s hard to breathe. Toss’s Reed roommate to dinner – watched Murder Once Removed over chestnuts roasted in the hibachi & 2 bots white wine. Struggling with Life & Letters of John Galsworthy.
5 Jan 81 To Princeton to do laundry. Bought life of Dorothy Kilgallen and have been glued to it all day. Wretched woman. Hypnotic erosion of all her values.
Toss confides out checking acct is down to $200. Complete refusal to dislodge capital. Fortunately, I’m expecting $120 this week. NJ Bar prep starts 12th – not soon enough for me.
6 Jan 81 Taught my class for the last time. I hate review – it’s hell. Sweating so hard I was afraid to lift my arms. Maria asked good questions – James said he didn’t know anything about writing before – now he does.
Had to rush to the Whitney to meet Toss & Sutton. Met Sutton’s new flame, widow Pansy Burke – seems nice. She does drop a lot of names.
Sutton dislikes Hopper. Weird! I feel it’s because Hopper is not romantic enough for him. We had an uproarious dinner at The Palms – nothing “mignon” about my filet – it weighed at least 11 lbs. Wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t eat it. Then brandy at brother Dom’s.
Get into Princeton 3 AM and our car won’t start. Wrecker (“Mother’s Recovery”) comes at 3:45. Sleep till 1 PM then have to rush to catch the 3:05. Did a good story in Writer’s class. I am despised for my “upbeat ending” – feel mistaken for Aurelia Plath: “Keep a song in your heart.” Professor says there are NO happy endings in Great Literature? I say what about Shakespeare’s comedies. He says comedy is not drama by definition. I say what about Jane Austen? His face tells me what he thinks of HER.
On the train home I reflect on the mysteries of talent. At least 4 in class VERY talented – what will become of us? Possibly: nothing.
I have an idea for a feminist lit mag when I get home; tell T. If we want to BE published we must publish others. My title is “The Feathered Violin” his is “The Burning Bush.” Ha ha.
8 JAN 81 I wake up early to study – making love luxuriously with T when he says “Could you tolerate coitus interruptus for once? I have to call my broker.”
I rush into class 20 mins late to administer my own exam. Kids not punished for that – what they ARE punished for is me being their teacher – graded by the one supervisor who dislikes me. She flunks all my doubtfuls and Maria who should have gotten through. Requesting retest for Maria.
Long argument over dinner about language requirements in schools. Toss says I am “hostile” to his ideas. I say women are supposed to empathize & sympathize and HE doesn’t do that to MY ideas so why not say what I really think? This evolves into criticism that I expect him to pay for my education. Why don’t I take out student loans. He can’t borrow on margin for me. I say I’m paying with family money (Capital!) feeling he really wants me to see that I’m not actually “making” money (incontestable.) Now he is rattling dishes angrily downstairs – his turn to wash them.
13 JAN 81 Off to Phila where T will request variance so he can have law office in his mother’s house. Says this will make him feel better and I am all for it.
Lois shows off a property she is longing to develop into an Italianate palace for herself. Warns me to SAY NOTHING about it – she is always worried people are gossiping about her. Came home to crisis – frozen water pipe dumps water into living room. T takes a steak knife to the hall ceiling to see where the backup is and finds it.
Afraid my class is right and my novel is hopeless and can never be shown to anyone: I wrote it “too fast” for it to be any good. 7 yrs bad, 3 months worse. Depression.
2 Oct 80 Not pregnant, alas. Period came two weeks late but it came. Hard to keep up with this level of disappointment. BA crisis solved – I can keep teaching as long as I’m WORKING toward BA which is all right with me. Investigating Fordham discover they have a “Math for Poets” class that gets me out of their science requirement! That’s the school for me! Been having good meetings with students lately – finally getting through to some of them. If they pass the essay they can stay in the school – they’re on trial, just like me.
5 Oct 80 – Lois upset with me because I want to sell the piano – I even found a buyer. We could really use the space. But she says she doesn’t want to sell – it’s a boring unspecial upright piano. But a reminder whose house this is. She also told me not to get pregnant before we have health insurance! I smiled and said it seemed my body IS waiting! Did not enjoy the evening so overdrank. Not too badly – just enough to be annoyed at myself.
Finished Marge Bacons’ Lucretia Mott. A charmed, serene life. More laundry, more writing.
6 Oct 80 – A good day – much accomplished. Ordered the most beautiful stationery in Princeton – had to pay extra for colored ink but it’s worth it.
Asked Toss over after-dinner cigars if he thinks this house will ever be his. He said he thought it was an excellent chance. After all, a farmer farms the land and the whole place desperately needs updating which his mother doesn’t want to pay for. I rhapsodized about adding a stone tower like the Brandywine Museum – he said we’re more likely to be cooking over a sterno pot in a field! Not very confident of his chances for passing the bar apparently! He needs a job because he’s driving me crazy.
He spent the afternoon rewiring the garage so it can be lit from the house. Anything rather than basic housework which he considers low on thrills. He doesn’t seem to understand how insulting that is to me! However, he’s fine with hiring a cleaning lady which I’ll do the minute I can afford it. Read Love & Work: The Crucial Balance. Distinguishes between “love” oriented people who want to love their work and task oriented people.
Wed 8 Oct 80 – All my emotional eggs are in one basket! Overwhelmed with love for Toss – don’t want anybody else. People come – and then they go – and I’m overjoyed to see the back of them. I’m not sure I even need friends. Disgusted by the world weariness of PD James’ Black Tower. I’ve given up on her. Pity. Everyone else likes her.
Sat 10 Oct 80 – StormFall Farm Absolutely exhausted. Next time Toss suggests coming here I’ll have to tell him my idea of rest & recuperation isn’t cleaning a 7 bedroom mansion! Toss is frenzied about the place. When I asked him who put him in charge he admits he just took over. He lashes himself constantly with imaginary humiliating words he assumes “everyone” is saying. Right now he’s yelling downstairs – some kind of breakthrough with the water system. I’m so tired I could just fall over.
5:30 PM – Thurs 15 Oct – 80 Can still be thrown by a bad day. Got so absorbed counseling a student I was 15 mins late to class – now I’m hiding in the library calming myself down with Mary Daly’s Beyond God the Father. Very interesting but kind of naive. Don’t reject airplanes because you hate bombers! How would most men score on the Sermon on the Mount test? But I certainly understand the hopelessness of “institutionalizing” emotionality. Supernature gets us off the gerbil wheel. Too much gerbilling here. Don’t see how I can handle more than a year of this place.
At least T & I see eye to eye about the housework. I got him to see everyone wants to do “executive” functions, no one wants to do grunt work so we have to share that out. An hour a day would be plenty!
Fri 17 Oct 80 – On the train Just finished May Sinclair’s 3 Sisters. Fascinating & beautiful feminist plot. Can’t think why she’s so forgotten – probably because she didn’t make a fuss of herself.
Managed to forget a teacher’s meeting this AM – another sign I’m trying to fit the round peg of my life into that square hole.
20 Oct 80 Staying home with an awful cold finishing Prelude so I can write my Wordsworth paper. Type tomorrow AM.
Difficult weekend with friends. Don’t know how to handle Toss’s anger in front of other people. Friday night was his night to cook – he made a wonderful boeuf bourguignon. But on my night (Sat) he was so interfering I just let him do it. He’s moved everything around in the kitchen so I can’t find anything – embarrassing.
He seems to be reproducing his mother’s ploys and tensions. Wish he had a little more of his laid-back father in him!
Read Jean Rhys’ Quartet and Smile, Please. What a writer! Such purity! I am really envious. Don’t agree she’s beyond self-pity however – the books pulsate with it. What a pity respect & love aren’t joined in the male as they are in the female.
Now reading Janeway’s Powers of the Weak. There’s a chapter missing! Interpersonal power politics between husband and wife!
Avril called tonight to say she got the Maine job – (domestic abuse shelter) $11,000 the first year! Bravo! Avril wants to open a bar in Hallowell called “So’s The Governor’s Sister.” Funny.
22 Oct 80 – Train Creature from the Black Lagoon discussed in Eng class. I was too stupid to contribute. Brent criticized my story Travel Fever – bad ending – (fair enough) but he also said he was surprised at the cruelty in the family! (Katrina the scapegoat.) This from a man who admires Flannery O’Connor. Better off working on novel and NOT short stories. Don’t think I have the art.
26 Oct 80 Horrible fight with Toss began with my criticism of his old newspaper and rusty tobacco tin collections – do we really have to save all this moldering junk? He blames me for the “bad move” from KY in which he lost so much stuff. But I moved, too. (TWICE.)
He also had the nerve to say we “live like slobs” when he was supposed to clean the living room 2 days ago. (He’s doing it now.)
6:30 PM – He came upstairs and apologized – very sweetly. Lovingly, courageously and open-heartedly. So we did go for walk – gathering branches & berries to decorate house. Saw a beautiful dead bird with a black ruff around its neck – feathers green and black. Blissfully happy reading Rose Macaulay’s Letters. News that Commonweal will publish my poem Life of the Virgin!
30 Oct 80 Very interesting discussion with Toss – he cooked a fabulous leg of lamb (but still refuses to vacuum.) He said Henriette Wyeth not worth the ink she’s getting for her show – I said art is really lacking in feminine emotion (Rothko Pollock & de Kooning masculinity reduction ad absurdum) and a woman painter raised in a family of male painters is a “test” case. What’s the missing element? Supernaturalism! Since we borrow our bodies from earth our souls are our only true individuality.
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.
Rode my bike to Evening Prayer in Princeton. Perfect length (1/2 hr) 2 hills of equal size so neither direction is “harder”. Ordered more wedding invites, then discovered it was 5:23 so had to rush to intimidatingly big church.
7 people arranged around a side altar – my plan to go unnoticed conks out. What is my obsession with invisibility? Because parents were so agonized whenever I launched forward? Minister female, short, stocky. Daphne?
Turned out to be a healing ceremony! Quite beautiful! Lots of rising and standing. At some point I just burst into tears. Awful. Everyone asking if they could help but I don’t know what’s wrong so just slobbered away. I think now I was feeling “expulsion”, exclusion – “The gifts of God for the people of God” but I don’t really know. I may just be emotional as parents said; “we won’t let your peculiarities interfere with your health” direct quote.
I was so embarrassed leaving – apologized but the minister grabbed my hand and looked piercingly into my eyes.
GOD IT WAS POWERFUL! Said, “I’m Daphne Hawkes!” Wow!
She insisted she “knew me” and “recognized my name” (Reader of Devlyn? Impossible.)
She said she had time to talk, I said I DIDN’T and blundered away. She said, “You’re in my prayers, Alysse!”
I stagger off, exalted & terrified.
Bike conked out, I walked home.
On the Palmetto from Washington – Princeton Jct 10 PM Tues 17 Jun 80 I love trains. I like Arthur Conan Doyle because he loved them too. All his fuss over timing, carriages & tickets delicious to me.
Feeling bad about Avril – she says her life is suddenly empty. Her heart membrane as thin as a racehorse’s ankle.
We got her a cat and helped her pack – best way to free her I can think of. Bought my wedding lingerie, tried on the veil Maureen is making for me – STUNNING!
Avril & I saw 2 classics – The Empire Strikes Back and The Shining.
Missing my angelic male half.
House sale should net $5,000 – M & D giving me $3000 stock Nov 1. Relief to have SOME money coming in.
Thurs June 19 – 80 Letter from agent – Devlyn sold to Germans for $1000! (One edition – rights revert to me.) Der Todestrank or some such thing. “The Death Drink.” Maybe I don’t have to take a job this summer (fellowship starts Sept.)
Late again to Daphne’s service – this is awful but I had to drive T to pick up his car. Forgot to bring Kleenex – so sure I wouldn’t need it! Wrong!!!
Trying Zen breathing to control the sobs – zilch. Total humiliation.
Daphne hugged me said she was glad I’d come – I took the oil & communion although I’m “unbaptized.” Daphne said a different prayer for each of us. Lovely woman. The wine was real! (Unlike at Devon’s church.) Nice touch!
I think I’m crying about “losing control.”
Thurs 26 June 80 Writing wedding invites not as much fun as I thought it would be – can’t use my fountain pen (paper too absorbent) can’t get as good an effect with a felt tip. Oh well!
I’m up to 90. Can only do 20 per sitting because I become paralyzed with boredom.
Last weekend on Cape first time I felt I was “myself” around T’s family. Having a book out nobody read is not much to establish an identity.
T’s aunt Mimsey staying with us now – up late arguing with her about adopted cousin Katey. She argues – weirdly I think – against adopted children finding their biological parents! If they could just accept a Beneficial Social Fiction as reality wouldn’t we all be Fine? Where have I heard that before! I was so relieved Toss saw all the issues immediately – he’s so smart – the biggest one being TIMES CHANGE. (Often in ways we can’t imagine but since we know they do, why pretend? ”We’re gonna fix this for you kids right before we die and you’ll never have to address that problem again” is sheerest idiocy.) He really is a superior intellect. (He does have a flaw; sees abortion and adoption as similar! Typical male!)
Mon 30 Jun 80 Lethargy – extreme, prolonged, profound – the key to my personality these days. Fallow. Torpid. A little Teresa of Avila goes a long way – Elinor Wylie is fascinating & sad. Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s latest volume. of diaries is an irritant. I WANT to identify with but she’s too oppressively DIFFERENT.
Jonathan Valin’s Lime Pit ho hum, Eliz Cadell’s latest totally empty. A Marriage of True Minds had some interesting data.
Not finding what I want I reread Nancy Drew with an eye to a Modern Version. What would that look like? I sketch out a Mystery at Mirror Lake – trying to help a friend – it becomes Last Year at Marienbad pretty quickly.
Want to rewrite Prisoner of St Secaire & getting some good ideas. I don’t want the heroine to be “unsure”, that’s Nancy’s appeal in a nutshell. She’s so confident! She’s always being accused of being a spy and a snoop and it doesn’t faze her. Yes, she is! So there! She has no problem pocketing evidence and keeping it to herself.
Probably why Bobbie Mason (?) condemned her as “cold” and “calculating” in The Girl Sleuth. She NEVER solicits male help! (Asks Dad for a favor once in blue moon.) “Unfeminine”? But why then is she so popular WITH GIRLS? She represents an absent vitamin? Obviously. We’ll suck tree bark to get it if we have to (and you DO have to suck tree bark to read Nancy Drew.)
A possible direction for Fawn in Demon Roused?
11:AM – 3 July 80- StormFall Farm Toss’s father Sutton’s third wife Val died suddenly yesterday morning at 2:30 AM. T. was on the phone with his father about 11 PM when Sutton suddenly said – “there’s something wrong with Val.” And dropped the phone.
When he came back on he said they were calling Rescue.
Toss and I jumped into the car and drove straight up to Masschusetts arriving at the hospital where they said, “She expired.” Like a library card! Couldn’t understand it at first. She was only 46!
Back at Sutton’s house he was cold and grey still in a state of shock; “They couldn’t start her heart.” No one knew she had anything wrong with her heart! I don’t know who suggested birth control pills as the culprit – or smoking? She had decided to break her diet for a dish of ice cream and that was it.
Toss is with his father, I should be washing my hair; instead I write a poem for Val I can’t share but like better than anything since Alyssum.
At this rate I’ll have a volume in 20 yrs!
Sutton’s Place Everybody crying, Sutton on the phone with his sister Mimsey, Granma’s plane just landing, youngest brother Dom will be here within the hour. Minister came over to lead prayer service – did quite well – we discussed immortality & warmed to each other – I was stupid enough to say I’d written a poem – he said I could read it at the service Uh oh. Better come up with something for public disclosure.
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?
Walking towards the kitchen Scarlet found herself wondering at the joy she felt from Pom’s sheer presence, the lightness he imparted to her step. Quite the opposite of Ian whose mind seemed to have hardened into such an inscrutable wall and whose dry, dusty heart had been devoured by pride and greed . Her spirits literally hit the floor when he was around. Scarlet eerily felt that she and Pom seemed always to be thinking the same thoughts – she could literally feel his ideas quivering in the air, yearning for contact with her to make them visible to the world at large.
Miss Bottomley was drawing on her gloves, getting ready for her banking trip.
“It’s just my own things here,” she said, gesturing at her modest bedroom – more like a nun’s cell than anything the rest of the house contained. “And I like the kitchen furniture. So once again your idea was sound: just tell him anywhere but here – unless you’re attached to the furniture in your own room, of course. You can exempt anything you’d like to personally own.”
“I am fond of the desk in my room,” said Scarlet. “Thanks. You’ve been very generous.”
Mr. Crousam paid Pom and Scarlet no further attention as he wandered from room to room, making notes. They could spend the whole morning together.
“We’ll have to think up a new excuse after this,” said Pom and Scarlet laughed and squeezed his hand.
“How about those auctions Miss Bottomley is so eager to attend?”
“Good plan,” Pom agreed. “Do you think we could get away with one auction and one gallery visit per week?”
“Or perhaps two,” said Scarlet and Pom pulled her back behind a Coromandel screen and kissed her. Ecstasy!
“Oh, I wish you hadn’t done that,” Scarlet gasped huskily as she fell against him.
“Why’s that?” he murmured, playing with her hair.
“Because it changes everything.”
But Pom was kissing her face and Scarlet was kissing back. Time itself melted, goals melted, there was no future, only this eternal sense of glorious happiness – Pom loved her, she loved him, she was the luckiest girl in the world.
“Why are you crying?” he asked gently, wiping away tears with his lips.
“Because this is a disaster,” she cried, “I’m in the middle of a complicated divorce – if I have a lover – if I have a boyfriend – aren’t I as bad as Ian?”
“Surely not,” he said. “Your husband is rejecting love. We are finding it.” But he halted long enough to allow her to back away from him, straighten her clothing and question frantically, “Can’t we pretend this never happened?”
“But it’s the truth,” said Pom. “I love you and you love me. I want to shout it from the housetops.”
“Don’t you dare. It can’t happen if I want Ian to sign the divorce agreement I need, can’t you see? Let’s agree to put this on hold. No love talk –“ she gasped, “And no touching.”
He backed away, putting his hands up. “Forgive me. I’m sorry. I’ve waited thirty-three years to find you, I can wait a few more months.”
“It will go much faster than that if Ian sees he has no choice,” sighed Scarlet, then asked, “Thirty-three years?”
“That’s how old I am,” said Pom. “Are you appalled?”
“No,” said Scarlet. “I’m – hopeful. But I’m also frightened. Frightened.”
He held up his hands, kissed her forehead and left.
No sleep for Scarlet that night, as tossing and turning, she contemplated a divorce on Ian’s terms. She’d experienced marriage on his terms and it hadn’t been tolerable. She must not let him get the upper hand.
The new world Pom offered was spectacular, exciting and completely unexpected. In the moment of his warm erotic presence she had wanted him totally – they had been near a bed, she would have fallen into it. And she was certain the experience would have been wonderful, their attunement was so perfect. But she had also been looking forward to her job, her new life in Miss Bottomley’s house as a single woman and she didn’t want to forgo those exciting experiences either. No, it was just too soon with Pom. She hadn’t yet learned how to properly care for Nick or care for herself, and she had just acquired s new charge: Miss Bottomley. The only way forward was slowly, one thing at a time. But as her hand reached down to touch herself she couldn’t help but vibrate to the promise of joy she had experienced.
Scarlet felt less surprised about the story Pelham had shared about some woman “setting up base camp at Ian’s town residence.” Too young and too footloose to be Margalo but Scarlet felt confident that the BBC doubtless pullulated with skimpily attired, pretty young things, all skimpily paid of course, in desperate need of a London bolt-hole with “all found”; girls who would adore offering comfort to a handsome, lonely man whose wife had abandoned him. What had Ian called them? Dolly birds? Unfortunately, judging by Candi’s hospital records, these poor women failed to reckon with just how “abandoned” Ian actually was!
A two storey “maisonette” (with balcony!) in central London – that girl probably felt fortunate indeed. He could have his cake and eat it too – nanny, housekeeper and girlfriend all mixed together! So probably unpaid? Worse and worse, poor thing. And it sounded just like Ian, thinking himself so clever for dangling before Scarlet just how easily and cheaply she could be replaced. The most bothersome aspect of all this news was how little it seemed he really knew the girl he had married! Scarlet found this new picture of Ian repellant rather than inciting. She couldn’t imagine Pom putting some girl in hospital!
But if she was honest with herself, hadn’t Ian’s aura of danger been a large part of his attraction when they were in college? She knew her rivals thought so. But around children such explosive potential seemed suddenly very unappealing. Maybe I just grew up, thought Scarlet.
Scarlet might be a mystery to her husband, but Scarlet felt she understood Candi all too well. It was Scarlet whom Candi yearned to supplant, Scarlet whom in fact she wanted to be. She had made that very clear in Foyle’s – she was angling to become Mrs. Wye. Poor Candi may have felt that throwing over her job and even being injured by him made Ian “owe” her something. Candi didn’t realize that it was Scarlet’s personal power that she envied, and not the power Scarlet acquired as a wife, if any. But it’s my “power” as a confident, educated woman with a sense of my own value, she thought.
Candi didn’t know herself – or Ian – or even marriage – well enough to realize she’d made the worst possible decision. Scarlet wondered if she should reach out to David Pourfoyle, Candi’s abandoned husband. He must be a wreck. In hindsight, all these actions and reactions seemed so easy to categorize. Look at the mistakes Scarlet herself had made – allowing herself to become the “country wife” – a benefit more honored in fantasy than reality. In Ian’s eyes women cheapened themselves by becoming “convenient”. And Candi hadn’t even insisted on a ring! How could she – married to someone else.
The phone rang again, and since Scarlet was sitting right there, she answered it.
“Er – Scarlet?” Pom’s unmistakable voice.
Scarlet felt an enormous gush of relief.
“It’s for me,” she said to Enid’s, “And who’s that now?”
Enid signed off with a harried, “Very well then.”
“Your life appears to be heating up,” said Pom. “Who was that, if I may enquire?”
“It’s a long story. I hired a nanny and she turned into a godsend. In fact, she’s been rather – taken over by Miss Bottomley.”
“So you’re still in nanny straits?”
“No, Mrs. Rumson can tackle both jobs – quite well, so far, I believe. She’s the most fantastic cook! Miss Bottomley’s eating like a rescued castaway.”
“Well, she really is one, isn’t she? Anyway, I phoned to say I’m back in town – Freddie did a bang-up job on my car – and wondered if we could dine? Or does divorce case forfend?”
I’ve got to get my emotions under control, thought Scarlet. She was rocketing between the ecstasy of seeing him again – the embarrassment of feeling the depth of that need – and her dashed hopes over Pelham’s lawyerly injunction.
She was rescued by a brilliant idea.
“I say,” she proposed, “What do you know about art?”
“A lot,” said Pom. “I hope.”
‘Would you be willing to do a job for Miss Bottomley?”
“Anything at all.”
“Why don’t you come to dinner tonight and make an aesthetic inventory of her paintings? She’s got a lot here.”
Pom sounded intrigued. “An aesthetic inventory?”
“Certainly.. She inherited all this stuff and she has insurance policies and inventories and that sort of thing, but she doesn’t care about these works and she never looks at them. Perhaps they would be better off in some museum and she could decorate her walls with…something more modern. Something of her own choice, that gives her meaning and pleasure.”
“Oh, I see. What a fun idea! I couldn’t charge money of course. This would be strictly friend-to-friend. I mean, otherwise my conflicts of interest would be too opprobrious.”
Scarlet laughed. “Too, too opprobrious.”
“Shall we say seven?”
“We’d better say six. There’s old ladies and infants to consider. Unless you can’t.”
“Oh, but I can.”
And just like that, Scarlet was happy again. Lovely Pom!
She found Enid and Miss Bottomley in the kitchen playing the card game “crazy eights.”
“I do love this game,” said Miss Bottomley enthusiastically.
Nick was just starting to fuss so Scarlet picked him up, snuffling up his delightful talcum-y smell. She was certain that he recognized her and was gazing up at her trustingly.
“I wonder if I might invite Pom to dinner,” she inquired shyly.
“Oh, your delightful friend! I do like him so.” Miss Bottomley smacked an eight down on the table and declared “Hearts. You’ll like him too,” she told Enid.
“Do you think he’d like spaghetti Bolognese?” inquired the chef.
“I know for a fact he loves anything Italian.”
“What fun!” exclaimed Enid. “Would you like me to take Nick?”
“No, I need fresh air. I think I’ll take him walking. Miss Bottomley, Pom is willing to take a friendly look at your pictures and perhaps suggest some moderns you might buy. Would you like that?”
“Scarlet, you have the best ideas!” declared Miss Bottomley. “These daubs are so DREARY. Do you know in my bedroom there was a picture of a cow. I ask you! Who would want a picture like that? I had it moved of course – exchanged for boring old flowers but that’s hardly better. It would buck everyone up to see a bit of color. The previous owner’s taste seems all dark green and mud brown. Dreadful stuff.”
And expensive to insure, thought Scarlet.
“I’m so glad you feel that way,” she said, taking Nick to get changed. “It would be fun looking for new stuff. Perhaps we could attend some openings and shows.”
“Auctions!” Miss Bottomley brightened. “Let’s go to auctions! Auctions are so thrilling, don’t you find?”
As they selected cheeses, cake, apples, biscuits and the components for what Pom described as a “strengthening soup”, Pom remarked, “I adore old-fashioned places like these. All the grapes and calves’ foot jelly.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” said Scarlet, adding grapefruit marmalade and fish fingers to their hoard.
“Fish fingers?” Pom questioned.
“Everyone needs a fast, easy dinner,” said Scarlet. “That’s what freezers are for.”
“I don’t have a freezer.”
“But Miss Bottomley does. Quite an up to date one.”
“And then there’s the problem that fish have no fingers.”
“We call them ‘fish sticks’ in America.”
“My, that does sound irresistible. A stick of fish. Such cleverness you Yanks have. I wonder what is the correct wine with “sticks”? Allow me to purchase for you a nice rosé. Or would you prefer champagne?”
“No wine at work, thank you,” said Scarlet. “I need to keep my wits about me.”
As soon as the grocer heard it was for Fourteen Norfolk Crescent he insisted on delivery.
“She’s our landlady,” he told the astonished pair. “She owns everything round here.”
Pom kept an admirably straight face during this disclosure.
Scarlet carefully set up her own account and stressed that it was her responsibility alone.
“Don’t be in such a hurry to pay for everything,” said Pom when they were safely back inside the Dorset. “Sounds like she’s rich as Croesus, much as she doesn’t look it.”
“All the other interviewees thought she was the housemaid,” admitted Scarlet. “It just makes me all the more determined to do my very best for her. Those books of hers are just plain wonderful, and where else in the world would I ever get such a perfect job?”
And she shared with him the dramatic tale of Miss Bottomley’s late-acquired wealth.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” she begged. “I didn’t even tell Ian.”
Pom’s eyes widened. “I can keep a secret. Honored that you chose me. But are you certain the pair of you don’t need live-in bodyguards as well?”
“I’m sure we do,” said Scarlet. “And heaven knows there’s room. Are you offering?”
“I don’t think I’d be any good at that particular role,” said Pom.
“I think you’ll find Miss Bottomley very averse to strangers,” said Scarlet. “Maybe as time goes on I’ll be able to talk her round. I’m currently in favor because I was the only one who’d actually read her books. She’s not used to money and she doesn’t like solicitors. I hope Pelham D’Arcy might offer assistance but we’ve got to give it time.”
It turned out the grocer’s van had gone around to the kitchen entrance. Off the kitchen was a scullery with new-looking washer and drying machines.
“They’ve got me running off my feet answering doorbells here and doorbells there,” complained Miss Bottomley as they brought the groceries in. “First it was that strange friend of yours -“
Scarlet seated Miss Bottomley to toast her toes by the gas fire. Pom almost sat on the King of Wessex.
“Meet Ceawlain,” Scarlet explained.
“Sue-Allen?”
“No,” said Miss Bottomley and Scarlet both together, “Ceawlain, King of Wessex.”
Scarlet inquired, “What strange friend was it that came to the door?”
Miss Bottomley considered. “Well, he was quite silly. He certainly didn’t guess he was speaking to an authoress of detective novels, because he used quite a transparent ruse to try to get into the house.”
Scarlet and Pom stared at each other, appalled.
“What did he say?” asked Scarlet while Pom said, “He could have simply thrust you aside!”
“I’d like to see him try,” grumped Miss Bottomley. “I’d have skewered him with a hatpin and summoned help with my police whistle.”
And she displayed these items for their inspection.
“This is ghastly,” said Pom and Scarlet asked, “Doesn’t that door have a chain?”
“Obviously one must take the chain off when one answers the door,” said Miss Bottomley. “And a peephole?” wondered Scarlet.
“I’m too short for the peephole,” sighed Miss Bottomley. “The peephole is too tall for me.”
“Here’s an idea,” suggested Pom, “An intercom. You won’t be run off your feet that way. You’ll be able to ask who it is and get them to describe themselves. Tell them to put a letter requesting an appointment in the mail slot.”
“Oh, I do like that idea,” gushed Miss Bottomley. “Takes a man to look at problems from the engineering point of view.”
“I’ll look into it for you, shall I?” offered Pom, and Miss Bottomley seemed relieved.
“But what did he look like?” Scarlet poured a tin of vichyssoise into a saucepan while Pom sliced cheese and pears.
“Very smartly dressed, I must say. Bowler hat and all found. He said he was from an architectural publication and he wanted to take pictures inside the house. He asked to see the Missus. I didn’t tell him I was the Missus, I just said no, no, and no.”
“Did he give up?”
“He most certainly did not. Tried slipping me a five-pound note!”
“He really did mistake you for the housemaid,” laughed Scarlet and Miss Bottomley laughed with her.
“I rejected it. Played along. Told him I valued my “position”. But he wouldn’t leave. He had his foot in the door.”
“But this is a horror story!” Pom gasped and Scarlet said, “You should have used your police whistle.”
“Perhaps I should. But then he started asking questions about you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Wasn’t there a young lady in the house and when was she due back. I said, “Here she comes!” and when he turned to look, I shut the door!”
“That was clever,” said Pom, and Scarlet said, “Worthy of Miss Clew.” And Miss Bottomley reddened with pleasure.
“But who could it have been?” asked Pom. “It doesn’t sound like Ian.”
“It’s that detective of his,” said Scarlet. “He took pictures of us last week and Ian threatened me with them. I explained to him that we’re only friends.”
“Utterly uncompromising pictures,” Pom assured her but Miss Bottomley was nonchalant.
“I should have known there would be a detective or two hanging about any modern girl,” she remarked. “Keeping me up to date!”
Pom refused to shake off his anxiety.
“You be sure to tell your solicitors,” he suggested. “Both of you.”
“I’ll tell Pelham,” agreed Scarlet, thinking how lucky she was that Miss Bottomley wasn’t sufficiently intimidated by all this bother to choose another assistant, but Miss Bottomley scoffed.
“Oh, my Mr. Inkum, he’s a perfectly dreadful man! Always trying to get me to sign documents and when I said, “Don’t I need a solicitor?” he answers, “I’m your solicitor. This is for your OWN GOOD.”
“Funny how when people say that it’s never true,” mused Pom, as they settled at the table for a delicious meal.
“That’s what I thought,” said Miss Bottomley. “I told him to leave the papers with me so I could think about them and he said, “Don’t think too long!”
While feeding Nicholas in the “ladies’ retiring room” Scarlet read in the available pamphlet all about the antique pub. “Lady Catherine’s Garden” was named after a character in Pride & Prejudice and was originally built by a fan of Jane Austen’s work. Chawton, the author’s last home, was situated nearby. Today the weather was too cold to sit in the garden but the glass tearoom built almost to the river’s edge offered a suitable summer illusion of swans and willows. From his collapsible stroller, an alert and cleaned up Nicholas seemed riveted by the sunlight playing on the tile floor.
“It’s just good pub food,” Pom apologized in advance, “Though of course some people say that’s the best English cooking. But look at this view!”
Scarlet looked. A snow-free water meadow spread out endlessly before them.
“Seems like it’s always spring around here,” she agreed.
They ordered tea and ham salad sandwiches. The waitress was very young and did not recognize Pom. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well, there’s one fear that didn’t come true,” he said.
“Tell me about the last time you visited,” Scarlet prompted.
“Three years ago. There are charming rooms upstairs. We made use of every one of them but not – I hasten to add – on the same day.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Pomeroy Bronfen?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Pomeroy Bronfen.” He did not blub.
“So, you thought she was a wolf and she turned out to be a dog.”
“That’s not it. Because she was cheating on her husband I knew she was a dog. I just tried not to care.”
“But you did care.”
“I wanted what I wanted and I ignored every warning until finally I got a warning I couldn’t ignore.” “Was it a “shop closed” sign?”
“Oh no. She was willing to continue after her wedding – which, by the way, she invited me to. I don’t know what I would have said during the, “Speak now or forever hold your peace” part, because I didn’t go.”
‘Did you try talking her out of it?”
“Oh, yes. She tried completely humorlessly to clue me in on the deadly importance of cash and titles.”
“Sounds like she’s some kind of third animal in your bestiary. The sharing kind? Or the devious kind? Maybe a cuckoo?”
“She certainly took me for a cuckoo. She offered possibilities like the plot of a Henry James novel. “He can’t last forever! We could enjoy his money together.”
“Those novels always end badly,” she agreed, feeling illiterate in Pom’s presence. Which James novel could he be referring to? The Golden Bowl?
“I can’t rid myself of the idea that I should have warned the poor old thing,” Pom said seriously.
“The Catholic peer? Surely not.”
“But what if he ends up dead? What if she gets her next teddy boy to kill him?”
“Oh, Pom! I’m starting to appreciate your interest in Hitchcock. But do people really do those things?”
“Yes, Scarlet,” he said seriously. “They do. I actually don’t know of a single aristocratic family without a murder in its history.”
“Good God!” Why was she surprised? Miss Clew wouldn’t have been! She brought herself into the conversation. “Very Turn of the Screw. Reminiscent of my situation, that temptation. Why couldn’t having a castle and a flat in town compensate me for losing my husband’s fidelity?”
“Oh, Scarlet, you American girl,” he said it admiringly. She felt a gush of gratitude. Was this the first time in England that “being American” hadn’t seemed a social liability?
“How much were you actually tempted?” she asked him.
“I’ll never know. I might have considered it if she hadn’t started going on about how much she “loved’ me. It was the first time she’d ever used that word.”
“Traitor!”
“Exactly how I felt. Stomped away in a wounded huff. That sort of thing.”
“Haven’t contacted her since?”
“I have not.”
“And she?”
“Total silence. I’m sure she replaced me. I did read about Her Ladyship’s wedding in Country Life. Couldn’t resist that.”
“I can see it would be difficult.”
Their food arrived.
“In the spring they have watercress,” sighed Pom nostalgically.
“This looks nice.”
Nicholas’ eyes had drifted shut.
“They’re very easy at this age.” said Pom.
“He’s being particularly good today. I’ve heard they like traveling in cars. It’s the motion.”
“So,” said Pom, “Now you owe me a story. You’re really going to have to tell me about how you and Ian met.”
How long ago it seemed! Four whole years. How different she felt now from that long-ago girl. “I too ignored all the warnings. Ian was considered the prize at Oxford, a real heartbreaker.”
“But you thought you’d be different.”
“He told me I’d be different. And then he married me so I thought I must be. I was so proud of having bagged him.”
“One does tend to think in these big-game metaphors.”
“It would be good to get over that,” she reflected. “And stop trying to “capture” people. It turned out he assumed I came from a rich family!”
“Brits think all Americans are rich.”
“It must be because we try to pretend we are. Everything new. We call it, Keeping up With the Joneses.”
“There’s another thing we all have to get over,” agreed Pom. “This competitive furor.” “We call it the capitalist fervor.”
“Obviously that has to go!” agreed Pom. They both laughed. Pom went on, “This is exactly why friendship is so important. Why I’m willing – I hope this won’t embarrass you – to wait for you.” It did embarrass her. She blushed the color of her name.
Pom went on smoothly, “You know, I never had any female friends at college. Coming out of an all boys’ school of course it’s different. Girls seem so exotic. Did you and Ian share a tutor? Or did he see you from afar and think – rare species? I’m sure the big game metaphor operates here as well.”
“I doubt it. He made me work for it. We shared editorship of a student literary publication – lasted a mere three issues – the St. Euphrosyne Review.”
“Good Lord! There was a Saint Euphrosyne?”
“It’s a bad joke. I think the joke was on us female students – apparently St Euphrosyne disguised herself as a man to become a monk. That’s the legend.”
“Irksome.”
“I’ll say. We Americans don’t put up with that sort of thing. We’re coeducational all the way. I was always wrestling with Ian to get him to respect my poetry – we just didn’t have the same taste. He really felt “female poet” was a contradiction in terms.”
“But suddenly he stopped wrestling?”
“Suddenly he let me win. I should have known.”
“I’m sure he was in love.”
“As much as he could be, I think, which isn’t enough, I’m afraid.”
“They do say people can only respond to another’s depth to the extent of their own.”
“Meaning there’s a lot of shallow people in the world.”
They smiled at each other.
The sandwiches were delicious. Scarlet produced the advertising brochure she’d been reading.
“Know what it says here?”
“Remind me.”
“Jane Austen’s house is nearby and I’ve never been.”
“Must you arrive in London at any specific time?”
“No. How about you?”
“Never anyone to please but myself.”
“What a fortunate state of affairs!”
“It has its highs and its lows. Shall we go then?”
Alysse Aallyn 